SaviorPeterman

The real question, are the Bills better than the Patriots? Defensively off course they are, but offensively not so much.

Still way to early but the arrow is certainly trending upward. I've said this before, but for me the magic number is 6-4. If the bills have that record or better after 10 games they very well may be on their way to the playoffs because believe it or not they have not been 6-4 or better after 10 games since the first year of the playoff drought in 2000.

This is part of the problem though, he's had 'nagging' injuries the last few years. And while it's not necessarily his fault, you can't pay a guy this type of money if he's not 100% and can hold up for a 16 game season.

Not sure I would consider it impressive, but a 3 game winning streak (including 2 straight on the road) with guys banged up throughout the roster is best you can ask for heading into a timely bye week. And remember, if the Bills do lose they will be exactly where they were last year at this time record wise and the doubts about this team start to creep in.

We all know this was a horrible deal by Whaley, but I'll go as far as to say it's quite possible the worst deal this franchise ever made. I mean can anybody think of a worse one given the circumstances? And McD is doing everything he can to publicly call out this waste of space but it's not working.

Bills getting some love: http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/video/mjd-on-why-the-bills-are-better-than-the-steelers/1wzvoiotiksah11gtaewloltif

I still think this is misleading, if anything because of Taylor running around buying himself time but it's worth noting:

Unless the Pats defense turns things around, the Gilmore deal will certainly be looked at as one of Belichik's major miscalculation and mistakes during his long tenure with the Pats. But this shouldn't be a surprise for most Bills fans that knew this guy was overrated and nowhere close to an elite player during his time with the Bills and give credit to Whaley/McD or whoever was smart enough to not even consider paying him big money to stay here.

Again, they've been a completely different team since they canned their OC after the first two games just like what happened with us last year after Roman left. I don't fear the Bengals but it's expected their momentum will continue at home this week and the Bills have to continue to be laser focused, especially on defense to get this win.

No surprise since this was the type of move I expected. Zay Jones needs to step up big time starting this week.

Probably true but he did get hurt during his first year with the Saints and obviously hasn't been the same since. If Gilmore continues to look like trash this year with the Pats guarantee he's cut in the offseason and also probably follows a similar path at least in terms of another team taking him seriously and offering him decent money.

Pats defense is trash so far but I'm still not betting against Belichik and Brady in terms keeping this team afloat and figuring out how to make enough adjustments to stop the leaking on defense and at least make marginal improvements as the season goes on. If the Pats lose to Bucs on Thursday then maybe it's truly time to start talking about their demise and we'd certainly be sitting pretty with a win over the Bengals in that scenario.

This game should make a lot of folks nervous and Vegas seems to still be bucking the trend by picking the Bengals by 3.5 points even though we were big underdogs that least few weeks and won both games. For me though this is a true barometer game for the Bills to prove they aren't letting the last few weeks give them a big head and understand it's truly a week to week league and should feel like the Bengals are the favorites. Sure the Bengals are 1-3 but they have been a completely different team the last few weeks going 1-1 on the road (nearly 2-0) and seemed to look more like the team many expected when they were favored to win their division by a lot of experts. If we get off to a slow start and the Bengals start fast and take a lead this is one of those games that could go south for the Bills especially with all the injuries starting to mount.

Who would have thought just a few years ago that Byrd would be on the street and available for dumpster diving during the season? Goes to show how quickly players fortunes can change in this league but at least Byrd collected a big pay day from the Saints during his brief tenure there.

I still wouldn't put too much stock in these and if we lose in Cincy guarantee we'll plummet again in most of these rankings.

I was never a huge fan of this move when Whaley signed him but now we are using him the right way and he's earning his paycheck so to speak. Just hope he stays healthy or we'll be in real trouble.

If Beane and McD truly expect this team to be in the playoffs they can't realistically believe we are set at WR especially with the Matthews injury now in play. So I do expect some sort of trade or move soon because we need help in the passing game especially with Zay Jones looking like a rookie WR.

Still hard to project what's going to happen, but if we do beat the Bengals and get to 4-1 we will be in prime position to win a lot more games. At worse we should split with the back to back home games after the bye but if we do lose one hopefully it's against the Bucs and not the Raiders since playoff tiebreakers could come into play. I still think we'll probably end up losing a game we should win (i.e. Chargers comes to mind) and don't think we are going 8-0 at home either. But if I had to guess today 10-6 or 11-5 is probably still best case and hopefully that's enough to get into the tourney.

I wouldn't doubt this is true since McD/Beane seem dead set on purging this roster, it's also very telling as to why Dareus is still here because no team out there is dumb enough to trade for him even if we were willing to take a 7th round pick. At present though Beane needs to focus on how to tweak this roster and prepare for a potential playoff and stop worrying about dumping Whaley players.

I'm one of the biggest skeptics and critics of this team you'll find, but if the Bills play keeps up they do have a very realistic chance regardless of what the Patriots do. But still think the key is the Pats, if they turn it on and start playing even average defense they are certainly on their way to a minimum of 10 wins. But right now that defense is total garbage and even Taylor could put 300+ on them. It won't stay that way obviously but the Bills need to improve themselves and it's going to be hard to do on offense with one of their key WR additions out now for at least a month.

Emphasis on the word chance, but let's assume this team is legit and this keeps up.... Dolphins - they look like hot trash right now but also started similar last year before making the playoffs. I wouldn't be surprised if they bench Cutler and go to Matt Moore who did seem to play well for them last year after Tannenhill got hurt. Worst case though we split with them but too early to say if they are truly worse than last year. Jets - Yes this team looks much better than everybody thought these last few weeks and are all of a sudden 2-2. I still think we can win there in our only primetime game and get the sweep but will need to be alert since the Jets might have serious momentum by that game. Patriots - I still think they will be playing much better when we face them twice in December and figure out how to get something out of what right now is the league' sworst defense. But all roads to the division title will know doubt go through them and we might finally have a team capable of winning a game not just at home, but in Foxboro. So worse case needs to be a split and we have to exorcise this demon at some point even if it's against a depleted Pats team that's not a true SB contender as in years past. My prediction right now, we finish 4-2 in the division this year with a loss in Miami and once to the Pats (remains to be seen if that will be good enough to win it).

I seriously doubt we pull the plug and send Matthews and Humber to IR if these are only hand injuries. Both could realistically come back in a month meaning they only miss 3 games with the bye week in between. But there will need to be moves made with both Henderson and Powell coming off suspension, assuming we are adding both to the active roster.

Of course, but all Bills fans should remember 2008/2011. Heck we were even 4-2 last year after an 0-2 start but we all know how the season played out. Remember, it's not how you start but how you finish and I want to see this team play even better football as the season wears on and prove they can weather injuries. Until then color me 'cautiously optimistic'.

The fact we have beat 3 teams who are all .500 or better is definitely significant, and our only loss came to another 3-1 team basically in the final minutes. Bengals will be interesting because they have played great football the last few weeks after they made a Greg Roman type of firing after a horrid 0-2 start. And considering the current injury situation this will be a big test for the Bills.

The only reason he's on the team is because of his contract. And I'm sure Beane is doing everything he can to try and work out a deal for him but can't see any team wanting to trade straight up for his current contract, even the Browns.