Mark Long Beach

Nonsense. Of course they were doing those things to some degree or another. All teams do some of these things. However, what I'm saying is that they were concentrating more on victory than evaluation. That is to say, concentrating more on putting on a confident show for their fans than to on practice. I'm not knocking them for it, but I'm recognizing that the game has less meaning than if they were approaching it the same way we were. They have a new coach and they desperately need to remove the stink of Rod Marinelli who was 6-20 over his last 26 games. (and also botched MANY personnel moves such as getting rid of Cutler & probowl Brandon Marshall while drafted Tim Tebow) Look, there's a reason that the Detroit Lions have are 2-0 preseason right now and have gone 3-1, 3-1 & 4-0 their last 4. Oh and don't forget that 4-0 preseason? that's when they went 0-16. If you're really playing to win a preseason game you're going to win it. Look, here's an example from this game: Our left tackle D Bell was clearly getting outperformed by Dummerville & Von Miller, by Chan Gailey's own words he refused to shift protections over and refused to allow TE or RB chipping to slow them down. Thus whenever Bell was beaten that current play was in serious jeopardy of being ruined and the entire possession(!) could be ruined. And in fact both of these things happened more than once. That is NOT playing to win the game, that is playing to evaluate how players are playing. This is not what the Denver Broncos were doing in this game.

And FAR and away their best record since 2002 (next closest was 5-11). So what did they do? They fired their coach naturally.

I disagree completely. This was all about the fans. They blitzed, and blitzed and blitzed in the SECOND pre-season game in a year with a shortened off-season. This was their first home game of pre-season as they opened in Dallas. They were 32nd in the league in points allowed and yards allowed per game. They had a HORRIBLE record and defensive stats last year and were trying to get the fans excited about their team's defense again. This was a show for the folks at home.

I remember one nice stretch of games that he looked really nice... and then got injured. Has got some talent, willing to sacrifice his body a little too willingly.

Yup. San Diego liked Drew Brees so much that they picked a new QB with the #4 pick in the draft. Well to be completely accurate they drafted Eli Manning NUMBER ONE in the draft. Since NYG desperately wanted him they ransomed him off for a boatload of picks and money. Included in their haul was the #4 pick in which they drafted ANOTHER QB in Phillip Rivers. They sure liked Drew Brees didn't they. They then let Brees go in free agency. I think he's done just fine in New Orleans.

Yep, it doesn't matter where they came from, just as long as they can play. Drafting a lot of players at a single position doesn't mean it's a good thing. In fact it can mean just the opposite in that guys keep getting drafted but can't play that position. So they're wasting draft picks trying to make up for earlier mistakes. The simplest example is Detroit drafting a WR three years running with their first round pick. Lots of picks (or free agency signings) at a single area does not mean strength at that area.

Sometimes the internet sucks. Of course it's perfect for the chicken-littles of the world

That was the topic du jour back then. Everyone had a favorite big receiver that we HAD to draft (with our first round pick no less)! So many were shocked that many dropped to the second round, AND now how many of them are busts even for 2nd rounders. Bummer that we fell for it too. At least it wasn't our first rounder. We only got 1 good catch out of him.

This makes logical sense to me. It gives more first team reps to Urbik who needs it and some good first team reps to Rinehart who (according to Gailey) has earned them by playing well in practice. Short term cohesiveness can be overcome. As other posters have said, if everyone believes that there is a ceiling and they can't displace the starters what's the incentive to work as hard as possible. We've traded out Lee, dumped Maybin, and promoted Rinehart. All moves that show confidence in the younger players to move up the pecking order. That's a good thing.

Sweet! I always moved the window off the bottom of the screen to try and hide it. Was imperfect.

Sounds like pretty decent dreams to me.

He's done well enough and has progressed every year to reduce the amount of screams for a new LT. Right now everyone is hollering about a RT. He's worked hard and gotten better. Has the backing of the coaching staff (multiple coaching staffs no less). Still needs to improve and be a little more consistent for most people to be happy with him. Not an all pro, but potentially a solid player. Most of the debate has revolved around him as a player and his skills therein. Others on our team have been discussed more for their off field antics than on field play. That's a good sign. I'm rooting for the kid.

And less physical. A tight end needs to block and catch. I doubt he can do either.

100% Coaching staff is looking at our OL (and the rest for that matter) and evaluating who can play. At the end of the day the best 5 they believe will do the job will be the starting 5. I have little doubt Levitre will be in our starting 5. WAAAAAAY to much is being read into this and other similar moves.

While I agree that he had less to work with, the ST have consistently looked very poor to my eyes. I've got all of one preseason game to look at this year, but the coverage teams have again looked disorganized and poorly coached/schemed. Truthfully special teams are the only part of the Bills that I'm not cautiously optimistic about (well and our OL depth). I actually expect DeHaven to be fired at the end of this season.

Yeah, except that it means that they also like him. We did it with George Wilson and he's developed into great depth and now our starting SS. He may only make the PS, I suspect that has mostly to do with special teams performance. That's often the tipping point on the bottom of the roster guys. I'm guessing PS this year.

Ah. That's the biggest key. I think he'd be a tremendous upgrade as our 3rd swing tackle (or starting RT) IF he's healthy. If he's not or likely a high risk of not being so, I agree we should pass.

Maybin, McCargo & even Whitner were prime examples of reaching to fill a need rather than drafting for NFL talent. I do believe that the Bills had a big need for a new Safety when DJ came into town and made us a Tampa-2 team. Obviously we've needed good DLinemen for quite a while. By drafting for a position means we missed out on so many higher quality players and it's a little sickening. I liked the IDEA of drafting a pass rusher, I think we were all in favor of that. It was just the guy they chose. I think that it was made even worse by their higher opinion of smaller quicker guys. Whitner had a fine size for a safety, but Maybin & McCargo were smaller. Their speed edge negated by the higher quality of competition at the pro level. Both of them also had GIANT red flags that should have warned about drafting them as high as they ended up being drafted. Third best DL on a non-dominant college team? One year wonder whose sacks came only against weaker competition? Sigh. Unfortunately it was not just the first round picks that trended towards smaller "faster" guys and our defense has suffered accordingly. So far, I'm much happier with Nix's drafts. I'm often surprised a little by the direction he chooses, but I really feel that he's much more consistent with going for the best player available (even if it's not always who WE feel is the BPA). We're also so much bigger in player size. I'm always a little suprised watching Merriman getting interviewed at how big and thick he looks. Reminds me of Takeo from many years ago. It's such a far cry from our undersized LB corp of recent days (maybin, Ellison, digorgio, Wire, etc.) May his strategy pay off better than what gave us Mr. Maybin.

Nice resurrection. But Greece nailed (half of) it cold. Even though I'm less impressed with Roscoe than Gailey is, he REALLY seems to like him and can get good production out of him. If Roscoe is healthy he's in our top 5. I agree with the comment that one of our 5 wide will often be Spiller/Freddie/(+Smith) since we can flex out a RB to a WR forcing them to keep more LBs in and helping us get mismatches.

Yup. Same speed & same routes. (for better or worse) He'll likely keep the speed this year too. But for how long? I also wish nothing but the best for Lee except for when he's playing us!

Preseason games are to help find out who of the young guys can play when it matters, and fine tuning what still needs to be practiced. Other than that it's just a glorified practice. The final score doesn't matter, but some of the play does. Each preseason game & practice we go through without a significant injury is a good day. Especially for us since our depth is suspect. This game in particular was a big worry for me since it was the first full speed game against a new opponent. With such a short off-season and so many young players on our team it could have been a disaster. As it was the Bears lost their top reserve DE on the opening kickoff. I mark it down as a major victory!

Me too. He was night and day different from last year where he was invisible. Jasper was large, and stood up a lot of OL but struggled to disengage. I only saw one play that he got a nice push.

Absolutely. The rest was pretty chaotic, with lots of mistakes. Our depth played like they were young and still confused or outmatched. Still saw some interesting plays and players. So I was glad that I watched it all. Although in the 4th Q my attention wandered.

Seriously people. It's PRESEASON for an established veteran player. He's not fighting to make the squad. Yes his tackle sucked. Saw it live. Knew right away he made the decision to play it safe rather than play hard. We're talking about _practice_!

You are the wind beneath my wings.