RuntheDamnBall

It might be time to look for a new head coach in addition to that new QB. Chan has put some good pieces in place but he makes too many baffling decisions to not raise the question. Player or scheme? Pats sure made Mark Anderson look good. They'd make Mario Williams into Bruce Smith. We are doing something wrong here.

Yeah, Jesus, Nix, just dial up the draft store and order some new Talleys and Bennetts before the season is over.

Bill, I was disappointed in the Spiller fumble, and I think that was the exact moment that they lost the game, the really nice Jones reception notwithstanding. That said, I can't blame Spiller. Gailey is asking, here, a guy with a bum shoulder who is not a between the tackles runner to run into a pile anchored by Vince !@#$ Wilfork at the 2 yard line. They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, but I think this play-call ranks a close second. Should he not have fumbled it? Of course. Should we have concerns about his fumbling? Maybe. But I think the bigger issue is the lack of preparation and failure to adjust against what are starting to look like better coaching staffs. Better choices abounded there - FredEx, even a QB draw. Then you're looking at 21-7 into the half, and that feels a lot more like a hole for an opposing team going into the locker room. Since both teams had made their share of mistakes in the first half, escaping it with a 14-point lead and having driven down the field would have been good for morale. As for the D, it's been mentioned in another thread but what they did (or didn't do) against NE's line, as well as the assignments on receivers, tell me that there is real cause for concern regarding Wannstedt's schemes. He needs to adjust, and fast. Bryan Scott can be a nice player, but he and Barnett were getting schooled all day.

I have it on good authority that Captain Caveman and Mrs. Caveman have welcomed a new little Bills fan into the house. Join me in sending him some Buffalo-style congratulations.

Is there, like, ANY good reason at all to say something like this?

Put me down for a "Rolling Ball of Butcher Knives" shirt.

Yup. And the designed runs were a good way to move the chains and boost confidence when he was having accuracy issues. He's still tough to trust long term to get this team a title, but he has his strengths.

I'll say this - so far the new top 5 including Glenn, plus Hairston as a swingman who will get into games, is pretty awesome. I have never considered how much having a guy like that, who can step in and spell the starter with little drop-off, could affect the well-being and staying power of the starters.

Solution: send Scott Chandler over Donte Whitner's way, often.

I think it's a reasonable question to ask, CT, but if you compare the numbers to other middle-tier QBs out there, they're pretty comparable. I think they pretty clearly thought he could be middle-tier, serviceable, solid enough to advance a pretty good team. It looked early last year like that might be the case. It looks pretty different right now. I wouldn't say he's getting "all-in" money even though it seems like quite a lot and it's a better contract than any Bills QB has gotten, though. And I'm not sure what the cap ramifications are if they are to cut Fitz, but generally those contracts aren't worth the paper they're written on. Only the signing bonus and the status of a player on the roster in a given year really matter. Conversely, say that Fitz actually never got hurt, and led the team to a not great but much improved 8-8 record, without re-signing him. Given the random quality of injuries, this could have happened. In what negotiating position would the Bills have been then, with Fitz on the open market? We can't know, but I'm pretty sure he would have received what we gave him on the open market. In that case, you're looking at losing the guy who has led your team to its best results and is in large part responsible for the emergence of Stevie. The Bills blinked on that one and I'm of the mind that they were damned if they did or if they didn't.

Like the rest of y'all I think we've got to be a bit worried about the coaching but I would give Gailey the year and see if any real progress is being made. We need to remember that there may be only so far he can go with Fitz, even if Gailey has his own limitations. That said, I think we've been better finding diamonds in the rough on the budget free agent market than in the draft. I wonder how Whaley will fare in that role, or at least as the man calling the shots in that role. One thing I would hope, as a fan, is to see that Whaley has full autonomy in his picks. Adding to the coach discussion, if Gailey does go, I think we really need to consider a HC who will commit to sticking with the 4-3 - there is enough talent assembled there except for the LBs, and I think most of us can agree they just aren't being used right (yet). Best case scenario is they come out guns blazing and make us look foolish for worrying after last week, but I am not holding my breath. I'd like to see some good results going forward. Root for Fitz and co. but I think what we need is pretty clear.

I have no idea about their sponsorship and what individual players choose to wear, but you wear different shoes for different kinds of turf and conditions.

No one had Matt Schaub in their class, either. So? Can you face the fact that Losman may not have ever amounted to anything, but that this coaching staff and front-office was primed to botch just about anyone short of Peyton Manning coming here? They yo-yo'd him on and off the playing field so often that it quickly became clear they had nothing resembling a strategy, and that the FO was not on the same page as the coaches. It was the most CYA bunch I've seen in Bills history.

I have no quantitative evidence but my own observation tells me the Bills seem to fall down - even on their own turf - more than any other team I watch. I know this guy retired but I wonder if it's possible that the equipment dept is not providing them with the right / best shoes, among other things...

Be prepared to get hammered by people who are convinced that this is the end of the world. I'm inclined to agree with you as evidenced by my "it's only 0-1" post.

I bought a cheapo Losman. I wanted the guy to succeed so badly. Probably the first guy who was my age QBing the Bills and he was also just a good dude who believed in Buffalo. Just didn't have it as an NFL QB. Someone else bought me a McGahee, but I never liked him too much. I bought a Lynch authentic 50th anniversary one, again as a cheapie. I liked the way the guy ran but he was definitely a moron, to put it lightly. My wife has only ever had a Moorman jersey, and she therefore does not have a closet full of embarrassing jerseys. Thankfully for baseball I've only ever had my favorite player, John Olerud. He happened to play for a lot of teams, was a stand-up guy, great hitter, and was part of two world championships in my relative youth.

We've talked a lot here about the draft and the Bills' relative inconsistency (and I'm putting that nicely). It seems like the Bills are either not onto some formula that other teams have, and/or they seem to miss obvious picks (though I'll argue here that the benefit of hindsight is pretty substantial). Indulge me in a ramble if you don't mind. For whatever reason, the Bills seem to have a pretty difficult time getting players who can contribute right away as rookies, and a similarly difficult time developing players who need the time to develop. It seems like other teams can find rookies who set the league ablaze. Rarely is this the case with the Bills. We want to point to the front office and place the blame on them for all of this, but there are greater culprits, I think: 1) The Bills have been so strategically inconsistent that it's near-impossible for the front office to supply them with players that can fit where they want to go by the time they are ready. By the time they get players who can play onto the team, the team itself has moved on from the coach or system that the player was supposed to fit into. I am not certain that Troup or Carrington or Poz were ever destined to be any great shakes, and certainly each has his own individual detractions, but each of them (Troup with injuries excepted) could have been contributors. We could even use Poz now, after another system change. Instead he drifted from one lousy system into one he didn't fit before moving on. We might be mad at Chan, but we're probably not going anywhere as long as the team is on a merry go-round of game-strategy and philosophy. The next coach, if Chan doesn't survive, is going to have his own ideas. And it will be "here we go again" with the changes. People point to Jim Harbaugh's "instant success," but he is working with players assembled by past regimes, and the team hasn't scrapped systems every time. As for player development, there are some players that are going to bust - with any team. Laugh if you want, but New England has actually not been a model franchise in terms of drafting "hits." They simply acquire enough draft picks to cover for their mistakes - and this is smart. Meanwhile, they always have a good enough core to compete, centered around Tom Brady but also including an always-strong stable of interior linemen and TEs. 2) Defensively, the Bills have never been so good at any one thing that a coach has been able to trust that part of the team as a building block. So what happens is we get a George Edwards in, he isn't a good fit, and then we install something relatively new or modified, forced to shed some good players who are less suited for that system (Dwan Edwards being one, Poz another victim - not great but solid). The good news is that the Bills do and should have something approaching that kind of core in Dareus and Kyle Williams - guys who can probably play in any system. Hopefully Mario Williams can lend some consistency and there will be three positions at which the Bills never have to worry. That kind of line can play anywhere. So, what next? I firmly believe the Bills have to be considering a way to pick up a dominant LB - at any of the 3 positions, honestly. I like Barnett, but whichever one of the three can be upgraded with high end talent should be replaced. 3) Offensively, I'm finally coming around to the fact that the Bills won't be going anywhere far until they find a top flight QB. We've always wanted this and it's easier said than done, but I think at this point in today's NFL, it's too critical. Fitz may sneak this team into the playoffs, but he probably can't take them all the way unless he plays out of his head and above his abilities. I actually think he's hindering the team's ability to evaluate some of its other players. That said, I think the line is protecting pretty well, and the performance of our RBs says that a very good QB might be all the team needs to be extremely competitive in this division. ------ Now, the reason I started this thread in the first place is because I thought of TJ Graham, and his place alongside players like Aaron Williams, Aaron Maybin (to some extent), Kelvin Sheppard, and CJ Spiller - basically, first-day picks and how much they are to be trusted in their first year. It seems like Chan is of the mentality that rarely is a rookie ready, and that draft picks should be brought along slowly. It also seems like there are a few players (Dareus, Gilmore) that the team sees as exceptions to that rule - these players will contribute enough to offset the learning curve. But what ends up inevitably happening is that someone gets injured, and then this rookie that already has received the message that he hasn't earned the coach's trust has double the pressure on him. Now, no two players will be on the same development trajectory. I understand that. But I also think that the team has not played its draft chips in quite the right way. Over the past few years, it should have been trying to identify players who could step in and learn on the job at positions of need. In re-building, or playing for the future, as I'd call it, the team has sacrificed in-season performance to take the long-view. That's admirable, but it's also not good for job security in the NFL. If you know you have three years before the seat is going to get extremely hot, you should be finding guys who can get you through those three years. If coach and GM do not think TJ Graham can be ready in week 1 to start, why should you trade up to get him and keep him in a stable of only 4 true WRs? No round 1-3 pick from here on out should be viewed as a player who can't start in year one, and they need to start with a few areas of deficiency. For the Bills, those neglected areas include: 1) receiving TE - Gronkowski was pretty much the answer here. He had his red flags in terms of health, but just about everything else lined up, and he was from Buffalo, too. These guys make QBs look better. Chandler is a pretty good poor man's version, but a rookie TE like this who can step in and just catch whatever is thrown to him is worth his weight in gold. 2) QB prospect - it's a re-set button for the franchise. I would trade most of next year's draft for the best one there. 3) workhorse LB - I do think the Bills would have drafted Kuechly if he were there, but you hardly ever fail with one of the top LBs on the board. The moral of the story: Get stronger at these postions, trust these guys to fail a bit before you succeed, and you're going to build a long-term winner. The lines are ready, last week's stunner for the DL notwithstanding, and if the DBs can be put in the right position to succeed, I think this team can be closer than last week's loss made it seem. Aww hell, I lost my train of thought. Thanks for reading the wall of text, friends.

See if you can get "negative infinity" as a number.

Almost as f*cked up as it is to spend tons of hours enjoying a game, posting about it on message boards, and then criticizing someone for their shirt choice. Like, if you're a male with man-boobs and beer gut going shirtless and painting your body, I understand. Open season. But for a jersey? It's probably a waste of money, but so are the majority of human habits.

#70 Eric Wood. Tough dude, hopefully the anchor of this line when the Bills turn it around.

This.

I like their wings, but park slope is kind of a haul from greenpoint, and I always end up having to sit near that blazing hot kitchen behind the bar. Plus they turned off the bills and sabres for the Yankees while i was there on separate occasions because the bartender wanted to watch them. That pissed me off.

Drafting shiny new RBs is fun! In all seriousness, this is even less defensible than the coterie of DBs they have spent high picks on, at least many DBs see the field at once and it's such a passing league that you always need good ones. The bills have always had upper echelon / top-15 backs and not much else.

I'm in Brooklyn and would definitely be down, ESP if it was ok to bring a kid (some bars aren't cool with that, but we'd always spend some money on food if the place serves it).

The "QBs no one wanted" argument is particularly stupid. By this logic no one wanted the Eagles' QBs, or Drew Brees. Tom Brady and Tony Romo were QBs no one wanted. No one's arguing Fitz is in the same class, but come up with a better way to put it.