BuffOrange

What good players on this roster will still be here and in their prime in 2017? That's the first year we might realistically be good after picking another QB in '16. Spiller & FJax are gone obviously. Wood, Glenn & Watkins? Will probably need to rebuild the DL with Mario & Kyle getting older.

The Pokes D should be awful. Rod Marinelli is just awesome.

Cool story.

Nice job by Zimmer going on 4th and then a 2pter. Analytics. He'll get zero credit for it as talking heads are contractually obligated to only talk about 4th downs that don't work.

Rolling with Atlanta on the road would be a mistake. Another benefit to SD is they have the Jets & Oakland on deck. I'm actually using a waiver claim on them.

It is true that NE's demise has been predicted way too many times in the past. But Dan Lebatard is right on this - Brady's decline is happening right in front of us but it's almost imperceptible because he's still good (and the rest of the division still has squat for a QB which incredibly, has been the case since the Colts were re-aligned to the South). The OL/WR explanations have some merit but it's a bit overdone, they're not the '76 Bucs. He had a great OL and running game last yr & two great TE's the year before. From what I've seen his protection is in fact worse this yr, but FFS, Mankins is a run blocking Guard, not Anthony Munoz. Manning lost his pro bowl LT before last yr and didn't miss him until February. I know 12 doesn't have Thomas or Thomas, big deal, he didn't have them pre Moss either. Make all the excuses you want but the guy just doesn't throw well downfield anymore. Like zow said, the division is there for the taking, but...facepalm. Man I would kill for an average QB right now.

Thank you. You can really just cut&paste the same template from 2006. 'Control F' ---> 'JP' -- Replace All ---> EJ. When your points get completely destroyed, just say "Ralph is cheap", lock thread and pat yourself on the back.

As someone who hates discussing playcalling, I don't need to see that on 1st down ever again. Does EJ have the green light to check out of that or not?

I think you mean like seven years too late. He was an elite player for a lot of years before an inexplicable 2011-12 valley. I mean it got to the point where a lot of non-casual/smart people just assumed he was playing hurt, which he vehemently denied. Someone called me a lot of bad names for arguing on his behalf during that valley. Crickets now obviously. I wish archives were easier to find here.

Ya I think they might be the most boring, "average across the board" team in the league. Not sure what people saw in them in the preseason other than "the OL can't be worse". They look pretty pedestrian so far but they did last September too. And in '06 and in '09 vs bad Bills teams... It's annoying that except for that Arizona game a couple yrs ago, they never actually lose that "catastrophic" game as huge favorites.

Lewis was 2-3. Three of them were road games (vs just five road games in twelve for EJ) and three of them playoff teams. Would've been five playoff teams if we didn't win both Miami games. Here's where somebody replies out of context and says he didn't do much in the Dolphin games. I'll save you the time. Great, I'm not the one who brought up records like it's the end all be all. See Sanchez & Vince Young in that chart I linked. Can the guy play or not. Nobody reasonable watching those games last year thought there was any difference between the two and the first three games this year haven't been any different.

Yah that's not really true. Are we still going to be citing Drew Brees ten years from now, pretending like he wasn't a big exception to the rule (kinda like the "you don't need a QB" people did with the 2000 Ravens for so long)? http://grantland.com/features/the-question-of-ryan-tannehill/ I know EJ isn't at 25 games yet but it doesn't look good at 'halftime'. The three injuries last yr are one reason he doesn't have more games, which, while it doesn't seem fair to 'punish' him for...it's a red flag that there was no obvious drop-off with Thad freaking Lewis. And it appears to have made him gunshy about ever running (maybe this is the coaches, who knows).

Waiting till the season is over is precisely the time not to plug in Kyle Orton. You play him in Detroit after a bad game next week or not at all.

The Grantland podcast said the same thing.

Ya. A two game sample isn't a lot to determine if the current way is sustainable though. Chicago probably wasn't but seeing as how you don't need to beat a team like that on the road to be 'wildcard good', I'm not sure I care much - that's just a great game to steal. And the Miami game was obviously unique. I think these next three games against varying degrees of ok/mediocre/sorta good teams will tell us a lot. Yeah that Giants game was annoying. I wanted to fight everyone complaining about the playcalling. "K guys lets run it into the line 3 times with 4minutes left with a crappy defense". Jeez, the game was right there and Fitz had to Fitz.

So yah it's actually the complete opposite. People who cross fantasy with actual football analysis think RB is way more important than it is. They also weren't in the minority in claiming the Browns fleeced the Colts on this very board the week that trade happened as I was (which would've been true even if Richardson didn't suck).

Hopefully he was on drugs when the Chris Williams deal was inked. Graham is our MVP so far.

I don't really know why it apparently requires elite talent. But it seems like we haven't had that open guy on easy crossers since Andre. Next up on the "let's figure out how to do what all the good teams do" list - a TE up the seam or a back shoulder throw maybe?

I mean teams who qb kneel have a great winning %. Try that in Qtr 1. Not rhetoric, just true. Most of them don't matter. Ryan Mathews is unfortunately no exception. IMO they're both on the latter level. Naturally there's a honeymoon phase with the new guy. Like a good game vs the hated Pats in week 1 (where Miller was also productive) is somehow confirmation that his Denver play wasn't a product of the system. It's just so ESPN_#HotSportsTake. That's it? Worst 300 in a W ever. Sproles had 800yds receiving with 850 YAC. Sick fantasy beat playing against him. Yahoo had me as like a 96% favorite.

Causation isn't correlation. The Moreno stuff to me is kinda laughable. He is a guy and Lamar Miller is a guy. Henry, McGahee, tomato tomoto. Who cares. I'm normally the last guy to make the "fire/attitude" point but I do like Spikes for that. It's been sorely lacking for us at that position for a long time.

Ironically it was another OT win vs the Bears that started the trend of those dreadful all-navy blues in '02. As it turned out they weren't so lucky.

I was gonna say win 2 of the next 3, but that might still feel like a bummer if we drop the NE home game immediately after. So I'd like to shoot for 3 of the next 4. That's a tall order with essentially two pick 'em games and two more where we're 3-4pt dogs, but I think it might be necessary given the brutal December schedule.

I wish it didn't happen just cause it's another storyline I don't care about for ESPN to run into the ground tomorrow. Rodgers would've won the game on the next possession anyway.

I sorta like him too but from what I saw of this game on Redzone (and they showed more of it than I would've liked) he didn't look that good. The TDs were gimmes that Matt Cassell could've hit & he made a lot of bad throws.

It's not really worth getting into because it's supposed to be a happy day. But these "I told you so" looking to pick a fight threads after two games. Oiy. It's a bit much. How do these guys feel about other blah qb's that have won a bunch of games on good teams like Dalton and Smith? They're Manuel times a hundred; must be Canton bound.