BuffOrange

I love how fans always assume there is one WR option on every play. "Why does our OC only call deep balls for JP & 4yd passes for Trent!?" C'mon. EJ took the checkdown a lot.

Of course it depends on the situation. And I would bet dollars to donuts that Luck or Brady would want us to kick a FG in that exact situation in a reg. season game every time. They would be "fired up" that a 13pt game is still within reach (not that firing up a QB makes him throw more accurately or make better decisions).

Mike Schopp is going to talk about this tomorrow and I want to beat him to the punch: other than Toule this was my favorite part of the game. There is a difference between a 10 & 13 pt lead contrary to what a lot of fans say. But that difference is mostly offset by field position when the opponent takes over on their 5 after a 4th down fail (as opposed to their 20-25 after a FG). This is pretty basic math that 95%+ of NFL coaches fail miserably at. I hope they didn't go for it just because "it's preseason".

The running joke of what's sustainable is definitely in the Sunshiners Hall of Shame. Right up there with "Where are all the Pat Williams fans now?" after the David Carr game, and the "You tards are so impatient with JP". Interestingly, none of these threads are ever bumped/re-visited; despite those claiming the "doom/gloomers" care more about being right than seeing their team win (unlike the sustainability point which was gleefully mocked after the Redskins game in Toronto). One of these years I suppose they'll have to be right. The wheel just can't land on black 25 times in a row.

Try reading what you just wrote. They had a 40yr old QB & Curtis Painter when it was apparent well in advance that Peyton's status would be questionable. You're equating tanking with a movie script. No, the coach probably wasn't trying to lose. So what.

9-7 9-7 (Thanks to the 14-0 Colts laying down like a bunch of dogs) 11-5 8-8 Seems like the year prior to Hard Knocks was the outlier. The Jets were a creation of the media and a couple lucky playoff wins (thanks largely to opposing FG kickers).

I'd never tank for a non-QB. Luck otoh would've definitely been worth it; despite the best efforts of people here to compare him to Jamarcus Russel.

I might buy the "too expensive" point if we didn't spend $5mill re-signing our replacement level corner.

I wouldn't pick him 2nd but wouldn't call you a crazy homer if you did. I personally like McCoy a lot this yr as a high floor, high ceiling, still young guy in Chip Kelly's offense; not exactly sure what Foster/Martin/Lynch/Charles have over him. Hoping to not pick in the 2-5 range this year.

Not to mention the video cutting out just before the murder & the victim basically saying AH is gonna kill him 4 minutes before his death via text to his mom. Given the hilariously terrible coverup, this whole thing would not make for a very interesting Dateline episode.

Football Outsiders did a study a couple yrs ago showing the division thing to be a myth. That is the % of upsets is no different. Of course it gets perpetuated by the media bringing it up every time division upsets happen; but no such reference when a 14-0 Packers team loses to a lousy Chiefs team. As for 2 of 10 - is that the likelyhood of the Ravens losing or the sex appeal? If the former it has to be higher than that just due to being a road game. If the latter, I'm sure CBS will concur and send Brent Jones & one of their worst announcing teams.

Yah I've always said 95% of fans have no clue what over/underrated means. You have to be better or worse than how the majority of media/fans perceive you. Cutler is the new Romo. So many people get off on shouting "overrated!" that it loses all meaning. Nobody that I know of ever considered them elite guys; but it's fun to pretend otherwise so you can call them overrated I guess.

Yah. The problem with the "___ was nothing without ___" argument is it can be used against every coach ever. Primarily as it relates to their usually singular great QB (except for Gibbs). If taking a three consecutive 5-11 Cowboys team QB'd by Quincy Carter to 34-32 is the biggest blemish on his coaching resume then I'd say that's pretty good. There are HOF coaches with bigger warts than that. The point about always being in tough divisions is a good one also. The NFCE in the 80's & AFCE in the mid-late 90's were beasts. Less so in 2000's NFCE with the Skins & Giants on a downturn but even then the Eagles were a pretty dominant reg. season team.

Tough to argue with most of that. I mean I'm not going to defend the LB's because it's impossible to do so. But I think almost every team puts a much bigger emphasis on linemen for a reason. Look at our group under Wade that was pretty mediocre other than Cowart & almost impossible to run on...Minnesota whose run defense has steadily declined the last few yrs as the Williams Wall has aged, etc. It just seems like A- line plus D- LB's ought to at least equal average and it hasn't. I am not completely closed off to the theory that the current LB core is actually an F- ie one of the worst the NFL has ever seen and therefore the current Bills are an exception to the rule that run defense is primarily correlated with line play. Hopefully we get some league average players at LB some day soon behind Darius/Kyle & we become an elite run-stuffing unit to validate that notion. But in the meantime I gotta sign off on overrated. JMO.

I'm with you on the DT's. I know our LB's suck - maybe/probably the worst in the league. But do they suck so bad that they don't belong on a D1 college football field? Because that's about how much they would have to suck for our interior line to be as good as advertised and be as bad as they've been vs the run the last few years. Roscoe all-time is insane. As 2000's WR's go Josh Reed had a lot more fanboys - I remember when people here were thinking we could get a 2nd or 3rd round pick for him; which was laughable at any point in his career except for maybe after the 1st couple games of his rookie year when his value peaked.

Plus he had the misfortune of that cleaning crew accidentally destroying his phone & security system.

Thank you both for sparing one of my six per year rants against the "Vegas wants half the bets on X" nonsense. Well more than half the bets are on road favorites every single week (aka the "Bob Matthews square picks").

Agreed. Only in May does anyone rank WR cores in the division. Who cares. Now that's just crazy talk. Or Moulds or probably a half dozen other guys. Good thing for Beebe nobody remembers him dropping TD's vs the Redskins due to A) the Lett play the following year and B) Reed's (imo understandable) outburst at the blind official in the same game.

Well doesn't that sort of make sense? There is someone who does this; I think Peter King maybe? I doubt it gets very many hits because who wants to talk about who had the best/worst draft in 2008 now?

He definitely knew about the McGahee pick. But yah the cabbie has been on a hiatus for several years.

Here is the list of best players on championship teams since 1990: Isiah Jordan x3 Hakeem x2 Jordan x3 Duncan Shaq x3 Duncan ? Duncan Wade* Duncan Pierce Kobe x2 Dirk Lebron Wade* = rigged officiating, Dirk & Dallas should've won. ? = the '04 Pistons, Billups/Hamilton/Wallace - the only title team in my 32yr lifetime without a slamdunk HOF'er. This is a testament to both Larry Brown and how badly Shaq & Kobe were at each other's throats at the time imo. If you went back further you'd find Isiah/Magicx3/Birdx2/Kareem, etc. The point is these are pretty much all top ~25 players probably ever (except Dirk and Pierce but PP did have 2 all-star teammates) so it's a bit ridiculous to say "well Pippen couldn't push them over the top by himself". He wasn't in most of those guys' class but that doesn't mean he wasn't great. It's the same stupid argument people use against Boeheim - "if it wasn't for Carmello!". No kidding. Except for a couple old Celtics & UCLA teams, no championship team is a championship team without their best player in basketball. Why do people pretend otherwise? It's not like the '94 Bulls were the 2011 Cavaliers.

Magic played zero defense.

The year Jordan didn't play the Bulls won 55 games. Their 2nd best player was Toni Kukoc. They were screwed on a phantom foul @NY in the closing seconds of Game5 of a 7game series (Game 6 was the epic dunk on Ewing). That's enough for me to be pro-Pippen. The rest of the team, whatever. Those guys grow on trees. Maybe not Rodman but he wasn't there for the first 3 titles.

Not very. Different position, but I remember reading a few yrs ago that dumber CB's were more successful.

Yes I would have too a couple years ago. Their biggest recruiting pitch for a while has been having the most guys in the NBA. Maybe that will still help; I have no idea. Interesting you mention 1990 - I always compare their 90-98 teams to Pitt '02-present. Big East powerhouse, no F4's. Unless Calhoun woke up a good tournament coach in '99, it shows you how much of a factor luck is. I mean that to be more complimentary to Dixon than a knock on Calhoun fwiw. I still think 'Cuse is a bigger brand name even post Boeheim. We like complain about ESPN calling MSG a home court for SU since it's 4+ hours away, but in the end it probably helps that everyone thinks of them as NY's team (and it's not because of Daryl Gross' stupid branding). I hope moving to the ACC doesn't hurt that.