BuffOrange

OPI is sort of like intentional grounding - they might as well stop kidding everyone and just officially throw it out of the rulebook. It's such a joke how rarely it's called that when they actually do call it against my team, I feel like throwing bottles at the tv and sending the league office tape of 8,000 other OPI's that weren't called. So whatever, I don't want to get too worked up about the Burress play, even though it was obviously a penalty. The Holmes play vs the Jackson no-call though, give me a break, that's pathetic. Either both or neither are penalties (I prefer neither). It's unreal that those calls go against us at home.

Who were those splashy FA's - Kawika Mitchell? Lets just say we know what 2009 looked like and we don't yet know what 2012 will look like, so of course we're going to prefer the latter. I just hope Stevie Johnson for one is still a Bill and we're saying the same thing in 2013.

It is a bit of a myth that the Arizona game was the turning point in '08, that's true. The real turning point in '08 was the home loss to the Jets. One difference was that we were kicking their butts all over the field in that game and should've been up 2 scores at halftime instead of down 13-7 after an 80yard pick 6 went against us. Where as this year, they kicked our butts and we were the team fortunate that the halftime score wasn't worse than it was. So I dunno, if someone wants to say there's no more reason to be optimistic now than there was at the same point in '08 I don't think it's a slam dunk that they have "must have problems in their life"; it's actually pretty reasonable. And boy, you can add up the W/L records all you want but I don't know how anyone can look at those schedules and not think the Jets/Pats don't have it easier. Miami is favored by more than 3 against Washington this week - that ought to tell you something.

The first 3rd down of the game we ran a slant to Jackson and he was tackled a yard short of the 1st. The interception at the end of the half was a quick/short crossing pattern. We ran misdirection runs between the tackles. We ran the shotgun spread. We threw intermediate stuff over the middle. In other words we ran all of the stuff that we've run with success the whole year. The deep balls down the sideline were basically change-up adjustments to our bread & butter not working, and one of them to Stevie set up our only meaningful points of the game. And if the refs were consistent for both teams in their ticky tack PI calls, the deep throw to Freddie could've gained big yardage too.

Agree with your definition, although the player quoted did use the word 'elite'. You have your Manning/Brady/Rodgers/Brees/Ben. After that who knows. There's probably a bigger difference between #4 and #7 than there is between #6 and #13 - therefore 'Top 10' is sort of an arbitrary cutoff. Most people's 6-10 will look different every week depending on what the flavor of the month is. Like right now it's popular to say Eli is up there and Rivers stinks, but that wasn't the case last year or the year before, and it may not be the case a month from now. Maybe Josh Freeman would've received top 10 votes last year; right now probably not. What about Matt Ryan? Most people would say he's "pretty good". I think that's about what Romo is and where he is (appropriately) rated.

Mostly right here getting accused of not being 'real fans' by people like you in dumb threads like this one. What were you doing?

"Overrated" seems to be one of the most misunderstood words in the English dictionary, so it's not surprising that NFl players are guilty of it just like everyone else. I would like to ask Terrance Knighton what single prominent analyst has ever said that Tony Romo is "elite" - I don't think anyone ever has. What I do know is that he played one of the better games a QB will play against the Jets all year and was raked over the coals for a couple mistakes.

Which do you suppose is a more plausible explanation for this playoff drought: not drafting players that are good enough, or the fans underestimating the Bills talent level? Just wondering since, you seem to think the mentality of Bills fans is why they've been losing for a decade. It's not. What impact would a more demanding fan base have - pressure the team to fire the coach because "we have talent like everyone else"? Yah, Ralph has done that four times already. Correction, three times. One guy resigned to take a voluntary demotion because he didn't think he could win with an 80yr old GM who that same offseason, ended up drafting Donte Whitner with the 8th pick and traded up for John McCargo in the 1st round. Now if you want to say the "nobody thought we'd be 5-3" stuff is a loser mentality - I can agree with that. Nobody ever has high expectations until they get to the playoffs. At some point we need to get there. In the meantime I'm not really into this celebration of not being the team that falls short of espn's hyped up expectations.

No kidding 9-7 isn't get to make it. The problem with yesterday's loss (and Cincy's win) is that 10-6 with 2 losses vs the Jets is not going to cut it either.

Understanding that WR's always get way more leeway than defenders, it's still unfathomable how the ref is staring right at Burress and just sits there with a thumb up his butt and then calls the phantom 50yarder downfield on the Bills(which was the exact same play as the Jackson play that went uncalled in the 2nd Qtr). Unbelievably pathetic 1sided reffing. Fortunately it probably didn't cost us the game.

Ha i was thinking the same thing.

Gonna wear blue for the next two road games; maybe they need a wash.

Yes, not my idea of domination either. Wow, Buffalo Wild Wings switch activated.

I really hope they do something with Stevie soon. He is young and can run every route. Letting him walk and trying to replace him in the draft would be the equivalent of the "we don't need Greer but lets draft McKelvin" wheel-spinning we've seen at CB for so many years.

Pretty much. There are 32 teams/QB's in the league who are unlikely to win the SB.

"Hey look at the standings - we're ahead". Umm ok, that makes for fun discussion

As someone who saw all four of those games I think it's fair to say they all could've gone the other way. But I really thought the Dallas game was the only one where the winning team was pretty clearly manhandled. What they didn't show on the NE highlights was the Bills moving the ball when it was 21-0 and having their first two drives stalled on a tipped ball int and a silly chop-block (I guess the Charger game was similar in that respect). Also, you guys haven't been that competitive in your losses.

Show me when a team won a tiebreaker vs a division opponent for winning the 1st of 2 meetings; until then stop whining about this.

Agreed. As I've said before it seems like people want to hold it to a higher standard than 'regular plays' and consider it a failure if it doesn't go for a 50yd TD circa Ronnie Brown vs NE. If you get 3 yards on a 3rd&2 handoff that's usually considered a successful play, no?

It won't. If you don't think the Bills coaches started preparing for the Jets during their bye last week you're kidding yourself. Yah not sure why this is so hard to understand. You don't win a division tiebreaker by winning the 1st of 2 games.

How much?

Maybe not. I never really said we were. I do think it's pretty clear we're not the worst, and yet 31 other teams in the league don't have to put up with this fiasco. Your idea that you need to be the inarguable, unequivocally most blindly loyal fan base in the world in order to have the right to not complain about Toronto or else you're a hypocrite, is ridiculous.

Yes that's clearly what I was inferring.

Nah I'd rather Cuse get an elite basketball recruit than win a meaningless football game. And my dad rocks tyvm.

No you're not. Just because Parcells said that at a press conference one day because he didn't want to make excuses doesn't make it true. If Vegas were that simplistic it'd be incredibly easy to make $. Why do you suppose the Eagles at 1-4 were essentially a pick 'em @ 3-1 Washington? The Giants are an average team that's been feasting on a heap of crap schedule, which gets a whole lot tougher next week. They won't win more than 8 games, 9 tops.