BuffOrange

They looked alright today. I don't know if I'm ready to say "this is a team that's getting better as the season goes on" as everyone else is. Their 3game road trip was brutally hard and thus overblown a bit; then they were handed last week's game by a bad team. So we're really just talking about one game. As a sidebar I never really hated this team like others did, but something about their good fortune the last few years is a little too "early 2000's Patriotsish" to not hate. It started with the Colts laying down by forfeiting a perfect season and handing them a playoff spot, then the Bengals/Chargers miss a combined 172 FG's in the 1st 2 rounds of the playoffs, then last year they win all these flukey games vs the Texans & Browns, and now this year vs Dallas they get whipped up and down the field and manage to escape....my God make it stop. I'm sort of in the camp that thinks if we can't beat them at home then we probably don't belong in the playoffs. And please lets not cry about the bye week. Players get most of the bye week off anyway and if you don't think our coaches started preparing for them this week you're kidding yourself.

Sorry to disappoint you but I'm not going to make excuses for him today. It's both clever and hilariously ironic that you emphasize/italicize eight years while waiting for him to have a bad game so you could bump this thread. Which do you want to value more - the eight years or the most recent game? Because if it's the eight years, you don't have a leg to stand on in relation to the "facts and stats" - those are readily available for anyone with an internet connection. Go to Football Outsiders, or Pro Football Reference, or a zillion other places (admittedly none of it will compare to the high level of factual content found in such places as a random TBD thread about the Jets). You will predictably ignore those "facts and stats" that you pretend to yearn for and go back to your petty emotional argument that he doesn't have "it" or "heart"; and all of that cliche talk radio trash that's been said about a billion and one quality athletes and coaches for not being able to win a ring - many of whom eventually won a ring.

My God, you cannot possibly preach 'context' and pretend like Russel and Smith and Eli were as highly touted as Luck when they were coming out. They weren't and making up "second coming can't miss" quotes doesn't make it so. Nobody was saying stuff like they are the surest thing since Elway; nobody was suggesting teams should tank games the previous season to get them. Of course those guys had their supporters - they had to to be the #1 pick. Now of course nobody knows if this guy will be as good as Elway and Peyton - the odds are very good that he won't be since they are ya know, probably 2 of the top 5 ever. Interesting that you bring up Rivers - I think the "surest thing since Elway" line of thought refers to the low bust likelyhood and the very high probability that he'll be that sort of very good franchise QB. Even if he's 'only' that good he's well worth the #1 pick. The illusion that Rivers has so much talent around him is exactly why he and his #'s are so impressive - he doesn't. His WR core has always been crap. He's had no running game the last two years (though this year it's better). Gates is obviously elite, but often injured in recent years. He's had some tough luck with Kaeding kicking like Norwood squared every postseason. But the idea that he can't win a championship is absurd. You might want to check Peyton's 2006 postseason #'s btw.

Ha, I was wondering that too. @Pit, @NYJ, @Philly are all loseable. Doubtful they lose them all but they could lose 2 and get upset by someone else like @Wash or NYG. 2 losses at most is a stretch; I'd say 2 at least. But tomato, tomoto, they're going to get a bye.

Well they looked good vs. Tennessee. I dunno if a 4pt home win over Jax is so hot. I've noticed Vegas has been down on them - can't remember the last time they were +4 as they were @Houston, and they were only giving 3 at home vs Tenn. @Arizona seems like one of those games that will have 45% Steeler fans.

Football Outsiders swear that Harrison is good. I took him late too without even having Best figuring he could be a nice flex if Best got hurt. Not sure why the Lions barely used him. Weird trade.

The Chargers finishing 2nd place with 10wins and holding the tiebreaker over us is a really bad scenerio and I have a hard time not seeing them win 10games with Rivers not even playing well yet and being 4-1. While they may not be a lock to win the division I think we better hope they do.

Right on. If it were this incredibly low % + high risk parlay everyone pretends it is, it wouldn't be run so much across the league. Maybe Freddie could've hit the speed burst/shoulder plow button (is that 'x' or 'y'?) to guarantee exactly 3.4 yards on every carry.

No offense but you're not telling us anything we don't already know. The question is whether it's correctable. Like you said it's doubtful given our personnel and coordinator. So until next year we probably have to find a way to win games 31-28.

Not sure which part of "clock expiring" and "PAT distance" you don't understand; though I trust HCs always agree with you as supported by your 2nd guessing two of them today.

I'm still trying to figure out what 'your to' means. But it's pretty easy to see a team that can easily score 7 in 4minutes has very little chance of scoring 3 in 2-3minutes. I'm actually surprised the Giants didn't let us score on purpose.

This is crazy. In other threads people are saying our defense getting turnovers against NE and not yesterday was a reason to be less aggressive vs the Giants. Others here are saying Brady being better than Eli was a reason to be less aggressive yesterday. And yet others are saying the Dallas game yesterday was different because they had the lead and were on their own side of the field (somehow a turnover is less costly in your own territory up 3 - that's a new one). I mean seriously. Just get the charade over with and say this: "It wasn't the exact same situation. I have no clue why circumstances in this game dictated a more conservative approach, but it just did". I hate to break it to you Patsfan, Brady is great and all, but taking the knee for essentially a PAT as the clock expires is still optimal if the opposing QB is JP Losman.

Again, running clock is a much bigger plus with 2mins left than with 4, regardless of whether or not we're 5-10 yards out of FG range. I think it's pretty obvious why, but who knows if you actually disagree or are just arguing to argue at this point. I also think Brady is more scary than Eli regardless of what's happened previously in the game (as Brady showed yesterday) but forgetting that, not having much confidence in your defense yesterday is precisely why you call whatever gives you the best shot @7 points. I'm not the one who brought it up and is still obsessing over it however many years later; so why don't you find the posts where I took 'such offense'.

If the turnovers were even yesterday, we win. While getting 4 takeaways per game is obviously unsustainable, I don't think this loss does much to 'prove' we need all kinds of fortunate bounces to beat most teams. I happen to think the Cowboys & Chargers are better than the Giants. Seriously, if the Giants & Cowboys swapped schedules so far NYG might be 1-4 and Dallas 5-1. If I'm wrong then we're in great shape. But I think most of us hoping for 10 wins have those games chalked up as losses anyway.

First it was apples & oranges that the QB threw a pass to a WR who ran a different route. Now that that dumb theory has been shot down, it's "they weren't yet in FG range". Backpedal some more. Obviously you do.

FWIW if Vegas had to assign a pt spread to all of these games next week and you took the favorite in win every game, the remainder of the season would go exactly as you predict except we would beat the Titans for 10 wins. And really if we can't beat them at home then who are we beating on the road in the playoffs... Obviously the favorite probably won't win every game; we might lose @Miami and win @Dallas or something. The biggest game to me right now is that 1st Jets game - it's huuuuge - lose that one and 10 wins probably won't be enough.

"Putting words in your mouth" and "spin" - that's a nice cop-out. So you agree there was more than one option for the QB on the empty backfield Jackson throw and that he might've thrown to a deeper WR if the Pats didn't blitz. OK then, great, so now your busted argument makes even less sense. Inasmuch as I think Peter King is a pretty generic analyst who doesn't offer much insight, I've never been "all upset" about anyone criticizing him. I have pointed out that he picked us to the SB in one of the Bledsoe years in response to the "no respect" crowd who think he has some vendetta against Buffalo. Sorry that obviously made you 'all upset' as you somehow remember this 3 years later.

Seriously, I think we should just make this the official "exceeded expectations" thread and sticky it and we can all sign it so that we don't have to feel guilty or preface every single criticism by saying it. Just because Bills fans haven't experienced it in over a decade doesn't mean nfl teams who are supposed to stink don't make the playoffs every single year. I don't want to apologize for wanting to be one of those teams one freaking time.

I'm sure they will throw out of it eventually. It seems like the Jaworski's and the Billick's who hate it so much (and some fans) hold it to a higher standard than they do any other play. When Jackson takes a handoff and runs for 4 or 5 yards that's considered a good play right? I don't think Gailey is really trying to gash anyone for 50yard TD's circa Miami vs NE 2008.

Yes a turnover is less hurtful when you already have the lead in your own territory.

Try telling that to some of the hindsight experts here. Yup, as soon as they punted I was just hoping for overtime. As if there wasn't enough reason to hate them, that's two games vs our division Dallas has given away. I have a sick feeling the opposite will happen vs us.

Well if we had won today the Giants would be 3-3 with two of their wins against the Rams & Cardinals.

I sorta agree we still need the bigtime 'franchise qb' but i can't kill Fitz for costing us one game after how good he's been this year. I will say that he'd be taking a lot more heat for this though if Donald Jones doesn't break up the sure int in the endzone vs Oakland.

I'm not talking about the Jones play I'm talking about the Spiller play, where they went empty backfield at 2 minutes. Realizing that intermediate throws over the middle are never picked off and there is only one option for the QB on every 5wide empty backfield play, I'm sure you'd still think it was a terrible comparison if the LB didn't blitz on the Spiller play, making Fitz throw somewhere else. Good God.

Equally as minor and inconvenient is that keeping the clock running was more advantageous in the NE game where there was only 2 minutes left, vs. today where there was 4 minutes left.... But of course with our steel curtain defense 3 minutes wouldn't have been enough time for a Giants drive.