Bill from NYC

Fantastic post! Having a qb who can run is a great thing. I heard a couple of old time NFL defensive linemen say that they would rather play against Joe Montana than Steve Young and remember being surprised. Players have many good things to say about Taylor. I am sure he will get a chance this season. When the Bills drafted EJ I was excited because I saw some you tube clips where he was running all over the field. On the Bills, when he ran I thought that he usually looked clumsy, lumbering, and indecisive. Because he is a young player I'll give him the indecisive. The other two are a concern imo. Every single year, fans deem the opener to be crucial. Well, I have fallen in this trap once again. If they can beat Luck, this team really can go places imo. But this of course is a big IF.

Imo you were wrong about Schobel too. If he was not following Bruce Smith, more people would realize just how good he was. Anyway, I got you beat by a mile.....I looked at Rob Johnson's skillset and thought that he would be a great quarterback! He was big enough, could run, had a great arm, was accurate, and his passes were easy to catch. Can't miss, right? I learned from this and was never fooled by Losman. I knew right away that he was awful, and btw it hurts to see others make the same mistake wrt EJ.

Idiots who ran this team built it around defensive backs and running backs. How did this work?

Revis is great but he would have been an awful selection. The team had no blocking and no quarterback.

He should probably just return kickoffs until he is broken in half.

John the above are pretty big problems. How many great running backs were not instinctive? Even monsters like Earl Campbell and John Riggins seemed to know when to turn up field. And creating "space" for a runner looks great on paper, but few backs can always count on huge openings on almost every play, ala Emmit Smith. Does Spiller have talent? Yep. And RJ and Losman had very good arms and both could even run. There are just too many flaws in Spiller's game my friend. Too many for a team to be able to depend on him. Another wasted draft selection.

Agreed. And as I have said many times, don't forget that we traded DOWN when we selected EJ. This strongly indicates that they were ready to "lose" him and had another qb rated about as high. You just don't trade down if a player you think is your franchise quarterback is on the board. It doesn't happen, or so I think.

Oh absolutely!!! Trust me, I am not down for the Bills having a need at corner.

I respectfully, but strongly disagree. McKelvin's biggest asset is his speed. The man is greased lightening. When he first came to Buffalo and returned a couple of kicks to the house, I thought he could be an all time great returner. Goodwin is even faster but I digress. I liken Leodis to a cornerback version of Lee Evans. Take away the blinding speed and there might not be enough left to carry him at the starting corner level. An example of an athletic corner on the Bills would be Nate Clements. He was a freak athlete who did summersaults after some plays, and he was big. Unless he had injuries that I didn't know about I think that he may not have had the heart for football but again, I digress. In summary, I think Leodis is going to have problems if he loses that half step of speed that elevates his play. Jmo.

The only place where I disagree is bolded. The 2006 draft was unspeakably bad and sunk this team for many, many years, just as we said it would. They actually traded away an early pick to select garbage players in this draft which was chock full of talent at key positions. People will point to Kyle Williams in the 5th too, and that's ok. He WAS a great selection but it wasn't enough to cover the hole that they dug for the team and the fans in the first 4 rounds. It was just plain ugly and I still cannot understand this kind of idiocy 9 years later.

Even if she said that EJ is a great quarterback?

Buffalo Bills University of Alabama Crimson Tide

In turnovers and missed blocks?

This would lower his ypc stats.

If he was of any substantial use they would have kept Kiko. Why give up a running back who compares to Sanders and Sayers? Spiller is an incomplete player who shows flashes once in a while but makes crucial mistakes and doesn't take over games. Remember when he would stop the clock inside the deuce when they were trying to kill it? These idiotic mistakes and numerous missed blocks are tough to blame on Marrone, unless one really wants to.

That belongs in the positive thread.

Oh, he will make big strides all right. This much is certain. The direction of his strides? Not so sure. No warning points for me, right?

Spiller seems like a very nice guy. However, he was a stupid draft selection and a so-so player, talent notwithstanding. I am glad to see him leave the team and replaced with a far superior player.

A bit extreme, no bt? After 15 years of horrible football, the list of accomplishments is far shorter than the list of dismal failures. I want them to win as much as you. Do I have faith in EJ? Absolutely not but this doesn't make me profound or "right." I just watch the games and root for the Bills.

Very good post. It IS strange to be a Bills Fan. It is 100% reasonable to think that they will make the playoffs this season but if they do not, how many of us will be truly shocked? That said, I could never be a fan of any other NFL team. It isn't possible. But being a Bills fanatic often comes with a price tag, many of us have issues. I used to literally throw things on draft day. The worst was when they drafted Whitner. When we drafted Spiller, I got a phone call seconds after the pick. The person said, "Do you like Spiller?" My answer was, "Yes. I also like colon cancer." I was talking to my daughter. I won't name names, but I have received phone calls after first round defensive backs were drafted from people on this board. They put me on speaker so others could hear my string of obscenities. I have since calmed down but not completely. You think I am alone? Promo lets out his frustration by blasting other fans. CB97 and others are portraying EJ as John Elway. GG and metz lives spend hours trying to convince them that Elway was a little better. These are smart people too. I have no idea how they view me, but I wouldn't trade these guys for a non-defensive back first round pick! Bills fans have to cope in our own ways. PS: My father was born in Alabama and came to NYC when he was very young. I am a life long Crimson Tide Fan, not a bandwagon guy. The Tide is ALWAYS good. Best coaches too. I have actually felt guilty for being a fan of an entity that is just so great. Yeah, Bills Fans have issues. GO BILLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bingo! Many posters point to EJ's stats and compare them to those of accomplished qbs early in their careers, and I get this. That said, many of his completions were not very well thrown (behind receivers) and others just didn't lead them. I think that if EJ, with all of his talent, was accurate, we wouldn't be having this conversation. And it remains to be seen if this can change. I for one hope that he can correct these huge flaws but it wont be easy. And, this team is too chock full of talent to waste a season due to the growing pains of EJ Manuel. I want to make the playoffs. Enough is enough. Jmo.

I for one am not. Many forget how good he was early in the season. This is a kid with huge talent who made mistakes along the way which cost him millions of dollars. I am sure he knows this. As the season progressed he seemed to run out of gas which isn't unusual for rookies, let alone rookies as big as him. It is unknown if injuries factored in, which wouldn't surprise me. My hope is that he continues to work hard and of course stay healthy because if he does, we will have a truly good football player on our team. I focused on him all season and fwiw, I am saying that the kid is a badass who can be as good as he wants to be.

Nice work!!! Yep. Allow me to toss in Coery Louchiey, Bill Conaty and Corbin Lacina for good measure. Remember the OC Fowler? He would get shoved to the ground by small linebackers. Looks like we made our cases, no?

This response is ONLY about the above bolded sentence. Last seasons OL was pretty bad, but not even close to being the worst in 30 years. Remember Greg Jerman (THE worst OT I ever saw)? Joe Panos (who could barely stand up)? Jerry Ostroski sucked but even he wasn't the worst. I wish I had time to post the names of the rest of these disasters. Remember the free agent guard we signed from Carolina? Who was the 6th round pick from Houston? Players would hit out qbs late sometimes drawing blood, and this horror show wouldn't even help the qb up. Someone please help me here with some more names. Compared to what we have seen since the mid nineties, this OL was better than average. Sad but true.