The Avenger

That and talking about how close we are to getting over the hump after beating a Jake Delhomme-lead team that turned the ball over 3 times, at home......

Siefert? Wasn't he last seen in the Buffalo airport? Thank God we didn't ever get him as a coach - I know he worked with Joe Montana and won 2 Super Bowls, but any nutcase that would go crazy with a bread knife is probably someone we don't need in the organization - I mean, look at what happened with that Jets coack who simply stuck out his knee.......

Good thing it wasn't bowling balls......

Maybe the blonde will take a watermellon to the face at 50mph this season - then everybody would be happy.......

Interesting point. My theory is that everybody wants tradition and nostalgia at Christmas - they want to think back to an idyllic Christamas past whether or not it ever existed. So that means really old traditional carols a la Dickinsian times in London (God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, etc.) or the halcyon days of Bing Crosby (White Christmas - in the 50's it was contemporary). 50 years from now some of our contemporary songs may be considered classics, although I have a really hard time thinking my grandkids are going to fondly sing anything by Band Aid pondering whether starving children in Africa give a rat's a$$ about a comercialized Christian holiday in America......

Disagree. The Chrsitmas Shoes is the worst and most annoying Christmas song, and possibly any song, of all time. When I hear that song I seriously want to hurt myself or others. Is anything more hokey, cliche, sugar sweet, formulaic and an example of bad songwriting than that? It's the musical equivilent of a paint by numbers painting or those tacky big-eyed cherub children figurines you might find advertised in the Sunday grocery coupons........

Kinda brings new meaning to the slogan, "The Buffalo Bills - where football careers go to die"

I'm torn about Spiller at the moment. On the one hand I think he should be producing - a top 10 pick on a team with so little talent should really be a major contributor, especially when the team has no shot at going to the playoffs and is playing for nothing more than pride. Then again, he wasn't drafted at a position of great need and the Bills are notorious for not gving their young guys playing time when all is lost - they never seem to play guys for next season - Spiller has little control over how many plays he gets in an organization like that. On the other hand what he's goty now isn't going to cut it in the NFL. Buffalo's line is terrible - but it's been terrible for a long time and if you're going to play here you're going to have to deal with that - if we're lucky the Bills may field an adequate squad of guys up front but it should be pretty clear that they think they can win with late round picks, undrafted free agents and no-name castoffs from other teams to man the trenches. Welcome to Buffalo - you're never going to get a top 10 offensive line to run behind. Like all rookies, it's a big adjustment to the NFL, especially when you have to deal with things like blitz pickups - that's a major reason I think Spiller doesn't get more plays (although, again - how's he going to learn unless he gets the playing time?). My biggest problem is that he seems to be fairly one dimensional at this point - get an edge, turn on the afterburners and streak down the sidelines. Problem is, we can't seem to seal the edge for him and in the NFL where the defense is so much faster it's really hard to beat guys to the edge without help up front. If this is his only trick he's going to end up like Maybin - a speedy one trick pony whose tricks don't work at an NFL level (I really think Spiller will be able to develop and won't end up like this, but it is a possibility).

I make it a point to never watch Bills games in front of babies or small children - no way to control the emotions and you just can't explain that type of a reaction to them (plus you don't want them picking up any new words, if you know what I mean)...

And I'll respond back that I think people are all too willing to continue to accept the same from this organization year after year simply because some faces change in the front office or on the sidelines - this is the proverbial reshuffling of the deck chairs. Look - I like Gailey and I'm certainly pleased with how he's got this team playing - I really, really would like to see him have great success (a la Marv) here in Buffalo. Same goes for Nix - nothing could be better than him doing a great job as GM and turning this thing around. Despite that, I'm not willing to hit the reset button every few years simply because somebody new comes in to clean up the last guy's mess. I don't know how many times everyone has gotten all excited because coach X "finally has us on the right track". Is it fair that the sins of the past hang over Gailey and Nix? No - but that's the reality of the situation - they knew that comming into thier roles they would have to deal with fans like me who have stopped giving free passes to people simply because they aren't the last guy. I believe it was Gailey who said he realized that people didn't want to hear about the delivery, they wanted to see the baby - that's where I am - show me the baby! (wow - that sounds like some bizzare Rod Tidwell quote)

Here's the thing - the Bills have been "learning to win" or "showing improvement" for 10+ years. I'm all for the positives - if I didn't have those I'd have stopped watching years ago. But at some point it has to lead to something better. If you keep taking steps forward but never getting anywhere, what's the point? I'm not saying they have to win the Super Bowl (although that's the ultimate goal), but winning a handful of games year after year isn't really making progress, despite the progress I see in individual games and seasons. So I ask, look at the "progress" and positives over the long run and tell me whether we're actually going anywhere of just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. In 2003 I was willing to believe the former - that was 7 years ago and now I'm starting to believe in the latter until I see some concrete evidence to the contrary.

Completely agree. After a decade of this I'm in no mood to feel good about any moral victories - a win's a win and a loss is a loss - if you think we should be praised for playing well and still losing then I think Pop Warner may be your game - I hear they get snowcones and Sunny D just for playing hard. Do I believe all is doom and gloom with this team? No way. I believe there are plenty of things to be hopeful and maybe even excited about. But we can't lose focus of the bottom line, and the bottom line is that this is the NFL where the big boys play and the only thing that matters is winning. I see Bills fans who are so far removed from a winning culture that they are happy to revel in the positive things on this team, no matter how small. There have been so few real victories that they settle for moral victories and to go crazy over any players who show promise for surely they are the building blocks of the future. Except that the future never comes - the core never materializes, the Bills never get any better, our misses in talent far outweigh or hits and about the only thing we CAN root for are moral victories. I'm desperately tired of people telling me that I should be happy for all the moral victories and the positives, that I should understand that these things take time to turn around (love that one - it's be a freakin' DECADE and counting) and that I have no right to complain. As a Bills fan of 40 years it's my RIGHT to be unsatisfied with what I see and to say something about it. I will not be told I'm not a real fan and the day I stop complaining about the things I don't like is they day I'll just hang it up and stop watching football altogether. I call BS on moral victories - just give me real wins.

Ever think about the salary cap here? Even if everyone thought that this was a great idea (they don't) and even if the Bills could get something of great value for their latest 1st round pick (they can't), this isn't Madden football or makinga trade with a guy in your fantasy league. Through the convoluted financing called the slary cap the Bills would take a big hit - if a player is traded the unamortized bonus (the non salary part) that remains for the life of the contract is immediately accelerated to that year's salary cap. So, you have a higly paid rookie with a big contract and that contract is in its first year - plenty of bonus left on it that would instantly count toward the cap. Even if the Bills could get Peyton Manning for Spiller it might be tough to do - this is one of the reasons you see so few trades of big dollar players unless they are at the end of those big contracts.....

Fair enough - I don't see anyone talking playoffs or Super Bowls - even the most optimistic amongst us realize that's not going to happen. What scares me though is that suddenly the big holes we have on the team seem to have evaporated because we won 2 games against bad team. Suddenly Fitz is a guy we should build around. Suddenly obtaining some offensive tackles isn't a huge priority. Suddenly our linebackers can get the job done. Suddenly we'll be OK with the safties we have. Take that a bit further and we're going to end up with another luxury pick in the draft (another RB anyone?) while the problems we've had for years and continue to kill us go on festering. This team has way too little talent for us to think we are going to be competitive with what we've got....

This is exactly what happened when we started out 5-1 a few seasons ago - everybody got all excited and started talking about playoffs and Super Bowls (and our wonderful front office extended Jauron) when we had beaten absolutely nobody. I like winning as much as the next guy, but you're absolutely right - we have to keep thing in perspective and not think we're suddenly some sort of competitor because we have 2 consecutive wins....

The Bills will land at whatever pick puts them just out of reach of the player who would help them the most - that's a Bills trademark - bad, but not enough to get the talent to change things.

Getting out of upstate NY and realizing everyday that not everyone had an upbringing similar to mine - doesn't make them bad people, just people with different expereinces. If you see the same old stuff every single day you get no appreciation for how big and broad life really is.

Anybody know who that really is? Is it Ochocinco?

Maybe he's just a huge John Howard Griffin fan and needed something to do now that he doesn't have a day job?

Given Lindell's lack of misses over the past few years seeing what many consier to be gimmes the last two weeks does raise an eyebrow, but that's kicking in the NFL. I just hope he's dealing with it OK - if a guy goes into a slump and it gets to his head it gets worse and we can ill afford that.

Yeah - we gave up 12 - to a bad team - with a backup quarterback - at home - and 9 of those points came in the 4th quarter with under 6 minutes to go when we were up by 2 scores. Even when we win the Bills can find a way to make it scary and depressing.

On third down someone is always open in the middle

I liked the Vikings going to a dirty old man on a cell phone.......

If Quinn can get this team to the playoffs next year he must be able to play DE, OT, LB, S and TE all at the same time - that's an impressive young man......

Ah yes, the old standby "I suffer more for my team therefore I'm a bigger fan" argument - that never gets old, does it? So God forbid you'd demand more out of team than just trying hard. I suppose we should just award all of our players a participation ribbon for getting out on the field and watch with pride as they come up short every week and go 0-16 - at least we'll be able to call ourselves fans then.....