Orton's Arm

The difference between Holcomb and Johnson is that Holcomb knows how to get rid of the ball quickly, while Johnson was a sack waiting to happen.

You call that win convincing? If McGee doesn't make that INT at the end, the Bengals probably would have gotten at least a tying field goal, and then an OT win. McGee's play was great, but it was just one play. If you want to see a convincing win, watch the AFC Championship between the Bills and the Raiders.

The stat that got my attention was this was the first time in 45 games that a Bills QB broke the 300 yard barrier. You don't break that barrier by only throwing 5 yard passes on 3rd and 15.

Why do the bull rushes up the middle have to stop right away? The Bills aren't going to be a good team next year, with or without Bentley. If Preston has the potential to be a good center eventually, better that he begin his learning process as soon as possible. If the Bills lose an extra game or two next year due to Preson's growing pains, that will only help the team in the draft.

The problem I have with free agent offensive linemen is that you're usually getting them at the mid-point or later of their careers. It's like starting your day at 1:00 PM. Chris Villarrial is a good example of this. When he came here, he was a very solid starter at RG. But old age and injuries have caught up with him all too quickly, and it's getting time to look for a new starter at RG. One of the most important factors in building an offensive line is continuity. The ideal line consists of five smart guys who have worked together with each other for many years. The Bills' line during the Super Bowl run was like this. The only way to build this continuity is to draft the right offensive linemen, and to keep them on your team through their whole careers. TD has failed to do this even with one offensive lineman, let alone five. His one successful OL draft pick was Jonas Jennings, and Jennings walked after just four years.

As does Kordell Stewart.

Good post.

I'd argue that any time you spend a second round pick on a QB, the decision to replace your starter has already been made. Maybe the rumors are true, and TD wanted to back out of that decision later on. Who knows? But I remember O'Donnell didn't stay in Pittsburgh very long after Kordell Stewart was drafted.

Count the men in the box. There's your answer. I just learned that TD wasn't the guy who pulled the trigger on O'Donnell. He was the guy who decided to show O'Donnell the door so the Steelers could begin the Kordell Stewart era. Later on, TD said that in the judgement of most, there was a big three to the QB position in the 2004 draft. But, in his own opinion, there was a big four in that draft. Does TD have a thing for mobile but inaccurate QBs? Could Losman be our Kordell Stewart?

But he wasn't the one who pulled the trigger, and maybe he wasn't the one who argued passionately about the need to take O'Donnell. He was the one who decided to replace O'Donnell with Kordell Stewart. It was a chance to get younger and cheaper at QB! It was a chance to get more mobile! It was a chance to give defenses an extra dimension to prepare for! Brilliant!

The defense didn't get good until the third year of the TD era. In 2002, it was Bledsoe-to-Price making up for a questionable defense. Flutie's best year was 1998. In 2001, the Bills were a rebuilding team, and there wasn't room for an over-the-hill, expensive QB.

So he wasn't the GM when they drafted Neil O'Donnell, but he was the GM when they took Kordell Stewart. Interesting.

This sounds like something from Ace Ventura.

In Cleveland, Belichick was a good-to-great X's and O's coach, but he failed because he didn't have the right people. After getting fired in Cleveland, he thought a lot about the type of player he wanted. The first year or two of the New England deal were spent building up the roster the way he wanted it. So there's a reasonable explanation for why Belichick didn't get the wins earlier in his coaching career. But where's Parcells' reason for failing to do much without Belichick? I could see him getting a losing record in his first or second year in a team like Dallas. But after he's been there a while, it's time for him to start winning some games. Playoff games. Since parting ways with Belichick, Parcells' impact in the postseason has been minimal at best.

I disagree. TD has a long and proud history of successfully choosing QBs. He chose Neil O'Donnell. And, um, um, Neil O'Donnell! Then there was, ah, Neil O'Donnell. Did I mention Neil O'Donnell? Surely, his good choices, such as Neil O'Donnell, outweigh the bad (Kordell Stewart, Bledsoe, the Harrington attempt, and maybe Losman).

I was thinking Houston, but with Jennings (as usual) out with injuries, I could see where you'd make a case for San Fran.

The Bills have one of the two worst offensive lines in football. 30 other GMs have figured out ways to build better o-lines than Donahoe has done. This year, we're starting a first-year QB, and we're supposed to be a power running team. An offensive line sure would be nice.

I hope you're right. But I have to admit that after watching that New England/Tampa game, I'm worried. As of now, the only team to appear in more than two consecutive Super Bowls is Buffalo. If the Patriots make it there this year, that will no longer be true. I'll really be rooting hard for New England to lose in the playoffs.

Do you actually think before you post, or do you just blurt out whatever comes into your head? The year in question is 2004, when the road to the Super Bowl clearly did go through New England. Even this year, it would be hard for the Bills to get anywhere in the playoffs without being able to beat New England. It's awfully tough to beat New England when your defense doesn't hold up its end of the bargain, which it hasn't under Jerry Gray. And THAT, in case you're too dense to grasp it, is the point I was trying to make earlier.

I've never been to a Jets message board, so I don't know how smart those fans are or aren't. But I didn't think the article's author did a good job supporting his point. He gave two reasons for saying the Jets fans were stupid: - They don't like Herm Edwards - Someone thought Al Davis pulled Kerry Collins so the Jets wouldn't get Reggie Bush Clearly, Jay Mohr likes Edwards. But his assumption that those who don't share his opinion are either misinformed or stupid, is, well . . . exactly the problem with most message boards in the first place! I don't know any reason why Al Davis would be out to get the Jets in particular, but I do think he has at least considered losing a few games between now and the end of the season to help his own team's draft position.

I decided to take a closer look at how the Bills' defense did in last year's New England games. For any team in the AFC East, the road to the Super Bowl goes through New England. So you'd hope that the defense would play particularly well in those games. You'd also expect this. Jerry Gray had his horses: Sam Adams, Pat Williams, Aaron Schobel, London Fletcher, Takeo Spikes, Nate Clements, Terrence McGee, Lawyer Milloy, Troy Vincent. That's nine starters right there who were solid to Pro Bowl-level players. The other two starters--Kelsay and Posey--were less than solid, but not embarrassments. To see how well Jerry Gray used this abundance of talent, I first looked at how the New England offense did when it was facing defenses other than Buffalo's. When facing a defense other than Buffalo's, the 2004 New England offense averaged 2.5 points per drive. (This ignores drives that ended in kneel-downs, as well as one or two play drives that ended with the half.) In the first Bills/Patriots game, the Pats scored 2.7 points per drive. In the second game, the Patriots scored 2.6 points per drive. Moreover, the Pats scored on 53% of their drives against the Bills (over the course of the two games), while scoring on just 48% of their drives against non-Bills opponents. This shows that, when facing Buffalo, the Patriots offense did a good job of creating many long drives; thereby helping to keep their own defense rested. The long and the short of all this is that the Bills' defense did a worse job than the average defense the Patriots faced, even though the Bills defense had a ton of talent. If the talent's there, and the results aren't, you blame the coach.

You are technically correct: the Bills' defense allowed the second-fewest yards last year. But that defense was clearly far from being the second-best defense in the league. Sure, it was probably the best defense when it came time to make another team's bad offense look absolutely terrible. We faced plenty of bad offenses last year, which helped inflate the defense's stats. (Miami twice, the Jets without their QB, San Francisco, Cleveland, Baltimore, and those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head.) But when it came time to get the job done against real offenses, our defense generally didn't measure up. If Joe Montana was defined by his clutch TD pass to John Taylor, our defense was defined by the following: - Giving up a game-winning drive to the Jaguars on opening day. - Giving up a game-winning drive to the Jets late in the 4th quarter. - Giving up a game-deciding nine minute drive to Pittsburgh's backups. - Doing worse than the average defense New England faced in both New England games. So in important games against teams with good offenses, our defense couldn't get the job done. But boy, they sure beat up those Browns!

IIRC, Flutie was 37 years old when he was released. There is no room for a $5 million a year, 37 year old QB on a rebuilding team. The 2001 season was going to be a bust anyway, so it made sense to use it as an opportunity to evaulate what Johnson could or couldn't do. The real miss may have been using a first, second, and fifth round pick to get a QB in the first place, when the team was close to getting to the playoffs. There were clear needs on the offensive line that the three Losman draft picks could have been used to fill. If I thought Losman was going to be an elite QB my tune would be different. I'd rather have a 3rd round pick than a backup RB who isn't a good third down back, and who was a year away from becoming a free agent. I agree with you that TD should be fired, and that Jerry Gray should be replaced.

This is condemning with faint praise. A high school player could be one of our best linemen after only a few weeks.

Can you provide us with links to these posts that attack Bills' fans?