Reddy Freddy

I find it odd when Bills "fans" vehemently and passionately argue that their team is terrible. I mean it's one thing to be like like "Oh, man, the Bills are not very good this year." It's quite another to be like "I am telling you! The Bills are the worst team in the league! They will be lucky to win another game! They are terrible! They might be the worst team in NFL history! Oh yeah, Go Bills." This is obviously an exaggeration, but come on people! This is your team!

By that logic, we should only want the Bills to make the playoffs if they are likely to win the Super Bowl. That is, for lack of a better term, retarded. And so is the concept that we can't compete with other playoff teams. We did so in week 1.

No worries. Even though I responded to your post, my response was actually directed more at the sharp-witted people who thought it would be hilarious to respond to a "Call me crazy, but..." post by calling me crazy. Comedy gold!

So you're the guy who thinks it's funny to call someone "crazy" when they say "Call me crazy, but ..."? "Hahaha! He said 'call me crazy,' so guess what I did. I called him crazy! Hahahaha!" Comedic genius.

Couldn't see that one coming. Bills fans have perfected self-loathing.

I know this will be met with doubt at the least and possibly outright ridicule, but here goes. I see a plausible path to the playoffs for the Bills this season. Stay with me on this. The Bills are currently 3-5 and two games out of the last playoff spot in the AFC, currently held by the Chargers, who are 5-3. A 9-7 record used to give you a decent shot at the playoffs, but in recent years you've needed 10-6 more often than not. I happen to believe that a 9-7 team will make the playoffs this year, since it's not hard to see wild card contenders like the Chargers, Texans, and Ravens finishing the season at 9-7 or even 8-8. So my hopeful outlook is partially based on the concept that if the Bills manage to get to 9-7, and happen to win the right games to put themselves in decent tie-breaker position, they could make the playoffs. Now how on earth do we get to 9-7? A fair question, especially given the way we've played of late. But let's not forget how the season began. We should have by all rights beaten the Patriots in New England to start the season. We followed that up with a strong win against an admittedly poor team. After the Bucs game, I think most of us would have assumed that 9-7 was entirely possible. Granted there have been some ugly losses since (Cleveland and Miami come to mind). But we still managed to win on the road vs. the Jets and Panthers. I would submit to you that those two teams are better than the next two teams on our schedule. If we can beat the Jets and Panthers on the road with Fitz at the helm, why can't we beat the Titans and Jags with Edwards back? If we can get past the Titans and Jags, we're back to .500 with two home division games up next. At that point, I think the complexion of the season changes. Fans' confidence grows, and with it so does the team's confidence. Trent starts looking more like the guy who was among the league leaders in passer rating after two games, rather than the guy who looked lost in the next three games. As his play improves, we start converting 3rd downs. We stay on the field longer, and get the running game back on track. Marshawn and Freddy begin to wear defenses down more. The run game opens things up for Lee and T.O. downfield. All of the sudden, at 5-5, Vegas has us favored to win home games vs. the Phins and Jets (in TO). We expose Sanchez again and get some revenge vs. the Dolphins, who have never been strong in Buffalo in the cold weather. We're now 7-5, and right back in the thick of the playoff race. Who's after that? The Chiefs, who I think we can all agree are one of the 5 worst teams in the league. 8-5. Bad news down the stretch, as we finish with the Patriots (home), Falcons (away), and Colts (home). The Falcons game is a loss. The Colts might very well have wrapped up home field by the last game of the season, which would mean we'd be facing Sorgi, not Manning. That's a win at home. That gets us to 9 wins. If 9 isn't enough, the season might well hinge on that Patriots game (which I'll be at), to get that 10th win. A rosey outlook? Certainly. Impossible? Certainly not. I think it all hinges on Trent. As I mentioned, he looked good the first couple weeks. I remember thinking that he really might be breaking out finally. Then there were injuries on the o-line, his protection failed him, and he lost his confidence. But it's not like his slide was over 8-10 games. He played poorly in just 3 games -- Saints, Dolphins, and Browns. He's still young. Young QBs have a few bad games. These next two games will tell us a lot. We need both of them, but if we get them both, at 5-5 with two home division games to follow, we're right back in the hunt. I know this goes against the grain of Bills fans because of years and years of disappointment, but don't lose hope quite yet. I haven't.

Several Bills tidbits from King's MMQB:

Link If only Phillips had started Flutie, McKelvin wouldn't have fumbled by Bud Poliquin/The Post-Standard Wednesday September 16, 2009, 12:28 AM Syracuse, N.Y. -- Well, do you believe in the Flutie Curse now? After watching the Buffalo Bills squander an 11-point lead with barely two minutes to play on Monday night -- and after seeing Leodis McKelvin ill-fatedly choose to run back that late kickoff and then fumble the ball (and the game) to the New England Patriots -- do you still think the Flutie Curse is hooey? Montezuma and his revenge? That Chicago billy goat's hex on the Cubs? King Tut and the deadly whammy he placed on those fools who entered his tomb? It's all just so much folderol compared to what has happened to the wretched Bills since Jan. 8, 2000. So, you don't think there's a Flutie Curse, huh? Well, how do you explain this late-game fumble by the Buffalo Bills' Leodis McKelvin? Or since that dark day when Wade Phillips benched Doug Flute for no good reason and started Rob Johnson at quarterback in the Bills' infamous playoff game at Tennessee. The one Buffalo lost on that madcap Titans kick return with only seconds showing on the clock. Did you know that in the nine-plus campaigns since then, the Bills have won just 58 times in 145 tries? That they haven't had a winning season? That they've gone through four head coaches? Did you know that in the nine campaigns before the one that ended with a healthy Flutie on the pine, the Bills were 40 games over .500 and went to four Super Bowls? Coincidence? I think not. Here's the immutable point: The football gods have long memories. They haven't yet forgotten that in 1999 the diminutive Flutie had passed and run for 3,647 yards and 20 touchdowns while leading the Bills to a 10-5 record (in 15 starts) and to a 16th regular-season contest that had no meaning. They haven't yet forgotten that Phillips rested Flutie in that insignificant finale and then got starry-eyed as Johnson, the taller backup, led Buffalo to a 31-6 victory over Indianapolis in Orchard Park. They haven't yet forgotten that Phillips then got awfully dumb. That's right. On Phillips' silly coaching hunch, Flutie (21-9 as a starter with the Bills) sat against Tennessee . . . Johnson (9-17 as a starter with the Bills) played in the seething Flutie's place . . . and Buffalo lost. And it has been losing ever since. Facts are facts, people. And spells are spells. And the Flutie Curse is the Flutie Curse. You don't actually believe Leodis McKelvin just dropped that ball, do you? -- Bud Poliquin bpoliquin@syracuse.com

I actually hadn't considered the OJ factor. In the warped, beaten mind of a Bills fan like myself, that actually makes some sense. But isn't he in jail now? And if so, shouldn't that lift the curse?

I don't think it's possible for a team to lose so often to such hated teams on such grand stages in such heart-breaking fashion. Normally I'm not into supernatural explanations. In fact, I'm quite a logical thinker. And until now I've laughed at the idea that a sports franchise or a town could be cursed. Tonight that changed. I don't know if it's a curse per se. But there is something going on here. Maybe Ralph Wilson wronged someone as a younger man. I don't know for sure. But this type of losing is not possible over this sustained period. I wonder how many games in the NFL have ended in a 25-24 score in the last 10 years. I remember another MNF game vs. the Cowboys that ended with that exact score. Of course this is somewhat tongue in cheek. But only somewhat. There is an anti-Buffalo entity at play here, and I think we need someone to exorcise the demons.

Actually, I think you're right. I shouldn't have indicated we need all 5 things to happen in order to win. Some combination of them would probably do the trick.

Thanks for clarifying that a TD from Owens is worth the same amount of points as a TD from Schouman, in case there was confusion about that. The point is that we are assuming that our best players are already making big plays. In order to win, I believe we also need production from players who we do not expect to make big plays.

Not sure that's true, unfortunately. Remember the Bills-Cowboys game on MNF a couple years ago? We had a million breaks and unexpected big plays and still lost. The reality is we're playing a much better team, so we need a lot to happen to win. Difficult, but certainly not impossible.

In no particular order, my keys to the game: 1. Fred Jackson must control the game and dominate. It's impossible to put a number on his production, but I'd guess he needs 200 yards of total offense for us to have a good chance. Should be easier without Seymour. 2. No turnovers. 3. Significant and consistent pressure on Brady. Pressure is more important than sacks, but the pressure needs to lead to turnovers. 4. Big plays in the pass game. Edwards needs to hook up with Evans and TO for multiple big gains, and preferably long TDs. We're going to need some cheap points, perhaps from a blown coverage. 5. Big plays from an unexpected player on both sides of the ball. Someone like Schouman on offense and Ellison on defense.

You make a good point. I guess I would say that you can evaluate individual players better than you can entire units. For example, Stupar has looked great in preseason. It should be an encouraging sign that he might have a future in the league. But I'm not going to push the panic button because the first-team offense has looked like crap. There are 2 rookie o-linemen getting their very first live game action in the NFL. Against GB, a very raw D Bell was randomly inserted with the first teamers at left tackle to get a look at how he'd do against starters -- an experiment that never would have happened in the regular season. We are for the first time exclusively operating out of the no huddle -- a new scheme that we may or may not use as much in the regular season. We have been without TO, even though in the regular season he would probably be playing. We are almost certainly keeping things vanilla on offense. The list goes on and on. In other words, the game conditions in preseason are so dramatically different than they would be in the regular season that it is impossible to draw significant conclusions about teams. I know it sounds like I'm being an apologist, but that's not my intention. I think we have serious problems. I'm simply saying my concerns have nothing to do with how we've played in a couple preseason games.

I would argue that how a player or unit looks in preseason has almost zero correlation to how they will look in the regular season. I'm not just saying wins in the preseason don't translate to wins in the regular season. I'm saying virtually everything you see before Sept 14 should be taken with a grain of salt. I remember Rob Johnson looking great in the pre-season.

Yikes. This from a guy named "KeepTheFaith." Not a good sign. Haha

At that time, I will say two words, three syllables: "Fire Jauron."

Never heard THIS complaint before. Do you find it at all ironic that you respond to a supposedly old, tired argument with an old, tired complaint?

I know this has been said before, but I think it bears repeating: PRESEASON PERFORMANCE HAS ALMOST ZERO CORRELATION TO REGULAR SEASON PERFORMANCE. There are many reasons this is true, and they have been discussed at length already. Some teams run vanilla schemes, don't gameplan, experiment with personnel groupings, and care more about evaluating and staying healthy than winning. Just as often as a team like the Steelers goes 5-0 in the preseason and then wins the Super Bowl, as I believe was the case last year, another team will turn in a 1-3 preseason and then make a deep playoff run. And the reverse is true; often teams with the best preseason records have the worst regular season records. And it's not just about wins and losses in the preseason. Even when starting unites look dreadful in preseason games, there is almost zero evidence that shows that is what they will look like in the regular season. And we all know about pre-season gems who flop when the games really count. Now I'm not saying we shouldn't be concerned about this year's Bills team. I am simply saying the source of our concern should be the last three year's 7-9 records, not some poor performances in a couple pre-season games this year. In short, withhold your doomsday predictions at least until halftime on Sept 14!

Looks like a high-character type guy who has been through a lot: http://www.tulsaworld.com/sports/extra/art..._B1_OUdefe17145

Ouch ... no one got more than one of the top 3 picks correct. Maybe next year I should make this a little easier ... Thanks to everyone for their guesses!

Sorry if already posted ...

agreed

Thanks for the entries so far. Some interesting choices. Keep 'em coming!