JDG

Mularkey managed to ring up two incredibly embarassing losses in just two years as a Coach. That has to count for something.... JDG

So benching a QB who has just put together one of the worst three-game stretches in NFL history is an example of showing no commitment to the running game? Huh? JDG

I hope you're right.....

Good find. We'll see if JP Losman does, in fact, pull a Trent Dilfer-like season. I'm not sure that our schedule is quite as favorable as Baltimore's was that season, but it might be close - and we're not talking about winning the Super Bowl with this schedule either. In any event, the question is this - if Losman pulls a Trent Dilfer-like season, will Bills fans be looking to replace him after the season? JDG

There's one simple way of addressing that: "Do you think that Losman should have been benched after four games last season?" Any fan who doesn't think that Losman needed to be benched after the debacles in Weeks 2-4, is every bit as delusional as that fan is no doubt accusing me of being right now. JDG

Absolutely great point. I'm very happy with the way Jauron has managed two difficult road games. Of course, it makes not kicking the field goal against New England all the more inexplicable - but I can forgive Jauron for one mistake in his first game back as head coach..... ;-) JDG

Of course, Roethlisberger's two worst passing days in his career so far were 93 yards and 133 yards in 26 games. Yesterday was Losman's fourth game with less than 133 yards in 11 games. JDG

Which was 50% more than Losman's day..... so if you are going to mock 140 yards (minus an 87 yard TD), what is your opinion of an 83 yard day? It has sounded like your opinion has been "What a stud" - only without the sarcasm. Wow, just imagine if *I* had posted the play-by-play here.... Good grief. I watched both games, and while the play-by-play lists those plays as "short", I recall many more plays in the Steelers game as being in the short-to-mid range a couple yards down field than in the Bills game. I guess it will be hard to *prove* either way, without the tape. But here's my question. Many people have argued that Losman made some good reads and great throws on his first couple passes. If so, wouldn't you expect that we would go back to the same or similar play late in the game? Did we? Or did the type of throw we were making on the first couple drives and the rest of the drives change in some way? JDG

They are. And the Losman meter shows it. Although his Yards per Attempt wasn't helped by his 4.6 ypa performance yesterday. Indeed, he hasn't done anything this year to make an inarguable case for getting himself benched, like he did last year.... JDG

Dan: On the first point, our only disagreement is whether Losman was deciding to throw the swing pass/WR screen, or whether those were the calls from the very beginning. As for the coaches - its not bad at all, its great. It is what the coaches are supposed to do. All I'm saying is that when the coaches do do that, it doesn't give you anything to get excited about in regards to the play of our QB. I don't think anyone is debating whether our coaches did a great job on Sunday. The only question is whether we should be inspired by Losman's performance, or whether we should continue to be concerned by Losman's performance. JDG

Yeah.... its midnight.... ;-) JDG

If 83 yards is "solid", I'd hate to see what you think a "mediocre" day looks like.... JDG

It certainly will be an interesting game. If we really do have a shot at at least looking like a playoff conteder this year, next week is exactly the type of game we have to win. Without thinking about it too hard just yet, my gut reaction is that presuming we don't fall too far behind, Jauron will try to stick with a conservative gameplan, trying to run the ball more than we pass, and limiting JP Losman's opportunities to make mistakes. JDG

Call me crazy, but it looked to me on both the live action and on the replay, that Losman was trying to "make a play" to fight out of the sack, and that he seriously considered trying to chuck the ball to someone as he was going down - the sort of thing that could easily have resulted in a fumble. Interesting. The Steelers attempted 25 passes against Miami, and had 7 Charlie Batch runs. That adds up to @32 pass calls vs. @31 run calls, or about 50-50. The Bills had 18 pass attempts and 2 Losman runs (just to be consistent) for @20 called passes vs. @ 30 called runs, or about 40% - 60%. Charlie Batch completed 15 of 25 passes for 209 yards, or 13.9 per completion. JP Losman completed 11 of 18 passes for 83 yards, or 7.5 per completion. In my observations of both games, the Steelers' gameplan was for *Charlie Batch* to exploit the Dolphins' secondary through mid-range downfield passes. Batch was consistently finding open WR's in the middle distances. The Bills, however, after the first couple series relied almost exclusively on swing passes and WR screens, rarely letting Losman through mid-range passes, with the occasionaly downfield rainbow. After those first series, there were almost no mid-range passes. I'd be interested to hear your arguments as to why you see the Steelers and Bills as having run "virtually the same" offensive gameplan - as I just don't see it. In my assessment, the coaches concluded that JP Losman was no Charlie Batch, and tried to manage the game to make sure that Daunte Culpepper, and not JP Losman, was the QB that made the mistakes that lost the game for his team. JDG

I wasn't criticizing the way he threw them, I was criticizing the *decision* to throw them. In both cases, Lee Evans looked well-covered or even double-covered to me, which creates the opportunity for interceptions. Now, I'm open to being proven wrong on this by someone who has the luxury of looking at the tape of this game, but I don't recall very many passes after that point where Losman had to make the kind of decision about whether or not to throw it to a double-covered Lee Evans on an out pattern. The TD play is an obvious exception, but other than that it seemed like almost all, if not all, of our pass plays were swing-passes, WR-screens, quick slants, or "rainbows" where the QB had to engage in little or no decision making. Today's game was well-managed, but it seems to me that it was the Coaches who did the managing - by taking the managerial decisions out of Losman's hands. JDG

I've taken Losman's relief appearances from his rookie season out of the meter..... Otherwise, I tried to update it too quickly this afternoon, but I should have it right now... JDG - Who is still surprised at the interest the Losman-meter is generating....

That's the thing, I don't hate Losman. I'm a fan. I want the Bills to do well. I want to make the playoffs *this* year. The Bills doing well and making the playoffs is intrinisically tied to Losman doing well. In my pre-season analysis, I said that the Bills' schedule is set up somewhat nicely for us to be a young team, improve over the course of the season, and make a run down the stretch of the schedule. I noted that in all likelihood we would start the year 0-2, and that would be o.k. - there are plenty of winnable games to be had for the Bills later in the schedule. Thus, I concluded that while 0-2 woudn't kill us, if we could just steal one of the first two games, that we would be in good shape. And by rights, we should be 2-02 and Dick Jauron should be the early favorite for Coach of the Year and the Bills should be the talk of the NFL. In any event, my theory that "if we could just steal one of the first two road division games we can make a playoff run" was contingent upon the Bills getting better. I am just very worried that Losman isn't getting better, or at the very least, he isn't getting better fast enough. If I harp on Losman, it is simply because turning Losman into a mediocre NFL QB is so essential to the Bills' success this season - and because so few Bills fans seem to have an accurate assessment of Losman's level of play so far. JDG

You were a Flutie guy, weren't you.... ;-) JDG

These were called swing passes and screens to WR's - a big difference from a check down to a RB because everyone else was covered. While you say that he "made good decisions", in fact, after the first few series' it seemed like the coaches were trying to keep Losman from having to make decisions - they were calling plays where you almost always would go with the first read. Or to put it another way, if he only passed for 83 yards, how many good decisions could he possibly have made? JDG

Interesting point. NFL.com doesn't have game logs for 2000, so I can't compare, but it would be interesting to see how many sub-100 yard passing days Dilfer had for those Ravens. The Bills have the League's best special teams, and it is just possible that our "rookie defense" just might be good. Of course, we benefited a lot from a patented Culpepper implosion today. I still expect our rookies to be burnt toast at times this season. JDG

If you want to start telling me how well JP Losman played today, then let's go.... Our first four plays consisted of one run, and three nearly disastrous passes. After that it was eight straight runs, including on 3rd and 11 - but I suppose all that was part of "the script", right? After that, almost all our pass plays, if not all our pass plays, were of the WR swing pass/screen/quick slant variety, or else a rainbow - nothing that would have required JP Losman to make sophisticated reads down the field and pick apart the defense. Just compare the way the Steelers had *Charlie Batch* attack the Dolphins secondary on Thursday night, vs. the way Jauron attacked the Dolphins today. I don't think that the difference is entirely accounted for by philosophical differences between Jauron/Fairchild and Cowher/Whisenhunt. I think the coaches are as concerned about Losman's lack of development thus far as I am. JDG

Wow, I hardly realized that there would be so many fans of the Losman-o-meter! I'm not giving Losman a clean slate because some people can't understand why on Earth Losman was benched last year. Its almost as if *every* NFL QB completes less than 50% of their passes in their second year, or goes through two straight games with a *combined* 150 yards. More to the point, though, the best statistical analysis incorporates lots of available data. If Losman significantly outperforms his second-year stats, I'll go ahead and drop them. If he keeps playing like he did today, then including last-year's stats will just accentuate what is really going on.... JDG

11 of 18 for 83 yards makes *me* look dumb? Did you *see* Losman play today? I'd love to find out what the NFL record is sub-100 yard passing days. With three under his belt so far in 11 games, Losman has a great shot at it! JDG

Unfortunately, we can only play Daunte Culpepper twice per year.... JDG

and I think it is interesting to compare our gameplan for the first drive or two, and for the rest of the game. Early in the game, Losman made some terrible decisions, particularly noticeable when he tried forcing the ball into Evans in double-coverage and when he nearly fumbled the ball while being sacked. I think after that point the coaches decided that they weren't going to let Losman lose the game for them, and decided to stick to running the ball, quick swing passes to WR's, and the occasional downfield rainbow to keep Losman from having to make reads and decisions.... JDG