Rubes

If we had, Cutler would have sucked.

I think most people, including myself, thought the Bills would be 1-2 at this point in the season. I was encouraged by the team's play the first two weeks, not so much yesterday. But as the saying goes, you're never as good as you think you are, and never as bad as you think you are either. But for this young team, confidence is one of the most important things. We got some of that earlier, then lost a lot of it yesterday. This next game against the Fins is critical for the remainder of the season, if this team is to ever start climbing up that steep hill of respectability. It's a divisional game, and we're already 0-1 in the division. It's on the road, and this team needs to start learning how to win on the road. Miami may be 0-3, but I don't think anyone here thinks they are that terrible, by any means. But with their starting QB out, winning a game on the road against a winless divisional opponent is about as important as it gets. Win that one, and we're back home against the punchless Browns, staring right at a 3-2 record. With winnable games against Carolina and Houston afterward, it would all fall on a big game against the Jets. With confidence, this team could actually hit the halfway mark at 5-3, well above where I expected them to be. But only with confidence will they be able to achieve even that. And it all falls on this weeks game. Lose to the Fins, and we're staring down the abyss.

How quickly we forget all of the other many times when George was horribly out of position on long pass plays.

Interesting quote from the article: Imagine that...the Patriots* don't hit on every draft pick? Perish the thought.

He was the safety on the last TD play against the Pats* as well. What I don't understand is why he's seeing so much play time this early in the year...and on critical plays?

I've used the Ticket Exchange, and I have to say it works wonderfully. I sold my tickets to four games last year and made enough to cover all of the cost of this year's tickets. Of course, those tickets were all sold early in the season up until we were 5-1. The only problem is, of course, you don't know who you're selling them to. Good chance it's to fans from other teams, I suppose.

I completely agree. He's very knowledgeable and a good color guy, but he doesn't do a very good job of mixing the objective observations with emotionally charged, exciting calls. Mike Tirico does a nice job of that. I don't listen to Murph during the games, but when I watch NFL.com higlights with his call, it just seems more awkward than anything when he calls the big plays.

QB Ratings #5. Trent Edwards (104.9) RUSHING YARDS #5. Fred Jackson (220 yds) TACKLES #3. Keith Ellison (27) yeah, yeah, it's only week 2. It's still nice to see.

We're not at full strength anymore, why should they be?

Damn, those are sweet. Nice work, whoever designed those.

This is the best idea I've heard all week.

Wow, except for Butler these would all be welcome updates.

Bad weather can only help us, I would imagine.

Right, so if we did that then the Bucs would have the ball back with plenty of time to try and score. I'd prefer the runs to take time off the clock.

That would be the 2010 list, no?

Beats me, but he was the deep safety on the play. The Pats* effectively froze him for an instant by sending one receiver short in front of him, in addition to sending Watson deep. Byrd couldn't tell which receiver Brady was throwing to, so he ended up hesitating for an instant -- enough to leave a gap for the ball to get through. I remember seeing his number a few times in the game, but I don't know why he was on the field for the final drive.

I've not only considered it, but I'm also concerned about it.

Sorry, it doesn't matter if he did see the ball coming. He was in perfect position for the kind of throw that most QBs would make, leading the receiver. Brady threw it behind and above the receiver, in a place nobody except Watson could catch it...and only if Watson made a great catch.

Sorry, he was right. Ellison had good positioning on the play. Brady put his throw in an absolutely perfect spot over Watson's shoulder, and he made a fantastic catch. If anything, Byrd (he's #31, right?) hesitated slightly on the play and wasn't available to provide help. Had ne not hesitated, he might have been in position to break it up.

Thanks, although this wasn't necessarily intended as a "dont worry, they'll get better" post. It was more to talk about how offensive strategy evolves over time. People are worried about why we didn't do this or do that, but it will come. Defenses adjust to the things you did well, but those adjustments then open up other opportunities. And the point is that we did a number of things well that future defenses are going to have to take into account, and this will allow AVP to evolve the offense to do other things (like throw downfield more). It will come.

Bills don't move, stay at #21 Apparently, an inspired performance, on the road, on Monday night, in Tom Brady's magical return, that ended up nearly knocking off the #2 overall ranked team, did nothing to improve the Bills' standing. Not only that, but they still have us as the lowest ranked team in the AFC East, below even the Dolphins, who laid a brick in Atlanta. Yay ESPN! (Sorry if already posted.)

I'm just as exasperated as everyone else after this debacle, but I think despite the loss this game will go a long way toward helping to establish an offensive strategy that can work well against many defenses. Assuming that we keep everyone healthy and that AVP builds on the successes from this game (which I think he will). I think everyone recognizes that the offensive line did a man's job in that game and held up fairly well, with only a few exceptions. Despite the few bad sacks, Trent generally had good time and space to move around and get the ball where he wanted it. And when they asked the linemen to giddy up, they giddy upped really well and got out in front to the second level. I doubt AVP asked the line to hold up for some of the longer balls and played it safe, but the line showed that they have the skills needed to operate the short to medium passing game. The longer passing game will come as they try it out more. But really, as others have pointed out, the offense showed that it can be reasonably effective at moving the ball even when the defense "takes away" the longer strikes to Owens and Evans. That includes both running the ball and throwing it with short strikes and screens. This is key. Even the well-coached and talented New England defense had trouble stopping the short game. This serves notice to other teams that this offense is talented enough to run the short game/running game effectively, and you're going to have to stop that. That means defenses are going to have to come up with strategies to stop that, and that means committing more LBs and safeties. It will be interesting to see if AVP can get the offense to recognize when this is happening, because when it does, that means things are going to open up in the medium and long passing games. The three receiver/single TE/Jackson alone in the backfield set could end up giving defenses fits. A lot of it depends on how the offensive line can hold up to the pressure. The line passed the first test in this game. Now it's up to AVP to build off of that, and I think he will. But it's a process, and it will take some time. By game 4, I think the O-line will have become very comfortable with each other, and that will help gradually open up the offense.

Love the first comment after the article:

I just liked how these guys finally showed some attitude. Even Bell was out there mixing it up with guys after the play. That's what I like to see, a little nastiness out of this group. And hell yeah, they can run.