Rubes

What a waste. Another useless draft pick. I used to be excited to see him fielding punts, now I just cringe and hope he doesn't turn the ball over. What a sad turnaround.

Rob Ryan of the Browns thinks that the Bengals' Shayne Graham missed that 31-yard FG try in OT that beat them. For those of you on the chat last week during the Bills game, so did I. I saw him kick the ball, and I immediately thought it was going wide right. And I even typed that in the chat -- missed it. When I turned back to the TV, the Bengals were celebrating, and I did a double-take. On replay, I was amazed to see how it curved back toward the right upright, but I still wasn't totally convinced it was good. But I just figured I didn't get a good look at it. Apparently, Ryan is still not convinced. Interesting.

I think what he means is that a win against the Browns really means nothing. Yes, we go to 2-3, but it doesn't tell us anything we don't know. Jauron can beat the weaklings, but struggles against any team with decent talent. It doesn't put us any closer to the playoffs, because it doesn't tell us anything about the team being able to win the tough games they need to win. Any time a critical game has come up in the Jauron era, they've crapped the bed. Sure, a loss will almost ensure Jauron is gone. But a win doesn't do anything.

Are you all familiar with Jason Scott and his Archive Team, trying to archive all of Geocities before it goes poof? Just in case you're interested.

Wow, very cool! Welcome, Scott.

Not bad at all. I should pay more attention to Badol.

Not for much longer. I actually have them winning a game pretty soon.

Of course, Rodgers has been sacked 7 times in this game, so it should at least seem a little familiar.

"Wastin' away again in Margaritaville..."

Well, we did get six sacks yesterday.

Outstanding. I loved it.

Of course, but that's not the point. The point is that you can't play the entire game, every game, playing it safe and not taking chances once in a while. That doesn't mean you take stupid chances, like Favre does every once in a while, but you have to take some chances. There has to be a little bit of 'cowboy' in your quarterback every now and then. Sure, it will result in some bad plays or turnovers, but it will also result in some big plays. It's all about risk-reward, and right now we take few risks and get little in reward.

Trent is playing exactly the way he is being coached: safe. Avoid the turnover at all costs. Don't take chances. No way he'll be benched, because he's doing precisely the thing the coaches have been asking him to do.

I've been trying to think about what the problem is on offense. I really don't think it's because Edwards is "missing" something. I think he has all the skills and smarts. But he just hasn't been able to put it all together. Why is that? I think I understand now, and Sully covered it for the most part this week: It seems pretty apparent to me that Edwards can do the job, but that he's been coached by Jauron and company to "play safe." He's been coached so strongly to avoid taking chances and making turnovers that he barely takes any chances at all anymore. Avoid fumbles and interceptions at all cost -- apparently, at the cost of making plays. It seems to be the calling card of Dick and co. What we want from this offense is to stop playing it so damn safe. Take some chances. Throw the ball deep and make the receiver do the work. Fling it over the deep middle once in a while and let the cards fall as they may. It's the only way to fully utilize what we have. They just can't be this safe about things all the time. It's driving everyone crazy.

I normally ignore the crayonz baiting, except when he gets another one to take it. That said, this comment was hilarious.

+1

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.