Rubes

How about a little love for our RT? I thought he did a damn good job out there.

Kudos to just about everyone for that one. Impressive from start to finish. - Jauron for keeping the team focussed throughout - Fairchild for calling a magnificent game all the way through - Fewell for completely bufeddling the Jets...there was a time in the 3rd quarter when I sensed the Bills D had figured them out and the Jets weren't able to do much of anything anymore - JP, Evans, and McGahee for playing like studs - The offensive line for doing a fantastic job opening holes in the running game - The defensive line for putting just enough presure on Pennington without the need for blitzes - The linebackers (including Coy) for a solid game - even Jim Leonard, for playing pretty well and not being a liability I'm sure there are others...

Good thing the defense being unable to stop anyone in the first half has nothing to do with us falling behind.

I'm not too worried (yet) about our rookie safety getting pwned by arguably the best tight end in the league, within a defensive system that is getting sliced and diced at will.

Jeez, didn't Meathead do that last year, too?

The important thing for FA is to prioritize, depending on what we think will be available to us both in FA and in the draft. My guess is that these coaches think LB is probably not an area of immediate need. Crowell is doing well and will come back fine from this injury; Fletch will likely be re-signed, and I'm betting that they give Spikes another year to work back from his injury. Given that, I doubt they're looking at a big name in FA. This is the type of situation to draft a good young LB and bring him along. I'm also betting that TE is not a position for a big name FA. I think Fairchild's comments in today's Buff News reveal a lot. I think they have a lot of confidence in Royal (and even Reed), but the problem is that we are just unable to advance the offensive system fast enough this year to really get him involved (due to the development of JP and the line). We still don't know what we have in Everett, although I can't tell if this staff is interested in finding out. I'm betting we focus first and foremost on re-signing our free agents, and then look to shore up the positions that really need it if players are available: guard; right tackle depending on how much faith the staff has in Pennington; and the DT spot next to Triplett.

Great for him, especially considering his poor game against San Diego will probably screw him for December!

A fullback who's a threat to catch the ball? Forget it, Meathead in Miami will pick him up before we can.

Right, that's the reason why you'd get sick. They should call it "hot dog throw up".

I think it's punishment after hearing about the Ed Hochuli e-mail...

True, although run blocking is supposedly easier than pass blocking. I've also noticed the extreme tendency to run left rather than right, but I've also noticed the few run plays to the right are actually working quite well. Could be the element of surprise, but it's not as though they can't do it reasonably well.

If that team and that game happened now, this place would probably be bitching about how the Bills only barely beat a crappy team like the Jets, at home, with so much at stake. They should have killed them! The defense needed to stop the Jets from getting into field goal range at the end of the game, but couldn't do it and had to rely on a fluke FG block to save the win. And what's with Reed dropping that easy long pass at the end of the game? If he could hold onto the ball at critical times he might be a reliable #1 WR. All they need is a decent #2 to go with him so he can get open more. And what's with putting Riddick in the game in overtime? Isn't that what we drafted that RB in the second round for? Looks like the coaches don't trust that he can get the job done in crunch time. Another wasted high draft pick.

Sigh....

Awesome stuff. The first one is fantastic!

Well this thread sure changed in a hurry...

Yep. And believe me, we know what's going through your minds. Good thing you don't know what's going through our minds. As for NPs, it wouldn't be fair to give a blanket statement to that. I would agree that the NP curriculum, generally speaking, is getting thinner and leaves a lot to be desired. But there are some really good NPs out there, just as there are some really bad MDs. For the most part, NPs can provide good, efficient care for a lot of different things, but I don't think I would have an NP as my exclusive caregiver. I would still see an MD regularly, but NPs can handle much of the in-between care. One of the main issues is that you don't want your caregiver to miss something important. I think it's probably a fair generalization to say that an NP is more likely to miss something important (whether that's an exam finding, a drug interaction, a test result, or what have you) than an MD, but carelessness isn't necessarily proportional to your degree. Damn, that'd make a great tattoo right above your ass crack.

This guy's awesome. He's listed as the backup to Schobel, so I doubt we'd have to let Kelsay go to keep him around. I'd be pretty happy with Schobel-Hargrove-Denney-Kelsay, as long as we can find some DTs to plug up the middle better.

Go back a page or two and you'll get all you need of that.

Ed's made it all the way up the ranks to the NFL. If there's one job where you get verbally abused, repeatedly, and in some creatively horrible ways, it's referee at high levels. I'm sure he's heard much much worse, many many times before. Not that I would excuse the original letter, though.

No pun intended.

By replacing him with a lighter, slimmer version of himself? And thanks for doing that, Lori. It's hard to judge which is worse...yards per game or yards per carry. To think that there was a team that allowed over 200 yards rushing per game over an entire season just blows my mind, though I would have guessed it was the 84-85 team. But these days, with more of an emphasis on the passing game, I'd think yards per carry is more important, and it's interesting to see that yes, this is as bad as it has been.

Thank you.

This thread is really inspiring. Really.

I've been watching this team for a long time now. My earliest memory of watching the Bills was during the 1975 season when we lost to Miami (almost 31 years ago to the day...12/7/75), which eliminated us from the playoff chase. That was the game where, you guessed it, the refs screwed us badly with the Mercury Morris non-fumble call, followed by the 15-yarder against Toomay for brushing up against the ref. Sigh. My first Bills memory is of one of the most heinous screw jobs by the refs against us. Anyhoo, I haven't really paid much attention to stats until fairly recently, and I know we've had some seriously bad defenses over the years, like in the late '70s and mid-'80s, but come on now. The numbers being put up against this defense are just astounding. Overall, on the season, teams are averaging over 140 yards per game, and almost 5 yards per rush. Every rush. Those aren't historically bad numbers, but since the bye week it's been pretty freaking bad. Now, allowing 178 to a guy like Tomlinson doesn't exactly count as a serious embarrassment, since he does that to a lot of teams. But 207 yards to the Jags? 188 freaking yards to the Texans? Who's the running back for the Texans, anyway? 148 to the Colts? 147 to Green Bay, for crying out loud? Counting the 197 given up to San Diego as a team, that's over 177 yards per game allowed. 177 yards rushing. Per game. Those are freaky bad numbers. Real. Freaky. Bad. The fact that we went 3-2 in those five games just boggles the mind, really. And those two losses were by a total of 4 points? I have no idea what this all means, other than we have, right now, one of the worst defenses against the run I have seen in a long, long time. Perhaps it also means that if we can figure out how to stop the run just a wee little bit better, we might not actually be all that bad. That's what I'll be looking forward to for next season. If we can stop the run just a wee bitty better -- you know, average something a little more respectable like, I don't know, 120 yards per game or something -- I think it will pay some decent dividends. And if we can run the ball ourselves just a wee bitty better -- something, anything, just a little better than the anemic 93.5 yards per game we're currently getting -- I think we'll be considerably better off. But really. I can't remember the last time we allowed this much real estate over this period of time.

Now that is just freaking hilarious!