Rubes

From what I read: Personally, I think you're making Pennington's performance sound much worse than it was. If there is one person on this line that should be benched, it's Villarial.

Our offense will continue to be hampered until we can find 5 guys that can pass protect without having to leave a tight end and a running back in to help out. I know it's been said before, but to me this is the real reason Losman is having trouble developing.

I'm the one who posted about Butler playing RT. He was definitely in the game, although I'm pretty sure I saw Pennington in the game at the same time. I don't know where Pennington was playing, though. My initial thought was, we have an extra O-lineman in there instead of maybe an extra tight end, but who knows.

That is absolutely unreal. I've never subscribed to the New England favoritism thing, but that is the most blatantly unbelievable thing I've seen by the refs.

Well, if I was that guy in my avatar, perhaps so.

We actually ran the ball for a first down to ice the game in the fourth quarter. And all runs were to the left side, where they knew it was coming.

Agreed. This man does not belong out there. It looked like he was having some trouble with the speed outside rush at the start of the game, but I didn't notice it later on. Badly underthrown. Too bad. I was actually starting to have those thoughts myself as well. Player of the game (on offense, at least) if you ask me. He was a man out there. It looked like he was having a tough time in the first half. Butler was playing RT at the end of the game, although I don't know when that happened. I did notice that almost every running play of ours was to the left. Damn straight.

Did he do anything today other than get excited for other people?

That's good to hear. I've actually suspected that this is what the coaches are telling him to do. There have been too many times when it looked like he could and should run it, but he hasn't. I was wondering if he was told not to. I think it's a decent strategy. To a point.

Please, enough with the Spikes comments. It takes a long time to come back from an injury like his. He probably won't be back to his usual form until next year, although he may never get back to form. But it's foolish to give up on him before then.

The A-train actually finished with 95 yards. He was a man out there. That said, I do think you have to credit the left side of the Bills line. Peters and Gandy did a pretty good job opening things up for him. They still can't pass block very well, but that will take a few more games before we really know. As for the right side of the line....yikes. Villarial looked like the rookie out there. Pennington? Didn't look like he pass blocked very well, but I can't say anything about his run blocking because I believe about 90% of our runs were to the left. Butler was in at RT at the end of the game. Not sure what that means.

That is just so frigging awesome. Nice job!

I'm expecting quite a few designed roll-outs on Sunday. Hopefully they'll involve some backs and tight ends on the receiving end.

I take offense to that poorly worded joke. I demand an apology.

I'm just curious....setting aside the issue of numbers of participants and their sexual orientation, what is marriage?

He was just lucky he rolled an 18, that's all.

He pulled a "JP"...

So if we finish 3-13 but our stats are better than last year, does that make us better?

I like Royal. But we will never be a serious passing threat on offense until we find five guys on the offensive line who can manage to block four defensive linemen. Until then, we'll need to keep a TE and/or a RB in to help out, which makes us pretty much anemic through the air.

I think everybody and their half-sister knows that our offensive line is the problem, has been the problem, and always will be the problem until it's fixed. I've heard enough comments from Ralph, Marv, and Dick to know that they realize we don't have the talent to compete in the trenches.

No comments yet about playing the rookie Pennington at RT? Oh boy. Time to see what the kid is made of.

Maybe it's just me, but it sounded like sarcasm.

A lot of this has been said before, so my apologies, but... After the first quarter of the season was over and we were sitting at 2-2, there was a lot of talk about how we were a young, improving team on the rise. One of the problems, though, is that we were basically a new team. We had a new offensive and defensive coordinator, and mostly new strategies on both sides of the ball. It takes time for opposing teams to figure out what you're doing and to find the weaknesses. I've always believed that the first four games are generally your time to take advantage of the fact that other teams don't have enough film on you to really get a handle on what you're doing. So it's of course disappointing that we've now dropped three straight. Teams seem to have figured us out pretty easily. Hell, most of us have known what our weakness are for weeks now, but it's safe to say that other teams really have a handle on how to best attack our offense and defense, and we're essentially powerless to stop it. Although I feel like I know a lot about football, one thing I definitely don't know much about is strategy. And for the life of me, I just can't figure out why we are doing the things we do, so I just chalk it up to my lack of knowledge. But perhaps others smarter than me can help. On offense, I just don't get it. The times when JP has looked most comfortable are the times when we call quick passes. 3- and 5-step drops. Short patterns, quick slants, swing passes, short comeback routes. It seems to work well. Hell, the Pats still do this with regularity. So why don't we do more of this? I am dumbfounded at the number of times Fairchild calls deep, 7-step drops. We can't do this. We don't have the offensive line to keep doing this on a regular basis. People talk about how the short, quick passing game works well at slowing down a pass rush. Isn't that what we need? A healthy dose of the short passing game to set up the occasional deep drop. Build JP's confidence. Build the line's confidence. And it allows other people to actually run routes...people like Willis and the tight ends, rather than staying in to block every time because our five linemen can't handle a four-man rush. How many times have we used a five receiver set? A four receiver set? Three might be asking too much with this group. It's not an exciting style...in fact, it's Kelly Holcomb-type boring. But isn't it what you need with a young QB and a piss-poor offensive line? Do I just not get it? On defense, I profess to know even less. But I do know what I see. I see, game after game, opposing team's wide receivers running around our secondary in large gaping holes, no defenders anywhere near them as they make one easy catch after another. But on the other side, it's a rarity to see our receivers without a defender on their back as soon as the ball arrives. It's a frustrating thing to watch, and I just don't understand it. It's part of the defensive philosophy, I guess. One thing I do know, however, is that we just don't have the horses on either line. Merz was pressed into action and I think the best thing I can say is that he didn't get a penalty. Villarial's best attribute is that he has the uncanny ability to stay on his feet and not do anything while the rest of his line is scattered on the ground like the remnants of a hurricane. Peters has his moments, but that's about the best it gets. We have five guys who can't reliably handle four defensive linemen. And on defense, our four man rush is rarely able to do much against a talented line, and they are just too easy to push around. I'm not convinced that we're headed in the wrong direction defensively, but to have to watch this disaster on both sides of the ball is almost too much.

I really don't see how anyone can defend the Kelsay penalty. There is no way he was in the process of tackling Brady. Brady sat down and waited for the defenders to touch him. That was probably the biggest bonehead play I have seen in years. Kelsay should have been torn a new you-know-what.

I was into The Source and CompuServe back in the day. I still have some e-mails from my dad that I saved from back in 87 and 88 when I was in college. He did the same thing and pimped a University of Buffalo VAX account from a friend. By the way, I really appreciated that link to those old Computer Gaming World magazines. Brought back some great memories.