Rubes

Expectations? I expect we'll all come to realize just how important Star is to the defensive front. Plus, we'll be playing a lot more unproven QBs this year than last year, so I do expect an improvement overall just from that.

I wish more people could understand this.

I *really* enjoyed that play in the second quarter where he and Epenesa converged and destroyed the Lions QB just after he released the ball.

Pool? No. Shower? ....

Everyone's too busy with the ongoing "should we pay sports journalists" war.

OMG that is the most hilarious tweet I've seen in a while.

According to McDermott, Josh won't be playing against the Lions. So there's that.

Strange conclusion, but you do you. We went 13-3 and made it to the AFCC with that middle-of-the-road defense. We looked great in many games, and struggled in several others. Still managed to do enough to get that far, but it wasn’t easy in the playoffs once we faced some of the really tough teams. And we all saw how we fared against the Titans and Chiefs. So yeah, if our defense doesn’t improve from last year’s middling effort, we’ll continue to have trouble with those teams. If we can improve, that will go a long way toward bringing us a championship.

Like the Rams? I was about to post something about the defense earlier and never got around to it. I was looking at the defensive rankings in different categories over the past 3 years, and it was interesting to see the trends. 2018 and 2019 were pretty good defensive years, with the rankings in many categories in the top 10, some in the top 5. Then 2020 came along, which was interesting in that our offense shot through the roof while our defense dropped in most statistical categories to the mid-teens. So what to expect from this coming year? More like 2018/19, or more like 2020? Like the Athletic article, I see us improving on defense. I agree that much of it will come with Star returning, the development of the younger players, and our ability to keep players on the field. I hope we get most categories up in the top 10. You'd think that if we could do that, we could write our ticket at least to the 2nd/3rd round of the playoffs, or further... Personally, I think our success this season hinges a great deal on how improved our defense is.

I was just about to post that. Also, Scrubs is flat-out awesome. I always thought they did a nice job with the cliché of surgeons being like the jocks and the internists as the nerds. The medicine in the show was pretty well done, too. I really respected the one where they diagnosed an organ donor with rabies post-donation. I think that was based on a real case. They had good taste in music, too.

I think it's a good question. When did my perspective start to change? For me, it was during the 2017 season, McDermott's first. We started strong, going 5-2 to start the season, but we had been through that before. I'm sure everyone else was like me in saying, "Sure, but we'll see what happens the rest of the way." It's all about how you finish, rather than how you start. So when McDermott's team finished the season 4-2, that was a good indicator that things were changing. The real moment, the one moment when I really thought things were changing for the Bills? Had to be the moment when Andy Dalton threw that 49-yard TD pass to Tyler Boyd on 4th-and-12. I mean, I nearly ***** my pants.

Agreed, especially since that allows the Bills to be more comfortable keeping Brieda over Jones.

Ertz for Eichel?

Better get those tickets to the early season games!

I would really like Nelson on this defense. I mean, that would be a bold move to make that a killer secondary.

If these guys can stay healthy, that is one hell of a WR corps.

Eagles helmet in the background? Screw him. Just kidding, he's a good one. Will be missed.

Wow, I didn't know anyone else here knew where Chillicothe, IL was. I'll be in Peoria next month, probably drive right through Chillicothe. My mother-in-law is from there. And yes, I will be wearing Bills gear.

Great video, thanks!!

Point taken, though the fact remains that many TEs looked great against us, yet it doesn't necessarily mean they're great TEs.

Then again, practically every TE in the league who played against us looked like an all-star. It was one of the biggest weaknesses of this defense last year.

I've mentioned this here sometime in the past, but this is the thread for it, so here goes. Bear with me. Few years back the mother-in-law from Illlinois was fishing for ideas for a holiday gift for me, so I decided a Bills t-shirt would be a decent option. So I went to the Bills shop online and picked out three different options for her. I emailed her the choices, numbered #1 through #3 with the URL links, and told her if she couldn't decide on one then I thought the second one, #2, would be my top choice. Seemed like a reasonable plan. Fast forward to the gift exchange evening. By this point I had long forgotten about that email. It's my turn to open up a gift, so I grab the one from her. I rip it open, open up the box, and here I am looking at a Bills jersey. A nice one, too. So I lift it out of the box and I begin to see it's an authentic Bills blue home jersey with the number 2 on it, and the name Carpenter across the back. She got me a real Dan Carpenter jersey. So I'm looking at this thing trying to comprehend not only why she got me a Bills jersey, but why I'm staring at an authentic Dan Carpenter jersey. I mean, it was a really nice jersey of course, and I always thought Dan seemed pretty cool and was a good kicker, but let's face it, it was a Dan Carpenter the kicker jersey. This is a woman who's from Illinois, knows almost nothing about football, even less about the Bills, and certainly had never even heard the name Dan Carpenter in her entire life to this point. It was just so puzzling I didn't know what to say at first. I didn't have the heart to ask her about it, but my best guess is that she somehow interpreted my email to mean that I wanted a #2 Bills jersey, not the #2 option of Bills t-shirts that I had sent her. How she made that leap I'll never know, but for quite some time that evening I was absolutely perplexed. In any case, I wore it to a couple of Bills games, and it was pretty funny. I figure I'm the only person outside of Dan's family to have one of those.

@corta765, great job as always. Some great moments in there, but man that was painful to relive. Except the Green Bay game, that was so awesome. It’s amazing how I remember all of those moments so clearly, like they happened yesterday.