BobbyC81

I think special teams is what it’s all about. Andre Holmes was put on IR so Anderson was brought back to replace him.

Has this thread approached record standards for replies and reviews?

Is there not enough refutable evidence?

Astro deserves some awards (Most Important?) for his training camp practice reports.

I thought he looked very good.

I hear ya. I was just thinking yesterday about the Bills ‘ needs and thought that they were set at safety with the starters and Elston so maybe they could upgrade the 4th and then they make this move

No, the Pats have shown you can pay off the refs. Every time the Ravens score, a penalty gets called against them.

Yes, there has to be some punishment. For those that my not have heard, there was a recent incident in a Golden State Warriors game involving Sean Livingston and an NBA referee where Livingston was questioning a call and the ref moved towards him and they bumped heads. Livingston was tossed from the game and received a one game suspension. I was surprised to hear, though, that the ref was reprimanded with being taken out of the referee rotation for a week. Way to go Adam Silver, or whoever decides on the NBA punishments. I wish they they would do something like that with NFL refs, although since most are still only part time employees could it really be effective? Since I'm on a roll, Major League Baseball also should get their umpires in line. It may not happen as much as in the old days with managers like Billy Martin and Earl Weaver, but many times the umps prolong confrontations by becoming more involved instead of turning around or walking away. I guess those arguments could be seen as part of the entertainment but I never hear anything about an ump getting reprimanded for anything. In fact remember when Sandy Alderson moved from the Oakland A's to the MLB offices, he set out to make umpires follow the rule book in calling balls and strikes. I remember one senior ump was quoted as saying "Nobody's gonna tell me how to call balls and strikes!". At the time I thought "Really, you work for him, idiot!" Those of us that still watch baseball recognize that pitchers and batters still have to adjust to the home plate umpire for each game based on how he calls strikes which I think is ridiculous. Yes, some NFL ref crews may call more penalties than others but they aren't allowed to make their own interpretations of the riles.

Yeah, you pretty much expect heartbreak, like all of the teams we need to lose do lose but the Bills also lose late, or the Bills win, one of Oakland or Jacksonville wins, but the other loses late on a controversial play.

We will never know the whole story behind the Peterman start vs the Chargers. If Dennison pushed for it, as some suspect, since it backfired McDermott could fire Rici for it. Then, in the aftermath, McD first would only name Tyrod the starter week-to-week for the next couple weeks before declaring he was the starter when healthy. Again, we don't know what has transpired behind the scenes. If you think about it, it seems a little strange to force your starting QB to renegotiate his contract, bench him for one half, then keep him as the starter the rest of the season. Perhaps if the playoffs weren't still a possibility, he might have been benched permanently. The 'planning for now and the future' pendulum seems to swing ever so slowly at times and quickly at others. Don't forget that Arians has had health issues.

With Mayfield having small hands, I don't like the prospects of him playing in cold, bad weather. Allen hasn't shown enough so he's probably too risky, although he did play well in his bowl game in snow flurries. I do like the idea of Luke Falk, who's big (6-4, 223) and has played in bad Washington weather while still maintaining a completion percentage over 68%. Drawback on him though is playing in a Mike Leach system from which QBs have a big adjustment to the NFL. In recent years, there always seems to be a QB who moves up in the pack after all-star bowl games, the Combine and individual workouts (Ex: Flacco, Bortles, EJ Manuel, Wentz) so we'll have to wait and see.

Lol! Is there any doubt that if these Patriots had a Scott Norwood like FG miss in the Super Bowl that there would be a phantom call on the defense to allow for a rekick?

Miami is still a divisional opponent that the Bills play twice a year.

Sounds like Super Bowl XXVIII. Bills lead by 7 at the half. Thurman Thomas fumbles on the 1st play of the 2nd half and it's returned for a TD which ties the game. Thurman is inconsolable, the whole team gets deflated and game over. That team though had the heartbreak of the the 3 prior Super Bowls so it didn't take much for a "here we go again" outlook that perhaps affects these Bills when playing the Pats.

The Russians are now interfering in the results of NFL games? That’s been a common theme all season where the defense had takeaways to set up the offense in good to great field position and most of the time they’d get FGs

What’s also interesting is that, despite the Patriots being dominant in the regular season, every Super Bowl they’ve played in in the B.B. era has been decided by less than a touchdown. They’ve been in some of the best SB games and finishes.

Right now there are 15 teams with worse records than the Bills. So, without considering the tiebreakers with the other teams with 8-7 records, the best that pick could be is 16. A Bills loss to Miami and wins by the current 7-8 teams could improve on that pick. Of those 15 teams with worse records, we can figure that the Browns and Jets definitely need upgrades at QB. The Giants could look to grab a replacement for Eli but I don't know that it's a given. The Broncos have had poor QB play with 3 relatively young guys so who knows what they'll do. The Cardinals could look to get their replacement for Carson Palmer. By the time of the draft, the Redskins should've worked out with Cousins whether he's staying or leaving so they could be in play if he leaves. Bottom line is it's way too early to know but if the Bills really like a QB in the draft, staying where they are might not get him. Obviously, with the Chiefs winning their division, the pick from them will likely be in the low to mid 20s so they probably wouldn't want to use their own pick on another position and wait to use the Chiefs pick on the QB.

That is a great question. The Bills probably have one of the worst reputations in the NFL, especially with the highly publicized playoff drought. That’s why I really hope they can end the drought this year. The reputation makes it also difficult to attract free agents

So since Pittsburgh won today, Jacksonville has no shot at a bye so they could rest players in their matchup vs Tennessee. Bummer. Would Cincinnati have motivation to knock their division rival Baltimore out of the playoffs?

Scheme and play calling that effectively use the strengths of the players, putting them in the best situations to be successful (I.e.you don't run C J Spiller up the middle or Tolbert to the outside. When you have a 3rd and one, you don't have an empty backfield, telling the defense you're passing with no option and then throw a pass 20 yards down the sideline.

I find it funny when people talk about well conditioned 20 something professional athletes being worn down.

So why would they do that for broadcasting purposes? That leaves crappy matchups in the 1:00 games where only fans of those teams will watch while all the good matchups are in the later games. I was looking forward to watching the Bills in the early game and then root for the Raiders vs the Chargers in the later game.

Again, look at the Niners as the prime example of what impact a good QB can have. They started out 0-9, with 5 of those losses by 3 points or less but have now won 5 of 6 with Garappalo, with the last 2 over Tennessee and Jacksonville.

Watching Bills/Pats games fits the definition of insanity. We watch again and again, hoping for different results but, except for a couple games, results are the same. The whole CBS studio crew said it should've stayed as a TD called on the field. Some said replays verified it. Others said there wasn't enough to overturn it.

I think that's only if you're right-handed.