Dr. K

...Bills were playing the Jets, their first drive of the game, and EJ completing bullet passes then running for a touchdown. And I don't even expect Buffalo to be any good this season. Must be my id at work.

An illustration from an early 1800s edition of Frankenstein. The monster comes to life and Victor Frankenstein flees.

I'm glad he mentioned the issue at QB. I have high hopes for EJ Manuel, but I don't see where they are going to find 24 touchdown passes on this team this season. Certainly not from Kolb.

I can't understand why anyone would expect better QB play from Kolb than we got from Fitz. Maybe it will be different in some regards, but it will not in my opinion be better. An improved defense might lead to more wins anyway, but that would have been true last season as well.

Exactly. I say six or fewer wins and hope to be proven wrong.

+1

I agree. I was one of the people most critical of letting Nelson go, and very unhappy with the loss of Levitre. But the acquisitions in the draft at WR make me feel I overreacted. It remains to be seen who will play left guard, but I'm hoping they can get at least adequate performance from somebody there. I hope the o-line does not take too much of a step back. If the coaches can bring these players along, maybe the season won't be quite the significant step backward i expected. I'm still not convinced the offense is going to score more than it did last season. We'll see.

Where did I say Fitz was a good QB? I said Kolb is no improvement. I gently suggest that you may have a Fitz fixation that is making it hard for you to see Kolb (or the rest of the offense) accurately. What I was saying is that I do not at this point expect the offense to play better than it did last season. I expect a step back before there is a step forward. Not that last year's offense was sterling, or that Fitz was a superior QB. And I stand by (and elaborate on) my statement that if the defense were even adequate, instead of the worst in Bills history, the team would have won at least three more games in 2012.

I am absolutely aware of Fitzpatrick's limitations. But I do not see (unless Manuel takes off from Day One the way Wilson and Luck and RG and Cam did in the last couple of years, which I am not expecting) that Kolb is going to give better overall QB play than Fitz, or that the new offensive system is not going to have equivalent difficulties to the ones Gailey's had (if not necessarily the same ones), or that the rookie receivers are suddenly going to be a quantum leap above the ones we got rid of. At the very least I think there is going to be a learning curve. And we obviously have different opinions the comparable abilities of Fitz vs. Kolb (do you really see that Kolb is that superior? Based on what, ,exactly?). And I don't think if you give Spiller the ball ten more times a game he is going to maintain his 6.0 yard average per carry. Etc. I think we can agree that the defense has to be better--or at least I would be surprised if it isn't. I guess we'll just have to disagree for now. The camp and pre-season may change my mind about the offense. We'll just see what happens. As I say, I'll be happy to be proven wrong about this. This

I am amused by all the people who think the offense is going to be better. Kolb is not a better QB than Fitzpatrick. Fitz threw over 70 TD passes in the last three seasons. The Bills scored lots of points under Gailey's leadership. They didn't lose because they could not score. They lost because they couldn't stop anybody from scoring. All those who say the Bills "never ran the ball" or "ran shotgun on every play" or that the coaches "didn't want to be here" or a hundred other distortions and outright misrepresentations of facts, are suffering from amnesia. The Bills were sixth in the league in rushing yards per game last season. Spiller alone had over 1200 yards. Fitzpatrick passed for 3400 yards. They scored 28 or more points seven times last season. They averaged 22 points per game, not in the top half of the league but a respectable number, far more than they did under Jauron. They are likely to be fielding at least two rookie receivers. They lost their most reliable offense lineman. The o-line looked as good as it did in pass protection the last few years because Fitz, whatever his flaws as a QB, made quick and accurate reads and got he ball out in about two seconds on every play. Fred Jackson is getting old and coming off a knee injury. Do you expect them, with a new offense, a retread or rookie QB, and rookie receiving corps, to average over three touchdowns per game? The area where the Bills utterly stank last season was defense, and everything people have to say about how bad they and Wanstadt were in that area is true. So yes, I expect Pettine's defense to be better than Wanstadt's. It could hardly be worse. But I expect the offense to take a large step backward, no matter who is playing QB. Considering the likely improved defense and the likely worse offense, I expect about the same results next season. I have high hopes for EJ Manuel in the future, but I am not banking on better QB performance this season by the team as a whole. If they Bills win six as they did last season, they will be about where I expect them. I could be completely wrong about this, and if I so will be overjoyed. But the misrepresentation on the board of what went wrong last season is astonishing.

I can't say whether this is a good draft or not--Manuel looks intriguing and I think in general the picks make some sense on paper. But I do not see Marone getting 24 TDs out of the quarterback this season no matter who is playing back there. If the defense shapes up (its total failure last season was the reason the team failed and Gailey got fired, in my opinion) then maybe Marone won't need to get 24 TDs out of anyone. And whoever is back there won't have to play catch up late in games and risk so many picks. Still, there are holes on this team, and rookies aren't going to fill them in their first season. We'll see how the Bills look coming out of training camp, but right now I'm expecting 5 or 6 wins tops, and maybe less.

This is the absolute truth. If the Bills had ever managed a middle-of-the pack defense, they would have been in the playoff hunt at least two of Gailey's three seasons.

I still can't get over the Bills letting Levitre walk, then letting Rhinehart (a much lesser talent) go. With the Kolb-for-Fitz switch, the dumping of the young wide receivers (leaving them next to nothing on the roster to work with), I just see this franchise spinning its wheels. The draft is just going to be about plugging holes they created after the end of last season, with players no better and likely worse. You draft and develop a guy like Levitre, then just let him go. Same story as Antoine Winfield, Nate Clements, Ted Washington, Marshawn Lynch, Jason Peters, yada yada yada. I have generally been a positive outlook guy on this board, for many many years. I basically avoid hating on specific players and I don't like that form of fan behavior. But I have never been so bleak about an upcoming draft and season. I really hope they prove me wrong, but I have no confidence in this new management. I just have the fatal feeling that this loser franchise will never be good.

So if the Bills win three games instead of two then I've been proven wrong in my judgment of them as a team. Got it. This team is going to stink. So they win five, hell, even six games. They will still stink. The only thing at issue, in my mind, is the degree to which they will smell up the place. I will be glad to be proven wrong and will publicly eat crow here if they come anywhere near .500 next season.

Thank god for this breath of sanity. Those who think this new offense is going to put up numbers like Gailey's, either in the air OR on the ground, are delusional. The offensive line, which was less of a problem under Gailey's offensive plan, is going to be a major problem again. People are going to looking back to the good old days of Fitz at QB and Gailey as OC by the fourth game of the season, if not sooner. Why wouldn't any team stack the line, blitz like crazy, and defy the Bills to beat them? I haven't been this skeptical about the Bills decision making since Greggo dismantled the #2 defense in the league because he didn't like "fat guys" and went 3-13. Then drafted a 350-pound right tackle who was out of the league in five years.

This is beyond a joke. The new regime has officially jumped the shark. 2-14, if that. Make new holes in the roster, fill them with players no better than before. It's not treading water, it's drowning.

I see absolutely no evidence that there will be an "upgrade" at wide receiver, no matter who they draft. This is going to be a 3-win team this season, if that.

You are absolutely right. The morons here who think they are going to get 24 TDs a year (and fewer interceptions) out of just anybody are in for a shock. Fitz had and has holes in his game, but if the team didn't have to score 30 points a game to win, they would have made the playoffs at least two of the last three years.

I've been a fan since 1964. The teams in the late 60s and mid 80s were objectively worse. I remember the one-win seasons. I have been a diehard fan, and I will continue to be a fan, but having said that, I have zero, absolutely zero, confidence in the new coaching regime. I would love to be proven wrong, but I've finally given up the dogged optimism I have mustered over the last decade. Maybe Doug Marone will will turn out to be some sort of genius, in which case I will eat crow in public, but with the exception of Gregg Williams, a complete horse's a$$ whom I hated from day one, I can't think of a hire I have had less faith in going back to Harvey Johnson. Danny Crossman as ST coach? What does that suggest about Marone's judgment? Could he really think Ryan Nassib is going to be anything other than a backup QB in this league? Add in the way they have let Levitre walk and dumped David Nelson and a half dozen other things, and I'm just going to sit back and let them prove to me they know what they are doing. I see no evidence to inspire the belief that they do.

+1

way under

I would be unhappy for the Bills because in that offense he would rip them a new one every time they played. The Bills would see twice a year how bad they screwed up. I'd be happy for him, however.

I also have generally been an optimist--or at least backed most management decisions--but have little faith in this new regime. My take: 1) They have not resigned Levitre, and had to franchise Byrd. To let Levitre walk would indicate they are hopeless at retaining their best players. They've been doing this for more than ten years, creating holes they then have to draft to fill. 2) Letting Nelson go, after leaving Jones go, while retaining Brad Smith and Ruvell Martin. Another example of creating holes they have to fill. NO, I don't think either of these guys was great, but Nelson is a good receiver, and is going to play well for somebody else. You need guys like Nelson on any team. People say he can be replaced easily. Well, for one, I don't think it will be that easy to replace his production, and even if they can, spending time and money finding a replacement will be effort they could have better expended in adding good players--not subtracting them. 3) They hire a complete loser special teams coach. They retained nobody from the previous regime. Pettine as D.C. is the only choice here that gives me hope. I would rather have seen the Bills keep Gailey and hire Pettine. 4) I expect a significant decrease in offensive efficiency. Believe it or not, Gailey got a lot of scoring out of the personnel he had available. The Bills are not going to be able to grind out a running game with the backs and o-line they have. They were not a great short yardage running team. That 5-YPC average was an artifact of the spread offense and long breakaway runs from Spiller. Whoever they play at QB (including Fitz, if they keep him) is not going to do as well as Fitz did in the last three years. Gailey got 24 passing TDs per year out of Fitzpatrick. I expect the offense to revert to Jauron-level somnolence. 5) Dorin Dickerson? 6) I do not buy into the mystique of the "tough guy" coach. Just reminds me of Greggo with his macho posturing of how he "hates fat guys" (like Ted Washington) and his stupid air horns. That worked out great, didn't it. Bill Walsh was not a "tough guy." Every coach who has a rep for being a hard ass does not end up being Vince Lombardi. In fact, most fall flat on their faces. What this comes down to is that I expect the offense to decline considerably, if not drastically, and the linebacker-less defense to perhaps be better (its hard to imagine it worse) because of coaching but not enough to make up the difference. I have not seen decisions so far in the off season to warrant anything resembling optimism. You will not believe how good Gailey is going to look in about ten months. JMHO

Right. They are just opening up holes in the roster for no discernible reason.

Totally agree. I'm beginning to think that Marone is Gregg Williams II.