Dr. K

Did Chan say he was STARTING at left tackle, or just that he would play there extensively in the game?

This thread says more about you than it does about Fitzpatrick. Yes, he should do better on interceptions, but you've vastly undercut the credibility of your opinions by the one-sided nature of your postings here. You are not making a rational argument; you have an axe and you are grinding it.

Gray Anderson was in no way a #1 draft choice. Also, he said he did not want to go to the mid-1980s Bills and when they drafted him he deliberately tanked his training camp. He missed EVERY FIELD GOAL he tried in his pre-season games, with the expectation that after he got cut, he would be picked up by somebody else. He was right. One of the greatest satisfactions of my life is that, when he was the kicker for the Vikings he had a perfect season for the best scoring team of all time (to that date)--went all season without missing a kick--until their playoff game against the lowly Falcons where his miss at the end lost the game and knocked the Vikes out of the playoffs. It only took some 12 or 15 years, but it was sweet sweet sweet.

I think you may be right about this, Kelly. Moats is a fan favorite based on a few things he did last year, and I think he has some skills, but he is not showing much so far this year. Maybe you could blame the move to the inside where he may not be as suited to play, but I think it will be a close thing whether he make the final roster.

So are you on board for 0-16?

I was trying to come up with an exaggeration, a negative comment about the Bills so stupid that everyone would realize that it was making fun of negative comments, and I realized that I couldn't think of one! The board has gotten to the point where you could say anything negative, no matter how absurd, about the Bills and you'd be taken seriously by somebody here. It's like that Monty Python routine where the old farts are sitting around talking about how hard things were when they were kids, and how easy everybody has it today. "When I was a boy, we lived in a shoebox in the middle of the road." "That's nothing! A shoebox in the middle of the road? We would have been ecstatic to live in a shoebox in the middle of the road! When I was a boy, our father would come home every day and kill us with an axe!" "And if you tell young people about that today, they won't believe you..."

You just xeroxed last season. It may happen this way, but I doubt it.

I think it's an eminently fair question. The answer is sixteen, right?

For God's sake, they looked bad in their second pre-season game. That's it, that's all of it. The coach is moving players around to motivate them and to see if some other arrangement might help them get better. I expect them to play at least as well as they did in the second half of last season, which is by no means as well as we ought to hope the o-line to be. But I don't see a lot of bulletproof o-line play around the league at this point in the pre-season, or even in the regular season. How many teams are happy with their o-line play? There's a dearth of exceptional o-linemen relative to other positions in the league; hell, first rate-LTs are rarer than first rate QBs.

Point taken. But shouldn't our young players improve? This is a very young defense. Shouldn't we expect more than we got last year from Carrington, Troup, Batten, Moats? That alone should help performance. Then, if you add in Dareus, Barnett, and Merriman, and the fact that Mcgee is healthy, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect top half of the league--we're not talking top 5 or even top 10 here. We're going to find out soon enough, and I'm very interested to see how it goes.

Thank god for some sanity here. Great post.

I agree that he looks great, and I have the highest expectations for him, but I didn't see him double-teamed by Chicago. I saw most of the double-teaming going against Williams.

The article was well written, the independent movie metaphor was interesting, and he was right in general about the difficulties with the o-line and run defense. I even agree with his overall judgment taht the Bills will have trouble gaining ground in their division. But the particulars are frequently off, and he says things that just aren't true with such calm assurance that it undercuts his credibility. I bet he only ever watched the Bills play the Jets. He got lots of details wrong: Saying Fitz holds the ball too long. In fact, his entire description of Fitz's playing style is completely wonky. He says Fitz isn't cerebral when he is very smart, that his pre-snap reads are "average at best" when his reads are one of his strengths, describes him as "sandlot" when he very much works the game plan and takes what's there from the defense, says he extends plays with scrambling when I can't remember him doing much of that at all. He says Fitz will have to get used to the 3-step drop when he was doing this all last season. This paragraph alone makes me call into question his judgment even when he says things that are reasonable. Saying the management is "cool on Parish" and views him as "a return specialist" when the reality is just the opposite--they were the first coaches ever to use him properly as a receiver. Saying Bell was a liability in pass protection, when he's been quite credible in that area; his weakness is run blocking Saying Gailey is a "run-oriented traditionalist" (think George Halas) when his rep is for creatively using whatever methods he can for getting the most out of his offense. Actually, he may be right in his final assessment, but if you are going to assume a tone of "knowing-it-all" then you ought to get the details right.

I agree, except it was Wood, not Urbik, who whiffed on the block of Urlacher on that play, which would have left the entire middle open for CJ. Urbik did have that terrible whiff on the run play to the right that got CJ tackled in the backfield.

There are a lot of irony challenged people on this board.

I do think that, watching the o-line play last night, though it was adequate for the most part (better in pass protection than run blocking), it is the weakest unit on the team right now (though special teams coverage looked terrible also). The right side is weak, Urbik looked bad, and I dread the thought of any injuries. I just hope they get better and nobody gets hurt. I don't see where they are going to bring anybody in at this point that will help this season. Gailey is aware of the problem and seems to be game planning to minimize the effect of its weakness. NOt the ideal situation.

What Kelsay love fest? Even those who defend him don't love him.

I only mentioned Barnett because you singled him out as someone who made plays, not like Kelsay. I was pointing out that even he did not always succeed in what he was trying to do. I don't think we have a big difference of opinion here. I just think that, until somebody establishes clearly that he is consistently better than Kelsay at his position, mediocre as he may be, he will still start for the Bills. I do think he plays better than the drumbeat would have you believe. But yes, I have not been impressed at his coverage of receivers, and he is nowhere near the force that Williams is, and Merriman (if he stays healthy) is ten or twenty times the player, and Dareus is a beast.

My point on that play was not that Kelsay did anything great, but that BARNETT completely whiffed in the backfield. Look at it again. It was Barnett's play to make or not make, and he didn't make it.

I like Barnett, but did you see him on the first series where Cutler scrambled for ten yards? There was great pressure on the play, and Barnett had an open lane to Cutler in the backfield, but he whiffed on him completely and Cutler went by him up the middle. On that play Kelsay held his side and forced Cutler inside. I'd be pleased to see someone better than Kelsay take his job, and I'm confident that when one of the younger players steps up (Carrington?) that will happen. Gailey won't hesitate to get rid of someone if he has somebody better. I'm no knee-jerk Kelsay fan, but I'm tired of the drumbeat.

I re-ran every defensive play from the first quarter last night. Kelsay did seal the edge, did get into the backfield, did force plays inside. No, he didn't get sacks or make spectacular plays. But he did his job well, and helped make it possible for Williams, Dareus, and Merriman to make such plays. Is he great? No. But he is not the liability that you'd think from all this whining. This anti-Kelsay moaning has become such a mantra for some people on this board that it is beyond tiresome. If you put it to music you might be able to dance to it, but as it stands it's the definition of knee-jerk thoughtless bitching.

I just watched the first quarter again, concentrating on the line play, and rerunning to see individual play. I have to say the Bills were getting much better defensive line play that I saw last season. The combination of Dareus and Williams is a handful. Williams was getting the double teams, and Dareus was getting a big push on his men. With Merriman rushing from the outside, and them running various twists and stunts, these three guys were too much for Chicago to handle. Even Kelsay, everyone's whipping boy, was keeping contain, forcing things inside, and getting penetration. It's just a first preseason game, and I guess Chicago has O-line issues, but it was heartening to see the Bills present them so many problems. The Bills' first-string o-line, though nowhere near as impressive, did hold its own. On a number of plays they were one block short of springing some big gains, such as the third and long play in Chicago territory, just before the field goal, where Spiller caught a short pass and almost made the first. The play was well designed, and a huge hole was opened up the middle. Wood went unblocked into the second level--his job was to block Urlacher, and if he had, Spiller might have scored--he would easily have had another ten yards. But though Wood got his hands on him, Urlacher shed his block and made the tackle. It really struck me that on o-line play, every man has to be in synch with the others or the play breaks down. I have hope that, with more practice, they will get enough better that the offense can function efficiently. Assuming nobody gets hurt. The second team, though I haven't had time to break down plays the way I saw the first quarter, looks pretty bad. It's a work in progress.

I really fail to see how this makes the team better. Nix better hope his favorite toy from San Diego (Davis?) can play as well as Evans, and more than that, attract the defensive attention we know that Evans can. If I were Stevie, I'd be nervous about matching last season's numbers.

Please save my aching brain and stop putting apostrophes in simple plural nouns. Pats, goalposts, days, Bills not Pat's, goalpost's, day's, Bill's JMJ pray for us.

At this point there's little more anybody can say about this debate. Both sides have some facts on their side. And I doubt anyone is going to change his mind until the games start. It's really not going to be decided until we see how Fitz plays this season. I expect we'll know one way or the other by December. Though there are still people ready to fight the Flutie/Johnson war. I think I'll lay off reading all this stuff until the bullets start flying again.