Dr. K

I think they were down 14-0 against Miami in Miami last season, and came back to win. They were down 13-0 to the Jets in NY last season and scored twice to lead going into the last minute of the game. Jets kicked a FG to win.

You guys are irony impaired.

It was funny this week reading all the posters here complaining, for instance, that Dr. Z only ranked the Bills 13th when obviously they deserved much higher, and crowing about Fox ranking the Bills 3rd, and etc. etc. Egos were bloated. Not everyone, of course, but enough to make me laugh. Now we'll get people raving that the Bills ought to fire everyone and start over, that Losman should be benched, etc. etc. I don't know how good or bad this team will be this season, and neither do you. You have to expect a QB starting his second NFL game in his career, on the road against a good D, to have problems. I expect Losman to get better, and the team to play better. I expect the defense to play better, barring injury, and McGahee to run better. I think stopping the run without Pat Williams is going to be harder. But until we are up to game 6 or 8 we are not going to have a good sense of what to expect each week. Take a deep breath, and hang on.

I'm a big fan of Barton Fink, though I can't give you an airtight explanation of everything going on in that movie. I think in part it's a satire on writers/artists and their egomania--Barton Fink prides himself on writing serious social commentary, but he can't write about anything but himself. He has only one story to tell, and that's a tedious one. When he's asked to write about something outside of his area of experience, he's hopelessly blocked. Witness the fact that he's living next door to a homicidal maniac (John Goodman) and he can't even be bothered to figure it out. He never LISTENS to anyone, really. It's all about what's in his head, and after a while the hotel room is almost an image of the inside of his head. (Plus he ends up with a head in a box). Anyway, that's the movie i saw. I also thought it was hilarious, and John Goodman deserved an Oscar.

Bills 17 TB 14

No I am most definitely NOT referring to that Saints game. That was a season later, after he'd goe through surgery and rehab from the Tampa Bay cheap shot, which was the real start of his decline.

...the one where the Bucks lineman was deliberately sent out to injure Sam Cowart (who was having a great game) knocking him out for the season and essentially ending his career as a first rate linebacker? If I were Takio Spikes, I would watch my back.

Point taken. I remember being really pissed at Wyche back then. Mostly because he had our number. But he was a smart coach then and he's still smart. Remember when Marv complained about the Bengals' no-huddle offense not giving the defense a chance to change players, even trying to get the refs to ban it--and then he adopted it himself two years later.

I love this anecdote from the Bob Decesare article in the News about How Wyche treated J.P. on the day of the game: "That's the thing about quality teachers. They never cease being attentive students themselves. They're always striving for effective ways to deliver the message, to position their students for success, such as when Wyche approached Losman for a quick conversation Sunday morning with the anticipation mounting. "'I went in and gave him the first three plays,'" Wyche said. "'I said, "You just think about these first three. Forget everything else. There's nothing else in the universe, just these three. And then when the other ones come along you'll remember them and we'll run 'em. But you just concentrate on (the three).' He executed them perfectly and fell into the flow. It wasn't any brilliant coaching move. It was one of many ways to approach a game, and it worked.'" "Losman had a dynamic first half that exceeded expectations based on his uncertain, oft-time ineffective preseason performances. He was expecting Wyche to meet him in the locker room at intermission and nit-pick his work, as he'd done during the exhibitions. But there's a time to ready a quarterback for the season, and then there's a time to grant him independence." [/color=blue] This strikes me a brilliant coaching. J.P. had to have a thousand things flying through his head the morning of the game. Wyche gives him a simple task to focus on, and then doesn't hover over his shoulder every minute trying to micro-manage. This method works well in other kinds of teaching, too, and bespeaks a real understanding of human character. It makes me feel that J.P's development is in good hands. Whoever had the idea to hire Wyche was thinking real smart.

No question he played a good game against a good opponent on the road. Some of the passes he completed to K. Johnson were highlight material. More power to him, though I hate to see the Cowboys win, and I still think the Bills were absolutely right in letting Bledsoe go. I am convinced he was not going to take the Bills to the Super Bowl, even if they managed to make the playoffs. We shouldn't obsess on how ex-players do, crowing because Travis Henry played mediocre for Tennessee or sour because Bledsoe played well. They did what they did for Buffalo, and some of it was great and some was frustrating, but that time has passed. I'm much more interested in watching this new version of the Bills develop. I loved seeing the o-line play a good game, and Losman find his rhythm, and the defense flying all over the field.

Its a strange and scary world.... Peace and safety to all.

He thinks he's so infallible, he wants everyone to call him John Paul III....

rim-shot

I'm not against taxes. Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. I pay a lot of taxes. But I'm against taxing lower income people more so that rich people and the children of rich people can pay less. I believe in government (at least potentially) as a force for good, that it's what separates us from the war of All against All that Hobbes wrote of. I don't believe in utopia, but I believe we can do better than we are doing today. I am a progressive small-d Garrison Keillor democrat.

And to add a further complication there are many on the left who feel that Jesus was the most "radical leftist" of all. Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God; sell all you have and distribute to the poor; if you have a cloak, give it to the poor, and the shirt off your back, too; hanging out with prostitutes and tax collectors, etc. etc.

Ah, now I see. No wonder you guys hate me, if you equate all of the "left wing" with Joe Stalin. I do not equate all of the "right wing" with Adolf Hitler.

I agree, things are not black-white and right or left only. That's what I thought I said in my last response. The question I have is this simple one: why do you object to someone calling you "right wing" when you say yourself you are a "Libertarian or old-school conservative"?

Both of which are varieties of right wing, though libertarians take positions on some issues (like drugs and censorship for instance) that sometiimes ally them with the left. Methinks thou dost protest too much. I for instance, have no use for the kind of Democrats who vote for abolishing the estate tax or the recent abominable bankruptcy bill, or who supported Bush on his Iraq adventure. I suppose I could insist that I'm not a Democrat, though if I have to choose between them and the Repubs, I invariably vote Dem. I have my own libertarian streak. But it would be dumb for me to insist I am not left-wing, though I do not agree with all people who say they are on the left, or with all policies labelled "leftist."

He didn't say Republican. He said right wing. Are you not?

Give me a call when Bush walks on water and brings the dead back to life. I'll make it easer--give me a call when he or anyone in his administration demonstrates accountability for anything they have screwed up.

I'm not complaining about him going to the site. I'm pointing out that he and his people are using firefighters for a photo op. You think that's the best way to use their volunteer services? You think that shows them or the people Bush is supposedly helping any respect?

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004197 "There are all of these guys with all of this training and we're sending them out to hand out a phone number," an Oregon firefighter said. "They [the hurricane victims] are screaming for help and this day [of FEMA training] was a waste." Firefighters say they want to brave the heat, the debris-littered roads, the poisonous cottonmouth snakes and fire ants and travel into pockets of Louisiana where many people have yet to receive emergency aid. But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.

Sorry. I missed the thread below.

Have the Bills cut John Dorenbos as long snapper? The current roster lists someone named Mike Schneck as long snapper. A pickup from Pittsburgh? When did this happen?

This makes some sense to me, too--or at least not going into a run-on-every-down shell. That's a prescription for eight in the box, third-and-eights, and three-and-outs. Losman and the offense have to be able to keep them honest.