BillsVet

It's a shirt for Brian Wilson, pitcher for the San Francisco Giants. But after this one I can see someone adapting this to Fitzpatrick.

Ditto. Well coached by Gailey and staff. A W is a W. The fan base and the franchise needed this more than any other team in the NFL.

IIRC, FJ fired his agent not long ago and this isn't the first time he's expressed disappointment in his latest deal. 7.5M for 4 seasons is modest, but I can't see the team putting him ahead of Fitzpatrick or Stevie Johnson. He's got a lot less wear and tear than most 30 year old backs, but giving extensions 2 years into a 4 year deal on a team friendly contract probably (EDIT: won't happen). He'll need to wait his turn.

Guess Fred Jackson/Spiller and the OL isn't/wasn't good enough either, especially when Buffalo was averaging 8.7 YPC. So much for the deep DL Oakland had.

IIRC, the first team that ran it, MIA, displayed it against NE early in the 2008 season. The Dolphins won that game, but didn't have as much success the next time. It needs to be used in very select and opportune times, because Belichick isn't left unprepared for much, especially the wildcat.

On the day of a great win, it's concerning that they weren't able to get after the QB more. I don't think Merriman's name was called at all and he struggled to even pressure Campbell.

Have to give credit where credit is due: The play calling exploited weaknesses and even without Johnson at the end still converted. Get well Stevie.

He always seemed to have a puzzled look on his face and predictably was slow on the draw. The onside kick on MNF against Dallas was completely inexcusable and yet he and his staff permitted it. Guy just couldn't make decisions in a timely manner. Caveat emptor Cleveland.

Gailey definitely game-plans around his offensive weakness: the OL. No deep drops and Fitz isn't asked to wing it deep or throw many deep outs. Throw in FJ, who is a strong between the tackles runner and their plan worked for today. It will be interesting to see how they adapt to opponents now having film on them. Not saying they'll have trouble moving forward, rather, just how the staff can stay ahead of defenses.

Not to mention a terrible hair piece.

Last time Buffalo whipped anyone was at KC in 2008 when they won 54-31. EDIT: Thanks Marv Albert.

Very solid performance on both sides of the ball.

The Bills are rebuilding now because Marv and Mr. Smithers were so bad from 2006-09.

Praying for you and your family.

Not to mention they've seen an 11k drop in ST sales from 2009 to 2010. This is a franchise that know their ST base will again decrease to perhaps as low as 38-39k in 2011. Not bad for a team, as you say, that's without a playoff appearance since the 20th century.

The Bills are 8th in operating income? Guess the pleas of poverty aren't as legitimate as OBD wants us to believe.

He's not an obnoxious homer cheerleader for the team, ergo he's not worth reading. But yeah, I agree with JW and laugh at how threads discussing so-called negative media personalities generate so many pages of talk. In the battle of homers versus objective fans, the latter has won a heck of a lot more the past decade. Too bad there's no score kept.

All GM's make fun of other team's publicly. Right. That's how we know they care when they run down other franchises. And I'm not talking about RW's strategy in this thread. We're talking about the credibility of a man who throws out whoppers and expects people to keep on believing them. Playing Jasper as a DT to keep other team from seeing him as an OL? You've got to be kidding. Go ahead and drop the misery factor, whatever. Very predictable. When you've successfully averaged about 6 wins a season for more than a decade, well, some people aren't happy. Check the ST sales lately? 55k in 08-09 and now probably beneath 40k just 2 years later? Yeah, there are quite a few fans not buying into the talk anymore because the play on the field doesn't live up to it.

I've got some respect for Gailey because he is pretty open and honest about the status of the team. He just coaches for a bad franchise that doesn't get him the tools. But to give kudos to NIx for another happy talk interview reeks of absurdity. This is the same guy who, at his introductory PC, made fun of the Raiders coaching job and said the team wasn't that far away heading into the 2010 off-season. He followed that up at Gailey's intro PC by claiming they got 35 calls a day for the HC job and said 80% of the reports on the HC search were wrong. On Sunday all the talk ends. It's time to put up or shut-up, which BN did quite well last season when things hit the skids by Week 3.

Pears was a member of 4 organizations in 3 years: Denver, Jacksonville, Oakland, and now Buffalo. It doesn't matter if he started 4 seasons ago, regardless of what Nix says about the player. The starting OL is a major cause for concern.

You said "it is pretty clear that we have a EDIT: better pass rush and can stop the run." If that's not a conclusion I don't know what it is. And it's being made from basically 3 pre-season games where the starters played about 3 quarters of football.

I thought no one is allowed to draw conclusions from pre-season contests, right?

Upon further review, the Patriots have won 10 games each of the past 8 seasons, 101 in total. During that same span, Buffalo has a little more than half that, 51. You gotta love it when folks try to take the Pats down a notch and completely ignore how bad the Bills have been. But yes, one draft illustrates how much closer the Bills are to the Patriots level. Doesn't mean I don't hate them, but man is this a stretch.

Not surprised about Hangartner getting let go. His injury last season finally gave them an excuse to play Wood at center and get some return from a former first round pick who had been playing the least important OL position, RG. Time will tell if this is the right decision, but I'm not a big fan of the backup center being their starting LG. The Vikings game last year demonstrated a team should have a versatile veteran who can man all three interior spots. The Bills don't have that with GH's release, but the move saves some money so it will provide a benefit to the powers that be.

Len Pasquarelli seemed to defend Donahoe an awful lot. Don't think that was a coincidence. You've practically answered your own question. Brandon went underground to find a GM in late November/December 2009 and Nix admitted he wasn't contacted about the job until about a week before he was hired (circa 12/23/09). What was Mr. Smithers doing all that time aside from getting to talk to Shanahan? I suspect asking for other interviews and getting turned down at every corner. This happened again when Nix started to look for a HC. He was turned down by no less than 4 candidates, Jim Harbaugh, Ron Rivera, Russ Grimm, Brian Schottenheimer, and then Leslie Frazier pulled his name from consideration. The GM and HC search, IMO, illustrates how the rest of the NFL thinks about the Bills. Some can't fathom that a HC or GM job isn't attractive beyond less than in-demand candidates, but how else can these hires be explained?