BillsVet

Accuracy and arm strength will always be Fitzpatrick's achilles heel. He has to be in a system that doesn't ask him to throw the deep out or passes more than 20 yards. The Dolphins did a great job in 2008 of game-planning to maximize Pennington's strengths without showing his weaker arm. A good offensive staff can work around a QB with less than ideal arm strength. But if a staff has a QB like Fitzpatrick needing to make throws downfield and not backing him up with a solid run game, the results generally aren't good. It's true 8 games is a relatively small sample size, but the true indication of a QB's worth is after teams have had an off-season of film on him. If the guy can come back and play solid football, wonderful. The name of the game is whether a guy has potential and if he can live up to it. When I see a 6th year QB stare down a WR and throw into double coverage like he did on Sunday, I have my doubts. He's gritty, smart, and a good teammate from what I've seen. But in the NFL, you need talent to win regularly and yes, the jury is still out. Just once I'd like to see Buffalo beat a division winner or playoff team convincingly. If the Bills do that Sunday and Fitzpatrick throws for 250 and 2 scores, well, I might begin to contemplate his long term potential as a NFL starting QB.

I'll stop complaining about the team when they win 10 or more games and reach the playoffs. And don't make this a class argument thing, because it's not. Some fans are more into football than others, and that's OK. but you've been a lead cheerleader on this board for a long time, and nearly every time your predictions fail. When people pointed out before the season the QB, pass protection, and pass rush were terrible, you attacked. Well, will you humble yourself and admit this is a rebuilding team that doesn't win against quality teams? Nah, you'd rather make this a class warfare thing and continue complaining that some people aren't impressed beating the dregs of the NFL. 6 teams make the playoffs in the conference meaning 10 don't. If you're impressed winning 4-8 games per season and perhaps challenging for the wildcard, fine. Just don't bash people who demand excellence once in a decade. I mean, even the Raiders, Bucs, and Rams have more wins that Buffalo this season.

And Fiedler had 2 more playoff appearances than Fitzpatrick does. What's your point? That throwing TD passes is more important than actually winning.

You're once again conflating the issue. There are no guarantees with anything, but it's clear without a top flight QB that teams do not advance deep into the playoffs. Some smart guy will come up with an exception, but the fact remains that top teams almost always have top QB's. And as for the draft, it's 5 months away so there's no sense prognosticating about how that'll play out. The Colts, Patriots, and Saints consistently win because their QB can make up for defensive shortcomings. Team them with a good defense and you're talking championship caliber clubs. IMO, even if Buffalo had a decent defense, Fitzpatrick is still going to make more mistakes than a franchise guy and thus help to lose games the team should win. This team has holes all over the field: RT, TE, 2x OLB, FS, CB, and others. Get the franchise guy if you can on draft day and things have a way of working out. Look at TB for goodness sakes.

Casual fans forget the crucial errors Fitz has made that would be magnified if this team were in the playoff hunt or actually competing for the division. He threw a key INT against KC, another against CHI, and a pick 6 against Cincy. Every QB in the league throws picks, and occasionally at inopportune times (P. Manning last week, Brady in AFC Title Game 06) but the great ones don't do it as frequently as Fitzpatrick has. The margin of error is thinner that most casual fans realize, because essentially most Bills fans don't know what a franchise QB does week in and week out and what they do to win games. In 8 games this season, Fitz has completed half or fewer than half of his passes 3 times. He's passed for under 150 yards twice and thrown two INT's four times and is completing about 58% of his passes. Fitz is a decent player playing above average for a bad football team. To ever be a good team, they'll need fewer mistakes from their QB in games against opponents better than Cincinnati and Detroit.

Not allowed to be negative around here. Williams has become the best player in their front 7, but would be even better as a 43 1 tech or perhaps 3 tech. Still one of the few things the Levy/Jauron group got right.

I would agree on counts 1 and 2. Wish that it hadn't taken the off-season, pre-season, and 2 regular season contests to figure out Edwards was not the guy. At this point that's in the past, and they now have a guy who'll throw it downfield rather than play it safe. Not saying Fitz is the next coming, but the HC and QB are one the same page, which is a far cry from DJ and TE. Classic case of a HC being head strong and thinking they can resurrect anyone. On point 3, I don't understand the management of the RB's from Week 1 forward. Sure, Lynch and Jackson were banged up early, but they've had 3 starters in a matter of weeks to open the season. And to take things a step further, the offensive staff have not found a way to involve their top pick, who is averaging about 8 touches through the first 8.5 games. Sure, they may have had no intention of retaining Lynch, but get Spiller involved and give Jackson 15-20 carries per. Holding onto Lynch precluded them from getting the others contributing. I still won't give anyone associated with the Bills the benefit of the doubt after these 11 years. It's great they've got 2 wins and rang up 49 against Cincinnati, but these final 6 weeks will tell more of the story. And then it's on to the off-season where we'll see how committed they are to rebuilding quickly.

The franchise that is in perpetual rebuild mode will do whatever it takes to sell tickets first and foremost, but it'll come from on high and not the HC. Let's be clear, Chan is go along to get along at this point in his coaching career, because he'd probably be out of the NFL without the Bills. Second, the Bills will need a card to play when it comes time to sell ST's in 2011, the way TO and Spiller were hoped to be in 2009 and 2010 respectively. They're going to have to market the heck out of RF because he's really a journeyman QB and smart fans know it. It's a huge stretch to say Fitzpatrick throws 30 TDs, especially considering the opponents these next 6 games and that he'll need to average 2 per game. For every big statistical game he's had, there have been others like vs Detroit and at KC that weren't impressive. I will believe this team goes "heavy" in FA when I see it, because it'll mean the team is spending and not cutting salary as they did from 2009 to 2010. And there are a whole lot of fans, as evidenced by home attendance, nowhere near the bandwagon. It's a 2-8 team at the end of the day with 6 decent opponents in the way.

First, Ralph runs the show at OBD, and Chan Gailey along with Buddy Nix will do as the owner says. End of story. There's a marketing angle every fan needs understand and the franchise needs a drawing card in 2011. The only way I see Fitzpatrick remaining the starter is if he wins over more fans and the team believes they can market him to sell season tickets. Outside of that, ST sales fell 11k in 2010 and no matter how many TD passes Fitz throws, they'll have a tough time selling more than 40k after a season with 4 or fewer wins. Fitz is a great guy, but he's not the star or high rookie pick who can they can bank on. To that end, I see RW ordering Nix to take a QB whether he or Gailey want to.

It's hard to fathom a NFL franchise going 0-3 in coaching hires for a decade, but Buffalo's done just that. And even though Gailey is still in his honeymoon phase with many fans, he's still a 2-8 HC that went into the season wanting to run with 3 good backs and has now reverted to being a passing team. He picked the wrong QB to start, and the defense wasn't ready to morph from a 43 to a 34. Those are three of the biggest off-season decisions a HC (and GM) can make, and half-way through the season they've reversed course. Having said that, offensively they are indeed light years ahead of perhaps the worst offensive group in Bills history with DJ. If they beat Pittsburgh, it'll somewhat assuage my concerns for the future. But that's a pretty tall task with this team.

Which one? It doesn't appear there's a Jake Long or Walter Jones waiting to be had at he top of the first round. Of course it's 5 months out, but it doesn't appear anyone is that good. For the life of me I can't see this happening. The dynamics in 2004 will be vastly different than in 2011, principally money. E. Manning's contract in 2004 will be nowhere near what the top pick in 2011 receives, especially if that's a QB. If Luck doesn't come out, the Bills still take the best QB available for one simple reason: RW will order Buddy to take one to create a marketing angle after a disaster of a season, regardless of what the football people think. And then they'll have issues signing the guy.

For all the fan induced hysteria surrounging the hiring of Chan Gailey, Buffalo has not significantly improved on offense. It's worth noting that the 2009 Bills finished 28th in total points with 258, or 16.1 per game. In 2010, Buffalo ranks 29th with 164 points or 18.2 per game. It's an improvement, but not anything on par with what many felt would happen given an offensive minded HC. Or one with a 9th overall pick at RB who would add excitement with big plays to a bad team. On defense, the results have been obviously poor as Buffalo has yielded 245 points through 9 games, or 27.2 per to rank 27th. Last season, they surrendered 325 points or 20.3 per game and ranked 19th. Someone will point out they're rebuilding and switched schemes, but it seems there's a built-in excuse every season about why the Bills aren't a playoff team. N.B.: Points scored is not the only metric to measure success or failure, although one could argue points scored and points allowed are the most important. It's more symbolism than substance that offensively the team has succeeded. Defensively, well, they've regressed mightily. And, they're the only club ranked in the bottom 6 in offense and defense points scored/allowed rankings. Rebuilding ad infinitum.

You gotta wonder why he's been on 3 teams in 5 seasons.

Part of the Spiller pick was the marketing aspect of it. He's got excellent speed, quickness, and vision, but it's wasted behind an offensive line that struggles against tough run defenses as evidenced in Toronto. Offensive lineman don't sell tickets, and the team knew they'd take a hit after letting TO go and another lackluster performance in 2009. More than 11k. There'll be another drop off barring Andrew Luck in the draft. The team has eschewed top FA's in previous years, although 2010 UFA class was an aberration. If the Bills want to win faster, they'll use UFA and not thrown down a cop out of "building through the draft." After 11 seasons of bad to mediocre football, fans are starting to demand a winner.

Great, now he can be a real starter earning that 5.5M per that Buffalo just re-signed him to. Guy has 23 sacks in about 125 NFL games.

I'm more concerned with Ryan Fitzpatrick's inaccuracy and propensity for throwing wild passes and/or interceptions. Luck has so much better touch on his throws, in my observations, and has the arm strength that Fitzpatrick wishes he had. Nothing against Fitz who's would be fine as a backup, but I'll take Luck everyday regardless. Could it be that their opponent last night was playing a T2 scheme forcing him to throw the short pass and in which Luck completed 33 passes for 292 yards? I'm merely asking.

It's a long standing tradition at OBD to blame fired individuals for bad draft picks. Or, when a guy like Modrak remains part of the process, to leak that he'd have selected Player X who's become successful elsewhere to his media pals. If ole Buddy was helping in '09 and running things in '10, I'm not impressed thus far. The '10 draft class is contributing very little, or the coaching staff doesn't know how to use them properly. They drafted Spiller, who through 8 games had 57 touches from the LOS. Troup was taken to be a 34NT, and they've reverted to a 43. Carrington is a 34DE, but doesn't dress. I'm not worried about the 4th rounders and later, but the top picks should be expected to play a role, and they're not considering their individual draft position. From '09, everyone's distanced themselves from the Maybin pick, Wood is recovering, Levitre is good, and Byrd's rookie season seems to be a fluke. Not what I'd call stellar, especially considering all the rookies contributing this season in the NFL. So from '09, they found 2 guards with 2 very high picks for the position. Not impressive. Most importantly, in two seasons the Bills haven't found one guy to play the toughest positions: QB, OT, and pass-rusher. Instead, we're left with picks at positions that aren't as challenging to find, like S, G, ILB, and RB. Not surprisingly, they still struggle mightily to dominate at the LOS. And I don't believe for a moment that Buddy has the power to fire anyone, despite his apparently lofty position. I'll maintain RW or his handlers are the ones who sign-off on any and all firings. After all, it was RW and not Brandon who fired DJ. Why would the director of college scouting be any different?

Buddy NIx also said back at his hiring PC that the team wasn't that far away. I'll believe Nix when he delivers that baby he promised, but until then, it's all words that apparently some fans actually hang onto. It's a 0-8 team outscored an average of 10 points per that can't figure out which defense to run, has a #1 pick getting 8 touches per game, and is 20M+ under what they spent last year. Sometimes I wish the Bills front office would get stranded on a cruise ship, RW included, out in the middle of the Pacific.

Levy had perennially the most talented teams in the NFL. Nix-Gailey have one of the, if not the, least talented team in the NFL. Huge difference and poor comparison. It seems like every year the Colts, Pats, Chargers, Ravens, Steelers, Giants, Eagles, Falcons, and now Chiefs are getting contributions from their rookies. See a trend there? Good GM's know how to draft for the future AND for the present. Buffalo hasn't done that in the past ten seasons, including this year. You get what you pay for at GM and HC. And RW doesn't pay but would rather have people he knows at the GM position. Funny.

I don't see a plan almost a year into the Nix-Gailey pairing. The team went into the season wanting to run the ball with 3 quality backs, and has all but abandoned the run game to the tune of throwing it 60% of the time. On defense, they wanted to implement a 34 and have moved from that to other fronts because they can't stop anyone. Their prized 9th overall pick is getting less than 8 touches from the LOS each game, although if you spend a first on a RB, that guy better be able to play immediately. RB is one of the only positions where instinct and physical ability matter more than knowing the scheme. But some genius will come along and say he's not on the field because his blocking isn't good enough. Then why'd they take him? They needed immediate impact rookies in rounds 1-3. What they got isn't doing that yet when other teams are getting production from their rookies. It seems like DJ all over again in one respect: another old school HC doesn't trust his rookies enough to play them so they get valuable game experience. Maybe there was a reason Gailey and Nix weren't on anyone's radar to fulfill the roles they were hired for in Buffalo?

Any new Bills logo has to have RW's face on it. He's been the face of the franchise since Day 1, so it's only fitting that as they march toward history RW is part of it.

Offensive genius Chan Gailey is throwing 60% of the time now. The question has to be why, and I suspect it's because the OL struggles to run block, which was on display last week. Chris Johnson weighs about the same as CJ does now. It's a matter of the OL being able to run block and give him a crease. That is, if Chan would give him the ball from the LOS more than 8 times a game. 32 points scored in two weeks against decent teams in KC and CHI is not what I'd call moving the ball and scoring points. So the offense scores more points, great. The defense gives up more points too. And the record is what you are: 0-8.

I would say of the 2010 class, Arthur Moats is contributing more than any of them, including Spiller. That's not a statement of talent, but it seems Gailey and their staff is reluctant, as was DJ, to use younger guys. And if they don't get experience, how will they improve?

It helps when (insert OT here) isn't getting blasted into the backfield. Howard and Wrotto have been particularly bad in the run game, and Bell isn't much better. Finding quality OT's not snagged from other team's practice squads, are late round draft picks or UDFA's would help. I don't think Jackson has lost a step, but when Gailey goes away from the running game and gets into pass-happy mode, Jackson doesn't get a chance to work into a rhythm.

It's Year -1 for rebuilding, although ideally it would be Year 0 and simply too many changes implemented than absolutely necessary. While Chan has the offense looking better that DJ, it's completely mitigated by the failure of the defense to stop anyone particularly on the ground. I would expect a rebuilding team to feature their rookies (1st-3rd rounders) more than Buffalo is doing. Spiller has exactly 57 touches from the LOS this season, Troup is a rotational guy, and Carrington barely dresses. To blindly chalk that up to being rookies is idiotic and not a good sign. When RW comes out and says it's going to be a 3 year thing, he's living in the past. He could provide the financial resources to be active and smart in FA, and that doesn't include signing the Robert Royal's of the world, to make this team better and faster. If they go light in UFA next season assuming a new CBA, they have no intention of putting a winning team on the field.