MDH

From here on out every week I'm going to give a list of our team "leaders", those players who go that extra mile to make it more difficult for the Bills to win with stupid penalties. Did you realize we had 4 false starts yesterday...4 false starts at HOME! Feel free to just rip into any one of them for doing such a great job. Players need to start being accountable for this stuff. So every week I'll post this weeks newest midgets and a season long tally as well. And while we're at it, let's hold our coaching staff accountable for this disciplined bunch of guys they put on the field each week. Vs. New England: 30 yards - 2 penalties- London Fletcher - directly gave NE 3 points as they ended up kicking a FG instead of punting...admittedly, this was a BS call. 15 yards - Eric Moulds (shut your trap on the sideline Eric...) 10 yards - J. Burns 10 yards - O. Lineman - anybody know who was the culprit on the 3rd and 1 holding call? It’s not listed on NFL.com 5 yards - J. Jennings 5 yards - C. Wire – directly cost the Bills 4 points 5 yards - M. Campbell 5 yards - L. Smith 5 yards - S. Adams 5 yards - J. Reed Season to date: L. Fletcher – 4 penalties - 73 yards (Thank god we have this level headed “leader” on our defense! At this rate he'll rack up 21 penalties for 381 yards this year...) E. Moulds – 2 penalties – 20 yards (and keep that mouth shut!) C. Villarrial – 2 penalties – 15 yards (good thing we have the "best guard in FA", seems like Ruben all over again...) S. Adams – 2 penalties – 10 yards (Bruce Smith you're not, how about staying onsides) M. Haggen - 1 penalty – 10 yards (+ 63 yard return...admittedly, BS) R. Baker – 1 penalty – 10 yards R. Tucker – 1 penalty – 10 yards J. Burns – 1 penalty – 10 yards T. Teague – 1 penalty – 10 yards J. Jennings – 1 penalty – 5 yards C. Wire – 1 penalty – 5 yards M. Campbell – 1 penalty – 5 yards L. Smith – 1 penalty – 5 yards J. Reed – 1 penalty – 5 yards K. Thomas – 1 penalty – 5 yards R. Denny – 1 penalty - 5 yards O. Lineman – 10 yards (holding on the 3rd and 1 play today…anybody know who is was?) Holding – 10 yards (cost the Bills 88 yards on return against Oak…anybody know who?) Delay of game penalty – 5 yards, on purpose to get more room to punt

That hit on Neufeld should have been a penalty according to NFL rules you can't hit a defenseless player...the rule was put in for the EXACT reason you saw yesterday, WRs going for a high ball and who have no means of protecting themselves from a headhunting safety. I'm not a big fan of the rule, but I understand why its there...and if the refs are going to call a fair game they have to make that call...why else is it in the rulebook? It should have been a 15 yard personal foul.

Keep on making excuses for the guy...I'm sure it was the D's fault that once again the offense only scored 10 points...that's 3 TDs in 3 games...not good. Yeah, that's Wire's fault and its also because of zero pass rush that we can't score. And blaming dropped balls is just not thinking things through...there will be some drops in EVERY game by EVERY team (the Pats had many more drops than the Bills yesterday)...it's jus what happens, blaming a few drops on the total lack of production is just wrong. Every team and every QB has dropped balls each game, somehow people think these mean a lot more when its the Bills that drop balls. Overall the WRs caught the ball pretty well yesterday.

Everyone keeps saying it was Moulds fault...but this is pure speculation. It may have been his fault, it may have been Drew's fault...we just don't know. And let's just say Moulds did run the wrong route...Drew still threw the ball into triple coverage...there were 3 defenders right there, even if Moulds had run the right route Drew never should have thrown that ball.

How can people not include Moulds? He's ALL we have on offense...name another player (other than the kicker) who has scored? Stats don't tell the entire story, but the guy has put up 20 recepts, 242 yards and 3 TDs...and that's on one of the worst Os in the league...I can't imagine what he'd do on a real offense... Take his production out to a 16 game season and that's: 106 RECEPTIONS, 1290 YARDS and 16 TDs...yeah, I'd cut that type of production too. People are so quick to jump on this team that they don't even know when we've got a good thing. Moulds is the best player on this team, period. One can argue he makes too much cash, but you can't argue with production.

The offense played well for a half. 10 points in the first half isn't bad...they got completely shut out the second half...not sure how you can give 'em the 3rd quarter. This is the 3rd straight game where the O put up 10 points...I guess I'm not seeing the "improvement" that you are.

This defense is overrated period. Until we can generate some preasure...ANY preasure, without having to blitz we'll always give up the big plays that we've been seeing. You can't blitz every down (well, unless it's against our offense) and not get beat for big plays a few times a game.

The real problem with Drew, imo, is that he accentuates our deficiencies on offense instead of masking them. He might still be a decent QB given just the right situation, but on this team he just makes everything look worse than it really is. He needs an offensive line that can pick up the blitz just about every time, because when things break down he doesn't know how to make plays under pressure. The problem is there are only a few teams in the league with Olines like this and in this day and age of the NFL few Olines stays together long enough to really become this cohesive. Breakdowns happen and we need a QB who can slide around in the pocket or make rocket quick decisions on where to go with the ball...a quick release helps too. Drew does none of these things. In fact, these are his biggest weaknesses, and so, on this team, it just makes everything else look that much worse.

Even if he wasn't fired then he would have left the team long before now. Nobody stays with one team for 20 years.

Why do you think its an automatic win when we play other bad teams? Hell, that just means we have a CHANCE at winning, doesn't mean we'll win. There's no way in hell we sweep anybody in our division this year, not even the lowly phins.

No, I don't laugh. In fact they showed a shot of Burns laughing on the sidelines after he commited a penalty and I went irrate. In my blind rage I think I shouted something to the effect of, "if I was the GD coach I'd cut any f'in backup FB who thought it was funny that he just hurt his team's chances of winning the game." So no, funny is the last thing I think it is.

See, this is how I feel right now. But I know exactly what will happen next week. The Bills will play well enough through 3 quarters to have a lead at which point I'll start to think, "maybe they can win this game" only to be devistated when they lose on another last second play. It wouldn't even surprise me if they had a 2 TD lead with 10 minutes left (which might be what it takes to get my hopes up) and then they blow it. Its this team's M.O.

If a player fumbles the ball and is still conscious afterwards he is most certainly to blame for fumbling the ball, I don't care how hard he was hit. This is just another excuse Bills fans make for the players when they screw up. Not to mention, he could have just stepped out of bounds instead of taking on tacklers at the 5.

They had already used both of their challenges if I remember correctly.

I hate to break it to you but if the only positives you can come up with 3 games into the season all concern looking forward to next season...that's not a positive post.

Yeah I was just thinking of this today. The last time we won the AFC East was 1995...

So the only thing you're looking forward to is our young QB coming in...and somehow you're pissed off that TD made the trade to get him? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. TD can be heavily criticized for a lot of things, but at least try to be consistent.

The thing that annoys me the most is his insecurity. On other teams, ones with a better "franchise" back than us...the #1 guy will come out of the game on occasion to get a breather, giving the back up a few carries a game. Henry is so insecure with his position he never takes himself out for a breather...no matter how tired he may be. I guess he thinks Willis may rip off a 40 yard run or something, I don’t know. So what we have is a first round draft pick who never gets on the field. The coaches need to start pulling Henry out here and there and giving WM some carries (even if its just 5-6 a game)...because he's never going to get any if we're waiting for Henry to pull himself out. And yes, I too am tired of Henry tripping over himself and during the most critical parts of games.

The thing that really eats me up is the fact they keep it close. Today, they actually had back to back penalties to open the game. :30 seconds in and the Pats were at midfield without doing a thing offensively. I kinda threw up my hands then and said, "here we go again". Of course, a few big plays from the offense and special teams and I start to forget how poorly they've played at times during the game. So when they it again in crunch time, with the game on the line I'm just furious, screaming at the TV (my wife had to take our 4 month old "out for a walk" because of me). This team is just about the dumbest team I've watched in a long time. So many mistakes, it's almost as if they don't practice or understand the rules of the game. This has always been my experience with the Bills. Over the years its been the most heart wrenching thing to watch. If they just got beat it wouldn’t be so bad...but they always do enough to bring back your hope...only to crush it again. Nothing is worse than that. sigh

On the last drive (yes, the meaningless drive that ended the game) I can't believe how bad the offense looked (and I expect pretty bad things from this O…so that’s saying something). 4 Sacks on one drive is bad enough, but the fact that the Pats let the Bills know they were blitzing, didn't try to disguise it in the least bit, the Bills new exactly which players were blitzing (hell, I knew who was blitzing!) and they STILL couldn't beat it. It was the most pathetic excuse for a professional offensive series I've ever seen in all my days of being a football fan. It was just embarrassing. How can you not know how to beat a blitz for big chunks of yardage if you know exactly what is coming? It wouldn't have mattered in the final score of the game but this drive just told me how unprepared this team is, how mentally un-tough they are, how mistake prone they are, and how our QB just can't read and react quickly enough to the blitz. Say all you want that "he had no time to throw" and you'd be right...but I've seen lots of QBs in that same situation "with no time to throw" throw the ball 30 yards down the sideline and let his WR try to make a play to beat the 1 on 1 coverage he's seeing. I’ve seen QBs hit guys on slants 10 yards down field and then they took it to the house in these same situations. I saw Billy Volek throw the ball deep today when SD sold out on a blitz and guys got through untouched. The ball fell incomplete but he put the ball up there deep for his WR to try and make a play. This is a guy who started his 2nd NFL game today. Taking a sack or dumping the ball off for 3 yards when you need two scores is just not quality play. Taking 4 sacks is just pathetic. I didn’t think Drew had a bad game overall today…but once that fumble happened he just crumbled…the guy just isn’t a mentally tough player. When things start to go downhill he folds. Same thing for the entire offense…and hell, the D for that matter. That’s the team we have right now, one that folds under pressure.

The only way to stop the love fest is for opposing teams to start beating the Pats. If opposing teams can't do it then the gushing is justified, isn't it?

The post you linked in which the poster puts pretty much all of the blame on the O-line...

Damn, I hadn't thought of that...I hate that they blackout out of the region games that they show locally on DTV...I understand why they do it, it's just f'in annoying.

Simply not true. The O-line is taking blame for sacks that aren't their fault. There is plenty of blame to go around, the RBs blitz picks ups, Bledsoes not getting rid of the ball when he should and the O-line having a few probs here and there. Almost half the sacks last week (3 or the 7) were the fault of RBs not doing their job in blitz pickup. Also, when I rewatched the offense last night I noticed Henry missing 4-5 holes that were there. There was one, on a 2nd down at the Raider 14 yard line where he would have scored had he hit the correct hole instead of cutting it back and getting caught by backside pursuit. Henry needs to start doing a better job in the run game...by the same token the O-Line does as well...Henry got caught in the backfield or at the LOS way too often.

Bah, that sucks...it means I have to use my antenna to get my HD signal...which can sometimes be a pain in the butt.