instead of endlessly whining about Pats.

[4BillsintheBurgh]

Mario Williams, Mark Anderson, Marcel Darius, Kyle Williams

 

Thats whats different

This. The pass rush should cause more mistakes by their qb's and lead to wins. Greater depth this year should cause less of a drop off when people do get hurt.

[eball]

Call me naive, but I'm just not worried about the Jets and Fish. Yes, the Bills were 0-4 against them last year, but (at least for me) it's pretty easy to go back and look at those games and realize the Bills were significantly shorthanded. Let's face it -- the defense was not good, and the offense suffered significant losses to injury.

 

If you analyze what has happened with all three franchises this offseason, I think even a completely unbiased observer would say the Bills took steps forward, while the Fish have gone backwards and the Jets have, at BEST, been treading water. The Tebow thing is a powder keg waiting to explode. I couldn't be happier the Bills start off the season at the Meadowlands.

 

So, at least for me, the division still starts and ends with the friggin' Pats*.

[bills44]

Right. The way to move forward is to endlessly complain about bill-a-cheat, and mock Brady's wife. Ignore 4 loses in our division.

 

Right, because what people say on a Bills message board is going to impact the team's play on the field.

 

Admittedly, you rarely watch the Bills. Maybe you should put down the Pats** pom poms, watch more Bills games and then get back to me.

[stony]

Call me naive, but I'm just not worried about the Jets and Fish. Yes, the Bills were 0-4 against them last year, but (at least for me) it's pretty easy to go back and look at those games and realize the Bills were significantly shorthanded. Let's face it -- the defense was not good, and the offense suffered significant losses to injury.

 

If you analyze what has happened with all three franchises this offseason, I think even a completely unbiased observer would say the Bills took steps forward, while the Fish have gone backwards and the Jets have, at BEST, been treading water. The Tebow thing is a powder keg waiting to explode. I couldn't be happier the Bills start off the season at the Meadowlands.

 

So, at least for me, the division still starts and ends with the friggin' Pats*.

 

It's not being naive, I suppose many of us are simply confident now with many of the additions we have made. It's a nice change of pace for once.

 

I don't overly worry about the Dolphins or Jets, but every game every week in the NFL is a test. Personally, if we go 3-3 in the division that's great for me.

[DC Tom]

That gets us a win against the Jets?

 

I was being glib, just to annoy you...But yes, it probably does. If you build a team to target the best team in the division, it should be a good enough team to be the other teams in the division.

[frogger]

1. Not have our QB have cracked ribs for all 4 of those games?

2. Not have so many injuries by that point in the season?

 

Look, I don't want to make excuses, but there was clearly a drop-off as we lost guys. The first Jets game was right after the game(Redskins) where Fitz got hurt, and after reviewing those 2 games, now that we know about the injury, it's fairly clear. Not every play, but there was some definite instances where he was floating the ball on throws that the week before were on a line.

 

We also got killed by the run at Miami, and also lost Freddy, Jones and MgGee before halftime. Not good. Especially not after that Dallas game. Team wasn't right from here on, but IMHO, it all started with the hit on Fitz in the Redskins game.

This is the reason for my excitement about opening in NY, biggest stage and by halftime they'll be chanting for tebow.

[spartacus]

We were the least sacked team in the league last year, our O line wasn't that bad at pass protection and they were pretty good at run blocking. I think we could split with everyone in our division with a pass rush and faster linebackers that can cover the strong TE's and catch the little backs like Reggie Bush.

 

The OL stats cover up how bad the OL really is

 

they can not pass block which is why Fitz got those broken ribs and always has less than 3 seconds to throw

 

They can not run block consistently - the run stats are padded by running from 5 wide sets to open run lanes and force more DBs on the field.

 

Even this strategy was negated when defense swarmed the line and had no fear of any pass play over 10 yards/.

 

and now the Bills are without Bell at LT and have an unknown in Wood's injury status

 

 

 

[Jim in Anchorage]

I was being glib, just to annoy you...But yes, it probably does. If you build a team to target the best team in the division, it should be a good enough team to be the other teams in the division.

And who did our single win in the division come from? The Pats. I am more concerned about the 4 beating's from the Jets and fins.

[Mr. WEO]

This. The pass rush should cause more mistakes by their qb's and lead to wins. Greater depth this year should cause less of a drop off when people do get hurt.

 

The pass rush wan't very good before starters got injured.

 

 

MArk Anderson is on his 4th team in 7 seasons. Anyone know why?

[Frez]

We need some beef on both lines.............get er done this draft!

[Gibran Chandan]

That gets us a win against the Jets?

 

Surely someone on Craigslist is selling a reasonably priced sarcasm detector in working condition.

[Glory Bound]

The way we fix this is to make a phone call to the Windy City & beg Rusty Jones to come back, & back it up with $$. Since he left, our beloved Bills have been plagued with insurmountable injuries, which have caused the wheels to fall off the cart time & time again. Our injury level was half when he was our strength & conditioning coach. I used to think our biggest mistake of a non-player departure was letting Bill Polian exit, but after seeing what happened to the Colts last year without Peyton Manning, I have changed my mind. I now believe letting Rusty Jones leave was one of the biggest mistakes of this franchise.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

There are endless threads on here breaking down every move the Pats make [Why do they always get us after a bye? The NFL is FIXED!!] but four[4] bad loses in OUR DIVISION are ignored.

You people know a hell of a lot more about the AFC east then I do[the Bills are never on TV here] so my question is: Why did we get badly beaten twice by the Jets and fish ? And more important, how do we fix it?

Your thoughts

 

First Jets game: It was <7 points into the middle of the 3rd quarter, despite our D line made Sanchez look like the 2nd coming of Broadway Joe. Jets DB were jamming our receivers on the line on O and dominating our DL on D. Fitz was struggling to throw (with what we now know were broken ribs). Gailey refused to adapt - had us throwing 31 times to 20 rushing attempts. In the 2nd half, our D lay down and rolled over. [Jets pretty much laid down a blueprint on D that Dallas and Mia followed in the next 2 games]

 

First Miami game: Levitre should never play center again. Especially he should never play center for shotgun, in the rain, with minimal practice . That's pretty much all you need to know. Well, that plus our D line made Matt Moore look like the second coming of Dan Marino.

 

Second Jets game: This one we could have won. Fitz had >66% completions for 267 yds, 3 TDs, no Ints, this despite being sacked 3x (ouch) and having 34 yds by rushing. We had more total yards, more first downs - more everything except points. Jets dominated the lines on both sides, but even that couldn't make Sanchez look like the 2nd coming of Joe Namath. (He did throw for 4 TDs though.)

 

Second Miami game: It was entirely within reach at the end of the 1st half. Once again, our DL made Moore look like the 2nd coming of Dan Marino. Fitz had a bad day - 316 yds passing, but 3 INTs. Throwing to Spiller, Martin, Hagen, Choice, and Smith may or may not have some bearing on this.

[billsfan89]

So you feel with last years team healthy we beat fins-jets? No other changes? I don't have tape, but as I recall we got CLOBBERED. By two sad sack teams.

 

I think had the Bills had their somewhat full complement of players they would have split against at least one of those teams and the games would have been much more competitive. Also I wouldn't call the Jets a sad sack team, they were 8-8 and coming off back to back AFC title game appearances, the team ended up unraveling but they were far from a sad sack team. And even in our sad sack state we likely could/should have beaten the Jets once.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

So you feel with last years team healthy we beat fins-jets? No other changes? I don't have tape, but as I recall we got CLOBBERED. By two sad sack teams.

 

You recall wrong. We got clobbered in the 1st Jets and Mia games, and yes, injuries clearly played a huge role esp. in the Mia clobbering (Levitre at center snapping to shotgun in the rain = BAD).

Being beaten 28-24 with a TD in the 4th (2nd Jets game) isn't typically described as a "clobbering".

Being beaten 30-23 (2nd Mia game) looks more like a clobbering, except that it was a missed Raynor 26 yrd FG and decision to convert by passing away from being 30-27.

 

I feel with last year's starters healthy at the least it was a split. With an improved DL featuring SOME kind of pass rush, the clobbering could well have gone the other way.

[EastRochBillsfan]

Right. The way to move forward is to endlessly complain about bill-a-cheat, and mock Brady's wife. Ignore 4 loses in our division.

 

We could always talk about rex ryans' foot fetish then if it would make u feel better.

[OCinBuffalo]

The way we fix this is to make a phone call to the Windy City & beg Rusty Jones to come back, & back it up with $. Since he left, our beloved Bills have been plagued with insurmountable injuries, which have caused the wheels to fall off the cart time & time again. Our injury level was half when he was our strength & conditioning coach. I used to think our biggest mistake of a non-player departure was letting Bill Polian exit, but after seeing what happened to the Colts last year without Peyton Manning, I have changed my mind. I now believe letting Rusty Jones leave was one of the biggest mistakes of this franchise.

 

If we've said it once, we've said it, collectively, over 9,000 times

 

 

.....f'ing Mularkey

[Offside Number 76]

I don't want to start a thread for this. So I'll say that here's the reason we endlessly whine about the cheats:

 

http://deadspin.com/5904127?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_facebook&utm_source=deadspin_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

 

That, and the cheating.

[Glory Bound]

If we've said it once, we've said it, collectively, over 9,000 times

 

 

.....f'ing Mularkey

I know.... 8,428 to be exact! Still sticks in my craw though...I just have to repeat it every couple of months. Can we file a law suit against Mularkey for stupidity? There's so many people on this planet that can't recognize a good thing when they have it. They just have to be stupid & lose it. I am an employer & this is not rocket science. Recognize a good ee when you have one, treat them right & pay them accordingly & they'll stick around! Sheesh! These debilitating injuries year after year make me nuts!

[BillsFan-4-Ever]

What I am sure of

 

the first game against Miami - the Bills lost their starting center the week before and his replacement sucked VERY bad. every snap was off target abd Fitz with freshly aquired "chest" injury had to reach for every one. Needless to say bad snaps throw off the timeing for the entire offense.