BillnutinHouston Posted September 14, 2004 Posted September 14, 2004 Think what a different tone there would be here if the last play was ruled out of bounds. Amazing what a few inches will do. There's a fine line between wins and losses and we were on the wrong end Sunday. If we had won, the fumbles, attempts at interceptions, prevent defenses and missed FG's would have been glossed over. Even in our glory years the above things happened. Look back at the scores - blow outs were the exceptions, not the rule. My point is, this loss REALLY hurt because we are a struggling franchise right now. But let's not blow it out of proportion, we are not as bad as the naysayers say. Week 1 matters but it's not the end-all. What good did the 31-0 win vs. Pats do for us in week 17 last year? Nothing. What matters is how we do this week and in week 4. REAL champions (Pats?) live to fight another day. Will this Bills team live to fight another day? The answer to that question is the most important one of the season, not who can we bring in to replace Lindell (who missed 1 kick) , or how can we get LeBeau back? If we show some heart in the next few weeks and get some bounces, we can pull off a 9-7 or 10-6 finish. It's all about heart.
ExWNYer Posted September 14, 2004 Posted September 14, 2004 Amazing what a few inches will do. Just ask stevestojan's ex-girlfriends.
BillnutinHouston Posted September 14, 2004 Author Posted September 14, 2004 I knew someone would sift through the BS and get to the real purpose of my post.
Fake-Fat Sunny Posted September 14, 2004 Posted September 14, 2004 Being down on an individual and his performance is really different than being down on the team. I think one of the failings of US culture is that people can not seem to hold contradictory ideas in their head at the same time and in fact cannot even seem to attribute assessment of a part as somehow also being an assessment of the whole. The whole and a part of the whole are different things. One can find fault with Lindell's performance and advocate looking elsewhere without being down on the Bills as a team. In fact, support for the Bills and wanting to improve the team does mandate in my mind making a pretty focused assessment of Lindell's work and upon looking at it being pretty harsh and advocating the Bills look elsewhere for a solution. Likewise, people also seem to judge finding fault with even part of a players' game as somehow being an indictment of the players' entire game or advocating his removal. To me in an intelligent world this does not have to be the case. Bledsoe for example is a player I definitely judge to be on the backside of his career and he has some horrendous limitations in his game (limitations which were fully revealed last year when he played with a marginal OL with sorry coaching running an offense conceived by Killdrive which did not play to our strengths. Despite all these Bledsoe negatives, there are real world examples when Parcells coached a team led by Bledsoe to an SB berth and in the 2002 SB when Bledsoe played a crucial and essential role in a must-win game that a team can in fact win and do well with a properly coached Bledsoe at QB. A football based intelligent assessment of the game strikes me as recognizing that despite the fact that Bledsoe is old and sucks in a number of ways that the Bills can in fact be quite successful and win with im at QB if we run our offense in a way that does not rely on him winning the game for us or that falls in love with his powerful arm, but instead emphasizes the things he can do well as he does have a powerful weapon on his right side that defenses must respect which creates other opportunities for us. in addition, thouh I doubt that Bledsoe is the brightest bulb in the pack, real smarts and football smarts are two different things. From all I see Jim Kelly was dumb as dirt as a person but he had one of the greatest football minds I have ever seen. Bledsoe has shown time and again that he is a gamer and takes direction and acts on it well for a smart coach. If you disagree fine, but how do you explain Bledsoe QBing the Pats to an SB berth and successfully filling in the majority of a game won by the Pats with the margin of victory from game-winning Blledsoe TD pass. Its possible to be down on an individual Bill without being down on the Bills and it is possible to be down on aspects of an indivduals game without being down on the individual player.
Recommended Posts