An early look at next season's opponents

[Pyrite Gal]

The write up on the Bill's Daily site describing why we ended up with the #12 pick actually left me feeling a bit better about the irritation of my team failing to put up a winning record.

 

Our record sucked this season and there are no two ways about that. However. since we did not (nor were we good enough to deserve to) make the playoffs our season is over this year. So it is reasonable IMHO to turn our attention to next year and the analysis of the quality of the teams we loss to is a reasonable consideration and more than the mere apologies and excuses if they were offered to assess our chances this year.

 

We lost this year. but like all sports fans, wait til next year is a legit cry and the assessment is actually quite hopeful.

 

1. Getting the higher pick because we lost the last two games actually helps a bit. The pundits shat all over Marv for having a lousy draft, but not only did the draft weekend analysis on TSW indicate that it was the pundits who actually probably had their heads up their butt, but the results of this year underscored the utility of the draft for the Bills.

 

Not only did every player make the roster but in fact all but OL player Aaron Merz were active and saw some game action.

 

Not only was the Marv led group making at least rational picks (which some pundits claimed they did not) in fact 6 of the 9 picks actually started games and having beaten out other players were certainly useful picks for the Bills.

 

Even better than the booby prize of getting a 7-9 pick rather than 8-8 (I am one who would have rather seen us win a meaningless game and get a worse pick if I had my druthers) was that actually we were the strongest 7-9 team in the league based on opponents' records.

 

In fact fully half our games were against teams which made the playoffs though only 12 of 32 teams made the playoffs. We logged our 7-9 record playing and losing to the top 5 seeds in the AFC and against Chicago the top seed in the NFC.

 

As we put up a 6-2 record against non-playoff teams, even this crew we fans found troubled is in far better shape than last year as we are at least among the better of the non-playoff teams. The Marv led draft picks had a lot to do with this.

 

In terms of next season, I look at it this way in terms of our prospects (the actual dates and obviously make it to difficult to predict outcomes but a guesstimate on how competitive we will be can reasonably be done).

 

Division games-

 

We finished .500 this year being swept by NE and sweeping the Fins and we split with the Jets reversing the homefield advantage.

 

Figuring us at 3-3 against this group next year is not unreasonable.

 

Hpme games-

 

Home field is not a guarantee of a victory (see Jets games, Houston and TN) but it is a leg up. I see us being competitive in all of these games and think if things are where they are now (they will not be) we actually should be favored in both games against non playoff teams (CIN, Den) and actually though Dallas and NYG made the playoffs neither of these teams scares me at all. Only against Baltimore do I fear we will lose even at home and as happened yesterday even in their house the game was competitive.

 

So I feel good about a 4-1 record at home right now.

 

Away games-

 

As we saw in the Detroit game it is quite possible to lose to bad teams on the road. However, these games can be won if the situation is good.

 

The good news is that only one of our road games is against a playoff team Philly and though if these two teams played today in Philly they would be favored this game is less scary to me than traveling to Baltimore yesterday.

 

In the remaining 4 games, I think we may end up favored against a bad Cleveland team and maybe against a Skins team if they founder as they currently are.

 

Jacksonville does not scare me even in their house and though Pitts does it obviously depends upon which Pitts team shows up.

 

I feel fine right now about seeing us end up 3-2 at their house against non division teams (it is way early so I am hopeful even irrationally so).

 

The bottomline is that I see at least a 10 win record against our opponents on the face of it and that should be good enough to crawl into the playoffs.