LifetimeBillsFan
12-19-2007, 05:37 AM
Let me state for the record, right here at the beginning of this post, that it is NOT my desire or intention to denigrate or disparage anyone's "fanhood" with the comments that I am about to make, but rather to offer my perspective on some of the recent posts about the success/failure of the Bills season thus far--in the hopes that they will present a slightly different take on the subject and perhaps stimulate some serious thought and discussion.
As a fan of the Bills since they began playing in 1960, I have seen the team at its highest points (Mike Stratton's hit on Keith Lincoln that led to their winning the AFL title may be my all-time favorite moment in Bills history) and its lowest points (watching Ed Rutkowski and Marlin Briscoe line up at QB, having J.Rauch use OJ at WR, suffering through the coaching of Harvey Johnson and Kay Stephenson, and seeing the arrogance of Tom Donahoe and Gregg Williams rank among the lowest).
As an admitted optimist (I have to be one to continue to live with a life-threatening, debilitating medical condition for as long as I have), I have always looked at the positive potential of the Bills and hoped/expected that they would do well. For this, some have labeled me a "homer".
But, at the same time, my experiences as an athlete when I was younger (and healthier) and as a long-time fan and observer of professional football has tempered my hopes and expectations. And, because of this, I would like to think of myself as being more of a "realist" when it comes to the Bills. Perhaps even moreso than some here who have labeled themselves "realists".
As I see it, in purely "realistic" terms, there is only one team in the NFL that has a truly successful season: the team that wins the Super Bowl title. The 31 other teams that do not achieve that goal have all failed to attain the ultimate prize that every one of them sets out at the beginning of the season to attain.
Contrary to what some fans seem to believe, merely making the playoffs or even winning a game or two in the post-season means nothing. The ultimate goal is to win the Super Bowl title. That is the "be-all" and "end-all" that every team is seeking to achieve. Anything less does not particularly matter. (ie The NY Jets made the playoffs in 2006, but did that make them a "good" team or mean that they would be good enough to be able to contend for a Super Bowl title this season?)
But, despite failing to attain this ultimate goal, that does not mean that some of the other teams cannot have successful seasons. Successful in relative terms.
As any reasonably good athlete will tell you, no professional team, no matter how devoid of talent, sets out at the beginning of the season believing that it cannot win--if they did, why bother playing their games at all? Call them optimists or "homers", if you will, for believing that somehow, someway, they will find a way to win it all. Yet, we all know--those of us who follow the game--before the season even starts that the reality is that some teams have little or no chance (barring some miracle of astronomical proportions) of winning the Super Bowl. For a fan of one of these teams, understanding and accepting this is, in my view, simply being a "realist".
Despite their lofty goals of winning a Super Bowl, for some teams in the NFL, realistically, success must be defined in relative terms: in terms of improvement, of adding and developing talent, of being competitive against teams with superior talent, of gaining experience and learning from it, etc.--because, when you take a hard look at them, these teams, for whatever reasons, these teams simply lack the talent and/or experience and/or character/quality and/or coaching, etc. to have any reasonable chance of winning a Super Bowl.
It is simply not being realistic or fair for a fan of one of these teams to EXPECT that team to win a Super Bowl or even make the playoffs (for whatever that is worth). He/she can hope or want that team to do so--and can complain to high heaven if the team does not fulfill those desires--but that is not being realistic or a "realist". A "homer whose expectations are based on unsubstantiated desires and unstated hopes, maybe, but not a "realist".
The fan who is the true "realist", in my view, is the one who shares his/her team's hopes of ultimate success, but is realistic enough to see the team's flaws and needs, to understand and accept that the odds are against the team achieving its ultimate goal, and, yet, is willing to base his evaluation of the direction that the team is going on the relative success or failure of the team's season in terms of its attainment of various secondary goals.
Now, how does this apply to the Bills' season thus far?
The reality is that the Tom Donahoe regime was a disaster for the Buffalo Bills franchise. One can argue that GM John Butler and his assistant AJ Smith should never have been allowed to leave the Bills, but the truth is that Butler left the Bills in "salary cap hell" and there is no telling how the team would have done had he remained and tried to deal with that situation. That's a "what-if" that doesn't matter--what does matter is that Donahoe was hired and the approach that he took to running the team utterly failed.
The lockerroom that GM Marv Levy inherited was a mess. Realistically, that collection of players had no chance of winning a Super Bowl or ever winning a Super Bowl. Not unless Levy could have hired Bill Belichick and traded for Tom Brady or Peyton Manning--which simply was not going to happen.
Before Levy could put together a collection of players capable of having any reasonable chance of winning a Super Bowl, he first had to get rid of the players that the Bills already had who had contributed to or played major roles in the collapse of the team during the 2005 season. He also had to get rid of those players who didn't want to play in Buffalo or who were only interested in the most money that they could--because you don't build winning teams, teams with players who are willing to sacrifice and work for the good of the team, with such players.
But, because many of those players were the team's best athletes and players, that meant denuding the team of a great deal of its talent. Which, naturally, meant that the team would be moving forward with a lot less talent than most of the teams in the NFL and that it would have to replace that talent before it could reasonably be expected to have a chance to win a Super Bowl title.
Levy and owner Ralph Wilson decided that, rather than repeat the approach that Donahoe took of building the team around big-name free agents, they would take a totally different approach and build the team from the ground up with young, "high-character" players that their coaches could mould into a winning team as they gained experience. Realistically, however, that meant that it would take longer to build the team into a unit that would have a reasonable chance of winning a title.
Of course Wilson and Levy were not going to tell Bills fans that were going to take an approach of rebuilding the Bills that would, realistically, take 3-4 years to produce a team capable of possibly competing for a Super Bowl title. The Bills are a business and Wilson has to sell tickets to the games and team merchandise to make money--he doesn't want his team playing in a half full stadium (even if he could afford to have them do so)! So, naturally, he and Levy and the Bills coaches were all going to tell the media and the public that the team would be looking to win a Super Bowl--that's what every team has as its goal, after all.
But, realistically, after getting rid of all of the talented players that the Bills virtually pushed out of their lockerroom (they just about gave T.Spikes away, just to get rid of him!), the Bills simply did not have enough talent left on their roster at the beginning of the 2006 or even the 2007 season to have much of a chance of winning a Super Bowl title--as evidenced, if by nothing else, by their losses to the Pats this season. That should have been obvious to anyone who has been following the team and the NFL in recent years.
While being a fan--which comes from the word "fanatic"--means wanting, hoping and/or believing that your team will win the ultimate prize of a title and supporting them in spite of the fact that they may have no reasonable chance of doing so, for any Bills fan to EXPECT that the team would win or even have a reasonable chance of winning the Super Bowl this season was simply not realistic.
A true "realist" would have recognized that the team was too young, did not have enough playmakers, was too unstable at the most critical position on the team, and simply did not have sufficient overall talent to have even a 25% chance of capturing a Super Bowl title going into this season. Only someone who was being totally unreasonable or a deluded fanatic--a "homer" of the greatest proportions--could possibly EXPECT the Bills to win the Super Bowl this season--even at the beginning.
That being said, the success or failure of the Bills season could only reasonably and realistically be evaluated in relative terms.
Did the Bills add needed talent to their roster? Did the team--and particularly their young players--gain much needed experience that will help them play better in the future and did they learn from that experience? Did the team demonstrate the comraderie, work-ethic and character that it will need in order to become an elite team in the future? Was the team competitive in its games? Did it play hard or quit when faced with adversity? Did the team and its players improve over the previous season and as the season progressed? etc.
Prior to the start of the season, many, if not all (there were a couple of exceptions), of the people here who called themselves "realists" predicted that the Bills would win 6 games or less this season. There were even some who predicted that the Bills would be lucky to win 3-4 games and would be competing for the worst record in the NFL.
Were they being realistic in their evaluation or expressing their worst fears (while, perhaps, secretly hoping that the team would be better than they were willing to say) or were they expressing their frustration that management was not taking the approach to putting together the team that they would take were they in charge (an ego-centric view that might or might not have some merit)?
There were some others--often refered to as "homers"--who felt that the team would do better than that. While some were wildly optimistic in predicting that the Bills would win 9-11 games and be serious playoff contenders, the vast majority in this group felt that the team would show progress and could match or slightly exceed their total of 7 wins in 2006. Those in this group that predicted that the team would win 7-9 games did not expect the Bills to be capable of winning a Super Bowl title, but expected the team to have a relatively successful season nonetheless, based upon the kind of criteria that I cited above.
Were they being realistic in their evaluation or were they being blindly optimistic in their thinking and overlooking all of the team's flaws that the so-called "realists" kept pointing out to them?
Well, how has the season played out?
With 2 games remaining, the Bills have already matched their 2006 win total with 7 victories.
While their schedule has proven to be easier than it looked to be before the season started, they have only lost one game to a team with a worse record than their own--a last minute 1 point loss to preseason playoff favorite Denver. One of their losses was on a last second FG to NFC leaders Dallas and they played a very close game in abominable conditions against an emerging Cleveland Browns team.
While much has been made of their abysmal rankings in total offense and defense, the defense ranks 15th in the league in the all important category of points allowed per game--which is respectable, but not as good as their 10th place ranking in 2006. However, if you exclude their 2 losses to the the offensive juggernaut that New England has assembled this season, the Bills would rank 5th in the league in this category.
As has been mentioned in other posts (John Doe in HHurricane's thread), most preseason expectations were based on JP Losman taking all of the snaps for the Bills this season. Rather than building on his respectable finish to the 2006 season, however, Losman regressed this season, missed some games due to injury, and was ultimately benched in favor of rookie QB Trent Edwards. While Edwards has not "lit up" the league--or even been given much of a chance to light up the league--he has shown many positive signs in his demeanor, leadership and play--performing far better than any other rookie QB this season so far--that make it appear that he will be better suited to leading the team forward than the erratic Losman. Whether Edwards will be able to develop into a QB who can compete head-to-head with the elite QBs, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Tony Romo, who are most likely to be leading the teams that the Bills will have to beat in order to win a Super Bowl remains to be seen and won't become apparent until at least the end of next season.
But, the fact that the Bills have been able to not only be competitive, but win games with a rookie QB at the helm of their offense has to be seen as a positive signs--this is not something that is usually the case. Especially since the Bills have once again reverted to an extremely conservative offensive approach--which has made their offense predictable and made it more difficult for them to move the ball--in an effort to protect and nuture their rookie signal-caller (such an approach is often "a two-edged sword").
Add to that the fact that 1st Round draft pick Marshawn Lynch has shown, even as a rookie, that he can be a more than adequate replacement for the departed Willis McGahee and the emergence of Fred Jackson as a capable # 2 RB and it is not hard to conclude that the Bills are finishing the 2007 season in better shape at the RB position than they ended the 2006 season.
Neither Edwards nor Lynch had ever played in snow or the type of cold that is typical in Buffalo before this season. That certainly showed in Edwards' performance against the Browns in Cleveland last Sunday--when it took almost 3 quarters for him to adjust his throws to compensate for the wind conditions. The experience that they--and the other young Bills players from the South and West--gained in playing in those conditions will stand them in good stead in their future careers in Buffalo going forward. While his receivers didn't help him with their dropped passes in the second half, the fact that Edwards was able to ultimately make adjustments and throw some accurate passes in 4th quarter, with the winds blowing 25-35 mph, was very encouraging, even if the final outcome of the game was disappointing.
All of this has been accomplished with the team being decimated by injuries--injuries that have sidelined some of the talented young players that Levy has brought in to help rejuvenate the team and have forced the team to play back-ups and street free agents who would otherwise not be playing. The result has been that the Bills have found some valuable players on their bench who will be able to help the team move to the next level.
The Bills could have quit--as the 2005 team did--or used all of the injuries, particularly the devastating near-fatal loss of Kevin Everett, as an excuse for not playing hard. But, instead, the Bills have built a reputation around the league as a team that, perhaps, plays harder than any other in the NFL. Their work-ethic and effort has drawn notice from players, coaches and media observers (who generally have had little good to say about the Bills in recent years).
And, some of the young players that have been brought in to replace those jettisoned when Marv Levy took over as GM have begun to emerge as the kinds of leaders that a team needs to have if it is going to have a reasonable chance to win a Super Bowl. With all of the injuries that hit the team at the beginning of the 2007 season, Donte Whitner took it upon himself to organize weekly team get-togethers which the players, themselves, have said has allowed the team to bond together and has encouraged them to work harder.
All of these things would indicate that, despite the team's continued lack of sufficient talent, flaws and short-comings that still need to be addressed, and failure to win its biggest game of the year and make the playoffs, the Bills' season has been a relative success thus far (at least one more win in its last two games would underscore this).
Realistically, one can see progress.
Of course, there will be those who will cite the team's failure to make the playoffs yet again and any number of statistics that reveal the team's many remaining flaws as evidence that the team is not that good and as a reason to complain. Fine.
Realistically, the Bills, as presently constituted, are not good enough to be considered an elite team capable of winning a Super Bowl yet. And, there is no guarantee that they will get to the point where they will be able to win a Super Bowl--no offense to Jim Kelly and the teams of the early 1990s, but the last time that the Bills actually won a title was in 1965 and they have not won a Super Bowl yet (and neither have most of the teams in the NFL).
Nor are they talented enough to make the playoffs--for what that's worth--without some stability and experience at the quarterback position, which they haven't had really since Jim Kelly retired. That's true, too.
They do not have Pro Bowl players at every position. No team does--not even the Pats. And, since Levy took over and took the team in a different direction than Donahoe, they haven't had a chance to build up the kind of winning tradition and potential to prompt free agent Pro Bowlers to sign with them at discount rates either. To expect them to is simply not realistic.
Yes, they give up a lot of yards on defense. But, except in the two games against the Pats, for the most part they have done a quite reasonable job of not giving up a lot of points. Is there room for improvement? In all categories? You bet! But, it is not realistic to expect perfection, especially from a team that is obviously still a "work-in-progress". Have they done a good job considering all of the injuries that they have had on defense? Show me a team that has lost as many man-games from its projected starters and key reserves that has done as well in recent years. Indy? Maybe. (They also have Peyton Manning running their offense who can help their defense, the Bills don't have QB who can do that, at least not yet.)
Does the offense need a lot of work? No doubt. Stability and experience and quality play at QB would help a LOT. Did they waste a lot of time on JP Losman? Yes, but they had to find out, once and for all, if he could get the job done--they had too much invested in him not to do that. Unfortunately, Losman has turned out to be a better citizen of the City of Buffalo than he has been a QB for the Bills. Can Edwards give the Bills the kind of quarterbacking that Losman couldn't and that they need to make a run at winning a Super Bowl title? Only time will tell, but at least Edwards has shown some positive signs that he might be able to develop into such a QB. Finding a QB that shows such promise puts the Bills ahead of about half the teams in the NFL. But, even if Edwards is the right man for the job, realistically, it is going to take some time for him to show that he is. Half a season, for a guy who never played in snow before this year, isn't nearly enough to expect him to.
Did the Bills coaching staff cost the team two valuable wins this season? Probably. Could they have done a better job of coaching and preparing the team in some of the other games that they played. Certainly. Are they the only coaching staff that blew games that their teams could have won? No. Could the coaches of all of the other teams have done a better job of coaching and preparing their teams in some (perhaps even many) of their games? If you ask them, I'd bet they would say that they could have (even Bill Belichick, if you could get him to answer!).
The truth is that no coaching staff is perfect and none make perfect calls all of the time. As fans, we don't get to see how many times talent and luck makes up for bad coaching decisions in football (in basketball, coaches often joke about the times when a player makes them say, "No, no, no...YES!", you don't think that that happens at times in football, too?).
The question is whether Dick Jauron and his staff are good enough coaches to win a Super Bowl with the Bills. I don't know the answer to that. No one does because, right now, realistically, the Bills are not a talented, experienced, stable or all-around good enough team to win enough games to have a chance to play in a Super Bowl game. And, we may never find out.
But, as Ingtar pointed out in a post some months ago, Jauron's Bills work and play hard for him and they do not commit a lot of penalties. There were several points this season when his young players could have quit on him or packed it in for the season (just look at the Ravens, Bengals or Lions), but they haven't. They have continued to play hard and even some of his players have mentioned that they have all bought into what the coaching staff is trying to do. Has anyone considered the possibility that the Bills might not have won some of the games that they have this season if that were not the case? Just think back a couple of years to the Bills teams that Gregg Williams and Mike Mularkey coached.
Any coach who's being honest will tell you that talent makes coaches better. Talent can overcome some of the mistakes that coaches make that could cost their teams games. The Bills don't have enough talent to do that yet and they don't have the kind of on-field leaders (the Peyton Mannings, Tedy Bruschis) and experience yet to overcome or correct the kinds of mistakes that we have seen Jauron and his staff make this season. Can they add that kind of talent, experience and leadership? Well, you could see that they have added talent and begun to develop leadership this season, so it is reasonable to expect that, with more experience for their young talent, they have a realistic chance of moving in that direction.
Does that mean that Jauron and his staff can take the Bills to "the promised land"? Again, I don't know. What Jauron and his staff has shown this season is that they are good at teaching their players how to work and prepare and how to approach the game--how to play hard and use the talent that they have (look at Greer, DiGiorgio, etc.)--but I don't know if Jauron is, or can be, a good enough "in-game" coach to take the team to its ultimate goal. But, for a team at the stage that this one is at, realistically, he has done a decent job. Could he have done better? Yes. But, he also could have done a lot worse, too.
So, then, is it being a "realist" or a "homer" to look at the Bills' season thus far and conclude that, taking everything into consideration, it has been relatively successful?
I would argue that, realistically, this team has achieved about as much (perhaps even a little more) as could be reasonably expected from them.
Could they have won a couple of more games. Possibly. Perhaps even probably. But, at the same time, they could have lost a lot more, too. Since every year NFL teams lose games they "woulda, coulda, shoulda" won and lose games they probably should have lost, I call it even and see it as just further evidence to support the argument that the team has shown progress in the right direction since last season.
Does the fact that I see the Bills' season thus far as a relative success mean that I am willing to accept mediocrity from the team? Definitely not!!! I don't care if the team doesn't make the playoffs--I'm not in the least bit happy that the team does not have a reasonable chance to win the Super Bowl (and is not likely to be ready to do so until at least the season after next)! I want to see the Bills win the Lombardi Trophy before my body gives out on me--screw the playoffs!!! So, no, I am not satisfied by the 7-9 wins that they will end up with.
But, I am also being realistic.
The Donahoe era cannot be undone. It happened. It's over. And, considering where the team was at the end of the 2005 season and how it performed last season, given all of the injuries, JP Losman's regression and the rotating of QBs that took place this season, I have to say that I have seen progress in the right direction. Realistically, this has been modest progress, but it has been progress nonetheless.
A step backwards could have reasonably been expected this season under the circumstances, but that did not happen. The Bills have, for the most part, done what they were supposed to do under those circumstances to show progress. They will have to continue to add more talent, especially more playmakers, and continue to show even more progress to, realistically, put themselves in a position where they will have a reasonable chance to finally win that Super Bowl title that is their stated goal and that I want so desperately to see them win.
As the offseason approaches, I am going to continue to hope/believe that the Bills will do precisely that and that the team will be even better next season.
So, again I ask, am I a "realist" or a "homer"???
As a fan of the Bills since they began playing in 1960, I have seen the team at its highest points (Mike Stratton's hit on Keith Lincoln that led to their winning the AFL title may be my all-time favorite moment in Bills history) and its lowest points (watching Ed Rutkowski and Marlin Briscoe line up at QB, having J.Rauch use OJ at WR, suffering through the coaching of Harvey Johnson and Kay Stephenson, and seeing the arrogance of Tom Donahoe and Gregg Williams rank among the lowest).
As an admitted optimist (I have to be one to continue to live with a life-threatening, debilitating medical condition for as long as I have), I have always looked at the positive potential of the Bills and hoped/expected that they would do well. For this, some have labeled me a "homer".
But, at the same time, my experiences as an athlete when I was younger (and healthier) and as a long-time fan and observer of professional football has tempered my hopes and expectations. And, because of this, I would like to think of myself as being more of a "realist" when it comes to the Bills. Perhaps even moreso than some here who have labeled themselves "realists".
As I see it, in purely "realistic" terms, there is only one team in the NFL that has a truly successful season: the team that wins the Super Bowl title. The 31 other teams that do not achieve that goal have all failed to attain the ultimate prize that every one of them sets out at the beginning of the season to attain.
Contrary to what some fans seem to believe, merely making the playoffs or even winning a game or two in the post-season means nothing. The ultimate goal is to win the Super Bowl title. That is the "be-all" and "end-all" that every team is seeking to achieve. Anything less does not particularly matter. (ie The NY Jets made the playoffs in 2006, but did that make them a "good" team or mean that they would be good enough to be able to contend for a Super Bowl title this season?)
But, despite failing to attain this ultimate goal, that does not mean that some of the other teams cannot have successful seasons. Successful in relative terms.
As any reasonably good athlete will tell you, no professional team, no matter how devoid of talent, sets out at the beginning of the season believing that it cannot win--if they did, why bother playing their games at all? Call them optimists or "homers", if you will, for believing that somehow, someway, they will find a way to win it all. Yet, we all know--those of us who follow the game--before the season even starts that the reality is that some teams have little or no chance (barring some miracle of astronomical proportions) of winning the Super Bowl. For a fan of one of these teams, understanding and accepting this is, in my view, simply being a "realist".
Despite their lofty goals of winning a Super Bowl, for some teams in the NFL, realistically, success must be defined in relative terms: in terms of improvement, of adding and developing talent, of being competitive against teams with superior talent, of gaining experience and learning from it, etc.--because, when you take a hard look at them, these teams, for whatever reasons, these teams simply lack the talent and/or experience and/or character/quality and/or coaching, etc. to have any reasonable chance of winning a Super Bowl.
It is simply not being realistic or fair for a fan of one of these teams to EXPECT that team to win a Super Bowl or even make the playoffs (for whatever that is worth). He/she can hope or want that team to do so--and can complain to high heaven if the team does not fulfill those desires--but that is not being realistic or a "realist". A "homer whose expectations are based on unsubstantiated desires and unstated hopes, maybe, but not a "realist".
The fan who is the true "realist", in my view, is the one who shares his/her team's hopes of ultimate success, but is realistic enough to see the team's flaws and needs, to understand and accept that the odds are against the team achieving its ultimate goal, and, yet, is willing to base his evaluation of the direction that the team is going on the relative success or failure of the team's season in terms of its attainment of various secondary goals.
Now, how does this apply to the Bills' season thus far?
The reality is that the Tom Donahoe regime was a disaster for the Buffalo Bills franchise. One can argue that GM John Butler and his assistant AJ Smith should never have been allowed to leave the Bills, but the truth is that Butler left the Bills in "salary cap hell" and there is no telling how the team would have done had he remained and tried to deal with that situation. That's a "what-if" that doesn't matter--what does matter is that Donahoe was hired and the approach that he took to running the team utterly failed.
The lockerroom that GM Marv Levy inherited was a mess. Realistically, that collection of players had no chance of winning a Super Bowl or ever winning a Super Bowl. Not unless Levy could have hired Bill Belichick and traded for Tom Brady or Peyton Manning--which simply was not going to happen.
Before Levy could put together a collection of players capable of having any reasonable chance of winning a Super Bowl, he first had to get rid of the players that the Bills already had who had contributed to or played major roles in the collapse of the team during the 2005 season. He also had to get rid of those players who didn't want to play in Buffalo or who were only interested in the most money that they could--because you don't build winning teams, teams with players who are willing to sacrifice and work for the good of the team, with such players.
But, because many of those players were the team's best athletes and players, that meant denuding the team of a great deal of its talent. Which, naturally, meant that the team would be moving forward with a lot less talent than most of the teams in the NFL and that it would have to replace that talent before it could reasonably be expected to have a chance to win a Super Bowl title.
Levy and owner Ralph Wilson decided that, rather than repeat the approach that Donahoe took of building the team around big-name free agents, they would take a totally different approach and build the team from the ground up with young, "high-character" players that their coaches could mould into a winning team as they gained experience. Realistically, however, that meant that it would take longer to build the team into a unit that would have a reasonable chance of winning a title.
Of course Wilson and Levy were not going to tell Bills fans that were going to take an approach of rebuilding the Bills that would, realistically, take 3-4 years to produce a team capable of possibly competing for a Super Bowl title. The Bills are a business and Wilson has to sell tickets to the games and team merchandise to make money--he doesn't want his team playing in a half full stadium (even if he could afford to have them do so)! So, naturally, he and Levy and the Bills coaches were all going to tell the media and the public that the team would be looking to win a Super Bowl--that's what every team has as its goal, after all.
But, realistically, after getting rid of all of the talented players that the Bills virtually pushed out of their lockerroom (they just about gave T.Spikes away, just to get rid of him!), the Bills simply did not have enough talent left on their roster at the beginning of the 2006 or even the 2007 season to have much of a chance of winning a Super Bowl title--as evidenced, if by nothing else, by their losses to the Pats this season. That should have been obvious to anyone who has been following the team and the NFL in recent years.
While being a fan--which comes from the word "fanatic"--means wanting, hoping and/or believing that your team will win the ultimate prize of a title and supporting them in spite of the fact that they may have no reasonable chance of doing so, for any Bills fan to EXPECT that the team would win or even have a reasonable chance of winning the Super Bowl this season was simply not realistic.
A true "realist" would have recognized that the team was too young, did not have enough playmakers, was too unstable at the most critical position on the team, and simply did not have sufficient overall talent to have even a 25% chance of capturing a Super Bowl title going into this season. Only someone who was being totally unreasonable or a deluded fanatic--a "homer" of the greatest proportions--could possibly EXPECT the Bills to win the Super Bowl this season--even at the beginning.
That being said, the success or failure of the Bills season could only reasonably and realistically be evaluated in relative terms.
Did the Bills add needed talent to their roster? Did the team--and particularly their young players--gain much needed experience that will help them play better in the future and did they learn from that experience? Did the team demonstrate the comraderie, work-ethic and character that it will need in order to become an elite team in the future? Was the team competitive in its games? Did it play hard or quit when faced with adversity? Did the team and its players improve over the previous season and as the season progressed? etc.
Prior to the start of the season, many, if not all (there were a couple of exceptions), of the people here who called themselves "realists" predicted that the Bills would win 6 games or less this season. There were even some who predicted that the Bills would be lucky to win 3-4 games and would be competing for the worst record in the NFL.
Were they being realistic in their evaluation or expressing their worst fears (while, perhaps, secretly hoping that the team would be better than they were willing to say) or were they expressing their frustration that management was not taking the approach to putting together the team that they would take were they in charge (an ego-centric view that might or might not have some merit)?
There were some others--often refered to as "homers"--who felt that the team would do better than that. While some were wildly optimistic in predicting that the Bills would win 9-11 games and be serious playoff contenders, the vast majority in this group felt that the team would show progress and could match or slightly exceed their total of 7 wins in 2006. Those in this group that predicted that the team would win 7-9 games did not expect the Bills to be capable of winning a Super Bowl title, but expected the team to have a relatively successful season nonetheless, based upon the kind of criteria that I cited above.
Were they being realistic in their evaluation or were they being blindly optimistic in their thinking and overlooking all of the team's flaws that the so-called "realists" kept pointing out to them?
Well, how has the season played out?
With 2 games remaining, the Bills have already matched their 2006 win total with 7 victories.
While their schedule has proven to be easier than it looked to be before the season started, they have only lost one game to a team with a worse record than their own--a last minute 1 point loss to preseason playoff favorite Denver. One of their losses was on a last second FG to NFC leaders Dallas and they played a very close game in abominable conditions against an emerging Cleveland Browns team.
While much has been made of their abysmal rankings in total offense and defense, the defense ranks 15th in the league in the all important category of points allowed per game--which is respectable, but not as good as their 10th place ranking in 2006. However, if you exclude their 2 losses to the the offensive juggernaut that New England has assembled this season, the Bills would rank 5th in the league in this category.
As has been mentioned in other posts (John Doe in HHurricane's thread), most preseason expectations were based on JP Losman taking all of the snaps for the Bills this season. Rather than building on his respectable finish to the 2006 season, however, Losman regressed this season, missed some games due to injury, and was ultimately benched in favor of rookie QB Trent Edwards. While Edwards has not "lit up" the league--or even been given much of a chance to light up the league--he has shown many positive signs in his demeanor, leadership and play--performing far better than any other rookie QB this season so far--that make it appear that he will be better suited to leading the team forward than the erratic Losman. Whether Edwards will be able to develop into a QB who can compete head-to-head with the elite QBs, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Tony Romo, who are most likely to be leading the teams that the Bills will have to beat in order to win a Super Bowl remains to be seen and won't become apparent until at least the end of next season.
But, the fact that the Bills have been able to not only be competitive, but win games with a rookie QB at the helm of their offense has to be seen as a positive signs--this is not something that is usually the case. Especially since the Bills have once again reverted to an extremely conservative offensive approach--which has made their offense predictable and made it more difficult for them to move the ball--in an effort to protect and nuture their rookie signal-caller (such an approach is often "a two-edged sword").
Add to that the fact that 1st Round draft pick Marshawn Lynch has shown, even as a rookie, that he can be a more than adequate replacement for the departed Willis McGahee and the emergence of Fred Jackson as a capable # 2 RB and it is not hard to conclude that the Bills are finishing the 2007 season in better shape at the RB position than they ended the 2006 season.
Neither Edwards nor Lynch had ever played in snow or the type of cold that is typical in Buffalo before this season. That certainly showed in Edwards' performance against the Browns in Cleveland last Sunday--when it took almost 3 quarters for him to adjust his throws to compensate for the wind conditions. The experience that they--and the other young Bills players from the South and West--gained in playing in those conditions will stand them in good stead in their future careers in Buffalo going forward. While his receivers didn't help him with their dropped passes in the second half, the fact that Edwards was able to ultimately make adjustments and throw some accurate passes in 4th quarter, with the winds blowing 25-35 mph, was very encouraging, even if the final outcome of the game was disappointing.
All of this has been accomplished with the team being decimated by injuries--injuries that have sidelined some of the talented young players that Levy has brought in to help rejuvenate the team and have forced the team to play back-ups and street free agents who would otherwise not be playing. The result has been that the Bills have found some valuable players on their bench who will be able to help the team move to the next level.
The Bills could have quit--as the 2005 team did--or used all of the injuries, particularly the devastating near-fatal loss of Kevin Everett, as an excuse for not playing hard. But, instead, the Bills have built a reputation around the league as a team that, perhaps, plays harder than any other in the NFL. Their work-ethic and effort has drawn notice from players, coaches and media observers (who generally have had little good to say about the Bills in recent years).
And, some of the young players that have been brought in to replace those jettisoned when Marv Levy took over as GM have begun to emerge as the kinds of leaders that a team needs to have if it is going to have a reasonable chance to win a Super Bowl. With all of the injuries that hit the team at the beginning of the 2007 season, Donte Whitner took it upon himself to organize weekly team get-togethers which the players, themselves, have said has allowed the team to bond together and has encouraged them to work harder.
All of these things would indicate that, despite the team's continued lack of sufficient talent, flaws and short-comings that still need to be addressed, and failure to win its biggest game of the year and make the playoffs, the Bills' season has been a relative success thus far (at least one more win in its last two games would underscore this).
Realistically, one can see progress.
Of course, there will be those who will cite the team's failure to make the playoffs yet again and any number of statistics that reveal the team's many remaining flaws as evidence that the team is not that good and as a reason to complain. Fine.
Realistically, the Bills, as presently constituted, are not good enough to be considered an elite team capable of winning a Super Bowl yet. And, there is no guarantee that they will get to the point where they will be able to win a Super Bowl--no offense to Jim Kelly and the teams of the early 1990s, but the last time that the Bills actually won a title was in 1965 and they have not won a Super Bowl yet (and neither have most of the teams in the NFL).
Nor are they talented enough to make the playoffs--for what that's worth--without some stability and experience at the quarterback position, which they haven't had really since Jim Kelly retired. That's true, too.
They do not have Pro Bowl players at every position. No team does--not even the Pats. And, since Levy took over and took the team in a different direction than Donahoe, they haven't had a chance to build up the kind of winning tradition and potential to prompt free agent Pro Bowlers to sign with them at discount rates either. To expect them to is simply not realistic.
Yes, they give up a lot of yards on defense. But, except in the two games against the Pats, for the most part they have done a quite reasonable job of not giving up a lot of points. Is there room for improvement? In all categories? You bet! But, it is not realistic to expect perfection, especially from a team that is obviously still a "work-in-progress". Have they done a good job considering all of the injuries that they have had on defense? Show me a team that has lost as many man-games from its projected starters and key reserves that has done as well in recent years. Indy? Maybe. (They also have Peyton Manning running their offense who can help their defense, the Bills don't have QB who can do that, at least not yet.)
Does the offense need a lot of work? No doubt. Stability and experience and quality play at QB would help a LOT. Did they waste a lot of time on JP Losman? Yes, but they had to find out, once and for all, if he could get the job done--they had too much invested in him not to do that. Unfortunately, Losman has turned out to be a better citizen of the City of Buffalo than he has been a QB for the Bills. Can Edwards give the Bills the kind of quarterbacking that Losman couldn't and that they need to make a run at winning a Super Bowl title? Only time will tell, but at least Edwards has shown some positive signs that he might be able to develop into such a QB. Finding a QB that shows such promise puts the Bills ahead of about half the teams in the NFL. But, even if Edwards is the right man for the job, realistically, it is going to take some time for him to show that he is. Half a season, for a guy who never played in snow before this year, isn't nearly enough to expect him to.
Did the Bills coaching staff cost the team two valuable wins this season? Probably. Could they have done a better job of coaching and preparing the team in some of the other games that they played. Certainly. Are they the only coaching staff that blew games that their teams could have won? No. Could the coaches of all of the other teams have done a better job of coaching and preparing their teams in some (perhaps even many) of their games? If you ask them, I'd bet they would say that they could have (even Bill Belichick, if you could get him to answer!).
The truth is that no coaching staff is perfect and none make perfect calls all of the time. As fans, we don't get to see how many times talent and luck makes up for bad coaching decisions in football (in basketball, coaches often joke about the times when a player makes them say, "No, no, no...YES!", you don't think that that happens at times in football, too?).
The question is whether Dick Jauron and his staff are good enough coaches to win a Super Bowl with the Bills. I don't know the answer to that. No one does because, right now, realistically, the Bills are not a talented, experienced, stable or all-around good enough team to win enough games to have a chance to play in a Super Bowl game. And, we may never find out.
But, as Ingtar pointed out in a post some months ago, Jauron's Bills work and play hard for him and they do not commit a lot of penalties. There were several points this season when his young players could have quit on him or packed it in for the season (just look at the Ravens, Bengals or Lions), but they haven't. They have continued to play hard and even some of his players have mentioned that they have all bought into what the coaching staff is trying to do. Has anyone considered the possibility that the Bills might not have won some of the games that they have this season if that were not the case? Just think back a couple of years to the Bills teams that Gregg Williams and Mike Mularkey coached.
Any coach who's being honest will tell you that talent makes coaches better. Talent can overcome some of the mistakes that coaches make that could cost their teams games. The Bills don't have enough talent to do that yet and they don't have the kind of on-field leaders (the Peyton Mannings, Tedy Bruschis) and experience yet to overcome or correct the kinds of mistakes that we have seen Jauron and his staff make this season. Can they add that kind of talent, experience and leadership? Well, you could see that they have added talent and begun to develop leadership this season, so it is reasonable to expect that, with more experience for their young talent, they have a realistic chance of moving in that direction.
Does that mean that Jauron and his staff can take the Bills to "the promised land"? Again, I don't know. What Jauron and his staff has shown this season is that they are good at teaching their players how to work and prepare and how to approach the game--how to play hard and use the talent that they have (look at Greer, DiGiorgio, etc.)--but I don't know if Jauron is, or can be, a good enough "in-game" coach to take the team to its ultimate goal. But, for a team at the stage that this one is at, realistically, he has done a decent job. Could he have done better? Yes. But, he also could have done a lot worse, too.
So, then, is it being a "realist" or a "homer" to look at the Bills' season thus far and conclude that, taking everything into consideration, it has been relatively successful?
I would argue that, realistically, this team has achieved about as much (perhaps even a little more) as could be reasonably expected from them.
Could they have won a couple of more games. Possibly. Perhaps even probably. But, at the same time, they could have lost a lot more, too. Since every year NFL teams lose games they "woulda, coulda, shoulda" won and lose games they probably should have lost, I call it even and see it as just further evidence to support the argument that the team has shown progress in the right direction since last season.
Does the fact that I see the Bills' season thus far as a relative success mean that I am willing to accept mediocrity from the team? Definitely not!!! I don't care if the team doesn't make the playoffs--I'm not in the least bit happy that the team does not have a reasonable chance to win the Super Bowl (and is not likely to be ready to do so until at least the season after next)! I want to see the Bills win the Lombardi Trophy before my body gives out on me--screw the playoffs!!! So, no, I am not satisfied by the 7-9 wins that they will end up with.
But, I am also being realistic.
The Donahoe era cannot be undone. It happened. It's over. And, considering where the team was at the end of the 2005 season and how it performed last season, given all of the injuries, JP Losman's regression and the rotating of QBs that took place this season, I have to say that I have seen progress in the right direction. Realistically, this has been modest progress, but it has been progress nonetheless.
A step backwards could have reasonably been expected this season under the circumstances, but that did not happen. The Bills have, for the most part, done what they were supposed to do under those circumstances to show progress. They will have to continue to add more talent, especially more playmakers, and continue to show even more progress to, realistically, put themselves in a position where they will have a reasonable chance to finally win that Super Bowl title that is their stated goal and that I want so desperately to see them win.
As the offseason approaches, I am going to continue to hope/believe that the Bills will do precisely that and that the team will be even better next season.
So, again I ask, am I a "realist" or a "homer"???