Someone HELP me please!!!!!

[Dman]

I was so much looking forward to the Colts game, last night. To witness for myself the "new, improved" version of the Bills. The offseason subtractions, additions, new uni's and renewed hype from the front office and coaches really got my short hairs standing up, excited about what I envisioned as the "rebirth" of MY BILLS!!!

What I witnessed last night made me ill

New uni's, new faces on the sideline, new players but the same old ineptitude and undisciplined play. From the opening kickoff 'till the final play-throwing it away on 4th down??????!!!!
NO running game, NO passing game, "look-out" blocks that resulted in sacks, same old penalties, Ruben, among others. How many times can you "line up offsides" in one series???? No pressure on the opposing QB, can't stop the run...who were those rb's????
The best play of the game came from our infamous "punt catcher" Watson...NICE PLAY!!!!

Mr. Williams...insert first name here....let's get it together...soon please.

Mr. Williams...Greg....in particular....you are indeed on a short leash, in my book...FIX IT!!!!

I swore that i wouldn't again fall for the hype that was dished out before last years season's debacle about what a great defense you were implimenting....stopping the run with numbers...and how RJ was "too quick" with his release "we had to slow him down" well now the number is two...two seasons of that kind of football that was evident last year is enough.

But I did fall for the hype that came from "one Bills Drive" regarding this year...

I know, I know..it's only pre-season..it doesn't count but from what I saw last night...my hairs are retracting fast.

Ok...I feel better....thanks for letting me vent..

See ya at the opener

[WG]

Prescription:

A bullet to the head! LOL

I hear ya D!!! Last year coming off of a 8-8 year, we had some expectations. This year, there's no such optimism other than what we've done to upgrade our personnel. Yet that seems to not have been as much as formerly thought on paper.

I've essentially written off the D even though IMO we have one of the best secondaries, and finally some depth there, that we've ever had. Funny thing is that teams won't even have to pass against us other than simply to keep the DBs from cheating on the run. Then they expose us to big plays. Some of that may very well come down to a chess match between GW and some of our opponents' coaches. Have confidence?

DL was key to our defensive success this year, yet TD/GW don't seem to have been too concerned. I simply don't get it. Now we have a bunch of fans getting all excited b/c we resigned a guy we just cut and then another who's easily on the downside of his career.

Our chances for putting up a good solid season this year, 8-8 or better, hinge directly on our ability to put up some points. Because if I had to guess right now how many PPG we'll allow this year, I'd easily say in the upper 20s on average. Right there amongst the worst in the league or quite possibly even the worst. The only redeeming factor from an embarassment perspective will be that teams may be comfortable by leading 24-14 late in games and be content to simply run out the clock. Afterall, it's not like we'll be able to prevent them from doing that.

Last year we allowed 133 yards rushing per game and we didn't face half the RBs that we will this year. New RBs we face, Holmes, Green, Thomas, Williams on Miami twice, Dillon, Denver's RB. It ain't gonna be pretty.

The silver lining is that we'll have to respond offensively to counter and we have the tools to do it. As of now, it seems as if the OL is in a quasi-state of slight disarray. Nothing that cannot be fixed, but something that surely hasn't been fixed to date.

Again, IMO we really needed to sign another premier starting OL-man, which didn't happen. I still have no idea why we traded away two picks to move up a few spots to get Denney. I can see now why we picked up Reed instead of a DT in round 2, as I think he's gonna be stellar and easily replace Price very soon.

So, where does that leave us? It leaves us w/ an offense that has to overcome a virtual complete lack of any semblance of effective defense.

Questions to be answered:

Is Drew up to the task of routinely playing 4 Qs of ball w/o making the types of errors that have beplagued his career?

Can Henry find the consistency that he simply has never demonstrated in the brief time with the team? If not, will GW finally try Bryson? Or will he continue to try and cram a square peg into a round hole?

Will the OL continue to play well for one game, and then poorly for another? Surely we cannot count on absolutely no injuries to our starters.

As to tools, Bledsoe has them all. We are ear-deep in WRs, TEs, and even RBs for the most part. Our OL, at least on paper with Brown, Williams, Jennings, as bonafide starters and huge-men, should have little trouble being at least among the top 10 OLs in the league. It may take a handful of games, but unfortunately this year, I'm not so sure we have a "handful of games" to come out strong and start winning. It's gonna get ugly if we cannot beat the Jets at the Home/Season opener, and lose to Minnesota. B/c after that we face Denver, Chicago, and Oakland respectively. If we start 0-5 or 1-4, there's gonna be an awful lot of second-guessing and IMO GW's gonna start taking some serious heat!

The unfortunate thing is that I really believe that TD hasn't made the best moves either. Last year we all realized that we had a limited budget and had to make more out of less. But this year we had some options.

Good moves IMO:

Signing Fletcher
Drafting Mike Williams
Drafting Reed even though we needed DTs
Signing Jenkins
Mike Hollis
Eddie Robinson
Charlie Rogers

Bad moves IMO:

- Signing Teague, an OL-man who's started only one year and who's grossly undersized at 285 and who's, at least IMO, shown nothing, for large money, $10M/4 years, w/ a $3.5M SB. This when Naole was available, not to mention others, who ended up signing for less, when we didn't even invite them in.
- Signing M. Price; whoopee! At least he didn't cost us anything.
- Signing Sean Price and Chidi Ahanotu in an effort to cover their tracks. Proper planning would have negated the need to sign them.

Whoop-D-Doo signings IMO:

Charles Johnson
Huntley

Questionable Signings IMO, meaning signings that we made which had serious ramifications on other aspects of our team:

Bledsoe

He played well vs. a Cincy D on the opening drive. Then well against the Minnesota D last week. Had a couple of very nice "threads" yesterday, but overall was sacked 3 times in one half of play, and has struggled w/ sacks all PS, and otherwise didn't play that well.

In any case, had we signed another QB, such as Chandler, we could have easily fixed our DL instead to the point where IMO our D would have been amongst the top Ds in the league. 2 DTs or a solid DT and a DE would have made all the difference. It would have placed all of our current DL-men in the backup and "developing" roles that they need and would have given them some confidence when coming in to spell the starters IMO.

But we didn't do that. No problem, but now as a result, this signing must justify itself, particularly since we gave up next year's first-rounder in addition. In order for it to justify itself, the only substitute for winning is winning. LOL Therefore, IMO, the Bledsoe trade will determine the extent that our offseason was a successful one and will have a large determination as to how well GW and possibly TD are perceived after this year.

In order for it to justify itself, we'll need an offense that is extremely high-octane. So far that hasn't even come close to happening. We had some good drives, but nothing that indicates to me that we'll have to consistently score in the 30s in order to win games on a consistent basis.

We have less than two weeks left and one preseason game against an opponent that will hardly give us an indication of how well we'll play against the league's better teams. Detroit could quite possibly be the league's worst team this season.

Having said that, IMO, how well we play against the Jets will likely set the tone as well as the confidence among the players for how well we do for the entire season.

Small prediction;

If we beat the Jets, we'll end up being 7-9 to 9-7.

If we lose to the Jets by more than 7-10 points, we'll be looking at yet another 5-11 or 4-12 season.

If we lose to the Jets by less than 7 points in a fairly close game otherwise, we'll be 6-10 or 7-9.

I see little chance of us winning 10+ games this year against the teams that we play w/ their respective strength of D and running back managerie that they possess.

[Cntrygal]

dman

[Sabre Ally]

Nice book Wys. Could I get an autographed copy please?

[WG]

Sure, I'll be at the Jets game w/ my Sharpie!



Bring your checkbook...

LOL

[WG]

BTW, that's about as concisely as I can state my position. So C&P that and save for later. It's my story and always has been, and I'm sticking to it.

[Dman]

Originally posted by Wys Guy
BTW, that's about as concisely as I can state my position. So C&P that and save for later. It's my story and always has been, and I'm sticking to it.

I can condense Wys position..."we still sucK!"

btw...thanks cntrygal :)
(she's just checking those retracting hairs)...smooth as a baby's yeah???

[HenryRules]

I'll say it again wys, our rushing opponents this year are not much better than those we were supposed to face last year. Injuries happen to RB's all the time, just look at our opponents last year, so I don't think our running opponents are gonna be all they're cracked up to be.

[Sabre Ally]

Originally posted by Wys Guy
Sure, I'll be at the Jets game w/ my Sharpie!



Bring your checkbook...

LOL

How much do you charge? Does a bottle of sauce come with it?

[Bufftp]

Sabre Ally, only on hard back versions, e-books don't count, paperbacks yet to be released, though if you oirder a case of Wing sauce I've heard they ship with an antholgy of Wys's greatest treaties.

[Sabre Ally]