Doesn't it worry you that...

[Earthquake Enyart]

They swap out 4 guys yesterday? I could see 1 or 2, but 4 seems like a lot to me. I think special teams may be a shambles early, as the 4 were backup LB, TE, and OL. Special team kind of guys.

Or am I just crazy?

[lordofgun]

The bottom 5 or 6 players on every team are garbage anyway.

[FlownTheCoop]

I can't remember the last time they picked up four guys off of other team's leftovers.

Certainly not a good sign, IMHO...

[WG]

You're crazy anyway! :D

It's just bumbling tweaking at this point. None of it will impact our season at this point. I was really hoping that some DT would have been cut due to salary or need of getting a different player. Guess not, eh.

It worries me more that we don't even start the season w/ a DL that could stop a 2 year old from making a break for the electronic doors at Wegmans! I sure hope that Edwards at DT is ready to play vs. the Jets. Ahanotu will be as good as what's around him, no better. So if Edwards plays up, our DL may be adequate. I'm not holding out hope, but ya gotta have hope! At least until your hopes are dashed...

[LABillsFan]

The point of training camp and preseason games are for weeding out the lesser talented players, It just shows how little depth the Bills actually had in camp this year and all the positive talk from GW and TD was a smoke screen. I believe in TD and what he can do, I just wish he had a little more sincerity when he talks about the actual state of the Bills. We all know how GW raised the bar of expectation last year and how it bit him in the end. While the talk this year was toned down, action speaks louder than words. The knowledgable Bills fan knows that there is a real need for better players on this team, if TD was picking up players for ARZ. ATL DET CAR, that says the depth is horrendous, but it seams that he is picking up players that were on better teams, hopefully that means they are better players. We'll have to wait and see.

[ArcticWildMan]

TD has said all along that we are still a year away from being a serious contender. The guys we picked up off of waivers showed more potential than the guys we released. Nothing to panic or grumble about. We already knew the guys we had weren't anything special. It's just TD doing his job and trying to find a diamond in the rough.

[Romes]

Yeah, what AWM said. :up:

[Earthquake Enyart]

It just seems to me that when you start with 90 guys, cut to 53, THEN swap out 4.......that seems like a lot.

I agree that they are gunning for next year. I think that people have too high of expectations for this year, but they will be a hellova lot more entertaining. Should have 1 or 2 upsets, but at the same time they will drop a game or 2 to teams that suck.

[WG]

All we did this offseason was to bolster our offense. We can't afford to have to go get two more OL-men along w/ the schlew of other guys that we need on D to make us respectable this offseason, especially w/o a first round pick. If our offense doesn't rock, then this offseason will be deemed unsuccessful.

The O needs to be clicking right away. So far the only thing that's clicked is Bledsoe and by association the receivers. TEs haven't done much, the running game hasn't done diddly.

Sure the reason for the preseason is to weed out the bubble-guys. But our first line DL couldn't stop 2nd-team RBs and on cruddy teams too. Meanwhile, Henry and the OL couldn't generate anything except vs. Minnesota who had one of the absolute worst rush Ds last year and did nothing to improve significantly.

That has me worried. You can extrapolate out the play of the first team to a full game against top starters in this league and we'd get killed. What we're all hoping is that our starters were either so lazy that they didn't give their all, or that they just didn't care, even for a few minutes of every game. I just don't think that's true. Everyone keeps saying that all we fielded was a vanilla this or that. Fine, but the point of the matter is that every player will line up against another player, an opposing player on each and every play. So even if it is "vanilla", then it still needs to be executed and we, for the most part, did not execute when it came down to our running game, our running D, or even our pass rushing except vs. last year's worst of teams and usually against players who won't even be starting this year. Heck, they made Michael Bennett look like Curtis Martin!

I think that unless some players get much better than they are, we're in a world of hurt against some of the better teams we face. Unfortunately, our RS schedule is the antithesis of our PS schedule w/ respect to difficulty. It ain't gonna be pretty I fear.

We're gonna have to come out firing on Sunday for any enthusiasm to continue into the season. If the O doesn't come close to keeping pace w/ whatever points and offensive production the Jets put out, then we're in a world of hurt.

If by some strange chance the D manages to step up and out of that "vanilla" label that everyone keeps excusing poor play with, then that's a bonus. Until that happens, I'm looking forward to a good old-fashioned shootout! We have the tools we've been told although I'm highly suspect of our running game and of Henry in particular. The guys trying to tackle him aren't going to let up any now that the RS is here. To the contrary.

Our passing game isn't going to bail us out for wins every week or even most weeks. We'll need some good solid contributions from our rushing O to balance out Drew's arm.

Any progress we make at all that pushes us towards respectability in terms of our rushing D will be a bonus. Pat Williams can't do it all and right now he's the only one doing anything. Same w/ the pass rush.

Vanilla schmanilla!

Execution! No one should make excuses for our guys getting schooled against lesser opponents. A block is a block. It doesn't matter what scheme it is. If our OL-man gets bested by a DL-man, then it shouldn't have mattered whether it was the most complex scheme in the league or a simple set up.

Martin's gonna have a huge day. All we can do to counter is to put up a huge day of our own. Could be the highest scoring game all day.

[WG]

What happens during next offseason is highly dependent upon how we play this year.

Ie., if none of our DL-men step up, then we'll need some DTs and possibly a DE or two. We'll need a LB anyway.

On O, no matter how you slice it, we'll need at least one OL-man and possibly more.

[casdhf]

This guys fit our system better than the guys we had and more potential

[Romes]

Originally posted by Wys Guy
Sure the reason for the preseason is to weed out the bubble-guys. But our first line DL couldn't stop 2nd-team RBs and on cruddy teams too. Meanwhile, Henry and the OL couldn't generate anything except vs. Minnesota who had one of the absolute worst rush Ds last year and did nothing to improve significantly.


Before I start I think the Bills will go 8-8 to 6-10 I don't think we are a great team by any stretch of the imagination but average we could be. However, I don't think we are as bad as we looked during the preseason. Your comment on the DL. I didn't see the game and I believe I remember you saying you didn't either. Well, what if, Mort is correct and it wasn't our starting DL that was the problem but our 2nd string LBs. The guys that got cut. Once we started blitzing in the 3rd and 4th game we finally got some pressure on the QB and for the lions game, (true their RBs weren't any good) but we stuffed their 2nd string RBs, which means we are not awful.

Answering the problem with our running game isn't as easy. Afterall, Bledsoe and GW both said that it was definetly not what they had hoped for and they need to improve that. The only thing I can say is that the starters never got a chance to perform together. Jennings was out of the OL picture till the last game and in that game Henry only got 1 carry.

I'm not saying those two parts of the team are good but they could be satisfactory. However, I still think our running game can be good.

[WG]

Well, if our running game were good last year then I'd agree. But it wasn't. Half of Henry's 700+ yards last year came in three of his 13 games and were all against sketchy defensive competition. None were against decent running Ds.

He was about as inconsistent as a player can be. I don't want to use last year's team as a basis for hope on Henry, but I gotta tell ya, it sure doesn't provide me w/ any assurance that our running game is gonna be alright!

If we play the way we played in the preseason, We'll be 3-13 again if we're lucky. So assurances that we'll be better than we were in the preseason aren't doing a whole lot to make my long anticipated recuperation from knee surgery any easier to take. We'd better be or we aren't even going to be competitive.

While preseason isn't a good indicator of the season, that does not mean that it's not any sort of indicator at all. Record is one thing. Performance based on execution is completely another. We didn't have any in many key areas. To all of a sudden expect guys to block when they couldn't in the PS is unrealistic. If they weren't trying that hard, then they should have been cut.

If there was one thing during the preseason that we needed to establish, IMO, it was who our ballcarrier was. It seems that Henry was the golden child even before PS began. That's not right considering that he couldn't run at all for the most part. 3 or 4 good runs against one of last year's worst rush Ds certainly doesn't make me go "Oh Boy! Henry's our guy!"

If I'm GW, if Henry doesn't do anything in the first half, I give Bryson the rest of that game and the Minnesota game. We can't wait 3 games for Henry to wake up for every third or fourth game going forward. Drew will get killed. If we don't find our running game, Drew's gonna take 4-6 sacks a game easy and sooner or later he'll take one that's gonna put him on the sidelines. That's about the very last thing that we can afford!

[The_Philster]

Damn....I see Wys is back :D

I AM worried about our defense more and more after the preseason. I wonder how far Fred Jones fell in production on special teams in order for him to be cut like that. He was a special teams demon the last few years.

[John Doe]

People are upset about upgrading our team?! UNBELIEVABLE.

[The_Philster]

Originally posted by John Doe
People are upset about upgrading our team?! UNBELIEVABLE.

It's not being upset about an upgrade....we just don't know for sure it IS an upgrade.

[John Doe]

It would be pretty difficult for these moves NOT to be upgrades.

1. Sheldon Jackson? Not good at anything in particular. We have two good pass catching tight ends, so a top notch blocker is a great fit. They know that Geason can block - Gilbride coached him before. Looks like a no-brainer.

2. Fred Jones? It looks like they have made the decision to go with only six linebackers, so the ones you keep have to be able to step in. Jones was special teams only. Plus, we really needed someone with game experience at middle linebacker. Tuitele looks like a perfect fit. Nothing wrong with taking the 54th +/- best player from the superbowl champs

3. Kris Farris? Anyone looks like an upgrade.

4. Dominique Stevenson? Moved to the practice squad. Looks like we gained an extra roster spot.

Was there some kind of emotional attachment to these guys?

[lordofgun]

I agree 100% John. These guys definitely didn't hurt our team. Like I said...the bottom 5 or 6 are garbage anyway. If one of them steps up, the gamble was worth it.

If none of the new guys ever play a down, are we missing anything? Is that bad?

[SABURZFAN]

if it makes the team better,i'm all for it.it doesn't worry me at all.