Compared to what you expected...

[MikeInRoch]

Were the Bills today better, worse, or about what you expected?

[2slowtogofast]

Better. I was expecting a blowout.

[Novacane]

I thought we'd get blown out but I'm still pissed. I'm so sick of finding a way to lose to the Patriots.

[Mace]

Better than I expected. I liked seeing Brady getting up off the ground so often, and Manuel impressed me.

The penalties and failure to stop the run, the clock management aggravated me, but I worried the defense would look lost and Manuel would look like Blaine Gabbert.

[Crisis]

The defense outperformed my expectations a lot, but I don't know how much of that was because of the Pats having no one to catch the ball.

[RedEyE]

Definitly better. The ceiling is high.

[Night Train]

We had a couple dozen here predicting a 30-40 point Pats win.

The Bills beat themselves for 80 % of the game and still lost with only 5 seconds left. The coaching and play should improve.

Long term Bullish

[OpIv37]

Tough to say.

The early offensive incompetence was worse than I expected, but they got some points once they settled in and the D didn't get lit up as bad as I thought, so I guess I'd have to say better.

[Pinkerton Security]

The defense outperformed my expectations a lot, but I don't know how much of that was because of the Pats having no one to catch the ball.

I agree to an extent, but on some of Amendola's ridic catches, we had pretty damn good coverage. There werent really any breakdowns in coverage, especially when it mattered, Brady just squeezed some tight throws in and Amendola made really tough catches.

[Historian]

Wash, rinse, repeat.

[trapezeus]

i thought the bills looked pretty god awful for the first 15 minutes. and frankly if the pats don't fumble the ball for no reason, they were marching down the field to go up 17-0 and the 5 plays the offense were calling weren't going to work.

I think the pats are pretty beaten up. They were trying to give us that game with the ridley fumble, the brady fumble, his INT. And the bills did nothing with it.

Marrone looked like a fast paced Jauron. Wierd challenge, refusing to take the situation into account and change the scheme. Punting at the 43.

If that's how it's going to be, it's 3 more years before russ gets to reshuffle the deck chairs again.

[kishoph]

I agree to an extent, but on some of Amendola's ridic catches, we had pretty damn good coverage. There werent really any breakdowns in coverage, especially when it mattered, Brady just squeezed some tight throws in and Amendola made really tough catches.


Amendola was a difference maker, he made some great catches, he drops one of those 3rd down completions and the outcome is different. There were also a couple of throws that the Bills defenders just missed batting down, on the Pats 1st TD you could see Alonso's finger bend as the ball just passes through. I'm a super optimistic Bills fan (fanboy if you must) so I believed that they could win the game, but aside from too many penalties and some mental lapses, I think they played better than I expected even though they didn't win it.

[kishoph]

I think the pats are pretty beaten up. They were trying to give us that game with the ridley fumble, the brady fumble, his INT. And the bills did nothing with it.



The Bills aren't beaten up ? Also did you not notice that the Bills fumbled twice in there own end (for no reason). You say the Bills did nothing with the turnovers, they scored 2 TD's as the result of them. I'm surprised that you failed to mention that Brady had all these young receivers to throw to (Amendola and Edelman, both 5 year pros) while the Bills had so many experienced receivers to throw to like Woods, Goodwin and Graham. Don't make excuses for the Pats, it's not only foolish, it's sickening.

[better days]

i thought the bills looked pretty god awful for the first 15 minutes. and frankly if the pats don't fumble the ball for no reason, they were marching down the field to go up 17-0 and the 5 plays the offense were calling weren't going to work.

I think the pats are pretty beaten up. They were trying to give us that game with the ridley fumble, the brady fumble, his INT. And the bills did nothing with it.

Marrone looked like a fast paced Jauron. Wierd challenge, refusing to take the situation into account and change the scheme. Punting at the 43.

If that's how it's going to be, it's 3 more years before russ gets to reshuffle the deck chairs again.

Well, Spiller fumbled the ball for no reason as well. Spiller was the big disappointment in this game IMO. NO big plays from him & his fumble led to 7 points for the Pats*

The Bills were without Gilmore & Byrd in the backfield, Spiller was terrible & yet the Bills hung tough with the Pats* until the very end of the game.

And the Bills took advantage of the Brady fumble & INT they scored what more could they do?

It will be interesting to see how the Pats* do against the Jets on Thursday. ( I expect the Pats* to win, but hope to see Brady go down again like the Bills put him down)

I am optimistic about next Sunday against the Panthers. The Bills have a GOOD QB finally.

[EDS]

EJ was better than I expected, as was the defense. Marrone, however, was worse than expected. Hopefully he just had some first game jitters.

[gebobs]

The end result was better than expected, but that was more because of the Patriots sucking than the Bills excelling beyond expectations. Brady had an unusually off day against the Bills. The change in their receivers this year obviously was significant though Amendola played out of his mind.

[Bill Cody]

Some of the comments really surprise me even for this board. The 2 biggest things to watch this year is whether we have a big league QB and a big league HC. I was encouraged on both fronts. Manuel had an excellent first game in the NFL. One bozo complained he was boring. Seriously? If you were to look back at Tom Brady's first year as a starter he threw a lot of balls sideways and very few down the field. QB in this league is really really hard. If you guys weren't happy with Manuel yesterday wait till he drops a turd because it's coming, there are going to be ups and downs, fact. Marrone? You can nitpick about penalties and clock management but the fact is we played hard for 60 minutes against a team favored to go deep in the playoffs and played a very competitive game. Does the coach get no credit for that? Really?

This is a young team. Get ready for some close defeats where the QB and the coach haven't figured out how to win. The key for both of them this year is development. If both of those guys have the goods our future is bright. So cut some slack for yesterday and keep cutting it all year.

[lightningbolt444]

Sometimes I wish I wasnt a part of this fanbase some of you are unbelievable and make me ashamed to be apart of the same fanbase. All of us know we are not going to be any good this year so we need to look at some positives. Once we do something good our fans always say o well the other team played poorly it had nothing to do with our play. This guy had a pretty good rookie performance not perfect but pretty good. Yet some fans are hammering him.

The Bills coughed up a fumble so did the pats. Brady Threw an INT Manuel did not. Brady had a fumble on the goalline.

So here is Tom Brady who accounted for 2 turnovers by himself Manuel had none yet we are lambasting Manuel. Brady obviously had the end result but Manuel hung in there and played a good game in his own right. He still has a lot of work but played very well.

But again why is anytime the Bills do something good they overachieve and the other team is underachieving? Everyone talks about the announcers favoring other teams but our own fanbase does the EXACT same thing.

[trapezeus]

You guys are acting like the bills weren't getting trampled in the first 15 minutes. the defense was being hung out to dry and doing a decent job at slowing down the rate in which they were losing, but hope was drowning out early. were you not there or listening to the crowd until the fumble return? it was dead. the bills were dead. a play where a running back inexpicably put the ball on the ground made it a game. Fine that's football. but once you get the momentum, seize it! That's what good teams do. and i'm tired of hearing how we need to learn how to win. How many years of this do we need?

What is sickening is to watch people make excuses for this. it was simply a fast paced jauron team. There is room for improvement, but this is the kind of game that will haunt the team if they are making a playoff push. a game that was being gifted to them against a division opponent at home, and they did not take it by the horns and win. Is that the team you want making the playoffs? Do you think this team has anything in it to be a mild contender in the regular season? and if they make the playoffs, what is a fully loaded team going to do to them?

issues i had:

1. the refs again called back big plays for phantom hands to the face calls. The second one was after the bills stopped the patriots at the 1 yard line and had the momentum. they just scored to go up 21-17 and they started driving. 3rd and 1 is converted and hands tot he face. they go to instant replay to show #70's hands to the face, and it wasn't happening. it was literally a text book block. commentators say nothing. You know the fix is in.

2. spiller looked like he was fighting the ball all game. after that first fumble he looked like he was going to fumble every time he touched it. the line last year gave him some nice holes and he used his speed to bust through there. the loss of levitre seems pretty big for the run game. good thing we used that money to sign byrd or bring in replacements in areas that are not deep on depth.

3. EJ looked handcuffed for the most part by play calling. not a lot of variety. he looked likehe pushes the ball on short passes at times. he never really got into the flow, but he did make two nice TD throws. The line in pass protection gave him time. i'd ideally like to see more misdirection motion presnap plays. It would give the bills an option to put the ball in WR hands quickly as well as keep the defenses honest. EJ will have time back there. i liked that EJ:
- looked confident at all times.
- evaded the rush on one of the later 3rd downs with a nice spin move.
- could run effectively, but never relied on it until it was the last option.
Those three things make me happy to see how he keeps progressing.


It's week 1 and a lot of football is left to play. but i didn't see a dramatically different team. i am willing to live with the 2001 bills where they went 3-13 but they were in every game and fighting to be in it. this team had the game given to them and they did what the last 13 years worth of teams have done. piss it away.

I'm not going to apologize for them until they start apologizing to us.

[trapezeus]

Some of the comments really surprise me even for this board. The 2 biggest things to watch this year is whether we have a big league QB and a big league HC. I was encouraged on both fronts. Manuel had an excellent first game in the NFL. One bozo complained he was boring. Seriously? If you were to look back at Tom Brady's first year as a starter he threw a lot of balls sideways and very few down the field. QB in this league is really really hard. If you guys weren't happy with Manuel yesterday wait till he drops a turd because it's coming, there are going to be ups and downs, fact. Marrone? You can nitpick about penalties and clock management but the fact is we played hard for 60 minutes against a team favored to go deep in the playoffs and played a very competitive game. Does the coach get no credit for that? Really?

This is a young team. Get ready for some close defeats where the QB and the coach haven't figured out how to win. The key for both of them this year is development. If both of those guys have the goods our future is bright. So cut some slack for yesterday and keep cutting it all year.

you liked marrone refusing to change his gameplan based on clock management?
you liked that he challenged a play where even if he was right, it was recovered by the patriots?

these were things I was hoping we were over. If you didn't cut to the sidelines during the game, the penalties and the predictability of the team would have made me think we found Chan Jauron as our new coach.

It was one game, fine...but now we need to see him learn from these mistakes. he set the bar pretty low yesterday. hopefully its nothing but up from here.

[Meathead]

ej was really the only positive surprise. reasonably decent day for any nfl qb with no turnovers or sacks, fantastic day for a rooks first game

like ive said elsewhere, i expected the defense to be about as good as they were. pettine was born to slow down marcia and he did. depleted dbs surprisingly decent, but the cheaters have some really awful pylons catching toms guided lasers which probably helped them look better than they were

the rest of the team was just bad. final score boosted by massively lucky strikes from god masked some horrendously poor team and individual performances. way way way way way waaaaay too many unforced errors. should have been a blowout, and really was where it mattered

SUPER encouraged by ejs first game. other than that, really bad game all around. they will lose almost every week playing that way. unless they can keep up the massively lucky strike ratio, but i wouldnt count on it

[BuffaloRedleg]

lol who actually put worse than expected

[Historian]

I was okay with the kicking game too.

Ya gotta remember Carpenter has only been a Bill for a couple weeks, and that stadium is no fun to kick in. Even in September.

[Mr. Pink]

The defense was better. The offense was worse.

Overall better but we always seem to play those guys tight one time a year and figure a way to piss it away.

[Meathead]

lol who actually put worse than expected

lol wondered about that too. thats why you make votes public

[elltrain22]

I know we don't get anything for moral victories, but I thought our team played very hard, and our defense played well, except on 3rd downs. I think that the offensive kinks will get worked out, but given that we are young, new coaching staff, new qb, this whole season is going to be a learning experience.

[EDS]

Bills did miss a huge opportunity to get a win. Pats clearly are not firing on all cylinders on offense. Will be much harder to defend them when Gronkowski is back.

[X-Era]

Same or better pretty much across the board with the votes