Zone Original: Neil Masters

[northernbillfan]

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Calling the first game of the season a "must-win" game may sound crazy to some, but if the Buffalo Bills are going to make a serious run at a playoff berth this season with a first year starting QB at the helm, they must get off to a faster start than they did last season and they must beat the teams on their schedule that they clearly should beat. Looking at the Buffalo’s schedule and Houston's record last season, the Texans certainly qualify as a team that the Bills must beat in order to have a successful season, especially at home in the friendly and supportive confines of "The Ralph". As last year's season opener against Jacksonville showed, winning or losing a "win-able" game early in September can be the difference between making the playoffs or sitting at home in January. If the Bills do not want to show that is their season will come to an end on New Year's Day in the Meadowlands, they are going to have to perform well and win the game on Sunday against Houston, regardless of how well JP Losman performs.

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[mysticsoto]

Re: Zone Original: Neil Masters

Good article. I agree with alot of the analysis. This is going to be a good game and I can't wait!!!

Just one note...I think J. Mathis is out (injured) for Houston, so their STs should be that much weaker b'cse of this.

[Turf]

Re: Zone Original: Neil Masters

Very good article.

In regards to the JP issue everyone keeps bringing up, I ask with all seriousness:

Could anyone play worse than Drew did last year?

[justasportsfan]

Re: Zone Original: Neil Masters

Sometimes I find Mularkey too cool. If we are going to beat the texans, he needs to make sure our players don't start shooting ourselves on the foot w/ penalties.

[LifetimeBillsFan]

Re: Zone Original: Neil Masters

Sometimes I find Mularkey too cool. If we are going to beat the texans, he needs to make sure our players don't start shooting ourselves on the foot w/ penalties.

To me this is a BIG key. One of the things that has gotten lost in the shuffle with everything that has happened since then is how ill-disciplined the Bills were about drawing penalties at the beginning of last season. They drew a lot of them and more than a few of the culprits were veteran guys who were considered team leaders (London Fletcher being one who drew multiple dumb penalties at that time). I recall writing a post suggesting that Coach Mularkey begin to levy some serious fines on guys who committed bad penalties or have the veteran leaders of the team set up a "Kangaroo Court" to do so and someone replied that it would be hard to do that because the very players who would be picked to be the "judges" on the court were the ones who were guilty of committing some of the worst penalties!

I think that MM is going to have to come down really hard on this team about penalties and stay on them right through the season because it seems like any time he lightens up a little the number of penalties that the team gets very quickly spirals out of control. It is very hard for any team, but especially for a team that relies on the running game, field position and defens--which is what the Bills are going to be this season--to win consistently in the NFL if it commits a lot of penalties. I can assure you that I will be mentioning penalties in future preview articles--I just think that they are one of the key elements in a game that a team has to control in order to be successful.

Very good article.

In regards to the JP issue everyone keeps bringing up, I ask with all seriousness:

Could anyone play worse than Drew did last year?

Sad to say, but, yes, there have been young QBs who have come into the NFL and played worse than DB did last season. Most of them didn't last very long, but, if you're asking if it is possible for a QB to play worse than Bledsoe did last year, in all honesty I have to tell you that it is. And, most of the QBs who have played worse were first or second year starters. I hope that you are either too young or too old to remember the sterling seasons turned in at QB by the likes of Dan Darraugh, Ed Rutkowski, Dan Mannucci and the unforgetable Kay Stephenson. As bad as Bledsoe was last year as a veteran leading a good, veteran team, he was nowhere near as bad as some of the QBs the Bills have had in the past ("The horror...the horror...the horror....).

Now, while I do not believe that JP will be as bad as any of those QBs and I do believe that, with the proper handling, he is capable of doing a better job than Bledsoe did last year of avoiding the big mistake, it would be naive and inaccurate to avoid mentioning that there still are things that JP is doing wrong and that he must improve upon if he is going to avoid the kind of mistakes that have destroyed the careers of more than a few talented young QBs and fulfill the potential that he has to become a great QB. Looking for the things that JP is doing wrong, that he still has to learn how to do properly, and watching to see how he goes about correcting those things--how long it takes and how well he is able to able to improve on those things--is something that Bills fans should be doing. It is an opportunity to watch a uniquely talented player at perhaps the most important and glamorous position in the game grow and develop into, hopefully, one of the great ones. It is not only interesting, it is also something that the fans of any given franchise do not have the opportunity to see happen all that often. It is not a criticism of JP or his talents or born out of any sense of pessimism about his abilities, but, rather, out of a realistic assessment of how much he still has to learn and how far he has to go in order to become a great QB and a sense of excitement and optimism about watching him grow and develop as a player and a leader of the team that we all care so much about.