Buffalo Bills Ramblings

I thought I deleted it

2004-09-28T13:28:00.000-05:00

Well, I thought I deleted this site, but I guess I was wrong. So, instead of going ahead and deleting it, I figured I would post something. So here is my pledge to write more stuff on this site.

I would like to propose two options on the present state of the Bills:
1.) The Bills really are as bad, or worse, than they look.
2.) The Bills aren't awesome, but aren't as bad as they look. Their defense is good enough to keep them in any game this season, so if they get a few breaks (which have all gone against them thus far) they can win some games, including against the Pats this weekend.

I fear it is number 1. I am hopeful it is number 2. And really, we don't know. Maybe it is number 1, as with two different coaches and offenses and such they offense looks the same. Why can't Drew just throw the ball to his recievers in the 2.5 seconds he is given? Other qb's seem to be able to do so. I'm not going to sit here and say what I think the Bills should do. You've all heard it millions of times, and anyway, I'm not a football coach. But I do have to go now. I'll write more later.

Not a whole lot...

2004-02-05T19:41:00.000-05:00

Well, I haven't forgotten that I have a blog and should write, I just feel that there is not much to talk about. I am not big on discussing the draft, because no matter who we want or think Donahoe will or should get, we don't have a clue. All the experts have prospects where they want them, and Donahoe has them where he wants them. Did anyone guess McGahee last year? Was that a need that we all circled and clamored for in round 1? Didn't think so. Me neither. So I am not sure what the point of trying to guess is. We won't draft Rivers 13th overall, and he'll be gone by the second round. Will there be an impact DE? Who knows? WR? Reggie Williams may be getting the most press towards Buffalo at the receiver position, but really, do you think they'll draft a receiver? What about Antione? If he doesn't sign, shouldn't we go for a safety or a corner? Or TE? I feel that our greatest need is someone to catch the ball, and between the top two TE's and the top 3 or 4 receivers, there will be good choices left at 13th. But that doesn't get us closer to having any idea of who we'll pick.

Is the Bowl really Super?

2004-01-29T19:17:00.000-05:00

Well, the Superbowl is this coming Sunday, and we are told it will be great. It is the Superbowl, so lots of people will watch, probably more than half of those people for the commercials and halftime show. Will the football really be that entertaining? How often is the Superbowl really that entertaining of a football game? Let's take the Bills 4 Bowls for an example. In the first one, against the Giants, it was a great, close game that went down to the end. The other three were over long before, as the Bills got waxed. That 25% of entertaining football in the Superbowl may be a bigger proportion than normal, but I'll be generous. Lately, one of the teams seems to defenitively NOT be the best team in the conference, and just got hot at the right time. New England, I guess, is the best team in the AFC. They are interesting, as they are not dominating, they just win. Probably more due to coaching than anything, but they win. The Panthers are an example of a team that got hot at the right time. I'm not saying the Pats will win. My guess is that if the Pats win, it will be comfortably, but if the Panthers win, it will be close. But I'm not sure I can logically explain my reasoning for that.

Wouldn't it be great if the Bills made the Superbowl sometime soon? Then we could be talking about football now instead of coaches and contracts. In this time when fans are always talking about the future and the next year and 2 and 3 years from now, we could be focusing on an upcoming football game. We haven't done that since, maybe the Miami game, actually maybe long before that. Once the Bills lost their 7th game, we were sure they were out of the playoffs, and even though games still had to be played, the offseason discussions officially began. Hmm... that might have even started after the KC implosion, when call for GW's head began in earnest.

Well, I'll see the second half of the game (I am a youth minister, and will be at a youth mass for the first hour of the game) and I hope that good football remains to be played. I have been missing football for a while now, though.

All these posts at once?

2004-01-27T17:45:00.000-05:00

This site is brand new, and the reason all of these posts are placed here in one day is due to the fact that I just switched who I write the blog through. I am now using blogspot, whereas I previously used tripod. No problems with tripod, just preference. So here are all of my previous posts!

2004-01-27T17:25:00.001-05:00

Apology must be made
I must apologize for the lack of research put into the previous post. It was rather nasty towards the drafting of Donahoe, when maybe it shouldn't have been. The first draft of Donahoe, 2001, was great. Schobel, Henry, Clements, Jennings, and I am probably missing a back-up somewhere. Spoon was drafted here, and would have made a great back-up MLB, but his injury drove him out of football, I believe. My point, however, remains the same. Drafts are the lifeblood of NFL franchises, and must be used wisely. Stockpiling draft picks is important, but moreso is using well the picks you have. We traded away a first round pick for Bledsoe, and no one would have said it was a bad trade at the time. I didn't love it, but to be honest, it was a good deal at the time. And a great move was made to get the first rounder back, in essence, with Franchising and trading Peerless.

The most recent two drafts, however, seems to leave us wanting. I don't care what Mel of ESPN or any other draft dork says. NFL teams draft players they want, no matter if someone will report that it was a reach, because they could have gotten the player 8 picks later. If the Bills are drafting at 14 and not 22, they won't necessarily be able to draft him 8 picks later, and they'll get him at 14, not 22, where the "gurus" say he should be. (I am aware the Bills are at # 13 right now, the numbers I used were fictional for the sake of example.)

The last two drafts have not yeilded us any surprises. Williams was taken 4th overall, and it seems now that it was too high. When a franchise has a # 4 pick, it needs a difference maker, someone who will dominate at their position. Williams, thus far, has not. This year's #1, has already been discussed, and is incomplete thus far, but it definitely left Greg playing without a full deck. That first rounder is someone who is needed to contribute in his first season, whether he starts right away, starts later in the season, or is a consistent back-up. The Bills got no production from the pick. The view could be that it was a bonus pick for trading Peerless when we could have lost him for nothing. And we all know the pick still has the chance to be among the greatest ever, or awful.

The mid to late rounds is where these past two drafts are raising flags. Sullivan was decent, and should probably stay around as a competent back-up -- he seems strangely fine with backing up. So I am sorry for my lack of research, but my point remains the same for the drafts of 2002 and 2003. Let's hope that 2004 can give us great luck, and a filling of many holes, including reciever, safety, corner (if Antoine leaves), tight-end, and QB of the future (2005?).

2004-01-27T17:25:00.000-05:00

Drafts, and wasting them
This is not meant as a trashing of John Butler, a good man, and a decent GM, but I thinkhe tanked his final draft here. Erik Flowers? Travares Tillman? Who else did they draft then? I can't even remember. If a team has one bad draft, or wastes a first round pick, it greatly damages the franchise. Over the past few years, the Bills seem to have found no "diamonds in the rough." They don't get the late round surprise pick that turns heads and makes an impact. The teams that do this are the teams that win. All your picks need to count, not just the high first rounder. So last season, we had a mid-late first rounder, who may be awesome in the long run. But for last season, essentially not having a first rounder hurt the team. A pick that late usually offers depth in a key area at the least, or if you are lucky, will start at some point during the season. Kevin Thomas started at the end of last season, and he was a 6th or 7th rounder, so there was a good one. Then he faded this year and McGee emerged a bit. But overall, recent Bills drafts have not turned out to be great pluses for the team. Jennings, uhhh, ummm, uhhh, Josh Reed? Who else who was not Mike Williams or Nate Clements has been drafted in the past three (four? five?) years and starts for us? Coy? Nope, we signed Lawyer. D-line? Schobel turned out decent and is a starter who will stay a starter, and I believe he was a 2nd rounder. Denney doesn't count, because he only started because we didn't have anyone else better than bad. He was a starter due to lack of bodies.

My point to this rambling? We need some draft picks of the last few years to emerge (McGahee, Kelsay, McGee, Thomas, Wire come to mind) and we need a great draft this year.

2004-01-27T17:24:00.001-05:00

Sigh.... the Offseason
I recognize that the Super Bowl is 2 weeks away, but to be honest, I'm not that enthralled. The offseason already feels a bit long for the Bills, and the goings are slow. Free agency stuff hasn't even started, and draft studying and speculating isn't fun with it this far away, or with the 13th pick overall. Let's just hope that 2003's and 2004's first rounders can play this coming season. Yes, I miss the Bills, and I miss football, and no, there's not much going on. So let's all have a beer, and hope that Mighty Mikey is making the right staff choices, and that the offense will be better. And what to do with Antoine?

2004-01-27T17:24:00.000-05:00

Offensive Line, anyone?
So, the Bills hired what is percieved around here as one of the best in the game. McNally is generally regarded in the to three in the league at any rate, so anyway you slice it, it is good. Some were mentioning hiring Fassel just to get McNally, but now we have him anyway. This offensive line was a source of hope at the start of last season. Williams did fine as a rookie, and we expected some improvement out of him, instead of him impersonating a turnstyle too many times per game. Jonas at left tacke was generally fine. You are going to get beat once or twice a game, and he limited it to that or less. Teague at center is odd, because it is not his position. Defensive tackles are 350 pounders, and the smallest o-linemen are in the middle. Teague generally had at leasts one awesome shotgun snap per game that ended the drive before Bledsoe could throw his customary incompletion to end it. Pucillo just got pushed around. That right guard spot was just weird all year. Sullivan did fine there last year, and then Pucillo does aweful there this year, and we get no explanation. And Brown is a great running blocker, but can't seem to block the pass rush anymore. Our line dominated in running situations (with the exception of Pucillo who was simply continually dominated). As pass blockers they are below average, with the exception of Jennings. Overall, we'll have to see just what a coach can do to help this line. And we'll have to see who is on this line and where they will be playing come September. This could once again be a large problem for the Bills, or it could be a source of strength. We'll see.

2004-01-27T17:23:00.000-05:00

Back in the Gray
So Jerry Gray will be our defensive coordinator, once again. This is not bad, but nor is it awesome. Gray's defense was not awesome, it was, however, good enough. The largest weakness was the lack of turnovers, which has been butchered to death. In 1999, the Seattle Seahawks got off to an 8-2 start (I think). Their defense was making lots of big plays, interceptions at key times, etc. Holmgren, in his first year as coach there, harped on the need for consistency out of the defense, along with the turnovers. You see, you can't rely on turnovers in those key situations every game, and the Seakawks were, and got them through the first 10 games. But the defense could not consistently stop opponents. So they ended up with a not really great record, considering they started 8-2. (I think they ended up 10-6.) My point is, the Bills defense was generally consistent, but they didn't get the turnovers. Add in a few turnovers (Antoine in Dallas comes most quickly to mind.) and we may win a few more games. The players have to make the plays, and I think they were generally in position to make them on defense this year. As we all know, the offense wasn't anywhere near the right position to make plays, so they couldn't. But that's for another post, another day.

Can this turnover problems be solved? Gray claimed there were 25 (yes, twenty-five!) dropped interceptions this year. Not batted with one hand, plain dropped. That seems high, but even if you add half of that, the outcomes of numerous games change. If the offense and defense can each win us 2 more games next year, we'll be in the thick of the playoff hunt. Hey, its a start.

2004-01-27T17:21:00.000-05:00

New Coach, new direction?
Ok, so Mularky is in place, and I am getting used to it. It seemes like a safe choice, and TD wanted to move before all competent assistant coaches were hired. So it makes some sense. It's not a splash. But he's already made a better impression than what's his name who is in Washington now. Strange events surrounding Grey being hired as DC, since they obviously wanted LeBeau, but he seems ok with being second fiddle. Let's hope he figures out how to get more turnovers this coming year. Rumor has it that Mularky was hired in part because he wanted to keep Bledsoe. Let's hope that's the last "yes-sir" thing he does. If he can get Bledsoe to the point where he doesn't hurt the Bills, and lets Travis and Willis take over the game, we'll be alright. MM seems to be able to work with not so stellar QB's, as we have seen with Kordell and Maddox. Bledsoe has, by far, the best tools of the three, but also may be the most thick-headed, who knows? Anyway, I'm not jumping up and down, but nor am I jumping off of a bridge. We'll obviously all have our opinions come next Dec. Ball control style is what was planned before this year, but no one told Gilbride this, so our offense sucked. We all thought that at least an adequate offense would allow our defense to steal a few, and our offense would just wear down the other team in some. I believe the NFL is a coaches league, and my proof may jsut be comparing this past year to this coming year.