Bills Show Signs Of Life, But Fall 38-30 To Patriots

because thats so much better than actually winning.

Oh well.

With Edwards there was none.

So what’s up with the rumors about Edwards being shopped around? I’d imagine if any team would take him it might be Arizona. We’d get at most a bag of footballs and a double cheeseburger.

The real story of the day, however, was the lackluster effort by Buffalo’s defense

How is that the real story of the day, Brian?

The real story of the day is absolutely, 100%, the performance of the offense. We walked into that game as by far the worst offense in the league, averaging 8 pts a game and dropped 30 pts in Foxboro. I know its easy to be negative right now, but the offense is most definitely the real story and in a positive way.

We couldn’t run, we couldn’t pass, we couldn’t get a first down, our receivers couldn’t do anything and in this game everyone on the offense outside of the tackles played well.

well this makes me a little more optimistic. A win would have been awesome but I didn’t even expect them to keep it so competitive so I guess I’ll take what I can get. Time to start binge drinking =P

Thought the refs were a subtle factor. I didn’t see a lot of concrete evidence to overturn the first down spot at the end of the half. That cost Buffalo anywhere from 3 to 10 points. i thought there was much more evidence to overturn the spot on New England’s last drive, but they hardly seemed interested…the unnecessary celebration on Johnson was ticky tack in a big spot…it was no worse than Brady’s celebration following his first down scramble and that was greeted with applause from CBS.

Kudos to Gailey for benching #5, Spiller for making a huge contribution, and Ryan Fitzpatrick for allowing the offense to function. Jeers to Keith Ellison who was a disaster in coverage today. If he can’t do even that, his roster spot can be utilized somewhere else.

now we get to talk about how bad the defense is for a week. We can put the offense as talking point 2 for once

The real story of the day, however, was the lackluster effort by Buffalo’s defense.

Disagree 100%.

The story of the day was the Bills showing signs of life and putting 30 on the board. The D being terrible was predictable. I’m surprised Moss didn’t have a bigger game. Watching our safeties playing a step or two late is par for the course. Whitner and Byrd have such poor recognition and reaction skills. They are so slow to diagnose plays over the middle, or at least to react to them and get in on the play.

Glad to see Spiller make a bigger impact. He looked a little more decisive with the ball today, but still has a ways to go. He still needs more touches on offense.

One of these years we’ll field a respectable front 7 right? That run defense and pass rush is as bad as any team’s in the league. Just brutal.

I’m happy that this game was fun to watch and the team showed some signs of life. They still stink, but at least they went down fighting today and showed that maybe they won’t be so painful to watch. Good to see some improvement.

The 2010 Bills Superbowl is week 16 New England Patriots
Sun, 12/26 at 1:00 PM EST
Ralph Wilson Stadium

Spiller,Lynch, and Fitzie. Those guys really jumped out at me today. Ina good way.

I agree 100% Brian.
And then our defense(less) got on the field.
Ugh.
That’s their new name now.
We actually have an offense. And on the other side of the ball, we have a defenseless.

Sidenote: I think Byrd is still hurt, he looked sloooooooooowwwwww today.

So while this isn’t a W in the win column, it’s still a win to me, and a very LARGE step in the right direction.

It also showed you what this team is capable of doing with a semi-decent QB that isn’t afraid to throw one down the field. Ok yes it is Fitzy’s overthrows that eventually cost us the game (especially the one on Parrish, if that had connected I think Roscoe would have taken it in for 6).

But this game showed what we could be with a good QB, re-enforcing the need to draft a QB in this year’s draft. This team may be closer to being a good team than a lot of people think.

The O showed good signs of life today under Fitzy. Its clear that they react much better under him than Edwards but I think we all already knew that. Lynch ran well today and I would have liked to see him get some more touches especially early in the game he looked really good. Spiller really broke out today and that KO return was a thing of beauty (although it shouldnt have counted). But at this point I want to see if they can do this a couple weeks in a row only bc NE D is extremely young and they looked very bad today at times.

The D on the other hand got absolutely owned by NE. Brady as to be expected did what he wanted at will with no fear of anyone even being within 5 yards of him. There is soo much work that needs to be done on this side of the ball that I have no idea where to begin except to scrap the whole thing and try again.

All in all a competitive game that was at times enjoyable to watch but I believe most of us knew all along that we would find a way to lose this game and it seems like that is exactly what we did. We had a good opportunity to take a step forward and get a huuuge monkey off our back and we couldnt capitalize.

why we are about to extend Kelsay’s contract?

on Sportscenter.

It was good to see Fitz sitting in the pocket on more than one occasion with lots of time to pass. The two picks were over-throws on his part.

Was New England’s pass rush that weak, or was it the respect they had for the downfield threat? We all know that the o-line can’t be responsible, right?

I’m glad that it was close enough to be fully invested until the last Fitz INT. Thank God for CJ Spiller….we really is fun to watch play. I love watching whenever that man has the football.

This type of game is what I wanted to see. That at least if we are gonna lose, I wanted it to be exciting. And I think that was the thought process behind the Spiller selection. So for this game, it worked!

I just wish Trent could throw downfield like Fitz does. Oh well. With Fitz, we have to take the good throws with the bad throws. So I don’t get too upset when he throws the occasional INT.

Progress!

the story of the day for me was the difference in the QB play. I didn’t expect this team to win today but In Fitz you get a QB that is not afraid of throwing the ball downfield or afraid to make a mistake for that matter. He looked guys off and and threw the ball where he knew his WR would be. Now he made a major mistake w/ the int. to Chung but in reality Edwards would not have made most of those down field throws to put the offense in that position anyways. regardless of NE’s defense our offense scored more points today w/fitz then they have the previous 2 games with Edwards.

Hopefully this gave them a lil confidence.

He played way more today than any other game and that is good. Chan is seeing what he can do. However, he was just manhandled. I just don’t see him improving enough to become an effective pass rusher. Did anyone see anything from him to create some optimism?

See Brian, I would have used “spark” in the headline, not the paragraph. :-)

Where the eff is Fred Jackson?

Hey Norcalbillsfan, I’m not a positive peter and I mother eff bad plays like the rest of Bills fans but you need to look at an improvement at some point when its there. I wonder why you even participate on this wonderful sight when all you have is a pessimistic point of view. I love readin comments and when its hijacked by someone who always posts on every damn blog entry, and has the same negative take it wears on everyone. Not saying you aren’t right at points but why are you a van when you can’t even acknowledge a positive in the offense? I enjoy reading takes and try to post what hasn’t been contributed or backup someones great take.

Overall this was a fun game to watch and goin out swinging is way sweeter than errr Edwards heartless losses. Too all the Fitz haters, would you really see Edwards than Fitz? I mean boring football or plays being made then a loss? Ya a win is sweet but imagine Fitz in the first two games, miami would of been a win. The announcer made a great observation “fitzpatrick makes his decisions to make plays very quickly”

Defense definetely could of done a better job, but with a roster full of playmakers, the patriots I thought would of had bigger plays and more points.

Fitz played very well, the entire oline played well. They also look better keep in mind thanks to Fitz getting rid of the ball and movement in the pocket. Bell looked pretty nice, few problems but hey limit his mistakes and we have a future tackle.

Maybin needs to get experience but its painful to see zero penetration.

Cj had an awesome game throwin up 14 points but I was puzzled to why he would be in on third and long when jackson and lynch are clearly better pass protectors. Only thing I can think of is keeping Spiller on the field means the Linebackers need to account for him but at the same time all three backs need to be accounted for.

Why wasn’t Fred Jackson used more than 3 times today?

that Ryan Fitzpatrick might screw up what could have been a slam dunk opportunity to have pick of the QB litter. He’ll play just good enough not to make this team a laughing stock, but he’s ultimately someone the team should look to as a guide for their future. He’s smart and he’s a gamer, but we’ve seen his ceiling.

Great game for the most part by him, today. I don’t mind the picks because he was at least trying to make something happen.

I know we lost but everyone should lighten up. I’m just as upset with the Bills losing as everyone else here but it’s no reason to go off the deep end and get overly pessimistic. everything doesn’t go the way we want it to go and never will. One day Buffalo will be great again and we’ll look back at these last few seasons and laugh about it and how everyone will suddenly be a Bills fan. We have a headstart on the Bills Bandwagon. Just gotta be optimistic

Best Bills football we’ve seen in 8 months or more!
Go Bills!

And, during the week, Buddy needs to draft 5 pass rushers.

It was good to see the offense show some signs of life with Fitzpatrick under center and I’m glad we had the chance to celebrate a few plays today. There’s still a long way to go but hopefully the team is heading in the right direction.

i agree with a prior post that he may screw up our chance at locking the first qb pick. We’ll have to see if there is anyone worth shooting for that spot anyways so it really shouldn’t be a priority.

What Fitz does give us is the chance to really evaluate the rest of the offense. While all of us agree that we know his ceiling and that we have little to no chance of progressing at the qb position right now, he is adequate to put other players in the position to make plays. This gives Chan the data he needs to assess when building his team of the future.

Applying this same train of thought on the defensive side we could say that a pass rusher might achieve the same results. I wish we could make some kind of move to shore up that duty. I truly think that could be the biggest impact move possible.

So does anyone agree that Fred Jackson will end up being the odd man out?

I won’t argue Jackson is talented, but I’d much rather take CJ Spiller and Marshawn Lynch over him.

Reggie Corner may well be the least useful human being on the planet.