2011 Buffalo Bills Look Remarkably Like 2008 Outfit

Their largest margin of defeat in their 2-8 finish was 13 points, which they did three times

i’m not sure how accurate this is – but this could be because this team has a set of balls and will go full boar regardless of the situation. DJ lead teams were getting milked to death where as this team goes balls to the walls regardless. 4th down – go for it etc… Gailey and Fitz are far more aggressive, for better or for worse, than DJ and Edwards was

The Bills lack talent and Everyone knew it
Then we started winning
Everyone thought: Wow, they got talent!
Now we’re losing with all our talent
People blame Chan.

But if we never had the talent,
Chan should be praised for the wins we do have
Not blamed for the wins we don’t.

If he’s to blame
It’s for costing us a top 3 pick

This season is toast.

Fitz ia fraud.

Nix hasn’t really hit much on his draft picks.

Gailey has forgotten what a pro style offense looks like,

Stevie Johnson has a case of Peerless Price syndrome wanting #1 WR money when he is clearly a #2 and hasn’t had a 100 yard receiving game in a year,

No pass rush.

CBs can’t cover.

OL has been ignored in the draft and has no depth.

The last 3 Sundays have really sucked and looks like it will be 4 in a row as Gailey marches out his college style offense against the Jets.

1.) First, is that the 2011 team was winning in more explosive fashion than the 2008 team. During its 5-2 start the 2008 team averaged 23.5 points per game. The 2011 team averaged 30.1 points.

2.) Second, the 2008 team was beating up on much, much weaker competition to get to its hot start. By the midway point of the 2008 season the teams the Bills beat were a total of 19-31 with only winning club having been faced to get to 5-2 and it was the 4-3 Cardinals – a team they lost to. The 2011 team has beaten some much finer competition. The total record of the clubs this years team has faced by the midpoint season to get to 5-2 was 29-20. The only two losing clubs on that list were the Eagles and Redskins.

Go Cheifs!!!!!!!!

The posts I’m reading above seem to be more out of frustration than they do rational thinking. With the starters in place this year, the Bills looked good. I think the beginning of the year starters showed that they can compete with the best in the NFL. What the past few games have shown me though is that the Bills lack any serious depth.
Having just Bell out on the OL? That hurt, but for the most part the Bills were able to overcome that. But Wood, the OL playcaller, out as well? Then on D, the Bills have tried their best to make up for the loss of Merriman and Williams. But those were huge losses.
Last year’s Packers highlighted the importance of depth. Every team deals with the injury bug—some worse than others. But this year’s Bills team showed me that the team is getting there. Now if they can develop depth either by bringing in backups or upgrading positions and moving current starters as backups, then the Bills will be true playoff contenders.

From that squad – Kelsay, Jackson, McGee, Kyle – maybe Wilson and Scott. How does the mindset linger? I think the collapse has as much to do with lack of depth and top end talent. No one on the offense was capable of making a momentum changing play (especially when all of the 3 and outs prevented Fred from getting consistent carries). CJ has the ability, but we’re not getting him in position to make plays, and when we do, he’s not making magic. I am interested in Gailey moving toward more 4 man fronts moving forward to try and get some stops, but the offense needs to turn around and hand the ball to Fred to stabilize things and try to remain competitive moving forward.
In sum, I don’t think it’s amindset; I think it’s more to do with depth/top end talent. We’re still rebuilding = and we’re still not mathematically eliminated.
Regarding the Packers comparison, they still had top level talent on teh field on offense and defense. We don’t have many defensive playmakers, and our offense features good players who work best in a rhythm offense that hasn’t clicked in november.

I think we knew going into the season that the BIlls lacked depth at several key positions, where banking on Merriman to stay healthy (never a safe bet), where held together with duct tape for a few weeks, but then as the bumps and bruises started adding up and the injury list grew the lack of depth is surfacing… Why can’t we see the promise of this team when healthy and look for the depth to be built over time?

Certainly the W-L column looks remarkably similar but the 2008 was on the decline while the 2011 team (despite the last 3 weeks) is on the upswing. They already have more wins than last year, they have rookies that look like becoming regular starters over the next few years (Dareus, Williams, Sheppard) as opposed to quality veterans who were on the way down (Schobel, Evans, Stroud). 2008 was the last shot of a plucky and fortunate group of players to do something, 2011 is the first shot for this group. If by this time next year we fire the coach, QB and starting Running Back then yes the two teams will show themselves to be similar, otherwise the only similiarity currently is the W-L.

…“fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,
 we shall fight on the beaches,
 we shall fight on the landing grounds,
 we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
 we shall fight in the hills;
 we shall never surrender!”

And so is the fact that this is year two of a complete rebuilding project. It’s kind of hard to remember (through the cloudy haze created by a 5-2 start, and a stretch of 9-7 between last year and this) just how bare the cupboards were when Chan and Nix took over. The top 3 offensive players (arguably Edwards, Lynch and Evans) and 3 Defensive players (Whitner, Poz and Mitchell) all exited in the interest of a complete revamp of the team.

Which is the long way of saying that 5-1 team in ‘08 was the culmination of 3 years of Jauron effort-that was his team all the way. You can say that Chan and Nix haven’t had the time or the personnel to put together a team from, essentially, scratch.

Those are the two big differences for me anyway: This team has shown some promise against good teams (even if they did catch them at bad times) and that expectations are inflated based on the good early run.

I’ve tried (unsuccessfully) to drink away the ’08 Bills and I have a feeling this season will be worse because of the benchmark wins.

The last three weeks have been the beginning of another epic meltdown. Good teams get better as the season wears on bad – average teams, well, don’t. This is where we typically blame the injury bug but good teams have good back-ups. We don’t have nearly enough depth at just about every position. The secondary is getting clowned by the likes of Matt Moore and Fitz can’t seem to complete a pass of greater than 10 yards. The bottom line is teams have figured us out on both sides of the ball. It’s difficult to see more than one, MAYBE two wins on our remaining schedule.

Settle in folks, it’s going to be a long ride into the end of the season and it won’t be pretty.

It comes down to winning divisional games. The 2011 mirage was created by the victory over the Patriots but in the end both seasons (2008 and 2011) are similar because the Bills apparently cannot take care of business within the division and those games were back-loaded in the 2nd half of the season for whatever scheduling reasons.

I’m less concerned about blowing the quick start than not being competitive within the AFC East. Rex and Bill understand this. Not saying than Chan doesn’t but the front office doesn’t seem to have the necessary vision (or whatever) which is not just about “changing the losing culture in Buffalo” – it should be to crush our AFC East foes, see them driven before us, and to hear the lamentation of their fans.

Needed to survive in the current form of the NFL. We get into our first string backups we see a drop off in production due to lack of talent. It will take another draft and FA period to get to solid depth level.

We then come to the playcalling. On O it has been inexcusable for the way Chan has been calling games. He might want to turn that over to someone else so he can concentrate on the WHOLE team. Maybe give it to Fitz, why not? He is from Harvard, supposed to be smart, if Peyton can call the game from the line, give Harvard boy a try, it couldn’t be any worse.

For the D, I admit I am not an Edwards fan at all. But I will say that it must be a bear to coach a Mash unit every week. I feel the blitzes are to simplistic (which they are) but then again we are deep down into our depth chart at this point in many spots so I can understand him being unwilling to try to much. But we CANNOT allow a TE/FB hybrid to gash us repeatedly. Our coverage calls stunk like dead skunk in Sunday.

It will take time, and my original thoughts on our record still holds true so far. 5-7 wins with 8the on the outside with great luck. Since we had a much worse record last year, it is a step in the right direction. BUT, we need to get some spirit back on this team, they are playing flat and dispirited football right now. Someone on the team needs to step up this week and put the whole group on their back, and if Chan wakes up, he will let Fred Jackson do it.

Here’s to hoping that this year’s Bills break out of their funk and put 2008 back where it belongs: as a distant, unpleasant memory.