Reasonable responses only

[Magnum33]

I went and watched the Dark Knight in IMAX, VERY AWESOME

[jellydonut25]

I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY LOST!!!
What a terrible team!
They look awful! 0-16 here we come! lolololololololo who are we taking with our #1 overall pick?!?!

[Spandrel]

I think that this is going to be a long season for those already weary of the discussions of Ryan Fitzpatrick and whether he is a bona fide NFL starter.

[Denverbill]

Didn't get to watch the first team so take it as you will.

However, I will say that I don't see a lot different this offseason from the last two under Chan. And that does not bother me. He has always seemed to get it under wraps by week 1 and the OL suddenly becomes good. So I think what is wise to do is watch the individual players like Glenn, etc... so that you can see how they do on an island. That can help you know how they may do given one on one situations but not a whole lot more. It is the coaches job to make sure the rookies, etc... don't get stuck on an island much come regular season.

So I don't care abotu how they performed that much.

I watched the Denver game and the OL did better. But the coach made sure to scheme a little so that Mannign would not get hit. It showed and the OL looked great in pre-season but thanks to a little game planning.

[Buffalo86]

The Good:
Dareus was virtually unstoppable
Brooks could teach McKelvin a thing or 2 about ball awareness
Chandler had an awesome grab
Graham looks like he could be a nice weapon

The Bad:
Fitz made some really bad throws. On a few he threw behind his WR; others were thrown to no one
5 WR sets: It's pre-season & I can see not wanting to get CJ or Freddy hurt. But if this is the way Chan's going to call plays, we should have a new HC by next season. Again, too early to tell.

[JoRo1183]

A reasonable doubt is nothing more than a doubt for which reasons can be given. The fact that 1 or 2 men out of 12 differ from the others does not establish that their doubts are reasonable.

[jayryp80]

I went to Dark Night Rises for the 2nd time so will be watching this evening after work. With my eyes.

[Stevie#53]

I think Graham deserves mention, he impressed on his first outing. There was only one more that he could have caught.

Brooks many have mentioned was impressive too.

The "D" always looked good whether it was starters, 2nd string or even 3rd string. It wasn't picked up on the commentary but Tank had a pretty decent tackle on Special Teams just as I thought there KR was going to take it way up field. Special Teams were good minus Lindell's miss.

The Chandler catch was pretty awesome, I really believe he saw that very late and did great to hang on.

[tiger]

The purpose of pre-season isn't just about winning, but to see what you have and what you don't have. Overall, in my opinion - even though it was ugly all around (as per Chan) - they did pretty good.

There was no game planning, no watching film, the new guys need to get use to each other, etc., etc. They were just thrown in to see what they could do. The defence held the game down to that one touch down and we were able to work on some areas, no huddle and special teams that we otherwise we not have been able to.

Don't forget the preseason is where people earn spots on the rooster or not.

Overall, I was pretty happy with game, a win would have been nice but I would rather the looses in the pre-season. It keeps the team humble and makes them realize how hard they have to work to get.

All the mistakes that happened last night will be corrected. Also, in pre-season we don't want to give away our game plan.

Not worried.

[Dalton]

Yep, that no-huddle is clearly still a work in progress. Looked like mass confusion among the WR, and the O-line was not helping out.

Which is why they practiced it in a game situation that meant nothing.

[wyo]

One thing thats very clear to me is that the Bills don't have a backup QB

I don't think they wait till the draft, they can't.

Must admit I'm really on the same page as both these responses. They DO have to draft the QB of the future to develop. I actually thought Brad Smith looked better at running the offense for the little time that he was in... and that went along with what my eyes told me in camp last week. At this point, I feel more comfortable with Brad Smith as QB2 and VY at #3... yikes! Thiggy... NOT. Please, he is just awful at this point.


As far as my overall assessment of the game, I want to watch the replay later. However, I will say that the refs were SO horrible that I'm really not sure that the game can even be properly evaluated. The TD call back on Stevie would have been the game winning TD. The punt "catch" that was called a touchback nearly blew my mind.

These refs are scary bad...

[socorocker13]

Must admit I'm really on the same page as both these responses. They DO have to draft the QB of the future to develop. I actually thought Brad Smith looked better at running the offense for the little time that he was in... and that went along with what my eyes told me in camp last week. At this point, I feel more comfortable with Brad Smith as QB2 and VY at #3... yikes! Thiggy... NOT. Please, he is just awful at this point.


As far as my overall assessment of the game, I want to watch the replay later. However, I will say that the refs were SO horrible that I'm really not sure that the game can even be properly evaluated. The TD call back on Stevie would have been the game winning TD. The punt "catch" that was called a touchback nearly blew my mind.

These refs are scary bad...

I'm not positive but I don't remember Brad Smith actually throwing a pass lol He looked around a few times...but that's about it so to say he looked better means we're in trouble!

Fitz was disappointing to me mainly because if you watch the plays, press pause every few seconds and you will see the play designs are for Fitz to make the right read, right away and release to the right guy. Stevie and Donald Jones were open pretty consistently and Fitzy picked the wrong guy. If he does that we can't win.

[caffeine addict]

Didn't get to watch the first team so take it as you will.

However, I will say that I don't see a lot different this offseason from the last two under Chan. And that does not bother me. He has always seemed to get it under wraps by week 1 and the OL suddenly becomes good. So I think what is wise to do is watch the individual players like Glenn, etc... so that you can see how they do on an island. That can help you know how they may do given one on one situations but not a whole lot more. It is the coaches job to make sure the rookies, etc... don't get stuck on an island much come regular season.

So I don't care abotu how they performed that much.

I watched the Denver game and the OL did better. But the coach made sure to scheme a little so that Mannign would not get hit. It showed and the OL looked great in pre-season but thanks to a little game planning.

I agree. The preseason, especially the first game of, is about individual and group performance and execution. Not about the W.

[crispy60]

If the Bills starters are still looking like scrambled alphabet soup during the last preseason game when they will all be playing at least 2-3 full quarters of football, instead of three series or so, then we will all be looking at some serious issues going into the regular season.

It's far too early to start speculating about how the Bills will look during regular season play based upon very limited playing time of the starting units last night.

[WarriorCanuck]

I didn't watch the game I was busy coaching my own football team. I will say it is pre season, and it would seem the Buffalo inferiority complex is in full swing. I find many in this fan base sit around waiting for the bad to happen cause it happens so often. The fact we had a great off season and a less than perfect first PRESEASON game is more than enough to send the crazier of our fan base to jump off the bridge.

As for those of us who have rational brains and do not react to every insane emotional impulse like a reality tv star, let us continue to stay excited about the 2012 Buffalo Bills and have decent conversations going forward. Those who dwell on the negatives most likely have rotten lives and use the Buffalo Bills as one of their outlets to spread their hopeless rotten emotional banter.

[Future Success]

I'm not going to read too much into Fitz's performance last night. In general, he's been a QB who has heated up as the game progresses, and obviously, he didn't have that chance last night.

For the most part, fans not just here but across the NFL read WAY too much into these games (not saying that of the OP, but on the board for sure). Preseason is a time when both coaches & players are trying certain things out & experimenting with not just different plays, but different techniques. These games used to be accepted as such, but over the past 5-10 years as they are more televised, people have come to judge them as "real" games. They're not, and everything that happens in them needs to be evaluated with that in mind.

[transplantbillsfan]

I'd have to say the 2 players who I was very pleasantly surprised by were Brooks and Graham.

Brooks definitely looks like he might push McKelvin for the Nickel and, who knows, if Williams struggles he might be opposite Gilmore by the end of the season.

Graham... I think I was pleasantly surprised because of my low expectations. I never saw the guy play, but I was expecting Roscoe's body type and stone hands. He definitely looks bigger than I expected and his hands seemed pretty decent. Route running could be a little more polished, but generally good.

Honorable mention to Donald Jones, simply because he caught all the balls that came to him and showed at least a little of why Gailey loves him and he's a lock for the team.

[Lose the Red Helmets]

[QUOTE=Vinz Clortho;6186064]Agreed. They will get it right[/QUO
They looked like a team that couldn't get anything right to me

[Adkbillsfan]

I've seen the Bill's stink the place up in pre-season and do well in the regular season, and visa-a-versa (remember beating the Steelers in pre-season in Toronto a few years back, etc.). It's the third pre-season game, if any, that may give us some indication of how they'll look this year because in that game they usually leave the starters in longer and game plan a bit. Still, even in the third pre-season, you never know until the season starts.

[DaBillsFanSince1973]

my reasonable response.

I know it's preseason and it was the first game and I know I've been going out of my way to defend Fitz this off season which was a turn around for me since I had been so critical of him last season. but he looked rushed and forced too many throws last night. he was also inaccurate. it's one thing to be able have a quick release but when I think of quick release I think of marino or farve who had quick releases yet were much more accurate. him calling his own plays didn't seem to work out as well as they wanted to either. I also feel that the reason we didn't see running plays while he was out there was to give gailey an idea where fitz is with the off season extra training he has had and it surely didn't show on the field. I would of rather seen a huddle and see him look comfortable going into the play instead of rushing to make a call and then reading the defense and making adjustments that couldn't seem to execute. I haven't lost hope, there are still 3 more preseason games to make the right adjustments but it better happen. I also wonder if, knowing that they only run a vanilla scheme that there are plays we wont see that hopefully are more productive come game 1.

reasonable response number two, the first team defense wasn't stellar but looked stout in stopping the run and I feel they will get much better in time but it clearly will take well into the season before they completely gel.

finally, no matter what anyone says in regards to it being preseason or not, none of our QB's looked good and the best QB on the field last night was RGIII whom I felt looked pretty darn good for a rookie and likely has a very good career ahead of him. that's where last night bothered me most about the game, a rookie from the opposing team out played all four of our QB's.