—Tell me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Chan Gailey really give it to Ryan Fitzpatrick after Sunday’s game? He kind of went after him, right? I’m talking about the last interception, which Gailey seemed to imply that he called the right play but Fitz messed up.
“We just need to hit those two passes down the field and we’ve been doing that some and we didn’t do that today. We had the chance to hit Steve (Johnson) on a couple and missed them. He won, but we’ve just got to get the ball down the field to him. They made their long passes and we didn’t make our long passes.” Thanks to Coach Sal for tweeting these comments.
Sure, he deserved some of it and maybe Gailey was channeling his inner Lindy Ruff, but I’m surprised no one has made a bigger deal about it. God knows if this was Dallas, we would have wall-to-wall ESPN coverage about it.
—As I’ve alluded to it multiple times, I’m happy as punch to make Ryan Fitzpatrick our future QB, but let us try and stop with the Jim Kelly comparison when it comes to stats. I know Mark Gaughan had a piece last week about how #14’s numbers were on par with Jim’s 1991 season, but we are in a totally new era of football. We are in the steroid era of passing. The rules now are more beneficial towards QBs. In 1991, only five QBs had over 20 touchdowns. Last year, 17 QBs went over that number. Again, you are comparing apples to oranges.
—Speaking of Fitzpatrick, I’m sure we heard ESPN’s report that the Bills and #14 are making progress on a new deal. Yes, I reported it about 25 days ago that it looked like the bye week was going to be the time when a deal was struck. I’m not going to get on my soap box, declaring victory and begging to be respected, but I am going to mention it. Yes, getting it first may not mean all that much, but as a blogger, I’m David going against Goliath. So, I gotta kind of yell a bit.
—Aaron Maybin leads the league in forced fumbles? Huh! I know it is early and every dog has his day, but I can already envision a worst nightmare of Fitz being sacked by Mayhem. I don’t want to sound like a Monday morning QB, but I always thought the Bills didn’t do a good enough job in getting Maybin legit playing time. He was playing on an awful/non-contending/defense last year, so, why didn’t they just say “Fu#$ it, throw him in there”. They never did that. I’m not saying cutting Maybin will bite them in the a$$ down the road, but he does have two sacks right now and we are having issues with rushing the QB. I should also mention that Maybin is probably a better fit with the Jets, because they blitz 5-6 guys at times, which benefits Maybin’s quickness against running backs. Maybin can’t win 1-on-1 match-ups against offensive linemen.
—Oh, that Lindy Ruff and his juggling of lines. Last week, when Mike Harrington was on the Sabres podcast with Heather and I, he made a joke about how Lindy would have broken up “The French Connection” line. Classic. Well, Lindy is busting Ville Leino to the 4th line with Cody McCormick. I’m sure by the 2nd intermission of the Sabres next game, Ville will be playing between Vanek and Pomer. Anyways, I’m not really sure what playing with #8 will do for his game. However, judging from his game in Florida, maybe it was nothing more than a message being sent. I think he got it.
–Speaking of Vanek, the man is on fire! Yes, I still believe he’s doing this because he’s ticked off about the captaincy. OK, that is probably not the case, but it is much cooler to think his anger is driving him. From the Sabres PR man, Ian Ott, Vanek has 31 points (15+16) in 23 games since 3/5/11. He’s ranked 3rd in the league in both goals and points during that stretch. Well, I can top that! Including the playoffs, Vanek has 11 goals in his last 13 games. Alright, he wins. Whether they are tip ins or his slap shot, Vanek keeps on evolving.
—Very happy to see the old Ryan Miller against the Habs and Panthers. It was vintage Miller from his Olympic year of 2010. The Sabres didn’t really deserve to win against the Habs, but Miller stood on his head and played out of his mind. So far, the Sabres have only allowed 10 goals on the season! Overall, it has kind of been even as to why the GAA has been so low for the team. Some nights, it has been Enroth/Miller stealing the show, while other nights, it has been the Sabres rock solid defense doing the trick.
— We all know about Lindy Ruff’s fetish with talking about the Sabres top 6 forwards. I always felt he made it up in order to make it sound like we had great depth, when we just didn’t have a #1 line. So far, the top six forwards have been the backbone for the team’s scoring. The line of 26-73-29 have combined for 25 points, while the 2nd line of 21-9-42 have combined for 13 points (FYI: Ennis replaced Gerbe). As for the rest, 22-23-63-28-36-8 have combined for five points, which ties Christian Ehrhoff’s total.
—I think the Raiders are insane to trade a 1st and 2nd (which can become a 1st) round picks to the Bengals for Carson Palmer. With Palmer, the Raiders will be lucky to even win a playoff game. They are a franchise that is a year or two away, and mortgaging the future for a QB that hasn’t really been good for the last three years, probably isn’t a good idea. Plus, the Raiders are a rushing team and their wideouts aren’t really that good (Unless they are playing the Bills).
—I’m so not looking forward to the Toronto game talk for next week. I’ve been in a great mood about the Bills, and I know the whole debate is going to rear its ugly head on radio/print outlets. As much as I’ve hated the Toronto experiment, I can kind of understand where the Bills are coming from. The big market teams in the NFL are charging insane amounts of money for PSLs and luxury boxes. The team can’t compete with that. Yes, they are making money, but you have to be able to compete with other teams in order to outbid them for players. On the other side of the coin, it is not like I’ve seen that Toronto money go into the Bills payroll or anything like that. It will be interesting to see how the crowd will react for the game, because the Bills are actually decent. Entering the last three Toronto games, the Bills had a combined record of 10-20. Also, two of the three games were lousy as hell. Maybe the energy will be up for this game…right? Eh?
—I still think the Bills and Rodgers people need to do a better job of hyping the match-up in Toronto. I’m not talking about radio appearances or throwing out the first pitch at a Blue Jays game. I think just reaching out to the community and having open practices in Toronto would help. Try and make the week leading up to it as being a Super Bowl week of hype. Bring in Flutie, Gretzky, Gilbert and Bret Hart. Just stop acting like Canadians should be kissing the NFL’s ass for just having games there.
—It was just announced that the Bills are starting up the renovation process for Ralph Wilson Stadium, which will cost anywhere between 40-100 million dollars. Of course, the county will be picking it up. You gotta love this lease the Bills had the county sign. I’m not going to get all high and mighty about the county being broke and how they probably shouldn’t have to pay that amount of money, but the team does put a lot of money into the economy. Hotels, restaurants and all that stuff. Even still, I’m sure if you are not a football fan, you must hate this arrangement. Plus, it would be very Springfield like (Simpsons) if we do these upgrades and the team moves.
—I think it would behove the Bills to have a restaurant or make a food concourse, ala, what the Sabres have. However, if they do that, you can bet they’d cut tailgating time in half.
—For the 20th time, the Bills don’t need a new stadium. Actually, they do, because RWS is kind of a dump, but the costs for a new stadium wouldn’t come close to the revenue luxury boxes would bring into the team. Teams like Dallas charge $500,000 a year for luxury boxes and they have like 200 of them. I just don’t see 200 companies in Buffalo paying that much for them. Only way they could do that is if they put the stadium on the Canadian side of the falls. You can also kiss that cheapest ticket in the NFL goodbye. You’d be paying a PSL. BTW, this article should tell you why we shouldn’t get one because only lawyers would be going to Bills games.
Tweet of the day.
@theycallmedubs: The #Bills scare us because we so want it to be real but can’t possibly expect it, and the #Sabres scare us because we DO expect it of them.
Mr. Dubs from DGWU Sports, hit the nail on the head with this one. Also, I do have confirmation that Mr. Dubs doesn’t look like the old-man river photo.
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