Bills vs Packers - Preseason

Final Score Bills 21 - Packers 31

I didn’t watch this game live. A good friend is moving to Colorado and Saturday night was the going away party. Sending a friend off in style (i.e with numerous and various drinks) is a bit more important than watching the Bills lose a preseason game. My impressions of the game will therefore be generalized and vague.

Part of being a Bills fans is overreacting with every win and loss, and this was one ugly loss. Based off this one loss, I’m sure the Bills won’t win more than 4 games this year. Yet, if the Bills beat the Steelers next week; I’ll be convinced that the Bills can’t lose more than 4 games this year. This is the emotional roller coaster that Bills fans are stuck on.

The general consensus is that Packers had at least half a game plan for this game and the Bills were in a pure vanilla mode. There is some debate as to if teams should game plan for preseason games. On one hand teams don’t want to revel to much of what their plans might be for the year, thus making it easier to counter those plans. On the other hand, practicing beyond the basics leads to better execution of plays during the regular season. I’m going to lie and say I know which approach is better than the other, but I do know that game planing beat vanilla mode 98% of the time.

I’m concerned that the Bills starting offense has yet to score a touchdown this year. As John Madden might say: “The team that scores the most point is usually the team that wins the game”. Thus, scoring touchdowns is generally more important than field goals. Now, I’ve shouted at my TV on numerous occasions that a touchdown is worth, on average 3 more points than a field goal, but clearly I have not been shouting loud enough because neither the Bills starting offense nor the coaching staff hast gotten the message.

As for the coaching staff, its pretty much common knowledge that if Jauron doesn’t produce a winning team this season he’s going to be looking for a new job. I wonder if Jauron, Yale graduate that he is, is smart enough to know that he needs to change his coaching style to get the playoffs. Jauron’s style will take a 3-13 team and turn it into a competitive 7-9 team, but he doesn’t seem to be able to make the leap from average to great, or even good.