Bills Daily Gameday -- KEY MATCHUPS

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LT Jason Peters vs. LB Joey Porter:
Porter had a huge game in the first matchup between the two teams and he leads the league with 14 sacks. Peters is playing better as of late and hopefully he can keep Porter from being too disruptive.

RBs Marshawn Lynch vs. LB Channing Crowder:
Lynch is playing very well as of late and he now is finding holes in the running game. Crowder will likely fill some of those holes as he has 89 tackles on the season.

DB Terrence McGee vs. WR Ted Ginn Jr.:
McGee got burned to a crisp by Ginn in the first matchup but he was playing at much less than 100% because of a knee injury. McGee is healthy now and playing well so he should do a much better job this time around.

DE Ryan Denney vs. OT Jake Long:
Denney is coming off possibly his best game of his career in the loss to San Francisco. Long is a bright, rising young star who will give Denney all he can handle. That will make it tough to get to Pennington since he'll be using a quick release.

WR Lee Evans vs. CB Andre Goodman:
Evans could have a big day against Goodman. His chances increase if his good buddy J.P. Losman is in at quarterback.

DT Marcus Stroud vs. RBs Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams:
It will be a homecoming of sorts for Williams as he heads back to the place he played for one year when he was banished to the CFL. Stroud needs to clog up the middle well to keep this one-two punch from getting going.

GAME PLAN

When The Bills Have The Ball: Turk Schonert is in love with the passing game and with Miami having a suspect secondary. So expect the Bills to attack through the air at least two-thirds of the time even though they should probably be a bit more balanced.

When The Dolphins Have The Ball: Miami will try to use a mixture of runs and passes as well as their patented wildcat formation to move the football on the Bills. Look for Pennington to do a lot of play action passes and throw it short on slant patterns. That is his bread and butter and the Bills are vulnerable to the short passing game.

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The Bills won't have their normal December home field advantage against the Dolphins (they are 7-2 against Miami in Buffalo in December). The game will be in the closed and sealed dome stadium leveling the playing field. Of course the way these Bills play in cold weather they may get the break playing indoors. There may actually be more Dolphins fans in the stadium than Bills fans for this one as Canada isn't exactly Bills country. The Dolphins are confident and playing extremely well, the Bills are in chaos and struggling with no confidence.

 

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Bills-Dolphins inactives
By Chris Brown - Posted December 7th, 2008

Buffalo Bills
17-Justin Jenkins
25-Xavier Omon
33-Jabari Greer
65-Jason Whittle
77-Demetrius Bell
87-Jonathan Stupar
94-Aaron Schobel
5-Trent Edwards - 3rd QB

Miami Dolphins
14-Chris Hannon
41-Joey Thomas
61-Shawn Murphy
71-Lionel Dotson
75-Nate Garner
81-Joey Haynos
90-Rodrique Wright
9-John Beck - 3rd QB

Lineup changes for the Bills
No. 7 J.P. Losman will start at quarterback
No. 92 Ryan Denney will start at defensive end
No. 28 Leodis McKelvin will start at cornerback

 

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The experience this weekend will be vastly different from what people adore about games in Orchard Park.

Bills can?t bring Buffalo?s passion to Toronto


Let it be known that Toronto deserves an NFL team. It really does. Toronto has the corporate money and fans to compete with monster U. S. markets that have turned the league into an irrepressible beast. An NFL team would give Toronto three major sports franchises, plus the Maple Leafs.

Give me two minutes for instigating, but let?s not drop the gloves over whether Toronto is worthy of watching over the Bills for a weekend. It is. If anything, Toronto should be thanked for putting up with them. It?s like dropping off your bratty kids and having the baby sitter pay you.

Hey, if the Bills? recent play continues, can Toronto be tricked into picking up the New England game, too?

Thing is, I adore Toronto, a true North American jewel. Nearly 5 million people live in the city and surrounding areas. It has a usable downtown subway system, a downtown stadium, two downtown arenas, numerous downtown hotels and a downtown shopping center. What I?m saying is that it has a downtown, period.

The amenities aren?t missing so much as the passion.

Torontonians would pay $400 to watch the Leafs sharpen their skates, but they never were obsessed with other sports the way Buffalo is with the Bills. Attend a Blue Jays game and see how many people are oblivious to bases loaded and two out. Tell them Sam Mitchell got canned by the Raptors this week and wait for blank stares.

Just so you know, the experience this weekend will be vastly different from what people adore about games in Orchard Park. Their idea of tailgating is corporate tents and phony enthusiasm. Ours is firing up the grill, firing up the crowd, firing the coaching staff and firing footballs off the Winnebago. Toronto closes the roof, Buffalo raises the roof.

The fine people there should know that they?re being taken to the cleaners. Ted Rogers passed away earlier this week, and may he rest in peace. But it doesn?t change the fact that he and Ralph Wilson were partners in an attempted heist designed to line their pockets with everybody else?s money.

Rogers Communications executive Phil Lind told people after the company agreed to pay $78 million to the Bills for the eight-pack that the games would easily sell out, but seats were available all over the place last week. Seriously, was he kidding? It wasn?t Leafs-Sabres in Game Seven of the conference finals.

Truth is, it would have been embraced if the Rogers people were reasonable at the start rather than alienating potential customers with prices that were higher than Cheech and Chong. Plus, fans had to buy tickets for all eight games. What to do? Feed the family or watch two rivals decide which is worse?

Anyway, Toronto likes the Bills the way Utica likes the Bills. It?s not overflowing with die-hards.

If the geniuses running the show really want to satisfy their customers today, they should play the Bills-Dolphins game on the field and the Cowboys-Steelers on the video scoreboard.

Dallas is the top team in town, making TO a favorite in TO. Pittsburgh and Green Bay have their supporters. Buffalo is right up there with, well, Miami. Estimates last week had as many as 10,000 Dolphins fans going to the game, which could very well outnumber fans from Western New York.

Heck, why not stage that game at another neutral site, such as the Orange Bowl?

Of course, at the time the agreement was reached, the spin suggested the Bills? game in Toronto was about good intentions and better relations.

For Toronto, they said, it was a chance to hold an NFL game during the regular season with more entertainment to follow. It was a precursor to the Center of the Hockey Universe someday getting its own NFL team, if not this NFL team, a communal showcase by a major market designed to impress the masses.

For the Bills, they said, it was an opportunity to keep the franchise viable so poor, small-market Buffalo could remain competitive. Or it was a means of celebrating the NFL in Canada after its people supported the Bills. There were suggestions it would give Bills fans financial relief for a week, as if they cared about holes in your shoes.

Meanwhile, they were trying to cut a hole in your pocket.

The sorry souls in Toronto were foolish enough to get caught up in the swindle. Once again, Bills fans were held hostage with not-so-subtle hints about relocation. There?s a perception out there that if the Bills split town there would be nobody left to clean up the tumbleweed. We?re not that shallow.

Are we? Luckily, only a few thousand people from Buffalo were duped into overpaying for tickets. Heck, a few thousand Western New York natives attended the Buffalo game Saturday night ? against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Rogers and his Toronto investors didn?t know, but have since discovered, that they overplayed their cards. They turned off the average fan, the very people who helped build the NFL, not to mention those who filled Ralph Wilson Stadium every week while cheering for lousy teams for nearly a decade.

The Bills are gaining about $10 million for Sunday?s game, some $78 million in all, or some $93.6 million Canadian. We?ll see where the money goes. Good for them, so long as they know that selling out often comes at a hefty price.

Sadly, they don?t care.