San Jose Bills Fan

What happens if Fitz is voted to the Pro Bowl? What happens if the Mayans were correct about their prediction about the apocalypse? What happens if Anna Kournikova calls me and asks me to play a set of nude tennis with her?

I love the effort you put into your post. I'll go line by line in my reply. AO 1: Chip Kelly has never coached in the NFL. That is a major concern to me. I don't mind college head coaches being hired as NFL head coaches but when they've never even been in an NFL locker room, that's a big concern for me. AO 2: I don't like Vick for numerous reasons but the foremost is that Gailey would have to create a new offense for Vick and if your starting QB plays a different style than your backup, you have to have two different offenses. I think that's a recipe for failure. You want a system that all your quarterbacks can play and be comfortable in. AO 3: Agreed AO 4: I'd like to keep Fitz around as a mentor/backup. AO 5: Shrewd veteran signings are always a hoped for part of the offseason. RO 1: As I've posted before, I'd like Gailey to delegate more and concentrate on game managing. I do believe he's spread too thin. But I'm not sure that he would necessarily become a good game manager if relieved of his play calling duties. It's an assumption that may not be true. RO 2: LOVE both these players. RO 3: It's early and we don't know where the Bills are drafting. In principle, if they reach a bit with their first pick to grab a QB, I'm good with that. If they take BPA with their first pick and trade back into the first round for a QB, I'm good with that too. RO 4: Wouldn't mind a veteran WR free agent upgrade. It really depends upon the price as far as how I'd feel about it. RO 5: I think you draft for BPA more than for need. I'd like the Bills to glut up on WRs and LBs but there are plenty of draft picks to address multiple positions.

You're wrong here. Belichick has drafted RBs fairly high, has signed big name free agents (Cory Dillon) and had longtime vets playing for him (Kevin Faulk and Sammy Morris). You can't really typify Belichick too much. He makes most of his decisions on a case by case basis. He's not really a dogmatic thinker. Interesting though that Belichick has had two wide receivers play defensive back in Troy Brown and Julian Edelman. Again it's hard to pigeon-hole Belichick. I think you're a bit premature on Solder. He looks promising for a highly-drafted second year guy. Lets see how he does against his classmate Aldon Smith this week.

Well there are two different categories: 1) Teams which need a quarterback 2) Teams who view Matt Flynn as a viable starting quarterback He might be better than Fitz. It's certainly possible. Brady had a lot of the things personnel guys look for in a quarterback including intelligence, height, and a good arm. Flynn is intelligent. Question to you. Are you looking for any possible improvement over Fitz or are you looking for something more than that?

Digressing to the salary cap discussion for a moment, in the past few months, we've seen Dwan Edwards, Bryan Moorman, and Drayton Florence come off the books. Those were all fairly healthy contracts. In the near term, I would expect to see Spencer Johnson, Terrence McGee, and Tyler Thigpen come off the books. On top of that, there's a chance that Kelsay could be gone. If I'm not mistaken, the salary cap and the amount of the ceiling which needs to be spent will also go up so teams will be forced to increase their payroll. IMO the Bills won't have trouble signing their own free agents and maybe signing one significant free agent.

In a backwards way, 3 Doors Down's When I'm Gone.

As I recall, the only other team besides Seattle which was interested in Flynn was Miami. They were the only two teams who made Flynn an offer. Hard to imagine that the market for him would go up one year later.

Setting aside the discussion of who is the better back, you seem to constantly forget that Lynch's time in Buffalo was done. It wasn't gonna be remediated or rehabilitated. He had to go. Lynch hit and run a person on Chippewa. There were rampant rumors that he brought his own booze into clubs and wouldn't buy drinks at the bar. His Mom didn't like it here and ditched town after living here the first year. He was accused by the wife of a law enforcement officer of stealing money from her and there were other similar rumors. Lynch did not like being in Buffalo and there were lots of Buffalonians who didn't like Lynch. If you want to actually have an honest discussion, why don't you address some of these issues? Don't confuse WORSE record with WORSE talent. The numerous poorer record/poorer talent people who are incapable of actually judging talent are totally ignoring the numerous people in this thread who've attributed the worse record to POORER COACHING. Apparently the anger towards the organization is preventing people from even trying to have an objective conversation. The "let's go to the Stadium Wall and vent our anger" people sadly overpopulating this board.

Repeating what he said a few weeks ago. And yet there are people here who don't believe that the "message has been received." There's no question we'll have a new QB or QB prospect next year. It's only a matter of which one. Which brings me back to my earlier point about having to get a wide receiver to stretch the field. You don't continue to build this team under the assumption that Fitz is the quarterback.

Good point that his stock has fallen. And there's actually an argument to be made that he has an untradeable contract.

Interesting thing about Spurrier is that prior to being head coach of the Redskins, he had never coached in the NFL. He played in the NFL and coached in college and the USFL but never in the NFL. I don't think he had any idea of what he was getting into. I have no problems with a college head coach who makes the jump to the pros PROVIDED that he has NFL coaching experience beforehand. For instance, Stanford's David Shaw was an NFL assistant for 8 years. Chip Kelly on the other hand has never coached in the NFL.

I'd agree to a point. If Gailey was an offensive coordinator, I think he would benefit from a strong head coach who gave him guidelines to work within. As I've pointed out numerous times, Kevin Gilbride was viewed as a pass happy coach when he worked under Jack Pardee and Greg(g) Williams. But when he worked under Bill Cowher and Tom Coughlin, suddenly he runs a balanced offense. I dont trust Chan even as an offensive coordinator if left to his own devices. That's why I wanted to see Modkins run the offense.

I know as much about that as does Chan Gailey, which isn't much. Apparently during Monday morning's presser he said something to the effect that the playoffs were out the window even though the Bills were technically still alive.

Shout.

C'mon. You've been a Bills fan since when?

Yep. Bottom line he does not seem like the kind of coach who has his finger on the pulse.

Good point. Sometimes when I see him standing there with the headphones on I just want to have someone rip them off. It always looks to me like he's too absorbed to know what's going on in the game. There must have been at least 6 times this season where Gailey should have challenged a play and didn't. Too often Chan seems oblivious.

AJ Green bails out Dalton a lot. Very similar to how Megatron bails out Matthew Stafford, who I think really sucks. The NFL's a funny league. Burfict looks ten times bettter than Maualuga who was a highly drafted player.

His name is spelled Titus and no, we shouldn't. Brandon Flowers is one of the best young cornerbacks in the NFL. He's like Antoine Winfield except he has better ball skills. I'd bet 32 of 32 NFL GMs would take Flowers over McKelvin. As far as the OP, Bowe is the best football player on the free agent WR list but he's not the field-stretcher that Wallace is. In that sense, Wallace is a better fit although again, Bowe is the better player, IMO. Some would say that it's a moot point because we wouldn't be able to get Wallace the ball but I am making the assumption that the Bills get a quarterback in this year's draft so it is important to put the right pieces together. Bowe reminds me a lot of Anquan Boldin so of course if we got him, I'd be very pleased.

Yeah. At this moment it's a fair question as to whether the Bengals are happy with having drafted Dalton where they did and also as you point out, how to approach him going forward. Going back to your earlier point about anointing, I try not to do that but one of my favorite parts about being an NFL fan is watching a player and predicting what kind of career that player will have. Another great play by Burfict. How is it a guy can be a better NFL player than he was a college player?

Fair enough. So as in ALL of these types of threads, the issue that always exists and is rarely spoken to is what would be the right price for Flynn? I don't actually want him at any price so I wouldn't trade for him. But as for valuation, he was a 7th round pick, he's in his 5th NFL season and has never been a starter. Also he signed a 3-year, $19.5 million with $10 guaranteed. I can't imagine him commanding anything more than a 4th rounder.

Fairly early in the season I said that Chan should turn over play calling duties to Curtis Modkins. This was when Chan refused to run the ball, was using empty sets on 3rd and 2, etc. I personally don't think Chan is smart enough to call plays AND manage a game. However the possible flaw in my argument is the assumption that Chan would become a better game manager if he was relieved of the play calling burden. That assumption might not be true.

Here are my thoughts in a nutshell: Foles looks great to me. However as more video becomes available to him, DC are gonna adjust and make things more difficult. So in order to simply maintain his level of goodness, he'll have to improve. I think he looks great though. Quick thinker, good mechanics, nice array of throws and when to use them. Yep. Andy Reid has consistently done a great job coaching up QBs. He's definitely one of the best ever at it. And Dalton definitely continues to look very ordinary. I'm thinking right now that I'm glad we didn't draft him although I wish it hadn't been Aaron Williams. AJ Green is such a great player and if you took him away, I think Dalton would be considered a disappointment.

Dalton doesn't look so great. They don't ask him to do a lot and yet, he never overdelivers. Brandon Graham, the guy I wanted the Bills to draft instead of Spiller (probably I was wrong) continues to really come on. The Eagles desire to give Graham and Vinnie Curry more playing time was a big part of the reason why they cut Jason Babin. Graham tore his ACL at the end of his rookie season but is starting to show why he was so highly regarded coming out of Michigan. Yeah, he seems pretty smart but limited. It's like he's got a decent floor and a low ceiling. Also so far this season, Foles looks very polished. His technique and mechanics look excellent. If Foles can generate some offense that will be pretty impressive because the Cinci defense has been playing very well. Great scramble by Foles. Vontaze Burfict who I thought looked horrible on video has really played great for Cinci. After being a highly rated prospect as a junior he stunk it up as a senior and went undrafted. I really didn't see his talent but he's been outstanding.

Foles looks outstanding for a rookie. Very heady, composed. Throws accurately.