Sisyphean Bills

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcaYwLTBwzo As can be seen, the hit by Coleby Clawson, a LB, was a fairly routine hit and not by a behemoth. Bradford's second injury was in on an eerily similar tackle, being dragged down by a CB, where he again reaches a bit with his right arm to break his fall and ends up landing square on his shoulder. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLxCqLJMLg4...feature=related QBs at this level should know how to protect themselves and avoid falling directly on their throwing shoulders from a routine hit. What's indisputable is the guy has !@#$ed up his throwing shoulder and missed most of this past season. That is not a good thing, especially considering the winds in the Ralph, for a QB who had some questions about his arm strength before the injuries.

The average QB rating for the QBs playing today is 94.8. The average QB rating for the QBs that have been eliminated from the playoffs is 97.2. In terms of passing yards, the average of the teams in the playoffs is 10th (out of the 32 teams). The average of the teams eliminated from the playoffs is 7.8.

"Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor, and the highest form of wit." http://thewordguy.wordpress.com/2009/09/20...%C3%A6z%C9%99m/

Dome teams never win. I don't think it is a coincidence. A dome adds to the home field advantage. A dome takes the weather and wind out of the equation, which eliminates variables in the passing game. All 3 dome teams have excellent passing games. The aerial game meshes well with the current evolution of the college game, which is seeing more and more passing with the shotgun, pistol, run-and-shoot, spread option, etc. That means dome teams can translate top NCAA talent onto the rosters and more readily identify the types of players they want. It is also not a total coincidence that the one non-dome team was built to win with defense and the running game.

So what? McKelvin made the list and he missed most of the season. (I think that is pretty bogus actually, as McKelvin has shown flashes as a CB. He's getting jammed up for the fumble, which led to our ineffective defense having to take the field and lose a game.) Hardy was a 2nd round pick that never saw the field because of the PUP status and then because, well, he sucks. He's the poster boy of bad value. FWIW, he only got in 1 game because of the following: 1) he was coming off an injury, 2) he was lightyears behind in his development from the beginning, having never learned how to run a route properly in college (he said so himself), 3) he is awkward, slow, can't get off a jam, and can't beat single coverage. On the other hand, he is tall.

If you look at the Dick Jauron led drafts you will see the answer as to why the Bills never had a winning season in the Dick Levy era. It's not bad luck, bad weather, or not having enough time. It is the mistakes, misevaluations, missed opportunities, and missing master plan. The Bills went nowhere under Dick Jauron and Marv Levy because they didn't bring in the best players, those players went and made other teams better. The continuity the Bills derived by keeping Jauron was the continued failure to find the right pieces to the puzzle that is team building. Jauron had to go, and Marv is wrong. You don't get better simply by showing more patience with incompetence than most. Ask the Detroit Lions fans how waiting for Matt Millen to grow a brain worked for them.

Not just evaluating talent, but understanding what it takes to build a honest to goodness NFL team that has a chance.

James Hardy should get a mention on the bad value list. The guy caught 1 !@#$ing ball all year. And the way these lists are, Steve Johnson probably makes the good list as an honorable mention because he's paid peanuts and not because he only caught 2 balls. Jon Corto? Jon Corto?? It's pathetic that the entire WR corps, with significant playing time, is on the bad value list. Maybe that has something to do with the OL (which ironically flood filled the "good" value list) and the lousy QB play behind that line.

The OL was bad. It is a testament to how few players stood out as above average that the "good value" list contains a number of players that, very literally, would not make most teams 53 man rosters.

Hard to say. We had a QB that refused to throw the ball in the vicinity of a WR. http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/index.php?...t&p=1731877

The "best value" list is really about half full of cheap garbage. Yes, some of those guys were cheap, but they can't play -- even though the Bills put them on the field anyway.

The Bills tried the bargain basement OL approach, following the Colts lead, this past season. How far did it get them? Hint: nowhere. Trent Edwards might be an OK QB in this league (I think he'd make a decent backup on a team running the WCO), but he is clearly no Peyton Manning and he failed spectacularly (losing his job to Ryan "Are you !@#$ing kidding me?" Fitzpatrick!) when asked to be Peyton Manning. I'm not sold on Clausen, and I don't think he comes in to the Bills OL situation (or the Colts for that matter) and looks any better than Curtis Painter. Football is full of Curtis Painter QBs. There is only one Peyton Manning. By the way, when Peyton Manning was getting his feet under him as an NFL QB, he had a line with several high draft picks in front of him. Coincidence? Not really. You have to give the QB a chance to be successful. It's a team sport, not a bowling tournament.

What's the "huge if"? I'm sure the new GM and HC have enough understanding of the fundamentals of the game that they know one needs talent on the OL to have any chance.

Just ahead of his time. Marv foresaw the coming of the Wildcat.

Agreed. He wanted to give TD a chance to succeed. But, when TD pitted the organization against the fans, he forced the owner to take action, which he did. Ralph being a successful businessman and not born yesterday and all.

My guess is the Bills crappy public image. The Raiders may be down now and going through their trials, but they have tasted success -- more than the Chargers and Bills combined. The Bills have always been the red headed stepchild. Even when the Bills were very good, we came up short.

Yawn. Another coach from the Schottenheimer tree? Shocking.

Makes sense for a franchise suffering a severe image crisis to "take on the media". It's just another area they can't compete in...

Jim Bates? The defense was built for the Tampa-2; a poor man's version of the defense used in Tampa. Tampa is the defense that Bates was hired to change just this past year before he was relieved because his changes were a blooming disaster...

Probably just reflecting on his earlier point that after the Bobby Ross era, the Chargers were widely believed to have no chance to compete. Things may not be perfect in Charger-land, but the team isn't a punchline.

Well, you are entitled to your opinion, obviously. He's got enough physical talent to be a mid or late round draft pick, which was what the OP asked. Obviously, there are some concerns. Obviously, he missed most of the season, so you'd have to watch what he did last year and in jr. college, where he was the #1 JC RB prospect in the nation in 07.

Clearly, you haven't seen him play.

The good thing is that I believe Gailey is the sort of flexible coach that is going to put in a system that plays to the strengths of his players. So, he will be flexible and adapt to what he has. On the other hand, I think he has preferences in how he wants to run his ship, so he will methodically try to steer the roster in the direction he ultimately wants to go. (As QB is a weak position, it may/should be a position they address this off-season.) I see that as all good. I'm tired of seeing the Bills gut the roster every couple of years, going with some whizzy system that they have no track record at all with. The treadmill of mediocrity needs to stop.

... and if he is, wonder if he was Tim's source. Sounds like Marty was consistent on this; he had said publicly many times that although he wasn't going to say "never", he was very happy being retired, had other things that interested him now, and didn't see himself getting back into coaching. The call apparently wasn't about interest in the job for himself as it was from a friend to kick some names around. So, it seems like Tim's source saying Marty's interest was extremely hot when from the horse's own mouth it seems tepid at the most doesn't seem totally accurate. Further, it seems like the information that Nix declined his friend Marty is correct in that Ralph had nothing to do with it but not in that it was completely Nix' decision. Marty wasn't really interested after all, so the search went forwards to coaches that were serious, as it should have. This is actually very good news and makes the decision process seem correctly motivated and properly conducted.

What's the over under on The Dorf?