Sisyphean Bills

Ralph did want to draft Flutie instead of Bruce Smith.

In 8 years as a head coach, Jauron has had 4 different offensive coordinators and each has subscribed to a somewhat different philosophy. When Jauron came to Buffalo, he felt that "The Greatest Show on Turf" and the "Tampa 2" were the systems to use, and they were hot tickets at the time. But, is it just me or does that smack a little more of "copy cat" than it does innovation, long-term planning, and following one's own path to success? 3 short years later, teams are dumping those systems and many NFL execs are already retooling their offenses to re-energize a power attack and grind up the smaller, quicker defenses that Dungy and his disciples had success with.

Actually, while I was ambiguous, I heard it from Marv Levy's own lips that he felt that Nate had had a down year in 2005. I don't really believe Levy was simply posturing to decrease Clements' value; but, that Marv, in typical Marv fashion, was telling it exactly how he saw it. Yep. And many fans ate it up. Butler was a tool that ruined the team by overpaying players that kept the team in the playoffs, etc. Yet, somehow when Butler left darn near the entire scouting department walked out the door right behind him.

Actually, the way I remember it Clements was coming off a down year and some/many people thought Levy was crazy to franchise Clements in the first place. You are suggesting above that the Bills never really had a chance to keep Clements by signing him to a second term contract. That right there is a problem; players do not want to stay and play in Buffalo. Secondly, you imply that renting Clements, unhappy as he was to be tagged, was a far better option than trading him (assuming he got tagged) or letting him go that first year as opposed to simply moving on with a new coach, new system, and new players. These two things don't exactly mesh unless the Bills/Levy did not see it that way at all and thought that they could strike a deal with Clements, they just needed more time. (And AFAIK, Levy did spend time the next year trying to negotiate with Clements, but Clements wanted his big pay day and out of Buffalo.) [Edit] The trouble is the claim that the only way Clements would come to camp was if Levy offered him this guarantee that he'd be allowed to walk the next year. To be more concrete, let's say that is true and Levy did not cave in and give up his leverage. NC would, under this scenario, not report to camp and might even pull a Jason Peters and only show up until 2 days before the first game. Now, NC was coming off a down year and this holdout would not have helped him learn the new defense. His performance would, reasonably, resemble a fish out of water. Hardly a way for NC to maximize his earnings potential as he'd have two down years back to back, hypothetically. That $80M contract wouldn't have been waiting for him in SF. So, really, it was in both the Bills and NC interest that he get his rear into camp and play to the maximum of his abilities. In my view, a team should only use the FP tag on someone if they really think that player is a franchise player and are fully prepared to offer the guy an eye-popping contract that is the best at the position. Let's face it, the FP tag creates a sense of animosity. But, it is there for the team to buy time to work out a new deal. And that deal is going to have to be better than the going rate for the player/position in order to close. Otherwise, the team will have to continue to re-use the FP tag or move on anyway. There is just no way I can see losing Nate Clements and replacing him with Jason Webster as doing what is best or trying to put the best team on the field. As far as not being able to tell if Clements wanted to stay or not, that's why you have a face to face between the parties and ask questions. I think we are touching on something here that separates guys like Parcells or Belichick from other NFL front offices. They want players that want to play football, want to master their craft, and want to be there. They'll move or cut or let walk talent and/or big names, like a Jason Taylor, if they tip their hand that they are about money or whatever. Winning has a way of creating new names.

Obviously other teams have chosen not to use the FP or TP tag at various time for various reasons. I question what the Bills motivation was in the Clements case for doing so. The stated reason was that Marv had a gentleman's agreement with Clements to "let him test free agency" because Nate wanted to do so. If that was the reason, then the Bills were fools. Marv may have been trying to build a "honest GM" image, but that was for naught as well because he was gone after only 2 off-seasons. If the reason had been that Clements hadn't played up to a FP tag or that there was some other player they needed to tag for the next year or, really, any other football-related reason, then one cannot really be overly critical. The Bills have to look out for their best interest and Clements likewise. But, to release a valuable asset to your team because for some reason Marv decided to promise him that he could leave? That's a little "non-standard" shall we say.

I never said that. Get back to your English class.

Nope. The biggest problem is his disconnect between his work ethic and preparation and his value. He either got some really bad advice, made a really bad decision to ignore that advice, or was doing everything possible to get out of Buffalo by wearing his lack of respect on his sleeve.

Marvel Smith was the 38th pick in the draft and Light was the 48th pick. That makes 5 of the 8 drafted in the top 50 picks of their classes, which is 1.5 rounds of the draft. The Steelers didn't really walk into the season wanting to play their RT at LT, so I don't think that one really counts for much. That leaves Diehl and Gandy. The Giants were one of teams looking to trade for Jason Peters despite giving Diehl a new contract 1 year ago after the Super Bowl. Hmm. Finally, Gandy is a journeyman and was totally overmatched in the Super Bowl against James Harrison. It would be a hard sell to convince everyone the Cardinals weren't worried about that and didn't try to scheme up help for their average LT.

The "elite" pass rushers today are DeMarcus Ware, Joey Porter, John Abraham, and James Harrison. 3 of the 4 were on playoff teams. 1 on the team that won the Super Bowl. But, no, this list doesn't seem to be quite up to a Lawrence Taylor, Bruce Smith, Reggie White, Michael Strahan, Derrick Thomas, etc. list.

Ralph isn't going to move the team. That's a lot of extra work. Besides, he knows there are enough PT Barnum types to fill a decent percentage of the big top. He's evolved from pimping OJ to pimping TO. On the other hand, Ralph isn't going to be around forever. [unless that pact with the devil is true. ]

How many season tickets did they sell after T.O. was signed?

Well, it's a fact. It's also a fact he came from a small school and was inactive all last year. Maybe that is what doesn't sit well with your fondness for him and blind faith that the front office has every contingency fully covered. I'll spell it out for you so you can connect the dots. I never said he couldn't improve. I never said he wasn't stronger now than he was then. I never said he couldn't get stronger. I never said he couldn't play or that he wasn't ready. I asked a throw away question on the light side and you chose to read into it that I was totally pessimistic about the situation and was crapping on the kid. That's on you and shows what you think about the kid.

Nice article by PK. I liked the stats on trades thrown in there. Buffalo is near the bottom and has traded down 0 times in the past 5 years.

So, basically, you haven't got any evidence that Bell is ready for prime time so your reply is nothing but an incorrect, poor attempt at telepathic mind reading of another poster.

Ah, good. Now that the Jason Peters issue is settled we can go back to our other off-season past time. We can set about to create arbitrary schisms between different subgroups of Bills fans and mindlessly assign blame to whichever group is not the one true card-carrying fan group. It's simple really. Some fans want to see evidence and results. Without the truth, without any real evidence, all the conjecture, emphatic exclamations of certitude, and blind optimism in the world just doesn't matter. The Buffalo Bills are still the team we thought they were; a 7-9 team with a 9 year playoff drought, mired in mediocrity, in a very small and shrinking market, selling their home games to a foreign city, and led by a 90 year old owner, a marketing guy & a head coach who's had 7 losing seasons out of 8.

... and Brandon has taken up some of this post-Levy as well. ... and Brandon, with Ralph and Overdorf, has a major role in the hydra-GMship of the current Bills. Well, it's all about the QB anyway.

Linda scouts lineman, btw.

The Bills are on the road to the Super Bowl in 2009. No mistake about it. The inner circle has them poised to sit with the 30 other non-participants in the big show.

Probably does. It'd be easier to recycle rants blaming the team's failures on an individual that way.

On the bright side, he hasn't proven he sucks.

Maybe Peters read the same memo that Mike Mularkey did and decided, "I gotta get out of here!"

There is a bonanza of red flags flying around Smith and its not because he was part of the Crimson Tide. But, the Bills signed T.O. to a pretty heavy 1 year deal too.

The crack [pun intentional] scouting is killing us. Diamonds indeed!

He did do 9 or 10 reps at the combine... what could go wrong?

The extended hours announcement was part of the T.O. signing announcement. It was the same text message. Yes, it was total coincidence.