Utah John

More on other guards: The Jets had Oday Aboushi suspended for one game for pot possession. There's talk that he could be cut because he doesn't fit Bowles' scheme, but that he did great under the previous coach. Hmmmm.

So things being what they are in NO, why haven't the Saints traded Brees? Isn't this supposed to be a cold-hearted, cut-throat business? I don't know how much he has left in his arm, but he's got to be better than Cassel. Would he be worth a 3rd round pick?

Chad Rinehart was released by the Chargers in March of this year, a year after signing a new 2-year contract with the Chargers, and two years after initially signing with them. Did he lose it so quickly that no other team wanted him? I thought his departure was a bad thing for the Bills, with Levitre leaving at the same time. Rinehart was a versatile, dependable player.

Somebody please find the odds for the 2014 season from one year ago. Then see how accurate this is at predicting actual on-field performance.

As I recall, Kelly's last game was a playoff game against the Jags, which the Bills lost when the D couldn't hold a fourth quarter lead. I remember Kelly sitting on the ground after getting sacked, looking old, tired, and sore. He was done. He definitely got out at the right time.

I have to go back to the comment I made that Bryant appears too big to play DE. If all a DE does is rush the passer or stuff the run, bulk wouldn't be an issue. DEs in Rex's defense and a lot of others are expected to drop back into pass protection. Even if Bryant has reasonable straight ahead speed, how agile could he be? Well anyway he sounds like a good player and maybe the Bills can make this work. I hope so.

The most damaging of all time was the loss of Bill Polian. If he'd been a player he would have been a superstar, and we not only let him walk away for nothing, we actually fired him, because Polian wouldn't let Ralph force him to employ Ralph's daughter. It's amazing how many ways this organization has found to screw up.

Nooooo. We've got to keep all the Williams's we can.

A man this size sounds like a DT. Wynn is a DE. We are fortunate to have a lot of good DTs but are pretty thin on DEs. Bryant might be a good addition for the team, but it's not clear he addresses the problem Wynn's injury created.

Football is a wonderful combination of individual skills and teamwork. Defenses work as a unit, with shifts in position and alignments among many players at once. Our D line was stuffing runs but not showing anything toward rushing the QB. The D backs had to cover much longer than they would otherwise, and remember Newton is an excellent QB and he has excellent WRs. In a real game, the QB has less time to pass, the coverage schemes get a lot more sophisticated, and the unit tightens up. In theory at least. I am glad Darby is getting this work but the Bills need McKelvin back. They've gone from a very deep D backfield to a lot of uncertainty if there's one more injury to a starter.

The Bills were 9-7 last year, but if Detroit's kicker hadn't screwed up so badly, and if New England had needed to win the last game (at home), it would have been 7-9. The Bills beat the Packers and then lost to the Raiders the very next week. Inconsistency like that is a sign of a team without enough leadership or character. I'll want to see clear proof that this problem has been solved before I go all in. If, as seems possible even if not likely, Fred Jackson doesn't make the team, the leadership quotient will go in the wrong direction. Considering Shady's ill-considered blather about racism, I need to see evidence that he's ready to fill Jackson's leadership shoes. The biggest improvement this year is in coaching. Partly Rex, but more Roman. Hackett was a disaster as OC last year. Roman simply has to be a big improvement. Also the O line has been upgraded. The biggest caveat out there is injuries. The defense has good depth but it's unrealistic to think backups can come in to replace Dareus or either Williams or Hughes, and not have a dropoff in talent. The offense is deep at WR, with also a lot of bodies at RB, but is pretty thin elsewhere. A couple of injuries to the same position on the offense would be doom.

I don't know whether EJ has the potential to develop into a good starting QB. I assume the Bills brass thought he did when he was drafted, but all teams have swings and misses on draft day, so maybe they were wrong. There has been a reasonable point of view that EJ got screwed up by the previous coaching regime. There was an article on TBD a couple weeks ago about how a rookie HC killed a young QB by bad play calling. Maybe that's right and maybe it isn't. I know EJ looked god-awful last year in the Houston game, and Marrone was forced to bench him or lose the support of the team. The other guys looked around and said that was a game they should have won but for EJ's screw-ups. (Also, I realize JJ Watt is an incredible athlete, but EJ is supposed to be one too, so why couldn't EJ run down JJ after that interception? But I digress.) However that reasonable point of view holds less water this year. The Bills finally have competent coaches and they don't seem able to bring EJ's production up. EJ seems to be locking himself into the 3rd string job, which probably means no job at all given his salary. Maybe, given time to develop, EJ's accuracy and field awareness will improve. But, the Bills are built to win this year. A lot of players are in their prime, and there are only a few young guys who are expected to develop over the next 2-3 years. I don't think the Bills are inclined to let EJ do OJT while Dareus watches and decides whether to re-sign here, for example. The biggest mistake was going into the draft the year they picked EJ, determined to take a QB. For whatever reason, there weren't good options available. Nix's final act was a loser.

No way should the Bills sign him. They already have a problem with so much $$$$ tied up in the D line (unless someone wants to suggest letting Dareus go to free up cash for Gillette? No, I didn't think so.) As for Jerry Hughes, in Indy he was a talented player who couldn't unseat Freeney. No insult there, Freeney was a great player. Indy just gave up on him too soon.

The news release says GMTM reports directly to the Pegulas, and not to Brandon. That's OK if that's what they want, but it seems that this arrangement could lead to power struggles. Or it could work out just fine if there's clear delineation about which guy does which jobs. My real fear is that the reason Brandon works so well with the Bills is immersion and commitment to the organization. How will he keep that up and do the same thing with the Sabres? Sounds like burn-out is in his future.

I saw some clips last year where RGIII couldn't make the simplest throws to wide open receivers just 10 or 15 yards downfield. That isn't a question of his legs or his arm, it's his head. Someone said he was broken, and unless he gets that on straight, he's through. What a shame. Shanahan should never coach again, and the doctor who cleared RGIII should be fired. A rare and unique talent, so exciting to watch in his rookie year, ruined.

This is based on player past performance, not on how well a player fits into a team's schemes, how good the coaching is, recovery from injuries, or a thousand other factors that make football so hard to predict and so much fun to argue about. Boy, I can't wait for training camp to start. Enough with these silly summertime distractions.

A run-first offense needs a power back and a strong O line. Until I see the evidence that we have either of those, let alone both, I won't believe the Bills are headed to the playoffs. I think both the Jets and Dolphins have D lines that can stuff our O line, and I don't think McCoy is the kind of guy who can make holes on his own. What I see happening is opponents with good D lines needing only 6 in the box to stop the run, so regardless of the talent level of our WRs there will be abundant pass defenders to prevent our QBs from hitting quick routes to escape pressure. If Kujo and Henderson both pan out, and if the rookie guard is the answer, and if Eric Wood returns to form, and if Cordy Glenn returns to form, then maybe we'll be OK. That's a lot of ifs. I think Whaley falls in love with certain players and overpays to get them. The Bills gave up way too much to get Sammy Watkins, when there were other options. Why spend so much for Watkins when there were so many other, talented WRs available? Why Shady and not DeMarco Murray, whom Philly signed for a lot less than we're paying Shady, and who is in the same class? The Bills are like a grocery shopper who decides to buy what's out of season, and pays too much. Buy strawberries when they're in season, and you get good strawberries for cheap. Wait three months and you pay a lot more, and they don't taste as good. The Bills went all in on a QB in the worst possible year for QBs. They paid way too much for a WR who might turn out to be the best WR in that year, or might not, when there were cheaper options available. The Bills have gotten a lot better at spotting talent, but not so much at evaluating value.

When I lived in Texas, I didn't care about the local teams, though I hated the arrogance of any team claiming to be America's Team. When I lived in the Bay Area, I hated both the Raiders (on general principles) and the 49ers (those pretty gold uniforms....come on now, it's supposed to be FOOTBALL). When I lived in the DC area, I just hated the Skins. Partly because the fans there are so into their team (just like Bills fans) but it wasn't MY team. Now I live in Utah, and the local team is the Broncos. I've always like the Broncos -- they and the Bills are the only two original AFL teams that never moved or changed their name, and I like loyalty. Long story short, there isn't a single answer to the poll question.

Air Force pilots used to say about the F-4, that it proved that given enough thrust, even a brick will fly. After seeing the Bills defense play so well for Pettine and then Schwartz and presumably Rex's gofer (what's his name, anyway?), I'm thinking the Bills defense proves that with the right players, it doesn't matter that much who the coach is. And if the players insist on screwing up, it also doesn't matter who the coach is. I am remembering clearly Kiko (under Pettine) taking the wrong gap on many run plays, leaving the middle of the field clear for gash runs by the opponent. Was that Pettine's fault, or Kiko's? I also remember Kiko running players down, and making great pass defenses. Was that Pettine's coaching, or Kiko's talent? Anyway, Pettine is a talented, fairly young coach who wanted to be a HC enough to walk into the Cleveland sewage. The Browns are getting better with him as HC. If he's there 20 years and turns the franchise around, good for him and them.

Correlation is not causation. There are a lot of men on a team, including the players and coaching staff, and just because a team wins or not when some particular player or coach was playing well or hurt, doesn't mean that that player is the sole reason, or for that matter any significant part of the reason at all. Would I swap Dareus or Mario for the Rivers of 10 years ago? Maybe, maybe not, depending on whatever else was going on with the team, how the other teams in the AFCE and the rest of the AFC are doing, what the overall salary cap situation is, and so on.

Both the Jets and the Dolphins have defense lines almost as good as ours, and in some single positions better than our guys. Unless our offensive line has a rebirth of strength and manliness, it won't matter who plays QB, at least for those four games each year.

Kromer's problem is that he hit the kid. He was in Florida, so he should have shot him.

I got to meet him while in high school. I was on our school's It's Academic team, and Mr Miller was the host. What a nice, kind, gracious man. I'll never forget him. And that voice. I don't know what it was that made it so nice to listen to. Just the right amount of enthusiasm to reflect what he knew the fans were feeling, but still a little professionally detached. He was obviously a Bills fan (and was a Bills employee while doing the games, I think) but I never heard him criticizing the refs for screwing the Bills.

1. OJ Simpson 2. Cookie Gilchrist 3. Thurman Thomas 4. Tom Day 5. Mike Stratton 6. Billy Shaw 7. Elbert Dubenion 8. Andre Reed 9. Jim Kelly 10. Bruce Smith Not really in any order. It's tough to limit to 10. I wanted to bring in some of the long-ago players, the ones who actually won a championship or two.

After watching that Von Miller clip, I'm sure Cassel, Manuel, and Taylor share your view.