PDaDdy

He is in the discussion because he was fortunate enough to luck his way into the right situation a couple times in his career. Had it not been for the actual starting QB at the time going down for the Rams we STILL might not know who Kurt Warner is. You really have no clue do you? What I am trying to get across is that the same exact QB at times in his life, career and in different situations can be considered a bum stocking shelves or a franchise QB. The only thing that changed is his situation, the talent and the scheme around him. What does this mean? I'll tell you. It means that when this team was healthy and Fitz had what little talent around him that this poorly talented team could provide he was leading the entire freaking NFL and we sat alone atop the AFC east. The team started falling apart due to injury and everyone suffered. Get it or don't. I really don't care at this point. All you can do is try to educate people you can't force them to learn. You're entitled to your opinion. So amen quote aside you obviously can't refute anything I have said. Typical.

So he was so good and such a franchise QB that the Giants eventually got Eli Manning in the draft Warner's first and only year in NY? Warner was so franchise and had the Giants looking so good for a play off hunt that he was replaced by an uproven rookie QB and released after one year in NY? Warner had a ring!!! You mean it also took him a few years to pick up the system in Arizona and have some pieces put around him and develop chemistry with Fitzgerald and Boldin? Bills fans would have run him out of town WAY before that which is my point. Really?...Really? ...this is what you are trying to tell me? Come on man! AMEN x 10

In all seriousness people really need to get their head around this concept and I am not trying to be an argumentative jerk. TEAMS WIN AND LOSE GAMES!!!! Period! Point blank! Without exception! I am truly growing tired of explaining how QBs have been seen as franchise or not at different times in their career and it is usually linked to the talent or scheme around them. I will give you one example that seems to do the job. How elite was Kurt Warner when he was stocking shelves before the Rams called? All of a sudden with Mike Martz, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, and Marshall Faulk he was a franchise superbowl winning QB. He goes to the Giants with no offensive line or WRs and he is a nobody again. Somehow he ends up in Arizona with Boldin and Fitgerald and he is franchise again that made it back to the superbowl. I really hope you get that. It will give you a much better understanding of football as opposed to just hating because you are disappointed with the TEAMS performance and want a single target for your anger.

You obviously have no clue man. How do you explain his league leading performance through week 6 or so? You try to point to a couple poorly thrown balls and say he sucks? I guess the Pats should dump Brady after they almost lost to the Ravens. I guess they figured out you have to jam their TE at the line which screwed up Brady's timing exposing his inability to hit wide open TE's. [insert insult about posters intelligence here]

A-dog will never answer this question. It's been posed to him so many times and he has no response because he knows it completely invalidates his criticism.

Dude. How can you ignore the lack of talent at WR? How can you ignore that that poorly talented WR core became decimated due to injuries and that he basically had a different WR core every week after the 1st 3rd of the season? How do you develop timing and chemistry with a cast of targets that changed every week and you had a wild cat QB and a 2nd year RB starting as wideouts at times? A revolving door at LT and losing our best offensive lineman Erik Wood to IR again? You're not dumb I assume. How do you ignore those facts? No, really! How do you ignore them? I would be curious to know how you excuse that away so you can keep bashing Fitz. How do you explain away his lead leading performance through week 6 or so? Stop the BS man. Please.

This sounds like the Trent Edwards defense. I think the drop off had to do with a poorly talented team around him that got even worse due to injuries that mainly hit hard and deep at key positions like...oh...say...WR...a revolving door of crap at LT ...OH....and...losing his potential probowl candidate center Eric Wood may have also had a slight impact. Let's not even mention one of the leagues worst defenses losing it's best player KW so they played in panic catch up mode after midway through the 2nd quarter.

I haven't checked the numbers but Cruz might be better than SJ and what I do find funny is that you are comparing SJ, our #1, to the Giants #2. SJ is BY FAR our best WR. And people wonder why Fitz's struggled with a different WR core every week, a revolving door of players at LT and losing our best lineman and QB of the offensive line Eric Wood. People like to rip Fitz in a vacuum and ignore the dearth of talent around him. Too funny.

ROFLOL...Wow. Hey Peyton would be an upgrade as I feel he is perhaps THE only franchise QB in the league that isn't a product of his system and the talent on the team. All of these other franchise QBs that teams pine for have a good scheme, stability and talent around them. You saw how talentless that team was when Peyton went down. Meanwhile a guy like Aaron Rogers gets outplayed by his backup. The problem with getting Peyton are many. His salary is ridiculous and there is no way we fit him under the cap since we like to overpay for mediocre players as opposed to having lower budget roll players and high paid difference makers. Peyton is also unique in a way in that Peyton IS the scheme. He IS the system. He runs the offense from the line of scrimmage. Basically if you want Peyton performance you have to let him do what he does. Effectively this means that the team would have to switch to and learn the "Peyton system" Build through the draft? Not if we try to get Peyton. We would have to give up way Way WAY too many picks to get him. He would be an upgrade but there is no fantasy land that exists where we get Peyton. Let's not even forget that his health is a HUGE question mark and realistically how many more productive years does he have?

FIXED! Just out of curiosity how do you define a franchise QB statistically, how many of them are in the league and where would we get this supposedly "franchise" QB????? I can't stand the franchise QB discussion. For example Aaron Rogers is Franchise but he has some of the best WR in the league and he was out played by his backup. Another example is Drew Brees. We would have run him out of town too like San Diego before he got some WRs and a good scheme put around him and saw what he could really do. We look at these guys in a vacuum and ignore everything else they are surrounded by that contributes to their success. You have to stop looking at these imaginary franchise QBs as messiahs that you can't win without. Put good talent around a smart decisions maker with some balls and all of a sudden he is franchise. Get a clue. Franchise QBs are as much made by the talent around them and the scheme as they are born a franchise QB. Answer those questions first before you whine that Fitz isn't good enough. Look at Kurt Warner as well. How franchise was he when he was stocking shelves? All of a sudden with Mike Martz, Issac Bruce, Torry Holt and Marshall Faulk he becomes franchise. He goes to the Giants and he sucks again with no line and no WRs. He goes to Arizona with Fitgerald and Bolden and he is franchise again. Come on man!

Don't know if this is a troll or not but it really doesn't matter. The question about trading FJ, although unspeakable to some, is a very real question. FJ is/will be 31. How long is he going to continue to be productive given his age? Spiller when thrust into a starting role after Fred's injury performed as a pure running back almost identically. They are different types of RBs but their yards per carry are almost the same. Fred had more yards per reception but Spiller scores more TDs per touch. Fred was productive earlier in the season when at least some of our crappy WRs were healthy and Eric Wood was still playing. Spiller put up his numbers when our WR core was decimated and didn't have our best offensive lineman Eric Wood to run behind after he went down as well. For the rational people out there 1 of 2 things MUST be true. Either our system allows any RB to produce at a high level which means FJ isn't that important OR Spiller is ready and is becoming Jackson's equal and is 8 years younger. I tend to think it is the latter as Tashard Choice and the other guy we had this year didn't even come close to doing what Jackson and Spiller did. That being said FJ has shown that he is a more complete RB as far blitz pickup and those things go so I'm not saying Spiller is better than him yet but he sure as hell has more speed, just completed his second year in the league and still has a huge upside. Am I saying get rid of Fred Jackson? NO! But you have to consider that football is a business. Jackson has the love of his teammates and the fans but from a purely performance based view and looking at the team as a whole it might be better for us to trade Fred. Many here think that FJ was an MVP candidate. That's fine. If we could move a potential MVP candidate RB for more/better picks than we got for Lynch, give CJ the start and get another guy to put along with him somewhere along the way wouldn't the TEAM be better off???? That is a very real although unlikely consideration. In my opinion you don't franchise a 31 year old RB, pay him the average of the top 5 RBs in the league when you already have his capable and much younger replacement on the roster. I would like to see FJ signed to a reasonable 2 or 3 year contract and then Gailey MUST MUST MUST get them EACH at least 15 - 20 touches a game.

How could a team with so little talent and so little high paid talent have so little to spend on free agency? Something seems wrong and I would resign some of the guys you mention. I'm not sure when the provisions in the new CBA kick in but there is a stipulation that will eventually effect the Bills and other teams like them that use creative accounting techniques to make it look like we are spending more money than we are. If I am not mistaken one of the tricks is that the Bills don't amortize signing bonuses. Instead of spreading it out and taking a small hit over the length of the contract we count the entire bonus up front as cash against THE CURRENT year. This is one of the tricks we use to make it look like we are so close to the cap when in actuality if you spread it out like the big market winning teams we don't spend NEARLY the same amount.

I love the comment can you really put anything past them?....lol...If down indicator was one down behind for the drive or series it isn't at ALL unreasonable to assume that it may have had a negative impact and effected play calling. Players and coaches juts like all of us have gotten used to technology. You can see players look up at the big board on break out runs like it is a rear mirror. Is it that unreasonable to think that they might look at the down and distance markers that are lit up with that info?

GREAT question. I saw 4 defenses that played REALLY well. Even the Pats crappy D was all over the field. Wilfork was nothing short of unstoppable. He was making play after play and driving the center back into the QBs lap if he wasn't doubled.

Wait. So NOW we are talking about team wins and losses. I thought we were focusing on the QB position but just not in a vacuum. I'm talking about the guy that when we had our WRs healthy as crappy as they were was leading the league in TDs and QB rating....YA...that guy. Are you brain damaged or did you just not see the team falling apart around him due to injuries? How do you develop timing and chemistry with the revolving door of crap we had at WR. What did teams figure out? Our RBs were healthy longer and CJ filled in superbly for FJ. Defenses apparently didn't figure that out. I get it you hate Fitz. You want to draft a QB every year hoping and praying for a messiah that despite the crap we had for targets and an o-line that demanded the second fastest ball out delivery in the league still succeeds. There isn't a QB in the league with the exception for a new found even greater respect for Peyton Manning that could be successful in that situation. Keep hating though. I sure our fan "support" will do wonders for the on field production. We get a guy that is more than good enough when we have talent around him and you run him down like he knocked up and split on your sister. I think he is easily as good and reads coverage better. SJ is the only WR we have that would start for the Ravens and they have an awesome top 5 defense which affects their play calling while we have a bottom 5 defense that caused us to go into panic mode by the 2nd quarter. Look at the stats yourself on nfl.com. Their numbers are almost identical for the year despite our revolving door of crap at WR, LT and losing our best offensive lineman and QB of the line Eric Wood.

More to the point. What have his receivers, and I use the term VERY loosely, done for him lately?

Did you see the first 3rd of the year when he was playing at a probowl level when everyone was healthy? How many more years are Bills fans going to ignore the lack of talent around a QB and how our statistically horrible defense impacted game play? Rogers and Brady looked terrible their last games with guys in their face despite having great and I mean GREAT WR/TE options to throw too. Aaron Rogers is consider franchise and elite yet his back up comes in and throws 400 yards and 6 TDs? Do they have 2 ELITE hall of fame QBs or do they have a great team with great protection and great WR/TE threats. The NFL is a what have you done for me lately league. Fitz was playing AWESOME when the team was healthy. Open your eyes. Later in the year he was throwing the ball to a wild cat QB, a second year RB playing WR and guys that were driving trucks and bagging groceries to begin the year. You can't spin flax into gold. That's not Fitz job. Do you think we should play the lottery every year? As stated a franchise QB comes along every 4 or so year and don't always appear to be so at first. Kurt Warner looked great when he had Issac Bruce, Tory Holt and Marshal Faulk to throw to. He looked like crap playing for the giants with no talent around him. He goes to Arizona with Boldin and Fitzgerald and all of a sudden he is a franchise QB again. One last time for the slow, franchise QBs are as much MADE as they are BORN.

Did anyone actually watch the games and look at our starting roster from week to week? We were starting a wild cat QB and a 2nd year RB at WR at one point in the year. We had guys that were driving trunks and bagging groceries to start the year playing for us. That is a complete and total joke. We had Darues and Byrd on defense and nobody else. We played in catch up mode from the opening snap after about week 5.

How good did Brady look Sunday with defenders in his face and his TE's FINALLY getting bumped at the line of scrimmage some? Elite QBs are something of a myth. Franchise QBs are usually judged in a vacuum by their performance not taking into consideration their offensive line, scheme, coaching and WRs/TEs. Franchise QBs are as much made as they are born. By the way I can't freaking stand the franchise QB discussion. People throw that term around all the time but can't define what it means. To some there are only 4 or 5 franchise QBs in the ENTIRE LEAGUE. Considering there are QBs in the league from the last 15 years of the draft means a SINGLE franchise QB comes along every 4 years or so. Some were not even first round picks. Half didn't even show they were franchise material until after several years of starting. You are almost litteraly talking about making your team building strategy hitting the lottery. If we draft a QB in the first round for the next 10 years we might have a chance that one of them turns out ok. Maybe you were. Maybe you weren't one these guys that talks up QB every stinking year and whined, begged and pleaded for the Claussens, Gabberts, McCoys, Leinharts, Quinns and Bradfords of the world. Where are they now? Some of the guys that begged and pleaded for us to draft one of those QBs threatened leaving the team if we drafted Cam Newton who actually looks like he is going to be a franchise QB. So nobody really has any freaking clue. A much much more intelligent way of building a winning team is to focus on the TEAM as a whole. Get a good QB and put things and people around him to make him successful. Get a defense that can keep you in every game. Even Aaron Rogers who is by any definition a franchise QB was outplayed in the game he sat out by a guy riding pine that threw 6 TDs. You can't do that without a great team around you. Again, Elite QBs are as much made as they are born.

What do you think we want to win or something? The frustrating thing is that something like this is SO SO SO easily doable(assuming Mario is not retained) but we want to build through the draft. That's not to say we don't bring in plenty of free agents but we love to over spend for mediocre but never pay for elite. We would rather over spend on a couple of Chevy's instead of buying one Cadillac. Teams win and lose games but most winning teams have difference makers at several positions. I want to build the new age NFL defense. Get us a front 4 where every guy on the line requires a double team and let the destruction begin. KW demands doubles. Dareus demands doubles. We are half way there. Please don't bring up Merriman! He has been 1 crutch away from a Jerry Lewis telethon for the last 5 years. Did anyone see how dominant and disruptive Vince Wilfork was against the Ravens? If we stick with a 3-4 lets get a 350lb fat bastard that can drive the opposition's center into the QBs face play after play after play if you don't double team. KW is great wherever you put him but he is not the prototypical anchor against double coverage or drive a center in single coverage into the QBs lap. He is more of a penetrator. To me, the only thing that matters on defense for this team is getting another 1 or 2 guys that demand double teams. Throw in what many expect Upshaw could be and we will go from worst to first.

I was banging that drum before Jason Peters even developed into a perennial probowler. After he was traded, deafeningly so. Good teams protect their QBs with good LTs that can play on an island. Other teams have a revolving door of no name guys that need TE and RB double teams and chip block help. They don't have to be drafted in the first round but they do have to play like it. Look at every "elite" or "franchise" QB out there and there is probably a good LT protecting their blind side. Part of being an elite or franchise QB is having the time and comfort to be exactly that. Some on this board will never admit the need for a good LT because that would be an admission that letting Peters go was a mistake or they make all manor of excuses for why it's Peters fault not the organizations fault that he is not here. So sad. That being said. I don't know that Reif is the guy that we should be looking at. If Matt Kahlil <sp> fell to us he should be a consideration but I've heard that Reif is potentially projected as a RT. If we got a first round OT at #10 they need to be a slam dunk starter for 5+ years. As badly as I want a great LT reaching for one is never the answer. Get the pass rushing DE or OLB we desperately need that will be there at #10.

It's quite simple. Internet forums are full of opinionated a-holes of which I am one. Unfortunately most, unlike myself, can't ever admit they are wrong when it comes to former Bills, or current ones for that matter, and can't understand that players are people and that football is a business before a sport. When former Bills go on to success elsewhere they whine like little dumped ex-girlfriends and wish them ill. If a player someone ran down for years ends up being a component of a winning team it is proof positive that that player was very likely good enough and should have been retained. It's proof positive that the loud mouth haters were wrong. Their ego can't take it so they take it out on the player. They make up all manor of lame shameful excuses like, "they didn't want to be here", "did you see the tackle or failed interception attempt so and so missed", "has TEAM [blank] won a super bowl with player [blank]. It's really quite pathetic. They will even nit pick and fault find with players that have had indisputable statistical success. They claim "they are a product of the other team's scheme and the talent around them" or "so an so was lazy and didn't want to play for us". NO...YOU WERE WRONG ABOUT THE PLAYER!!!! It's all BS and they should be ashamed. Our biggest problem is getting rid of people that are good enough or great, thereby making a new hole that we use our resources to fill instead of addressing existing weaknesses.

I'm not decided yet as there is plenty of time before the combine. That sounds pretty nit picky to me. If the alleged character issues, depending on what they were, were confirmed maybe it matters. Taking plays off gets thrown around a lot by people who have their own pet player that they are talking up while running another down. Again I am no college expert but conditioning, motivation, team culture and coaching can easily quell any fears of those admittedly "alleged" issues. His size and athleticism seem undeniable if the guy runs a 4.7, 4.6 40 and displays all the other measurables you like to see at the combine I would consider us lucky to get him. I like Upshaw as well and actually dvr'd the Alabama, LSU game and watched his play. I'm sure we would be fine with either and lean towards Saban and Alabama a little but I just don't get the hate for Coples.

Upshaw looks like a gamer and we did pretty well with Darues. Roll Tide! That being said why do some people seem down on Quentin Coples? The guy has ridiculous size, length and athleticism. I am not a college guy but he looked like the only guy North Carolina had on defense at times. Everything changes after the combine but wouldn't we be lucky as hell to have a 6'6" 285 3-4 DE fall to us? Upshaw played for Sabin so he should be ready to go but he is a 3-4 OLB. If we are going to be running as much or even more 4-3 this year wouldn't it make some sense to consider a guy who is actually a 4-3 DE and looks like a freakin' monster?

As a franchise we don't trade down. Buddy Nix doesn't trade down. Chances we will trade down = 0%. A Franchise with this many holes drafting as early as we are we take a top tier player before the drop off. Of course this is all based on speculation but we have so many needs you get the best guy you can as early as you can. Gambling that we could get an Upshaw or another potential day 1 starter a little later and pick up an draft pick is an insane risk.