GrudginglyPessimistic

Agreed that these type of confident expressions is what you want to hear. While him saying this is no guarantee at all that it will happen, ironically if he did not have this belief in himself then he almost certainly will not succeed in becoming the franchise QB. One of the necessary elements in being a leader of a team is that you have to demonstrate you believe in yourself. While one should never mistake the horrible reality of real combat for the high-priced but relative trivia of playing a boys game, the analogies of the leadership needed to lead a team into battle effectively are proximate to a lot of what it takes to lead a team to sports victory. While the generals are a useful thing to hang in the rear and decide upon and implement overarching stragegy, the key to the successful team is the on the ground leadership provided in war by the platoon leader. This person does not send troops off to die in battle but says follow me and leads troops into the breach. Our overuse of war language to describe something as silly a football game is to a great extent at least unfortunate (and actually a bit insulting to those who really risk it all in battle for the benefit of society) however, it is accurate in leading a team into any high stakes endeavor that the true leader has an almost insane level of confidence in themselves and in their team. It is this follow me leadership which gets the other players on the team to also do insane things that allows a team (if they are lucky) to ultimately win. I do not care who wins the QB battle between these three candidates (or Levi Add-on whathisname) wins the job. I just care that someone proves to be good enough and lucky enough to deserve it. The one mistake which I hope the braintrust does not make is not trust and wait on the eventual QB with the right tools to win the job themselves on the field. Even if Brohm seems to the coaches based on practice to be the one who they think deserves the job, a key is likely they should not simply award him the job based on their "superior" judgment but instead trust that the game through the vagaries of injuries or some other twist of fate allows Brohm to prove himself on the field and really grab the job by the throat himself and then refuse to let it go with his superior play. I also think Brohm is the most likely of the three to be the real deal (I think Edwards is actually good but unfortunately has been too injury prone to rely on as the franchise- I have hopes for Fitzy to play the Frank Reich role but I do not think he is talented enough to be a consistent starter. However, particularly since Brohm has a shot in GB and failed I think that him winning the job rather than being given the job is smart for us and probably useful for him to win the hearts and minds of his teammates and fans.

Nah! Actually, I am not totally opposed to what you say. My thought would be that yes Spiller is an RB and not a WR. That is the simple fact of how he was trained. However, back here in the real world, we have an example of a larger jump which was made by a far less athletically talented player on our own Buffalo Bills. The simple fact was that George Wilson was a WR (and actually not one who was really capable of helping this team get Ws as a playing WR -getting Ws afterall is what it is all about or do you disagree and you advocate a strategy where a fundamental tenet id getting Ls). At any rate the braintrust made the correct judgment that Wilson was a good enough athlete and that actually as a by-product of his learning WR stuff he had demonstrated to the coaches the potential to make the huge and pretty much never done leap from O to D. Wilson actually succeeded in not only making the jump but actually though no one would mistake him for being one of the best safeties, he actually contributed to this team in a real way (it can even be measured tangibly in his turnovers caused and he even led to scores) that in a shorter time than seemed possible he was a credible safety and even starter on this not as good as we want it to be team. Actually, I flat out say that Spiller should remain an RB on our depth chart until he proves he can handle the #2 WR slot. However what I think is ridiculous is you claiming this cannot be done when: 1. Lesser talented players have actually made larger jumps from other positions (Even from O to D in the Wilson case and from TE to RT and even the critical LT position in Peters case). 2. One of the written claims made about Spiller which got him a top ten picks were claims such as this found in the synopsis of Tillers at one third party web site >Considered an excellent receiver with very good route running abilities and can line up wide outside. < IF this turns out to be true (emphasis on the IF) and his route running ability are in fact a cut above the rest it would actually be foolish not see how fast he might be able to gain the additional route running ability you site above as differentiating a WR from an RB. 3. OTA, mandatory camps, and the pre-season is exactly the time when you use competition to see what elite college athletes can do in the pro game. IF (and again a big emphasis on the word IF and actually this is exactly what off season bantering by us outside observers is useful for on forums like TSW) Gailey wants to see if Spiller provides advantages for us as a #2 then you begin by: a. Seeing what he can do absorbing the playbook thrown at all rookies in terms of whether he understands the route running needed for a #2 WR. b. Teach him and see how he does it in practice. c. Results that work well you build on them and if they do not work well or he is slow to sign and misses a chunk of pre-season and valuable teaching time (see Maybin whom I think the Bills always envisioned as a position switch from DE to OLB but he missed enough camp it essentially cashiered the season because he simply was not quick enough mentally for the coaches to abandon the plan B they were working on to go back and backfill educating Maybin) you jettison the idea of using Spiller out wide and go with Johnson, Hardy, Easley or some FA as your #2. d. You definitely run Spiller in motion, but then again maybe you do not line him up wide in a pre-season game even if you plan to use him like Reggie Bush cause you do not want to tip off opponents that they will see Spiller as a wide even 2 or 3 times agame (much less if he is such a superior athlete in our closed practices he wins a WR job. The bottomline is that as I said in my original post it well maybe the case that Spiller does not win the job as #2WR right away such that it is legit or intelligent to hand him the job until he proves in actual play that he can overcome the disadvantage of not being a fulltime WR route runner in college (btw to some extent I think your post exaggerates what collegiate WRs learn about route running that applies to their pro careers. If anything, ironically, a player like James Hardy actually had little practice in the skills needed to run a successful NFL route because for years he was simply taller, stronger, faster and likely had a better QB laying the ball out for him in college than he found trying to run routes as a pro. Player after player simply says it is a different game as a pro than in college as the tactics and route running which they had used successfully for years as they only faced elite opponents once or twice a season now they face them every week. For Spiller I think the big barrier for him to succeed as a #2 WR player is actually not whether he can translate his skills to a different offensive position but whether he is in fact a good enough athlete and dynamic player that he can make he jump to be a successful NFL player at any position based on what he has done in mere college. A player like Mike Williams pretty clearly had the physical skills to have a pretty good rookies season, but it was actually the loss of the grandma that played the role of his mother which did him in mentally. Mouse MacNally did a very good job of launching sticks to find fault with this man-boy who used the "excuse" of this unfortunate death to get excused from OTA and show up at camp as a blimp. JMac then used carrots like working with Williams and awarding him a game ball when he held a solid opposing DE sackless. However, one off-season without a father figure (or grandma figure in his case) and he played his way to G and off the team. Can Spiller make the jump to #2 WR? I do not know but am quite comfortable GUESSING he will not achieve this such that he will be placed on the depth chart as #2WR until he proves to be useful to take that role. However, what I tried to say (I will try to type more slowly for you and others in the future) is that the only thing which would be ridiculous would be for Gailey not to try this in OTAs etc. In fact the most compelling thing to get me think about this as a possibility was actually the impression which Lynch has now given many of us that he is quite happy to remain a Bill. Perhaps Lynch and the FO have both agreed that the best way to get him a trade is to convince other teams not to lowball the Bills because they think he is out of here (maybe). However, it is hard for me to see how he would be happy about staying unless he has figured out some method of getting a sufficient number of touches each game. This is gonna be hard enough to do sharing the RB slot with his good buddy Fred. Its virtually impossible to see him getting enough touches (or even being active all 16 games) if he is behind Jax and Spiller on the RB depth chart. My GUESS is that Lynch has been informed (either directly in a phone call (s) with his HC and RB coach, or indirectly through what are likely frequent talks with his good buddy Jackson how the Gailey plans to use his plethora of RB talent. The bottomline is that the Bills will need to get Spiller a pretty good chunk of touches. The consensus is that he is not the 3 down back Lynch likes to be and Jackson has show skill, diversity and toughness at being. It is in fact hard for me to see how the Bills get Spiller the touches mandated by his high draft position and also get him running on the outside (again the consensus seems to be he is better running on the outside) than to simply run him in motion, line him up in the slot or line him up wide and simply have him take a step back (there is talk he is even faster than Evans) and the opposing DB is likely way of the TOS on him and then throw him the ball in space and turn him lose on the on rushing or flat footed DB. Think about it. You are an opposing DC. The approach which has proved successful before is to attack the Bills and take away their weapons. First, I put 7 (or maybe 8) guys in the box with the primary duties of stopping the run and pressuring the QB. I have two guys over and under Evans (or maybe if I have a Pro Bowl talent like Revis single him but really the dt has been pretty effective at producing #s like the ones which saw TO lead this team in recepts and yards last year) and then single the #2 WR where the candidates are the regressing Johnson the injured Hardy or rookie Easley (its in fact so bad if TOs market rate has dropped to a low enough level he and the Bills may even start sniffing around each others buts). If it is Spiller out there on an island with the 2nd best DB on an opposing team I am a lot more afraid for them than I am for us in this situation. In fact, there are situations where this may actually force the DC to demand a player like Revis single cover Evans so he can overunder Spiller so he cannot make an easy catch by stepping back and then getting the DB to miss his first hit, but with the deep dt he cannot simply outrun tight coverage with a fly pattern. Using both Lynch and Jackson together in a 2 RB set (notice FB is a low priority for us) and then using Spiller, in motion, in the slot, and even out wide (again who is your proven #2 WR for us) creates huge challenges for a DC. I totally admit I am only GUESSING what Gailey is gonna do. The things I do know are that: 1. Many judge him and he has some results which indicate he is an offensive genius and in fact he is gonna come up with something if he is a genius that mere mortals like you and me will flat out think is ridiculous (yes Virginia your vehement argument style actually makes me feel even more sure Gailey is gonna do something that those of us with fact-free opinions like you and me will find weird) 2. A successful Gailey plan will either need to employ better players than we have or be something that fools or is difficult to anticipate by DCs who are least unlike you and me paid to think about this stuff all the time (and in some cases have forgotten more than us armchair coaches will ever learn about the game. Whatever he does if it is gonna be successful is gonna be something us armchair types see as ridiculous. 3. In the end, the best comments on my blatherings are not those which prove what I offer as a GUESS is ridiculous, but the best responses offer up some different scheme or position assignments which will do the job. Th wildcat theorizing or even undefined calls for some 3RB sets which employ Jax, Spiller, and Lynch (wishbone T anyone) are actually more interesting posts than ones which rag on even challenging Spiller to master wide out use (which virtually all see him trying some) and forcing his way onto the field on 75% of offensive plays or more rather than being useful only as a boutique player in relief of the vet Jackson and dueling with a former Pro Bowler for his back-up time. In fact, I would not be surprised if the primary advocate for trying Spiller as the #4 with greater usage of 3 WR sets or ion fact going for the #2 WR slot (actually the #2 slot may be an easier competition for Spiller to win because the Bills are hanging on to Parrish and speed and proven broken field running ability is his game and he has proven he is game to catch in the middle of the field when it is just this in traffic stuff we are trying to avoid with Spiller, his comp for the #2 WR if this were to be his chosen method to be on the field for most offensive snaps is actually a bunch of highly questionable players with the stat regressing Johnson being the toughest competition. If I was Spiller one of my first actions would have been to get first Gailey and then OC/RB Coach Modkins if necessary and/pr useful to let me approach WR Coach Hixon about getting his pointers and input on receiving technique. This is a natural request anyway and he might have been told to do this as past of a strategy for Reggie Bush use. As soon as I got to Hixon or maybe I do this with Gailey I say put me in coach at wherever you want because I want to start every offensive play and that includes earning a starting wideout slot. If Spiller want to help the team, start a lot (I think even switching positions he would face totally unproven competition for #2 WR while he would be facing off against the team leaders in total yards and a former Pro Bowler at RB. You think he has enough confidence in himself that he thinks he could beat out his RB competition who he at best will split touches with but somehow think he does not have the confidence that he is a good enough athlete to do a difficult position jump but face unproven competitors. Spiller may be the best behind the scene advocate for the move I theorize unless Gailey has already beaten him to the idea.

I doubt we will see this declared officially on the depth chart until it happens so as not to tip our hand but my sense is: 1. There is an obvious opening for a #2 WR- In fact when we let TO walk we actually are letting go our WR that finished 1st in receptions and total yards and Evans finished a mere 1 TD ahead of TO whom we let go. Lets take it as a given that Evans is the #1 WR (even though statistically he was not) but this merely even more sharply identifies we are missing a #2 WR. 2. There are several candidates for this essential #2 role but none is a lock to step up into this job= A. Johnson is highly regarded by all, but the statistical fact (which does not determine anything for sure but is an indicator which cannot be logically totally ignored) is that he regressed in achievements last year with fewer receptions, yards and games played. There was simply little or no nothing about Edwards which indicated he simply demands to play with his accomplishments on the field. B. Hardy has collegiate accomplishments, great height (this cannot be taught), and a nice TD pm a fade route early in his rookie year but simply defines the saying that potential means you have not done anything real yet. C. Easley is well regarded in the draft books and most agree the Bills got a steal in the 4th. However. Gailey is not a fool who is gonna demand that this rookie step in an immediately force single coverage opportunities for Evans. These three are all viable plan Bs but little else. 3. There are strong reasobs why Spiller might be a good candidate to be at least as viable a plan B as the three young potential heir apparents. A. Spiller's rep demands he be on the field- He is a top 10 choice for a reason and he has to get a chunk of touches in order to make this a reasonable choice. B. Touches are gonna be harder to get at RB where Spiller is at best #2 behind Jackson and the #3 is a former Pro Bowler. C. He had reasonable output as a receiver in college and his write ups specifically site him as a threat to line up wide at WR. Reggie Bush is an example often sited about how to use him productively. D. His small size has folks questioning already whether he is a 3 down RB. 4. There are great strategic advantages to using him as a WR. 1. If he is used regularly as split end, it forces opposing teams to deal with two WRs who both demand a very fast CB or a double cover over and under. A. Spiller's speed on the opposite side from Evans automatically makes Evans have more shots as simply dting Evana becomes more difficult to dicey for a DC to do. Either you single cover Evans and do not cover him tight or you over and under both him tight under with someone over if he runs a fly. You almost have to do the same with Spiller. He will have run a few fly patterns (and even better catch some long passes and even better score some TDs in order to make folks respect him, but the Evans/Spillrer set is scary fast. The Jets will likely give Revis one on one with Evans a lot the first game but Gailey should at least challenge this by splitting out Spiller and throwing to him a lot at WR. B. Spiller has already show his broken field running ability in college. Pro athletes are bigger and faster and Spiller will need help finding space as a pro. Quick passes, near illegal picks, and slant patterns are ways to get Spiller the ball in space to him without him having to run past people like he did in college. C. The Bills are showing signs already that an assumption of a trade of Lynch may not happen. Unless the Bills start running the wishbone its hard for me to see how they get all three RBs on the field at the same time without using Spiller as a WR. If all three are on the field at the same time it presents real challenges for the DC. If I am Gailey I am working hard on getting Spiller in the game as my #2 WR.

My GUESS fpr the starting offensive line-up is: Its a 2 RB set with Lynch and Fred Jackson starting. The basic deception is that since both RBs have exhibited some receiving ability. (Freddy as the 3rd leading receiver on the team even getting more catches than Evans and a not shabby 8 yd/catch and Lynch not being used that way but showing some showing some hands in college) opposing DCs are immediately confronted with a choice as whether to DC up or stack the LOS. Theoretically, these two may even be reasonable with us emptying the backfield and sending out both RBs wide. Lynch ends up playing the bruiser role of the two if the Bills simply run it and play smashmouth with the two RBs. Jax and Lynch apparently good enough friends that they maintain the roles set last season with Freddy as the first choice since if this works there will be plenty of yards with the two splitting the duty rather than one RB viewed as the first choice to get the lead reps. Lynch does seem oddly pleased with a situation right now where he ended last season as the clear #2. The Spiller situation is odd as with the top 10 draft pick for him he would at worse seem to be the #2 RB (actually his draft position and position, Freddy's age, and Lynch's problematic history arguably would make Spiller the #1 RB as quick as one could make it happen as quick as possible. Yet, the rather small Spiller does not seemed destined at all for the three down use one expects from an RB picked at #9. I think the answer is found in the Bills not really having a proven #2 WR om the roster. TO (who actually led the team in receiving statistically last year is gone. Steve Johnson shows some subjective signs of potential but statistically he regressed his second year putting up fewer catches, yards, and games. One would be foolish to peg him as a starter. Hardy also has potential but clearly potential means you have done nothng yet. Easley also gives hope but again one would be foolish to demand/expect him to start at #2. Spiller on the other hand has demonstrated incredible open field ability and is seen as someone you can split out wide. Not guaranteed at all but the consensus is he can be a difference maker. I will not be shocked to see an O whiz like Gailey trying to present and O which not only forces the DC to chose to skew toward pass coverage in case either RB is primarily employed either going in motion or even split out wide. Alternately, the DC decides to use a nickel or even a dime as their base D, then suddenly he faces two RBs used as RBs used in a standard running formation. In fact, since Spiller is an RB first and foremost, the Bills could even arguably run a full house set with three RBs and two operating as lead blockers for Spiller pushing through a bunch of lightweight dime defenders. In this set-up the young OL is confronted not with defenders who they are trying to read to figure out where they might attack, they are instead c0nfronting defenders are instead trying to figure what the heck is our offense doing. PL players generally prefer to run block and the Bills O is going to feature either running when the opponent nickel or dimes up to defend against 3 RBs with pass catching abilities or alternately the Ds stacks up against the run but the Bills instead put the RBs in motion or split out for quick passes to these RBs now isolated against plodding defenders. The neat thing about this O is that the Bills seem to have no guaranteed #1 QB. Fine in this set because the QB is not depended upon in this O to force the D to react to his great play but instead we will choose the QB of the three who demonstrates in the first two pre-season games and in practice that he quickly can read whether the D is stacking up against the run (he then calls a quick pass to the RB isolated against the slowest pass covering defender, or alternately he calls a smashmouth run against a D that is lined up either in a nickel or a dime against us. My sense is a two RB set with Spiller split wide to fill our now empty #2 WR slot (with a plan B if Spiller cannot adapt to see either Johnson or Hardy or Easley rise up to be a #2 quality WR. I like the possibilities.

Simply judging virtually any athlete before he puts three years in the league is almost always premature. Will Maybin be a bust? He is undersized for a DE so if he is used in that role then perhaps almost certainly. However, it does not take more than half a brain to see that and since even the Jauron braintrust assigned him an LB # it is pretty clear he appears headed toward an OLB role. It seems fairly silly to judge Maybin's future based on how he would perform in the 2009 Bills D he was drafted for (and missed a chunk of training camp for which seemed to derail a lot of his rookie year off the top since his first likely would have been learning to play OLB. Now the team is switching to a 3-4 which further intensifies the need for LBs. The one thing you can say pro Maybin is that you cannot teach speed (no matter what Don Beebe gets rube to give him cash to do) and his speed likely gets put to good use in a 3-4. Apparently he often lined up over the TE in college and pass coverage in the short or medium zone is not foreign to him either and this, run containment, and pass rushing will be his major duties in our 3-4 and much worrying about him seems to say as much about the poster as it does about Maybin.

An interesting though. On the one hand I think folks see the raw wounds of his summarily leaving after a confrontation with the team (and the FO virtually totally caving in to his wishes by sending him to Philly which delivered completely on what he and his agent were demanding). However, given the completely to date unfilled vacuum which we have at LT the case for keeping him is clear. Even if his play in Philly is judged not to be worthy of his current huge contract (and with the help of the Bills FO and the LT market the contract is so huge that no player is worth that much even if performed at Boselli like levels) there is a pretty clear mistake the Bills FO made. The Bills mistake was playing a TD style numbers game of switching Peters to starting LT but keeping him at the starting RT salary. Clearly it is not irrational to recognize that the Bills had done several things already to reward Peters financially from agreeing to a nice contract with him as a UDFA, to rewarding him with a roster spot, to giving him a full contract at starting RT levels. All of this was done willingly by the Bills before they had a financial obligation to renegotiate. However, also make no mistake that though they may not have had a financial "duty" they did have a something varying between a market obligation to a market need to reward Peters not because the Bills are nice guys but because this is what the market demanded. Peters was in demand as a UDFA and could have gone elsewhere if he chose. Peters also was clearly unblockable on ST and could have been signed off our PS essentially forcing a roster award. Peters was under contract to us but flat out earned a starting RT contract even though signed as a TE. Peters was under contract as an RT but like it or not (and we should have liked it bigtime) earned a Pro Bowl nod at LT. We certainly had every RIGHT to not to extend him to a near market rate LT contract until he proved himself with additional Pro Bowl berths. However, though we had the RIGHT it is questionable whether exercising what was allowable was the right thing to do. Likely the real mistake we made were demonstrably wrong Bills quality assessments which led us to reward Dockery with a huge contract (arguably by experience and happenstance his getting more $ that Peters was tolerable). However, in the end, it was simply a stupid move by the FO to decide to pay Langston Walker more than Peters. Its amazing the Bills braintrust could have been so correct in recognizing Peters as a potential OL talent when he was committed to TE as a player, but then made a horrible assessment the other way on Walker. Objectively my hats off to agent Parker for doing his job extraordinarily well for Peters. He saw how the Bills flinched in writing Pro Bowler Schobel a contract when they did not have to and played it the same way with Peters

Agreed. It did always amuse me that some seemed to want to place all or even simply the majority of the fault for this loss on Bledsoe (he did deserve his share but for the most part it struck me as he did not play excellently when a quality team needed an excellent QB performance to lead the way and offset bad play by others), The critical points in this bad loss struck me as ST failures (Clements left a PR return on the carpet when if he was even adequate he would not have fumbled and if he wanted the claim of difference maker he made a difference for Pitts- and Lindell missed a chip shot which fortunately turned out to not be his usual MO as he has been one of the more consistent and productive Bills the last few years) and the D simply sucked as you mentioned when they needed to come up big. I am no worshipper of Bledsoe who I feel was a wash for us (very good first year when he honestly deserved his Comeback Player of the year nod and his Pro Bowl berth (if you disagree fine but if not Bledsoe then who do you honor among the AFC QBs who did not make it) but he did not deserve to be extended after his horrendous second year. However, explaining this loss is simply more complicated than laying sole blame on one player.

Definitely some interesting thoughts in this thread. I had not thought about Fletch as he was not in the mold I was thinking, but in retrospect he does in many ways fit in that folks routinely seemed to complain about him hitting folks too deep in our backfield but actually the problem was this was what our D called for him to do (we really needed a runstopper in the DL) and he did what he was asked to do quite well (he led NFL LBs in INTs his last year here) and this came on top of him beating out Spielman to set the Bills tackle record. Those who whined about him need to check the fact that he performed after leaving the Bills and that an analysis of his tackles which showed a high % of solo tackles indicated that when he got to someone he brought them down. The Pat Williams mention actually does fit in my book someone who would have stayed if we had paid him $ that we had in the bank. TD nickled and dimed him and he left town. Winfield does not from my view fit the type I was laying out. The Bills clearly did want him to stay to the extent they had set aside $ in a fairly tight budget to sign him to a good deal a year before he hit FA. The problem came though when Belicheat messed up negotiations for Milloy and the Bills used the money set aside for Winfield to sign Milloy. I cannot fault this move as the alternative would have been to start Coy Wire at SS after both our plan A and Plan B (Cota and Battle) came to Bills camp but then retired. I also find fault with the post above which claims Winfield was only a good tackler and not a good cover guy. In fact Winfield was not a good INT guy but actually was a lockdown pass cover guy. When he hit the actual FA market he ended up with an extraordinary offer from MN which no one could match (they paid him a huge contract with all the $ upfront as they had a sudden windfall of cap money due to an arbiters decision and no one could match their offer. In addition. it was Shayne Graham I was thinking of.

A post elsewhere on the Board looking for an off-season list of worst Bills ever got me thinking what the list is of players who became whipping boys of the fans and local media whom we woulda/shoulda/coulda kept might be. My sense of the archetype player of this type would be Glenn Parker, LT who became the target of most prominently The Coach on WGR who simply hated on Parker (leading to various me-too tirades of folks on TSW. I think the Parker bleatings get special note because not only was his cut specifically advocated, but the Bills gave in to this pressure and cut Parker who then signed with NYG and played a prominent role in helping that team to the SB. To make matters worse, the fellow whose name escapes me that the Bills put in his place turned out to be simply putrid (again despite The Coach having identified him by name as the better player who was wiling on our bench while Parker played. In order to offer up some potential discussion, I am putting on this initial list (with many blanks to solicit suggestions) there is a case to be made that though the Bills relented to popular demand and traded Willis McGaghee, he did make the Pro Bowl for the Ravens once liberated from the Bills mismanagement which for some perverse reason never seemed to employ WM as a pass catcher despite our obvious need for an additional receiving threat and WM having some success in that area even here. It can certainly be argued he deserved whipping badly with his career as a Baby Daddy, but he is a pretty good example of a player whom the Bills did not utilize in a manner which he then did successfully elsewhere. So please, who are other players whom folks think were unpopular whipping boys here who once liberated from our so-called braintrust emerged as productive players. QB - RB - Willis McGahee RB WR - WR TE LT - Glenn Parker LG C- Dusty Ziegler I think deserves note as a player we shoulda kept as OL was worse w/o him RG RT DE - DT - NT - DE OLB ILB ILB OLB CB- some might argue we woulda/shoulda signed Winfield well before he hit FA but I think we used his $ for Milloy CB SS FS K- There was a fellow we cut who then became quite the accurate kicker but I cannot remember who. also Christie P

A huge difference between the Bills which ran a Nonfense rather than a offense under Jauron is that Gailey does seem to realize that the key to getting more Ws is not going to be the work of one line coach or player but instead having a working system which maximizes the strengths of solid individual players but does not allow the weaknesses to badly exploited. In no particular order of import since all of these outcomes happened more than once and made a difference when linked to other problems: 1. The individual play calling of the Bills simply seemed to suck 2. The WRs ran primitive routes which did not try to take advantage of the natural speed of the WRs and did not generate a lot of separation against coverages (thus plays did not develop well giving rushers lots of time and also with more zone coverage there was better D than I was used to seeing 3, The strength and conditioning coach is quickly suceeding in improving condition 4. A bunch of other things The key here is not to try to find a single coaching savior but integrate this and make it better.

My sense is there are extremists both ways that either want to defend TO as HOF talent or claim he is a cancer who hurts any team he signs with. Neither is completely true. TO USED to play at HOF levels but no longer is a threat to do so more than episodically. However, an episode of HOF level play is far better than the best which many #2 WRs have produced in the NFL and given the right circumstances he likely is still a potent weapon. Of course the wildcard is whether he is gonna be more trouble than he is worth and many observers love to point back to clear examples where TO did become a poison on SF, Philly, and even in Dallss. Th stupid thing though for folks who argue that the past simply proves he is a cancer conveniently overlook the flatout fact that in order to win the love of some teammates and fans in order for him to become a cancer, past history clearly demonstrates that early in his career with a team TO is a model of productivity. In fact even if you accept the indictments of those who hated him most the story they were selling virtually guaranteed a productive TO for the Bills last year. Yet, mandatory workouts had not even started when the bleaters and whiners declared TO getting an early start on bring a prima donna because he did not attend the first Bills voluntary workout (it was a bit too much real work for many of these media whiners to find out TO did not initially attend due to his longstanding commitment to be at an event where he received and award for community service. Look, its the same deal this year. If someone signs TO they will definitely get a player well past his prime who cannot do what he used to on any kind of consistent basis. Yet, the facts are he led the Bills despite not being an HOF level player in receptions and ypg and finished just behind Bills #1 Evans in TDs. I have few problems with what he did on the field last year and actually alot more demonstrable complaints about those who whined and claimed he was a cancer than I do with any braggadocio displayed by TO last year (afterall he is an entertainer and a little arrogance is what I expect and even want due to its intimidation benefits on opposing DBs). Should the Bills resign him. Probably not as one begins to play with fire with TO in his second year. However, he has not won the hearts and minds of many folks here yet and we might be able to squeeze another productive year out of him if the market drives his price down. The big thing that says yes is that none of the other candidates for #2 WR have demonstrated that they can be expected to perform even remotely as well as TOs old man #s of last year (Johnson looks the best of the crew but if one looks at real world measures like receptions, yards, and games played he regressed big time last year). I like having TO back if the market drives him to us if only because even the bleats of folks who are afraid TO would take training PT from Johnson, Hardy, Easley, Parrish need to get a hold of reality and realize that if these youngsters cannot simply force the Bills braintrust to play them over a TO in decline it is questionable how good these youngsters are gonna be. Given the state of accomplishments of our WRs its fine with me to bring TO in and force the young hopefuls to beat him out. One of our big problems is that for the past decade the Bills have simply given stater jobs to folks like RJ or TC (and even by his own admission to JP) that they did not earn on the field. I hope we do not make this same error at #2 WR.

The real question you are asking here is this one: What is success? If your answer is accomplishing generally laudable tasks in your chosen profession, you would pick a person (with variations based on folks judgments about what is or is not laudable. If you judged success as having the impact you wanted on the most people your choice might be different than if you define success as having any impact on the most people you might choose another person. Personally, I would likely judge Jack Kemp as being the most successful as he was able to translate his fame and football accomplishments into a different career (member of Congress) and it was a pretty direct translation as he was able to gain a nationally influential seat by using his fame to command the seat with local political power. Through being a very bright guy, he was able to not simply use this seat gained through local power as a means to line the pockets of his local friends, but was able to translate this into having significant influence on national politics through efforts like the Kemp/Roth bill. Yet, ultimately he failed in his efforts to translate his locally based political wins in his Congressional seat into national power with his failed runs at the Presidency. Ultimately, I am quite glad he failed at his biggest efforts as I think in general his conservative ideas were no way for this country to accomplish great things. My sense is that ultimately as his biggest ideas were simply incorporated into the American machine and really did not change the way our country worked (we were fiscally irresponsible before Kemp/Roth and we were fiscally irresponsible after, it is a fair question to raise as to though his actions made a big difference in how we did things as a nation it did not change the eventual outcomes and effects of what we did. Like OJ, in the end Kemps actions may have changed the way things happen but they were full of sound and fury but signified nothing.

Folks its too early to tell with anything approaching certainty (or rationally beyond a glimmer of possibility). In reality there are multiple people to blame for the Bills failure to make the playoffs the past decade (Jauron's bad job does not give a free pass to TD for his screwups and the buck ultimately stopping with Mr. Ralph does not magically change the jobs TD, Jauron or others into adequate jobs. Likewise none of these men gives a free pass to Modrak nor does Modrak or Jphn Guy deserve the full blame. However if one wants to insist on trying to narrow this down to one item to overfocus on, I think there are few other candidates which surpass the Bills consistently over the past decade plus having a central failing of handing the QB starter role to the the "next" designated savior who gets deemed the Bills starter without really earning the job with consistent positive performance on the field. One can reasonably trace a threshold mistake being the horrendous and demonstrably bad football judgment by Mr. Ralph of making a handshake agreement only he could make to ignore the salary cap and promise to reward Jimbo fiscally in his next contract (which never occurred as Jimbo got concussed out of the game, Mr. Ralph had to pay for this judgment error by giving Jimbo a cool million to walk away. The Bills paid for this by the team failing to acquire a replacement for Jimbo a year earlier than when they stretched to take TC in the 2nd round. This was followed by a series of near panic over extensions by rushing TC to start when at the least he needed another year of practice to get the happy feet out of him (if this could actually ever be trained out), Among the highlights over the next decade the team simply gave RJ the job with a huge contract despite this turning the Bills into liars for promising Flutie a chance to compete on the field (an error made salary cap fatal when DF did as we had actually demanded and he hit all of his incentives and we ended up wih 10 mill wrapped into the QB position back when this was real money. We then proceeded to take actions like not simply call it a wash when Blrdsoe had a great first year and crappy second one but we extended him anyway. We then 180 ed on Bledsoe and gave the job to JP when even he said he would do the best he could but had not earned the nod the way he should have on the field, We continue to seem to want to make the same mistake of declaring a new savior. We must not make the same mistake again. Rather than Gailey simply giving in to the impatient whining of some fans to designate the job as Edwards to lose or handing it to the new hope who has not done the job (yet) on the field Brohm, or simply declaring Fitzy as the last starter by choice Fitzy as the #1 who should not lose his job to injury simply waiting as long as possible to even declare a lead candidate is the thing to do. The Bills can profit from deeming a player the #1 when the actual camp starts (if only because the media and some insecure fans are gonna pick the player who gets the most snaps as their next savior whether he deserves it or not). However, what I actually hope happens is that Gailey and the crew know who is gonna be there #2 amd essentially declare a battle between two QB as #1 and #1A battling to start/ While this designation does violate the oft state Marv rule that a team which has two starting QBs actually has no starting QB, quite frankly we do not need to choose a firm starter until after 2 pre-season games. Actually the likely real deal is that the Bills will want to trade one of their two potential best QBs for a quality player to fill one of our other many holes( an OL player or a #2 WR). If we give the starter job to one of these QB prospects too soon we likely are repeating the same error we have made the past decade,

Timeline, competition, and reality. My guess he and Ralph have a common understanding that he is on s timeline to compete immediately but they realistically do not expect the team to achieve credible results this year or likely not even next. Dumb luck and its the NFL does mean that there could conceivably be some actual achievement this year (an 8-8 record would be an achievement given the pathetic results last year) but they honestly understand they do not expect much this year in terms of results. In fact, even in the outside world of the media and fans if this team is generally perceived as trying hard and not being a doormat then the lack of real achievement might even be something they skate by this year with. Competition is key though to both having dumb luck help the team achieve and also to generating the perception of tolerating losing. Setting an expectation of achievement beyond what a player can realistically be expected to achieve is key. There is certainly no reasonable way simply from film or even some of the coaches real eye view of Bell in practice or in brief game appearances that they can be counting on him to excel. The vagaries of injury recovery alone make this crazy. Yet, from what they see on film and measuring the athletic from the attitude he displays they can in fact present a reasomable expectation that he will compete without embarrassment.

The Bills are in a bad situation at QB mainly because all three have significant failings which stop them from being a credible option for the job: 1. Edwards had been deemed the starter of the future but tried and failed to own this position and also has a history where objective standards earn him the label of injury prone. Maybe he failed because our braintrust butchered the O scheme and perhaps his recent workout efforts will make him less injury prone, but the key here is MAYBE 2. Brohm was chosen to be the next Favre and the Pack simply cut him loose and went elsewhere to find and use Rodgers. Maybe the Pack was wrong. MAYBE 3. Smart guy but the conventional wisdom dubs him not a good enough athlete but maybe the conventional wisdom is wrong. MAYBE The key here is for the Bills to rely upon the past proven ability of Gailey to squeeze good play out of QBs who the conventional wisdom has given up on. The key here would seem to be NOT to simply give the starter job to any of these three based on fan or media "logical reasoning" but instead rely on Gailey to oversee a QB winning the job on the field.