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I actually have been fairly impressed by the work in a couple of years during Parrish as a Bill despite the fact that many fans have always had the long knives out for him. Yes, it was disappointing that he got hurt so quickly in his career, but the fact I was disappointed by this event does not mean he is also disappointed as a player. RP has not produced like we would have wanted him to, but I attribute much of this to how badly designed and implemented the Bills O has been in his short career and feel he has demonstrated some very good talents which causes me not to be surprised at all about the enthusiasm Gailey has stated for him. 1. Obviously the punt return ability has been superb (though spotty at times but again this appears to be a miscoaching and mismanagement of a variety of Bills player assets which have gone on during the playoff drought. 2. I have been extremely impressed with his willingness to go over the middle in his slot work and he has even bounced up quickly after a tough slot hit which surprised me after his early injury, 3. Despite Don Beebe making a nickel off it it really it is hard to teach speed, Parrish has it. However, though I do like his speed, elusiveness, moxie, and openfield running abilities, his small size and the quick injury give me pause for using him as a heavy duty starter at #2 WR. Its just hard for me to see relying on him surviving a whole season with this as a central part of the O. Ample use of him as the slot WR in 3 WR sets, making an interesting choice between, him, McKelvin, Spiller (and heck McGee made the Pro Bowl due to his production on KR), and sometimes end a round are what I think may be the best use of a player who can be a difference maker.

Agreed that the traditional depth chart is meaningless (as I have said all along in my Spiller rants the Bills would be stupid if they planned to use Spiller in a role that could be called the #2 as he lines up wide with Evans mirroring the role on the other side and then called him #2 WR on the depth chart). I think it would be stupid for Gailey to call him the #2 WR but it would likely make this O hum if he is actually utilized as a traditional #2 WR in our offense because: 1. There is no zero, nada, zippo, a whole number less than one) players on the Bills team whom one could make an objective case (or even a good subjective one as yes Jackson has shown good route running ability and hands in college and as a rookie but regressed statistically last year) for playing as our #2 WR. I am not maintaining that playing Spiller in a role that really amounted to him being the closest thing we have to s #2 WR is a deadlock certainty to work or even that it is a good idea. I simply say that even as a bad idea it has more going for it than suggestions of other players I have heard on TSW. If not use of Spiller in this role how and who do folks see this O working. 2. On that point I doubt it works very well at all with the candidates for #2 WR we have. I think that under Jauron and underlings two years ago we saw this demonstrated when Peerless was the #2 and not only had he lost a step from his world class speed, but the Bills O shoehorned him into a traditional possession receiver role which allowed opponents to take Evans out of being a huge factor for the most part (I think he is actually a very good talent but he needs to have a partner WR who stops the opposing DC from simply doubling him). I hope that somehow Jackson reverses his fallen production, Roscoe suddenly proves to be go to guy that we can depend on as a #2, Hardy regains his promise, Nelson proves to be more than a rookie or Easley rises from the temporarily dead. However, I think these are worse choices than even a bad choice of using Spiller as our #2 (though the depth chart should never admit this). 3. Some folks above seem to want to bellow that condemning Spiller to WR ties his hands unlike having him as a back-up back-up RB. Huh? Sitting on the bench will tie his hands. The question is how do we get Spiller more touches and at this point with Gailey saying just to day he is the 3rd RB pm the depth chart reserve RB duty is not going to get him into the game. If he lined up virtually every offensive snap as the wideout opposite Evans and only ran the ball on end arounds and a few playes where he actually lined up as an RB this strikes me as a method giving him more runs and touches than lining him up as a traditional RB after we ran Jax and Lynch. I want him to get touches and I think having him play the #2 WR slot would do just that.

Sounds like another recruit for the Spiller at #2 WR movement to me. Think about it, for the first time in eons Bills fan are beginning to hope against past disappointment that we actually have a working offense. Getting all revved up due to pre-season is actually a fun (though often football stupid thing to do- no one who even wants to pretend they are football knowledgable should be getting all excited by two not bad pre-season outings) but still one can feel the contrast between an approach that fired its OC a couple of weeks before the season and this year's model under Gailey. The really impressive thing about it though is that we are doing this with out not only clearly most productive O player last year, Jackson hobbled by injury but also without the former Pro-Bowler backing him up. With Spiller's impressive play in two games, one of the key questions facing this O (along with little things like Edwards demonstrating he is not injury prone and the OL coming together, is going to be how do we get enough touches for Spiller- He is an exciting player who threatens a big play every play, but is not seen as a 40 rush a game durable back Jax- A surprising all around leader in yards running, receiving, and even returns who needs to be on the field to produce these results. Lynch- former Pro Bowler who eked in but did deserve the accolades from his production. He can run the ball (and even showing receiving prowess in college) but his problems which endanger whether he should be a Bill or not are off the field rather than on it. I will continue my campaign to see Spiller at #2 WR as not only do I think this solve a major problem for making Evans effective, but it also would help the problem of we need to see Jax, Lynch and Spiller all on the field. Its either split Spiller out wide or go with the Wishbone T.

Yet another reason why I hope that the thing Gailey is working on in closed practices is using Spiller at WR. At the very least one would think the Bills would need to aggressive and consistent use of Spiller in motion out of the RB slot, but from the armchair of this fan, just line him up on the outside since space is where he does his magic anyway and huge problems are created for the D. One of the Bills problems over the years is that the O is in fact dictated to by the us simply trying to save the skin of the QB or rely on Lynch not only making the first guy miss but also pick up yardage on his own. Using Spiller as a wideout would allow us to dictate that the D go zone (particularly if we make more use of Roscoe in 3 WR sets. The problem we have straight up looking at the personnel and their accomplishments in the past is we have no credible threat at #2 WR. This vastly undercuts Evans effectiveness. Its a problem and though Spiller at #2 WE is a wildeyed solution it is a better bad idea than other options I have heard.

My sports fantasy is that IMHO the Bills simply do not have a demonstrated threat at #2 WR (does anyone out there want to make a case beyond their own sports fantasies that Jackson is a demonstrated threat, the simple fact he regressed in virtually all measures of demonstrated performance in his second year, something a top quality receiver and a clear starter does not do even when playing with two better WRs. If Jackson is a true quality starter he would have simply demanded that he be thrown to in the games he appeared in because he defeated the third (and usually fourth best CBs he faced as Evans and TO drew dc attention). At any rate, what I wish for each night at bedtime is that in closed practices the Bills are running their O with Spiller split out wide at #2WR. Spiller has no training as a wideout (but has clear demonstrated skills as an RB receiver in motion) but if he can practiced up to credibly run the wideout routes, this poses a huge quandary for the opposing DC 1. The obvious solution which has worked somewhat well before (such as when Peerless was the #2) is that you dt Evans reducing (but not completely neutralizing because he is that fast and that good)his impact. If the Bills Nonffense stupidly uses Peerless as a possession receiver, you say thank you very much and cover his 1 on 1 and load the rest of the D in the box to mess up the ground game. However, if Spiller even lines up at #2, the dc has to think seriously about whether he wants to single cover Spiller because if he gets the ball in space and simply has to make one player miss and then he is off to the house, he has to think about dting both Evans and Spiller out wide. This configuration then leaves 7 defenders spread wide in the box taking on Jackson and Lynch. Its way cool. 2. Lets say the other side has Revis or some equivalent and that they are actually able to single Evans or Spiller. The Gailey counter then becomes using three wide and bring Parrish out in our base O. The dc then has to decide not simply whether to risk singling Evans or Spiller, but at best if he dts one of them he now has his 4th best best CB (or 5th best if he decides to double both WRs) covering Parrish on his lonesome. Not only does the passing game feast on this feeble attempt at man coverage with dts, but now Jackson or Lynch (one of them definitely defense with sits if one is going three wide) are facing a spread defense with five of the 1 defenders having their primary task be pass coverage. If the Bills go with a 3 wide formation (and in particular if you line Spiller up out in space already -a mere pump fake and he goes long forces the coverage to back off and give him space rather than covering him tight or jumping the route)really forces the dc to employ a zone D. If this is the case not only is running game far more effective facing the zone (and in great cases a nickel or even a dime D so that Jax/Lynch are facing 180 lb. DBs rather than 230 lb. LBs. Also the pass blocking becomes much simpler for our young and marginal talent OL as the zone takes away 1 or 2 blitz options for them to deal with. 3. The amusing thing to me about this argument is that the Bills are playing this just right if this is what they decide to do. If the first thought that the opposing DC gives to covering Spiller out wide is when the teams line up, we may be looking at a quick seven (or even if Edwards misthrows it or Spiller drops it the D plan still goes out the window out of fear). The Bills should not even hint that they plan to do more than sometimes use of Spiller in motion and not even have him on the depth chart at WR (unless you are not going to do this so you throw him on the depth chart at deep reserve WR simply to force opposing DCs to prepare for this match-up problem. It may turn out that the injuries to Jax and Lynch will prove to be great bonuses for us as it gave Spiller a bunch of reps and he did so well at them that opposing DCs will be forced to respect him immediately if he lines up wide (could you imagine if the Bills send all the motion right and then TE throws the ball to Spiller who has taken a step back on the left. Spiller then turns and has to beat one guy hustling towards him and then its off to the races. All I want for Xmad (actually for Thanksgiving, Halloween, and in fact for Labor Day is to have Spiller line up at the current vacuum we have at #2 WR!

My bet would also be for the PS, Particularly for an OL player who are often in demand as development projects, if the Bills cut him among the last cuts teams might consider signing him to their PS but an early cut may well be an indicator of some issue other teams might be reluctant to even waste time, The argument that he must be horrible if even the Bills with their OL cut him may mean nobody signs him giving us freer range to PS him with no comp for him.

My sense is that the NFL is slowly moving toward a redefinition of infringement as they begin to recognize that there is more $ to be made from letting folks broadcast their product pretty widely rather than try to make a few extra nickels by demanding that folks pay them every time they broadcast the product. This lesson is seen in an example such as how the band, the Grateful Dead marketed their product. Rather an insisting that everyone pay them a nickel for every recording of their music, the Dead instead not only allowed recording but in fact aided pirates to make high quality bootlegs of their concert. This result in a huge "underground" market of their concerts being created, Dead followers setting up a caravan society to attend each concert, deadheads who attend when the Dead comes to their towns keeping careful records of their shifting set selection at each concert, etc. The Dead realized that they could make a ton more money helping people advertise their product by making quality copies and sharing them with friends. Further, they created a premium on each individual concert which caused DeadHeads to buy tickets again and again, rather than they see one show and never buy again. The NFL is also changing so that this is not your grandmother's NFL anymore. In the new regime which is really Pete Rozelle's original concept on steroid, there is now a recognition that though tactics like "blackouts" may have made sense in the old balkanized NFL where individual team owners made more # with ticket sales, now individual team owners make far more money from the TV networks. In the old world blackouts and squeezing every extra nickel from televising product was the way to make $. In the new world, advertising the produce every chance you get and making the NFL even more a product of everyday life is the best way to get even more $ from the nets. While the NFL has not yet moved to a DeadHead economic model, withe the advent of the current CBA we may see a more free-wheeling NFL in getting their product to the customer. Its really hard to do this right in the aborning world of the internet where the public is used to not paying for info, but we will see.

Actually, depending upon whether an individual believes in some form of natural rights where the moral standard is set by what the decider determines is makes up the rules based on a natural right determined by the ultimate authority (often thought of as GOD by Descartes and others) or altermately if one concludes that rights are determined by some social covenant agreed to by individuals, then the moral standard can be determined by an individual. My sense is that for the most part this is all sophistry. Ultimately even if one is a solid believer in a natural rights perspective, in the end one makes a choice about whether to adopt the moral standard set forth in this natural rights system or not (example, one may have a firm belief that it is GOD's law which dictates things such as dairy should not be mixed with meat, but the fact that there was a practical reason not to mix a prime bacterial source (meat) with a great growth medium (dairy) in a time when refridgeration did not exist is beside the point even though there may be both excellent natural rights and social compact reasons for GOD's law) Without regard to whether one ascribes to the social compact of property law or the natural law one can argue that there is a basic right and wrong here even if one totally disagrees as to where this right comes from.

The fact he did not answer your direct question is almost certainly rationally taken as an admission that your guess of a cash motivation was correct. There is nothing wrong with making cash in this world, so IMHO, 1. The failure of the poster to answer the question or simply converse publicly on the issue make a pretty strong case that this poster is providing this tool not as member of the TSW community (and even TSW family in many cases) but as the an attempt to make a nickel. 2. Though there is nothing wrong with that act in and of itself, it is a pretty craven act somewhere on a scale from bad form to this person has a problem with insufficient sexual organ size that at least shows him to be pretty pathetic as a person. 3. While there is nothing wrong with making a nickel, his/her failure to respond/interact increases the possibility that there is some malicious intent here and that the embedded software is designed with the intent of ability of the software maker to harm or take advantage of users. If this is in fact so, many thanks are deserved to SDS and the diligent folks who are scouring this data to find any trap door. Even more to the case, while SDS and the learned crew deserve praise, the software maker and this user do not really deserve any thanks that they have been given and in fact deserve to be considered at least as pathetic excuses for people, If this was done for money (but the moneymaker will not fess up) they richly deserve our disdain and if those thinking through this issue find a way to deny the ultimate producer the financial benefit advertising this site and getting eyeballs to watch it so they can sell the eyeballs they deserve that as well. If someone wanted to organize a boycott of one of the seeming cash sources for the site, this strikes me as a legit response and the key to making it effective is to let these vendors know you saw there product thanks to use of this site and it had the negative impact of hurting your potential to buy their products. Perhaps the original poster to this site is failing to reply publicly simply because they are too busy feeding the poor to take time to respond!!! Na doubtful. Instead then if nothing malicious can be found, perhaps they are in essence a tagger using this graffiti to declare their importance. If so then let that person know they have declared their impotency rather than their intended declaration of computer power and knowledge. It silly (though from my perspective not wrong) if they are doing this to simply make more nickels, If however, they simply fail to respond to even admit reality this is really a pathetic excuse for a human being.

The thing that will interest me most about this list is which rounds these players will end up going in. I simply so not see the Bills being a QB away from winning it all as was the case when Pitts chose RoboQB in the first round. As such, I doubt they try to get their franchise QB in the first round of the draft since all in all though good players have to come from somewhere and thus good players get drafted, my analysis of past drafts show it to be a crapshoot in terms of whether a particular player is the RIGHT QB for this team. I see the Bills trying to get a QB they judge capable of leading them to the SB through FA (which NO used in the last SB to get Brees and historically teams have found their franchise QB from QBs who failed elsewhere such as 1st round drafted but loser for the team which drafted him like Dilfer or two time loser Brad Johnson. Even the other rare example of a team drafting a QB in the first who led them to an SB win, Peyton Manning took much longer than the media and a few vocal Bills fans will give the team time to develop the QB until he gets run out of town like Steve Young and Brett Favre were, The best draft your franchise QB move in history was to find your franchise QB in the 6th round like Tom Brady rather than spending a big contract ona 1st round choice. I think the sweet spot on your list will be to identify which of these QBs drops to the second day but is still a good enough player that they will hang around long enough to develop.

And this history along with the stats provided by PTR at the beginning of this thread are pretty strong reasons why you likely do not look to the 1st round of the draft for your franchise QB. The simple fact is that the only examples of a team selecting a QB in the first round who then led the team which drafted him to an SB win are the actually fairly solitary examples of Manning and RoboQB. One actually may fall for the thought that this is the way to go, but any thought shows that no one would mistake the Bills for the Pitts team where RoboQB proved to be the part that put this great team over the top. Also while this post waxes all over Manning being such a great choice, this view does ignore the reality that a far more accomplished version of using the draft to get your franchise QB was actually the selection of Tom Brady in the 6th. EA u=is correct that the actual key is to find the RIGHT QB! However in terms of the reality of what has actually happened, the right QB can be found not only with a high risk 1st round choice but with a lower risk 6th round pick like Brady, Does a Brady happen once in a lifetime? You bet. However does a Pwyton Manning also happen once in a lifetime? Yes on that as well. In fact the relative comparison is that if you dedicate the first (and the premium QBs seem to get as well) to s Manning then you can also quite easily end up with Ryan Leaf. My sense is that the Brady pick not only produced a player better than Manning (no matter what adulation you heap on Manning simply count up the SB wins) but this is a great way to build a winner. If we look to the distant past, why just last year NO found the right QB in FA. History is simply filled with teams winning the SB with 1st and other round drafted QBs like Dilfer or even two time failed reject Brad Johnson turning out to be the right QB. In particular if you look at the Bills case, even though I agree that Locker looks like the real deal, my guess is that coming to the Buffalo Bills would likely be a kiss of death for him even if he is the real deal as fans here are rightly made impatient by the playoffless streak and the local media is more than happy to make some nickels ragging on whoever is the savior de jure at QB Drafting a franchise QB in the first is simply unlikely to succeed strategy and not even necessary we have numerous real world examples with the right QB being found when the the team which drafted him gives up on him. Drafting a QB in the first even if it works as well as Indy picking Manning we are talking about needing several years for him to develop into a QB capable of leading the team to the ultimate goal an SB win. Even if we suck and get the 1st pick I hope we instead focus on building a winning team and NOT on simply putting us on a plan to win the SB in 2015 or 15 cause likely that is how long this strategy will take to win an SB.

Yes definitely Marv deserves a good chunk of the blame for the 0-4 SB record (and right there with it if one wants to be fair and balanced about this he also gets a chunk of credit for the team making it to 4 straight SBs). In general I think that HCs get far more credit than they deserve for the TEAM wracking up Ws and likewise far more blame than they deserve alone for Ls, I have long provided statistical back-up for this perspective that show while there are some idiots like a Rich Kotite who seem to be able to lose badly almost anywhere and an even smaller number of Bill Parcells who can win just anount anywhere that for the most part the coaching record is made up of folks like Belicheat who simply sucked the big one in Cleveburg while being a boy genius (with a healthy does of cheating and dumb luck {he likely would have been forced to ride Bledsoe to a .500 record if not for an uncharacteristic LB hit collapsed his lung and he got to ride the Tom Brady bandwagon even though he like the rest of the league passed on drafting one of the best players ever 5 or mote times. Marv is a perfect example of an HC who stunk up the joint in the KC situation prior to delegating the Bills to an HoF career for him. Likewise clear winning HCs like Vince Lombardi simply sucked as am HC with the Deadskins. The main problem I have is not with accurately nailing Marv for not winning the SB but with the way lambastomg Marv as THE problem lets Mr. Ralph whom if one wants to inaccurately try to name one person as THE problem there is a much stronger case to be made for pointing to Mr. Ralph. As legit as it is to fault Marv for 0-4 one also has to agree that he has little to do with the majority of the 0- for a decade playoff less streak

Yeah but, say whatever you want to about the job Levy did but all problems which can be traced to Levy need to be traced beyond him to Mr. Ralph. Any Levy complaints even though they may be accurate are merely a sideshow to stopping the buck where the buck really needs to stop. Wouldn't you agree that: 1. The O for a decade playoffless streak well before Marv got here and it is silly to blame him for the debacles of the TD era, totally having a dysfunctional relationship between the owner and the GM, and a series of the owner exercising his financial right to meddle even if he is demonstrably bad at making football judgments (going back to making a handshake deal with Jimbo that was simply wrong and only he could make. 2. Ralph deserves plaudits for keeping the team here, but right along with this comes a bunch of horrendous W/Ls that happened to HIS team and these facts should be considered in context (he kept the team here) but it would be stupid to ignore reality by trying to blame this debacle on Marv. 3. Who is responsible for hiring Marv. Its hard for me to see how anyone can claim this stems from Marv when pretty clearly it started before Marv was hired, continued after his short caretaker run, and if Marv is so bad then it says volumes about the guy who hired him (actually out of desperation as Mr. Ralph had so badly messed up the TD years.

I assume from this being presented as an ESPN/Scouts product that Tim Graham is either the source of or at least had a significant role in producing these grades. I of course have quibbles with some of the grades presented but overall they seem like a fair assessment by someone who has more than a passing interest in the Bills (for example I would grade Moorman higher based on the scale they have chosen and I would grade Kelsay as an incomplete as this is a charitable grade for his given his DE output, but given he is playing a whole different position but has been plagued with injuries as he learns a new role it really is a crapshoot what type of OLB he will be. Overall, I think this describes a Bills team which actually has a pretty good crew on not unreasonable starter but no real stars to speak of who make their supporting cast better players because they draw a lot of attention. In fact, the problem for the Bills will likely be that since they have no credible #2 WR, Evans will likely get over and under doubled so TDs like the one he got from a blown assignment by Indy are going to be few and far between this year (unless Jackson/Lynch. comeback and his play allows them to put Spiller out wide where it forces opposing Ds to zone up on us as both Evans and Spiller command a dt.

The most interesting cuts to me that the Bills have made in the first cutdown is that in the past they have chopped players but then ironically turn around and sign them to the PS after the last cut. What they seem to do is target players whom they are pretty sure would make the PS but not the final roster. If they waited until the final cutdown to waive them they run the risk that this player might be poached as an FA by another team. However, in the past they seemed to have cut a player early (likely told them that they were cut because it was judged they would not make the roster but even though they are free to sign elsewhere that the team has plans for them in the future if they are available (but they cannot talk about them right now as that is not allowed in the CBA. When they make this cut early it serves to reduce interest in signing them elsewhere ac the player was a first cut reject by the hapless Bills (if they had lasted to the last cut then the rest of the league would look at them closely and the Bills might lose them. My candidate for an early surprise cut is Moats. He clearly is a talented athlete, but in just two games he has shown how dangerous it is to count on this young player as he has made some critical mistakes. Still, I think though there is no way he likely makes the active roster I think he has shown enough such that the Bills may cut him now (diminishing opposition interest)but we sign him to our PS after all the cuts are done.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions as to who they like to consume or not. However, Sully without regard to whether you like the phrases he uses is pretty much a waste of time as someone who is fortunate to be paid to watch and comment on sports. From my standpoint as someone who can choose to spend my dollar on a newspaper, one thing I am looking for is the learned opinion of someone who is paid to be a student of the game. I will pay to read a writer who watches a bunch of pre-season games that are not really all that entertaining to me to get their analysis of the rest of the league because even though I am a Bills addict you would have to pay me to watch the rest of the league's pre-season games. Sully strikes me as a waste of the fact the Buff Snooze pays him to if he wants be an actual student of the game. Instead he offers up the same virtually fact-free opinions based on his review of team stats (and likely a cursory review by him given the obvious "I am better than others who watch pre-season" views he expresses. Its amazing to me that he flat outs admits he does not watch the other teams and then throws out his virtually fact free opinion that the Bills have the weakest LB crew in football. I can get the same level of research free opinion at the local bar and its even free to get it. He really is a waste of a paycheck since I really wish the news paid someone who actually spent some time studying and learning about the rest of the league before he offers a broadbrush opinion. Sully is a waste of a paycheck and is one of the reasons why I cancelled my subscription to the Buffalo News. He is paid to cover the most important sports franchise in Buffalo and simply flat out refuses to add value beyond what I can get for free from my neighbors.

I only would want to see him cut if it helps the team. Even with the disappointing result that he is a 1 or 2 down player who is a pass rush specialist it actually not only does not help the team to cut him now but actually hurts us. 1. We simply lack depth at OLB with the season ending injury to Batten and the being slowed by injuries of Kelsay and Torbor. If only for providing depth, specialist pass rush and whatever DeHaven gets our his speed on ST the waiver wire likely gives you Maybin quality performance with less speed. 2. It is not good football simply to cut a player based on one disappointing season and a disappointing pre-season (though disappointment says as much about the false expectations a viewer came in with. There are simply clear examples of players like Eric Moulds who was unproductive statistically for two entire seasons, and then got "it" (whatever it is) and then embarked on a Pro-Bowl level career. 3. He is young drafted at 21 last year (many players red-shirted for a year are at least 22 or older and to boot he took up football a little later than many and simply has fewer reps meaning he should develop merely through experience and he also has simply taken fewer hits from the game so even a one year difference from the norm is a bigger difference than normal. 4. If cut, then all bonus paid to him immediately accelerates and gets applied to the next capped year. Cutting him saves virtually no money and potentially (to some extent dependent upon CBA renegotiations)harms the team in terms of cap management. 5. He is a Buffalo Bill and I root for all Buffalo Bills to be the best they can be and help the team. It really is beyond me why anyone would get pleasure from the failure of others (particularly when this "failure" produces a resultwhere he still gets millions from us in exchange for giving us no return whatsoever (even if the return is merely holding a roster spot for us that some other non-performing cut player from the waiver wire would fill, ST play and the time to time sack) and actually him getting cut rewards him with another chance to collect a signing bonus and/or a significant incentive laden contract with his new team. If one is pissed at him then cutting him will be such a likely financial boon to him (and also result in the opponent who signed him saying thank you very much (as Miami likely signs him to get him to give them the same intelligence Lawyer Milloy gave us a few years back when they cut him just prior to the season) and they get to attempt to develop this raw talent without the burden of the expectations of the fanbase or the cash outlay of the owner. Rooting for cutting him now (and likely before three full seasons for the coaches to earn their pay by developing him to the best he can be and also spreading the bonus paid to him over 4 seasons rather than two) is simply bad for the team I love.

Actually, if one reads the article from Chris Brown (or maybe I see something quoted that no one else can see) is that the Bills coaches are the ones who see progress in his play. So clearly either someone else sees something or the coaches are simply blowing smoke at Maybin to make him feel good (doubtful actually as the NFL is a cruel mistress and while coaches often play good cop/bad cop with players to get performance out of them, they have given Maybin a ton of PT and coaches likely would not risk their jobs simply playing a non-productive player when their jobs depend on the success of the unit they coach. Folks have to face the fact that if Maybin is as bad as they make him how to be this almost necessarily has to mean that the coaches see some tremendous upside that will come from playing him. If this is not true then what is your explanation for why he is getting such a large amount of playing time. My sense is that the Bills position coaches and DC see some upside in getting Maybin game and play experience he did not have in his brief football career and since he was a DE rather than an OLB. In fact, its fine with me if he is not focusing in pre-season in racking up a lot of sacks as what I think he needs practice in is doing the pass coverage and run stopping that an OLB needs to do. He already has shown in college that he can use his speed to sack the passer, if he were to do this in pre-season it quite frankly would be a waste and actually give film for study to the enemy. I much prefer to see him practicing how to make a pro quality counter move, read Os, and pick-up receivers, If he cannot do this satisfactorily then the Bills need to get active on the waiver wire pronto and pick up OLBs rather than TEs. Unless the braintrust sees some serious upside and usefulness to Maybin given the injuries to Torbor and Kelsay the OLB situation is a bigger crisis than the one at TE. My sense is the proof is in the pudding and one more likely might believe the actions of the braintrust whose jobs and money are on the line rather than armchair QBs like you and me.

I actually did not read the TMQ column in question as I long ago stopped seeking out Easterbrook ramblings. So if he has in fact changed his facile way of thinking about things I apologize. My own ramblings were based on the quote in the lead post in this thread which quotes Easterbrook as saying : Something's Not Right Here: In the 2008 draft, Jersey/B used the sixth selection on Vernon Gholston; in the 2009 draft, Buffalo used the 11th choice on Aaron Maybin, and Denver used the 14th selection on Robert Ayers. All are hybrid defensive end/linebacker types who specialize in rushing the passer, and the three have combined for zero career sacks in the NFL. This year, Jersey/A used the 15th choice of the draft on hybrid defensive end/linebacker Jason Pierre-Paul, who specializes in rushing the passer. Pierre-Paul had just six sacks in his sole season as a major college player, finishing a distant 69th in Division I sacks. Yet in April, no team drafted Antonio Coleman of Auburn, a three-year starter who compiled 22 solo sacks in the SEC, college football's toughest conference. In this quote he compares the 2008, 09, and 10 drafts in regard to the comparative quality of the players taken who play that position and where they were taken in the draft. What's wrong here is that it can easily lead to false results based on a false comparison when you compare when a player is taken in one draft to when a player is taken in a different market by a different team. Perhaps the lead thread made a tea party like taking out of context the quote or simply flat out lied about what he said, but as it sounds like the usual Easterbrook almost thinking I suspect his quote is what he said.

I have actually met Easterbrook through some of my environmental work. He released a book a few years back that attempted to debunk environmental activism with a cute argument that one should ignore environmental activist simply because they had been successful in winning the environmental battle in the 70s with the creation of the EPA, passage of Superfund, etc. Therefore one should easily ignore calls for addressing issues like climate change, etc. Easterbrook's arguments had a cute rhetorical feel as he damned environmentalim by praising it. However the one thing he did not count upon when he unleashed his attack in the early 90s was that his point of view was made irrelevant by the Newt Gingrich led resurgence which effectively hamstrung environmental regulation and the advent of new threats which the traditional environmental regulatory regime was in no way set-up to deal with even if it was not hamstrung. Easterbrook routinely makes arguments which are rhetorically elegant but in reality really miss the point in terms of dealing with reality. One sees the sane thing with his over-analysis of the NFL. Perhaps it takes one to know one as I am prone to over-analysis myself but Easterbrook strikes me as too bright to really believe the crap he lays out.

As usual Easterbrook is ornately and literately wrong (he is great at using a 25 cent word when a nickel word will do and often disguises his poor analysis with saying stupid things gracefully). The thing Easterbrook is wrong about here is pretending that one can compare one draft class to another in terms of where a player was picked or his relative position among players who play the same position. There are simply too many variables which determine when a player is chosen in a specific year that one can compare where a player who plays the same position is chosen in the next draft. For example lets say draft A is particular strong at a certain position (lets say draft A has a significant number of quality LBs. Does the relative strength of this pool mean that the LBs get drafted higher in the draft due to their talent? Not necessarily. Given teams make an estimate they can get a high qualitt LN further down in the draft they decide to pass on taking one in the early rounds as they think they can get a good enough player later. Likewise, lets say there are only a couple of good DEs, does this mean that the third DE taken is gonna go late because of his limited skills? Again, not necessarily. lets say the first two picks in the entire draft are DEs, and this third best DE is pretty much agreed to be a 2nd or even 3rd round talent. However, my team has a huge opening at DE due to a late retirement. It not only makes sense for me to reach to take this 3rd best DE in the first round rather than wait to fill this hole with a 3rd or 4th round talent later in the draft. Does this really happen? Sure his name his John McCargo. The Bills had a huge hole at DT (I think this happened due to the surprising loss of Phat Pat but I cannot remember for sure. The Bills were playing the need game in this draft and had targeted Whitner as the best SS available and they spent a top 10 on him. They missed out on a DT and unfortunately they had McCargo pegged as the next best talent out there. He was appeared to be a second round talent at best. However, as there was little left at the position they actually had to trade up into the first to be sure to get McCargo (a definite reach). Still probably the right move in the crapshoot known as the draft since as it happened there was no other DT who even scored a 2nd round pick. The Bills did what they had to do in order to get the position filled with the best player available. Ironically, they had such little faith in McCargo they drafted yet another DT in the fifth and ironically Williams ended up starting. Each draft is an independent dance which gets defined by an order driven by the dance of need/best player available and where a position is picked in one year is not analagous at all to some absolute value of a particular player (no matter what Mel Kiper says. The comparison he makes across draft years does not stand up to the rigors of his on analysis. Easterbrook plays fast and loose with stats to try to prove his pre-existing point. In the statistical world of Easterbrook he adds up the numbers of testicles and working mammary glands in the population and divides by the number of people and comes out with a statistically valid finding that the average person has one ball and one working tit.

The big deal here about the failure of any Bill to command the #2 slot is simply that history has shown us that Evans is far less effective if the opponent can can dt him. Unless the Bills have someone lined up at #2 who at least makes the opposing DC think about giving him more than 1 on 1 attention it simply hamstrings the whole O.

Agreed it would be the height of panic and just bad football stupid to cut him without trying to play him as much as possible in what is likely a lost season this year. Further the uncertainties of the entire season caused by the CBA whoha and his youth and raw speed likely make him a keeper next pre-season. The talk of cutting our losses now seems little more than typical fan panic.

The problem here is though that we continue to focus on this individual or that individual when actually if one wants to win the focus needs to be on building a winning TEAM in its entirety. Claussen may well end up with good breaks and luck (injuries and how the oddly shaped ball decides to bounce really end up determining a lot in this game of inches where the refs even blew a coin flip in an OT game when it comes to determining the fate of an individual player) a very good player. However, even if he proves to be productive elsewhere I still think the Bill should not have drafted him not because of an evaluation of Claussen but an evaluation of our team, the local media, and some noisy fans who troll TSW, call WGR, and wander yelling drunkenly at the Ralph. I simply do not see the noisy opinion leaders in this area allowing us to build a winning TEAM around a QB who will almost immediately be deemed a savior and then held to a silly standard of perfection that few humans (and in particular a brash gutsy young QB who like it or not needs a bit of work on speeding up his delivery and surviving in the pro game. How can a winning Bills team be built given the reality of a O for a decade playoff appearance record and all the realities of mismanagement which have contributed to this (blame individual players, HCs, GMs or whatever series of individuals you want but the buck has to stop with an owner who exercises his ownership right to meddle and from his handshake deal with Jimbo where he misassessed the team's QB situation leading to us chasing our tail with disastrous results for over a decade to a series of `st round snafus which either he led the charge or at least signed off on series of unarguably bad calls. We owe him many props for keeping the team here but impossible to argue against facts point to his mismanagement of the franchise by him or the men he directly hired, Yet, hope springs eternal and I hope the current strategy of getting and holding playmakers (Spiller, Evans, Lindell, and even McKelvin on PR can put points on the board. These playmakers are fum to watch but are not the foundation for a winning strategy. However, perhaps they are the bridge to this team buying producers in the trenches one can build around. If this is the strategy I think there is a higher chance of success then acquiring the franchise QB as an add on rather than trying to draft and build around him. It is not about Claussen talent or maturity it is about a lack of maturity in the fan base and media in WNY to have the patience to make it work with a Clausen. What give you faith in the media and a noisy minority in the fan base. What is your development strategy which starts with a Clausen?

I think folks logically default to a grind it out style as being smashmouth is fun to imagine, but actually when one thinks back to the success in the K-gun era, this team had no problem and in fact experienced lots of success with an O which was looking for downfield opportunities stretching the field to through to Lofton, Reed and even Beebe. Sure a lot of the long TDs were actually with RAC after short passes to folks like Reed or even Thurman, but the deep ball threat is part of what makes the short pass open as DCs have their DBs play loose in case of the fly pattern. This type of O does need a good QB, but pedestrian talents like Bolger have made this approach work. The other thing is that as challenging as this might be to a Bills QB, it is simply gonna be holy heck for an opposing QB who comes into our weather and is forced to play a shoot-out. I say take this opportunity of TE deficit and switch to a far more entertaining and I think in the long to medium run more effective O.