2003Contenders

Well, I agree to a certain extent. The only area I would disagree is that in the games the Bills lost, with the exception of Miami, the defense did well enough holding the opposing quality offenses (Pats and Saints) in check. It is true that the offense is too pathetic to keep up with a good offense in a good old fashioned shootout -- but DJ's defense is predicated on NOT allowing those shootouts to occur. He prefers to die the death of a thousand paper cuts.

1. Trent is more physically talented. In general, he throws a prettier ball and is more accurate with his passes. When playing behind a strong OL that would give him the time necessary to make his natural progressions, I believe Trent would be more likely to make bigger plays. 2. Fitz has better intangibles. He has shown better pocket awareness and is more willing to try to get the ball to his receivers. These last 2 games provide a small sample size, but Fitz also appears to play better in the clutch. Part of that may be because Fitz seems more unflappable under duress. The odd thing is that when Trent took over for JP, it seemed as though these very same things were HIS strengths. I still have to wonder if that concussion last year didn't rob him of some of this. Right now, given the patchwork OL the Bills have, I would be inclined to ride with Fitzpatrick. I believe that starting him this week and reevaluating during the bye week (as appears to be Jauron's plan) is the prudent move.

I'm not ready to cast Trent aside just yet, although it has to be said that with the talent he has at WR and RB you would expect a capable NFL QB (even with a green OL) to be more productive than Trent has been. I also am not convinced that his problems center around the infamous Arizona concussion. He exhibited many of the same tendencies BEFORE that concussion. Namely, he just never has seemed able to properly anticipate -- that is, make the throw BEFORE the receiver comes out of his break. I suspect that part of the issue with Trent is the trust factor. He doesn't trust his OL to give him the time to make the big throw downfield (and hence all the checkdowns). He doesn't trust his receivers to run the precise route (and hence the unwillingness to throw until their route is complete). And worst of all, he doesn't trust himself to make the tight throws. Maybe taking the next 2-3 weeks off and watching a physically less talented QB who appears NOT to have these trust issues, will do him some good.

Honestly, I think if the Bills had any REAL interest in Garcia, the whole TO riff from years past would be a non-issue. Garcia is a system style QB -- and he played well in a closed in WCO that was tailored for his modest skills. Note that he played well in SF, Philly and TB which all ran identical systems. He didn't fair as well at any of his other stops.

He actually is fairly quick. In fact, last year with the Bengals he was more effective with his legs than his arm.

I agree with this assessment 100%. I think he is also a good "Damage Control" coach, which is to say that his conservative style tends to mask a team that is highly deficient, which is why I think he did a good job in 2006 with JP starting all 16 games and 2007 when the team was ravaged by injuries.

Maybe now that Roscoe know he won't be traded, he'll get his head out of his rear end and start producing.

I would give Fitz the nod for the next two weeks. That gives Trent 3 weeks (counting the bye) to clear the cobwebs and watch from the sidelines. In the meantime, see how Fitz performs in those two games to see what decision should be made during the bye week.

Watch the Bills just outright release him.

I have speculated all along that Mangina is still on the Jets payroll. The one game that the Browns won was against the Bills, which certainly helps the Jets too. Hmmmmm.

TO has no business complaining about anything. With all the drops, he is part of the problem.

Given TE's concussion history, I would keep him on the shelf (for his own good) until after the bye week. If Fitz plays "well" the next two games, we may have a controversy on our hands.

It remains to be seen what will become of Meredith. Under the circumstances I think anyone without an axe to grind would have to say that he acquitted himself quite well in his debut. He certainly did not embarrass himself. Coming out of SC Meredith was highly regarded -- and many scouts had him ranked as one of the top 2-3 most athletically gifted OL in the draft. He was also versatile, having played both tackle positions as well as inside. His stock took a bit of a hit, however, when teams started doing their research and heard from some of the Gamecocks' coaches that Meredith was a bit of a troublemaker in terms of questioning authority -- and I read one report that labeled him a potential "locker room lawyer". That caused his stock to drop from being that of a potential 2nd rounder to a 5th rounder, which is where he was ultimately drafted. Contrary to what some may be suggesting, the Packers really did like him. However, based on his rawness, they did not feel that he was ready to help them at the start of the season, so they took a risk by placing him on the practice squad, hoping that (by virtue of his free-fall in the draft) no NFL team would be prepared to sign him to an active roster. Perhaps this miscalculation will pay off for the Bills. Time will tell. One thing that I do believe, is that the zone blocking scheme that they employed yesterday would seem to be a good fit for the athletic (but not enormous) Meredith.

April's unit is directly responsible for this team being 1-4 instead of possibly 3-2 (and in first place).

When was the last time that the Bills had an honest to goodness OC? Ted Marchibroda?

Fairchild, Turk and now AVP. The common denominator is Dick J.

Funny enough, the best QB Parcells ever drafted (Bledsoe) didn't fit that criteria.

Alright. So DJ isn't going anywhere until the end of the year. If Ralph didn't fire him after this Cleveland fiasco, he simply is not going to fire him -- at least until the season is over. Based on how the other teams in the division look, it is clear that the Bills aren't winning anything this year. So instead of stressing over every game, how about if we take a step back and realize that this is indeed ground zero -- and that the goal for the rest of the season should be to see progressive development. This is a young team, and in my opinion the season isn't completely lost if the following happens: 1. Trent regains his confidence and begins to progress rather than continue to regress. Let's just all shut up about throwing the ball downfield. Right now, the OL is such a mess that he doesn't have time to make those throws -- and when he does, he gets jittery. AVP and the other coaches need to come up with some plays that are DESIGNED for the ball to come out of Trent's hand very quickly: quick slants, intermediate passes, etc. They also need to remember that the Bills have two very good RBs in Lynch and Jackson. The Dolphins are smart enough to figure ways to get both RBs involved, why can't the Bills? 2. The young OL begins to gel. This will be hard considering what we have at OT. But if Bell comes along and Scott is at least not too much of a liability, that would be a plus. If that happens -- with very little maneuvering in the off-season (a decent OT in the draft and QUALITY depth via the draft and free agency), we could have the makings of a very good OL for a long time. 3. The special teams are reinvigorated. They have been historically the team's best unit for the past 4 or 5 years, but they have been a weak point this year as we all know. In fact, competent play here could have resulted in 2 more victories -- in which case, the Bills would be tied for 1st place in the division. 4. The defense is so depleted that it is hard to know where to start. Palmer looked decent on Sunday, and Ellison has actually played surprisingly well this year. The good news is that Poz should be coming back in a couple of weeks, so that should help the run D right away. Meanwhile, Fewell and Sanders need to come up with some way of getting Maybin more involved. For as little as he has actually done, I can't believe that Ellis wouldn't be an improvement at this point. Honest to God, if I were Ralph I would bring in a real football guy like Mike Holmgren, and put him in a sort of overseer role for the rest of the year. Then when the season is over, he would have the insight necessary to make the necessary moves in the off-season.

All good ideas. I would actually probably cut Roscoe at this point. It may be moot, because he SHOULD be the odd man out when Hardy is cleared to play anyway. In addition I would also do the following: 1. AVP is clearly in over his head. Bring in a well respected former OC (like Mike Martz) to perform in a consulting role. 2. Move Terence McGee back to kickoff returns. 3. Find some veteran LBs as well.

I have been thinking a lot about this lately. Part of the problem that the team has run into the last decade has been brought about by the people whose power it is to make decisions, making the WRONG decisions based on warped perceptions -- in many cases from their own past history. Lets start with Ralph. He had every right to fire John Butler, who was clearly going to go to San Diego no matter what Ralph offered him to stay. Butler had also left the team in horrible cap shape and recent drafts had also left the team deplete of talent. Ralph made what was at the time as astute decision to hire Tom Donahoe, a real football guy -- and gave him unprecedented control of the team. When TD failed (which I'll get to in a minute) and Ralph was forced to fire him 5 years later, Ralph came to a faulty conclusion: that the reason that the team had failed was because he (Ralph) had divorced himself of making any real football decisions and had in essence given a GM too much power. Thus, he decided not to do this again and has been keen (in both the case of Marv and Brandon) to hire guys that are not true "football" guys and did not have total control. The correct conclusion should have instead been that, perhaps, TD was not the RIGHT guy. And the correct solution to the team's existing problems would be to hire someone else that is a "real" football guy to run the day-to-day operations of the team. Going back to TD... I do not feel that his time in Buffalo was a TOTAL failure. He certainly did clean up the cap mess and brought in some decent players via free agency and the draft. But the team failed to make the playoffs in his five years here, so he had to go. I believe that the biggest reason that the team stumbled so badly is because of his poor coaching hires . Both Gregg Williams and Mike Mularkey were inexperienced, smaller-than-life figures. When you understand that the whole reason why TD was available in the first place was because he had recently lost a power struggle with the larger-than-life Bill Cowher, it makes more sense. TD had probably promised himself that he would NEVER hire another coach again that would have the stones to usurp his power. So, by clinging to this paranoid fear, he was essentially spelling his own eventual doom, as his own fate would be intertwined with that of whatever coach he hired. If we want to extend this even further, we can talk about Jauron, who knew heading into the season that he was on the hot seat. So what does he do? Surrounds himself with an inept group of assistants, so that there is no viable interim head coaching candidate, which of course makes it hard for Ralph to fire him in-season. Now, maybe if he had fired Turk sooner rather than later and hired a competent, experienced replacement, he wouldn't even be on the hot seat!

How about Trent missing a wide open Lee Evans for what would have possibly been a 99 yard TD? Of course, Lee didn't exactly lay out for it either.

Actually, this is more of an indictment as to how STUPID the Browns were in that situation. It actually started on the previous play with Jamal Lewis taking it outside. It worked for the Browns because the Bills defenders were too foolish/inept to shove him out of bounds before he reached the first down marker. However, that effectively gave the Bills another timeout. Once they had it first down at the 5-6 yard line, they should have just milked the clock and taken a knee on the next three downs -- and then kicked their field goal. The Browns then compounded this by kicking it out of bounds on the ensuing kickoff. A team with a real QB and and better than half wit OC would have at least had a chance from the 40 yard line with 23 seconds left to get into scoring range.

Actually, this is the most positive thing I have heard all year. It tells me that Ralph is at least considering a replacement -- possibly outside the organization, given the time it is taking. To be honest, firing DJ and replacing him with one of his assistants doesn't really help anything.

If they MUST promote from within, the only possible candidate would have to be Fewell, given that his defense did actually play fairly well today -- especially considering all the injuries.

IIRC, last year Ryan's Raiders did have Trent's number through 3 quarters, when he was sending a lot of blitzers. When he inexplicably backed off, Trent rallied the team. I would expect heavy blitzing on Sunday. The OL and RBs had better be ready.