I'm certainly not going to defend TD blindly. He's made his mistakes. But the whole premise of this thread is that 2-3 UFA name players on the OL market were the only available answers to our problems. Now that DeMulling is gone, we are settling for B or C Level players who don't have name recognition. I'm not willing to accept that as the final or "right" answer.
There seems to be an overwhelming presumption that TD is some madman control freak who leaves the rest of the front office and coaching staff out of personnel decisions, due to his "mis-management" of the cap. On the one hand, people are questioning why we don't have more room available to sign UFA's. Then these same people state we should have offered Jennings,Williams and other teams FA's, huge " market value ' contracts ?
Sorry but you can't play both ends of the issue. You either throw $$ at everyone recklessly and mortgage the immediate future or work within your guidelines, offering long term $$ to a certain core of players ( as dictated by the cap ).
The Bills had direct meetings with Womack and DeMulling. The presumption is that both were offered contracts and other teams outbid the Bills. I have yet to see any evidence of this, other than press speculation.
TD - " Our process on the free agent visits is very detailed. It is coordinated by John Guy and our player personnel staff. Included in the visit is a thorough physical exam and a visit with the coaches, particularly the coordinators and coach Mularkey. Our position coach for the free agent that is visiting will watch film with him and they will explain what we are trying to do with regard to our styles of play and our system. The contractual aspect with the free agents visits is really not something that we get into in any detail with the player. This is something that we would approach the agent with after the visit has been completed. "
So in closing, I'm not ready to declare the Free Agency period a disaster ( after 2 weeks ) by any stretch. I could see the limited cap and know a few other choices remain for the OL. The Draft could produce a starter in round 2 but I'll wait until Sept. to press the panic button. That's 6 months away and lots can happen between now and then.
Lack of patience can produce some very biased, bitter views with little room for debate.