Mickey

Right, hard to say what our "needs" are at this point. We will have to wait and see what happens with free agency first. I think this draft has a lot of good CB's, so many that we might even find a starter in the second round. I think they like Kiwaukee to hold down the fort until Youboty is ready for prime time. Marv loves DB's but I also think he'd jump at the chance to get a dual threat back like Thurman, er...um..*cough*...I mean Marshall Lynch.

The problem is that there might not be a player at any of those positions available worth drafting that high. Alan Branch might not still be there when we pick at 12. What inside backer do you see as worth the 12th pick in the draft? What DT would you take at 12 besides Branch? Amobi Okoye, Quinn Pittock? There are some good OT prospects but is that where we want to go given the development of Pennington? I would think G or C would be the more likely candidates and there isn't a guy at either spot that would be worth the 12th pick. Lynch is a special player and there are good prospects at G and DT in the second round. I think he could be as good as LT and if you have a shot at a guy this good, you take him and worry about need later. That is what the second and third rounds are for.

I'd love to get this guy in the draft. Check out his Heisman site, it has links for his video highligts for every game he played over the the last two years. Willis just isn't all that great. I know, our line is bad but even so, Willis is nothing special. This guy is. Think Thurman, think LT.

Can't really figure that pick out without knowing the fate of Fletcher, Clements and Kelsay as well as what FA's we sign. Assuming the roster on Draft day is the same as it is now, I would take Marshawn Lynch RB Cal. and never look back. I don't see any possibility of him being available at 12 but if by some miracle he is, Marv will nab him. This a draft rich with CB's so even if Nate was gone, if the draft went like this and Lynch was there, I'd still take him and wait for Rd. 2 to get a CB. Daymeion Hughes for example or Fred Bennett or Aaron Ross, etc. We'd be nuts to pass on Lynch. Assuming Lynch were gone but otherwise your first 11 was the same, unless Branch, Hall or maybe Posluszny dropped, I'd give strong consideration to Miller at TE.

I disagree. Royal played poorly. He had a number of significant drops and he blew a TD that may well have cost us a game we absolutely had to win. He also did nothing to distinguish himself as a blocker. He has to take his share of the blame when it comes to our anemic running game. A good TE can be pivotal to an offense. A guy too big to be covered by a SS and too fast to be convered by a LB presents real problems for a defense. Sometimes a TE that good can force a defense to play a nickel back even when the offense might run the ball. A big target with soft hands who can block is great to have in the redzone and on third down and 3-7 yards or so to go. It might not be our biggest need given the trouble we have at G, DT, MLB and maybe CB but it is definitely a need. I would have no problem picking up a TE like Miller.

Maybe so but isn't that from all his income sources, not just the Bills? I thought his business concerns went way beyond the Bills. Why would a new owner want to keep the Bills in Buffalo if he can double or triple his investment in another city? Even if the family wanted to find an owner who was willing to pay what the franchise was worth who would keep the team in Buffalo, how in the world would they find such a person and how could they enforce such a promise? First of all, the family is going to want market value which is a figure that would be based on the worth of an NFL franchise in whatever city currently wants a team bad enough. The value isn't going to be based on the what an NFL team in Buffalo NY is worth. That will be a very large figure, maybe 750 million, who knows? Who in the world would pay 750 million for a franchise and then keep it in a location where its earnings reduce its value to 500 million? I just think it is a pipe dream that someone is going to be willing to sacrifice a few hundred million bucks to keep the team in Buffalo. God bless Ralph for not cashing in and moving years ago. Our best bet is to keep him alive or hope that somehow he has found a way to force his heirs to keep the team here. I want to hope that his daughters, a new owner, the league, someone will do whatever needs to be done to keep the team in Buffalo but I just don't see it happening. Its math.

I'm not sure the inheritance tax is really much of a factor in the decisions being made by the Wilson family members. The fact is that this franchise as an asset has a huge value, not because it is generating buckets of cash where it is now, in Buffalo. Its huge value and corresponding huge inheritance tax is based on its market value. That value is massive because of the cash it can generate somewhere else. Simply moving will raise an ubelievable amount of money as whatever city that wants this team bad enough will make whatever deal it takes with a post-Ralph owner. Even if there were no taxes, the heirs of Ralph Wilson would make way more money from selling the team than they will make in year to year operational income. If you had a choice between selling the team for 750 million or keeping it and cleraing 3 or 4 million per year, what would you do? The problem is not tax law, it is the inescapable fact that this team, this asset, can generate waaaaaaay more cash in another city than it can in Buffalo. Because it can, buyers will be willing to pay boatloads of cash for this team and that sale will generate far more income for the heirs than would keeping the team. Probably the best alternative to selling the team for the heirs is to keep it and move it to a more profitable location themselves. The inescapable logic of math is unfortunately going to cost us this team eventually.

I remember having all these stats thrown at me proving that Edwards was better, that Pat was past his prime.

Is that in contrast to all the winning we've been doing?

Losing his mom cost him a lot of valuable PT in camp and on top of that, Kiwaukee Thomas played very well, much better than expected which made it less critical to get Youboty off the bench. Greer has a lot more experience on special teams which is really the only place where Youboty was going to play because of Thomas so it made sense to go they way they did. I think Youboty will prove his worth next year. I think Thomas will probably start in place of Clements. Youboty, Greer and whatever people we draft will duke it out for spots on the nickle and dime packages. Maybe Youboty or, if we draft a CB highly, a rookie, will take the starting job from Thomas 5 or 6 games in. Of course, all of that changes if Clements stays.

I don't think there is any question that this draft turned out a lot better than most hereabouts thought it would. It might have been even better if McCargo had not been hurt. We will have to wait another year to see how he does. Whitner and Simpson played very well for rookies. Given how poorly our line was on the inside and how much the safeties had to help shore up a lousy run defense, I think they played remarkably well. With a run defense that weak and with little or no inside pass rush, the secondary was exposed much of the time. There is nothing wrong with either of those guys that a stronger interior line and little more experience won't cure. I think Williams surprised a lot of people and though he may only be a quality back-up, I wouldn't bet against him. Pennington certainly played well for a rookie. If he takes a step to the next level in 2007, this could end up becoming one of our best drafts ever. That assessment may get even rosier when Youboty gets a chance to play. One of the main reasons he didn't get time was because of how well K.Thomas played. I can't fault the GM for making such a good FA pick up that it kept one of his draft picks on the bench. Just after the draft, the mood around here was pretty bleak, hysterical even. Compare that with this discussion on whether Whitner is an "impact" player or merely a solid perennial starter. Pretty big difference. I only hope Marv does this well next year. Frankly, I'd love to see some of the draft gurus who so maligned his last draft eat their words.

I think Plan B is Thomas. He was the 5th DB for pretty much the whole year. Ashton is more likely a nickle back next year.

Pennington is getting a lot of help. On most passing plays, the back is going over to help him right from the snap unless there is someone screaming in unblocked elsewhere. That is what makes the play of the other guys, especially Peters, that much more impressive. They are mostly holding down the fort on their own with no one backing them up. The pass protection has been excellent compared to what it was in the first half of the season but at the same time, they haven't done much of anything to open holes in the run game. They did against the Jets but they did that earlier with Reyes and Villarial. There is certainly reason to be optimistic with this line but at the same time, for us to be a real contender, the line still needs to be upgraded or play better.

At the start of training camp, I argued that JP's biggest problem and the thing he most had to correct was accuracy, especially in the red zone. Last year he was awful, with only a 31% completion percentage in the red zone. This year, he has a 67% completion percentage to go along with 8 TDs, zero interceptions and a QB rating of 116 in the red zone. In the 4th quarter with the score within 7 either way, he has a 62% completion percentage, 5 TDs and only one pick. Overall, his QB rating was 65 last year and currently is at 85 this year. He needed to improve his accuracy and he has done just that. I think that we have our QB for the forseeable future.

I know, it sounds like a lot but when you look at it game by game, we really don't need a bunch of crazy upsets. For most of the games, we just need the favorite to win. Take next week, I listed Carolina over the Steelers and Indy over Cinn but those aren't strictly necessary for us to make the playoffs, I just threw them in because those out comes will help us in the long run. Actually, we only need the Steelers to lose one game and after Carolina they have Baltimore and Cinn. I really don't think we have to worry about the Steelers but if Carolina did beat them, they would be out of the picture from the git go. I think it help us for Cinn to get knocked out of the division race so that the last game of the season for Baltimore against us is meaningless so I think it helps if the Bengals lose to Indy but it really isn't at all critical to our playoff hopes. That means that next week, we just need to beat Miami which, at home and in the cold, is probably a good bet for us. We need the Titans to beat J'ville and why not? The Jags are up and down and the Titans are hot right now, very hot. The have won 4 in a row and 7 of the last 9. One of those two losses was the Ravens by only one point. The Titans are home for that game as well. Not only that but we only need J'ville to lose two and their next two are against New England and KC. Neither of those is a cake walk. Still, a loss to the Titans would be great for us. I don't think a Titan win would even be considered an upset. We need the Jets to lose to the Vikings. At least they are at home and really, the Jets are overrated. I think we showed that to be true on Sunday. Maybe this would be a mild upset of sorts but certainly not a crazy one. Not only that but it isn't necessary that the Jets lose here. If we get into a tie breaker with the Jets, it goes all the way down to "strength of victory". That will likely favor us. Where we lost to Detroit, they lost the Jags who we beat and that will definitely help our strenght of victory numbers. Also, we play Baltimore and assuming we beat them (the only way any of this works out is if we win out), that win will match quite nicely against the Jets win over Oakland. In the end, the wins they have that we don't would be Oak, NE, Det and Clev and the wins we have that they don't would be Balt, Miami and the Jags. Clearly, Balt-Miami-Jags will have a better won-lost percentage than NE-Clev-Oak-Det. So, all we need is for the Jets to lose one, two would be nicer but one will do. The Denver game is the problem. We need them to lose two of three and they have Cinn left so that should be one loss. Neither SF or AZ is much good and we are out if Denver wins those two. Still, that gives us two shots at a mild upset. The Cardinal game is Denver's only road game left so I like that one for the upset more than SF. Denver has dropped 4 in a row so, again, I don't think them losing 2 out of 3 is so crazy. Lets say that we don't get real lucky this weekend and some of the games go against us. For example, lets say that we win and the Titans win but so do Denver and the Jets. That puts us one game behind Denver, J'Ville and the Jets. The following week the Jets are on the road in Miami for an 8:30 game and Denver is playing Cinn. I'd pick both Miami and Cinn in those two games, keeping mind that the Jets only beat Miami by 3 points at home earlier in the season when Mare missed a 51 yarder at the buzzer. J'ville is playing NE and I have no problem picking the Patriots there. Not a gimmee but certainly not a huge upset. If that happens, we end up tied at 8-8 with the Jags, Denver and the Jets, also maybe KC. We have favorable tie breakers against all those teams wit the exception of Denver. At that point, we just have to hope that SF takes them in the last game. It seem like a lot but even so, it is not as long of a shot as I thought it was before I took a long look at it.

The J'ville KC game is actually a good thing for us. One of them has to lose and we have very good tie breaks against both. KC is 3-6 in the conference. Assuming they lose to San Diego, beat Oakland and then beat J'ville, they would finish with a 5-7 conference record. Assuming we win out which is really the only realistic scenario for us to make it, we would finish with a 7-5 conference record. Since we didn't play KC and are in different divisions, the first tie-break would be conference record. As for J'ville, we beat them head to head so we win a tie break against them. They have Ten, NE and KC left so they easily could lose two if not all three. We probably need Cinn to get the other play off spot. They play Denver who is definitely in the running. We need the Bengals to take care of them for us. Denver plays Arizona, Cinn and SF and are a game ahead of us. There is a good chance they will lose to Cinn but I don't like the odds of them losing to Az or SF. If they don't and we win out, we end up tied and they have the best conference record so we would be out in the cold. Denver is actually one of our biggest problems. We need them to get upset once and to lose to the Bengals. The Jets have Minn, Miami and Oak left. We need them to lose to the Vikings and the Dolphins the following week. For us to make it to the post season would be a long shot but not as long as you might think based on ESPN's coverage of the playoff hunt on the highlight shows. They are not even listing the 6-7 teams on the board. Here is your guide on what to pull for next week: Carolina over the Steelers Tenn over J'ville Minn over Jets AZ over Denver Indy over Cinn Buff over Miami Those results would leave this list for the Wild Card hunt: Cinn 8-6 J'ville 8-6 Jets 7-7 Buff 7-7 KC 7-7 Denver 7-7 Tenn 7-7 Miami 6-8 Pitt 6-8 The following week root for: Balt over Pitt NE over J'ville Buff over Tenn Miami over the Jets Cinn over Denver Oak over KC (won't happen) Those results would leave this wild card list (changing the Oak-KC game to give KC the win since we really don't need that upset and it won't happen anyway): Cinn 9-6 J'ville 8-7 Buff 8-7 KC 8-7 Denver 7-8 Tenn 7-8 Miami 7-8 Jets 7-8 Pitt 6-9 Going in to the last week we need the following to happen: Buff over Balt That is all. If we do that we will finish tied with either J'ville of KC and we win the tie breaker against both. I think the only realy long shot in that whole scenario is Denver having to lose to either Az or SF but even that isn't such a long shot. Next week is the critical week. The games set up for us nicely the following week. Apart from Denver losing the the Cardinals, I think Minnesota over the Jets is a bit iffy as is Tenn. over J'ville. The following week we don't need any upsets, not even a mild one. We just need good teams like the Bengals not to screw up against lesser opponents. This could be interesting.

That one was on our coaches, they did not ask for a review. On replay it looked like Hargrove had it between his legs and then a Charger jumped in there and grabbed so that they both had their hands on it. I can understand why they called it the way they did if they didn't see Hargrove in the pile with the ball in his sole possession for a second or two before the Charger jumped in and created the "simultaneous possession" problem. Offense wins ties is nothing new, that rule is as old as the hills. It was a hard thing to see but if we has asked for the review, the tape did show Hargrove alone with the ball for short time so we might have won that one. Can't if you don't toss the hanky though.

The only PI call I thought they missed was the one on Reed in the 4th quarter and supposedly, the ball was tipped on the way and once that happens, there is no such thing as pass interference. Anything goes once the ball has been tipped. I have no idea if it really was tipped as I was at the game and couldn't check replays carefully. If that was the case then the referees got that call right. Does anyone know if that ball was tipped?

Actually, I think even Utica is blacked out. The problem is channel 5 out of Syracuse which is the CBS affiliate. They have a huge broadcast range. A small sliver of Yates County is close enough to the stadium to be covered by the blackout rule and their CBS channel is channel 5 out of Syracuse which means that channel can't televise the game or else those 6 people in Yates County would be getting away with seeing a blacked out game despite their proximity to the Ralph. That blacks out every city that gets their CBS feed from Syracuse's channel 5 which goes to Utica and beyond. The effective blackout for the Bills is about 300 miles. I think it even goes down to Binghamton. Albany might be the closest place where you can find a non-blacked out sports bar.

I don't agree with people who really run him down, I just think he is a fair defensive end and that is about it. We have plenty of other concerns on this defense before we can afford to upgrade his position. I don't think we have the LB's for this defense. In this defense they have to fend off blocks, the tackles aren't responsible for keeping the OL from getting to them. So far, they have had pretty mixed results. I'm hoping that as they get more snaps in this defense, they will get better. Getting Spikes back, if he can play like his old self, would really help.

In 2003 and in 2004 the defense finished the season ranked as the second best in the entire league. I would agree that the stats they use for the overall rankings are not exactly perfect measures of a defense's effectiveness but still, you don't get ranked that highly without being pretty darn good. Schobel had 11.5 sacks and 8 sacks in those two years. I think he is better than average if not by much but at the same time, I don't buy the notion that he would be dominating or something like that if he was on a better defense. He has been on better defenses. He blocked two passes and altered a couple more in the New England game. Since then, he hasn't been much of a factor on the field or in the stat book though, as I said earlier, he might be drawing some double teams based on what he did that game. I think he is a second round pick who plays like one. Others see him playing as well as a first rounder, others see him as probably worse. All I can say is that even when this defense was ranked highly, it had trouble at the end of the 1st half and late in the 4th. Opponents at those times would, because time was running out, be forced to throw every down. In response we often went with a dime package, rushing only three or four. All you need in that situation is just one lousy coverage sack to get that clock running but we rarely were able to do that without sending extra people. For me, to really think of Schobel as something quite a bit better than average, he would have to end a few drives for us with that crucial coverage sack late in the half or in the game. He rarely did and that is why we the defense couldn't close out a game. Remember that Jacksonville opener we lost at home? That is the kind of thing I mean.

Maybe but you know, we had a very good defense for a few years there and he was basically the same player. Not so great, not so bad. A little better than average but nothing to write home about. That is my opinion based on watching him and this team for years now, not just counting his sacks. If you looked just at sacks, you would conclude that he had just as good a game against the Bears as he did against the Patriots, 1 sack each game. If you actually watched the games, you would reach far different conclusions.

Focusing on one stat like that can be misleading. If you just looked at interceptions you would rate Clements much higher than Winfield but if instead, you watched them play instead of counting their picks, it would be no contest, Winfield is much better. I would trade Clements for Winfield in a heartbeat. I am so tired of seeing naked WR screens turn in to 15 yard gains because Clements missed the tackle. Belichek loves to run that play to Nates side of the field because he knows, it is just a matter of time before he blows the tackle.

I think he is an adequate DE but nothing special. The tendency is to overestimate his value because of his sack numbers. Once in a great while, he has a dominating performance but for the most part, he is a little better than average. I am not sure I can recall more than maybe one or two occasions in his entire career where he beat a double team. He is not good enough to consistently draw double teams. The one caveat I would have is that he played very well against the Patriots on opening day but hasn't had a huge game since. I wonder if maybe, after seeing that film, our opponents aren't in fact double teaming him more resulting in his numbers dropping while the ends on the opposite side have more success. I just haven't had the time to watch the film that closely. Has anyone else looked at that?

Some just aren't ever going to get over us not having taken Leinart.