Mickey

Don't get me wrong, I want JP to start and I hope they stick with him as I don't see us as a serious contender this year. At the same time, I reject the idea that no matter what happens, no matter how bad he might play, we absolutely must, must, must, must start him for 16 games or else we will never ever know if he can play or not.

No doubt, Holcomb was having a great game on the road against a very good team up until about the last 10 minutes of the 4th quarter. Then he stunk up the place. JP on the other hand, at home mind you, had a lousy first, second, third and fourth quarter agains the Patriots. So who had the better game against the Pats?

Actually, no, its not the ONLY reason, JP was hurt in wk 13 against NE and did not recover for the rest of the year forcing the coaches to start Holcomb. Is that your complaint, that the coaches were pussies for not giving JP the chance to experience the wonders of playing while hurt in meaningless games for a team who was out of it?

Was not starting JP when he was hurt over the last three games of the season where you think the coaches screwed up and panicked? JP hurt his shoulder and thigh against NE in our 13th game. He didn't recover thus Holcomb started the last three.

Holcomb only started the last three games, not the last 4 and that was because JP hurt his shoulder and thigh against NE. Because JP was hurt, Holcomb started against Denver, Cinn. and the Jets to close out the season. Thus, JP started 8 games, played most of the KC game and was injured for 3 others. That leaves only 4 lousy games where the coaches could have played him but didn't. Of those 4, which were played in succession (Miami, NY, Oakland and NE) we won the first two. Crazy, stupid, dumb, useless, drooling, moronic coaches. Benching a guy in week 4 when we are still in the hunt just because we lose three straight and then having the nerver to stick with a guy who rattles off a couple wins nearly rescuing the season and then following up that foolishness by refusing to start an injured QB who is the future of the franchise in the last three totally meaningless games. Don't they understand that the invaluable experience he would have gained in those useless contests were easily worth risking the guys entire future by playing him hurt?

You really need to check your facts. The revisionist history of the Bills circa 2005 is bad enough but lets not rewrite the history of the Cowboys and Broncos as well just to weave a narrative that blames everyone but JP for his lackluster performance so far. Steve Walsh played in 8 games in Aikman's first year, throwing 219 passes (Aikman threw 293 times) so actually, the Cowboys did bench Aikman. Nice comparison. Cowboys were 3-13 in 1988 and thus had no serious chance at the playoffs in 1989, Aikman's first year starting. They had nothing to lose in giving him all that time to learn and even so, they didn't hesitate to use Walsh. In Elway's first year, he split time with Steve DeBerg who played in 10 games and actually completed only 4 fewer passes that year than Elway did. Oh, and the year before Denver was 2-7. Because the played DeBerg whose numbers were much better than Elway's, the Broncos made the playoffs that year as a wild card finishing the season at 9-7. In contrast, the Bills narrowly missed the playoffs the year before starting JP and stuck with him no less than Denver did with Elway or Dallas did with Aikman. The examples you cite actually support the arguement you are trying to defeat. The only real argument here is over those last three games. People forget however that JP hurt his shoulder against New England and that is why Holcomb started the next week against Denver: "Holcomb, a journeyman backup, made his first start in five games in place of J.P. Losman, who hurt his throwing shoulder and left leg in last weekend's 35-7 loss to New England. Holcomb finished 22 of 35 for 202 yards. " See Denver v. Buffalo He was still hurt the following week when Holcomb started against Cincy: "Filling in a second straight week for injured J.P. Losman, Holcomb became the first Bills quarterback to throw for 300 yards in the last 45 games..." See Bills v. Cinn. And his shoulder and thigh still hadn't recovered before the finale against the Jets so Holcomb started again. See Losman future on hold So, did the coaches mismanage JP by not starting him with an injured shoulder? Did they mismanage him by sticking with him after 3 straight losses? Did they mismanage him by not benching Holcomb before the Oakland game after two straight wins with him as the starter? Did they mismanage JP by going to a veteran when he wasn't playing well as did Dallas with Walsh/Aikman and Denver with Elway/DeBerg? Were they fools for thinking they had a legit shot at the playoffs after just missing out in 2004 and should have used the entire season as a 16 game extension of training camp? I have every hope that JP is going to be our starter for years to come but to delude ourselves into thinking that this guy would be leading us to the SB this year if not for those bat sh$t crazy coaches who just ruined him last year or that his often dismal performances were 100% the fault of others is just silly.

I agree with you, those losses were not all his fault but at the same time, we were losing and the season was fast going up in smoke. Its not surprising at all to me that they gave Holcomb a try under those conditions. Certainly one can argue that the hook was too quick and all but really, the idea that they were bat sh#t crazy for giving Holcomb a shot is serious overstatement. As far as the home vs. away idea, that has some merit. However, I would note that one of the best games Holcomb played all year was against New England, on the road and that JP's worst performance was at home against the same team. Holcomb completed 20 for 26yards including a 55 yard TD to Moulds and had us up 16-7 with only 10 minutes to play. Despite our 4th quarter collapse, he finished the game with a QB rating of 83. At home against NE, JP was sacked twice, threw three picks, completed only 10 passes and finished the game with a QB rating of 33 in a 35-10 loss. One pick was in the endzone ending what would have been a scoring drive for us and another was returned the other way for 6. In fact, the only road win of the entire season was against Cincy where Holcomb threw for over 300 including a 65 yard TD to Evans. It is the only game tape from lasty year that I still have on the DVR.

Yeah, screw Eli. I just never liked that dude. I remember watching the draft that year and seeing the look on his face with that Charger hat jammed on his head and how he had a puss on his face down to the floor. I remember thinking, "man, if I was a charger fan I'd want to choke that arrogant little $#@$" Imagine, the number one freaking pick in the whole draft and he is standing there looking like he was standing in the wrong line at the DMV. Like I needed yet another reason to despise the Giants.

That is exactly what I wrote, that the real argument against the coaches for not starting JP is over those last games when the season was in the dumper anyway. We agree there. Early on though, with the team dropping three straight and JP struggling, I don't think its fair to declare the coaches a drooling pack of cretinous morons for giving Holcomb a shot and then, after winning two straight, how in the world do you justify benching him? Certainly people can disagree over whether they should have given JP another start, especially since, as you point out, we had two home games coming up. I would not find that an unreasonable position to take. By the same token, what they did in giving Holcomb a try, given the situation, was a reasonable move as well.

Really, you were calling for Holcomb to be benched during the week before the Oakland game after we were 1-3 with JP and 2-0 with Holcomb? Had you already decided to sacrifice the season as simply a 16 week extension of training camp for JP?

They should have drafted me. My 40 time is only twice as slow as his but I'll play for 1/10th the pay so on a dollar per second of speed basis, they would come out way ahead. Plus, they could have had me as late as the 3,557th round.

I love it. As crazy as it seems to get into an arguement like this, I think that for a couple of guys to get into a sharp debate over how smart it was or wasn't to extend the contract of a right tackle is a demonstration of just how hard core we Buffalo fans are. Clearly, we all enjoy our insanity too much when it comes to the Bills to ever take our medication.

I actually disagree with you when it comes to Marv's performance so far but at the same time, you are right on about the insult fest. There is no need for that. Your post basically started off with some observations on personnel moves that aren't going so well and concluded that Marv's start isn't so hot. The first responses were sarcastic stuff about tar and feathers and then AD chimed in with a personal insult and things degenerated from there. Too bad. I think Kelly's comment was right on, that Marv has done some good, some bad and its too early to reach any conclusions. My take, or hope rather, is that Marv isn't out to prove that he is smarter than everyone else by pulling off noteworthy, attention getting personnel moves. TD was always making headlines with this or that big move. Whitner an McCargo were examples of that. He didn't try to show how clever he was by trading down and screwing around with the picks. Our top need was a safety and he took the best one on the board at the time our pick came up. Our next top need was a DT and he got the best guy still on the board when we took him. Everyone is speculating that if he made that trade, did this or that fancy move, he could have got an extra pick or two and still filled those needs. Maybe so. It is what TD would have done and no doubt Kiper would have rated our draft an "A+" just like all of TD's other drafts. Of course, most of those wonderful drafts turned out to be disasters a few years later. As for those who disagree, I respect their opinions because reasonable minds can differ on whether Marv could have parlayed that 8th pick into something better. I think he played it safe, got some good young players at postions of obvious need. He won't make headlines but he might just be building a winner.

I think they did expect growing pains which is why they brought in Holcomb. A willingness to weather growing pains is one thing, throwing in the towel on the season is quite another. They didn't exactly bench him at the frist sign of trouble, they did it after three disastrous performances, the losses to Tampa, Atlanta and New Orleans. I don't recall anyone back then labeling the coaches a bunch of morons for giving Holcomb a shot. They had no idea Holcomb was going to then quarterback the team to two straight wins. Imagine the reaction back then if, after JP's awful start and Holcomb's two wins, the coaches had benched Holcomb to give JP another shot. I am willing to bet that those who are now declaring the coaches to have been morons for not starting him every game last year regardless of results would have been up in arms if they had benched Holcomb after those two wins and reinserted JP. Do a search of posts on the board for the week before the Oakland game and tell me how many you see stridently arguing to put JP back in. To be fair, I am sure that if Holcomb had not been hurt in the KC game and we had lost that game so that Holcomb had then lost three in a row just as JP had, they would have benched Holcomb. As it happened, JP played very well that game so they stuck with him for the next four games, all of them losses. That is when they went back to Holcomb. It seems to me that the QBs were rotated based on performance on the field and were not benched because of one bad play or one bad game but because of a series of bad games. Really, the only argument that does make sense in terms of the starts JP had last year is over the last three games. The season was over by then so at that point, there really was no reason to play Holcomb instead of JP. That was certainly a mistake by the coaches. Even so, that only cost JP 3 games of experience. Yeah, I wish he had those games under his belt but the fact that he doesn't isn't exactly a catastrophe.

I respect Carucci but this really the kind of thing I am tired of hearing: "...carrying himself more like a professional quarterback." and "...sense of leadership..." I want to hear concrete things like, "...he is completing his passes..." or "he is making plays against the blitz..." Carucci includes some of that when he talks about the passes being crisp and hanging the pocket longer. That is all music to my ears but that other stuff is just puffery. I really do want to believe that he has all the skills and certainly, we are going to learn that this year barring injury. Given the first two are on the road, he is going to have a real opportunity to start off right. Coming home in week 3 for the opener at 2-0 would do loads for his confidence and that of the rest of the team. Now that I would love to see.

I think there is some revisionist history based on hindsight going on here. The coaches last year didn't know that the season was going to be a wash. This was a team that just missed out on the playoffs the year before. They fully expected to win and make the playoffs last year. They weren't there to train JP, they were there to win. Its easy now to look back at the season and conclude that they weren't going anywhere anyway so we would have been better off giving JP all the starts and winning be damned. If you want to call it "panick", fine but they "panicked" because JP played very, very poorly. We lost three straight, a stretch where he threw zero TD passes, was sacked 9 times, picked off twice and had QB ratings of 51, 33 and 34. They wanted to win so they made a change and initially it worked. Going into the Oakland game, we had clawed back to 3-3 under Holcomb and were pretty optimistic about the rest of the year. I don't recall anyone complaining back then that the hook was too quick or that JP should be back under center so we could train him for the future. If we had known from day one we were going to go 5-11, fine, start him every game. But we didn't know that. What we did know was that 4 weeks in we were 1-4, JP was playing terribly and the season was lost if we didn't do something.

The third bolgia of hell

..and the best publicist.

I don't think that poster meant "proven talent", just "talent". On that score you have Spikes, Clements, McGee, Schobel, Fletcher, Vincent and Tripplet on defense to go along with some young guys with lots of promise like McCargo, Youboty, Whitner (if he ever signs), Simpson, King, Greer, Williams, Baker and Kasay. On offense you have Evans, Willis, Peters and some up and comers like Parrish and maybe Everett. Add in some decent FA acquisitions like Royal, Reyes and Fowler and there is something there to work with. Certainly there are still high hopes for JP and that is coming from people like myself who is very tough in grading him, too tough I'm told. There is talent enough here to work at least even if we won't dominate the pro bowl roster quite yet.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that we give up on him. Just that he needs to improve markedly this year and if he doesn't, we have find a plan B in case this doesn't ever work out. I agree, we really don't have one now.

That last part really makes sense. If he really playing that bad, I mean really bad, I don't see how you can keep him in and still avoid a mutiny in the locker room. What would be the point anyway? Draft position?

That's all I am saying. That and I was hoping he would perform better than he has so far in camp. I am looking forward to reading the first camp report that raves about what a great day JP had in practice. It'll happen.

I think you can take a safety at that position but you better know that it isn't going to save you any money. An 8th pick is an 8th pick. If you aren't going to pay No. 8 money to a safety, don't take a safety at No. 8.

I agree but would add that the reason Aikman had 32 starts and JP only 8, is in part because JP couldn't keep Kelly Holcomb on the bench. Yes, part of that is the fault of the coaches for not sticking with JP though I didn't hear a lot of complaining when the switch was made and we won two in a row. By the same token, if JP had played better, he wouldn't have given the coaches the chance to make that mistake. Although the lack of starts hurt his development without question, its not like he was selling bibles on sunday. He was there for every practice, every meeting and had a chance to learn without dealing with the pressure to produce right away. At the time, quite a few folks around here were full of praise for how we wisely let him sit back and learn instead of wasting a year throwing him to the wolves. There has always been a legitimate debate over whether its better to throw them in to the ring from the get go like Aikman and Peyton Manning or to let them sit a year and learn like Palmer. I have no idea which is better, I am sure we could find examples where each worked or didn't work for this or that player. Arguably, JP has had the benefit of both, one year learning and another year in the lion's den, 1/2 on the field, 1/2 dealing with being benched. Hopefully, this year is his year.

Plamer sat one year, started the next and played well his first year starting and played very well last year, his third year in the league and his second as the starter. No one is suggesting that JP had to make it to the pro bowl his first or second years or even this year. I do think however that he has to have a good year this year and show marked improvement as compared to last year. By asking that, we are asking no more from him than was asked of Palmer. Really, if JP finishes this year with the same level of performance as he did last year, I guarantee that we will all be advocating that Marv consider another option or at least have a "plan B".