Mickey

Jackson is a lightning strike, you don't count on that kind of thing. No one is counting anyone out but this thread was started on the idea that we don't need to draft a LT because of this guy. 'Cuz he looked good against the Colts' back ups? I don't get it.

I agree, he played his heart out as he always does but the results are mediocre at best. If you are a LB on the worst defense in the NFL against the run, you have a problem. At some point, the excuses have to stop. Injuries, a poor surrounding cast, etc. The truth is, so far he is not the play making impact player we thought we were drafting.

Why? Does he play left tackle? One player isn't going to turn this team from a joke to a serious contender. We have no idea if Butler can play RT, he was hurt so early in the season that we didn't get a chance to see what he could do. It isn't as if he played lights out in preseason. And now we have to wonder if the injury is going to slow him down. Wood's injury was awful, just awful. How well will he recover? Both Wood and Levitre played well as rookies, as rookies. TO is leaving. That doesn't sound to me like an offense that is just one player away from being a serious contender.

Vinny Testaverde would be an upgrade

I think first you have to go back and analyze every other play in the game just as closely and see how many calls they blew for both sides. I was pulling for Green Bay but the Cards beat them fair and square. It was a lot of fun watching that game, I think I saw more TDs scored in that game then I the Bills scored all season, almost anyway.

I have no problem with him not playing when the doc tells him he can't. I still don't want him on my team though, I just don't think he is an NFL QB, doesn't have the arm. Just another college QB benefitting from playing in a dominant program. Rally, after the Mike Williams thing, I am not sure I ever want us to pick a guy from Texas again. That wound still bleeds.

My assessment of the OL is more pessimistic than that. I think we are forgetting that Butler playing RT was an experiment that was never finished because he was hurt so early. It is not as if he was moved there from guard because of the quality of his play. That move was one of necessity. Whether or not Butler can play RT well enough is an unknown, even more so now that he has to recover from a serious injury. Moreover, I think Hangartner was, at best, mediocre. You'll know this line is truly improved when a guy like Hangartner is no longer good enough to start on it. Yes, we do need a LT but we may very well need a RT as well as a C too before we can hope to be respectable. As for Wood and Levitre, I think they played well enough, for rookies. They need to take a sizeable step forward next year or they will end up being young Jeff Hangartners, ie, back-ups on good teams and starters on crappy ones.

College football history is littered with guys who won championships and Heismans and who were NFL flops. Take Danny Wuerffel: Wuerffel attended the University of Florida. One of the most decorated players in Florida's football history, Wuerffel won the 1996 Heisman Trophy while quarterbacking the Gators to the consensus national championship with help from teammates Fred Taylor at running back, Reidel Anthony, Ike Hilliard and Jacquez Green at receiver and Jeff Mitchell on the offensive line. He led the Florida Gators to four consecutive Southeastern Conference titles between 1993 and 1996, and the 1996 National Championship, won in decisive fashion (52-20) over archrival Florida State University at the 1997 Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the only Heisman Trophy recipient to receive the Draddy, which is presented by the National Football Foundation and the College Football Hall of Fame to the nation’s top football scholar-athlete. Wuerffel was a First-team All-America selection in 1995 and 1996 and two-time recipient of the Davey O'Brien Award as the nation's top college quarterback both of those seasons. Also awarded the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award award as the nation's top senior quarterback. In 1995 he also was awarded the Sammy Baugh Trophy, emblematic of the nation's top collegiate passer. Also in 1996 he was named the NCAA QB of the Year but the Touchdown Club of Columbus.[1]. He was named to the Gainesville Sun’s UF Team of the Century in 1999 and was chosen the century’s top Gator offensive player by that publication. Also a member of the Florida Gator's 100th Anniversary Team, which was chosen in 2006. He finished his Gator career by completing 708 of 1,170 passes for 10,875 yards with 114 touchdown passes, the best in SEC history and second-most in major college history. His career pass efficiency rating of 163.56 was the best in major college history and his percentage of passes which went for a touchdown (9.74) ranked first in collegiate history. In 1995, his efficiency rating of 178.4 set a single-season collegiate record. During his Heisman-winning season of 1996, he completed 207 of 360 passes for 3,625 yards (an SEC record at the time) for 39 touchdowns (leading the nation) and his efficiency rating of 170.6 made him the first quarterback to ever post a rating of 170 or better in back-to-back years. No, the achievments are not exactly the same but close enough. The point being that a guy can have a great, great, unbelievably great college career and not have a ghost of a chance to make it in the NFL. I wouldn't write the guy off by any means but I sure as hell wouldn't make him the keystone of a rebuilding project either.

Virtually all those guys won national championships and were flops, they all won Heisman's and were flops. Besides, thats a ridiculous question any way. I could just as easily justify drafting anyone named "Montana" by asking, can you name me an NFL QB named "Montana" that hasn't made it to the hall of fame? Winning the heisman especially is just about the worst justification you could give for drafting a guy in the first round. Tell me how many heisman's Jim Kelly won? How many national championships did Marino win? Winning those is no more proof of NFL success than not winning them is proof that a player won't make it in the pros. Kelly and Marino didn't have the college resume that Tebow has but they had some things that he doesn't. Like an NFL caliber arm. I know it would be a great lollipops and unicorns story for Tebow to go on to greater success, no one likes to see a great story end. But that is what the NFL is for a lot of players save a lucky few, where their dreams come to an end.

Oh please, Trent worked his butt off and so did JP, work ethic alone won't get it done. Kelly spent more time enjoying life than he ever did drilling on mechanics or studying film. This team simply can't afford to gamble their high picks away on a player like Tebow. Every pick is a gamble but this guy more so than a number of other QB's we might have a shot of taking. Tebow is the Gerry McNamara of football. So many reasons to love the guy but the reality is that he is a highy questionable NFL prospect.

History is absolutely littered with college QB's with great numbers, championships, awards, etc., who were colossal flops in the NFL. Tebow is simply the latest version of that. See, Toretta, Gino; Crouch, Eric; Ware, Andre; Wuerfel, Danny; Detmer, Ty.

I am more convinced than ever that he is not an NFL QB after watching that game. The guy stares a hole through his receivers right from the snap and his release is as slow as molasses. More often than not he throws a flutter ball that in the winter winds of the Ralph will get blown around like lake effect snow. He will get eaten alive in the big leagues.

Frankly, I find the blurb about reading bible verses with a buddy in the locker room as his favorite pre-game ritual to be a lot stranger than naming Dakota Fanning as his favorite actress. Just seems sort of a passive approach to me. How does that get the adrenaline flowing?

My sentiments exactly, must be hard to have started the season with such promise, such potential and to have it end this way. Bad enough to have your career fall apart on the edge of success but to have to hit the meat market after an injury, youch. He is a fine youngman and has nothing to be ashamed of, he put in the time and gave it all he had. If he is smart, he will regroup and accept that maybe being a career back-up wouldn't be the worst thing ever.

How on earth anyone could completely absolve a Middle Linebacker from any responsibility for the team being dead freaking last against the run is beyond my comprehension.

But even if you are wrong, even if he was just a bit better than average, that is just as good as what we have now. So if we kept Fletcher, the defense would be no worse than it is now and we would have the pick we used to take Poz. Everytime we lose a guy like that I essentially post the same thought, you don't get better by losing good players. The response is always that it would have "cost too much to keep him". And yes, I agree that at some point a salary demand is so far out of whack with a guy's ability that it makes sense to let a good player go but that is the exception. With the Bills, its the rule. There is a loose connection between salary cap management and winning but it is a tenuous one. The connection between keeping good players and winning is rock solid.

Not McCoy, NOT McCoy, for the love of God, not McCoy.

...and we got beat by Cleveland. Sure it could happen, this is football. But the odds are not good.

Oh great, another excuse for pollyannas to cite to prove that we really are a playoff caliber team, we are just unlucky. .....and we are, but still.....we kinda sucked even before the injuries started mounting.

Do you really think this team should be gambling on a guy like Tebow???

The running game hasn't "re-emerged", they just had the good fortune of playing Kansas City. Fewell is letting them be more aggressive on offense and that has helped a bit but that is about the only improvement I have seen. Even that might be more a function of starting Fitz over Trent than anything else. I like Fewell and I think he is doing a competent job given the hand he was dealt and he might even be a decent head coach. But that is not the point. I don't think he is the best candidate out there, not even close. I have the same reaction to people who think that two lousy wins, one against the woeful Chiefs, means that Fewell would be a great hire as HC as I do to all those who were so convinced that we didn't need to keep Peters because Chambers and Walker played so well in his absence. Wish I had the time to check and see if they are the same people, wouldn't surprise me.

We were healthy in preseason and the results were the same. This team isn't struggling just because of the injuries, they were in trouble long before those started to pile up. Afterall, those guys didn't all go on IR at once on opening day.

Crap. I think he is the guy best suited for the Bills and with the glut of QB's this year, we had a slim chance at nabbing him. The next best guy is probably Clausen but I could live with Pike or Bradford. I'll pass on McCoy.

I think to be a contender, you have to have a pass rush that can consistently generate pressure. That is one thing we definitely do not do. The defense is better than the offense, but on the whole, its just average and average usually doesn't win, or even contend for, a championship.

My reaction is not nearly so positive Bill. KC is a really, really bad team. And yet, if that WR didn't drop that pass at the end, we very likley would have lost that game. Poz may not be a wink link but he is hardly the playmaker we had hoped he would be when we drafted him. KC's best success in the passing game was down the middle of the field, the zone Poz covers. Not a bust but not exactly a guy opposing teams are scheming to avoid. He did have a good game but it was the Chiefs for crying out loud. Always nice to win a game. But jeeez.