Dan

Agreed, on the surface, he's stating the obvious that anyone with half a brain cell not yet intoxicated could see. However, when you're an owner or GM and making decisions literally with multi-million dollar price tags attached, its extremely beneficial to have something more than just gut feelings to go on. If I owned a team or company worth $100's of millions, you better bet I'd have an entire team of guys working up statistics like this so that I could make more informed decisions. Granted, I don't think this type of data should be the only factor in the decision, but it should certainly play an important role - IMO.

skew your data much?

We all do realize that last year there were only 7 QBs that threw for 24 or more touchdowns. There were 11 that had 20 or more. So do we all reasonably expect Trent to jump from the bottom 3rd of the league to the top third in one season? Trent threw 11 touchdowns, so he has to more than double his production to hit 24. Certainly, it seems reasonable with TO now in a Bills uniform. But, it would be a dramatic improvement.

I would say that the premise of this whole thread is flawed. Levy was here for 2 years, plus he readily admitted that he did not control all aspects of the team. By contrast TD was here for 5 years and had complete control of all aspects of the team. So how do you really compare the two? However, through shear longevity, coupled with several bad coaching hires, I would say that TD's reign was far more detrimental to the team. Interestingly, for all the flack the current FO gets, they seem to be making more sound decisions than the two previous FO incarnations. If Brandon could finally bring in a decent head coach, it would be a slam dunk.

Much agreed. What I would ask about TO - if Coles or just about any other WR had signed with the Bills, would they have still signed TO? Of course we'll never really know. But, I would suspect not. Agree about the line and Peters.

Why is that when they're trying to sign Coles or just about any other WR on the FA market, they're looking to bring in another weapon opposite Evans but if they bring in TO, its all for PR? Fact is they were looking for a WR long before TO was released. Hence, I'd say they lucked out more than they were going for a PR stunt. Also, if the Bills had made the playoffs last year, chances are they'd have made a lot of different moves this off season, as it would be proof that they had the makings of a playoff team already. The fact that they haven't made the playoffs or had a winning season with Jauron necessitates some fairly big changes in and of itself.

Just curious, but what inside information have you actually gotten that was accurate?

Why don't we just pin a thread that says: the FO was dumb to trade Peters and all attempts to bring in any new linemen are dumb because anyone we sign is a scrub or unproven and Peters is the greatest OT ever and the FO is dumb and we have the only offense in the entire league that's completely reliant on the greatest OT ever (did I mention that was Peters) and the FO is dumb and oh yeah any fan that doesn't realize that is also dumb because our FO sucks for trading the greatest player ever and dooming our entire team to sucking because Peters was the only player on the team that ever allowed us to score or did anything so the FO sucks?

Exactly. Look at the glory days of Napster. Downloading free music was occuring at a breakneck pace. The music execs wanted it shut down because they knew they could get people to pay for the music. How's that turned out? Outside of itunes and perhaps more importantly because of the success of the iPod, I'd guess music downloads are still considerably less than when it was free. So, yeah, you can charge people to read CNN or whatever. And, yeah, some people will pay. However, I'd venture a guess that CNN's overall online readership will drop dramatically and other still free sites will rise. And in the end, the people at CNN will still be wondering how they can make more money. I guess, as with all things, the consumer makes a decision based upon how much they're willing to pay for something. When it's free, I'll look at anything and everything. Why not? Charge me something... anything, and suddenly I start looking at a lot less content because now I have to weigh the cost of reading the crap. The problem is too many people think that nothing is worth doing unless you make money on it. And then when you make a little money, you have to figure out how to make more money, because suddenly yesterday's profit margin isn't enough.

I agree with you only in part. I think the league is against Hamdan starting as well. Something about breaking every league passing record with one pass. I don't know, seems like it'd take 2 maybe 3 passes to do that. But, that's what I've heard. And yes, technically, you may be right. But, if you count them one at a time... there's only one word.

I've got one word for you.... the Chroisen One! Fear not.

Hamdan Rocks! I'm looking forward to him beating out Fitzy early in camp. The Chroisen One shall not be denied.

I disagree. You stated that if Walker gets abused, then Edwards gets killed. That, in and of itself, implies that Peters would do better than Walker and Edwards would not get killed if Peters was in there. I simply implied that Edwards did get killed while Peters played; hence, he missed games last season. So, what's the difference? Last season, Peters' played and Edwards got sacked a bunch and missed a few games. If Walker is the LT and Edwards gets sacked and misses a few games, how is that any worse? In other words, why does trading Peters automatically mean that Trent gets killed and Fitzpatrick starts any more than if Peters was still here? Essentially, I'm suggesting that our offense sucked pretty bad last season - with Peters. And it may suck without him, as well. However, it's not a foregone conclusion that'll it'll necessarily suck worse.

If you take last year's "stats" at face value, Peters gave up nearly 1 sack per game that he played in. Do you really think Walker is going to average allowing more than a sack per game if he's the LT? Point being, why would he suddenly get killed just because it's someone other than Peters giving up 11 or so sacks a year? If I recall, the one game where Edwards did get killed (Arizona), Peters played. Albeit the killing sack wasn't a result of Peters' play; but it points to the fact that having Peters in the lineup does not guarantee a clean jersey on the QB.

I completely agree. And please don't take my comments as an attack on yourself. I was merely using your post as a sounding board because I can see those arguments already. I consider myself as patient as any person. I gave Jauron 3 full years. And the fact that he posted 3 consecutive 7-9 seasons is not what concerns me the most. What concerns me is exactly what you just alluded to. For 3 years we've been vanilla, predictable, and apathetic on the field. You would think at some point the offense would improve and not continually make the same mistakes. You'd think the defense could recognize a slant pattern after 3 years and do something to break one - just one - up. You'd think so many things that we as fans sitting on our coaches see as plainly as the noses on our faces could be recognized and corrected by our coaching staff. But, they're not. The only summation I can arrive at is this coaching staff doesn't have that ability. Now, with a 4th year approaching, all we can do is wait and hope that this is the year Jauron et al. put it all together. And of course, we'll wait and watch in anticipation. But, I find it hard to believe that the light will suddenly come on. If I had some reason to, perhaps, but where's the glimmer?

So what's the going rate for a strapping middle aged man sitting in a hotel room?

So will this be the excuse this year when we finish 7-9 with several poorly coached games in for good measure? Peters is gone, the new LT gave up 10 sacks. The other guys are still rookies. And so on and so forth. Edwards this. The weather that. At what point, do we say we have enough talent on this team to compete in the NFL? Can anyone honestly say that our players, as a whole, are in the bottom 3rd of the NFL? In recent years, we've seen former Bills that were considered vastly inferior go to other teams and contribute. Look no further than Gandy on the Cards and Leonard on the Ravens. Just 2 examples of players that supposedly shouldn't even have been in the NFL let alone start while with the Bills, yet other coaching staffs figured out how to use them. So what gives? At some point, isn't it the coaches job to put the players in a position to win? Yeah, the players have to execute and all those great cliches, but when it's 3 and 4 and you motion Reed to the side that you're running to for the 20th time that game while 8 and then 9 defenders rush in presnap.... well you're just not getting it done as a coaching staff. I'm sorry.

And 50 years from now, there will still be people bitching at Ralph because he didn't secure the team's really long, long term future. Because by selling it to Kelly he somehow made money off of it and hence, we only got a cumulative 100 years of NFL football. In other words some people will always find a reason to B word. Kinda like how someone starts a thread stating that Ralph should sell the team a day after what is arguably our best draft* in a decade. Incredible. *Disclaimer: By best draft I refer to the many pundits who rated it highly based on purely arbitrary rankings and in no way do I verify that this draft was either good nor our best. In short, I mostly wanted to make a point so I used hyperbole.

Please, if you will, which side are you on? I really need to make sure I'm on the other. Although, yours might be more comical.

You gotta love the subtlety of the slap.

Too late for that. Trust me.

I was going to start a similar thread, but you beat me to it. I, too, have to give the FO a nice congratulations. Yeah, they chased DBs late. But, all things considered... we had several big time needs. And each of these areas were addressed with top rated players. Not much more you can really ask for. It'll take few years to know if they made the right selections; but at this point, you have to give them some credit for identifying the needs and trying to address them. It's also nice to see all the draft pundits on ESPN and NFL Network in agreement that the Bills had one of the best drafts in the league. I know their opinions don't mean much in the final analysis, but it's refreshing none the less to see the Bills talked about favorably on the national scene. The FO definitely did their job this weekend. I agree. Now, let's hope the coaching staff can do theirs this summer and fall.

Please email this to someone at OBD and ask for an explanation. Excellent points all around. I know you don't normally expect late round picks to do much in the NFL, but continually drafting guys that play the same position as well-established starters just pretty well ensures that they won't do much. IMO, what they just did is tantamount to throwing these picks away. Why not at least try and get someone that could contribute to the team or at the very least trade them away for something next year if you just don't want them?

Seriously... why not just give the late round draft picks to someone and write it off on the team taxes as a charitable contribution. This is borderline obscene.

why