Brandon

At some point, the Bills have to commit to getting one guy as ready as possible to play for the season opener. I would have liked to have seen Nall get a shot in preseason, but his injury negated that chance. The preseason simply isn't long enough to have a lengthy competition AND ensure that the eventual winner is ready to play. The latter is more important to the team's success than the former.

He was SO bad early last year that I thought it was pretty obvious it wasn't truly an accuracy issue. If it was, he never would have made it this far in his career. He was either getting too hyped up for the game, or he was thinking too much trying not to make the big mistake instead of just playing.

Both may one day become good NFL QBs, but to this point, they've proven even less in the NFL than JP Losman. I'm not too worried that we passed over them.

I wouldn't worry about the fumbles at all. He's never shown a tendency to be a fumbler before. He just had a bad game in that regard. I'm not too concerned with TD passes or even INTs. As long as he doesn't throw more than 1 INT per game on average, I can live with it. TD passes can be misleading. More is always better, less isn't always bad. Troy Aikman had only one season with 20+ TD passes. You have to take the overall performance of the offense into account as well. I also think that the often ignored stats of yards per attempt and completion are very important. If JP is averaging 7.0+ yards per attempt and 12.0+ per completion, he's probably doing something right, regardless of what the TD/INT ratio says. He was close on the latter last year, but has some work to do on the former.

Nah, he won't be cut. He's the Joe Burns of the WR position. No one knows why either of these guys have jobs with the Bills. Its one of the great mysteries of life, I guess.

They showed a good angle of Reed running his route prior to the INT. He looked lost to me, not knowing what route to run and hesitantly choosing to break to the sidelines. JP threw the ball more towards the middle of the field.

If Losman struggles, Nall will get his chance soon enough, anyway. But I agree. Its too late in the preseason to keep depriving the eventual starter of practice snaps. Losman should be the opening day starter. How long he keeps the job is up to him.

I'd probably wait until he'd thrown more than 5 passes. That said, if he continues playing well in the last few minutes, I think its worth giving him some time playing with the 2nd team next weekend and go from there.

Actually, I think Nall was the big winner last night. Had Holcomb also played well, Nall probably would have been out of the running. But Holcomb's struggles opened the door for Nall to mount a serious challenge for the #2 job next week. Given that he's a Levy/Jauron signing, you can bet they'll give him plenty of chances this week. If he can take it away from Holcomb, then he's got a real chance of winning the starting job if not in preseason, a few weeks down the road should Losman falter in the regular season.

JP didn't have to face the Panthers starters, but don't forget that he also played the 2nd half with the Bills backups and camp fodder in the game as well.

It'll be interesting to see how the Bills divide up the snaps this week in practice. Craig Nall's return to practice probably spells even more trouble for Holcomb, as the Bills will need to find practice and preseason game reps for him. Considering how much better Losman played and that he'll be starting next week, the Bills will very likely choose to rob more of Holcomb's practice and playing time for Nall instead of Losman's. The bottomline is that once the games started, I don't think there was any room for error. There aren't enough snaps to go around to maintain a 3 QB competition and ensure that they're all being properly prepared.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Some of these OL won't even make the team, much less start.

I don't think it was even the worst performance by a Bills QB in the last couple of years. Look at this stat line from week 10 in 2004 for Drew Bledsoe: 8 of 19 for 76 yards and 3 INTS. JP was terrible at times last year, but he never quite reached that level of ineptitude.

Culpepper posted over 5,100 total yards and 41 TDs in 2004. He averaged about 26 TD passes per season from 2000 to 2004. It seems to me that if he can return healthy, there should be little doubt that he can play.

Actually, JP did show considerable statistical improvement from his first four starts to the next four games he played in. His stats against NE make him look worse in his 2nd stretch as a starter than he really was. In his first four starts, he completed 45 of 94 passes (47.9%) for 430 yards with 1 TD and 2 INTs. In the four game stretch beginning in KC, he completed 61 of 107 passes (57.0%) for 726 yards with 6 TDs and 3 INTs. Statistically, that's not a bad four game run. The one thing I find very encouraging is that he only had one game with multiple interceptions, that game being against NE. That's a decent indicator of his decision making, which I thought was adequate last year. The biggest problem was that he struggled to find his accuracy early in the year, but once he did, he posted reasonably good numbers. His actual on-field effectiveness was admittedly not quite as good as those numbers indicate, but he did show some improvement and it is something to build on.

Nance ran a 4.51 and a 4.58 at the combine, plus a 4.56 at his pro day workout.

The one position I'm really concerned about coming out of this draft is DE. The lack of pass rushing talent was a problem anyway, but the Bills have only five DEs on the roster, two of which appear to be camp fodder. That's cutting it pretty thin at that position and the Bills need to make the position a priority when signing undrafted FAs.

I think its a weak group, but I also think this is a 2-3 year rebuilding effort. They're focusing on the D this year, and while I think the lack of a pass rusher from this draft will come back to bite us this upcoming season, I think they've made a significant upgrade on that side. Hopefully its enough to keep them in most of their games this season.

I've been calling for a DE since round 4. I hope it happens, but I'm not expecting it now.

I'm still hoping they draft a pass rushing DE. Hope its Stanley McClover.

Jacobs was just selected by Pittsburgh

Dwight Freeney.

It certainly isn't going to help the defense, but again, they can't plug all the holes on the team in the draft. Just pointing out the strategy they appear to be taking. We'll have to see if it works out or not.

I think they feel they're better off finishing as much rebuilding on one side of the ball as possible. Improving the defense should keep us in most games this fall until we can improve the offense next year. This looks like an actual rebuilding plan (and yes, it will take 2-3 years) instead of trying to slap a bandaid on both sides of the ball in one offseason.

Can't really blame them. Troy Vincent is older than Marv is.