AKC

Better to let others think of you as a fool then to begin typing and remove all doubts ;-)

If you can't recognize the Milloy situation might have been handled better you're just not a very good student of the game. But then again- you are a Patsy bandwagoneer- we weren't able to locate more than 849 Pats fans nationwide before 2001! But it is very telling that you support the Pat's inability to make peace with Law. You're a real seer. I'm guessing your run ends on one of the next two Sundays. We may then begin to be able to assess whether the undercurrents some objective outsiders speculate are inherent in NE are actually there, or on the other hand if all glasses in NE are rose colored and Belichick can call on any bandwagoneer like yourself for a little fellatio. No doubt you can make part of that proposition work, we shall see about the balance.

It's foolish not to recognize the exceptional work Bill Belichick is doing in New England now year after year when it comes to strategy and preparation and also recognizing that he can get his team to buy into those same strategies and prep. At the same time with divisional rivals I always want to look for the wrinkles in the armor of the enemy, and since the football chinks for Belichick are so subtle it's intriguing watching his continued problems with his players on a personal level. When he was Parcell's underling the Tuna had the player relationships tied up and either Belichick just doesn't have the personality to apply the Parcells "charm" or it's an area where he's just a very, very poor student. Then again maybe he doesn't beleive it's very important! But year after year his teams have the types of personell squabbles that usually you find plaguing the perennial goats like Cleveland or Arizona- one year it's the handling of the popular Lawyer Milloy or another year the very public discontent of a Ty Law and today rumors of bad blood between Richard Seymour and the team are brewing, supposedly based upon their desire for him to play Sunday and his desire to protect his knee for the future. The funny thing about all this is that it's hard to imagine the same things going on with other franchises at the seeming height of their success, at least to the extent that it happens with the better players on the Pat's roster versus some #4 RB or a disgruntled special teamer. I'm virtually certain Parcells wouldn't allow it, not the way he sets a social order among his players. It also might be fair to speculate that it's something that's likely to snowball if the wheels begin to fall off the success cart. It'll be interesting watching those wheels this Sunday.

It might take him that long to gain the size/strength he needs to play as an any down TE. His listing at 257 is one of those great smoke and mirrors NFL roster tricks. He blocks like he's 220.

I believe most of the arguments pro paying/treating him like a top WR most directly suggest the desirabily of his size/RAC ability as far as the read I get. He clearly in my mind has never overcome his less than great hands/concentration level over his career which, again for me, takes him out of the top ranks. I've done the excercise in the past with him of posting the Wideouts I'd take before him and today that number is probably up around 25-30 in the league. The obvious problem is anyone of those top 25 or 30 changing teams this off-season is certain to cost their new team a bundle, and that's where the value proposition comes into play. I'd fall down on the side, as some have suggested, of letting Evans get another year of development before putting him on top of the depth chart, which leaves the question of whether we can bring in an effective #1 like Eric who draws opponent attention without spending 8.7 mill or keeping Eric without getting trapped into more future cap trauma with with a "restructured" contract that merely extends the pain of the big Moulds deal.

Not if Vanderjadt kicks like he did in '04- he missed 2 of his FGs from the 30s, 2 of his FGs from the 40s and his only attempt in the 50s. His net after return on KOs was more than 2 yards shy of Lindells, and on the average in much better conditions.

In some ways he is. Watching Lee Evans bring in balls with his great feel for catching with his hands and securing the ball remind me of virtually every season in Moulds career where Eric has proven he simply does not have the natural hands of the great receivers. Much like at the QB position, where teams, fans and the media alike tend to covet the 6-4 240 pounder, we're all also bought to some degree into the bigger receiver as a must have, best possible scenario athlete as a #1 Wideout. For my money there's no better receiver in the league than Marvin Harrison, a guy who has proven to have the type of hands Lee Evans might just be gifted with, not to mention that their otherr physical traits and gifts are in a lot of ways similar.

While that's one of the minor points it's just too obvious- the far more important goal for discussion is representing a football team as dynamic: studies of individual pieces of that dynamic structure have little value without wide ranging studies of all the components and then, and only then, a comparison can be made about the net value of each piece in the overall equation. This off-season has seen a run on the study of a single piece and there's little, if anything, to be gained from that. I'm happy to see more pieces of the structure being scrutinized, in my mind it helps those of us seeking a greater understanding of the full picture to come closer to achieving just that. You obviously fall into that percentage of us who seek a more analytical study of the team and while the excercises themselves may get childish and mean-spirited at times, it can also result in a benefit to the community.

You introduced the analysis, now you try to play a semantic game with their formula. OK, let's do it your way- you don't like "player ranking", we'll instead use their assumed conclusion that their Defense Adjusted Point Over Replacement is a measure of "total performance". So they're saying that on a seasonal average using their formula, in the past 4 seasons there have been 69, 54, 53 and 44 others receivers who have- ahem- "performed" better than Eric Moulds. Big difference there! A little advice- if offered something under the guise of "knowledge" that requires you to contradict yourself over and over while making excuses for the how that "knowledge" was arrived at- you might be better off thinking for yourself- then again.......

Keep adding onto the pile of crap you've had to assume since I asked you a simple question about the flawed analysis you insisted upon introducing.

And MIT used to be such a good school- what in the world happened? My "original conclusion" was no such thing. I pointed out that while some were claiming that our offense threw a masterful defensive effort under the wheels with their pitiful production in '04, the fact was that the offense faced the more daunting task against better defenses, while our D was to some degree lifted by facing a lesser level of competition. It was offered as an adjunct to the very biased misinformation being bandied about with regards to our offense and defense so that fans exploring this board for additional understanding might consider it versus reading repetitive false hype offered in other strings and some of the media. The fact remains that the '04 Bills were never a fractious group of 3 entities as one might be led to believe by some message board fans but instead played as a team. This allowed them to surpass virtually every major media predication for the season but more importantly develop an atmosphere going into '05 that more resembled the atmospheres around the best teams in the AFC.

That's odd- someone posting under your exact name and Avatar was trying to say in another string EXACTLY the opposite thing- that Football Outsider rankings were absolute indications of rankings. I've got to get you guys hooked up- maybe it's one of those Samantha/Serena things?

I have a puppy who chases her tail around- do you mind if I call you "Chile"? Yes or No- Are the Football Outsiders correct that there were 44 better WRs in the NFL in 2004 than Eric Moulds?

Not on this board Darin- Moulds can only be hurt by the QB, the kicker can only be hurt by the QB, the defense can only be hurt by the QB, but the QB can't be hurt by NO ONE! He must be ONE TOUGH MUTHA!

You like to throw a lot of insults around, but the subject here is the Football Outsiders service you claim makes you intelligent in football matters. Excuse me if I question that but: You're saying anyone with a brain accepts your preferred services rankings of Eric Moulds as the 70th, 54th, 55th and 45th best WR in the game of football the past four seasons? Just a simple YES or NO will suffice- you can pretend it's a really big button you just have to touch!

You endorsed the methodology of The Football Outsiders and also claimed Eric's #45 ranking was based on one bad year. Can you share with us which of these (45, 55, 54, 70) was the "bad" year in your mind- that might help me clear up this football mystery!

They have Harrison ranked 13th. Still a WHOLE lot higher than 45th or 55th or 70th. Marvin also has admitted accepting a lesser role in their offense to help the team.

They rank them by position. While their analysis is obviously flawed in major ways, here's the link: WR Rankings by The Football Outsiders

I'd say Joe Horn and Mushin Muhammed seeing just as many doubles as Eric yet being ranked by the same outfit #2 and #3 this past season would tend to "diminish" that argument.

Not by their analysis- his QB was ranked 21st, 30th, 11th and 16th over the same period.

With Eric never reaching higher than the 45th best player at WR over the past 4 seasons- is Moulds that bad or is the system they use to analyze statistics the bigger question? Maybe the question is how does a service with this faulty a set of formulas for statistical analysis convince anyone to espouse its results? Or has Eric Moulds been vastly overpaid for his services in Buffalo?

Oh, confusion reigns my friend- when it comes to you style boys who have no ability to hold a coherent discussion. You claim to agree with the stats on Football Outsiders. You claim that Moulds had one bad year in but that shouldn't be held against him. Football Outsiders WR Rank for Eric Moulds: He's currently ranked 45th After last season they had him a whopping 54th The season before they had him 55th. The season prior they rated him 70th Which one is the "pretty good year" you're talking about? That's more like a career of sucking (for a guy making top 8 money) according to your love of the Football Outsiders methodology. Now I'll say it again, sh-- or get off the pot- do you embrace this statistical system that completely contradicts the argument you are making or do you continue to fail to recognize that you are destroying your own argument with faulty analysis that you and Coach Tuesday appear to be the only posters foolish enough to embrace? BTW- you might notice that Drew Bledsoe's full seasons go 11th, 11th, 30th, 21st. Those jokers at Football Outsiders REALLY like Bledsoe!

When the facts don't support you try verbosity- How Jim Rome of you!

I believe the Rules of The Wall limit any string to 3 pompous asses, 5 certifiable boneheads and 8 nosepickers. You might give him credit for honoring that rule when he discovered the string 3 pages ago.

It's quite simple really- CoachTuesday and dawgg insist that The Football Outsiders are expert analysts when it comes to ranking offenses and defenses but their player rankings have no validity at all! The politically correct term for it in the real world is "confused".