AKC

I think its pretty easy to make the more generic "It's is common knowledge throughout the league that if you get into the face OF ANY QUARTERBACK and shake him up a bit, his mechanics tend to go south.He starts throwing off his back foot, he loses his accuracy and his pocket presence. I saw it happen big time to Tom Brady against the hapless Fish when they played earlier in week 16. I saw it happen big time to Peyton Manning last year against the Pats when they got pressure on him. My own observation is that there's no QB who can play with constant, immediate pressure. The fact is that defense will apply [ressure to any QB if they believe the opposing line will give up the pressure. Our line in '03 was very accomodating to opposing defenses, while in '04 we became less generous, which arguably is the single thing that most led to our improvement in record. Now if we can continue to improve, especially to the point of a team like Indy- who regularly provide 4.5-5.5 second pockets for their starter, it really won't matter too much who we've got playing QB for us because there's many, (including one of the top 10 most productive passers in the history of the NFL), who would be capable of making us one very dangerous football offense. Any team can have an occasional breakdown. We've unfortunately had as many over the past two years as probably the top 5 offenses had combined over the same period. That's no decree in favor of Bledsoe, it's just a simple truth in the NFL that no QB can play effectively under the type of pressure we gave up in '03. As far as '04, there's more teams in the NFL than not who would have liked to have been as effective as we were on offense.

And of course it doesn't matter that the level of competition faced by the offense was far better than the same seen by the defense! I provide facts, you provide prose. Funny how that works!

Would you like me to turn the pages for you too?

Actually I've decided to take '05 off by just watching the ball so I can get better understanding of the concept of one player having some mystical and inordinate effect on a game being played by 11 guys on each side. I mean, why even bother wasting salary on these other unimportant guys where we could just have true QB challenges, with maybe 5 QBs going against 5 other QBs to find out who the best "most important" players are? And no- Moulds really pissed me off early this season with his continued loss of concentration on third downs, killing drives that were otherwise engineered and executed as they were drawn up. Statistically the best WRs in the game don't drop the number of balls Eric drops. We've seen Evans and it's clear for me that he already is a better "receiver" than Eric in the area of concentration. If we're talking about improving our team I believe Eric Moulds based upon his salary and status as the #1 WR, has got to be a primary topic of conversation when we talk about "flaws" with our money players. He might crest into my top 20- more likely he's a top 25-30 if I gave it a lot of thought.

The question of his improvement this past season is fundamental to evaluating any justification for carrying him again this coming season. And in doing that it raises this question for me- was his improvement due predominantly to some changes in coaching adn scheme- or was it due predominantly to our line getting a little bit better and him having a more equal stage to exhibit his talents in comparison to other QBs around the league? If I'm reading you correctly you fall in line with the former while I'm favoring the latter. I still look at the succesful guys with Drew's vertical assets around the league and it's impossible for me to ignore that they all have reliable TE targets- Manning has 2, Favre has a very good one, etc. I watched when we actually offered him a pocket this season (versus last) and he seems to make good use of it if it's there. He ran. He rolled out. Was it coaching and scheme? To some degree no doubt. But he also hasn't tossed for all these historical yards without some desirable talent, and at least this season some of that was evident. Is he the guy for us? That's the multi-million dollar question. Alternatives are the key- what we've seen of Losman makes it hard to imagine this kid has any chance of being prepared to lead ANY team to a serious playoff run next year. Matthews- the lost dimension of the big toss could diminish the one thing that's drawing all extra attention to Lee Evans. Is there a chance to bring someone else in? That's the only question in my mind. And while we're talking about personell I firmly believe that there are other high profile players who SHOULD be talked about the same way Drew is- somebody around the league will pay Jennings top 8 money- is he worth it to us or has he been a disappointment in the running game? Does Moulds restructuring make up for his lack of reliability or could the money he's scheduled to receive be used better? Is Ron Edwards ready to assume a full time roll, allowing Pat Williams to go elsewhere for premium money? We've both seen it happen over and over again in the NFL- fans and GMs putting an inordinate amount of faith in QB changes that leave the team no better or worse off than they were before- is it REALLY the big "problem" on a 9-7 team who are arguably improving going into '05? I just reread a pre-season pub from the '04 off-season that had us winning 4 games. I'd say somewhere between 4 and 7 was the going number on us. We did better than that even with a rough start. If we showed a like improvement just by keeping this corps together we'd end up probably 11-5 next year. We'd both like to end up 11-5 next year. For me the question is do you start over at the QB spot on a improving team that looks playoff bound next season or tinker with the QB spot to try and make a theoretical improvement? I'm not unsupportive of making a move from away from our current roster- but it would have to make a lot of sense.

You bring in a statistical entity like Football Insiders and lay zealous praise to their methodology. The methodology that ranks Eric Moulds as the 45th best WR in the NFL. The same methodology that ranks Drew Bledsoe as the 21st best QB in the NFL. Eric Moulds, according to YOUR OWN chosen statistical service, is slated to make MORE MONEY IN 2005 while being worse than 44 other players at his position while Drew Bledsoe will make less than Moulds while being better than all by 20 of the players at his position. It's time for you to end your hypocrisy. Based upon the analysis YOU INSIST UPON there is no justification for keeping Moulds on the roster if in fact you are also calling for the head of a much more effective player at his position who makes less money.

I just drove by the Wilshire Country Club in Beverly Hills and sure enough there were 3 jackasses out there pulling bags. It would improve the acuracy of this sighting though I knew how to say jackass in Japanese.

And I've just posted factual statistics that irrefutably show a number of posters here to either be unbelievably misinformed or just plain Stojaned. But I'm waiting patiently for the first refutation of the FACT that our D skated almost the whole season while our O played the far tougher schedule- know anyone who might make the mistake of engaging me? ;-)

I haven't seen you yet on the comedy circuit- could you post a schedule up? We'll do some serious recruiting for someone as funny as you!

I applaud your consistency. Eric was just as por a performer overall in '04 as Bledsoe, and is easily as responsible for the same number of losses. Two high paid players who can't win the big one.

You might want to go back and take one more look at the Pitt WR corps. I'm just guessing that there's only so much you can do with strings and sealing wax, or whatever else is being smoked in Belechiks office. It's defense that's won for him in the past (although fans give all the credit to their O) and his defense may not hold up against the competition at the postseason '05 level in the AFC.

Kevin Mawae is more important than Chad Pennington on the current Jets offense, and even 4th graders just picking up "I Pass" for the first time realize that if they live on Long Island. You want more examples of how utterly ridiculous your assertion is?

If you complete the triangle of big game losers by adding Eric Moulds to the package, I'll sign on.

The Stadium Wall has experienced an evolution over the course of its life, from its beginnings as a football board to its unfortunate metamorphosis today as merely another style board in which facts and considered analysis and debate have been replaced by unfounded whims and compulsive obsessions. It’s surely no surprise since this has paralleled a like evolution in sports radio, where we’ve seen thorough analysis trumped by Jim Rome and the Jungle. Looking at The Stadium Wall today a new fan of football just discovering a message board community would be led to believe that the 2004 Buffalo Bills offense, quarterbacked by a blind handicapped walk-on who played in shackles, forced us to suffer through a wholly end-to-end dreadful season during which we faced the worst competition in the NFL and failed to live up to even the expectations of being led by a blind handicapped walk-on in shackles. On the other hand, the same new fan of football just discovering this message board community would be confused by the promotion of the idea that our defense played the cream of the crop in the NFL and showed up huge every Sunday, kicking the snot out of the best the NFL could put up and ultimately being dragged down by our blind handicapped quarterback playing in shackles. So the new fan could only come away with the idea that our offense and defense competed each week against different opponents! And oddly enough that would be the one correct conclusion that the new fan might garner- but not for the way it's portrayed by many on The Stadium Wall. We surely did face different competition each week this season, but it was our offense that far and away faced the indisputably tougher assignments over the course of the season. We saw 8 top 10 defenses while our defense saw only 4 top 10 offenses all season. We faced top half of the league defenses 11 times this season while our defense saw only 7 of the upper half offenses. That means our offense more weeks than not faced a top half defense while exactly the opposite was true of our defense. The fact is that the defenses we faced, based upon the final rankings of the regular season, prove our offense faced defenses that were 29% tougher than the offenses our defense played over the same span. One lesson that the new fan might learn is to believe none of what you hear but instead believe what you see. If you watched the Buffalo Bills this season you can draw different conclusions about the appropriate direction for next season, but you can not accurately say that any one unit of this team kept us in every game single-handedly every week. We played as a team this year and when you do no single player and no single unit is “responsible” for our “awful” 9-7 rebirth as a team moving in the right direction according to most outside observers. The 2004 Bills won as a team- and we lost as a team. There are many positives to find for our football team, although they might be almost impossible to uncover with some trying to achieve the “style” post of the day whining on and on over and over about how many times they paid attention to nothing but the football all season long. There’s a lot more fallacies than this big whopper being spread by these Jim Rome disciples and it’s clear they will not allow their licorice whistles to be silenced by reason and fact. So we’ll do what used to be the provenance of lesser fan bases- we’ll observe what is expected of the casual fans in New York City with their Jets and Giants, or the Miami and San Fran fans- we’ll watch as our fan base becomes more like those fan bases screaming about the QB position whenever the team loses a game and less like the Green Bay fan base we were more typically compared to in the immediate past. We’ll sit by while the “style” fans squawk on with unfounded opinion and a disregard of history. But we should not sit by idly ;-)

Clearly the one to blame is Eric Moulds. As our opponents realized Eric no longer needed as much attention yet our rookie was a double threat- speed AND hands- our opponents focused their deep help and also their underneath double primarily on Lee. Look at the Pitt game- they figured they could cover Moulds with single coverage by Chad Scott coming off 7 or 8 weeks from an injury- and they won the battle of the odds in doing so when Moulds lost two by his own poor handling of the ball while being single covered.

You young'uns never got to watch Old Man Manning play. I'd guess he'd be happy to let you know who the most important guys are on the offensive side of the ball!

If all Trey Teague did was snap the ball you might be able to better support your position- the fact that upon snapping the ball Mr. Teague has further duties tends to diminish the argument that the only guy who doesn't have to bang around with the opposition on every play is the most important guy on the field.

The only real measure we have is their rookie outings, although again I'd hardly consider it a fair comparison: Johnson: 28 catches 329 yards 11.8 YPC 28 longest catch 1 TD Evans: 48 catches 843 yards 17.6 YPC 69 longest catch 9 TDs I'm sure Kitna would have made Evans a legitimate performer though ;-)

No doubt; if we only had Trent Dilfer, Josh Reed would be making his Hawaii reservations right now.

I'd hardly compare the two. Chad Johnson has 4 years in the league. Lee Evans in his rookie campaign averaged 3 yards more per catch than Johnson has over his career.

A mere crumb can constitute a full meal for a rat.

I guess you don't get to see many of our games ;-)

And while you're at it you better get what you can right now for Lee Evans, a player whose talents would be wasted with a limp armer like Kitna. Evans would go from emerging star to "Where Are They Now?" if he loses one of the 4 best long arms in the league. But Josh Reed would LOVE Kitna!

You have to have some amount of sympathy for any poor bastid who has to play alongside Pucillo. Mike clearly is not an NFL caliber lineman and his presence on our roster exposes how thin we are on our OG depth chart. VA Bills- I'd give him some credit for his feet- they use him a lot to break to the outside block on off-tackle runs and there's not a lot of centers who can get out there. If you go back to games and watch how many times a Willis run is spring for 8+ yards INSIDE of a Teague block you might give him a higher rating, at least in this run block first offense.

It's hard for me to imagine Teague playing LT in the Clements offense, an offense that would benefit mostly from a bulldozer at LT, someone along the lines of, let's say, a fit Mike Williams? That would make finding a RT in the draft or FA a much easier prospect, especially considering they'd be working next to our best OLineman. The position to watch in FA is LG- does this team truly believe they can polish up Tucker or will they make a move that indicates they feel a quality vet at LG would push the running O over the top?