AKC

I'd agree early on in the season, but it appears that Lee got a lot more of the safety attention and double brackets as the season wore on and by the time we played Pitt Eric was seeing a lot of single coverage.

The only problem with those examples is that the measure "Big Game" being used by the Dumpsoes appears to only include the Super Bowl, and therefore since Bledsoe took a team there and lost he's a "Big Game Loser'. These same Dumpsoes agree that Jim Kelly is a "Big Game Loser". It seems only fair to hold Eric to the same standard for the purpose of this exercise in consistency.

The incident of immediate impact WRs from the draft is increasing. Anquin Boldin comes to mind as a non first-round impact WR. Don't underestimate the valuethe Chargers got in picking up the ever underrated Keenan McCardell during the season. For me, our #1 is already on our roster and he's going into his sophomore campaign. He's a real receiver, with great hands and speed plus a year under his belt. Moulds has never had the potential to impact our offense like Evans can at the 1 spot.

Ah, the future! An interesting aside is that Lee Evans is the best WR on our roster as of January 2005. I don't expect that to change in September ;-)

I'd agree with you that if a player's negative impact is so great in balance with his positive impact that the difference is a cumulative negative, and that negative difference is greater than any other players overall positive sum then that former player can hold the position of most important on the team. So to your post, I'd completely agree with a personal addendum that not only is the QB not the most important on "some" teams, he's not the most important on "most" teams AFAIC. But I don't find your scenario the case for Bledsoe in the 2004 campaign. First of all the offensive strategy was designed so that it would be almost impossible for him to become the most important player. His reduced role was handled by him very well for the most part both in the opening losses and through the winning run. The role of the RBs and OL became more critical in this particular system, and that's why a player like Chris Villarail became the backbone of our offense and why I'd rate Villarial equally as critical and impactive as Willis McGahee. Bledsoe remains far down the ladder in the scheme we used. Another player who became much more important this year was Mark Campbell, who jumped maybe 4 to 6 places in importance based on scheme versus our use of TE in the '03 season. Bledsoe was the typical poor accuracy in the short game passer he has alwasy been against Pitt. Moulds was also his typical poor handed self in dropping at minimum one, and IMO two of our early games, losing them single-handedly by letting important balls go. His Pitt performance was awful too, letting two perfectly thrown balls hit the ground while being unable to get any separation from singel coverage by a Pitt nickel back coming off something like an 8 missed game injury stretch. I keep hearing the screams of "big players make big plays in big games". Funny how I can't remember Moulds making any "big plays in big games" over the course of his career. In fact, it may have been your post in this string with the position ranking by TFO. If you really buy their formulas for grading players how do you justify paying MORE money in '05 for the #43 player at his position in Eric Moulds versus paying less for the #30 player at his position in Bledsoe? While I'd refute both their numerical positions, the stats were brought up and they illustrate exactly what I've been saying all along- if you make the argument that we've heard Ad Nauseum for a year about dumping Bledsoe, the exact same measure applied to Eric would seem to argue even stronger against HIS retention. Why do some refuse to insist that other high-priced players should also be held responsible when they underperfom when the going is toughest?

You mean I won't see any more snipey and insulting posts from you with virtually no logic to back them up? Glad we worked that out!

Since you're struggling so much with the most basic of concepts let me break it down even further for you. On some teams the QB is their most important offensive player, but it's not exclusive. So let me say it another way because you apparently are unable to remove your blinders about the position. On some teams their most important player is a RT, on others a WR and on others and OC. The reason you struggle to understand this is apparently because you spend all your time wathcing the ball during a game and you consequently fail to see the difference makers on any team. It's fine you choose to believe it- you're like 80% of the casual fans of football who are naive enough to believe that foolishness and I don't intent to make you any more knowledgeable a fan than you have chosen to be. As to your "yes" and "no" questions you again have zero perspective as to my observations- and I'm perfectly willing to prove how little you know about football by asking you to list, in order of importance and impact to the team, the starting players on the Buffalo Bills offense this past season. This should be incredibly simple for you because you have a flawed, and static, view of the importance of players based upon their positions versus the actual dynamic importance structure that exists in any organization based upon many dynamics including scheme, opponent, personnel and sideline decisions. Yours will read something like this: QB RB WR TE etc. etc.

So you believe Jeff Hostetler, Trent Dilfer, Brad Johnson, Doug Williams, Kurt Warner and Mark Rypien were the most important players on their Super Bowl winning football teams? And there was a question attached to the post you referenced- WHY do you believe the QB is the most important player on a football team? Just 5 or 6 reasons would be helpful for me to understand.

That's profound. Perhaps you'd like to offer some reasoning behind why you consider it "foolish"? Or perhaps I can guess- "The Quarterback has to be the most important player on the field because he touches the ball every play." And let me further deduce that you leave the waiter HUGE tips when you go out to eat becasue he is, after all , the one bringing you the food every time.

Probably my subconscious refusal to allow Randy Cross to drive me nuts by listening to him.

Within the mix of a football team, or for this discussion the 11 players on offense, there is no one position that is more important than the other 10. There are surely quality differences between the players at the 11 spots on any team, but each team is different, for instance the Jets highest quality player this year all season has been Kevin Mawae, who has been the most impactive player and more responsible for their success than anyone they've had him snap the ball to. In Indy you can certainly make the argument that Manning happens to be the most impactive player, I wouldn't dispute it because I don't watch much of their regular season work- but that's an exclusive situation that exists within the talent on their team. It might also be the best example to exhibit why QB obsessed fans couldn't possibly manage a football team- remember that by the standard our whining ninnies have set, if you struggle in big games you're scrap heap material. Witness Mr. Manning, who has yet to win a single big game if we use the same standard set for Bledsoe. Manning has been made to look like Art Schlichter in big games, much like John Elway looked during the bulk of his career based on that standard. But back to the original question- entering any game or any season there are 11 guys on that offense, any one of which may have the most impact, either postive or negative in affecting a game's outcome. It's absolutely inpossible for instance to ignore the poor ball Moulds played this season on crucial downs without recognizing that he easily lost 2 games by not playing anywhere near his salary level. Does that mean we cut him? That's the standard the ninnnies have set for Bledsoe- if you want to be consistent you MUST apply the same standard to other "stars" on the team. On our offense, who was the most impactive player in this overall '04 campaign- I'd make a pretty good argument for Chris Villarial being our offensive MVP. We all saw what happened to our run game on Sunday when he was left the field. I've seen past Bill's offenses where the play at FB or RT was the single most critical to our winning- do they get recognition by ball-watching fans or the media? Hell no-casual fans and the media are looking for sizzle, not steak. They need someone that handles the ball to be more important because it makes for better pictures, and anyway linemen and TEs are ugly and dirty and in many cases difficult to understand. Like the media, casual fans want to pet the pretty QB or WR who dances better than them, or the RB who looks so much like the Heisman Trophy with that damn ball in his hands. But the game of football is won many times where the eyes of the fans and media are not paying attention. Let me use Pitt for example. They sat some "skill" players on Sunday against us. But make no mistake about it, their best players were on the field. Their starting offensive line has made, for at least the immediate time, a rookie QB a star and propelled them into the favored AFC team for the prize. Will a single one of them even get their own team's Offensive MVP? Hell no- but it doesn't mean they're not the reason Pitt is in the postion they're in. And did Dipstick Randy Cross even mention it? Was it a major point of discussion in the media? Hell no again. What I'm trying to provoke you into contemplating is not another season under Bledsoe- I'm asking you to be consistent with your argument about big games and high salaries and the measures you'd use to decide whether a high paid player should be given another chance next year- using the standard you apply to insist Bledsoe must be gone it's nearly impossible not to reach the same conclusion with Moulds. Eric has come up short in every big game op since he arrived. He'll be paid more than Bledsoe next year and yet he's never won us a big game, again by the standards Bledsoe is held to. And be very careful about why you might justify Moulds sticking our next roster- anything you say can and will be considered "apoligizing" for his play- based upon the standards being used to measure Bledsoe.

If you and these "logical and smart" fans owned a team the roster would include 14 QBs, all of whom would rotate for playing time because not a single one of the owners would understand the game of football well enough to grasp that the QB is no more important a player on the field than the other 10 guys who play with him on offense at any time. Maybe I can't use that- chances are your team would regularly try to field 12 and 13 guys to line up on offense! (and considering your obsession with the position probably two of them would be QBs!) I'm still waiting for your "logical and smart" answer to my incredibly simple question- if you think high priced offensive stars who have never won a big game have no place on our roster, how do you dispose of Eric Moulds this offseason, the highest paid underperformer on our offense in 2004 slated to earn over 8 million in '05?

The moment I saw Old Man Bush and Clinton flanking the President and heard they were asked to "CoChair" a fundraising effort for Tsunami victims I realized someone at the WH was having a very good day- look at the win-win situation brought about by this simple, yet absolutely brilliant, idea: A) Take two split groups of "funders", who to some degree despise the other side, and put them in competition with each other B) Sweeten the pot by putting two former Presidents in charge of the competing camps to goad on the richest and most infuential prospects C) Raise HUGE sums of money for the victims of the disaster D) Highlight the superiority of our capitalistic system by showing the power of personal donations versus government It doesn't matter who you vote for every 4th November, if you're a decent and objective American you have to be able to recognize the genius of this strategy.

Or the one's of the old man screaming "WE LET LAMONICA GO FOR THIS?!"

It's quite simple really. You B word and whine all season long that our QB disappears in big games and makes too much money for someone who has never, and in your opinion will never, win a big game. If you're genuine about that opinion, and not merely obsessed with the QB position, you'd HAVE to apply the same reasoning to our highly paid #1 WR who has never won a big game, is slated to make 8 mill next year, and who can easily be attributed a minimum of two of our losses this season by his continued problems catching the football- especially in big games. What is it- do you fail to grasp that this is an 11 man game at any time on the field by obsessing about the quarterback or do you apply your hatred and vitriol to all underperfoming highly paid players?

Wow! I can see taking issue with underperformers like Eric Moulds with his fat paycheck but a football player like Fletcher? OK, the Singletary comparison might offer some easy argument about their playing styles, but Fletcher plays football in the middle of the field like some of the great underrated Linebackers of the contemporary game- guys like Chris Spielman and Jesse Tuggle, guys who get their noses dirty every play, every game, every year. I can't see taking any of this out on a guy who does some of the best, albeit unheralded, work on our team, .

It's no coincidence that we all of a sudden appeared to have 2 legitimate return threats in McGee and Smith- the upswing in the return game was built upon superior blocking during the season until we met up with Pitt who counteracted it by running linemen into the middle of our blocking scheme this past Sunday. After the past few seasons of watching our return guys running up the backs of our blockers April came in and established excellent timing on our returns, leading to one of the best return units in the league. We added superior athletes to the coverage units and they responded with far more succesful play than we saw in the recent past also.

Would you stop being reasonable? Someone must pay for the Bill's failures and the QB is the one fans see with the ball the most- so it must be the QB who caused such a mess! I believe you're absolutely correct in your assessment of Bledsoe as you were in your assessment of Coy Wire. The QB is the lightning rod of most fans and apparently we're simply going to continue hearing the false characterizations of his skill set until the same set of fans gets to see JP Losman and learn about HIS faults before they inevitably call for HIS head. The frightening thing about Losman is that the worst fault in Drew's game- accuracy- is the same major concern regarding Mr. Losman according to a majority of the pre-draft analysis.

Brad Johnson. Trent Dilfer. Kurt Warner. Mark Rypien. Doug Williams. Yeah, no doubt there's ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE that one of the top 10 most productive QBs All-Time in League History could EVER win a Super Bowl!

Thats' not my recollection of his Raider years and I didn't watch him in college- I remember him playing in a pretty pure pocket passing offense in Oakland. Here's a take from Dan Pastorini about Plunkett's style among other things: Dan Pastorini

At least some things are constant! If I understand your position that underachieving high paid offensive players should be scrapped, especially ones who don't pick up the team in big games and instead underperform, you are all for dumping Eric Moulds also?

The water torture that is our playoff history- drip... drip... drip...

I missed your posts yesterday- Moulds is the interesting study for one very big reason- he's the kind of guy who would NOT be returning next season to a team like the Pats based upon his pay/performance. The same team that moved Drew for similar, although not exactly the same, reasons. How Moulds is handled might say a lot about how much attention TD is paying to the best roster managers in the league right now.

I'm very interested to learn in which "Big Games" during his pro career has Eric "won the game" for us?

Before we went to Cincinnati it was acknowledged as a Big Game. It was only afterwards that to fit their arguments some have tried to downplay the game. We played 6 elimination games in a row, failing in the 7th. How does the math come out if you apply the "big game" measure to Jim Kelly? More importantly, how does Eric Moulds stack up to the "big game" measure? After all- he will make far more money than Bledsoe next year ;-)