Ozymandius

Good point. I feel the same way. It'd be one thing if we were rich and we know we can spend this offseason. But instead, we may be relying on the draft just to tread water by replacing guys like Clements and Fletch.

Las Vegas Bowl: BYU/Oregon OVER 62 Gun to my head, I'd take BYU -3

To be honest, there are ways for the Bills to justifiably draft a corner high this year, but they all involve being very active in free agency. I think paying Nate a $20 million signing bonus would probably strangle their budget and cause them to be inactive in free agency, so I believe they'll choose to let him go and upgrade elsewhere. The holes they probably can't patch in free agency are DT and CB, imo. (I'm beginning to agree that Asante Samuel will be expensive). They can re-sign Fletch and Kelsay and get a new right guard and possibly a new TE, for example.

The Bills can renegotiate with any of the players on their roster at any time during the season. But in the midst of a playoff hunt, they're not going to cause destraction by negotiating with Nate now. Plus, I continue to believe his price tag is outside their budget requirements. Get ready for it, Bill. I'm not even needling you right now. There's some good FA guards that will be available. There will be some good 2nd-round DTs. But you already know what the 1st-rounder will be. 2007 o-line should be: Peters-Gandy-Fowler-FA-Pennington 2007 DT rotation should be: undertackle = Tripplett/McCargo, nose tackle = 2nd-rounder/KyleWilliams 2007 secondary should be: 1st-rounder-Simpson-Whitner-Mcgee, nickel=Youboty

Another article from the D&C from May: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/p...RTS03/605060345 "It's believed what enticed Clements into signing at this time was a verbal promise that the Bills won't place the franchise tag on him again next year. A player can be tagged twice under the new labor deal. There used to be no limit. When asked whether he has that promise, a grinning Clements said: "Well, we'll see. We'll see what's happening." Doesn't really clear things up but Nate sounds happy.

What did Ralph do to Wade that was the equivalent of lying or breaking a promise?

I'll grant you that we don't know for sure based on the links that have been provided and the unreliability of ESPN/Pasquarelli. But it'd take one heck of a media screw up for this agreement to NOT have included the non-exclusive tag. I mean, we didn't even use the exclusive tag on him this past offseason; we used the non-excl tag and other teams just didn't want to give up two first rounders to sign him. So Nate gained nothing if the agreement was only for the exclusive tag.

Wel-run and respectable businesses honor agreements (but they usually put it in writing). There is just no way I can see Ralph, Marv, or Dick reneging. Too old school. Too old.

We can still beat them in the wild card round of the playoffs. Keep the hope!

Yep. My first reaction hearing about Schobel's selection was Don't get hurt please. My second reaction was congrats Aaron.

Your other 'backer Geno Hayes is pretty ridiculous when he's healthy.

Cash. Money. Hos. Bowl Record thus far: 1-0

That Pasquarelli article that Matt linked makes it sound very gloomy. Of course ESPN is sometimes wrong, right? I just don't think this has been shown at all. There very well may have been a verbal promise to not use any franchise tag on Nate. That's what the Pasquarelli article was suggesting anyway. I do admire your optimism and hope you're right.

I hear ya bro. At the same time, a lot of folks (like me) are wired to want to know exactly everything that needs to happen for our team to make the playoffs. Don't worry about us. We're having fun, too.

Bills have the 5th best sacking team in the league: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/dl.php This is in no small part due to Schobel, of course.

Bills have the best punting team in the league: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/teamst.php This is in no small part due to Moorman, of course.

You should root for Baltimore to lose so they won't have anything (or much) to play for next week. Pittsburgh is no threat to us if we win out. Oh, and ;lkjfdsaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Poinsettia Bowl: TCU -12

You should post a one word reply. Scoreboard.

Cool. Thanks for laying that out for me. It seems like whatever you have laid down on paper, you're able to work out the scenarios fairly quickly.

Thanks for digging up those links Senator and Matt in DC. I pretty much continue to expect Nate to be gone then.

This is really the key scenario here. Most of the games this week are straightforward with regard to which team to root for. But who do we root for in the Denver-Cincy game? At first glance, some may root for Denver since it is one of 4 outcomes needed for the Bills to control their own destiny. However, the order in which the games will be played makes rooting for Cincy more palatable, and I think you'd agree, ezbills. A Denver win followed by a Jets win on Monday night is a virtual death blow to the Bills playoff chances because we would then be tied to SF beating Denver in Mile High Week 17. A Cincy win gives us reasonable outs should the Jets also win. Whether you root for Denver or Cincy depends on your confidence in Miami beating the Jets. I personally am not very confident in the Dolphins winning there. In my Week 16 rooting post I gave Cincy beating Denver an importance of 4 and Denver beating Cincy an importance of 2.

Assuming you are using some sort of software and it wouldn't take too long to calculate, could you show the effect of a KC loss to Oakland this week? I feel like it is the third most important game this week behind Bills-Titans and Jets-Miami but hasn't received a lot of mention. While KC is a 6.5 point favorite right now, this still is a primetime road game for the Chiefs, and Oakland played them very tough the first time around.

Excellent, excellent stuff ezbills.

Or Ralph can't afford it within his budget goals.