Typical TBD Guy

@ stevewin. Way to make a point, buddy! I didn't get to see the game last night, so I'll take your word and everyone else's who said Wire blew. I'm willing to give him the full preseason - that's all 4 games - to prove the doubters wrong. But if he's still playing that badly, then I'm canceling my CWAC membership fees. 2 quick questions for those who saw last night's game: 1. Did Leonhard and Baker play at SS or FS? 2. What level of competition did Leonhard and Baker face in the game, i.e. what quarter did they first show up?

Why did you leave out Villarial?

During the preseason games, Reed will most likely be playing against starters and backups. Haddad and Wilson, on the other hand, will most likely be matching up against backups and 3rd stringers and other various camp fodder. Keep that in mind when comparing preseason stats and before leading the mob to run Reed out of town. By the way, I saw the same games as you did during the past 2 years. I saw Reed drop too many passes for my liking, too. And I also saw Aiken drop his fair share. As well as Campbell. Not to mention Henry. And even Moulds made some huge drops. The common denominator? For the most part, they were pass routes that were within 10 yds from the line of scrimmage. But also, Drew Bledsoe was throwing them. Sorry to give this Dead Horse another blow to the head, but come on...Drew had no touch on the short passes....to go along with his inabilty to scan the field for other players besides Moulds. I'm telling you, Reed's first 3 years in the NFL have been slowed by: 1. Drew Bledsoe. 2. Kevin Killdrive making Reed run similar kinds of routes in 2003 that Peerless Price, a very different type of receiver, ran in 2002. 3. Injury in 2004. 4. Lack of confidence, partly due to the above 3 problems. Right now, only #4 is holding him back from a very productive career. Dropping balls is a problem of confidence and concentration and technique more than any innate lack of talent. Comment all you'd like about Reed's slowness and shortness, but Tom Brady has won three Super Bowls with a bunch of similarly short and slow WR targets.

at fans rating Haddad and Wilson over Reed. Haddad has been circulating around the league for 2 more years than Reed and yet has only 2 career regular season game appearances. If this perpetual PS'er gets the benefit of the doubt for being a late bloomer, then so should Reed. As for Wilson, I think we fans tend to get way too excited over undrafted rookie free agents who look good against preseason 3rd stringers. Remember Kwame Cavil? Antonio Brown? The career fates of UDRFA WR's like them are the norm in this competitive league. Josh Reed was an enormously talented and productive college WR who has had to battle obstacles in the NFL like injuries and QB's who can't throw accurate passes on short to intermediate routes (Drew...RIP). On these factors alone, Reed deserves to play out the full 4th (and final) year on his contract. If he still sucks by January 2006, then we simply don't re-sign him. But for the 2005 season, Reed's potential far outweighs the meager salary cap savings we get by cutting him.

Exactly. That idea matches pretty well with my fuzzy memory of last season's offense. Plus, opposing defenses probably figured that the right side of our OL was the more dominant run-blocking side, so more often than not they'd focus more guys on that side. This could be another explanation for the left/right disparity. EDIT: oops, I see jarthur31 made this point 1 minute before me. Sorry, jarthur31!

Actually, I think our "Dee" is still fairly young. We only have 7 players who are in their late 20's or beyond: DE Ryan Denney (1 season left on contract) DT Sam Adams (2 seasons left on contract) MLB London FLetcher (2 seasons left on contract) OLB Takeo Spikes (3 seasons left on contract) OLB Jeff Posey (2 seasons left on contract) SS Lawyer Milloy (2 seasons left on contract) FS Troy Vincent (5 seasons left on contract) Of those 7, Denney and Posey can be replaced pretty easily once their respective contracts are up. And if we wanted to re-sign these 2, it wouldn't be too difficult. That leaves 5, each of which are significant contributors on the field as well as leaders in the locker room. However, please note that we have 2 years to replace 3 of these 5, and 3 years to replace Spikes and Vincent (let's assume Vincent doesn't see the last 2 years of his contract). So how is this a crisis???!!! We have 3 whole years to replace 5 important players. That's 3 more drafts and 3 more offseasons of free agency to find 5 replacements. And that's assuming none of the 5 important players can still play after their current contracts are up, which is probably false. Lots of NFL players can still make big contributions well past the age of 30. So if any of these guys were still quality players at the end of their contracts, we could resign them with more salary cap-favorable contracts if we hadn't found adequate replacements through free agency or the draft by that time. So in conclusion: RELAX.

Sounds pretty good, though I'd clarify this a bit by saying that an atheist is one who believes that God doesn't exist, while an agnostic is one who believes that God is inherently unknowable.

Nah, your post didn't offend me at all. I was just in one of my argumentative moods this afternoon, and I figured you were just being glib out of frustration. I think we are 100% in agreement on this evolution/ID in schools issue, as well as on religion in general (I'm an agnostic who believes in the strict separation of church and state, and I suspect you're the same?). As far as your scientific production, I don't know you and can't comment on that. But personally, I see nothing wrong with putting Bills talk ahead of science...

Well I said "a little bit" because sometimes extreme idiots like BF need to be put in their place. And whenever you attack stevestojan on subjects like politics, well those can often become instant classics!

For Coy Wire, is it a lack of "instinct for football" or - as I already suggested - is it simply a lack of experience at a new position? I'll withhold all excitement over any undrafted free agents until I see them matchup against legitimate 1st and 2nd stringers and not some 3rd stringers/camp fodder. There have been a lot of players with great football instincts in college who couldn't ever compete against NFL talent. We've seen this time and again where undrafted players enter camp, beat up on 3rd stringers, make the team as a rookie, and generate excitement only to be no longer in the NFL 2-3 years later. Guys like Pat Williams are VERY rare. Surely there were enough doubts on Leonhard's natural athletic ability that led to no team even willing to take a chance on him in the 7th round.

EVOLUTION is to be taught only in a SCIENCE class. ID is to be taught only in a PHILOSOPHY class. That is, until the ID believers can: 1. Develop large bodies of scholarly scientific work that provide evidence for ID AND 2. Develop large bodies of scholarly scientific work that provide evidence against evolution AND 3. Have these bodies of scholarly scientific work endure a rigorous examination by the scientific community thereafter. But this is all JMHO, though. And I have to add that I find the arrogance of some people in this thread like CTM and Jonny Coli a little bit annoying. While it's fun sometimes to make fun of people with lesser intellects - just like it's fun sometimes to make fun of retards and the handicapped and ugly people - keep in mind that you can always find people of greater intellects than yourself. Those accomplished enough in their careers and/or fields of science should not have this much time to lecture the masses of commoners that frequent TBD. In some posts in this thread (and others), I've detected hints of strong atheistic beliefs. Whether or not they've been made with tongue in cheek, keep in mind that atheists cannot stand on any intellectual higher ground than the religious ID'ers since they're only applying the same unscientific thought process to come to their beliefs. Until God can be scientifically proven to NOT exist (impossible, IMO), atheists have no greater authority on any debate outside that of philosophy.

You are probably being unfair towards a player with only 3 years experience who was put in non-ideal situations for most of this experience. In his rookie season, Wire was made starting SS immediately after making the conversion from college LB. And in just his second season, the team converted him again from SS to starting FS for a brief time before he became permanently buried behind Lawyer Milloy on the depth chart. So while I'm not saying Wire has the potential to unseat Milloy or Vincent at safety, it would also be premature to definitively call him unable to play safety in any capacity at the NFL level. Also keep in mind that you can't have starting-caliber players at every (or any, for that matter) backup position. As a backup SS, Wire is solid with a skill set that's fine for the type of responsibilties unique to the SS position in Gray's D (mostly run coverage). And finally, it's worth noting that his contract hardly puts a dent in our cap status. Not bad for a backup who is OK at his position and excellent on ST.

This thread is beyond ridiculous. First of all, that stomach bulge could easily be the result of her dress design. But never mind that. BillsFaninDallas: what kind of consenting women do you pull? Any that are even comparable to a Scarlett Johannson? Yeah right. Didn't think so. You should stop criticizing the most minute flaws of women's bodies and start burning off your own beer gut which I'm 100% sure you have. Get to it, fattie. Don't stop with the situps until you can see your own pen!s when you p!ss, you fat !@#$.

A 2nd is giving up too much. Our Titans 3rd plus Josh Reed seems fair to me. Corey Simon isn't exactly the next coming of Ted Washington for us. Don't forget, there are multiple reasons for the Eagles wanting to trade him: 1. He's expensive. 2. He's lazy. 3. His overall production has steadily declined for the past few years.

You should have kept the spirit of your second paragraph and ditched the rest. If you want to debate politics, then you should take your biased drivel to the PPP forum. But if political issues are as black and white to you as your anger-based post indicates, you will not be very persuasive over there.

During preseason, it's not unusual to see a team's backup LB's practice at both the middle and outside. They do so to show any extra versatility that might give them a leg up on the other backup competition. I have yet to see the 2005 Bills play, but I do remember that last preseason Stamer played some downs in the middle and Crowell played some at all 3 - middle, sammy, and will. Haggan I think stuck at middle the whole time last year, but maybe this year he's expanding his talent portfolio a bit beyond MLB and special teams! When all is said and done, I bet we keep 7 LB's and here is where I think they'll "officially" go: starting WOLB: Spikes starting MLB: Fletcher starting SOLB: Posey backup WOLB: Crowell backup MLB: Haggan third string MLB: Ezekiel backup SOLB: Stamer However, don't be suprised to see the backups play in other LB slots during the season. It all depends on injury situations and specific matchups with the opposing offense's personnel. FWIW, I think our LB's are strong all around, from starters to backups. I'm not really sure why Posey gets a lot of fan hate as a starting SOLB. With Fletcher and Spikes soaking up so many of the plays, how much more could a 3rd guy in this LB corps do? Then again, I'd like to see more pass rushing from the strong side, and if this is more of Posey's fault than Jerry Gray's, yeah I guess I'd be all for Stamer getting a shot. No doubt Stamer has the attitude and intensity of a pass rusher!

Does it really even matter too much anymore who is at LT and who is at RT? There isn't much of a difference between the LDE and RDE on many current NFL teams. The Bills are one example. Only 2 years and 10 pounds separate Schobel and Kelsay. And even for the teams that do have big differences between the two DE's, on a lot of plays the opposing D's will flip the two around to create various desired matchups plus confusion on the O's part. And finally, don't forget that we can always place a TE, FB, RB (on passing plays), or WR (on running plays) on the side of the particular tackle who is consistently being picked on by the better DE on the opposing team. Aside from all that, I'd rather stick with as much OL continuity from the end of last year as possible with virtual rookie JP starting. This is best done by leaving MW at RT and Teague at C, which leaves 5 players trying out for LT on the team: Mike Gandy Jason Peters Dylan McFarland - backup at best until he puts more muscle on his frame Lawrence Smith - probably won't even make the team David Pruce - practice squad at best If Gandy doesn't work out (I don't think he will), our best remaining option would have to be Jason Peters instead of MW or Teague (or especially McFarland, Pruce, or Smith). Aside from the reasons already mentioned above, Peters is clearly the most athletic of the 3. He has the size and footwork to be a very good starting T in this league. The only things holding him back are his experience and HIGHLY questionable intelligence. However, MW and Teague bring their own deficiencies to LT. MW has never played at LT either. Teague not only hasn't played there in some time (2001 for Denver), but he sort of sucked at it when he did (14 sacks given up singlehandedly). While McNally continues to work with Peters in preseason and beyond, at least Peters should be able to get by on many plays with talent alone. For the tougher DE matchups, there are many ways to scheme around Peters' mismatch - shotgun snaps, JP rollouts, extra blockers on the LT's side, etc... The point is that having 1 weakness at LT is more manageable than introducing another on the OL when we replace LT with MW or Teague.

Yes, but couldn't the Sabres max out the cap this year at $39 million and still be in good shape for the future? I'm talking about giving 1 year deals to vet UFA's and multi-year deals weighted toward the 1st year. In other words, are the Sabres being cheap this year ($28 million max) because they're thinking long-term? Or can we expect the Sabres to be cheap year in and year out? I don't mean to sound too pessimistic because I genuinely have no idea what the team's intentions are. On the one hand we have Gleason's encouraging article, and on the other we see losing Satan and Zhitnik and so far hearing no rumors of signing anyone else specifically.

Since the 00-01 season. So that's 3 straight years without playoffs, not including the strike season. The Bucky Gleason article provides a good justification for DR's quietness the past 2 days, but not if he plans to go into the season with a $23-$28 million payroll! There's a difference between being responsible with money allocation and being just downright cheap.

Would it be possible to sign both Zhitnik AND Miller?

It'd be cool to see some eligible receiver plays for Peters at LT. I like the idea of running a 2 TE set while still keeping Moulds, Evans, Willis, and Shelton all on the field at the same time.

I agree, but only to a point. JP deserves the FULL preseason to prove he can competently lead the Bills in 2005. And no one can make a fair assessment of his abilities based on only the first preseason game, let alone the first week of practice. However, if JP is consistently playing MUCH worse than Holcomb - and I'm talking about Holcomb is lighting up D's while JP is flat out bombing - then maybe it'd be best for the Bills to go with Holcomb in 2005 and give JP another year to learn on the bench. I know that would only be delaying JP's development, but don't forget that we have a bunch of veteran Bills with only 1-2 years left on their contracts who aren't getting any younger. By the time JP is 100% mentally ready to lead the Bills to the playoffs and beyond, our stellar D and parts of our O may be long gone. It's just something to think about. If there is little difference in the play of JP and KH - using an overall evaluation that spans the entire preseason - then yes, you have to stick with management's original plan of starting JP. And by the way, I don't think a single Bills fan here is rooting for JP to screw up a la RJ, so don't go looking for fights that aren't there. Bills fans just have different priorities - whether they be winning now or losing now to potentially win much more later.

Jerry Gray's style of D demands more out of the CB's (more man-to-man coverage) than in your typical NFL D. Plus, Pro Bowl CB's are about as equally difficult to find as Pro Bowl DL's, especially on the UFA market. So if we lose Clements, who's to say that we will be able to compensate for his loss with a Pro Bowl DE/DT of about equal impact? I say stick with what we've got, even if that means we won't be major players in free agency for another couple more years.

It'd be perfectly reasonable for Clements to demand a contract placing him among the 5 highest paid NFL CB's. Can anyone think of 5 or more CB's in their 20's who are better than Clements?

For $4 million a year, I'm sure we could find a quality UFA forward who can equal Miro's production as well as play defense and not be a team cancer. But even if we can't, there are several good young forwards on this team who can - in total - equal or surpass Satan's scoring production. Vanek, Roy, Pominville, Gaustad, and Paille all have potential. I'm far more concerned with the defensemen than the forwards. Losing Zhitnik is understandable, but not if we have no plans of replacing him with players outside the organization. Despite the projected losses (Satan, Zhitnik, and Boulton), I still think we're only 2 quality UFA defensemen away from being a playoff team. We should be fine with our current talent at forward, but the defensemen lines are a horror show. DR needs to do whatever it takes to get some quality D. Trading Biron would be a good start.