Mikie2times

If my points were scattered so be it, but you still haven't shown why they deserve more money in the context of how this league came to be. Every point you've made ignores why players are even in this position in the first place. The Buffalo Bills and just about every other team in football have an original owner behind them. The players wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for these men. Most of these owners risked a substantial amount on an unpopular sport while the players shared none of the burden. The players only became irreplaceable because the original owners did such a damn fine job making the NFL as popular as it is today. The reward of creating the most popular sport in this country is empowered players, who now have enough popularity to holed teams and the league hostage. Maybe that was the guaranteed end result of creating such a popular sport, but no way can you sit here and argue the players deserve it.

They fight for what they get as any of us would do, but they don't deserve this anymore then you or I deserve a raise. Sure players undergo physical risks, and they have extremely demanding professions. If it was a normal business model they would be entitled to benefits to cover these issues, not completely disproportionate incomes compared to the CEO’s and higher ups in the company/team. Without the dozens of original NFL and AFL owners who took huge risks this league would be nothing. A company can't survive without the people who make the product/are the product, but at the same time the CEO/owner is the one who's developed the idea, or believed in what nobody else did. In real world he would be the one making the disproportionate salary, and if employees had a beef they would be let go without a thought. If the company did incredibly well like the NFL has they'll probably get a raise, but in the real world most that money is going back into the pockets of the men who took the risks to begin with. Players get what they get because the media, and fans. If some local newspaper strikes people don't care. If a professional sports league strikes it's talked about all day, and if it's the NFL it's 24/7. If people didn't attach themselves to players so much they would just be another employee who could be replaced. Just another person working for a company, making the same disproportionate salary most people make compared to the higher ups.

I can list dozens of guys who survived in this league late, or slipped threw the cracks because they're system QB's. Obviously what Peyton can do is very rare. As you pointed out in your first post when you have a guy as good as Peyton the entire offense is built around his talent. That's a big part of the reason why we never see these super QB's win the big game. Too much is on one guy, and with an entire offensive predicated one guy a bad playoff game is all it takes. The system QB does usually receive the benefit of more balance, but the style offensive play flat out makes a difference. Turnovers are the single most important aspect in the NFL. Threw out history in the playoffs you'll find system QB's not committing turnovers, while non systems QB's do. You'll find examples of great gunslingers not winning the Super Bowl for a decade. All of these guys aren't getting the benefit of a dominating defense, or outstanding run game. Manning might be more unique then Brady, but I'll take a great system QB over a great non system QB any day of the week. One gives you rings, and the other gives you fantasy points.

The sentence goes "We'll nip, we'll tuck, we'll go, we'll crunch, we'll Jew, we'll do it all.' And he nickeled and dimed 'em. The stereo type is Jewish people are usually frugal. I'm sure that's what his comment referred to. Poor attempt at trying to be witty for old Shadinglebury.

A player like Peyton Manning is more rare for what he does downfield then a player like Brady who gets it done in the quick passing game. Lots of vets can do some of the things in the short passing game that Brady can, very few could ever pass downfield like Peyton can. The problem is Peyton's downfield style lends itself to a higher margin for error. That higher margin for error makes it rare for a downfield QB/Team to win the Super Bowl. Players like Brady or Montana have a style that limits the margin for error, and they happen to be among the best ever at it.They use quick sharp passes, limiting sack/turnover potential and decreasing the chance of third and long. It's a better suited style for the playoffs. The only reason you don't see everybody go to it is the do everything factor. Coaches look for guys that can make every throw in the draft. For whatever reason guys that go down field effectively don't usually translate to West Coast QB's. The increased velocity on the football probably has something to do with it. Many late round or late career success stories have been born from great short passers who couldn’t make all the throws, and went undrafted or in day two.

What you've never seen an owner take a standing dump in a press conference?

I can see your point. Teams have more money now, and aren't bumping up against the cap. It's a more competitive financial environment for Buffalo to jump into. At the same time I feel this is still an off-season that should tell us something. We clearly need help at guard, and have needed it for a long time. Countless mistakes have been made trying to fill this hole with bargain FA's. Jauron, Levy, and Ralph have all discussed getting more help on the offensive line at some point in the season. Two high priced excellent guards will be available in Steinbach, and Dielman. To not extend any interest to either would be telling to me. That's especially true if we don't make a competitive offer to Clements. It's not as if we ever really focused on big money guys, but I expect it to decline even more now. Do you expect we will sign any big name players this off-season, or be willing to do it in the future? Perhaps it will just become a rarity that doesn't happen until other teams have used up more cap room.

I don't know if Okoye will develop or not, I just have serious questions if he's the right guy for what we need right now. Our biggest issue is run defense, we don't necessarily need a big guy, but a 19 year old that weighs 280 is probably not who we need either. If he drops to the second, or shows great strength and is available late first then maybe. I just see him being at least one year away from potentially having strong run stopping ability, and most likely two. Later on in the draft his potential could be worth it but not if we stay put. As for Stanton I guarantee he will be a bust. I've watched and played against him in high school, watched most his games at MSU, It's the same story. He has a lot of skill but he completely implodes at times, and will make some horrible mistakes. He's also injury prone, and showed a disturbing decline in play late in the year, and against Big Ten teams. I knew his skills and intelligence would attract some people, but he's just not NFL caliber. One team will end up using a early pick for what amounts to a practice hero.

Lot's of talk about what Buffalo will do with Nate. Some say look at the cap we can sign him, others see him out of our price range. I believe the correct answer is Buffalo will not sign high priced players anymore. We might see guys get some healthy contracts, but Buffalo will never hand out huge money to a FA, or sign one of our FA's if they have unreasonable demands. It's not a matter of cap room; it's a matter of Buffalo trying to even out the financial field by staying below the cap. It puts us at a disadvantage but if it happens it’s something we can overcome. For starters this team and town appeal to certain players. So some players will be reasonable, I would expect JP to be that type of player. Past trying to draft those personalities we need to sign draft picks to longer contracts, and renegotiate our best players as early as possible. We also need to evaluate players like Nate a year or two before they hit the market. If it's clear a player wants to hit the market and our team is in a rebuild mode we need to trade him. Looking back we all knew in 2 years we wouldn't be winning a super bowl no matter how well Nate played. Trade him while he still has value. We could accumulate draft picks and drafting will play the biggest role for us in the future. Obviously it's a different story if we looked to be a contender, but the point is we need to really think long term with some of these guys. We can't just keep losing our top draft picks every year without at least getting something back. This off-season will show if this is true or not. We do have lots of cap room, we have some holes, we look to be on the rise. If ever their was a time to bring in an influx of talent it's now. Just remember, if we don't sign anybody to a huge contract it's not the end of the world.

I'll bring my coloring sticks.

Even with the losses the Patriots look like the Hoover dam compared to the Bills, Jets, and Dolphins. Tom Brady has proven year in and year out that he's a top 3 QB. BB has shown year in and year out he's going to field competitive defenses. The things your saying could have been said after every year the Patriots won the Super Bowl or went to the playoffs. Each year they've lost dozens of players and coaches, and during almost all of they're runs they've done it while being completely decimated at OL or DB or RB or WR. The lesson shouldn't be that some mystique is magically allowing them to do these things. It's that having a top 3 QB and a decent defense will give you 10 wins in a league of parity.

I wouldn't think much of it. IMO more reasons favored Dungy's approach then putting it into Manning’s hands. -The Colts have run well and finished games pounding the ball the last two weeks -They had a very tired Patriots defense on field -They might have seen a match up advantage as they ran on 3rd and 5 earlier in the quarter -BB had to be thinking at least one pass in that series -Running limits the time left for the Patriots to respond -Running limits the likelihood of a turnover -They could still pick up a first without scoring giving them the ball last He probably would have drawn some criticism because it's some people’s job to criticize. But given the circumstances I think three consecutive runs was the best approach for the situation. He took a risk in hoping that he would catch NE playing pass at least once in the series of downs. If he failed he did so without risking a turnover, and all but guaranteeing a tie game with a short clock for Brady.

Lovie would be wise to abandon the deep passing game in this one. If he doesn't it plays right into the Colts defensive plans. On the other side I believe Chicago's defense can force Manning into turnovers. Just because he got over the conference championship hump doesn't mean his big game collapses are over. Manning played well against the Patriots but he nearly cost the Colts the Ravens game with balls that should have been intercepted. This is a game the Bears can win if they have a game plan suited to being a defensive juggernaut. If they try and run with the Colts and let Grossman loose they have no chance. Good Bears Game plan Bears 20 Colts 13 Bad Bears Game plan Bears 13 Colts 24

By drafting a safety that high being elite or not is the difference between being a bad decision or a good one. Whitner should be judged in the context of the elite safeties because he was drafted in a position before most of the elite safeties. I'm not exactly giving kudos to Marv for finding what looks to be a very good safety in the top 10 until that safety turns into an elite one. I especially won't when we could have had Ngata, and I'm not saying such in hindsight. I started the draft Haloti Ngata bandwagon about 4 months before April and half the wall was on board.

I don't think Reed is polished enough to be that guy. I just don't put him in that class in terms of route running, or being refined like a sound vet. Then again I just looked at what’s available and I can't say I can find a player I'm talking about. Not one Bill Brooks in the group. A lot of the 3rd down issues also seemed to come from a lacking ground game. We just need to improve on 3rd down, especially if we have playoff aspirations.

The only way possible we trade him is if we draft Lynch. If we knew we wanted Lynch and he was available when we picked, we would most likely draft him and then trade Willis. Look at it from the Bills and McGahee's perspective. You just drafted a player’s successor during a contract year. It would be a major blow to McGahee’s next contract. Fuming would be an understatement to describe how McGahee would feel. Concerned he would go in a Travis Henry like catatonic state; Levy decides to trade him while he still has a small amount of value left. They would start Lynch, because if they didn't think he was an immediate starter they had no business drafting him. To me if we draft Lynch it's more plausible we trade Willis then keep him. Having said all this I think it’s unlikely we draft Lynch.

I wasn't referring to you in my post, just making a general statement.

I was a proponent of the larger Red Zone threat but I'm not nearly as concerned with it after watching JP in the RZ this year. What I would like to see is possibly bringing in a Vet who can fill in as a possession WR. He doesn't exactly have to be Shawn Bradley, but a good underneath WR with seasoned route running would help out a lot on 3rd down. Issac Bruce seemed to fit that role when Holt came into his own. Moulds seemed to fit the role with us before he left for Houston. We need to get better on 3rd down, and we should by bringing in that Vet and improving our run blocking.

If it's your opinion Lynch isn't going to make a great pro then you’re entitled to it. I haven't watched enough on him to decide one way or the other. My beef with not factoring in Lynch is with the people who think we shouldn't because we need help in other areas, or that RB's are a dime a dozen. To consider Lynch he needs to be graded as an elite difference making RB. A player like that is ten times more valuable then a normal RB, and supercedes all other needs. I'm confident that if we pick him Marv and Co. will do it believing they've found a top 5 RB. To select him under any other condition would be the lunacy you describe.

The reasons you discredit Lynch could just as easily be applied to Walter Peyton (Jackson State), Marshall Faulk (San Diego State), or LT (TCU). All of whom had a significant amount of space to work with do to inferior competition threw out college. RB will be a need in 2008, and if we decide Lynch is an elite RB it's not pure idiocy to consider drafting him.

I'll take one of those with a high motor.

He couldn't pick a coach for us, which hurt him a lot more then his ablity to find talent or manage.

I'm not disputing the validity of what he's saying. Lots of teams try and follow this strategy and aren't successful in locking up everybody. We've even followed this strategy with players like McGee and Schobel, and probably tried unannounced to us with others. The way I read his comments implied it was some sort of Bills error that led us to these circumstances. That if we dealt with these contracts two years ago we wouldn’t be in this position. It came off like that because of the context he's used in previous chat sessions regarding our team. If it was a general comment regarding the strategy all teams should use then so be it. I just don't find similar league lessons explained when he discusses the rest of the teams. The Bills and our fans have a clear inferiority complex but this is one of the examples where I actually believe a writer has an agenda with us, and it's not a positive one.

His comments insinuated a Bills error by not signing our guys two years ago. It wouldn’t bother some so much if it wasn’t part of a routine we see week after week from Mort. He injects comments like this for us, while rarely passing similar judgment for other teams. It doesn't make everything he says unreliable, but he's not impartial when discussing the Bills, so what he says regarding our team isn't exactly reliable either. His insights both good and bad, are no more valid then many of the posters on this board.

What professional injects a comment like that? It's as if he's the one Buffalo let go. It's real simple Mort, your guy TD might have brought in some good players but he couldn't pick a coach to save his life.