Mikie2times

I agree, the maturity problem seemed well documented, if this is how it plays out perhaps it was just Teflon taking another reach. From what I've witnessed since JP became a pro is if he does have a maturity problem I think it has a lot to do with his expectations. The combination of a lack of humbleness and the inability to back it up will not go along very well with NFL players, especially when it's coming from a QB. JP acted as if he should be held to the standard of a hall of fame QB, and openly discussed his goal of being the best ever. Both of these feelings would be positive with a player who had the humbleness to keep those thoughts inside but JP didn't. Veterans know how difficult the NFL is and I don't see them siding with a guy who has these outlooks when on the field he can't muster anything to back it up.

I’ll admit to being surprised about the JP trade rumors, if nothing else you just don't see many young 1st round QB's being shopped around. While I'm surprised I'm not upset, and since that seems to be the overwhelming response from the fan base I have to ask why? The main school of thought that seems to be floating around is we don't know what we have yet in JP, and since his price was a 1st rounder at a vital position we must wait to find out. People have even used the Brett Farve analogy to describe a player who in a similar situation went onto to have amazing success. The majority of the time this logic is sound and should be applied to younger QB's. But to simply follow this idea blindly without truly analyzing the individual circumstances would not be a sound strategy. What we know from the media and player histories is that Kelly Holcomb has always been known as a team guy, and JP Losman had some character question marks coming out of Tulane. From this we can safely assume one thing; Kelly Holcomb is a team guy. With Losman we just didn't have enough information to substantiate the Tulane reports. Kelly had a great reputation with the Colts, Browns, and now Buffalo, and we've heard the same from so many players that we know it's legit. As the nightmare from last season ended and the truth came out we learned from several different sources that the locker room heavily backed Holcomb as the starter. To me that is a critical peace of information because it explains the unorthodox decision Mularkey was forced to make when he benched JP. Logic does not say you bench your "QB of the future" in what was clearly a losing year. Why the players backed Kelly is the most important question that needs to be asked, but unfortunately only the Bills management and players know the answers. We can speculate that it was because he offered the players the best chance at winning, or we can say it was because he had a history of strong player support. On the flip side maybe the reports from Tulane were true, and JP wasn't the best teammate. If these latest reports about JP being traded are indeed true then that goes a long way in showing what happened last season. I just can't picture our entire staff evaluating JP, and then deciding to put him on the block in this stage of his career unless major red flags went off. If that's the case then why bother keeping him? For every Brett Farve the NFL has 1,000 Joey Harrington’s, Cade McNowns, Akili Smith's or Patrick Ramsey's. The odds of JP turning the corner are drastically smaller then him fading away. If the Bills have noticed something about him in terms of maturity then those odds get even smaller. If the Bills decide to stick with JP then I will still be supportive of that decision, I guess the point is if they do decide to trade him we shouldn't sit here worrying we traded away our chance at greatness. All we really have to go on is one poor season and the evaluation of a GM that never brought us a playoff appearance. If we can cut bait for a 2nd or 3rd rounder in this years talented draft class then we should do it, and fans shouldn't be panicking we made the wrong decision. If you like knowing a young QB is on the roster who could be the future of this team why can't Nall be that guy? He's put up better numbers then JP in the same amount of time, and also has an all-NFL Europe QB award to his credit in 2003. Sure he's a long shot at this point but isn't JP? Trust the staff, building a foundation is boring and slow when it's done right but in the end it pays off.

Brees is Free? Good Luck signing him. Collins has lost it, we never knew if Culpepper ever had it to begin with, and if he did if it will return post injury. McCown is the only other legitimate guy I see on that list but even then I just feel Schaub has the better future. This place can be ridiculous sometimes. For several years the board is incredibly skewed toward favoring QB's. Now it's so skewed to favoring every other position but QB you would think it's the QB was the kicker. Last time I checked we not only suck on the line but we aren't exactly set at QB either. If adding Schaub for a 2nd increases our chance of finding "the man" by even 20% is it that crazy?

I still feel Moulds has some trade value because if he's released multiple teams will be vying for his services. If one team wants to guarantee they get him then a trade would be the only way to do so. As for his contract if we honor his request to be traded and it happens to be to a playoff contender with a QB I would think he would be willing to work with the new team. Atlanta could use some help at WR, and our interest in McCown shows the Bills aren't necessarily content with Kelly and JP. The price for Schaub would be high but given the strength of this draft class our 2nd rounder probably equals out to be a late 1st most other years. Combine that with Moulds and it might just be enough to pry him out of Atlanta’s grasp. Thoughts? Good? Bad? Any offensive line comments?

I was just being a smart ass, everytime somebody posts something negative I'll follow with a marvism. But to respond to the Hurricane comment talent can hide character probelms much better in college then the pros.

Talent without character never wins.

He's been a very one dimensional WR since he entered the league. By that I don't mean he can't do other things, as he shown to be a great Gunner and KR, what I mean is all he runs is fly patterns. That's not to discredit him, as Malta pointed out he is an immensely talented player, he just hasn't been able to put it all together. One thing I do know is if Vernon Davis is in the cards in addition to Andre our ability to stretch the seems would be limitless. Andre is actually a better deep threat then Lee if that's possible, and if you had the duke splitting the seem with Parrish and Moulds underneath it would be a match up nightmare for any defensive coordinator.

The Davis signing doesn't signal the end of anything. Josh Reed wasn't signed and as far as I know Aiken hasn't either. Even if he does that leaves us with Moulds/Evans/Parrish/Aiken. Only two of those WR's have shown they belong in the NFL as a WR, so what do you do if one of them gets hurt? All this shows to me is the new regime is not comfortable staying put with players the old regime drafted. We needed depth at WR in case Roscoe doesn’t develop. Enter in Davis who can play the 2 spot if necessary but is much better suited as a three. I just refuse to believe that Buffalo would try so hard to resign Moulds, as it appears they’re doing, yet think they can replace him with a guy who spent most of last year at the bottom of New Englands depth chart.

It's like a vagina but better

I'd rather have Robert Redford

I would like to know what Jzmack thinks of Moormans speed

Would rather be in the NFC East then the AFC Belichicks.

Oops, I read a different page and I thought it said LG, turns out it did say LT so thanks for clarifying. As for how that impacts these projections Gandy was probably the biggest stretch at LG on this line. He might just end up having the same role he had with Chicago, a versatile backup G/T.

Also of note...... In 2003 when Gandy started over a dozen games at LG for Chicago his HC was none other then Dick Jauron.

I thought the same thing. It's not only that he's tackling high but he has ZERO form. The majority of the tackles were hand/grab tackles and he didn't appear to want to initiate contact with his body. Like you said NFL players will eat that technique up.

If Runyan is signed it probably means Jason Peters would be getting a shot at LT. If that's the case look for Mike Gandy to return to the LG spot he played in Chicago before he came here. Filling out the line would be Vill at RG, and Mawae at C. This line would certainly be a physical veteran group, and overall it would be a big improvement at a reasonable cost. My only concern would be the development of the left side and depth since several of these players would be in their mid 30's.

Thanks for the comments, this is overkill for some but I knew some of the junkies would appreciate it. Overall I’m very happy with the position Marv has put us in as we enter FA. First off when you look at each position we cut the market generally has an abundance players with similar value. For example if you want a decent back up/poor starter at WR ala Josh Reed the market is filled. Same with Starting C, and SS etc. What this also shows is what ways we could be leaning in the draft. Decent FA DT's are not as scarce as some are making it out to be, while TE, FS, and OG all are. That means Huff and Davis could very well supplant Ngata, and a day 1 OG seems like a high probablity choice.

A large part of our draft strategy in April will be decided by the players available in Free Agency. That is to say if the FA market is very deep at a need area and the draft is very thin at that position it would make sense to address the position threw FA. Most people have grasped this concept and talk about FA value at certain positions as common knowledge, I'm guilty of doing the same thing. In fact before I started this project I felt capable of rating the players, that is until I ran across enough Bob Smiths to know that Tennessee 6th WR is not somebody I know much about. The very best we can do is use the information available via the internet to "fill in the gaps" about players we might not be familiar with. What I have done is taken the rankings of this Scout FA Rankings and created a means of ranking the overall FA class position by position. It's not perfect, as the system relies on scouts ratings, but overall it captured my intended purpose, and that was to shed some light on our cuts and to see which areas should be addressed threw FA’s. For the results you can just scroll down, but without reading the Methodology the number won't be very insightful. Methodology- First off scout rates FA's from 1-5 stars with 5 being the best. For study I broke down these star ratings into 3 categories. Players 3 stars and up count as immediate starters, 2 star players are decent back ups/weak starters, and 1 star player are career back ups. I separated all the FA's into these groups by position and then removed all franchised players, and RFA's. I wanted this list to represent readily available players and it's unlikely we will go after 1 or more RFA's. The last thing I did was break each position down into two categories. The first category is amount of starters each team usually has at that position, the second was the amount of back ups each team has at that position. The reason I did that was to take into account the demand for more players at certain positions. For example if the market has 8 starting caliber WR's, and 5 starting caliber centers it doesn't mean it's deeper at WR since teams usually employ 2 or more starting receivers. The exact numbers I used for each position are based on the average number of players as starters and back ups at that position threw out the league. The final number ends up representing the number of teams that could fill the entire position with the caliber of FA listed. EX Position: QB Starting Caliber Players: 3 Decent Back Ups/Weak Starters: 8 Career Back Ups: 14 NFL Average Amount of Starters Per Team: 1 NFL Average Amount of Back Ups Per Team: 2 Divide 3 (Starting Caliber Players) by 1 (NFL Average Amount of Starters Per Team)= 3 (Teams that can get a starting caliber QB) Repeat the same process for the decent back Ups/Weak Starters and Career Back Ups category but divide it by the NFL Average Amount of Back Ups per Team. Results Number of teams that could fill each position with starting caliber players SS-7 RB-6 C-5 CB-3.6 DT-3.5 WR-3.2 OLB-3 QB-3 OT-2.5 FS-2 FB-2 DE-2 MLB-.67 TE-.67 OG-.67 Number of Teams that could fill each position with Decent Back Ups/Poor Starters MLB-12.6 OLB-8.5 FS-8 TE-8 DT-7.5 OT-7.5 RB-6 WR-6 FB-6 CB-5.6 SS-4.6 QB-4 DE-4 OG-4 C-3 Number of Teams that could fill each position with Career Backups TE-14 QB-14 RB-10 OLB-8 FS-8 FB-8 SS-8 C-7 DE-5.5 CB-4.8 DT-4.5 WR-4.4 OT-4 MLB-3.3 OG-2.5

On about 60% of the plays, for 20% of them he was triple teamed, leaving him isolated one on one only about 20% of the time. The guy he faced that day is arguably the best G prospect in the draft in David Joseph. I know people want to see Ngata eat OL and then feed them to our defense like a baby bird but he's human. He does what P. Williams can do, and I we found out last year a player like that does have some value.

or CB's from Northwestern State.

Now I remember why I haven't been posting much, people are so quick to criticize and they usual do it by completely exaggerating posters intentions. Your post is a perfect example of that. One poster mentions we should take a look at Scheffler who is a small school LATE round prospect. I mention we should take a look at Jennings as a small school LATE round prospect. So from that your response is Perhaps completely avoiding small school prospects would be a great draft strategy, after all we’ve hit on a ton of late round gems from big schools the last few years. Maybe the biggest mistake of all was wasting that 4th rounder on Terrance MaGee.

I really like Tony Scheffler, plus it's not everyday somebody recommends we draft a player from Kalamazoo, so I'll take it. Another guy from WMU to watch out for is WR Greg Jennings. Over the last three seasons Jennings has been the most productive DI receiver in the nation despite constant double teams the past two years. Over the last three years he’s AVERAGED 76 catches for 1134 yards and 13 TD’s. He’s undersized and I understand that we don’t need another small receiver, but if he drops to the 4th or 5th round he would have a lot of value.

Was waiting for that

Like I said it's not just the Bills, it is the whole league I miss. As for your point about knowing who will be good I disagree that it's much different today. In general we already know a large amount of the contenders next year, and a large amount of the teams that have no chance. You have more exceptions to the rule now then in the 90's but that's just because the product is watered down. Players in it for $ are less likely to reach their true potential. It's also difficult for teammates to play together for a long time leading to what Greggo would call a "lack of execution". IMO when lack of execution and effort leads to parity that's not a good thing, and that seems to be the NFL of today and the future.