silvermike

Just because we landed the best safety in the draft doesn't mean that we did the most we could to improve our team at #8.

"Niagara Bills" is such a disastrous idea, I don't understand why anyone takes it seriously. "The Buffalo Bills" are a brand with a lot of history and goodwill, current status notwithstanding. A lot of the value of that team is wrapped up in the name and legacy, it's an asset, not a liability. Throwing it away for "Niagara" is pointless; people in the greater region don't think of themselves as "Niagrans" or anything like that, unlike New England or Carolina. This is like saying the Yankees should change their names to "The Tristate Area Yankees" or, what was it that Gregg Easterbrook used to call the Redskins? The Potomac Drainage Basin Indigineous Persons. None of this is to say that a stadium in the Niagara Falls area is a terrible idea, it's just the name.

Collins is not a free agent. He signed a three year deal with the Redskins last offseason.

You can stockpile talent now - plenty of teams have done it and kept a solid corps together for years. It's about not making team-destroying mistakes, and knowing when to pay a premium.

Links?

Best player available is mostly a figure of speech - it means the best player available *for your team*. Which player will do the most to make your team better. Nobody ever drafts a QB in the first round if they have a young pro bowler - or RB, etc. The other option, drafting for need, looks specifically at making weaknesses vanish. BPA looks equally on making strengths stronger.

The Bills should change their name to the Irving Herons, and play at Smokin' Joe's Stadium.

Because we're bored.

They might have trouble selling that one to the 65,000 Jets fans who watched him fumble them a victory.

He's still firmly in the 'enigma' category, I think. It's not impossible still that he hired a good sports psychologist this winter, and will emerge from behind Kerry Collins as a star next year. And it's not impossible that he'll never throw another pass.

It's not a terrible idea. But it's probably worth investing in a computer with a functional caps-lock key.

I think the goal for overtime is to have it the most like normal football as possible. The more gimmicky it gets (see the college system), the more pointless it is, I think. You want the winner to be the team that has played the best football, not won a post-game contest. You might as well just have the field goal kickers play a game of Horse at that point. So I'd suggest one of these: a.) Sudden death doesn't kick in until the second possession of the game. Each team gets at least one shot, if it's still tied, it's sudden death. b.) The team with the ball at the end of the game either receives the kickoff after overtime, or just continues their drive from regulation.

It's way too soon to even dream of calling Hardy a bust. He's been a disappointment, but there's still promise.

I think I'd come down in favor of picking one scheme and sticking to it, because I think you have to consider the fact that changing schemes likely means hurting the performance of most of the players on your roster, and you should expect to return at least 8 of them from year to year. The other benefit to base-scheme continuity, I think, is that the more familiar your players are with your base package, the more able they'll be to spend time working on throwing different looks at the opposing offense. Look at the Steelers again here - they play a 3-4, but they spent a good chunk of the game in a 2-4-5 nickel package, and even played some Cover 2 (albeit with three down linemen instead of the Bills' four). That flexibility gives you the best options, I think, and other strong defenses familiar with their base sets can do this as well (look at the Patriots flex back and forth between the 3-4 and the 4-3). I think the Bills' problem right now is that even after three years of the Tampa 2, they STILL don't have enough talent to make it work, due to very few of their choices landing. They have one good defensive end in Aaron Schobel, and despite a lack of pass rush from the ends, the player they've added in the Jauron era who's made the most plays from that position is what, Copeland Bryan? Meanwhile Kelsay plays like an Arena bowler and Denney shows why he's a backup. Inside, they hit on Stroud and whiffed on McCargo, leaving them starting a depth DT in Kyle Williams, who plays with heart but not with the skill they need. The LB corps suffered due to some injuries, but still, they have an average LB in Poz, and some promise in Mitchell, though his strength seems to be as a blitzing LB. I've lost track of what I expect from Crowell, but he's never been a star player. Then in the secondary, you've got Whitner playing more like Jim Leonard than Bob Sanders across from Ko Money Ko Problems, and neither providing the run support a Tampa 2 needs. And somehow, they've put together a solid corps of cover corners after telling us they didn't need cover corners So what I'm saying is that while I'm all for sticking with a scheme to try to really master it and suit the talent you've already got other than pipe-dreaming about copying some playoff team's defense, the Bills have failed to acquire the talent they needed to run their own damn scheme. I'd say we transition to a base 4-3, trying to take advantage of our ability to blitz from Mitchell and Whiter, and get solid coverage from Greer, McGee, and McKelvin.

I don't think the Tampa 2 is the Bills problem. I think the problem was that they locked in on a scheme that required a great amount of talent they didn't have, and required them to ignore the talent that was available at the time. Three years in, we're beginning to put together a decent defense for this scheme. But in 2006, they started attaching themselves to a scheme that wasn't maximizing the opportunities they had. They didn't need Whitner, they already had Lawyer Milloy back there, and he's still a successful safety, but they junked him. Ngata was on the board, but they passed to fill the hole from Milloy. London Fletcher was replaced with Paul Posluszny because of the 'scheme.' If Dwight Freeney were the man available at #8 say, then it makes sense to take him and start building around him. Or if you realize that you have a significant talent gap at CB and no options in the draft/FA. But they went out of their way to both avoid utilizing the talent they had (Fletcher, Milloy, Nate Clements), and avoiding the top players they could acquire (Haloti Ngata, Kimo Van Oellenhoffen, and of course Woodley) in order to stock a defense with a slew of real averagenauts in order to play the scheme Jauron wanted.

Congratulations on citing a statistic that's been true since 2001. You just put that together?

I hadn't seen it before this year, but DeAngelo Williams has become a monster down in Carolina. Averaging 5.5 yards per carry as a featured back is remarkable.

It took me a moment to remember that Jerry Rice also played for him.

Whenever the league is going one way, go the other. You'll have less competition for the players who are good at it and opposing coaches will be less prepared for what you've got.

I'm amazing FBs can go for that long, but the best ones seem to be ancient veterans. If the Bills don't bring him in for a workout, they're not running the team right.

You know that signing Drury or Briere would have the Sabres over the salary cap, right? They're not so much cheap as rule-abiding.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/G/GilbGa00.htm

Lindell had a bad season, but kickers do that some time. I'd take my chances with Lindell over Door #3.

Yeah, I think he was really too clever by half. I think that's why they were successful in Pittsburgh when he was there - Cowher could keep him in check. And for all the awful coaching choices, his OC and DC have won Super Bowls. Well, if you count LeBeau as a DC. I will say this though: There were much better reasons to hire Gregg and Mularkey than Jauron.

Belichick can hire anyone he wants since he doesn't have to worry that any hire is likely to be massively smarter than him.