Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

So our #1 pick played well today. On the other hand, was Hardy even on the field? I wonder what he did last Monday that got him so far into the doghouse??

After a safety the team kicking off has the option of a punt OR a traditional kickoff. 9 of 10 times they punt as it has more hang time. That is why they cal lit a free kick as the kciking team has a choice. Actually it only works IF there is time left on the clock. If you punt and time expires, the half or game is over. In 40 something years of watching football, I've seen it happen about three times, but missed it today. I've only seen it happen at the half, and don't think I've ever seen anyone actually make the kick. As was described, the team who makes the fair catch can try a field goal without a rush from the spot of air catch. With no rush, maybe the guy can kick it 60 possibly 70 yards or so. Realistically the team will only attempt it if there are only a few seconds left in half, as if there's more time left, they'd attempt to run a play or two. Usually the team has no time outs left, again else they may try and run a play. It also usually would only work out if the team who punted, punted from deep in their own territory. Say they punted from the 5, he makes a 50 yard punt, so you fair catch at your own 45, that leaves you with a 65 yard attempt. If the punt was from out much further, say the 20, even a 40 yard punt would leave you with a 70 yard attempt, so unlikely to attempt. At that point, you'd figure odds are better for a Hail Mary, and/or defenseive penalty. You really need to end up in a situation where there's not enough time to likely get into better field goal range without running out of time. Again say a fair catch from your own 45 with five seconds to go. Thats a good spot to try as to get into better conventional field goal range, you probably would need to gain 20 yards. With only five seconds to go, it's unlikey there'd be enough time to gain the 20, plus have time for the kick. Actually there was some game just last week, where I thought it was going to happen. The player took a fair catch and the announcers were all over for fair catching, when he probably had a good 15 yards of running room. My guess is he was instructed to take a fair catch so they could try the free kick. Forget what happened next, but the free kick was never tried. I almosthought it was Parrish in the Cleveland game?? Know it was some game I watched last week.

WEll I must say it is a bit easier for me to be outseide as I live down in NC so eve nthough it has bee ncold down here., I'm outside in a sweatshirt!

What the hell happened? After RL kicked the field goal to make it 23-17 , I went outside ot do something over halv time. Come back 30-17 and Bills are on the KC 20??

IF it's true that DJ signed a 3 year extension, in no way can I see RW fire him and eat three years on a brand new contract!

Wasn't Andre Reed also a 7th rounder? Granted there were more draft rounds back then.

People who play great in their last contract year are usually people who at one time were stars, or at least up and coming, then the past year or two tailed off, so now they want to show how good they are. JP was never good to strart with, so base on what he's shown, doubt he has it in him to be good. Considering the games they lost even thoug honly one game out, I really don't think they have much of a shot at the playoffs. Two of their wins came agaisnt NFC teams and the other three against teams that won't likely make the playoffs, so head to head or common game wins won't help there.

Is it?? What good does winning get you if it's not good enough to make the playoffs? You can argue that you want to create a winning enviornment, but would that really impress or charge up teammates to do it with JP only to see him leave at year end. I'd agree with it IF the Bill's had a good shot at making the playoffs, but at this point they are playing for next year. So in that case, is giving TE as much playing experience as you can a better choice? You also do need to figure out if TE IS the answer. Is this a slump, being confused by things he's never seen, or as some claim, his arm is too weak, or is he too one dimensional and now that D's figured him out, he'll never amount to anything? Personally I don't think this is the case, but no one knows for sure. So play him to find out!

Huh??? JP is like what 6'-4", Flutie is 5'-7" Flutie had a weak arm, sharp grasp of the game, great pocket presence, and knew when to use his legs JP has a cannon for an arm, appears slow to pick up things, no pocket presence, was goodwhen he ran though took off too late. If Flutie had even half the physical skills of JP, he would have been better another Brett F, but likely with less ints. The first year here he was great, but once teams figured out he doesn't have an arm strong enough to consistently make throws to the sidelines, they'd clog the middle and leave a spy on him to pick up if he took off on the run. Once they figured that out, he looked weak.

JP got benched cause his play was terrible every game. Yes you can say TE has self destructed, however the difference is for the most part, JP had nothing to self distruct from as every week was the same. TE is getting a much longer rope than JP got because he is less experienced than JP is so you don't expect quite as much and he did have FIVE pretty good games to start the season with. And in 3 of the last 4 loses, as weak as he played, he was the teams only offenseive weapon. He did generate first down and kept the offense moving. The NE game and the Cleve game he looked very bad, but even in the NE game, there was little if any other offensive play from anyone else. The Cleveland game is the one game where I can totally say his play cost us the game. The other games, as little as he did, no one else did anything. So he did show he's capable of playing well. JP never had more than maybe two decent games, then a terrible game. I will grant you the offenseive line that TE is playing behind last year certianly was better thna JP had andf you expected it to be better this year too. However up until this past week, it was pretty poor. But as bad as things were those years, the Bills did run the ball better than they did agaisnt the three AFC east teams that we lost to. What did we have 150 yards rushing in the three games combined? If the next two games, the line and running game plays like it did against Cleveland, then TE has no excuses. They also have their entire offense back this week I believe??

RW pays the going rate for players, but he does skimp on coaches.

First off they still had one TO left. After missing the kick when Cleve took over they used it after 1st down. Second, when the Bills kicked there was still 35-40 seconds left. There was still plenty of time whatever happened to get the kick off. Plus if they tried even one pass and it was incomplete, when the Bills kicked there likely would have been over a minute left and the imcomplete would have stopped the clock. There were only two bad outcomes from throwing a pass, he gets sacked which would have taken him out of FG range totally , then they would have to pass next play unless of course it happened on third down, or an INT. Personally I thought they should have passed on 2nd down, and short pass maybe 5 yards or so and who knows what happens after the catch. It would be unlikely for him to have been sacked too as that was one of the few bright spots the oline did play well and gave him good protection.

Last time I looked it takes two to sign a contract. Do you honestly think JP would ever sig nan extension with the Bill's. I think JP has been very good about being a "good team player" not complaining, etc. But I don't think under any circumstances he'd ever re-sign with Buffalo. The only way I'd see it happen is if no other teams made him an offer and the Bill's made a decnet offer for him as a number two. However, if he played the rest of the seaso nwell enough to lead the team to the playoffs, then he likely would get other offers from teams, so he's gone then. The only chance he'd likely have of not getting any offers is if he doesn't play anymore and the last impression he gave teams was from the Ar. game. That's one reason why I argue it would make no sense to play JP as in no way would it benefit the Bills' beyond possibly giving them some wins this season, and that's assuming he played better than TE. If he doesn't play better, than TE just lost playing time. If he does play better he signs with someone else. I don't think Tom Brady or Peyton Manning could take this team to the Super Bowl, so if you're going to maybe at best win a wild card and lose in first round, is that much better than to make playoffs and get better drasft picks.

I disagree. I'ts not Lindells fault they didn't even try to get closer and give him an easier kick. I'd be pissed if I were him that they left him with a 47 yarder in cold weather instead of trying to get closer. And I don't blame TE for that decision either but put the blame there on the coaches. The ycould have called a safe pass, roll out throw to a slant??

Maybe that's why he got benched?? Maybe he ran the wrong route or something and it's just happened one too many times?? Not to excuse TE, but that could be why Hardy was set down?

o is he a lame duck or not?? Anything new there?

I'd also underline Lindell, Mormann, and probably Parrish but for ST play and he ain't a bd #4 or 5 receiver.

Who's van pelt?? Not Alex??? Is he still QB coach for the Bills??

That's not what was stated. Do you have trouble reading?? What was stated is you or no one one this board have any idea whether it was a good pick or not for at least three years. You have to let the players develop. Conversely there are oftne players who start out hot as a rookie but never get beyond that point. All the people you mention could be in that boat, but you won't know that either for a couple more years.

Ah... did you ever think that Ralph won't pay even half of what Bill Cowler wants. No GM in the league will decide to fire the coach without the owners buy in and the owners willingness to eat the salary, and most important, willing to pay millions for a new coach if he wants a top level coach.

I see no evidence to support that. If that were true, players would let the Bills offer sit for a couple of weeks, to see if they can get an offer from another "high profile" team close to what the Bill's are offering, then only out of desperation sign with the Bill's if no offer comes. Dockery, Walker, Stroud signed within the first couple of days of the FA period, so they had no idea if they could have got a similar offer elsewhere. They signed because they wanted to be here and felt it was a good fit. Did they overpay for those guys, likely yes. However, there's a long list of about 31 other temas who also overpay for many players every year. The one excpetion I maybe would make is NE. The trouble the Bills have is other teams will spend tons of money so a couple of bad deals don't hurt them too much as they can just keep signing people figuring eventually they will get lucky. The Bills, per Ralph's guidelines can't/won't do that so they have to have close to a 90% succcess rate on FA signings to likely be able to compete with other teams who spend wildly. The odds of any team being right anywhere near 90% is slim. The reason many players are FA is because they aren't very good. Teams see their own players every day, they know who the good ones are, and those players never even sniff free agency. There are some exceptions where a team has a backup who is better than starters on many teams but can't get o nthe field with his current teams as there's a top 10 player ahead of him. I'll bet if someone analyized it, they'd find the best free agent's in value were backups, signed with their new team for a decent $$, now became a starter and a star. Players that start for a team and aren't re-signed, aren't as good as they look, but get this huge FA offer, sign it and never live up to their contract.

Say what you want about Belichik, but he is technically the best coach in the league. Yes he cheated and his legacy will be tainted for it, but he likely could just as easily have won without the cheating. He can figure out teams and players strengths and weaknesses better than anyone I've ever seen. The things he can get out of a team are amazing. 400 yards for Matt Cassell?? Radny Moss has been content for the most part.

And then what? So he'll get to go to another team as a free agent, and TE lost 8 games to possibly learn in. No matter what happens the end of this year, JP will be gone even if the Bills wanted him to come back as I'd say I'm about 95% certain, he'd never re-sign with the Bills regardless of what was offered. I will give him the utmost repsect for taking the high road and minimuly complaining for all he was jerked around. Even this season, he could have demanded a trade and/or forced the Bills to cut him as many athletes do. But he said fine, if you can't trade me, I'll honor the contract. For that he does deserve praise. and I wish him luck, but I aslo seriously doubt he will ever becoem a consistent starter. IMO he may come in a look good for a couple of games until teams adjust to him, then will be back to the old JP again, just wearing a different jersey. TE certainly looked terrible in the NE game. In the Jet's game his turnover resulted in 10 points for the Jets which take those 10 points away, the Bills are leading. Certainly without the points and if the Jets are behind, they'd be playing the end of the game differenly and may have still won, or maybe not, who knows. So if you want to blame TE for the turnover and the 10 points, that's fine, but then you also need to give him credit for the ten other points he did get in that game as he pretty much singlehandly was their entire offense. Special teams did nothing and excluding the one Int returned for the TD, there were no sacks that generated good field position, no running game, no other turnovers. TE did keep the chains moving, kept the defense rested, and moved the ball. While I wouldn't say he played well, I won't blame him for the lose either as he was their entire offense and that's alot to ask of a second year player.

Well now that you see the results, this poll is meaningless! For JP and TE to be the top vote getters, it just shows that the people who suck both of them off evey night also know their stats by heart as they got the most votes. Both got take every opportunity you can to prove you're right!!

Thats risky though after only seeing 8 games. Anderson looked great last year too, now look at him. Many people would make the same argument about TE right now too. Looking at one year of stats are OK if you know the person as sandwiched a couple other similar years around it, then they mean something.