Mark Long Beach

Also agreed. It was quite refreshing to see competence.

Buffalo Bills - ouch. Cleveland Indians - ouch. my local LA Lakers! - not ouch. I guess they keep me on an even keel when dealing with the Bills and Indians. But talk about extremes... sheesh!

Sadly our good play allowed us to rise to the occasion and... lose a winnable game there for our taking. sigh.

Best summary I've seen. I completely agree. He has talent I don't dispute that. But so did Losman and Edwards. Blech, I wouldn't touch him with a 39 1/2 foot pole.

It is incredible, but he had a good start. The Lakers were already one of the premier teams in the league as one of the powers in the Western Conference. His first draft pick wasn't too bad in Magic Johnson. Hollywood and other advantages work together (with him being a good owner) to help keep them on top. Can't forget about two hall-of-fame coaches during that span either. Current coach is Phil Jackson who has been a head coach for 21 years. He's been to the Championship game 13 of those 21 years (winning 11)! He's had the most dominating coaching run of any coach in any of the major professional sports. Heck he even won 2 championships as a PLAYER. The dude understands what it takes for a team to win. Jerry Bus is a good owner, but there's a lot that goes into the Lakers being successful.

Good Times, Good times.

Yeah, but you run the risk of being the 90s Cincinnati Bengals. David Klingler, Akili Smith... But then again they got Boomer Esiasin and Carson Palmer on either side, unfortunately that's a span of 1984 to 2003 between good QB drafts. That left them 1991-2004 with no winning seasons and SEVEN seasons with 4-12 or worse!

Yup, and he's classified as a bust. Or perhaps a washout at best.

We were among the more active teams in free agency and already had one of the highest player turnover from last year. Granted we were generally going for the value picks, but we reportedly put in offers on some higher level players like Donovan McNabb. But with so few players available, and MUCH fewer high quality players available the competitions was pretty high for them. Since we are in a rebuild mode with a new staff, I agree with the don't overspend until you know what you've got and what you need philosophy. For a perfect fit, I'm still happy to overspend, hopefully they'll feel the same. I suspect we'll be active next year as well, as we have a lot of holes to fill.

Reminds me of what we did with Butler. We moved him inside to play at guard and was a pretty decent one, later on we moved him out to tackle and was a pretty decent one. We would have a much better line if he hadn't retired. Wang is a new puzzle piece, we're just trying to find out where he fits the best. It's not always at his drafted location. Robert Gallery was the number 2 pick as a supposed franchise Left Tackle, where he was not successful... However, he's a pretty good guard and it's the position he plays now. Gallery: http://www.examiner.com/oakland-raiders-in-oakland/oakland-raiders-a-question-of-talent

A probable collection of versatile junk, but they are also probably better than last years junk. We've gotten plenty of looks at Chambers who was versatile, but definitely junk. Meredith has been beaten out by our current junk so that leaves Scott, who I think had a little potential (and is a backup at Pittsburgh IIRC). Close call, but Howard's looked okay, and we've some hope that Wang and Wrotto can be better...right?

Wood played a different line position in college, but he hasn't moved around since he's been here at Buffalo. Changing positions is pretty standard fare as players move up in competition. This is due to both increased competition at each position and different needs of teams at the higher levels. Lots of tackles in college are put there because they are the strongest and fastest lineman the team has, but in the pros their speed and size is typically not large/fast enough to handle the pro players so they get moved into guard. It's also easier to help guards so that position is often a starting point for young players (like tackles) to get some playing time on the field. As they gain experience, strength and technique then they get moved to positions of greater responsibility like tackle (or center). Also very true. Wood hasn't completely come back from his injury and has struggled this season. But has been our best RG.

Yup. It thrives on creating mismatches before the play is even run. This makes it easier for the QB to run the offense because the field is so spread out there is less options for the defense to change coverages/disguise intentions etc. In college ball, how many teams are going to run 4 deep in cover dbs/lbs? Spread formations are used in the pros all the time, but they are just part of a package not a whole system because it leaves the QB too exposed to potential injuries over the long haul. Especially with the much bigger/faster/stronger pro players. Because it can put up huge points in HS & College ball, there are a number of schools that run a whole offensive system based on spreading out the defense. Because it's typically run out of the shotgun and has less formation variations it can be difficult to project how a QB will be able to run all of the different formations he'll have to run as a pro QB. Statistic-wise they'll have stunning numbers, but they may not have the skill set to make the transition to pro an easy one (or at all).

I think that we can stop weak running teams. To some extent they'll stop themselves. Since they've had a half-season of running failures they won't rely on the run as much as they should vs. us. So they'll pass too often and will lose because of it.

I agree. Vick would improve our team tremendously. He's at a minimum a good QB and perhaps a very good QB. This is WAAAAY better than what we have. But the rabid foam-at-the-mouth dog fondlers er lovers can't stand that idea.

I haven't watched Kolb enough to form a strong opinion on him, but Philly has devoted an awful lot of resources to him and all but anointed him the franchise QB after trading a good QB away. Even if he struggles a little the first year, I can't see the Eagles dumping him off in a trade. Especially not a quarter of the way through his first year at starter. So the very premise of the trade for Kolb argument is more than a little spacey. It feels a little to me like the we should trade for Peyton arguments... I generally agree with you that if they become available it's because they aren't any good.

As a reader (mostly) of this site, I also get tired of the rant du jur. Especially one that was just the opposite of last week (as PTR pointed out). I greatly enjoy his additions of sanity to the chaos that surrounds our team. Especially when it helps bring the thread back to being a discussion rather than just a series of crazy posts of people venting. Honestly, we're all frustrated to one level or another, but I come here for discussions on football, specifically Bills football. Another post on how much smarter the poster is for wanting a different draft pick, or a different free agency signee, "our player(s) suck" or a "we should trade for Peyton" thread gets old and isn't much of a discussion on football. I'm much more interested in thoughts on (for example) Fritz has proven to be capable but erratic, how can we further tailor our offense to his strengths or we've re-arranged our defense significantly to a 4-3 heavy or 4-2 scheme but are still giving up huge rushing yards how can we further tinker with it?

We had our shots to get lucky with a lower draft pick QB and didn't get lucky. We need one badly and we need one soon. The best shot to get one is to draft one early in the first round. I HATE drafting a QB in the first round, but I think that we should. Assuming that Nix thinks there is one left that's any good of course by the time our pick is as I trust his judgment waay more than mine.

I find it interesting how different people watching the same events come up with wildly different interpretations of what happened(ing). We've been a poor team for the last 10 years or so, most recently three straight 7-9 seasons capped by a 6-10. We just replaced our GM, asst GM, Pro Player scout, new national scout, promoted head of college scout, oh yeah, and our entire coaching staff (save two competent holdovers). Additionally, we had no clear-cut starting QB. We've been on a slide for the last few years and no amount of front office shuffling is going to fix that overnight. ESPECIALLY since because of the CBA not being in place the pool of available free agents was slashed and those that were available were all SIX plus year veterans! A whole slew of six year veterans (that their original team wasn't even willing to re-sign) are not what a rebuilding team needs. So that leaves the draft and its handful of picks. So you complained about not picking up replacements for players leaving, I disagree. We drafted/picked up replacements for receiver and pash-rusher. But rookies usually take a while to contribute. Hopefully ours will. Am I happy with what's transpired? No. I thought we'd be more competitive. Our defense is confused and incapable of stopping the run. The new system puts too much responsibility on our weakest unit (LB). They haven't been able to step up. Over the last few years the Bills have shown that they are incapable of beating teams that are better than they are; merely capable of beating those teams weaker than themselves. IMO that hasn't changed much. Due to our hard schedule I think that we had only a reasonable chance of beating Miami and Jacksonville. Trent proved incapable of being an NFL starter and blew our Miami chance. Jacksonville was very strong in an area where we were terrible weak (run & TE defense) and pounded us mercilessly with it. Same as it ever was. The difference, which seems clear to me, is that that this regime is putting its mark down. It can only replace so many players at a time, and so it's finding out who they think can contribute meaningfully. If not they're shipped out. I'm very happy with that. Bye bye Trent, sorry you couldn't make it. Bye Bye James Hardy, Chris Ellis, and Marshawn Lynch. I also believe that it won't be long before McCargo and Maybin are gone as both sit on the bottom of the depth chart and haven't performed well. I look forward to more discards and more player acquisition. I believe that Nix is a good scout and understands what it takes to turn an organization around (ala San Diego). I like his replacement plan in Doug Whaley. It's not going to happen overnight, but I'm going to enjoy the process not wallow in misery through the difficult parts.

I believe that Whitner hasn't lived up to his draft status, but I think that he's still a solid starter and one of the few members of the defense who's play matches how much he cares. BTW did anyone notice on the Gerard fumble, Whitner (a safety) was one of the later entrants to the scrum and he was the one who came up with ball. It was a nice hustle play full of grit. He was one of the few bright spots on a horrible defensive day. A number of times his was the only play to keep a long gainer from being a touchdown. A safety is supposed to keep the mess in front of him and prevent tds, and he had a lot of mess in front of him.

Agreed. Although, I hope for success sooner. This is Chad Simpson's third year in the league and couldn't stick with Indianapolis for two tries nor us for one. J. Bell was not only undrafted but was even free for anyone to sign from our practice squad for several weeks after the season started before the Eagles finally did. Neither runningback has logged a carry for either of their new teams. I liked the work that Simpson did, and I thought that J. Bell had real possibilities to be an NFL caliber runningback, but keep it in perspective, NEITHER were NFL ready runningbacks right now and might never be. There are LOTS of guys who have potential to be NFL players but most don't make it. So I'm mildly sad not to have JBell on our team but I'm still rooting for him, but all he is at the moment is potential.

Good catch. I agree that's too much emphesis on the DL when we've just added those three last offseason. We even have some existing reasonable players in Stroud, and Kyle Williams. I certainly wouldn't cry if we ended up drafting another DL, but three more seems like too many considering our numerous holes. Especially our weaknesses in OT and LB. My personal feelings are that our shortcomings at LB are preventing us from being anything but a bottom end defense where we are now. I believe that we're last in the league in points per game at 31.2 and 27th in yards per game 382 (!). What's staggering to me is that this is the case even though we have a pretty good secondary. This is a STRONG indictment on our LB core which is supposed to good at both pass rush and run defense.

I can believe that. you can still pick up much of the analog info and still have somthing, but you lose enough of the digital info, you'll have nothing. Thanks.

Wrong on the prediction, absolutely right that the "Jets nation won't sit back and let Sanchez keep them from what they perceive as their year to win the Super Bowl". Unfortunately Sanchize has stepped up this year, while another young QB (Edwards) never did. Sigh.