Mark Long Beach

Seriously. I think it's obvious to all who've watched Trent this season that he can not be a quality QB in the NFL. He's proven it to us fans through last year, and he definitively (and finally) proved it to this coaching staff. So they got rid of him. Good move by the coaching staff. Why does Ralphy need to get dragged into this?

Agreed. It's something that I look forward to each week.

Unless you're trapped by a boulder at the bottom of a canyon with no other way of getting out or receiving help. Then it's a great idea to avoid dying.

Amen. He may only be an average starter, but that's NOT a bust. He can play. McCargo, Mike Williams, Jamarcus Russell can't play. They are busts. I don't think that anyone believes Whitner has lived up to (lofty) expectations, but I'm not worried about our safety play... Our linebacker play is what concerns me.

We're carrying NINE Defensive Ends, and only two can be on the field at any one time. We're playing a mixture of 4-3 and 3-4 defenses. So we'll keep the very best DEs that will fit for each style (and he SURE isn't a 4-3 end). So he's fighting a big numbers game. No worries yet, he's looked pretty good in camp and preseason so it looks like he can be a player. This is in strong contrast to Ellis who hasn't looked good at all until this year. As we more and more transition into a 3-4 defense in the next year or two we'll see a lot more of Carrington.

It'll be awfully tough to move up to number one. But that's another good step!

Desperate? Not so much. Dishonest? Offensively ridiculous. Nobody is confused by the fact that the Buffalo Bills need upgrades in a wide range of positions. We need competent players to replace incompetent ones, we need good players to replace merely competent ones and we need some playmakers to replace good ones. Any of those I just mentioned are upgrades and we need LOTS of upgrades in lots of positions. Obviously it's most efficient to replace an incompetent player with a playmaker. Here's the problem, playmakers are hard to find, and you take one if you (think you can) get one. A playmaker is an automatic upgrade over anyone else. Yes we had (still have) good players at running back in Lynch and Jackson. Even though he's struggling a little in the transition into the NFL, Spiller has TWO touchdowns in three games, while Lynch and Jackson have ZERO. Lynch in his best season had nine. Jackson's best is three (plus maybe st score). IMO, Spiller is an upgrade because he can score points and is a legitimate threat that defenses have to account for. As for lack of impact from the rest of the draft class, it's rare for a later round rookie to have much impact his first season. So our first is contributing, our second is a primary backup for a durable player; our third is buried behind our deepest position (do you realize that we have NINE defensive ends on our 53 man roster when only two can play at any one time?) Our 4th, 5th, 6th rounders are injured. You are right there isn't much impact there, but it's awfully hard to have much impact when you're injured. There are many ways to skin a cat, and everyone has an opinion as to how to do it. Every other opinion isn't worthless and yours isn't necessarily worth any more than you what spews out of many "opinions". But for your complaints about Nix, I like many things about him. I like that he's been a highly regarded scout for a long time. I like that he immediately tagged and got a highly regarded up and comer as a successor to him to work with and train. I like that his draft philosophy is to draft the people who can play and not just draft a body to fill a role. (Some comment akin to: "then you compound a problem with two people who can't play") I like that he puts a priority early in the draft for big bodies. This based not only on his words but the fact that out of the first 5 draft picks he picked 3 linemen. You can only fill so many holes at once (and we have many). So which ones ones in which order we can surely debate, but not everyone else's opinion is wrong.

We had one of the highest player turnovers in the league. There are not a lot of high quality NFL players out there in the world. You can only find so many. I like who they did bring in, with the notable exception of Green who has been terrible. Every team has lots of mediocre players. We just have too many of them in important positions and not enough difference makers in others. There just weren't many difference makers available on the free agency market, and not necessarily in positions that we needed. But Torbor and Dwan Edwards are good and very good IMO. Remember all of the crying about Campbell? He got benched faster than Trent Edwards, and that's hard to do. That's not the kind of acquisition that we need. Nice post AD7. I've really been enjoying your posts.

Mike Vick is a successful and competent NFL QB. VASTLY better than anything we've had recently. I don't understand the vitriol and the lack of forgiveness that I've seen towards him. There are many individuals in the NFL who have done way worse and essentially are given a free pass. Just because it involves dogs? I don't get it. Well maybe it's because I'm a cat person. Especially given the cost to acquire him I would have taken him an a NY second. He'll be way more expensive now, but I'd still take him next year while looking for/grooming a long term replacement. Especially since our OL isn't so hot, he'll make them look better.

yep. Trent Edwards is a puzzle. He's got most of what it takes to be a very good QB, but somehow is missing the necessary part to even make a good QB. I agree with you're original post about the differences between practice version and the game-time TE. He's got the physical tools, the mental understanding of what's supposed to happen, and is even a reasonable leader in the good character sense. However he doesn't have that lasso in hand, riding-that-bronco-to-victory leadership. He won't take chances and shrinks under the bright lights. No gunslinger is he. One other sad thing is that TE does well is what most QB's never learn (remember JP?), and that is to checkdown to a RB or TE so that there is some chance for a positive play. However, for that to work there has to exist the threat that he'll throw over the top of the middle level of defender, and he doesn't have it. With no threat, the defenders bait him into checking down in front of them and it's an easy stop. His unwillingness to throw beyond 6 yards means he's the easiest QB in the world to defend. Which therefore makes our team the easiest to defend. I dislike a lot of cheap labels assigned to players, but he sure has earned his moniker. I'm also curious as to Fitzy under Chan. I think it'll be a more exciting ride. However, I just feel that he's too inaccurate to be an NFL QB. I think that'll be his undoing this year. I expect that Chan will eventually give Brohm a chance. Especially if we're still not winning enough games with Fitzy. There's the chance that Brohm is a gamer and will perform better in the games than in practice... From what I've seen of Chan Gailey in two games is that he's going to tinker. We're going to see a lot of it this year as he tries to find some combinations of things that work. The results may end up be the same, but it won't be Jauron's more of the same play with little hope.

Congrats on the kid! It's an awesome (and bleary eyed) roller coaster ride. Mine is now 7 months and it's just a great rush. As for the Bills? Well, I'm sorry that it feels like a sucker punch and one that showed up early. While I'm sad that we clearly don't have the team capable of being a good one, I'm ONLY sad, not devastated by it. We DID do a flush of who's running things. Sure there are some holdovers, their always are. If they can't fit in with the new regime, they'll leave too. Happens all the time. Since we already had one of the largest turnovers in personnel in the league (most replaced players from last year). IMO the new coaching staff and pro talent evaluators will sort out the best of what we have left to try and make them a cohesive group. Not necessarily the most talented players, but ones that will fit the best with what we're trying to do. Chris Kelsey is a good example. While he's a whipping boy here on the boards, he's a competent body as a 4-3 DE. However he's WAY out of place as an OLB in a 3-4. Sadly he's still one of our best that we have here. But that'll change next year as I expect that we'll again be amongst the tops in player turnover. As for this year? I don't hate Fitzpatrick. He's not starting QB material, but I do like his effort. He also throws it downfield, however inaccurately. So enjoy if you can the rest of the team. Look for the gems, the spunky players, the ones that step up, or the ones that can't. Maybe you can enjoy the experience of individual victories, and not just the total team victories as those may be hard to come by. So the new regime gambled (and lost) that they could make chicken salad out of what QB's we had, remember that they also may not have liked any of their choices last year to bet their jobs on. But clearly they don't like what they've got as the best (TE) isn't good enough so they're going to have to pick somebody new next year. Hopefully they'll get it right!

I also think we should try hammering with the wildcat. No not every play, but see if a strong dose of it can loosen up the D. Heck I agree Fred's not going to be too much worse than our current crop of QB's (especially for what we'll ask of him).

A little bit of truth to that. But as a 6th round pick he was a very good one. He's undersized and gets blocked out of plays more than I'd like, yet he really has a nose for the football and gets in on quite a number of tackles. He's been durable too. I wish he wasn't forced to start as much as he has. I'd prefer to keep him special teams and one of the last LB's to come off the bench, not the first. But that"s the reflection of our lack of depth on the team, not his fault. He's stayed around because he's been better than those brought in to replace him. To repeat: I love having him on the team, just prefer it as the number 6-8 LB not 4-5 LB.

LOL! Both nice.

He was not-so-good that's for sure. Those first two years or so he was pretty unreliable... I hated him and wanted him gone pretty badly. One of several players that I thought were unredeemable that turned out to be solid. Ellis is looking like another. I hope that I'm wrong again!

I hadn't noticed how mCkelvin got on the field, but I DID notice how well he played. I definitely agree it was the best that I've seen him cover.

Nice work. Although it wasn't any more fun to read it than watch it.

The Dolphins are an excellent running team. They were last year and dominated time-of-possession and still lost most of their games. They dominated TOP in this game and won by less than a TD. If our offense could have scored another TD we also could have won this game. Our O looked poor, especially our QB and oline. Their D looked much better than I expected. I don't blame the D much. They kept the Dolphins offense to 13 points and gave us a chance to win. Yes they dominated TOP. That's their strength, but they couldn't score much even with that TOP advantage.

Regardless of what you feel would be the most successful choice for our situation at 4th & 10 from our own 1 inch line, success was not very likely. At that point we had three options. Go for it, punt or take a safety (without a play). Which longshot was going to work? shrug, it'd be a miracle either way. We'd essentially already lost the game by being at the 1" line and not being able to move off of it in the previous 3 plays. What I'm glad is that of the three options to try we did not do the one option which was significantly worse than the other two which was punt. Punting was Jauron's favorite. Arguing over which (other) longshot to take is like arguing over betting on 7 instead of 11 on the roulette table.

Totally agree. This is the way that I interpret it as well. Especially since this is his first year here in Buffalo, so he's stating Chan's abilities on past performance. Nothing to do with our guys. I wonder if we'll run a wildcat at all vs the Dolphins. (Or more than one play) They practice against it more than any other team in the league. They _know_ how to defend against it and will pounce on any mistake we would make. I suspect that we're not that good at it yet, so why run it against the very experienced players of it?

I think this is an important question. I personally think that even if he somehow manages to hit 9 full sacks this season he'll still have many, many detractors. (think back to the amount of complaints about Schoebel)

oh my. oops.

He still needs work in both pass protection and run blocking... but he sure has potential. I agree with you on the hope that when the end of the season rolls around a LT is not on our wish list.

There's some similarities, same with Barry Sanders. We'll need to see more of him to really see what his style will be. But I sure hope that after several games we'll still be having an argument as which of these to hall-of-fame runningbacks he resembles.

True. Preseason is only part of the story. But it's difficult to compare a veteran team of two decades ago to a young team with a new coach. We LOOK so much better than we've looked in the last few years. We run a balance of good plays, they work. We seem dangerous on the ground with what Spiller is doing, and we've even shown some good air strikes. (even a couple deep) pretty good sign, since we've done so little of either before.