Fake-Fat Sunny

The thought that Brown's election simply represents business as usual in Buffalo strikes me as a little bizarre. Ultimately this may be the case as the the results produced by his Administration may be good or they may be bad and this is what elections are about. However, the notion that his election is simply the same as it has usually been ignores the simple fact that like it or not he is the first Mayor of African-American descent ever elected by Buffalo. This fact certainly does not guarantee he will be good nor does it guarantee he will be bad. However, this is simply the fact and has some significance to it. Folks can reasonably disagree about how significant this is or what it means, but it certainly is a great sign for the Buffalo electorate that it proved for the first time to be able to ignore race and to simply judge a candidate by their view of his character and his prospects for doing good. As with all elected officials, the initial days of his term will be a test. it will be a test of whether Brown does actually operate from the base which brought him to political power (the virtually totally African-American Grassroots Inc) or operates based on the wishes of the unions and other big money folks that built a significant campaign war chest for him. Things will be different (we will see if this is different good or different bad) if he dances with the ones who brung him and we see him bringing in a significant part of the Grassroots base to help him implement his vision. Things will be the same if we see the same ol same ol powers that be which were part of the Massielo crew which brought us a control board. Some folks seem to feel these are the same folks but I think they are incorrect. The Denis Gorski crew which was close to Grassroots and the African-Americans who were the leaders of Grassroots are different that the City Hall crew of Tony Masiello. If we see heads roll at City Hall on the face of it this is good. If we see the same folks then it is business as usual. Folks who do not understand that this is the FIRST time a person of A-A descent was elected Mayor of Buffalo and do not see that this is at least somewhat different are simply missing a major fact in their analysis.

Given the way they managed the McGahee situtation and also the way they oversaw Campbell coming back after ACL surgery quicker than expected while Euhus has neither been rushed back or prematurely IR'ed the Bills seem to have a pretty good record of letting the individual injury dictate how it is treated.

The poimt you make about it beig scary that perhaps any boy can be President as the song says is why I love the movie In Like Flint. The evil folks who are trying to take over the world have replaced the President with an actor after anesthetizing all the Secret Service and the folks around him with an explosing golf ball. Derek Flint sneaks his way into the whole plot and rips back the curtain on the whole thing and the criminals reveal their plan. Well before the days of the Ronald Reagan presidency Flint hears it all and says incredulously, "Now let me get this straight, you expect that an actor can be President?

I think the summary of the QB events and reactions which start this thread leaves out some key points which influenced the decisions Butler made and is just simply correct in stating that the situation was all smiles at QB regarding any part of Fluties time here. The recitation leaves out the mistakes and impacts of: 1. Butler, Ralph and the Bills totally miscalculating how long Jimbo would last and contribute as a Bill. This began a series of bad moves and over-reactions nad investments at QN that led to Butler moving on. It led Ralph to renege on an agreement he made with Jimbo to resign him to a big contract and instead give him a million bucks to walk away. 2. Having not made a draft pick to groom a replacement for Kelly when they should have they instead drafted Todd C, higher than he deserved and then rushed him along when he needed work to train the happy-feet out of him if possible. 3. When it was clear TC could not do the job, they traded a 3rd fir Hobert who turned out to be a jerk whom they cut in mid-season. 4. They did a great job scouting and acquiring Flutie, but then failed to believe in their own judgment as they gave RJ a guaranteed big contract that essentially made it a lie when they promised Flutie a real shot at starting. Even worse, they failed to see right from the start that RJ was injury prone (he had one good start for Jax and then went out with an injury. Even worse Butler signed a dumb contract with Flotie which rolled his achieved incentives into his base pay and forced the Bills to sign him to a long term deal to distribute all the obtained bonueses. There was no hidden danger. The mistakes were made with full knowledge by the Bills and not hodden at all.

Kelly certainly deswerbed to get into the NFL HOF on the first ballot, but this is such a long way off from becoming the Mayor of a US City that I don't think this has been talked about or taken seriously by folks at all. Kelly obviously has celebrity and money and this helps a lot, but he has some pretty bad episodes and bad feelings among many non-Bills addicted (and some Bills addicted fans actually) that he would have a number of tough humps to get over (even factoring in the great sympathy and sadness that Hunter Kelly's situtation caused. Specifically, 1. A lot of WNY small businesses got the royal screw job by Jim Kelly's company suddenly closed his restaurant. That's business and it happens, but folks from the company that washed the laundry, to the marketing companies that developed advertisements to a ton of little folks who waitered and all and woke up one morning unemployed and never suspected that a company owned by Jimbo would leave them high and dry with no warning were really pissed. 2. In his younger days Jimbo had a number of runs in with an adoring public leading to reports like the one that he threw a drink in a girls face. 3. He led by doing with the Bills but when he opened his mouth it was a big part of his teams being called the Bickering Bills. It was actually the team developing a shared leadership model as folks like Tasker got respect with their good play that provided the winning balance we needed. The first SB team may well have lost because they partied too hard before the game as Jimbo was a football leader on the field but a party and drinking leader off the field. 4. Post playing he has had a few bizarre episodes like the one where his plane crashed hunting and he told a story of his dodging death afterwards which simply did not hold water as truth in terms of the risk he underwent to kill Bambi. I really doubt Kelly would survive the political hardball of a campaign.

The poll posted implies different questions which merit different answers which strike me as most correct. 1. Lineart strikes me as the best player in college ball here by far, but being the best in the NCAA (particularly for QBs) and being the player most worth drafting to produce for you in the NFL are different questions. If you are asking who is the best player in the NCAA this year, I would say Linehart. If you are asking me who I would draft as an NFL team, I'm probably more interested in Bush. 2. Even beyond this dichotomy of the NFL and NCAA being different, it is easy for me to see why the several answers so far have asked for or looked to a specific team before choosing. The 2 lead candidates for the first pick right now based on their lousy records are the Pack and Houston. Given the prescence of Favre/Rodgers and Carr, a pick of the best player available (Lineart IMHO) would have severe cap implacations for these teams which already have beaucoup bucks dedicated to the QB position and may well condemn them to a few years more of rebuilding the team if Lineart succeeds but has even the normal development time necessary. The goal of an NFL team is to win it all. Different teams should and will pick a different player first based not on simply who is the best player, but on what their team needs. Teams like SD have shown that one can make the playoffs even with poor cap allocation (Brees and Rivers) and some folks are committed enough to a best player mold that they might take Lineart even though it makes little immediate sense. However, this is a the future is now society snd it is even more so in the modern NFL so picking the best player in the NCAA may make little sense for a team. 3. The answer I would have to your question is I likely would trade down with the pick. TD (despite the grief he deserves overall for the bad W/L and not making the playoffs) has done extremely well in my view manipulating and using the draft. TDs work in 2001- Trade down with the first pick and still get the first CB chosen who later makes the Pro Bowl and get extra picks you use to acquire an idiot RB who makes the Pro Bowl shows what you can acquire at no loss by trading down. 2002- TD showed both why making a high pick with a slotted huge contract of the consensus best LT available (do you think McKinnie is a far better choice even a bust MW seems at worst as bad as McKinnie) and also the advantage of trading the first as he shipped the 2003 1st top acquire a replacemen for RJ who made the Pro Bowl with his 2002 performance at QB as for that year we again got Pro Bowl production for no 2002 cost. 2003- TD demonstrated here that it is possible to turn nothing we were owed by normal rule into a 1st round pick through his tagging of Price. However. he also once again demonstrated how to manipulate the draft by using the 1st to take an injured player we then signed to cap friendly contract AND our docs called it right as he rehabbed his knee and we got a top 5 performer with puick #23 AND he read the market perfectly as the run on needed DL talent before our pick allowed us to still draft the player we wanted and needed (Kelsay) with our 2nd round pick. 2004- TD again showed that his motivation was the team rather than simply picking the best player by trading the 2005 #1 for Losman and getting a year to train our QB of the future (clearly Losman needed and needs more than a year of training). When you add into that his correct talent assessment that the 2005 QB pool did not have the talent to merit us holding onto the 2005 1st round pick, it really was a nice piece of work (that has yet to work out a Losman needs work still). Overall, I think in most situations in reality, I ould trade down the 2006 #1 pick and try to replicate the work TD has accomplished in how he has traded his picks for more immediate value. I'd try to avoid the mistakes he made obviously (he should not have resigned and exteneded Bledsoe and he should not have gone to JP so soon) but by tading down I could avoid his biggest draft mistake which is the one of taking MW with the #4 pick.

Many thanks to finknottle for the info. I think this data underscores the point I had been repetitvely ranting about for a long time. Specifically it is that drafting a QB in the 1st round is not a good strategy for a team to puursue if: 1. You want to win an SB- no QB has led a team which drafted him to an SB win since Dallas picked Aikman in '89 and he QB'ed them to an SB winning season. 2. You want to even appear in an SB- Winning it all is too high of a standard in my mind to claim all SB losers are bad teams. Even making it to the SB is so hard that I am more than comfortable deeming a team which plays, but loses an SB as a successful team. It may be my pro-Bills view of life since they went to and loss 4 straight SBs, but I think that the world is coming around to uniformly recognize how impressive this feat was. However, even with this lower standard of simply making it to the final game even if you lose drafting a QB in the first has not proven at all to be a dead lock certain or even a very good strategy for achieving this goal. When McNabb led Philly to their SB loss last year it was a successful season in my book. However, McNabb esd the first QB to lead the team which drafted him in the 1st to an SB berth in the 2000s. The last QB to lead the team which selected him in the 1st to an SB berth was Steve McNair with the 1999 season Titans who lost a squeaker to the Rams. Some folks make the mistake of thinking I am arguing that 1st round QBs are bad. This is not the case. I only tended to argue that 1st round talents who actually had learned the game and been given up on like Trent Dilfer could be found and simply has won SBs when drafting your own guy in the 1st round and then having folks give up on him (as many want to do with JP and what was done with orginally highly rated talents like Steve Young amd Brett Farve) has simply proven to be unavoidable in all cases and not a winning strategy. The info that you provide supports the notions that: 1. TD is correct when he says it is about a 50/50 chance that a 1st round choice will pan out for a team. I think theQBs tend toward the extremes of being judged good or instead busts, but overall the thought that many have said that a 4th pick in the draft should be a stud simply does not line up with reality. The 4th pick (Williams) well could be a stud and we want our GM to make a good pick with this high pick. However, though we wish this will be true reality says it may well not be and I think a fuller view of TD's draft record needs to be made to be accurate. Overall, he had 5 1st round picks for the Bills to work with and he has used this resource to get Clements (+picks), MW. Bledsoe, WM, Evans and Losman. Overall from these 5 1st round resources it is not unreasonable for him to produce 2.5 big contributors. It reasonably can be judged that it really is too early to judge on his 04 snd 05 choices as we have had less than 2 full seasons to get results (and quite frankly one might make the same judgment about his 03 opportunity). However, these 5 opportunities have already produced 1 Pro Bowler (Clements) and a clear stud (WM). Further, as a rookie Evans showed some potential. JP disappointed so far but he clearly is too early to judge. Bledsoe to me is a wash as he was a stud his first year and then a dog his second and the big mistake was extending rather than cuttting him after his putrid 2003. MW is a bust too date and given his injury issues he is not unreasonable to judge him a faled pick. Yet. overall, i think TD has at least done average in 1st round picks and actually given the prospects of Evans (production last year and you can't teach speed) and the potential of Losman (potential simply means you have not done anything yet). The potential is still there for him to hit a homerun with is 1st round choices. WM needs to remain healthy and either Evans or Losman needs to eventrually produce at a Pro Bowl level. 2. Thise who advocated the Bills going for Harrington were not surprisingly incorrect based on the choices of the past decade plus. 3. Peyton Manning is a great performer but as of yet the jury is still out on whether he is the QB you want to lead your team. 4. In hindsight it is easy to see that Drew Bledsoe is bound for the HOF. He has put up the glitzy numbers that one would expect from a 1st round choice with a rocket arm. However, the hallmarks of his career that underlie his deseving HOF status are that the glitzy longevity numbers are underlane by his leading the Pats to an SB appearance as a youngster and his playing an essential role backing up Brady and playing the majority of (and even throwing the winning TD) in a must win game. Success in the SB is not enough in an of itself (otherwise Trent Dilfer deserves in which he doses not) Bledsoe needs more. However between: 1. An SB appearance he led the charge to AND playing QB in the majority of a must-win game the team won on the way to a championship. 2. His putting up the glitzy numbers expected of a 1st round QB in several seasons. 3. Him showing longevity in racking up some cumulative career numbers. 4. His being thrown on the ashheap as not the QB of choice not once, but twice and both times he went to new teams where he has played QB for much improved teams. Its pretty clear to me that Bledsoe is bound for theHOF. The big factor will ultimately be who he is competing against at the QB position when the HOF committee has its popularity contest. As long as he avoids the direct competiiton with Brett Farve I do not see another QB likely to be on the ballot with Bledsoe that will stop him.

If anyone has the stomach to rewatch the game, one key to assessing Peters which has not been talked about much in this thread is how well he run-blocked in addition to the sack issue. The quest for balance in play-calling means that how well he run blocks is at least as important as how well he pass blocks. Actually if we do what we want in the game, we will be running to burn clock so certainly by some measures run blocking is an even more important job for a quality OL player. Us fans tend to get attracted to the more high profile stuff since the over-focus on sacks in assessing his play, but winning the game tends to be about a team's ability to run and to stop the run and a true assessment of Peters should start with this. I do not have the stomach to go back and relive this game. However, if one of you is tougher than me, then taking apart how Peters did on run plays to the right side will tell a lot. My recollection is: 1. WM produced some good running yards and I think produced over 4 yards a carry as our feature back and workhorse which are signs of good productive work by Peters. 2. ESPN did feature a graphic which broke down where WM ran to get his yards.. In general it was up the middle rather than to the right side. Given WM had avery productive game, this disparity says nothing bad at all about Peters though it does indicate that any assessment which points to his work as a key is probably a bit far-fetched. 3. The fact that Shaud Williams was also productive when he gave WM a blow and on a critical 3rd down play are indicators that the good running performance had a lot to do with good blocking and nit just simply WM being a monster. Willias critical 3rd down play was to the left side (if I remember correctly) so once again it is not knock on Peters but also no indicator of great work on his part. Overall though the big thing to me is that the run game felt good behind this line. While it was not the point where I felt like this OL was likely to blow through an opponent, they were playing well enough that I did not fear a 3rd or 4th and short yardage play as I normally do with this OL. In part. this may be bacause the NE DL was weak enough without Seymour and a questionable Brueschi that we could beat them up unlike other Ds. so we would have to see how he does in a few more games to spot a trend (or even a coincidence). However, overall, I think one can reasonably feel very good in assessing Peters' play.

I disagree. MW has had definite problems making the grade as a consistent pro tackle, but outside rushes which indicate a speed problem for him have not been the big issue. Whe he gets beaten, it has usually been on a stunt play and an inside rush. Its difficult for us outsiders to truly identiify the blame for the sacks which we can see as we do not know the blocking scheme called or the particular responsibilities on a partticular play. However, the worst of MW has been seen where there is a defitine indication of coordination issues with the guard to his side. We saw this both in the obvious "I thought you had him" body language between MW and Pacillo standing over a sacked Bledsoe and also in the definite improvement measured in fewer sacks we saw when Villarial moved in as RG. MW showed surprising speed and agility for such a big man at the Combine and in results such as his times in a shuttle drill (the OL players is called upon to get in his stance, get out of his stance, run and pick up a marker and run back to a spot an put it down and get in his stance. This is not the real game, but MW produced better times than most and showed better agility than most big guys. There is little evidence beyond the fact that he is a big guy that speed and agility are the biggest problems in his game. If he were repeatedly beat by speed rushes to the outside, this would be a somewhat objective measure, but when he gets beat it appears to be to the inside.

Acually being an ESPN producer is worse. At least they had bad play byt two bad teams to butcher. It would have been a shame if they had butchered a good game.

Normally when the Bills play so badly that they throw away a perfectly winnable game (because with the injuries, adjusting to the loss of Weis and some stupid undsiciplined play NE demonstrated they were a bad team. Yhe fact we gotten beaten by a bad team speaks volumes about our work). However, I have to thank ESPN though because as bad as my beloved team was, their attempt to cover the game was so bad that as pissed as I was about the Bills, I just had to shake my head with laughter at their antics. I'm use to announcers saying dumb things and they are annoying but ignorable for the most part. However, from the overblown coverage of the spiritual life Bruschi's presence would give and how that would clearly influence the fkow amd play of the game. to the stretch the announcers kept trying to make that his play was driving the game, to their insane refusal to brerak away from the Kolber ramblings or the Kraft interview for the two key turnovers that actually did describe this game. from simply showing the athletic event to just trying to entertain by telling the story of the game, the coverage was BAD! BAD! BAD! I so have to thank ESPN though, right now I would simply be depressed about my Bills, but given their non-entetainment they disracted me from this disaster.

The whole thingh seemsoretty straightforward. If you care most about colloges as educational institutions, the footbsll desdon akready takes up too much class/book time, dominates enough camouses so education is secondary to athletics, and needs so much money to attract tne best players and keep the traveling squads big thar even with massive directrevenue from TV sales and tickets it is a net money loser and needs to be scaled back rather than lengthened with a playoff. Alternately, I know it often is a specific money loser but by maintaining ties of alums and excitement the full income is the heightened gifts to instotutions that come with a winning squad. In addirion, he game provides entertainment for the masses and in reality as money talks and all else walksthe educational role of academic institutions is secondary in this society. Finally, collrge footbal provides a massive subsidy to the NFL as teams like our Bills fo not hsve to pay for their oen minor leagues the way MLB does> Though this subsidy is often at taxpayer expense when state schools pay using yout dollars for the sport, these expenses are so under the radar they are ignored and thus it is a non issue. Personallh, i have a moderate view. A playoff would solve many sport issues (at least eaach year, as Hollywppd Henderson said about the SB, if its so important why do they play it every year) but the schools are really for academics. Still even though the cost of football id pretty unjudtifisble sdudent athletes could get the same education about team work with shorter schedules and restricted travel, facts on the ground are simply fscts and footbsll dhould not be scaled back. In the end I like the arguments back and forth about who is number one and two.

Ypu are correct that players picked to play right tackle do not take in the amount he got at that slot. The obvious answer actually is that the Bills were clearly looking to move MW to the left tackle slot where players do take down that much money rather than the stupid notion that the plan all along was to simply keep him at RT and overay him. Do you or anyone else believe that this RT thing was the plan all along? TD can be faulted certainly because he gets the big bucks to take this whining from fans. The question really is was it reasonable for TD and the Bills to take the risk which did not work out that MW would make this move. It didn't work out and that is a fact so he should not have screwed up, but I think a variety of facts made this a reasonable thing to do its just too bad it did not work out. Specifically: 1. One of the big problems for having an RT make the junp to LT is the mental hurdle it involves having to protect the QBs blindside. However, this was not a hurdle at all because TX had a left handed QB and MW was assigned to the RT slot and did it well in college and demonstrated that blindside responsibility was no problem for him. 2. Thous the mental aspect of the game was no problem, there is a physical wuestione whether a player will be just as effective swiching positions. Though this needs to be trained, it was not an unreasonable risk to take. At the combine, MW tested out as showing great agility for such a big guy. It was not umreasonable hope at all that just as players switch positions on the OL with some frequency and succeed that MW had: A. Ni problem guarding the QB blindside in college. B. Had been a top-level performer in college who might well make the same shift that a less talented player Jennings made to become an LT after not playing the position before. C. Had demonstrated both strength and agility at the combine so that particularly if he was allowed to make the shift slowly by starting at RT the shift was not impossible at all. 3. I do not know whether Texas flipped their whole O with a left-handed QB and moved the TE to the left side. However, if they did and MW had experience and produced good collegiate results not only guarding the QB blindside but playing without help to his outside, then i see few problems beyond reps and dealing with the bigger hurdle of becoming a pro to having him shift. If he was used at TX to having the TE to his side, the the shift to LT is more difficult but still has and can be done. 4. Who else would you have taken. If folks want to advocate that we should have taken the other LT choice Bryant McKinnie this would be stupid sense he has been aunimpressive on the field and an even bigger disaster than MW's meltdown after his Mom died (understandable but not condonable). Overall, MWs career strikes me as: 1. Rookie year- a good start as he provided goof runblocking for an RB who qualified for the Pro Bowl. The pass blocking was not good but a lot of this in my mind had to do with the lack of escapability shown by Bledsoe. Gilbrude also was intractable in his offensive scheme and did not do some elementary things wjicj MM/TC did to improve Bledsoe's play: A. Parcells got Bledsoe to the SB by saying everytime Bledsoe went into his familiar pat just throw the damn ball. MM does not have the personality and record to cajole players into change like Parcells. However this technocrats use of an alm clock in practice to remind Bledsoe to just throw the damn ball rather than awaiting the sack I think was a big part of Bledsoe improving his 2004 performance over his putrid play in 2002. MW and the OL directly benefited from this shift with far lower sack totals. B, TC realzed that though Bledsoe will never be mistaken for Michael Vick and running is not his greatest talent, that you still have to run him occaisionally. Bledsoe is a bi boy who can take a hit and it in fact is better to have him pounded 5-10 yards upfield with the potential to slide rather than get pounded as a target with a sack 5-10 yards in his backfield, The need that safeties and LBs had to wait a minute to make sure the QB craw was not coming was quite helpful in stopping opponents from selling out to the blitz as they did under Gilbride because they had no fear of the QB draw. C. MM/TC took away some of Bledsoe's audible ability. This simplified things (helful to Bledsoe who is a stud player but subject to mental brain cramps when he overloads. Also Bledsoe had too much confidence in his rifle arm and the Bills ended up running only pass plays on 3rd down in short yardage as a pass-happy Gikbride called too many passes and Bledsoe apparently audibled out of the few run plays called. D. Bledsoe has great ball handling skills and actually ran the dipsey doodle of taking a pitch back from WM and firing to an open Evan or Moulds quite well in 2004. In addition to getting a few TDs, this play again forced the D to sit back rather than sell out to the rush. E. WM developed and showed far more speed than TH and a powerful stiff arm which resulted in LBs looking for the wide run rather than selling out on the blitz. All of this benefited MW whose play greatly improved last season as he got back in shape after his minicamp meltdown. Overall MW showed great promise his first yeat though he was far from perfect. 2. Secod year- MW did not progress and may have even regressed as this youngster still needed teaching but instead was put into a position were he had to coordinate with and teach Pacillo. Add to that Kevin Killdrive refused to vary his O and everyone had tons of film on how to stop it, stats showing its tendencies at various down and distances, and a blueprint from Weis and BB on how to beat the Bills. 3. Third year- MW melted down in minicamp with the understandable but not condonable meltdown in his game. JMac save his butt though with a carrot and stick approach that praised MW when he did well such as being rewarded with a game ball in a sack free game where he faced an effective sack artist much of the day and threatening to move him insde to G where even if he played well it would likely cost him big. This move looked doubtfuk to me as MWs problems seemed to me to be with stunts and pro moves inside because lining up next to two now cut players Sullivan and Pacillo he had no where near the traing in becomin a vet all youngsters need. Thanks to JMac's guidance he had turned his game around. The big problem though was with JJ moving into FA status this was the obvious time to move MW over, but his lost year for the most part ended this possiblity. Fourth year- MW did show up in canp a few pounds lighter and ready to go. Unfortuantely he has suffered a high ankle sprain and other injuries which to me makes him a bust unless he turns around his fortunes big time in our last 9 games. The way his salary has been handled has been interesting, His cap hit this year was lowered a bit from the massive $9.7 million hit he picked up in his #4 slot but the Bills still have a significant hit from him 2005. I wou;d not be shocked if the Bills moved part of his salary to later years by turning his base pay into bonus. However, they may have not turned a larger amount into bonus which would be accelerated into one year in 2006 or 7 if he is cut before next season. His performace in the last 9 regular season games are likely to make a difference in whether they give up on him or not. The vast expansion of the salary cap next year when the tV money kicks in would still leave this acceleration as a rough hit to take, but would make it doable. Overall, a detailed look at this case is one of failure (so far and the rest of the season may tell the tale) but it simply foolish to not recognize that we almost cetainly planned to jump him to LT and as it stands uncontroverted by anything but fact free opinions TDs estimate that 50% of first round choices disappoint in terms of meeting expectations. My sense is MW was a reasonable try but unfortunately he is one of the half which disappoints.

Worrying about negotiations rather than playing is a distraction for some players from simply playing the game. However, I'm happy that TD will simply throw away the "rules" when an action which runs counter to the rules simply makes sense. Really the only rule is just win baby. Actually there is a second rule which simply says ignore all other rules, guidelines, adice or what have you that contravenes rule 1. Most people use rules to simply more easily avoid doing something hard or tough. Rules are simply meant to be broken when it makes sense. Rules should generally become simply guidelines when they are used to stop you from doing the right thing or the intelligent thing which is within the other agreed upon rules. I and I suspect all players have no problem with this somewhat firm guideline being ignored in this case.

Thank you for introducing a bit of reality into folks fact-free opinions that TD has given little attention and spent little of our resources (particularly draft resources) on the OL Tis view simply does not correspond with reality. The focus is somewhat skewed in terms of allocating cap $ or draft picks to OL choices because their are 5 OL positions and only 1 TE or 1 QB on the field at a time. However, even taking this calculus into account, the highest % salary allocation should be to the OL and even with the skew of QBs being more marketable (and thus getting more $ and one of our best paid players being Moulds and a first round choice of Evans also ratchets up the allocation to the WR position, it appears to me (I did not run the numbers so my sense is easily controverted by someone taking the time to do this) that OL is the largest raw dollar amount allocation by TD. Of the 40 or so draft picks made in TD's reign. OL is the only position where he has allocated a draft pick each and every draft (he missed picking a WR and a DL player in 1 of his 5 drafts and has skipped other positions in multiple drafts). TD has also tended toward making early pick selections on the OL with the highest being his allocation of the best pick we ever had under him had (a #4 overall) to the OL. There is an argument to be made that having made 1st day picks at WR 3 times and 1st day OL picks twice (Preston was our 3rd pick this year but our 3rd pick was a 4th rounder) but obviously the dynamic of taking the best player available versus need always exists and OL still clearly gets more attention in the draft than otherkey positions like LB, RB or DB. Its is a much clearer rap on the TD reign to say not that he does not care or has not devoted enough effort and resources to OL, but that the work and leadership he hire there failed miserably early in. There is an obvious case to be made that when comparing the Bills OL glory years under Kent Hull's leadership that the final years under Butler saw actually poor allocation of resources to the OL versus over allocation and spending at QB as the team tried desperately from relying of Jim Kelly lasting several more years than when he was forced into retirement because he was no longer effective (I assume that since Ralph made a handshake deal with him to reward him in his next contract the thought was they were going to be able a Testaverde like career out of him). Butler reacted to this error and series of QB miscalculations by taking dubious football steps like: 1. The drafting of Collins a year later than they should have acquired the next Jim Kelly and then not only reaching a little for him (many pundits has him lower than the 2nd used on him, but this needed training kid was rushed into starting when he clearly had a happy feet issue that maybe never could have been trained out of him, but we did not even take the time to try before demanding a Kelly level performance out of him. 2. One needs to look to the Ryan Leaf/Akili Smith misses to find an allocation of resource to a QB (merely a third rather than a 1st) who delivered absolutely nothing to a team as Billy Joe Hobert. This disaster is in some ways even less forgivable than the drafting errors and Hobert was a member of this league already and the barest of due diligence should have given some signal that this idiot would simply choose to fail to do his job and getted canned. Folks like Ware ir Todd Collins simply did not have the physical ability to make the transfer from college success to the pro game, but the Bills shoulda/coulda had access to more than the Wonderlic or interviews to identiy Leaf as an idiot in doing due diligence on Hobert who we simply gave away a 3rd for. 3. Butler completely overallocated to QB in stupidly signing a contract with Flutie which rolled his acieved bonuses into his new base pay and then created a disaster waiting happen by irrevocably signing a big bonus with RJ which guaranteed $ regardless of performance and then when he continued a history of injury proneness he exhibited in Jax and Flutie performed like we wanted him to and achieved his bonuses we had $10 million locked at QB the next year which forced us to sign DF long-term. OL was one of the places which took it in the shorts (that why I spend so much time laying out my QB rant) as the team was forced to sign an above market deal with Ruben Brown when they refused to guarantee Ziegler a role at C and he fllew the coop for NYF which gave him the same amount but the starting C role. Brown had not found a market for his services at the dollars he demanded around the league, but we were desperate and he played us (he was the only G in the top ten cap hits until we cut him). Irionically it proved to be a good thing we did overpay him because even in TD's second year here Brown was the only player on OL wo started in his position before in the NFL. In retrospect it appears that the teams productivity in 2002 (Bledsoe's first and only very good year for the Bills (3 O players made the Pro Bowl and PP was left off despite 94 catches). Despite the good O and OL performances with the running game and Bledsoe throwing the ball all over the place, the failings of the OL led to huge number of sacks on the less than mobile Bledsoe and Vinky losing his job as OL position coach. The reign or error was allowed to continue as Vinky got replace by the inexperienced Ruel. TD deserves a great deal of blame for the GW hire and allowing him to bollicks up the OL which was already in bad shape under Butler;s management. However, i think the facts are simply not there for folks who say that TD did little or nothing. 1. Clearly he has devoted substantial cap room to the OL as Rico's stats show. 2. Clearly he has devoted continuous draft resources to the OL as it is the only position which has gotten a player in each and every draft including allocation of the #4 pick to Williams (there are just different indictments sying he tried and failed- regrettable but forgivable and he did not even try which is not even forgivable). 3. Clearly he has changed his MO getting JMac to replace Vinky/Ruel and clearly he brought a huge retinue of resources to camp for JMac. Ironically, it has been the great identified shortcoming of talent at LT which has worked out like JMac guidance should where here is little comparison between the OK performance Gandy has produced versus the alternative of overpaying JJ. The problems have been Anderson not producing at all at the level of compensation he recieve, injury issues making RT an adventure and slating MW for being a bust after his mental implosion last year followed by a physical implosion this year and his bak-up Jerman also going down. Add to this Villarial may be hitting the wall and though JMac really did a good job getting something out of nothing last year, this year's effort has not paid off. However, it is clear from the numbers that the effort is there it simply has not worked and while suggestions of what to do instead are justified big time, the complaints of many that TD simply does not care or more $ should be tossed at the situation is reduced to simple whining by the facts.

Exactly. Many folks make the mistake of assuming that there is specific compensation for a player based on how well he plays but this is not the case as it is determined in some black box method that no one can really figure out. I think also there are these add on important points to your description (which I think is generally factual though the CBA changes all the time by agreement of the NFL and NFLPA on clarification of existing rules so its a moving target): 1. Under the original agreement the plan was to phase out the compensatory picks (the comp picks I believe was originally demanded by the NFLPA as they fought against having a free-market where players and at least wanted the fig leaf of compensation). I think folks envisioned it as gone by now. However, the current system has advantages for both sides and it has survived though I think the plan is still to ratchet it out of existence. 2. Initially, the compensation for lost FAs was as high as a 1st rounder but I think it has dropped down to about a 4th (maybe a 3rd in some cases but i don'tr remember any recently). As compensation has been weighted heavily toward the 7th round amd second day picks, most teams have simply not counted upon them at all as a major planned part of their strategy. They appreciate getting more resources and B word and moan they got rooked when they get nothing, but overall it is a sigelight to their planned activities that neither breaks nor makes their draft. 3. Most fans really overvalue the draft in terms of importance to a team. Good players have to come from somewhere and the draft is where you acquire a LaDamian Tomlinson or Peytin Manning. However, for every Manning picked in the first round their is a Ryan Leaf and it simply gets dicer and worse from there. TD has said that the success rate for 1st rounders is about 50% and I have not seen anyone who is is control disagree with this assesment or any of fans effectively refute this with facts . There cetainly is the occaisonal Tom Brady picked in the 6th or Terrel Davis who I think was chosen in the 7th, but the general rule is that you select players who turn out to be Mike Pacillo or Dylan McFarland with late picks. The key thing to think about with Manning is that he is great for the ultimate goal of this business which is to put butts in the seats, but after 7 years he has produced near nothing in team results as no Colt team has even appeared in the SB and it was over 5 years into his career that he pulled ahead of Ryan Leaf in terms of playoff victories to his credit. The main advantage of the compensatory picks is that they give the teams he fig leaf of compensation when one of the bigger problems for application of the free market to the NFL is that player movement dictated mostly by $ hurts the product as people have trouble building allegiance to players who may well have no allegiance to the community and the players have found that getting more players drafted has a marginal impact in moving salaries up for everyone as many teams still do not spend their maximum cap allocation and even 7th rounders generally get some kind of small bonus. Beuing drafted does add some marginal stability also as players develop slowly enough that anything which keeps them with a team can provide benefit in the player who shows any promise as a rookie maybe pays off his second year and (ala Fast Freddy Smith) and once he becomes an RFA actually may contribute to player movement and the frre market by commanding the largest possible qualifying offer and maybe even nuding his way into the free market with a team giving up compensatory picks to get him. This has happened with dubious results for the acquiring team so far, but folks are trying and the free market has its appeals. It is going to be interesting when the new cap hits and there is a ton of money floating around that must be spent for salaries under the CBA.

The irony here is the generally non-stat sheet non ESPn highlight year Nate is having right now within a struggling Bills D. He only has 1 INT as teams are willing to pick on the still learning McGee at CB and since you can run effectively on this team why throw anyway. He has been supplanted at PR as why risk your starting CB as we did last year when we needed gamebreakers desperately and we had little else on PR. Fast Freddy has clearly improved as a player and now poses a threat as a position player in addition to handling PR so get him some touches. Add to that the acquisition and recovery of Roscoe Parrish and NC loses a contribution to this team and a spot on the highlights. I do like his tackling and given his debacles last year and an ability to still produce some bonehead plays he can be beaten at CB sometimes (though actually I do not fault him for getting beat by Moss who is still probably the most dangerous WR in the game and even though he was clearly injured he still had the ability through moxie and cortisone to strap it on an play like the #1 he is a few times last game so NC needed to give him space or he could be beat for a TD as he was on a perfectly thrown ball by Collins Sunday. Still he is a talent and only now reaching his prime. If his output continues at this level the market for him (pariticular if the Bills tag him and allow a team to sign him at a huge cost) may not be that strong and likely by tagging him the Bills will force him to benefit himself (and our cap situation as the tag avg. will be a larger cap hit than a prorated salary cap hit). Again I think he signs even if this year's performance is like the one that got him into the Pro Bowl last year and if he continues at his current level of production I think he signs a pretty reasonable contract we can easily reach under a greatly expanded cap.

Tehy may well resign him because under the CBA the Bills will have to increase the amount they pay to the players by a lot. The increased salary cap actually will make it quite easy to tag him, but if the Bills are instead want to control how they spend their money by distributing a large paycheck to him over the life of his contract they actually will have more money to spend acquiring players than if they simply tagged him and all of his pay (the average pf the top 5 CB salaries) all counts against he 2006 cap. I think the potential of tagging Nate actually ends up forcing him to sign a new (even reasonable deal with the Bills figuring in proration over the cap) as Nate would get more money up front from a pro-rated reasonable deal ( current @1 CB contract for Chump Bailey got him a bonus of $16 million or so in his pocket but the current average of the top 5 is well Below $10 million). The Bills will have the cap room to tag him if necessary but Clements will get more money immediately from signing and the Bills will get a lower cap hit and more control by re-signing him. I'm pretty sure this one gets done when there is a new cap. When this happens we will be locked in at #1 and #2 CB. We will have a choice between current starter Greer, the injured Thomas, the improving after a dismal start King at the nickel and even former Pro Bowler Vincent in a pinch. i do not see CB as a problem and safety is the big issue in the secondary as both milloy and Vincent are well into the backsides of their careers. Wire has demonstrated he has a lot more to offer on ST than at safety, Baker is a youngster who has not built on an OK UDFA start last year and UDFA Leonhard shows potential but this unproven player has a lot to prove and show before we can be confident we have the back-ups of old players we have at safety. We have two of our younger players who both made the Pro Bowl last year at CB, a choice of 3 players next year for the nickel and even one of the former Pro Bowlers hanging around as long as he lasts.

I'm pleased Takwer made it again and he should be the first ST player to make it eventually as he revolutionized the game with his play, his commitment and innovation (he forced opponents to dt him a gunner and then forced a rule change against running downfield OB to avoid the blocks and still making it on the field for the tackle) on ST. I doubt he make it this year but eventually I think this will happen.

My pody 22 flat out does not say everything is OK. it may be a bit long for your attention span as I am overly verbose but it says: 1. We are rebuilding and actually in the modern NFL with the salary cap the good teams are not the ones who stick with their players (NE lost folks like Ty Law and Milloy by choice and were forced by injuriies to replace their 1st round drafted QB Bledsoe, big FA acquisition Colvin and most recently team leaders Bruechi). Your panties may be in a wad because we are rebuilding but look around this is the reality in this league. Don;t you see that? 2. Since we are rebuilding the question is one of are we rebuilding well. In detail (which you only respond to with the fact-free opinions you are entitled to you do not respond with any counter analysis on your first post which at least provided a list. My post DID NOT say everything was OK, it merely said that even your list is SET-UP well. This means that things MAY be OK if we do a lot of things right and like NE we get lucky at the right times (Their streak is a grea achievement but their is a fair chance it never would have happened without the luck they had of a Lewis hit on Bledsoe and the refs applying the tip rule in Oakland- The streak of SB wins is great and they deserve full credit because they picked Brady when everybody passed on him 5 or 6 times). 3. Of the players you name the majority of them have replacements on the team for them (such as Evans/Moulds and Preston/Teague or Villarial) or they have failed but its way too early to panic and call them a bust (JP). There are 4 issues and agree with you they are a real concern and should be the focus on FA and the draft. It will take some work but do you think it is not doable. The selection of players like McGahee, NcGee and Evans in the draft does not mean that "whitey+ can't make mistakes like much of the 2002 darft, but he and the crew can do some good things or do you not acknowledge that. Getting TKO, Adams for a song, and realizing that even if Milloy was getting old he was better than the safety disaster we had after both Cota and Battles agreed to sign and then retired indicates that he can get it done on FA on many calls as well. Do you acknowledge this or not? 4. The argument which most devastates your virtually fact-free opinions is actually one after mind which points out that our roster is actually pretty young compared to the rest of the league and even though we are going through the rebuilding all teams must do, this rebuilding does not seem as firmly connected to an age issue at least in comparison to the rest of the league. I'd love to see some detailed discussion and at least some facts, but if you do not have or wish to take the time that is fine also and people can take your initial post for the good start it was but see it is not supported or discussed with anything but the usual bromides.

I think this view is wrong in that Schobel actually plays too much like a kid and not enough like a vet. His strengths are that he has a motor and keeps on going and going and going well into the play. In order to get a sack he needs to get the help of the DBs keeping the opponent covered so he has time to do his thing or he needs a QB who also runs around who eventually runs into Schobel's area. A good vet develops a second and even a third effective move not so he can use them and switch and switch again in hopes the QB is still patting the ball, but he can either choose the move from his repertoire of mastery which is most effective against the opponent he is facing or if the first one doesn't work he can switch quickly to a second move that the blocker is out of position to deal with. Schobel simply sucked at the point of attack as a rookie as he did not have the strength or the knowledge to get good leverage to use what he had well. However, he has improved in that he has put on some weight ang gained some strenght and knowledge so he is not embarrased like he was a younger player when Mark Brunell used and abused him twice in one game (one for a TD even) and a Miami blocker simply planted him on a winning 4th down throw. I think we saw this in his sack numbers going up progressively. The sack #s are down from their peak but I think a lot of this is attributable to how he is used in the zine blitz and it is not a rare thing to see him doing pass coverage on a pass play rather than going for the sack. He can make good plays as when he beat one of the best Johnathan Ogden on a spped rush last year, but clearly he needs more consistency this year.

The nature of the beast in the NFL is that the best teams are always rebuilding and finding ways to replace the old guard with youth. The key question is not merely whether folks are old but whether we have younger credible replacements in place when the falter due to age or the injuries that can wipe out the season of a player in his prime like TKO. Looking at your list this what I see from no prob to I'm really worried: Adams- Anderson is getting valuable experience but shows little signs of being a Pro Bowler so any answers here will likely come from getting an FA such as Adams, Phat Pat. or a Corey Simon. I'm not worried because clearly this can be done and we have real world experience of this happening to the Bills from players judged to be rejects by others. Fletcher- LB (and calling D signals for everyone) strikes me as a tougher find than a DT. Crowell has shown some positive signs on ST and when this highly regarded draftee has been thrown into starting by the TKO injury. Is he Fletcher's equal now? No, not by a lomgshot. Might he be one day? Probably not but maybe and we will see. Holcomb- Kely H is not the answer. The question is whether JP is. He isn't rightnow certainly but it is way too early to declare him a bust or to give up on him so QB is a concern but not a worry. Milloy- I think this is the biggest problem area for us as far as age because though Milloy has been one of the great SSs in hios career, I'm afraid after he missed significant time to injury last year and has been slowed by his injured wrist this year and his current play is simply not good enough he may already be done due to age. The bad news for the Bills is that his back-up Coy Wire still is learning the safety position and is not capable of getting the SS job done. Reloading (actually loading) at SS is our #1 priority that I see. Moulds- This is no prob with Evans behind him. The bigger question to me for the long-term is can Parrish be a #2 WR. I think they can. Posey- He is a scheme player and I think can be replaced by someone else who fits into the scheme. If TKO coes back to form next year, I hope Crowell can challenges and surpass Posey. Shelton- He is not remotely the Gash/Centers quality player we expect here. He has dropped enough key passes and blocked inconsistently enough I think we need a new answer here. Teague- He is a player who has been hurt (ACL with Denver and missed a few starts last year) but in each case he came back from theinjury and imprioved his performance. Given the longevity of the most resilient of OL players and given his ability to play multiple positions his age is not a worry for me at all. Given that Preston looks pretty good as our C of the future I see few issues here. Villarrial- A solid consistent player but recurring nicks that cost us the last two years makes him an issue. We may well see Preston at RG until Teague is done at C. Vincent - I love him as an episodic back-up at CB and using him and his great ballhawking skills at FS is a good way to get value from him while he back-up our Pro Bowl CBs though McGee got this plaudit from KR0 but his age underscores the Milloy situation making safety a concern and worry. Baker is a UDFA who was part of a productive D last year but he is a UDFA who is part of an unproductive D this year and does not appear to be a difference maker. I like Leonhard more as someone we may train to take a shot at stepping up at SS because he is such a great hitter, but safety is a question. Thus, for the 10 players you name, I think we have potential "rebuilding" answers already on the roster for 6 of them. Of the remaining 4, safety is my outstanding worry and concern and the experience has been that DT help can be acquired through FA if draft pick Anderson does not work out (I do not see him replacing Adams with Pro Bowl quality play. Folks are not willing to pay the best FBs (this is how we got Gash and Centers and the Bills need to shop here as well. The age problem is always a problem, but we seem to be set-up to deal with these issues.

I'm glad this was moved since it has nothing to do with the Bills and actually quite little to do with sports. The Air Force HC is getting grief from a lot of different people (and also being defended by some) for a lot of different reasons. Some are good reasons and some are bad reason on both side. The silliest things is that many folks seem to want to judge everybody as beung good or bad regardless of their reasons for taking a stand on this issue. Those who are getting on jod case for some politically correct reason, to see themselves on TV flapping their gums or for their own financial profit since they are in the expressingdismay business are giving him grief for bad reasons. However, I think there are are also very good reasons for giving him grief: 1. His racial attitudes are un-American- America is a country fiercely commited to the individual. To judge an individual based on some pre-judgment one makes about the individual based on their race, beliefs, or whatever is Un-American. America (at least rhetorically) is committed to a meritocracy. Fast players who can play make the team and sloww players who cannot play do not make the team. An HC should be commited to a meritocracy and even the implication that he make some sort of prejudgment based on his calculation of a statistical racial variation (even if it is true or if it is not) is not the American way. 2. There are a number of bad cases in American history where our institutions have prejudged folks based on some criteria (usually false( that fails to uphold a meritocracy and disadvantages the individual (unfortunately usually at a cost to the whole and the final product). Slavery of African-Americans and the Jim Crow laws were simply the worse and longest term of these mistakes (internment of the Japanese, Roosevelt refusing to help the Jews in the concentration camps and other episodes were bad as well and i am glad my country has at least apologized for these acts done in my and other American's names). It simply was stupid of this HC at a US institution to say what he said and ignore the bad history we have of discrimination based on this same type of thinking even if he attributed a positive attribute to the race. 3. The Air Force Academy as a whole is in the midst of an investigation of potential problems of a particular religious point of view apparently being preferred in what should be a total meritocracy. Apparently an Episcopalian minister has resigned because of what she alleges is discrimination by evangelicals who control a lot of the school. Perhaps its true and perhaps not but I am glad this issue is being investigated and the chips should fall where they may. The Air Force HC was stupid to make these comments while this issue is being hotly debated. I saw this HC make the esotetric comments about this which seemed stupid to me because they had nothing to do with anything real. I do not think it is correct to depict this as off-hand comments he made in passing since there was also tape of him defending them on Monday and digging himself an even deeper hole defending himself. He apologized publicly on Wednesday but seems in no danger of real sanction like losing his job as this non-military guy is seen as a god on campus because of his record of past success which has earned him the nickname 5=Star. This whole thing seems fairly balanced to me in that he was corrected for his stupidity but no job or financial sanction is being taken and the issue can just go away now. Individuals are individuals.

I think the complaints about Gray' strategic ability and rigidity are misplaced and really are reduced to the usual fan whining by the facts of the past. However, he bares a lot of the blame for the run D sucking and the bye week will provide a test of his strategic ability to see whether he can diagnose the problems, design a fix with the personnel we have and implement this fix in a two week period. This unfortunately may still prove to be too late even if he does his job since a loss to NE at their place next week seems pretty likely and even with out weak division where a 9-7 record may well win, we would be beind them in the standings and down on the tiebreaker. First off, I'm not sure where the complaints about Gray being rigidly wedded to the GW style come from and also a comment which lumped the GW and LeBeau Ds together came from because these two Ds are very different from each other. The fact that Gray was schooled in the GW D and adopted it for the Bills and then made the switch to quickly master the zone blitz so he could competently call plays with it in 2003 being part of a D which finished 5th (or so) statistically in the league and then demonstrated a mastery of it by being part of a D which finished 2nd statsically in the league without LeBeau was pretty nice work. Both are aggressive Ds which like the 46 depend upon good coverage by the secondary to allow for blitzes from the front seven, but these two Ds are very different approaches as the zone blitz makes unprecedented use of DEs (and even DTs when Denny moves inside) in pass coverage. The reasonable fear about Gray last year was that though he showed great tactical mastery retaining the DC title when LeBeau came aboard with his great came calls, it was unproven as we entered last year whether he also had the strategic vision to run the D by himself. He showed last year he could do this: A. Gray made tremendous tactical/strategic moves during games- The stats provides strong indications of Gray diagnosing first half problems, designing the proper fix to deal with first half problems, and inpressively installing these changes so they could be used effectively. The stats indicate this was the case in the Bills putting up great performances in the third quarter last year limiting yardage gained and points allowed in the 3rd quarter in amounts near or at the top of the league. A specific example of this is seen in the first Miami game where Sammy Morris gained 80+ yards in the first half put tacked on less than 10 more for the rest of the game. The switch was more than mere tactical shifting or the players playing harder, but struck me as a strategic shift by Gray which emphasized the Bills taking a different approach in the 3rd quarter which shifted their focus to run stopping and bliyzing to stop the pass and the secondary stepped up to the challenge on stopping the pass even though they were often left on an island alone. Those who want to claim that the D performance last year was merely LeBeau leaving a D in place for Gray conveniently forget that when this D was not working it was up to Gray and the D coaches to come up with fixes at halfrime without LeBeau and design and implement them without LeBeau\s help. B. The Miami game is a good example of Gray covering problems, but the other thing he showed which was clearly strategic was he put together game plans which simply stymied other teams from the opening whistle on. Granted the Bills schedule was not against many tough teams (as if there are more than a handful of tough teams in the league these days). However, the standard is to hold opponents to 20 or less to give an adequate O a chance of winning and the Bills accomplished this task in 12 if 14 games (one of which was acually won by the Bills comfortably in a shootout with the Fish). gray demonstrated a good ability last year to gamplan and hold an opponent dow, LeNeau was not there for the individual gameplans (but showed he was the master of the zone blitz by helping the Steelers do in the Buffalo defense). C. The third piece of good strategic work by Gray last year was in the bye week. Hre the Bills put the pedal to the metal and made strategic adjustments to the D which were a big part of the Bills peeling off a winning streak which almost got them into the playoffs. Adjustments by the team greatly enhanced the Bills pass rush and their ability to generate turnovers leading to the team being among the league leaders in both areas. This year Gray will face an even tougher challenge during the bye week as the entire Bills D against the run must be retooled as we face a murderer's row of quality RBs led by LaDamian Tomlinson in the second hal of the season, The irony here is that though Gray demonstrated last year he has some good stratefic ability, I am worried that there is simply too much to do and improve to make the run D good enough. The other problem is that unless NE has a major power outage which is unlikely barring the loss of Brady to injury (and I think no real football fans roots for a debilitating injury to a player, even a hated opponent- though knocking the snot out of him for one game against the Bills is fine by me) it may well be too late to make a fix that would get us into the playoffs.

If I had to point to the performance put out by one player as a key to our results this season (which I actually shoukd not to be accurate because it is a team game, but I;m just a fan so who cares about accuracy) it would not be Spikes cause he got hurt (Caddillac and AT ran all over him before he got hurt) or losing Phat Pat (we did quite fine when he sat out a large number of snaps last year) it would actually be Milloy who I think has disappointed in his performance. I don't know if getting older has simply effected his play or getting older has made him more prone to serious injury and it cost him some starts last year and a wrist injury is making him less than effective this year, but he is the player on the D who has disappointed me most this year. The bad news is that Coy Wire backs him up so I think we are stuck with what we got.