Fake-Fat Sunny

If (and I mean IF) Lindell hits a FG over 47 yards (the wide right distance) or an FG of any distance to win a game in the next few weeks, I propse we dub him with the nickname MONEY (as in his placekicks are like money in he bank). Such a nickname is premature until he does it for us in crunch time, but I am impressed enough with his record of perfection in the first three after so many had given up on him, I feel compelled to throw this out there as a possibility.

I think you're making this too complicated in looking at his mistakes. The bud one was a mistake with his first HC hire and then going into a passive/aggressive mode in managing him. He let GW make some bad decisions that were obviously dumb to even us fan simpletons. He however, let GW have his way with these errors seemingly as long as GW bore the brunt of the blame for these mistakes . 1. He let GW hire his own team of folks to run the O who had even less experience than he had such as Sheppard at OC and GW budy Vinklarek at OL position coach. 2. He did lower the boom on Sheppard when he simply was so bad, but apparently gave GW his choice of Kevin Killdrive at OC when TD advocated hiring Clements. 3. GW cut Vinky out of the job when he clearly was not adding things at OL where has never coached before and I assume it took some insistence from above to get to move his buddy out, but the team then hired Ruel who had all of 1 year as a position coach. TD either hired an idiot he then had to fire with a year left on his contract or more likely allowed GW to do this. Oddly, he did seem to create options for GW but then not force him to take them in many cases, For example the team did hire a former NFL OC as RB coach but GW never seemed to try or simply tried behind the scenes but never suceeded in getting Killdrive to change or diversify his O approach. It got so bad and so obvious that finally Ruben took him on publicly, but still whatever his name was never replaced the flailing Killdrive. TD did take actions which put GW in his place whenever he crossed the line publicly into TDs realm. For example, GW said publicly that Larry Centers could reamain a Bill as long as he wanted to. In about a week Centers was cut and Sam Gash was in. Clearly when it came to contract issues usually the province of the GM, GW was either out of the loop or a total liar. The things you point to as indictments of TD are really not primary indictments but secondary ones which stem from his hiring of an HC with great lists but who could not HC a team. For example, of the 3 HCs, the first was clearly part of GW hiring his team with TD publicly saying the HC had the lead on this issue. The 2nd choice Killdrive it has been revealed that though he was once hire by TD it was actually Clements who was TDs choice but he let GW have his way. TD canned Killdrive with a year left on his contract )amd the rest of the GW regime he did not want (Vinky, Ruel and Jones on ST even though they were all under contract and kept the ones he liked even when they had offers to follow GW like Krunrie) Other parts of your indictment were clearly Butler choices or more of a mixed bag rather than an indictment: 1. RJ was clearly a Butler caused problem and TD kept him because he could keep Flutie who clearly was not the long-term answer or RJ who almost certainly was not the long-term answer/ Contractually he had to keep one and he kept the bad choice rather than the worse choice. Its not really correct to fault him for making a bad choice when the bad choice was the better of the two choices. Van Pelt was a reasonable keep as a back-up which he really always was in 2001. Bledsoe was an excellent choice based on his Pro Bowl reserve output in 2002 (if you disagree then name the QB or several QBs you would have picked instead). TD erred in resigning rather than cuttng him after a horrid 2003 but getting just the two years out of Bledsoe with the NE subsidy would have been a fine wash for TD if he had just cut him. A 2005 mistake but not a horrid one as team won or loss based on the D and ST performance and it was bad that Bledsoe was a general non-factor but not horrid like he was the year before. You are giving up on Losman way too quick. He may eventually deserve the Turks visit, but pulling the same panic that TB pulled when they traded thoss losers Favre and Young. Not likely that he will become so good but when they were traded it was not likely they would become the best in the business either. I'd give him a c- at worse for QB choosing. The OL mistake was letting GW have his way as he simply worsen a problem that clearly goes back to the Butler days and the retirement of Kent Hull. The HC choices are the one major screw up which is not condonable for a fan but is certainly understandable as his last HC choice got him canned. MM does have a winning record as Bills coach at 10-9. Not satifactory but not indictable. Particularly when he actually led them to a comeback from a wprse 9-4 loast year and the team does have 4 winnable games (NO and their losing record and disruption, MI with a winning record but at the Ralph, NYJ with their losing record, disruption at the Ralph and Oak without a win and the hope of cheeseburgers. Same deal with OC who has a winning record with us. Even with these problems which you overexplain or are wrong about, you also leave out a series of good to great onfield moves such as McGahee, hring Sam fr a song, picking a number of draftees who made the Pro Bowl (Clements, McGee and even Henry) making some great non-moves like passing onsigning the oft-injured Jennings. He has hired a solid front office staff led by Modrak and most of all for Ralph the business is making money hand over fist. The point you make even if you used all the facts simply turns into a whine because TD just signed an extension. Fuggaboutit.

It may have simply been that it was the first time I had watched the 05 Fox for anytime at length, but i too found the info on the screen a little busy and difficult to follow/ I think Fox displays the rolling game clocks of out of town games in the same general location as CBS displays the game clock or the down and distance for the game you are watching and I found myself sometines seeing the info for out of town and thinking it was or game and this was a bit distracting. It got better when I employed the constant display of game information to its most useful purpose and simply muted the Fox game announcers who were pretty redundant most of the time as I could see the play, shortly get the officially anounced down and distance and the refs are better about hand signals. I turned off the mute when the refs were announcing penalties and occasionally listened to the announcers when something complex happened (it is just football so is rarely complex except when the refs blow a call) or om hopes of gettimg am imjury update but these were rarely timely so I muted the idiots. In general we followed the game pretty well without the announcers and with the help of the graphics once we sorted out the busyness and out conversation was actually a lot more entertaining to us that the announcer drivel.

Actually yes. A lot going on in my work world with Katrina response and such. its no excuse but fotunmately one does need one on TSW. it is one of the great things about the internet!

Cartainly not according to JMac. He was on record any number of times last year saying he was no miracle worker. The large number of OL possibilities the Bills brought into camp are a tangible statement that JMac had real doubt whether he had the horses to get the job done. it looks like he might have been right.

Cliff notes begin: Give JP a chance. Holcomb will not likely carry this team to a different outcome in terms of naking the playoffs an certainly not win an SB in several years. JP probably will not as well, but just as we saw an athlete take a step back in production to improve his game, so too has JP stepped back from the Tulane run for your life improvisation which brought him a1st round pick to a more stable pro style which is not productive at all yet but he needs to master in order to be productive. Ckiff notes end. First there is no need to go into tortured and detailed discussion as to how golf and football are totally different games so there is no analogy here or even to waste your time (unless you want to) pointing out that Woods had experienced more success in his early career winning Amatuers tourneys. burning up the PGA initially and winning the Masters. The point of this post is not compare JP to Tiger and say they are the same (they are not as Tiger has an incredibly attractive wife in addition to all the silver trophies and an amount of green JP will never see. the point of this idea is actually to analogize the development strategies employed by Tiger and his team and by JP and the Bills braintrust even though golf and football are totally different games and Tiger has had more success than JP can ever dream of. Both had suceeded in their sport initially playing a particiular type of game. Both had a need to step up their game a notch to remain competive. Both experienced results which were far less than folks expected from them (though JPs failure to produce has been far more putrid). However, the lesson that Tiger has taught us twice is that it is worthwhile taking apart ones style and mastering a new style of play that ends up being even more successful than your old style against a new level of competition. I do not know at all whether JP will be able to master an new style and lead the Bills to truumph. Yet amidst his putruid play the last few weeks I actually feel good about the fact that he is bad because he is struggling to master a new playing style that is a radical departure from the improvisational style he used at Tulane which earned him a first round pick in 2004 and led many outside pundits to feel that if in fact he had stayed in and come out inthe 205 draft he likely would have been the #1 QB choice (and possibly #1 overall) if he had shown the same stuff at Tulane as a senior if he had stayed. From watching the games make no mistake I think JPs production was putrid Sunday. However, I can see when looking at his year + a little that he Wyche, Clements and MM have take apart his Tulane and many of his natural tendencies to improvise which held him in good stead in the college game, but which would be far less successful in the NFL where vets expect the QB to do certain things and be in specific places in order for the play to work. where opposing defenders will IN any balls thrown weakly off the wrong unlike college where they were slow enough for a QB to get away with floater, and if he JP always is willing to take a hit from a defender instead of going OB once he has once he has the first down (and sometimes before) he will have a short career as a pro. While in general I would agree that JP has stunk it up and been ineffective in his play the last two (and he had definite failings even in the first week win), from what I see he continues the development which was easier to see in his mop-up appearances last year when he working to master simple things like control of the huddle (he went from the debacle in NE, to the delay of game penalty in his second appearance, to having to take a TO in his 3rd game to finally at least showing abiliy to control the huddle and clock by game 4 for him. There are issues this year as well, and even worse in these non-makeup games aganst teams good enough to beat you silly he has not even had the success he had in mop-up games. However, evem though he and the team are not getting it done i can see what they are trying to do. The bottomline for us fans is to have a little patience. We are going into a strak where we face a homeless NO team, a Miami team in the Ralph that has had some success this year but it CAN be a very different game in our house, a Jets team which is troubled to say the least in our house and get the cheeseburgers out as we head on the road to face an Oakland team that I think is 0-3 to date. JP has several games where he will need to show some progress in production, but I am not freaked at all (though of course I am disappinted) that his outings have been rought to date. Favre, Steve Young and others got over being so bad initially they were traded. There are no signs JP will be anoher Favre or Young but we need to give him a chance to do this for our sakes.

Icertainly aggree that JP is playing bad disagree that he is not playing like an potential NFL QB. To me JP is showing an element in his game that has to make the coaches feel very good that he is demonstrating that he is eminently trainable. It seems to me that JP came to the combine and came to the pros with a style of play which: 1. Showed some good upside and skills. In running for his lie at Tulane he made a lot of plays on his own as the blocking broke down and demonstrated great mobility and improvisational decision making that made him very successful in college. He showed a strong arm and accuracy while on the run which allowed him to productive with receiver. When even his receivers broke down he showed a willingness and ability to run the ball himself. 2. However, it was clear that his game had some real limitations which did result in some failures in college and which would likely get him eaten alive by the faster, bigger and smarter pros. Improvisation, throwing off the wrong foot, and trying to often to bowl over tacklers is siimply going to result in the pros of not taking the best advantage of your teammates skills as it is hard to be on the same page with improvisation, defenders with more speed than he has played against wil pick off weak throws and survival for a QB in the NFL means taking a hit for a 1st down when you have to, but avoiding the hit after you get the first down instead of risking punishment for a couple of marginal yards. Under Wyche, Clements and MM (and even Bledsoe some last year as I saw JP clearly picked up some of the better parts of his game as he runs out each and every play as though he has the ball whether he has given it away or not) JP clearly picked up improvements in his game. His initial failures and the quickly getting the grasp of how to overcome these failures and improvement in hs game is easily chronicled in his mop-up duty. 1st game- debacle against NE where he was thrown into the game (and learnedthat if you put on the uniform though standing on the sidelines and yukking it up with the boys is fun you have to be ready to play at every moment). he tried to rely on his escapibility and improvisational ability and all this got us was a fumble an an INT. 2nd game- he entered the game after a TV TO prepared to take the field anr run some plays and immediately failed to take control of the huddle and efficiently transfer the play called in from the sidelines to the huddle (my guess is that it was a play call which should not have been a surprise to anyone). The resultwas a delay of game penalty. Yet, JP already began to show he was a learner as he did successfully call the next plays and with the help of his teammates and handing off to Willis they got a TD. True watchers of the game should recognize that nothing succeeds like success and that you have to crawl before you walk. it would be flat out dumb to expect him to come in an perform like John Elawy, and it would be flat out dumb to feel that his leading the team to a TD though simply crawling was not an important and critcal step for him to take, He will never lead the team to even two TDs if he never leads the team to 1 TD and though many facts pshawed this score it was big IMHO. 3rd game- He showed that he was learning by not taking the delay of game wheh he failed to control he huddle, he only had to call a TO when his main job was to burn clock. he did not accomplish his goal completely but he did emonstrate he was learning by still not making it but doing better. If recollection serves (which it does not completely I think he also saw inconsequestial action in a th game I will leave out.) me savinf this five yards was quite useful later as he converted a critical 4th down run by a couple of yards. Most important he again steered the team to a score. 4th make-up game- Again he steered the team efficiently to its goal and this time even without the hiccups in his initial performances. Again JPs production this season has been horrible. However, the thing which impresses me and leaves me with the hope and thinking that he is on track is that he has not been productive but I am impressed that he has remade his game. He can produce (yet it is to be hoped) playing a less improvisational, more consistent and rigid style. However, i think he will be more productive as an NFL QB once he masters this style of game. it srikes me as it would be far more exciting and even more productive by him from time to time right now if he ran the college style of improvisation he is used to. However, this only works in the short term and I am impressed that he has been able to generally abandon his old style and adopt a new one under the tutelage of Wyche. He has not mastered it at all and has not produced yet. However, the lack of INTs and him occaisionally getting it right (like in the drive after the benching, the TD pass to Peters, the progress last year and even in snatches in pre-season has certainly been enought that I am not panicking yet despite the JP lack of production at QB. If he has happy feet I might be worried. If he was throwing a lot of or critical INTs i would be worried, but his failings to this point are all things i think can be adjusted. It just takes time. I think TD and MM will not get their panties all up in a wad due to media and fan pressure and will give him some time to get better. I have no problem with this as though i can see Holcomb fitting in ad backing up for time to time I do not see him delivering the goods in the long term. I think the result would be the same (non-playoffs) even if JP never gets his act toether or Holcomb is made the starter. It will be less painful with Holcomb now, but the real game is to win the SB later. JP might but Holcomb won't.

The blitz pick-up play of all the Bills RBs both current and recent past makes me long for the good ol days when Thurman did the job consistently and well for the Bills. The younger players simply are not there yet.

I think the thought that TD merely did what he had to do with the Henry trade is the same incorrect notion used by folks who give him no credit for managing this team out of cap hell a year or possibly two earlier than most expected. It takes two folks to make a deal and trading is tough. On this board there were some who advocated simply cutting him (they were wrong), The Titans initially offered a 6th and dropped out (they gave up a 3rd and while this was the thing to do to try to buy low only a fool would not realize that TD needed to demand a 1st for him as part of a strategy of selling high), John Clayton (once again proved his idiocy) said TD was a greedy and missed out not taking a second day pick when it was offered (he was wrong). Wasn't he correct not to make these moves? Many would have sang his praises for making them at the time and in retrospect he would have been ahead of the game getting just about anything for this supsended player. Folks would have sung his praises even more if he took the deal which Denny Green was offering him of Shelton givng the gap we were having at LT. I just don't see how you can say it was so obvious when you list all the reasons Henry had to go and then do not give him any credit whatosever for reading the market correctly and refusing all these offers and comments which were made publicly and simply were far worse for the Bills than the first day pick TD got. The same with those wo describe his cap management work as easy and forced to do. The 9ers (who overpaid the oft-injured Jennings as TD refused to do) had a significantly better record than the Bills in the 90s but are still in cap hell with their mismanged choices. AZ is another team which appears to be dealing with their cap problems by making the interesting choices that appear to still cost them, The Bengals spent years in cap hell but it clear what having good management can do rather than if a GM does not make good choices. TD's biggeest screw-up in my opinion was chooising GW as HC as much as I can tell because he feared Marvin Lewis might do the same thing to him that Cowher did in Pitts and also passed on Fox. Both these men have had successes rebuilding squads even worse than the Bills at the time and my sense is he chose GW because he knew he could beat him. He allowed GW to make series of mistakes (hiring Sheppard, replacing Sheppard with Killdrive over his choice Clements, mismanaging the D with is boy Gray and finally TD brought in his guy LeBeau who not only put in a working scheme but actually trained Gray incredibly well, allowing GW to hire his buddy Vinky and then Ruel as OL coaches when they were not up to the job. Hiring GW and then allowing him to make a series of mistakes without correcting him is a big part in my mind of why this team lost. There were other TD errors like extending HJ and JH and then cutting them and why he did not cut Bledsoe after his horrid 2003 after a great 2002 is beyond me, but overall TG has done a very good job both on the field and off the field with the Bills. 1. His cap management overall has been superb getting us out of cap hell quickly, 2. He has attracted some good FAs to a small market town like Buffalo including Pro Bowlers Spikes, Adams, Milloy and Vincent. Adams in particular who he got to sign for a lower amount contract with the Bills than he apparently was offered elsewhere. 3. I think he has done a very good job drafting, His worse clinker appears to be MW, but OL was such a need its hard for me to see how he could have done something else and apparently McKinnie the other choice not only held out his first year but apparently just got arrested. His selection of two Pro Bowlers and Schobel his first year was good. The read of the market in letting Peerless go and then picking McGahee who he developed his injury and cap managed well and read the draft market well enough that he figured he could Kelsay in the second was simply great work. Overall, with the draft given the nature of injuries in the NFL and clinkers like Ryan Leaf, his trading away of 1sts for value for us (we desperately needed a QB after RJ and Bledsoe like him or not made and deserved the Pro Bowl in 2002 (who would you have picked instead if he didn't or which several AFC QBs were better if you claim he sucked in 2002) and pickin JPL was a good move as though it is till too early to judge most pundits judge his talent as far exceeding what would have been available this draft if we held onto the choice and them also traded up to get a QB. I like TDs draft work. 4. I give him a B overall as a GM (the GW selection almost gets me to move him to C balancing out the player excellence but I like MM and will judge this season when it is a season rather than after 3 games. When one adds in the work off the field which as brought the Bills some great partnerships and improvements to the bottom line like St. Johns Fisher and 17 of the last 18 games being shutouts despite the non-playoff finishes I think the TD will be kept on the job by Ralph for the forseeable future. The huge expansion in the calculate net worth of the Bills in his time here and the new contract extension will allow the 5 year plan to extend to a 7 or 8 year plan if necessary. I hope it doesn't but thats how I see it.

No Todd Collins was not better at this point. Collins was rushed into a start his rookie year when the Bills began to realize Kelly did not have it anymore and that they has waited a year too long to pick a replacement QB high in the draft, The Bills were still a great team and Kelly was good enough to steer this team to a week early playoff spot (not a guarantee that a QB is good enough as Bledsoe almost did this with Bills last year and with the right coach can still do the job in spots). In this start against Detroit, Collins showed the happy-feet which would be his eventual undoing early in his career. He did exoerience some success when the Bills has to recognize that Kelly was done and Ralph paid him a bribe to forget about Ralph's word of honor that he would sign Kelly to a big contract. Collins did have some success in his initial career with the Bills and actually showed some accuracy that outpaced JP's dismal play this year. However, all it took was opponents getting some tape on the Bills max protect blocking schemes for Collins, he once again developed happy-feet. his accuracy suffered under the heightened pressure and Butler seemed so frigthetened by his QB assessment misues that he made a series of mistakes at the position: 1. Thinking Kelly would last and drafting a relacement QB a year too late. 2. Reaching up a little higher than many pundits thought he was worth to take Collins with a second. 3. Rushing Collins into service before he was adwequately trained and developing his happy0feet. 4. Tradung a 3rd for Hobert when Collins clearly was not the answer. 5. Trading for RJ was not a horrible idea actually as the 1st and 4th were about the going rate for a top QB propsect, but signing him to a huge contract which virtually guaranteed that he lied to Flutie when he promised him a shot in camp at starting. 6. Paying RJ guaranteed money when he had already signed Flutie to a deal which rolled his achieved bonuses into his base salary the next year, particularly when RJ already showed clear signs of talent but also the injury bug which was his ultimate undoing. The suspicion was that JPL was actually a good potential answer as the QB ofthe future. This is obviously not a done deal in his first full year, but rather than showing nothing as you say, JP showed problems in mop-up duty but definite improvement each game last year (debacle against NE, took a delay of game his first game, but did actually take a timeout rather the dumb penalty his third game and actually began to show some moxie and control as he concluded his make-up stints. Before you say JPL has shown nothin, do not forget that he did steer the team to a TD by handing off to WM his second game, he did diversify his attack in steering us to a TD in his third game and finally ran for a 1st down on a third down, hit a nice pass to Trafford to keep the clock moving and again steered us to a score while he was improving his play from debacle to needless penalty to needless TO in mop-up duty last year. It strikes me that the JP development story this year is one of a player who has a: learned a lot more than he can do stuff with and b: is trying to switch from improvising which was his game in college to the consistent mechanics and decision he has been taught as a pro. I would be worried about JP if he showed some natural problem which would be difficult to fix like happy-feet or fear and a lack of character. Instead his problems seem to me that he is trying to hold himself back and do good things without improvising so much. I think the good news for Bills fans is that as he begins to plan more and see more of the game he will be able to do good things reflexively without thinking about them. In addition, as he learns that he is our QB and learn that though MM will not play him if he cuks, that he can actually survive the benchings and come back and be played. MM could take the route of building JPs confidence by refusing to bench him even if he made a mistake. However, JP is making too many mistakes and MM appears to have taken a route of letting him know that mistakes may get him benched, but he will get another chance so make mistakes and lets see what happens. For many when he was drafted many TSW folks felt Collins was a done deal. After his first start a lot of folks felt Collins was a done. At ths point I think Collins life a Bill was overbut even after the two debacles from JP I do not feel good at all about the games but I still feel quite good about his prospects.

All I think we can ask is that they call them the same way against both teams. They called a roughing the passer penalty on the Falcons in the next series. I think the first one was because they were trying to stop any headhunting of the QB (particularly given Vick's value to ATL and the league for selling this entertainment product). The second call was automatic because all defenders are required to maintain control of their bodies and not even go to the head inadvertently. The penalty call on ATL for roughing Losman and driving him to the ground made this aspect of the refa calls even (now picking up the flag on the INT call on Moulds by Hall is another thing though).

Now that I've gotten post 1 off my chest and out of the way (for those who didn't see it it went something like aaaggghhhh) and now that I have also put up my second post (which also went something lik aaAAgggGGGhhHH) I am now able to turn my thoughts to real football. In the immediate term the O has unfortunately met my expectations and we are struggling mightily (and not my hopes that it would even show many propsects beyond WM running the ball well- those who think MM targeted WM by calling him out last week are wrong that he did in my opinion- it was JP he actually challenged by benching him and his comments on WM were mild and also applied to him finding fault with the OL and himself). The ST offers pretty good stuff as it has a few good plays and the failure to get the outstanding returns of last year are balanced by the consistent performance of Lindell) However, WTF is up with the D and there is little more summary to be made of its performance against Caddillac and the best rushing team last year that even with the excuse they are good this D did not show up against them like the '85 Bears and Ravens teams they purported to be compated to. The only answer I can see now is simply to suck it up. The loss os Spikes for the season is horrendous, but this is football and those things happen. There is no comparison in the real world to the loss of production from losing Spikes to NEs loss of production in losing Colvin a couple of years ago. However, there is a comparison in the loss of hope and dreams of these two teams and a drop-off from what was planned. NE sucked it up and survived. There was an obvious drop-off in the level of output of the individuals on the field, but the team sucked it up and the Bills have to as well, Horribly we are already in the one game at a time mold for this season (us fans love living in SB dreams though the team should always be in one game at a time mode). The Saints game is winnable in this psuedo road game. Yhe Fins better be winnable at home or really fuuggaboutit. The Jets the next week is winnable at home (see I'm still looking to far in advance). Beat the Saints and then we will go from there.

AAAAAggggHHHHHHhhhh

Aaaaaaggggghhhhhhh!

Starting to worry??? This has been a real concern from the get-go and rose to the state of really being a worry when he had his near meltdown last pre-season. I think that the case agin him has been overstated by the folks who seem to exist to saY we are DOOMED whenever a problem occurs, but his fits and starts are real and this initial concern prompted by his lofty draft position which became a legitimate worry when he reacted so badly to the death of the Grammy who raised him is simply made worse for us because like it or not we are already committed to paying him the big bucks and the production at that level has simply not been there. My sense of the MW career has been: First year- no immediate signs of him being the next Boselli but though such lofty standards are hoped for by all Bills fans, it is not reasonable to expect it. His first year saw some excellent production from him as the running game with Henry picking up the yards was legitimately deemed at Pro Bolw levels and the passing game though it gave up way too many sacks was also very productive. Individually, he showed signs of the combination of incredible size with good agility that got him drafted so high in the first place. He struggled a bit with the stunts and jukes which are complex for any rookie OL player but did not show any difficulty dealing with outside speed rushers. Still he benefited from having played in college on the right hand side where he guarded the blind side of a lefty QB because in the pros behind thwe righty Bledsoe he had a TE guarding the outside. He had a vet, Sullivan, next to him at RG and though Sully proved not be enough of a player he had the experience to be better than a rook at co-ordination and even the substandard OL position coach Vinky had something to teach him. Given the holdout which set-back McKinnie who was the other T judged worthy of our #4 pick MW was clearly the right choice for the Bills if they were unable to trade down. Second year- The lack of competency from his position coaches (we had moved from the sub-standard Vinky to the worse then standard Ruel at OL coach) began to show. Even worse, Ruel and GW choose to pair MW with Pucillo who just like MW needed a vet next to him to teach him. Instead, MW was asked to teach Pacillo with no good leadership and teaching from his OL coach and several disaster plays cropped up on the right side that year. The good news is that though the O caved in completely in production as Killdrive refused to vary the approach and Bledsoe exacerbated Killdrive's pass happy tendencies with his audibles, the running production with a good year or running by henry at RB was still there. For MW who has laid a reasonable groundwork as a rookie, his second year was one of arrested development at best. Third year- The Bills finally made the right moves as the ascquistion of JMac finally meant an adult was in charge on the OL. In addition, the Bills acquired the steady vet Villarial to play RG. It was not too late potentially to see MW's third year be good enough to see him do well enough to flip to the LT spot which was likely to be vacated by Jennings unless he showed durability to match some good quality play he showed as a youngster (JJ did not demonstrate the durability and in fact SF probably paid him way too much as he is now showing he is downright injury prone beyond even the historic RJ levels this year). The really bad news for the Bills though is that MW missed the "voluntary" OTAs last pre-season as he was rocked when the Grandmother who had raised him passed away. Though dealing poorly with the death of a loved one is more than understandable, it simply is not condonable in the modern world as unfortunately loved ones die and he is paid the big bucks to be a professional in addition to being an adult. He put on weight, lost valuable practice time and showed up at camp not ready to play at all. Fortunately, JMAc and the crew did a wonderful good cop/bad cop job of managing him. Using threats to his future $ that he was going to be moved to LG (a position where the horrible Pucillo could not make the switch and take) and the carrots of good teaching (finally) and even rewarding him with a gameball a quarter of the way into the season when his game came around, it was clear we lost a year in MWs development but he was back on track to at least be adequate and maybe (JUST MAYBE) become a good enough Tackle to merit the flip to LT next year and even earn the big bucks. The bad thing about the injury is that it really reduces the chance that he will show enough improvement this year to make the investment in him prove to be worthwhile. We will have to see what happens, but at this point he is merely demonstrating that due to the salary cap and the slotting, it simply is not a good strategy anymore to draft in the top 10 picks. For every Manning there is a Ryan Leaf (actually several folks more like Leaf). TD has done the right thing with our first rounders by trading them away for value for the most part and using them creatively to get talents with future potential like McGahee and Losman.

And quite frankly if there is a choice between satisfying my need to kniw and giving no information to the enemy, I say lie to me. Actuallt, while I don't think the Bills should puruse the John Butler strategy of issuing platitudes that insult everyone's intelligence, I think their approach to Parrish situtation of simply saying nothing is quite fine. To me its a question of whether folks place their priority on their own curiosity or the potential good of the team. A clever team motivated by the requirement of any entertainment business that communication with the custimers is how you sell stuff means they have to talk abouy a loy of stuff, but I am fine with them striking a balance and keeping injury news to a minimum as it eventually keep opponents guessing.

My sense is that many of the predictions seen about AT are well founded (and many are not also) but the key thing to me that should allow most readers to tell the difference between which predictions should be ignored and which read carefully is the amount of cetainty that they present. If anyone predicted last year that after our 0-4 start, their extraordinarily smart football sense and piercing analysis of the coming opponents led them to predict that we woould peal off a 7 game winning streak which we mostly won going away despite their record of road failures and their horrible start, I think we need a little proof of this prediction. Its really uncertain which Bills D is going to show up on Sunday (though the injuries to Fletcher and Milloy are not good news, though the fact we are at home and the wonders of modern drugs I hope and expect them to perform) and I hope a different Bills O shows up that attended our first two games. As I said many of the predictions offered seem legit to me, but to the extent any of them are presented as even likely outcomes without the necessary caveats that things may be quite different and certainly if they are presented as stone cold locks these are the predictions that can almost certainly be ignored. We were not gonna go 15-0 after the 1st week's great performance and we are not DOOMED after last week's debacle.

PS On this specific issue, every week after the game we see players finding their broterhs in arms in the NFL after the game and exchanging pleasantries. I have no problem whatsoever with this behavior and it is actually something our society tries to instill in children at an early age. Anyone who has played sports has gone through the mandatory line-up at the end of a game and gone through it telling guys you don't know and may mever see again "Good game, Good game." Many of the post-game gatherings are by players who were the best of friends in college and now live across the country from each other and it is only natural that they would take this opportunity to say hello, check-in and probably laugh about the good ol days. I'm not a religious zealot at all, but one of the things which warms my heart is how Christian believing players from both teams often get together in a prayer huddle after the game and share their faith. Football games are important (just ask any of us who spend too much time on TSW) but it simply pales in significance to real life. I want the players i root for to fight like banshees for 60 minutes (+ if the game goes into OT) but after the game I like it when I see smiles, sharing and hugs berween players wearing different uniforms. When the whistle blows and the game ends I prefer that they think about how they can use their position as NFL players to helps folks in New Orleans rather than they think only about helping their team win.

I don't think he called him out and actually I think this "contorversy" is for the most part a creation of the media which has been somewhat fueled by internet chatter. My reasons for having my opinion on this are: 1. MM did not single WM out for disapproving comments after the game. he is on record saying that WM deservers fault but the OL deserved fault as well for the O performance. He had negative things to say specifically about other Bills performances such as Losman. 2. He also blamed himself and the coaches for doing a bad job with their play calls and taking blame himself for the poor production. 3. If MM took off on a player he benched JP. If you are looking for negativity by MM rather than focus on the at worse sticks and stones of words open to interpretation look instead to actions which clearly are a challenge. 4. MM's comments about WM were all in response to questions about WM's performance or the O's lack of running production as best as I can tell rather than MM going out of his way to target WM. The only PC MM called which seemed to be specific about this issue was actually in mid-week where he PRAISED WM's diligence and work in practice and remarked he was now hitting the creases hard rather than calling him out. 5. MM definitely leveled criticism on WM for not hitting the creases hard in games and dancing around behind the line looking for a more perfect opening. This actually seems to be to be fairly obvious from WM putrid production during the game and actuially pretty mild criticism. If MM had simply taken the Butler route and said everything is fine after this horrible performance he correctly would have been open to more criticism that he was ignoring reality and not offering any good HC work to the public on what was obviously a problem. 6. Why on earth would MM call JP out in any fundamental way when the real world results are that WM actually ran for almost 120 Yards way back when about a week ago. The good production in week 1 comes on top of a rookie year when he gained 1200 yards in 11 starts. Add to that any fundamental problem pointed out about WM as a player would be in the context of him having started fewer than 16 games in total as a Bill. yes, MM correctly pointed out a flaw in WMs approach to running on Sunday, but did so in response to questions along with pointing out other players and even questioning his own wrk. He offered his reading of these flaws and said they could be fixed and were not issue central to WMs running style or personality and announced they were fixed after a says work. I think that WM would have to be and fans are being incredibly thin skinned and weenies to feel MM called WM out.

Contract levels are a very important thing regarding on field performance in the moden world of the salary cap. However, as WM is under contract for this season, and next season and the 1007 season as well the contract issues are set until then. None of us knows actual contract language, when bonuses are set to be paid, or what performance kickers where included in the language that the NFL did not judge as sure things so they are not included in his cap hit so anyone saying that WM is disatisfied, not compensated properly or whatever are speaking without any true knowledge of the facts unless they are TD or WM (and his agents) and thus know what the contract will do as reality happens. Reality has not happened yet for this season or the future so basically opinions about what the future holds is only as good one's control over reality which means that these opinions are no good at all. Please provide me with a link (if there is one, but even the great satan Rosenhays has not said anything at all about WM holding out or doing anything which would make his contract an issue prior to 2008. Such comments would be stupid to make and do not serve McGahee's interests at all as he is not going to hold out in mid-season this year and if there are escalotors in the contract based on performance which he achieves but were not included in the original NFLPA released info because they were not sure things (and thus not included in the official cap number) there would be no reason for WM to hold out as the Bills would be showing him the money. The tea-leave readings of WMa personalities regarding his contract this year are farcical at best, They are not worth much nore in terms of his contract impact in the future. The whole current WM controversy strikes me as full of sound and fury but really signifying nothing.

Answering this and your previous question about whether WM is fast. The answer is that I'm not sure what you consider fast, but there are few doubts in my mind that he is much faster than Travis Henry. In addition, I think McGahee is much faster than Jerome Bettis and likely is fasterthan LaDamian Tomlinson and is likely faster than all members of our LB crew rated as one of the best in the league Fletcher, Spikes and Posey. By this summary, I do not mean at all that speed is not important or overrated. However, it clearly is not the only or the leadfactor in production for a player or RB. The best RBs have ENOUGH speed and has it in combination with an ability to shift directions, keep their balance and achieve their max speed quickly and also has it combination with a powerful body to get yards. The thing which impresses me with McGahee is my judgment that he easily has ENOUGH speed to combine it with some great shiftiness, nice patience and increasingly powerful body to be an effective runner. Was he an effective runner last week against TB? No. MM and the gang have their theories about why that was the case and they say these problems were shown as soled in practice this week. We'll see. However, was McGahee an effective runner in the first week? Yes. One can argue he was not, but this argument flies in the face of reality as he picked up almost 120 yards on the ground, another good chunk on reception and has ypc which was great and still leaves him with a good ypc even after a dismal day against TB. Was Mcgahee an effective runner last year? Obviously yes as he broke the 1000 yard mark in 11 starts. His injury during the win streak was frightening, but the fact he came back from it to log 100+ creates a reality that must be recognized that though it is doubtful he is the same player after his injury, he should be considered a normal player by us fans who like anyone can be struck down in a moment by injury, but he is not someone we need to worry about everytime he touches the ball or steps into the shower. Overall, I agree with you that WM has almost certainly lost some speed from his peak speed in college. However, this seems easily balanced by the increased bulk and weight he has also put on whicb is clearly demonstrated in the powerful stiff arm he has shown, demonstrated by him producing injuries from hits on some of the DBs who have tried to tackle him and by the yards he has piled up over his brief career as a Bill which still amounts to les thant 16 starts. Loss of speed is always a concern, but I see nothing in this issue being raised that goes beyond it being an unsubustantiated concern to this being butressed by any arguments based on outcomes in the real world beside one bad game last week.

Simon- I think you assessment is a totally legit one except that depending upon the game situation the assessment may not apply. From viewing the NFL over the years one of the big differences I note is that the competition is tighter than ever before. Worst to first can not only occur like never before but also first to worst. Not only is the occuring now from season to season, but performances like the Bills where in week 1 they appeared as if they worked out some chinks in redzone production and third down conversions they might be unbeatable to the next week where it was a question whether the O would even get a 1st down (much less score) and a D which folks seriously talked about in the same breath as the 85 Bears and the Ravens could not stop the run. The salary cap has made it near impossible to build and hold together a team with the talent which allowed the Bills to make 4 straight SBs (though Philly's history if near achievement is impressive) and the imcreasing size and speed of players has made playing with the oddly shaped ball a virtuall crap shoot from week to week. At any rate, the strong caveat which should go with any prediction to make it truly accurate is that the outcome really depends on the game flow. If the Bills get an early league because the ST manages to run one back, our D gets turover, or the funny shaped ball bounces the right way for us, I think one will see a totally different Bills O performance playing to trying to catch-up or playing with a lead. Given the dismal performances of our O against a bad Texans team and a good TD team I agree with you that I do not think our O will successfully deliver a score for us against a underrated ATL D on its own. However, I think it will simply be a different game if ATL knows we have to pass or knows we will pass. If the AT defense is not able to take many risks because if they happen to get burned the game would get out of hand and the Bills O is using the pass opportunistically as a change-up rather than a situation similar to us being on our 4 yard line with 7 go for a first down and its thrid down when TB pinned us for a safety. I think the O will hold its own initially and really will need to concentrate on winning the field position battle with moderate success rather than being called upon to score. The key will be for our ST to deliver us a score or a very short field (though then our redzone failings will get tested) from a return (we have shown good capability on KR and PR last year) of on a punt bliock (again with Peters last year and Sape this pre-season the capability is real). Alternately, this D which has shown the capability to produce turnovers will need to do this against an ATL O which has Michael Vick (a real danger to give them an early lead) but is far from perfect and can turn the ball over. If we get an early lead I think the O performance will be very different that if it is trying to get a lead or catch up. Correct analysis of this situation strikes me as needing to account for the fact that the situations can be very different and it is a lot more than simply comparing the players.

All the comments MM has made about WM strike me as pretty mild. It was obvious WM was not effective Sunday and regardless of why he was not hitting the holes successfully Sunday. What the bid poop. All of this seems to be a media creation in terms of how critical these comments were or how big of a deal they were. MM was not singling WM out as he faulted WM (correctly as should be obvious to all) but also said the OL bares its portion of the blame and even blamed himself and the coaches for not doing their jobs well enough on the offense. Why folks feel MM is tagetting WM for harsh criticism when he flat-out benched JP is beyond me. All of the comments where MM went out of his way to "call=out" WM seemed to actually be in response to questions about WM or the running game. In fact, if his comments did not center around what i see as mild comments then he would have been correctly labled as being a reincarnation of John Butler if he did not acknowledge the reality that WM sucked Sunday. It amazes me that us fans seem to have our panties all up in a wad over this media and internet creation.

Uhh it appears to me that rather than dragging the media into this you see both MM and WM doing what they are paid the big bucks to do in managing what appears to be a media created firestorm. Judging from the chatter we see on TSW, one might get the impression: 1. MM is offering harsh criticism of WM and is disappointed in his production in a big way and over a long period of time. 2. MM is singling WM out for criticism. 3. MM is calling WM out and unless we see some big changes in his play on Sunday there almost certainly will be some changes made. All of this is wrong, wrong, wrong and one wonders where it came from since it did not come from reality. 1. MM said that Sunday WM was not hitting the holes with the authority he had in the past and needed to run into (and it is to be hoped) through these creases even if they do not look promising. Him being tentative and unsuccessful was obvious to anyone and it is simply dumb to see this as a big or long term problem as way back when ten days ago WM had a great game and in his only season with the Bills had a great year. How last weeks issues got blown up into some big deal or sign of a long-term problrm simply does not match reality. Perhaps after remaining too calm in most of our views after an 0-4 start last year MM is now panicking at 1-1 and being locked in 4 way 1st place tie in the conference after 2 weeks. Yeah right. Methinks one should look to the media for creating this controversy in a teapot. His calling a press conference today would not surprise me because this is obviously an issue where left to their own devices the press will write crap and a PC actually fills the vacuum with the positives he wants about WM hitting the holes hard in practice. 2. The proof of this not being some grand MM strategy to single MM out is that in his comments to the press he is on record finding fault with WM (he did suck Sunday btw), but also giving a share of blame to the OL and a share of blame to the himself and the coaches. Not only is he on record saying JP sucked Sunday but he even benched him. If he is singling anyone out it is JP. This WM stuff pales in comparison to how he challenged JP. Don't you agree? 3. Yeah, he is going to bench WM and go with Shaud Williams as his starter. Actually folks are so freaked out by what Rosenhaus may say or do next season that maybe we should cut WM now. Yeah right. This whole thing is so silly.

This a great example of how the media does its work to accomplish its goals (sell ads rather than strive to give out correct info) and this goals is simply different from the goals of fans enjoy the game. The players also have a different set of goals revolving around winning the game or getting good contracts. I just wish the media would stop pretending that they are serving the fans iinterest.