Fake-Fat Sunny

I'll take another look tonight (I should have built up the stomach for it by then). I certsinly was judging the blitz pick-up pretty harshly on the safety after the RB (again I assume it was Willis on 1st and 10)did not do the pick-up effectively on the first pass play and the pass was blocked by a rusher he should have engaged or cut down so the pass could not be blocked. I'll look again at the 3rd play byt could you see the number of the offending RB on the first pass play in this series and do you agree that this RB totally failed in his job to engage the rusher giving him an opportunity to block this pass?

Willis McGahee. First, I do not think one player is at fault for multiple breakdowns which start with some questionable play calling in this danger zone in a tight game on the road. I goes from there to some blocking failures against a blitzing Bucs D which smelled blood, some inaccurate passing by JP and losing the field position battle here so more than one player is actually to blame. Second, who of importance cares who I blame anyway so like the rest of us fans this is simply my rant. However, WM bears some special attention which I have not seen or hear mentioned to this point because of two incredibly ineffective efforts on his part at blitz pick-up. TC called a pass on 1st down from the 1 yard line or so (a questionable call which if it works TC is brilliant but it didn't so in hindsight he did the wrong thing). A TB DL player rushed and the OL only delayed him a little (either a player whiffed for the most part or even worse the plan was to chip him a bit which was done either inadvetently or by plan) and the RB (WM I presime but I couldn't make out the number neither effectively engaged the rusher preventing a leap or simply cut him down. This rusher stuck his hands up an tipped the JP pass which fortunately fell to the ground rather than being intercepted. The second missed blitz pick-up was when the an entire side of the TB D came in on the rush on 3rd down and JP neither picked up the blitz and threw to a hot receiver or threw it away immediately, but WM simply whiffed on an effort to stop the rusher and JP was forced out of the back of the endzone for a safety. While no one can be singled out for the blame since multiple players and the coaches all were to blame for some failure. I think WM gets special note for likely failing to do his job two times. Like most rookies he needs some work on blitz pick-up so we have no choice really but to play him and hope his failings are not as fatal as yesterday. If even an eggplant like Travis Henry can learn and improve on blitz pick-up (he was never great at it, but early in his career he was so bad that his miss led to a sack of none other than Doug Flutie who had come into replace RJ after one of his many injuries, but he did improve this facet of his game such that it was not an issue of complaint against him by even those who hated Henry until late in his career when some folks were simply shopping for reasons why he should be cut rather than simply wait and trade him for value as TD did. These same posters foolishly tried to claim that the Bills improved as soon as WM took the field and WM being great at blitz pick-up while TH sucked was a big part of the reason why. The facts seem to be that yes the Bills improved big time but actually it took several games for WM to gain full confidence in the knee and once he did we improved in significant part because of his outside speed, his powerful stiff arm and him simply being a better runner than TH. WM being good at blitz pick-up had little to do with it and we saw on the plays that led to the safety this young player still needs a lot of work in this facet of his game.

I was also surprised that we got stomped so bad today and overall I think we were simply outplayed and beaten by a team which performed better than us in their home grounds and just flat outplayed us in multiple facets of the game. I thought it incredibly unlikely that the prediction of one pundit that our offense would not be able to score a TD and said so and I was flat-out wrong. Perhaps it is merely adding mistakes to my mistake but some problems you saw as rather obvious struck me as not the main issue and other problems I thought were big you did not mention. 1. I was actually impressed by a number of things JP did that young QBs do not do (he repeated a great performance last week when he seemed to pull the Texans offside 4 times in a quarter by also having TB go offiside 3 times against the Bills and part of this was likely his cadence, hpwever it made no difference in the effectiveness of their D, he demonstrated some pretty good pocket awareness escaping when the pocket was collapsing but also hanging in there but getting off the pass before he was hit, the throws often were not accurate but I think he only had 1 sack this game). JP sucked but it seemed to me he simply needed to be more accurate and the run game needed to produce and I am not sure more experience or a year of losing would have made the difference here. 2. The OL was no impressive in getting good push on running plays, but the pass pro for him did not seem to have him running for his life all the time or getting hit all the time either. I think there was little detectable drop-off after MW left so I'm not sure where your depth complaint comes from. 3. The DL was obviously unable to stop the run and the D looked nothing like the 85 Bears or the Ravens unit Gray challenged them to be. However, the jury is still out on how much of this was the real Bills run D shhowing up yesterday rather than the one that killed the Texans. It is tempting to say this was because Cadillac is the real deal, but even Pittman pealed off one nice run. I am not convinced that the difference here is simply PW being better than Edwards since Adams us still there and Edwards has shown some good stuff in some situations. We'll see but rather than being obvious this one needs more data before solid conclusions can be drawn. In terms of problems: 1. I think the Bills need to adjust how they implement the scheme with the players they have. Adams will need to use his ample bulk to play the run if Edwards alone cannot hold the middle. We often use the quick first step of Adams as a blitz tool, we may need to get him to look at the run first and instead rely on the zone blitz for pressure. 2. The safety struck me as being the result of a couple of aggressive goal line plays that did not work and one of the key reasons they did not work was the failure of WM to be effective on blitz pick-up. The RB (I couldn't read the number but assume it was WM failed to engage effectively or cut down the rushing DL player when he escaped the OL block and blocked the JP pass. On 3rd down JP seemed for some reason to not read the all-out rush coming from the left side and WM clearly missed a blitz pick-up on the rush which pushed JP out of the back of the endzone. He simply needs to perform better.

then forget about him ever being a winning QB. It's hard to believe the whining from some folks on this board and from some of the TV pundits (Vic Carruci and the bozo on their show and some idiot on Channel 2) about pulling him being a horrible move because it undercuts his confidence or the team's confidence in him. If he needs to be handled with kid gloves and hos confidence built up and supported regardless of how he is playing then he is a softer athlete than I imagined and its doubtful that he has the arrogant short memory that a successful player in this league needs. Perhaps it would be a learning experience to play through his horrendous game, but I see this as a good learning experience if he plays through this and suceeds but merely leaving him in to be toyed with and danced over by a Bucs team that simply outplayed and outphysicaled the Bills has no learning value that I can see. Ironically, I think he got two learning lessons from the way this played out: 1. He should have learned that the fate of this team does not rest solely on his play. This group will win as a team but lose as a bunch of individuals, and I hope Losman took from this (and fans lrearned the lesson as well) that we will and should have no fear of sitting anyone who isn't doing the job. JP should take from this that he will be sat if he does not do the job, but he will also be used if Holcomn does not do it. MM/TC would be making a mistake if they had two starting QBs and JP needs to know and be told he will not be pulled for making a single mistake. However, there is a big difference between their being a hair trigger for benching him and reacting to the multi-quarter non-productive performance he has today, He should know he will be pulled if he shows virtually nothing for an entire game and his extraordinarily bad production is something better recognized with some consequence rathee than accepted virtually regardless of how he does. 2. He actually did perform far better after he was benched and put back in going 5/5 at one point. A part of this was most likely TB cashing in their effort once the Bills had clearly given up and too little time to mount a comeback, but he should take a lesson from this that does not undercut his confidence but seems to have provided a challenge for him which he reponded to. For folks who felt that he is now more likely a lost cause because there is some accountability (obviously something that has gone out of style in our current stay-the-course society even if it is not working) have it wrong IMHO. If JP is so wounded by this he cannot function then the mistake was drafting him in the first place. From his better performance after benching and the way he seemed to face the music and reality after this game I think he is made of tougher stuff than those whining about the benching.

Lori. I think you do a great job of highlighting a real observational point and backing it up with stats which indicate well this observation is probably true. I think you are also correct in pretty much dismissing the negative nancy comments of jarthur since they seem to rely on a problem of injury which only a higher being has total control of an all teams would be hurt if they lost their starting safeties to injury. Its the translation of this concern to the WE'RE DOOMED talk implicit in jart's comments which are irrational. The reasonable fact that this irrational fear is based on (like any good urban myth the rant is actuallty based on mis or over interpretation of one fact so the doomspeaker can claim some truth) is that both Vincent and Milloy missed games due to injury last year and both are older players and more subject to injury or in need of a longer recovery than the typical younger player. Yet, even this fear has a couple of answers which if you crack research ability can indiciate confirmation (or indicate that yes houston we have a problem) it would be helpfl: 1. Scheme- The neat thing about Gray's implementation of our scheme is that he clearly has mastered understanding and application of the zone blitz (as seen in his adopting the play calling in LeBeau's first year) and has mastered the strategic gameplanning part of thi as show by the Bills great 3rd quarter D stats (they were 3rd or 4th last year in fewest points allowed in a quarter with their performance in the 3rd ;ast year). The overall good D statistical performance last year as seen in them being #2 statistically is also a great indicator of his stategic mastery. The key is whether if Milloy or Vincent goes down again, is there some scheme change we can make that fills in for this loss. The stats indicate yes. Much of the Bills D dominance last year happened without Vincent and there were signs of this even without Milloy (though the presence of both obviously helped). The interesting thing is that even with both of them there against Pitts we feel though the D did not do the job to compensate for ST faults (the Lindell miss of the chipshot and NC laying a PR on the carpet) and Bledsoe not being enough to drive the O. The Bills do have a scheme advantage for a short-term in that a key to the zone blitz is its unpredictability. Even if there is a hole due to injury, the opposing QB needs to find it, to be sure its not a fake problem we are creating to lure him into predictability and also that there is not some other zone blitz issue (LB blitzes for example) which he needs to watch for. My sense is that in the short-run we can cover for losing either player with some scheme or playcalling adjust,emts. 2. Players- The other obvious back-up to losing either player is the quality of the player that replaces them. I would regret the loss of Vincent because he has been a pure monster collecting INTs at saftety. We have gone from a situation where we go years without a safety INT to Vincent collecting 2 last week and multiple INTs at safety at the end of last season. I'd go as far as saying that if he avoids injury this season he will threaten for a Pro Bowl nod (and likely get it if he is among the top safeties in INTS because he is demonstrably popular and respected as seen by his NFLPA role). I do not feel bad at all though if we lose this former Pro Bowler having to go with former starter Baker at safety. SS is a bigger question mark as Wire has not shown the ability to handle the job and he is our #2. Prayer is probably the best bet, but folks should remember that our prayers may possibly be answered as Wire was actually productive this pre-season on ST leading the team in tackles a couple or more games. Also it is no wonder he has struggled a lot in safety pass coverage as he never played this role at any level of organized ball. Will Wire be a good SS if pressed into the role? No, probably not. Will this 4th year pro finally be adequate if pressed into SS service again. Maybe. I pray it never comes to that and if it does I pray he is adequate. Neither are far fetched though it is possible we will see.

Like who and when? What you say may be true in episodes and might even be true as a trend. However, since a main INDICATOR we all know about is that last year's team was #2 statistically in D and that this pre-season featured almost complete stonings of opponents first team Ds, the facts you offer of TEs and seam routes exploiting the Bills consistently would seem to be false. Obviously the Bills are far from perfect. However, its imperfections such as the redzone failures this year or the 3rd down conversion failures last year are upfront and obvious and easily documentable as statistical problems. The most obvious TE and seam route failures I can remember the Bills having were in preseason where the D was pitching a shut out in a game (the full game against GB I believe) and they gave up a TD on a seam route. However, this was deep in the 3rd if not the fourth quarter and blaming the starting safties or LBs for this fault or the scheme seems unlikely. It is clear to me that Winfield is gone and expecting a performance like the one he put on Tony Gpnzalez at TE in a game for us against KC should not be expected by a rational person, but your claim does not strike me as rationally substantiated by the fact.

Almost anything is possible but this prediction falls into the very unlikely. Look at how the Bills D dominated the Texans O last week but the game remained close enough for quite a while and the Texans O did get the 7 points they logged because it is simply very hard to shut down a team (or even just their O) completely. TB's D is good, but not that good and the Bills O has some extraordinary weapons in former Pro Bowler Moulds, likely Pro Bowler at some point WM. the speedy Evans, a JMac designed line that more than held its own last week and the mercurial but talented JP, backed up by Holcomb. This prediction seems to have more to do with Hamilton looking to be controversial to get ratings than with good football based analysis.

I thought that was the Prez's nephew who got busted for being drunk? Oh, him too? Wow, so much alocohol abuse in FLA and so little time.

Thank you for answering, but two questions? 1. What are the tangible signs (or even intangible beyond wishful thinking) that he would be good or better than Lindell at the kickoff game? This is tough because there are not direct stats persee, but even a stat like a K producing more touchbacks than the norm is one tangible sign (though it is a sign of less import since theNFL moved the kickoff back so even a leg like Janakowwski cannot reliably kick it deep everytime. The tangible signs which Lindell shows are that the Bills gave up no TDs last year with him kicking and even few long returns. This does not happen without good tackling by his teammates, but good tackling often depends on a kicker who sends it in the agreed upon side of the field with the agreed upon hang time from a squib or distance kick. The tangible sign that Lindell can do this is the Bills kick return record last year. What are the tangible signs that Francis can do this> 2. Francis is not on any NFL roster right now and was cut from his past team. What are the tangible signs that another team's reject is able to achieve the placekicking standard you set beyond wishful thinking?

If this is what it takes for the Bills to give other kickers a look see while this may be described as a leash it certainly is not a short one. As I said, Limdel may be gone if misses one like this possibly two, but messing up like this probably has no effect on the job status of the Vinateri's and Carney's of the world but many kickers would get treated like Doug O'Brien and be gone if they failed in this way (regsrdless of the fact his kick won the game against the Bills earlier in the season. What I do not get or am too stupid to figure out is that IF Lindell being on the shortest leash possible means something like: 1. His departure is eminent. 2. If he misses any makeable kicks (I consider anything with 50 yards makeable unless the wind and weather interfere) he is gone. Norwood for example missed a makeable kick when he went wide right but he was correctly forgiven and did not lose his job for missing this most important makeable kick. If Lindell is in fact on a short leash he would inspire us looking elsewhere if he misses any makeable kick. I do not think his leash is that short. 3. The Bills coaching staff have no confidence in him on even average kicks. Then I am simply just too stupid. I think the Bills have a clear awareness of the limitations (and they are real and important) of Lindell's game, but i argue that they also have an awareness of the positives in Lindell's game. Perhaps I am foolish to: 1. Think TD is aware of and places importance on the Lindell never having missed a PAT and him being #1 in career success after 2+ seasons simply because these are the facts and TD has refereced this. I really wish I was smart enough to know reality makes no difference. 2. Think that the Bills kick civerage game always initiated by a Lindell kick which goes in a direction and with the designated hang time that the coverage team did not give up a TD or many long returns last year is relevant in any way. I really wish I was smart enough to know that kickers who can be part of this are a dime a dozen like TD says and that Lindell's short leash can be jerked as soon as e fails in some other part of the game and this can easily be replaced. 3. Think that being able to do your job adequately in 2 of 3 onside tries last year and extraordinarily well once is at all relevant to the Bills or the GM. Look, it woild be foolish to argue Lindell is great at all facets of the game or that he does not have something to show in terms of distance kicks and crunch time consistency. I simply argue there is more to the game that this, that TD/MM are aware of this and it impacts their decisions. Their commitment to work to improve Lindell is not infinite, but the Bills did not do more than flirt with kickers this off-season when it would seem a short-leash would have at least brought serious kicking competition to camp. It would seem a short leash would have created actions beyond the fantasy ranting on fan bulletin boards. What I don't know is what tangible signs there have been on this short-leash and I look forward to being educated by you or others.

I will raise my hand because I think Parcells is a better coach than Skins DC Greggo. I think the Bills made the correct move in cutting Bledsoe (actually it would have been even more correct if TD had cut him before the 2004 season after he had a horrid 2003). However, it is a different thing to advocate the Bills should have cut him and to say that he is not a good player or capable of winning under the correct circumstances. I think Bledsoe can be be a winner under the correct circumstances, I just do not think the 2005 (and even the 2004 Bills if making the playoffs is your goal) were circumstances where Bledsoe could produce adequately. The irony here is that I think Bledsoe is a better player and can be a more productive QB in 2005 than he was in the 2001 season where he played an essential role for NE in winning the SB. Say what? Stick with me here if you are at all intrigued by this paradox. Bledsoe Strengths- A Rocket arm, can usually take punishment (Lewis and the lung collapse was an odd circumstance), lots of experience that gives him a good eye for the game and ability to run rote packages and plays. Bledsoe Weaknesses- Way too much confidence in his rocket arm (he can drill it into tight spots like few others, but because he can do this he too often hangs onto the ball for too long and gets sacked or locks in on his favorite receiver waiting for a small opening), He can run designed plays with the best of them as he can even run the QB draw far more effectively than shown with his lack of escapability and he nicely runs fakes after he has given up the ball, but he has real trouble improvising on plays and simply sufferes brain farts when asked to improvide. Kevin Killdrive had initial success with Bledsoe running his O until there was enough video and record of its tendencies and BB provided a roadmap for the league in how to apply this info to a particular game and folks undressed him in the second half of the 2002 season (Bledsoe passing was also hindered more by the weather in the second half and he did play well in one of our last games against CIN so the thought he simply got tired seems incorrect to me). At any rate, Killdrive refused to vary our attack as he wanted to make his way work and GW was not strong enough to force him to change things up. Even worse, the pass-happy Bledsoe was allowed to audible out of the few runs on 3rd and short the even more pass-happy Killdrive called. At any rate both Bledsoe himself and the Bills under GW were incapable of winning with his style in 2003. MM and TC did an amazing job with Bledsoe at the helm in 2004 once they got everything operating the MM way as the season went along. They did these great things with Bledsoe: 1. Replaced Parcells personality which had constantly yelled just throw the damn ball at Bledsoe when they went to the SB with an alarm clock set for 4 seconds after the snap which reminded told Bledsoe to just throw the damn ball rather than go into his familiar patpatpatsack. 2. Used Bledsoe's superb ballhandling skills and ability to run fakes to install some tricky hand-off/pitch back/long passes to Evans and Moulds. They also ran a beautiful fake QB sneak and oitch to WM for a TD. 3. Actually used Bledsoe as a runner using the QB draw enough not to spring him free for a TD (it was not going to happen with the statue), but the threat forced blitzing LBs to hesitate and guard the middle of the field rather than sell out to the blitz. However. des[ite this great O work, the Bills could only get so much out of Bledsoe at QB as he and the team still depemded too much on the QB making amazing throws (which Bledsoe can still do once in a while) and not enough on the run the ball and run it again attitude which is our bread and butter with an occaisional trick play thrown in to score or to keep the D honest and from going 8 in the box all the time. These are the elements which I think will help Bledsoe accomplish some great things as QB for Dallas even though I do not think he can even lead the Bills to a playoff. 1. Being back with Parcells is perfect: Bledsoe needs to do more by doing less. Parcells can not only get him to just throw the damn ball with the joking force of his personality. but he can reing Bledsoe in and not let him audible out of the run to the pass because of Parcells success in the league and with Bledsoe. Bledsoe was a leader in Buffalo but led the team to depend on him he cannot do. Bledsoe led the team to die trying. We tried under him but we died under him. Parcells on the other hand is the sole leader no ifs, ands, or buts and Bledsoe will do as he is told and the team should produce better from reining Bledsoe in. 2. Bledsoe is getting older and this will be his last stop. Again I think Bldsoe will get better performance by not trying to do things he cannot do and instead relying on the team to get the job done. This was the sory in NE at the end and was not the story here as we relied on Bledsoe too much. As he gets older he should naturally lose a few miles per hour off his throw and as he sense this if he becomes more likely to run instead of pass or more likely to throw it away rather than wait for the perfect opening the team will perform better. Bledsoe would have gotten older here also, but i think he can be a better player having been thrown out by the Bills because even he will admit that he has done the best he can here and that was not enough. If he wants the Boys to be the best they can be he will need to depenmd on other taking the lead. The irony here is that I think there is a good chance that Bledsoe will have a far more productive season this year than he has had since 2002 with the Bills. He may be able to win with the 'Boys for another 3 years at QB because he willl be asked to do less to win. I'm looking forward to my ultimate fantasy of a Bills/Boys SB where young JP out does a Bledsoe who presses too hard looking fror reveng on the team that cut him. It probably wom't happen but stranger things have occired in the sports world.

Sure, but who specifically is this? If no one then you keep Lindell.

That's what the cliff notes are for it sums up the point the too long post made. If folks want the argument behind it as I said i use these posts to think out loud and though I am happy to summarize the gist of the argument because folks asked me to and I value the community here, also taking the time to digest the argument itself for the reading impaired is more time than even i can take from my work.

What is this short leash? I think he is a Bill all season unless he suffers some amazing problems. I think he can blow a game and probably two on placekicks without it costing him his job (I'm not saying this is a good thing i advocate, it just strikes me as the fact). Lindell will not be cut unless TD sees a better alternative. I have seen no one present a better alternative who has a record which rivals the Lindell success at the kickoff game or doing onsides. Clearly he has failings placekicking in terms of the missed chipshot and inspiring confidence at a distance. Howevwer, even his placekicking failings are balanced in TD's mind by him having THE BEST success % of any Bills kicker in history. I'd cut him in a NY second if Vinateri or even that weirdo Vanderjagt were available at a good price but outside of flights of fantasy regarding Nugent (I don't see using a 1st day pick on a rookie kicker as agood policy) and folks being impressed with Francis placekicking but having little tangible to say about his kickoffs, I don't see Lindell as being on a short leash at all.

I also don't know the answer to your question off the top of my head and as no simple stat is kept and bandied about to reflect this I will try to figure it out if I find the time. The numbers should be findable of how many times the Bills went for it on 4th and how successful they were. The number of Lindell attempts and success at +40 FGs should also be findable. The number of punts by Moorman from a line of scrimmage in Bills territory may also be semi-easily found and a convergence of these three stats should numerically answer you question. The way the answer feels to me from my watching the games which would either be confirmed or questioned by stats is that the stated fact by Lindell that he has never gone 2 years before with no games being decided one way or the other by his last second kick is an indicator that he rarely has been asked to even try 40+ FGs. My recollection is that last season the Bills were either blowing out the opponents so badly (most of the 9 wins were laughers) or being blown out so badly (like the NE game) that there have been few times we went for 40+ FGs because it either made no sense to give them the field position if we missed as our winning strategy was not to get points but to run clock or 3 points made no difference to us because we needed 7 points. Ironically part of the reason Lindell's career success % is so high because all we use him for is short kicks. Last season i only remember us trying two game critical 40+ FGs and ironically he hit at least one of them but the points came off the board because we called TO. After the TOs we ran one 4th and short play and the great Bledsoe fake of the QB sneak and the pitch to WM resulted in a TD. In the other case, we went for the kick again after the play where the ball went through the uprights was called dead and Lindell never got the kick off as the snap went bad and Moorman got tackled running for his life. These plays never show up in the stats because though Lindell kicked with distance and accuracy it meant nothing. I will attempt to confirm this but invite anyone who wants to do this because my loively wife has a few things on our schedule (my nephew's 1tth B-day, dinner with her old boss) so i will be delayed in getting to this if I do.

I can certainly live happily with this assessment. I think it is consistent with my sense that it is a close call between the two and different folks make different judgments in the end which come out with a vote for Spikes with the views expressed here or with a vote for Fletcher if folks value his signal calling, ST role and tackles highly. as Rodney says why can't we all just get along. I agree that having Sam Adams at DT is a big benefit, but trying to link his prescence as a reason for Fletcher's performance is a bit of a stretch. As folks have noted in several posts it is not even totally accurate to disentangle Spikes and Fletcher's performance because they one excels because of what the other does. Particularly in a zone blitz where the scheme calls for not only shifting responsibilites but shifting line-ups to link an LB's performance to being primarily or significantly due to a particular DTs performance stretches reality to try to bolster an argument. I think the most important thing to consider in light of the points you make is to actually think about Fletcher's performance for the Bills without Spikes or Sam around. I would say the biggest benefit they have given to his performance is that rather than focusing on setting a record for Bills tackles as he did in 2002 without them being around, with them he is able to focus on ST work where he has set a great performance tone for starters on this team and played a productive role as a short kick returner and wedge blocker for McGee.. Just as they did when you introduced the salary cap to the discussion by raising the GM issue (I'm glad you seem to acknowledge that this broader discussion you raised in actually to Fletcher's advanatge as his bang for the buck is so high) I think the focus on what the interplay with Sam and Spikes does for allowing Fletcher to contribute even more to the team on ST is the important thing here. Another interesting sidelight (yeah Simon I am at it again) your mention of the Spikes hit on Carr actually reminds me of another Bills LB hot on Carr in the 2003 season where none other than our good friend Jeff Posey not only caused Carr to fumble by hitting him (unfortunately Adams could not recover in the endzone and we only got a safety as the ball dribbled out of his hands and out of the endzone, but hit him so hard he knocked him out of several games.

I defintiely say if you made the Pro Bowl (a somewhat accurate popiularity contest but a popularity contest nonetheless) you are already a star and not rising. Thus I agree with those who do not have NC on this list because he is already a star. However, the measure to me is are there players who have Pro Bowls to come on their resume and I'd name the following Bills as rising stars: 1. Moorman- should have made it last year and its probably just a matter of time. 2. McGahee- Also a matter of time as long as he remains healthy 3. Evans- His team leading number of TDs last year makes him an obvious choice He seems on his way to avoiding the Reed sophomore slump. 4. Losman- The jury is way out on this one, but his rapid rise and having O gurus as HC and OC and the incredible gift of having a former offensive minded HC as QB coach makes it certainly possible for a player with 1st round talent. 5. Williams- I doubt he will become a star because his meltdown last year took him off track and OL is difficult to see for pundits. Thus us a make or break year for him becoming a star. 6. Peters- I have little confidence that Williams will become a star and actually am about at the same level in judging Peters. Yet, he was so well regarded by scouts that he had to be activated last year or we would have lost him, he is a UDFA who blocks a kick and scores a TD last year because he is unblockable, he is judged to be the best LT propsect JMac ever saw, and in his first game this year he scores another TD on a tackle eligible play. I think he may end up being one of the feel-good stories of the year the NFL loves and if he actually breaks through to the line-up next year) either as an LT who gets a few tackle eligible TDs or blocks another kick or forces the Bills to use him at TE if there are more injuries I think he may be the star MW wants to be. 7. Fletcher- He is a bit old to be called rising and he does have an SB ring, but he has never made a Pro Bowl and there is a close argument on TSW whether he is in fact the best LB on the Bills right now (he certainly gives the most bang for the buck of any LB in the NFL. I mean talk about underappreciated.

Like most media personalities the Coach is more about getting ears rather than the truth. If the truth gets ears then its great, but if garbage gets ears then so be it. Its not surprising to me that his "new" show would be quite different in attitude and tone from his old show if he and the marketeers made a judgment that the most ears are to be found in a new stichk. My big problem with him before is that he (used to) know the Bills and the game and one could here a couple of insights into the Bills in his shows that were not available to the average fan. However, as his popularity grew, WGR lost official coverage and co-operation of the Bills, and the Coach became a legend in his own mind, one had to sort and sit through a lot of garbage like Glenn Parker should be gone (he was run out of town and appeared in the SB with Dusty Ziegler the next year) and replaced with Corey Louchiey (he was and Corey also was gone as he was not as good as the Coach assessed him as being). There was always a "good" Coach and a "bad" Coach and perhaps the good one still has something left and will be encouraged to show up. We'll see.

Cliff notes begin: I understand that many have advocated cutting him, but in the big picture Lindell has been excellent at crticial aspects of the kicking game and to cut him for the high profile parts he has not performed well on (the chip shot in Pitts last season and inspiring MMs confidence at 40+ yards) were not good enough reasons to cut him and lose what he has done well. Thus is particularly true given that the suggested alternatives (Nugent, Francis for example) were unproven that they would have been as good as Lindell on kickoffs, onsides or even regarding the two stats from Bills Daily relfected below. Cliff notes end. As usual, I went to Bills Daily to get a dose of late breaking Bills perspective (though not the latest breaking as I usually see news for the first time on TSW, Bills Daily does provide a more objective cut on the latest news however). At any rate along the right hand side of the homepage they list a number of interesting factoids that tend toward describing longer term trends in Bills performance. Among them were these two nuggets: Rian Lindell is the most accurate FG kicker in team history with a 80.7% average. Rian Lindell had made all 166 extra point attempts in his career. These two points seem to explain why this offseason despite the fact that fans on TSW saw two choices for how to deal with Lindell (first we might cut him today and second we might have cut him yesterday) the Bills did entertain the option of going elsewhere signing several kicker types as free agents and even assigning a kicker to NFL Europe, they never seemed to take serious steps toward replacing Lindell (for example signing an FA kicker like Francis and announcing there would be a kickoff between the two or drafting a replacement like Nugent). The Bills clearly were displeased with Lindell missing a chip shot against Pitts last year and MM rarely seemed to show confidence that Lindell could be relied upon over 40 yards as a placekicker (TD made a point for the fans of standing over Lindells shoulder and staring at him in an open Bills practice). However, TD was on record speaking to the importance of stats like the two above (Lindell has been around for awhile and the first stat of him having the BEST accuracy in his career of ANY Bills kicker should be taken seriously though this stat in part comes from him not being called upon at ANY point in his career to have the game resting on his toe with a +40 yard kick in the last seconds of a game. This streak is really very unusual for a kicker and also comes from MM not having the confidence to use him over 40 yards so we go for the first or punt instead). The Bills clearly believe in Lindell and are committed to him come heck or high water. Many TD haters attribute this to TD being so egotistical that he sticks with his choice Lindell regardless of how bad he is. This is not true based on other occurences. TD has been positively cold and cruel in jettisoning a player when he is done with him seemingly regardless of ego or the popularity of the player. If TD were in fact so ego-driven rather than wanting to win regardless of any bruised feelings then Drew Bledsoe would still be QB, Jason Glidon would have been a Bill last year and John Holocek and Henry Jones would have been Bills in 2001. In these cases (and probably more if we could see all the contracts TD has shown that he will have the Bills take a financial hit and he will get rid of players he was responsible for giving a ton of Ralph's money to. In addition, there have been players like John Dorenbos or Drew Haddad who were media or fan favorites but if the Bills saw what they considered a better option they were gone. My sense is that stats like the two above are important to the TD/MM assessment that though they are displeased with Lindell missing the chip shot against Pitts bigtime he has been perfectly reliable as a placekicker in key facets of the game. Like it or not Lindell-haters but hitting all your EPs means you hit all your EPs. Being #1 in career accuracy after 2+ seasons with the Bills means you are #1 in career accuracy ahead of Scott Norwood, Gogolak and erven Steve Christie (two of whome were Bills for far longer than Lindell so in the comparison of points produced for the Bills which the team uses Lindell is "merely" 6th all time though he will almost certainly move up to 4th on the list even if he were to only make EPs this year). IMHO Lindells placekicking and my own frustration with him missing the chip shot even had me accepting looking elsewhere for a kicker this past off-season. However, I had big questions and tried to ask them during our consideration of Nugent that just as important to me as the placekicking was actually the fact that Lindell was bar none great at kickoffs last year. I think folks are wrong to think of kickoffs as merely a mechanical task which anyone can do. A good kickoff guy is not only the initiator of the game, but must kick the ball off in the direction and with the height expected by the coverage team every single time (cover guys must run IN THEIR LANES to a spot and cannot spend their time looking into the air to try to gauge where and how high the kickoff is this time or some blocker is going to knock them into next week). This task is particularly dicey in the variable winds of the Ralph and Lindell and the kickoff coverage team was near perfect last year giving up no returns for TDs and even few long yardage returns. Lindell is a superior kicker in this aspect of the game and I doubt any rookie is worth a first day pick because regardless of their accuracy or strength of their leg you do not know whether they can kickoff at a Pro level of expertise until they are in the league a few years. In addition to being a kickoff stud, Lindell has 3 onside kick tries last year. One did not work due to his kick, one was kicked well (Pitts) and Rashad Baker got his paws on the ball (all you can reasonably ask of a kicker actually) but did not bring it in and his third attempt was simply masterful as he not only joined the rest of the team in fooling the opponent of our intentions at the beginning of the second half, but kicked it with great timing the necessary ten yards (no Bill can even touch an opponent to block until the ball travels 10 yards) and he made the recovery himself. Kickers are hired to placekick reliably and Lindell did not do that last year to the tune of MM having little seeming confidence in him at 40+ and him missing a chip shot. These failures showed that TD was simply flat out wrong when he tried to justify the cut of Christie (still placekicking reliably last I saw though his leg has weakened) by saying good kickers are a dime a dozen. The sad cases of Jake Ariens, our cut of the now reliable Shayne Graham, and our failure to work it out with Hollis simply show it ain't that easy. However, the bottomline (at least so far this week as if one judges a kicker soley on placekicking he can easily go from hero to goat in one week) is that in two years Lindell has: 1. Proved to be an incredible asset to the coverage game and anyone advocating his replacement needs to indicate among the first things they say why their proposed replacement is going to produce the same or better results. 2. Missed a crucial placekick in the Pitts game and has not forced MM to use him above 40 yards consistently (the best like Vinateri and Vanderjagt have performed well enough to do this), but overall as a placekicker after 2+ years he is #1 in career accuracy for placekickers and has made ALL his EPs in regular season and though this does not make him good at 40+ it should not be ignored. 3. Been very good at the onside part of the game which a kicker will be called upon to do 3-4 times a season and if he does it successfully once we are ahead of the game. I'm extraordinarily happy things have worked out with Lindell (this week) and the nature of the role is that he simply has to make it work out next week as well. if not them folks will justifiably (though not reasonably) call for his head. As a Bills fan I am glad that TD/MM and the crew resisted our rantings and and have made reasonable judgments about who is kicking for us.

Buckeye I think you overstate the case to prove your point and this leads to a false conclusion in terms of what the Bills need to do to win. There can be no rational argument that Bledsoe simply sucked in this game and he led the way to this loss with his miserable play. However, as is virtually almost always the case in this team game it is not the performance on one player alone that establishes the outcome. I'm not arguing Bledsoe was good (he wasn't and sucked) or that we needn't improve our QB play (if JP avoids the mistakes made by Bledsoe leading to two opponent scores we do much better and JPs main goal in this and as a rule should not be to win the game by making great plays but not to lose the game by making errors. The main thing here is that the Bills will need to make or maintain improvements in several facets of play which cost us in the road game against a team similar to us in terms of good D and developing at best O. Specifically: 1. The D did dominate the Ravens but mostly in terms of the second half where they held them near yardage but the loss of Vincent at CB was noticeable as McGee gave up a 47 yarder an average play would have stopped. The good news is that McGee benefited from being thrown to the lions replacing an injured Vincent so our pass coverage against Wright/Boller should be better Howevwe it would be a mistake to ignore our D was no where near the Ravens level we aspire to in the first half and they deserve their fare share of sharing blame with Bledsoe for the loss though Bledsoe gets the lionshare. With the young Losman probably having the typical first year starting QB learning burps our D is going to need to be better than they were against the Ravens for us to win. They were great against the Texans and I hope this continues. 2. The inconsistent play of the OL was part of the reason Bledsoe sucked. In particular the infamous Deion pass was tipped by Raven rushers our OL could not stop from entering the backfield as he took 4 sacks that game, Again the OL has to perform better than they did in a Ravens game where not only was th pass pro inconsistent, but neither Henry (probably his own fault to some extent as he was in a funk in his few apparances that made him less of a warrior than he was two previous seasons) nor WM had much running room (he is a vet now so he is a better player) and their were mistakes like a dumb offsides on MW which cost us a better shot at a TD in the redzone leading to a mere FG when we needed a TD. 3. The coaching was abysmal as well as after Bledsoe "led" us to a 14 point deficit, the coaching staff played it wromg settling for an FG when we were 14 down in the 3rd quarter. I felt we gave up and the game was over at that point. The streak last year saw far more aggressive coaching after this learning experience. However, though I feel MM is the real deal, the coaching was conservative and not good in the Pitts game so there is still something to be learned. 4. The ST also sucked in this game with Moorman probably having his worst game of a season which should have seen him in the Pro Bowl and McGee averaged under 20 yards in kick returns. it seems far more logical and likely that we will get ST improvement which makes for a win rather than rooting for more than a mistake free perfomance at QB this time and not depend on JP or any gamewinning theatrics. There were a lot of areas that must improve over the Ravens performance for us to win and the good news is that I think with an older better McGee and McGahee we should get that performance and if JP is dsimply mistake free rather than forcing errors like Bledsoe we will win this road game.

While I appreciate your focus on me and my longwinded (photoned?) posts, the important thing (and fatr more interesting than you or me) thing in this discussion are the players and what a GM should do to build a team. I think the case is this: 1. Most posters realize that it is foolish in reality to separate the stats of Spikes or Fletcher individually from the work of the other teammate because both the tackle leading totals of Fletcher or the highlight reel efforts of Spikes are intrinsically related to the efforts of the other player. 2. There us no need for reality to stop us though from ranting in the TSW world about which one is a better LB but the fact is which ever side you come down on in this popularity contest it is fortunately for Bills fans a close call. 3. The introduction of the GM issue adds the salary cap reality constraint to this debate and what is a close call fantasy debate about which player is better actually is more easily resolved as a bang for the buck question as the market value of Spikes bouyed by the highlight reel and Pro Bowl selection outweighs the signal calling we never here and ST performance which is undervalued generally by the average fan.. I'm noy sure where you are coming from at all with your introduction of the GM issue into this assessment. it does not help the pro-Spikes popularity contest assessment at all.

No prob. If I am a GM, my job is to build a team and cap hit issues are a big part of building a team, but I am happy to come right out in public and say that a debatable question of who where do Spikes and Fletcher fall as to who is a better LB is actually much less debatable for a GM confronted with a signing or cutting decision as you lay out. Fletcher at a $3.8 million cap hit compared to Spikes at a $5.4 million cap hit (according to Clumpy\s cap page at Billszone.com) is a much better bang for the buck. The Bills would have a horrible time trying to replace an outstanding player like Spikes, but it would be harder to replace your lead tackler, defensive signal caller, a team captain and critical ST player and have less cap room to do this. I think the answer to your question is obvious but it is the reverse of what you seem to think it would be.

The scary good thing here is that though some valued TSW posters rag on Posey as not being a good player, in know as I have looked at the Bills zone blitz and tried to understand what they are doing I have really grown to repsect his talent and play a lot. Bertainly Spikes and Fletcher are better players, but there is a good argument that the key to our run blitz working as well as it does is actually seen in some very good play by Posey. Its unfortunate that this play is actually not easily seen in stats as his role is not generally one of producing a lot of sacks the way he was employed last year nor even one of a lot of big open field hits that get a player noticed. As best as I can tell though Posey has show great advanatages over his back-up Stamer in that the far more veteran Posey makes good reads as to whether players are lined up and the down and distance have led to a play call of a run or pass. He uses these reads and the play calls of Fletcher to back-up the DL at the POA on run plays or fall back into a zone or pick up a potential receiver in man-to-man correctly on most plays. No one is perfect and neither is Posey, but one of the reasons the Bills proved to be statistically successful last year was some good consistent play by Posey at the other OLB slot. I think the Bills really do have the best LB corps in the NFL and te even better news is that both Crowell and Haggen have been productive ST players and Stamer has been both a good back-up and also a productive ST player. It is incredibly entertaining to watch our D perform.

One of the fun things about the NFL is that even AFTER the Super Bowl it is hard to be definitive about any team because the argument merely shifts to some theoretical comparison to were the SB winner compares to the best of all time. While there is clearly nothing definitive which proves this Bills D is potentially one of the greats, there are some INDICATORS that this group may well be special based on real world occurences which IMHO opinion can easily be sited as an ASPIRATION that this D should try to become one of the greats. As a Chicago native who watched the '85 Bears closely I really doubt this unit will achieve these lofty levels, but I wholeheatedly endorse Gray setting this as a goal for the D which they must have if they ever want to achieve greatness. The good news for us is that while their performance against 1 team (or even their performance against 16 teams) will not prove this, there are some indicators of real world achievements and facts that make this goal not only a necessary aspiration but there is even some real POTENTIAL of greatness that merely saying wait and see does not seem to recognize. Specifically: 1. The D fell short badly in the final regular season game last year and though this invalidated the season as we did not even make the playoffs it did not make the reality that the Bills D performed well last season a non-reality. The Bills #2 statistical ranking last year does not mean at all that this unit was great (they need to show up each and every game which they did not do against Pitts, they need to get better on 3rd down, they need to improve in the redzone). However, the D proved to be a force to be reckoned with last year in almost all facets of the game. 2. 10 of 11 starters from this unit are back and the one who isn't Phat Pat though a good player was on the field for just under 60% of their D snaps last year. In PWs place they have a fomer DT starter Edwards who has put on the bulk you want from a run stopper but did not seem to lose any speed last year as his back-up duty saw him register some impressive sack numbers. Further, he is backed up by a 3rd round pick who though unproven did play a little last year and is well-regarded. 3. In addition to having a good strategy for replacing the one loss, last year's unit produced not simply due to good luck with injuries but the loss of some serious time from two key DBs lays a groundwork for this team not depending upon no injuries occuring (which will not happen) to continue producing. DB is th deepest unit on this squad and if one goes down I expect us to continue with some issues of course but no significant disruption. LB is probably the unit which has the largest drop-off from the starters to their back-ups so an injury to Spikes or Fletcher is my biggest worry, but the back-ups have been impressive on ST and also showed well in their pre-season outings so I feel that we can even absorb a short-term loss of one of these two. The DL has also historically not been a strenght of this unit and it actually only has 3 DEs on the roster, but i think this is actually a sign that the Bills D scheme is not a traditional 4-3 and that actually when we lose one of them to injury, the scheme will be shifted in such a way to take advantage of the things the players do best to stll allow it to function. This D is certainly built on paper to have adequate plan Bs for all starters. The game is played on the field rather than on paper so we will see, but things look OK even when the injuries which are bound to happen occur. 4. The reality is this that Jerry Gray after a horrendous start under GW ghas actually shown some good stuff in real life: A. His Ds did not do the job in 2001 and 2002, but the acquisition of LeBeau, installation of the zone blitz, and acquisition of some far better player talent IAdams instead of Edwards, Spikes instead of Robinson, Milloy instead of Wire) coincided with far better production. B. Gray was kept DC under LeBeau which looked at the time like a figleaf designed to save face. However, Gray called D plays in 2003 which demonstrated he took to and understood the zone blitz very qucikly as the D improved both statistically and by observation. C. Gray demonstrated last year as the D once again improved statistically and based on the words of most observers with Gray not only calling the plays but dealing with strategy. In the real world one can see the impacts of half time adjustments as the team showed again and again adjustments which nipped in the bud and stopped cold successes the opposing offenses had in the first half the Maimi game in which Morris shredded the rush defense in the first half and was stopped in the second hald by a combo of D adjustment and the ST and O giving us a lead which made them abandon the run in the 4th quarter. D. Gray has shown signs of progress in how the D operates in pre-season and in this first game which while it should not be claimed conclusively it will work for all 16 games, the results were real in how they praciced stifling opposing Os in the preseason and the way they dominated a bad team Sunday. IMHO I will onlu judge the Bills D as being one of the greats when I feel the way I did in '85 that I began to see the Bears D taking the field the same way I normally felt when the O I was rooting for took the field. I felt the '95 Bears chances to score increased when the D took the field. Part of this was because the McMahin led offense was a pop-gun whose best weapons were a 1000 yard rusher which actually would only lead them to a score a couple of times a game at best as they had trouble sustaining drives and also if lightening struck and Wilie Gault got a big one. However, the best chance fpr a Bear score would be a defensive TD or a turnover or sacks leading to a short field for the O. I suspect JP will struggle like any first year QB at times, but the reality of the last two seasons and this pre-season provides no definitive evidence but real hope that this D can be one of the greats.

I think folks are freaking out not over this as comedy but instead over the idea that some folks don't recognize the ideas as stupidly humrous but seem to think that the the notions in the 'plan" would actually be a good idea. The fact that these ideas are faily Un-American in terms of our aspirations to be beacon of freedom for the world, and also would undercut American business which wants cheap labor seems lost on those who think that this plan has good ideas.