Fake-Fat Sunny

Look at it this way. You can't teach world class speed. By breeding and early training a person is almost always a speed demon or not. As with most things the key to this decision is likely your goals for your kid. If one is looking to find a way to teach your kid something that will allow you to retire early off of his athletic take or live vicariously through his glory where you always fell short, then fuggabout it. Beebe speed camp will not do this (not that I have ever been but I can comfortably say this because nothing will do this for you). If your goal however is to give your kid a parental gift that he wants to do I suspect this is good from the character shown by Beebe through the years and even if it disappoints him it will be a great opportunity to teach and learn discussing the reasons why this disappointed. In addition, though you cannot teach world class speed one can teach a person as I lwarned back in my old days of the HS track and field team various techniques (leaning into and even anticipating the start, maintaining a g odd consistent running form dweeing upright and into your run as smoothly and quickly as possible anf maintaining the same form until the final lean) that can in fact peel milliseconds off a sprint time that can be interepreted as learning speed. My guess is that if you are training your kid at a pubescent age hiow to peel off a milliseconmd here or there so he can excel when he makes football training camp you have probably chosen not the best goal, but if you have more reasonable goals like simply adding to your child's confidence level or learning how his/her body is growing and changing this is probably a good thing. The piec of parental research worth doing is that my recollection is that Beebe was a born-again Christian type. Not that there is anything intrincically wrong with this (and in fact there are a lot of positives to be said about the discipline and giving of religion, but as we have seen from the public idiocy and actually non-Christian acts of many prominent evangelical preaches like a Jimmy Swaggert or Jim Bakker, I would ask pretty directly about this and if you perceive that it is hamhanded I might keep my kid away from these folks who will be acting in loco parentis at camp.

From a GM point of view this looks like a good time to try to sign MCgee to a lomg-term contract. 1. He will be an RFA rathetr than a UFA next year and the Bills leverage is about as strong as its going to be to hang onto him (theoretically all it will take is a qualifying offer to hang onto him for another year unless someone gives him a drop-dead offer (certainly possible if he has another Pro Bowl type year, but not likely as it would cost heavy compensation to the team signing him). 2. As NcGee wiould get the reward of more money than he has ever seen before and get it withou the athlete's risk of a full season (or two til he hits UFA) he can likely be signed for far less dollars one generally gives to a Pro Bowler to sign long-term. 3. As many our saying they doubt McGee gas what it takes to be a #1 CB and thus rather than Ty Law money and if the market agrees he can be signed long-term for less than #1 CB money. 4. McGee did struggle at CB significantly last year but he did improve as the season went on, and there is at least a possibility though certainlyNOT a probability at all he can become a #1 CB player and if he does we have him locked up. 5. Eveb if McGee does not develop any further as a CB he is a gamebreaker as a KO return guy so a big comtract likely provides some return. It makes sense in the big picture because once he is signed then our ability to let Clements go if necessary is there. I say git her done.

While all questions of who won are ultimately decided by what happens in real life, this is a legitimate question in terms of us iutside oberver's guesstimates on the relative talent level of the players involve in the deal. However, even beyond our sense of how good a player is, this situation is even more random and hard to really predict because of the import of the injury element to this deal and that even TH himself acknowledges that he is a #2 at TN. The irony is here is that if TN is lucky and Brown proves to be healthy they lose big time on this deal because they gave up a #3 for a player who will sit on the bench. As TH was acquired by TN to back-up the oft-injured Brown and Jax wanted him to back-up Taylor due to the prognosis he received, there teams winning or losing may actually be determined by the performance of a player other than TH. With that huge caveat this is my sense of how things likely sit for each team. TN- They are a winner in thid deal for the short-term but a loser likely in the long-term. In the short-term, Brown appears to be a more talented RB than TH, but he has been seriously injured each year he played and even broke a bone in his hand in limited contact drrill this off-season and simply cannot be counted upon. TN really helped themselves in the short-term by getting a former Pro Bow back-up at RB behind a seemingly even more talented injury prone player, In addition, to greater security, competition is good and they will have better competition at RB. Even better for the short-term by trading a future draft pick for a player this year TN has pulled a "Bledsoe" by getting 05 production at no 05 cost. In the long-term however, though they acquired a low cap hit player this year in Henry, the deal was not contingent (as the Jax deal apparently was) on TH resigning, and TH is in a relatively strong negotiating position as TN has spent to get him and if they do no deal and he walks it is not good for them. If Brown gets hurt before a deal is done TH is totally in the driver's seat. In the long-run I would be very concerned about TH's past history of injury. He is a young player, but RB is a bruising position and his running style has been one where he gets punished. I for one do not share the TH performance worries that have been a part of many posts as I think he was a productive player for the Bills and can be one for TN, but I worry about his health and do not think they made a good deal. Given that '05 appears to be a cap hell year for them with little chance of positive W/L anyway, I think that they have made a mistake doing a deal which pays off most for them in the short-term if they have bad luck with Brown's injury and will likely not pay off well for them in the long-term at all. Jax I think is obviously the same today as the were last week so it is hard to call them losed. However, since all signs point to Taylor not bein able to be effective or possibly even suit up this year at all and there being little out there on the market they can get in terms of productive RBs, they appear to have lost the ipportunity cost game. They may now be forced to jump even higher than a too high cost for TH to give Sea or the Colts enough ti pry away Alexander or James. The Bills I think are either clear winners or really big winners in this deal. They had a player who left his town and said he would never play for the Bills again. They managed to convert this into a 3rd which I think is a clear win . Even if TH had come back (as I think he would have if TD had decided to keep him he had no real choices but to suck it up and play as holding out, trying to get 6 to qualify for a year or simply punching the clock would have so undermined his ability to get a big contract he would have little choice but to play hard) it would have been a distraction. If he stupidly decided not to come back or to truly bcome a cancer then the Bills would have been better off getting nothing for him but instead they got a 3rd. The Bills can still end up being hurt by not having a former Pro Bowler at #2 if WM goes down and neither Lee nor Williams can answer the call, but overall I think the Bills are clear winners here.

TH has several clear tasks: 1, Show that he was the very effective runner he was in 2002 and 2003 and show that his lackluster performance in yards and dismal performance in the red-zone in 2004 were caused by his perception that the Bills had given up on him when they took WM and when it became clear in practice WM was the better RB. 2. Demonstrate the same quality he showed as a pass catcher when he took in 43 receptions in 2002. Like most players, Henry has had his share of notable drops, but due to the predictability of our 2003 Kevin Killdrive O, and a lack of short touch by Bledsoe he did not produce as he had produced the year before when the Killdrive O made better use of him as a receiving threat. Clearly Henry will never be another Marshall Faulk or Thurman in terms of RB receiving, but his lack of production in 2003 allowed many observers who over-focus on high profile drops to let them forget the 02 real world results TH put up and treat those miscues as his whole story and ability as a receiver. It will not take a lot of achievement on his part or results he has not already accomplished for him to once again be the receiving threat TN needs and makes him a better rusher as well. 3. Henry like most rookies had a horrid time with blitz-pick-up as a rookie, but like most he solved these problems such that it was not a major complaint or worry of Bills' partisans in 2002 and even 2003. The TH is lousy at blitz-pick-up drumbeat emerged again in 2004 seemingly less because of any specific events anyone can point to (if there are a lot of specific events and they should be easy to find or remember something if he was in fact so bad at blitz pick-up) specific examples, please educate us (I suspect that any noise about this will be that of crickets chirping). TH did show some issues with doing the right thing on plays, but this seemed to me to be more like the play where TH and Bledsoe went different ways against NE and the resulting sack led to a Bledsoe fumble and TD run by Seymour (it is this type of specific that those who claim blitz-pick-up issues should be able to point to if they are to be taken seriously with this complaint) or on the option pass attempt against Miami where TH threw an INT as he and the WR were doing different things and the hand-off was less thn smooth, or even in general (take this one with a grain of salt like complaints about blitz pick-up because I do not remember specific plays) because the lack of effective FB running by the Bills and the failure of WM/TH to make the 2 RB set work indicates that IF there is a TH blocking problem it is more likely with him never showing good blocking in run support rather than the relatively insubstantiated blitz pick-up complaint. My guess (it is only a guess because examples do not stand out for this Bills' watcher) is that TH probably did a lousy job on some blitz pick-up at sometime in 2003 or his brief appearances in 2004. However, I do not believe these issues ever caused us to lose 7 or 3 points or caused a fumble due to a TH blocking miss. Please educate me if I am wrong about this (though I suspect this will produce only the usual fact-free opinions. 4. TH really needs to step it up on ST. Unitl he gets a shot due to the likely injuries to Brown, TH is going to need to prove himself through ST play. As a fearure back and then injury victim he never had to do this, but if he plans to change his rep from Bills bashee to loved on for TN, ST is where it is likely to happen for him. As this was not part of his Bills game I do not know what that will look like for him.

My sense is and what I have been trying to say is that there seems to be a range of reactions and this is my reaction to them. A. TD pulled off a miracle here getting a 3rd for TH- Nope, I disagree. I think the work that TD did to get a 1st after the end of his original contract for Price was a lot better than the result of getting a 3rd for TH, but neither move qualifies as being a miracle or some extraordinary act by a GM. I think the work that JJ did getting an absolute ton of resources for Herschel Walker from MN was approaching "miracle" status or trading the draft pick used for Rickey Williams for Ditka's whole draft were deals done by their GMs of mythic proportions, but getting a 3rd for Henry is relatively small potatatoes compared to these gets. B. TD did a very good job as a GM getting a 3ed for TH- I agree with this one. One can take the view that a 3rd is easily what a former Pro Bowler who has gained 1300+ yards twice in his career is worth. Perhaps, but taking this view ignores several points: 1. In assessing TH's play it needs to be taken into account that there were some significant injury issues surrounding this player. While the trade pending an examibnation is usually a formality, I actually am holding my breath a little hoping/assuming this will be done. I think the biggest downside for TH is actually given his running style, not huge body, history of nicks like his 2003 fracture and 2004 injury if I was an opposing GM i would not be willing to give up much at all for TH. TD has handled this issue quite well and it easily could have gotten out of hand and been a deal killer. 2. I think that TD correctly read the market however and set a negituating demand of a 2nd for Henry seeing that injury issues which almost certainly will occur for some RB somewhere is likely to make some team desperate enough to part with at least a 3rd if not a 2nd for TH. As it happened, Jax with Taylor an TN with Brown fit this description and I think TD deserves a lot of credit for correctly seeing what the market would likely be even before we knew for sure that an unexpected off0season hand injury to Brown and a poor medical report on Taylor made them the two candidates. It would have been quite understandable for a less skillful GM than TD to take the bird-in-the-hand of offers of a 5th and then 4th and from TN or even Shelton at draft time given our LT issues. However, TD did not fold on these offers and though this is far from a miracle represents good work. 3. TD did a great GM job by taking a step which is not everyone's first choice but i think will now become the norm of letting the player do TD's work by assessing the market and soliciting offers. Most GMs do this work themselves and actually are at a disadvantage in terms of negotiations because they have approached a potential partner about a deal. TD did great GM work managing the ibviously truculent and not always bright TH to get him to do this work (the same as he managed Peerless well when Peerless reacted negatively at first to being tagged, but TD had his trust so that he got him to shut up and let TD work. It is easy to see how a bad job could be done with a player who is so frustrated he leaves town and says he will never play for the Bills again. I think TD deserves plaudits for keeping his eye on the prize and consistently keeping another option alive in the marketplace by always saying the Bills would love to have TH back. Other GMs such as AZ and Cleve did not do a good job on this and essentially said screw you publicly to mouthy players like Verba and Shelton who in the end were in fact cut. A ratonal observer should give TD credit for not taking this bait and simply working the trade/ 4. TH gave the Bills a gift by mismanging his money and having to give another year to the Bills to use him as a commodity. I think it was a GM no-braner for TD to take this gift but it seems rediculous to me not to give him credit for also exploiting this gift to trade TH for a 3rd after the end of TH's original agreement. On the whole TD did what any GM would do to take the extension fior chump change but he did use this tool to our advantage getting a 3rd beyond the original TH contract term when by rule and typical practice this type of player would be gone with no compensation for the team.. 5. TD did a great job standing up to internal pressure from some of his customers to make a deal any deal or to simply cut what they falsely considered a cancer (TH is stupid and not a positive at all beyond his rushing in two seasons, but I have seen cancers and Henry's hissy fits do not qualify) and also extrnal pressure from outside observers like Clayton and the fool at PFW. One might argue that a GM should stand up to this pressure, but some do not and I think that a rationale examination recognizes TD for doing this. 6+. I think there are other items one can easily give TD credit for which many GMs or even the average GM is not able to do that add up toTD doing a good job. C. TD did what any GM would have done to accomplish the non-rextraordinary task of getting a 3rd for TH. My operception is that his is what you are saying and if so you are saying something which I think does not take a real view of all the things which TG as GM has done with this that make this accomplishment above the norm for a GM and actually a very good job. D. We spent a 2nd to choose Henry and getting anything less than a 2nd for him means we were ripped off. I think this is so wrong it is funny. Idiots like Florio at PFW and Clayton at ESPN may take this line but it simply ignores so many factors that who needs to go into them in detail. So forgive me if I am wrong and you too think that TD did a very good job. However, I perceive you are saying that the job he did was not extraordinary at all and what is to be expected from and produced by most GMs. This is not true. Few GMs actually achieve getting resources at all for a player who reaches the end of the time he signed up for, TD has now done this twice getting a first by T-tagging Peerless and by making use of TH's poor money management to get an extra year out of him and using that extra year to trade him for a resource. His work iis not a miracle by any means, but it is clearly a good job he has done and strikes me as part of a roll he is on after his debacle of hiring GW, of now doin a great job managing the Peerless situation, drafting WM, cuting Bledsoe after making the mistake of resigning him, hiring MM, finally producing a winning record under his tenure last year. etc. TD is a mixed bag in total assessment, but the news has been so much better than his initial faux pas that I cannot helped but be psyched about his work.

The discussion raises two thoughts for me. 1. In addition to considering the fantasy of how Nicklaus would do if he were at his prime in the modern world with today's golfing technology, diet and exercise is to also consider how Tiger would do if he was transported into the past with the technological penalties, dietary liimitations and workout knowledge of the past. Leavng aside the point that if it was the past Tiger would be relegated to being a ball-boy at best as the comments like those of Fuzzy Zoeller after Tiger's first Master's victory would be the rule and action of the day (this was society's failing rather than a failing of the rules of golf) I think Tiger Woods would have still been a great player if he were allowed to play in the past. One of the most impressive things to me about Woods' career is that while conditioning is a key to his strength and game, it is a personal commitment and he would still be the best conditioned athlete in golf in 1955 or 2005. As far as technology Tiger has really just switched to learning and using the longest driving clubs and a lot of the cutting edge technology because he could outdrive opponents still using clubs that gave him the best accuracy at a sacrfice of distance. The fact he has pretty drasticlly overhauled his game not once but twice with the result being that he far outpaced his competition I think is a pretty good indicator that even if it were the old days he would adapt his game to outpace all exceot maybe but probably Nucklaus as well. While there is a reasonable argument that Tiger vs. Nicklaus in his prime would see Nicklaus at least hold his own, my guess is that Nicklaus might still win 19 majors but the massive number of second place finishes would now be thirds as he finished behind Trevino, Plamer, Watson or whoever was beating him that week and Woods who would finish first at an unprecedented level. The second thought it brings to mind for me is regarding the actual subject of TSW, the Bills. It strikes me that the same attitude which only judges Nicklaus by the 18 wins and not the massive number of 2nd place finishes at majors he accumulated is the same thinking that does not understand that the four consecutive SB losses by the Bills was really a phenomenal achievement. Being second is not being first and their is great glory in winning. However, there is no shame at all in finishing second in the NFL or at a major. Doing this so many times over a career as Nicklaus did was outstanding and doing this four years in a row as the Bills did was outstanding as well.

Looking at the original post in this thread it would seem like a the first step one might take is to demand accountability and punish and send to jail: 1. The Black marketeers and other felons making rediculous and probanly traceable as they spend these big buck selling drugs to AIDs patients desperate to live an bodybuilders desperate for a big body. 2. The dentist and other medical professionals who are scamming the system to make these huge amounts of monet which again should be traceable. 3. The nursing home operators who are using old people to scam money which again should be traceable. 4. The school official and others with authority who seemed to have learned little from their schooling as the are pulling off bizarre scandals which again should be traceable. Instead we seem to allow ourselves to get tracked off into political battles which at best result in some 60% win over an issues of warring 100% orinciples and thus no one wins, or we follow the line of first cracking down on welfare queens as though it is actually poor people who are getting rich off of abusing the system (lets cluse folks in that people who are poor are probably not rich). The horrendous examples of crime seem to go unpunished and then we are surprised when other fools begin to treat crimes as though it does pay. If one wants a list of the rich people who are profiteerig off the season it probably has already been put together as the campaign fundraising lists of Silver and Pataki and George Bush and Harry Reid.

This may in part be the case, but I have actually been quite impressed with how adult numerous posters who have been quite vociferous in badmouthing TD as having 0 trade value (obviously wrong sd he was traded for a 3rd) or badmouthing TD as greedily overplaying his hand not taking initial offers and now he and the Bills would get nothing (obviously wrong as well because we got a 3rd). While there are some holdouts against reality like Pro Football Weekly who tried to palm this off with an explanation of TD getting lucky and when they discussed the specifics they were forced to describe a number of pro-active actions taken by TD as the used "NFL insiders" to rant against others, in general I would say that true Bills fans like Bill from NYC have been pretty straight-forward in saying they were wrong. I salute those who acknowledge reality that TH does have trade value and that TD moved TN up from their public offering of a 5th to a first day pick in exchange for us giving up on our initial negotiating stance of demanding a 2nd. By getting a 1st day pick for a player after the end of his initial contract, I think we have done quite well. I think most folks recognize this and I see no problems with responses to their acknowledging reality.

I for one was not PO'ed with what Henry said here or with these comments. Henry has been rather childish in terms of a lot he has done here and it was not good. However, maybe it is an attitude I developed for dealing well with children as an Outward Bound leader way back when which is to try not to get pissed at a child because if you do you are dropping to their level and actually giving them control over the situation. Even though I would get PO'ed sometimes at the stupid things kids would do, but the key for me to control them and achieve my goals was never to show this. Henry certainly was childish with the shock he portrayed when the Bills acted like a good business (horrors) and drafted WM. he clearly was pouting when the Bills went with the better RB over him last season. However, one of the failings of some fans on TSW is that they fail to see the difference between childlike pouting and the adult danger of being a cancer. The comments and actions of Henry this season and off-season were not the adult professionalism I want, but they were easily manageable as seen by TD employing Travis and his agent to do TD's work and by the result of getting a 3rd for him when by his original contract (TH also manages his finances like a child and TD took advantage of this to the tune of getting a first day draft pick) gave us the right to nothing. I see these comments and mostly smile and wish Travis well, he and the Titans are going to need it.

Good thorough analysis which is also smart including many of the caveats that make even thorough analysis an interesting indicator of what may happen rather than conclusive proof. Many posters offer opinions as stone cold locks certain to haooen with far less analysis. The conclusion you make seem to make sense to me and dovetail with things I see in the game. The conventional wisdom of many folks is that a rookie QB must play in order to become a vet. I think your data indicates this not only may not be true, but in fact sitting and watching has proved to be the ticket to productive play by both Culpepper and Pennington. It really struck me in last year's draft when Kyle Boller said that one of the surprises he had in his rookie year was that after he got hurt and was forced to sit and watch that it surprised him how much you could learn simply watching the game and that in fact there were things you coukd not learn or learn well while you were playing and at the very least distracted by preparing yourself to lead your teammates into battle rather than simply analyzingand understanding intellectually what is going on. I will noy be surprised if because he seemed to have recovered fully physically from the injury if JPL ends up saying that it was one of the best things that happened to him in his development because he got to sit at Sam Wyche's knee and be up in the booth watching the play develop as a whole rather than the up close limitations of seeing things from the field and yukking it up with the other bench warmers during the game.

Here's my 2 cents: 4. However, he was 0 for 2 in the 2 biggest decisions he made initially -- Rob Johnson and Gregg Williams -- and you could easily count bledsoe in that column and say 0 for 3. QB and coach are so important. To think that we could've had Herman Edwards or John Fox instead of that loser GW is painful. And didn't everyone look at Bledsoe, coming after RJ, and see more of the same? Ie a big stiff who had a good arm but was completely clueless in the pocket about avoiding the rush and just got creamed time after time? 5. Bottom line is that TD has been on the scene for 4 years now and still no playoffs. We are relying on essentially a rookie QB to get us in this year. Clements is gone after this year and maybe Moulds also (I hope not on both). Mularkey seems like a good coach. If JP is good, we should be back in the playoffs. If he isn't, it's another huge mistake by TD and he will probably deserve to get canned. Holy mackarel I hope JP is good. But we are not going to know the answer to that EXTREMELY important question until sometime in November. 383864[/snapback] Generally i agree with the first three points with the parts of it I do disagree with to be mere quibbles so I will skip them. However, i think significant parts of your last two points differ from the info we have. I agree that TD completely blew his first HC hire picking GW who would have made an excellent Adminsitrative Assistant with his lists and contacts but simply sis not have the whole package to be even an adequate HC. However, though he was 0 for 1 with that decision, I think he made the correct decision in the RJ/Flutie deal becaise neither of them was going to be the QB of the future the Bills needed. Flutie was a great player for us when he was hear, but he was just too old and showed no signs of being the teacher we needed for our next QB because the same thing which makes him a great player also makes him a lousy teacher in that he has been trashed by so many people and teams he has the world's biggest chip on his shoulder and he is too competive to ever give in. It was pretty clear that RJ was a loser and not gonna be the QB we needed with his injury plagues year in 2000. However, Butler had already thrown a bunch of money at him and he was a far younger player than DF so i think TD made the right choice in picking which of these two to go with in what was clearly going to be a bad year. If DF had stayed we would have maybe gone 5-11 or at besy 6-10 instead of 3-13. I think TD made the right bad choice. Also I would give him a 1/2 and 1/2 for signing Bledsoe rather than an 0-1. Bledsoe was flay out a great thing for the Bills in his first year as we went from 3-13 to 8-8. If you believe that record is really the bottom-line then this has to be significant to you. In terms of the details of how we got there in addition to the W/L, I think Bledsoe deserve to be named a reserve on the Pro Bowl that year and if you disagree then simply name the QB you would have named to the team to leave him off. He clearly was a big part in rejuvenating Bills fans after a sorry 3-13 season as exemplified by the huge turnout to the Ralph for the welcome Drew party. TD did a great thing by pulling off this deal as the real world alternative of available QBs at the time would have seen Rodney Peete or Chris Chandler {shudder) leading this team. As good a decision as it was in the short run it turned just as bad in 2003 as opponents got enough tape on Bledsoe to figure out the Bills O and Belichick provided a roadmap on how to kill him. The real mistake though was that TD had chosen an HC with no offensive chops and then caved to GW's wishes to hire Keving Killdrive and not take TD's choice at the time who was Tom Clements. I think it all was a wash after two years and particularly when TD and the Bills were able to replace the 1st rounder they gave up for Bledsoe with a pick who became WM, it was then TD made his big mistake of redoing Bledsoe's deal. It was not a mistake at all to acquire Bledsoe (particularly given the alternatives), it was a mistake to resign him (a mistake we paid for by cutting him). As far as your 5th point i do agree that the bottomline for assessing the last 5 years is the record is bad, but the bottomline for assessing next season has to be his most recent record and recent decisions. Again if W/L is the bottomline we are moving in the right direction bigtime and to advocate that this team take a step back and start overgives no recognition to the fact that the major error of TD picking GW had been addressed and changed and that the other major error of resigning Bledsoe has also be addressed and changed. Yo the extent that the far better HC we have is willing and able to minimize the amount we depend upon this young QB to be a vet (which he isn't) and win games we are gonna lose. To the extent this team instead relies on the D led by a host of vets and the young guns on ST led by April to win games we will be fine.

As one who views virtually all issues as being defind in shades of gray rather than the you are either for us or agin' us that seems to be popular in today's culture I agree that folks paint this as too black and white. However, I would spread this too defined view of things as being the province of TD bashers as well as TD apologists. I think any rational person has to acknowledge that the W/L under TD and the team's failure to make the playoffs while he has been GM is a flat-out record of failure for him in the area which most likely counts most to us fans. However, i think the rational person also has to admit that TD is on a roll of positive actions right now that to my mind ha its roots in the positive things he has done from the start that are part of the mixed bag (He blew it when he hired GW bigtime, but like it or not on his watch we escaped cap hell at least a year if not two earlier than many observers predicted, he has attracted and kept a good tea, led by Modrak, he has been a good negotiator of salaries and attracted folks like Spikes and Adams to come here at reasonable deals. Clearly the Bledsoe acquisition failed miserably after a promising start, but really since the trade of Price and his ripoff of AT to draft WM and the decision to let GW go, the ultimate result remains inadequate because we once again failed to make the playoffs, but we did finally amass a winning record,, TD is on a roll! I think the context to consider the TH deal within is that of a positive streak which I hope continues and see us make the playoffs (at least). If one agrees that an accurate assessent of TD is not either totally good or totally bad, then I think that one also needs to acknowledge that the good part of his work is defined by more recent events.

What would you have done instead that is better than this ho hum performance?

I think that the views I have espoused about TD in general (his reign has been a mixed bag beginning with him doing a good job dealing with cap hell outside of some bumb restructuring and then cutting of JH and HJ, doing a horrendous job selecting his first HC, but also doing a great job accumulating talent after this lousy hire like Modrak, retaining Gray, and hiring MM and TC) have been pretty moderate but somehow folks like So-Cal specifically state this is creaming oneself in TD adulation if one chooses to emphasize that in this half-half empty estimation of TD, his finally leading us to a winning record, moving beyond the Bledsoe era, and the prospects for MM means that his most recent acts are the good ones. if a mixed bad view of TD is girly-gushing then so be it. The Henry trade simply strikes me as part of the more recent run of good actions by TD. I have been quite clear about the downsides of this act, that this trade does nothing for us in 2005, but given that as cited above posters have said he should cut Henry and get nothing for him, and given that published pundits like John Clayton and Pro Football Weekly are on record berating TD for not settling for a bird-in-the-hand deal when TN was offering a 5th or AZ was offering to trade him for a player they later cut and we could have has him for no trade value, it seems like TD did a good job not take the advice of these "experts" and these Bills lovers. Since I do not think you affiliate yourself with the views of the folks in the paragraoh above who were simply wrong, then perhaps your complaint is that we should have gotten more for Henry because he is a former Pro Bowler and put up great rushing yards. However, I think the moderate views of this trade do take this into account, but also recognize that the reality of the market was simply one where TN originally offered a 5th and despite the pressure of outside pundits and some Bills partisans, TD stuck to his guns and got a 3rd. I think at best we could have gotten TH to face reality and be a good backup though this would have taken some effort and the end result would have been if we were lucky enough not to need a back-up much he would have olayed the market as he is allowed to do and we would have gotten nothing. Instead, we got a 3rd for him and we will need to make it work with Lee/Williams as a back-up. For folks to argue we should have gotten a 2nd for him seems to fly in the face of what the market was offering and is theoretically good but is unsupported by reality.

In terms of the real world when WM went down in a game last year and Henry was already out the Bills went with Shaud Williams at RB. He was not very good in relief of WM picking up 30 yards in 14 carries but did not need to be as we won this one going away due to superior D and ST play. He saw substantial time the next week and had a very good performance as he gained 93 or so yards and even had a TD or two as he split time with WM who went over 1000 yards for the season. Most folks feel that Williams will not stand up to a full season of pounding as he is a little guy at 170+ lbs who is better utilized on 3rd down. Instead we got Rashard Lee who comes in at about 220ibs. Lee is an unproven commodity but did show some good signs at Dallas (much of it as a return guy). He was available when he requested release from Dallas after they signed Thomas from Chicago (who we also bid for as our back-up but he saw a better opportunity for him backing up Jones in Big D than backing up WM here. As the Thomas signing pushed Lee out he landed here.

Even if it is a trend, it may well be a trend that lasts one, year, tww years or 15 minutes. The market changes regarding the draft from year to year depending upon the perceived strength of the pool of players. The concept that a 1st round pick is worth exactly the same in 2005 or 1983, particularly if you need a QB does not make any sense. If you needed a QB and had the #2 pick in the draft, in 2005 you might be disappointed right now because Alex Smith went at #1 an you are left with Aaron Rodgers who you can trade way down and still get. If it were 1983 you have your choice of QB talent and maybe because hindsight is 20/20 you decide to trade down even further because you can get Dan Marino with a very late pick. Not only does the market vary alot from draft year to draft year, it varies a lot with a draft. Chris Kelsay was widely thought of as a first round talent, but TD was smart enough to recognize that a run on DL players allowed us to draft McGahee and still pick up Kelsay with our 2nd pick. I think one can pick some occurences and claim they are a trend, but the market changes all the time and though "trends" can be found they are an illusion. Look at the huge commitment of early draft picks in this draft to RBs and how does this match your "trend."

The whole exercise of assessing how well 3rd rounders does not speak to whether the Bills should have traded Henry or not but more toward whether one should trade or package the resource we now have for a player or to move up in the draft.

Folks can have whatever opinion they choose as to whether he is a bust or not. However, as i understand it he is still under contract with the Sabres. The stats posted indicate that he had recovered enough from the concusiion which benched him with the Sabres that he could play. There is still uncertainty whether it was a leg injury or another concussion which apparently shorted his stint in Europe. Either way, if he can play whether he is good enough to contribute to the Sabres will be determined by what he does on the ice rather than opinion and that is good enough for me.

Bills Daily at > http://www.billsdaily.com/draft/2002/ < gave the link description of the trade for Denney and the described the Bills as giving up a 4th round pick to move 8 slots where they picked Denney rather than them giving up a 3rd and a 2nd merely to move up to pick him.

I have seen it said a couple of times now that TD could have gotten a second or even a first if he had "simply" traded TH at some point before now but by greedily hanging onto him and looking for more (I'm not sure what more than a 1st for him would be unless folks are alleged to be willing to part with two picks or a pick and a player for TH would be). Look, the maximum value I have ever heard someone even semi-reputable discuss for TH was someone at ESPN (Len PassthePotatoes perhaps) talk about the Bills getting a 1st for TH after last season ended. It is sucah a longway from a pundit's thoughts to a real deal that though it was nice to hear I don't think it qualifies at all as TH could definitely been moved for a 1st. In terms of actual deals that appear to have been offered for TH which TD passed on (and was lambasted for doing so by folks such as Jon Clayton and Pro Football Weekly) were: 1. AZ publicly offered Shelton for TH straight-up. The Bills seemed (simply seemed) to counter with an ask for Shelton AND a conditional draft pick. AZ refused this counter offer and actually cut Shelton. 2. TN initially offered a 5th for TH when they entered the TH derby a few weeks ago. What deal asllegedly and what real offer of a 1st or a 2nd was out there for TH?

The whole thing is quite amusing to this football obsever. The arguments that some folks are making that this deal is nothing at all are hilarious. They are totally correct that TD has not pulled off a miracle here, but appear pretty out to lunch to recognize that he did pull off a good football trade. If anything, TD has further a problematic precedent as the rules do not call for us to get anything at all if a player chooses to pursue the free market after the end of his original contract. Thia ia not the best deal TD has ever pulled off for the Bills because that honor goes to the Peerless deal where he turned the nothing we were owed at the end of the contract for this second round choice into a 1st. This time he merely turned the nothing we were entitled to at end of TH's original contract into a 3rd. The rule and the usual occurence is that FAs are free at the end of their original contracts and TD and the Bills are setting a precedent that this can actually be turned into draft resources. The occurence is more like that of Jonas Jennings and the exception is the rare cases of good work like TD and the Bills did with Price and TH. It is amusing to watch folks not recognize this.

I think you overclaim why folks think did a good job here. I think everyone knows he did not pull off a miracle here (it's just football afterall so nothing galactic here at all). However, what TD did do was: 1. Took a different path than the foolishness and non-football assessment of some fans that said loudly and repeatedly that TH had no value because he was a bad player, that the failure to get a trade for him before the draft proved this. Wrong because we got a 1st day draft pick for him. 2. Resisted the more serious flawed non-football thinking of those like John Clauton and Pro Football Weekly who argued that the Bills were going to get screwed and get nothing for not taking the 5th TN originally offered for TH. 3. Easily ignored the non-footbsll thinking of those who said that Henry was a cancer who should be cut (I think these folks were actually TH relatives because it would have been ato TH's advantage if TD had foolishly done this. It is true that this deal is not perfect for us in that it would have been better for us to get a player who would give us a benefit this yeae rather than merely getting a first day draft pick next year. Hey, you can't have everything. One can easily claim that TD did not pull off a miracle here, but to claim because he did not that he did nothing ignores reality. Besides even looking at the football specifics here your claim that we got less back then we spent to get TH is actually only a partial view. First, in addition to the spent a 2nd and got a 3rd comparison one should not ignore that we also got 2 years of good production and 3 years of entertainment out of TH for the draft pick. Quite frankly this about as much as a team can reasonably expect out of any draft pick because uually after 4 years the pick can leave witn no compensation as an FA. Bills fans have actually been spoiled by TD because there is now an expectation after his nice maneuver with Peerless that we should covert each FA who leaves into a 1st or some other benefit. This is not normally the case at all. What did Cincy get for Spikes? What did we trade away to get Spikes? Nada and nothing. Because TH is a bad financial manager rather than paying through the nose for him after four years or having him walk as was his right with us getting nothing we got something (a 3rd) for nothing because TD was happy to give him half a million in exchange for a year of freedom. When you add in to that Henry was actually acquired not using our regular draft resource but because TD actually was able to trade down with our 1st in 2001 and pick up an extra second choice and still get the first CB (Clements) taken in the draft (again something for nothin) it is arguable that we did not get less than we spent to get Henry.

Kels- Agreed that the truth about what works on the OL will br found in August which is soon enough for me. I enjoy your football thoughts as well I think my lengthy diatribes on this issue came because I (and I others in this thread and n other posts) focused on your descriptions of Anderson as 1-D and a mistake as a starter (maybe but a mistake for four years begins to raise questions as to whether he has something that keeps him around) rather than your additional views that he is an excellent back-up (Marcus Price showed us the essential import of these types of players) and even a marginal starter (I feel a 1-D player cannot survive as even a marginal starter in this league because once a weakness is revealed on tape NFL opponents will pick on this until a player solves the problem ot is gone). I actually agree with your general assessment. I also have stated that I assumed prior to the draft we would get Shelton because I felt our starting LT was not on the roster. I still feel that way talent wise, but it seems to be the case that JMac feels otherwise and not only does he make the decisions and I do not, but he has forgotten more than I will ever know about the OL game, so it looks like he will make it work with we got. Thus, I think the question is who are the "mover", who do we think might develop into a solid starter with JMac's guidance. I think the good news is that I see several candidates from your listL Anderson- I actually am pretty comfortable with him as a starter at LG for the Bills even with his limitations with lateral movement and working in space which are true. I think he has been a starter much of his career because though he has the limitations mentioned they can be worked with and around, The good news for us is that at guard, except for the pulling requirement, a lack of lateral mobility and athleticism is not the basics of G play. It interest me that JMac in desperation as Pacillo proved to be not up to the LG role and Sullivan also deserved his release that we were able to pull a Raven off their PS and elevate his play to near adequacy as starting LG for the Bills. If we pull off the same amount of improvement with a better player than Smith Anderson will be fine at LG and may even develop an ability to pull that simply allows us to not eliminate this play from our playbook. Tucker- I think he was an upgrade over Smith last year and did an adequate job at LT at the end of the season. I think his work as a back-up for Teafie starting at C for him just as we began the winning streak and to dominate is a demonstration that he can start. The major discomfort I have regarding him are some rumors I have seen in the lasst couple of months that he may have some injury issues, but if he is fine I would have no problem if he was actually slated to be our starter at LG. He is not because I think that Anderson (a huge upgrade over Smith as Smith was not even a back-up to Anderson when they battled it out head to head in Baltimore) is the starter and while Tucker is notably but marginally better than Smith, Amderson is a lot better. This configuration will be great for us because Tucker has already showed his value as a reliable back-up at C for Teague, he has started in the NFL now for us at F amd actually he came into and first stuck in the NFL as a back-up T/ Smith- I was really amazed to see him make the jump from PS of one team to starter for another so quickly and despite him ultimately proving to be inadequate as a starting G for the Bills last year I thought his performance and improvement last season was a tribute to both him and to JMac. While it is quite normal amd not unreasonable fro Bills fans to judge this purely in terms of "what have you done for me lately" and clearly Smith was not good enough for us last season. I think it would be premature and a mistake to write him off completely and declare him a done deal. He is young. He has a lot he can and will learn and JMac clearly likes him because they made a special effort to steal him off the Ravens PS last year. Some may look at the particulars of Smith's play and claim that they have determined he is not good enough and cannot make it. I think most of our fan pronouncements and on line assessment are pretty laughable because I think they are relatively uninformed: 1. Line plsy is pretty invisible from the stands because of the distance and angles involved and the infighting and angles that oftern make the difference in blocking play. When someone tells me they are a Bills addict and attended every game, I bow to them and hail them for their unquestionable devotion to the team, but I pretty much ignore any opinions they have about assessment of line play because you actually can see a lot more on TV than you can at the game. 2. TV is better for observing line play than being at the stadium, but quite frankly TV sucks for this purpose also because it is designed to follow the ball and OL activity and blocking occurs off the ball and sometimes off of TV completely. Occaisionally the replay will focus on a key block or an edge rush will fotrce the blocker to work in space for all to see, but usually this simply leads to us observers over-emphasizing this one block or play and ignoring the over 59 mimutes of game time that really tells the story. 3. Even when we see the play, we have no idea what the blocking call on a play may be. A sack may happen not because a player missed the guy assigned to the position usually blocked by a blocker at a position, but because we failed to execute a blocking shift called by the center and the player often blamed is not at fault at all for the sack. 4. Results in the game is how things are measured, but it is often how a player practices that determines who starts and who does not. For the most part we are nt privy to this at all, With careful (and often repeated with the videotape) analysis of a player we can often figure out what happened, but we also may be totally wrong. This is the reality of OL assessment. We can make good guesses from what we see in the game and looking at the stat sheet and word about who is good and who is not worms its way out. However, little is conclisive and certain regardin fan OL assessment. In terms of Smith the word I hear is that oddly he actually showed more skill last year in pass pro than he did in runblocking. Usually it is the other way around for the young OL player. He showed good athleticism but was not the road-grader we wanted at G. This refllected itself in the redzone where long passes were not possible and yards came tough and running and plowing was what a lot was all about. This is all consistent with him being shifted to T on the depth chart and actually coming in to play back-up back-up tackle in one game last year when both MW and JJ went down. I will not be shocked at all to see Smith actually become one of our first reserves at tackle and if he can repeat the same level of progress he achieved last year he may even take the Marcus Price role on this O. Starter, I doubt it, important reserve at T quite possible. Gandy- Clearly JMax sees something in him I do not and after his far superior performance last year to the sub par work done by Vinky and Ruel is by no means perfect but gets the benefit of the doubt from mr. I am quite comfortable with all four of these players being on my "move" list of players who can become quality starters or frequently used back-ups for us. I woul add Preston as a real dark horse but a possibiity to become our primary back-up at C given how many rookies have actually been able to break into line-ups as starters the last couple of seasons or at least to cement his position as a back-up C if he truly is the next Kent Hull as we hope. If between Teague, MW, Villarial, Anderson and Gandy we can get a starting five. Tucker, Smith and Preston become dedicated back-ups this may be the 7 or more likely OL players we have active each Sunday. Add to that we take the best of 2 more from Gesinger (likely PS), McFarland and whoever as our PS or a 9th roster guy is one of them shows ST chops this will get it done. If you and I are right and actually the extra $1.25 million we now have in cap room with the trade of Henry allows us to get Verba or someone then I think we likely cut an OL player who could have made this team.

Let's start with assumption that you too would have taken WM with our #23 pick in the 2003 draft when he dropped to you (one could propose some fantasy world drafts where you never would have taken TH in 2001 or, done something different at tackle than take MW in 2002, or packaged the #23 with whatever and moved up, but lets forget those and focus on the reality that TD made decisions about that correctly are being judged right now). If you think TD deserves no praise for getting a TN #3 for TH what would you have done differently? The live options among TD's choices appear to me to have been: 1. Hang onto TH and force/allow him to be a #2 this year. I think we could have pulled this off because I do not think that if TH wanted a big contract in the future he would have had no other choice than to take the peace branch that TD left out there for him to make peace, come back and wait for his chance to increase his value if he came in for WM, or to simply leave as an FA if WM remmained healthy. I think we could have pulled this off, but it would have taken some work by MM which I am glad they can now devote full attention to getting better. I think TH would almost certainly have walked as an FA and we would have gotten nothing. Some may advcate this because they are so concerned about WM going down and they do not see Lee.Wiilams as a reasonable alternative, but I think folks are happy because the trade beats this alternative. 2. Trade TH for a player this year. I think this option is better than the draft pick next year but it seems like what this would have meant in reality is trading Henry for Shelton and TD made one great call in that it is now clear that if we wanted Shelton we could have had him for no trade resource and that actually the Bills' braintrust did not want him (paorbably because his ankle injury is worse than talked about). I think that this alternative is far better than a TH/Shelton deal and I have not heard of any other real possibilities. Yeach it is a negative that we did not get resources this year for Henry, but in that vein it is a negative that we did not get Jonathan Ogden for him. Neither the Ogden deal or trading TH for value this year appear to have been a real possibility. 3. TD was being greedy and should have traded him to TN when Reese offered a 5th rounder. Yeah right. You want me and John Clayton to buy what bridge from you. 4. We should have cut TH because no team will trade for this bad player. Yeah right. Do you write for Pro Football Weekly. Perhaps you have some other alternative which either is not the height of fantasy land and if so I and ohers would love to hear them. However, it only takes comparing what TD got to reality to be pretty happy about this trade.

So far, thanks to Dave McBride for being real about this. I salue you for stepping up to the plate and acknowledging reality. It is a good laugh though to see other posts in this thread which in their whistling in the light way find fault with TD for failing to deliver on his initial bargaining position (long since abandoned as real negtiationd ensued) that we want a 2nd for TH. These post deliver quite a bit of humor if nothing else and stand in stark contrast to the posters by folks like dave m that show they have some real football knowledge by simply admitting they were WR-WR-WR-wrong. You can really tell whose opinions are worth something or merely the photons they are printed with!