Fake-Fat Sunny

I certainly don't need TD's efforts to climax all over myself since I can do this wonderful thing with the help of my lovely wife or all by myself with Rosie thank you very much. As far as a general assessment of TD and his work, I think I am fairly realistic about it in that I view his work in his 4+ years here as a mixed bag. On the negative side it all comes down to his losing record over this time and his failure to see a Bills team under his guidance make the playoffs. This is a real indictment of the product of his work here and is flat out a record of bottomline failure for us fans and any honest assessment of his work needs to come to that conclusion. However, this is a very different question from whether a fan should feel good about our prospects of the future (like it or not the past sirngly influences but does not determine or set in stone the future) or advocate on forums such as TSW firing TD or keeping him around. While it is a good definition of insanity to keep repeating past mistakes over and over again, it also borders on insanity to totally ignore reality and not realize that the reasons one feels are behind TD's past failures are different now and to throw away future prospects and go back to rebuilding with a new GM regime when I think a rational look at why TD failed badly in his first 3 years have been changed and actually along with the clusterfxs he has done there also is some very good work and accomplishments which he deserves credit for along with deserving blame for his real mistakes. Since you seem to approach this from the pessimistic side let's start with the TD mistakes. The big one to me is that he completely bollixed his first choice for HC. GW appears to be a nice guy and it seemed like a good choice because he had a record of accomplishment as a DC with TN and he had so many lists and contacts that he blew TD away. However, i think he revealed that as a rookie HC he really only has half a game or worse as he was pretty clueless in managing game situations. Worse, I think he knew his failings and was not strong enough to hire people who knew what they were doing or were older and experience than him (perhaps he feared the threat, i do not know). At any rate his first OC heppard deseerved to be canned and his second OC Kevin Killdrive probably offered the benefit to GW that he was understood offenses but was a wounded figure after he failed as an HC and Buddy Ryan kicked his butt. However, they joined some bad hires like the not-ready-for-OL but a good buddy Vinky and Vinky's not ready for primetime replacement Ruel and thank gosh GW was not renewed. As far as TG goes, he appears to me to have been bruised by getting canned and run out of town in Pitts by a guy he hured in Cowher. It is not surprising that his next HC hire was of a guy he could beat if push came to shove. However, as a Bills fan though his actions were understandable (like knowing that all parents no matter how much they love their kid have moments where they could throw the lil hellspawn out of a window) his actions like those of a parent who abuses their child cannot be condoned at all. However, child abuse is serious and must be dealt with using a heavy hand by society. Pro footall is just a game and for me as long as a GM shows other positives to their game and tangible steps to rectify their past errors I am happy to give them another bite at the apple. For me, this is where the Bills are. I will not go into excruciating detail about the positive acts TD has done. Leave it at now putting together a great team from Modrak to MM to Gray (its great he was able to save one of the good things from the GW era) to Clements (who ironically was his replacement OC candidate post Sheppard but he caved to the choice of GW to take the wounded Killdrive) and the other coaches. to doing a great job acquiring players where a lot of the work was clearly his or his call (WM, Adams, the Price trade and now the Henry trade) and I think easily producingthe 50/50 winners vs, losers that is there output across the NFL of good draft work by teams, and add to this doing quite well on the business side which makes little differenc for us fans but is a big part of the bottomline for Ralph who makes the ultimate decisions. I think it is flat out dumb to not acknowledge that at worst TD is a mixed bag of good and bad. It would be insane to claim he is all good and everything is fine, but it is equally insane to claim it is all bad. This comes back to the ultimate question in this thread as to why is everyone so happy regarding this trade. THE ANSWER: REALITY. People are psyched because again like it or not the Bills were only gonna get productivity out of TH this year with a lot of work that forced and allowed him to recognize that if he stayed he had no choice if he wanted a big future contract but to soldier on as best he could as a back-up to WM. I think he would have done this, but it would have taken some effort and work by the coaches and I am pleased that they instead will devote this time to beating the enemy that week. I think folks are also pleased because they got some future value in the form of a 1st day pick for TH when their were real possibilities that we would get nothing (the likely one was if he #2'ed this year and left as an FA this year or in the unlikely possibility that TD followed the advice of some TSW posters, PFW or John Clayton and cut him or traded him for a late second day pick. I think people are psyched because we got some resources for a player who if everything worked out well for us (WM stas healthy) would give no benefit to the team. Though this trade does nothing for us if WM gets hurt, if we have traded him for the LT we need (it now appears Shelton was not the LT we need and we could have got him for Henry and actually could have got him for a contract) this trade would also not have helped us at RB. Reality is that the only alternative that helped us as RB this year would be to hang onto to TH and force/allow him to step in for us if we needed him. I think we could have made this happen but was not looking forward to this if it did happen. Instead, in the short-term we now have $1.25 million in cap room that perhaps we can apply to Verba if we want to do some OL shopping and we remain committed to Rashard Lee.Shaud Williams as our plan B if WM goes down. Even better for us stovepipers we nw get to play with a new first day draft pick resource. I think the answer is don't worry, be happy and cream all over yourself.

I also wish him well. His play in the 2002 season when he earned his Pro Bowl reserve berth with tremendous running (1400+ yards), very good pass catching (40+ recepti9ons) lost fumbles a bit too much (a problem he solved the next year as his fumbles lost # dropped a lot), and improved the usual first year problems that most folks (including WM) had with blitz pick-up was great to root for. He ended up being less than the player we wanted as he pouted silently during the 03 and 04 seasons (rather than becoming a cancer though some ignore the difference) after the Bills jumped on the WM opportunity (obviously a great choice by TD who believed in the Bills' docs and WM has comeback to prove them right and he still got the DE most of us had targeted for the 1st round pick with our #2). However, TH was a productive RB for the Bills and I hope he can do this for the Titans in a way that beats Bills opponents and does not reflect his horrible misocal tastes, dumb fiscal management and getting fooled by juvenile girls who say they are older. these later issues have nothing to do with football, so I am happy to wish him well as a football player and hope as a human being he gets his act together and stays out of jail.

Well, you knoe who you are. I will not name any names lest this be interpreted as me calling folks out and I respect some of the OTHER opinions some of these TSW posters have had which did not flat out state things like TD would get 0 value for Henry in a trade or that TD was hurting us by waiting. It just simply fortunately has not turned out that way and these posters were falt out wrong in their assessments of what value other league professionals assigned to TH and in their judgment that TD was being foolish in failing to pull the trigger on any offer (or in not cutting TH as he wished). This merely an opportunity for some posters to sing TDs praises and admit that they were flat out wrong in this football judgment. They can also take this opportunity if they choose to try to explain why we are all to stupid to understand the wisdom they were truly sharing or that why they are so much smarter than people at the Titans who at least are being paid to be such fools, but my guess is that any protests that they were really write will be mostly met with smug smiles.

Your post actually prompted me to go back to your posts and note where you had said that Anderson is an excellent back-up already in one post while I had actually focused on your earlier post where you labeled Anderson a 1 -dimensional player. There is little need to harp on your seeming thought from combining these ideas that 1 dimensional players can make excellent back-ups but I had focused on merely on your 1st assessment. In terms of the Bills, I think there are two bottomline factors: 1. Is a player an upgrade at a position?- I think the answer is almost certainly yes regarding Anderson because at the LG position he is slotted for, in 2004 the LG play level was at about at a slight upgrade from the Lawrence Smith level. I think Tucker was a notable but slight upgrade over Lawrence Smith who was our starter last year. The question is whether Anderson is an upgrade over this level and given that Anderson was judged by the Balt staff to be a starter (perhaps they were overenthrusiastic as you say in this judgment though it is one which they stuck with for 4 seasons) while Smith was judged by them to be at a PS level. Obviously the Bills thought more of him and thus poached him (and I think they were correct) but even the Bills found him not be at starter level. Your argument asserts that the Ravens were both wrong in making Anderson a starter and were also wrong in their assessment of Smith in order for Anderson not to be an upgrade over Smith (or the Smith level). I am willing to buy that both of these things may be true, but I just do not see anyway that they are both true to the extent that Anderson is so lacking that he is not an upgrade over the Smith level. I think it is far more likely that we got a marginal starter instead of an OK back-up in terms of the level of play at LG last year. In terms of absolute player assessment it is a judgement by the viewer of how you compare Anderson to Tucker and how this fits into the OL product. Overall, my judgment is that Anderson (even taking your 1-dimensional assessment as relatively true) is a signficiant upgrade over Smith and also a notable upgrade over Tucker. Anderson- pluses- considerably more starting experience than either Tucker or Smith, paart of a productive OL for the Ravens that has extraordinary rushing achievements and so-so passing achievement behind a young QB, young durable player (he started 16 games 3 of his 4 years as opposed for example to a player like Jennings who never ever has been able to start all 16), he has played other positions as a pro besides guard and has some flexibility for OL use. Minuses- He has exceled far more as a run blocker than on pass protection. He seems to have issues when isolated with an athletic rusher in space and you better cover for him if the D gets this match-up. The bottomline to me seems to be that Jmac seems to feel that he can do something specific with Ravens talent to improve their play. Though he was not able to make Lawrence Smith into an adequate starter, he pulled off a big jum[p in his productivity merely raising him from PS level to inadequate Bills starter. If he is able to oversee Anderson developing in his realtively young career from exceptional back-up to adequate starter at LG this is not a huge progression and the Bills would seem to have a reasonable chance at bringing this off.

Making a judgment on whether a team is going to be a tougher competitor for you for an SB bert in the playoffs sounds like a bit too much gameplanning to have this be the issue which determines who you want as a trade partner or whether you make a trade or not. There are simply too many variables (will Jax make the playoffs in '05, is a stronger Jax a benefit for the Bills because they can beat an opponent of ours at a critical time or a problem for us because it is going to come down to Buffalo or Jax again among competition for the last playoff spot, will the Bills be a contender for the SB this year?) that can go various ways to make a judgement based on this issue. The extent to which Jax is a contender is a real issue, but it is one which seems best considered in terms of them almost certainly posting a .500 or better record and TN almost certainly posting a .500 or less record so a 3rd round TN choice likely needs a 2nd round Jax choice to equal or better it. I think decision will logically be made on this comparison sice it seems to be the reality rather than a fantasy league what if consideration driving TDs approach to perspective partners.

I took a look at the beginning of this thread as "new" news regarding Verba would be quite interesting, but was enthralled to look through all four pages because the points folks were making (in addition to the repeated posts about repeating oneself) in many cases seemed to make points that went way too far beyond what the reality of stats or decisions by NFL teams would indicate. Further, folks expressed dismay about the woeful past history of Bills OL play in the past 10 years, but it is amazing that these tirades do not include at all mention of one significant upgrade (I could have missed one mention or so of a fact that should be a part of any Bills OL assessment). Specifically, folks led by Kelso's Helmet really let Bennie Anderson have it and seem to regard him as a total stiff from what they sae in his play in Baltimore. Maybe so. However, if they are right the they not only know alot more than a pro football staff (not impossible given some questionable decisions across the league) but what does stretch credibility is that they seem to make an assessment which diverges totally from what from the professional decision for 4 straight years. True we outside observers correctly point out episodes of mistaken judgment made by the pros all the time. In addition, some of the pro folks can be so pigheaded they will repeat that mistake. However it simply does not ring true that Anderson is so obviously bad that even we fans in another town can see it, but the Ravens never do. Further, this broadside against Anderson seems even sillier when one considers real world results and it was behind an OL with Anderson playing a prominent role that Jamal Lewis had one of the best years of running in HFL history. Anderson is certainly not a world class player, but the stats and reality indicate he is not a stiff either. Even if he is a stiff (which he is not) the other things that folks seem to ignore is that he is almost certainly an upgrade for the Bills who started last season with Lawrence Smith at the LG position. Smith was actually taken by the Bills from non-other the Ravens PS where he was not good enough to not only bear the same Bennie Anderson out as a starter, but he could not even beat out Anderson's back-up. Granted that Smith was not good enough to remain a Billa atarter and Tucker who replaced him was an upgrade, but not such a huge upgrade that Anderson should not be credibly judged an upgrade for us at LG regardless of how folks judge his play. The other faux pas I see in the posts is that I think it is impossible to assess the improvement in the Bills OL last year over the year before and the promise of vast improvement in the midst of the current 3 years compared to three years under GW because we have JMac at OL position coach. Everyone knows that JMac is not a miracle worker, but again if one is correctly indicting the Bills for 10 years or so of inadequateOL play and simply bad play under TD, then any assessment of the OL play during this time needs to give serious assessment to the fact that Vinklarek took over this task with 0 experience as an OL coach and after his poor performance led to him being canned after his second season, he was replaced with Pat Ruel who had all of one year's experience with Detroit. Bringing in JMac and his 25 years of NFL experience was an obvious and huge upgrade over Vinky and Ruel regardelss of whether you think JMac is bad. Vinky and Ruel were worse. As this will be the second year of JMac installing his system and any players who return doing so with finally having an adult teach them, the JMac difference was huge last year and I think there is no rational reason to expect it not to be significant this yea. not because he is so great but because our not-ready-for-primetime OL coaches were worse.

I think your question is answered in part by going back to the general premise. Us small western minds (as opposed to the small eastern minds) seem to have difficulty holding more than two premises in our heads at the same time (and if they seem contradictory even though in reality they are both true fuggadaboutit). The playing field in the NHL teams is not level at all. However, it is far more level than it has been and this is a great thing. The new CBA appears not to be perfect at all, but is far better if only because both the NHL and NHLPA seem to be prepared to agree to it. Some may cite particular flaws and use them to claim that it sucks completely. Others will cite the benefits (like the little fact they will now be ablle to play the game) and also make a false claim that the CBA is the greatest thing or even perfect. Both are wrong, but that is life which is rarely if never perfect. The key questions it strikes me is not whether the playing field is truly level (it is not as rich teams are rich and poor teams actually are also rich but far poorer for example than the conglomerate that owns the Rangers). The poor teams are at a competitive disadvantage, but this disadvantage can be overcome if a poor team is very good from top to bottom and gets good luck and breaks. The questions are: 1. Is this better? Demonstrably yes as they had to shut down the league underthe old system and the new system has the aggreement of both parties over a lengthy number of years so it is much better. 2. Is the deal sustainable? Hard to say for sure because the key to sustainability is the degree to which the two formerly warring parties realize and operate as partners who profit from co-operating to get money from you and me rather than opponents who when they battle over the split actually do not get money from you and me. There are some good signs however, because their appear to be signficsnt facets of the new CBA which parrot the NFL/NFLPA aggreement and the the football model has proved to be sustainable so far as the owners and players have proffitted far beyond the levels they achieved when they were at war and the deal has been successfully extended a couple of times. By creating an NHL version of the football CBA (tying player salaries to revenues in a salary cap with a range) it is possible for the NHL to achieve an NFL level of sustainability if the two sides can get over arguing over the shape of the table and truly learn to play well together as partners. It looks good so far but we'll see.

I don't think the facts support the argument that he has played poorly at every other phase of his position. The context for this is an argument about what in fact are the phases of the RB position and what is the relative importance of those phases. In my mind, one can probably list a bunch of phases important to the RB position and go as far as you want but as the list gets longer they diminish in importance. My incomplete list stopping at the point where the phases are of important but small import that I can do without them if the RB cannot do them are: 1. He is a running threat. 2. He is a receiving threat. 3. He is adequate as a blocker. 4. Other issues of import which they are great if he does them but I can live with it easily if he does not (ex: Positive ST play, On-field captain, Option passing threat, Does not fumble, Good locker room guy, Etc.) Further, there are a variety of positive % of each element that can vary and a player is still a positive force overall if he has the right combination of abilities and you run the right O to make use of them. However, in a standard approach to an O I would assign the following percentages of import: 1. Running: 66%- The main jobby far of a running back is to run. It's great if my RB is a receiving threat like a Marshall Faulk or a Thurman Thomas but if he can run the ball this is why I have him in. Jerome Bettis is a wildly good example of an RB that exemplifies the point. He has generally caught less than 10 passes for several years running and historically gains 100 yards or less as a receiver each year, but who cares the Bus is a great RB. 2. Receiving 25%- Again there are some wild cases where an RB is such a good runner, i do not require him to pick up a lot of yards receiving in order to judge him good. However, for the standard NFL O and player he must show some ability to catch the ball in order to make the O work and the running game effective. Most fans might make judgments about this based on a player having a critical or few outragous drops. if it is a few this is wrong particularly if the drops are accompanied by the player having recorded a good season as a receiver. I think this is the Henry story and where some obsservers are simply in error claiming he is a dysfunctional or bad receiver. Like it or not the 43 receptions he had in 2002 and was selected to the Pro Bowl as a reserve because of his running yardage and because he caught the ball is a clear indicator that he is a receiving threat. His rookie year of 2001 where he caught less than 30 but also was not the starting RB for all the season and actually had a better YPC than his very good receiving year in 2002 ae signs his best year was consistent and not a fluke. His receiving total dropped to 28 catches in 2003 even though he rushed for 1300+ yds. but our O was so ineffectual that year, Kevin Killdrive's gamecalls were so predictable and Bledsoe is not one known for his touch on short passes that his downturn is far more likely to be caused by other factors than Henry not being able to play the receving phase of the game well enough. 3. Blocking- 5%- Again if a player is a total stiff in various regards of the game this can be a problem, but outside of badly missing a blitz pick-up as a rookie which got even Flutie sacked, Henry has been adequate at blitz pick-up in my judgment. There is not stat which exemplifies him being good or bad at this so its tough to argue beyond folks fact-free opinions (mine and others). However, it says a lot whether this is an issue which was cited a lot in the a players career by fans and pundits in terms of assessing an assessment. The fact is that Henry was revered by many Bills fans as a roolkie with promise in 2001 and as a leading player in 2002 and 2003 and the blitz pick-up complaint about his work in this facet of the game only emeged as folks were shopping for any reason to indict him. The other thing I would say generally about blocking is that though blitz pick-up is an important part of this much lesser facet of the RB game, an RB's ability to block to make the accompanying FB a threat to run can be just as important as the blitz pick-up blocking depending on the offense a team uses. The other factors are important also but a I said if a player sucks at them fine as I can find another player who is bright enough to be my on field captain even if the RB is such a dimbulb he can only run and catch or he never plays ST. I did mention one non-negative that it is of import that an RB have which is that he holds onto the ball. This factor needs to be noted for a player whose job it is to carry the ball a lot. However, this also is only a factor and even if a player sucks holding onto the ball it is not a disqualifier for me if he performs well in other parts of the game. For example, Henry racked up almost a fumble a game in 2002 and lost 8 of them to opponents (who returned them for long scores a couple of times though the result of an opponent score is more determined by how the funny shaped ball bounces after the RB makes the mistake of letting it go). Howerver, he earned a Pro Bowl appearance despite his horrendous funble record because fumbling is bad but is easily outweighed by being a running threat and receiving threat. If you think this was just an odd case that was solely Travis look at some of Tiki Barber's years until he like TH solved his fumbling problem, the bottomline for me is that the claim that he sucks at all phases of the position except for running is simply wrong and is unsupported by the stats. Further, running and getting yards running is by far the most important part of an RBs job that 1300+ yard performances in two of his four years (the other two were a promising rookie season that was good in my judgment and a lost fouth year when he gave up on his teammates (the real reason a trade is the correct thing to do) because he perceived the team gave up on him. TH is way far away from a cancer on this team because though he was clearly unhappy and not a positive in trying to reach a goal that is hard enough to reach with everyone giving 110%, he was not a cancer. I have seen cancer's and clearly during the season he was no where near being one. Even in the off-season, though TH moved his bags and said he wanted to go, this situation could be repaired if he and the Bills were forced to do that (and he would have had no real choice but to suck it up an make good if he remained a Bill and he wanted to get a big payday).

However, you do not note a significant differences between the RJ/Flutie situation and the TH/WM situation that makes these cases not comparable even though both involve keeping on player over the other. In the TH/WM case, the Bills have decided to keep WM because they view WM as almost certainly being able to do the job and TH as having some trade value that even though the Bills also judge him capable of doing the job it makes more sense to move him in a trade leaving us with a starter we have confidence in and a draft pick. In the RJ/Flutie case TD was simply trying to make the best of a bad situation. He suspected (and really knew) that neither RJ or Flutie could do the job needed at QB for the Bills (the job being punch the clock in the 2001 season because there was no way we were going to produce a winner or even a good record as we entered cap hell and also to potentially be a ood QB for the future as we exited cap hell). TD made a judgment that Flutie was not the man for the Bills is the short-term or long-term as his personality would have chafed under the 2001 loser we were certain in cap hell to have and also due to his age, he could not be counted upon to be the QB of the future. The RJ cum se/cum sa personality and need to prove himself personally regardless of the team record meant that he was a more palatable choice as the Bills simply punched the clock regarding W/L in 2001 and though he did not seem to have what it took to be our long-term choice at QB perhaps lightening would strike (or a radioactive spider would bite him or his parents would be killed in front of him and he would respond by donning a mask and playing great football) and RJ wuld work out. The two cases are similar only in that the Bills will keep one and get rid of one (for cap reasons in 2001 and in exchange for a first day draft pick in 2005) and really are not comparable as the same situation.

This is just speculation with a basis in general knowledge of the issue but without specific knowledge of this case (which is used mostly on entertainment forums like TSW, Fox News, or CNN) but it does make sense to me that the debate between the two choices (either of which, neither of which, or both ,ay not really exist) is: 1. Jax and TN have both offered a third for TH. 2. TD has countered to Jax that he can get the same pick offer from a team whose draft pick is likely to be better than Jax since Jax may make the playoff, thus if he is going to take the Jax deal they need to make it a conditional second.

I don't think cap room is the issue as we can create more if we choose to do so. I would not advocate doing so for Franks because while it would certainly be good to have a player of his talent this year and particularly given out current uncertainties at TE, we ould need to and want to sign Franks long term and the Bills have other options and opportunities at TE in the long run. I think for this year, we are going to try to produce a serviceable TE out of the resources we currently have on the roster. Whle I do not think we will be able to produce the type of stud TE Franks is this year, i think our possibilities (if not prospects) are good for next year and on and thus I doubt we will create the cap problems of creating room for Franks. Overall, I think this is our crrent TE situation. Campbell- Lilkely starter this year but there are tremendous doubts about this as he suffered an ACL injury. Its too bad really because he had always been at least a serviceable blocker and actually was a little bit better than serviceable as a blocker, but he never showed the receiving production to make him a complete or go-to TE. TD actually made a great deal to pick him up for a 7th round pick and got a starting TE out of the deal as our team was weak at this position at the time (Remeirsma was a goner as he refused to renegotiate and his blocking was questionable at best). Not only did Campbell give us a credible starter who helped an OL block for 1300+ yard pick-ups by TH, but he actually began to show signs of life as a receiver for the Bills with the ability to hang onto the ball after taking some devastating hits after moderate to long catches over the middle. He actually finished second among Bills in receiving TDs last year after a big game where he caught 3 TDs and it looked like the breakout might happen. Unfortunately he was put on the IR duue to injury and as a 30 year old given folks like Edggerin James needed over a year to come back I pretty much figured he was done as a Bill. Yet, there are a lot of positive words about his recovery and maybe the nature of his ACL injury is such that he can credibly comeback to start. However, even if we luck out in this regard, I doubt that he will continue his past rate of improvement and at best he will be serviceable as a starter and not the Franks type performer we want now or in the long run. Euhus- A better candidate to one day achieve the Franks standard (for lack of a better reasonable benchmark for TE production, the Gonzales or Coates standards are the true caddillac here and though I like Franks but he is no Gonzales in terms of being a gamebreaker the D needs to warp itself to cover). Euhus had a promising start for the Bills but an ACL injury ended his season as well. I had actually thought he would be the one likely to comeback quickly or at all of the two, but he has been eerily quiet about his individual progress while Campbell is being put forward by the Bills which makes me worry that the older player is actually recvering better. There was some delay in even deciding whether Euhus would need surgry which I took as a sign of less of an injury for this younger player, but the doubts are still there. I think it is reasonable to guess that one of them will come back to be serviceable though not great this year. If Euhus in fact is well enough to play this year then I do not think it is unreasonable to hope that by next year he will make hurting our cap with a purchase of Franks less useful and certainly not necessary. Everett- Picking him as a draft choice made the Franks option unecessary in both the short and long term. Yet another bif TE injury makes consideration for the short-terms a good thing to do, but as the current medical prognsis is for him to potentially even play late this season (I doubt thid, but the Bills as in the cases of WM and JP seem to like keeping an injured player with IR noises on the roster so they can use him if necessary and not have the restructions on practicing this player designed to stop teams from inessence red-shirting a plsyer on IR. The injury to Everett makes a Franks pick-up a smart thing to do in the short-term but as soon as next year we would have 4 round draftee Euhus, 3rd round draftee Everett and bg FA pick-up Franks all needing OT as a starter pr reserve and one of these investments will be a loser for the Bills, Neufeld- Not starting quality at all. However, thank gosh we had him when our starting two TEs went down and he also can play credibly in the bsckfield as an H-back. Let's all hope as Bills fans that he gets cut because if he makes the team it probably means that ecovery from injuries did not work out well for a couple of players. Trafford- Another player who we better thank gosh for because when we needed some depth behind Neufeld (who is not starter quality himself) Trafford stepped up. He even caught a nifty pass from JP on a late-season mop-up drive. He better be cut or we are in trouble. Peters- I know he is a T on this team and on our roster but this still strikes me as a bad move because if in fact he is such a penomenal athlete then why on earth are we taking the ball out of his hands at the position that won him a spot on our PS and forced to activate him rather than lose him to someone signing him off our PS and activating him as a TE. He is Wonderlic is incredily low, but if he is too much of a doofus to be trusted as a reciever do you really want to trust him at a position he never played in college to guard JPs blindside. His great play on ST last year showed what kind of an athlete he is with bulk, speed, and soft-hands and a nose for the ball that allowed him top block a kick, recover it and score the TD. Form what I've seen he is even as good as a healthy Everett to become the TE you want with a Frank signature. I hope Gandy works out not simply because we badly need an LT, but I am hoping he works out and allowsPeters to force himself onto this team as a TE.

I'll try to remember what it was but some local outlet was advertising last week an appearance by him doing what sounded like an extended sports interview or discussion. Since I do not remember the details the main thing to take from this is that he is not dead yet and probably still on the scene locally. I would expect with hockey back now that he will probably have a formal local gig of some sort.

I saw one interview with Gretzky where he described what made him different than other players and it obviously was not that he was a better physical specimen but that he saw so well and better than other players. These are my words not his but I think Gretzky was playing a different game than his opponents because he literally saw a diffierent game. Some this may be due to measurable physical aspects like him having better peripheral vision so he can literraly see players that we do not expect him to be able to see. However, I think what made him special was that he combined this with a sense of the game so that he often made passes (with pinpoint accuracy) as though he had eyes in the back of his head to players there is now way he could see them when he made the pass. The behind the net discussion reminded me of this conversation because once you combined his eyesight. with his sense of the game and with Ds respecting him so much that they had to give him room or risk embarrassment (I remember one game where he led the charge againt the Caps and the two defensemen kept backing up to be able to cover a man if he passed to the wings and they simply let him waltz into the slot where he beat the goaltender with an uncovered wrist shot from the slot. If the game changes and players have good eyesight and are given more room to use it some surprising things may happen.

Interesting thoughts Jokeman and my response by the numbers. 1)You say, I'll agree Jerry Gray has proven to be one of the best NFL assistants and Bobby April has a proven track record in the NFL. Yet there are still questions about Tom Clements and even our HC in Mike Mularkey. While they proved to be a good combination in Pittsburgh they have new jobs in Buffalo and have to be as good as they were last year if not better because of now having a young/inexperienced QB behind center vs a proven vet like Bledsoe last year. But. while there are questions about any NFL coach until he wins the big one a couple of times, I think that I have more doubts about April as an ST coach (I will be pleased as punch if we simply repeat the ST output of last year where a number of things went our way with returns that can easily and through no fault of anyone go in a different direction this year) and less than April but still more than about TC/MM about Gray and the D (though after two years of productive work I think Gray is the real deal and not a fluke). MM/TC have not proven themselves as Parcells/BB like worldbeaters there record shows they too are the real on O. Evidence is: A. The great improvement of our O over the 2003 model while still using Bledsoe as the QB. The overall O stats are comparable to before because of the slow start until they established the "new" Bills O and the huge ST production meant they succeeded by not having to take O risks in the seond half of the season, but cleatrly the O improved over its O TD for 2-1/2 games in the middle of 03 and there were a series of specific TC/MM decisions that wer a part of this (1. playing D players on O in the redzone which increased productivity there, 2. employing the O in away which stopped Ds from overcommitting to the blitz such as their selection and use of WM (psrticularly outside runs) and even good employnment of Bledsoe runningthe QB draw, and C. running some nice flea-flickers which used Bledsoe's ball-handling and vet talent to get production from Evans and WM. B. They not only got better production out of the Bills O but also did this for several years with different versions of the Pitts O. Once may be a fluke, twice, may be a coincidence, but three separate good performances by them is a real thing. C. The Pitts Os were different from each other in a way that is important to the Bills because they ran Os that saw revival in Kordell and then also Maddox (and to some extent Bledsoe though he was so bad in 03 that even with improvement in 04 he still deserved to be cut) and it is now been reinforced with Wyche so the prospects for JPL failing based on his skills mostly because the teaching has a record of working and being superb. My main worry with MM is that I think the best O for the Bills is not one which they have pulled off in the past of getting leadership frim a failed vet, but instead to make sure that JPL is the caretaker we need because any rookie will almost certainly fail as he must learn to eventually be a vet. We will do well not to the degree that JP becomes a new Kordell or Maddox but to the extent he becomes a Dilfer or RoboQB. 2) The 1984 Bengals (Wyche's first year as HC) were 8-8. The following year, Boomer's first year as a full time NFL starter, they finished 7-9. So there's documented proof even under the Wyche that a QB can take a team a minor step back. Yet Boomer had more expereince than JP had as Esiason played 10 games in 1984 and to me on the field experience counts far more then film work. A good point and one which should steer MM/TC/Wyche toward a goal of having JP be a good caretaker rather than run the O to depend on him being a playmaker. 3) While I don't think the loss of Pat Williams is a big one it does leave some question marks in the middle of the defense. I suspect the D might fall slightly from a top 5 to a top 10 defense this year. If this D falls from being #2 statistically to being #6 I think we will be OK. With 10 or 11 D starters back, PW actually not being relied upon at all for over 1/3 ofthe D snaps last year, and the prescence of a plan A (Edwards) and a plan B (Anderson) to replace PW, and last year's achievements actually accomplished with our starting CB (Vincent) and starting SS (Milloy) missing signifcant time it is far from certain or even likely but it is possible the D output may improve even without PW. If Edwards or Anderson steps up and this crew builds upon its second half production then look out. 4) No doubt the special team's were great last season but let's remember they tied an NFL record last year, to expect an exact duplication is asking a lot. I expect them to slip a little like the defense. I also will be pleasantly surprised if we get the same output from an ST which had a record-breaking year in the return game last year and a new flawless coverage game. it would foolish to expect a replication of this output this year (though I am a fan so foolish hope is what I do). However, the interesting thing is that our ST was judged by many as best in the NFL with a placekicking game that clearly left a lot to be desired. Lindell did a great (and I do mean GREAT) job on kickoffs last year and he did a very good job with onside kicks. However, the ST will be greatly improved with the fairly small and certainly doable improvement of Lindell becoming as reliable as he was in SEA. He will improve by simply not missing chipshot FGs and kickers are odd birds so this may not happen but it can be done. 5) The problem with comparing this team to the Ravens is the caretaker QB you mentioned was an NFL veteran (ironically enough who started his career under Wyche as well). Watching JP last year during the regular season it was obvious he struggled. I suspect more of the same this year. I think one of the best things MM did last year was to throw JP into mop-up duty against NE. Fortunately he survived physically (and when he did Bledsoewas probably done for at that point) but if anything knocked the cockiness out of him this was it. Welcome to the NFL son. Lots of players are physically gifted but the difference between the good ones ad the bad ones is that the good ones are mentally perepared. After getting his ears pinned back by an INT and fumble against Pitts and also a penalty for delay of game and having to take a TO to avoid a penalty JP would have to have the height of stupidity and cockiness to come into this season and expect he is going to be totally in control right away. Bottom Line: While I generally don't feel that a QB has to be a leader to succeed I'd say this team has a better chance making the playoffs this year with Holcomb, because he's more Dilferesque than JP is at this point. As while JP might have the better skill set etc. Holcomb has experience and shown he can play in the NFL and JP is still a question mark. While I'm not starting a Holcomb vs. Losman here, I think it's better for the Bills long term success to stick with JP even if it means being 6-10 this year. While 6-10 sounds like a larger then minor step back with the parity of the league these days we know all too well that a game can be won/lost on one single play. Realistically, I have a feeling we just won't make all the plays/more than we did last year hence a step backwards is a realistic expectation. Bottom Linme: 16-0 is what I hope for but i think this is a pipe dream but so is 6-10. Looking at the way the schedule falls out it really will depend on what happens, but I see 10-6 as a far more likely outcome than 6-10 and even 11-5 is a real possibility if the ball bounces the right way.

Perhaps the Jags believed the wisdom offered on this board by posters such as Bill from NYC that the Bills should simply cut Travis and be done with him because he is not a good enough player to be a Bill. This is one Bill's fan who is glad that TD had a more real view of TH'strade value. Trade value and how good one judges a player to be are two different things. If some team is willing to give you a pick like a 3rd for Billy Jow Hobert or a 1st and a 4th for Rob Johnson then that is their trade value regardless of how you or anyone else assess their production as a player. Is TH worth a 3rd (or 2nd or a 4th or a cut) to the Bills because of his talent? Who cares. The issue is what is a player worth to a potential trade partner. This issue is determined not simply by an assessment of his play (which is reasonably debatable across the board) but the market is also determined by whom else is available (among past starters particularly those who made the Pro Boal Fred Taylor appears not to be, Shaun Alexander theoretically may be). what is there immediate and future cap hit (Alexander's value if traded is likely to be huge in both regards and TH is small immediately and negotiable from a position of strength for the team in the long-term and even better TH has a record of being an idiot who will take doable amounts of upfront cash in exchange for forgoing a big debt that comes later), and trade value is determined by marketability (which the hopes attached to a former Pro Bowler can be sold this year regardless of future production) rather than purely by assessment of future prospects.

I think the point regarding Bledsoe is that regardless of how one judges Moulds, one needs to question a comparison of two players which makes the claim that YPC is much more of an indicator (and really aa useful not a very good one if it it used to heavily) and certainly does not stand as a clear chronicle of the decline or future of any WR. There are just too many variables such as who the QB is, where the respective players are in their career whoch have been mentioned, and also what type of offense is employed, how the WR is used and the impact of injuries on sharp changes in a WRs poduction which have not been cited enough in this thread to describe much less accurately predict a WR's production. Whe relative contract hits or % of the cap given to a certain player the comparisons of players across teams falls apart even further. Salaries are not merely determined by on-field performance but by a host of other factors such as: timing (if a player such as Andre Reed gets hurt just before his contract year he ends up relatively underpaid compared to his talent), the cap hits of other players on the team (if other FAs get theirs first their may not be as much left for the player or if the team is a good cap manager and they have a lot left they may overpay a critical player, or non-football idssues such as how a player markets himself for non-winning football issues such as a player making glitzy catches even though his yardage his low can skew his paycheck to how agood a player he is. I agreed with your points intially about Moulds but as the argument continued your arguments went further afield and ultimately are not very believable.

I think the goal in order to create the best game is a mix in the rules which do not make it something only for little swift guys or only something for the manly men you seem to like. The best hockey I have seen involved really hard hitting and tough play but no fights really at all surrounding the Miracle on Ice in 1980. It certainly is not a good game to have it totally populated by the "he touched me types" but if I wanted a tough man competition rather than the sport of hockey I'd be into All-Star wrestling and cage matches. The NFL for now is really biased toward a slow motion game based around the neutral zone trap. I'm all fpr changes that make the game more fluid with increased motion and offense. Its too bad it likely will come down to physically changing the game because if the refs would simply enforce the rules as written and there was a greater crackdown on penalties for felonies like Bertuzzi and even chippy runts who slow the game then this behavior would go away. The NHL can and/or will not get the refs to enforce the rules so I'm for experiementing and implementing changing the lines to bring back hockey.

The management under Quinn has had enough problems that it does not appear to be competent. In my view the breakdown is: Pluses: 1. Quinn clearly loves hockey this is essential to treating it as much as possible as a sport that happens to also be a business rather than simply as a business that just happens to be a sport. This really is a great background for fans to be taken care of but more on this later. 2. He has hired some hockey folks capable of doing good things. Ruff is a good old Sabre and though he is not a winner in everything he does and regardless of where he goes has excelled in several episodes in tangibles like W/L and intangibles in terms of players saying he is a good teacher and identifying and properly using players in several notable cases. Negatives 1. Quinn clearly loves hockey but he is a legend in his own mind and this adds up to bad things and even disasters for the team because he gets overly involved and sometimes acts and manages like a kid in a candy store rather than as team president or manager. He seems to make personality disagreements between folks he has hired worse rather than solve any problems caused by these dynamics. If Quinn was good at his job, he never would have allowed what was eventually open warfare between Ted Nolan and John Muckler to occur. Instead, he seemed to be more comfortable that he did not have to fear either party taking advantage his failings when they were at war with each other. If it got so bad between them then Quinn needed to fire one and move on, but helet this bad situation go on too long and the team suffered for it. In addiition to the team management issues as above which were real, it was downright painful on an intangible level to watch him participate in a team skate back inthe old days. He donned a jersey and clearly personally enjoyed pretending like he knew what he was doing in all facets of the game, when clearly he just loved being able to rub shoulders with real players. Basking in their glow is fine, but pretending that you are also a stud athlete simply led to folks laughing behind his back and eventrually to his face. Unless he proves otherwise having Quinn as the man in charge is bad news. 3. Regier is a knowlegable and committed person, but he seems to one who can do well with good folks around him (as he did with the Islanders) but the operation from the felons at the Rigas family, to the little boy in Quinn, to the pertulant fighting between Nolan and Muckler that he inherited simply made for a bad situation where Regier was not at his best. What the future holds we will see but with Quinn in charge it is unlikely to be good because I doubt Quinn can resist playing one person off against another and think that he is managing the dynamic to get more out of both. From the slow-speed chase which began his tenure in Buffalo when Quinn tried to smuggle him in past the press, it has been bad. 4. Ruff looks like a pretty good coach to me. Ocaisonally he also plays favorites a bit too much rather than judging players based on on-ice production and nothing else. However, again if he gets good context he can be a very good coach.

You see it really depends on how you define the word "is".

There are a number of factors here which folks do not seem to be factoring in entirely in their offerings of what is fair and what is not: 1. The salary cap is really going to surge with the new TV contracts and the amount of money available to players by rule under the CBA (they are guaranteed a certain % of the designated gross which includes TV receipts). I believe (correct me if I am wrong because there are many factors here such as when the TV checks are in, the renegotiation of a new CBA once all the owners get on thesame page) that when the next FA period comes around their will be a lot of cap room to increase contracts like Clements and valued vets will be rewarded with new deals or old deals which were too big under the old cap will be honored as teams move to deliver roughly 70% of the designated gross to players salaries. 2. Reality matters. For example, if Moulds suffers an injury to the one Andre Reed suffered in his contract year, then the market for him will likely be soft and the Bills will be able to sign him to a coditional deal which rewards him only if he performs. Gameplanning what ifs at this point is a pretty foolish game with an older player. Likewise too, if Moulds puts up a year like his average over the last 5 (80+ catches and over a 1000 yards) then the market for him will be stronger and if/when his new contract forces a cut then he will play that market (where a 6 million signing bonus might be relative chump change under a new cap). 3. Intangibles matter. They matter less if the intangible is a relative one like a judgment that Moulds is a vet who had made recurring deals to the Bills satisfaction, but they matter more when they are rooted in reality. the intangibles which matters most with Moulds are: A. He has the flexibility to play the slot or the wing. He does not fear going over the middle and he has some speed and even better athleticism to allo w for some highlight reel circus catches which allows him to be a threat in multiple slots. B. His flexibilbity as a WR forces opponents to cover based on not only what he is doing (some folks are correct in saying he is not Marvin Harrison but so what on a given play you have to double him or put your best cover guy on him (and thus not on Evans, Price, Reed. etc) but what he might do if you do not dt him or cover him tight. C. He has ad a couple of injuries which hurt us (more testimony to how good of a player he is) but like it or not he generally has started 13-16 games a season in his career and he is durable in that regard. Will Mou;ds be worth a salary of $10 million next year? Probably not. Will Moulds agree to a salary which allows the Bills to compete and acquire other players? probably yes as this is what he has done in the real-world historically. I see know problem here that is not easily solved depending upon how he does this year and how he survives that cannot be easily done. Cut him if he sucks and sign him if he does not suck.

Perhaps this will become a next step in what I see generally as my western society being overly obssessed with the human body, differences and sexuality. It simply strikes me as an odd contradiction that our society is so heavily concerned about "alleged" chastity in some regards (for example Ashcroft had some nude Greek statutes covered with blankets to cover their "naughty bits" while at the same time our society is selling pseudo-sex as part of popular TV shows from Desperate Housewives to Friends. Like anything, kids will get used to a deal with whatever the rules are if adults will let them. Certainly kids need to be guided and protected from physical violations of their being (I would guess the rules about shorts and separate showers are part of that) but there would seem to be a reasonable compromise here that allows cleanliness and does not force the wearing of chasity belts.

The final I crossing and T dotting this article describes sounds like a very good thing in terms of this deal being implemented properly if that is what happens. From what I have heard about the outlines of a deal it sounds a lot like the NFL model (as it should since the NFL model has clearly accomplished the goals of the NFL and NFLPA which is to put more money in their pockets than ever before) the new CBA will be based on ranges of players getting a defined % of the gross which allow labor peace as the defined % should be enough for individual NHL teams to remain viable while players continue to get more money than they deserve. This final process can be an activity where the NHL and the NHLPA are working together to forge an agreement that satifies the third parties of government to meet their mutually shared goals embodied in the CBA. The deal will work here on out to the extent that the NHL and NHLPA work from a standpoint of a maturing partnership which is furtheed by the CBA. Things will not work and will eventually fall apart to the extent that this effort is approached as a zero-sum game where the owners and players are at war. The NFL CBA works because buttressed by the trust but verify role of shared information about contracts within the salary cap the two sides have progressed to become partners working together (to get far more $ than they deserve from the network and ticket-buyers) rather than warriors who drag each other down and thus hurt both sides. The media loves a fight because they are easy to cover, but to the extent the NHL and NHLPA understand this deal is not about who won and who lost but about both sides winning at selling a product for your and my dollarrs this deal will work.

Exactly. I see no issue here beyond the overly conflicted and worried. Either a bad year or a good year for WM maks the decision an easy one. If he has a medium year it depends on how medium it is and the answesr to this question are who knows and we will see. Anyone who wants to have a fact-free opinion about this is being neurotic and anyone who draws conclusions from this until something real happens is just plain psychotic.

According to an article posted on TBD, Seattle is responding to some comments lasr week by Alexander that he must have a long-term deal this season if he is going to play for them by re-opening talks that had died with the Bills about Henry. This nugget is from Len PassthePotatoes so it well may not be true (some of his past articles have seemed to be more about having something to print rather than be accurate) and he has ties with TD as a source so this nugget may be from the Bills to give the impression of an ensuing bidding war. However, even if the Seattle deal never happens (it would need to await resolution of the Alexander situation and then you need two oartners to make a deal so I doubt anything happens soon, the important part of this is that it might get either Jax or TN to get off the dime and meet TD's asking price (seemingly a 3rd with conditional possibilities to make this a second). If Jax or the Titans get worried that one or the other is going to pull the trigger out of fear of Sea beating them to the punch then it may push one of them to simply take the bird in the hand of giving the Bills what TD is asking. Not done yet but sweet.

I think the devil is in the further details to see if this really advantages the owners as a group or the players as a group. In the first place, even more so that the NFL there is a huge difference from one owner to the next owner with the NY teams with their large cash cow of population on one hand and Cnandiam teams operating with not only a smaller poputlation base of customers to sell product to that it really does not reflect realty that to lump all of them together as benefitting or being hurt by the very same CBA. This is true of the players as well where the differences in contracts between the top players and the journeyman vets is huge. As you point out, even the "poorest" of the NHL players us doing quite well, but again it is simplistic and inaccurate to cite all of them as winners or losers in a particular deal.