Fake-Fat Sunny

Thanks fo the detailed contribution to the discussion. You could be wrong but then we all could be (except those who for some reason insist their voews are a stpne cold lock even though they obviously are not) so I'm glad you like most fans dod not let the threat of inaccuracy stop you from thinking or posting about this. The one comment I would have is the question of Jason Peters. Fundamentally, I buy the idea that he is a phenomenal athlete. One need only to have heard the stories of how he forced his way onto the starting ST unit since he proved to be unblockable by our starters when he played the opponent on the scout team. He turned this into a TD in a game by not only blocking a punt, but being enough of a ball hawk with body control and soft-hands that he blocked it, got up , and recovered the ball in the endzone. This and the fact he fought his way onto the roster off the PS (I assume because the word was out that he might get signed elsewhere) onto the roster are objective proof to me that he is a phenomenal athlete. My question however, is that given he is so phenomenal an athlete who got signed by us as a UDFA because though mentally he is a taco short of a combination platter he has tremendous speed, size, athleticism, and soft hands why would we take the ball out of his hands by using him as a tackle rather than a TE. True we do have needs at LT that Bills partisans are desperate to fill, but we also have needs at TE where our #1 and #2 both needed ACL surgery. Even for a phenomenal athlete, the rap on Peters was always not that he could not recieve the ball, but that the was not enough of a blocker to take on the important TE swing role in that regard. Has his phenomenal athleticism suddenly produced such spectacular blocking prowess that the Bills themselves are taking steps to assure that Peters never catches a pass again? I think he is a TE and the talk of Peters at T is simply blowing smoke to confuse the enemy.

I don't think it is useful for the debate to devolve into a simple comparison of which fans transgressions were worse. It seems clear to me that activities like yelling Osana (who helped kill 3000+ innocent people and has nothing to do with this soccer match) or throwing bags of urine (a noxious infectious agent) is much worse that the various transgressions which have occured at the Ralph (a couple having public intercourse in the stands, the unfortunately all too typical use of foul language and public drunkenness). However, what often seems to happen in debate is that folks use the unforgivably bad actions (like the Osana chants) to justify the unforgivably stupid actions (like the public sex that renders a public event into a non-family affair) when both are simply inappropriate for a sporting event even though the Osana chants are much worse. I think there are several keys to me in consideration of these events: 1. The actions of a few should not be confused with the actions of the whole- I really doubt that every Mexican fan filled up a bad with urine at home and came to the game looking to hurl it at the nearest American. I really doubt the whole crowd arose as one and sang the same impromptu song in support of Osana to deride the US and help their team. A few Mexican fans probably engaged in unforgivably bad actions or said unforguivably bad things, but it seems like a flight of fancy to tar every fan at the stadium with the same brush. It seems even more outrageous to attribute the actions of a few to the entire county of Mexico or to their Presidente (or whatever they have a a set-up). 2. Just because someone says it is true does not make it a fact- There have already been some disputes in this thread over whether the urine bags happened. It does sound a little bizarre that a person would take the time and go throught the effort of pissing into a baggy (my guess is that ziploc bags are probably hard and maybe expensive to find in the barrios of Mexico), carry the warm urine around with them amidst brinking at a game, and then hurl it into a crowd where it is far more likely to hit a fellowMexican than an American. Folks also hear chants from someone who does not speak English, translates their hearing of a chant in a noisy stadium into their own language and makes incoreect assumptions about what was being said. A lot of this sounds like old wives tales to me. (If you do not believe that language difficulties cause fundamental problems, remember that our good friends at Chevrolet opened a sales outlet in Mexico City and experienced grea success selling American cars to the Mexicans who could afford them. That is except for the Chevy Nova and sales for this brand which Chevy assumed had a popular price were sluggish. It took a couple of years but someone finally got the bean-counters in charge in Detroit to understand that NO VA in Spanish translated into NO GO and was not the best selling name for a car. They changed the name and sales reached expercted proportions). 3. Don't cut off your nose to spite your face- The best answer to some subset of fans acting like animals is not to deny the entire country interaction with the US. Rather than tucking our tails between our legs and running him whining an crying because a few folks yelled Osana or threw water they claimed was urine at us. by far the better response to me would seem to be to send the NFL to Mexico, show 'em a good time and good competition, and make some bucks. By doing this we can play well with the vast majority of Mexicans who care about their families as well and like the distraction that sports brings from the troubles of day to day life. It seems to me that merely cancelling the NFL game would deliver a victory to those sad fools at the soccer game that want America to go home. I think that those who want to cancel the game are doing exactly what the Osanaesque forces in Mexico want them to do and are delivering a victory to them.

My observation is that the entire draft is a crapshoot that I think it is much more reliably valuable to the Bills to trade Henry for a vet player even one of likely lesser value than Henry as a player but who makes our team better by fitting a valuable need to build a winning team. I'd love to see some actual stats on the point, but as best I can tell TD's estimation that even first round choices are 50/50 propositions at best has not be controverted by any posts I've seen. The draft is important because good players have to come from somewhere. However, between: 1. The draft misses which even good teams make. 2. The usual period of time that it takes most NFL rookies to get trained and schooled before they are contributors. 3. Gettomg contibution right now is more important tnan ever before in this league wher worst to first is more possible than ever. I think that most fans (distracted as I am by participation in fantasy leagues) and limited by only knowing the stats at best and not being able to look the player in the eye really over-value draft choices. Potential jist means you haven't accomplished anything yet. Even if Shelton is not the player who signed a huge FA contract, he is a clear upgrade for this team over having nothing in place at LT. His prescence even if he is merely adequate provides much flexibility and a lot of room to try different combinations on the OL. Further his cap hit fits well into the budger for building a Bills team. I'd take a player over a high draft pick (even if someone wanted to give us a 1st next year for Travis because even if this impossible event happened the 2006 pick does nothing whatsoever for this team this year. Who knows since Tom brady was a 6th round choice but even getting a 2nd for Henry straight up is likely worthless to this team right now.

I'm uncertain about Smith myself. Perhaps him making the jump from the Ravens PS to be a starter for the Bills is simply testimony to how bad Pucillo was and JMac went with him out of desperation. However, because my expectations were so low for a PS player from another squad, he exceeded my expectations. Folks seem to judge him by a standard of whether he is an adequate Bills LG. I'm not sure how reasonable that is for us fans to do as we found a guy repetitively voted to the Pro Bow lacking here as well. Its no surprise that Smith also fell short of our lofty standards. However, my only sense is that if he shows the same level of progress he showed moving from Ravens PS level to inadequate contributor as a Bills starter, he will be great this year. I will believe it when I see it but you gotta give the guy a chance abd would be foolish not to.

From what I understand Shelton got the nickname "The Last Man Standing" when a bunch of the Cards either suffered season ending injuries or could not play through the pain of injury and Shelton kept on going, Further, he got the big contract because of his production prior to his FA year. Both seem to be objective indicators that at some point not to long ago he was neither a less than average player nor subject to chronic injury. Last year did see an injury which cost Shelton several ganes and he was replaced by Leonard Davis who commands one of the top 10 OL contracts in the leagur. Further, Shelton and Green clearly did not get along and this has also been suggested as a reason for the bad buzz he has been getting. Based on all of this, if JMac and the Bills's doc say he is good to go, he certainly has the benefit of the doubt from me that he is a solution to our LT gap. As far as cap room goes, he need not be a long-term commitment to make him a bargain at $3 million in base salary, In his first year the Bills can pay him $3 million minud the NFL minimum as an upfront bonus and by prorating it over the life of the his contract reduce his cap hit to around the Henry level of $1.25 million. If he sucks cut him and the Bills owe him nothing in terms of his base pay and the acceleration of the remaining bonus would be small (in NFL cap terms) and could be made even smaller by cutting him as a cap casualty after June 1, 2006. The only lose for the Bills in this scenario is having to cut the guy they traded for Henry instead of taking some other value they could get for him. However, as long as the Bills docs judge his injury as not a chronic issue, I do not even see this happening. Shelton looks like a cheap deal as long as injury allows him to perform.

No, I quite specifically am not arguing that Bledsoe is better Brady or Favre. In fact, I think that both are clearly much better than Bledsoe and have flat out said that NE did the right thing cutting Bledsoe and keeping Brady What i argued and which was better refuted by someone noting that in the last 10 years the HOF committee did not choose a QB at all is that Bledsoe will face some weak competition of eligible QBs due to when folks retire and that is what will get him in. I noted that I did not know off hand what the HOF record of selection has been and I for one am pleased as punch to see that Felser and the boys did seem to make their choices based on player assessment rather than popularity and thus approrpriately skipped naming QBs most years as in my book they are just another player. Still, the math really helps Bledsoe out as when he likely retires (after a year or two) his competition will not be the better player Brady (who has another 7+ in him at least unless he gets hurt or pulls a Wickey, but actually folks like Jeff Blake, Rodney Peete, Tony Banks and Doug Flutie. Favre will easily get in before Bledsoe (assuming he retires after this year and Bledsoe hangs on for couple) but anyone who wants to make a statiscally based case that Bledsoe won't get in needs to demonstrate that the HOF Committee will be men enough to replicate the 5 years in a row they passed on taking a QB (and likely more years actually) that they had in the late 90s or argue that Vinny Testaverde is a better candidate than Bledsoe. My guess is that Farve goes in on the 1st ballot whatever the waiting time after retirement is and that Bledsoe probably goes in soon after. Do you have enough confidence in the HOF Comm to hold out?

It does amuse me that folks seem to be so upset and have their panties all up in a wad about out OL. We do have some big issues. Not having a clear starter for the LT position and the LG position mere months before the season starts is a huge issue where the course of the season will be determined. However, when I look at this problem, I see it more as an exercise of choosing which of the many options to cut because I see no likely development that way, rather than feeling we are DOOMED because there are no viable options. On the contrary, the problem which I see is that there are too many possible options to choose from and this will be a major test of JMac to sort through these options. The other major problem for him is that in addition to there being too many options for me to make a rational judgement which will work best, none of these options are obvious gurantees to work or even very good or very likely choices. The good news for Bills fans is that JMac has a demonstrated record of turning average performers at best (like Dusty Ziegler and Glenn Parker with his NYG squad) into a group capable of making the SB. The SB is way too much to expect from this team and a second year QB, but since I think a lot of successful football begins with quality play from the OL, I have to feel very good about the many options out there for the Bills and JMac's ability not to be a miracle worker but to pull off the same kind of success he has accomplished going to three SBs during his career as an OL position coach. As it stands right now, the Bills will need to identify about 10 OL roster players and have a couple on the PS for injuries and/or development. They have 11 OL players on the roster, 2 FAs who were on last year's roster they seem not likely to resign, 1 potential addition as trade value for Henry which may/may not happen (this week the tea leaves are good), and the strong potential to get 1 or 2 players from the draft as this is seen as one of the strongest crowds at center in years. The question is more to me is who do they cut among some fairly interesting (though unlikely to hit) development projects. Specifically: Villarial - ink him in at RG. He allowed the Bills to go without a back-up on the depth chart for him last year (though eventually they did have to fill in for him due to a nick). I think he deserves a lot of the credit for schooling Mike Williams in how to be a pro. One of the greatest failings of Vinky and Ruel under GW is that the actually seem to expect MW to carry Sullivan and Pucillo who the put in at RG next to MW. MW- ink him in at RT. There was some talk of flipping him to the LT slot because of the conract demands there and the huge MW contract essentially makes it impossible for the Bills to allocate the level of money a good but essentially unproven (when it comes to a 5+ million cap hit) needed to sign a Jennings when he hits FA. However, the Bills need to make the OL cap allocation work and if it is skewed in a non-traditional direction like RT so be it. I think the Bills feel comfortable enough with Losman's mobility and his college career running for his life and dealing with the potential for blindside hits that they are going to concentrate on getting MWs head on straight at RT before they consider flipping him. Teague- pencil him in at C. He has developed into one of the Bills better players on the OL because of his smarts. He has overcome an inability to multitask which made it hard for him to read rushes AND do line switches AND deliver a quality hike (particularly his adventures in shotguns, DB really saved our butt with his good hands several times though his need to focus on the snap took away from his ability to focus on reading the play) AND deal with rushes from the increasingly larger and aggressive DTs. He does muvh better at pulling all these functions off simultaneously though he ended up on his butt too many times as he was learning. However, though I am comfortable with his C play, he is not a dominating force there for folks used to a Kent Hull. In addition, the gap we now have an LT (a position he onced manned for Denver) makes it attractive to move him to LT if there is still an opening and instead we go for picking up a cheaper than LT C among the increased C talent pool in this league. We'll see. LG- A gap was left by the necessity to cut Ruben because time made the cap hit of cutting him the same as keeping him and he correctly took on Kevin Killdrive, but once you publicly take on the boss your days are numbered. Pucillo proved not the player for this job and got benched. Lawrence Smith made a huge jump to start here from the Ravens PS and though this is admirable, his problems with redzone effectiveness and the oddity that he apparently was a better pass blocker than the supposedly easier task of run blocking sealed his fate last year as the LG. Tucker filled in here nicely late in the season and was helped having a stud runner like WM to read off his blocks. However, he seems more valuable as a back-up C and actually came to the nFL as T so having him at LG is a stretch. Smith was not adequate, but he made such a huge jump in performance last year it strikes me as unreasonable to give up on him because he was not (yet) adequate to start. However, the Bills have him on the roster as a T and he actually filled in for the oft-injured Jennings when Price was busy at RT so i doubt Smith is an option here. Pucillo is done and Tucker is better elsewhere so look for the Bills to draft a player ready to start at G (possible with this deep draft with or first pick in round 2 (particularly if we flip with AZ). In addition, to that option Gandy who was acquired (likely as the new Marcus Price in my mind) played G for the Bears in his last starting job and is a possibility here. In addition, the Bills have several development options like Jaen Esposito who is almost certainly not ready to start but has a year under JMac and knows the system. LT- There is a gap here with the FA departure of JJ, but quite frankly due to him missing starting due to injuries and failing to finish several games for the same reason, even JJ left a gap here from 1/3 to approaching half the games. I could not see him staying unless he LT market (where teams are already overpaying folks like Clifton and Petitgout) only gave him an option which allowed the Bills to resign him for $3 million. SF proved willing to overpay him and good luck to himand them because I think the Bills were smart not to overpay him. We are left with a veritable ton of options at LT however. Most of them will not work out but they are options nonetheless. Dylan McFarland- TSW mogul John from Hemet has identified him as a possibility which is possible as he merited some PT last year, but it strikes me as quite unlikely he will perform well enough to be more than a back-up. Jason Peters- TSW denizen Simon flagged this possibility, but it is my sense that the Bills braintrust is merely blowing smoke for opponents with persistent rumors of him as a T starter because of his athletic talent. If he is such an athletic wonder then why take the ball out of his hand given our need at TE as well. David Pruce- All world LT with Frankfurt in the NFLE last year is an indicator he can play and losing this development project will be a rough cut to make, but again someone I see as a back-up at best. Smith- He interests me because I want to see how far he can develop. T seems like a more natural position for him given what he has shown as a pass blocker and difficulty he had attacking or being a pullling guard which showed up in the redzone. Still a possibility. All the above possibilities make more sense to me if MW switched to LT (he guarded the blindside in college for a left-handed QB) and these players would take on the lesser responsibility of learning at RT rather than learning at LT. Still who knows. In addition to these flyers there are also 3 possibilities from players who have started at T before. Gamdy- The Bills braintrust sees something in him and maybe that is LT where he started much of the season before last for the lowly Bears. He is another possibility, but I see him as more the backup playing the Price role. MW- If he were able to make the flip it opens up all sorts of options for the Bills, but though this is possible, I like the idea of keeping him at RT for at least another year and really making sure he has learned to be a Pro. Teague- This is my lead option if the season were going to begin today (but it isn't and I exoect the Bills will explore other LT options though I am comfortable that a Teague given 3 years oof additional knowledge and skill as our C would actually prove more productive than the model which was adequate at best at LT for Denver. Shelton- He is not on our roster (yet), but i for one was as pleased as punch to hear talk of this deal being renewed. Henry has obviously given up on the idea that he can beat out WM (a correct judgment in my view, but the WM injury history should actually make him comfortable bidding his time). Worse yet, many fans have given up on Henry so I am happy to see the Bills trade him for value assuming we can get it. Fir me, I think many fans place too much value in the draft where TD estimates (as estimate I have not seen factually controverted) that even a 1st roun choice working out is 50/50. Add to that the relative rarity of any player drafted below the 3rd round being much of a contributor his first couple of years (and even 2 or 3rd ound choices stuggling to become vets) and the draft is next to worthless for me as an immediate resource. Thus value for Henry to me must be a vet or even one I judge a lesser player than Henry. So even if folks think Shelton sucks I'd be happy to see us get him for Henry who will likely not contribute much to this team this year. In fact, if we trade Henry for Shelton and flip he choices so we can obtain Baas or some other OL player predicted to start, the problem becomes an embarassment of riches on the OL. Add to this mix the wildcard of Sobieski who is still on the roster and also the availabity if worse comes to worse of FAs Marcus Price (still a viable back-up in my book though I think with Gandy and others we have tons of options) and even Pucillo (please as i think he is a goner), then it appears to me that the Bills problem is one of too many options at OL than too few. True, none of them is Tony Boselli, but JMac has gotten an OL to the SB with Ziegler or Parker as his best players rather than a player with skill ofBoselli at his peak so I am not worried in an untoward way about the OL at all.

Exactly, and this is the reason why Bledsoe is almost certain to make the HOF. Folks love arguin' (and more power us as part of bein' a fan is about arguing arcane football stats) but arguing whether Bledsoe will get into the HOF as though HOF entry is only about measuring performance is incorrect. The basis of it is statistical performance, but the final decision is in essence a popularity contest by the HOF commission. QB is given far too much credit and blame by fans as the NFL loves to market its product around individuals (which is ironic since for me it is a great game because it is among the ultimate in team games). The HOF Commision will almost certainly honor a QB virtually every year (when was the last time the HOF Comm skipped honoring a QB in a year? I don't know). In my mind Favre is a far better candidate for the honor than Bledsoe, but among the folks Bledsoe is likely to compete with for this honor, my guess is he will beat them out quite easily. The folks named in the post quoted strike me as far more deserving candidates than Bledsoe, but he will not have to compete against them for the HOF honor because retirement dates should make him eligible several years before they are up. It is a different question whether he deserves to get in based on his accomplishments, but I really don't see how he is not going to get the honor. Given the competition of QBs who should retire in the next few years (Tony Banks, Jeff Blake, Doug Flutie) Bledsoe is in like flynn and seems to me to even deserve it more than these players and much of the competition besides Favre. Do folks want to argue that Vinny Testaverde deserves it more? This is actually probably going to be the debate.

The answer to the specific questions of whether he will get into the HOF and whether he merits entry compared to other candidates from my perspective and areview of the various pro and anti-Bledsoe are: Yes, he will probably get into the HOF, and Yes, he will likely deserve that honor First, I'm as stat happy as the next guy which anyone who is psychotic about the Bills and willing (and able) to waste their time on my too lengthy posts should be able to tell. However, my commitment to and over-interest in stats comes with the knowledge that they can indicate a lot of correct things, but prove little or nothing in terms of whats actually correct. Stats are often indicative of the truth, but never are conclusive. They can simply be taken too selectively, taken more fully but twisted, or misinterpreted that they really can illustrate or help an argument but are a pretty blunt tool for actually proving a point. I think this article illustrates this by beginning with Bledsoe selectively choosing a stat and devoting a lot of importance to it and then the author selecting other stats and devoting too much to them. Overall if the question is whether Bledsoe should be treated like just another QB or is instead one of the best their ever was, neither exteme is true from my read. Bledsoe has an extraordinary arm, has led teams to an SB berth (a thing most QBs ratrely do) and in addition played a key role backing up Brady in a must win game in their SB run. The near 40K passing Bledsoe sites is an interesting indicator but for me is not the basis of why Bledsoe has performed and produced far better than the vast majpority of QBs in this league. He is not just another QB in the NFL despite the quite selective 120th statistical ranking the author sites. On the other hand, the true stats sited by the author provide a good indication of why Bledsoe falls well short of being one of the best QBs there ever was and that there is even a degree of truth to the posts which says Bledsoe sucks. However, the fault in this line of thinking is that sucking at QB does not disqualify a player from getting into (certainly) and even meriting (possibly though if you suck alot of other things need to happen for you to merit entry from my perspective) entry into the HOF. Bledsoe has had a good career that in my view will get him into the HOF and racked up a number of achievements which will likely merit him getting in though from my perspective as a fan he really sucks as a QB to have on your team. 1. The HOF is about FAME and all in all it is a popularity contest which rests on the subjective judgments of the HOF committee. I think the key to whether Bledsoe gets voted in is going to be a question of who he is competing against for the honor. He will be competing against other players retired long enough to be up for when he is up for it. I think a critical factor will be the bias which folks have toward the QB position, giving it far more credit than it deserves for Ws and far more blame than it deserves for Ls. Bledsoe is going to be aided the most by the QB position gaining unprecedented hnor due to the superlative QB draft class of 1983 coinciding with the prescence of late round draft choice Joe Montana (one of the best QBs there ever was) in the league. The class and others marketed themslves as the QB Club (overemphasing the import of the position) and I would not be surpirsed to see the best QB available selected for entry into the HOF every year even if the best QB available is not as good a player as folks at some less marketed position like OL, K, or whatever. As he is putting distance between his eventual retirement and that of the truly great QBs like Elway and Kelly, i think he will be the best QB available in his election year and will get in (if i were him I would avoid qualifying for the ballot the same year as Brett Farve because he will lost the comparison to him). If you think Bledsoe does not deserve to get in, then the better argument for you to explore is who Bledsoe is likely to face off against. I am certain that many retiring players at CB, RB, etc are better than him, butbased on my survey of when he is likely to hang 'em up and who will be up against him. I will be surprised if he does not make it. In fact, if he avoids Farve it might even happen on the 1st ballot. 2. The question of whether he deserves to get in is another thing. One can selectively view an present stats like 40K yards and make the case for him to get in and one can selectively present stats which illustrate him sucking and claim he should stay out. Personally, i think Bledsoe was a QB I feared my team playing at several points earlier in his career (a rarity actually since generally I have felt Bill teams could beat anyone in the early 90s). However, for the last few years with NE he did not scare me at all to face him. As he played and particularly as his HCs failed to follow the Parcells and later Belicheck models of using him properly (maximizing what he did well and minimizing what he did poorly) he became eminently beatable. Nevertheless, the article author is correct that W/L is what matters most, but as far as the specific of HOF entry its W/L in terms of getting to the Big Dance and winning it. While the compilation of the overall Bledsoe winning percentage is important and fine-tuning it by looking at his record against to 10 team is an even better indicator, the ultimate W/L measure is getting to the SB and being critical to a team which won it. The 40K+ passing yards, the record number of attempts, the extraordinary arm strength are good on paper, but the game is not played on paper and the key is going to come back to getting a team to the SB and being part of a winner. Bledsoe will likely get into the HOF because of competition with weak QBs in his group of eligible but not-in-yet candidates. He will merit also in my view because with Parcells minimizing one of the weakest parts of his game by emphasizing to him just throw the damn ball when he would go into his pat in practice. In the 40 or so SBs at the time he will be eligible there will be well fewer than 80 that even led a team to the Big Dance and the Bledsoe 40K number and longevity records will be in the context of his leading a team to the SB. Further, in the 2001 season Bledsoe had his job taken by a better player as Brady came in when he was hurt and led the Pats to a successful SB season. Nevertheless, Bledsoe will get and deserve in my view for playing QB in the majroty of a must win game for NE and throwing the winning TD pass. Bledsoe was not a good enough player to be the NE #1 QB and Belicheck was correct to start Brady in the SB and to keep Brady as his starter the next season. However, the addition of being one of 80 QBs to lead his team to an SB berth and being one of less than 40 to play an essential role on a SB winning team (I am not arguing that he was good, merely that he played an essential role as the #2 QB on an SB winner) will likely be enough to merit Bledsoe's entry into the HOF. There is addotonal stuff both good and bad to merit or demerit his entry. Among the things that will help him with the voting committee (though I do not necessarily view this as of import are): 1. His FAME clearly helped the Bills on the business side of the game when the trade to Buffalo accompanied great interest from WNY partisans coming off a 3-13 season. 2. He generally has a rep as a teamer and a quaility guy with the graceful manner he showed when the better QB (Brady) took his job and he did not (as many egotistic players would do) try to parlay his being on the field when the Pats won in the championship game into getting his job back or fanning a QB controversy. 3. He got a Pro Bowl reserve spot for the Bills (and deserved it unless you want to suggest the QB who deserved it more that year) and really was The Comeback Player of the year after Brady proved to be a better QB and his prescence with the Bills coinicided with their improvement from 3-13 to 8-8. In addition, there are real events that will hurt him with the committee vote: 1. His play was simply horrendous under Kevin Killdrive in 2003. 2. He failed to lead the Bills to a playoff berth last year though we had it in our hands and were a game away. 3. He was unceremoniously dumped by the Bills as he refused to take a paycut which would have made for the mentoring of Losman. Even still, if Bledsoe hung 'em up today. I think he would be in the HOF (as he competed against other QBs likely to retire this year like Shane Matthews). As he is not retiring, his career is not over and how it plays out in Dallas will tell a lot. If his time in Dallas simply results in more results like 2003 when and the Bills ended up 6-10 it will hurt his case and maybe he won't get in despite selective use of glossy stats and his role in 2 SB berth teams. If his Dallas career is like his 2004 Bills results it will not hurt him but also I doubt it will help as he needs to be with a team that makes the playoffs to add another redemption to his resume. If however, he is the QB for a 'Boys team which makes the playoffs, even though they are incredibly unlikely to even smell the SB he likely will cement his rep as a Comeback Player and easily make the HOF. Since the Boys are coming off a piss-poor 6-10 season, seemt to have am RB in Jones and Parcells wrote the book on getting production out of Bledsoe by using him as threat rather than depending on him to win games for you, I suspect that we will see yet another ressurection of Bledsoe's career. it may not be enough to make the playoffs but I think it will add to his FAME.

Interesting points. Judging from the early returns which show WM and Evans leading the pack with approaching a dozen combined votes folks do not seem to have the bias against rookies you indicate. I think NFL careers are short enough, worst to first is possible like never before and the premium under the CBA is teams need to be productive right here and right now (though TD seems in no danger of losing his job despite a lousy career W/L record as Bills GM) that I'm comfortable with giving the breakout designation (as unreal as it is) based on a year's production. I acually have not voted myself yet because after working through the post I really am uncertain about this choice. However, the key thing for me is that having many choices bodes well for the Bills in my book.

As our buddy Rodney King once said, "Why can't we all just get along." it seems to me that there is more reason than ever for the NFL to do a game in Mexico and to work as hard as they can to sell their product to a Mexican audience. Clearly some sectors of the Mexican society and sports fans do not deserve human treatment (the folks who yelled Osana) but the sooner we use sports as a tool to build bridges (like PingPong was used in conjunction with Nixon going to China) rather than as an avenue for division then the sooner the types of folks who threw bags of urine will be defeated. Rather than taking our ball and going home with our tails between our legs after losing to Mexico in this soccer game, I think the intelligent move for us is to show them what the benefits of the American way of life can bring as reflected through the prism of the NFL. The NFL ain't perfect (thats for sure) but I think we can put on a good show and identify those parts of Mexican leadership and society that like parts of our leadership and society can meet the childhood goal of playing well together. The world is too interdependent (being it our ability to hurt each other with terrorism or weapons of mass destruction or our ability to help each other wih the huge market of workers and potential buyers in places like Mexico) for us to reasonably feel like we can merely retreat behind our borders. I for one do not want to see our country run out of town with bags of urine or chants or to see us waste our time trying to ignore or conquer other countries. The best and only choice I think we have is to share with them the good things we got (like the NFL) and identify the allies I suspect we have in other cultures. Just like in Iraq, whether you are a liberal or a conservative American we all are rooting for and need to work foreigner build the capacity to help and defend themselves. When we commit and succeed in helping them build their capacity it is them who will control the lesser elements of their society (and believe me, anyone who heard or witnessed NYers having intercourse with each other in the stands at the Ralph knows we all have lesser elements in our society- though I prefer the base behavior of having sex in public to the base behavior of throwing bags of urine anyday. Clearly they are both base behaviors but the urine throwing is so much worse). So I say lets take the NFL to Mexico and show 'em how to party hardy and hope that they learn to party hardy through sports as well.

A question about who us Bills partisans thought would be the breakout player in 2005 got me thinking a little bit about last year. Whos was the Bills breakout player last year. My first thought was that it obviously was Willis McGahee, but as I thought about this question, he did not make the Pro Bowl as the best player at his position and though bummed by this decision (because his performance in '04 easily exceeded reasonable expectations) I was not upset by it as the players chosen instead were pretty good players who had played a full season. There were several other Bills who did make and merit Pro Bowl selection (not a perfect indicator of performance at all, but one which should not be ignored totally as I think the coaches and players who count 2/3 of the total vote are a reasonable indicator of player performance) and several of them had breakout performances as I did not expect them to star in the game. I think that consideration of this list should actually make Bills fans quite hopeful. I think that there is a case to be made for each of the players that their 2004 performance was good and that it exceeded reasonable expectations for them at some point last pre-season. The really good news for us is that with the exception of Sam Adams (who I think is on the backside of his career though his performance on the backside finally is that of a player who does not take a lot of plays off and tha he is actually a more productive player now than he was when he simply got by on his speed and talent) these players have not reached or are at their prime. When you add in the hopes for newbies like Peters and Losman or rehab of past performers who hit the wall like Reed, 2005 looks pretty exciting for a Bills fan. This is my generacut on my list: WM- My original choice as the 1000+ yards he put up in a part time season was phenomenal. Coming after the grievous injury he suffered which cost him a likely top 3 draft pick, his performance in 2004 may make this TD choice one of the great draft picks of all time if he goes a few more years at this pace. Still despite his showing some phenomenal tools (the stiff-arm) and speed, he was not able to trust or evoke enough trust in his knee to play a full season. Thus, identifying a player who was the best at his position as THE break-out player for the Bills last year is not totally insane. The scary thing for opponents is that WM may actually have even another gear he has not recovered yet and that injury allowing he may be even better in 2005. Evans- Did not make the Pro Bowl reasonably as there are better WRs in this league (and even on this team as Moulds produced significantly more catches and yds/game) but his performance last year was simply outstanding as he easily led the team in yds/catch and produced 9 TDs to Moulds 5. Not the best WR on the team in my book and the attention Moulds drew allowing Evans to use his speed on a second tier CB wasa big part of his success. However. Evans easily exceeded my expectations for what I expect from a first year WR (but then Josh Reed did as well). McGee- Finally the KR game is a threat for the Bills and McGee deserves a ton of credit for his unexpected by me production in this role. 1 KR TD would have been satisfactory. Two would have been outstanding. 3 was clearly a breakout in performance and his Pro Bowl selection was merited. In many ways I am more psyched about his TD returns than I think KC fans were about the great work Hall did for KC a couple of years back. McGee deserves full credit for this work as he set things up and read the blocks perfectly as he jetted for his scores. However, he was virtually untouched on these returns and simply identified the holes and jetted through for the score. Its a question whether you are better off with the talents of a Hall who seemed to make his own breaks and turn nothing into something or better off with the talents of McGee who is a singular athlete but his production owes much to the April system. The good news for us is that I think many returners can produced in the April system and we are not dependent on McGee's talents to have good yield on the KR. However, McGee really does deserve an individual nod because in addition to his KR game he clearly was improving as a CB and I feel great about our CB situation with Clements, and McGee starting. Vincent giving us a FS easily capable of CB coverage and Thomas and Greer backing up giving us reasonable nickel and dime depth even with an injury. Nate Clements- He slid in due to injury, but I think he also merited a Pro Bowl nod because of his willingness to play ST an to perform there (with the exception of an ugly fumble against Pitts) on the punt return game. I had hoped for but did not expect the Pro Bowl nod and say what you want, he earned the money he received from the achieved bonus and will get from the Bills or elsewhere as an FA. His adventure against Jax probably costs him a breakout acknowledgment in my book (bookended by the Pitts fumble) but his Pro Bowl nod gets him onto my consideration list. Sam Adams- Again a breakout performance as I did not expect his play to merit a Pro Bowl nod this late in his career. I found it amusing that some labeled him a mere fat tub of goo when TD picked him up (for a very competitive contract also) because in my mind even a fat tub of goo was an upgrade at DT for the Bills and his acquisition improved the team. His performance as a Bill and last year clearly exceeded my and most other expectations of him. 2005 will be interesting as his buddy Phat Pat is gone and he did throw a bit of an on-field snit in mid-season last year (though ironically it was a snit because he wanted to play more so thats fine with me if that is what it was. If he steps up again we should not miss Pat at all. If he returns to his old ways we will need Anderson to step up fast or we are in big trouble. Takeo Spikes- Its hard to call his play unexpected as he merited the Pro Bowl selection the year before, but his outstanding play merits mention. In many way it is actually his LB mate Fletcher who made a breakout performance at LB in '04 for the Bills as he led the team in tackles, contributed on ST, and despite losing control a couple of times and getting a bad call once leading to some personal fouls it was the Fletcher performance which probably impressed me more at LB for the Bills. Brian Moorman- This is the one case where I was pissed that he did not get a Pro Bowl nod as I think that he is the best punter in the league. His performance was not a break-out either for TD who long ago signed him to a long-term contract which is an endorsement of his skills as a kicker and TD/Modrak's skills as evaluators of talent and control of the salary cap. Some have suggested him as being the most valuable Bill and though other positions are glitzier I would not reject this notion out of hand. Mike Williams- The presecene of a non-Pro Bowl performer like Moorman deserving a nod on this list led me to add Mike Williams to this list. MW's 2004 performance does not gurantee that he will not be a disappointment for me as a Bills fan (though given the need for us to invest on the OL and given the disappointin play of McKinnie, its hard for me to see that TD and the team could have made any other rational choice with the #4 pick unless someone offered a Wickey Williams like deal for the #4 we do not know about) in 2005. However, MWs 2004 performance was a breakout in my view as he was pretty close to being reasonably declared a bust as a player after he missed all the voluntary camps last year when he reacted unprofessionally to the death of the grandma who raised him. He simply let down his teammates and the region when he went into a funk and then hurt himself trying to get quickly back into shape. However, I think his performance in 2004 was the real deal. JMac did a wonderful carrot and stick job managing this employee by threatening his FA future with talk of a move to LG (though this made little football sense to me as agility against outside rushers has not been his problem despite his large size) and later recognizing his improvement by rewarding him with a gameball. MW deserves to be noted for a breakout performance in 2004 not because he was so good (he did not deserve a Pro Bowl nod at RT at all last year and moving him to LT like his contract dictates is not necessarily a good thing until he demonstrates he is dominant at RT) but because his good performance came on the heels of him seeming to deserve to be out the league last off-season. So thats my thoughts on last years breakout performances by Bills, i welcome what others think in these dog-days of the off-season.

I had not read this thread because I guessed that DRM was a ewrm of art being argued about by the wonderful technogeeks among us and didnt really impact living my life day to day. The, I read this thread and discovered, I was correct. The thread actually is quite interesting and is a neat exploration of the paths of creativity, business, technology and lots of stuff. However, despite the fact is interesting to me it pretty clearly does not add up to a hill of beans in terms of impacting my life/ The many sides involved appear to be set to fight out these arcane issues and in the end will check and balance each other and allow the live of normal folk to continue on quite nicely. Getting back to the nuts and bolts of the argument, there are a couple of points where the srguments which people make seem to fall apart, 1. Just because the other guy is wrong does not mean you are right. Folks lay out some very strong argments why piracy of content is wrong. I think they are correct. Profitting from someone else's enterprise and work without doing work or adding value yourself is wrong. However, the correctness of this view does not make the content maker holding eclusive rights to determine the fate of the product he has sold in the public square also correct. DRM is correct in that it restrict folks from profitting from work they did not do. However, this does not make it correct for someone who profitted from selling this product out in the world to have total control over all forms of this content. It strikes me there should be reasonable control and recourse to recover the profits anyone makes from someone else\s work. However, once you profit from injecting it into the public square you by the reality of things give up the total ability to control it and profit from it. In many ways this is the essence of the Napster debate because folks shared the "perfect" copies in a manner where they did not profit from this sharing and could do so wiyh incredible speed and variety due to computer technology. I'm al for totally dinging anyone who profits from someone else's creativity and work, However, to the extent the creator suceeds in controlling the content to the extent he/shr cuts off any fair use copying or exchange of the content which does not produce any profit for the person sharing, the content producer likely will need and become the heavy hand of government and likely will kill the fatted calf by also restricting access to and the spread of their product. I think a better world is created and huge profits can still be made by content producers if they allow (and in fact encourage) fair use trading of their product and instead strive to create even more by adding value to their content. If the only way to get the nifty album art, the artists comments on the creative process. and other types of creative value added are to buy the album rather than downloading it I will buy the album and ship my nickels off to the content producer. If the content producer instead attempts to use lawyers to restrict my fair use copying (with no pofit to me), or my trading this neat content to my friends, loved ones and even strangers (with no profit to me) I will simply skip the artist all together or not feel bad about copying the work for free and "winning" the commerce game you have entered us into. It's just business. One of the unfortunate things which I think has happened with DRM and content makers who have invested heavily in the legal system to protect their work is that thos I once valued as artists, I now laugh at as business people. Artists may winthe battle using DRM and other methods but boy at what price since it appears to me they are losing their souls.

Fans are correctly pissed at Lindell for missing a chip shot FG against Pitts, but there seem to be a lot of good football reasons to believe TD when he says Lindell is the Bills PK in o5 like: 1. Nugent clearly is a great placekicker and it actually is not diffcult at all to imagine the Bills doing better at PK with someone who inspires the HCs trust to go for it beyond 40 in crunch time, but a big part of the kickers game (and far more frequently used by the Bills in '05 than nailing the key FG is doing kickoffs exactly when and where April says )particularly in the winds of the Ralph). Lindell was perfect in terms of kicking em left or right as order, high or low as ordered and the proof of this is there in that our KR game was among the best (if not simply the best) in the league last year with no TDs given up and few significant returns. Great tackling was obviously a key here, but predictable kicking was also certainly a key and Lindell did this game in and game out. The notion that the rookie Nugent would do just as well in the KO game is possible but unlikely. The thought he will merely boom the ball for touchbacks time after time is actually quite unlikely as unless there was a change in college rules I didn't notice, the pro kicker uses a shorter tee which reduces the length of kicks and taking some getting used to. In addition, pro kicks are further back than college. Were all of Nugent's college kickoffs touchbacks? If they weren't this will not be true in the pros either and anybody taking him will need to expect some time to past before he learns the pro game and becomes effective at KOs (assuming this does happen because there is no guarantee. 2. A post last week actually put up the Bills opponents drive starts and returns and we were among the best in the league with Lindell kicking. In addition, if you look at the rest of the league, opposing kickers (with I think 1 case of exception) also proved unable to convert FGs over 40 yards in the Ralph. 3. We tried 3 onside kicks, 1 of which failed for a reason I do not remember, another of which was well kicked by Lindell, but Rashad Baker did not make the recovery when a good kick at this longshot was not accomplished and the third kick resulted in a great recovery by the Bills by Lindell of his own kick which he dummined perfectly (along with the KR squad) top fool the opposition, he kicked it perfectly with speed and pace since no Bills guy could even touch an opponent until the ball traveled ten yards and he made he recovery himself. 4. The Bills will take a cap hit of slightly over 600K to cut Lindell and given that we are having to arrange things to make the cap work. it is unclear whether we would want to do this and still be able to build the team we want. I for one definitely think the Bills need to upgrade kicker performance. However, as much as I would love us to have Nugent and potentially solve the problem for years. I think it looks far more likely we will attempt to improve the kicking by having April work with Lindell. Lindell simply sucked in 2003 and merelu improved to inadequate with his mix of good and bas results in 2004. However, I hope he can maintain this rate of improvement and actually be totally adequate as a kicker in 2005. It will be a tough job to pull off but seems far more likely a possibility than us spending a 2nd on a kicker.

I see no problem with having an FB with Henry's running style as a compliment to WM. As a runner he is a tough guy who will hitand isn't afraid to get hit. He does not have the outside speed or stiff-arm WM has (but seemingly few do) but I can see why MM and TC had the idea of them of an Inside/Outside pairing if it worked. However, I don't think it did or could work for a couple of reasons: 1. Henry really views himself as a #1 and WM is a better player and the Bills are committed to him and TH clearly did not perform when he lost the inspiration of being the guy. As a Bill, the great thing about TH was that one could run him 30+ times a game and he seemed to get stronger as the opponents flagged. However, this meant his first 5-7 runs were a warm-up for him and as a #2 he needs to be productive immediately and this was not his style. I have no problem with TH's running style, but the problem is that the warm-up he needs when he is not running productively makes him a poor current choice for a #2.

My guess is we take a step back because I think Adams/Williams 04 is likely a better run stuffing combo than Adams/Edwards, Adams/Bannan, or Adams/Anderson, but I doubt this will be the "big" step back the writer predicts cause: 1. Williams apparently was a player on the field for 58% of the Bills D snaps. Thus on almost half the plays the Bills had somebody else in there who played well enough for the Bills to rank so high statistically in D. Granted, the downs Phat Par was in there were often 1st down or 2ns and long after he an Adams helped stone the opponents on first down, but this stat indicates both that the Bills had other combos they were comfortable in playing and that even if they are not as effective at runstopping without PW, its another crew we will rely upon to stop the opponent if the gain a yard or two extra on first. 2. Gray is well aware of the change that has happened and has the flexibility (particularly with 10 of 11 starters back) to alter the D a bit to make up for the loss of PW, 3. I've been down on Edwards during his career, but his improved performance as a sub last year was real. He has put on some bulk but seems to have even improved his ability to make moves. I think he could be another Sean Moran (superb as a sub, but when he paces himself to last as a starter his play goes way down), but he is hitting his prime and it is also possible that he has finally become the player TD envisioned when he was picked. 4. Anderson did not show anything last year for anyone to reasonably assume he is even very good, but he remains an unknown quantity who certainly does not justify confidence that he will be a starter, but the high regard he got in the draft also does not justify dismissing the possibility that he will make himself noticed this year. I think the loss of PW is a loss, but not defintiely or not even likely a big one.

I wouldn't be show sure about this. Parcells really developed the model for having team success with Bledsoe in the season he had Bledsoe QB them to an SB berth. A key to this was his coaching Bledsoe away from the pat, sack, fumble model y harping on Bledsoe to "just pass the damn ball" in pracice after practice when he would hang onto it looking to thread it in to a receiver using his cannon arm. The success of this being the way for a team to get the most out of Bledsoe was underscored by Bledsoe ironically turning into the perfect #2 QB when Lewis unceremoniously benched him with a collapsed lung. Bledsoe turned out to be the perfect guy for the Frank Reich role as Brady has given him ample credit for helping him learn the Pro game in his first season playing by standing on the sideline and giving Brady vet advice of what Bledsoe could see but the youngater Brady had never seen before whenever he came to the sideline (Bledsoe does not appear to be capable of doing the walking and chewing gum at the same time of making the right pass while waiting to get hit, but there appears to be nothing wrong with his ability to dissect the game from the sideline. Further, to the key point of this thread, when Bledsoe was forced into the championship game by an injury to Brady, he not only threw the winning pass as a sub, but fortunately for the Pats, he struggled a bit with an offense made more conservative for Brady and created no QB controversy by winning the game with no style points whatsoever. If this was not enough of a lesson that the way to get the most productivity out of Bledsoe is to use him as a change-up rather than rely on his extraordinary arm, Killdrive as has been pointed out had great success iniitially being pass-happy with Bledsoe, but as the season went on and opposing teams got more tape on Bledsoe, they figured out with Belichectk providing a textbook in his games against the Bills how to neurtalize him using his bad tendenices Killdrive stuck with. Lo and behold, the Bills in 04 got off to a lurching start with Bledsoe at the helm last year. but MM and Clements used an alarm clock set for 4 seconds after the snap to remind Bledsoe to throw the damn ball and even did a mcu better job neutralizing the blitz as a guranteed tool against Bledsoe using the outside running threat of WM, employing the Bledsoe years to successfully pull off a number of flea flickers and shockingly even using Bledsoe to run the QB draw which I don't remember Killdrive doing at all. Will Bledsoe have a better year with the Cowboys than the Bills? Hard to say as so much depends on how the team plays around your whether a QB will have a good year (W/L is really the only important measure). However, I would not be surprised to se Bledsoe have a very good year in terms of QB rating (not the same thing at all as W/L as folks really overemphasize the import of the QB to winning the game). All through his career we have seen lesson after lesson in how to actually get your team far with Bledsoe as a player and how to not do well at all with Bledsoe as your QB. The key to production for the team with him as QB is to use his arm as a threat and not to depend on him combining his arm and head to carry your team. Bledsoe is simply not good enough to do this. The interesting thing is that as Bledsoe gets older if he ever gets it through his athletic pride that the way for him to do more (winning) is for him to do less (passing) I think he will do well. Both Bledsoe and his coaches unfortunately as I think Clements relied on him a bit too much against Pitts last year seem to have to learn this lesson again and again.

Personally, I think the governor should order the state troopers to move in and seize control of this vote regardless of what the law of the land and the practice is.

Right on target because a decision on what is the best thing to do in terms of player assessment starts with a decision on when you think you can win and load up to go for it. I think for the 2005 Bills the key points are: 1. In the NFL worst to first is possible like never before and in this salary cap driven game who knows how long a core can be kept together, so the default is to plan to load up to go for it ths year unless you are in such a rebuilding mode that you are in a major player cutting mode or a year removed from it like the Bills of 2001 or 2002. Replacing and training individual players, even one who handles the ball as much as your QB has to be viewed as replacing a cog in the machine. This team cannot wait for JP just as Pitts shouldn't have waited last year for RoboQB. By all means play JP to develop him, but if developing him costs too many Ws then you gotta sit him down and he will need to learn some other way while we try to win. 2. We have one of the top statistical Ds in the league and perhaps the best performing ST in the league last year. The future is now so go for it. 3. We lost key players to FA this year (JJ and Phat Pat) but quite frankly these losses can and should be replaced so go for it this year. As far as the OL, I actually feel as good a I can feel about being a rooter for ateam which does not have clear starters at LG and LT. I feel that JMac is at the very least a massie (I mean huge, big, enormous) upgarde over our past two OL poition coaches. Vinky had never held the job when took over to hold GWs hand, Vinky's first OC, Sheppard, was so ineffective he got canned with a year left on his contracr and Sheppard was replaced by Kevin Killdrive who had a great start, but was so predictable and unwilling to change his second year was simply a waste. In Ruel who brought 1 year of previous OL coaching experience to the job GW found one of the few guys who was not an upgrade in experience at all over Vinky. JMac brings 25 years experience and almost literrally has forgotten things the old guard has not learned yet. It is difficult to overestimate how big an upgarde this is. Add to that JMac actually being SB coach for 3 SB teams (including the 3009 NYG model led by players of the talent level of Dusty Ziegler and Glenn Parker) and I can comfortably say he is not simply an upgrade but he has performed. He (as he says) is no miracle worker, but I am quite comfortable with his ability to easily make better chocies at OL than those made historically by the Bills since the end of the Kent Hull era and actually that the decisions will be not only better, but actually good. I see at least 10 players the Bills can use to replace JJ. Most of them will not work or are not good chances, but have something they bring which at least makes it possible though a likely rejecte options. Those possibilities (again most mon't work but I am happy to let JMac try things and reject most of these otions): 1. Utilize Teague as an LT, He was adequate at best in this role when he left Denver, but I think he is a better OL player now having learned the C position where he is improving. The key to making this move is to have a replacement center (probably not Tucker because his moving up merely createsan openeing at back-up C and get you a player at the Teague level at C), 2, Flip MW to LT. He looked more likely a probable bust after last mini-camp, but JMac and others put the fear of losing the tackle job (and FA bucks) in him and in conjunction with some good training and carrots like a game ball he improved a lot. He potentially could make the jump as he actually protected the QBs blindside in college when he played RT for a lefty QB. My tendency is to give him another year at RT and learning at the side of Villareal (instead of carrying players like Sullivan and Pucillo) before making the switch, but if JMac views him as good to go then do it. 3. Trade for Shelton. The extremely reasonable cap hit gives us enough room to get a good back-up (re-sign Price) in case his injury problems or limitations are real and/or to train MW to make the flip next season. 4. I doubt Dylan McFarland is ready (despite an endorsement for him by John from Hemet), but if he is ready to start (possible as he both made the roster and even got a little playing time last year) I see him more as allowing us to flip MW to LT (assuming MW is ready) and give McFarland a run at RT. 5. Likewise with Peters. I think the Bills are just blowing smoke to confuse opponents taliking about him as a starting tackle. If he is such an athletic phenom that he can master the tackle slot, I prefer that he use this talent to block well enough that we are able to use his soft hands and speed at TE (Where 2 injuries have created a need). Still the braintrust is talking about him as a tackle, but this strategy only makes sense to me if MW is ready to flip and you traub Peters at the RT slot. 5. Leonard Smith made a good jump in my view from Ravens PS to even make the Biills roster.If he merely became a regularly used Bills back-up,at LG i would have been impressed by this. The fact we had him start says more about how inadequate Pucillo and we were after the cut of Ruben, Though Smith was inaequate at LG last year, the fact he made such a tremendous jump makes an exoectation that he should have been a starter quality LG for the Bills a bit too much to have expected. However, particularly since the strength of his game last year was pass pro rather than the easier to learn run block it is silly to give up on him at this point. For these purposes he is listed on the roster as a T and actually filled in at LT for JJ during one oJJs usual late game swan songs so thought Smith is almost certainly noy our starter at LT he is a possibility that should be considered or tried. 6. David Pruce is unlikely to make the big jump, but he was all Worl in tghe WFL at LT and has a year in our system. 7. Additional FAs like Marcus Price are still out there and might be part of the starter/reserve LT mix. 8. Mike Gandy was the Bears LT starter last year and thus get consideration for this open slot but more likely I see him as replacing Marcus Price as a suber-sub giving us a former starter we can plug in where we need him. 9. The draft gives some possibilities, but the only way to get a starting LT is to trade TH for a 1st and I doubt that will happen. A more likely possibility would be to get a second or to try to get AZ to lip second picks and to go for Baas which will help us solve the LG issue and give us a lot of flexibility/ 10. Something a professional like JMac has thought of and there is a real potential us rubes have not even thought about this yet. I like our prospects on the OL right now. It is far from settled but there is potential.

It really is the least I can do. Good luck on the continuing journey of life for you and the 5 year old!

It's currently seen as an autoimmune disease (the immune system of the body which fights against infections from the common cold to serious disease) goes abnormal and attacks the person's body. Unfortunately this means that despite all we know, there are tons of things we do not know. It also means that each diagnosis outcome really depends upon the individual and treatments that work for one person may do no good for someone else or vice-versa a treatment which generally has failed helps a particular person. As bad as this is, the good news is that this is not a death sentence and their are many people leading happy and productive lives after a lupus diagnosis or even after suffering disability from the disease. You sound like you are on the right track seeking others who have dealt with this disease. The experiences of others can be quite helpful in choosing your course (though as there are so many uncertainties regarding whether the case is the same as others, one person's experiences may well be quite indicative of a course for you but rarely are conclusive in telling you wxactly what should be done. Reaching out to others can also be incredibly helpful in getting the support useful for helping you, your loved ones and the 5 year old be all that you can be. In terms of personal experience, your location is a key and an internet search for local upus groups or local groups which deal with different types of auto-immune disease (MS or even AIDs) can lead you to research though they may aklso be scary or just on a different wave-length with a different disease. The best three prong approach to this an other debilitating diseases is: 1. Get the best medical care from medical professionals you can. Medical professionals like doctors do not have all the answers, but it is amazing what technology can do today. Though you might never accept their direction without question, questioning is how we learn and the medical profession is improving because people are learning that they must answer the patient and the patient's family's questions to provide good care. The doctor's oath of first do no harm is a great place for them to work from. Often nurses and the medical professionals who deal with patiens as human beings on a day to day basis provide some of the best access to understanding and using medical professional advice. 2. The baseline is key and should be an important part of any health care regime. We all should eat healthy, get plemty of rest, watch our wait, monitor stress, etc. None of us do this like we want. The key is to be as good as you can be at these things and it becomes all the more important when suffering from a debilitating disease. You definitely will do yourself no harm by eating properly, execising regularly, etc. You will almostcertainly deal better with any problems you have if you dedicate some time to the baselines. 3. Consider alternatives, There is no know cure for lupus (though there is standard care which is accepted for this and other incurable diseases. By definition, when they one day find a cure for lupus it will be an alternative or not-accepted treatment before it becomes the standard. Particularly if you feel a time crunch that you need a treatment now and none are accepted pursuing an alternative approach is going to be the correct thing to do. However, there are plenty of snake-pill salesmean out there willing to sale you a dream for your money. The unfortunate key with alternatives is: 1. First do no harm- If someone tells you the only way to make an alternative work is for you to stop doing something that has worked for you, I'd have a lot of doubts about their claims. 2. Consider waht you value- If I had a debiltating disease and someone told me I could cure it, but all I had to do was stand on my head for 20 hours a day, I'd take the disease. There will be many cures you hear about, but if they are gouing to make life not worth living for too long it is fine to pass on them. 3. Costs are important- insurance (if you have it) generally does not cover experimental approaches. However, there are many ways to try experimental approaches and bear low costs from drug studies to doctor reccomended off label uses of samples. If someone offers you a cure but it is too expensive to test it, there is nothing wrong with passing on it initially if you have to. In fact, given the seemingly increasing number of drugs pulled off the market after they were authorized by some study, there are advantages to being the second person into the pool. All in all, this sounds like a horror, but do not give up hope. People live with lupus everyday. You can also.

I'm not sure what the NE contract history is, but generally teams have had a desire to and players had a desire to sign deals which bound a player to a team beyond the 4 years it takes for them to become a UFA under the CBA when they are a 1st round pick a team is comfortable giving major bucks to. Nate Clements for example will not become a UFA until after playing 5 season with the Bills though he could have achieved that status with a 4 year deal with the Bills (like Jennings had). The Bills decided he merited such a big contract that it made sense for him and the team to prorate that money over 5 years. Jennings, however, was slotted for a lower level of contract and neither he was not willing to take on another year being bound to the Bills unless the Bills were also willing to pay him more money than players got drafted at the same position. Theoretically the Bills could have so much confidence in their ability to pick players that they would be willing to take a risk predicting events 5-6 years down the line numerous times (taking this risk on round 2, 3, etc players in addition to 1st rounders) but merely the occurence of injury makes this a bet you are going to lose several times no matter how much skill you have picking performing players. In addition to this uncertainty which mitigatea against your plan. The CBA ends arioud 2008 and by extending contract times beyond this date you also subject yourself to a fairly unknowable risk. Teams can and will do this a little bit but I doubt they will do that as standard method or business or likely they will not be in business for long.

A lot actually depends on what the doctors would say. I know that JJ has no record of being able to start 16 games in his career and that in addition he has suffered concussions or other injuries which have made it impossible for him to finish games. I also know that though LJ has not only been able to suit up and start a full season, that he developed a rep as a player which brought him the nickname "The Last Man Standing" when other AZ players went down to injury and he hung in there. However, in the last three games of last season the injury bug forced LJ out so the docs would need to tell me whether there is some physical issue that makes him someone you shouldn't depend upon, or whether the meltdown he had with Green and AZ turning off on him was a big factor in this injury issue. My guess (and this is a simple guess without any medical info) is that JJ is a medically uncertain commodity at best and the LJ is probably OK. Health aside it gets us down to assessment of them as players. Questions arise on LJ because he clearly did not perform so well that he forced AZ to keep him as the answer at LT. It may not be his fault or a fault of his play but there is a question. However, given that he did get them to commit big bucks to him in a contract before, and given that we now have professional training and direction, if our braintrust is comfortable with him, there is no question in my mind that LJ is the better choice. JJ has great potential, but even putting the injury issues aside (which the Bills should not so I'm happy they did not match the SF overpayment to him), there are still some issues of play that he needs to work on. Specifically: 1. He seemed to me to take too many bad penalties as a player andprobably got a holding call or some other miscue every other game or so as a player. This to me was an indicator he had gotten beat. Sometimes it is smarter to tackle an opposing rusher and take the penalty rather than risk your QB getting blindsided. However, if you have to do this too much this is a sign you can be beat too much and are not the player we want. 2. He clearly could be beaten badly by the better player as happened when Abraham undressed him 2 or 3 times against the Jets. Everyone gets beaten occaisionally, even the best and by lesser players (note Schobel beating Ogden for us once last season). However, when a player gets repeatedly beat by someone this is not good. JJ is good right now, but way below the best at the LT position. My sense is that if the docs say he is good to go, there is little question to me that Shelton is the better option as a player and that when one goes beyond this to take the salary cap into consideration, there is simply no comparison between JJ at a 5+ million cap hit and Shelton at $3 million (which can be reduced to around $1.25 by converting his base pay into bonus and prorating it over the life of his contract). You need a plan B at LT with both players (NFL player can be hurt, JJ has a history of not starting every game, LJ is coming off an injury), but it will be much easier to buy a good plan B with the cap room Shelton gives you than the overexpenditure JJ is getting from the market.

The premise here is that: 1. Losman or Holcomb is a downgrade from Bledsoe. 2. Our uncertainty at LT is a downgrade from JJ. 3. Losing PW will be a big downgrade for this D. Actually, these three points are quite uncertain as to whether they are true and can be quite easily totally wrong. 1. My guess is that no one is going to get rich investing in Losman's first year as a starter or on the expectation that Holcomb will carry this team. However, i think that the proof is in the books that Bledsoe played much better in 2004 than his horrendous year in 2003, but his play at QB was inadequate for the Bills. He could not and did not carry this team on his shoulders last year. It makes sense to me that Losman and/or Holcomb will prove to be inadequate players in 2005, but my sense of whether in the final judgment the Bills prove to be in decline. on the rise, or stable is that in an example like the 2000 Ravens, I thought Trent Dilfer was also an inadequate player who started at QB for them. but they won the SB going away because they had a great D and were well-coached to play to their strength and Dilfer was good enough to never try to carry the team on his shoulders and instead worked to not make mistakes, I simply do not see either Losman or Holcomb as much of a downgrade from Bledsoe who still could be a top quality #2 in this league. The key is whether MM/Clements coach Losman the right way to minimize mistakes the way RoboQB did for Pitts in 2004. 2. Its reasonable for someone to feel antsy about the fact the Bills have no one at LT right now. However, by my count, the Bills have about 9 or 10 options for developing this player and most of them are already on the roster, Most of these choices in my view are bad and won't work even though knowledgable folks such as Simon or John form Hemet have endorsed these ideas. Even beyond the unlikely development options, the Bills have two players on the current roster that could end up playing the position if KMac judges them ready for the job (Teague, MW) and seem to have a lead position on getting Shelton for Henry if this goesthe way today;s articles have it going. Predicting that this replacement will be a downgrade from JJ also gives Jenniing a bit too much credit for being healthy all the time, and for the success we had getting rushing yards with WM and reducing our sack totals. In addition to missing a start or two, JJ was unable to finish a couple of games due to nicks and LTs who saw signficant time for the Bills last year include not only Marcu Price, but even Leonard Smith and Dylan McFarland. This is not a done deal yet and it is to early to declare this a drop-off. 3. I like Phat Pat as a player and I think we will miss him as a person. However, the stats indicate that he was in on about 62% of the teams D plays last year. Thus on almost 4 of 10 plays the Bills already have found and used another answer which helped them to one of the highesr statistical performances for a D in this league, Based on the numbers, the Bills may actually show no drp-off whatsoever from PW going bye0bye though obviously this will mean that Edwards, Bannan or Anderson will need to step up. Maybe maybe not, but the definite doom predictions are unsupported by the facts.

This brings up another key point in this comparison (whether TD's inability to find starters on the second day of the draft is much worse than that of other teams- as far as comparing TD to Pioli, I think the thread makes if pretty clear that when one compares the four years that TD has been here to the same four years of picks by NE, the results are virtually the same. NE does have significantly more guys it drafted starting than Buffalo does, but this is only true when you extend the comparison beyond TD's time here and thus the numbers originally cited by So-Cal are not a relevant indictment of TD). At any rate, there are a couple of other issues that I do not know the answer to that strike me as relevant to this case that if someone knows the answer or is willing to research it I for one will appreciate the increased knowedge: 1. I would assert that a key to NE success has actually not been a mere measure of who starts, but actually much more critical has been the fact that even in the face of huge injuries, NE back-up have stepped up and held down productive roles and that they have operated like a TEAM and backed each other up, Thus, if you really want to measure NR effectiveness, a key is not merely the number of starters drafted, but it actually speaks more highly of them that when a starter like Bledsoe went down, Brady who was drafted stepped up. Anyone who wants to make the most accurate assessment of how they have managed the draft in terms of helping the team would need to make some supportable finding in this area. 2. If one wants to use TDs draft work to assess him, another key factor to consider is that he has done what I think is a great job of translating future draft picks into productivity that year. How do you calculate the value of the 2003 1st round draft pick to the 2002 Bills? One starts out from the standpoint that this pick means zip, zero, nada to the 2003 team. However, TD was able to turn this pick into getting Bledsoe as out starting QB in 2002. He set 6 or 8 Bills passing records that year, his play coincided with the team improving from 3-13 to 8-8, made the Pro Bowl as a reserve and wa the Comeback Player of the Year for many pundits, Bledsoe obviously sucked after that, but an accurate accounting somehow needs to factor this is in (and actually as far as NE goes, the Bledsoe trade positively killed them in 2002. This is true despite the fact that Brady is a far better QB than Bledsoe and NE made the right choice in dumping Bledsoe and keeping Brady. It is true because the accelerated cap hit which came to NE for trading Bledsoe cause them to be unable to afford marginally better back-ups when the bought FAs in 2002 and this team missed the playoffs entirely. Add to this quirky move in assessing TD is that in 2004 he traded our 2005 pick and translated it into getting Losman, While Losman contributed nothing to the team in 2004 playing only as a mop-up, it is clear that this was a necessary and probably productive year for Losman and the Bills as he was developed as out QB of the future. In the calculations in this thread TD is given credit for drafting a starter, but this static finding does not do justice to what TD did in that he turned nothing (a future draft pick) into something (a needed year of practice for JP) which now looks even more valuable as the QB class of 2005 looks pretty light.