Fake-Fat Sunny

It's unfair! Rather than simply tracking number of posts there should be tracking of number of words posted! I'm not keeping up with the top 10 for number of posts but I think I rule if we count per word (at least my wife says so)!

Actually. going too deep into semantic distinctions I think I would be comfortable with a description of my feelings on the OL as satisfied but not content. I am satisfied with the course we are taking but not content that that we are done yet or where we are. I'd be dissatisfied if I did not see a logical outcome or a potential light at the end of the tunnel. I'd be uncomfortable if we paid a $5+ million cap hit for Jonas Jennings because allocating that much of our cap to a player who has never played a full season during his 4 years of ball and when we already are overspending for MW based on his production so far does not justify to me taking a risk (a risk that may work out for the 9ers if the warm weather allows JJ to escape the impressive variety of injuries which have cost him starts or knocked him out of games in 4 years). However, I do see logical and doable outcomes for us building an OL. A lot of this comes from faith in JMac being able to do the job if he has the tools. My faith in JMac comes from 3 things among others: 1. He has done it before- He took good but not great talent in NYG (Dusty Ziegler and I believe Glenn Parker taking two examples we knew well) and fashioned them into a unit which advanced to the SB. Making the SB is not mere opinion but a real worl accomplishment. Clearly their RB and QB as well as the D (making up for O mistakes) and ST (delivering field position to the O) had a lot to do with the running and passing of the team being sufficient to get them to the Big Dance. However, our ST and D performed admirably last year so that factor is there for JMac to work off of and I like WM and Losman as much as like Tiki Barber and Kerry Collins. The fact that he has been there before makes his accomplishments last year even more than simply improving over the non-teaching and organizing of Vinky and Ruel. 2. He has a boatload of experience- He has been an OL position coach for 25 years starting with the Bengals in 1980 back when they were good. In addition to the SB for NYG he made it there twice with Cincy. The comparison with Vinky who had 0 years at the position when he took the job and Ruel who had one year after GW's buddy Vinky got shifted aside ain't even funny. It would be fair to say that JMac really has forgotten alot more than most fans know about building a quality OL and training individual players on NFL technique. 3. He did improve the Bills last year- JMac was very good about being clear that he is no miracle worker, but you gotta take into account that the accomplsihments last year were near miraculous. Look back at the particulars he inherited: RT: MW showed many signs of washing out when his grandma who raised him died and he missed all the "voluntary" camps and hurt himself trying to catch up when pre-season started because he let himself get fat from his grief (understandable for a human but not condonable for an adult progfessional). RG: Pacillo (nuff said) C: Teague: Smart guy based on what folks say that made C doable, talented guy who had mobility which allowed him to be adequate at best for Broncos and LT and recovering from an ACL tear which cost him a season, but had problems multi-tasking at center which too often ended him up bowled over and on his butt as a first time center as he had to line call, and deliver the ball to DB (shotgun was a real adventure sometime and thank gosh for Bledsoe's ball handling skills) and block the growing bigger DTs. LG: Brown was gone. LT: JJ showed talent but had never started 16 in 4 years of ball including a couple of years with 11 (he was a rookie though) and only 12 starts. Add to that there were all too many games where JJ did answer the call the next game but his appearances were cut short by concussion, muscle pulls and a variety of mishaps which caused Price to finish the game for him. When you add to this that Teague went down for 4 games, the fact we pulled off enough OL productivity to help WM show what he could do and greatl7y reduce the number of sacks Bledsoe suffered was nothing short of extraordinary and near miraculous. The key question for JMac is whether he will have the tools this year. I am satisfied so far but not content because even with multiple opportunities to acquire tools left for the Bills in '05 the answer is heading toward YES! RT: MW is the starter (but may flip to LT if JMac judges him ready) and he is backed up by Gandy (who has multiple pro T starts) but also McFarland (who is in development and Peters (who is a project) are in this spot. The Bills are said to have given up on Price who manned this spot well last year, but because of the need here and his work, a lot of things are said by pundits which may or may not be true. RG: Villarial is solidly in this spot and shows talent and is an obvious upgrade over Pacillo (I think a lot of MW's improvement is actually that he needed schooling from a player of Villarial's experience but instead played next to Pacillo who needed covering which the young MW could not do). CV is solid enough that the Bills went without a player behind him on the depth chart, but a nick in the Pitts game brought Smith in to back him up. He was the only Bills OL player to start all 15 though he left a couple early (a contussion in Oak that he actually came back from leading to him playing a full game the next week despite being questionable and a rib in the Pitt game). In addition to Smith filling in for him in the Pitt game, Tucker did the job for him in the Oak game. Jasen Espositio is the project behind him. C: Teague is the starter. His improved play and performance of the individual pieces well enogu but a needed focus on improved multi-tasking makes him a reasonable starter. However, we are used to the dominance and stability of a Kent Hull so he needs to be better than reasonable for us to stop complaining. Acquistion of a better C would allow a flip of him to LT where he should be a better player than his adquate performance at LT for Denver because he is even further beyond the ACL tear which led probably hurt him in that Denver looked elsewhere nut also allowed the Bills to get him because he was an adequate player there. If continued healing of the ACL and greater OL knowledge from being a C has improved his play, it strikes me as quite reasonable that his play would merit JMac judging him a fine replacement for the talented but also too oftern nicked Jennings at LT. As far as backing him up, Tucker filled in admirably. Question about how whether Tucker is more than a solid NFL back-up persist however and put into question whether he could be a consistent starter at C. This Princeton boy is bright so C seems doable, but athletically he is at a Princeton level so questions about hims as a starter remain. LG: Perhaps the biggest unanswered hole in the Bills OL in terms of firm answers, but there exist a number of potential options that while I am not content that we have an answer, I am satisfied we should find one from a variety of options which include: Tucker- ended the season as our starter here and despite the disappointment of the Pitt game was productive in his other LG starts during the winning streak. He has not dominated here like we want, but does show potential. Smith- Also does not dominate here, but I don't see why posters simply assess him as having reached his maximum output as a player has this youngster made a huge jump last year from not only the adequate Ravens PS to Bills roster, but phemomenal from Ravens PS to Bills' starter. It strikes me as quite outlandish to have been shocked that he had deficits as our starting LG. The question is how much improvement will he show in his second year. If the level of improvement is anything like his rookie accomplishments then look out. I actually do not expect this level of improvement to continue as him not holding onto the LG job I a likely sign that JMac wnet to him there out of necessity because Pacillo was so bad rather than Smith being so good. Nevertheless, it is foolish to simply assume Smith has done as much as he can do since I understand that the thing he did well was pass pro which is usually the more difficult learn and the area he needs to improve his game is in run blocking where an uptick in his aggression and attitude can improve the performance. Voluntary camp will tell. Gandy- He actually was an LG for the Bears last year before getting waived and maybe this is where JMac and the Bills envision his contribution. Espositio remains a project here at best who gets mentioned because his previous guard play is not linked to a particular side but his previous center play may be a sign he can be slotted in at either guard and we will see if he is good enough. LT: The starter here is also unclear, but there appears to be more qualified options on the roster here than at LG. Teague strikes me as qualified and MW may be, though either move then triggers holes which need to be filled internally and likely externally. In addition to these two likely qualified players, there are a number of projects who MAY fill the gap left by Jj leaving. These include: (not in order of preference since they are all reaches) Gandy- started at LT for the Bears in 2003, McFarland- trained by the Bills as OT prospect but LT responsibility is almost certainly too much for him, Peters- talked about as a phenom potentially ready to break into the line-up at tackle, I think this is smoke to muddle assessment of our needs for the enemy and he has been given the tackle assignment to emphasize to him that better blocking is the key to his development since he is already a skill stud as a receiver and TE, if folks are really serious about him as a tackle then an RT role which frees up MW to flip makes more sense to me that throwing him in with responsibility for the QBs blindside, David Pruce- a project whose bacground is at the LT spot, Smith- I see him as more of an LG, but he is on the roster as a tackle and he actually filled in for JJ at LT last season when JJ had one of his many nicks so this is a possibility though I see it as unlikely, Tucker- orginally made it into the NFL as a tackle though he is more of a C/G on our roster, if we used him as a tackle then RT allowing MW to flip make more sense to me. Overall, I am not content until we have a definite starter at each position with 1 or 2 clear and obvious back-ups. However, I am satisfied by our progress to this point because there is an obvious starter at three positions and a clear candidate for back-up and of the two positions without chosen starters there are several candidates on the roster for the starting and back-up roles. Even better, there are several opportunities in terms of the remaining FAs (DeMulling, Womack) to get back-up or even starter help, the draft for projects, trades (the unlikely possibility of Shelton it seems), an cap casualties to find what we need. In addition to that, there are some unlikely but still remotely possible options who were on the roster last year who have not been snagged yet though they are UFA from the reasonable Marcus Price to the unreasonable Pucillo. I reamin satiafied but not content.

I don't think it is double-speak at all. I am confident where we are because where we are still has a whole bunch of things we can and will (my counter question is do you really feel we will go into pre-season without at least one and probably two significant additions to the OL) do to improve this unit. I think that the dumb non-football thing to conclude or assume is think that what we got is where we are in the semi-final reel as far as OL personnel. I actually would not be confident if we went into camp with what we got right now, but even with this group, I think that it can be made to work to be adequate and that what is going on right now is the Bills braintrust trying to acquire talent that would let us become dominant. Righ now, I see the OL roster as: RT: Williams- We are paying him an OL star cap hit contract and normally the RT does not command this type of money.MW will need to prove in the voluntary camps or by the end of the season at worst that he is enough of a player that he can make the shift to LT to protect the QB's blindside (as he did in college with a lefthanded QB) or alternately that JP is mobile. pocket aware, and tough enough that MW need only provide organization and leadership to this unit the way RB made the unit perform better as LG in 2002, The latter is a lot to expect from a 4th year player so I think he needs to show the onfield goods to justify shifting him to LT or he should be cut. RG: Villarial- A stud at his position with a not unreasonable cap hit which allows us to get other players we need. He took one bad penalty in an early game this year (though there is now some dispute whether this was a correct call) but otherwise I have no complaints about his play. C: Teague- There has been a huge upgrade in his performance since his early days as a C in 2002 when he actually could do the indidivual pieces well enough, but multi-tasking and calling blocking assignments, delivering the snap correctly (particularly the shotgun), and taking on a charging huge DT was too much for him to do all at the same time. Last year saw hin be able to do all this things well enough and if he hadn't suffered yet another serious injury (unlike his previous boo-boo it only cost us 4 games rather than putting him on the IR) I wouldbe pretty confident in Teague. I think he is good enough at center, but our needs and his talents can easily see us finding a better one (DeMulling?) and shifting him to LT to fill the JJ hole. I think he was adequate at best as an LT to Denver. However, he was adequate coming off an ACL injury which he seems to have recovered from so I think he will be good enough at LT or C though his injury last year makes it crucial he have a good enough back-up. I also think his center experience should help make him a better LT if he needs to switch. LG: ?- This remains a hole for the Bills but this is one that we have several candidates to fill: A. I think Lawrence Smith was inadequate, but I think that folks need to realize that the leap from the Ravens PS to starting LG is so huge its crazy to expect he would be adequate. What impressed me about Smith was that he seems to be better at pas pro than run blocking which is unusual as the former is the more difficult task to mast uaually. If Smith makes the same iimprovement this year that he made last year he will be phenomenal. I expecthe will not make such a huge jump, but I think he certainly will be a more than reliable experienced back-up and there is a real chance our LG needs can be met by him. B. Tucker was actually an upgrade over Smith at LG and he would be my lead candidate for the job if I did not want him to play the same role as a back-up C (an in a pinch either G spot) he played last year. LT- There is a hole hear caused by the departure of JJ (whom I wish well because he seems like a nice guy but the $5+ million annual contract he got from the Niners is more than the Bills should pay for a player who never played a full season in his pro career even at LT given the huge cap hit of MW), but there are several candidates already on the roster for this spot though a shift of former LT Teague from C moves Tucker up and creates reserve holes or a flip of MW if he is already ready creates an RT hole. In addition to these two whom I think can defineitely fill the spot, there are several players on the roster who MIGHT be able to step up and do so though I doubt it. Namely this is Gandy who played LT for the Bears, Tucker who played tackle when he first joined the league and even Peters who is talked about as a phenom who may be ready though I think this is misinformation for others. Add to that McFarland and even Smith who are really unlikely but have practices as the tackle slot. Add to this mix that there are several folks on the roster who are candidates to fill the Marcus Price primary T reserve role (Gandy primarily) and also Espositio and Pruce who are back-ups at best. Even if the Bills made no other changes I think this year's group is at least the equivalent of last year's inadequate group which almost made the playoffs. I feel good because I feel from that this OL is at least as good today as last year's model and that between internal development of Tucker/Smith as potential starters and McFarland/Pruce/Esposito as potential back-ups, remaining FAs we are negotiating with like DeMulling and Womack, trade potential for Shelton, the draft for prospects, cap casualties come June and the signing of Gandy to play the Price role (though Price is not a goner yet) we are in very good shape.

I think we fans really suffer from an affliction exacerbated by fantasy leagues (which I happily participate in) where we overvalue the importance of the draft and judge players by potential and how they look on paper. My personal though is that trading Henry for a draft pick (even a 2006 1st round pick) would really be a sad loss and a risky maneuver as postential just means you haven't done anything yet at best. I think the Bills are far more helped by getting even a lesser player than former Pro Bowler Henry at a position of need for our team right here right now. I have no reason to doubt and it fits with my sense of real life occurences (though I would overjoyed to see real research on this point if anyone has the link or is willing to take the time) that even 1st round choices are 50/50 at best to contribute something in this league. Discount this further by trading for a pick in some future draft so you are guranteed to get no value whatsoever this year out of what you traded and under contract former Pro Bowler for and trading TH for a future pick seems like giving up something for nothing but hopes and dreams. The 2005 Bills (the only team I care about) need a back-up RB to ease the burden on WM and need players at a number of other positions to allow this squad to make the playoffs this year. In a league where worst to first has become possible more quickly than ever before and with us sitting on a top 5 D (easily) and perhaps the #1 ST, the concept of trading for future considerations seems like a crime to me. Even getting a lat er pick this year means getting a player who must be trained before he contributes. Trade TH if we get a good deal for him (which to me means a player who is better than the player we have at the position- for example I do not care whether anyone thinks Shelton is good or bad on some pretend scale, I simply care whether he will be a better LT than Teague, MW, or Peters or whatever option we have there). However, keep Henry and do the tough work of getting good #2 RB performance out him if we do not get a good deal for him. It will be a good piece of employee management and coaching to get a good #2RB year out of TH. However, even if we are forced to do this, it seems quite doable. Henry's goal in all of this is to score the biggest FA contract he can get. if the Bills do not trade him, he would so clearly undercut his own self-proclaimed goals that I doubt this will happen no matter how juvenile or foolish folks claim Henry is. Mismanaging his money and having to give the Bills a year in return for some upfront cash and his choice of loud music featured in one interview does not speak highly about his judgment. In addition, I can see that folks wished he had done the "manly" self-sacrificing thing and stayed here and fought for his job with WM (though WM is obviously a better player so he would lose this fight). However, he also kept his mouth shut when WM took his job and left the media which desperately wanted an RB "controversy" to help them sell ads were left tryingh to interpret hisbody lanaguage to claim he was pouting. Also, Henry has done quick 180s when he initially reacted badly to the Bills drafting WM so clearly he is getting and taking better advice to shut up when it is going to cost him bucks in the long run. I really like the realtionship that TD, TH, and Th's agents have fostered where Henry has done TDs work for him in sizing up the market of interested teams so TD could save his chits for trad negotiations rather than have to spend them even determining trade interest. I hope TH is gone for a player that can help us right now, and though keeping him will be tough work to have it all work out, i would far rather have the negative for the Bills be working to make it work with TH as #2 rather than trading him for a draft pick which i see at risky at best and probably means giving up this resource for no value now in almost all cases and potentially no value in the future unless the draftee pulls off the difficult chore of making it in the NFL.

Cause it ain't over yet. I think it is obvious that we want and almost certainly need some better players on OL. However, I think RIGHT NOW it is clear that: 1. The Bills braintrust knows we can certainly use some more talent on the OL and is trying to acquire it. 2. Despite many of the most talented guys (Jones/Pace) being unavailable due to tags and being too expensive (it looks like DeMulling may get an offer beyond his worth and I think the Niners paid more for JJ than he is worth to the Bills) I think there are a number of opportunities still available for the Bills to pick up OL players that fit within the salary cap budget of a winning Bills team who may well upgrade our performance over current levels (the key here is not judging simply whether a player is good, but more important whether he is better than what we got). 3. FA is a great tool for improving OL and team performance, but it is not the Holy Grail and the only way to improve team performance. Its a great thing (I think the Gandy acquisition is an upgrade for us at a cap friendly cost) but is merely the current act in still unfolding play where there are several acts to follow for upgrades to our Ol and team. Specifically, I look to: A. Ongoing FA acqusitions: we are still in the hunt for DeMulling who is we can get him at an affordable cap hit (its going to be tough for us to go higher than a $3 million annual salary as this is what we are paying Villarial and already made a larger commitment to MW who simply needs to step up to be the 4th player selected he was originally signed to be- it looked doubtful he could do this after his grandma died and he skipped off-season workouts last year, but given his performance last year once he got his act together this is no sure thing at all but possible. If we can get a quality talent like a deMulling at an affordable price I say go for it. If not, then JMac and the crew need to gauge whether folks like Womack can be enough of a player (he sounds like he needs an attitude adjustment of the type successfully accomplished with Sam Adams so he ends his history of low discipline and taking too many plays off) to be worth what will probably be a good lower cost in this OL market. B. Trades: The Shelton/Henry deal is dormant for now, but soes make a lot of sense for both teams. If Henry and a long-term contract is in fact the sticking point, he needs to realize that the Bills are not going to trade him unless we get the goods and that he will need to be the best back-up for WM he can be if we decide not to trade him and he still wants a big FA score. If he sticks around, he needs to play as well as he can because if he does not he will add another non-productive year to his resume and it won't take too much in terms of bad mouthing if he leaves folks here with a sour taste from the 2005 experience for him to only be able to pull around the NFL minimum when he hits the FA marker next year. A trade for Shelton or some other OL talent looks less likely now but is still a possibility. C. Cap casualties: It does surprise me that folks seem to have their panties all up in a wad over not having better players right here right now. it certainly would be far better to have folks in the fold now because they would get voluntary camp practice as Bills and continuity is something to be valued. However, when June 1st comes around, I suspect there may be some interesting OL cap casualties available and if so the Bills can still pick up a talented vet who it is to be hoped can fit in quickly and produce. I'm not saying this will happen (many players have escalators in their contracts which force the decision to cut them to be made earlier than the June 1st date) but this is possible. The 2001 Pats team which won the SB picked up about 15 players after the June date that year. D. The draft: It is unlikely that the Bills will be able to pick up a player in this year's draft who will contribute to this year's team. However, it is possible if the Bills see a player who is worthy of their first pick (2nd round) who is on the OL or we trade Henry for a first day pick. Again, the draft is an unlikely source of an OL contributor this year but this is possible. E. Internal development: This is even a more likely spot for the Bills to find immediate help than the draft as several players are on the roster who are actually ahead of where Lswrence Smith was last year when we acquired him off the Ravens PS and he became an inadequate starter on our troubled OL. Again this is less than likely but cannot be ignored as a real source for a quality back-up and maybe even if lightening strikes a real player. F. Coaching Improvement: The bog deal here for the Bills is that we saw last year what a difference it made in the output and learning of individual players to have an experienced hand like JMac directing things rather than the not-ready-for-primetime Ronny Vinklarek whose primary resume stuffer that got him the OL position coach job was that he was a friend of GW since he had never held the OL job before. Even this could not save him as he lost the job after two years of nothing to show for it beyond what Ruben and player talent did for the group and we "upgraded" to Ruel who brought 1 year of OL position coach experience with Detroit to the job. Say what you want about your assessment of JMac but no one can argue that he wasn't a huge upgade over Vinky and Ruel. In fact beyind that he did take an OL with NYG which featured talents at the level of Dusty Ziegler and quickly fashioned them into an OL unit which was hailed as a key to them making the SB that year. Clearly with the addition of a quality rusher like WM who ran through many mistakes our "work in progress" OL made JMac did an outstanding job under the Clements plan: A. Doing a major attitude adjustment an training of MW to get a good performance out of him last year when he entered the season looking like a bust in minicamp. B. Filling the void left by the demise of Ruben (a demise dictated by the Butler overpayment to him years ago and by him publicly taking on Kevin Gilbride for his mismanagement of the team- Ruben was correct in protecting himself and his teammates for GW/i;bride excuses, but if you take on the boss you're probably dead in this world) with the development of Smith and filling the gaps in Smith's redzone game with some quick teaching and innovative usage of Bannan as LG. c. Guiding a masterful juggling of the OL as we went into the streak caused by the injury to Teague and the too often exits from games by Jennings which caused him to plug in Tucker and Price effectively so we never even noticed these burps as far as W/L during the streak. As we head into 2005, not only will JMac get a second year with players such as MW, Tucker and Smith but he and Clements, MM and he are going into their second year of working together rather than getting to know each other while I the same time dealing with the disarray of players they had not chosen who lacked good training working in a system they did not design. It strikes me as shortsighted for folks to simply declare players like Smith or Tucker not good enough. If Smith has anywhere near the progress in his game from 04-05 that he had from 03-04 where he progressed from the PS of the Ravens to not only make the active roster of the Bills but winning a starting job over the at least ill-trained if not ill-picked Pacillo then he will be very good this year. I see know reason why Tucker and Smith should not progress at least somewhat under JMac this off-season and if they do they will at least be solid back-ups and may well win starting jobs over some better playing FAs we bring in. So in the picture, I do not think our OL players are good enough yet for them to be where we want them to be. However, even with the exchange of JJ for Gandy on the roster, I am quite pleased to see us where we are which is to have a lot of options on the roster and several more opportunities between now and the voluntary camps and between now and pre-season to improve the OL even more. I'm not worried at all about the OL in fact I am quite psyched. I am confident this crew will be better and I haven't even gotten to the fact they will be running pas pro for a far more mobile QB who can avoid tackles when they make the mistakes all players do and who actually offers up a lot of weapons as a running and accurate passing QB while in motion. I liked a lot of what MM did with Bledsoe and his strengths and limitations, but no one ever mistook Bledsoe for a runner or for a QB whose accuracy suffered a lot when he was forced to move. I am really pysched.

Many folks seem to insist on judging Bledsoe by a standard which has only two choices. Either he can do everything or alternatively he can do nothing. Clearly he can't do everything therefore the only remaining choice is to insist that he has nothing to offer whatsoever. However, though there seems to be relatively little we can be sure of in this world, I think we can be sure that both of these extreme views are flat out wrong. I think TD was correct in the final view he took toward Bledsoe as a Bill. He ain't the team's QB of the future and in fact it is pretty doubtful he is even a QB for the present for the Bills. He had his shot to make the playoffs with the team last year and in fact to make plays which would carry the team to the playoffs in the game against Pittsburgh where our main method for winning we used during the winning streak simply gave up the ghost. Both the D and the ST played miserably rather than turning in the outstanding performances we had seen from them for the most part during the winning streak and given this unfortunate production outage, Bledsoe simply proved incapable of taking a poor performing team on his shoulders and provide the difference to give us victory (it seems odd to this non-football professional that it came to this because I could have and did say on TSW that after the Bledsoe debacle season of 2003 he was not the starter for the Bills). It is still 50/50 at best that Losman is the QB of the present as this youngster almost certainly needs to go through the slings and arrows of development, however, even this 50/50 offers a better chance for the Bills riding to victory with JP starting than oer-relying on Bledsoe. However, this conclusion is way different than claiming Bledsoe has nothing left, is a statue, can only throw the ball 75 yards twice a game or any of the other barbs folks throw his way, which strike me as foolish and having little to do with real football assessment. I think where TD was right this off-season was to really want Bledsoe as a #2 QB (and to require that if he wanted to remain a Bill he take a cap hit consistent with that position). I'm pleased as punch that we now have Holcomb as our #2 because he has shown some good production in this role, is saying all the right things in terms of putting a damper on any QB controversy (though all it will take is the likely JP debacle which happens to all QBs young and old at some point (except maybe Joe Montana) and will certainly happen to JP at some point in '05), is an older hand who should be able to school JP in his development, and most important for the Bills success has agreed to a salary which will help us address our other critical needs. However, I certainly feel that as much as I like Holcomb as our #2 that Bledsoe would have been even a better choice as #2 IF he was willing to take a paycut. I think the real deal here is that Bledsoe (because he was forced to do it by Lewis' hit and Brady's play) did everything you want a #2 to do in 2002: 1). He developed a great relationship with Brady and could stand on the sidelines and watch the game with his 10 or so years of experience and talk to Brady when he came to the sidelines and work with the youngster as only another playing QB can do to point out things for him to see and do. Bledsoe himself has proved incapable of doing the right thing consistently under pressure and QB in the NFL is complex enough that it is the rare player who can usually both see and do the right thing with a 250 lb. behemoth trying to rip your head off while you work. However, as overly complext as the NFL is, playing QB is not brain surgery (as the brilliant Jim kelly demonstrated with his great production on the field while clearly being an enchilada short of a good combo platter off the field). Bledsoe has been around enough to see lots of stuff and in 2002 demonstrated a great ability with brady to download his knowledge effectively even though he showed difficulty translating this knowledge into good play himself when you gave him the ball. 2). He pulled off the ultimate job for the #2 which was to step into a must-win game when Brady was injured and play the majority of the game to a victory and even throw the winning pass. His average at best play this game and his numbers clearly indicate he is not the starter, but the #2 is not the starter and he did exactly what the #2 QB should do which was to play QB in the majority of a must-win game to a win. Even better, rather than being a cancer as many athletes would he accepted the correct judgement of BB amd sat bacl amd turned the reins back over to Brady for the SB game without much or any hint of a fit. He also accepted the correct judgment of BB/Kraft and the crew that it was the right thing to do to trade him and stick with Brady as the NE QB of thefuture. 3. He demonstrated that he had something left by having a 2003 season that merited his 2002 reserve Pro Bowl nod for the Bills (if yiou disagree fine but we would love to hear the specific player (or players if you dub Bledsoe a stiff) you think deserved it more. He showed with his production issues as the season wore on and by his horrible 2003 season that he is clearly not a team's QB of the future, but he also showed last year through some good use by MM/TC of his remaining talents (he even ran the draw and pulled of some great fakes and flea flickers) that he can still play the game. However, he showed in the Pitts game that though he can be an acceptable QB on a team with dominant D and ST play all the time and I think can be counted on to be the #2 he clearly is not the future, and probably not the present, but there are good roles he can play as a QB. I think the question is whether Bledsoe can play on a successful Dallas team next year, not whether he is still a stud QB. He ain't (if he ever was) a stud QB, but I think that if only because the NFC Central (or whatever they are called now) was so bad, the Boys do have a reasonable shot at making the playoffs next year. The keys in my mind are: 1. The opposing teams in the division produce like they did last year- Certainly possible as from what I see even a leading light like Joe Gibbs is still flailing with his team. 2. He gets a WM like running game out of his youg RB- Certainly possible given his performance once he recovered from injury. 3. He gets a solid D performance out of the Boys- I did not watch them closely enough to say for sure, but I doubt that Drew Henson and the O were responsible for what little they did well last year. i doubt Bledsoe will lead the O to great production, but a quality HC like Parcells knows that the key here is to make Bledsoe "throw the damn ball" as he got Bledsoe to do when he played QB to an SB for Parcells with NE. 4. He gets the reserves and judiciious use of starters on ST to get production out of this unit- Getting production from marginal players has been what Parcells has been all about in his successful career. Willl the Boyus and Bledsoe win the SB? I really doubt it and think folks can pretty comfortably bet against it if you find any takers. However, will Bledsoe lead the Boys to the playoffs and be designated once again as Comeback Player of the year (likely cinching his presecence in the HOF if he does so)? I wouldn't bet on it, but i wouldn't bet against it either.

The odd part about all this to me is that I don't feel like TH has been all that bad in terms of his general attitude. Like all NFL players he is overpaid for the entertainment he provides as an athlete, but this would be true even if he performed well last year and it was certainly true the two years before when he gained roughly 1400 yards a year rushing or in the 2002 season when he hauled in over 40 passes. He certasinly likes music I find stupid as demonstrated in his worst article about him last year. Personally, I would prefer to see him stick to his guns and try to make it as hard as possible for McGahee to take his job, even though it is pretty clear that WM is our #1 unless he is hurt. However, I find it hard to fault him for not trying to use the market he is being inserted into by the Bills trading him to get the maximum amount of dollars he can get. Rather than whining about how horrible a man Travis is, I wish the whiners would actually follow the line Henry took last year when a better player took his job and simply kept his mouth shut. it was actually a combination of hilarious and pathetic watching many posters and some media-hacks try to interpret his body language riding the pines last year as pouting when his silence did not provide them with any tangible or real evidence of him being a cancer. TD has struck me as making the right Pro-Bills moves and pronouncements in terms of Henry as he has spoken consistently of valuing Henry as a player and expressing a desire that he will be happy to have him stay unless someone offers us a good deal for him (dub? this is the attitude to have to increase his value if you trade him or to patch fenses and have him back up WM if you get no good offers). I'm overjoyed if we trade Henry for a resource that helps the team (actually a vet player in my mind rather than a speculative draft choice of some future benefit at best strikes me as the wya to go to help the Bills) but I'm quite haoppy to keep him as well as long as MM can get production out of him as a back-up. I suspect if TH stays, he will be forced to be as productive as he can be as a back-up, because if he is not he will become an FA but really destroy his ability to get the long-term contract he wants. TD did a great job releasing Henry to find a deal early on and letting him scope out the market for the Bills. I have no problem with the aggressive way Henry and his agents have gone about doing the Bills work. Doing the deal would be great, but if it does not happen, having a former Pro Bowler as WM's back-up is not a bad thing and this former Pro Bowler would need to perform as WM's back-up or he is endangering and actually probably forgoing exactly the deal that he is after. Perhaps the best argument that posters can make that Henry is a whining baby who will definitely do things which do not serve the Bills interests is that it often does take one to know one.

Don't mess with success. Stick with the 4-3. In many ways the designation of 4-3 or 3-4 is an illusion for the Bills who are going with their variation of the run/blitz package developed by LeBeau and now run extremely wel by Gray. Due to Schobel's motor and athleticism, Kelsay's motor and the fact he has operated within it for his two pro years and Denney's wingspan and athleticism, our DEs can cover well in the short zone and operate as much like LBs as they act like pure DEs.

I actually shouldn't rag on Matthews too much (it's a by-product of folks seriously considering him as our #2) because though I do not think he is capable at all of being made our #2 when our #1 is a hopeful but risky choice, I think he would be a great choice as our #3. 1. He has seen a lot at QB in his 11 years and the ability to see things on the sidelines and in film that the #1 cannot see as easily in the heat of battle is a big part of both back-ups jobs. 2. He has played under Clements/Wyche and in the Bills O for a year. 3. He has built whatever chemistry he has with our back-ups as he ran the scout team for us. 4. He has experienced some success for us in a come-off the bench role last year in blow-outs as MM worked to give him a good swan song. While, it would be foolish in my opinion to rely on him to play the Frank Reich role (give you a credible chance to win 3 games or so if your #1 went down), I think he could play the disaster QB role well of watching and being a virtual QB coach for the #1 and 2 QBs and might even be able to play the AVP role of coming in and being productive in one game as the opponents totally let down their guard after knocking 2 Bills QBs out of the game. I think the mistake many Bills watchers make is to measure the quality of our #2 QB or our disaster QB by the same standards they apply for choosing a #1 QB. I can see how this happens, but this view fails to realize that under the salary cap, your #2 needs to be adequate but really not that good (otherwise in the semi-free market of the NFL he would command a cap hit which you do not want to weaste on the bench). In addition, your first goal is to hope/plan for your #1 not to get hurt, because the #2 and #1 QB jobs (and certainly your #3) are really different jobs with a different skillsets needed than your starter. A third point is that unfortunately in the real world, if your number 2 QB does what you want and plays well and your starter is struggling, a good professional acts like an adult and bides his time because he will get a payoff when the next off-season comes around and a non-professional acts like a juvenile (not surprising actually since most athletes are coddled youngsters really) and becomes a cancer. I don't think many fans can accept what I think is the fact that Bledsoe (for example) was a marginal choice (at best and probably an unacceptable choice) to be the starting QB for the Bills, but if he were man enough to take the salary reduction, he would have been a great choice to be our #2 QB. He had been great in this role as the #2 when injury gave Brady the chance to take his job, but he still wanted to star and lead a team (as unlikely as this is) and would not take the salary reduction necessary for him to be the #2 here. TD was correct to cut him, but was also correct to want him to stay here as #2.

I think there were a lot of factors which led to the Bills braintrust being solidly behind starting Bledsoe even after an 0-4 start and the same would be true for JP if this misfortune falls upon us again. Among the reasons for sticking with Bledsoe were: 1. He was still the Bills best option for winning games unless you had some psychotic belief in Matthews or psychotic hatred for Bledsoe. 2. TD and the Bills had just stupidly over-invested in Bledsoe restructuring and resigning him after a putrid 03 and egos were on the line. 3. Bledsoe was not the sole or even the leading cause of the 0-4 start and simply changing QBs (particularly to Matthews) was not likely at all to reverse the Bills fortunes. 4. MM believed in his approach and his choices and stuck with them feeling that the teams results would turn around if they stuck with his approach. There were probably other reasons of import, but the lesson to take for consideration of the leash on JP is that were the Bills to get off to a horrible start. a lot depends on how this happens. If the results occur because of Losman errors he is more likely to get benchhed. However, if we lose because of a last minute opponent drive when JP left the field with a lead, even though one could fault the QB for not leading the team to a 30 point lead so an aooponent could not pull off an upset like the Jags did in Buffalo last season JP will be stuck with.

I passed on posting this notion because it was clear that the Bills had put a laot of the fans marbles in the Losman basket and scared or not if I was gonna root for my Bills to dominate this meant rooting for JP to dominate. I think JP has shown some great tools and though I do not expect any first time starter to dominate and he will have to go through a learning curve, I feel so good about our D (statististically top 5+ 2 years in a row) and our ST (#1 in the league under April or pretty close to it) that I think that the good news is that all JP needs to do is not make mistakes and play average to pull off the same trick RoboQB pulled off in Pitts last year. However, JP is just a youngster with potential and potential means you haven't done anything real yet. Holcomb is a smart athlete because he is saying all the right things about looking forward to backing up and mentoring Losman, but he has really moved himself up in a big way coming from a Cleveland squad which is troubled at best, going into the first year with it HC, is and has been hamstrung by the accelerated cap hits fpr having to cut Couch, Garcia and likely additional draft errors, and instead Holcimb comes to a Bills team ready to make a move even if the QB doesn't lead the way. I think JP will be the real deal, but this is as much hope as it is think because he is such a youngster. Holcomb is such an improvement over what Matthews promised as #2 it isn't even funny. I think that few players are in as good a position as Holcomb in terms of having a reasonable chance (though not the first chance) at playing QB for a reasonable team. I really am impressed not only with his record of past productivity as a #2, but with him saying all the right things to avoid a QB controversy but if called upon he is poised to gain maximum advantage if JP proves not to be as productive as I think he can be and ends up riding the pines as many youngsters do in this league.

I trust JMac ernough that I would guess that when makes public comments he is just as likely blowing smoke as he is giving the fanbase insights and the inside story on decision making. When given a choice between being honest with customers like me or blowing smoke to start buzz which confuses the opposition, I say please lie to me. its far more important to not give the enemy our plans and even to fool them so we maximize our chance for Ws, than to be honest with me. The first thing I want from JMac is for him to build a quality OL and teach winning football to players within and running the MM/Clements system. Its a long distance to any thought on my part that he worry about anything else. After he fulfills the requirement to teach good football, I hope he is saying things that keep the young men who are our athletes happy. He should not lie to them, because if he does reality will catch-up eventually and once you lose the trust of the team then we cease to be a TEAM. However, these young men are human and blowing a little smoke their way through over-effusive praise for MW or talking up Peters road to remaining a pro is to accept and master a blocking role is fine by me as a management tool. Third, I doubt that enemy teams pay much attention to what an AC is saying in som gym to an audience of fans. However, if by lying about our plans to go with Peters as the starting LT, it generates a buzz in the media or on fan bulletin boards like TBD that we already have a starting LT, therefore if you are negotiating with us over Shelton you might not want to demand a lot for him. that lie would be more than fine with me. Personally, I do not believe the Peters as LT buzz, because why on earth would I want to make an ineligible receiver out of this phenom who first attracted attention because of his blazing speed and incredibly soft hands. Particularly with the injuries to Euhus and Campbell, if I had such a phenom on my hands, using him as a TE rather than relegating him to the T role would be my first choice. If one wants to argue for Peters as a T, you not only have to endorse him making this jump in positions, but you have to explain why you do not train him to do what he already has done well (catch the ball at TE) and why this is not a need for us. Is he on the depth charts as a tackle? You bet. However, I think this to continually emphasize to this man who appears to be an enchilada short of a combination platter mentally that the key to him becoming our #1 TE is him learning and mastering the blocking game, because clearly he can catch and run with the ball.

Since the "golden era" began in the late 80s when Ralph changed his payment investment strategy and laid out the big bucks for Bruce Smith and under the guidance of Bill Polian and he scouting of John Butler, my nominee for the worst coaching hire was the stupidity of Marv in hiring Chuck Dickerson as an AC. Not only did Dickerson have a horrible record of coaching Ds in college which had been rolled over time after time by opponents which establishes it as a dumb hiring by Levy, but Dickerson went beyond being a bad Xs and Os AC to then so alienate the guy who hired him that Levy fired him, but he then went beyond the field to sale his wares at GR and proceeded to not only make give godawful bad advice (who can forget his deciding the Corey Louchiey was the answer to the Bills LT problems) but he then proceeded to impact play on the field by launching a crusade against Glenn Parker (not a great player, but not the key to the Bills problems) and in fact drove Parker out of town to create room for Louchiey who promptly showed nothing. Parker as it happened though bad was actually coachable by a real AC and played a critical role his helping his new employers get to the SB. There are bad ACs all over the place, but Dickerson gets my vote because not only did he hurt the team on the field, but established a persona off the field on GR where he lauched jihads which made him a few bucks. but in the end hurt the team's play.

Good sources for this type of info is the salary cap report in Billszone.com which is prepared by clumpingplatelets who often posts here. Another resource is the salary cap page at Billsdaily.com. For non-Bills specific data like cap levels and the amount need for various tenders, a good resource is the player union's website at nflpa.com. In this sites media section you will find tons of specific stuff like the current franchise and tender tag amounts for each position, the cap hits and names of the top 10 players at each position and the ability to search for individual players and get the publicly released salary data for each player over the future of his contract.

When he madwe the roster as an T, it was my sense that this was done primarily not because he was visualized as the future answer at tackle, but to emphasize to him that his future as a TE would be determined by him achieving at least an acceptable level as a blocker. Peters made the PS because he demonstrated extraordinary speed and athleticism for a man his size and incredibly soft hands to boot. However, he did not stick on the roster because mentally he did not demonstrate the ability to pick-up and perform the switches necessary for a blocker when the center made line calls. Further he clearly needed more time to master even minimally pro blocking techniques. He showed some progress and good attitude on the PS and made the roster because other teams seemed willing to possibly sign him to a roster level contract. As a player he unfortunately showed a bit of the brain cramps feared as early on he got penalized for not reporting to the refs he was in as an eligible receiver even though he had an interior lineman number. However, when used on the scout team going up against our frontline OL players on ST, he proved to be unblockable and earned a spot on our punt, PAT, and FG blocking squad and turned that role into a quick six for us in his first game. I would not count on Peters at all as a blocker for us, however, this is not because I don't think he can master this job over time, but because it would take him out of our plans as a pass catcher. If he proves to be enough of an athlete to win a starting job as a tackle, he is almost certainly enough of an athlete to earn a job at our now open position of TE.

By adding Clements to the equation I think you muddy up the question. If yoyu were asking who is the best pick for the Bills from among these 15 that is one question, but asking which of these players is worth trading Nate Clements for is another. None of these players who at best have great potential (meaning they haven't done anything real yet) is worth a NFL vet who made it into the Pro Bowl at his position. I would not trade Clements for any of them. Even if you have given up on this season for the Bills and are willing to give up vet production for rookie potential, none of these players strike me as such a deadlock certainty to reach his potential that it justifies trading Clements for them. So i would ask what is it that you really are asking before answering this question. If you are asking which of these players is the best athlete, that is a different question than asking which is worth Clements. In fact, as need is a more important factor to me than simply doing what TD says he does and pick the best player available, I am of the mind that if you feel you are close and a lesser player fills your needs at a position better than picking a better overall player at a position which is stocked, I'd happily pick a less talented player that filled my team's need than pick a more talented player who is going to mean somebody good is going to have to ride the pines for me.

I think the question is not whether you think JP or Drew was the right move. The move is done. JP is the man. Bledsoe is gone. We need to move on. The key outstanding question is what do we do now for a #2. 1. I think Matthews would be a great #3, but has little record of accomplishment in his 11 years and enough mileage on his body playing for hapless teams that I do not see hm at all as a credible #2. If he his #2, I think our best chance is that JP turns into a star and never gets hurt, rather than any confidence that Matthews (who is already retired in my mind) rather than it being reasonable to assume he can even play the Frank Reich role of giving this team a good chance for 3 starts. 2. I think the many demands we have, and good but not great cap room makes it unlikely we can pay the large amounts a former NFL QB starter of any accomplishment (SB wins like Warner and Johnson, Pro Bowl berths like Garcia) will likely command. Even worse, I think it is a fair question whether any of these players have enough left to be worth investing in. I think we will have to do the best we can as cheaply as we can with a #2 and hope for the best. As it stands, I think we likely will need to go with a back-up who has been around for awhile who we think/hope can show something under the QB career rehab magic of MM/TC to make our new #2 the real deal if necessary. I like the idea of us getting Batch, McMahon, or even Peete IF MM thinks he can revive one of them. Further, I like the idea of getting Kordell as MM has already revived him once but using him as a slash player and going with only 2 QBs on the roster. Our best shot will be if MM/Clements/Wyche can make it work with JP. This is possible but far from a sure-thing. We need another real possibility that probably won't work so you don't want to do it, but has better chance of working than Shane Matthews.

d wag, as you can see from the various responses, a lot of folks view "lowball" (if you want to use this pejorative label on TD's actions) is by far the right way to manage a team in today's NFL. I think your complaint would be stronger is it fit a lot of the facts, but in key ways it doesn't: 1. TD has actually been far too generous with some of his deals that Bills fans complain about. How one can classify the give-aways that he has done for players like Bledsoe whom he put too much faith in after a horrid '03 season, the over-payments he has made trying to compensate for poor assessment of the kicking game (Lindell, Hollis, Arians), and simple mistakes like giving Henry Jones and John Holocek more money and then cutting them are simply not the actions of someone who is a tightwad in all cases. 2. Actually many of the lowball moves have paid off quite well. The negotiation and investment strategy in the Sam Adams case and in the Takeo Spikes case were proven winners who merited their Pro Bowl selections along with the fact that both were cited in the press as signing for less than their market value (the same as the PW case you cite). Low-balling was great by TD and helped the Bills rather than hurt them. 3. TD has a clear record of actually offering players overpayments as deals to take out competition and avoid bidding wars. The Lawyer Milloy deal is a clear example of this and I am glad he overpaid Milloy because the overpayment has been lessened by his performance as one of our leading tacklers and the intellignece and omph he delivered leading to the initial blow-out of a team that became SB champions that year. 4. In the immediate case, their clearly are a variety of other options on the burner at LT in case the market takes JJ away (and there is even a reasonable possibility that the LT market in '05 is quite unlike the LT markets that delivered too big contracts to folks like Petitgout and Clifton. It is my hope that the market actually allows us to hang onto JJ for less than the market gave to these two lesser players. It may not, but it is certainly worth the risk. This is also true of PW who simply is not worth $5 million to us at 32, but if the market allows us to get him for less, he seems willing to stay for less than $5 mill and it would be dumb to simply sign him for more right now. So "lowball"? He clearly does not dedicate himself to this in every case and I have no problem with that being his general approach to things except in cases like Milloy where we simply have no other options.

I and many have high hopes for JPL developing into a contributing NFL player quickly, but even at his lofty vet status in his second year, whose future has been declared to be now by the Bills he is still a young unproven QB to me. He has great potential, but potential simply means you haven;t done anything yet. Since we already have a young QB, adding another one simply seems redundant to me. It might make a little sense if we had a number 2 who could credibly step in and give our team a reasonable chance of winning if JP gets dinged again (I think it is too early to label him as injury prone given the willingness and ability he showed to take hits in college- RJ really has made Bills' partisans gunshy) or if JP needs development time before contributing and isn't ready yet (unlikely from what I see and hear, but easily possible for any 2nd year QB). However, Matthews as #2 strikes me as such wishful thinking that he is a credible #2 that it does make me laugh. Matthews would be a good #3 because he has been around the NFL awhile, played well enough in mo-up duty last year and knows the Bills O, but his career is one of a journeyman and it is unreasonable to expect him to play even the 3 game Frank Reich role if called upon. The nore credible the #2 we get the more reasonable it is to get a young QB at #3. However, the reasonable course to me would be to spend as best we can for a #2 (Batch, Kordell, McMahon, Peete?) and then hope Matthews (or his wife) decides he can sign on to carry the clipboard and help groom JP.

On the eve of FA, I just wanted to take a little time (in the midst of a rpad-trip for work) to thank Clumping Platelets for all of his diligent work on the salary cap. His work at Billszone has been a great asset for us silly Bills addicted partisans. Not only has his work been detailed and super, but he is smart enough to realize that even those who are paid way too much money to manage it get things incorrect about the facts or make odd manaferial decisions even with better access to the facts than we have get it wrong, but also he has seemed quite willing to entertain new info and correct his record since NOBODY on the outside really knows it all in terms of the cap. I for one am happy folks rose to his defense when folks accused him of being wrong about his cut on the cap, when various press accounts which put the Bills cap room at a very impressive $8 million seem to indicate that Clumpy's estimates were a lot closer to reality than the $12-14 million numbers bandied about by sum. Clumpy, I hope the Bills somehow stumble upon the notion of paying you more than you deserve for the great work you do. As long as part of the job is keeping the lines of communication open to us fans we will all benefit from it!

All signs he indicate he does not want to leave (he says he will take less money to stay, friends on the team speak highly of him) and that TD and the Bills do not want him to go (they speak highly of Pat's role and he has been identified as oneof the three TD wanted to make a deal with last season though he felt he only had the money to get one done. However, though both want to play well together, there is at least uncertainty, if not a difference in what they believe the free market will offer PW. It looks to me like the odds are that JJ goes, but the odds are that PW stays. They are only odds because if someone makes a psychotic offer to PW he is gone. However, I think the cap constraints on the rest of the league and the fact they would have to take this risk on a good player, but a 30 or so year old good player makes it unlikely folks will go there.

Unfortunately, this is business and what Henry deserves matters little in today's world and particularly in the NFL. If playersor owners got the amounts of money they deserve they would've been asking Mother Theresa for a loan. This blip is actually a good sing to hear because it is a sign that a deal is proceeding along. If we head nothing or heard everything was going fine that would be a probable sign there was a problem. Henry certainly screwed up with his last contract (the draft position should have been slotted and though specifics vary should have been only screwable up within parameters) and now he is trying to make all he can out of a bad situation he created (stupid but logical). Those who say he has no leverage at all are wrong (Rickey Wiliiams demonstrated that by exercising leverage which screwed both him and the Fins and forcing a partner to try to avoid or minimize these worse cases is a form of leverage). However, though Henry has leverage, he can just as easily screw himself as screw his potential new partner AZ and a deal will be done if these two sides (and the Bills as a third side) demonstrate they can play well together. If they do they can all make out like bandits.

I agree with most folks in this thread that PW is a far more productive (even taking age into account) than Edwards, but unfortunately is a team is willing to give PW $5 mill annually that is too rich for our blood and PW is simply not worth tht much (particularly at his age with this level of production). I would disagree with those folks who seem to be comfortable with Edwards because of his good rush production (finally after several seasons of bad production even as a starter for us) as a reserve last year. He seems to much like Sean Moran was for us in that he was a wondeful sack threat as a reserve, however, when he had to pace himself as a starter to be productive the whole game it hurt his game. I think the hopes here rest in Aderson proving that he can step up after he showed nothing as a rookie. The best hope for the Bills here is that TD is right that PW simply will not get the big offers he wants and that the market for ST (in conjunction with us freeing up some cap room by letting JJ go will give us the room to resign PW to a reasonable deal.

I do find the mention of Disney World ironic since we were there 2 years ago and there was an outbreak of disease among numerous patrons there (I think about 50 or so people ended up in the hospital and gosh knows how many just ended throwing up at home because of a load of contaminated tomatoes were used in food preparation at Dismey World in FLA and got a bunch of folks sick. Yhe outbreak was actually not stypical of many food borne disease outbreaks in the country but this one got some press attention because at the time Disney was playing host to the US Tranplants Games so there were quite a few immune system suppressed folks exposed. These not infrquesnt outbreak in the US because so much food is transported long distances was probably more severe because there were a concentrated group of health concious and immune suppressed folks exposed, but fortnately no one died so this was probably a case of a lot of vomiting that the normal public gets but never notices. A place like Disney also seems more prone to these cases being noticed since they do food preparation in a central location that serves many different parks so that one could stay in any number of Disney hotels and get sick. I'm sorry for those folks who feel secure because they live in the good ol US of A, but if you go to any restaurants, evem those in the sticks in the USA, there is a reasonable chance that you may be eating third world prepared food or that the guy who lives down the block who prepared it did not wash his hands after he went to the crapper.

The key thing for the Bills with player assessment is not simply how good (or washed up) a player may be, but instead is he an upgrade over what we got and how much will that upgrade cost in the cap so we cannot upgrade elsewhere. Milloy was a great pick-up by the Bills even though he is clearly in decline, on the backside of his career and was replaced in NE by a more effective player, because if we didn't get him, the Bills likely would have suited up the not-ready-to-start- at SS Coy Wire and only had Reese and Prioleau on the roster when we really needed 4 safties. I think the Bills were smart to get Milloy and even pay a premium for him because who we would put on the field instead was a far more important issue than some opinion about how good he was or wasn't. The same lesson proved true at DT where some posters called Sam Adams a fat tub if goo, but my response was I didn't care because I judged a fat tub of goo tobe a better choice at DT than an underweight tub of goo, Edwards. In both cases, both Milloy and Adams actually had a lot more to contribute to this team than some whiners thought. As far as Law, application of the same dictum probably works the other way. I like the upside of McGee over Law and actually think he is equivalent at best to back-up Vincent. It will be fine to sign Law if he comes cheaply and the docs judge he can return to his previous form. However, I do not see him replacing the players we got so I'm not that interested in him even though I think he has a bit left in the tank.