Fake-Fat Sunny

The thing is at the little guys ALWAYS lode in sa war and actually even the country that wins the war militarily loses the war in terms of the aftermath (as we are unfortunately demonstrating today in Iraq where we have won the war, bollixed the peace and the country that was the big winner in the recent elections was Iran where Iraqy sympathizing Shiites were the big winners in the election, with anti Turkish (a NATO and US ally) Kurd forces strengthen their grip on the north. So too in the fake world of sports it is even dumber to fight a war since the goal is to make money and a partnership between the players and the owners is the best way to make big bucks/ A prime real life example of this is the NFL where the owners went to replacement players in the mid-80 and kicked the NFLPA's tail and their demands for 52% of the gross league income. In the face of the NFL winning the war, the NFLPA was so demolished they began to move to decertify themselves as a bargaining unit for the players. Faced with the prospect of actually having to compete in the free-market for players and without the NFLPA to join them in their restraint of trade activities like the NFL draft, the owners were forced to beat a hasty retreat and had to negotiate the CBA which provides the player with about 70% of the gross defined income. Even with certain cash streams like luxury boxes defined out of the gross, the players are making more money than ever and collaborate with the owners to restrain trade like barring Clarett from the draft. I simply hope that the owners realize that to the extent they are winning "the war" because the NHLPA is led by idiots they eventually going to lose the war unless they learn how to play well with others. Its less true but still true for the players as well.

The problem is that if JJ re-signs at the pre-emptive LT rate some seem to advocate ($ 5 mill seems to be the base rate in the past, $6 mill is the transition tag level, $7 mill is the franchise tag level and some folks even advocating tagging JJ), but this gets added to a definite cap hit for MW of $5.8, which means these two players would occupy more than $10 million of an $84 million cap for the whole team. Add a $3 million cap hit for Villarial, and a bit over $2 million for Teague and I doubt if it fits in the Bills budget to resign JJ and spend more than the current salary amount of the NFL minimum for a newbie at LG. If a fan feels new blood at LG is so critical then you should root against resigning JJ or at least for TD screwing him to the wall and signing him for little cause of the market.

I'm among the first to say that my thoughts thougj voluminous are mere theory and can be totally wrong if teams go in a different direction than I think makes sense. However, I think that the basic theory I have certainly differs from the conventional wisdom that there will be tons of demand out there for JJ and I differ from the conventional wisdom of great demand for JJ even before you get to assessment of his play because as I did some research to point out the market is a buyer's market (the teams looking) rather than being a seller's market (the player) and that should hold his price down nicely. I may be wrong (and for sure am wrong) about some individual team (actually teams) but I think my basic point remains uncontroverted except by the wishful thinking of those who for some reason think the 2005 LT market will be the same as the 2004 or 2003 markets, it is exactly those big contracts that were signed for LTs in the past which will restrict LT value this year as we shift from a seller's market to a buyer's market. People are going to buy that or understand that as they can so we can actually move on to some player assessment issues, even though I think they are a secondary factor in setting a price for JJ, You say "Miami needs an OL before everything else, starting with a stud at LT"- I agree but what you thinks that JJ is or might even will be a stud at LT? Has he been able to play a full 16 games in a season as stud LTs like Jones and Pace did the last two at any point in his career? No. Doe he pick up more penalties than other players on the Bills OL, or is he relatively penalty free like a stud OL player? No. Someone can go find the stats but I know at one point about 2/3 of the way through the season MW had 1 penalty (which was a sign of his progress and Villarial has one offside called on him which the league apologized for as it cost us a key 1st) meanwhile JJ was producing about a penalty every other game. The LT generally plays against tougher competition and is often out on his own and thus the refs see everything, but he does get his with a lot penalties. Can he be beaten like a drum by a stud DE. Yep. Every LT gets beat on occaision (as Ogden was beaten by Schobel and one play does not represent a problem, but Abraham beat him througout a whole game and stud LTs makes some mistakes (though they can shut out and dominate good players) but players are not studs if they get beaten consistently in a game, JJ is solid and may develop into a stud one day (an emphasis on the MAY) but his record of never having been durable makes this a hope rather than a good football judgment based on any objective criteria. You say: "They will probably draft a RB to go with Gordon" but trade and FA are just as likely a possibility, in fact they are more likely as Miami is short of a wn round pick. An RN pick-up strikes me as crucial for the Fins in terms of changing the team in terms of football and marketing as it will be essential to them washing the Rickey stain out of their hair, By relegating this option to the draft I think you under value the importance of this spot to the Fins. You say: "To say they will have no interest in JJ is just plain ignorant." Wrong? Almost certainly about some key points, but ignorant. No, I state some objective evidence for my views which I am happy to see objective evidence which speaks against my views rather than just mere opinion. You say: Bills will take a serious step bakcwards if they go with your stop-gap solutions at LT. MW will never be any good at LT because his footwork is too bad to handle speed rushers." Many fans seem more than happy to take a step back as they afvocated benching Bledsoe for first year guy JP snd even in his second year expect some development bumps but dislike Bledsoe so much they are willing to accept stepping back to move forward in the future, so if you want to complain about this there are bigger real issues on the horizon. As far as MW, simply list all the many speed rushers who beat him (I think he has more problems on the inside actually though having Villarial rather than Pacillo next door has helped alot). If this is such an issue for MW then one should be able to point out the players who performed the same way Abraham did on your stud JJ.

I also think the Bills coaching braintrust is right yo require Bledsoe to restructure and lower his cap hit if he wants to stay and that being upfront about their desire to have JP prove on the field that the future is now and let Bledsoe know JP and Bledsoe will be judged by how they produce on the field if Bledsoe chooses to restructure and stay. As best as I can tell this is what the deal is and I think this is the correct way to go. I douubt Bledsoe will be able to continue the rate of improvement in 2005 which saw him improve from horrendous in 2003 to be "merely" inadequate in 2004. However, like Coach Tuesday I trust Clements, MM and TD. I assume he means what he says and though I doubt that Bledsoe can earn the startwe\s job in the unlikely event he decides to stay, it would certainly be better for the Bills cap status if he decided to stay and if the braintrust decided he played well enough (or in what I think is the unlikely event that JP really sucks and ain't ready, I'm galf to see that Coach T. and others would embrace such a decision by the braintrust and welcome Bledsoe as our starter. I doubt this will happen but the critical thing here is that folks support the Bills leadership if that is what they decided.

Competition is a good thing so I certainly would endorse the Bills acquiring a player at a reasonable price to take on Teague or that we expect to beat him out on the field of play. However, I think it is pretty clear that the OL in particular is a unit where the whole can be alot better performing than the sum of the talent of the individual parts. Thus I am a lot more interested in us having talented unit leadership and direction from JMac within the context of an intelligent scheme of an O developed by Clements, operating using a feel and a methodology authored and maintained by MM using talent acquired by TD and the crew than I am being a slave to the individual talents of a particular player. We are seeing from the success of the Bills last year (and their failings under Vinky, Kildrive and GW) and the model of success by the Pats that the key here is not simply to get the best players but to get players who can perform well togrther and produce Ws. I trust in JMac to get rid of Teague if he is not good enough and drags the unit down. JMac (or Clements/MM or TD) are not immune from crtiticism by us fans but that criticism needs to start with their failings to produce on the field and we may reasonably identify the particulars of the play of some specific player as the cause of a lack of production. However, in my judgment the OL play is moving in the right direction and I am more than confident in giving JMac the rope to make the minimum/maximum changes necessary to continue this improvement and get the OL game up to adequate levels. As far as the inadequacies of the OL I see Teague as far more of a solution to their failings rather than the cause or a rate limiting factor that will liberate he OL to improve if he were replace by a better player. In terms of getting the OL upgraded and up to adequate play this off-season I advocate these actions: 1, Settle the LT issue one way or the other If you resign JJ I actually see fewer changes needing to be or usefuly being made. Commiting to JJ means committing to continuity and JMac's leadership as the main mechanism for improvement. AS MW currently has a cap hit of $5.6 million if you add the going rate of $5 million to resign JJ (though i would hope we could do less and get him because it will likely be a buyer's market at LT for a big change) I do not expect our cap budget to allow any more big expenditure on the OL even for a guard. if we get JJ on the cheap or let him go then getting other personnel is more likely, but even here I see getting a center like Raiola as allowing Teague to replace JJ rather than having any big problem with him as a player. 2. Improve the LG play. If cap room allows we can buy a better player and there are several FAs who should be upgrades over Smith (oddly a better pass pro than run blocker) and Tucker who may be of greater value as an interior line reserve for both G and the C position. If on the other hand we resign JJ at any cost, then I suspect we are committing to improving LG play by having JMac ge mor production out of Tucker or Smith (I do think that folks are incorrect to judge Smith a failure since actually I view the inmprovement he showed last year from being on the PS of the Ravens to becoming a starter for the Bills as huge! i would consider it a good year for him if he simply made a pro squad as a reliable back-up and he accomplished much more than this despite his falling short of being the starter we want and need. The sense that he actually is better at the more difficult duty of pass pro and needs to improve his run blockig actually point to potential that Smith may continue to improve and actually deserve a starting role this year with hard work and good teaching. 3. Keep MW improving. His cap hit is simply too large for an RT and he needs to either step up his play and actually justify moving him to LT or sign for a lot less money. Teague is a secondary issue for me.

The thing which strikes me as most odd about all of this is the sense I get from some posts that because the players are at fault then the owners are right. Alternately some seem to absolve the players or any blame because the owners are such idiots. Both sides seem wrong to me and though one may think one side or the other is more at fault, this doesn't matter because it takes two idiots to fight in this case and both sides deserve blame for this idiocy. I think folks can reasonably differ as to who will suffer the most from this idiocy, but even with this issue, it is gonna vary a lot as its hard to imagine a player who has taken in millions in insane contracts agreed to by the owners sufferimg at all even if the players never have a game to play at the NHL level again. Likewise the owners of the Rangers will be OK, but a few overexteneded owners will lose out from the loss of the season. I thin folks can also differ reasonably as to who they think will "win" in the ned (though I think I like most fans will pay something to see the best hockey players in the world whatever the forum and as far owners go any source of capital to provide this forum is fine by me. However, in the big picture it is hard for me to see one side being wrong as making the other side right no matter how stupid they are.

Opps, meant for this to be a poll

Owners: They Are Wrong Enough Players Escape Blame Players: They Are Wrong Enough Owners Escape Blame Both Are Wrong Enough to Deserve Blame

Once the season ends, everything is in play. The owners are losing less money paying arena owners or bondholders (even when the teams own the arenas they are actually paying banks and cities which fronted the money to build the arenas payments on the loans) with no league than lose paying off the loans and huge contracts to players, but they are still losing money. As the NHL has no season and is not a going concern, you will begin to see arena's beoming available for rent to anyone who can put butts in the seats to fill them. Just because the owners are stupid and doing wrong does not make the players smart or say they are doing the right thing. Both the owners and the players are dumb and doing the wrong thing. I think the miscalculation that the owners are making here though is that I will pay a little but not a lot to see the best hockey players in the world, but I could care less who owns the team. Owners provide capital which is essential to playing the game, but there are numerous sources of capital here in the western world and the best hockey players in the world remain the former NHL players. I love minor league sports for a while so I can deal with replacement players for a while, but i can deal with replacement owners for ever and ultimately the NHL not being a going concern simply creates a vaccuum for new capital. The players will need to be careful they are not beaten out by the WNBA or some other form of sports entertainment, but ultimately like the NFL strike the players will probably end up making more money than they ever made before even if they get beaten in a strike (lockout).

Signing Clements is a good thing, but it is a 2006 off-season necessity and we have bigger more immediate fish to fry right now. TD has shown good expertise at getting ahead of the calendar which is a good thing to do to manage the cap, but it is an easy thing to become so focused on the future you forget about the present. A Clements decision should be kept in mind, but until we square things away with the QB cap situation, find out the cap ramifications of decisions surrounding our two unsigned staters this year (a much better situation than almost all NFL teams), and even find out what level the cap is going to be set at for 2005 ($84 million probably but not certain) Clements action can easilywait. The Bills can extend Clements during pre-season and still be ahead of the curve in terms of making this decision early.

I disagree in that while current salary cap status is not even a near perfect indication of what a team will do, it is SOME indication of what a team will do. The Fins need and LT, but they need an RB, a QB, a WR as Boston is an idiot, a host of other line positions and even if you feel that Saban will focus on offense he cannot forget about a defense where the LBs are getting a little long in the tooth. In order for the Fins to go after JJ in a big way, they will have to: 1. Create cap room which they can and must by letting go current starters and thus create additional openings for cheap players. 2. Decide to spend that cap room on a player who has been good when he plays, but has never started all 16 games (unlike first tier players like Jones or Pace) in his career in his career. 3. Decide also to risk that precious cap resource on a player who like it or not does seem to take a bad penalty every other game at a rate which exceeds penalties to his linemates and can be beaten liks a drum on occaision by a better player as he was this season in the first NYJ game against Abraham. Perhaps the best argument they have for signing JJ is that he is a secon tier LT talent who will be far cheaper than first tier talents who will be available, but if thats the case it certainly doesn't argue for the Bills spending first tier money on JJ. They should take the risk of losing him and merely sign him to a second tier LT contract which will still be a bigger paycheck than he has ever seen. PS I only know Oben by name and will take a look to see whether they might add to the list of the JJ market. Even if they do join the list at 4 potential suitors, Teflon Tom should hang tough on this one.

JJs injury history is just the big factual wildcard here. if you look at the LTs who qualified for the Pro Bowll players like Pace and Jones are going into their 3rd straight season of starting every game and its not unheard of for some NFL LTs to rack up 60-100 straight starts. JJ has simply never had a season where he started all 16 in his four year career and year before last he ended up on IR and only logged about 12 starts. Add to that since I see him all the time there are a couple of games he started but was not able to finish (thank gosh for Price) because of a nick. I'm pleased he proved to be a gamer and was able to start the next week but this does not eliminate the fact he gets injured in a significant way that goes beyond the stats. Further, perhaps his nicks would be more forgiveable if his play was perfect when he can suit up, but he seems to get a critical penalty almost once a game and Abraham beat him like a drum last year in the first Jets game so he is good generally but can be beaten in a game. Once in a while simply happens, but its bad news when he gets outclassed in a whole game. I think he is worth resigning because consistency is important to performance and because he has had little adult position coaching in his career, but he is not worth a top 10 cap hit at this position and further I am willing to see us risk losing him to play a saturated LT market to the max.

I think the Bills should resign JJ to as cheap a contract as they can (my wild-eyed guess is roughly $4 million/ yr. cap hit but a WAG it is). Its a risk. but actually between the switch to an adult an OL coach (even if you don't think the world of JMac he is way much way better than Vinky and Ruel), the personnel that we have and JJ probably but at least due to a history of injuries is a big risk, I am happy to see the Bills "screw" him to the wall and still give him the biggest paycheck he has ever seen in his life. Cerainly, it would be preferable to keep JJ, but he is simply not a worthwhile risk at top 10 OL money, or quite frankly is a marginal risk to take for a contract that lesser players than JJ like Clifton and Petitigout signed in different markets. If JJ gets a better offer than the $4 million max annually I think the Bills should offer him, then we wish him well and drop back to some less preferable but doable plan Bs in my judgment. Our back-up plans to signing JJ for less than the previous LT market value strike me as: 1. MW has made definitie progress with is career after really letting down his teammates and the town last off-season when his Grandma died. Being rocked by the loss of the woman who raised you is understandable, but MW is paid bigger bucks than he and most people deserve to suck it up when these trouble hit and be a professional. He has a cap hit this year that is at an LT level and if JMac thinks he is up to it, he might make the flip to LT and guarding the QB's blindside as he did in college for a lefty. I think the concerns expressed in the past by ICE (and others that got so many things so wrong about this team) that he needed to move to guard because of his lack of agility were based more on him being such a big boy and JMac putting the fear of the braintrust into him than they were by his play on the field. MW showed outstanding agility for such a huge guys in the Combine and in private workouts from what I here. His sack problems for the Bills have been real, but have not come from him being routinely beaten around the corner by the speed rush (as Schobel did to a leading light like Ogden so it happens from time to time even to the best of them) but actually by an inability to coordinate stunts with folks like Pacillo. My preference is to have MW agree to a restructuring that lowers his cap hit and to spend this season further improving his game at RT, but if push comes to shove and we lose the JJ risk then switching MW to LT is possible if JMac thinks he can do it. 2. Move Teague to the LT position he origninally was signed to play. I think complaints about him "proving" he couldn't do the job at LT in Denver also are overblown. He was not a stud LT in Denver, but he was adequate and Denver did not decide to cut him, they decided not to risk a big contract on him particularly as he has missed the entire previous season with an ACL tear. I think he has shown with his play that he has recovered from the previous injury (though a new injury which cost him some time at C in '04 makes resigning back-up Price essential if Teague is our starting LT). In addition, I think he will be a better player at LT now having learned the more difficult job mentally of being an NFL center. The bigger question if you move Teague to fill in the vacant LT job is what do we do at center. i think that Tucker did an excellent job at center as a back-up filling in for Teague and I feel comfortable asking him to take on this challenge if I am forced to the Teague plan B (or C) at LT. 3. Other internal switches caused by the tremor of moving Teague or MW to LT are that it leaves a hole similar to the Tucker situation to be filled. If ecessary I look too Price to take a shot at full time RT if I mover MW and there is even an outside shot that Price who has been a great consistent back-up to the oft injured and nicked JJ at LT gets a shot. In addition, an MW move creates an opening at the less critical (than the blindside guarding) LT role. Herre Tucker who originally made it in this league as a tackle and Peters who remains listed on the depth chart as a tackle get a shot at RT if JMac judges they merit it, In addition to these two primary internal LT options and the several internal options for dealing with openings left by this move, FA is a real possibility for the Bills with our increasing cap room. A Jones will be too expensive at LT, but if you are able to move MW or Teague then there are many far less exspensive but well though of FA alternatives out there at RT or C (Stoker MacDougle for example) who can be bought far more cheaply than an LT to fill the gap. A big key in all of this if losing JJ creates tremors is that based on the improvement of the OL last year (over the horrendous job done by Ruel/Vinky within the Kevin Killdrive Noffense) he will have to meet the challenge of building an OL from a lot of different tools. he did this at SB level effectiveness for the Giants a few years back with folks at the Dusty Ziegler talent level and I am confident that he can do it again with the current level of talent the Bills have with a supplement from FA which will be great but may not even be necessary. I have no problem with them trying to squeeze JJ for every dime they can get because ultimately even a $3 million annual deal which is far below the going rate last year for LTs will be the biggest wad o cash he has ever seen.

I did that earlier this week. Didn't you see the post? Well, i guess you'll just have to go look for it. Write me when you find it.

Probably not but it desn;t matter since his drops are bad and should be eliminated if possible, but are far outweighed by his great one-handed circus catches and his ability when helathy to put up 84 catches this year and to hit the centurt mark for catches in 2002. Moulds drops some noticeable catches, but the opponent never knows when this will happen and must skew the coverage toward hin every play as the don't know when he will make circus catch or need two guys on him to produce a critical drop. This frees Evans up to go one on one against coverage (as well as Peerless and Reed in '02) and the droppsies are a regretable but minor problem when it comes to producing winning football.

Yeah, I don't see what the problem is here, NHL owners can now turn around and hire a player like Ken Kerr and pay him what he will agree to paid to deliver NHL hockey and current (former) NHL players will play for the minor league team. I suspect with a group of better players, the minor league UHL product will attract more interest, attendees and advertisers. The salary cap they have in place in the minors will be altered as they need to divide up a bigger pool of money and manage different cash streams and probably will begin to look more like the NFL CBA which is a good model for increased partnership between owners and players. My guess is if this plays out, the owners will get their replacement players and deliver a Ken Kerr level product to customers. The players will get replacement owners and deliver their Chris Chelios level of product to customers. This is fine with me as I will be able to find level of players I want to find and probably will tune into the UHL to see better players. The owners are merely sources of capital and there are plenty of those in western culture so replacement owners is fine with me as well.

Folks can debate either way about JJ's value as a player, but the other part of reality is regardless of how you feel about his supply of talent, the other part of setting his value is the demand for LTs in the marketplace. I think a team-by-team analysis is revealing. The following is the difficult tale for Jennings and the powerful position the Bills are in as far as negotiations and is a big part of why TD gave him a lowball offer. Potential market for offering a contract for Jennings too rich for the Bill's blood is the 31 other teams in the NFL, but: The Carolina Panthers, Cincinnati Bengals, Washington Redskins , New Orleans Saints, Houston Texans Denver Broncos, New England Patriots, Green Bay Packers, NY Giants, Oakland Raiders. Pittsburgh Steelers, Kansas City Chiefs,Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Atlanta Falcons, Miami Dolphins , and the Tennessee Titans all have $5 million or less in cap room in the descending order above (or particular note is JJs first choice to go home to AT, but given their substantial negative number in cap room they will have to cut current players to merely make the cap rather than make an offer to JJ). Lack of cap room reduces the potential JJ market to 14 teams. Of these remaining teams: Minnesota Vikings are committed to McKinnie are not in the market for an LT Seattle Seahawks has substantial cap room but has significant plyers and positions to resign such as RB Shaun Alexander, QB Matt Hasselbeck and LT Walter Jones. There is some talk of the franchising Jones which take them out of the market or even if they do not the Bills may be able to outbid Seattle with a lowball bid. Jacksonville Jaguars- The Jags have substantial cap room and actually may be uin the market for an LT. Ephraim Salaam started all 16 games there this year and was adequate at best. However, their prior starter was Mike Pearson who sat out last year with a WM severity knee injury to three ligaments. He says he is ready to go and will compete for the LT job. Jax fans are actually talking about Jones but in theory under the right circumstances could afford to and might bid for JJ though this would take some particular circumstances. Not likely but certainly a possibility. San Diego Chargers- Plenty of cap room but prescence of well regarded Roman Oben as a starter who they just acquired last year in a trade takes them out of the market. In addition their substantial cap room likely to be reduced by franchising Brees San Francisco 49ers- They are probably the best bet to go after a player like JJ, though they have the cap room to go after one of the better LTs if available. They currently have Kosler who is a versatile youngster at LT, but he is not a stud starter and his versatility allows them to purchase a stud starter and move him. The 9er ownership has been pretty bad and befuddled recently and unwilling to invest in the team but perhaps this will interest them in getting a second tier LT like JJ they can market. Baltimore Ravens They have Jonathan Ogden and are not in the LT market Philadelphia Eagles There is some lack of clarity whether LT Tra Thomas will be available or not. He has a contract through 2008 on NFLPA,com but is on an idependent web site as a UFA and the media has talked about him being a candidate for the franchise tag (which they gave to Corey Simon). For the moment put them down as not in the market. Dallas Cowboys- The prescence of Pro Bowl LY Flozell Adams takes them out of the market Chicago Bears - Another candidate for the JJ sweepstakes as they have some cap room and have Colombo who was well regarded when drafted but missed the 2003 season due to injury. He played at least a few games at LT last year but this team may be interested. NY Jets- Prescence of Jason Fabini takes NYJ out ofthe market for an LT Indianapolis Colts Prescence of Tarik Glenn takes the Colts out of the LT market Cleveland Browns - Prescence of Ross Verba at LT makes it unlikely this team would go for JJ, but then who knows what will happen at this management and injury disaster area. Detroit Lions- Former first round choice has started roughly 60 straight games at LT for the Lions who also will have to pay or look for a replacement for RT Stocker McDouhle taking them out of the market for an LT. St. Louis Rams- Have franchised Orlando Pace taking themselves out of the LT market Arizona Cardinals- Have big contract in LT Leonard Davis taking them out of the LT market What do you know? This reduces the potential JJ market to three teams Jax, Chicago and the Niners. Of these three, Chicago and the Niners did so badly last year that they likely will want to use their biggest cap dollars for a player to market and excite the fan base though clearly if you want to win starting with the trenches is a good thing to do. However, these teams have enough needs that they have multiple OL or DL places they can improve if they want to spend the cap dollars this way. While possibilities neither is a stone cold lock. Likewise with Jax that has plenty of cap room and no player firm for the job. Yet in ternally Pearson is a real candidate and they have the money to spend to get the best available if Seattle tags Hasselbeck or Alexander leaving Jones as a potential target I suspect may interest them more than JJ if they decide to go outside. Overall, I think the deal is here that TD did a great job for our cap by low-balling JJ as there probably will not be a bidding war for JJ that forces us to do much better than a low-ball offer ($5 million would be quite generous and something at the $3 million level would be brutal but may be the best offer JJ gets. Folks have posted that JJ will get many offers at inflated LT levels (Clifton and Petitgout both got $5 million bucks annually and neither impresses me) but this is a buyers market rather than a sellers market and the Bills have lots of leverage here (including worse comes to worse several internal team options and there simply isn't much of an obvious market for JJ here even if you assume he is among the best LTs available..

The ironic thing is that if the league generally holds your view then Bledsoe and his agent will get this sense in their surveying the league for possible deals and then might decide that their best bet is to restructure to the lower cap hit offered by TD and at least have a fair shot at winning the Bills starting job in his competition with JP. If you want Bledsoe gone then you better hope that a reasonable chunk of NFL professionals disagree with your view or Bledsoe may choose to stick around.

Like ,pst 1st round draft choices, even though us Bills partisans have great hopes and some faith in JP, once Bledsoe goes, Buffalo is an excellent opportunity for a vet QB to have a shot at a starting job with a team that came within an eyelash of making the playoffs last year, It will not be a cadillac gig in that Losman will be given lots of chances to screw up and still be the starter. However, if Garica believes in himself he will get ample opportunities in pre-season to show what he can do and Bills fans have demonstrated with Bledsoe that what you did for another team or yesterday for the Bills when he was welcomed to town and made the Pro Bowl means little to Bills fans when you lose. If Garcia does well and Losman has missteps like most first year starters do then the drumbeat will start for Garcia to start. If Losman turns out to be a far better collegian than a pro or gets hurt (which he showed he can do last year though I think the injury prone label is premature) then he is the starter on a team with lots of talent on the D, on the ST and on the O with WM, Moulds and Reed. I think the stopper here is that Bledsoe being cut/traded actually places a large enough cap constraint on us that we may not be able to match other offers from less talented teams Garcua will get. From a Bills perspective the most accurate way to view Bledsoe;s accelerated cap his is as an additional cost for our back-up QB, Even though in theory we can find the cap room to pay Garcia at the rate he signed last year ($6+ million a year) even if we paid him half that amount how will we feel about a $7+ million outlay for a back-up QB. I think Garcia might want to come here, but I doubt we pull the trigger.

I vote resturcture because I think if he agrees to take a salary that is back-up level and thus acknowledges he is on the backside of his career it give us the cap room to make this team better and has him play the same role for JP he played for Brady in 2001. If you cut or trade him the cost of his accelerated cap hit puls the cost of signing a new back-up for Brady constrains our ability to build a better team. It looks like he is goner right now, but I hope he decided to be a teamer and gives us the cap room to get us better and that he trains and backs up JP to allow himto be all he can be.

Obviously TD is the GM and the buck stops with him. However, the recognition of reality needs to see that TD had laid aside the cap room to re-sign AW and negotiations were moving along and both parties were saying they though a deal would get done as the 2003 season moved toward opening,but this deal did not get done as an opportunity to get Milloy appeared and we made the deal. I'm not arguing about the deal for AW nit getting done, it obviously didn't. I just don't think it is realistic to fault TD for not wanting to do exactly what you advocate because he clearly was getting that done, but did not end up doing it for legitimate reasons. Do you argue that we should have extended AW and simply gone with Wire, Reese and Prioleau as our sfteties in 2003 and we should have never acquired Milloy? Fine if you do, but I think you will find few folks who would choose to A D with AW but without Milloy over a D with Milloy but without AW. We simply have a better statistical D that gets lots of turnovers in the world TD created than in the probable world you propose. Who specifically are the teams which make up this plenty of demand. It's not AT where JJ would love to go and needs an LT or almost of the half the league in marginal cap shape because they will be cutting big contracts to simply make the cap rather than offering big contracts. It's not any of the 7 or 8 teams teams with LT cap hits in the top 10 because they are not in the market for JJ. It's not the third of the leage or so that has been forced by the market to offer long-term bigger than they deserve from their play contracts to players like Clifton and Petitgout because they are out of the market. This raw number adds up to more than 31 because some of these teams fall onto 2 or all 3 lists. However, as best as I can tell the specific market for JJ amounts to SF who has the cap room and the need though it is unclear i they have the owner commitment and Sea, St. L or Philly if they lose Jones, Pace or Thomas. All JJ needs is one deal so he may be gone, but the market looks really tight for him and I suspect the Bills may resign him even though this move will likely preclude us from doing what many folks want to see and have us upgrade the LG talent. The key here it strikes me ist that even a below previous LT market rate deal for JJ of $4 million probably preculdes making a Vilarial level offer ($3 mill to an LG) because the combination of that deal with a $5.8 million cap hit for MW probably uses up the OL cap budget. The key here probably revolves ariound restructuring MW and low-balling JJ and only then can you sign more talent on the OL. What good young players are you talking about besides AW and JJ? Brandon Spoon? Dom Stevenson? The Bills record is simply one of having retained a pretty good number of their draft choices. If anything folks are faulting him for making bad picks (though I disagree with this in general) and hanging on to them too long as their is a din on TSW that guys like Wire or Reed should be gone. The Bills have relatively few starters left unsigned compared to most other teams and that i just the facts. One has to look toward an extraordinary case like NE to find a record comparable to the Bills in not having key FA resignings to do this off-season and we compare quite favorably to other teams. You'd have a point supported by the facts if other teams had fewer starters or key players as FAs, but since other teams would have to have fewer than 2 starters as FAs its hard to show a huge difference with the rest of the league to the Bills disadvantage.

I hope somebody takes the time to do a comparison and my feeling off-hand is that Mould will do well enough in terms of # of catches but will not do as well in terms of ranking for #s of TDs caught or yardage where I would be very surprised to find him int top 5 and not surprised to find he is even not in the top 10. However, one needs to look past the mere stats on certain things to truly assess his value to the Bills: 1. I think with both the Peerless and the Evans examples one can see how much being paired with Moulds adds to a player's game. PP almost hit the century mark in catches and was one of our leading TD producers for several seasons with Moulds, but yet became a big diappointmet when he lost Moulds drawing coverage. PP racking up a TD beating and sprinting away from a Miami safety trying to cover him as Moulds drew the corner and double-team was the model for the Bills. Likewise Evans caught a number of long TDs last year as Moulds did the tough work of clearing out over the middle. this impact will not be seen on the stat sheet but it is there. 2. Moulds has had a number of notable drops, but these lowlights are easily equaled by him making some highlight one handed or seemingly impossible catches. He attracts the double team and attention because there is no telling what he will do if he goes up against a corner one of one all the time. Even if there is a bad drop or even two he might light up the opponent for seven and this has to be guarded against on every play. The circus catches will not show up on the stats sheet either but are important to making our O work. 3. Few receivers have both the athletic ability and the speed to do the fly and also the ability or willingness to roam the middle to play the slot. I think one of the Kevin Killdrive errors was when Reed was asked to move up to #2 he seemed to be asked too much to fill the downfield Peerless role when he is a slot kind of guy. Moulds should have been made the fly receiver and Reed used mostly in the slot. 4. He was clear and upfront about setting the example this off-season by agreeing to restructure his deal this year. The restructuring was an obvious thing to do as clearly no one would pay Moulds more than Harrison or Moss, but he showed some good leadership in embracing this restructuring. I thin Moulds numbers lay a good foundation for him deserving the huge deal he has and intangibles or unmeasurables like the items listed above make this deal reasonable and need to be added to the stats which are indicative a lot but not determinative in and of themself.

This good news that TD and MW are talking restructuring, he is scheduled to get a near top 10 OL salary when clearly he is not a top ten OL player (most are LTS) in this league. However, while scanning this thread I took note of this post which claims that TD and the Bills made major errors in "choosing" to let player s reach the FA market that we should have believed in and cites Winfield and Jennings as examples of this. This view strikes me as simply incorrect on a number of fronts. 1. The Bills were actually moving to lock up Winfield negotiations just prior to the 2003 season. However, a number of unexpected events occured and we used the money set aside in the cap to resign AW to aign Milloy. Plan A as the Bills were trying to deal with a GW/Gray inspired effort to acquire and plug Jenkins in at SS which failed leading to the horrow of plugging Wire in as our starting SS as a rookie was to sign vet Chad Cota to back-up and school Wire. He agreed to sign but then retired. TD had a not bad plan B which was Battles but he decided not to play as well. The Bills were headed into the 2003 season with only 3 safeties on the roster but we had the good fortune of Belichick mishandling the renegtiation with Milloy. We jumped at this saving grace which not only filled a huge hole in our D (a hole which actually dated back to the failure of Raion Hill to fill the gap made by a dumb cutting of Henry Jones after giving him bucks by restructuring) but played a critical role in us simply destroying a far better team in NE 31-0. Winfield hit the market and not only did the Jets agree to pay him more than the cap allowed us to offer, but Minn actually stole him from the Jets with an even bigger offer after AW agreed to the NYJ but had not signed the deal. Claiming that TD and the Bills made a choice to let AW into the market simply does not fit the reality of the impacts of our crawl away from cap hell and the events which occured in the real world. 2. JJ does not deserve at all the faith that would overpay him out of the market as a player and the market may yet allow him to be signed to a long-term deal for a dirt cheap amount by past NFL LT standards. First simply compare JJ's record of surviving injuries to start games to the top tier LTs and you will see that Pace made the Pro Bowl the last two years and started 16 games both years. Jones made the Pro Bowl both years and also started 16 games. JJ not only has not been seen by his peers, coaches and fans as one of the top LTs in the conference, but he did not start all the games this year and in fact ended the season on IR the season before that. He certainly does not merit top 10 OL money and there is even a reasonable question as to whether he will play and merit what has become a typical LT contract. Of even greater import to the Bills and shows GM to have a tremendous understanding of the marketplace, JJ may not even command the typical salary to resign him as really only SF and Seattle, the Rams or Philly if they lose Jones, Pace or Thomas seems to have the cap room to make a big offer to JJ. AT is a great example of this phenomena as they certainly have an LT need and JJ would love to go there, but after signing Vick to a $100+ million contract and sliding big bucks to FAs like Peerless, they will likely be cutting players to simply make the cap not offering big contracts. Taking a big risk on JJ does not seem warranted by his record of injury and also does not seem necessary based on likely demand. 3. Finally a complaint that the Bills have not resigned players seems simply false based on the record and compared to other teams. The Bills have one of the lowest numbers of remaining unsigned players in the league. JJ and Phat Pat are the only two unsigned starters. This contrasts with other league teams like Seattle who massive cap room probably will not fit their need to sign Walter Jones, AND Shaun Alexander, AND Matt Hasselback AND other players or Philly who must resign Corey Simon and Tra Thomas and whoever else. They probably have only more to do than NE, but the value of Vinateri versus JJ and Phat Pat even puts this question into play. an accusation that the Bills have not held onto and restructured what we got simply does not match the facts.

A $6 million cap hit drops Moulds back to below the average of the top 10 WR cap hits in 2004 (a number pulled up by huge salaries to folks like Moss and Harrison) and essentially gives him the same cap hit in 2005 that he had in 2004 when his salary was about in the middle of the top 10 WRs. This restructuring sounds quite reasonable and improves our cap situation marginally but is not a huge shift which I took as an implication of some of the talk.

I thought those were Jonas Jennings lowlights.