Fake-Fat Sunny

The issue here is that putting the season on any one player's shoulders is not a gamble because it just won't work. One might make the case that Warner was the last time things were generally placed on the production of one player, but doing this diminishes the consistent import of Marshall Faulk's play, the import of a cast of speedy receivers to make Warner's game work like a charm and a single timely play by an LB to stop TN just short of the endzone. Perhaps one wants to make the case of Denver's run resting solely on Elway's shoulder's, yet this view conveniently ignores the fact that Elway fell just short or way short year after year until he smartened up and took less than the market would give him to secure the players which put their TEAM over the top (the same calculus happened with Farve who took a below market rate contract to keep together a GB team with the running game and defenders to put them over the top. Really one of the few cases I think that can be made of gambling on a single player paying off was SF with Montana whose hallmark was not that he continually pulled off Elway like solo efforts, but that he made everyone around him better. If the Bills bank on JP becoming the man next season (or the season after actually) even if he does well in his development we likely will lose that gamble. I know folks would love to worship one guy, its the American way, but it simply amazes me that in the face of the recent NE sucess with a TEAM-first based approach that so many are addicted to the an over-focus on Bledsoe as being the sole cause of our problems and on JP being some new savior. it doesn't seem to work that way in the NFL.

Tre, but as I pointed out before one independent source (the Redzone has Thomas listed as a UFA, and there have been media reports I have seen that specifically cited the Philly desire to tag Simon as a reason Thomas would be a UFA. Folks have said (theorized?) in another thread that the NFLPA website is factually accurate, but that the deal here is that Thomas has language in his contract that will allow him to become a UFA unless he is tagged. Maybe, maybe not, but I think that it is still and open question which is not settled by the NFLPA info as to whether he is on the market this off-season or not.

But the key question is that even if we restructure our way to more cap money, given that MW has a cap hit in 2005 of a hair short of $6 million and unless the marjet allows TD to resign JJ for less money than lesser talents have gotten at LT (Clifton and Petitgout avging about $5 million annually in salary do you see the Bills devoting even more scratch to the OL when the two tackles have a combined salary of $11 million of our $84 million cap for the entire team. Its hard for me to see us going above the current salaries for the rest of the OL smf vertainly not to devote another $3 million in cap hit to the OL to purchase an LG at the Villarial rate. Certainly MW has not produced at the level of a top 10 OL player but there has not been even a peep about restructuring MWs deal to a lower level and given that he has turned things around and will aspire to be a a far better player and to deserve top 10 accolades, I would be quite reluctant if I were him to take less money than we agreed to in our original deal and there is bi discussion of this that I have heard anyway. So we'd all love to see an upgrade of the OL, but I don't see this happening through us buying more talent at LG if we resign JJ and he gets anywhere near the past going rate for an LT.

Thomas is listed as a UFA and available on the website The Redzome > http://www.theredzone.org/2005/freeagents/...asp?Position=OT < I have seen some media discussion of whether the Eagles will tag Thomas or not this year as they would prefer to tag Corey Simon a definite UFA at DT. I'm not sure what the discrepancy is here, it may be some particular language in Thomas contract which makes him a possible or likely UFA but he isn't one yet officially.

Yes, but Take into account that the Bills have a replacement for Prioleau already on the roster (likely Wire of a newby for the NFL minimum). Will likely need a reserve RB who can play at a Pro Bowl level for 1 or 2 games (I like Shaud Williams as a 3rd down back but would not count on the lil'guy to produce like we require for multiple games if he is forced into service. The big ticket is that yest the $4.3 million of deadsoace from cutting Bledsoe is less than $6.5 million we would pay him to stay under his current deal, but assuming he is gone and JP is the starter this leaves us with #2.2 million to pay a back-up for JP. JP's back-up may well start if JP is not ready for primetime (certainly possible though we hope he is a stud) or JP get hurt (certainly possible as we saw this past season. QB cap hits seem to run from a million or less for a Matthews, roughy $2 million for a Feeley and even $5 million for a Jeff Garcia. Are you comfortable with these players or someone (we would love to know their name) at their level as are back-up and potentially starting. Charlie Batch for a couple of million is the best idea I have heard so far, but using this calculus it makes sense to me that TD is offering Bledsoe a chance to replicate his 2001 accomplishment with Brady for the Bills for the $2.5 million at a minimum cap hit he would have by restructuring. Likwise, cutting Lindell is an easy things to say, but Nugent or his replacement with have an extra %575K on his cap hit for the PK position and our budget may not allow for that. The CBA is set-up in a way that salary and cap hit are two different things, and neither directly tranlates to a plauyers production or talent in a given year or over a career.

Letting Winfield hit the market was prompted by the sudden surprise opportunity to sign Lawyer Milloy. Milloy was needed by a host of Bills errors which left us in need at safety which start with: Cutting Henry Jones (after we extended his deal ddooohh) and going with Raion Hill who did not accomplish the job, Signing whathisname Jenkins a former GW/Gray guy to start at SS only to find out their assessment was wrong and it was time to retire. Instead they shoehorned Wire into a job he had never player before at any level of organized ball and not only was he not up to the job (what do you expect from a rookie) but they probably screwed up his career development as he would hav been more suited to focus on ST play. Trying to fill the SS gap by signing Chad Cota and then Ainsley (?) Battles who promptly retired after hanging with us through the pre-season. As the 2003 season was opening none other than genius Bill Belicheck completely miscalculated and screwed up negotiating with Milloy over relative chump change by NFL salary standards and had to cut Milloy. Fortunately for Milloy the demand (both the Bears and Bills had safety need and cap room) was high enough and the supply of available former pro Bowl safties was just him and TD had to big high to get him. This high bid was with $ intended to sign Winfield before the season began and he hit the market where we could not meet the Vikes overpayment of him. As far as Jennings, TD seems to have correctly read the market that there is so littled demand because almost all teams are locked up at LT with overpayments to talents like Clifton and Petitgout that Jennings apparently will get far less than top 10 OL contract levels ($7 million for top 5 and $6 million for top 10) and actually may not be able to even command the $5 million salaries which lesser talents like the two mentioned above have obtained. I think the Bills may make a closeout bid at $4-5 million for Jennings, but unless one of the two teams with potential cap room (Rams and Eagles) lose Pace or Thomas, SF may be the only market available to Jennings. I'm tempted to see the Bills hold out to try to get Jennings for $3 million (far less than what lesser players have gotten but potentially all the market will offer him) which he will have to be satisfied with because it is more money than he has ever seen before. However, it has been TDs habit to make a high offer which freezes out the competition (the Milloy deal and the Schobel deal) and i woukld not be surprised to see him offer $5 million to Jennings though such an offer will likely mean that Tucker or Smith will start for us at LG as I do not see the Bills committing even a Villarial size deal to an LG after committing $11 million in cap hit to MW and Jennings. We'll see.

I think this is because TD did blow it with his first choice of one of the GM's most important jobs which was choosing an HC. He flat out passed over John Fox who is having great success with Carolina and Marvin Lewis who has righted a long stagnant ship of state (some will maintain that it was Lewis who or his wife who passed us by as unlikely as that seems given the buyers market of NFL HC jobs and them ending up in the thriving metropolis of Cincinnati with their thriving team and ownership). Instead he picked GW who simply wowed him with his lists. GWs credentials seemed great to me for an Administrative Assistant to TD but he simply proved to be not-read-for-primetime as an HC. GW exhibited a tremendous lack of feel for controlling the flow of the game (understandable that TD would not intrude since on the line decision are made by he HC abd the GM will only much things up by intruding too much even if he would have made better calls on plays like GW punting and gaining all of seven yards after the touchback deep in enemy territory or GWs bad record at challenging the refs- not to mention bad clock management and a total failure to teach promised discipline as seen in are horrible record of penalties. However, there were areas where TD could clearly have been more intrusive or delivered some "support" to GW as he allowed him to assemble a coaching staff which lacked experience with their jobs or getting to the Big Dance. Even worse, after GW's first choice for OC was so unproductive even GW was willing to fire him, TD apparently allowed himself to lose the argument for a replacement OC with GW advocating for Kevin Killdrive and TD preferring the eventually hired breath of fresh air Tom Clements. I think this happened because TD did not want to react to being run out of town by an HC he hired as he was by Cowher in Pittsburgh by being too overtly controlling of his Buffalo HC hire. However, GW simply needed help overt, covert or otherwise doing the job he was hired to do. Instead TD seemed more passive-aggressive putting the pieces in place for GW to pull the trigger (for example he hired his buddy Les Steckel a former OC at RB coach but never forced GW to fire Killdrive when he lost control of the O and the team in 2003 when Steckel would not have been the answer but certainly could have held down the fort if the Bills canned Killdrive in mid-season the same way that NYG canned ineffective Sean Peyton. Instead odd maneuvers happened like GW announcing to the press thatLarry Centers could be a Bills as long as he wanted (and thus the HC intruded into GM territory) and within a week, Centers (much to his surpirise from an interview he gave to Empire) was cut and Sam Gash was our new FB. Either GW was slapped down for this invasion into GM duties or he simply did not know what was going on. Neither conclusion boded well for out team. The losing record is not surprising when you make a really bad choice for HC.

Of the available players there seems to be a first tier of Jones, Pace and Thomas (in that order as I have seen them on occaision but have not watched their play closely enough to make me drop dead certain about my judgments on these players. Jennings heads up a second tier of players at LT but his inability to play a full season during his entire career and getting credit for starting a number of games which he was unable to finish because of a range of nicks from concussions, to ankle sprains to what have you knocks his ranking as an LT down a peg and even makes it just as reasonable to try to switch an available RT like Stockar McDougle of the Lions or Victor Riley of the Saints who have started all 16 games the last two seasons to LT if you have a spot to fill. Jones, Pace and Thomas are all within a couple of years of each other in age. Jones gets the nod for being honored by coaches, players and fans with a Pro Bowl start this year, though Pace got the start last year but made the team both times. Thomas is a bit younger but has been subject to nicks and has missed a game each of the last two seasons.

The are simply market dynamics at work here and if the player doesn't realize it or react well initially because he does not realize it, his agent, more business like heads in his family and other hanger-ons will remind them of this and have had some success at altering behavior (see the Travis Henry and Peerless Price examples of players who initial reactions caught by the press were negative to their interests but some pointed this out and they effectively changed their actions to serve their "newfound" better interests). By tagging Abraham, as folks point out the lock up their ownership of him and assuming they can identify a likely buyer in the market (again see Peerless as an example as AT owner Arthur Blank foolishly shot off his mouth and essentially guaranteed AT as a buyer by him promising AT fans a probably more importantly Michael Vick that he was going to get Peerless for AT and Vick) they will trade. Theoretically also NYJ can simply rescind the tag on Abraham at a later date and avoid the top 5 payment. However, NYJ would do this at their own risk since by rescinding the tag they likely will lower Abraham's value in the marketplace and the size of the contract he woud sign and if NYJ got a rep as screwing FA players they likely would find it harder to sign free agent players and current Jets would not be able to trust the team at all. On the other hand, Abraham has probably already damaged his rep around the league and thus lowered the size of contracts he will be offered by being tagged as a me-first rather than a team guy. Potential buyers of an Abraham contract will likely to decide to go with another player with their offer if they perceive that Abraham is not willing to risk his health like a Terrell Owens to play and important game against the docs orders. America is a forgiving land and as Travis Henry is showing with the interest being expressed in him despite some definite negatives about him (injury question, performance questions) Abraham will probably get another chance to answer the doctor's order versus play the game question. If the Jets go through with the tag an Abraham malingers in general or makes decision come next year's playoff putting his personal health above team glory (not an unreasonable choice and one he is free to make) it will likely lower his market value and work directly against his interest in scoring big contract. My sense is that if push comes to shove in the playoffs next year and Abraham is on the verge of FA again, he will need to do everything he can to show he is willing to sacrifice his body in order to get a big contract. Who knows what he will actually do, but it may not be a bad bet for NYJ to push Abraham to the market limit, if they make a judgment that he will do what is necessary to score a big contract. The initial mistake many people make is that they tend to view the NFL in the mid-80s mode that this is a battle between the players and the owners to show who is more of a man. Actually as embodied in the CBA the players have moved beyond juvenalia and operate from the framework where if the co-operate within a set of rules they both can make more money than ever before from you and I the fans.

TD has given Bledsoe the choice of one of two options. 1. Bledsoe decides he has a career as a definite starter somewhere and the Bills cut him before they are scheduled to write him a check for a million plus in March. 2. Bledsoe decides to remain a Bill but to do so he restructures his contract so that his base pay is reduced and any new bonus paid him is extended over the life of his new contract. He is not allowed by CBA rule to take a paycut so there can be no giveback of the remaining 4.3 million bonus paid to him is allocated over the 2 years remaining on his contract. In case one, the Bills have a cap hit for Bledsoe of the total bonus left so his hit will be $4.3 million in deadspace. In case two, I would suspect his minimum cap hit could be $2.15 million plus the NFL minimum salary for a vet of $300K plus. In theory they could extend his contract and pro-rate I believe just the new bonus over the life of the contract (if any of you cap/lawyer types know that his old bonus gets extended over a new contract let me know but I don't believe it can) at an lets call his new cap hit $3 million and figure that our cap amount increases by rough;y $3 million under the new deal. My question for Bills fans is what do you spend this money on (by position or even a name if you want)? Case 2 Drew restructures: Our cap room is about $9 million right now, Figure roughly a third of that gets put aisde for the draft class though actually we will have a little more than this to spend on FAs because we will need to set aside far less than a third if we do not have a 1st round pick (a great move by TD by the way as this QB crop is seen as poor and JP was a far better talent to get with the 2005 choice than any QB he could have gotten, in addition, if you want to win now or probably even next year having the cap room to spend on an FA gives far more value than almost all draft picks taken in the 20s) If Bledsoe restructures two things happen, one our cap room creeps up a little versus other teams but not enormously as the maximum Bledsoe restructuring moves us up from #15 among 32 teams up to about #12. The second piece is the Moulds restructuring which adds to the total and if it equals Bledsoe's restructuring it moves us up into the top 10 with a couple of teams ahead of us with a significant amount of players unsigned. If you want us to resign both JJ and Phat Pat and also get some significant FA then you should be rooting for Drew to restructure. If you want us to go after a top tackle FA (Pace, Jones, Tra Thomas or Vinateri then you should also be rooting for a Drew restructuring. Under current cap circumstances it is hard to say what the market will be, but at $9 million it looks doubtful that the Bills can resign both stars and still afford much at all in FA. In fact, it appears that if the Bills resign JJ even at the relative bargain rate pedestriam LTs are getting ($5 million annually compared with a top 10 OL cap hit average of around $6 million) it appears doubtful the Bills will pick up any more OL players except 7th rouund draft picks and camp fodder as MW will take down a cap hit 0f $5.8 million and its hard to see the Bills investing in any other OL players with about an 8th of the total cap going to two OL players. Those who are rooting for another LH to join the team so Tucker or Smith do not start better root against resigning JJ. If the Bills do restructure Bledsoe and almost double their cap room with a Moulds restructure then many things become possible. My personal favortie is to make Vinateri and offer he can't refuse as this solves our kicking problem and adds grave uncertainty for the Pats. Case 1 of cutting Bledsoe creates a lot of problems for the Bills and really shows why it was such a mistake cap wise to resign him. Though some merely compare the $6 million or so cap hit if Bledsoe's current contract were honored and think its a good deal cap wise for the Bills, they ignore the fact that JP will now be flying alone. Matthews apparently has decided to retire so the Bills will need two new QBs to work with JP. Figure one is going to get near the league minimum to be the disaster QB and carry the clipboard, My sense is that any savings from Bledsoe is going to be eaten up and then some by our pick-up of a back-up QB. I think a player such as Feeley took down about a $2 million cap hit and with inflation we will be lucky to get a player of Feeley caliber if one exists. Former starters who might be attracted to the Bills job because they will start if JP isn't ready or gets hurt again will probably require a cap hit 0f the $4-5 million dollars that even a talent at the Jeff Garcia level received from Cleveland. Again it is probably most accurate from a Bills perspective to conisder the $4.3 million deadspace as what it is costing us for our new back-up. its hard for folks to consider Bledsoe being worth a $6 million cap hit, well its hard for me also to consider AJ Feeley worth a similar expenditure. Allocating $9 million of outlay as a cost for a Jeff Garcia (the amount he was paid last year plus the deadspace seems rediculous. For these and other reasons I think the Bills are far better off if Bledsoe stays and restructures than if he goes. Its somply hard to imagine us being competitive with JP learning the ropes, Feeley as a back-up and who knows what disaster QB carrying the clipboard and us laying out about an $8 million cap hit for these three. I definitely hope Bledsoe restructures to back-up QB cap hit levels and we use that money to resign JJ and Phat Pat and we still have a little left over to do some serious purchases at need positions. I don't see how we absorb the hit of cuttng or trsdomg Bledsoe and just pray that JP develops incredibly quickly and we get very lucky,

I tend to use Billszone as well but was too lazy to check and falsely remembered 800K, but $575 is the correct number. For me, this decision gets driven by the Bledsoe decision. If he stays and restructures then his cap hit goes way down and in conjunction with a Moulds rejiggering we have tons of cap room and I feel alot better about ending the Lindell experiement and beginning the Nugent experiment. However, if we cut or trade Bledsoe then cap room becomes very precious because even though Bledsoe costs us less to cut than to keep in terms of payments to him, it is more accurate to think of theback-up QBs salary which starts at $4,3 million in deadspace which we will be paying to Bledsoe for playing with some other team. If cutting Bledsoe forces us into the market to find a back-up QB capable of starting if JP isn't ready or gets hurt again I suspect we will need to spend more than the $2.3 million remaining savings from chopping Bledsoe. If Bledsoe goes I probably don't enter into the Nugent experiment as I get a lot more reluctant to use a draft pick on a kicker because I won\t be able to by the players I want in FA and I probably use my draft picks on position players and even $575 K of additional deadspace becomes something to avoid.

I for one have no desire to advocate that picking Nugent, even if he is the greatest kicker since sliced bread is the right thing to do untill several other shoes drop including: 1. Will the Bills get a draft pick in April for Henry when the 3/2 deadline comes? It makes a real difference in a decision to pick Nugent whether the2nd pick is our first pick, whether we have two seconds in the first round or however it works out. I wouldn't advocate we make a particular move in April until I see what is hapenning with this. 2. What does DB do? We should know by the early March deadline for us paying him a big bonus whether he stays or goes. If he restructures to a lower hit then getting what we need from FA is more doable and taking this flyer in the draft is more logical. If on the other hand we have to cut him then cap demand will be tight and I'm probably less likely to advocae spending a high draft pick on a kicker even though getting better kicking would help this team alot. 3, How does Nugent present at the Combine? There is little he will do in terms of numbers like 40 times, but I am curious how he presents himself in meetings with the teams and whether he impresses folks will determine a lot about the market for him. If you have to get a 1st rounder to pick him and we still don't have one I doubt I will advocate trading up to get him. So make mine a definite maybe in terms of picking him and signing a petition at this point.

I know, I know, in terms of your disdain for TH. However, while my view is certainly arguable I think it is far better than nonsense: 1. Do you attribute all or even a major portion of the Bills reduction in sacks to better blitz pick-up by WM than TH? I do not think one can discount the role that: A. WM's addition to the offense and subtraction from the opponents ability to pass rush because he is a more effective outside runner than TH in terms of fewer sacks. B. The OL improving by leaps and bounds under JMac compared to Vinky/Ruel. C. Clements making far better use of Bledsoe as a runner than Killdrive. Do you deny that these three things happened and that they had a significant impact on the stat you often rely on to indict TH's blitz pick-up. 2. Can you site anything beyond your anecdotal observations and the above stat to even indicate a Henry blitz pick-up issue? I agree that TH is no Thurman Thomas at blitz pick-up, but why was this not harped upon or even identified as a big issue leading to Bledsoe's sack numbers the last couple of years if we must depend on anecdotes? Anecdotaally, it is my sense that WM looked just like a first year player himself in his limited blitz pick-up opportunities the first half of the season and the best thing he had to offer was his development into a tremendous outside rushing threat with one of the best stiff arms I have seen. I would not call your complaints about TH in blitz pick-up nonsense because he needs to get better and has gotten better since some real adventures he had trying to block For Flutie when DF came in late in TH's first game for RJ. However, while your assertions about TH are not nonsense, I find them unsupported by anything but anecdote since the sack number you site is far better explained by the three factors I mentioned rather than WM bein great because he is so good at blitz pickup. 2. Again in TH's 4 seasons he produced fine pass catching numbers as a rookie, very good pass catching numbers in his second year when Kevin Killdrive and Bledsoe has the O humming and pedestrian numbers as a receiver his third year when out entire O laid an egg and last year when WM sent him to the bench. How do you explain the Bills have enough confidence him to throw the ball to him so he coulf log 3-4 catches a game his second year if he is so horrible as a pass catcher? Again anecdotally he did have some bad drops in 2003 as he an the O went multiple quaters without scoring, but no one identified this as an amount that equalled someone who had a true droppsie problem like Reed. Even Moulds has some worse occurences of drops than Henry but watchers are willing to accept the fact that the QB amd the receiver are going to fail to connect sometimes if the skill player produces elsewhere. Until this year TH produced running the ball. He didn't this year and correcly was benched. However, the case you make of TH being a lousy pass catcher or lousy at blitz pick-up is simply overblown. Even with the fumblitis which was a real problem his seond year rivaling the fumblitis of a player like Tikki Barber. However, like Barber even at his worst the trade-off was worth it and both made the changes necessary to really improve their performance in this area. You are right that we will likely see what he gets traded for when a deal is done. Most likely I am happy to depend on TD raping a potential partner in a deal rather than a deal being a declarative statment of how good or bad TH is (do you really think PP was worth a big contract and a first? Trade amounts are not equal to contribution). However, they are an indicator and I am qite comforable that we will get good value for TH,

The approx $550,00 in deadspace from cutting Lindell makes him very hard to cut and manage the cap (particularly if we cut or trade Bledsoe instead of him agreeing to a restructuring which provides him with back-up pay and a a back-up QB cap hit). I'm pissed at Lindell as well but do not want to see us cut off our nose because it offends us only to spite our face by mismanaging the cap. Lindell did do a great job on kickoffs (it is wrong to see this only due to good tackling and coverage because good coverage begins with the kicker kicking it exactly where the tacklers expect it to be kicked and with desigated amount of hang time which allows them to make the tackle. April and Lindell did a great job with our directional kicking and it showed in our results. One only needs to remember back to some our adventures in kick coverage like out debacle against the Jets where they ran back two KOs for TDs and wasted good performances by the O and the D to know this is important. Lindell also did a great job on one of two onside kicks this year. I'm happy to see Lindell go if Nuge falls to later in the draft (a 3rd round slot max and it does not look like he will fall that far) and allows us to manage the cap. Christie is a good guy who is committed to the area (he still makes his home just across the border in Canada) but he is on the backside of his career and doesn't deliver enough in terms of distance on FGs to make him worth the extra cap hit.

I think the key to your post is the observation that Plummer is not the next Elway. Well who is? if Denver'sstrategy revolves around finding the next Elway then they better get ready for a long wait. Likewise, the Bills strategy should not be to find the second coming of Jim Kellly and the Fins certainly shouldn't wait for the next Dan Marino because even if players perform exactly as well as these two they have HOF QBs but never win the SB. The Bills strategy has been savaged since the mid-nineties by the addiction of the GMs to try to find some marquee QB and that addiction led us to rush and reach with Collins, to trade value for nothing for Hobert, to totally mismanage the RJ/DF situation and to stick with Bledsoe way longer than he had even a good shot at delivering a winner. The Pats have shown us the way. Get over this we must have an outstanding QB addiction because if you build a winning team you can produce SB wins for a young QB far in excess of what young QBs have achieved and still have folks arguing about whether that QB is a good player or not (I don't care how he plays, all I want is a winner. If he is a great player great, but even if my QB is a lousy player who just wins that is great also.

We'll be fortunate if even one of them is as productive as we want them to be next year. The experience has been that when a player goes down with an ACL tear that he can heal and come back the next season, but it is reasonable to figure another full year before that player resumes his level of play that he showed before he was hurt. A better athlete like an Edgerrin James ended up on this timeline and a better athlete with a far more serious injury like WM was gone for a full year. I expect to count ourselves lucky if even one of these lesser players is able to contribute to the team half way through the '05 season. We need to go into this off-season assuming that our TEs are Ryan Neufeld, Rob Trafford and Jason Peters are our TEs for '05. We need a starter and to hope one of these back-up level players develops or one of the injured players is not hurt so badly he can recover.

We certainly have had our list of QB failures post Kelly. Some them I attribute to poor assessment of player quality which happens but a lot of this strikes me as being from avoidable bad management of the QB position as our GMs are haunted by the ghost of Kelly. Todd Collins- The beginning of horrible management decisions as Butler waited a year too long to obtain a QB of the future because he like Ralph (and the vaunted handshake deal with Kelly) both falsely assumed that Kelly would last longer than he did because he was tough guy. Butler added insult to injury by not only reaching for TC (he went a round earlier than most have him going) but by rushing him along to start when he needed at least another year to try to train the happy-feet out of him (if he could be trained in this way which is no certainty. TC had a pro arm with accuracy but just ended up being too scared to hang in there and take the hit. Billy Joe Hobert- pleez. We over-reached in trading a 3rd for him once Butler saw that TC was not the answer and he repaid this by being so stupid not prepare himself to play and even stupider to publicly admit this on Empire. What was the braintrust thinking in acquiring him and non-training this little boy who clearly needed his hand held. AVP- a quality guy who was pressed into service but clearly benefitted from what I called the AVP effect as he could savage opposing Ds which let down their guard after they killed our #1 to bring him in as he did leading us into competition and even wins in comebacks versus Denver, TN, etc. However, when the opponents had a little time to look at film and prepare for him as in a game here against NE or facing the Jets the next season AVP could be easily fooled by deceptive coverages. He never was or could be a starter in this league. RJ- The king of king of post Kelly QB errors as the team and AJ Smith cleverly bet on Flutie coming here for next to nothing in a cap hit, but then went out and acquired RJ and gave him a guaranteed deal focusing only on some nice work he did for Jax but an injury history there that should have raised some flags. The Bills paid the market price in trading for RJ (a 1st and a 4th) but stupidly gave him the ranch and the dog by signing him to a long-term deal without any rquirement that he prove himself on the field even in the next pre-season not to mention that I think they could have waited until 1/4 to 1/2 way through the next regular season and they still would have likely gotten him to sign. Even if they had to pay 5 million more because RJ played lights out in the first half of the next season, it would have been worth avoiding the risk of the mess we had. DF- Some folks hate him because they feel he was knifing RJ behind the scenes, but even if this is true, i find it hard to blame him as the Bills lied to him first by promising him a chance to win or lose the QB job on the field and then signing RJ to a guaranteed deal which made RJ the starter regardless of the quality of play. The Bills and Butler deserve our enmity because the way they got DF to sign such a low cap hit deal was that they loaded it up with $3 million in incentives (not bad I wish all contracts followed this model but then stupidly rolled all achieved incentives into his base pay the following year. It set-up a world in which RJ got hure (surprise?), Flutie played exactly as effectively as AJ Smith predicted he would and then we had a $6 million DF cap hit in 1999 added on to a $5 milion guranteed RJ cap hit for him doing nothing. We had no choice but to resign DF for the long-term to divert as much as possible of his salary into bonus and pro-rate it. Yech Bledsoe- Finally after the RJ era (error)we had a QB and TD did a great job in my view finding a starter when it looked like we were gonna have to go with Chris Chandler or Jeff Blake. Things looked great the first year as Bledsoe was warmly welcomed by Bills partisans smarting from a 3-13 season. His play in 2002 was central to us getting near record improvement to 8-8 and NE got raped in 2002 for choosing the better QB as the accelerated cap hit from the Bledsoe bonus probably cost the Pats a trip to the playoffs that year (a horrible year bookended by two SB wins). However, the hopes of Bills fans in 2002 were dashed in 2003 as Bledsoe's play simply sucked that year and Kevin Killdrive was not a strong enough OC to vary the Bills approach and GW was not a strong enough HC to force Killdrive to vary our approach, The real GM disaster in my mind came that off-season when TD should have just called the 2002 DB and 2003 DB play a wash and let him go, but he extended his deal and even though Bledsoe improved on his 2003 play in a way that surprised me, he still proved to be inadequate in 2004. Perhaps TD has finally headed us the right way as trading the 2005 1st for JP has turned into what looks like a brilliant move as the 2005 QB draft class looks weak and JP needed a year to sit, watch and mop-up due to his injury and his youth anyway. The Bledsoe accelerated cap hit will still be very hard for us to manage if we cut/trade him but our QB prospects will be good if JP steps up and wins the QB job on the field in competition and Bledsoe acknowledges that his best days in the past and his future is as a #2 QB willing to take one for the team.

Look folks are talking about this because AZ and TD have donethe same thing which is to give both TH and Shelton the right to seek a deal. The positions the players play make sense for both teams as the Bills stand to lose an LT to FA and because the starting RB at AZ has retired. The cap exchange makes sense because both Shelton and TH are under contract in '05 and for whatever reason AZ has decided they can handle the accelerated bonus of Shelton on their cap. Does this trade make sense for either or both teams? Yes, if they feel they get approrpiate value in exchange. I think most Bills fans would happily see TD give up some future draft choices in addition to TH in order to get this deal done. In order to get this deal the key thing for TD to do right now is to sing Henry's praises and pump up his value. I would think even those who judge TH to be dreck would endorse this strategy merely as a mechanism to get rid of Henry. I have no problem with us singing TH's praises and us giving up some speculative future draft picks to get a recent starting LT at a cost of $3 million per year. I don't see why any Bills fan would have a problem with this. Is this a good deal for AZ? I hope they think so. The biggest question I would have about TH is that he has been hurt a number of times in his brief career. The good news is that when he got a fracture before he showed great toughness in playing through it and still being productive for the Bills. It appears that any injury problems he had last year and his failure to produce through the injury or at a starter RB level at all last year may have had as much to do with the Bills obviously having given up on him for WM. Fan complaints on TSW that he can't catch or blitz-pick-up are fortunately ignored for the most part as the usual fan blathering and do not seem to be real life problems in TH's game anyway since he caught over 40 passes in his second season when Killdrive used him as a receiver and blitz pick-up issues were not a complaint about Henry at all the last two years until folks began looking for reasons to call for WM (who like any young RB had his own blitz pick-up adventures earlier this season). As the season went on the Bledsoe's sack numbers went down but WM blitz pick-up expertise did not appear to be the main or much at all of the reason for the drop in sack numbers. i think the drop in QB sacks came because: 1. WM does get a lot of credit for the drop in sacks but rather than his skill at blitz pickup or a TH problem in this area, WM simply showed a great ability to run wide and to use the stiff-arm effectively blitzers had to hesitate a second to make sure that WM wasn't running wide while with TH they would simply come as they were likely to fill a hole if he was running up the middle or if he did go wide if TH hesistated at all they could catch him in pursuit while WM might be gone. This issue speaks more to the strengths of WM rather than a particular problem with Henry as his two years of great production as a runner are not lessened by him not being as good as WM. 2. The OL did get a lot better having JMac coaching instead of Vinky and Ruel. This was a far larger cause of the lower sack #s than any blitz pick-up issues. 3. Clements ran a far better offense than Killdrive. Clements even made great use of Bledsoe as a runner on plays such as the fake QB sneak and the pitch to WM for a TD and a few QB draws by Bledsoe. Clements realized that just because Bledsoe is not a good runner, this doesn't mean you never run him at all. The threat of Bledsoe puicking up 6 yards or so on a 2nd and 10 took away this down as a definite blitz down for the LBs. I think the complaints about TH as a pass catcher stem from some definite drops by him on a few plays last year, but again the drops happen to all players and was never an extraordinary issue as they were with a player like Reed and the complaints like the run blitz issue seem overblown to me.

Your #s 1, 2, and 3 all make it a lot more difficult to do your #4. 1. Resigning PW will likely involve giving him a larger contract if there is any demand for him (which even at an age where he is on the backside of his career I expect there will be some demand) and this will cut into our cap room. Giving up cap room for PW is probably a necessary and good thing to do for this D but make no mistake it will likely cut into cap room. 2. Folks seem so hot to trot to get rid of Bledsoe they seem to want to refuse to acknowledge that the deadspace caused by trading/cuttig him as his bonus accelerates may be less than his cap hit if we paid him his contract. BUT the likely additional cost of getting a credible back-up for JP will result in further whittling away of our cap room for the QB position. 3. Likewise if we get Nugent and thus cut Lindell we will pick up roughly 800K in deadspace from acceleration of Lindell's bonus which will further reduce our ability to hire quality or any street FAI don't argue against any particular changes you suggest, but you have to balance the cap impacts of the cuts you demand on the potential costs of hiring a better player to fill that slot.

I think we did escape a risky situation last year going with only 3 DEs. I am not up on the depth charts of all teams, but it certainly it strikes me as not unusual at all for teams to go with 4 DEs and have a back-up for each DL position. If they do go with only 3 DEs, then they quite clearly have a DT who can flip-flop and play both positions (something the Bills do not have because our DTs are built along the PW SA mold of being big run stoppers as they have even had Edwards put on his listed weight to man the middle rather than have the speed body to go consistently wide). Failing having a clear swing man on the DL, a team can line up an LB at DE rushing from the outside and the Bills have used Posey in this way, but again my recollection is that this occurs on obvious passing downs and Posey does not have the weight or strength to consistenly take on LTs or RTs against the rush. I thinl Denney has gotten a bum rap from many on TSW because his falings as a pass rusher are clear and he ain't one. However, Denney has shown great athleticism for a DE and has tremendous wingspan from his big arms and height that he has learned how to use well in the run-blitz we run. Denney saved us a roster spot last year by being able to back-up both the RE and LE spots. He has shown greater strength than Schobel against the run and though he is a lesser pass rusher than Kelsay and has less persistence than Schobel his wingspan and mobility has made him very effective in the shallow zone coverage against the pass that a DE must have to allow the LBs to blitz in th run blitz. We might luck out again going with 3 DEs in 2005 or Ritzman was kept for some reason and maybe he will develop, but if Schobel, OR Kelsy, OR Denney were to get nicked and go down we would be down to only 2 DEs and the waiver wire would be the next stop. 1. Do you see one of our DTs as a swing man capable of manning the outside? 2. I think Posey has gotten a bad rap from those who want to cut him, but do you see him as also being able to man the DE spot consistently or as our first choice? 3. Do you see no risk with only going with three DEs if you agree with these two points? I think we have a need to get a Jim Jeffcoat level player in FA or to draft yet anotherDE if we see a good one.

I cannot disagree that this is down on our priority list because first we need to get some clarity as to how much cap room we can manufacture (significantly more if Bledsoe restructures and stays) and then second we need to see what the market looks like so we can make intelligent purchases with cap room we have (my sense is that TD has a pretty good idea of how these items will play out and alternative plans depending on how they play out. Even in the best cases for these two items, we probably will look to the OL first and resigning our own before shopping at DE. However, it would be incorrect to say that reserve DE is not a significant need for this team as: 1. We went with only 3 DEs much of last year and caught a big break when all of them not only suffered no serious injuries we would have trouble replacing but not even many nicks that allowed them to play but limited their effectiveness. 2. There is potential that Kelsay can still develop into a pass rusher who draws double-teams when he is the point of attack and most plays, but we do not have the double-digit sack threat we want at DE. Raheem Brock is an interesting UFA (I assume he made your list because that is his status). At 6 sacks and playing for the cap strapped Colts he should be gettable at a reasonable price. Further, I think the DE we are looking for is a designated pass rusher in the Jim Jeffcoat mold so we're not looking for a fully rounded player, just someone who can bring it on obvious passing downs who would be doing his job by creating pressures as much as sacks. A former sack master on the backside of his career like a Hugh Douglas may be more the type of player we can afford who can do the job. However, Douglas would need to go through a personality transformation similar to what Sam Adams has gone through to turn from being an arrogant player who only says me-first to being an arrogant player who demands to play rather than simply pouting a lot.

The horrible irony here is that because TD made the mistake of extending him the Bills will be in far better shape if he agrees now to restructure his deal to receive back-up level pay and have a back-up level cap hit than to see him be cut or traded and leave us with $4.3 million in deadspace plus whatever cap hit we need to take on to sign a credible back-up for JP. Part of the reason I advocated saying bye-bye to Bledsoe last off-season was that even though the restructured deal made far more sense than the rediculous option of honoring his contract after a horrid 2003 season for Bledsoe, it still left us with an unacceptable cap hit for 2005 unless he totally revived his career. I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by the improvement he showed over 2003 running the Clements O, but even with that improvement he still is inadequate as our starter and TD really had little choice but to ask him to take a back-up salary or to let him go. The team will be far better off if Bledsoe agrees to a new deal as this would join with the Moulds restructuring to allow us to really play in the FA market (can you say Jones. Pace or Tra Thomas, or maybe Adam Vinateri as it would be worth the deadspace of a Lindell cut to get a stone-cold reliable place kicker and deal a blow to the Pats as well). Further, accepting a restructuring would be tangible proof that Bledsoe would be a teamer even if he were a back-up. Given that he did a great job in 2001 when he was forced to back-up second year pro Tom Brady, I a, very comfortable to have him back-up our second year pro JP. It is looking more and more (AT said they are not interested in Bledsoe today) like there will not be a starter job out there for DB and if he realizes this as well, staying here as a back-up will at least give him a fair shot at winning the starter job and evn if he does, if he were to back-up JP and have JP perform as well as the second year player he backed up before he would almost certainly assure his slot in the HOF. I doubt that Bledsoe will go for the TD deal but I hope he does because I think it is a key to the Bills competing in '05. Having the back-up for JP add $4.3 million deadspace plus his salary to our cap will make winning next year tough for us.

I doubt we are going to see much of this from the draft. If the team gets one immediate contributor from the draft (usually the first rounf choice though even this player should be expected to need to learn a lot before he becomes a vet) and the addition of a later pick who surprises and competes, this would constute a successful draft with most of the other choices hanging on because they are cheaper than a vet of similar talent. TD is on record that even a pick in the first is a 50/50 shot. I hope the Bills have a great draft with the majority of the picks eventually becoming contributors. However, we shouldn't be surprised if our picks contribute less than a Lee Evans and more like a JP Losman in terms of the team next year. I'd look to FA to give you more of what you're asking for than the draft. As far as the OL the keys here would seem to be not resigning Jennings if you want to see us make an FA pick-up that improves the line because resigning Jennings when added to cap cost of MW next year makes it likely we will not be able to make any other significant expenditures on the OL. The other thing to root for if you are interested in OL spending is for Bledsoe to restucture his deal to give us more immediate cap room and likely see him retire as a Bill. If Bledsoe goes bye-bye and gives us $4.3 million in dead space add the cost of signing a back-up QB to that cap hit and spending for new OL significant talent begins o look pretty doubtful.

Before folks get the panties too up in a wad, McNabb did not have an adequate game as he lost. However, he did QB a drive for a TD which ended at 3:52 left in the game. This was part of a fame in which he did the bad thing of throwing 3 INTs, but 31/52 for 350+ yards is not ahject failure in terms of production. Folks complaining about McNabb's play or saying this is why they would never draft him merely sound as stupid as Rush Limbaugh.

I think I did say (or should have said if I didn't due to haste) that Seattle, the Rams and NYJ were playoff teams that our D beat up on and not that they were good teams which many don't judge them to be. I actually think the bigger problem in the NFL (a big part of which is that playoff berths are decided by divisional status rather than by overall record) is that teams which are not that good make the playoffs. Still it is difficult to complain about this as a Bills fan since our own not as good as we want it to be came within not winning one game at home against the reserves of a better team that had alredy locked up its seeding. You play the schedule you are given and against the playoff records of other teams and that is all you can do. Overall, I think that your cut falls short if its intent were to indict the Bills defense as bad (its not the best but it is pretty good). Or to say the players were bad (the LB corps actuallly is very good, the DB show promise and the DL is pretty good (except against Pitts) at run stopping but it needs to use scheme rather than raw player talent to produce a rush. If its intent was to contrast our approach with the Pats as far as managing the players demanding to play, i think it also falls short there as the Pats approach was not tell players to shut up and sit, but instead to divert the good aggression of the players wanting to play into unusual usage of D players playing on O and O players playing on D. I think that MM is actually tracking the mainstay of the Partriots approach with his usage of Bannan, Adams and Denny on O. I think complaints he doesn't do this enough are misguided because I think he made this switch as much as can be expected for a rookie HC. I think the stats bear this out and a true analysis that all is not pristine in Pats land in terms of the actual occurences rather than a simple assumption based on some great Pats results despite the Phil Simms hype also bears this out.