Fake-Fat Sunny

There are several things even in your short post which are simply wrong. 1. Development is not simply one thing it is a number of things. Some QBs have great snarts but lack pro level athletic skills. Some QBs have great athletic skill but lack the mental tools. Some QBs have both physical and mental tools but lack the diligence to apply them. Development for each of these QBs will be different and take a different amount of time and path. Playing the game is necessary for all of them, but which focus comes first will differ for all of them as well. Do you seriously insist there is one method and one timeline for every QB? 2. The comment that each and everyone of us could do what JP did on Sunday is so farcical that I assume and hope you were kidding. 3. I'm not looking to win any argument because one of the beauties of the internet for us posters is that there is no determination here of winning or losing. Winning happens in the real world and the internet is not the real world. 4. The hisory of football is filled with QBs who did not start (and actually did not even play) their first years who became great successes, Did Pennington start his first year? Is he a bust? Did Brady start his first year? Is he a bust? Likewise there are many QBs who did start in their first year and they were certainly busts (Leaf, Smith) and at least a credible argument that some were rushed along and asked to start when they were not ready (Collins). I don't know where you get this notion that there is only one way to do this to be successful or that not doing it in the way your prescribe guarantees failure. There are numerous real world examples some mentioned above that do not fit your case. 5. Finally, a simple question. IS STARTING THE ONLY WAY ONE CAN PLAY? I too agree that JP must play to develop, but the insistence you have that he must start in order to play is simply bizarre. One might reasonably argue that starting gives you more time to play, but the simple fact is that one can play without starting. I think JP should be learning some valuable lessons from his brief stints this year (tuck the damn ball away after the fumble in NE, watch the clock and command the game after the delay of game in Seattle). One might argue that his short stints may give him time to make mistakes and not to correct them. However, after the delay of game faux pas I think he very quickly showed better leadership and command of the gameflow in the remaining minutes of his stint and the Bills were rewarded by scoring his first real game TD with JP at QB. I look forward to JP getting some more good minutes in mop-up duty this year (I hope they all come when we're on the correc end of a blowout. Should (when) we are eliminate then when he is ready give him a start. Not one minute sooner and not one minute later.

I agree with you that a playing is one of the ONLY ways to develop, but i think where we have disagreed is that I do not thinking starting is the ONLY way to play. I think that all Bills fan should and would be pleased if JP got a steady dose of playing just as he did last Sunday loggins some significant amount of time because we won in such blowout fashion. His other appearance this season was less than auspicious as he literally was thrown into the Pats blowout, but I think this should have been an object lesson for folks such as you who have pooh-poohed off-field preparation as being critical to producive play and development. JP had a lousy session in NE because he did not get the reps and preparation of practice which prepares a player to perform in a game. Playing is not the ONLY thing which is essential. Playing is essential and off-field practice and preparation are essential as well. The interesting thing to me about these two JP sessions were that both showed fundamental management issues he must master which is why you are correct that he must play, but from the panic and fumble when he was thrown to the wolves against NE to the delay of game penalty right off the bat against Seattle, their is a pretty clear suggestion that as talented a the boy is, he is not ready to start as yet. I don't know why you keep insisting on this illusion of rules as to when a QB must develop. Players develop on their own schedules and based on their own needs. Some (like one) like RoboQB can start right off the bat for a Pitts team which has not called on him for constant heroics and he has produced. Others like Vick and Pennington have sat for the vast part of their rookie years or longer and then produced for playoff teams. Some like Palmer sat their whole rookie year and is only now producing. Boller played as a rookie and was fairly productive but seems to have regressed as he has played more. Peyton Manning played and did not produce wins early but clearly his own game profitted. All of this an the experiences of Ryan Leaf, Akili Smith Shaun King, Trent Dilfer, Tood Collins et al. simply point out to me that the key is whether your O braintrust is good and has a handle on what a particular player best profits from. There are far too many internal issues with JP for me or for you to say with any certainty what is the best development plan for JP. My GUESS as an outsider who does not see him practice everyday and has no real idea how diligent he has been in making use of the benefits of time his injury gave him is that he will likely profit from the following: 1. Athleticism: Playing in real games at NFL speeds which are greater than college speeds is the only way to hone this, however. based on what I have seen from JP he will need to work on this facet of his game but this is the least of my worries as from the experience of running for his life at Tulane he has shown he can use his body and atleticism well. Playing against NFL level opponents in practice will help and playing in games is essential and will help him develop even more. Part of this athleticism is developing a sense of pocket presence and controlling the field. The spin and rollout he showed on his completion to Euhus Sunday was great. Throwing a player into situations he has not yet developed the pocket preense to handle can result in the deer in the headlights happy feet of a Todd Collins and needs to developed correctly with JP as well. 2. Leading his teammates- I also worry less about this with JP as well because of the cockiness and brashness he has shown can well be translated into a Jim Kelly style leadership. I think that some of the problems he has experienced so far seem to be linked to a desire on the part of his teammates to adjust his attitude a little. His teamates on the D apparently objected to him taking advantage of the tutu QBs wear in practice to gain yardage the D was not allowed to defend against and Vincent gave him a hard shot. In addition, there are some theories that MM threw Losman into the game against NE to emphasize that if you are wearing the uniform you must be prepared to play. JP has made noises post these events whcich seem consistent with these interpretations and that he received these messages loud and clear. The main thing I think he can use as far as leadership development is actually some success. His teammates will gain confidence in his leadership as he succeed. I like the fact he led the team to a TD by handing the ball off to WM. The key here is not to have him run or pass the ball in himself (though that will be nice and needs to happen as well) but instead building the habit of him relying on the run game and his TEAM scoring a TD i a great start to his career in my book. 3. Reading Ds and calling plays- Again nothing is the same as assessing a D over Teague's back so he must play, but this does not replace what this rookie needs to learn about NFL D and O schemes. I really hope he took advantage of the wonderful opportunity which his injury gave him to sit in the booth with Sam Wyche and download his experience. To the extent JP began to be able to anticipare what O is called in the NFL and what Ds teams are going to use and why, he will really accelerate his development. If instead he spent game time yukking it up around the Gatorade he might have built on his leadership ability but it really was a grerat oportunity for him to develop. The best on NFL players often turn out to be videotape junkies and whether JP has invested in this classroom side will do a lot to determine when and if he will be able to call plays like a Jim Kelly. 4. Mechanics- It didn'ttake much looking at JPs Tulane highlights to see he was a special player able to improvise and make all sorts of throws for positive yardage. However, college is college and the pros are the pros. Throwing off balance or off the wrong foot can work in college where many players are not fast enought to catch weaker throws or to run down rainbow throws, however, if he carries this method to the pros, NFL players will likely eat him alive. Further, NFL offenses have a sophistication and over-development that QBs often throw passes to spots where no one is currently there and the receivers having developed timing and chemistry with the QB show up at the right spot at just the right time. JP will be a more successful QB if he makes the same throws the same way most of the time and develops a chemistry with Evans and other receivers that a throw is going to come to them over a predictable shoulder in a predictable way given the situation. JPs mechanics need some work. I still say start JP when he is ready. Not a moment sooner and not a moment later.

The responses just above go into the detail of what the stats mean, but I think the general meaning is even clearer. It maakes little difference to me what the stats say in terms of comparing Bledsoe to an average replacement as the replacements in the real world we would have for Bledsoe are far less than average. Matthews would have been at home on the couch if not for injury and even the most ardent of JP supporters do not attempt to argue that he would have better production than Bledsoe, they instead argue lets have him make his mistakes now so he canlearn the game and be ready to compete next year. This notion is one which demonstrates that TD made an error in never getting anything resembling an NFL level back-up for Bledsoe.

I doubt he will be because being a cancer really hurts his ability to get a big deal in a big way. Henry already has a strike against him because of his poor performance this year, but it is easy to envision a team looking past this and laying in on the Bills for clearly not believing in him because they were going to make it work with WM. The ragging which you and others do on Bledsoe also provided a ready made excuse to see the TH of the last two years as the real TH rather than the poor performer of this year. The injury is a second strike against him which will further constrain interest in him and his market value as trade bait for the Bills or for him to sign a big FA deal early. If Henry were to go down the cancer road, he would bring a thrid strike to himself that would virtually eliminate his chances to get traded or to sign a big deal. Talk of him being a cancer regarding WM this year were clearly overblown by the media looking to sale ad space from another RJ/DF type dispute. Even if you don't want to believe intial reports were false or overblown it speaks even more forcefully for TH not becoming a cancer because he clearly then took a better marketing line after he realized or some advisor realized that being a cancer simply hurt his market value. Further, reports out today of both the Bills and TH now minimizing the injury speak to him recogizing that issues like the injury or him becoming a cancer really hurt him financially. I have seen no evidence of him becoming a cancer and this move would defy logic as it woold lower his value to another team.

The big Peter King mistake in my book (and one he apparently continues to make) is not realizing that it was the prescence of Travis Henry which made the WM drafting doable and work out so well for the Bills. Unless a team had a go-to RB they could count on, the tendency to satisfy the customers wishes by playing WM before he was ready to play would have been huge. Even this year, we fans noticed that WM at the start of this season did not have all the gears and all the pop he has now. It was the ability for the Bills and their docs to bring WM along at his own which sppecifically happened because we had Henry that made this deal work for WM and for us.

No, you shold not be impressed at all with Bledsoe's performance, the thing to be impressed about that this team employs a great combination of good defense, very good special teams play and very good running to win a game going away on the road against a division leading team even when the QB throws 3 pics and gets sacked on a tackle he could have avoided. One of the unfortunate pieces of fallout from the great and unprcedented QB draft of 1983 and the great play of Jim Kelly is that many fans (and a lot of professionals) are too dependent on the notion that a team capable of winning the SB MUST spend heavily to get a QB. The experience of EVERY team that has drafted a QB in the first round since 1989 has provided evidence that this simply is not true. In fact, when you look at the inital salaries of the most recent SB, the salary of 2 time reject Brad Johnson with TD leads the pack and QB stalwarts like Dilfer, Brady and Warner were acquired at at near the vet minimum. Time after time the Bills have given up too much in an attempt to make up for past QB faux pas as they have attempted to find the next Jim Kelly. Instead they: 1. Invested in Kelly a year longer than they should have and delayed picking their QB of the future by a year later than they should have when they reached with a 2nd rounder for TC. 2. Rushed TC along too fast for his level of talent and failed to develop him well. 3. Reached for Billy Joe Hobert with a 3rd rounder and he was so bad he got cut. 4. Over-reached by signing a sweetheart deal with RJ which was made even worse by the deal with DF which rolled achieved incentives into his base pay. 5. Trade for Bledsoe which was fine in my book, but resigning him this off-season is something I think we should not have done. Be impressed definitely but be impressed that we finally are going toward the Trent Dilfer method of winning it all which makes more sense for us than the John Elway or Joe Montana method because neither of these two are going to happen for us.

I went back and read the column and he did site the number of non-football things as the biggest surprise about the job, but his mention did not strike me as an untoward focus for an HC as many of the things he mentioned like the training room are non-football in terms of no Xs and Os involved, but they are all about who is ready to play and not ready to play and are important things about this football team. If adopting cheeseburgers as the travel food of choice becomes the thing which make this team feel different than the past teams which always lost on the road then bring MM the menus and heck let him cook the food. The best HCs strike me as not the best Xs and Os guys, but really are the best at making the team feel and operate like a TEAM. BB is one of the best at tactics and Xs and Os, but I think a key to him building a winner with the Pats is that he has excelled at a bunch of non-football stuff in terms of getting these players to trust each other and sacrfice for each other. The buck for implementation with team starts and stops with the HC. I have no problem with him dealing with non-football stuff which he feels impacts or football performance.

I think Henry did have some high pick trade value prior to this injury because of his two very good seasons and the fact that if a team traded for him he brings a very cap friendly deal with him next year. His downturn this year was real and likely would have scared away some interest, but all you need is one partner to make a deal and his downturn this year being easily explained away by some some team that wanted to make a deal by the Bills braintrust giving up on him because they were enthused with WM would probably been enough to make a conditional deal with a high pick for the Bills at the very least. However, his injury does change the market for him a lot and actually makes all the past posts from folks who provided some dead certain absolute assessment of THs trade value were simply flat out wrong. The injury makes a conditional deal attached to the number of appearances Henry makes for a new team still doable, but this conditional deal probably maxes out at a lower point than a pre-injury deal for Travis. I think the hard part for him is that this injury puts a big payday for him into serious jeopardy. The Bills may not even want to or be able to move him for the right price if he is recovering from injury and sitting on the bench behind WM which the Bills can easily do contractually may cost him a big FA deal. If he chose to force a trade, the uncertainty about him still lingers and the only way to force a deal would be by becoming a cancer which would be a third strike against him (2004 performance, the injury) so this is not a strategy he can pursue either. I think if the Bills offer him a deal which provides more up front money than he has ever seen before (the thing which bought us an extra year apparently due to his financial mismanagement) I think he takes the deal and likely sucks it up as a man and a player.

The other way to lose this game is for the Bills to begin looking ahead and to assume this one is in the W column (well let's see... we definitely have to win out and if so and so beats so and so then when we win four in a row all we need is for so and so to win at home and so on and so forth) to end up failing to win out at all. We fans don't play the game so it is fine for us to explore a bunch of what ifs, but if the team goes down this route it can easily lose a game such as this one or the next one looking forward to a road trip to Cincinnati. The best way for the team to win out (which if it doesn't happen makes all the what ifing useless) is to pursue another cliche and take this one game at a time. The most important game in the impossible (or at best really improbable task we have left ourselves is the next one. The fortunate thing is that I think Mularkey, TD and team leaders have been around long enough to know this and the team must take it one game at a time in order to win the next game. I personally don't even worry about this because if the team is looking down the road the problem will solve itself.

Sorry no cliffnotes. If you suffer from ADD or your boss looks over your shoulder I advise you to skip this. I think many Bills fans and actually the boys in charge of the Bills are so locked into the old days that they desperately seek to find a new Jim Kelly, when his presence was a key to how the Bills went about winning, but was not an essential part of the Bills being a winner. The same is true of Thurman, Andre, Kent Hull, Bruce Smith etc. (though if you wanted to make a case for one of these players being the most essential to our glory year it was probably Bruce as hesaw us accomplish great things never having the group effort and talent support which Kelly and the offense had. In addition, Kelly could miss several games and someone like a Frank Reich could fill in and we still could do great things, when BS was gone we were in big trouble as a team). At any rate, the addiction which many NFL'ers feel to the QB position and the unfulfilled (if not unfulfillable) desire to find the next Jim Kelly has led to a series of mistakes which still haunt this team: 1. In 1994 the Bills made the first Jim Kelly inspired mistake which haunts this team even today. I fully expected the Bills to draft our QB of the future whom they would train for the day which befalls all NFLers when they are done due to age. Extraordinarily the Bills failed to draft a QB or even sign a FA or UDFA as his heir apparent. Instead, the assumption from top to bottom with the Bills was that Jimbo would play a very long time. In 1995 the decline in Jimbo's play began to show them they might be wrong and they drafted Todd Collins, a talented and accurate prospect, but unfortunately a project at best who needed time to deal with his failure at UMi to play in a pro style offense. By then Ralph had shown that the miscalculation on Jimbo was top to bottom in the organization as he made a handshale deal when Kelly was heading to FA to reward him in his next contract. Collins was rushed along in his development and proved to be an accurate passer but developed a fatal case of happy feet whenever he got blitzed. Jimbo ended his career getting carted off the field with a concussion and Ralph had to pay him a cool million off the books to make semi-good on his promise to take care of Jimbo in his next contract. I think some of the difficulty which Ralph has had getting into the HoF which he richly deserves based on his historic role with the AFC and a willingness he began to show with Bruce to open his wallet to build a winner is actually sour grapes he has caused by speaking out for tradition and the CBA pulicly, but behind the scenes he made an anti-CBA maneuver of buying Jimbo out because it was time for him to retire. 2. Poor development of TC caused by the rush to find the new Jimbo (a rush that some fans now want to repeat with JP). 3. A realization that TC would never be Jimbo so the Bills over-reached in trading a 3rd rounder for Billy Joe Hobert who promptly made the completely un-Kelly like maneuver of not preparing himself to play and he simply stunk up a relief appearance for an injured TC and got cut for being a duplicitous idiot. 4. The Bills made a great move in attacting Doug Flutie here for a song of a cap hit in 1998, however, our QB insecurity led Butler to make the stupid move of giving RJ a $25 million contract with about $8 million in guaranteed bonus. The Bills trade with Jax for RJ was at about the going rate (a 1st and a 4th) for a prospect QB who had played well in his one pro appearance. However, where Butler screwed up was in making such a large cap commitment to an unproven NFL starting QB. Even worse, it turned out the way they had attracted Flutie here was by promising him a bonafide shot at the starting QB job (a bonafide shot he was denied when they committed big bucks to RJ) and even worse they had signed a deal which rolled any incentives achieved by Flutie if he should play in 1998 into his base salary. As it happened, things turned out as planned by the football side of the organization. RJ got hurt (not planned for but not surprising in the NFL) and Flutie played as promised by the scouts and started enough games and got enough yards and TD passes to make every incentive in his contract. In 1999, the Bills found themselves with a $3 million cap hit for the 1998 incentives hit by Flutie because he played like we wanted him to as a fill-in. another $3 million in Flutie's newly achieved base pay, and $5+ million dollars in base salary and prorated bonus to RJ. The Bills had no choice but to sign DF to a long-term deal which spread the $6 million they were due to pay him in 1999 over sevaral years as they were due to pay RJ $5+ million for sitting on the bench or whatever (the big bucks Ralph was paying RJ was probably a big part of him getting the start of the playoff game against TN after a team QB'ed by Flutie had earned a playoff berth by week 15 so they could easily justify giving Flutie the week off and RJ simply shredded an Indy team which gave up on the game against the Bills after one of their starters went down to injury and it became clear they also would not improve their playoff position by risking injury for a win against the Bills. 5. As if that were not enough as the Bills cut both RJ and DF at the cost of several million dollars in dead space as the went through a rebuilding year in the 2001 season, the Bills made an unusal trade for Drew Bledsoe to replace the wounded RJ and an AVP who was a great reliever but lousy starter as their starting QB. This unusual intradivisional trade of a starting QB paid off handsomely for the Bills initially as Bledsoe won the hearts of the Buffalo community in terms of the the business and even better was a key to him helping several O performers to Pro Bowl years and he even earned (and deserved in my opinion) a 2002 reserve Pro Bowl berth. In addition, NE needed to move Bledsoe because Beady was clearly a better younger QB and brought them together as a team to win the 2001 season SB. However, the accelerated cap hit from trading Bledsoe played a key role (and quite frankly was the major reason 2 SB winning performances were bookends) in the team missing the playoffs completely in 2002. The Bills mistake since I view the decision to trade for him as a wash (very good and a deserved comeback player of the year his first year and Bledsoe simply sucked his second year as opponents got ample tape of his running the Bills O and Gilbride refused to change it for whatever reason and BB provuded a template for how to beat him) was TDs decision to resign him this year. Thankfully, he did negotiate a far more salary cap friendly deal for DB, but it takes a great HC like Parcells or BB to win with Bledsoe's limitiations. Though MM looks good as an HC, he is simply a rookie HC and it should have been expected that Bledsoe would not get the job done Yesterday was great for the Bills because it at least provides some hope that this team can win going away on the road even with Bledsoe stumbling and bumbling his way to 3 INTs. QB of the future Losman is simply not ready to start without doing even more harm to his development as the QB of the future, Bledsoe can be cut as a cap casualty after June of 2005 but certainly not sooner to be fiscally managed as even cutting him as a cap casualty may end up with us having to pay too much for a back-up and.or rishing RJ along. Yesterday was perfect in that the blow-out of the opponent (particularly on the road) is what we want to achieve and also by doing time to mop-up the game JP gets a chance to play which is essential for a QB who showed us yeaterday with his initial delay of game penalty that he has not yet even gained the ability yet to do fundamental team management. At any rate, a lot of this in my view is based in NFL pros and fans generally overrating the QB and Bills fans in particular overrating this position afeter Jimbo did a great job. Sorry no cliff notes but it has been fun to think out loud with this writing.

I think the key thing here fri=om my view as a fan was that JMac was engaged in some major coaching attitude adjustment of MW when he spoke publicly of moving him to LG. There is a big FA financial difference to such a move and it served along with some carrots to go along with this stick of lighting a fire under MWs butt to get professional about his game and his teamates. Thankfully this work seemed to do part of the trick with Big Mike. Unfortunately, some posters also bought into this prod and declared that MW had an agility problem which gave him issues with speed rushes around the end. This made no sense to me based on what I could see as MW certainly is a big boy but certainly had a rep as one of the more agile OL players and seemed to show this in the highlight tapes we saw of his work in college and him doing drills like the shuttle runs. It strikes me as clear to anyone who presents himself as a serious watcher of the game that MW\s big problems were mental in the unprofessional way he let his teamates down by missing "voluntary" practices and allowing his weight to balloon up when a family member died and with the problems he had coordinating with Pucillo. Sacks up the middle and on the inside on stunts were his problem which I saw rather than speed rushes around end. He ahowed not a problem getting to a position to block because of lack of agility but of knowing where to go because he didn't coordinate or know the game well. JMac cannot get into a players' body and play for him but he can get into a players head and teach him, inspire him or force him to work. MWs problems were tailor made for JMac to help him make them better. Yje key here was not sucking up to an talking to former players to find out whether it is easy to make a shift or not, the key here was to watch the game. Lord knows I'm just a fan and not perfect at this, but even I could see the issues here.

I don't know any Bills fans who aren't sick of the inaccuracy and judgment that led to three INTs today, but the truly great sign is that we won going away despite these turnovers. I agree with you that JP is not ready to start yet and I do not expect him to be unitl next year. The key question for good football minds like yours is how do the Bills win with Bledsoe at QB since contractually he will be here this year (and maybe even next) and JP isn't ready. Today was joyous day because it provided a real world example of us winning against a divison leading team on the road. It matters little what we're sick of when reality ain't gonna change but it matters more thinking through how to maximize our situation with the reality being what it is.

The funniest thing is watching the I hate Bledsoe quotes shift from he will never win another game after his stinker in NE, to Bledsoe will never win on the road after we won going away against St. L, to Bledsoe will never win an SB after we won going away on the road with the QB throwing 3 INTs. If we win next week will he be accused of not being able to walk on water? Bledsoe needs to play the role on this team of a hyper Trent Dilfer which is hand the ball to WN, let the D do its job, let the ST be a positive force and oh yeah did I say hand the ball off to WM. Bledsoe has clear and obvious limitations. The key here is to do what Parcells did and what BB did when their teams won games with DB playing a central role. Good things can happen if folks are not psychotically addicted to finding the next Jim Kelly.

Is Bledsoe the QB to deliver an SB to the Blls? Nope on my opinion. Is Bledsoe the QB to deliver a playoff win to the Bills? Nope in my opinion though if MM and the gang are as smart and tough about football as they were today, there is some chance that the braintrust will hand the ball off and hand it off again and use Bledsoe as a change-up rather than as the primary means for winning the game and if they do this we have a chance at winning a playoff game. Gowever, if we depend on him being Elway he ain't got the wheels and if we depend on him being Montana he ain't got the brain and we will likely lose the playoff game in the stevetojean manner you describe. Is Bledsoe the QB to be a placeholder for our QB of the future until Losman is ready to contribute to the team? Bingo we have a winner. What the Bills and their fans can reasonably hope for from Bledsoe is that he will allow us to be competitive in games and improve his play until JP is ready. If he does that it will be a great service to Bills fans and to this region. Today weas so great because it showed a world in which the team can win going away without depending upon its QB to work miracles because the D stops the run, the O runs the ball and the SWT makes critical plays to win the field position battle and win the game. I don't see why folks keep asking the question is Drew as good as Elway, Montana or even Tom Brady because he ain't. The question is whether the Bills can win and get better while our QB of the future gets better and do with Bledsoe at the helm. Today's answer was emphatically yes.

As long as we are talking about you rather than the Bills based on your post, my favorite line is the above which harkens back to the good old days a few weeks ago when you were flat out panicking about the OL and advocated shifting Mike Williams to LG because of some worry about his agility and him being unable to handle speed rushes around the end, when actually the big problem he had exhibited was not his athleticism or agility but actually mentally being able to coordinate with the LG and pick up stunts from guys up the middle who were now his responsibility or follow ends when they went inside. As best as I can tell this seemed to come from JMac talking publicly about this shift has part of adjusting MWs attitude by threatening to separate him from tackle FA money, It appears that in addition to putting the fear of the OL coach into Williams he also fooled you. Suddenly you find that the OL has not been really that bad all year even though your prescription not only would have caused wholesale shifts in the OL by plugging MW into a new spot, but created a hole to be filled at RT at the same time our LT will probably leave due to FA. Congrats for finally seeing the light and shiftimg your views to fit reality once again.

that it seems to show that we probably have the right talent and the right coach (read coaching staff selected by the right HC). The Bills braintrust has the right plan to win with the advantages and limitations of this team. This means: 1. You run and stop the run which seems to be the most fundamental part of this game. JMac is such an upgrade over Vinky and Ruel it isn't even funny and Jrry Gray is showing himself to not only be a wonderful tacticiam as he demonstated last year through mastering play calling of the run blits, but he is a wonderful strategist as he almost always seems to diagnose what the opponents are doing right in the first half and come up with and implement an adjustment at half time to stop the opponents. If I feel good personally it was in recognizinh that even if some posters wee correct in labeling Adams a fat tub of goo (I honestly didn't know having never seen Adams that even a fat tub of goo was an upgrade for this D where it needed to be upgraded. Fortunately, this fat tub of goo is playing like a great player and is a key to stopping the run on this D. 2. Bledsoe is not the QB he once was in terms of production, but he can win IF the HC and O squad run an offense which does not depend on him being Elway or Montana because he ain;t. However, you can win with him if you use his golden arm as a threat and instead run the ball and run it again. The main problems for these team early in the season which unfortunately will likely cost us a shot at the playoffs was that we got A unlucky with a couple of miracle plays we should have stopped againt Jax and with the refs in Oakland and that our roolie HC was not a vet yet so that he could run a game which demphasized Bledsoe so that Bledsoe could win. The NE game shows we are not anywhere near the best yet, but the run up too this game and the two games afterward show to me that this team is on the right track. Start JP when he is ready to start and not a moment sooner or a moment later! No one circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills!

No one circles the wagon like the Buffalo Bills

I though that was the argument which won the last federal election.

Not at all. For all those who have hung their hat on the thought that the ONLY way for a rookie to get better is to play, well guess what? JP played today. I think he also had some good learning experiences in his limited appearance today as: 1. He got some of the learning mistakes out of the way when he nmismanaged the clock and got a delay of game as soon as he came in. 2. He showed nice mobility in rolling out to throw the ball to Euhus with nice touch on his one pass play. 3. He handed the ball off to WM which is going to be a key to playing whether you are DB or JP. 4. He got another chance to lead men in the huddle and to see enemy defenses over Trey Teague's back. Playing is the ONLY way to learn important parts of the game, but starting is NOT the only way to play. JP needs some work (as shown by his college highlights, as shown by the delay of game today and as shown by him being thrown to the wolves in the game against NE- the amusing part of TSW is reading folks who claimed that playing is the ONLY way to learn now complain that he didn't get the necessary preparation before he played). Today was a great day for those who love JP, because he got to see up close and personal how you put 38 points on the board even when you throw 3 INTs and he got to play because we were blowing them out on the road. Everyone who roots for the Bills should be happy!

Perhaps the greatest tribute to Bledsoe's play is that folks complaining about him have now fallen back to citing him as a QB who can never win the SB for us. Wow, just 2 weeks ago it was that he could never win a game for us and last week he will never win a road game for us. With progress like this the sky's the limit. Look, JP is clearly the QB of the future, but his delay of game call shows that clearly the future ain't now. I have no complaints about Bledsoe's work today because though his flaws were real and important we put up 38 points with those flaws. If you're waiting for Bledsoe to be John Elway, I agree with you he ain,t Elway, Montana or any of he greatest QBs ever. However, he clearly showed today that he can bea good seat warmer for our QB of the future, doing his part in road victories which allow JP to get the playing time he needs for his development in mop-up time. I have no problem with that whatsoever and in fact as a Bills fan I'm pretty happy about it.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. The projections are pretty meaningless but fortunstely WM appears quite likely to cross the magic 1000 yard mark this year. Regardless of what could have happened if he had played earlier, if he passes the 1000 yard mark this year no one can reasonably argue with this as a triumph for him and any complaining Bills fans might do about TD (his GW faux pas makes complaints legitimate) any complaint that also fails to give him credit for one of the best picks in recent NFL history will be deemed silly as being incomplete.

Travis will have interesting choices to make. Frist, he gets traded at the Bills option as they have him under contract for a year. He certainly could force us into trading him by becoimg a cancer, but not only does this run completely counter to the rep he has built, but to do this would lower his trade value already greatly lessened by this injury and his poor performance which was a part of WM replacing him. Doing badly when the Bills were clearly committed to WM is forgiveable. Being injured is forgiveable. Being a cancer is forgiveable. However, if all three are in place his value as trade bait goesway down and he has to play and prove himself to himself to get signed to a large deal. If I am him and the Bills offer me less than #1 money, but more money than I have ever seen before, I think hard about resigning and because I put contingent escalotors in the contract, I earn them if (when in the modern NFL) WM goes down and I fill in for him. I think this injury makes it far more likely that TH will remain a Bill.

I think I am pretty clear in stating my sense that this phrase represents our finest hour from the past and is not the current state this team is in. I think aspiring to once again have the Bills play (ie Bledsoe's performance) and the fan's reaction to it is actually a tribute to that past glory rather than an insult to it. It was good and I want it again. Bledsoe needs to perform better and the fans need to respond better to that performance to make it so. The fact is that if some divine being came down and said this is the way it can happen, Bledsoe will be your QB for all of Losman's rookie year, he will play badly to start 2005 but then suffer a collapsed lung early uin JPs second season and JP will then come off the bench and lead the Bills to an SB win, though Bledsoe will step in for a slightly injured JP to QB the majority of a must win game and then gracefully step back to have JP come back and when the SB for next season. I would say OK. Would you say: 1. No this can't happen a QB MUST start because this will be the ONLY way he can win and win the SB? If so, I'd say you are wrong because that certainly is not how it happened quite recently with a 6th round draft pick for NE. Do you think JP is less talented than a 5th round pick? 2. No, this can't happen because Bledsoe simply sucks? If so, he certainly sucked his first two games of the first SB winning season for NE. He did comeback after he certainly did not scare me anymore as NE's QB to actually merit a Pro Bowl reserve nod for the Bills in 2002 (it certainly surprised me as I would not have bet he could perform this way as I thought he was done when he got here, but like you I was wrong). Drew done now? Maybe as he is even a couple of years older however, I think with a Parcells/BB coaching job a team could conceivably train a new QB with him as your current starter. 3. Bledsoe is too much of a competitor and will never act positively to help train the guy who will take his job and step gracefully out of the way when the new QB comes along? Maybe not, but this certainly has happened before quite recently so i think it is against reality to say this cannot happen. Do you know something real about Bledsoe's life that indicates it cannot happen. So for now, I root for what I perceive as the best potential outcome for the Bills, Bledsoe plays well enough for us, JP develops well enough for us and we win the SB next year. A pipedream yes, but hey I'm just a fan.

I think what I mean by I suport Drew Bledsoe is pretty close to what you mean as well. My primary interest is in supporting the Bills. I want the Bills to win and usually this means having our QB play well, good, or at least OK and thus I root for Bledsoe to do that. However, since the Bills rather than some individual player is my first priority, It will be a great thing to see good competition from the yougsters on the team stepping up which pressures Bledsoe to perform better if he wants to keep his job. The hard thing for the Bills fan in my view is that rationality dictates us having some serious doubts as to whether Bledsoe can perfrom a a winner without some key (if not extraordinary help) from his teammates like Moulds performing like Irvin, WM performing like Emmit Smith, us finding our Bill Bates on ST, the Bills D performing as well as the Dallas D, etcetrera when this TEAM joined with and actually led by Troy Aikman won it all last time a QB drafted in the first round led the team that drafted him to an SB win. There are also even greater doubts if not virtual certainty that JP will not lead this team to an SB win or berth as a rookie. Its tough these days as a Bills fan. So what does all this mean to me? I support Bledsoe because he is the QB for MY team. I think that JP is the future for this team at QB (though I think getting the right QB for you is far more easily found through other methods than the cap investment of a 1st round pick as reality says Brady was a a second day drasft choice, Johnson was a two time reject, Dilfer was a vet minimum reject, Warner was at Wal-mart, etcetera. The QB market is a difficult and tight one, but QBs caoable of appearing in or winning the SB can be found for the vet minimum. Past winners and appearers like Warner and Collins were readily available this past off-season for a team with cap room and quality vet QBs like Brees will be available for more than we want to pay this coming off-season). However, JP will need a chunk of work before he contributes to this team. The question to me is whether that work will ONLY happen when we accept the growing pain of losses to educate him or whether he can be developed judiciously and allowed and forced to play in chunks that accomplish the goals of both developing him and giving us the best shot at winning. Actually, we are in good shape here as Bledsoe has clearly demonstrated the ability in the past to help a young QB develop and to step out of the way when that young QB surpasses him. Brady has only good things to say about working with Bledsoe and Bledsoe's help in developing him. Bledsoe has operated as a true teamer in the past and was quite graceful in stepping out of the way when brady stepped in. I hope for the same with JP. I have still yet to see a good argument for the Bills aspiring to do it any other way. It was a natural time to say goodbye to Bledsoe this past off-season, but TD did not do that. Now i think we should advocate him doing that because we are forced to by Bledsoe's bad performnces but still we should do this as smoothly as we can. In my mind this means we have little choice but to cut Bledsoe as a cap casualty afte June of 2005 to distribute his cap hit. However, it would be great to see Bledsoe step up his game and play well enough to allow us to win some games and actually have JP go through a full off-season and training camp of learning before he is truly ready to take the Brady root and contribute to this team even winning the SB next year. I doubtthis will happen because Bledsoe will not perform at an adequate level or even if he does be recognized by fans and the media as doing so and because if Bledsoe is found lacking JP will probably be rushed a long at a Todd Collins like pace which hurts his development. I am fearful but still hope for DB performing well and JP taking his time to become a vet and learn the game. To me rooting for this outcome is in the finest tradition of no one circling the wagons like the Buffalo Bills!

Alot of this I think will come down to whether you are tuning in for Howard or tuning in for Howard talking about the product (the Bills, the Sabres, or general sports generally). I assume some folks (probably a small number led by his wife and kids) worship him in some Howard Stern like way, but that has never struck me as Howard's strength and its not why I listen to him. The reason why I have enjoyed him a lot for several years was because he provided a thorough and often upbeat (though not cloyingly so as he recognized reality) assessment of the teams which I loved and rooted for (the Bills primarily because of the region and the Sabres a lot because of Empire. I don't listen to WGR much at all because since the Coach days they have this schtick which they sell which generally I find of limited football interest and not entertaining for me. Fine, as I don't require the world to meet my odd desires and likes. I'm glad for Howard because he seems to have found a steady gig and given that he has a family to provide for, adventure may be neat but a steady gig may be required. I'm sorry that the Simoncast did not provide that and I am curious whether it did not because there are too many costs and not enough income out there for an independent or because Empire had become such an abortion after the Rigas family stuck their fingers (tongues and butts) into the till. What I'm curious about is whether WGR is still driven by the business of promoting the Coachesque schtick of warping reality to fit their sales, or whether there is some sense of reality (altered reality yes, but altered by our fanlike desire to see a win) to how he does his show. I think the Bulldog and Mike Shoop were pretty good when they started but being on WGR really dragged them down and I hope the same does not happen to Simon.