Fake-Fat Sunny

He blows but we have little else to go to. Besides I don't think fixing his problems fixes the many other fatal flaws on this offense.

Whose bandwagon do you want to get on? I certainly have no allegiance to Bledsoe as I thought it was a fine idea to get rid of him with no cap cost by cutting him during the off-season, but the key question in terms of improving the Bills production is not simply getting off the Bledsoe bandwagon nbut getting on the bandwagon of a player judged to be an adequate starting QB. I really doubt it is Shane Matthews who is only not at home right now due to the Brown injury. As a fan it is fine to senselessly rail against Bledsoe because he is obviously inadequate, but if you are a serious fan interested in improving the team whose bandwagon are you now on at QB?

I agree that the quality of the D played a big role in NE going from SB to missing the playoffs to SB. However, it has been my sense (and correct me if I'm wrong because I follow the Pats to the extent that it directly impacts match-ups against the Bills and do not track the fortunes of the team as a whole) that ironically it was the effect of how the Pats lost Bledsoe which overlay their fortune in the 2002 and 2003 seasons. Specifically, by trading Bledsoe after winning the SB in the 2001 seasaon, the team took an accelerated cap hit for the 2002 season. This cap hit greatly constrained the Pats ability to bid for the marginal pros who can't start but are the back-ups you need when players get hurt or step-up to challenge starters and make them better. The Pats profitted greatly from acquiring a bunch of players after the July cuts in 2001 but could not pull this off with a smaller cap in the 2002 season, in the end they ran out of gas and missed the playoffs. In the 2003 season, they had worked through the minor cap hell of absorbing the acceleration of the cap hit and it proved to be just in time as they were able to acquire a great bunch of back-ups and some solid FA players (Harrison for example) with their restored cap room. Offensive players and defensive players are linked like never before through the cap.

The line of thinking was exactly why I was interested in us not taking on any additional cap liability for honoring the contract we inherited from NE to get Bledsoe. Having the lowest possible cap hit for you QB as the Ravens did by paying Dilfer the minimum is part of why they could afford to pay Ray Lewis and others throught the nose and afford a world-class D. It appears to me as though TD actually read the QB market correctly (as any GM worth his salt should be able to do better than an outside amateur such as myself) as teams like the Fins and Cleveland proved all too willing to pay more for Jeff Garcia and AJ Feeley (two QBs I had targeted early as replacements for DB) ended up costing more than I would have paid them and constrained our cap for buiulding a solid D. As the market seem to mandate that the Bills in fact resign DB if he would agree to a cap-friendly deal, TD did manage to do this with Bledsoe. While I think it is not likely but certainly possible to win with Bledsoe at QB, TD has really taken a different track with the position than I would have. I have thought that signing a credible number 2 for a virtual contract song was an important thing to do. Even though Bledsoe has shown that he is a very coachable player both early (when Parcells coached a team with DB at the helm to an SB) and late in his career (when BB/Weis were able to effectively have Bledsoe run an offense re-designed for Brady to a win in a must win game) as with top notch coaches he did what had to be done to get to the SB. I wouldn't have banked on him recovering from his 2003 debacle season and NFL QBs get injured too easily in this league anyway. TD put his faith in Brown and I wouldn't have done that. Likewise, I think his choice for disaster QB, Losman is a choice for the future even before his injury. Still my doubts about the Bledsoe choice was less of a reflection on him as a player and actually real doubt as to whether a rookie HC and OC could pull off the coaching job that a Parcells and Belicheck built themselves up to the level they had when they pulled the right strings with the very coachable Bledsoe (he is a team guy from all we have seen and this is an area where being dumb is quite helpful). However, despite the critical problem of a lack of point production, the underlying logistice look pretty good so far: 1. Bledsoe has proved to be even more coachable than I expected excuting the quick release offense effectively (at least between the 20s) Sunday. 2. Good balance between run and pass play called was shown in the game though the failure to even test the Jags downfield is a concern. 3. The third down conversion number was at 50% which I woukd attribute to some creative play calling by Clements such as the draw play on thrid and long. 4. The OL looked surprisingly good in pass pro to me with only one sack being racked up, though a more productive run game is essential for this O to work, it is to be hoped the main cause was actually a better than average Jag eun D. So all-in-all I could do without Bledsoe, but given that TD signed him to a cap friendly contract and the O shows promise though it still falls short of rreaching the ultimate goal which is to score points.

Ahh, but this is just a ploy. Boy are they and Pats fans overconfident now and that is when we strike (heh, heh, heh).

Why is there a problem that they were out until a 2am closing time. Players cleverly are resetting their internal clocks to PST which meant they really closed the bar down at 11pm. I'm proud our boys are making the sacrifice by staying out til last call a couple of nights before the game. Such a sacrifice is laubable. Ahhhh youth.

Certainly after the same teams beat each other by identical 31-0 scores depending on how the season went and who was at home, it does seem a bit silly to think one can accurately predict outcomes with any certainty much in advance. One can guess, but they are little more than guesses that only advance to the level of being eudcated guesses the week before the game.

I agree that Bledsoe holds the ball way to long looking to make the perfect throw with his perfect arm. Patpatpatshuffle sack is an accurate description of his play last year. if I were god (or TD and in charge of the Bills) I would have jettisoned Bledsoe while the jettisoning was good this past off-season as the Bills would have lost no cap room from cutting him and used the cap space we had to invest in getting another QB or two capable of pulling off the cap casualty or UDFA done job of getting a team to the SB which we have seen folks like Delhomme, Brad Johnson, Gannon, Warner, Dilfer, Collins, etc. have pulled off over the years. However, even though I think that ALL of recent SB history indicates that a team can make it to and win it without a heavy investment in the QB position, i think it is possible to be competitive certainly (the first and next step in the Bills road back to respectability) by signing Bledsoe to a cap friendly deal. I soply think there are three sides (at least) to this debate: 1. People who show their worship for Bledsoe by believing he can do anything when he can't. 2. People who also spend too much time focusing on Bledsoe by insisting he can do nothing right when the facts are he was a QB on an SB team early in his career (because a key factor was Parcells constnatly yelling throw the damn ball in practice) and also was the QB for NE in the majority of a must-win game (a key here was that he had to run a powered down O designed for Brady). 3. Those of us who would have prefered the Bills look elsewhere for their QB, but they didn't however and we still think we can win by using what Bledsoe does well strategically and have the O rely on running the ball rather than his arm. Which position do you take, or is there some other formulation of options which you see? I merely argue the Bills can win with Bledsoe as QB, but the key to winning with him seems to me the course the Bills are taking: 1. Rely on the run game and strategic use of the short pass as Belicheck has done in NE. 2. Use Bledsoe's arm as a threat to open up offensive options but constantly emphasize to him getting rid of the ball (even if simply OB unless he sees something right there) as Parcells did with his force of will and we seem to be doing with an alarm clock set to 4 seconds. Perhaps you want to argue that all hope is lost and Bledsoe will never win anything. OK, but this view runs counter to what has happened in thereal world if the HC focuses on the TEAM instead of Bledsoe and I don;t know why anyone would hang around TSW anyway if they think it is hopeless for the Bills.

Its a strong possibility as our expectations are so high and many 1st rounders (see Mike Williams) disappoint. The best thing that the Bills can do to develop Losman so that he contributes a whole bunch to the Bills is to not rudh him along. its tough, because this will mean resisting the fervent desires of us customers and as we all know in business, the customer is always right. I never want any athlete to be injured, but one of the ironies here is that the injury to losman, assuming he recovers fully physically may turn out to be the best thing that can happen to his development. I for one have seen Losman since we picked him as most appropriately our disaster QB this year. You learn alot playing the game against real competition and that must happen, but there are somethings which are great about Losman's game and also some things I think he needs to work on as all rookies do and some particular areas where he needs to improve from all I here and have seen. From what I have seen of Losman and know of his history, these priority areas are probably best picked up through diligent study by him, some work under the watchful eye of NFL professionals and only third playing the game against real NFL players. He can actually do these first twp things with a broken wheel and in fact I think he can do them better by not having to worry about being prepared to play every week. I hope that Losman's ear is surgically attached to Sam Wyche's mouth and that he can spend the majority of this season in the booth looking down at the game with a bird'seye view and learn why particular plays are run and why they worked or didn't work. The practice field is an important place for him, but i think it is most important for him to learn and practice better throwing mechanics as he apparently has developed the habit of throwing off the wrong foot in order to maximize his own power and accuracy because he was often throwing on the run at Tulane. I put a lot of stock in Kyle Boller saying during draft coverage that he loved starting last year, but was surprised to learn once he got hurt that there were things he learned being forced to sit and watch with no chance of playing that he never could have learned playing or distracted by preparing himself if he needed to play. A 1st round drafted QB will eventually lead a team to SB victory (they usually lead about 25% of the teams that make it deep into the playoffs which I consider to be the 4 teams in the championship games. Last year was a special year for 1st rounders since thanks to some miscues by Farve 2 of the 4 teams were led by 1st round picks. However, as usual both Manning and McNabb fell short of their goal). Perhaps this QB will be Losman, I hope so. However, the next 1st round drated QB who reaches his ultimate goal in the NFL will be the first one to do so in quite awhile.

It really amazes me how many people seem to worship at the Temple Bledsoe. First you have folks who seem to claim he can do no wrong even if he had a disgusting season last year which flat-out showed that even his golden arm could not deliver even and adequate offense geared radically toward his throwing )believe Kevin Killdrive calling 30 something pass plays in a row on 3rd and less than 2 is radical). Second though there are even the more hilarious posts and a column by that idiot Lenny PassthePotatoes at ESPN which attributes the Bills loss last Sunday to the Bills being too conservative and bending over backward to salvage Bledsoe's career. Puhleeezzzee. Whether you focus too much attention and rely too much on Bledsoe' performance by declaring him the cause of our woes by being too pass happy or by being too run and short pass-happy, your analysis shares a common fault. The key to the Bills is not one players performance (or lack thereof) it is the TEAM's performance. The Bills actually took a correct approach in my view by following the same line that delivered an SB appearance to NE and a win in a must win game where Bledsoe filled in for an injured Brady. Run the ball and have Bledsoe get rid of it quick rather than go into the patpatpatshufflesack which over-reliance on him tends to produce. It amazes me how some folks seem addicted to Bledsoe and focusing too much attention on his play whether it is the undelying cause of the Bills woes or it isn't. I guess this is typical in a league which was spoiled by the once in a generation or two convergence of QB talent caused by the draft class of 1983 and the prescence of Joe Montana. The successful QB in today's NFL are late draft picks like Tom Brady, UDFAs like Jake Delhomme and failed first round draft picks paid the league minimum like Trent Dilfer. The last first round pick a team made which even brought them to an SB berth was when TN picked McNair in 1995 and the last 1st round pick that delivered an SB win for that team was Dallas taking Aikman way back in 1989. Analysis of the Bills faults which starts with Bledsoe is simply incomplete at best and probably wrong if it ends with Bledsoe as well. I wish Bledsoe worshippers love him or hate him were Bills worshippers instead.

This injury to their RB shows a reason why the notion of trading either Henry or WM this past off-season or anytime before the off-season was just dumb.

I think part of the issue arises because as a society we have a commitment to a free-market and advocate a laissez affaire approach to business and society weith as few limitations on the market as possible. However, we are discovering in the business of sports that there have to be limitations on the free-market and agreed on restrictions in the marketplace to produce the best sports competition. If we really pursued a free-market in sports it would be more like the MLB where George Steinbrenner has decided to spend a large amount of dollars putting together a team while others choose only to spend smaller amounts for there own reasons. Even the MLB has many restrictions (for example it is illegal to sign development contracts with foreign or domestic child labor no matter how fast they pitch) on the market beyond letting the buyer beware, but MLB and the NHL are no where near the market restrictions which are a big part of producing a good product in the NFL. It was a tough road for the NFL to get to this point. it required a strike in the mid-80s where the owners totally crushed the player's union. However, the effect of this was that the player's union saw Gene Upshaw and the players take over after Ed Garvey and the union lost big time. Under Upshaw (with the help of a lot of lawyers and learned folks) the players made the threat that they would decertify and eliminate their union and force the NFL to actually negotiate with individual players in a free market. With surpirising quickness, the nFL realized that it could never produce a good product or even survive in a free market. The owners and players in the form of the NFL and NFLPA became a partnership rather than combatants. The end result of this control and restriction within the marketplace is that the NFL has a better product and is making more money than ever before. All pro sports are going through some version of finding there way to an operating partnership between the source of product (the workers or players) and the source of capital (the owners). This is the fight going on in the NHL right now. Who knows what the eventual outcome will be. However, my guess is that given modern communications and other technology and the ability to distribute product and get paid for it being n essence democratized like never before, that the owners as sources of capital are becoming outmoded and some form of the workers (players) actually organizing to run their own businesses will take place.

I agree. I'm against bikinis. They should go nude!!!!!

It seems to be another example of the golden rule. He who has the most gold wins. Actually, their are probably issues of intent here. If the NFL could not prove that the Broncos were doing more than trying to maximize their use of the rules pushing as far into the gray area as they could its going to be a tough case to make if it comes down to arguing in court. Given that the CBA was still being interpreted and under negotiation and thus a moving target everyone was learning about, the Broncos could certainly argue the legal case (if it came to that) that they simply were in error rather than evil. Part of the question comes down to how many other teams broke similar rules in the same way or did even more outrageous things (more likely with the Cowboys and Jerry Jones) that escaped NFL sanction. There seems to be more here than is being told, but it seems to be a case where the Broncos got the ultimate prize in exchange for getting a virtual hand slap.

I say no rather than maybe because rather than making a minuscule effort this weekend I think he went to work. 23 carries against a tough Jags run D before cramps took him out of the game for much of the last quarter is a lot of work for 3 and a little quarters. He did strap it on and come back for a play after initially taking a blow due to the cramps, but was pulled/or pulled himself again and we went with WM. Given the way he strapped it on last year and the fact that he and WM produced the same ypc against thesame defense is there any reason besides your own theory why you would think he is malingering. There is no evidence to indicate that he was taking it easy beyond that which is conjured in a suspicious mind. I think any doubts for now say more about how the poster thinks than it does about how Henry performs.

I think we agree that Clements can be beaten by a WR who takes advantage of his aggressiveness, however, I think we disagree as to whether this happens with a frequency that makes him a liability or about the value of the plays he does make. Frequency- From what I have seen NC has been and appears to be the #2 skilled back on the Bills. Last year AW was a great cover guy (he did not get enough INTs, but he tended to blanket guys so thet he had a rep for good coverage and he is a definite hitter so opposing WRs were watching for his tackles as much as they were looking th ball in which helped alot) amd this year Vincent has a great rep for coverage and for hitting. The result of this is that I think Clements actually tends to see schemes which isolate him or send plays his way as opponents avoided AW and now Vincent. I think the result is that in relation to the amount he is challenged with a route aimed his way or by very good receivers if the opposing DC beats Gray and gets the match-up he wants I do not feel horrendous about Clements play at all. Like all CBs playing against the great WR talent in this league he gets burned from time to time, but not at a rate that I would say is more than most #2s in this league. Playmaking- I think it is the second point which makes Clements an extremely valuable Bill. He has been the only member of our secondary who is the least bit of an INT threat where Reese got the first INT by a safety in 44 games last week and where the main problem with AW was lack of INTs. The 3 he got is less than we want, but by far the most production we have seen by a Bill DB playing within our system. He was the main reason we were in the game last year against Miami where ur season went south as he not only was the only one to put a TD on the board, but communicated wonderfully to recognize that Miami had left him with no one to cover on his side, made the hand-off to Milloy to cover anybody who crossed to his side and then ranged across the field to make an INT off a Fiedler not even watching him on a pass where AW had the inside coverage and looked beaten to Fiedler. It was great communication by Clements and real playmaking to get the INT. That was last year, what about this year. The Clements story against Jax is not only Smith beating him on the Hail Mary he should have knocked down, but him also getting the INT which turned into our first and only TD. The final play made Clements a goat rather than him getting a gameball for his performance for the first 58 minutes of the game. He deserved to be named and pointed out as the goat for failing to make the play which along with the final pass for the TD, the Lindell miss, and the Nillarial hold cost us the game. However, knowing this does not simply wipe out the first INT or his "almost" gameball performance like it never happened. He is a goat for the game, but he is a goat who played extremely well for almost all the game. Add to that the faith that he has evoked in the coaches with his punt return potential. I mark him down for one bad play on PR duty this pre-season but he showed when he was briefly called upon last year that he can be a force as a punt returned. In the end, I think we agree on the only important things which is where you say "I don't think we should bench him or trade him or anything. He certainly has all the tools to become a great player in this league. He has shown the capacity to be a "playmaker." The fact that he is punk is simply french pastry from my perspective. It is fluff which can have a real game impact as we saw Sunday when he should have simply blocked the ball, but I can't think of a better unfortunate lesson for him and us than what happened. Like you I do not see him as tradeable or whatever. He is my #2 CB and will remain so for quite a while as best as I can tell or judge.

And Willis has never had a serious leg injury? Please. This is why your roster needs two starter quality backs on it. There are several ways to do this and most teams do this by having a reserve who they judge is good enough to step up. The Bills have done this by getting Henry to sign a sweetheart deal for us and drafting an injured college star and rehabbing him. Trading either player now would be a foolish football move unless you know something about Shayd Williams and a certainty that he is ready to step up that the rest us don't know.

Reality makes such a difference here that while it is somewhat educational to talk 2005 contract possibilities, it is simply dumb to advocate anything as the performance of players in 2004 (folks may or may not be right in their predictions so predict away but generally so what) and the occrence of injuries in 2004 (which none of us can predict or control) will determine what is more or less intelligent to do in 2005. If Moulds turns his performance around and catches two TDs in every game from here on out, then pay him whatever it takes to keep him. If he fumbles in the redzone every game then let him go. If he gets hurt like Reed got hurt in his contract year then renegotiate his deal or let him go. Understanding football and the cap is certainly a great thing in terms of a brief post which lays out possibilities but probably does not breed much response besides the great thanks folks give to clumpy for his cap work. However, advocacy of what we should do with the Moulds contract in 2005 are pretty silly.

The big flaw with O Sunday was a fatal one in that they could not make movement between the 20s payoff with scores from the redzone, However, I think it seems much more likely that the key to improvement in working on these failings rather than to revise the approach of the O. I think more success is to be found in: 1. Players have to perform better by simply mot making critical errors at critical times such as the Moulds fumble in the redzone, the Lindell miss from 42, and the Villarial hold on 3rd and short. Its a horrible thing for us fans because little we can suggest will result in players simply doing better, but to me this is a key. 2. In terms of approach we need to run the ball even more and this will give us success. Running the ball three times in a row when we got sacked trying for the pass is a fairly pedestrian approach (if the oass had worked MM would be declared a genius) but it did not work and not simply pounding the ball again, again and again is not what MM said we would do. I think there is actually a better case to be made and more success to be found in us thinking about that run as having reached four down territory and if we got only a half a yard on thrid and goal from the one, run it again. This would have been risky to do with less than an FG lead even though Jax would have been forced to go 99 yards even if we turned the ball over, but I think even this failing would be better defensed as an approach than the approach taken which led to a loss. 3. I think your idea of more passing only has merit in that the Bills seemed like the would have profited from throwing downfield a bit more even if they were unsuccessful as this can stretch the D and make the run more effective. Still I think the training wheels come off when we run it and run it some more. Overall, even though they ultimately fell short their were some very positive signs that indicate to me they should stick with their current approach. 1. 3rd down conversions were up to 50%- I think MM and Clements actually showed some real creativity here with calls like a draw play for a 1st down on 3rd and long. 2. Bledsoe really adopted to quick throw- Whoever said you can't teach and old dog new tricks or declared him too stupid to change radically this late in his carer were proven wrong by his running of the quick release O and timing routes. This is reflected in stats like his completion % going up in this gam over last year's total. It is but one game and we will see how he does on the road against a different D but this number and the lower number of sacks were very impressive to me. 3. The number of riuns was way up over the Kevin Killdrive model but some sense of balance was still there. The greater # of runs and the successful completion of short passes leading to RAC was reflected in a large increase in time of possession. We lost so things must change, but the change would most intelligently seem to be do what they were doing better rather than throwing out their approach to offense.

I think it is good football and folks are being good Bills fans as long as their posts reflect the full reality that Nate Clements screwed up badly against Smith and also is one of the most talented playmakers the Bills have. The proposal to trade him in 2004, bench him or cut him this yeat are simply stupid. It ain't gonna happen and if it did happen would likely hurt the Bills bigtime in 2004. He must nit screw-up like he did going for the INT on Smith instead of knocking it down, however, he has been productive for us such as his INTs for TDs last year and before in his career and his INT this year. We are taking the risk of using him on punt returns because he is a potential playmaker. I and others wish that he and other players were more reserved and that he saw no need to get playmaker on his license plate, housegate, or whatever, but this is so trivial that it does not merit hurting the the team's production by getting rid of him that it isn't even funny. Posters simply need to get real and not declare NC a god because he has done a few things right, nor declare him a goner because he has done a few things wrong.

People have received far more jail time for crimes which have been done providing more harm to the criminal than to society as a whole all the time. A big part of Stewart's appeal is to question the consitutionality of the "truth in sentencing" laws which mandate jail time for her doing the crime of lying to investigators (the sthing she was convicted of rather than insider trading which is generally overlooked or punisjed with a fine. Stripping judges of the discretion to give lighter sentences has become politically popular as many judges have decided not to have society pay to jail drug users and because they would push for medical treatment of the addiction rather than punishment in jail as a mechanism for solving this problem. The answer to your question is that their are tons of examples in our courts today of citizens who were given jail time for drug offenses which seem correctly to be a lesser level of offense to society. Lying to the public officials we empower to apply our laws is a criminal offense regardless of the crime. The impacts of lying are heinous and inexcusable whether the outcome is trying to beat the rap on intoxification or undermine free-market trading. One can debate which is worse but clearly lying is bad. However, it is clear from the sentencing guidelines that the problem here was not that Martha was treated differently than other people who lied to public officials, but that she was treated the same and this approach seems disproportionate to the harm done to society or solving the problem.

You're right to point this out. Both the Democratic Party led by McAuliffe and Kerry and the GOP led by Rove and Bush are ripping off the middle-class of America bigtime.

It's not that I think players ought to look at their own needs first, the team second and fans' last, it is that I think that in reality they do look at their needs first, the team's second and fans last. The problem I have is with folks who suggest the reverse perspective as though that were reality, it just ain't. If you want to post seriously about football then at least make some cursory acknowledgment of reality. The posts that advocate a during season cut of players who man critical positions and advocate these cuts with no realistic accomplishable alternative are simply silly. I am a big booster of a traditional perspective toward the game and wished that players really did put the team and the fans ahead of their own individual needs. However, this is not reality not just with the NFL but in society. In the "ownership society" that is modern America, people have a focus on me and mine over the common good which drives society. In the old days going back to the great Depression there was an interest in the team (America) taking care of all of us which underlay the founding of many New Deal ideas such as Social Security, the Minimum Wage, Child Labor Laws etc. Hpowever, in the modern ownership society are ways are skewed much more toward the individual taking care of themselves and their family and less toward the joint ownership of our society of resoueces like the National Parks. The conventional wisdom (at least among our politicians like George Bush and Bill Clinton is one which desribes free trade as king and pursuit of the individualism inherent in the free market as the overriding theme of life. Much of this debate belongs on the Politics and Pundits Board, but football is interesting as a reflection of society because at the same time we see the reflections of individual ownership which drives America (as owners run their businesses to make money and players sign contracts to make money) it also revels in individual sacrifice for the good of the team. The NFL has some downright communistic controls on the game as the salary cap totally removes the benefit from getting more money because you have more to spend on building a winner. By rule, everyone has the same amount of money to spend on building their team (within the varitions the cap allows) and this seems to produce better competition even though it is not the free market at all. Overall in sports it is ironic that we can do what we do and enjoy a lot of wha we have because of a laissez faire free-market belief in our society, but for this particular area, the free market is being run away from as the NHL pursues a salary cap, as the MLB is seen as a horrendous operation because its free market allows the George Steinbrenners to run amuck (as seen in his recent forfeit demand because the opposing Devil Ray players were given time to devote to their families and property in the face of the coming hurricane) and as the NFL with its tight non-free market controls on the sport is seem as the Cadillac of US sport management. Theoretically I do disagree with the priorities of players but it is hard for me to ignore the fact that reality has little to do with my theories and that the reality of market control seems to produce a better product here than the free market.

The main problem with his comments is that they are simply true. He simply does need to get better and execute or he will be a goner. I think TD has done a great job at many facets of his work at GM (negotiating good contracts, making moves with the future in mind, getting us out of caphell quickly), but along with hiring an HC in GW who was not ready for primetime, his attitude toward cutting Christie and acquiring kickers (he once said good kickers were a dime-a-dozen) has been flat-out wrong. However, though fans are pissed at Lindell correctly for his inadequate performance, the correct answer is not to cut him right now in terms of the Bills producing better. 1. I see no alternative on the waiver wire who offers a better chance of improving the Bills than Lindell executing better- The chances seem remote to me right now that Lindell is going to improve enough to earn his Cadillac contract, but who with availability presents more than an even more remote chance of producing for the Bills. If Lindell gets worse (failing on kicks inside the 40 at the rate he fails outside the 40, missing PATS, reversing his kickoff performance which has actually improved so far) then a waiver wire kicker may be a better alternative even though the waiver alternatives are bad and you not only pay Lindell anyway but accelerate his payments and cap hit if you cut him. However, right now the best answer for the Bills is for Lindell to simply produce. 2. Take into account that Lindell has improved some portions of his game- Simon and other observers who have shown themselves to know something about NFL football do report he is striking the ball better when you see him in real life. TV is quite helpful, but does not show things like the height of his kicks or level of co-ordination with the entire return team. Nevertheless we outsiders can make backside observations such as the return outcomes look pretty good and his balls generally are caught within the 5 yard line. Outside observation indicates his kickoffs have improved. The problem is that his better ball-striking has not added up to better production of points. He simply needs to produce better (or execute as he calls it) or even the unlikely alternative of finding a better kicker on the waiver wire and taking the cap hit of cutting him will b a better alternative. 3. Changes in the Bills from taking in a new kicker will likely hurt this team- Just as is the case with the OL, players are not mere tinker-toys who can be traded out and traded in with no impact on the team's performance. The Bills ST has developed a chemistry with Lindell and the coverage guys are used to how much he does exactly what he is told to do in terms of height and direction of kicks. They have practiced together making and recovering onside kicks. His teammates have a better idea of how bad weather impacts the kickers game than the guessing game which will occur with a new kicker. There are simply a ton of things that the team would need to get used to with a new kicker that may end up making the difference in a long-return or a short-return in games. The bottomline is tha if Lindell's performance degrades or really unless it improves, the Bills may be better off taking the risk with the devil they don't know. However, for now, the best course it strikes me by far is for Lindell to simply execute better. His words are simplistic and somewhat insulting to fans who lacks knowledge of the game (as most fans do because we don't play with this game for a living) but his words are correct from this outside observers perspective.

I'm a true believer that the salary cap is a must-know item in terms of truly caring about how the Bills are doing, but some of the posts on TSW really represent a monster that cap focus has become. It's 2004 folks. There is a season of play going on. The season after an initial devastating loss at home is a long way from being done. While an awareness of the 2005 cap level is key, the focus in some posts of focusing on making changes in the 2004 team right now because of potential 2005 cap implications is simply wrong-headed and won't happen anyway. GMs and players are correctly focused right now in producing in 2004. Fans should be as well or they are really missing out on a lot. Sure Moulds has an exorbitant cap hit in 2005 which may well spell his doom on the team for next year. However, his performance this year and the status of his health will determine so much about what the best way for the Bills to deal with this problem that though small consideration of this issue by fans is worthwhile, such considerations need to be small to have anything to do with reality. What Moulds does in 2004 (even beyond the TD and fumbles of Sunday) will determine what is the right thing to do here that having a set opinion about this right now is simply silly (unless you know exactly how this season is going to turn out for him and the team which if you do then head for Vegas immediately). it is falt out stupid to suggest trading Clements, Moulds, promoting Losman to starter or whatever. It simply has nothing to do with reality because it ain't gonna happen. The cap theory has some interest, but posts advocate changes not merely as theory but as facts that should be pursued. JJeeezzz. Some posts.