RuntheDamnBall

They did. Wake chose the Dolphins, apparently because of the pay but I had heard the Bills' and Miami's offers were equal. Seems a shame, but you can't fault Wake for choosing warm weather and a more successful organization and front office. The Bills have to take more good gambles like this, though, and offer to pay top dollar.

If the "curse" followed to SD and Dallas I think we Bills fans could accept their strain of it. Somehow their "curse" has still allowed them to have top-tier talent and make the playoffs. Must be nice.

I think the real shocker is that they have internet in Welland. And if Flutie is the real reason the Bills are cursed (a notion that demands a memory that doesn't extend before 1988), I say let's stay cursed. I'm not going to give in and let Flutie win this one.

That's not the point, pal. The point is that if you're going to have the competition be anything more than a charade, every player should get a chance with the first team. You may be right - in fact you probably are, which I'm sure delights you to no end. Score! You win! Not knowing for sure about Brohm is just a symptom of the real problem here. And if you're right, then Gailey was right to follow the course that he did.

Fair nuff. You're right, All-Pro is a different vote.

Funny how Modrak had no problem finding good talent when he worked for good organizations like the Steelers and Eagles. There might be some validity to the notion that the scouting team needs some fresh blood, though. Baseball's of course WAAAAY different from football, but that said, the Blue Jays, whom I root for, made a MAJOR effort to upgrade their scouting staff. They're looking to leave no stone unturned and to get as many looks as possible on the same guys. By and large this is one reason people feel they're moving in the right direction. If I were Nix, I'd be going to Ralph and saying: "want to win and do it cost-effectively? I need you to let me hire the largest scouting staff in the league. That'll cost a little money, but it will save us a lot. We're going to unearth players that aren't on other teams' radar, and get good looks at the ones who are, so we minimize mistakes in the scouting process. Never again are we going to draft a guy highly who doesn't have the makeup or hasn't proven himself enough to more than just one of our scouts. And if we can succeed working like this, we won't have to look as much at costly free agents, and waste our time with guys off the scrap heap like Cornell Green just to field a starting offensive line." Now, that's probably a promise that can't be kept entirely. Every sport results in failure for 95% of the teams. But it's a goal that can be worked toward, and I think it'd be the right move for the Bills. They don't need to fire a lot of the guys they have. They do need to bring in many more scouts to really have their bases covered and find hidden gems. He played in the game (and played well btw). Semantics doesn't change the fact that he was viewed to be in the top 5 backs in the conference.

Yes, the Bills have drafted worse than most teams, period. Their saving grace has been their ability to scour the UDFA ranks and find a few gems (and I don't just mean the guys from this year who might not make another NFL roster, but guys like Greer, Peters, etc). Someone smarter than me with more time can run the numbers, but I'll still bet that the odds that a 3rd rounder nets you a top-15 starter, let alone a Pro Bowler, are pretty low. For that reason I don't like the idea of trading a proven asset for a grab-bag. Trading Evans would be an even worse idea for that same reason: all-time low in his value relative to his real value as a starting #1 WR respected in the league (though I know some don't believe he is a #1). The reason a lot of people were able to swallow the Peters trade was that the Bills were still spinning a cheap commodity into gold, obtaining a #1 draft pick for a guy they didn't spend a draft pick on. The fact that they drafted a quality OL made that trade even better. The McGahee trade saw them turning a former first-rounder into two thirds, which was acceptable given that McGahee was publicly bad-mouthing the franchise and not giving effort in games. His performance since the trade cements the trade as a success for the Bills despite the picks, because they had a shot at two potential starters with them. Conversely, turning a #11 pick like Lynch into a third rounder is backwards, IMO. He's maybe not worth #11 anymore [value def. taken down by last season and the personal issues]. On the football field, though, he is worth more than one third-rounder who may be a potential starter, yet may take years to grow. For example, we're just now seeing returns of any kind on Chris Ellis in year three, and I'm not going to argue that the returns are entirely positive, but this is at least a third-rounder who made the roster. Historically, the Bills have been doing horrendous things with their picks; trading up and losing picks in panic moves to fill a positional need is one of them. Getting rid of assets for precious little is another, and I commend Nix for not going down that road. That's a nice thought, but trades always require willing partners, a notion too often discounted on a football message board. Grabbing picks and counting on being able to trade them is not a strategy by itself. You only take those picks if they are going to make your football team better relative to the players you're giving up.

Brady made Kelsay look stupid at 4-3 DE. He is going to have a field day with him as a 3-4 OLB.

Nix was definitely smart not to move Lynch at an all-time low point in his value. Whether Marshawn remains a career Bill or not, he is more valuable to the team than the next Derek Fine, Dwayne Wright, or Duke Preston. Put it this way, man: All-Pro running back is traded for Ashton Youboty, or Trent Edwards, or Chris Ellis (all Bills third-rounders). Who wins that trade?

Kevin Everett went all out to try to make a play. Just sayin'. I'm not saying they shouldn't give it their best shot, but I can say it's human to see Clay Matthews staring you down and yourself fully exposed to the hit and stop short for a second. It's different for a receiver in traffic than it is for a QB who has even a minimum of protection and time to evaluate. Plus, if dude gets his bell rung or worse is he really helping his team?

Fair enough. I have to look at the tape. But thanks for the clarification - really!

I need to see film, but IIRC a defender was crossing straight toward Johnson, which looked to me like the reason Johnson stopped short on his route. I also saw Parrish about five yards down and to SJ's left, more open than Stevie. I didn't see Trent hanging SJ out to dry the way Flutie used to do to his receivers, but this wasn't cut-and-dried either. Reading some of the latest articles on concussions makes me think twice about the "tough-guy" mentality that we seem to overvalue in terms of the ability to take open-field hits, too. He can and should run the pattern, and to some extent these guys are always putting their bodies on the line, but there are greater and lesser risks for lasting damage. It's always a judgment call.

I think they were talking about Dr. Andre Reed.

That right there is strange to me. If you're going to give the opportunity to guys who are just coming to play and not making mistakes, I'd think Nelson is the guy and that Parrish doesn't warrant a promotion to No. 2. He is certainly viable in the slot if they can start hitting him in stride and using him as a slasher.

Cherrypicking to locate his one good drive during the game, when he finally saw a man wide open in mid-deep range due to blown coverage, doesn't help your case. Not to mention that the Dolphins were playing soft just to consume clock time. Trent couldn't manage another one of those drives once pressure and coverage tightened, and he wasn't exploiting the lack of blitz and finding his receivers over the shoulder in the final series either. He was looking for short garbage. I'd rather have a Kelly who throws an INT forcing the D to respect the deep ball, than an Edwards who makes few mistakes but makes little progress save for one magical prevent defense-inspired drive per game. Also, if you don't think Gailey has watched film of Edwards and already made these suggestions, we're probably more effed than we think we are. My guess is that these suggestions were being made all offseason and "Gameday Trent" can't put them into practice, hence the benching.

Edwards fans will have to learn the same thing Losman fans have learned, or should have learned, if they didn't: No amount of fan desire for him to be good will make him a good quarterback. He simply isn't one, and the door is about 98% closed on that possibility at this time. The book is out on him, and he hasn't done anything to write a different story for himself. Whatever potential he had has been coached out of him and replaced with a very poor low-risk, low-reward philosophy that only wins you games if you're the Baltimore Ravens. And even they have a quarterback with some visible strengths. You root for the laundry, and Fitz as interim starter is probably the best thing for the veterans on the roster at this point in the season. Brohm should be in following our eventual ouster from the playoff picture so we can see what we have in all QBs on the roster before 2011. If this gets us closer to the QB we need, it's what needs to be done. The past few regimes have gotten by on bad drafting with quick fixes, fan-placating moves, and a shell game of QB switches that by all indications should be about to be over - with Edwards' last snap as a Bill having already taken place. There are no more illusions that he's the guy, and so we can move on after another four middling years. I can't see this as anything but the right move, but then again I never was a believer in Trent. Even from his first game I saw fans pleased with precious little, like a starving man thrown a bone that hadn't quite been licked clean. It was as though a single touchdown drive against the Pats, or staying in a game mostly due to an awesome recovery from the defense, was enough to sustain that belief. The guy just can't get it done on gameday. It's time to move on. Go Bills!

That's a great response. AR picking on kelsay and knowing where certain defenders were on the field is a great example. Trent didn't seem to have awareness of this against the 3-4. Where they're sending pressure, there's got to be a guy available- or you MAKE him available by audibling.

I agree, but they were, I thought, closer to NFL quality in 2008 and I still wasn't impressed with Trent. And players like Rodgers and Roethlisberger have shown that a superb QB can make some magic happen despite issues with pass protection. Edwards is nowhere near those guys, and wouldn't be with the 80s Hogs in front of him. This is just the truth.

Not a bad post, but I take issue a bit with the whole "you take what the defense is giving you" shenanigans. This is what Trent did all the time. He saw that the defense was giving him nothing, so he tried nothing. You have to actually have some qualities that threaten a defense to give you something else; otherwise they send three guys because they know between you and the line that's all they need to rattle you. They blanket your receivers to the point you aren't confident in any throw you make, so you don't throw it. What else is left? If you take what they give you, and they're worth their salt as a defensive opponent, they're not going to give you sh--. If you're a good QB, you take what you can, and then you take what they give you. We saw Rodgers do this last week. But you don't accept "there's nothing to take" as an answer.

I hate this argument. Kurt Warner couldn't beat out Trent Green, who didn't look like anything special during his early Rams tenure. Fred Jackson couldn't beat out Anthony freaking Thomas. Coaches' stubbornness to admit they're wrong or preference for "their guys" goes a long way in this league, and it has held back some good players from contributing even earlier in their careers.

You really think Trent's play wasn't costing them?

you're just sexist.

Vick is not a good human being based on his body of work, but he can do some good things on a football field if he's utilized correctly. We've all worked with plenty of jerks. The Eagles have obviously decided that Vick's history doesn't disrupt the team enough not to take that gamble, and he's obviously reconciled with them enough to win their confidence on the field.

People are also quick to judge when they don't know a fella or lady and only see what they type. CC is alright, and definitely the first one to take a potshot at himself. A good ol'fashioned ribbing certainly never hurt anybody who could take it, and I'll bet Fitzpatrick can take it. Watch his press conference, it gets pretty hilarious at a couple points despite the coachspeak.

The Bills would be better if they kept five running backs. They would also be better if they were in possession of many magic mind-control spells that they could use to trade Marshawn Lynch for a first-round draft pick. Then they would have four running backs, and a lot of awesome magic mind-control spells.