Luxy312

I look at it fairly simply. During their Superbowl winning years, they had a heck of a defense to go with a heck of an offense. Since that last Superbowl win, they've had 8 seasons and 8 seasons of playoffs with Tom Brady. I'll not even consider the Cassel year, which was good, but still no playoffs. Lets look at their record in those 8 seasons: Lost wild card one time Lost division twice Lost conference championship 3 times Lost Superbowl twice Their defense has taken too much of a back seat IMO to be able to say that they're still in "their winning ways". I believe that their offense with Brady at the helm will be good enough to make the playoffs no matter what. Whether they actually return to being a "dynasty" is in question.

I'm not sure this counts, but there were reports this last weekend from the St. Louis Dispatch that several teams (including St. Louis themselves), were interested in Chris Williams. They didn't say who that was, but I would still take it as a positive.

Using your logic, every team in the NFL has been to the playoffs since 1998. ALL of them, including Buffalo. Done. See how easy it is to pick whatever time frame you like and yet still not make a point? I'm not worried either. I would much rather have a guy that's 6-6 and 340 pounds playing the position than 6-1 and 280 soaking wet. That IS what we had last year, and even he looked decent playing next to Glenn and Wood. How many times do we need to see 3rd and 1 runs get stuffed because our guys can't move the pile?

I agree with you 100% on this point. The proverbial "meat" on the left side of the line will be big. Should greatly enhance the ability to move the pile and not be all on Williams to perform.

While I haven't seen much in the way of contract details, this signing really doesn't bother me too much. He's not an all pro or anything like that, but still probably an upgrade over anything they have from the perspective of run blocking. From a broader view, I prefer this move to drafting a LG in the 2nd or 3rd round. It leaves the draft more open in terms of drafting players at positions that could have greater impact.

Plenty of teams have long active playoff droughts. Sure Buffalo's is the longest (since 1999), but picking a number is just picking a number (i.e. 15 years). Let's add the Raiders and Browns since 2002. Let's also add the Rams since 2004, and the Bucs and Jaguars since 2007. Looking at any of these teams and the reason why, you won't find that it's because they let a safety go between seasons. It comes down to poor quarterback play. PS - since their respective playoff appearances, all of those 5 teams have a lower winning percentage than even the Bills. End of story.

@Kirby Jackson, you're right on multiple fronts. It's so much fun reading comments from arm chair chicken littles about how the sky is falling because our team didn't sign this player or that player to some huge deal. A team will never be made and be successful by one player. We love to praise the Patriots for how well they're managed, but outside of Tom Brady, how many guys do they have that have claimed 3 rings will be going to the HOF? McGinnis, Bruschi, Vrabel, Seymour, Law, Samuel, Harrison, and I'm sure there's others I've forgotten; are all good players. They're not individually though even close to the best at their position. Tell me how many Superbowls the Jets have been to with arguably one of the best cornerbacks in our generation on the roster. Now tell me how many more games that Tampa Bay won than they otherwise would have without him last year. Byrd, Levitre, Poz are all in the same boat for me. Just not critical to team success and certainly not so from a $$ perspective. I would honestly rather have two safeties of Aaron Wiliams caliber than one of Byrd's, and that's about what it comes down to.

Run stuffing DT? I don't think any fan that's watched this team play this last year would believe that DT is a position of need or a position that the Bills will even think about in the draft. They obviously have their starters in Dareus and Williams and just a few months ago signed Branch to a 4 year extension. The run stuffers the Bills need are linebackers. Outside of Alonso, the rest were nearly invisible on the field last year.

I'm not 100% sure my figures are correct, but I think that the cap this year is $133 million and the target minimum spend is 90%, which would make the number $119-$120 million. Where it gets complicated is that I read that teams need to average 89% or more over the 2013-2016 seasons, so it's not just a 1-year figure. Last year the target was 85% and some teams actually spent less. That will just mean that they have to spend more later. If I have the time to go back and read the CBA again, I'll start a thread on this subject and lay it out for folks in better detail.

If I were asked to pick the single biggest issue with this team, that would be it for me.

You can't look strictly at anything, but I also look at history. Shall we just look at the progression of his YPC starting with his best season in the NFL? 2009 - 4.8 YPC. Good year. Looked promising. 2010 - 4.1 YPC. More opportunities translated to lower numbers. 2011 - 3.8 YPC. More carries again translated to lower numbers. 2012 - 3.6 YPC. Less carries in his first season with Chicago, but yet again LOWER. 2013 - 3.1 YPC. The year of your excuse for poor performance. Steady decline over the course of 5 years. Frank Summers was better last year than Bush has been since 2010. Why anyone would advocate failed/broken down players is beyond me. The old statistics analogy applies. If you put garbage in, you're going to get garbage out. @ChandlerBing - I like the idea of getting someone later in the draft. I would much rather see this team go youth and build something in lieu of adding aging/failing veterans like Bush.

Because the Pro Bowl is still a piece of garbage popularity contest that means little....

And your assessment is based on what exactly? Looking at sacks taken, the Bills took 48 sacks last year, which ranks them at 29th overall in the NFL. Chicago took only 30, which puts them at 2nd overall. If you want to look at running game, Buffalo averaged 4.2 YPC. That puts them solidly at 14th in the NFL. Bears however averaged 4.5 YPC which puts them 7th. There offensive line WAS BETTER and Bush didn't do squat with his opportunities there. That's precisely why I say no to him.

I'm not sure stats like this are all that relevant to the position being played. There's a lot of safeties that are great in coverage and tackling, but are never asked to rush the quarterback. Now I'm not saying that Whitner is great at either, but I don't recall him ever being used as a pass rusher when in Buffalo. Searcy was certainly used in that capacity under Pettine. There's a little bit of apples and oranges here.

I don't dislike Chris Gragg, but have questions. How can the Bills have so many injuries to receivers and TE's last year and yet this guy has a grand total of 5 catches; 4 of which came in just one game? There has to be something that's not quite right with his game where the team has decided not to put him on the field. Does he drop passes? Is his route running not up to par? I don't know the answer here, but there's obviously something holding him back from contributing.

Even better reason than mine!

When all is said and done, you can't attribute W-L to either side of the ball as a stand alone. Both the offense and defense last year were a little below average. Regardless, Vick is a slowing old inaccurate passer that has completed 1 season out of the 11 he's played in without injury. I guess you could say that you can't blame a quarterback for wins and losses at all if they're not even capable of taking the field. As such Vick is clearly a pass.

My Choice is no Bush. Pun intended. 3 years in a row with under 4 yards per carry on a team with a better offensive line than Buffalo is not inspiring.

Good post and fairly astute to a degree in terms of the importance of special teams. Let's not forget the prime example just a few short years ago. The San Diego Chargers factually had the #1 rated offense and #1 rated defense in the NFL. They ended up finishing second to the Chiefs in the AFC West and missed the playoffs, and you could attribute much of that to the fact that their special teams was atrocious. Actually, they were rated the worst in the NFL in that category. That said, I would not open up the check book for Carpenter. Hopkins has been rated one of the top kickers since his high school days. His leg is bigger than Carpenter as well. Heck, I've seen him put kickoffs THROUGH the uprights! FG accuracy is a positive, no doubt. However, this team isn't going to win games because our kicker is accurate. They're going to win games by scoring touchdowns instead of field goals when they get inside the 20 yard line. You can say you need a good kicker to make the playoffs, but I would ask the simple question of one of the best Bills kickers in awhile got this team last year. Oh yeh.....a 6-10 record and no playoffs.

Someone has pulled out their "leap to conclusions" mat here. By most scouts standards, there's not likely even one defensive back drafted before the Bills pick at #9. The first assumption would have to be that this guy is the clear cut best defensive back in the game to get to the conclusion that he could be Buffalo's pick in the first round. No matter how many ways I slice and dice it, I can't even come close to getting there. I haven't read one scouting report that doesn't have Darqueze Dennard the clear cut #1 CB on the board and a consensus high first round pick. Similar story with FS Hasean Clinton-Dix, although some have him falling to mid first round. Even if someone could get to the conclusion that he was the 3rd best DB in the game, that wouldn't put him more than a late 1st or early 2nd round pick. That's quite frankly where I like the Bills to think about him. Honestly, Buffalo has been fairly good with 2nd round picks in recent years. Alonso, Woods, Levitre, Glenn, Williams (Aaron), Byrd, and more. McKelvin hasn't been able to remain healthy, so CB in the 2nd round wouldn't hurt my feelings much.

As much as I want and however I want huh? I would sign 20 million UDFA's equally distributed among all positions at $1 each and see how they work out....

This in a nutshell. Fans are more "name chasing" than they are looking at what he's capable of at this point in his career. Jerry Hughes had 10 sacks rushing the quarterback last year and like this poster said, and they also have Manny Lawson adding 4 more. No depth needed at pass rushing LB. They need a run stopping MLB for sure.

Fear of EJ Manuel being a bust is logical. The last quarterback that made this team look good offensively was Drew Bledsoe, and that was over 10 ago. When we as fans go through the years with Fitzpatrick, Edwards, Losman, Holcomb, Flutie, Johnson and even Van Pelt; we tend to choke on our own vomit a little bit. We also tend to jump the gun and with good reason. We're tired of seeing the team fiddle with experiments for extended periods of time that don't work. Some look at EJ and immediately get that "I told you so" attitude that he's not a superstar after starting just 10 games in his rookie season. He has no doubt had his ups and downs. Then those same fans look at another rookie in Tuel with 1 start and Lewis with 5 for the team and jump to a conclusion that they can't possibly be the answer either and that all of our QB's are horrible. Now enter this discussion going on 5 pages of Ryan Mallett. Here's a guy that's been holding a clip board for Tom Brady for 3 years. His vast resume includes 4 pass attempts, 1 completion and 1 interception TWO YEARS AGO. He's not even a veteran that's shown some sign that he may have the ability to compete. When all is said and done, REGARDLESS of what the fans want, the quarterback position is not in any way shape or form going to be a competitive situation any time soon. If by some freak chance the Bills even gave a shiny red apple to the Patriots for Mallett, I would still argue that they gave too much...

Well done! Shouldn't someone start a "just give JaMarcus Russell a chance" thread? LOL.

I'm really not sure where you get that information. Carrington has played in 44 games in his 4 year career and had 9 total starts. Over those 4 years, he's had a grand total of 4 sacks (none coming in starts). No matter how many ways you cut it, he's not even close to a 10 sack guy. At the end of the day, the Bills top-4 pass rushers did have 40 sacks last season (41 to be precise). Glad you're a fan of him, but as stated previously, it's a little bit too much "rose colored glasses" for my taste.