MRW

When was that exactly? Was it when he threw that ball to Fletcher for the TD? Or maybe it was on the ball that Clements tipped away on first and goal (!) that ended up icing the game. Sorry, JP looked pretty pathetic out there most of the day but no way Favre had a better day.

Is there a missing paragraph that explains how you get from your first two paragraphs to the score prediction?

There aren't 32 Bradys or Mannings out there, and chasing after them is a fool's errand. Your paraphrase of Belichick's comment just drives home the point that Brady is exceptional.

What I'm curious about is why more teams haven't followed MN's approach with Winfield. If you have a year where you're way under the cap, why not frontload a contract with a big roster bonus (NOT a signing bonus)? The full roster bonus is charged against the cap that first year, leaving you with manageable cap #s in later years of the contract.

You damn well better do something with the cap space. If the choice is overpaying for Nate Clements or having an extra $7 - 8 million in unused cap room, I say overpay him. It's not my money.

I agree with you IF we end up using that cap space to bring help at other positions where we desperately need it. If we can bring in 2 good guys for the O-line (Steinbach + ?) and a big body at DT then I'd agree it's not worth it to keep Clements. But if we're going to have another offseason like this one where we only bring in second-tier free agents, I'd rather see us "waste" the space on Clements. We could even front-load a deal like Minnesota did with Winfield. I will be absolutely sick if we go into next season $10, 15, 20 million under the cap and rely on McGee & Youboty as our corners.

The key statistic, yards/attempt, clearly shows that Mathison was superior to JP.

Yeah, that's unusual.

Shocking that Easterbrook would trot out one of his standard coaching criticisms without pausing to take the details of the situation into account.

I'm betting if you were to pile drive a receiver or RB like that you would draw the same penalty. I do agree protection of QBs is out of hand at times, but I don't think this was one of them.

One thing the Bills have taught me over the years is that it's always possible to get worse.

I don't think you can look at the myriad needs this team had (and still has) and justify throwing a top pick at a QB when we had one who was still a virtual unknown. Now next year, if JP has stunk up the joint this year, then you may need to look at taking a QB (though I would still rather see the team strengthen its other weak points and take a long hard look at veteran QBs that may be available). So no, I don't think I would ever consider passing on Leinart a mistake, unless you look back on drafts with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.

Nothing? Don't you think that's a bit strong? I mean, he had a pretty mediocre game, but as usual with JP this year IMO, he showed some flashes. How about the drive to bring the Bills back within 3? I thought that was pretty good.

You haven't seen flashes of good execution? That 74 yard drive was all Losman, and I couldn't help but notice that the play calling was much different. I was happy with Fairchild at first, but this last game makes me question whether he's really putting his players in the best position to succeed the majority of the time. You got me there, Leinart "punched it in" one more time than Losman! I guess 1 out of 4 opportunities is pretty good after all.

I agree with others here, Brady isn't overrated. He's more like, um, rated.

We could not ask for a better example of your double standard. Leinart led touchdown drives of 77 and 25 yards, while Losman took the team 54 and 74 yards. Leinart also had a performance from his defense (or the Bears' offense, take your pick) that got 6 turnovers. He got the ball starting inside the Chicago 35 4 times - results: 1 TD, 2 FGs, 1 missed FG. Still want to say "at least he punched the ball in the endzone"? Losman did have a horrific first half, but he bounced back and played decently in the second half. Unfortunately that was not enough to overcome the hole the team was in due to his initial poor play and the overall terrible play of the defense. Particularly late in the game, the offense was starting to move the ball pretty well. The usual miscues, missed blocks, and yes, some mistakes by Losman, cost them at the end. If they'd been able to adapt to the Lions' D earlier they might have been able to avoid it. I know you claim you're taking an objective look at the QB, but if you really believe that then I think you're fooling yourself.

I think the ego was the one thing about Williams that wasn't oversized...

Exactly! Van Pelt leaves here and he can't even get a job playing in the league, so he has to go into coaching!

Yeah, with everything else that Millen got wrong, I can't really fault him for shelling out money for an offensive lineman who was generally regarded as a pretty good player.

And in that part of the field, 4th down as well. But I guess you should plan ahead and account for the false start...

The only comment I saw was him ripping on the players' inability to run the plays in the sequence leading up to the fake punt. I'm glad he didn't make fun of the fake punt call itself, because I don't think I could stomach that level of hypocrisy.

Then... why bother? At that point isn't it simpler just to beat them straight up?

IMO, on the road, against a superior opponent, early in the game, is exactly the time to trot out a trick play like a fake punt. The key to using trick plays is to run them when the other team isn't expecting them, which was the case yesterday. And wasn't the real problem with that play the bad snap and Moorman's failure to field it? How would that have been different on an actual punt?

You got that right!