Fan in Chicago

Drink ?

Just felt like making a general comment here - Love your posts, man !

I still miss Lori. ICE? not so much

For any other coach, he would have cut off his nose. But the foot injury was a special snub for Rex.

Please tell me you are joking. This is about as ignorant a post as I have read around here. Evidently there is support for this notion around these parts.

But why would you want to trade him now ? Yes we can get soemthing back from him now, for a pick who may or turn out to be decent. I had argued against the Bills picking up his option because of financial considerations and a 'lets see about that foot' this year. For the same reason, I strongly think that we need to absolutely keep him for this season. Many reasons: His foot may finally be fixed and he will play like the stud that he is The compensation may or may not result in a 'worth it' player We will become woefully short on WR and put TT + the new staff in a very bad situation to start It will be foolish to trade him now.

Ironic considering you are on an internet message board yelling at a fellow poster. The media is by definition meant for public consumption. This 'dont read it' statement does not hold water. Accolades and critiques are always justified (as long as made respectfully). A person's opinion regarding Whaley is immaterial in this conversation. The thread title says it all.

There is history there but no way for you to know. Suffice to say that TG was a contributor here, was called out for stuff and the resultant aftermath caused a highly respected poster to permanently leave TBD in a show of support. I still sorely miss said respected poster.

If you set aside your single track mind, you may find that there is nothing wrong with Buftex's post. You are just looking for agreement that EJ is a bust. He OTOH is explaining the larger point of Whaley's tenure and not really saying that EJ was a great prospect. If you decide to be a bit objective in your posts, you may learn something from differing opinions

I appreciate you looking a bit deeper at the coaching credentials.Yes, we can all say 'show me the baby' but at least you are finding that the inputs are good. This gives a high likelihood of the outputs being up to their max potential. Compare this to 2 years back when I saw no reason for optimism with the coaching staff. We all know what could happen with a rookie HC, Gm etc but at least they have a good resume.

Oh come on. All injuries are more or less the same. Surely you know that, stats-boy

He is now 4merper4mer

New coaches, new scheme means that the coaches are going to be stretched thin. Add to that, this is a high risk endeavor with decent upside. But IMHO the payout is not large enough to pull attention from the many other places on the offensive side.. If we were stacked on O with established scheme and experienced players, it may be worth the risk. The Bills are not that team right now. Feel good is fine, but the team needs to get back to its winning self. This is sport and a business not a social service organization.

Honest question - what makes you believe that he has mended his ways and will dedicate himself to the team and the game ?

Good strategy to set the bar low. Top-20 pick in his second year ? I would like to see no less than 10 sacks and a dominating presence.

If you try to put together the pieces, it appears that Beane for GM was always McD's plan and likely discussed with the Pegulas at the time of the hire. McD wanted to use the 7-8 months of scouting to his advantage as it was valuable information and Whaley et al may have been perfectly good scouts. Once the draft was done, the rest of the plan was put in action with Whaley being fired and the new scouting season beginning with a new GM and scouts. Maybe I am reading the tea leaves but this seems plausible. If the above were true, I still think the Dawkins pick could be checked out for tampering.

Got to disagree there. I think it happened in a few instances when Peyton Manning and the like were coming up in the draft but teams such as the Browns, Jags regularly bottom out but havent used it to leverage that in the drafts and climb their way to glory.

i would have some happiness seeing him go somewhere else and totally fall off a cliff. End his career as Favre, stumbling and bumbling from team to team before retiring. But... wont happen. I think if the Pats* part ways with him, he will retire.

Tres Treys?

My thought as well

I guess you and I have flipped personalities here, but you dont see the continued presence of Brandon as a hindrance to the execution of this plan ? That Brandon wont keep his sticky fingers out of the football operations ? Also, we dont have confidence that the new GM wont be a McD puppet in effect reversing the structure of the past but with pretty much the same power problem.

was my first reaction too. I dont see how McD's demeanor is anything like Marv's. We will have to wait and see the on-field performance. Also, how he handles an off-field player situation such as weed, DUI etc. Where was the 'over' reaction ? You are talking about behavior change. Culture, on the other hand, is embedded in everything a team does. That takes time to develop, internalize and become second nature.

IMHO, A healthy Watkins is more influential on the team's offensive production than McCoy. KyleW is just a hard worker who maximizes his talent on the field. Watkins just has an abundance of natural talent and plays a position which affects the teams performance a lot more. Dareus is a natural talent but singularly unfocused.

Reading it again, I dont think our positions are too far off. I think where we differ is in the value of the psychological effects. Up to this point, Sammy's effect on the team has been only game related. I havent yet seen or heard of him taking a leadership role in the locker room (ala KyleW).

I think the control thing may be overblown. It will come down to a financial decision. I do agree with you that franchising two years in a row is highly unlikely. The Bills haven't done it as far as I can remember. But the basic issue is that if the foot is not healed fully or if the docs are not very sure about the permanance of the fix, then committing to the fifth year doesn't make sense for the Bills. They may end up paying for a season's worth of premium salary for, say, half the number of games. Also, the uncertainty around his in-season availability hurts game and season planning, as you are well aware of.