Orton's Arm

Mike Williams is big and strong, if not the world's most mobile guy. The Bills certainly need help at DT, and it's not like MW is contributing a whole lot elsewhere.

For the TD interview, the answers were predictable and boring. But the percentage of hostile questions was a lot higher than it had been a few weeks ago. Maybe some of that's random chance, but I'm really getting the feeling the fans are turning against him.

I didn't realize my fake audibles annoyed you. Even though they help my team win, I will stop them immediately. -Peyton

RochBills has a point. Indy is the best team in the league right now, and Bill Polian is the reason why. San Diego, under the leadership of Butler/A.J. Smith, is a much better team than Buffalo. It's annoying to watch those Wilson has rejected succeed, while TD continues to flounder.

Maybe some of the gimmicky coaching we're seeing is the result of a desperate attempt to use trickery to conceal the fundamental weakness of this team.

Bear in mind that T.O.'s worst behavior took place when he was trying to force Philly to redo his contract. Normally a player who wants a new contract holds out. But holding out allows the organization to not pay the player, and T.O. didn't want to give Philly that choice. After it became clear T.O. wasn't going to get his new contract, his bad behavior died down. The biggest infraction came when he said the organization lacked class for failing to recognize his breaking of some record. However, T.O. publicly apologized for the remark. T.O.'s comments about McNabb weren't insults; they were simply observations similar to those people like Michael Irvin were making. Clearly there was bad blood between Owens and McNabb. Had this not been the case, Philly would have been in a strong position to reap the rewards of its refusal to either renegotiate T.O.'s contract, or to escalate the situation T.O. was trying to provoke. As it was, "team chemistry"--that is, McNabb's ego--required T.O. to be let go. Notice that T.O. was suspended without pay for one week following his failure to apologize to McNabb, with further punishment to be decided later. The punishment was later escalated to the maximum possible. What happened after Reid decided to suspend Owens for one week, but before he decided to wash his hands of the receiver completely? One of the things that probably happened was a talk between Reid and McNabb. I never want to hear another McNabb supporter cry about how the man has no receivers. He's just finished driving the best WR in the league away. He's made his bed, now he has to lie in it.

The article was a more detailed version of things that have been discussed in this thread. TO, apparently acting on the advice of Rosenhaus, decided to disrupt the team in order to force a trade or a release. After a while, TO cooled down his act, and things seemed back to normal. Then there came the Hugh Douglas fight--which the arbitrator did not mention as misconduct on TO's part, implying some uncertainty as to who exactly started that fight. There was also the ESPN interview. In other words, McNabb was part of the problem, and made the ESPN interview into a bigger issue than it really needed to be. Tellingly, the arbitration document says nothing about any effort McNabb made to reach out to TO. Given the painstaking detail of the document, you'd think any olive branches McNabb extended would at least have been mentioned. None were. Nor did the document address whatever role McNabb may have had in creating the bad blood that existed between himself and TO. Such was outside the scope of the document, but not outside the scope of this thread. The situation is messed-up enough that there's plenty of blame for everyone: Rosenhaus, TO, and McNabb. Andy Reid was more reasonable than any of those three, but ultimately the situation TO and McNabb mutually created forced him to choose.

A lot of it was just to make McNabb happy. If McNabb had been man enough to say, "I want a great receiver more than I want my feelings protected," TO would still be with the Eagles today.

Agreed. If McNabb ever becomes a coach, it will be his place to say who should or shouldn't be on the team. In the meantime, he was out of line, and seemed to put his feelings ahead of winning or the good of the team.

I wasn't referring to the time when McNabb said the team can win without TO. I was talking about more recently, when he said the team would be better off with TO gone.

It's not clear what pre-Super Bowl quote you're referring to. The quote I began this thread with is from after the suspension. As for McNabb's ego, I couldn't help but notice that TO was suspended after his comments about McNabb. As other posters have pointed out, McNabb created an "it's either him or me" situation. Some of what TO does is playful, some is attention-seeking. Not everything is appropriate, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But to act like McNabb is being a saint, or a great leader or something, just isn't the case. Instead of telling everyone how much better off the team would be without TO, McNabb should have taken TO aside, talked to him man-to-man, and tried to heal the situation. That's the least he owes TO for those 100 receiving yards in the Super Bowl.

By "his former QB" are you talking about McNabb or Garcia? I did a search on Pro Football Weekly for any stories containing ALL the words: "Terrell Owens, McNabb, homosexual," and came up with zero results. http://www.profootballweekly.com/PFW/Searc...rch=Go&AND_ON=Y Also, TO's remarks about Brett Favre came in response to a comment by Michael Irvin. Irvin said the Eagles would be undefeated if Brett Favre was their QB. Owens, when asked about the remark, agreed; saying, “I would agree with that, just with what (Favre) brings to the table.”

Carolina might be the best. I know they've had some problems with injuries lately, and they lost that game in Chicago. But when healthy, I really think that team is something special.

With Tom Donahoe picking the players, Vince Lombardi would have lost more games than he won.

Quite frankly I think both McNabb and TO have been acting like spoiled children. If in kindergarten those two had learned how to play nice, the Eagles would today have a better record.

I agree with this post. Also, look at the teams the Bills beat at home: Houston, Miami, the Jets, and KC. Only one good team in the group, and KC had an off day. I felt the Bills played at least as well in their away game at NE as they did in some of their home games. However, NE did a better job than any of the teams the Bills beat at home.

Maybe the players are a little more emotional, and let the hostile crowds get to them. Some people have the ability to block out emotional highs and lows; others don't. One of the problems Bill Belichick had in Cleveland was that his players weren't the best in the world at governing their own emotions. He solved the problem by selecting a different type of player upon coming to the Patriots. Belichick may not have the best social skills, but his players always come to play. That's because he made it a point to select the right kind of players.

Well, now they have a big, happy team, with everyone saying the same politically correct gobbledygook. Too bad they don't have any wins without TO. At least McNabb doesn't have to worry about a teammate stepping on his ego, and maybe that's more important than winning football games anyway.

I'd rather take Big Ben. The Steelers are a totally different team when he's in there at QB. Nothing against Lee Evans, who I think is a fine football player. But Roscoe Parrish could fill the need for a speedy wideout opposite Moulds to stretch defenses.

It was obvious to everyone that McNabb's slowness in the huddle in the 4th quarter really hurt the Eagles. Considering how hard TO worked to play in that game, I can see where he'd be frustrated that his teammate let him down. That doesn't make his comments okay, but you could see why he might say them. The only other negative comments about McNabb that I remember was the thing about the Eagles being better off with Favre. Those two comments hardly constitute "blasting McNabb publicly every chance he got." I've also heard TO's comments sound much more reasonable when taken in context. I completely agree with this. Not true. McNabb said the Eagles would be better off without TO. How do you know which of the two chose to pick that fight? Maybe not in 1989. But toward the end of his career, Reed was on the verge of breaking some team record or something for the most receptions. In the game he broke the record, he complained that the passes he was being thrown were too short. He basically said the only reason he was being thrown to was to help him break the record, and that he wasn't a serious part of the team's plan to win the game.

Are you talking about TO or McNabb? When McNabb told the media the team would be better off without TO, he became a bad teammate in my book. This year, the Eagles have yet to win a game without TO. So McNabb looks like a spoiled child to me, because he chased away their best player because of a few comments.

Funny stuff. That article made me want to throw a snowball at him.

Good thing nobody here fits description. In all seriousness, the way I justify spending time here is, um, . . . well, you know.

If the team was cancer-ridden, it wouldn't have done as well as it did last year. I don't remember TO saying he was bigger than his team. I remember him calling out McNabb for being tired in the Super Bowl, and later saying the Eagles would be better off with Brett Favre at QB. Maybe TO has a lot of respect for what Favre can do, even at this point in his career. Was it right for TO to make the Favre comment? No, because you shouldn't take your teammates down a notch by saying stuff to the national media. Speaking of the idea of not going after your teammates in the national media, McNabb shouldn't have said the Eagles would be better off without TO.

I know that under other Bills o-line coaches, an offensive lineman might fail in Buffalo only to find success elsewhere. I have yet to hear of an offensive lineman failing under McNally yet succeeding someplace else. Look at the way the line was playing in the second half of last season. Players like Teague and Williams were playing the best football of their careers. This year there are new starters at LG and LT, and injury problems at RG and RT. Of course the line isn't playing well, and it's not McNally's fault.