Orton's Arm

I still wonder about his conditioning. But that's not my biggest objection. TO practically willed the Eagles to victory in that Super Bowl, and for McNabb to ask him to leave the very next season just doesn't sit well. TO was having a very good season too.

He wasn't saying that every athlete needs to be as talented as Jordan. He's saying that, like Jordan, every athlete should put winning first.

This is a great post. Lawrence Phillips was forgiven for dragging an ex-girlfriend down three flights of stairs, yet TO gets canned for hurting McNabb's feelings.

The 49ers situation was complicated. Initially, TO was supposed to have become a free agent after having completed his last year with the 49ers. But it turned out TO's agent didn't fill out the appropriate paperwork on time, so the 49ers got an extra year's worth of rights to a player they expected to see walk. The 49ers promptly traded these rights to Baltimore. However, it turned out that a clause in TO's contract gave TO's agent extra time to file for free agency. On the theory that TO was a free agent after all, he signed with Philadelphia. Clearly TO could not play for both Philadelphia and Baltimore, so the matter went to arbitration. Philadelphia had the stronger case, because TO really did have the right to be a free agent. So they reached a compromise deal, where Philly got TO, but had to give San Fran a 2nd round pick, and Baltimore a 5th round pick.

"Most of us like him, but we're not supposed to like him, so you've got to watch how you answer the questions." - defensive end N.D. Kalu. Interesting that Philadelphia would give up on its best offensive player as a sop to McNabb's ego. Jim Kelly and Andre Reed didn't always see eye to eye, but at the end of the day, winning football games was more important for Kelly than getting even with Reed for whatever may have gone wrong between them. Too bad for the Eagles that McNabb is no Jim Kelly.

While unions are indeed going the way of the dinosaur in the competitive private sector, they've found it all too easy to proliferate in the public sector. A union is an excellent mechanism for exerting political pressure on a legislative body. Usually the political pressure is for more public sector jobs (and therefore fewer private jobs). This socialization of the economy means the union's bosses get to be bosses of a bigger, more powerful union with more money to spend.

If your team has a good to great offensive line, Drew is a better QB than Holcomb. If your team has an offensive line like ours, you need a guy who can dump the ball off, make something out of nothing, and above all not take the sack. You need Holcomb instead of Drew.

Good post. MM relates to the players a lot better, largely because he's a former player himself.

Terrell Owens fits your description quite nicely. The guy always comes to play, and in my eyes that's far more important than the controversy he sometimes creates when he's off the field.

TO definitely can play, and wants to play. The thing I like about him the most is his consistency, the fact he shows up every week. Not like Sam Adams, a guy who will play hard some of the time while slacking off at other times. If the QB situation works itself out, if the offensive line gets rebuilt, and if we walk into next season with a 3 WR set that includes Moulds, Evans, and Owens, other teams would do well to fear our offense. If they gang up to stop the pass, we kill them with McGahee.

He said that either a restructure would happen, OR Moulds would play his contract out.

If they did, my heart goes out to them. Pats fans have had to suffer so much the last four years, it would be a shame if they had yet another disappointment.

You have a point about the need for good coaching. But if you have players who need to have mental toughness instilled into them by coaches, you have the wrong players.

AKC's intial post showed a lot of thought, an effort to reach beneath the surface to see what truly affects a football game. While I agree that DT is an important position, I don't think that just because a team has a pair of great DTs it will necessarily be a winning club. I believe good teams are built on three pillars: OL: with a good OL, you will have a good running game. Without a good OL, you won't have much of a passing game. QB: A bad QB will kill you with turnovers. A good QB, plus a good OL, will get you a decent passing offense even with average receivers. DL: Instrumental in keeping blockers off your back 7 on running plays, and rushing the passer on passing plays. As AKC pointed out, success on the DL starts with the interior, guys who can turn 1st and 10 into 2nd and 11. But you also need good DEs to turn 3rd and 11 into a punt.

Ah, but Losman plays better when he's mad. TO, here's the mike. Say whatever is on your mind. No, really. Don't be shy.

There is no excuse for the call to punt. None.

That hurts. That really, really hurts. I remember practically begging for losses that year, especially in the Carolina game. But no. That win hurt the team a lot.

Steve Spurrier couldn't even make the transition from college football to pro football. How is this Epstein guy supposed to make the transition from baseball to football? Take a player like Drew Bledsoe. He's successful in a certain type of scheme, as is being seen in Dallas. But he's mediocre at best in other types of schemes, as seen in Buffalo and with Charlie Weis. A football man would have a better chance of not putting a square peg like Bledsoe into a round hole like the Bill Walsh offense. There are lots of other examples where you need a particular type of player to fit a given system. Denver needs smaller, faster offensive linemen for its blocking scheme. Pittsburgh needs bigger, stronger DEs and OLBs for its 3-4 defense. Jerry Gray needs a SS that's more like a LB for his kind of defense. Do you really expect a baseball guy to learn about these subtleties well enough to put together a cohesive football team? Baseball is more of a plug-and-play sport. A guy who puts up good hitting stats for one team can be a good hitter for any team. The same is true of pitching, or other defensive play. Building a good football team is a more complicated task.

For the Bills to maximize their success next year, the following has to happen: - The Bills must go 4-12 or 5-11 this year. That should be a bad enough record to get rid of TD, while getting a high draft pick. - The Bills should get rid of some of the dead weight on defense--including Jerry Gray. There are viable defensive coordinator candidates to replace him. - The Bills should free up salary cap space by restructuring or cutting players like Mike Williams. - The Bills should use free agency and the draft to address both lines. In fact, their only first-day picks should be on guys for the trenches. - The Bills should sign Terrell Owens. Admittedly that guy will say controversial things in order to get things stirred up. But he plays hard every week, and that's more than can be said about most players on this team.

John Madden is infinitely better than the announcers on ESPN.

Good point. I think the real message Saban was trying to get across is that everybody on the Dolphins team should play his hardest regardless of the score. He's saying that if a guy quits because he thinks a game is out of reach, or the playoffs are out of reach, that guy won't be around next year. It's a message the Bills need to hear too.

Um, Denver? A Denver team that needs wins to stay ahead of San Diego in the AFC West race? A Denver team that runs the ball quite well, going up against our run defense? I hate to say it, but with New England's players starting to return from injury, they will be a tougher opponent the second time around. And Carolina . . . things would have to go really well for the Bills to beat that team. Even at home.

Great post, and I think you're right.

Which player would you draft in round 1 if you were GM?

If he did throw them under the bus, I could see why. It's becoming increasingly clear Buffalo needs a new defensive coordinator.