Pyrite Gal

I like Johnson as well, but the simple fact is that though you seem pretty disappointed in Roscoe thus far Roscoe has shown not only greater potential as an NFL WR than Johnson has shown in his brief career, but in fact he has demonstrated productivity that my sense is that if Johnson produces as much as Roscoe has half way though his second season playing (getting hurt as a rookie is the big blemish on Parrish as a player thus far), Mr. Johnson will be a happy man. Is Parrish a top WR in the NFL? Nope. Is he even a solid #2? No to that as well. However, it is simply unrealistic and non football wishing that visualized his contribution to this team being measured by achieving these two standards. The simple fact is at 171 pounds, it was pretty clear from the start that he was going to make a name for himself as a #3 who could use his blazing speed to make our 3 WR sets more formidable and he would need to be a true contributor on ST as a return guy. It would be easy though football foolish to compare him to Randy Moss and declare him a bust. The simple question is which #3 WRs and PR guys would you prefer we had instead of Parrish. The simple fact is that he is not in the lower third of #3/PR guys who are busts who deserve to be cut and actually he is well into the top half of these players in the NFL. In fact, looking at this subjectively the major problem I had with his pick (particularly after he went down to injury early in his career) were of durability and toughness, and Parrish has impressed me with the fact he is not afraid to patrol the middle like a slot receiver should. Perhaps the only complaint folks might make is that he was the first pick for the Bill in a draft they traded their #1 away, but even this view is from those who over-estimate the value of the draft (it is a good tool as good players have to come from somewhere and good players get drafted). However, between fantasy football and ESPN hype folks put to much stock in the draft. There is an assumption that every first rounder should be a first year starter when actually it is about 50/50 whether this is going to be true. The poster seems to have good fan expectations of both Parrish and Johnson but they certainly are not expectations consistent with reality.

While drafting an developing talent on the OL as Indy had done would be a preferable alternative to building an OL through FA, if if one has a goal to make the playoffs in 08, 09 or likely even by 2010, drafting and developing a solid OL is not the method the Bills should pursue now (or likely should have began to pursue prior to the 06 draft when Marv took over as GM) for the timing of the goals of this team and the other critical needs this team had (and have) there simply is not enough time to focus on building an OL in the preferred method of using the draft. TD (and his designated offensive genil GW, Kragthorpe, Bresnahan, and then Gilbride) simply blew it using the preferred approach you endorse when they spent a 1st rounder on bust Mike Williams and a 3rd rounder on the good playing but injury prone Jonas Jennings. One can argue that their problem was not sticking with your advocated strategy and drafting some more potential OL studs after they screwed up with the draft picks they made. However, the quality of these OL choices (and also the OL alternatives available like the stupid McKinnie) raise many questions about how much of a cure an OL draft focus would have been given initial (and I would argue more important) failures that Ralph led this team to in mismanaging the Butler situation so that he was forced to take TD who then through his own insecurities of not repeating the situation where Bill Cowher ran him out of Pitts he made bad choices in hiring coaches here. If one's goal is to make the playoffs and even the SB through building your OL through FA rather than the draft you are simply flat out wrong in saying that the draft though a preferable method in the long run is the only alternative for building an OL. NYG is one clear example that it is certainly possible to substitute FA acquisition for the draft as an OL building method. FA acquisitions can be a substitute for building a successful OL, the issue is the same one though as building an OL though the draft if you pick bad players (Mike Williams), provide them with bad coaching (Bresnahan), in a dysfunctional offense (Kragthorpe and then Gilbride) you do badly. If one wants to reasonably advocate taking a different approach to OL development than the one the Bills took then this case to be credible needs a little more detail than simply stating the obvious.

I actually could see why the Bills let Fletch go, but this was not because he was a bad player but because I think this team was getting rid of the old Bills leadership (TD to start and then on field guys like TKO and Fletch) so this team could get a fresh start and really be built in an image of Jauron and Marv's choosing. I think it is great that Fletch has maintained a good level of play to get this mid-season nod even though he is on the wrong side of 30. I think you are correct in noting the similarity of the tackling results of Pos and Fletch because in general I think this is true that both easily piled up a team lead in tackles but in both cases the C2 (more like a Tampa 2 that requires the MLB to not only plug holes on runs but also do deep coverage in the middle of the field. I would actually say that in the long run it is not unreasonable to judge that Pos will end up as a more accomplished player than Fletch, Fletch was a far better producer on the field than the rookie Pos was in his brief initial season but actually I think his last years with the Bills were more productive than Pos is producing for the Bills right now. It was not through a series of lucky breaks that Fletch not only led all LBs in the NFL in INTs his last year here but in fact led all the Bills in INTs. Fletch is on the wrong side of 30 because he has played this game a long time and did a great job of reading plays and covering the pass. Pos seems to have the natural football smarts that after a few years he also will have the vet ability to read plays. For now, those of us who root for Pos will have to make do with him having profited from seeing a full season of NFL games from the bench, but he still has to make use of the superior speed he has to to recover from getting fooled like many a young player into taking a false step forward on pass plays or a false step backward on run plays. The end result because he is a fast player with good football sense he makes the tackle but like many young players he makes the initial hit too far downfield to be a dominant player.....YET.

Another thing that impresses me about Tasker is not simply did he have to be gameplanned for but he actually forced the NFL to change a rule to deal with an innovation he developed and pulled off because opponents game planned a way to stop his kick coverage. It is illegal for a player to cover a kick by running out of bounds and essentially behind his team off the field to cover kicks. Tasker was quick enough and understood the game well enough that he could run down outside of the field of play and get back onto the field to make the tackle. Simply phenomenal. I understand when some argue that a player needs to be good enough that his team puts him on the field as a position player. Tasker was forced to "fill-in" as a WR due to injuries and it became clear that he was on ST not because he was not good enough to be a position player, but in fact he was such a productive ST player that the Bills chose to sacrifice his productive position play to have him be gameplanned for and revolutionize the ST game. While his relatively minimal but impressive WR stats in no way qualify him for the HOF they do show strongly how those who argue that no ST player can be considered a good enough player to get the HOF, Tasker was a skilled player by any measure.

Taking two lives and putting your own life at risk to pull off an economic and egotistic game. Both are evil but there truly is no comparison between the two.

Any given Sunday, homefield advantage, and the Bills injury situation all add up to make this a very tough game. I like most folks look for the Bills to win on Sunday, but it does not surprise me that some folks would judge the Fish as favorites in this game.

I think this argument/comparison actually does not give Whitner enough credit/ It has taken a bit over 2 years of results to make it clear that the choice of Whitner was the right thing to do but in a bit over 1 year of activity the Surge has succeeded in its initial goal of chopping successful violence in Iraq against Americans, but the jury is still out over this drop in violence will allow the necessary political compromises in Iraq to occur. Whitner is the real deal but the jury is still out on the ultimate success of the Surge beyond its initial goal of drastically reducing the number of Americans killed. Still the Surge has had a year less to work so we will see if it succeeds in its ultimate goal on the same timeline as Whitner achieving success. It appears likely though that the Surge will become a moot point if Iraqis do not agree to a continuation of the mandate beyond the end of the year as appears may be the case. The analogy would be broken as this would be the same as if Whitner had been knocked out the game after a season and a half and fortunately this did not occur to this great Bills player. The analogy seems to offer very little in addition to being totally inappropriate as football is merely a game and too many people are dying in Iraq when the original reason for going in, to stop WMD development proved meaningless.

This is also the way that the Troy Vincent situation went down a couple of years back. If he is judged healed by his docs it would seem reasonable that he could file a grievance to come back and that the team would not be able to sign him unless he cleared waivers.

I agree wholeheartedly with your first paragraph but it seems somewhat counter-intuitive to your second paragraph. I think the big diff in the game outcomes is in fact seen in the mistakes we forced Rivers into and the performance Warner had. However, it would seem to me the big factor in this had little to do with Losman and a lot to do with our pass rush being far more effective against Rivers. The oddity is that this happened despite our Pro Bowl DE not being able to suit up against SD. I think the factors that explain the diff were: 1. The D got motivated big time against SD after AZ ripped 'em a new one. Better players are in fact better players, but motivation can allow even lesser players to strap it on and perform big time after they are embarrassed. I think a healthy Schobel is a better player than a healthy Denney, but in this game Denney and the rest of the D were motivated big time and it paid off with more sacks. turnovers and most important shutting down one the best RBs in the game after getting rolled by the old Edge. 2. I think another big factor was that an injured Schobel who was handled by none other than Mike Gandy (who was probably also well motivated by getting chopped by the Bills) was replaced by a motivated Denney and the rest of the D crew. 3. The Bills coaches made great use of the bye week to install a D scheme with a good number of LB and corner blitzes and good stunts by the DL so that the loss of Schobel co-incided with far better DL production. I think Edwards does bring a confidence to this team that they are not out of a game even if they are two scores down in the 4th. While Losman has demonstated an outstanding ability to hit the long pass and even lead the team to good O performance (and fully demonstrated when he took a team where Trent had an anemic day last year and he led the team to victory), this proven ability is no where near the same as the confidence TE gives the entire Bills squad in the bad times. However, as you point out, JP hit an outstanding pass last week to put the Bills back in the game but they could not hold it. I think the big difference between AZ and SD was the pass rush and that TE/JP may be a the story ESPN decides to go with but it really made little more than a marginal difference in this game.

The big key in the results produced by this popularity contest will be linked the Bills continuing to win. This happening has these effects: 1. Obviously it helps the bottomline of stats as it means he continues to have performances like the one yesterday. 2. Word will spread among opposing coaches as he becomes the one team's gameplan for week after week. 3. Opposing players who in the end are really just fans will see him featured on Sportscenter more. 4. Many local press folk noted how many national media were in the box yesterday and this will cause a political campaign rivaling electoral battles. The irony of this all is that the pivotal game in Edwards development as a star may turn out to be the AZ game. For those of us who watch too much the key to this game was actually a putrid performance turned in by the D. However, the general takeaway for the media is gonna be when Trent plays we win like yesterday and when TE does not play we lose like week before last. If the media covers the NE game with a narrative that this game marks the change of the guard from an injured Brady to the new flavor at QB, Trent then the deal will be done.

Nah I plan and hope for 3-0. Going 2-1 is unacceptable to this fan (that is until we lose one of them then I hope and plan on us being 2-1 in the 3 games. I was flat out rooting for us to go 19-0 this seasons (until the AZ game and now I plan and hope on us being 18-1)!

If you're a Bills player the only thing you should be thinking about is reaching 6-1 by squishing the Fish. Thinking too much as a player about going 2-1 in the next games is how you end up going 0-3. As for us fans I also disagree with the concept of hoping we go at least 2-1 in the next three games. 3-0 is what we plan and hope for.

I think TD in addition to the overarching disasters which led to his dismissal and me being quite comfortable describing his term as a reign of error was some very good moves related to the draft, namely: 1. Downright raping Arthur Blank for a 1st in exchange for Peerless has to rank right up there as one of the great football felonies of all time. 2. I think the intent and a lot of the way the RB drafting turned out spoke fairly highly of TD- - he assessed correctly in drafting a Pro Bowl quality talent in Henry -realized the error he made though with the mental make-up of Henry as he got to know him and not only took advantage of Henry's drug addled nature to get an extra year of eligibility out of him but began looking to replace - folks hate WM because he too was an idiot, but not only did TD make the right call in replacing the first idiot when many derided the choice as unecessary because we were set at RB, but he made the correct call in trusting the Bills docs that WM could recover from a seeming career ending injury with a year off to rehab. -TD even proved to be a cool tough customer when some nattering Nancys were urging him to cut Henry or trade him for a late pick but he read the market to get a first day pick in exchange for Henry (who promptly got suspended afterwards for substance abuse. He definitely was not perfect handling the RB situations as he drafted two mental midgets, but they were mental midgets who became Pro Bowlers and c;early tons of folks did not see things as clearly as TD did for what he was trying to do.

I think this thread mostly speaks to the sense that the conventional wisdom simply over- values the draft (and the 1st round in particular as THE key to building a great team. Yes, the draft is important, but no it is not THE important thing. The CW is that a 1st round choice should be a starter his first year, but the CW as in many cases is simply wrong. I looked at one year in depth (I think it was the 06 draft or it was some year generally perceived to be a pretty strong class around then) and it was about 50% of 1st round choices being #1 on their team's depth chart at their position a year later. Polian may be right that eventually folks turn out to be like Eric Moulds (a bust after his first two years who then becomes a Pro Bowl quality player), but I agree with the post above which says his study after ten years of play showed most players picked when looking back at their careers turned out to be disappointments. Expectations are so high for 1st rounders that it is no wonder they disappoint because in the end the draft really is a crapshoot in terms of results. Good players have to come from somewhere and it is simply true good players generally get drafted. However, the facts simply are that all of the talk of stone cold certainty is just talk whether one studies at Mel Kiper levels or you are simply a fan on TSW.

Not all MRIs are the same and perhaps they got one quickly done (or more likely someone looked at one already done) and a new diagnosis emerged. For example, I remember hearing about an MRI technique called "gating" (or something like that) where the MRI is put in sync with an EKG readout and the images are taken between heartbeats. In some cases, the heart action creates enough turbulence that fairly small intrusions of the bulging disc onto a nerve cannot be seen and by doing a gating MRI a resolution emerges where a bone spur or some other small intrusion which might cause a lot of pain is rendered visible. A treatment for this type of problem may be extended traction or quite invasive surgery (if the bone spur is high enough the best surgical route may even be through the mouth. At any rate, fairly straightforward but beyond the norm diagnostic techniques can reveal problems which were reasonably missed by other docs.