Pyrite Gal

They got older (former Bill leading tackler and ordained minister London Fletcher) got hurt (former Pro Bowler and MBA student TKO) and both (former MBA Ivy League course organizer and NFLPA Pres Troy Vincent ). The Bills cut these players who had clear demonstrations and vocal support of using the gifts of NFL talent for other things than partying and having all the girls you can eat and did not replace them with other older players and internal team leaders. Perhaps the thought was that high quality guys like Jauron could set an example to replace them, but this view fails to recognize that the team character is not set only by having a good father figure but needs the internal reinforcement of having a successful peer or brother figure. The youth movement is necessary and good but it is not perfect and needs supplementation as well.

Its the golden rule, he who has the gold rules and one must be addled to not realize that there is a different standard of treatment for folks who have big bucks (in our case professional athletes) than those of lesser means. There are many reasons for this and some are good and some are bad but that these folks are treated differently is something is doubt anyone can supply compelling evidence this is not the case. For example: 1. The police and DA better have covered all the bases when they charge or arrest a rich person because rich folks have the resources to hire lawyers and investigators to get evidence of any investigatory missteps or something like police brutality. This sometimes gets reflected in a case like Lynch's where the powers that be are more likely to wait on an arrest until they are sure they can make it stick rather if they throw east side Willie into the slammer he is likely going to have to wait until some overburdened and poorly trained public defender gets to his case with little budget to do his own testing and work, 2. Rich folk are often less of a flight risk. True they are more likely to have the bucks to leave the country and set up shop elsewhere. However, this is a big jump to leave your hometown, your comfy couch and all your business dealing to instead live life on the lam. A poor guy may get arrested sooner because he may simply leave town since he has little to leave, but a rich guy (particularly a Lynch is not going anywhere so if there is uncertainty and a unintentionally violent crime there is less of an immediate need to arrest. 3. Celebrities in particular are less of a flight risk because where are they gonna go and not be recognized. 4. Rich people tend to get believed and poor people need to prove themselves often rather than be given the benefit of the doubt. This is unfortunate because liars or honest folks can be rich or poor, but the simple case is there are stereotypes we all have otherwise we would have to figure every little thing out and if we are busy we make assumptions. Richer folks wearing nicer clothes, speaking in a more educated manner or simply not exuding the lack pf self-confidence which can often come with not being a business or financial success can be reflected in whether someone is believed or not. 5. Celebrity can create bias. This is not true all the time, but we have all heard of stories where a celeb is asked for autographs by authorities. Part of law enforcement involves training and constant reminders not to be dazzled by celebrity but it actually takes work to do this which is why there are constant reminders to be professional. Etc, Come on now. If you had a choice to be rich and in trouble with the law or poor and in trouble with the law which would you choose. Would you actually say this makes no difference. It does not determine all things and rich folk can get canned by the courts but it seems obvious to me that there is a difference often with this point.

The amount of money involved in any fine are such mere chump change as to not make anyone have any bowel disturbances whatsoever. What can cause heartburn though and put the fear in the opposing partner is the demonstration by the player that he is serious enough about this problem to put himself in a fineable situation. The Bills will not groom some player to be a plan B in any reasonable timeline (if LTs were easy to find why did we go for virtually a decade with no one really taking ownership of the LT slot?). The only fear either side can bring to bear is a seeming willingness to go a long a path of mutually assured destruction with the player mortgaging his career and the team mortgaging its record in the next year by essentially playing without adequate LT work. The leverage is not found in the action but in who blinks first. Peters has simply announced that the game is on.

However, in the end, neither the holdout nor the team really can "win" this dispute if the other party in the negotiation feels he has "lost." The final deal is afterall an "agreement". Both parties need to end up satisfied with the outcome or at best it is an agreement in name only with neither party happy with the outcome. Peters has clearly demonstrated he is not happy with an outcome which results in him being paid less than the market rate for a Pro Bowl achieving LT. This means he is rejecting a number of societal norms (specifically violating the contract he agreed to in order to have the Bill negotiate with him more like what a free market would give him). However, in American society the norm of the day has become to take care of the individual first and the societal norms of teamwork and team spirit have been consigned to a poor second by not only the society that produces a Windows ME, MY Space, and is a demand based economy but also by NFL ownership which for years operated on the Golden Rule (he who has the gold rules). The contract which Peters agreed to actually gave away his leverage to demand his contract be set in a free market. He is trying to not simply create leverage but to force a free market adjustment of his contract. The old contract does not allow his pay to be set by a free market for three years and now he is trying to end that contract to create a free market. He is not giving up any leverage given to him the contract because the contract is what takes away his leverage. While it is a theory that the Bills would see his displeasure as a large enough impetus to give him a more market based payement, the fact simply is that they have not reached agreement to give him a new contract. He seems to give up little leverage through his acts as the current situation has not produced a new contract for him as he has no leverage to get one under his current contract.

My sense is that your comments are old fashioned in that they speak back to a day when a player upheld his agreement because he did not have the power to stand up to an owner even if the owner was screwing him. Now that the players are not only partners with the owners but arguably under the new CBA which guarantees 60.1% of the total gross revenues to the players they are the majority partner. The old system had its failings in my view because even though it had the benefit of players acting with greater moral responsibility, in general the golden rule which the owners operated under was that he who has the gold rules. An observer is simply fooling themselves if they want to pretend that in the good old days both the players and the owners operated by a higher moral code. The attitude was more than embodied in a Ditka quote about George Halas that he used to throw nickels around like they were manhole covers. The disappointing thing about Peters not honoring his contract is because given a little leverage the players are now acting as money grubbing as the owners always did when they mandated a rule that allows them to simply walk out on an agreement when they want to. Peters comes off as money grubbing to me on this one, but that basically strikes me as little different than how Ralph and the owners operated for years because they could.

I think the mere act of adding a question mark would have made a world of difference in the reactions of folks and responses to this post. On Boards such as TSW and the internet in general folks are entitled to have their personal opinions, legit or not and fact-free or not. IMHO part of the reason this post likely raised the hackles of some in our little family of Bills lovers is that as a question the role steroid use may have played in the early death of an athlete is a legit question to have (though some may also correctly IMHO question the appropriateness of raising the point in a thread announcing an early death it is a legit question even if inappropriately raised). However, the fact that there is no question mark moves this post from raising a legit question to simply making a flat-out statement which may or may not be true and which the post does nothing to support. Even a legit question is definitely inappropriate when stated as a flat out opinion with no support in a death notice thread. This is a case where I am thankful for the free market system where if the mods choose to remove a post such as this that certainly strikes me as a more than reasonable thing to do.

Again it strikes me as one of the costs of the young player movement the Bills have invested in. It made sense certainly to move beyond players who were on the backside of their careers like Fletch or were hobbled by past injury like TKO. However, the downside that accompanies this positive is that when your internal team leaders are guys like Fletch who was an ordained minister or TKO who teamed with Troy Vincent to start an Ivy-league school based MBA program are gone. Likely idiots like the agent Taylor you could find no info on are now the leading voices which the young talented players like Peters hear all the time. Like it or not these "men" who are young Pro Bowlers are adults certainly but young adults who have lived their lives being told when to exercise, when to sleep, what to eat and simply have been coddled all their lives and told how great they were. It is not surprising that with the Bills having cut older players who got their big contracts or Pro Bowl adulation but generally were seen as high character guys that their young studs seem to be falling prey to bad advice. If part of the Bills thinking was that in cleaning house of the older players was that they would have no competition in training the young players in the Bills way, then they are in for a rude awakening as in the US today its all about Windows ME and what is in it for me. We live in a modern age which is so addicted to buying stuff now and satisfying our individual desires that ideas like teamwork or the interests of others are secondary. Folks are interested in sincerity but once they learn to fake that they feel like they have it made.

Regarding Peters. It is simply unfair for him to demand that the Bills renegotiate after he signed the renegotiated deal he got from the Bills who took the risk of signing this UDFA and then properly trained and guided him under JMac to obtain Pro Bowl status. The problem simply is that life is not fair and the Bills ultimately will have to show him the money. Its tough for the Bills though in that Peters chose to resort to beyond the rules activities in his negotiation with the Bills. Sure we are certainly morally justified in drawing a line in the sand and refusing to renegotiate. However, to stand on this correct principle will ultimately disadvantage third parties such as the fans and his teammates. My sense is that the Bills will ultimately be intelligent and do the right thing to show Peters the money. However, it is essential if only to do an inadequate job of upholding the principle and also so as not to encourage future Bills to try to bulldoze them in negotiations to make this rolling over for Peters as painful for him as possible without creating bad blood that cannot be recovered from. The dance will be to make it painful but not too painful. Its not right and its not fair but life is not fair. One irony here is that the Bills are actually seeing one the effects of chopping the older players and having a young team. Part of the reason why the Bills had higher character players in the not distant pass was that internal player leadership was provided by folks such as ordained minister London Fletcher or a Pro Bowler like TKO who joined with Troy Vincent to set up a MBA program for players at an Ivy League school. It had clear good sides to chop players who were getting older in terms of creating a hungry youth movement and making the coaches the sole authority on the team. However, it also had the negative that these incredibly rich steroid infused (in some cases) young players simply question authority a lot. By getting rid of the old guard players they set up a situation where there were limited internal good examples of success, outside diligence, and being a solid teammate. Instead the Bills players are mostly subject to non current -player good examples like Jauron who like it or not the younger players do not listen to the same as they would their peers who have success like TKO. Its too bad but its life.

Regarding the article I could not have said it better myself.

Actually it changes nothing for Buffalo not because the Bills are as good as gone, but simply because it can either be good for the prospects of the Bills remaining in Buffalo depending upon a bunch of things that lots of folks have their opinion about what will happen in the future, but really no one besides Ralph (who has a ton of influence over the course of future events, but ultimately even he will like most dead people have severe limits on his future control of life after he dies). Among the variables which will determine a lot and despite the declarations of folks on TSW that their opinions are stone cold truth, no one has a clear idea of these factors. 1. When will Ralph die. Ultimately this the major driver on the course of future events and no one really has a solid idea of whether he will last one year, five years, or even more. Ralph has pretty consistently sworn the Bills will remain in Buffalo while he is alive. This seems to be as close to a determining decision as we have got. However, who knows how long it will be until he shuffles off this mortal coil and actually what the state of the international economy will be when he leaves this life. Will the current likely buyers be in the same fiscal condition several years from now? Will the world be suffering from a global depression or recession that changes the outcomes markedly? What unknowns will emerge at some point which will influence future choices significantly. Perhaps the only thing certain about this is only how wrong those who claim that of course a particular outcome will happen are quite likely wrong or have no way of reading the future to claim any certainty credibly. Sure folks legitimately can have opinions but for these opinions to be credible at all they need to be stated with the huge caveats of uncertainty rather than insistence they are stone cold certain. 2. How has Ralph set up his will to guide disposal of his assets? Ralph has let folks know his family (and thus most likely heirs) have no interest in running the team. It is generally assumed that the family will inherit the Bills and will be forced to sale the team to pay inheritance taxes. However, there is no guarantee that this conventional wisdom is true with any level of certainty which guarantees a particular outcome without knowing how Ralph's estate will deal with this asset in his will. The devil is in the details and we do not even know for sure where Ralph's desires will fall on the scale between Joe Robbie seeming to plan to live forever and doing little even basic estate planning which forced the sale of the asset. On the other hand, if Ralph chooses, he can leave this asset to am irrevocable trust run by a not-for-profit allowing his heirs to escape owing anything but allowing the team to remain in Buffalo in a Green Bayesque mode which the NFL bans but actually would have limited ability to stop if it were the estate wish of a dead man. Unless folks know for sure what Ralph's wishes are in terms of disposing of this asset for his family (if he is like a Warren Buffet for example he has expressed the since that actually leaving huge assets to his family is a bad thing and while he will set up his heirs to live comfortably and maintain their drive to use the significant assets he will leave them to build additional fortunes he simply has given away the vast majority of his assets to the public good in the form of the Bills Gates Foundation. Everyone knows what they would do with the Bills but really have no idea what Ralph will do with this asset. 3. What is the NFL's plan? Some seem to want to treat this as merely Ralph's decision. While it is true that Ralph's desires which will be reflected beyond the grave in his will are actually not the only important consideration here. Ultimately, the entire NFL will get to approve any sale so Ralph's wishes are not the only thing (and that again generally is an unknown besides him staying the Bills will remain in Buffalo while he lives) but actually the league will have a pretty strong say in who buys the team. Ironically this will actually give Buffalo fans some leverage as the threat of anti-trust action proved to be enough for Cleveland that even though the individual owner Modell flew the coop for the highest bidder, Cleveland won the right o a franchise. If Schumer/Clinton et al, are vehement enough in threatening the NFL's antitrust waivers local officials will have difficult to ignore abilities the NFL will find hard to diss and impossible to ignore. Add to this that the major drive for the NFL is likely to want to make as much money as they can. Particularly since the public NFL strategy is to expand into foreign markets, the approach which would seem to make the most money for the NFL is not one of moving the Bills to Toronto and throwing away the already definite asset of 50,000+ season tickets, but instead to yes set-up a new franchise in Toronto, but like the NHL which does quite fine operating the Maple Leafs and Sabres at the same time, there would seem to be few reasons why the NFL cannot have its cake and eat it too by setting up a new franchise in Toronto while also maintaining the Bills in Buffalo. Why chose either or when you can possibly have both. The situation has not changed in that no one really knows.

I think many posters are blinded by thoughts of the concept of position play when actually the key to whether any 4 string WR (and actually most 2nd string players) is how well they play ST. It is the very rare player who makes his living pretty much due to his redzone play (there was a Bills TE a few years back who was notable in this regard. Hardy's potential future as a Bill has a lot more to do with whether he can replicate the success of Sam Aiken rather than whether he could team with Hardy to be redzone terrors. In order to become a very good gunner, a player would need to demonstrate: 1. Great tackling ability (not a hallmark of many receivers). 2. Great ability and discipline in running the designated ST coverage routes (not something which has been heralded as a Jones strong suit as his work ethic has been questioned). 3. Speed (which is essential for a gunner whose often has the job of beating two block on punt coverage and get down the field to be the first one to the receiver or if you are a Cadillac ST player like Steve Tasker even catch the punt on the goalline to down it- Jones is known for having deceptive speed for a big man but is not mistaken by anyone for Peerless Price world class speed). I also have heard nothing beyond the mutant height which got Jones picked early to indicate that he has the elusiveness as a runner and great hands to be a return guy or the self-sacrificing ethic to be a wedge guy on return duty or a wedge buster on coverage. Jones certainly could team with the tall Hardy to create difficult mismatch issues in the redzone, but this benefit seems to pale in significance compared to what simply a very good ST player would give us on a dozen plays during a game to what a mutant redzone threat would give us a couple a times (4 plays would be a lot) in a game. I doubt we could afford to have any one dimensional player at 4th string WR even if that player was great at the one dimension of redzone play.

This also may be a coaching move. By placing Johnson first on the depth chart it may well be a challenge to him to step up and not be complacent with "merely" being a solid NFL back-up. It also COULD possibly be configured as a challenge to McCargo to step up his game in his third year if he wants to be considered a starter. The former is a bit more positive than the latter, but both could easily be bits of psychology which the coaches use on a team where good competition is the order of the day.

No

The weirdest thing about folks diatribes against Jauron is that actually the subject of this thread is about emotion rather than simply results (which IMHO is actually the most important thing). This thread is not only about his results (which I think on the face of it were slightly below average at 7-9 in a league which tends toward almost all teams competing for the playoffs even if they are only 8-8) but is specifically about whether he is over or under rated. The weird thing is that not only are folks simply wrong when they claim he has done nothing (at worst on the face of it he is a one time NFL Coach of the Year who has produced a slightly below average record with much less than average teams) but actually they are even more wrong about saying that even this level of below average production is less than the conventional wisdom rated him as likely to produce. Bears- The CW had him producing at best a slightly above average team initially but he exceeded expectation by HCing the team to a 13-3 record. The CW did not go up drastically for him despite this success because the front office was clearly in disarray. When a new GM was hired he could not fire Jauron because of his past success but it was clearly a matter of time before he was gonna get canned and so it was. DET- I do not see how anyone could claim that their was any expectation of him doing well with the team he took over which got the HC canned. It did not do well. However, it seems to be generally agreed that Jauron exceeded expectations here as this team at least showed up to play under him and was at least simply bad rather than horrendous. Bills- This team was 5-11 when he got here and he and the new braintrust went about cleaning house getting rid of WM, Fletch, and TKO. Still though the result was slightly below average at 7-9, it likely exceeded where most watchers would rate a bad team in a transition year as doing. Last year, the result was clear and about the same at the same 7-9. Yet, again this less than average production exceeded what the conventional wisdom would expect from a team which led the league in players on IR. Has Jauron delivered a winner to Bills fans? No. Has he exceeded reasonable expectations about what result a 5-11 team undergoing a housecleaning and then suffering a league leading total of players on IR would produce? Yep. Folks can certainly make a credible argument that the CW should have been higher and observers were wrong to underate what the Bills would do in 2008 despite the injuries. However, some do not want to make this logical argument but instead seem to want to rely on rants against Jauron which ignore his past Coach of the Year honor with incorrect claims he has done nothing. Or they instead choose to argue the relative case of whether he and the Bills were overrated with reliance on the absolute of the team record while ignoring the IR fact. IMHO opinion the facts are that Jauron produced slightly worse than average results working with a bad team rebuilding from a 5-11 record and in the face of leading the league in players on IR. These strike me as the simple facts and folks who simply choose to ignore this end up looking like fools, Some may argue that it is all about results. i say yeah but in the words of Dick Cheney... So? The key will likely be the results produced in 08 or more likely 09 since Jauron has been HC on a team which has prodced slightly less than average results when they were so bad in terms of the players we had this team could easily have produced one of the NFLs worst records in either of the last two years. The facts simply are that Jauron HC'ed awful Bills teams to slightly worse than average results. One can reasonably argue that Jauron has failings that will not get the Bills over the top, however making demonstrably false claims that he has never succeeded anywhere or not recognizing the 06 Bills were simply an awful team completely undercuts any attempt to do a rational critique.

To me the concept of over or under-rated is based less upon raw results and is more a statement of how a team (the buck ultimately stops with the field guy in charge whether he is given more credit or more blame than he deserves) performs versus expectations. The simple fact is that Jauron can coach teams to a below average result (let's say 7-9) but if the conventional wisdom is that the team will actually end up with a significantly below average result (lets say 5-11) then if this happens on a recurring basis he can easily be judged to be under-rated. The "ratings" of the conventional wisdom can also be influenced by outside of normal coaching factors such as injuries suffered or turmoil in the GM/business side of the team. I think that the below average results of the teams coached by Jauron do often exceed the expectations of the conventional wisdom. In the end the awarding of the soubriquet or over or under-rated has as much to do with the "extenuating circumstances" or excuses being treated as reasons as it has to do with the raw results achieved. By this measure Jauron can easily be seen as under-rated due to these realities where the notion calls for viewing excuses as reasons: Chicago- The thing which makes it hard to judge him as under-rated in this case is that he actually is generally rated quite highly by the NFL and most viewers because he got NFL Coach of the Year honors for the 13-3 record. Still this any way you cut it outstanding results achieved is a key to his being judged over or under-rated in the future because the result is the result (however, this shows how random the "over/under-rated" tag can be as some are impressed by the team routinely racking up the great record with a bunch of last second wins while others see the last second nature wins as demonstrating somehow that Jauron is not that good of an HC). To me the result is the result and Jauron deserves plaudits for his team consistently winning games by narrow margins as at least in a few of these cases a game decision made by the HC was ONE of the critical factors which had to have gone right in order for the Bears to win. When one adds to the reality of this result, the reality that Jauron was inherited by a GM who wanted to hire his own guy as HC, this strikes me as the foundation of Jauron having been the HC of a team which produced an outstanding record, but him getting the boot as soon as a poor record allowed rather than him getting a mulligan for the result. It certainly is an "excuse" which does not change at all what the result was. However, we are dealing with the relative judgment of whether he is over or under rated and this mere excuse becomes a reason since we are into the relative. Did Jauron do better than the conventional wisdom estimated? No, not really but the conventional wisdom was so high because Jauron achieved an extraordinary result as HC (whether it was his doing primarily or not is not as important as the results were extraordinarily high at 13-3). However, he is given the benefit of the doubt for this one as they simply did achieve extraordinary results initially with him and when he got canned it was without him getting the benefit of the mulligan extraordinary results usually gives an HC. DET- Here, he took on a job as interim and by definition the previous HC failed so badly he got canned from this extraordinarily bad team. Jauron exceeded the conventional wisdom here because the extraordinarily bad team responded to the switch. They did NOT achieve extraordinary results under him, but (particularly since idiot Millen was still there as GM) even simply showing up and being judged as playing hard exceeded the conventional wisdom for this horrible DET team. BILLs- Like it or not the conventional wisdom was based upon the reality of a 5-11 record racked up under MM/TD in 05. Even in the face of the housecleaning which went on with folks like Mr. BabyMomma and quality older guys like Fletch and quality injured players like TKO the team achieved a result significantly above the CW of 7-0. If Jauron's squad had produced results based on how folks "rated" them even getting worse before they got better and finishing 4-12 would not have been a good thing at all but would not have been an extraordinary departure from where Jauron might have been rated to do. Even with last year, though the CW may well have not unreasonably demanded that he improve on his 7-9 record. The simple fact that this team easily led the NFL in players on the IR is a mere excuse which becomes a reason in assessing whether he was over or under rated. Overall, I care most about the real world and results. I expect Jauron to show reasonable improvement over last year's 7-9 record and he at least should compete if not make the playoffs in 08 or he will need a reason not to be canned IMHO (and actually if the team looks good, improves, and/or has some bad breaks which cost them the playoffs I easily can see sticking with a Jauron who fails to make the playoffs in 08 IF he team is headed in the right direction). However. actual results and whether an HC is over or under rated are two different things. Even more poorly the posts which claim falsely that Jauron has done nothing (like it or not he was coach of the year when his team went 13-3) are simply wrong as they seem to fail to understand that there is a difference between results expectations. Whether Jauron is over/under rated has more to do directly with expectations than results.

We fans are certainly free to idolize any individual player if we choose, but I think the fact is that if the players focus on one player or expect/demand that one player deserves the thought of being most important then it likely will be a disappointing season. I think the simple fact is that this team will need to perform like a TEAM if it hopes to succeed. Sure fans fixate on a single player as THE determiner of the season. However, one needs only remember back to the central role QB Kelly played for the Bills but it does not take a lot of thought to realize on the team one could easily make a case for Bruce being most important or realize that on the O one could easily make a case that Thurm was the pivotal player. Even after debating this one need only remember that the QB for the greatest game ever played was Frank Reich. I think what this adds up to is that the key as the Pars demonstrated when the entire team was introduced before the SB if the 2001 season that it really is all about the team.

My sense was that the mistake which was made was not the trade for RJ, (a 1st and a 4th rd pick was not an unreasonable amount to pay for a vet QB who you believed in even if his record gives one hope but is no sure thing). The two mistakes which were made were: 1. The Bills decided to pay him a huge bonus up front without him proving himself to be reliably healthy. Some argue that you had to pay him the huge bonus contract up front or he might simply refuse to sign and play out the season and hit FA and we get nothing for him. I think this is incorrect as even if it took half a season of play for us to be sure of RJ, it seems incredibly unlikely that even if he had an outstanding 4-8 games that he would run the risk of getting hurt by refusing to sign a deal so he could put himself out to bid as an FA. I think the worse thing that could have happened to us if we had waited on signing him for 4-8 games is that he did well and we would have been forced to give him a $30 million contract at the time rather than the $25 million contract he signed. 5 million is big bucks but even if he proved to be the real deal I think this would have been a small price to pay for a now proven franchise QB. What would have happened in real life is that RJ started going down to his string of injuries relatively early in his first season and as it happened, he could have been signed for far less or the Bills would have simply eaten the 1st and 4th they are anyway for this failed QB but we would not have given him the $8 million bonus to play hurt for us. Ralph and Butler made the mistake of signing him to the big contract rather than hanging tough. Wade made the mistake on not seeing what other's claim in retrospect to have seen immediately (and which RJ's own comments seem to bear out with him saying take care of yourself first) of misreading how much of a football player he was). 2. Ralph, Butler and the team made a huge error is not giving Flutie a fair shot to win the starting QB job on the field and also of at least giving him the impression he would get a fair shot at the job. Flutie already had a chip as big as a planer on his shoulder because no NFL GM/owner believed in him. The Bills simply made this worse by bringing him in with an incentive laden contract and then by mortgaging the farm for RJ essentially relegated Flutie to a sub role where if RJ remained healthy, Flutie would have ended up signing for chump change. Its too bad that DF could not be a secure enough guy that he is could do more than simply win to inspire loyalty and a following. However, given how badly the Bills braintrust treated him and his history of being a short guy it is little wonder to me that though he was successful as a player he was a successful a-hole.

It wasn't me it was Kirk Douglas.

My sense is that statistically both Christie and Lindell deserve to be honored before Norwood. However, the Wall of Fame like the HOF is not about statistics, its about FAME. In this case, the fame is about fame and honor as a Bill and what a player did that embodies Billdom (whatever that is). The single best moment for me as a Bills fan was listening on the radio at work as an estimated 20,000 Bills fans gathered in Niagara Sq. the day after the wide right miss to welcome our boys home. It was a great moment to be a Bills fan to hear him break down in tears apologizing and to join with the 1000s of folks giving forgiveness to Norwood for the miss. I can easily see putting him up on the Wall for us for that moment. Stats smats. Stats are merely about the game but this moment was about being a human being and about life. I hate that he missed the kick but I love how we generally responded to it. The real interesting question for me is whether we would have won 4 AFC championships in a row if he had made that kick. I do not know for sure, but when folks have asked whether I would have chosen 1 win for my team or the 4 conference championships and 4 SM losses it is no contest for me. I would take the 4/4. As one born in Chicago who rooted full-tilt boogie for the Bears and experienced my team winning SB 20, I would definitely say the feelings of joy did not match the four years of glory I experienced with my adopted team the Bills (whom I fully embraced after being introduced to them in the late-80s by my future life partner whom I married in 89). Maybe the pain of losing was different for me because I was not a lifelong Buffaloanian, but the comparison of the joy of shared fandom was not nearly comparable. A lot of this is integrally related to the wide right miss and the shared forgiveness.

No. I am Spartacus!

While I agree that it is silly to trash a player just because he is a former Bill, I think the course that Jennings was gifted with by the SF deal is notable in stupid is was. I am merely a fan and even I could see (and said so numerous times I tend to repetitively repetitively do) that JJ was so injury prone that there was no way the Bills should give him any raise whatsoever to re-sign with the Bills as an FA. Sure, I see the Bills a lot, but if even I could see it, I think it is virtually shocking that the professionals at SF could not see it. Clements also does not deserve to be labeled a bad player for his failure to play up to the level of the highest paid defender in the NFL. However again it struck me as fairly obvious that: 1. The market for available CBs was so constrained when he hit FA that he almost certainly was going to get a contract from somewhere that simply made it unreasonable for the either the Bills to meet the offer OR FOR NATE TO SIGN WITH THE BILL FOR WHAT WE COULD REASONABLY OFFER HIM. 2. This cold economics were even made more the case because under Jauron we were gonna run a Cover 2 which though it required a reasonable CB (it turned out a Greer level player was sufficient) there was no way it would have been reasonable for us to pay a ton for a CB. 3 The Bills did things just right by franchising NC when the costs of the average top 5 CB contract was not unreasonable. They also did the right thing by buying labor peace with him with a no cash cost agreement not to franchise him a second time. It is arguable that some team could have been as stupid as the 49ers were in giving a huge deal to JJ or the owner would shoot his mouth off like Blank did when he set up a situation that allowed us to trade PP to them for a 1st, but this is pretty doubtful and any fool should have seen if we had tagged NC a second-time there was no way it would have made sense for us to pay him an average of the top 5 CB salaries in his second FA go around. NC is a very good player and he does not merit insults simply because SF paid him far more than he was worth 9he arguably was not only NOT worth of the biggest D contract ever, but many would argue he was not even among the top 5 CBs in the entire NFL when he hit FA. If you disagree fine but also acknowledge the fact is that by him not even making the Pro Bowl in his FA year, the consensus of the conventional wisdom (CW is actually often wrong but was correct in this case) was that he was not even a Pro Bowl CB and thus many felt their were three better CBs in simply the AFC. Nate was a very good player for us but never was a great player. SF gave him a rediculous contract, however, the stupid contract they gave to Jennings was even more outlandish.

Since I am more driven by what is practical rather than statements of principle which I may generally agree with but are often produce unfair results in extreme cases even though generally they are fair this would be with me. Unfortunately, my sense is that in the real world, folks are happy to hide behind allegedly high principle to get away with doing bad things so I doubt that a solution can be found that the key parties are comfortable with to do something logical. The NFL and NFLPA generally operate in a conspiracy of silence which allows some players to abuse performance enhancing drugs because it produces a more entertaining product in the end. Just as in the Bill Belicheat case, the NFL proved willing to destroy evidence that may have shown the Pats had won the SB taking advantage of the rules that others followed or were not smart enough to figure out how to dodge them. The NFL appears quite willing to only give lip service to principles and will only slap the hand of miscreants when forced to. The NFLPA also seems willing to look the other way if its members use performance enhancing drugs as it makes more $ for the individual member. The MLB steroid investigation does show both the willingness of big money sports and big money athletes to conspire to look the other way when it helps them out as the steroid "era" did when the homerun battle between McGwire and Sosa helped revive post-strike MLB baseball but also to tell the truth about the obvious when forced to do so. Perhaps on HGH the NFL can be forced to do something logical as you propose, but unfortunately I am cynical enough to doubt it.

The problem is a range is naturally a range. Some folks are at the low end of the range or below "normal" or adequate levels through their normal activities. Others can be at the high end of the range or even at superhuman levels through their normal or not illegal or unethical activities. One can make a justification for penalizing individuals who test out at the high end of the range for hormones regardless of how they go there if one chooses. However, with this logic should one also penalize individuals for being higher than the norm height, Wonderlic scores, eye-hand coordination tests, or whatever one chooses. Some of these choices may end up not being fair, but then life is not fair so be it.

I also think the article is short-sighted as it does not take into account at all the uncertainties of the situation and the fact that different teams will have different plans and these differences will in even a few cases will impact competitiveness of the product. All it will take is a couple or more teams with money to spend and a demonstrated willingness to do this) (Snyder for example and probably Jones as well and perhaps a surprise or three) who accumulate players in the hopes of winning the SB even once. The reigning story of the NFL will not be of it as a fiscal juggernaut making more money than ever with grand plans to expand to new markets in foreign countries, but an incredible amount of whining from the small market or unwilling to spend teams that they simply are playing under different rules that the Snyders's and Joneses. The NFL made so much money under the old and now the new version of the CBA because the labor peace promises the true cash cow of the networks a predictable source of product for them to sale commercials around with aggressive expansion plans into new markets of eyeballs. For the nets, their plans and desires will turn to trying to develop alternative strategies like the reality shows were in relation to written and produced shows during the writers strike rather than a focus on strategies like flexible scheduling at the end of the season or expanding the number of nights or expanding the number of networks doing NFL coverage. Lombardi describes a world in which s few teams already setting plans in place is going to make the rules when actually the reality of an uncapped year is going to be determined more by those few those few teams who do not make plans and whose willy nilly spending makes the plans of a few untenable. Even worse for the few to even a moderate amount who make plans is that a few folks plans will be inconsistent with the reasonable approach laid out by Lombardi and these two plans will be competing in a different league and the NFL product will become stupid. The only certainty here is that an uncapped year will produce an uncertain and likely bad product. To the extent there is any reasonable match-up between the plans of teams this opens the league up to legal accusations of collusion by individual players. Uncertainty and lack of collaboration will be the only successful defense against the courts forcing the NFL into groups of haves, have nots, and in the middles. Without collaboration the NFL cannot produce a reasonable product to be sold based on reasonable competition.

I think referring to many of these players with the team "dead weight" simply over states the case. I know that the internet lends itself to extreme judgments even if their are no objective facts given to support this view (as an American we are entitled to fact-free opinions) and some folks simply get their panties all up in a wad over the least problem. However, in this case in real life fortunately cooler heads will prevail. Specifically IMHO 1. Fowler- Clearly no world-beater and there are there are numerous centers in the NFL who are better. However, the reality is that despite the fact we still would love a Kent Hull there. Just because a player is not Kent Hull does not mean he is dead weight. This is particular true when there was NO center in this draft who presents a real chance that he is gonna be great and that the Centers available in FA had better options in terms of money and facing even lesser competition than Fowler. Fowler has negatives that if someone has a clear upgrade suggestion I would love to see us act, but in the absence of a suggested alternative that is not speculative or impossible, folks should recognize: 1. He is a vet who has seen a lot of games but is still young enough he may well not have hit his peak yet as a player. Good coaching can improve his work. 2. The main rap on him during his relatively short career has been the injury question. However, after two years and 32 starts at C he has reduced injury from a true worry to the constant concern injury is for all NFL players (who were not named Brett Favre). 3. Whether folks want to admit it or not, the offense gave up fewer sacks in 07 than they had in year and blocked effectively for Lynch to produce very good yardage. This is not great in all ways but clearly is not a dead weight performance. 4. He has proved to be pretty athletic for a guy listed at over 300 pounds. He has proved nimble enough for us to use him as a pulling center on outside runs. I know Fowler gets a lot of grief and he deserves pressure to do better, but I have seen no objective demonstration that he is dead weight. 2. The same OL numbers which make a case for some effective work by Fowler apply to Walker as well. Again, he may well be young enough that he has not hit his peak performance as a player (and certainly an OL gets better as chemistry develops which can take years). Demographically he is simply a big boy who at the RT position can be a lot more than dead weight simply by applying his weight without huge negatives from his play. Even those who question whether he is a big positive have not used any objective evidence to say he is a negative and only dead weight. Even if you want to claim they are not as positive as you would like and part of a consistently effective O and devastating in short yardage would you not agree that registering the lowest number of sacks as long as the stat has been kept and blocking for Lynch's run production means that this unit while not positive in all ways was not a negative dead weight last season. 3. Royal- Here I would be willing to actually throw around the dead weight phrase, but again not as a wholesale indictment of Royal who simply was not a bad blocker but in regards to his production as a pass receiver which was fairly non existent. Again nuance is tough but there is that pesky little thing called accuracy. 4. Agreed generally that the lack of a pass rush was an anchor, but the true dead weight analysis is that Triplett has been identified as the dead weight and he is gone. Even more accurate IMHO of a good analysis of the pass rush would focus not simply on the individuals Stroud and McCargo but would recognize that actually on the current depth chart, pick-up Johnson is listed as the starter over Mccargo. I think this is significant because it speaks to the Bills expectations for the inconsistently shown talents of Johnson and the use of a rotation rather than of a starting pair as to the effectiveness of our DTs.