Pyrite Gal

Folks seem to demonstrate a limited understanding of how the CB is often used in our D. Our base D is a version of the Cover 2 often referred to as the Tampa 2 around the NFL. It is based on the Cover 2 scheme which Indy and Chicago rode to SB berths in the 2006 season which made this all the rage in a league which often imitates success. My sense is that it is still the rage as no one really is going to pretend that they can easily ape either the NE system or have the # 1 pass rush in the NFL because these are not scheme but player fixes. In the traditional Cover 2, the CB responsibility is only short-zone pass coverage (it varies but basically a max of 12-15 yards downfield), run contain on outside runs and sometimes the CB blitz. In the Tampaesque model we run a fast MLB like a Pos or a Fletcher is essential because this player has deep zone coverage on passes up the middle. This frees up the safeties to do mostly outside coverage and they only have a third of the field rather than half the field to worry about. Fewell is on record saying the Bills run the Cover 2 about 25% of the time (it is unclear exactly what he meant by this but I think he was saying that the break down is the traditional cover 2 a quarter of the time, the base D Tampa 2 about a third of the time, and the remainder is made up of switches where we run a more conventional coverage scheme where the CB in fact does cover the WR all over the field and plays in the redzone or we are running the prevent D where the CB is running coverage which differs from both the Cover 2 variation and traditional coverage. What I think having a near-elite player at CB does for us is that we now will be well positioned to play a conventional coverage scheme if we want. I think our base D will still be the Tampa 2, but it is nice to have the flexibility. At any rate, Moss is so good that most teams will double cover him or zone up to cover him (particularly in the red zone) rather than rely on any single player to cover him alone all over the field all day. If one chose this approach you are probably going to get burned. I view McKelvin as a nice addition to increase possibilities against pass-haopy teams in NE and Miami. However, the key will be in order not to get burned by Moss will be to get such good penetration from Stroud and the DTs, nice moves by Schobel and the DEs, and sneaky successful surprise blitzes by Mitchell and the LBs or by the DBs that we simply pressure Brady badly and put him on his butt a few times, The key to good pass coverage on NE is not gonna be the CBs' but the DTs' work.

I also tend to stick with the conventional wisdom that one can draw reasonable conclusions about a player until after 3 years of play, but while it is too early to claim conclusive outcomes, one can easily get excited about the 06 draft right here and right now: I think this is because: 1. The Bills had pressing immediate needs that it was essential to address before they could rebuild and the 06 draft produced results which did this immediately. We were 5-11 in 05 and it would have been unfortunate but understandable if the Bills had actually produced a worse record in 06 if Levy/Jauron had chosen a course of action that took the immediate hit of clearing the decks of TD/MM errors and rebuilt still quickly (in order to be judged a success) but more slowly than they did. (In fact, your suggested methodology of investing in the OL likely would have produced this result as OL players drafted outside the 1st often need a little time to develop and even NYJ which chose 2 OL players in the 1st with positive results have taken a step backwards from their nice start with two rookie OL players). The 06 draft can reasonably be excited about because the simple facts are it produced out of the 9 players chosen 7 of them got starts that year. Most impressive it is an easy thing to start draftees on a team willing to get worse before it gets better, but the 06 draft go a lot of PT on a team which went from 5-11 to 7-9. It is too early for another year to draw reasonable conclusions, but it is not too early at all to get excited about the team both rebuilding (giving a bunch of PT to the rookies) and also producing a significantly better record. 2. Again, while it is certainly too early to draw conclusions about this draft, the so-far so-good is such that this Bills team merits getting excited about and the 06 draft in terms of player assessment to early to draw conclusions about is quite exciting for the incomplete results to date. Specifically: Whitner- solid starter who has shown some durability. Not a Pro Bowler yet, but a definite possibility. From his getting rookie of the month his first month to his adoption of McKelvin this year the tea leaves are good on the field and off of it. McCargo- Slow start and IR his first year, but definitely a solid part of the DL rotation now and if Stroud plays well DT may become a strength for a team which had this as a weakness before. Youbouty- Really the one big disappointment of this draft so far, but rather than throw him under the bus right now like some, my sense is that the CW that calls for three seasons before drawing conclusions is reasonable in this case. He will determine on the field whether the untimely death of his mother his first year and the dreaded high ankle sprain last year are reasons for his disappointment he can overcome or were they just excuses for a bust. 4. Simpson- 1st year starter on a team that improved makes his starting year reasonably judged a success. He ended up on IR which makes his second year something to forget. The OTA tea leaves though report him fully healed and he will get to prove on the field the first year was no fluke. Williams- This pick was a huge bonus as he started on an improved team and Mccargo who was supposed to start went on IR. The fact he is now below Stroud on the depth chart and Mccargo has surpassed him in buzz are good signs because he seems to have fallen behind other Bills not because he was bad but because they hold the potential to be very good. We got a consistent part of our DL rotation on the second day of the draft. Butler- Now a solid starter on a developing OL. Like most OL players drafted outside the 1st, we are talking one step backward before we step forward but Butler shows signs of being the real deal on an OL which allowed fewer sacks than the Bills had in years. Ellison- Another second day pick who surprisingly was able to start consistently on a team which improved over the previous year. The acquisition of Mitchell now makes him a back-up with pro starts to his credit which is reasonably what can be hoped for from a late second day pick. Pennington- A failed Bill since he is gone though he gave value his rookie year as a consistent starter on an improved team. Merz- Also a failed Bills as he is gone, but given that there appear to have been some bad luck with injuries which knocked him out of the line-up and that we did get an emergency start out of him his rookie this was a pick we made use of in 06.. I do not draw any somewhat final conclusions about this group but I think it is actually unreasonable for a Bills fan not be be appropriately excited by this group.

McKelvin has a history of not getting INTs on passes he seemed to be in position to do so. However, shorthanding this stat into an assessment he has bad hands seems to ignore the fact he has a great rep for fielding kicks and returning them big time. What this signals as a likelihood to me is that an inability to handle the ball is not his problem but may well be something that is episodic bad luck or if it is some problem it may well be coachable. While can reasonably be concerned about any problem, his hands not being great seems like something that is not a worry at all.

While there is no guarantee at all that MM will run a productive O at ATL (in fact I doubt he will as they have bigger O problems than mere scheme issues) I think many posters are drawing false conclusions from past performance. While past performance is a good INDICATOR of future success, it is not a stone cold certain predictor of future success. It's not as stark as the coin flip example where even if a a coin lands tails 5 times in a row, the chances are still 50/50 whether it will land tail again, but past failure is simply no guarantee for future outcome. Actually Gilbride is a good example in that he was so stupidly bull-headed here calling failed pass play after failed pass play on 3rd and short that finally these recurring failures got him to switch his style, past failure may even be a prelude to success.

That actually would be fair for me as a fan. It would be amusing briefly to see Ralph in shoulder pads and the uni, it really is the player who I come to see. The players need management so significant compensation for the coaches makes sense as well. However, some Green Bay like system which essentially is owned by the public rather than an individual owner strikes me as a fine way to run the game. If the players got something approaching 100% with some relatively small # of the take removed to pay coaches and a GM who would essentially be the manager of the team, I am perfectly happy to see the outmoded role of the owner cut down to 0%.

Actually I don't think one should make the assumption that either the number of Canadians captured by the Bills marketing strategy is as high as 10,000 fans or that even if it was this high that all those fans would be loss to a TOR franchise. I do not think actually that the Bills would be hurt badly at all by the coming of a TOR franchise (and I think the Bills playing a game in TOR is in fact driven by the Bills needing to make a far more persuasive case that Toronto is part of their market than they do at present based mostly on the number of season tickets they sell to Canadians. My sense is that even though Toronto is almost certainly (though even this assumption is not guaranteed which is another reason the Bills may well be reluctant to throw away the sure thing the franchise has in WNY for the greater POTENTIAL thing they would have in TOR) a bigger profit than Buffalo, these really are two different markets which can survive at the same time. I think folks who are assuming this a only a choice between TOR or BUF are simply missing the very good chance that for the NFL as a corporate entity which will have control over who can buy Ralph's legacy that their interest will be to maximize dollars which would more likely be franchiseS in both TOR and BUF.

Regarding the first statement I am sure the Bills would be valuable (and even more valuable actually) if the franchise was in NYC, LA or Toronto. I do not argue against that at all. However, I assume (as you do doyou not) that the franchise has been in Buffalo for roughly 40 years and that when/if the franchise moves elsewhere that all of that value cannot simply be moved with it. A lot can (it will still be a member of the NFL and the contracts with the players and team will be honored). Even some of the season tickets holders would gladly spend their money in Toronto. However, what value do YOU place on the assets that will be lost and cannot move? Any? Is there some value to those assets? Most importantly, can they be retained while still getting new assets from a Toronto club? I think the difference here is that those who are actually stuck in the past are thinking of this franchise mainly in the context of being owned by one individual or entity. Actually, particularly after 100% owner Ralph is dead it actually is the NFL as a whole which has total approval over the sale whose financial interests will weigh quite heavily on the decision who gets the franchise. It is the NFL which given a choice between a huge potential asset in Toronto and a far more definite smaller (but still huge) asset in Buffalo makes the most $ by having franchises in both places. I think there are all sorts of reasons ($) why the NFL will AT LEAST want to weigh the possibilities of whether they can gets bucks from BOTH a new franchise owned likely by Rogers in TOR and an old franchise owned by whomever (Golisano, Jacobs, NYS, whomever) in Buffalo. The logic you reject in the second statement is merely that from the standpoint of the NFL decision-maker sure you get your hunk of twice as much scratch from a TOR franchise as Buffalo, but why chose one or the other when you can potentially have both? The NFL does not lose money having franchises in both places. Do you think they do? I agree that the owner of the Bills (Ralph) loses money when he has a less profitable franchise in Buffalo than a more profitable franchise in TOR. However, Ralph has set the reality we are operating under here that he will be dead. At that point, Ralph's heirs will sale the team because they have declared no interest in running it and likely estate taxes will force them to sale to cover the chunk they owe from the transfer. At this point, the NFL has the full decision to approve or disapprove of a buyer. At that point the NFL will have a decision to make of a WNY franchise, a TOR franchise, some third location, or both. My sense is that extreme interest and huge population base on Toronto likely makes a franchise their a viable concern. The question which there is scant little deep analysis on in this discussion is how much money can be made from a WNY franchise with a TOR franchise operating. From what I can see, the regional marketing strategy of the Bills would clearly be hurt by this new alternative. However, from what I have seen of the 10,000 or so fans in CA friendly estimations make up of the 50,000 fan season ticket base which would be lost would while making a WNY franchise less profitable would not necessarily be a deathknell. In fact, in the short-run, the TOR interest seems to be quite high that if part of the cost Rogers (or some other deep pocket) would pay includes a payment to the Bills equal to the scratch 10,000 season ticket holders provide that should be doable as far as the CAs are concerned. What WNY would then need to do is use the largesse of the huge subsidy from Rogers to instead focus a marketing strategy on building and improving the eastward looking Bills marketing strategy, the westward US Bills strategy, and getting as much cash as possible from So. Ontarians who choose Buffalo over the new Toronto team. I think folks are caught up in thinking of the NFL in the old model where individuals like Wellington Mara, George Halas, Dan Rooney and even Ralph Wilson competed as individual owners and ground the NFLPA under their boots in the mid-80s lockout. The new model NFL was created in the early 90s when Upshaw with the help/guidance of NYC lawyers and ending with the complicity of Paul Taglibue in the last CBA negotiation built a system where the players became a partner (and arguably a majority partner with the last CBA) with the owners. Its all about the money. With Ralph declaring that the Bills will stay while he is alive and once Ralph is dead decision-making about who buys he franchise though driven by estate laws will ultimately be decided by the NFL, this entity makes more $ from not only opening up a new franchise in another country, but at the same time maintaining the already achieved assets in WNY. I do not think this is wholely illogical.

The article fails to acknowledge one key difference between Oklahoma City, Sheboygan or whatever small market town one wants to compare Buffalo too: YES THE BUFFALO MARKET IS WAY TOO SMALL TO ATTRACT AND NFL TEAM, BUT THIS IS NOT THE QUESTION AS THERE IS ALREADY AN NFL FRANCHISE HERE WITH 4O YEARS OF MARKETING THAT IS A FACT. Again, the NFL is motivated by wanting the $. A decision to move to Toronto is a decision not only to pursue the huge potential Toronto $, but also is a decision to abandon the WNY $ that have generated an asset worth between $500 million and a billion dollars. Will the NFL approve an ownership deal which accesses the greater annual income? Yeah sure. Will the NFL approve an ownership deal which simply walks away from 45,000+ season tickets, commercials easily sold to local businesses, a smaller than Toronto but still significant number of local tie-ins, the asset of the tie to an original AFL team, etc. etc. etc? Not unless they have to. Again the proposal which generates the most $ for the NFL is not a choice between Toronto and Buffalo, but an effort to get the existing $ out of Buffalo and the new # out of Toronto at the same time. I have yet to see a compelling argument why this is not even worth consideration.

The point which I was responding too was someone making the contradictory claim that a a man with personnel smarts would see such great value in Youbouty that he would give up a highly valuable 5th round choice for him. If in fact Youbouty is worth such a great value then why are we giving up on him. This is the contradictory point raised which deserves an answer. My response is the same as yours to the extent that Youbouty has obviously failed to produce much as a Bill in his two years. Those who claim he did nothing are simply wrong as his starting and playing a significant chunk of time in a win led by good D play over NYJ in 06 and a few very solid hits as a gunner on punt duty is more than nothing. However, it is significantly less than what was hoped for an reasonably expected from Youbouty at this point. There are lots of reasons I am not a GM (and thank gosh I am not as I am sure I would screw it up badly) but one of them is that I do not generally have the pride in their football work that many GMs seem to have in that even when a player is not working out they seem to have trouble admitting their errors and walking away. I think that the most likely reason they do not trade him (unless they get a drop dead deal which a mere 5th for someone you spent a 3rd on would not be)is that the Bills braintrust already showed a bit of admitting their failings by drafting 3 CBs when if their first day pick in 06 Youbouty had worked out. Still methinks that the lack of confidence shown in this draft is likely as far as these human beings who are the Bills braintrust will go in letting Youbouty go. In many ways, i think this is actually an intelligent move for several reasons: 1. There actually are real reasons which may provide an explanation for Youbouty's failures which do not preclude him from playing well enough in 08. If in fact the death of his sole care giver Mom in 06 and a high ankle sprain were the reasons rather than simply excuses for his less than hoped for production then perhaps he can be an adequate player. It is reasonable to doubt this based on what we have seen before, but in addition to being reluctant to admit their mistakes, GMs really hate when they give up on a guy and see him pull a Bryce Paup and star for his new team. My guess is Youbouty gets a chance to compete on the field at least in pre-season and probably in regular season because he has shown some ST production. 2. When one looks at the likely reasons the Bills drafted Corner and Cox, position play may well have not been the lead reason. We need to reload badly on ST after a downturn in production last year and several ST stalwarts like Aiken, Stamer and Wire going by by. Even part of what made McKelvin an elite player on the Bills board (all reports have as us viewing him as a top 10 player who slipped to our #11 pick) is that we were incredibly impressed with his return work. It would not surprise me if folks are overblowing the disappointment the braintrust feels in Youbouty (my guess is that they are very disappointed in his output, but may well not blame his talent for the problems). 3. One mark of this team is a belief that competition is good. Particularly on the second day of the draft when virtually all picks are BPA rather than need, I can easily see the Bills choosing Corner and Cox because they were impressed with them and not because they were driven by some screaming need. Again, I do think that their is value in a 5th round pick. As I said Pro Bowlers can be found in UDFA so certainly I would not dismiss the value of a 5th. However, one can believe that and also feel that a 5th is RELATIVE chump change compared to the Bills braintrust choosing to eat crow over their 3rd round pick in 06.

Please. A mere 5th round pick for a player is not some showing of great confidence in a player but really is relative chump change as far as value goes. Good players have to come from somewhere and the draft is one of those places. However, behind the marketing effort of the NFL and ESPN and Mel Kiper, the draft is greatly over-valued as an asset. Yes good players are more likely to be drafted, but as seen with occaisional example of a Jason Peters its not impossible to find Pro Bowl talent that somehow never even get drafted. Its even more common to find players of the ilk of Mike Williams and Harrington who simply prove to be busts despite their top 5 player designation. Success of drafted players is heavily weighted toward first day choices and a 5th round pick is something easily parted with in exchange for a marginal talent if you have a real immediate need at a spot. Yes, there are examples like the Bills finding two of their current stalwarts in the 5th round like Butler and Williams. However, one has to look long and hard to find much consistent contribution on the Bills beyond them from 5th round picks who tend to end up being more like former CB stalwart Sean King or failed project Ben Sobieski. If all the Bills get from Savage is a 5th for Youbouty this is a huge admission of failure on our part.

There is plenty of "credit" to be shared for losing the Dallas game. Definitely the D get a huge deserved share for not stopping a desperate 'Boys offense on several late drives and the ST (with some helpful clock work by the officials) blew plays like recovering an onside kick. However, Edwards get gets his fair share of the blame for throwing an INT when we were in the redzone and most of all Fairchild and DJ were ironically way too aggressive when they attempted to stick a fork in the 'Boys by throwing the ball deep in their territory when three runs not only would have burned clock when we lost on a play with less than 10 seconds left and the chip shot FG we would have had after the runs would almost certainly have won the game for us. Laying credit for coming close to a win which was made for us by the D forcing a ton of turnovers and also trying to exempt the offense for its fair share of the blame for the loss is not credible.

I think JP's trade value is not so much based on an assessment of an absolute measure of his talent but a convergence of the fact he has not set the world on fire with racking up Ws and that in the off-season he can be had as an FA without giving anything up in trade value at all. Why trade value for a player who is talented but MAY not prove to be your deliverance in the short term when you can get him for a contingency contract and whatever the market dictates in the near short-term. My sense is that if things go according to the Bills plans (Edwards secures the job with good play on the field this season) then JP gets to sort through the market looking for: 1. A team that needs a QB (likely tons of them) 2. A team with an offense that fits his style (good blockers on a team with a mobile pocket and more of a free lance opportunistic style (more like the Packers or Cowboys style than the Bills) 3. With the cap room to either pay him a deal contingent production or a one year prove yourself deal (after the last CBA there is lots of cap room out there) My guess is that teams see little value in trading for a player who MAY or MAY not yield short term benefits (he has never had success with the Bills so there is some risk) whom you can get without giving up trade value for him soon if you want him.

You are write you deserve no blame. The fault here lies with the one common denominator through the end of the Butler era and the TD era. The one common denominator with the end of the Phillips reign, the GW error, and the Eminem episode which is none other than Ralphie. He deserves great praise for his efforts keeping the Bills here and changing course from the old ways to open his wallet for Bruce Smith and the gang. However, just as it would be silly to ignore the great things he did for the Bills because of his mistakes handling the end of the Butler era and managing TD, it also would be silly to ignore his mistakes because of the good things he did. If there is any blame to be given the buck stops with the top man.

The problem hear is for the most part basing predictions on DJs past track record in other situations. I agree there is a lot of logic in using the recent past track record as an INDICATION of what he likely will do. However, this would be a much stronger indication if he had much success with this mode of operation in the past. However, DJ is coming of a situation where the lack of an attacking offense was an obvious problem for this team. The right question is not a simple dissertation of his past record, but whether there is any indication that DJ or Schonert are going to adopt a more successful style of play with this offense. One indication is that he likely has much better players to work with than he had before (Lynch, a more stable OL, and what Edwards has shown in his brief appearances. This is far more impressive than what we had with a choppy OL, a disgruntled WM, and the uncertainties around JP. Someone who presents the past record as fully predictive of the future comes off as someone predicting that a coin will come up heads because it came up tails the last three times. While the football prospects are far more nuanced than a 50/50 coin flip, simply expecting the future to be the same as the past lacks credibility. It is amusing that it was the Dallas game which caused you to lose confidence because the problem in that game was actually DJ was not conservative enough. If he had gone 3 times in a row for a yard and a cloud of astroturf and had Lindell kick a chipshot FG to give the Bills 3 more points instead of asking Edwards to throw the ball, there is a fair chance we would have won the game.

If this were the only measures used then so much good reality is thrown out decisions get pretty nonsensical. Marv simply stunk in his initial HC outing based on record, but fortunately the Bills decision-makers at the time lived in the real world and hired him anyway. While Belicheat's recent history certainly proves that winning is not the only thing, again by this logic after him leading Cleveland to the playoffs once (and they lost that game) there is no way one would hire him if you only asked the three questions you ask. There clearly is so much more to assessing an HC based on reality that I think the logic of only caring about these three questions is clearly flawed.

To lay down a substantive claim to the Canadian market so that when/if a team buys a Toronto franchise they will have to pay a substantial fee to the Bills for invading their territory. Again the fundamental which some continue to ignore is that given the concept of having an NFL franchise in Buffalo or an NFL franchise in Toronto, the NFL will try to have both if they can. Yes, the Bills cash stream would be larger in a Toronto than in Buffalo. However, interest (at least initially) in Tor seems large enough that this huge city should be able to maintain a franchise without any US fans. Meanwhile though clearly the Canadian fans are a substantial part of the Bills regional marketing strategy, they are by far a minority add on and if the Bills were winning at all as this team is bound too do at some point in the NFL cycle they are more than likely to fill a stadium which is smaller than in the old days. Even a rag-tag effort like the NHL is easily able to maintain teams in these two cities (I am not arguing here the two products are the same but simply that the notion can be accomplished for those who for some reason want to poo-poo the notion). I think the NFL should be able to do this also. In fact, not only are their clear circumstances where the Bills would not be a turned into a non-starter as a business by a TOR franchise actually due to proximity, habit and cheaper ticket prices, the Bills actually would retain a significant number of S Ontario fans even with a TOR franchise around. Those who want to argue that the Bills would simply leave behind 50,000 season ticket holder dollars (or even 40,000 if you somehow want to claim that would be the cost of a TOR franchise to the Buffalo season ticket base) because of the likely but POTENTIAL of Toronto money are simply ignoring the hundreds of millions of $ being walked away from. Add to this sacrifice of assets already cultivated the: 1. Bad press and sad publicity engendered by the abandonment. 2. The fear and cautionary tales engendered in other smaller market franchises. 3. The cautionary tale this would give to new cities the NFL seeks to expand into as clearly the league will leave a town for potentially greener pastures. 4. The resulting attack on the NFL's modified anti-trust exemption as they no longer would have a team playing in NYS. Even if the NFL were to win this fight, for several years the uncertainty of legal action would hang over the NFL at the same time they are trying to expand. The bottomline it appears to me is that while there is certainly an argument that the Bills will leave, there is actually much greater likelihood that the team either simply stays (a legally doable proposition even with the estate tax if Ralph sets up this asset as going to a not-for-profit which would be controlled much as the Packers are controlled) or if Ralph sales the team to Buffalo or Erie County (an effort the NFL would likely oppose but one that actually appears easier to legally defend than many set tos the Wilson estate might have with the NFL or we end up with franchises in both Buffalo and Tor.

Actually, there are a number of cases where teams do recover the money paid up front for a player. For example, if a player fails to honor the contract by retiring of his own choosing, the courts have held as they did in the Barry Sanders case that he owed Detroit a pro-rated amount of his signing bonus for the years he did not play. In addition, it was recently held in the Michael Vick case that when he failed to honor his original contract due to his own criminal acts, he owed Atlanta millions of dollars in a pro-rated amount for the years he did not play under his original contract. If Peters were to refuse to play for the Bills and they refused to trade him, he would owe the Bills a pro-rated amount of his signing bonus for the years he did not play. As it stands right now, the voluntary OTAs being held by the Bills are simply that, voluntary. If however, he were to skip mandatory workouts he would then be subject to fines and would owe them to the Bills. If he were to hold out and never play again he would not walk away with his entire signing bonus, but the Bills should easily be able to win a suit to recover a portion of his signing bonus.

or different moralities for that matter.

You work within the best contract you can get in the somewhat free market we have. The NFL player operates within the best contract he can negotiate within this somewhat free market. You and the NFL player are operating under exactly the same principles. However, in this case because the NFL player has far more leverage than you have due to his skillset being incredibly limited in the marketplace and being in far more demand (its called supply and demand) he operates within a far more advantageous contract than you (or I) do. You and the NFL player actually do operate under the exact same rules. However, the contract which you two operate under is very different because your skillsets and leverage are so different. It is simply incorrect to conclude that because your contracts are different that you operate under different realities.

For the most part this published "factoid" would seem to point to one of two theories as being behind it: 1. The "insider" they talked to is jumping way ahead of any real decisions that are being made by the Bills braintrust as a big part of any decision is going to be not simply the preference of experts (even on the team and experts outside are totally ignored at this point, but will be based in some sense of reality as to how a player performs in practice once the fake world of real practice begins. The initial OTA the Bills have held will be part of the teams braintrust beginning to assess reality, but the initial OTA involves activities like finding out where the lockers, showers, and practice field are located rather than any tests or decisions about schemes and formations. The rookies spend a lot of their initial time being prepped on how to stay out of trouble at bars and learning how to deal with ticket requests from old friends as they do having a unit selected for them and learning the playbook in depth. Sure, the braintrust has ideas about how they will use a player, but right now we are at an early enough stage that probably both Fewell and April are lobbying to get every resource they can and Jauron would be a fool to simply declare a player is going to focus on one aspect of the game when he potentially has a lot to offer elsewhere. My guess is that any "insider" who claims that we are going to go in one direction right from the start with McKelvin is way ahead of reality in saying this is a done decision. 2. There are many possibilities but the second most likely one behind an "insider" claiming more knowledge than he has is that PFW is simply making this up and stating their own opinion trying to give it fake inside info credibility

Its nitpicking as no one besides the OBD crowd whether there were any serious offers, but as long as we are asking woulda/coulda/shoulda abstract questions, my preference still would have been for the Bills to trade down the #1 pick if at all possible for additional choices which MAY have allowed us to pick 2 top ranked WRs. I think reality has already shown us that having Hardy as a make or break #2 WR starter is a dangerous thing based on accusations of behavioral issues. The situation was already dicey depending on our #2 WR to be injury free or we are forced to go with an inadequate player at #2 WR. This already is a situation where based on virtually all the performances of rookie WRs Hardy will be doing well to even produce Peerless 07 numbers next year. No one can reasonably fault the Bills as none of outsiders have any idea what potential deals were offered. However, in addition to this question requiring a departure from reality, there is what I think is a real fact that the Bills sent ot McKelvin pick to the front desk with time left on the clock for them to receive offers.

I like the Ryan approach (though some of the specifics are written to make these concepts even palatable for his NE audience). Gregg Easterbrook is taking a similar approach to understanding the issue in his call (which he assumes will go unheeded because money rules over principle) in his calling for the NFL to suspend BB for a year (or more) for activities which all should agree do not represent the level of sportsmanship the NFL "claims" is its standard and thus calling into legitimate question and in reality the integrity of the game. BB should show that he really has true gonads and resign (actually being tough while serving your own interests is not being tough at all) or if he is just another weenie or simple human being, the NFL should show some fortitude or commitment to principle and suspend BB for actions against the rules which put the game into question.

Yeah, that is fairly on target. Like many a Bills' fan, I completely disagree with how BB is handling this and talking about after his falt statement what he did was wrong wrong (his double emphasis). Goodell comes off as completely nonsensical as he states that he does not accept BB's statement of what happened to this day, but BB shows no regret or remorse over the fact that the Commissioner feels that BB misled him (As President Jorge has shown most people translate this word "misled" into the same thing as he lied, but there are clearly worlds where one beat little official consequences for lying). For once I actually agree with Greg Easterbrook, who is a special Saturday Tuesday Morning QB column called for BB's suspension from football for a year or more. This almost certainly will never happen as the simple fact seems to be that BB has called the NFL out and its fine of $500K though substantial in NFL history and for us normal folk seems to be chump change for BB (and certainly definitely is chump change for Bob Kraft who almost certainly is subsidizing BB to just say HA to the concept of sportsmanship). If BB truly had what many NFL fans not blinded by love for their team (if it was Marv who lost his bearings and was the one caught doing what BB did and is doing I am sure I would blindly defend him as many Pats fans are defending BB) feel he should do is simply resign in the face of him doing something which even BB admits was wrong wrong (again his double emphasis). In the face of BB not showing the gonads to do the right thing and simply resign, the NFL if it had the gonads to support principle over the dollar would simply suspend him for a year as it does many players who transgresses on purpose, due to accident (someone put something in my sports drink), or illness. More accurately just as Pete Rose was banned for life for putting into question the integrity of the game (a situation which could not be proven in a court of law but which the MLB took action due to its own investigation and the case was proven in the court of public opinion) it would not strike me as unreasonable to ban BB from the game for even longer than a year.

He said: Belichick acknowledged that he violated NFL rules prohibiting filming opponents signals but insisted there was no intent to hide what he was doing. "I made a mistake," he said in the interview. "I was wrong. I was wrong." Further, it seems bizarre to me that anyone who wants to purport they are an objective investigator would destroy critical evidence, I also agree with these Goodell statements: "I didn't accept Bill Belichick's explanation for what happened," Goodell said Tuesday, "and I still don't to this day." This sounds pretty straight-forward to me and there has yet to be any statement I have seen from the Pats of why an independent investigation of this situation should not take place.

I think one of the most interesting thing that the article posted here shows is that though some Pats defenders have argued that the knowledge gained by the Pats if they had cheated would not be a significant aid in a game, if the JMac incident mentioned is true, merely the much less detailed knowledge of knowing the formations (not to mentioned the actual play called) was a significant help to a team. The intelligence the Pats would have gained from Walshgate sounds Pretty useful. Certainly the Pats having gained this intelligence seems consistent with their much better performance against opponents the second time around.