Pyrite Gal

This was definitely one of the reasons I saw no reason to get rid of WM. Ralph is the owner and I can see how it must have been a pain in the butt to own the rights to a player who does not remotely conform to or spout the traditional NFL line, but you certainly have one fan here who could not care less about what some idiot player says as long as he is not a cancer to his teammates. However, one does not get much more old guard than Ralph and for folks who live in this world or are into the soap opera aspects of the NFL for entertainment rather the over-focus which I and others have toward onfield performance I can see why he got bounced for mere speculative draft choices. WM never performed at a level on the field which would have allowed for his seemingly random comments off the field. The Bills were actually in quite a good position regarding WM's contract status if they were tough enough to stomach his off-field silliness and to not cave into Rosenidiot posturing. However, they seem to have given WM and Rosenfool everything they wanted so I guess Ralph and Willis are both happier. However, it seems from the comments here and that you site that this move was addition by subtraction only for those more concerned with the soap opera aspects of the game.

His comments about McGahee were very interesting. I had assumed that much of what he said was taken out of context (the comments about Toronto fit this description to me as I thought the hyperventilating about him dissing Buffalo was fairly silly, but then again its hard to take the attitude he expressed about being a father out of context and they were pretty disgusting). What is interesting in the post describing his comments is that it sounds like Greer was giving more than the standard line of not speaking ill of a former teammate and honestly felt that WM was good to have as a teammate.

Unfortunately though a lot of the figuring here sounds pretty sound, I think there a lot of individual issues which may make the difference in a team pulling the trigger which I think may well make them hesitate or fail to make the move necessary to get AP. These wildcards are really tough to know for sure but may make all the difference. For example, I think a couple of factors may well be true for the Bills which I THINK should prevent them from making a move up even a couple of spots to get AP: 1. Once burned will make them really reluctant- I think the ghost of Willis McGahee will likely make the Bills refuse to trade away resources to move up for AP. Ralph and the Bills almost certainly feel quite burned by taking a chance to get WM, only to find that their risk-taking was rewarded with weirdness by this individual. In fact, they viewed his behavior as so annoying they got rid of him despite his potential. WM's behavior says nothing logically about how another individual like an AP will behave, but in the end, the draft is an art form rather than a science and teams will be motivated by how things feel as well as logic. In this case, i think the feeling is that the Bills will be reluctant to put a lot of reliance on any one individual player, particularly at RB replacing Willis. Trading away more resources to get one person or even picking such a notable RB who fell will likely be too rich for the Bill's blood at this point IMHO. 2. There is some overarching strategy here- And I think this strategy for the Bills will push them in directions with something like an RBBC for the RB position. In part this is due to the reason stated above though as difficult as it is to pull off a quality RBBC it will simply allow the Bills not to rely as much on a single individual at this spot. However, also in part the current vogue in the NFL is to make sure you have two reliable RBs (and preferably two good RBs such as a McCalister/Bush) to carry the load at RB. If the Bills were to trade away picks to move up, it both reduces their ability to get as good of another RB which they will need in any case and even further means reducing their ability to make a quality choice at LB where they are looking to replace to very good (at some points in their careers) starters. It is gonna be tough though in making this assessment of need for all teams as I think that at some point AP becomes such an unexpected windfall of a potential top 5 pick a team has to pull the trigger (many of the teams indicated in the original analysis as being set at RB may well simply choose to take AP as a windfall which made it possible for them to run a two stud RB scheme). If AP drops to #12, the Bills can easily take him as a lucky drop to them or in fact, they also might pass on him and let him go to #13 or beyond if their strategy really is to put together an RBBC and the feeling made spread amongst teams that there is some reason related to his injury that they do not know about that explains his drop.

I agree with your earlier post, I think the Bills offense would work better going without an FB and utilizing the speed of Evans, PP, and Parrish in a 3 WR set. I would go with a fullhouse backfield in goal line and short yardage situations by plugging in Cieslak at FB on those plays. Particularly since we likely will need to get 3 RBs who are not on the roster right now, my sense is that you pick one up as a FA and get two in the draft one of whom should be an RB but a stocky type who can play HB or FB in a pinch.

and the CB position diminished in ability to make plays with the CB required to do press coverage up to 15 yards in the cover 2 which made NC not worth the cap room he would command on the free market. McGee struggled in coverage the first half of last season as he failed repeatedly to make fairly basic reads that he needed to stick with the WR going deep because the rookie safety was clearly coming late with his deep responsibility in the Cover 2 and the opposing team was not even bringing a receiver into the short zone. However, McGee had his attitude adjusted by the benching and was probably helped by the switch that the far better CB NC took the opponents toughter receiver instead of always lining up to take a particular side. McGee does have to step up his play this year, but not to any outrageous levels since he did seem to get the reads down in the second half of last year and the expectation of him this year is simply a requirement that he step up his play incrementally and not that he move his play to some different level altogether with both physical improvements and better mental reads as well. The Bills likely want to bring in another lower level CB to increase competition for the fifth CB spot, but I think they are confident that the young Youbouty has specialized in the press coverage and good hand fighting required now of our CBs and that he will compete with the vet K. Thomas for the #2 CB role with the loser of this battle being a reasonable nickel and Greer as the fourth CB in case of injury or in dime coverage. They simply are not looking for replacement at NC level talent as the $ required of such a player in the market would be a waste of cap resources by this team. If they were not confident of the players they have they likely would have made a bigger run at Harper or some other CB.

The Cover 2 we use emphasizes certain positions as being most critical to good performance by the D and also certain styles of play by particular players. Like any NFL D it is a coordinated style of play and thus a certain level of play is needed from all positions. If your team has a stiff at one or two positions your team will get burned. However, a position like MLB is very important to this D and must be well played with good reads or the D likely will fail, the CB position however is the place where you get the most clear cut man to man performance and also in a relatively small field of play as the CB generally lets the receiver go after 10-15 yards for deep coverage by the safety on that side of the field. A less than stellar CB can play the position as in this job the way we run it he generally never turns his back on the QB and does not have to run stride for stride with the WR. The Cover 2 tends to minimize the ability of the CB to make INTs and similar big plays (hence a CB like Dre Bly in DET publicly complaining about having to play CB in a Jauron designed Cover 2 before he left DET as an FA). It calls for press coverage right off the bat by the CB and thus minimizes his ability to play in a flexible loose D similar to the Bills style for years. It specifically minimized NCs ability to play the style which suited him best which was to hang bacl and read the QBs eyes and jump routes for TDs range all over the field. There was a reason why the MLB in this defense Fletcher-Baker got more INTs than Clements and McGee combined. A highly paid CB is simply not worth the heavy cap hit the best players like Samuel or even NC commanded, The Bills could see even last off-season where the salaries of the CBs were headed and they made a pre-emptive decision to pledge to NC they would not franchise tag him again because the Bills knew no matter how well NC played he was not worth the average salary of the top 5 that tagging him would have meant for this season. The Bills simply did not lose a player in NC the way we have it played who would be worth cap hit a tagged NC would have gotten and thus what a tagged Samuel would get or the amount of a contract he would agree to.

If you have the capital to make the upfront outlay for a plane (or are willing to go into hock for the big bucks) my understanding is that actually owning an airplane is not really a tremendous outlay. Given that he owns the cash machine known as an NFL team, I'm pretty sure (despite the fact one would feel he is an inch away from the poor house the way he complains about NFL economics) that capital outlays are not a problem. Many companies which do a lot of outlays for travel or other folks whose business involves a lot of travel (such as Payne Stewart who died when his improperly maintained airplane blew a gasket in flight and everyone asphyxiated and/or froze to death) gave found it actually is cheaper to own their own and operate their own planes than fly commercial and certainly given the uncertainties, delays, and lack of control when one flies commercial, the economics of owning and operating ones own plane beats the alternative easily. Particularly is one is a big enough cheapskate that you are willing to rent out your plane to make it a cash cow rather than have it sit on the ground (which I would not put past Ralph) once you make the capital outlay, owning a plane can turn out to be quite profitable. Particularly if you have a corporation buy the plane and make enough use of it that it is a reasonable business use, then paying for it and operating it becomes a cost of doing business which simply get deducted from the profits of the corporation and in essence income for the government has to be raised from other sources and just as an NFL team becomes a huge vacuum for little more than corporate welfare, so to do taxpayers like you and I end up paying for Ralph's airplane. I doubt this outlay and ownership is a problem for Ralph at all.

I think this is great as long as we are confident he can play well at SLB and break into being our eventual longtime hero at MLB when he gains vet experience. If we start him as the MLB I will still be hopeful, but mostly fearful as I suspect most OCs will relish the opportunity to try to fool a rookie into taking a step back on surprise running plays and even worse take a step in as the Bills ask him to be aggressive on surprise passing plays,

I like Willis also and will be happy if we pick him IF we decide Willis can start at SLB and we actually start the vet Crowell at MLB. The word I hear is that Willis is a good enough player that he has shown at earlier points in his career the ability to fill the slot last occupied on the Bills by TKO. If we believe he is good enough to do this (some disagree like Kiper and have him as a very late 1st rounder at best, but other seem to feel he is a stud and have advocated even trading up to get him from SF) then I say pick him and we go with an LB triumvirate of Willis, Crowell, and starter last year Ellison. The back-ups would be Wire at Will, Haggan at Sam and actually current #2 of the depth chart DiGregorio and Willis learning to make vet reads duking it out for back-up if necessary.

I think one of the big keys to making the DL effective (particularly in a Cover 2 scheme where the DTs are required to penetrate a lot to blow up running plays) is that none of the the DL players can be type cast as using a particular technique all (or even most) of the time and actually are able to flip-flop and play each other's positions and roles on a significant number of plays, I think in general, this is part of the reason has been pretty effective and why we see a trend away from the huge run pluggers of the big Ted model DT and generally away from the 3-4 to a D style where both DTs are roughly the same size and smaller as the DTs begin to look more like the DEs in terms of size and the level of athleticism. I think a player can still be legitimately labeled a 3 technique or some other specific style of play or technique because that may be his best use and how he is employed in the base D. However, if a player is used the same way almost exclusively and allows the opposing blockers to study all week to stop a single style or technique employed by a player then that player will likely be neutralized. The zone blitz was very effective when LeBeau first unleashed it because the blockers could not predict where the blitz would be coming from and they might even assign two blockers for a pass rushing DE, only to have him drop back into short zone pass coverage, while the LBs relieved of coverage duty zipped in to blitz while one or two blockers were simply standing at the LOS with nothing to do as they watched the DE fade back into coverage. Offenses adjusted to the zoneblitz and were able to pick it up (I think this was part of the reason there were two very good seasons by this Jerry Gray led team but he stuck with what was successful too long and particularly division opponents who had seen our tendencies four times in games caught up with what we were doing and creamed us). The Cover 2 (and the hybrid known as the Tampa 2 which is the style we play) is the current rage in this league which always imitates success. It tends to fool opponents using a different style but getting the same results as the zone blitz by using the DTs to penetrate and have the athleticism of a good DE. I think that we fans are overemphasizing whether a DT is a 3 technique guy or something else because really the DTs can and do play each other positions (for example, last year McCargo was Tripletts back-up while in the current depth chart he is backing up the RDT instead. In the end, we are gonna rotate all 8 DL players and we will see folks like DEs Denney and Hargrove lining up as DTs from time to time as we seek to make our D more effective.

I will be surprised though. Not so much because they like Hall but because if they pick him it means they cannot use the 1st rounder on a more immediate pressing need for this team (we probably need 3 RBs as there are significant questions whether both Shaud Williams or Jackson deserve to be on the roster this year and we need 2 LBs as both starters F-B abd TKO are gone). Though there is a large question whether an immediate starter can be found at either spot at #12, drafting Hall also would mean the Bills were not able to pull off a trade to increase our draft resources to meet our various needs. Hall would also be a surprise for me cap wise as it would give the largest contract we have to a player at a position where we decided as early as last off-season that a CB was not worth the average of the top 5 CBs salary too the Bills virtually regardless of how well NC played, I think this is true for the Bills since in the Cover 2 as we employ it, the scheme does not allow a playmaking CB to make big plays. Just as Dre Bly was quite vocal about stating his dislike for their Cover 2 which was developed by Jauron, so too with our Cover 2 where the MLB exceeded the INT totals of both CBs combined. The Bills have little option on the current roster at starting RB (A-Train is a great back-up but he last was a starter in 2003, the maximum # of starts at RB for him was 13, and even then he produced fairly McGahee like numbers just surpassing the 1,000 yard mark that season) and the likely MLB option Crowell merely creates another OLB need for us added to the TKO need, I would be surprised by a Hall pick not as any sense of Hall as a player but it meaning we would be likely going to the season without using the #1 to meet this need either by selecting a player they like or trading down for more draft resources,

The accusations against Lynch appear to be reasonably excusable as they were not caused by bad action on his part. However, with the Bills heightened emphasis on character issues, it simply is not unreasonable to see the braintrust seeing character issues being a reason to pass on a not-guilty Lynch as they may not want a player who even needs reasonable excuses for unfortunate events. The major factor will simply likely be how Marv (or other key evaluators felt when they shook Lynch's hand and looked him in the eye. If they felt affinity for him, then he is a possibility (though he looks like one they can trade down a few spots and still get). However, if the did not feel any affinity for him (even if it was just because one party or the other happened to be having a bad hair day) then they will likely pass. My sense is that the true directing factor on this choice will be Ralph deciding that he was annoyed enough with WM he did not want to own the rights to this prima donna. If Lynch comes off at all as prideful or even with a normal amount of ego for an athlete, I think the Bills will pass regardless of his play on the field. McGahee has potential as well, but the Bills have come down firmly that great potential (which is the rookie story) does not overcome any lack of good feelings.

Actually he was originally drafted in the 6th round. Given how wrong the assessors often are (roughly 50% of even first round picks are disappointing) it seems that there are far more accurate tells on how good or bad player may be than when he was drafted (or even at all in cases like Jason Peters). Draft position is an indicator rather than anything conclusive and its is quite often a pretty bad indicator of player talent and production.

From a game theory perspective I like the format for consideration of a player and I agree with the way you have decided to fill out this format regarding Turner. Hoq do you fill it out regarding Lynch? My sense is 1. bust unlikely but certainly possible 2. average back quite possible 3. star unlikely but possible

I think this will come down to not what I (or any other fan) thinks is the best football, but what we suspect that the Bils braintrust will do given their expressed likes and past behavior. Though I may think that in theory a particular method of team building may produce the best football, what interests me most of all is first what we think the Bills MAY do and then even more so what really happens. My sense is that while the Bills would certainly prefer to have a solid marquee RB, that is incredibly unlikely to happen. Once Ralph decided to cut ties with McGahee (who must have been a horrible pain in the butt to own because he kept shooting off his mouth and acting like an idiot with his "baby mommas" and failed to show more than potential on the field) he sent the Bills into a world where they simply had no real #1 RB and my GUESS is that the Bills braintrust having been burned once by entrusting their RB situation to one young man will be quite reluctant to once again hitch their wagon and hopes to one single player at RB. Its hard to make an RBBC approach work well, but my sense is that this devil they know will be preferable to the devil they cannot know from a 1st round drafted stud RB. Even if they are pretty sure that this player is a character guy who will not go around impregnating women, looking at his children as reasonable short-term financial liabilities he can afford with the multi-million $ contract he has and will get, and wanting the parties a big city offers (not hard to do actually as WM had a particular idiocy and did not perform well enough to allow an owner to overlook it), they still are at risk due to injury every time he takes the field and due to the fact that every draft choice has the possibility of being Peyton Manning or Ryan Leaf. I simply do not see the Bills going down the route of drafting a marquee RB as it puts too much of their hopes, dreams and the fun of owning a team into the hands of one player. I think they would prefer to try to juggle things and make it work with a bunch of less than elite RBs than run the risks of depending on one stud. Rookie contracts are slotted so we will pay what we pay whether he is on offense or defense. However, Marv has been allowed to (or been forced to by Ralph's choices) to choose between a world where they make the RBBC work or hope that from a Turner/Jones/Brown and also 2 likely RB draft picks that one of them turns out to be the 07 equivalent of Terrell Davis. Actually, I think that having whatever FA and one later on the 1st day and 1 second day RB is more likely to pull off this trick than having an RBBC work, but I think RBBC is the back-up plan to catching lightening in a bottle with likely 3 RBs who are on this year's roster who were not on last year's. I think this likely has them using the 1st rounder on an LB. However, i doubt that we will see them go with Willis as some would like them to do, because this season would simply be little fun for Ralph watching Willis do the defensive version of the JP thing. Willis is a physically gifted player who is a good guy. However, the way the MLB position works in our Cover 2 simply is going to call on this rookie to make vet reads as opposing OCs will simply be licking their chops looking to face a rookie MLB whom if they can fool him into taking a step back because he thinks a pass play is coming they get a 1st down on a run up the middle. Or even worse if they get this player who is asked to be aggressive to take a step in while some speedy receiver is running a post pattern the its seven for the enemy, There simply is a premium on the MLB being a vet if you want to be serious about this team winning next year rather than dedicating it to a likely painful season of learning while this rookie MLB learns to be a vet by getting toasted a few times. Thus, mu guess is that the Bills use their first for an OLB to join with Crowell in the middle, Ellison as the WLB and the Bills will also hope that now that Wire is back at a good position for him he will prove to be an adequate starting LB or at least compete for that slot, The new OLB will likely be asked to start at SLB and even better for the Bills they can almost certainly trade way down and still get the the SLB candidate they want as a rookie can reasonably be expected to start at the OLB position which is far less challenging than the MLB position. Trading down will add to our resources such that we may be able to pick both RBs likely to be produced by this draft on the first day. If the Bills get two RBs in he draft (one a straight FB or a swing guy who can play either position) plus pick up an FA then they will have the 3 RBs they need which will fit well with the 2 RBs currently on the roster (A-Train and Cieslak likely to make this team and allow them to move past the less than productive Williams and not rely on NFLE Jackson.

A-Train did have an excellent year for him last year as he was finally able to dress for all 16 games for the 1st time in his career. He showed that he could be a very good number 2 as he both showed production as a pass catcher which WM did not and also most importantly when our #1 RB got dinged and went out he gained over or around 100 yards as the reserve and filled in nicely. I was very impressed with A-Train's work and many football minds were fooled by him and Dick Jauron's faith in going with him as our #2 was paid back in production. However, as impressed as I was with A-Train's effort as a number 2 I am not foolish enough to think that he is a credible option to be our #1 RB, He has not gained 1000 yards in a season since the one time he did it for the Bears back in 2003. Even then he showed the impacts that the pounding a go-to RB experiences as he was only able to start 13 games. Having A-Train start for the Bills only remotely makes sense if you haave an A. Thomas as his back-up. Even if that proves to be the case, you are still left with a situation where the best he has ever produced as a Pro was back in 03 when he produced McGahee type numbers which just about everyone agrees were unsatisfactory for a lead RB. Add to that he will actually cross over to the wrong side of 30 for an athlete at midseason and going with A-Train as our starting RB is so unlikely to workout well for us this is not a real option.

The challenge for the Bills stems from the fact that even a very bad tandem at RB is almost certainly better than what we got. I do not think anyone with much sense of the NFL would argue that a tandem of Jones/A-Train is a good tandem, the question for us is what achievable alternative is going to be better than this very bad tandem. Right now reality seems to indicate that the potentially achievable options are: 1. Draft Lynch- Upsides: Only likely 1st round RB besides Peterson, Seen by consensus as generally a late teen pick so Bills may be able to get extra stuff trading down and still get him, explosive tough runner MAY be able to be stud lead RB we want with great speed showing at Combine, good all around talent with a compact body. Downsides: Has good excuses for some questionable character interactions (drive-by shooting incident was apparently a case of mistaken identity and charges were dropped in apparent extortion attempt by his old girlfriend, but the fact these questions even have come up raises issues which will be determined in face-to-face with Bills braintrust as most RBs do not even have to answer these types of questions, draft is a crapshoot anyway with of the 32 06 first rounders 14 of them were not even listed as #1 on team's depth charts a couple of weeks back- a rookie is still a rookie and even if he turns out to be a great choice but follows the path of a Larry Johnson it means a couple of years of bench sitting, the huge downside for us is that if we go with an RB in the 1st we leave the gaping hole at LB to the second round and we may not want to do that. 2. Draft an RB later- picking up a lower RB talent than the 1st round raises the likelihood that this player is not an immediate starter and passing on Lynch (or Peterson if he drops) make it quite likely we are deciding to do an RB by committee next year and virtually guarantees we take 2 RBs in the draft (one first day like a Pittman, Booker or Irons) and one the second day like we see who is left. 3. Acquire a vet RB- the choices are a number of unproven potential starters like a Turner or failed starters on the market like a Chris Brown or Julius Jones who is in question. Who knows how much it will cost to get one of these unproven or failed players, though you know what you are getting (warts and all) with a vet though a draftee is simply speculation no matter how enthusiastic fans are about him. A draft choice in the 1st round can easily be between the extremes of Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf. We have seen for ourselves that even having the #4 pick in the Mike Williams situation is no perfect defense and given that the #3 that year was Joey Harrington, the draft is simply a crap shoot. 4. Depend on our own roster- I mention this only because some posters seem to act as though this is a real option. It is not. Anthony Thomas last produced over 1000 yards (barely at that) in 2003 and never has started more than 13 games. He is a very good choice to be a #2 and maybe a key part to a RBBC approach but there is nothing whatsoever in his history to indicate he would be the RB we fill we want and need. Many folks wonder out loud whether Shaud Williams will even make the roster and this is with no competition even signed. Fred Jackson is a great story but we have seen leading NFLE rushers not even make a Pro team and it simply remains to be seen whether he can even make the team much less start or be part of an RBBC. My sense is that 3 RBs not even on this squad make the team right now and likely two from this draft. 5. Your option here! So the question in reality is not the simple one of whether Jones is good (he has not been but there is potential he may well play better without the heavy hand of Dallas pressure and Parcells gaze on him) but instead whether this bad option may be the best we can do. Actually IMHO, given the costs of not drafting an LB as early as we can, my sense is that we pass on Lynch, This puts into a mode where we pretty much have to go RBBC and if we can acquire the vet necessary to make this a credible option in exchange for a 2nd or 3rd this year or even a 1st next year (like the 2003 situation where we traded the 1st for Bledsoe we were able to replace it when TD raped AT for theirs, this is a risk that we should take.

In this case though there was no action to cut Jones lose by Parcells. The simple fact is that Jones is still a Cowboy and Parcells is not. Perhaps what you want to say to make your description fit the reality of the situation is that "The Bill shoud learn that when good coaches like WADE PHILLIPS and Belichek cut loose players there is probably a real good reason why." if you are going to make that case. The last thing we know about what Parcells did with Jones was he started him at RB 16 straight games even though he had a credible alternative in Marion Barber available. I am not sure at all what your argument is here because the facts are otherwise. I think the "world of difference" that you seem to diminish here is that the Bills would not necessarily be taking an arm and a leg chance in acquiring either Jones or Brown since really all they would be giving up here is a draft choice. I think fans simply generally give too much importance to the draft as ESPN has marketed it extremely well and the interest in fantasy football has put interest into overdrive. The draft is a crapshoot with TD's estimate that 50% of 1st round choices being busts standing statistically uncontroverted by anything I have seen. I think TD does exaggerate here a bit though because I think that many 1st rounders were disappointing yes, but not busts. However, the greater exaggeration is from those who have made the conventional wisdom be that a 1st rounder should be a first year or even immediate starter. Looking at what really happened with last years draft, I did take the time to look at depth charts a couple of weeks ago (its fun taking time away from saving the world to do this stuff) and of the 32 picks a bit over 50%- 18 of them- were first on the depth chart at their position a full season after they were picked. While one should not throw draft picks around as though one were Mike Ditka, a team is taking actually the remote chance that you are giving up Peyton Manning in exchange for the vet you are picking up but the reality is that you also may be giving up Ryan Leaf. Since the success of drafted players is heavily weighted toward the top 10 picks, the fact that the Bills are giving up a mere 12th for a vet whom they know what they can do is not an arm and a leg at all. The more compelling argument you make is the one that the vet is"soft" or has some other problem. However, in this case, the "soft" assessment is simply a matter of opinion which not having seen Jones I really cannot make with any legitimacy (not that this a requirement of any of TSW posters). I have seen Brown and his seemingly unrelenting injury problems to me make it more likely he will miss a bunch of games than not. He does hsve his moments, but unless a team is committing to RBBC I do not think he is a good choice. All I can see from the stats which is the best indicator I have in the absence of seeing a player, the simple fact is that while he has suffered injury issues his first two years, the fact he started all 16 last year and did so for Parcells who clearly will do what is necessary to win to me speaks this initial injury issue have relented for at least one season. The trade as proposed is interesting to me because while the draft picks should not be thrown around (good players have to come from somewhere and good players tend to get drafted) the proposal is to trade a future pick which for my admitted bias the future being now this interests me. In part because our two primary needs are RB and LB and because this years LB class is generally regarded as a weaker one with no AJ Hawk or definite top 10 choices, I get very interested in proposals to try to meet these needs through trades.

The choice for the Bills is not Lynch or Peterson, its between Lynch or an LB. Probably either way they can trade down and get whom they have targeted.

As Rodney says, "why can't we all just get along." There really is not a definite either-or-situation between Turner or Lynch for several reasons: 1. In this league which is happy to imitate the success of others, one of the current trends in toward having two quality RBs on your offense. Those who would claim there is no way a team would get 2 RBs such as Turner and Lynch at the same time are investing in the same thinking that said New Orleans would never draft Bush because they already had McCalister or that the Pats blew it picking Mulroney because the presence of Dillon made a rookie RB a non-need. 2. If you look at the current Bills roster the only likely certainties are that A-Train will be here and that Cieslak will likely play at least a back-up FB role for this team. Many feel Shaud Williams may not make this team at all this year and though people say good things about Fred Jackson, no one is betting the ranch and the dog he will make the final roster. The Bills may well be looking to fill as many as three RB slots from players not already on the team and to do this adequately you are probably talking about an FA signing such as Turner and not one but in fact two RB picks in the draft. 3. Despite the hyperbolic claims for signing Turner or drafting Lynch, a lot of this is actually proponents of Lynch badmouthing Turner or Turner fans raising concerns about Lynch. As a Bills fan I hope both sides are wrong as we have a fair shot at acquiring either or both players. The fact is that there are serious doubts about the prospects of either as a Bill. Like it or not Turner was a back-up and remains little in terms of being a potential starter except having potential which simply means you have not done the job yet. The same is true of Lynch who has gained zero yards yet in the NFL because he is just a great collegian which for NFL purposes also means he has not done anything yet. The accomplishments of both make them reasonable prospects but they are no where near stone cold certainties yet. In fact, even though the conventional wisdom is that anyone drafted in the first round should be a starter, a look at the depth charts of all teams a couple of weeks ago showed that only 18 of the 32 1st round choices last year were even first on the depth chart at their position as we approached the draft. The conventional wisdom was simply wrong for almost 50% of what was judged to be a pretty strong draft, The real debate here is not between a choice between Lynch or Turner, but actually a choice between Lynch and Willis or an OLB (particularly if we trade down). Lynch and Turner are linked in that if the Bills sign Turner they likely will feel comfortable enough at RB to make their first pick an LB, but even if they do not sign Turner they still may well choose to go LB depending on what their plan is.

Actually, there would seem to be a world of difference between the output of Chris Brown and the output of Julius Jones that is not in Brown's favor. Given that you are right that we are going to be taking a chance with any RB we acquire, the choice between these two is taking a chance on a player who 2006 line was was appearing in 5 games (3 of which he started) where rushed all 41 times last year amassing 156 yards for a 3.8 YPC. Jones on the other hand had an average year at best but rather than simply dressing for all 16 games was in fact the RB starter in all these games and got this job with a credible #2 Marion Barber behind him. Parcells is no shrinking violet and my sense is that if he was so displeased with Jones then to the bench he goes. I did not watch the Cowpokes last season so I can not say to what level Jones was dinged, but it certainly was never bad enough it either stopped him from starting or even reduced whatever effectiveness he had so that Parcells sat him. I'd be curious to know what specifics we are talking about here as there is nothing in his stats to indicate that there was a big time injury issue (or much of one at all) last year and Parcells does not seem like one to coddle a player along if he really sucks and there is an alternative available. I definitely have heard of some fumble issues regarding Jones, though last I heard was a diagnosis that his yardage totals were actually limited by his efforts to improve this problem and by holding onto the ball with two hands whenever he was in danger he had made himself into an average yardage gainer. However, the bottomline for us is not to get fooled into comparing whatever alternatives against some perfection standard, but this deal if true is something we can easily work with and on the face of it bodes far less risk of injuries than Brown and far more production than Brown as well.

It sounds like too much to me also. However the key is to what extent this actually is a truly CONDITIONAL 1st rounder. If the condition is that we give up a first next year if we can get a deal done and we give up a first if he rushes for lets say the #16 RB in the NFL (or starts 13 for us -the maximum # of starts A-Train ever had) then this is not necessarily a bad deal for us).

The stats indicate little that Jones is injury prone (again stats are not conclusive of anything in and of themselves but they are an indicator one should not simply ignore). He STARTED all 16 games at RB for the Cowpokes last year so if you want to focus on the 11 games he did miss in his first two seasons, he certainly solved an injury issues last year. If you want to site his missing starts and games due to injuries as a showing of injury proneness, then take a look at A-Train's record of missing games Jones would be a trade up for us in this regard. In terms of assessing whether he is flawed. Clearly he is not a great RB and his production so far is average at best. However, here in the real world (as real as the fantasy of NFL entertainment gets) the question is not whether he meets some theoretical standard of perfection (he does not) but simply whether he would be a trade up over what you have or reasonably could have for the price you are giving up. I think there is little question that the performance last year of 16 starts at RB with just short of 1100 yards though fairly mundane is better than what we got at RB right now. Second in terms of what we give up, we give up little in this trade and in fact we would gain if Dallas were "nice" enough to give us this deal. We get an extra choice out of the deal and still retain our 1st. We would in fact give up the #12 for a 22, but once your pick drops out of the top 10 as you yourself have pointed out by advocating we trade up, you really are not getting a player with an excellent shot at starting immediately. We have too many needs to be filled right now in order for this team to be competitive, that there really are no players worth mortgaging the present for in order to trade up. This deal as presented (speaking of fantasy) would give us a great leg up in going RBBC, give us a shot to at least have an average RB starter, and give us an additional resource to increase competition and add depth. I think the deal as presented advantages us to such an extent it likely is not possible and if it is its a no-brainer. In terms of Parcells. I guarantee he will not suffer even one loss as HC this year!

It sounds like a classic case where a change of teams might be just the thing to put a player in a different space to be all that he can be. I think for the Bills, the main argument would be not whether Jones is any good, but simply whether he is better than what you got. Unfortunately at RB the standard for the "bird-in-the-hand" at RB is A. Thomas who since 2003 at best as been a back-up performer. It is not an extremely have level for Jones to reach to make this a "plus" move for the Bills.

This certainly would make sense for the Bills as they likely need to pick up an FA RB anyway (and even with this pick it still is not outrageous for them to pick up as a many as two more RBs in the draft as they are likely to have 5 total RBs (including FBs) and there is no certainty whatsoever that they have more than 2 RBs on the current roster (A-Train and Cieslak at FB). They certainly need at least 1 LB from this draft and since one of their LB needs is for a starter, it would seem to be far more likely they get an OLB who MAY handle the starting job well as a rookie since given the diverse role called for of an MLB in the Cover 2, even the best MLB in this draft Willis is virtually certain to undergo some ugly struggles as any rookie learns how to be a vet. Rookies can start at most positions, but making good reads is going to be so critical for the MLB who is required to both play the run like a DT and play the pass like a safety, Willis may end up as a Bill leaving the same impression he left in the Senior Bowl. His closing and catch-up speed is quite impressive but he got to show it a bit chasing down receivers who had toasted him in pass coverage. Jones is a fairly flawed player who has yet to indicate he is more than a middlin' talent RB starter at best. However, this is more than A-Train has shown since at least Jones put up his 1000 yards last season rather than 2003 which is the last time A-Train hit this mark and in addition Jones started all 16 games as RB last year while A-Train;s max was 13 in 2003. I'd make this deal if i were the Bills since there seems to be potential OLB at least contributor and possible starter talent even if Pos is gone and he should be there and if SF is basically blowing smoke about their interest (as all teams do during the draft) then Kiper and other pundits may ne right that Willis may even be there at #22. Word is that he can play SLB and it makes far more sense for the production of the Bills D in 07 and also for Willis learning the NFL for him to start at Sam rather than at Mike,