Pyrite Gal

Badol- what do you think were the differences in the Jerry Gray D of 2004 within which Nate performed well enough to deserve the Pro Bowl berth he won and 2005 when your theory of why Nate struggled was that Gray played him too far back. My sense of the difference in production seen in these two Ds was in part every unit picking up the slack for each other so that when any unit was having an off day the unit was not struggling all day to simply survive. The injury to TKO obviously made a difference that year, but in the big picture i thought the problem was not that Gray shifted things too much and adopted an ineffective style but actually that he did not shift things up enough and opposing Os figured out the weaknesses of the D an exploited them. The bottomline for NC though is that rather than having him play loosely being a bad thing for NC, I actually think this fits his skills and talents quite well and actually out Cover 2 is not the best scheme for NC because he is so good at reading the QBs eyes and reading plays that when you give him time with relatively loose coverage to read the play he can jump routes for INTs and also range all over the field and make pickoff and break up passes intended for players he is not covering. Overall being a hair over 6-1 and am over-confident player I think NC can do press coverage fairly well even though i think he is a better player with loose coverages, but particularly given the Bills generally requiring CBs to bail out 10-15 yards downfield our scheme is not gonna put him in position to be a playmaker much at all. This usage makes him and probably no CB in a Cover 2 scheme worth giving top dollar too. I'm not saying NC is a bad player, I am simply saying that our D will be more productive with an allocation of cap room to get our best players at other positions rather than CB.

The rants also make for some amusement when situations like the one after last years draft occurs when folks went off on Marv and co. accusing them of senility when the facts as the season sent on were simply: 1. The rooks actually got a lot of PT and starts (actually this can be done by insecure folks willing to start folks merely cause they chose them). 2. However, the 06 season produced an improved W/L so folks who ranted about senility were simply proven wrong by the outcome. 3. Not wanting to leave their stupidity undefended some even tried to maintain this improvement was really produced by an easier schedule. However, these fact-free opinions were easily rebutted by a recognition that not only did the team improve its W/L (the ultimate stat) but actually the Bills opponents included a disproportionate number of playoff teams including 5 of the top 6 seeds in the AFC and the top NFC seed. Time and reality are simply the best answer to those who rant without subscribing to any objective facts or couching their rants or predictions with any of the uncertainties inherent in figuring NFL stuff out. The facts simply are the Bills were significantly improved over the previous year's model, but the improvement was not substantial enough for this team to be considered anywhere near adequate. Moderation is not the usual approach taken by many posts and folks have a right to entertain themselves however they choose, but the simple fact is the Bills had a moderate year and this leads to many posts that simply leave reality behind.

Yep, thats one theory.

Yep, I watched the games and this is why I am pretty comfortable with saying that NC is very good but not worth top CB dollars. He clearly is the #1 CB on this team and much better than McGee. However, this is different from making a decision about whether he is worth such a huge hit in our total cap. The question is not merely whether he deserves top dollar compared to our other CBs, but instead to ask what allocation of cap resources gives us the most productive D. The Bills overall D and the game against the pass will be improved much more IMHO by improving our pass rush by focusing on getting better DT production and by cutting down on opponents run opportunities by strengthening the LB play than it will by devoting an inordinate % of our cap resources to resigning this very good CB. I think that the Bills actually gave up on the idea of showing NC the money after he followed up his Pro Bowl 2004 with an awful at times 2005. I think when he walks on us and goes to another team I think he will be liberated (assuming he makes a good choice about new employers) he may well prove to be good enough again to make the Pro Bowl. However, like Dre Bly who has articulated his complaints about how the Cover 2 is not a good scheme for many CBs, i think our Cover 2 does not make the highest and best use of NC and thus I think we get better by devoting our resources to actually getting a better pass rush and by improving our LB play. While I can see the Marv approach of saying the important thing is to resign the guys you got, the reality of it all is that there is no way the Bills reasonably could have given NC the Champ Bailey money he wanted after his troubled 2005 and it was not unreasonable to give him the commitment not to franchise him again in order to get him into camp without the distraction of a holdout as one is installing a new system and coaching staff. At this point, since NC has proven to be a valuable commodity and likely the hottest available CB prospect, he would be foolish to agree to a reasonable contract which likely is far less than what the market will give him. Given who we have on the roster (I doubt Youbouty will step up to start but it is possible) since there really is no replacement in position for F-B and our only on roster possibility is to move Crowell to MLB which leave an LB hole at Will anyway, resigning Fletch for half the bonus likely needed for NC strikes me as a far better move and you deal with the likelihood we have lesser play from our CB by improving the pass rush. I do not argue at all that NC was not very valuable for us in 06 or that we are ready to go for sure without him. I simply argue he is more cheaply replaced with lesser players than him who will be asked to play a lesser role in our D than if we move to replace the MLB.

One would think that the observers and legends in their own minds who declared last year's draft as a disaster in similar old fart (if not Alzheimered) laden language about Marv being over the bend, would take a step back in these declarations based on the results that the draft choices simply got a lot of PT on a team which improved its W/L from the year before and did this against competition which performed far better than the average NFL opponent. The bottom-line appears to be that us observers cannot see what exactly the Bills were trying to accomplish with yesterday's press conference, but the most likely explanation for this is that the Bills were trying to do something which we cannot see (as we are neither privy to all their conversations nor what exactly the over-arching strategy is) rather than a conclusion that all of the folks involved are simply nuts. I think the two most likely audiences that the Bills were intending to reach yesterday was either, folks they are not interested in tipping their hands to because they are in negotiations with them (the FA players and/or the NFL over revenue-sharing). The press conference was so short and their was so little advance publicity or hoopla about it, my sense is that they had some specific message or messages they wanted to get out to these audiences or lay a context for their discussion with them and having done so Marv spoke briefly and then dropped back. My guess is that they decided that they would run the risk of giving out nuggets of information about their strategies in exchange for the opportunity to create the context they wanted for negotiation this week. It strikes me as pretty impossible for us to say what those nuggets or messages were because we all still have little authoritative clue about what strategy for team-building the Bills are pursuing. My guess is that since the deadline for naming franchise players is this coming Thursday that the Bills are most interested in setting a context for the final negotiations with players over use of the franchise tag. One of the more interesting developments to me yesterday was what the messages delivered yesterday say to London F-B. 1. They said without saying it directly to him that they want to look elsewhere for a attacking LB rather than a pursuing LB (a point I found odd since in our scheme we clearly often assigned him to pursue and do coverage rather than go for sacks and attack if we wanted him to pinch and play at the point of attack more than we should not have chosen to run a scheme which puts the MLB in a better position to make INTs than it does the CBs). 2. Marv seemed to give a bit more strategic insight than he gave with other situations in saying that the Bills do have Crowell as an alternative at MLB if Fletch walks, i saw this interlude as an attempt to create leverage over Drew Rosenidiot who is probably holding tough in negotiations for extending F-B because the Bills have few good alternatives from FA or the draft at MLB. My guess (and i mean GUESS) at why they did this presser (as it is being called) is that they are trying to leverage the best deal they can out of F-B.

1. He is the best fit at MLB for the D scheme we are playing. Like it or not looking at the ways of acquiring players: A. FAs- There does not appear to be an MLB with demonstrated pass coverage ability to step into the dual use needs of a Tampa 2 MLB available and Fletcher who led all NFL LBs in INTs, brings a decade of experience watching NFL plays implemented and though he is a pursuittackling (as Marv describes them) rather than attacking LB he appears to be the best FA bet out there (KCs Kawika Mitchell perhaps may be the best we can do in FA). B. Internal development- One nugget of decision-making that came from yesterday's Marv talk was that he fessed up Crowell to MLB if F-B goes is something they are talking about. Perhaps #2 MLB on the depth chart deGregorio has shown something Urlacher like in practice none of us know about, but this appears to be the best and likely only real option for us internally. Perhaps he can be the attacking MLB Marv referenced vaguely wanting as he has started both at Will and Sam. However, given that he is recovering from an injury, even though the quality of his play (first day draft pick who trained initially as an MLB and ran the D well in pre-season from MLB his second year, stepped up and performed at both OLB positions when forced to by injuries) has been good uncertainties remain. C. The draft- A favorite of some folks as Willis got a lot of initial talk, but though in rare cases a rookie can start at MLB (this is rare in that the draft is basically a crapshoot anyway which only offers the possibility even a first day pick can start immediately even if you want to claim the probability a 1st day pick will finish the season as a starter, it actually is even more doubtful that any rookie will master the diverse role the MLB plays in our Tampa 2 style D. Even if lightening strikes exactly where we predict and Willis or whomever can start at our MLB spot, the real analogy for his production would seem to be what Losman showed at QB. He is a physically gifted player who simply had to got through a full season of painful development before he got the hang of being a vet. Overall, one also needs to account for the sense of most pundits that this actually looks like a weak year for LBs in this draft and after Butkus award winner as college's best LB Willis struggled with pass coverage in the senior bowl, he actually has dropped to about #30 on the often incorrect Kiper list, but when Kiper misses this estimate it still looks like the Bills can trade way down and still get Willis or that they actually might be able to trade up afew notches with their #2 pick and get him the second. All in all the draft offers no immediate replacement for F-B and if anyone DiGregorio is rooting for us to look to the draft fpr F-B's replacement because this is how he may well get a start. D. Trade- probably the best way for us to find a player capable of starting but who knows how one could really pull this off. A key reason why it might make sense to tag F-B is that though at $7.2 million he would be pricey, we not only have the cap room in a cap to cash world to absorb this hit to the cap, but Fletcher is on the wrong side of 30 for us to invest in him for the length of time necessary to really pro-rate what is likely to be similar sized bonus over a long-term contract to make this worthwhile anyway. We also have to spend a certain amount of money anyway under the CBA so why not spend this on the best alternative we have to fill the MLB slot even if the best we can do is not what we really wish we had. The Bills would likely be better off if we tag F-B and draft a Davis in the 2nd round with the idea he is gonna be schooled for a year before we turn the MLB starting job over to him and let F-B go.

The decision to make this verbal agreement with NC was actually probably consistent with our plans (assuming this was our plan). 1. The Bills really doubted whether they would either reach a contract agreement with NC anyway for the 2007 season and beyond as our D scheme does not utilize him in the best way possible. 2. However, there was a recognition that either he might prove to be capable of excelling in our planned style (the Cover 2) or our planned style might not work out and we went to something that provided a good rationale to pay him all sorts of scratch. 3. There was the potential if he had another questionable season or if he suffered some Andre Reed like injury in a contract year (2006) we might want to sign him for a relative song. 4. Jauron had important things to do last season of installing his style and dealing with the distraction of NC holding out last year would have messed up important efforts like assessing an developing JP, the OL, WM, and a whole new D approach. The verbal agreement with NC was good for the Bills in that it stalled off the day of reckoning with NC til this year (our Cover 2 worked well enough we decided to stick with it and NC performed well but not so well that he merited such a large portion of our cap.

Exactly. I think it's fine for my sports teams to lie to me to win this little game, but I think it is wrong and stupid for my President to lie to me about real stuff.

Actually the Bills are involved with negotiations right now with these three where as long as you feel like you are going to stay in the game (he said resigning what we got is important and he left numeric room for at least one big size resigning) then creating a sense of restraint and uncertainty is not a bad negotiating poster (though it is dangerous as it increase the chances that Fletch and Kelsay simply assume they are gone and the Bills are out of the game with them). Likewise, the Bills are about to enter an intensive draft period where keeping your opponents in the dark about your needs and what you will do is a primary goal so again a goal of any presser right now is to create uncertainty and multiple options. I know us fans want real info, but for this fan if the choice is between tell me the truth and give aid to our competitors or lie to me but keep them in the dark or fool them I vote LIE TO ME.

The other thing working in NC's favor is that since teams are lying to their opponents who they are after, if a player says he has another offer he is considering a team choose to disbelieve him at their own risk. We likely saw a case like this with Jonas Jennings and SF year before last as a look at the who might be looking for an LT based on who they already had revealed that demand for him was likely fairly low (as the LT position was such a hot commodity a few years back teams had committed fairly significant contracts to LTs i considered fairly middlin talents). Certainly no one, the Bills included were likely offering the kind of scratch which SF paid JJ because folks who watch the Bills alot knew better than anyone how injury prone he was. As it turned out the offered him an extraordinary deal and spent much of his time so far in SF om the IR. With NC all it take is one team to give you a big contract and you have it and 31 teams are going to be guessing if someone else will do it and he likely can have competition even if there is only one bidder.

I think it is far more likely that they go with a guard in the 1st than with a CB as the skillsets necessary for a CB in the Cover 2 can be found without resorting to a #12 pick. In addition over the life of the contract if your CB is good, the market will give him far more of the team's cap than he is worth in our Cover 2. I think the #12 pick is likely about running and stopping the run and a DT and G ae the two lead possibilities.

But as part of their regional marketing strategy they plan to sled dog in customers from Toronto.

Some teams are choosing not to wait until the last minute to announce tagging decisions (the Bengals announced they were tagging DE Smith today). I suspect the Bills may well announce that they are using the tag and likely will tag F-B (IMHO). I guess announcing this decision sooner rather than later is a good idea since word will likely get out anyway and it makes sense for folks (particularly the player himself) to hear about it officially from the team rather than it being released by some "inside" source to the media or a website like TSW.

I think it is probably reasonable to differentiate FA signings in the pre-salary cap era to the current order under the CBA where the NFL and NFLPA are now partners rather than combatants (particularly since with the players being guaranteed the vast majority of the entire gross receipts they arguably are the senior partner now in this deal). However, if we are just looking at whether an FA can excel in his new digs or is he likely to disappoint, i think that in addition to our prime signing of FA Bryce Paup, we also profited alot from the pick-up of James Lofton. Andre was clearly the #1, but Lofton's presence really made Reed a more effective player because of his speed threat and his acquisition paid off for us bigtime. Also, as I was thinking about this, was Desmond Howard acquired as an FA or by trade when he won the SB MVP. Either way getting this role player really paid off bigtime. I assume the question of whether their are cases of FAs paying off was asked to see whether their was a case to be made for building a team through the draft rather than FA or trades. i think the answer is of course it depends. A good GM builds his team through any means necessary, be it any any successful team or the current SB winner. Clearly the draft was central to building this squad starting at Peyton Manning, Harrison and going to the OL. However, FA acquisitions like Vinateri (if only cause they took him away from the Pats), Polian getting some great second tier players for ST and perhaps most important for putting them over the top spending off the cap for Dungy is how this team was built. My sense is that it is simply a mistake to insist on one way that a team is built and focus on only one method of player acquisition, when the reality is that you build a good team by doing whatever is necessary and end up using multiple methods.

The question to me is simply who do you replace them with: NC- a very good player and the best CB we have on the team, but given the way we use CBs in our Cover 2 (release WRs to the safeties and the MLB after they leave the short zone) we can build a far better football team by spending the money he will get from the market on other positions. Between developing Youbouty and picking up a second tier vet CB as an FA, I think we can satisfy getting what we need from a CB to make the Cover 2 work. I think NC will make the Pro Bowl for his new team in the future if he is also allowed to return punts for them because he will prove to be a playmaker, but he simply is not worth it to us for what the market will pay him. Fletch- definitely on the wrong side of 30, but the #2 guy at MLB on our depth chart, DeGregorio seems in no way to be an answer. and the best MLB prospect we have on the roster is Crowell who is coming off an injury and even if he moves to MLB it leaves a large hole at OLB we need to fill with a quality starter. The FA pickings for MLBs looks fairly thin (though there are some very good OLBs like Briggs or Thomas if we move Crowell over). The draft crop of LBs also appears to be far weaker than the draftees at other positions with again an OLB prospect like Timmons or Polusny (sic) being rated by the pundits a few slots after our pick and the prospects for the best MLB Willis seeming to be dropping like a rock after he struggled with pass coverage in the Senior Bowl (often wrong pundit Mel Kiper has him at #30 but we can still trade down to get him if we want if he is wrong 5 spots one way, but he in trading up range for our second choice if he is 5 spots wrong the other way and neither spot bodes well for someone we envision as replacing F-B in the difficult Tampa 2 assignment we will give to a MLB. The price will be stiff and folks were pissed about him (though I think they would be better pissed at the braintrust as he simply seem to be playing where he was told to play) but as I do not see where we likely find a good replacement for him I would tag him if necessary. Kelsay- he is a good player I hope we resign, but given there seem to be a number of DEs on the market I would not mortgage the house to resign him.

2/22 is the deadline date for designating franchise and transition players. The Bills will have to fish and probably cut bait on Fletcher and confirm the agreement which has apparently been made verbally with NC not to tag him again. In the end, when you take the field on Sunday it really is all about the depth chart in terms of who starts for you on Sunday and whats the plan if a player is unable to play for a series, the rest of the game or for a season. I began this off-season pooh-poohing the idea of tagging Fletch when I first heard it as I had been influenced by the rant on TSW from some that he is light in the pants and hits people to deep in our backfield. However, on of the great things about TSW is that these rants are subjected to counter rants and the indications (but rarely proof which is why this is fun) which statistics provide. Upon looking a bit deeper at things, my bet right now is that the Bills likely tag F-B because: 1. There really is no one on the roster who is heir apparent for his job. 2. The most likely roster replacement for him on the depth chart is moving Crowell back to the position he was originally trained for but this not only creates a vacancy to be filled at WLB but more important he is coming off an IR level injury. 3. He actually has produced quite well for the Bills leading the team in tackles every year he has been here and usually easily, he led the team in INTs this year and even led all LBs in the NFL for INTs. The complaints about him hitting people too deep in the backfield seems like a comment that does not care or understand the D scheme we play. If he was missing tackles or needed help to make them, this is an indicator of him being too light or a bad tackler. but since his tackles are predominantly solo tackles he seems to bring down folks he hits before help comes along and his initial point of contact seems to be driven more by where he is playing than how fast he gets to the point of attack, do folks really want to make the case that F-B does not have enough speed or that he does not read plays well enough? The indicators of his INT total and he is the D capt who calls the plays(his reads) and his use as essentially a safety in our version of the cover 2 (he certainly is trusted to run the field) indicates these concerns are not real. 4. The tagging makes sense based on Fletch's moves also. His comments seemed to indicate he was not pleased about something and he went and hired Rosenidiot so something serious is going on. Given the word that he and Ralph have developed a good relationship it seemed more likely even that they had some grand conspiracy of a pre-arranged deal they were not talking about than the idea that F-B was going to the mattresses in a signing effort/war. What likely makes more sense (though its all tea leaves so we will see) is that he has either been told or figures himself that the Bills may be more interested in tagging him to keep him for a year while they train a true roster replacement for him (for example drafting Willis only makes sense if you draft him and sit him to learn for a year because we likely right off a game or two (or more) if we essentially turn the 07 season into an extended pre-season for our MLB who not only will face pro competition and pro OCs for the first time, but also the MLB we play differs from a lot of the rest of the league in that in our Tampa 2 style D the MLB is required to play runs like a DT but passes like a safety). Drew-fool may well have been hired to get a long-term deal from the Bills (which I consider unlikely for a player on the wrong side of 30 even though he is still a productive player today. NC is arguably a better player than Fletch, but even looking at the who is a playmaker for this team despite NC's flashiness, it was Fletch who not only led this team in INTs (they way we employ the Cover 2 plays more toward the MLB than the CBs making INTs) but also got two D TDs and who not only tied for the team lead in INTs last year with McGee, but when you roll in fumble recoveries he led the team in 2006 in turnovers produced. He certainly has not gained respect around the league as he does not even get a trip to Hawaii for the Pro Bowl (more indications this is really a popularity contest) and who knows for sure outside OBD but I think it may be most likely that Fletch gets tagged come next Thursday.

This part of why I beginning to think it is more likely that F-B is the guy who gets tagged. If not it simply creates a question of who we line up at MLB next year and as the best bet on our roster right now is moving Crowell and having a rookie fill that spot runs the risk that even a lofty #12 choice ends up producing like 4 of the 5 2002 NFL picks in a draft considered bereft of top 10 level picks at LB, it is really clear now that a lot of our strategy revolves around what we do at MLB.

I guess some folks simply miss those heady days of big TD engineered deals when we traded the 1st rounder to get JP and Bledsoe, raped AT trading PP for a pick who became Willis, held to our guns on trading Henry and got a first day choice for him and made a variety of other lesser but still significant trades. Yep, Marv has been here one whole draft and only traded up into the first round, and signed an FA to be our starting center, actually extended a fair number of contracts of starters and made small deals like the one for Hargrove. I think it is worth getting at least a second data point before we start discussing trends.

I do not care how about him personally as long as he is productive on the field and not a problem for his teammates then I simply ignore it. I know some fans enjoy this game because they follow the personalities and football play is secondary or not a big issue for some, but not this fan. Willis had some of the best possible production a player can have his first year and a half and has disappointed since then with occaisional (unfortunately too occaisional flashes of brilliance. However, as far as football goes the Bills are in the driver's seat with him and it makes little football sense to do anything but stay the course with him and good football sense to draft an RB who: 1. Can potentially do a better jpb than Shaud Williams as #3. 2. Provides competition for WM as a POTENTIAL future 3. Is drafted on the second day and low enough to allow us to spend first day on real 07 needs. As I have said too repetitively for some, if you plan to sleep with Willis or follow his fiscal franchise management advice then you may want to advocate moving him,m but if you care about winning football then our resources need to be devoted to other more real needs.

Thanks to some good directing from Ramius I did check out the FSU site on Davis (kudos to SDS as well since it never fails to amaze me how he has set-up TSW as a great portal to football info). Davis does look like a great player but looking at his stats and seeing a description of the highlights of his work it does not look at all to me like he is likely replacement for the role our MLB plays in our version of the Cover 2. What Davis seems to excel at is that he is a great tackler and FSU has employed his talent as a great blitzer rather than as a cover guy. F-B led the Bills in INTs last year and had more INTs than any other LB in football because we used him as a cover guy first and a tackler and a blitzer as an occaisional change of pace on passing down and distances. Even without seeing him I am sure Davis is a stud, but his significant number of plays where he tackled the opponent for a loss and his 5 sacks (which equaled his more highly rated teammate OLB Timmons) indicate to me that on passing plays he has been used to attack the opponent whereas in our Cover 2 we utilized F-B as a coverage guy. The only way i see us drafting Davis is if the braintrusts makes the judgment he can learn to be a cover guy and preferably use his demonstrated leadership skills to learn the D so he can call plays but I would say we need to tag F-B and then Davis would need to drop to the 2nd or more likely the third round to have us be able to take him without passing on getting a Guard we can use or a DT to help us stop the run (a better tackling LB than Fletch will not help alot to do this as our scheme calls for the MLB to play back and like F-B he will end up with a lot of solo tackles in our D backfield.

The element that needs to be taken into account is also how a player is going to be used and as the CB position in the Cover 2 the way we play it emphasizes press coverage and releasing the WR after 10-15 yards to the safeties and MLB playing the deep zone on passing downs and passing reads we will tend to value players like NC who (certainly while is big and talented enough to play the press well his highest and best use is in a different D scheme than the one we employ under Jauron) plays best in our old style soft coverage which allowed CBs to read plays and jump pass routes. The Bills must have been extremely interested in Youbouty because his skills and pass play lend themselves to press coverage and despite him unfortunately missing camp because of the death of his Mom, he showed enough ability in practice when he finally joined the team they not only played him but were comfortable enough with him to start him in the second Jets game. The manner in which we use the CB certainly would lead me to NOT allocate the Champ Bailey money the market likely requires to sign NC to a position where I likely can find a cheaper player to adequately make my defense work. NC is a very good player who deserved to make the Pro Bowl when he got in. Further, i think he can deserve to be a Pro Bowler again if he is used as a punt returner for the team which signs him because he can make plays both as a properly used CB and return threat. However, i think the Bills are correct to not build the team around one player's skills and it is quite fine with me to let this likely future star go.

See TKOSpiked'd posts above for the specific answer to this question. To provide a bit more info, the answer to this question was best demonstrated in a pre-season game a couple of years back within which Crowell ran the D from MLB for more than a half against the lackluster Detroit crew. Though Detroit is not the best O in football and pre-season is simply pre-season, Crowell showed that for the most part he had learned the game and position well enough to not only call the plays, but read plays well enough that he pinched in on runs and faded back on passes. Even with him showing he could do this, he was fooled once toward the end of the game by Detroit running a pretty vanilla O. My sense that it will be asking a lot of any rookie to right from the start of his career to do the diverse reads necessitated for the MLB by the way we play the Cover 2 simply adding up to a painful learning curve for any rookie thrown into this position. In addition, if Willis is our MLB, the play calling duty will need to be shifted to a player near the center of the field and back who can see the plays and b heard (drafting Wills to start means that you have some objective reason to believe second year players Whitner or Simpson can do this job) or alternately you are willing to give his job to vets like TKO or Crowell to do this job from their outside positions. I think we will give this job to Crowell who read and called signals for us in practice for two years, but even in this case I think we will move him to the MLB spot where he can see the whole field more equally and easily and communication will be an easier thing for him to do. I think TKO has the knowledge to do this but i would rather he (and to some some extent Crowell which is why i would rather we tag F-B for a year) concentrate on continuing his recovery from injury rather than taking responsibility for everyone else.

I never have seen Davis. You obviously feel he can meet the need we have in our Tampa 2 based D that he can both tackle like a DT when necessary but deep cover like a safety when necessary. the specific questions i would have are: 1. Did he play a lot of zone in college so that we can have some reasonable belief that he can play the deep cover against speedy WRs required of the MLB in our D. 2. Are there any specific reasons we think he will be able to read and diagnose plays at a sufficient level since there was a lot of dissatisfaction on TSW with the results produced with a decade of seeing NFL plays by Fletcher-Baker.

This looks like a reasonable ballpark to me. The Combine will tell us more whether in which cases we may fill this need in the draft or instead need to go FA.

Agreed that I think we are not far away from being real contenders. The de-emphasis which the way we employ the Cover 2 places on the strongest part of NC's game (he reads QBs and opposing teams well which in bend but do not break defenses allows him to jump routes or range all over the field as he did nicely in a game against Miami a few years back where he read Miami as not sending anyone into his zone, seem to yell to his colleagues to not to let anyone go coming into his area and then ranged across the field and picked off a pass to Winfield's man) should allow us to get a cheaper FA who can perform the press coverage in the short zone we need from a CB or possibly even allow Youbouty to take this job.