Pyrite Gal

At this point, I'd simply be overjoyed if we end up 0-5 in the SB after this season. I thiink my feelings in order would be: 1. Make the playoffs and lose in the first round- Surprised to see it, bummed (as always) about the loss, but mostly supremely enjoying the I told you sos to the the yahoos at ESPN, and busting out laughing at the revisionist historics (or is it hysterics) of John Clayton, amused by the silence of Mort and looking forward to the future where we are on the right track quicker than most imagined possible. 2. Lose in the 2nd round- All of the above and even smug rather than simply confident about the future. 3. Lose in the conference final- All of the above and simply pumped about the future. Woulda, coulda, shouldas about the loss, but this is overwhelmed by sporting a winning record in the playoffs and next season simply cannot come quick enough. 4. Lose in the SB- I wake up several days after the SB, any being bummed by the loss in the Big Dance is overcome by the raucous time I had getting there and my post drinking stupor. Suddenly, I become aware of those standing around the bed. Ed, I suddenly say, you were there! Amd Uncle Bud you were a tin woodsman. Frank, you were a Cowardly Lion. There's no place like the Home Opener. There' no place like the Homer Opener.

In line with the thinklng one needs to walk before you run (rhough actually we might want to crawl before we walk), I think its better to follow your lead of shewing your argument by rather than looking at the SB winners of the last few years, lets take your very own great post in the other thread and look at all the starting QBs who platws QB for the team which got to the SB the last 18 years. The list YOU produced (thanks BTW) was Rothlisberger...Future Probowler Hasslebeck......Probowler Brady(x3).......Future HOFer McNabb...........Probowler Delhomme......Probowler Gannon...........MVP Johnson..........Probowler(but average) Warner(x2).....MVP Kerry Collins...Probowler(but average) Dilfer..............Probowler(but average) McNair............MVP Elway(x5).......HOFer Chandler........Probowler(but average) Favre(x2).......Future HOFer, MVP Bledsoe..........Probowler Aikman(x3).....HOFer O'Donnell........Probowler Young.............HOFer, MVP Humphries......NO PROBOWLS Kelly(x4).........HOFer Rypien............Probowler(but average) Hostetler.........Probowler(but average) Montana(x4)....HOFer, MVP Of these 23 QBs, YOU note that no fewer than 6 are average and you do not typify Humphrey. but I assume he raises the # of players you deem average or worse to 7. One might quibble over whether folks like O'Donnell or Hasselbeck though Pro Bowlers are really great or much better than average QB, or one might want to see a bit more of Delhomme of RoboQB (clearly a not very smart person, but it appears that surviving taking a face plant from his motorcycle might have knocked some sense or responsibility to his teammates and fans into him- besides Jimbo had demonstrated that you do not need to be a brain surgeon or have high moral character to be a great QB). Yet, evem if one wants to be fairly harsh in judging who is good the fact that this # of 23 men actually biases the % of great QB years down because folks like Brady, Elway, Jimbo and Montana have multiple SB years to their name (in fact your selection of looking at years rather than players allows Tom Brady's performance to weigh heavily in your calculation as his prescence alone and domination of your numbers really hikes up the showing of great QBs in your stats), At any rate, your own declaration with a broader definition of achievement shows that while it is a very good thing to have a very good QB, almost 1/3 of the individuals you name are average QBs who made it to the SB. Your own analysis really did a lot to convince me that an average QB can "lead" his team to the SB not nearly as well as a HOF or MBP player, but they can certainly get a good team there in good though not the best #s. I remained convinced by your earlier argument rather than the selection of a pool limited by only looking at the winners and not at who got there even if they lost. In fact. if you want to take the time (my hat is off to you for what you already did so I have no expectation or demand you will do this) then I think a better analysis can likely be made by expanding your pool of successful QBs to count the 4 QBs who led the team to conference championships. In my mind, a team or a QB who make it that far has actually had a pretty successful season and an analysis of the necessity of a top flight QB is probably best seen in that pool rather by making the standard for a successful season be winning the SB. As I said, this sounds like a load of work to me snd though I hope to find enough late nights or rainy days to do this, I doubt i will so if you or anyonw does then my thnahs to you as I think this is where better analysis of your original quality work lies. I also think that this approach is by far the most relevant to our Bills. It is nice to know what would be useful or essential to win the SB, but really right now I think we are probably more reasonably worried about what is useful or necesary to simply make the playoffs. Being a fan does mean having rediculous aspirations for great occurences even when reality says they will not happen. Still, I guess I am even more interested in the fantasy of what do we need to be one of the final four than the even more redicoulous standard of what is useful or essential to win the SB. It is in reality that I think Bills fans can find some security with our QB situation. A HOFer at QB may be essential to winning the SB based on your more rarified current analysis, but your analysis in the earlier thread shows it is very useful though not essential to have a very good QB (and in fact even merely having an adequate QB may be enough to get you there in a quarter of the cases). I suspect the even better news if someone has the time or the analysis is easier to do than I suspect, that given the goal of making the conference championships (a goal which unfortunately is probably a dream for us) can be done a lot of the times with merely an adequate QB. The real saving grace may be that in order to reach the goal of merely making the playoffs, i would not be surprised if the numbers show that not only do a fair number of adequate QBs achieve this goal, but actually even some teams with bad QBs make it that far. This analysis will give some real hope to Bills fans if someone does it and it turns out to be true, because one thing many TSW folks seem certain of its that we are going to have a below average QB this year. We will see.

Personally, I would hope that WM lies through his teeth about his weight on TV. The best thing for him to do is to have the word get around that he is just as heavy as he always was and have tne enemy not to expect him to have any additional speed and not to test him as to whether he has lost any strength by seeing if he is more prone to injury or getting hurt if he shed pounds. I love having factual information about my team by hate giving opponents any true information that they might or might not use to their advantage. Players lie about their weight all the time and players routinely hide any area of weaknesses so opponents do not pick on it. I simply hope WM is following that tradition by lying to me through his teeth on TV,

Your last line is right on point. Having a great super stud like really tremendous spiffiest in he world QB is extremely useful, it just ain't essential for winning the SB. This is the simple point I am making. Folks seem to want to pretend/believe/insist/whatever, that I am arguing instead that we should go out and get a bad QB as a strategy for winning it all. This taking an opposing point, inflating it to the worst case and then arguing against that worst case is what passes for debate in today's screaming news TV and talk show radio, but that is not what I am saying. All I am opposing is an extreme view taken by some (not all or I'd be guilty of using the same technique I am complaining about) that having a greator even more than average QB is essential to getting to the SB. It is not. And actually, if one takes the thoughtful post from Dibs which sites the last QBs from the last 17 SBs this makes the point that an average QB is quite capable of taking a team to the SB. Of the 23 QBs he cites, 7 of them he also lables as average or worse (he does not typify Humphries). Overall, several of the stud QBs he cites made it to multiple SBs, however, I think this factoid is balanced out by may sense that though QBs like O'Donnel. Hasselbeck and Delhomme (to date as I think he will likely get better and be a real stud though he was a UDFA) made the SB, they really do not scare me to face them as a great or very good QB should. In general, one needs to be careful using Pro Bowl status or even getting to the SB as definite proof or more than a potential indication that a QB is very good or above average in his absolute quality as this proof is somewhat self-referential. Just as being a better than average QB (far better than avg. in Manning or Marino's cases) is no guarantee of getting to or winning the SB also getting to the SB with your team is no absolute proof you are above average QB in absolute qualtiy. I have made the point arguing against the extreme view that having a stud QB is essential to getting to or winning the SB, not because I want to take an extreme view of opposing points, but because some have advocated that the Bills should make what I judge as bad football moves in the foolish hope of getting a stud QB. For example, i have repetitively argued against drafting a QB in the first round against the shouts of folks who argued long that we needed to take Harrington by pointing out the simple fact that until Ben RoboQB won the SB with Pitts last year, no QB had delivered an SB win to the team which picked him in the 1st round since allas took Aikman in 1989. I did not say this to argue that 1st round QBs were bad, I just argued that one could get a QB who was a 1st rounder or capable of getting you an SB win for or near the NFL minimum as seen in the cases of Trent Dilfer, Kurt Warner or Tom Brady. its not easy to pick studs such as these players, but it this field had proven to be a strategy that worked far more often than drafting a QB in the first.. I was not advocating one of these approaches as the way to do it, i was simply arguing that for a long period of time from Aikman in 89 to RoboQB, drafting a QB in the first had simply not proven AT ALL as a way to win the SB or get to it very much either. I think the lesson to be learned from he facts as Dibs points them out is that somwhere between 1 in 4 and 1 in 3 SBs teams get there with an average QB at the helm. This lesson is of particular import to the Bills as our history since the great days of the early 90s has been to continually not build or simply destroy our team in the foolish search to find the next Jim Kelly. Stetching to draft TC in the second Rushing TC to start before he was ready (if he ever would be) Trading a 3rd for Hobert Extending RJ before he proved himself Agreeing to deals with RJ that bonused him and then having the Flutie cap hiot when he played as AJ Smith expected Cutting Bledsoe after foolishly extending him and handing the job to JP are all examples to me of QB foolishness inspired by our insane attempts to find the next Jim Kelly rather than instead devoting similar resources and efforts to building a winning team with a merely adequate QB (Flutie and Bledsoe at their peak for us were actually better than adequate but even that was not good enough for those who have bought into the QB Club marketing mentality that we need Joe Montana or we are doomed). I'd love a stud HOF QB and a natural succesor to Jimbo. However, I simply think it is better strategy rather than banking so much on a vain desire to get this stud QB, to instead do the more difficult but I think more likely to happen job of building a winning team.

I guess I missed the import of your point as well, O guess becaise a cursory examination of your list revealed by your own admission so many average QBs. Part of the reason why these average QBs got acknowledged with the HOF honor because pf tjeor so;id lines and other high quality players on their teams. I agree with the point that I have harped on a couple of examples, but this is not to argue that one can win it all with an average or worse QB (obviously one would prefer a better QB than a worse one( but simply as as a response to those who have claimed the ONLY way to win it all is with a great QB, when the facts show that most SB teams do have great QB, but a pretty good number do not. Their QBs are merely average, but because their braintrusts have built a good team aroung them they win it all and in fact the QB gets a Pro Bowl nod. I agree with you that I suspect one of our 3 QBs can prove to be adequate enough to take a good team with to the playoffs. I think the facts you provide indicate a good QB is a good thing, but an average QB will do as well.

It's a good thing when a team draws a line that they are not going to be pushed around. However, it makes a big difference when and how you do this. I hope TKO shows that this will be a new Bills squad not by pulling a Zidane like head butt that certainly showed he and the team will stand-up to idiotic opponents, but he got the team captain and one of the best in the world taking penality kicks thrown out of the Worl Cup final. The test is not going to be statements by TKO, but how he builds an ethic within the team and how he plays hard but does not take dumb penalities.

The list is interesting because while you do cherry pick out some of the best QBs ever, the list does not provide much guidance to a team on the critical question as to whwthwe they should look to find this Pro Bowl through a 1st round draft pick (many of those you selected), through a later pick (Brady and even Montana), through UDFA (Delhomme) or even the waiver wire (I know Bledsoe was on it after his SB appearance and probably somebody was on it before). To some extent while a great QB makes it to the Pro Bowl or wins the SB, it is also the case that being with a SB capable winning team like the D oriented Ravens brings fame and greatness to a QB clearly capable of losing in lot of situations, Along this line of thinking I feel quite comfortable with the Bills uncertainty at QB right now. While I do not think that any of these three is more likely than not to be an adequate (certainly not a good or great) QB in of themselves. I think that all provide a real (thouigh small in Nall's case) possibility of being the QB that we want and need. The key as I see is not to hope against hope that one of these QBs is extraordinary, but that the Bills braintrust proves to be good at assessing which of these QBs can do the best job they can do and be adequate, goor or even great (if lightning strikes the same non-metallic place twice or gets real cold down below). If the braintrust is good at not wasting time on a QB who is not reafy to do the job (as we did when TD selected Losman who could have profited from some more bench, mop-up, and real games when we are out of the hunt time rather than being selected for other reasons. JP may develop enough to produce with the great talent that made him a reasonable 1st round choice, OR the Bills O may be able to imitate the St. L model and short passing vet KH can be productive, OR Nall may prove to have learned a lot watching and mopping up for Favre. If Fairchild, Jauron, and Marv (Modrak) prove to be good at judging talent, designing the O, andmaking good choice, I think the odds are we will be fine at QB this year. A BIF if but certainly doable/

My QB guestimate is: Outcome: No outsider can really predict this with any authority as having 3 guys with a shot (and at least two of them with huge unknowns how they will respond to the mental drubbing (JP) or sitting on the bench watching and learning from an HOF player(Nall)) simply makes for too many variables to predict with any hope of being right beuond coincidence. Even folks inside the team who see these players a lot. add in the additional variable of installing a new offense no one has seen run yet and this is a total crapshoot at this point. One can lay odds based on past performance and rep (IMHO, JP is more highly regarded in terms of raw talent, but as a youngster and being beaten up, I see his chances at about 40% max of even having some real blips but being merely adequate: Nall, I would put at about 10% as he is a career back-up with the pluses and minuses that go with that but the Pack drafted Rodgers and let Nall go as they saw his chances even in the familiar Pack O as being pretty limited: KH I onlu give a guesstimate to of about 20% chance of success since he has episodes of greatness in specific games but 10 years of not being consistent enough to be an adequate NFL starter. The irony here is that since I am under no legend in my own mind illusions that I have the NFL figured out and can predict with much accuracy what weill happen next, this is a big part of why the NFL is so interesting to me. I could think of few things so boring as something I understand so well that I can predict what is going to happen next. Life is fun because of the surprises. The NFL interest me because no matter how much I think I understand it something unexpected can happen. Its rare that an NFL team I care about goes into camp with three players with a legit shot at starting. This is fun! I think the best case for the Bills in 06 is actually if KH ends up being the chosen starter. I think this is pretty unlikely because he would need to show not simply productivity equal to JP, but will need to produce so well that the Bills braintrust gets attracted more by his potential to win now than the more likely case that JP will mpt be great but show potential. In order for the KH production issue to work out, I think there will be several things that need to happen which will mak the most of the experienceKH brings to the game: 1. Fairchild will need to successfully develop and install at St. L like high-flying O based on short passes and RAC for big yards. He will need to call and run plays which allow his receivers to get quick separation using their speed (which creates space and even better forces DCs into zone coverage), crossing patterns, and some picks to get folks open quick. 2. Evans will need to step up and be a #1 WR (and draw some dts with his soeed), Price will need to return to some semblance of his 2002 production (70 catches rather than 94 would be great) or if he does not the Parrish, Reed or Davis must steo uo, we find a #3 from one of these 4 to go with Evans and the #2. 3. WM will be a key, not only will he need to run with the same productivity which saw him become the quickest Bill RB to 2000 yards on the ground, but also he will need to be at least a reconizable shadow of Marshall Faulk and the role as a pass catcher he played for St. L. I think JP is a far more talented player than KH, but for the Bills to excel in 2006 ironically the most likely way this happens is that our O clicks and is so well designed that the experience and style of KH more likely fits the bill as it will likely be a while before JP can really make the NFL judgments consistently to make a RAV=C nased O work well.

The nice thing about the play was that it was a read and theft rather than a simple physical reaction. I think there are tons of physical specimens around who can make plays, but it is a difference when these physical guys develop a brain and feel for the game as well. He seemingly came out of nowhere as this play was well timed on his part.

I think the big thing in causing a difference in Schoble production type #s this year will be that he is going to be employedquite differently in the Cover 2 than in the zone blitz scheme. Schobel actually shed a few pounds a couple of years ago so that he could be more athletic and fall back downfield to cover receivers in first the short zone (within 10 yards of the LOS) and then later into the medium zone in pass coverage. In the cover 2, Schobel will not have the pass coverage duty necessitated by the zone blitz as sometimes even the DE would fall back into coverage when the blitz was supposed to come from the LBs or even the DBs. I must admit as the season wore on and it became clear we were not going anywhere last year (even with a huge win streak like the 2004) I paid less specific attention to the D play calls, However, if this switch results in Schobel focusing more exclusively on rushing the passer rahther than pass coverage sometimes, we may see his sack #s increase without requiring any better performance from Schobel as a player. The interesting thing to watch is that I assume with the DTs being called upon more to penetrate and guess which holes they should shoot, we will see the LBs need to run stop more and also the DEs show strength against the run and stand their ground on outside runs. It is this issue of lack of strength at the POA (or more often the case as a young player poor leverage so that he could emply his stength) which was the problem for Schobel in the past.

I think the key point you make is that there really are not many "bad" LTs starting in this league because if youy are a bad LT then you end up on the bench as your team seeks a player who is not gonna get your QB killed with hits to his blindside. I think e-balls original point is a good one if you are trying to defend our use of Gandy at LT last year against rants that claim he was a bad player. At the very least he was adequate or if not then the Bills would have needed to look elswhere as QB after QB would get hit by a player who is often the other team's best rrusher. If you instead want to compare him to other players in the league in terms of his effect on the team. I am still pretty comfortable with assessing Gandy as being in the middle of the pack 1. In terms of improving our OL, when one looks at last year's starting five (Gamdy, Bennie. Teague, Villarial, and MW) Gandy is the last of these 5 you look at replacing not only by performance but by cost to replace him. This is a quality guide because clearly as incompetent as our OL was last year, they did somehing right since they were not rolled over evey single game and WM did rush for a bunch of yards. Gandy is by far the likely success story of this horrible crew. 2. I have seen no statistical offering that his opponents were racking up a ton off sacks when they played him or he was consistently getting penalized as he had to tackle players who got past him and were on their way to our QB. 3. He did start all 16 games last year and this is actually a starting point in assessing a players impact for a team. The claim above that JJ is a better LT than Gandy is actually fairly laughable when you look both at last season (no sacks on JJ cause he was on IR almost the whole season) and even the year before when he missed all or significant parts of a quarter of our games due to a string of injuries to different parts of his body. 4. One ultimate impact on a team and a relevant point of comparison if that is what one sets out to do that is bang for the buck, The Gandy cap hit is nothing short of outstanding for any player who played LT well enough to start all 16 games for you.

Many of these players are better than Gandy IMHO, but several of your assertions I think are pretty questionable. First, in order to really answer this question i think we can use some definitions. In my mind I tend to divide the 32 starting tackles into thirds. The middle 3rd (10 or 11 out of 32) are average LTs in my mind). The uoper 10 or 11 are above average and the lower 10 or 11 below average. Thus in order for Gandy to be above aberage IMHO we're taliking about him at least flirting with being a top 10 LT. I simply do not think anyone make this case. Second, In terms of specifics, a good place to start is the salary cap. One can find the top 10 OL salaries in the Hot Topics at NFLPA.org. As most of the OL top 10 are LTs this gives you a pretty good sense of who the market says are the top 10 LTs and a lot of players on this list also are on that list. Third, I think that a lot of this is over-reaching by the original poster as in the usual TSW internet style he sets far too high a standard for Gandy's play demanding that he be above average. I think Gandy surprised folks last year by proving to easily be adequate as an NFL starter at LT. Is Gandy in or even flirting with the top 10 LTs? Nope. However. is he in the average middle third of LTs? I think easily. He started all 16 games (not a fact to be disregarded as some of the best do not do this), he did not give up a many if any one on one blow-out sacks as even the best LTs sometimes do (even Ogden got embarrased by Schobel recently) and he did not have to take a bunch of penalties when he got beaten out on an island. The best news for team building by the Bills is that he does not even require average LT pay to put up an average LT performance. As far as the list you provide, as I said Gandy is not above-average to me, but his play was easily adequat to me last year and I am comfortable with him being in the higher tier of the average players. However, A. I'd much rather have Gandy as my LT than Jonas Jennings. Not only did JJ end up on IR last year with SF paying him a ton to rehab, but the handwriting was on the wall in JJs last season as a Bills where he either failed to start or failed to complete a 1/4 of the games that season. Even worse, I think he is at the RJ level of being injury prone as he went out with a variety of dingd and boo-bbos including ankle injuries, concussions and upper body muscle-tears. B. Though McKinnie's production improved last year I think this had a lot to do with good head and quick release of Brad Johnson at QB who forces his blockers to hold their blocks much less than Culpepper and has the vet sense to get rid of the ball when his blockers break down. Even if you believe that BM has moved beyond his infamous hard partying that made him a leader of the Vikes sex boat romp, you also have Art Hicks on your list. Only one of them can play LT at a time and since he is now a Vike you should only have one or the other on your list. C. Barry Sims is listed as a guard on nfl.com I dp not have time to check the rest of the list, but clearly it is not the 18 better players you claim though it should make the easier standard I have of him needing to be in or near the top 10 to be above average.

I think you have the right cut on this as "being on the hotseat can mean different things. This year could determine whether a player gets cut or not before the season and this is a real hotseat. This year can determine whether a player has a breakout year as a pro or not, but as his contract likely gives him another shot, his chances may be smaller of ever doing it but he is not on the hotseat in my view. An example of this is that Brad Johnson was in the hotseat a couple of times as his failures got him cut or traded from his team . Nevertheless he did end up QB'ing an SB winning team. JP is not even in the Brad Johnson situation where if he fails to produce this year he will get cut from the Bills as likely the Bills will keep him for at least another year and he gets a shot (though if this year looks like last year it is doubtful he will ever make it). its a crtically important year for him, but I do not think he is on the hotseat yet. As far as Bills who I actually think are on the hotseat where it is either crap or get off the pot as a Bill forever, I think its: PP- Its a make or break year for him. if he does not produce at a level commensurate with his huge contract he probably is out of the league (though i think the bonus paid to him keeps him around this year). Ironically he can still play a productive role as a #3 WR for the Bills if Parrish, Reed, or Davis should beat him out. They need his speed on the field in 3 WR formations to warp the defense. Shelton- I think the Bills have already decided to minimize the rolr of the FB in this year's O and he will only play formations where they need a full house backfield. #WR sets and even two TEs will make more sense for the Bills running something like the St. L O or in the redzone. I think Shelton will fall victim to this formation decision. If he bad, or a youngster is good I think he even gets cut. Posey- I think his fate actually may be out of his hands as if TKO comes back to start it gets pretty crowded for the amount of money in his contract. The post I responded to surprised me as Crowell who was extended and who filled in admirably for TKO last year was not on his list of starters. I think will get the SLB starting nod unless he needs to start for TKO again. The addition of Watson in a trade (which makes proving to be good enough to keep on this team a hotseat issue for him) makes it a hotseat issue for Posey. There will be a few fghts for positions (Kelsay/Denney as LDE starter) but I see guys either making the team as starters or sayin bye-bye. There will be the usual crowd scenes at back-up RB where I think the loser of the Williams/Gates battle will be gone and 3rd TE where I think the loser of the Newfeld Cieslak battle will be gone but in general I think we will go into camp with things pretty set.

I certainly have no expectations they will be better, but I certainly hope for it. While the chances may be remote as far as any particular piece one chooses working out and it simply being impossible that every piece will work out the way as planned, I certainly can see not unreasonable or impossible occurences having to take place for any one piece to work quite well.

Possibly. He simply sounds like a little boy or an a-hole to me. Yhe choice between MW and BM seems like whether you prefer a wimp or a buttwipe. Make mine Levi Jones in retrospect.

Better pick? Obviously yes. Safe pick? I don't think so given his holdout which in essence made him ineffective the first year he was signed. I agree that I do not care what players do off the field unless it impacts their or the teams performance on the field. However, given him being one of the found guilty parties among several Vikes with their sex boat episode, it sounds to me that while I can at least tolerate it if one our players is never caught or beats the rap, merely avoiding a felony conviction is not necessarily the standard for having no effect on your or your team's game. We fans do not know what goes on in the locker room so maybe McKinnie is a positive team leader there and adds to the Vikes game. However, given items from the holdout which did impact his play on the field, to his rap sheet, it would strike me as stupidity on a GM's part or great acting on BM's part if a GM took him because he was the "safe pick"

Do I hafta?

Low expectations can be quite reasonable but if ome tru;y loves a team tjem they are also accompanied by high hopes as well. I think that is post which seem to reflect low expectations and low hopes also that strike some as a bot odd and evoke suggestions that perhaps the posters time might be better spent somewhere else. Those who almost seem to take glee in launching out low hopes for the team and its braintrust (I thought TD and his poor hire GW were idiots, but I really hoped that they were right and I was wrong and that they and the TEAM would do well) really seem to love themselves more than they love the team. I think folks might profit from asking themselves if they judge from their version of football logic that the team is gonna be awful, how much do they really want to be wrong about all this or is it more important to them that they be proven right about their judgments.

I also have no idea what TD believed actually, but I can see what he did. He hired GW as his HC because he said he was wowed by him in the interview. Unfortunately, he passed on hiring two other candidates for the last open NFL HC slot who were Charlie Fox and marvin Lewis (who it looks like TD would have had to work hard to attract him amd his wife to come here in order to get them). Yhe facts are that these two coaches have turned out to have done a far more effective job with teams which were about as bad )if not worse) than the Bills when these three were hired. While I think it is RW who bears the lionshare of the blame for taking a foolish obviously false approach to motivating his team by claining we had a real shot at the playoffs in 2001 (instead of taking a far more sensible and I believe better motivational approach like the one Teddy Nolan used with his initially bad Sabres team of declaring them the hardest working club in hocket or the approach Marv is taking now of admitting under questioning that we are rebuilding, but noting that the approach we are taking will be based on hard work, lots of reps, simplicity. etc. GW said it and then sucked at other aspects of the game such asL hiring a staff with experience, managing the game clock, making good challenge decisions, amd directly managing the players with things other than his stupid air horn. However, the buck stops with the guy who hired GW. TD seemed to manage his coaches with a mitivation to never get fired by a guy he hired again rather than to jusy win baby.

Personally, I think most of these sports would be truly entertaining if the players were in the nude except for gas tanks on their hips which would burst into flames after a particularly hard hit. Now these would be extreme games!

I certainly would agree that in retrospect McKinnie would have been a better choice than the bust MW was. I think is also important that folks don't conclude from this obvious fact that McKinnie would have been a good choice by the Bills. Certainly we see from those who even today are addicted to advocating that the Bills should have spent heaviily in this draft on the OL (folks even advocated us trading up for D'Brick which I think would have set back our timing for recovery by as much as a year that some place a priority on an OL prospect if you have a top 10 pick ignore the lessons of the picks of MW and McKinnie that it isn't sufficient to spend highly in the draft on the OL, you also have to spend well. As it turns out, if you do what YD did and devote your #4 to an MW, you can easily end up with a bust. if you had instead taken the second rated T McKinnie you get a guy whose primary endorsement seems to be WM's words that nobody parties like Bryant. Instead, maybe your choice is to draft the best QB available, but as it turns out #3 choice Harrington was a bust just like MW. My sense is that if you have a top 5 choice as the Bills may possibly have next year, your best answer is probably to trade down. You might get a winner, but the odds appear to be that you will half the time get a bust, a chunk of the rest of the time, get someone like a Manning who is a franchise QB, but barely has won more playoff games for the team which drafted him than Ryab Leaf won for SD, and in a few cases you might get a franchise player who helps your team get to the SB.

I think that Triplett and/or McCargo better be positive impact newcomers for us or it is going to be a very long season.

Ans these words are a stark contrast between the intial ramblings of GW which almost immediately put me in a mode of questioning his approach and judgment. I think the team which actually did go 3-13 in 2001 was in far worse shape than this one. We had unloaded a solid core of players like Big Ted who played a far more vital role on that winning team than someone like a Sam Adams did on a losing team. We had RJ at QB who was clearly on his way out the door rather at least having 3 remote and more remote possibilities to be the QB we want. In the face of that GW announced we were going for the playoffs. I prefer the mantra which Ted Nolan and the Sabres used with their rebuilding efforts which dubbed the guys the hardest working team in hockey. While the current Marv mantra does not have the concise sellability of the Sabrea approach, acknowledging in response to a question that we are rebuilding and emphasizing simplicity, hard work, reps and character is a pretty reasonable approach to the situation he inherited from TD.

Like NYD with Glenn Parker and Dusty as big conributors under JMac a lot depends on who well they play together. I think we will see on the how much question, but whether this is walking before your run or crawling before you walk, I think it is clear that the starting talent is moving in the correct direction. My GUESS is that it will be fairly fast initially as: Reyes (NC wanted to move to Mathis last year but could not because of the OL's performance as a whole and Reyes performance in that result) was a solid NFL starter last year, Fowler (the Vikes got better moving from Withrow to Fowler under Culpepper and pulled off 6 straights wins with Fowler snapping to Johnson, an coincidentally I would guess lost the playoffs coinciding with Fowler going down to injury) was a good NFL starter in long episodes though not a full season last year. Peters (highly touted by JMac as a propspect) was at least adequate as a starter in his few appearances. Villariial (solid starter in the past but getting a little long in the tooth) is a good NFL starter while he lasts. Gandy (the biggest surprise last year as he proved to be adequate for 16 games) is an adequate starter last year. Given 2 of the 5 starters last year (MW and Anderson) proved to be substandard players and that Teague had some good moments but could be bullrushed off the line, I think it is not unreasonable at all to expect this OL to start off as quite adequate and maybe even a little better, but the back-up issues are uncertain at best and actually quite problematic and likely it will get bad unless something extraprdinary and unusual happens,

Levi Jones who went to Cincy at around #10 in retrospect was by far the correct LT choice to make in this draft/