Pyrite Gal

Definitely a great post as it reminds folks that while it is certainly totslly correct to point out that the Bills need a ton of work on the OL for it to even be adequate (well duhh), that to merely say this obvious fact without acknowledging the reality that: 1. They got rid of folks who were big players on this non-productive OL and clarly are going in a different direction. 2. They have acquired new performers and likely starters at 2 of the 5 OL positions and actually 3 of 6 position if one counts a blocking TE as part of the OL. 3. The attitude seems to be save the best and leave the rest. This leaves open a lot of questions (LG) but at least there are options there and even if the best isn't very good, one side effect is that it will not take much to make things better. The OL will almost certainly be better the question though is whether it will be adequate?

I agree that the guys we chose for the OL on the second day have at best been a horrible disappointment (as had the record produced by the 1st day picks a well. However, there are actually several different accusations which are made against the Bills generally and also against TD specifically and the factoids you provde actually go a bit of the way in supporting some of these allegations but also in undercutting some of these allegations as false or unreasonable/ Hor example: 1. TD is accused of neglecting the OL and focusing elsewhere (specificslly skill players). Based on the names you provide this certainly does not appear to be the case at least in comparison to past Bills efforts. TD oversaw 4 of the drafts of the 15 you site (a bit over 26%). Yet OL is one of two positions from which he chose a player in each draft he oversaw. Of these a hair over 26% of the second day OL picks and actually 2 of the 7 (a hair over 28%) of the first day OL picks were om TDs watch. Perhaps an accusation that TD under-emphasized the OL as Butler did for over 10 years would be valid, but it simply does not match the figures to claim there was some sudden TD neglect of the OL compared to 15 years of Bills activities. I think it is far more legit to claim that he chose players not worthy of resigning (MW and Jennings) than to claim he neglected this area. If someone wants to make the claim that TD (or the Bills braintrust in general as their record of draft focus on OL is the same or worse than his) then they would need to make a showing that the Bills attention to drafting OL players trailed the league badly as a whole. Folks can pick out an example of one team's line-up as a contrast to the Bills, but this cherry picking does not substantiate the point that Bills draft focus was different than that of most teams. 2. We picked a lot of not very good players on the OL- The list of nsmes is actually quite remarkable as beyond Ruben there really are not any "franchise" players here who really held down their spot and qualified even somewhat regularly for the Pro Bowl. Yet, this points out the import of the MW choice being a bad one and them not developing a late drafter player into a reliable starter as if this had happened even once the final numeric output (and likely the anecdotes told about this would change radicially. 3. Alot more research is needed to substantiate a lot of these claims- They focus upon the draft which is one important area of team building and OL building, but as the case of Jason Peters, a starter who was a UDFA, Chris Villarial shows as a starter who was an FA, and even the attempt to pluck whathis name from Baltimore's PS who started briefly for the Bills at LG in place of failed draft picks like Pacillo and Sullivan, the draft is only part of the story in terms of OL and team building. This strikes me as a good effort and a real contribution to the duscussion, but these factoids merely add more questions than answer questions about out OL issues.

Sorry, between the subject of thread, you saying that the illness increased Faircgild's clout over the past and that the result was more passes, I made a false assumption as to the intent of your point.

Back in the day I used to lead Outward Bound style trips with kids from Philly, NYC and NJ along the Appalachian Trail and the Delaware Rr.(which was great since for a kid from NYC it might as well been the Colorado or real whitewater). As a co-leader used to say when we would try to explain to ourselves why some kid did something irrational. :Don't look for logic where there isn't any."

Given the success which the Rams had throwing the ball to Faulk a whole lot under Martz, it does not make sense to me that the Rams O was liberated by his illness to suddenly throw more to the RB

Sure. I would not allow him to impregnate my daughter thats for sure after reading this interview, but that is a completely different question from do I want him to be on my football team. I think the answer is yes if he proves to have what some are calling on TSW "high football character". The definitions of this vary but it mostly seems to revolve arounf putting team first over individual exploits. We have seen tons of guys who do in fact put team first and are great folks to play the game with, even though they are lousy people in other regards, total idiots in terms of intellect or some other issue. I mean would you have wanted your daughter to date Jim Kelly (and this definitely means have pre-marital sex with him from all I have heard) when he was a Bill? Most of us would answer no. Would you have wanted him to be your quarterback? Most of us would answer yes. Clearly, there are buffoons like TO who are great football players but who do not put team first and these cancers are to be avoided like the plague IMHO. Theoretically, WM's reprehensible attitude toward "baby Moms" might end up being a cancer and he should be gotten rid of if it does. However, he has shown great potential as an RB in his truncated first two seasons as a Bill. If he can be trained and an offense can be called which also turns him into a receiving threat he could become one of the Bills greats (read carefully davemcb it is a real fact which we should be quite happy about that he rushed for 2000 yards quicker than any Bill in history including TT and Juice, but though this is reason why folks who want to get rid of him are stupid, it does not make him better than TT). Unless WM begins to exhibit some signs of being a cancer on this team or getting arrested or operating in some other manner that impaact stuff on the field, they are life issues but not football issues qwhich to me is little more than an escape from real life. So read the interview and take my advice, please do not be impreganted by Willis. Read the stat sheet however, and unless he does some crime that invades the locker room or is hated by his teammates rather than just some of us lowly fans, take my advice and root for him as a member of the Bills.

The funny thing is that if I was looking to develop JP then I also would say a couple of things and let the word out around the edges that I am hopeful about Nall. If JP caves in based on this rhetotical and off-fiefd assessment of Nall, the JP ain't gonna survive real competion when it comes. If this Madden07esque challenge from Nall causes JP to rise up and turn his potential into reality on the field then he is our guy. Jauron or Levy would be making the same stupid mistake Ralph made in assuming Jimbo would last another year (or more), that Butler made by rushing TC into start when Jimbo got concussioned out the game and in reaching for Hobert and in giving RJ a bonus too early, and that TD made first inextending Bledsoe and then in handing the job to JP. Either this gets decided on the field or we are in for a likely world of hurt if Jauron or Levy has already decided who the QB starter is.

There are two truths here: 1. A amount of luck and guesswork involved in any mock draft is easily proportional to the amount of time prior to that draft the mock is done. 2. Even a mock draft done the moment before the draft occurs is going to be significantly wrong. (If there is someone out there who got all or even any of the first round trades correct I'd love to see them). The point someone made about the Bills being tempted by Quinn only if all their potential QBs dissapoint is true. However, if the Bills miss the playoffs yet again because of QB failure, I doubt they are going to be looking for yet another QB of the future in the draft to cure our ills. This team will be much more likely to look to address their QB needs by investing in the 2007 version of a Daunte Culpepper and backing him up with the latest failed glamour past first round pick in the 2007 version of Harrington. I think it is quite unlikely we look to QUinn, because if our QBs fail then we look to more immediate help in FA, and if iur hopes either JP or Nall develop then getting a Quinn is unnecessary. If you want Quinn then the best hope is that Holcomb proves good enough to get to the playoffs, but for some reason we are not one player away from picking up an immediate contributor in the 2007 1st and we comfortably can pick Quinn who is quite unlikely to contribute to the team which drafts him until 2008 at best and certainly will not lead the team as a rookie (note that even the one great success QB for the team which drafted him since Dallas chose Aikman in 1989, was RoboQB for Pitts and it really was the Bus and several other players who led this team rather than the QB).

Thank you for noting this as the argumentr that davee keeps making is not about the point I am making. I agree completely with him that Thurman is a much better RB that Willis because Thurm excelled at both the running and the receiving fame while Willis only (though only does say a lot here) only at the running game. It seems fairly obvious to me and I'm glad you also realize the running aspect is all I am referring to and not making a case that WM is better than TT. I also with your two final points as this has little to do with JP and I only raised it here as a counter extreme but factually correct view to the extreme and generally factually correct Holcomb's Arm post and also that the bottom line for Bills fans is Wiilis is the Bills RB and that like any player he has good points and not so good points and Bills fans would seem likely to hope we build on his good production and minimize his weak areas.

One can cherry pick teams to show the draft is not where the lionshare of their of their strength comes from (About 1/3 of the NE team which won an SB for the 2001 season was actually acquired after June 1st and the draft role as far as import was not first day pick Bledsoe but 6th round pick Brady which I think speaks to the case that even though the draft is important its not the most important part of team building or that the draft did provide key players) or vice-versa. I have not found or had the time to look for a summary of how many NFL players remain on the team which drafted them, but if someone has these figures or is able to take the time to figure this out for the Bills or for the NFL as a whole that would tell us alot and i for one would be quite grateful to see it. I think the factoid which has not been controverted by any objective assessment I have seen is that TD has said that only about 50% of even first round choices disappoint. If this is true (and if it isn't I'd love to see than just some one's fact-free opinion showing it isn't) it exemplifies that the draft can reasonably considered a crapshoot rather than the primary team building tool. I think folks get fooled by the fact that good players have to come from somewhere and in general good players are drafted to make the leap that a team is in fact drafting good players. Teams actually draft players also that are better college players than pros, they draft good players but fail to develop them, they draft good players but have better playerson the depth chart they cannot supplant, and most all there are 31 other teams out there taking away the players they judge to be good. What a team is left with is not the the lionshare of the future each year, but with 8 or so players half who whom are gonna be gone in 2 years. After 4 years, only a couple of those players drafted are going to be with the same team even if they remain in the NFL. Also, the description you make of the Bills drafts are simply humorous. One could make a description of the same years and state the charitable side of the case (and actually the fact that about 3 years are needed to assess a draft) and make a totslly different case. Do you think the description below has "facts" that are objectively wrong: 2001: Nate Clements. Result: Choice made the Pro Bowl in 2004 and even after he regressed last year still merited a top 5 CB salary. Hit 2002: Mike Williams. Result: Bust 2003a: traded for Drew Bledsoe. Result: released after three years after a very good first year and a bust second Just as cutting him after drafting him cost NE even an appearance in the playoffs the year they won the SB, cutting Bledsoe after resigning him resulted in an accerated cap hit that made life difficult last year for the Bills. Result: Awash as far as the draft pick but resigning him was dumb 2003b: Willis McGahee. Result: Rushed for more yards than any Bill ever in his first two years. Still a season too early to summarize the utility of the pick 2004a: Lee Evans. Result: Evans has yet to prove he can be the go-to guy but former #1 WR Moulds threw a hissy-fit and got suspended after Evans was the focal point of the O and he was the decoy leading to 3 Evans TDs in 1 quarter. Still too early to conclude but Bills were quite comfortable in making this choice their #1 WR. 2004b: J.P. Losman. Result: Yet to start 16 games for the Bills in a season yet disappoints some who expect every 1st round QB to produce like Ben RoboQB, when actually the record of 1st round selected QBs producing SB wins for the team which drafted him are quite dismal. Again it is still to early to rationally draw conclusions on a first two years which is as disappointing for Bills fans as Eric Moulds first two years were. The draft is a lot of fun, but its fun because its such a crapshoot.

Actually you should start with TD's bad coaching pick of GW rather than choosing Fox (which few saw how productive he would be) or working hard to attract Marvin Lewis to come here (many suspected how productive he would be, and though I think his choice to pick an HC is was more sure woould not run him out oftown like Cowher did (or if his hired HC did turn on him, make sure he could beat him) then we'd be talking about a different level of Bills success. TD did follow in the footsteps of Butler and Ralph in badly managing and putting too much focus on the need to find the next Jim Kelly at QB. However, his draft record like everyone else's had its misses, and the pick of MW turned out to be a huge failure. However, the idea that draft mismangement was TDs prime weakness overestimates the import of the draft The draft is an important tool because good players have to come from somewhere and good players get drafted. However weighing against this general truth for an individual team is that actually in any and every given year the draft represents about 8/53rds of the roster and is simply a small part of a team in a given year. Even more notable is that it really is likely only the 2 or so of the 1st day selections who will start and contribute to the team in the year they are picked and maybe 1 or 2 players taken on the 2nd day. Yhe draft is tremendously entertaining, but for reasons that have as much to do with why the NY Lotto is popular and the tremendous advertising job done by ESPN coverage and the resulting industry of draft guru publications. The emergence of fantasy football hsd also hyped this tool far beyond its pivotal nature in team building. Its an important tool, nut far from the only or the most important tool in team building. TD had his MW misses and the 2002 draft is singular in players not working out in the long run. However, TD actually pulled off some nice hits as well that seemingly are not acknowledged by those who claim he was a total draft failure and actually he did his best work by trading away his 1st round pick tp address immediate needs )the Bledsoe move was great initially as he got a Pro Bowl reserve QB in 2002 for nothing given that year and then played the market well to re=establish a prescence in the 1st round. He again used that pick correctly for team building by getting WM who was a great value on draft value boards prior to his injury and then sitting him for a year so he could recover. I doubt if TD had the picks he traded for JP it would have made not much difference at all in 2005 as most of those picks would have been bench warmers all season anyway.

It's the fact that even a rabid Bills fan such as yourself had never seen this article is part of the reason why though I think Butler owes fans no more apolgies and explanation (he does that and now just needs to never let it happen again) the Bills as a corporation which has told its customers it is going after high character guys they need to be proactive in explaining why Butler fits this requirement. Butler owes no more explanations, but the Bills made a separate representation to their customers and if they want to retain credibility they need to be proactive and not hide behind claims of protecting or respecting Butler.

Without some other clear signs that is psrt of some pattern of behavior or more directly related to some breakdown in discipline this is little more than a minor issue which says more about the viewer drawing large conclusions from this than the event itself. It would be silly to conclude that what happened here was actually MM telling JP to take off his shoes and put his feet on the desk to fool the reporter coming in about how laid back they are as to ascribe this episode to be a sign of some huge issue. Both reads on this situation are silly and we would need a lot more to draw any real conclusions.

For me the key thing starts with actual results on the field rather than some soap opera estimation of whether he great or bad attitude. If one finds the results lacking (as one obviously should in terms of JPs performance so far. The next questions are has he shown talent over his careeer (college and pro since there actually only a relatively limited set of appearances for him as a Bill) and has he shown progress, It would only be after making this assessment that I might get into the difficult to know and specify issues of "attitude: IF (a big IF) I think they may have made a difference in his performance on the field and ability to improve. This strikes me as the bottomline: 1. Does he have the talent to succeed as an NFL QB? This to me is a different question than whether he was worth a first round draft choice. I do not think he was and actually tend to doubt that almost any QB can really lead the team which drafted him to the SB. RoboQB was the first one to puill this off last year but he was the first 1st round QB pick to pull this off for the team which selected him since Dallas chose Aikman in 89. Even Manning, as great of a player as he is has never gotten his fiends to the Big Dance unless he bought them tickets. However how he was acquired is simply water under the bridge as far as the issue of improving him goes and the was he worth a 1st rounder is at most an interesting distraction from the real question. Overall, I think the answer to this question is yes. In collefe he was certainly an untamed and poorly trained talent, but he was a talent nonetheless. His ability to throw the ball a country mile off the wrong foot (and even with a sense of accuracy and pace sometimes) while running for his life which he showed at Tulane is a rare thing If he had stayed in and had a performance which would have been a normal progression for a college player, it appears he easily would have been the 1st QB taken that year (Aaron Rodgers slipped to 18 and probably top 10 or top 4 pick given how hysperventilated folks get about QBs, He obviously needed a lot of training since only the occaisional Micheal Vick or Dante Culpepper makes a living running for their life as their style of play, but my answer is yes he has the basic talent but had a primary need to be trained. 2. How is that training and development going? In fits and starts with some significant forward progress, but also some significant stalls. However, in my judgment, its about what one would expect being trained within a totally disrupted team. A. I liked what I saw initially such as in his rookie pre-season performances where he showed ability and a command of himself and play to be doing positive things on the field. This of course was against vanilla Ds with a bunch of scrubs playing so one should not have declared this a done deal, but I liked what I saw initially. B. The injury set back his play but actually play against the pro and at pro speed was only one of the things he needed )and actually among the lesser essentials) as I felt he needed a bit of study and play booksmarts in his quest to slow the game down so he could use his body and athleticism well. C. He also got a necessary lesson when he was "throw in" to the NE game to mop-up for bledsoe. He learned you gotta be ready to play whenever you put the uniform on and that relying on only athlecism aint gonna cut it. D. I think the most impressive learning he has shown was in a series of mop-ups during the streak where his play results progress from a delay of game first time he was in the huddle in a real game and he failed to exercise control, but in his second game though he still had not gained control of the game yet, he kept control of himself and called a TO (the 5 yards saved in avoiding the penalty proved critical later in his converting a third down on a freelance scramble, then he again was productive in his next outing this time hitting a critical 3rd down pass rather than relying on the scramble to convert. In each of these outings he achieved the major goal which was to scored and move the clock. E. He stalled out (and in some minds took a step back) in being given he starter role before he was ready. Its really impossible to judge the depth of this flameout IMHO because it came in the midst of total team meltdown as the team seem to sense TD was playing for the future and the D failed to stop the run. Then the meltdown occured leading to the deserved canning of TD and the resignation of MM. Was JP central to this meltdown? Yep. His play was not productive and the team's meltdown IMHO was firmly linked to the Ds sense that TD had turned 05 into a preseason to train JP rather than giving them a BAD but still the BEST we could do with what we had chance to win with Bledsoe. Was bad play by JP central to this meltdown? Yep. One cannot look at the O performance, see the hissy-fit by Moulds, ot hear players and team leaders like Fletcher state the obvious and not know bad production by JP was central to the meltdown. Is he done as a player? NO WAY. It would simply be dumb, bad football and bad team development to give up on him now. He has a lot of talent (though it has not- and may never be- trained to go in the right direction), we have a ton invested financially in him which can only be realized if he works out, in the NFL the hisstory has been QB development can take some time and occur successfully after some horrendous starts. While you do not want to fall into the trap of sticking with a loser because he may work out, the only answer is to strike a balance and run away from a Favre or Steve Yound before they blossom. It comes down to striking the right balance in an individual case. As far as JP goes he has shown talent yet be turned into productivity, and we have a cash investment which we can only make payoff if we give him a chance in camp o beat out Nall and Holccomb, may the best man win is far more intelligent than pulling a TD an anointing someone based on GM or fan thinking rather than playing it out on the field.

I an also interested to see if anyone has any objective evidence of a "bad attitude" on the part of JP as I haven't seen anything specific or even implied by his words that say bad attitude, On the contrary, he did go on record on a TV interview (hence no linky) where he responded a question when Bledsoe was cut of saying that he had gotten the job "the wrong way" instead of with his results on the field but he would do the best he could, Much of the anti-JP rantings I have seen really amount to the fact-fee opinions which we all have a right on TSW but there really is little objective evidence to support these claims. Another favorite argument of these ranters is to claim that any questioning of their lack of substansenated claims is in fact an endorsement that JP is great, should be our QB regardless of how he performs, or some other extreme or outlandish claim. Just because one is not ready to cut JP does not mean you think he is great. JPs performance flat out sucked last year, but this does not mean that he should be cut and actually does not mean that he should not get a shot at starting this year IF he earns it on the field. The bad news for folks that hate JP is that actually, barring either Nall or Holcomb producing well enough in pre-season or practice then actually is at least first among equals due to his contract and the investment on him. Unless Nall or Holcomb play very good ball, then all JP will need to do to deserve the starting job is play OK and show ge gas potential. Its not my preference I just think this is a reality as the NFL used to be a sport that also happened to be a business and now it is a business that happens to be a sport, As an addition to what I see as a balanced view of the JP situation, there are a couple of "grace notes" where folks may find evidence of bad attotude by JP if they widh to explore it: 1. It was definitely my "feeling" that the hit on him that injured him pre-season before last was a shove put on him by Troy Vincent when JP was wearing the "no-touch" QB practice tutu. my recollection is that he was taking advantage of the fact players could not tackle him in practice to bail out and pull off runs when he saw pressure. There may be evidence of JP being a lttle to enthused about making these fake runs and that i why Vincent pushed an unprepard JP and gave him a boo-boo. 2. Another case where there may be evidence of a wayward attitude by JP is in the first NE game where apparently it was a surprise to JP and all the Bills that it was him rather than Shane Matthews who went in to play mop=up after NE gad killed Bledsoe. However, a douvting Thomasina would still need to give some other evidence of bad attitude on JPs part to go with any found here because, in both cases JP did say things on the record afterwards that indicated the message sent was valid and he learned from it.

I do not see why one must believe that either GW sucked or TD sucked. These two points are not mutually exlcusive at all. I have no problem saying and have said almost from the start (though there was some benefit of the doubt I was willing to give him) that TD did deserve to be fired un the end and his first and I think biggest mistake was hiring an HC whom he knew he could beat if push came to shove as it did in Pitts with Cowher. TD waited until all the HC slots except for his were filled and he had maxinum leverage. He then passed on Fox (who I knew little about and did not advocate for but his results indicate he would have been a far better choice) nor did he attract Lewis here (whose record also indicates he would have been a far better choice) and instead said he was blown away by the lists and contacts of GW. Look, the proof is in the results and is confirmed by the incidents here which produced those results, GW was (and may still well be) a great DC but he was not ready to be a successful HC in this league. Part of TDs power approach to make sure he was never again fired by a guy he hired, seemed to be to allow GW to make (what now seem to be seemingly obvious) failures as long as he did not get blamed for it. 1. TD sucked in letting GW select an OC who proved to be so bad he was canned after one year. 2, TD sucked in letting GW hore the OC he wanted (Kevin Killdrive) who proved to be so inflexible that once opponents got some film on his O they were able to completely stymie our offense. TDs candidate Clements obviously had his failings also but he was quite productive running an O that even got some production out of Bledsoe after the Killdrive O under Bledsoe went something like 9 straights quarters with no TDs in GW's last year. 3, My major problem with TD managing GW was that he put things in place for GW to manage his OC (he got an old buddy who was a former OC as our RB coach, but he never forced GW to rein Killdrive in. I do not see how you can credibly argue that GW would have been a good HC if only ol Whitey had not been around, GW is one of the prime reasons why Ol' Whitey deserved to get canned for making bad hires.

Since I brought up Dougy Wougy as one of the lead candidates among those WHO DO NOT DESERVE AT ALL TO BE ON THE WALL, I actually agree with much you say. I'd actually add a requirement to your summary of great on field performance to say that one of the things which makes a great player great is that he makes and forces the other players around him to perform better. This actually is one of the areas where Dougy falls short in my book. Even though he did help his teammates perform better on the field because he simply gave a DC fits trying to gameplan for him and by often drawing a spy made it harder to double other guys, he took getting boned up the arse by Butler so badly he divided the fan base and thus his team. He is a guy you want on the field at crunch time because he simply finds a way (be it with Phelan, for Grey Cups, or even playing QB the vast majority of last two seasons we made the playoffs) to win. Yet, he diminished the teams performance for the long run because he could did not find a way to overcome Butler and Ralph running scared when they miscaluculated how long Jimbo would last. I think it would be unfair to be too harsh on him got not dealing with being boned well, but we are talking about who deserves the honor of being on the Wall of Fame, He doesn't deserve that honor at all, even though I find it very hard to poo poo a player who played QB ion our last two teams to make the playoffs. Myve thw RJ,AVP,Bledsoe,JP (to date) performances are fine by you (or TC for that matter), but I think their is a marked difference in the Fluties result for the Bills since 1996. As far as marketing and hyoe not being part of the equation, I can understand that, but if this is such a bedrock rule then change the name for one thing (I hate to say it but FAME does count for something on the Wall of FAME) and you may as well take the 12th Man off the WoF then because hype and overexcite is what we fans are about.

Much like today's Sabres, I think the crew which made 4 straight SBs accomplished things and were individually famous because of what they achieved as a team.. I think the team accomplishments have not been notable since the last SB and thus its is quite difficult to identify any individual who was so good in their own right that they deserve the WOF. I think Eric Moulds was likely the best player and certainly the best athlete on the team during this time period, but his great failing was that he was the best player on a team that accomplished not much out of norm even in his and their best years. Ironically, the player who I think most deserves to be up there from this time period, THOUGH I THINK OVERALL HE DOES NOT DESERVE IT (I said MOST deserves not does deserve it) the person who gets closes to WOF credentials is none other than Doug Flutie. In two consecutive playoff runs he was clearly the leader of this team on the field and its best producer (as spotty as he was in his second run when he had to play a full season he was breaking down at the end. He was a player who made those around him better. His best argument is that he was so famous they even named a cereal after him. Still, he falls short IMHO of deserving WOF status because his time of achievement here was too short and ultimately he proved not be a team player because due to the big chip on his short shoulders andreacted badly to being screwed first by Butler (who promised him a shot at competing for the QB job on the field and reneged on his word by giving the job (and a huge contract to the injury prone RJ) and then by Ralph who was impressed enough with the RJ led team rolling over and Indy team that had given up in the game on improving their lot in the playoffs. Of the folks mentioned, I think of Hansen more as an early 90s than a later 90s Bill.

Its officially gonna be against the Hurricanes and thus both teams will be merely practicing for almost a week rather than playing real games. Its fairly silly in terms of selling the sport nationally, but will give some time for fans to work themselves up into a frenzy her in Buffalo. It will be equal for both teams in that they both will be equally rusty, but provide time for eveyone to heal their nicks a bit.

It probably matters when the other conference semifinal gets done. If Carolina beats the Devils in their next game and closes this series out, then i would not be surprised if they start the conference final series sooner even though I think the other team has home ice advantage either way. While you have to have one team cool their jets and simply practice (and sometimes get rusty) waiting for the other team to finish, I'm not sure if the NHL wants to lose momentum for their product by having both teams sit at home waiting for the conference final to start.

I'm not sure my read on the Bills interpretation of their needs under TD and now after are the same. What credible reports have you seen of TD having much real desire to get Nuge even if he had been available in the 2nd round or attempting the insanity of trading up to get him. All I saw indicates to me that TD desperately wanted Lindell to work out as our kicker and he devoted a ton of time to pressuring and working with Lindell to perform rather than spending that time to make a deal. One of the great mistakes of TD reign of error was when he made the comment good kickers are a dime a dozen when he cut Christie and this was followed by various Bills K faux pas like Ariens, and then the guy they cut who then did a good job for CIN, and their acquisition but inabiliy to resign whathisname. TD was forced to swallow a bunch of crow having to reach deep to sign Lindell, I see no indication that the talk of Bills interest in Nuge was little more than typical NFL and Bills misdiretion regarding their interests anddrafting him would not only futher force the TD ego to admit error getting Lindell but added the slotted 1st round contract of Nuge to the ugly cost. Regarding both TDs final days and post days I think the key here is that the Bills finally got a clue that a big part of this was the idiocy of hinng never before OL position coach Vinky and then replacing him with an equally inexperieced Ruel. It was not that he neglected to expend signficant resources on OL, its that after spending draft choices (some the most significant draft choices) on: MW, Jennings, Sullivan, Pacillo, and a host of others and FA resoures on Teague, Villarial and TDFAs like Peters, the Bills simply failed at getting it done. The key here is that despite his protests that he is no miracle worker, can the Blls get a miracleout of JMac and hus non-draft acquisitions, Gandy. Reyes, Fowler, Villarial and Peters.

The question is whether are enough high character guys under the constraints of team building with the salary cap. My sense is that if you used a tougher standard for character that you only want players of high moral character and players like WM are likely gone. Alternately, you might want to restrict the test to merely football character (good acts on the field but unless he gets arrested and goes to jail so he cannot play its fine), However, even this test would mean getting of Jim Kelly during his Bills day and opens you up to legit questioning about the meaning of taking a guy who pulled a cheapshot after the play on a fellow athlete (re: Butler, I think thee are good responses to any questions about the Bills character standard and Butler as he has already been punished and apologized owes no explanation though the Bills should explain their standard and why Butler fits it as I think he does). I think it is probably possible to build a winner with the relatively loose standard of high football character, but some tough decisions are gonna probably have to be made as these great athletes are really pampered little boys for the most part despite being beyond the age of majority.

Another thread got me thinking about this question. I think it seems clear from Marv's comments that what he is talking about maintaing a standard of getting guys with high "football" character rather than setting a standard of high moral character in terms of their interactions with the outside world) [i think the choice of the lighter standard lets folks like Willis McGahee off the hook in terms of the Bills looking to cut him for some less than high character perspectives he articulated about dealing with the two "baby momma" he interacts with who were women he was not married to who gave birth to his 15 month old and 5 month old children- regadless of the stance you take on moral issues I do not think anyone is claiming his articulated perspectives represent high character, but unless they impact his play on the field they do not appear to be relevant to the Bills's character standard.] Nevertheless using even the lower standard of high football character, it seems to me that many of the great players on the early 90s Bills team would need to be cut if one enforced a high football character standard. For example. even ignoring his arrest and beating the rap with the sleep apnea claim, there were repeated accusations of Bruce Smith showing low football character by being a teammate who repeatedly missed even mandatory practices an games in pre-season with various medical claims, Fortunately, these maladies miraculously were cured and never effected his play when regular season started. However, i think his flaunting of the rules made it clear that there was one set of rules for teammates and another set for other teammates. Perhaps the lack of discipline which always seemed linked to our repeated SB losses in part came from the reported lack of discipline as players went partying during SB week (this likely only really had an effect in the 1st loss as we smply got beat by better teams in the 2nd and 3rd losses and if a few of the guys did not have hangovers at the games we would have lost by 4-14 instead of 14 or more. Likewise, I don't think anyone expects HOF player Jim Kelly to pass a high character moral test as a young player (back in the days of reports of him throwing drinks in woman faces or even later leading up to his post-pro days when his restaurantt left msny Buffalo small businesses hold the tab when his resaturant closed up or his odd trip to Alaska to shoot bambi where his plane crash story simply made no sense). But even ignoring a standard of high moral character, his behavior as a teammate of on the field involved glorious play (that deserves an HOF berth IMHO) which was also accompanied by questionable low character behavior as one of the mainstays of the Bickering Bills where he called out (unfairly as I recollect) temmates like Howard the House Ballard publicly with thinly veiled comments rather than confronting them privately or even semi-publicly only in the lockerroom. but instead brought this catfight to the press. Its interesting that though the Bills piblicly said they wanted Moulds to be a Bills they really traded him for peanuts to the Texans. I'm happy that we got seemingly higher character football players like Whitner, but i do wonder if the Bills actually avoid low football players whether this will nake for easier management but a less successful team.

I agree generally alot with this point. The problem for Marv is that he is and always has benn "The General" of a team which operates in reality. Though he and we may want men who operate at the standards of high character both on and off the field. These two do not always occur at the same time. I think Marv has said based on some of the comments from Marv sited in this thread that he really means high football character guys and not high outside world morality chatacter guys. Thus, the comments of a player like Willis McGahee in a recent ESPN interview which show a character regarding raising his own children and the "baby mommas" (there are actually two women whom he has never been married who are mothers of his children) who bore them is at least questionable and in any case does no represent high outside world character is not necessarily a factor for him in choosing high character players. I think the much more difficult question for Marv is that when and the team selects a player who by most admissions (even his own appaently and certainly his university's when they suspended him) who made a chepashot on the footbal field how this fits with his announced plan to his customers that this is gonna be even a high character football team. I think there are good answers to this legit question regarding Butler, and though Butler has already been asked and answered these questions to this customer's satisfaction, I think the Bills declaration to their customers puts this corporation (which is a different thing than the individual Butler) on the hotseat where I hope the Bills are proactive about laying out the reasons why Butler may be a high character guy despite this classless cheapshot caught on videotape. I think the more interesting question for Marv is that I think when we look back at the roster of Bills on the historic early 90s team, there is a legitimate question it seems to be whether many of those Bills would have met a football (not to mention an off the field) character tests and been members of this team. I think that Bruce Smith for example would be a person who almost certainly would not have passed am off-field character test (his public behavior leading to his arrest and claim of sleep apnea) and many questions have been raised because he always played fast and loose with illness claims (leading to him not participating in training camp) which led to question about his true level of illness which caused him to miss a playoff game. I beilive him regarding the fever which cost him the playoff game and even am willing to support the legal system giving hm the benefit of the doubt regarding sleep apnea. However, there is still a question with him playing games to avoid camp requirements (requirements in his contract which he avoided which actually never effected his play as best as I can tell) which I would not describe as high character. Beyond Bruce it seems to me quite clear that HOF player Jim Kelly would fail any high character test involving his behavior in the outside world and even on the team where rather than calling out his teamates privately or publicly within the locker room, he was a mainstay of the Bickering Bills with his thinly veiled public calling out of Howard the House Ballard among others. I think one of the best things about Marv is that he somehow was able to hold together as a team a bunch of talented men who invested in a number of low character public acts some of which directly impacted the team. It strikes me that if we actually suceed in producing a high character team even using the low standard of high football character) that this means we will need to win without players such as Jimbo, Bruce or the suspended but we said we still wanted him Eric Moulds.

I though it was pretty obvious that I meant by my shorthand that he was not ready for an HC job as he clearly had been around for awhile in the NFL and was a very successful DC, I guess what I assume is quite obvious is not to some and thus my posts will have to be even longer as I recite all the detail I assume I could skip.