Pyrite Gal

Many thanks for your well researched and recited post which began this thread! I think you do provide compelling stats which show that the simple fact is Jauron has produced a mediocre record as an HC and that in the small world of HCs who last long enough to HC 100 games his record is among the worse. However, I agree with those such as BADO and C. Bisc who note that a fuller examination of the context surrounding the simple stats reveals a more complex truth than a simple (or complex) recitation of the stats. Overall, I think you provide statistical proof of the old saw that HCs get too much credit for the success of their teams and too much blame. It is flat out correct IMHO that Bill Belicheck is one of the best game coaches in NFL history (a night game a few years back where the Pats were being fairly well outplayed by their opponent and BB simply worked with the Pats to just hang around and the opponent simply failed through dumb luck a lot of times to stick a fork in the Pats, BB had the Pats take a safety late in the game in order to get better field position and then as the opposing coaches were not aggressive his D stuffed 'em and they pulled off a low-chance late game drive for the TD which led them to victory- I was impressed) and he also is excellent at choosing lieutenants like Charlie Weis and Romeo Crennel who lead his units to perform well. Belicheck also produces an great sense of being a TEAM amongst his team which I think is a key to their winning a bunch of SBs. Ironically, he has done this through positive efforts such as introducing the Pats as a team in the 01 season SB rather than as individuals. Picking Brady (a piece of skilled luck if I ever saw one as they easily could have ended up without him if any of 31 other teams had been smart enough to spend a lowly 5th round choice on the man who is arguably the best player in the NFL in his era) proved to be the ultimate making lemonades out of lemons since my sense is that if the Jet had not sidetracked Bledsoe with a collapsed lung that likely the main thing which might have kept Belicheck from being on your list is that he may have gotten canned in NE before he HC'ed his 100th game. Yet, despite the fact that a review of the W/L record clearly shows BB to be one of the best HC's, he will always be Bill BELLICHEAT to me because of some clear flaws in his personality which led him to antics like oversight of NE whie they were breaking the rules filming other teams sending in signals, to his about face with the NYJ offered him the HC job and he accepted it and then rejected it, to the irony that part of his building a sense of TEAM with the Pats not only included good moves like the SB intro, but also him uniting his team when he stupidly miscalculated and mishandled Lawyer Milloy's contract. He united his team in that they all hated him and publicly called him out for mismanaging the Milloy negotiations. Fortunately for them this unity came in handy with SB winning results when they suffered some key injuries and really came together as a team. I say all this as a heartfelt testimonial to the stats which would underly a claim of BB being the best, but as far as this fan is concerned, it is an open question for me whether winning as the Pats have would be worth it to me as a fan if they only way to revel in this results means I would have to also buy into and back Bilicheat's actions and act. This is of course biased by my history as a rooter for the Bills but there is no question for me that given a choice between having the four SB losses to the lovable but full of warts Bills teams or the current success of the Bilicheat/Kraft led Pats, i would take the Bills and both their success and failures over being a Pats fan with the cost/benefit of victory but rooting for Belicheat. It is important what the record of success for an HC is and Jauron's total record falls short as you clearly show. However, there is more than just winning games for me as a fan I want from my HC and like it or not Jauron seems to show a lot of that as an HC. Does this forgive all failings? UNEQUIVOCALLY NO IMHO. However, of the real world reasons which provide the context of Jauron's records are linked to the team getting better or at least holding its own, I am happy to give him a pass for a short period of time. In the modern game from my perspective, the time I am willing to give a pass is certainly shorter now. As long as the team shows positive progress and good explanations (which in my mind are not used as mere excuses) this fan is willing to hang with an HC or a player for three seasons of fan worship. I might even give a (meaningless in the real world) fan extension of a year before I refuse to suspend judgment. By HCing a 5-11 team to 7-9 and then producing the same record despite like it or not a league leading number of players on the IR, I think I can easily and it is quite fair to give virtual total rooting support to Jauron for the 08 season. Even with the highlights of his accomplishments in the past (a 13-3 year and being an HC for 100 games) have clear cavets and warts to them, I think he reasonably gets another year because the simple fact is that between the ball being oddly shaped and refs sometimes blowing the coin flip, his record of achievements could easily be altered by his Bill's team building on the last two years to make the playoffs or to have another mediocre season. To me, the primary failings that might likely block the Bills from making the playoffs is that as a first time OC, Schonert has not demonstrated to me that he can overcome: 1. Our O not having the personnel at TE to make this a useful tool in our receiving game. 2. A virtual complete lack of success producing with the RBs in the receiving game. 3. Uncertainty with our O based on them failing to have a QB who will be the man in leading our team. I also think that concern that our D will be able to get after the QB (sacks are great but consistent pressure is sufficient) and hold the line on the run are legit concerns and the need we have to reload on ST is real. However, given our off-season acquisitions and the record of success with the D side of the game shown in the past by our D braintrust and the ST success of the past, I am not as worried about these unknowns. The open question is whether our braintrust can make our O work, but Jauron's first two years proven results with this team get him pretty full support next year. Its not unequivocal but it has this fan's support.

JP's career is not going nicely along, but it is so far away from bungled this word does not apply at all to the current situation for JP regarding his career. The idea that this alleged "bungling" was all Jauron's doing also departs from reality. I do not think anyone judges JP not to be a talented young QB. Do you make a different judgment? He is a talented young QB coming off an 07 which saw him: 1. Lose his job to an injury caused by the Wilfork hit and Edwards play as a sub. 2. Gain his starting job back when injury force Edwards to the bench in the NYJ game. 3. Saw him just win with the team so that Jauron and the braintrust could not sit him if they wanted to. 4. He called himself out declaring the Jax game make or break for him and do you disagree that he broke? JP is doing fine. It appears doubtful IMHO that he will ever start for the Bills again unless Edwards gets hurt (possible) or sucks incredibly badly (possible also but doubtful to me he will be that bad). JP strikes me as likely: 1. Plays out his time as a Bill with Edwards maintaining the starting slot and then hits FA where this talented young QB operating in a world where GB is starting a QB who never started before, where NYJ is happy to cut their starter when a new possibility comes out of retirement, and MIA is happy to take the NYJ reject as their starting QB. Losman will almost certainly be able to sign a hefty contract as an FA which at worse will be a huge contract with contingencies for performance. 2. Gets a start with the Bills due to injury or failure by Edwards. In this case, he will get the chance to once again prove himself as the QB whom Jauron could not sit last year because he moved the team until Losman himself called himself out against Jax. I doubt JP will ever be the starter for the Bills because to obtain this he would have to: 1. Win the confidence of his teammates who he let down when he called himself out- The good news is this will be quite possible and actually already has started with the good JP performance Sat. 2. Win the confidence of the Bills fans at a game- This is not there, but again should be quite doable if her wins a game. The vocal majority of fans care very much about right here and right now so if JP is winning we will be fine. 3. Win back the confidence of the local media- I doubt this will ever happen as the WGRs and Sullivans of the world have too much money to make out of selling commercials and column inches by ragging on him. There is also a vocal segment of the "fanbase" which gets entertainment from ragging on some rich athlete from the comfort of their couch. This group will be served and egged on by the WGRs of the world and likely will almost never forgive JP's failures. Yet even in the face of this negativism, my sense is that JP will have a career which far exceeds the careers of QBs such as Todd Collins who have even though only episodically successful as an NFL QB have done quite nicely for themselves. Heck Bledsoe has an SB ring he deserves, even RJ has a ring (which he does not deserve as a player IMHO) and things are such in the NFL that a two-time loser like Brad Johnson won a ring. JP's career bungled? Not by a longshot.

This was the exact thought which the post lamenting for the good ol' days when we has a"winning" team in the regular season brought up for me. I think patience through the regular season begins is easily justified. Even if one understands the reality that the 08 Bills ain't the early 90s Bills and that Edwards is not Jimbo not having patience through the second game is a pretty whiny approach to supporting the team.

The small box which my post covers is mostly designed to answer the even smaller box being used by those who seem to simply say Butler is horrible and throw the bum out as this "unproven commodity does nothing. The small box my post throws out there clearly does not do anywhere near a thorough or complete job of discussing Butler's minuses and plusses, it merely attempts to address the question of those who claim to have no idea of knowing why we pay the guy. Sacks are overrated if one is foolish enough to think that is the only reflection of what an OL player is supposed to do. This is why in addition to briefly mentioning the sack total as ONE measure of some accomplishment by the OL with Butler, the original post also mentions the positives of the OL blocking for Lynch allowing him to have an good season for a rookie last year. It would be foolish for anyone to think that one passing game stat is the descriptor of whether an OL player is good. The only thing more foolish than that argument would be for someone to for some reason assume this is the only measure one is using to judge Butler when on the face of it, the post does reference some good results also achieved running the ball. The response post never makes the claim Butler is great (in fact I do not think he is) what is foolish is to question an assertion which is never made in the original post. It merely answers the question, why do we use him. 1. He is better than Preston and a more reliable bet than Whittle (do you disagree) and that rather than being an unproven commodity, Butler has proven with the positives the OL produced last year (do you agree that the sack total was a positive and the Lynch's year was a positive?) My sense that these two showings were a positive though it is totally obvious that they were not adequate in and of themselves as we finished 7-9 and as I have stated repetitively I am very happy Fairchild is gone. The small box is why you seem to argue against idiotic things that were never said or argued for.

We spend money on Butler because: 1. He is the best we got at RG. Preston has had every chance to make this job his and simply has not cut it in anyone assessment (if you can make the case then I sure folks would love to hear it) and Whittle is the back-up in the LG slot and has the experience to make the jump to RG, but he is on the wrong side of 30 and it may be asking a lot to depend on as a back-up who will not get injured much less as a starter. Folks can easily call for a replacement if they want, but these calls get reduced to mere whines and bleating without any suggestions of who folks see as a back-up. To date such complaints have meaningless as they are alternative free or simply silly as the advocate impossible things like calling for an unobtainable player or railing about last year's draft which is done. 2. Rather than unproven as a commodity, Butler had a year with pretty good results last year. With him as a first time starter the OL saw fewer sacks recorded than ever before for the Bills and the running game though not a forced up the gut on short yardage did open up holes enough for Lynch to have a good rookie year. Overall, Butler dropped to the second day of the draft not due to physical talent or skills but because of an episode on horrendous discipline and character on his part. Still all signs point to him being a quality guy besides this sordid episode and if he keeps his nose clean like he did last year he should be a phenomenal get for us.

He was occupied the gunner's role in the beginning of last season until recurring injuries took him out of the line-up quite a bit. He played it sporadically after that as the Bills were shuffling around a lot on ST due to what ended up being an NFL leading number of players on IR. As a CB he has shown the speed required to play the gunner role on coverage and he is a big boy as far as size and seems to like to hit. His main claims to productivity as a Bill have been his one rookie year start against the Jets where essentially injuries to TKO and Crowell while facing off against the rag-armed by whily Pennington, putting in the extra DB making his first start befuddled NYJ in terms of what our D was doing. Beyond, that the logged some back-up time as a player the rest of his truncated rookie year and until the injury problem was actually him making a couple of nice open field tackles as a gunner.

I think the difference between your not atypical fan view and the way the Bills braintrust has fairly consistently has demonstrated its views things differently than the average fan is that they do not view ST play as a luxury item. The simple fact is that IF the only way to be a significant contributor to this team is through being a starter at one of 2 positions and in one or two cases a specialty player like McGee on KR, then they could simply cut half the roster and simply choose back-ups you can put in cold storage until an injury occurs. Youbouty has a shot at being the nickel a long with the sudden plethora of CB talent we have. However, the key role which will determine the extent to which he is a needed member of this team is how he does as a gunner on kick coverage. The prime Youbouty highlighy during his brief career have come from a couple of vicious hits he has made playing the gunner role four team. Particularly with the loss of vets like Wire, Stamer, and Haggan, the release of these players represents the best thing Youbouty has going for him being a Bill.

Is a dangerous game for us in that though we swept both the Fish and the Jets last year they are both gonna improve substantially as teams. The Bad news good news though is that in addition to us competing against teams which have improved NE also will be competing against the two teams, ad quite frankly think it is a good thing for us that NE is gonna face tougher comp from top to bottom in this division rather than allow them to simply mail it against the fish and Jets. It is doubtful we can go 4-0 like before, but 3-1 is easily forseeable as the Bills should be improved by their draft and FA improvements also. If the fish and lamb can squeeze out a split this year wih NE and those teams can steal one from the Pats, I like out chances to try to lead us to a playoff berth. I did not want to see the fish and Jets to improve so much we cannot breathe them, but given I think we can still beat them in regular season its neat to see that NE won't have the ability to mail in their 6 wins before playing the rest of the NFL.

I did not vote because it is simply too early to tell what reality will bring. So much of this depends on whether NYJ adapts well to Favre coming into town? I think they will. They are a young team with a coaching staff which has flaws (last years dismal record with the distraction of the Belicheat scandal) but also has some good approaches (making the playoffs the year before last with the rookies and crap they had). I think they will react to last year's debacle as a learning experience rather than as a fatal blow. How well Farve adapts to the team? He is a long time vet who still plays well and thus gets the benefit of the doubt. However, the hissy-fit he showed with his on again off again retirement and his demanding to go to the Vikes merely to stick it to the Pack makes him come off as more of a head case dealing with getting older than being the classic stalwart athlete. That athlete vision is more illusion than real actually, but the more human Favre is the less good he will do NYJ. I have doubts about this aspect. Overall, I think it will be a bit of a muddle and how it goes will make a lot of difference. The NYJ schedule will determine alot. Game 1- @ MIA- As good a start as they could get against a bad team. If they steal one here they are in business, but they will be at their worse getting used to each other so it will be tough. Game 2- NE- they will be expected to lose and likely will against a better team. Favre will likely get a free pass from NYJ fans as expectations will be low the first game and low against NE, Game 3- @ SD- Will likely get their clocks cleaned having to travel cross country, playing at night against a better team. At 0-3 NYJ fans will begin to chalk reasons for losses up as excuses though and it likely will begin to get ugly Game 4- AZ- I think this will be the make or break game. The team should have its act together by Game 4, AZ should be beatable and it will be at home. If they steal the 1st one having Favre may help a lot. If they lose the 1st one the odds are they will be 0-3 facing AZ at home and the season will either be salavable or a total disaster based on the outcome.

ESPN had an interesting analytical take on the question of how much Favre will improve the Jets. They predicted that the big problem for them is gonna be Favre learning the offense in a relatively short time. They predicted the problem would be heightened because the Jets and GB run such different offensive styles with the NYJ scheme being a WCO style with the plays planned and laid out and the QB being called upon to implement them as they were drawn up. The GB style they described as much more oriented to Favre reading and reacting to the situation and in essence free-lancing rather than running a fairly set style. If this analysis is true it points to this almost being a lost half season or so for the Jets O as not only is Favre gonna have to cram in the new language and new scheme, but in essence he will have to change a careers play style to the Jets way. The alternative is actually likely worse IMHO since it will demand that all the players in essence toss chunks of the playbook they have spent the off-season learning if the Jets take the route of altering it significantly to fit Favre's style. Even in a good case of adaptation of the Jets/coaches O style to Favre or the adaptation of the Favre to the Jets O style you still are gonna have to have the receivers and Favre develop chemistry and the OL and Favre develop chemistry on how they block and how he scrambles. In general, Favre is a good enough player that it will make sense for the Jets to make some changes to take advantage of what he can do that most other QBs can't but overall I would generally expect that it is Favre who is going to have to change himself to win in our system. It will be tough getting your starting QB to recalibrate his play and learn a new playbook on short notice. However, it strikes me as much worse to demand the entire rest of the O to learn a bunch of new stuff and throw a lot of old stuff out. The interesting soap opera to watch is how Favre reacts to having to stand on his head athletically and adapt to every one else since for years the Pack was built around his skills and desires. I must admit the thing which bums me out most about this is that the Bills do not get the Jets until mid-season. Opponents will likely mop the floor with this team the first quarter of the season. There is also the soap opera question of how long it takes the NYJ fans to turn on Favre when they begin losing initially through adjusting.

Thetalk radio clowns and many of the professional arguers out there are not as much interested in proving they are right but the seem to desperately want to prove the other side wrong. I think the thing that defines a true Bills fan is that even though they may be incredibly committed to rooting for and supporting (Edwards/Losman) this does not mean that they are rooting for (Edwards/Losman) to do badly or get killed because that would help their guy. Football is interesting to me in part because it is the ultimate team sport. A key is that your starting 22 produces a result greater than the sum of 22 individual parts. When one is so invested in an individual one is willing to see the team do badly as long as it happens because his competitor for a position has screwed up, then the team concept is lost.

Given the presence of the WGR contingent having Trent and JP on the field every snap simply means everybody is pissed.

ESPN had an interesting analytical take on the question of how much Favre will improve the Jets. They predicted that the big problem for them is gonna be Favre learning the offense in a relatively short time. They predicted the problem would be heightened because the Jets and GB run such different offensive styles with the NYJ scheme being a WCO style with the plays planned and laid out and the QB being called upon to implement them as they were drawn up. The GB style they described as much more oriented to Favre reading and reacting to the situation and in essence free-lancing rather than running a fairly set style. If this analysis is true it points to this almost being a lost half season or so for the Jets O as not only is Favre gonna have to cram in the new language and new scheme, but in essence he will have to change a careers play style to the Jets way. The alternative is actually likely worse IMHO since it will demand that all the players in essence toss chunks of the playbook they have spent the off-season learning if the Jets take the route of altering it significantly to fit Favre's style. Even in a good case of adaptation of the Jets/coaches O style to Favre or the adaptation of the Favre to the Jets O style you still are gonna have to have the receivers and Favre develop chemistry and the OL and Favre develop chemistry on how they block and how he scrambles. In general, Favre is a good enough player that it will make sense for the Jets to make some changes to take advantage of what he can do that most other QBs can't but overall I would generally expect that it is Favre who is going to have to change himself to win in our system. It will be tough getting your starting QB to recalibrate his play and learn a new playbook on short notice. However, it strikes me as much worse to demand the entire rest of the O to learn a bunch of new stuff and throw a lot of old stuff out. The interesting soap opera to watch is how Favre reacts to having to stand on his head athletically and adapt to every one else since for years the Pack was built around his skills and desires. I must admit the thing which bums me out most about this is that the Bills do not get the Jets until mid-season. Opponents will likely mop the floor with this team the first quarter of the season. There is also the soap opera question of how long it takes the NYJ fans to turn on Favre when they begin losing initially through adjusting.

Pennington and Edwards both have had demonstrated in the real world problems productively hitting the deep throw, but I think this are two very different situations. Edwards tested out with OK arm strength at the Combine. I think that two things caused his failure to hit the deep pass consistently for us: 1. Poor play calling- I am not sure why Fairchild got promoted to an HC job in college as I think he never got the Bills O rolling at a level it should have obtained given the talent we had here. it does not matter to me though why he is gone as long as he is gone and I think we added by subtraction. Schonert inherits an O which: A. Should use the RBs more effectively as receivers since Lynch and even Roberts have the rep for being good receivers and Fairchild never got production out of them. When one looks at how much more productive McGahee got as a receiver when he escaped Fairchild and got to Balt. I think it becomes a little clearer what the problem was here. B. PP was on his way out the NFL, but the one thing he apparently still had was speed. Even when you lose a step if your baseline is worldclass speed you are still fast. Schonerts arrival and the upgrade to the much taller but still fast Hardy is that the passing game should be more effective, At any rate, Fairchild did not effectively design routes which got the speed he had much separation so overall I think the playcalling and the redzone offense should be better (which given the lackluster results achieved under Faircchild should not be hard to do). 2. Footwork- I think Edwards arm is plenty strong but his footwork IMHO never seemed to get him in a position to launch the ball a long distance,While Bert Jones it is said could throw the ball 100 yards while lying down this is no the norm. My sense is that Edwards needs work on the mechanics. Pennington the other hand after he was hurt simply had a rag arm and it did not scare me at all to face hin.

I hope the Bills are not stupid enough to let the whining and bleating of some fans force them into a trade. A lot of the folks ranting against JP right now even though there is a neat zero chance he will play seriously for the Bills will greet his trade by almost immediately beginning some cry about the Edwards/Pennington QB controversy. Unfortunately too many media outlets like WGR are happy to make their nickels fanning a QB controversy which was simply settle by JP calling himself out in the Jax game last year and by any measure failing. In addition to these money grubbers they have a willing audience who seemed to be entertained more by ragging on these overpaid millionaire players than by the Bills actually winning. By all means the Bills should move JP IF they get the right offer. However, getting a rag arm like Pennington is not the right move for the Bills at #2 QB (your number 2 needs to be able to enforce his will on a team and game demoralized by us losing the starting QB and Pennington MAY do a reasonable job of taking advantage of what the other team gives but he is not gonna dictate the game even in the short run such as a non-starting talent like AVP could) and clearly is not your QB of the future if your starter goes down or sucks.

I think that you actually state the argument of why Peters is worth so much in terms of absolute market value in the NFL. 1. His initial salary was the base that a UDFA could receive rather than a risky long term contract. 2. He demonstrated in the real world his market value when other teams had enough interest in poaching him from the Bills when he was on the PS he won a fulltime roster slot. 3. He proved quite willing to try out at other positions than TE where his college play had won him the plaudits that he got being assigned an OL number right from start (remember the penalty he got when we were forced to put him in at TE and he did not announce his prescence with a non-TE # to the refs). Not only was he willing to try but the coaches described him as unblockable on ST and he actually produced in a real game not only blocking the punt but showing the hands and game awareness to pick it up for the TD. 4. He made the jump from ST real world production to take JMacs guidance and try out for tackle. Despite never having played that position, he made himself enough of a fixture that the Bills were willing to extend his contract and pay him a significant bonus to be our RT of the future. 5. In the face of the hugely disrupted horrible Mike Williams led OL JMac inherited, Peters actually made the jump that accomplished collegiate RT Williams could not make at all and moved to the L position where he won recognition from a balanced vote of fans, peers and coaches to be an LT on the 07 Pro Bowl team. Peters is exactly the type of player you want to have as your LT forever because he has produced time and again in the "real" of this boys game.

You may be right, but this is quite doubtful as a consensus has developed among the league's coach's, fellow players and the fans that he was chosen to last year's Pro Bowl. Thomas was ranked lower by this consensus as he was an injury replacement. I think that folks are correctly impressed with Thomas but the risk is so much higher with him because he was a rookie. Peters on the other hand has actually shown more upside in that he has also accomplished his feats near the beginning of his career but also has done this with a position change from TE as a pro while Jackson to the best of my knowledge has been used as a OL player. Will Thomas keep developing as a player? Yep he should. Will Peters develop even more than Thomas as a player? He should not because even a couple of years is a lot of years in a short NFL career, but it seems evident that Thomas who made the jump from TE to RT and from RT to LT in an incredibly short time may actually still develop more than Thomas. Peters has naturally gotten more attention to his good work as a vet than Thomas got as a rookie, but the sky is still the limit for newbie to LT Peters while Thomas may get significant perfection of his game, but Peters simply offers possibilities on a different plane.

Brett Favre

The part that strikes me as Parker/Peters playing the system consistently and as well as they can given the poor leverage situation they are in is the non-communication part of their actions. You are correct in your reading of the leverage situation IMHO, so the quest for Peters and his agent if they want to achieve the goal of the huge contract he would have gotten in a free market is simply to wait and take advantage of the situation IF the leverage changes. They correctly are keeping silent and not communicating with the press or officially with the team because there is absolutely nothing they can say that will change the leverage and win a new huge contract. In fact, there is a pretty clear history of athletes or their agents shooting their mouths off in these situations and doing themselves greater harm for the future by pissing off their future partners on the team once they kiss and make-up or their potential customers in the fan base when the millionaire athlete begins talking about taking food from his fat kids mouth. Folks who are lamenting the current non-communication should answer the simple question of what is it that Peters/Parker are supposed to say that is gonna suddenly allow them to reach their goal of getting the biggest contract ever given by the Bills. Instead, what Peters and his agent he has directed should do is wait as long as they can contractually wait. If in that time Walker or/and Chambers gets any injury that slows them down or/and if they get eaten alive in practices or a game then reality changes. Particularly, if the Bills suffer the unfortunate luck no one hopes for (including Peters quite frankly as this involves a teammate getting injured) of Walker/Chambers going down in a game, the press drumbeat of just show him the money will rise quickly to a level where Ralph will have the choice of caving or cutting off his nose to spite his face. The smart thing for Peters/Parker to do is simply to just wait and shut up.

BuffBob over the years I have very much enjoyed and learned some things from some of your posts on contract issues. However, in this case KFBD's take on this situation strikes me as being far more consistent with the reality of situations than your's does that it may pay for you to read his stuff a bit more carefully and give it some thought. The comments this thread evokes for me are: 1. Your comments certainly have an air of certainty and firmness about them while KF talks about things as applying in a generic way, and this actually is part of the strength of his analysis and where your cut comes off as a bit incredible. The main good argument I have seen for better regulation of agents is that their performance, advice, and approach varies so much. Overlay the significant differences between individual agents over the individual differences and situations of the players and it adds up to any claim of their being ONE particular way that agents act and operate then the claim is simply going to be wrong in a lot of case. The main thing that comes off as not very believable out the perspectives you have is that you seem to be saying that there is some rule or specific style or method that virtually all agents have and there simply is too much variation for that claim to be credible. KF's declarations come off with a lot more credibility because built into them seems to be uncertainty as to though things maybe being true generically they simply may not apply in a particular case. 2. The free market is not perfect, but the free market is pretty good for creating checks and balances on agents. An agent who dupes his clients and gives them bad advice is simply not gonna be a rich agent. The thing which speaks most forcefully about Parker not pulling some Svenagli act of Peters and giving him bad advice is that if this was his normal means of operation he would not likely last long as an agent as word would probably spread among players that Parker was manipulative or even worse was not making his clients money. Even if Peters, Jackson and folks were too embarassed out hiring an idiot that they chose not to badmouth him, Parker would still suffer in that as the rookies shop for agents there would be fewer satisfied pros out there saying how good they were if Parker were routinely an idiot. On other effect of the marketplace is that if an agent like Parker makes a big mistake on a case like Peters, Parker's competitors in the world of agents would be happy to spread the story of his poor representation around. Quite frankly the market makes the generic rule for the high dollar agent to simply not be that radically bad. Perhaps, Peters is the one case where Parker is blowing it, possible but if so then the better post on this is not a broad side against how horrible agents are but a guesstimate of why in this case he is doing things so badly. 3. There is one agent but there really are dozens of people involved with providing services and developing strategy for Peters. The movie Jerry MaGuire did a disservice to the agent racket in that in the effort to focus as much as possible on Tom Cruise as much as possible and the necessity of his having a love interest, they were only allowed to have other actors written only to add depth to these two characters (actually really only to Tom since though Renee has a purpose you rarely see her do anything but moon over Tom). Thus, they conveniently pretend that the agency has one client and that all the huge logistics needed for an agency to do even a passable job of providing service to the client can actually be done by Renee on the phones. From travel agent stuff, contract number crunchers, additional legal help to review every line of the contract, to the hot and cold running masseuses many athletes require. an agent really is mostly the co-ordinator of a team that is there for the client. It takes a village in real life and that means theories about there being some psychotic Svengali who is puppetmastering and besides that doing it badly is not very credible. Kelly's view simply seems more nuanced and thus more believable.

Given the unreliability of past PFW reports (actually I take seriously them labeling someone a narcisisstic fool since it does take one to know one) I think that it is reasonable to take this one with a grain of salt. The grain I would take on this one is that the "insider" perspective they describe in terms of Peters normally being a team guys is believable since this is consistent with other reports. However, the rant about Parker being some Svengali who has faked pushed Peters into this stance smacks of sillness. It does not matter because whatever Parker says Peters has empowered Parker to represent him so what Parker says or does is Peters' thang. One cannot let Peters off the hook even with a tale if it is true that his agent made him do it. As far as it goes, I can see why Peters is not saying anything because he really has nothing to say that will produce an outcome consistent with him wanting the Bills to pay him more than they have agreed to pay him and for what would be by far the largest contract the Bills ever did. Peters is in a situation where folks think he is a craven money-grubbing athlete. There is nothing honest that he can say that would not simply eliminate all doubt that he is a money-grubbing jock. It makes perfect sense for him not to communicate since the only way he will win will be for the Bills to cave into the concept of paying his as though he were competing in an FA market. Given that he has decided to try to create a FA market for himself does anyone suggest what he should say to produce this outcome. No wonder he is silent.

It is true IMHO that Fairchild really sucked as an OC last year. However, this does not let Jauron off the hook as the HC hires the OC and has the responsibility for making sure he performs. The buck ultimately stops for on field performance with the HC and he should not escape blame because one of the chief lieutenants he hired did not get the job done. This being said, I think you deal with the issue not by firing the HC but by requiring him to get better performance out of the OC. The good news is that we were able to switch because Fairchild went off to a better paying job.

My sense is that it just simply may be very clever negotiating strategy. My question is whether there is anything that Peters or his agent can say which will help his case or win the argument. The answer is no so the best strategy is simply to shut up. Reality will simply dictate what the Bills do, Walker and or Chanbers comes up with a limp in the pre-season or both get eaten for lunch (apparently Kelsay has already done this to Chambers) then the Bills run and do not walk to sign Peters to a huge deal. If they are fine, the Bills holdout and Peters strolls into camp after a couple of games (assuming that is all he thinks he will need) and all things are as they was an Peters is not on record whining about taking food out of the mouth of his family. The idea he is hurt seems nonsensical as if he is he will get caught anyway so if he is hurt keeping it a secret does nothing for him but piss off his employer, his teamates and the fans. The groinological explanation simply makes no sense for accomplishing anything Peters could want.

Which is exactly why I did not state this factual event to argue he should be in the HOF because of it, simply to respond to a post which claimed that no one seriously considers DB an exceptional QB and also this poster argued that no one would make the claim he is (was) popular. The 4 Pro Bowl berths do not cinch an argument he should be in the HOF (personally I would remove OJ from the HOF after he beat the rap for killing two people but certainly the NFL rules say it is just about football but for me human rules take precedence but I am not in charge) but they are a strong indication that his peers, coaches and fans found him to be an exceptional QB for roughly a third of his career. Likewise also the fact that there was such a massive outpouring of public interest and folks putting cash down when he was signed are not arguments at all should go in the hall. However, anyone in their right mind would understand if the read English that stating this factual event does that the argument replied to in the post that no one could rationally argue that Bledsoe was popular was simply wrong.

Do you think being elected to 4 Pro Bowls is some measure of folks judging him to be an exceptional QB. Do you think the Welcome Drew Bledsoe party which was held on a winter workday and drew loads of folks to the Ralph was a measure of many judging him to be an exceptional QB. What about the spike in Bills season ticket sales that accompanied his arrival, was this not some measure of popularity. Was he run out of town here, NE and to some extent in Dallas also? Yep it's true. However HOF voting is done not as a snapshot of where a player is at a particular moment and in fact not even how his career or time with a team ended. Jimbo was not disqualified from the HOF because he left the field completely addled on the back of a golf cart, he was elected due to the sum total of his career and its accomplishments and warts. I am happy to acknowledge the truth that Bledsoe was run out of town on a rail. However, you also would need to acknowledge the truth that for various point in his career from his high-flying drafting, to Tom Brady talking about how valuable it was to have a vet QB helping him analyze the game as a second year sudden starter, to the hullabaloo and real excitement that accompanied his arrival here in Buffalo to likely even some exciting times in Dallas where they were pleased the Quincy Carter era (or was it error) had ended but the Steve Romo era had not yet begun. Unless you are willing to acknowledge both the sad and the glad reality then your views are only half accurate. IO know its hard for some but reality is reality.