Pyrite Gal

It eould be a dream scenario and I desperately hope Hawk falls to 8, cause if he does we would be in a great position to trade down to the mid first and get max value from seem trading up to get Hawk. I also think that hawk is a great player who should start immediately whereever he is drafted. However, Bills fans should not fool themselve into thinking that he fits nicely into the Bills line-up in Posey;s pot. The Bills extended Crowell's contract after he did a fairly good job making the jump for his back-up ML slot to take TKO's spot when he went down. The Bills also extended the contracts of Haggan and Stamer giving us 6 NFL vet LBs under contract for 06 TKO, Fletch, Crowell, Posey, Haggan, Stamer), 4 of whom sre former NFL starters (TKO, Fletch, Crowell, Posey), and 4 of whom are signed beyond 06 (TKO, Crowell, Stamer, Haggan. Quality of play is obviously a big issue and Hawk looks good there, but contract obligations and cap hit are also real issues that the Bills cannot simply ignore and any fan who watches football and is serious about it needs to acknowledge and describe a scenario where this issue is dealt with rather than just ignored in order for that thought to be taken seriously. The irony is here is that as great a player as Hawk appears to be, if he is drafted he likely sets back development of this team at least this year if not two. Not only will his acquisition force us to sit millions of dollars in salry on the bench (and we all know how much Ralph hates to do this), but by taking him at #9 we leave the holes in the starting line-up which need to be filled dealth with by picking lower round talent. I hope Hawk drops and I hope we get resources that will really help build this team if he does drop.

Many signs point to the Bills having sent out any number of signs to other teams that they are happy to trade down their pick (for example whrn asked about some specific players like Justice Marv correctly avoided saying we did not want him but did say he is not worth a #8 so in other words if we traded down we would take him) if they get a good offer. I'm curious what folks think a good offer might be and what we MIGHT (who knows how this draft will go in real life) garner in terms of specific players in return for a trade down that gives us additional choices. In general, this appears to be a deep draft with reasonable potential 1st year starters going as late in the third round on the 1st day. It appears from my vantage point to really fit the draft value charts which have the #8 assigned 1400 points and saying any trade needs to add up to that total (for example a early teens 1st and an early teens 2nd end up equalling our #8. I see us as having three immediate needs at DT, OL and SS. If we trade our # 8 and still can get whomever is not chosen between Haloti and Bunckley, AND someone like a Winston on OL, AND someone like a Bing at safety, i think this is a very good draft for us. My hope is that a really valued player by draftniks and pundits like a vernon Davis or an AJ Hawk falls to #8 and even though they are great players, if we pick them it may well hurt overall team development because guaranteed we are gonna sit millions in cap room on our bench while these three holes go unfilled. If we can actually trade the #8 while we are on the clock to another team salivating to get a great player like Hawk, we can potentially get greater than a draft value of 1400 points from another team for them and get several first day picks.

I aggree, however, looking at the specific players its hard for me to imagine a scenario where a plsyer who is simply good enough to make a meaningful difference drops to us at #8. Super Mario looks like a good enough player that even though I think our need dictates taking a DT rather than a DE, Mario looks like a good enough player who is head shoulders above the DEs and DTs that I take him if the impossible occurs and he drops to 8. The same goes for D'Brick. I think this LT's play easily will make him BAP at some point early in the draft and thus he will not drop to us, but if he falls to 8 we not only take him, but he also satisfies a huge need for us to upgrade on the OL. The couple of exceptions I would make to a BAP approach would be Vernon Davis and AJ Hawk if they drop to 8. While both would likely fit my description of BAP if they were available at 8, we have a variety of options (no sure thing at all but a variety of possible options for stud TE play) on our roster that it seems clear the team would be most helped to generate Ws by trading th #8 for additional high picks to some team salivating for a shot at VD. This would be even more true if Hawk dropped to #8. We likely could get tremendous value by trading the right to pick Hawk to another team. If we picked Hawk despite the fact he is a great player individually, choosing another LB when we hve major contract commitments to TKO, Fletch and Crowell thi year and even the likelihood of cutting Posey assuming reports of TKO recovering nicely are true likely means we end up with multi-millions sitting on the bench at LB. Meanwhile we still have to fill holes in this line-up because we passed on getting the BAP on the OL, DL. or SS at #8 or more likely trading down. My sense is we can most help build this team by looking generally at the BAP, but the priority is to trade down if someone offers us a compatible or better offer for the #8.

This post actually demonstrates the flaw in making an assumption that s 1 gap college DT does not fit the D scheme the Bills run. Actually beyond a general statement from Jauron that we are going to abandon the zone blitz the entire Bills D was chosen for and run the past three years for a cover-2 which Jauron has run (and with some great episodic success in Chicago) THERE IS NO BILLS D SCHEME. Already we do know that Fewell is our DC and he both has a good working relationship eith Jauron and played a cover 2 variant in Jax. However, the key word here is VARIANT as Fewell's cover 2 was actually more of a cover 3 as their personnel produced better results with DBs dividing the downfield pass coverage into 3 parts rather than needing to cover half the field. Likewise, if the Bills variant of Jauron's cover 2 is so similar to the Chicago model and thus predictable it will likely be destroyed by OCs in this copycat league who simply would need to look at old Chicago films to find out how they beat the Jauron model. The Bills could easily develop and employ their version of the cover 2 that uses the DTs in away which is either heavily influenced by Fewell as DC or by Jauron changing up his traditional scheme to best put the Bills players in a position to make plays which utilizes the skill set of Triplett, Anderson, or Haloti, or Bunkley, or Grady Jackson (unless he resiged elsewhere and I missed it and he is not available. However, folks who simply assume that a particular player fits a D scheme they have not yet even seen developed may be right about things, but just as easily be wrong about this assumption as well.

I like the idea of tsking Justice because the only way picking him makes sense to me is if they traded down and took him in the mid-st round and likely picked up some additional first day resources to help meet our many needs.

I was mostly disappointed by our sorry record the past 5 years and I think some folks have let their cynicism about this record infect any judgments they make about the future. The thing I feel worst about from the past failures is actually that a number of them were really Ralph's fault and he remains the owner and thus the future remains a potential victim to his actions. I'm glad he is around and chose to do what he did and is committed to Buffalo as a sports home when he doesn't have to be. However, like all humana Ralph is a mixed bag of successes and good stuff and also failure and bad stuff. Though the good easily outweighs the bad IMHO. I think it is difficult to deny" 1. He screwed up badly in miscalciulating how much Jimbo had left as a player and this mistake not only cost him a million bucks in walk away money to Jimbo, but more importantly for fans started our trek of poor handling of the QB position as they failed to acquire a replacement soon enough, over-reached to draft TD in the 2nd, rushed TD along when he needed a lot more work, stupidly traded for Hobert, went back on their aggreement with Flutie that he would get a fair shot at competing for the starter job and then handed it to RJ, gave DF bonuses which when injury prone RJ got hurt put the Bills in a cap position which killed us. 2. it appears to be Ralph's doing to make RJ the starter rather than pay him big bucks to sit and this triggered a fight and hard feelings which scarred the Bills, 3. Misread the duplicity of Butler and then fired and lost an arbitration to Wado that shows the hard feelings here. 4. Played an uncertain role with directing/influencing the Holcomb-JP mess but the results of him finally movingto can TD and then have MM walk again shows owner involvemtn which is his right but clearly was not positive. Ae any rate, I felt positive about the hiring of Marv because I think this fellow Golden Boy is probably one of the few people with the track record, the past friendship and a proven record of people management may be able to pull off telling Raph to shut up and baack off. If Marv allows the football professional like Modrak and Jauon run the football team without the owner making dumb fan judgments things can get better. Marv certainly has not been and will not be perfect. However, even with his failings he strikes me as such a better choice than other candidates which folks were putting their faith in like the failed former GM/HC at Green Bay Sherman who if hired as HC I could not see how he was merely going to do that job and not create problems if he meddled in GM land, or if we hired the former interim HC as DC, I do not see how he would focus on the Bills needs and not really be angling to get an HC job somewhere. I am hopeful because I think a big Bills problem has been having too many cooks. I think we are in good position foe their to be a clear chain of command and Fewel/Fairchild will be suborinate to Jauron, Jauron will be subordinate to his buddy Marv and Marv should have the ability and capability as much as anyone can to rell his boss to shut up when necessary. I am hopeful.

If his selection as a reserve that year was based on sympathy then you should quite easily be able to name the several (or even 1 or 2 QBs) who deserved the slot more than he did and outrageously were passed over. (Reader= The next sound you hear will be crickets chirping)

Many thanks for the succinct cliff noting of one of my too lengthy screeds in a post above BTW! Particular thoughts re this post are: 1. I think it is a legit question as to whether the Bledsoe trade should be judged a wash if he had in fact had been cut after one outstanding season and one horrible one. Obviously, the cadillac of achievement is you draft a QB or player who stays with you for 10+ years, you win several SBs, he always in the Pro Bowl, he bakes Brownies for the community, blah, blah, blah, etc. However, though this is the best and one should always aspire for the best it does not mean that any other accomplishment is horrible and the worst. Facy is that there are horrendous bust outcomes where you draft a Ryan Leaf in the 1st and he never even has near one very good year, or you trade a 3rd for Billy Joe Hobert and he is so bad and makes a stupid non professional action you need to cut him immediately. I think that a cut of Bledsoe after 2003 would not have been a good thing at all but would have been a wash for us for several reasons. A. On one hand you had to cut him cause he was so bad and in acquiring him he failed to produce like you fully wanted him to. B. On the other hand, while we were not one player away from an SB, this was a team after a 3-13 season was not far away from the opposite worse end of the scale. We had just come off of the Business Backs the Bills triumph and secured a new stadium deal which guaranteed the Bills being here for 5 years at least. However, this moment was quickly followed up with the Homerun Throw-Up, Butler leaving shennanigans, Wade getting canned, and TD coming in to preside over a cap hell which provided a good chance of us being losers for a long time. Flutie fans were pissed when we cut him, RJ fans hung their heads in shame after he proved his lack of value in 2001. While we did not have the one player away from an SB situation which might make a Bledsoe acquisition make sense, we actually did benefit hugely from Bledoe's presence as seen by the virtually unprecedented turnout for his welcome to Buffalo and from his Pro Bowl deserving play in 2002. C. Due to NE taking his accelerated cap hit, these would have been no cap harm from simply walking away. D. In a post above you seemed to aggree with the point which I think is true upon thought that actually Bledsoe's work in 2002 was a significant part in raising PP's value and thus allowing TD to exploit AT for a 1st rounder that in essense replaced the one we gave up for Bledsoe, I think this view is probably true just because I think the simple absence of a 1st lit a special fire under TD and got him to think outside of the box and take some risks to transition tag PP to get a first, when one adds Bledsoe's role in helping run a passing game that set PP's value I do not think it is unreasonable at all to link the trade and then the gain of a first round pick for 2003. One can certainly claim that if only we had not traded for Bledsoe we wiould have had two first rounders when we rape AT with Price. However, it simply is hard for me to see Jeff Blake running the 02 Bills offense with the same production as Golden Arm/No Brain Bledsoe did or Chris Chandler surviving a full season and he and AVP producing 100 passes to Moulds, 94 passes to PP, earn a reserve spot at the Pro Bowl as Bledsoe did. Yes, I think cutting Bledsoe instead of resigning him for 2004 would have been a wash. 2. Taking an OL player in the 1st rather than WM is theoretical enough that if you pick the right guy it would have been a great move and if you pick the wrong guy it would have been a bust. However, again there are several reasons why the OL pick theory likely would not have worked and why it did not happen. Obvously we need help on this OL and if we had gotten a good player that would have been good. However the real analysis here since we are dealing in theory is to try to look at reality as much as we can. A. TD clearly saw the handwriting on the wall that Travis with the fiscal management brainpower he showed and what later turned out to be behavior that resulted him getting suspended was looking to replace TH. Further, he was far smarter than those who summed up picking WM with TH under contract as a wasted move because it actually was the fact TH was under contract which made it possible to risk taking WM who needed to sit an rehab all of 2003 to have a productive career. B. The problem with out OL was not simply the lack of player talent, but in 2003 we were firmly in the Vinky/Ruel running a Keviin Killdrive refuse to change system. In retrospect an OL 1st round choice (again making the big assumption that the Vinky/Ruel/Killdrive/GW/TD system picks a good OL player rather than Mike Williams) would have provided the prime benefit of eventually giving JMac more to work with and actually likely would have made zero difference as this first round choice warmed the bench behind MW, JJ, and Ruben Brown certainly and probably behind Teague as well whom i think had just be resigned. if you want to espouse the take an OL player with pick #23 in 2003 you should probably be able to identify the RG or maybe the C you argue we should have picked. My guess without looking is that actually you may not find one who at the time would have merited this pick and likely will go even further into the theory world of arguing trade down. C. Certainly one of the reasons for our 03 problems was that teams killed us with the blitz. However, rather than banking on the crapshoot of the draft for one player that can solve this problem (it ain't likely one player solves this problem) we actually saw under TC/MM in 2004 that this blitz problem was actually better dealt with by: 1. Bledsoe will never be mistaken for a runner, but it is because of the blitz problem you must run him. One of the great pieces of work with this O by Clements was that he was not afraid to occaisionally run the QB draw with Bledsoe, This move forced the OLBs to look inside before they adoned middle responsibility to take an outside angle on the blitz because Bledsoe might do the draw up the middle. He likely was not going to gain much or more than 5-7 yards if the Bills executed well if the OLB was guarding the middle. However , if the OLB took himself out of the play this might turn into a first down. Big body Bledsoe was going to take a hit anyway if he simply sat back and waited for Moulds to break free anyway, and a great thing TC did to combat LBs selling out to blitz was he made good use of Bledsoe as a runner. 2. If we had stuck with Henry by not drafting WM, this team may have had better interior blocking, but we actually used the outside speed threat and a vicious stiff arm which WM presented and Henry did not to stifle the blitz. Again blitzers did not sell out to do the blitz for fear that they would be moving inside while WM was heading outside and he either might flat out beat them around the corner or they would be in a horrible position allowing WM to embarass or hurt them with a fist to the face. If we went with a drafted OL player and Henry we would not have had this weapon and threat that pushed back the blitz. 3. TC and MM utilized the fact that Bledsoe had played a lot of football in his career to regularly use trick plays. They also made great use of Bledsoe's ability to handle the ball well to run plays like the fake Bkedsoe QB sneak and then the pitch to WM for the TD. The use of trick plays which was not part of the Killdrive bag of options again set blitzers on their heels. This scheme stuff is not the total answer (as seen in the loss to Pitts) but it was a critical part of the win streak that fail just short of a playoff berth. Getting a well regarded rookie OL player in 03 woul have been great, but it neither would have solved this teams problems and in fact I think Henry plus this theoretical OL player would likely been worse than WM running a better scheme than Killdrives. However, if you want to defend Travis and Gilbride feel free.

Rather than Bills moves being a sign that they have given up on or even made clear conclusions about Preston or Parrish after their rookie play on a bad team, what seems likely is that this Bills braintrust is committed to competition. One od TDs big mistakes was to simply assign the QB job to Losman based on assessment of his prospects based on less than one year of play in his rookie year. While I know Marv is a firm believer in the axiom that a team which has two starting QBs has no starting QB, the current Bills braintrust fortunately seems to be committed to competition on the field rather than simply designating am heir apparent. There is plenty of time for competition on the field at voluntary minicamps, on the field in pre-season practices and games and even in the locker room to show leadership of teammates that the braintrust need not designate a wide variety of jobs before camp starts or for some jobs before a pre-season game or two. Fowler is the lead C and Preston has been moved on the depth chart to G, but he will get some shots snapping the ball in practice or in games and if he merits the position he can get it. Likewise though PP is the #2 WR according to the depth chart, Parrish, Davis, Reed and Aiken will all get a chance to take this job and not let it go. This is the way it should be done.

Hey Holcomb's Arm, I just noticed your attached subscript summarizing TDs choices and was amazed/amused at how negative your cut interpretations of events. I considered myself to be somewhat harsh in judging many performances by these men who are paid to play a boys game, but your cut makes me feel downright pollyannish about thexe Bills in some of my harshest moments. Specifically interpretations which seem at least equally legit: TD's first round picks 2001: Nate Clements. Result: contract expired after five years. Fortunately the expiration of his contract makes zero difference for the Bills over the next two seasons and likely makes no difference overall as the CBA rules actually give us huge leverage in concluding a favorable deal for the Bills with NC. Any cut on this which seeks to indict the expiration of his contract as some failing by TD simply ignores the reality the contractual agreement between NC and the Bills. 2002: Mike Williams. Result: cut after four years. Clearly the big failure by the Bills draft team under TDs guidance. Trading down would clearly in retrospect have been the thing to do as the actual best LT in this draft was Levi Jones who was taken at least 7 or so picks later. TD deserves clear blame for drafting this bust for the Bills. He is not let off the hook by several mitigating circumstances which though real IMHO such as: Other pundits had evaluated MW as the real deal and best OL player in the draft such as Joel Bushbaum and most draft guides, a chunk of other top ten drafted players such as Harrington were also bust or also disappointments such McKinnie (some claim he is playing well know thoudg usally these claims are made less credible as they ignore the rocky start of a holdout his first year and incosistent development second year, In addition, it is a legit question to the extent improvement in his sack totals lends itself more to Brad Johnson having a quicker release than Culpepper rather than good play by McKinnie. At any rate, the significant failings of other 1st rounders taken that year or pundit hype and good combine numbers from MW do not excuse the huge Bills error made in picking MW. 2003a: traded for Drew Bledsoe. Result: Bledsoe released after three years. Bledsoe was pretty much a wash for the Bills in exchange for the 1st rounder on its face. Again a credible assessment would need to note both that he simply sucked in 2003 and could credibly have been cut at that point with no hit on our cap (such as the one caused by Mike Williams being a bust) as NE already had his accelerated cap hit, but also that he QB'ed the Bills to the second biggest improvement in Ws gained in NFL history after our dismal 3-13 record the year before he came. After the YJ/DF debacl we badly needed a QB and it looked like folks such Chris Chandler or Jeff Blake were all that we available. Bledsoe deserved his selection to the Pro Bowl as a reserve that year based on his play vut coupled with the 2003 horror we shoul have quit with the wash and moved on. The big mistake with Bledsoe was extending his contract rather than trading for him as his prescence truly rejuvenated the fan base in 2002 as shown by the 10+ thousand who showed up for the welcome Drew party and the spike in Nledsoe jersey and season ticket sales tha accompanied his arrival. These accomplishments were not on field production but in the reality of a team which may move was very important and worth noting for those interested in reality. 2003b: Willis McGahee. Result: McGahee failed to provide enough of an upgrade over Henry to be worth a first round pick. You must be kidding with this view. He not only forced TF himself to the bench, but his arrival as a starting RB coincided with a huge win streak which fell just short of getting us into the playoffs. As far as what he was worth, mu sense is that an RB who simply is the fastest Bill ever to rush for 2000 yards (the fact is he got there faster than OJ or Thurman) is probably worth a first round pick. Your cut on this is simply rediculous. 2004a: Lee Evans. Result: chosen 13th overall, there is considerable doubt whether Evans can ever be the go-to guy. My sense is that it is quite likely that Evans will fulfill the duty of being the go-to guy. Is this certain? No not at all. However, Evans easily led the team in TDs for a WR last year and still has freakish speed, If he showed the ability to make circus catches like Moulds it would be great, but if you consider the other hands extreme of Josh Reed droppsies, Evans is far closer to Moulds level than he is to Reed levels which would actually justify considerable doubt. In terms of looking at the facts one need only compare the output of Evans his first two years to the output of Moulds his first two years and strong hopes of success rather than considerable doubt is clearly justified. 2004b: Losman. Result: Losman is in serious jeopardy of losing his starting spot to Craig Nall, Green Bay's 3rd string QB in 2005. If Nall produces like we hope the jeopardy here may be faced by Holcomb losing the #2 slot if Nall performs (though he really is a who knows as he has little real record to show backing up a warrior like Favre. Losman may well fail, but his contract while it provides no gurantees of success does gurantee him every chance to succeed. As Holcomb has had some very good passing episodes, he simply has never been a consistent starting QN in 10 years of Pro ball. If Nall plays well Holcomb is first in line to be in danger. This of course is too long to fit in saved lines but strikes me as a far more rational and honest assessment of TD's record leading the Bills draft team. If there is any lesson to be learned here its that the draft is a real crapshoot and trading down for more resources as most of these players will merit a cut is the best approach. Even being a #3 like Detroit who took bust Harrington or the #4 Bills who took bust MW were hit hard with their slotted contracts. Trade down.

Trying to focus on those couple of points you raise (and thanks for the banter BTW) The focus of this thread and your own posts taking that point to the extemes of unreality was to find fault with TD for not extending his own such as JJ, AW, and NC. I raised the point regarding JJ that if one is gonna complain about anything it would be the question of picking him the first place because he has been subject every single year he was a Bills to one of an increasing long list of nicks which cost him PT. Personally, I think the draft is really a crapshoot and is merely one tool (rsther than the central focus) of good team building, so I would not fault for making a mediocre choice with JJ. However, an observer has to choose one whine or the other. Either he as a mediocre choice and therefore TD was totally correct not to extend him, or alternately someone (this means you) is actually advocating extending and relying upon an injury prone player. Having taken a crapshoot shot at picking JJ, TD handled this situation correctly in offering JJ an FA contract which was far enough below the market for LTs that he refused to sign. SF is now immediately in the sorry throes of realizing the foolishness and worthlisness or signing JJ to a big contract as he quickly went on IR and is laughing his way to the bank in SF. Having taken the crapshoot chance of picking JJ (actually this crapshoot paid off for us in his first four years because thank gosh we had Price to back-up this too oft injured player and MW failed to make the junp to LT). However, it simply would have been a mistake of Bledsoe like proportions to extend a player whom I am glad we picked up, but happily said goodbye too when his useful time here was done. Do you think JJ was a great choice you are sorry we did not resign or are you happy we are not in the same boat SF is in if we had signed him to a big deal or for some reason extended him for a couple of years before we even had to do this. As far as AW, there are two episodes of decision-making here to consider. First, the Bills could not even give AW a franchise tag as an alternative to signing Milloy as when the Bills used $ and cap room which had been set aside for Winfield negotiations he was not in his FA year yet and thus not subject to being tagged, Instead, what the situation was is that the Bills had in fact already turned to FAs and it was well beyond the draft when they had to make a decision about whether to go after Milloy or not. They has already gone to FA land and signed Chad Cota and also Ainsley Battle to compete with Coy Wire (who had been repeatedly burned as a starting SS the year before as a rookie who started at SS after GW/Gray screwed uo their assessment of former Titan Jenkins who they signed to start at SS but he had little left, TD had set aside several million bucks in $ and cap room with the intent of signing AW long term, but the negotiations were not concluded and in the interim FAs Cota and Battle retired. BB totally misread and screwed up renegotiations with Milloy and he hit the market 8 days prior to the first game. TD had as an alternative to extend AW as planned and have our secondary savaged just like it was in our previous 3-13 season (it actually would likely have been worse as we even were without Jenkins who was so bad he got cut). Alternately he could sign Milloy for more than this player was worth based on his talents because with supply of sarting SSs low and demand high enough (th Bears also had SS need and ample cap room. TD chose to sign Milloy though this meant fuggaboutit for extending AW (AW hinself articulated this calculus and said that's business). Folks can trash Milloy if they want and I have no desire to defend him (though this quite easily done actually). The facts are these though and since they are simply what occured it is a big part of the reason I have stated this as the simple facts. 1. Milloy is reported to made an immediate difference in how the Bils approached the game. In one his first film sessions, the Bills broke out in laughter and catcalls when one of our players was steamrolled by an opponent on the film. Milloy stood up and said that the Pats has won an SB the year before because they always backed each other up and would never laugh at an onfied failure by a teammate. They did not ignore reality because the teammate was simply expected to get better and never let this happen again or he was gone from the team. Right from the start Milloy added an attitude to this struggling team that I think was key to them improving the D to be 5th statistically in the NFL that year. 2. Milloy paid immediate benefits to team in that they embarassed NE with a 31-0 season opening loss. Milloy sacked Brady as part of this triumph and folks were impressed he was such a positive force so quickly. the intelligence of the Bills having gone beyond Wire at SS was demonstrated when NE almost broke the shutout because Wire got best when we put the scrubs in and he ended getting a pass interference call in the endsone (fortunately the Bills goaline stand held), but its an example of what a disaster things would have been if we had used the availavle dollars to merely extend AW. 3. Overall, Milloy proved to be one of the leading tacklers on the team that year and pulled off several tuernovers like his fumble recovery in a game (against the Deadskins) which was critical to us winning that game. Milloy needed to be cut by the Bills this past offseason because the huge takeout contract he had (to avoid a bidding war with CHI) gave us a lot more cap relief than cutting fellow safety Vincent. In addition, the switch to a cover-2 shifts the safety role from the run support Milloy was central to with the zone blitz to more of a centerfielder who must cover a lot of ground which Vincent is much more suited to do than Milloy. However, these are simply the facts of what happened and if you judge they add up to this team being better with AW/Wire than AW/Milloy and then NcGee/Milloy I will not try to convince you otherwise. The second episode is when AW in fact entered FA, but as was pointed out above the level of the franchise cost of tagging AW was simply prohibitive at $8 million at that point. $8 million works easily for a player or CB now because the total cap is much higher but that amount was prohibitive given large investments in TKO, Fletcher, et al. Letting both JJ and AW walk is by far the best way to build a winner given the reality of the caps IMHO and NC never ever never ever walked on the Bills as he always was our exclusive property undwet TD and now under Marv that we tagged him.

I actually am quite excited with the signing of PP. I know he cannot be reasonably expected to be a #1 after his failure with this role in AT. In fact, I think since speed is his game he is actually on the backside of his career even if he recovers his past form. He MIGHT be a #2 WR talent for us as he successfully played that role in the past but only might. However, I am pretty confident that at least he can play 3rd WR in 3 WR sets as a poster below expects we will use alot. It is simply scary to think of the speed we will put on the speed with Evans/Parrish/Reed in a 3 WR set. Particularly if Evans coninues on the development track he produced in his fist two years and commands a double team then either Parrish or Price gets the dime DB one on one and should be able to eat this back up to a back up for lunch. I actually do not expect to see Reed fill this same role. In college he got the big gains which brought him the Billetnikoff trophy as the best WR in college, but rather than scary speed this was all RAC with his former RB abilities. Perhaps he can be the possession receiver which none of these speed freaks are. Aiken strikes me as more of a reliable ST guy and has never shown WR production as a fly WR or a possession WR that should scare anybody. I have him as the 5th WR on this team. Davis is a wildcard and there is talk that he might develop into the #2 that compliments Evans (I doubt this but it is possible). Barrin injury I think Fast Freddie is goner as a Bill.

My guess is that the character assessment and intelligence assessment are semi-related but are in completely separate boxes. Pro football is conplex but not brain surgery. If a player exhibits football smarts and is a good guy who backs up his teammates then even if he dumb as a bag of rocks when it come to the rest of life he will probablt be fine for us. Football smarts and life smarts are different thngs. No one would accuse Jim Kelly of being one of the brighter bulbs in the intellectual pack, but he was one of the greatest football decision-makers to play the game and probably will be the last QB to call hiw own plays. In addition, no one would accuse him of being an example for all in terms of character given the various reports of run ins with law and with women (I imagine most are not true some transgression among the many rumors. Add to these rumors the way he handled things back in the day when he was a leader in creating the bickering Bills label. Nevertheless, if someone is a productive player like Kelly was then we will here any nimber of qualifiers on building a high chatacter team. Character will likly be a strong marginal factor. However, just as I doubt they will pick an athlere they assess to be a bad layer merely because he is also assessed as behaving high character. Likewise doubt they will bnmp a guy whom they have on their board as the best pick avaulable. Character will matter it simply will not likely be the only thing which does matter.

When they talk their lips are moving and if so the information we are recieving are unreliable lies.

Exactly. Perhaps Holcomb's Arm and I should simply just agree to disagree, but the point we disagree on is that I think that the decision of the manner in which we handled NC, AW and Jennings were generally the correct way to go. If he is saying that TD clearly would not sign folks he drafted when it would be stupid to do so, I agree completely. The bottomline is this: AW- As you point out tagging Winfield at the time would not have been a smart thing for the Bills to do. Extending him at an earliet point when it would be a year before FA would have been a good thing to do, however, when Milloy hit the market, as backside of his career as he was, he was a far better starting SS than Coy Wire and essentially it was money TD had set aside for AW that was used. I maintain that Holcomb claiming that TD was flat out wrong for not extending AW simply does not correspond with the fact the outcome of doing this when it would have been relatively inexspensive was Coy Wire would be our starting SS (say as many bad things as one wants about Milloy, he was far better than the inadequate Wire) or the fact that you point out that later on the market simply did not make extending AW a good deal for us. If one wants to assess TD's handling of the CB situation, actually the key point is not simply that he let AW walk but that we have NC and McGee as our starters and Greer and King as nickel and back-up this year (and next year if we want. I loved AW, but CB is actually one of our stronger positions on the team and just as TD deserves to be faulted for failure to manage the QB position, a reasonable person would acknowledge we are in very good shape at CB. JJ- If you want to rakeTD over the coals then one can clearly fault him for spenind a 4th on an OL plater who turned out to be injury prone. However, at most I think that one can rationally agree to disagree on whether he will ever develop beyond being an injury prone player one cannot realistically count on. However, when one also introduces the reality of the market, JJ was not worth resigning at a rate he demanded or the market paid him. NC- The main fault with someone complaining that the Bills were put into a position by TD where NC walked on the Bills is that NC has always been owned by the Bills even though his original contract expired. I am here to let HA know that he can actually relax and breath a sigh of relief regarding his concern that TD mismanged the NC situation so he can walk because the reality is that under the CBA NC did not have the right or ability to walk. Complaints that he should have been extended years ago are at best woulda, coulda, shoulda complaints about reality as the latest on the Bills Daily website is that NC and the Bills are still negotiating albeit slowly to extend NC. As a Bill fan I think the team actually will get max value if we actually simply allow him to play under the tag this year (we have ample cap room to do this) and if he is good and survives again simply tag him again and then sign him to the big contract he will be entitled to IF he produces this year.

The interesting thing to me about your post is that you mentioned the problems of small market teams with Green Bay excepted. I think this is a totally legit distinction because I think the way the Packers are owned and managed is really the way the NFL should be done. It will not be because the owners are rich boys who will demand their toys and in our society which runs on the Golden Rule (he who has the gold rules) it will be impossible to adopt this mechanism in a big way (even with fair market value being paid to an owner for this property and a Green Bay system put in place). However, my real pipedream hope would be if Ralph in his final life stages really pushed to get his property sold to people in the is region in some form of the Green Bay system. If this were done, the Bills would remain here as long as there was a here and an NFL and a smooth accountable professional management system could be developed that like the Pack proved it is even possible for this small market team to win an SB. The NFL as an entity would certainly resist this type of maneuver, but actually between their anittrust vulnerabiity and a team owner having the right in our system to transfer his property in any legal method he chooses, I think we could beat the NFL on this front, Even though such a transfer would result in Ralph's heirs inheriting large amounts of wealth just as they would if his estate was forced to sell the team on the open market and if they wanted a deal can even be reached to give his heirs ongoing management authority as part of the deal, I doubt he would do this as it really means facing his ultimate mortality which few of us humans are really able to do.

Yep

What are the current facts? The average NFL career runs less than 5 years from what I heard a while ago, and thus by this definitionmost of th draft picks that any GM made 5 years agp would be gone (a majority of all player last about 5 years and you add in the UDFAs to that total so the a aignificant majority of drafted players would be gone from the league entirely not to mention the team that drafted them. I'm sure that this number has changed but there should be a statistical comparison done by some stat hound somewhere of the % of drafted players who remain with their original team.

Ralph and his minions appear to understand exactly what is going on. The good news for Bills fans is that they appear to have maneuvered: 1. Tags to go on record saying supportive things about the Bills staying put. If this comes down to a new owner wanting to move WNY politicos going to war and the courts as Cleveland threatened to do using the antitrust mallet, these words are not a definite at all which will keep the team here but is a powerful leol to be used in negotiations around a lawsuit, 2. Ralphie got a seat on the revenue sharing group which will help the Bills get marginally more $ from the higher revenue teams. 3. Has set things up beautifully to inject keeping the Blls into the 2006 gubernatorial campaign. Spitzer looks quite likely to win as his family is independently wealthy and he made over a $100 million in last year alone from his real estate holdings, but as long as things are still unclear and in olay, both he and the eventual DOP candidate will likely belly up to the bar and promise something like the set-up of an authority to issue tax free municipal bonds to provide corporate welfare to the Bills. As these bucks will benefit my team and if it goes to fund building a new stadium on the Buffalo waterfront it will benefit my city, I'm all for spending tax dollars funded by the entire state for my team and City. I think Ralph is crazy but crazy like a fox.

Trade down if possible and take whoever is left between Bunkley and Ngata in the mid first.

Sorry, but I still do not think your take corresponds with the simple reality. 1. True, Marv tagged NC, but is there virtually anyone in the Bill's fan world who did not think that tagging him was the obvious thing to do given the fall in the CB franchise tag amount and the rise in the overall cap amount we were working with. I and everyone else would have called for TDs head if he had somehow escaped his deserved firing and not tagged NC. Clearly, TD had not extended NC and was using the threat of tagging him (as Marv is doing now) to NC demands for a long term extension down or simply will pay him the franchise amount and force Nate to produce in 06 or go into the next FA round coming off two disappointing seasons in a row. I think we are in better shape and will likely get more out of NC if we do not resign him and actually have him play 06 under the pressure of being in a contract year. If NC plays like the best CB in the league in 06 I have no problem paying top dollar to extend a player who has made the Pro Bowl two of the last three years (I assume if he plays so great he will get the Pro Bowl accolade). If he makes such outrageous demands its impossible to sign him I say fine and tag him again next year. Its the height of technocratic exaggeration to some how fault TD for not extending NC. He was under contract when TD was canned, under contract when we tagged him and he is under contract this season unless he decides to leave the game. To claim that TD let him go because he was not resigned but the Bills never lost the sole right to him under TD's watch is simply an incorrect description of this if one insists on trying to look at the definitions in some hypertechnical way actually. More importantly it simply does not correspond to the reality of the situation under the rules of the CBA. 2. As far as an unwillingness on TDs part to keep his own, if you want to make this point you need to do better than the examples you provide. A. Winfield- The situation was that TD had actually set aside some cap room to resign Winfield prior to the 04 season and was negotiating with AW's agents on a deal. However, the Pats unexpectedly had Milloy decide not to re-sign with them because all the cap room BB had left for him was a few hundred thousand less than he was asking. TD used most of the cap room which was what AW and the Bills were negotiating over to instead sign Milloy. He overpaid Milloy what he was worth as a player, but made a bid consistent with what the market was offering him as Chicago also needed a safety and had cap room. When the '04 season ended, AW hit the FA market and having had a solid season in 04 and the Bills having loss the leverage of the previous FA period of signing AW to a lower amount and thus relieving him of any risk for playing 04 his asking price skyrocketed. The good news for the Bills though was that 4th round selection at CB under TD McGee was coming into his own and in fact made the 04 Pro Bowl due to his kick return magic. The Bills were easily in a position to let AW walk because we had our starting CBs on the roster with both of them having made the Pro Bowl for their 04 work. Add to that the Bills had Thomas before he got hurt, Greer coming along as a youngster and had even signed former Pro Bowl CB try Vincent to play safety for us. Would you advocate that we should have extended AW prior to 04 even though doing this would mean we did not sign Milloy and Coy Wire starts at SS because the two mean we reached agreement with to play SS ahead of Wire, Chad Cota and Ainsley Battle both agreed to sign with us but then up and retired. Extending AW at the cost of having Wire start again at SS would have been a huge error. Resigning AW when we had two CBs coming off of Pro Bowl seasons and had signed a former Pro Bowl CB to play safety for us for even the contract the Jets offered him (that he agreed tp amd remeged on) and then for the amount the market gave him in the Vikes contract would have simply been nuts. B. Clements- As I said above he was still a Bill when TD was deservedly canned (he was not free of a Bills contract officially until FA began) and not only had TD obviously used the threat of tagging him in negotiations over an extension, but even though Marv did tag him TD would have been a fool and shot if he did not follow through with his threat to tag NC. C. Jennings- As I said, if you want to accuse TD of an error it was in drafting this talented but injury prone LT. It would have been the height of stupidity for TD to extend this oft injured in different parts of his body (his ankle sprains, shoulder injury, concussion and other nicks is what defines injury prone to me) player to a long-term deal. Fortunately, it was SF who did the foolish thing and gave him a big contract and they paid for this immediately with him ending up on the IR early this season. I agree that TD did not resign several players at the end of their contracts. However, for the three examples you give, good thing he did not do this in two cases and in the third case the player is still a Bill so you are wrong for blaming TD for losing him. When you add into this that TD did in fact extend the contracts of Schobel and McGee (and I believe Crowell though I am not sure of the timing of this and whether TD was gone and Marv did the right thing here) on his watch. The idea that TD is incapable of extending his own or made bad choices regarding AW and Jennings is simply incorrect. TD deserved to get canned for not producing results like playoff appearances in his five years here. However, you gotta admit that Vinky was not a great OL coach, that hiring Ruel to replace him was no real upgrade and that Kevin Gilbride sucked and that it was a real problem because his hire GW has no offensive football skills. The FA that I think he probably legitimately can be faulted for not resigning when it would have likely been better for the Bills if they had was Pat Williams last year. However, as I sense the D really gave up when they saw that the Bills had decided to use last season as pre-season for Losman rather than put their best (though pathetic offense on the field with Bledsoe at QB, even returning all 11 of the #2 D in the league would not have produced the same result last year as the year before. It does take 2 to make a deal and Phat Pat's whining really mask him sharing the blame with TD for not just getting it done. Yet even this mistake really is just an exception to generally good player negotiating and signing he did with TKO, Adams, Vincent. Milloy, Schobel, WM. taking advantage of Henry and then trading him, trading rather than resigning PP, etc. His fatal problem we suffered from has generally been with coaches and not with players. He was not perfect with players (he should have gone after some stud FA OL players in my book), but he was pretty good, but in the revisionist history of folks piling on some posters seem to want to overlook the really good reasons for firing him to actually blame this on an area where he had assessment miscues like MW but these were not outlandish moves at the time and these no more than normal amount of mistakes should not obscure the facts about the things he did well.

Can the Bills prosper in Buffalo? The answer depends on what you mean by prosper and answer the question of how much is enough in terms of a profitable NFL team. If you mean can the team become a high revenue team, the answer is probably no. Buffalo always has been and likely will be for the forseeable furure one o the smaller markets. Even worse, it is a smaller market whose times of experiencing an economic boom like that in the Sunbelt was in the eariler part of the 20th century. If one's requiements for the team to be viable is for it to compete economically with larger markets in go-go regions then fuggadoutit it ain't gonna happen. However, if one is also a sportsman in a major way or primarily, the Bills are one of the moderate to higher annual profit teams in the NFL today according to the estimates of Forbes magazine. A lot of this is because the owner bought the team for far less than chump change a long time ago and has no debt service whatsoever to pay for the team. When an NFL team costs over half a billion dollars, I don't care how eich you are or whether you are Dan Snyder or Tom Golisano, unless you are so stupid economically that you have your wealth under a mattress or in a simple checking account, your rishes are out working for you and for the most part are locked up into long-term investments that kick off more than enough cash in dividends and interest for you to make money from having money, but you have to go to the bank and arrange loans to buy a team Still the economics of the NFL even with a new owner paying debt service, owning an NFL team and getting the enormous wealth provided by the TV contract and even when split with your partners the players still is the closest thing going outside of government to having a printing press that prints money. From what we know (which is actually quite a bit about the finances of a private business as the NFL and NFLPA release tons of financial information publicly to check up on each other and because government pays a huge subsidy to a team like the Bills by owning their venue the Ralph but still allowing them to treat this property as their own and collect tons of profits from it) even with the salary cap going up as the NFLPA collects 59.5% of all revenue, given that the teams get their 40.5% split of the total gross revenues the Bills as a team should easily turn a profit. Its quite nice that the smaller revenue teams will get a check for $10-15 million annually from the larger revenue teams but even this is small money compared tp the total take. The Buffalo Bills will never ever be viable if the standard is that they must make as much money as they can in any available market. However, if the standard is simply one of a sportsman who team happens to be a business and all that is required is that they turn a profut, on the face of the numbers it appears this is quite doable. It will be even more doable to the point of a guaranteed profit if the Bills team is able to extort out a deal with NYS where it sets up an authority to issue tax free municipal bonds to build a stadium which the Bills can then use with government holding the liability and costs for them to rake in profits from the sale of tickets. I have seen no credible proof whatsoever that under the CBA that any NFL team will not be able to turn an annual profit even under new ownership with any kine of sane management. The conceot that the Bills are going to actually lose money anytime soon as long as Ralph is alive and particularly as soon as next year is simply laughable based on the numbers I have seen.

Your analysis simply does not fit the reality of the situation in the following ways: 1. Under the CBA NC's contract with the Bills has not expired it has been unilaterally extended for a year by the Bills tender of a franchise tag. Even better, under the CBA, the Bills can even extend it another year if they choose next year by tagging him again. NC's choices are to: A. Play under the tag- The best deal for the Bills given the significant reduction in 06 of the CB franchise tag while at the same time the overall cap has gone up under the extended CBA. Under the tag, NC would be in FA next year and thus will need to produce for the Bills this year if he wants the #1 CB contract he says he deserves. Throwing a hissy fit and not producing merely hurts his value and even being a cancer and a bad teammate hurts his value as well. Outside of him reaching the Pro Bowl level but failing to do that twice in a row (if this makes one a failed player much of the NFL is failed) this acquistion is all positive for TD. 2. Correct on Schobel it worked well. 3. The few good years if faint praise actually for a player so central to the Bills in his brief heyday that he was the featured picture on TSW. Do not forget that TD actually led the Bills toward creating an extra first day pick out of nothing by trading down our 1st rounder and still getting the first CB (NC) taken that year with the new pick. The suggestion that he should have taken an OL player instead of Henry ignores several real occurences that year: A. We needed a strting RB badly that year so what are your options if you do not take Henry. B. Ol is crucial to the running game, but claims that TD ignored this in this draft is invalidated by him choosing two eventual Bills starters JJ and Sullivan in this draft. Who is this fantasy OL player you are refferring to, how does this new OL work with these three rookies you have drafted and how well does it do opening holes for Sean bryson. C. The primary contribution of Henry to the Bills was probably being such a bad financial manager that he had to sell us an additional year of ownership for chump change. This additional year paid the benefits of one giving us the freedom to draft and sit WM for a year to rehab him and also to trade Henry for a 3rd rounder. By far this pick manufactured out of nothing has brought production from Henry in his brief time here which justified the pick and the gift keeps on giving with being able to draft and rehab the fastest Bills RB to rush for 2000 yards in our history and we get a first day player this year. We need more failures like this one. 4. Itis a far more legitimate rap on TD to claim he drafte an injury prone player than to complain that he did not horribly overpay this injury prone player to keep him from SF. We were fortunate that his middlin choice by TD at best gave us 4 seasons where he appeared in about 3/4 pf the games (the 2 or 3 he missed his start each year plus the couple of games he got knocked out early due to a nick). Letting this miscreant go was a smart move by TD and is one he also should have done instead of resigning Bledsoe after his horrendous 2003. TD did not capitalize on the 2001 talent, but this was not due to bad player acquisition and resigning decision IMHO is was because he hired a not ready for primetime HC who had non position coach Vinky managing the OL and is a defensive coach who had to can his first OC hire and then he replaced him Kevin Killdrive (TD foolishly allowed GW his choice when TD publicly said he was advocating the Bills get Tom Clements. TC did a very good job as OC in 2004 but even with his poor production in 2005 I think he was better than Kevin Killdrive (do you disagree?) IMHO TD did a pretty good job drafting and a phenomenal job negotiating and acquiring players. However, he deserved to be canned because he seemed to manage the braintrust hiring mostly to make sure that he was never again canned by a guy he hired as happened to him with Cowher.

If both Ngata and Bunkley are still on the board at #8 trading down into the mid first to a team salivating to get at an expected top 5 player who unexpectedy fell to #8 (it would be Leinart in this mock would make to much sense for the Bills not to see it and be able to resist. By getting a couple of extra first day choices (the seeming market rate for trading a #8 given the evidence this year of the SF/Broncos trade and the static general draft choice value comparisons). The Bills would get far greater value than picking Justice who though a good and potentially great player does not equal getting three good and 3 probably not but potentially great players. Trade down!

The thing that made the Pats in my view were two events which occured in 2001 leading to their first SB win: 1, They did build a team in the Belicheck mold and according to his plan, but the draft was merely one part of doing this and actually less important in my view to other means of acquisition. It really is amazing that they signed 15 players or about a third of the team that won their first SB after the June 2001 cuts. He did a great job of getting his kind of player from cut and vets deemed washed up because it is far easier to tell what you are getting with these vets rather than the virtual crapshoot which is the NFL draft. In fact Nelicheck seemed to realize what a crapshoot the draft is and routinely loads up on picks because he knows that though us fans get excited about various choices, most of them deserve to be and are going to be cut immeidately and within a couple of years (as signing bonuses demand) of making the team. 2. The best thing that happened to NE in there first SB run was Lewis with the Jets collapsing Bledsoe's lung. The team was 0-2 under Bledsoe and as best as I can tell would likely have missed the playoffs under his QB work if he had remained healthy. Instead, with Bledsoe out and the young Brady (whom BB made a great pick for him after passing on arguably the best player in the league for five straight ounds with multiple picks in several rounda) in this team became a TEAM and with Bledsoe actually doing a classy and outstanding job scholling Brady while he was hurt, coming in to sub for an injured Brady in a must-win game and playing QB in the majority of that game and throwing the winning TD, and even more amazingly in this TO driven world gracefully giving up the starting job with nary a foul word when Brady came back. In a significant way BB made his own luck by picking Brady, but he really was lucky IMHO to win his first SB. It is ironic as if his team missed the playoffs, given the poor results he produced in his first HC go round in Cleveland and then his showing limited judgment or character by first signing to HC NYJ and then going back on his word to send them packing while he wandered up the coast to Beantown. I'm not sure that the NE team building strategy can be replicated and it is questionable whether one would want to beyond the odd fortune of winning it all.