Pyrite Gal

I though boy genius Peters got a 6. It does not matter since what we are talking about for Young is that folks want him to play QB. We're talking about not simply making good decisions, but doing this quickly while big ugly guys are trying to kill you (it must be like you're a quail or a 78 year old man hunting with Dick Cheney). Clearly on does not need to be a rocket scientist to succeed at being an NFL QB (look at Jim Kelly after all) but if this Young score is remotely true thn pencil him in as a rich man's Awtwan Randle El rather than as even a David Carr.

Nope he is just negotiating. Its unfortunate that players have been reduced to selling themselves like new and improved Tide or the Triple Trac Razor, but this is simply the reality of an NFL that used to be a sport that also happened to be a business and now (just like the Olympics) is a business that happens to be a sport.

I am curious what those of you who are interested in way too much details than this mere spoerting event deserves thinlk about this beyond the simple rants 2001 Marques Sullivan T Illinois- We got some reasonable mileage out of him as he was a second day draft pick who actually started a few games for us. However, I think the fact he was unceremoniously bounced from this team reasonably allows him to be termed a failed pick. Jonas Jennings T Georgia- I think he can reasonably be judged a good pick. He held the LT role adequately and showed some signs he might learn to be a very good player and worth a good (but not great) contract to resign him as an FA. Fortunately for SF was the team which bid too high and now are saddled with this injury prone athlete. Despite his demise as a Bill, I think this can be judged a good pick by the Bills as he held down the LT slot at near minimum payments by us for several years and he left as hew was entitle to under the CBA ruels. 2002 Mike Pucillo G Auburn- Reasonably labeled a bust as we had to cut him because of his poor plat. This was a horrid situation not so much cause of the draft where we used a late second day choice to get him, but because we foolishly depended on him in 2003 when he was not up to the jpb and actually held MW back by setting up a situation where he had to school the young Pacillo when he actually needed schooling and ver player assistance himself. Mike Williams T Texas- A definite bust as a choice because of the lofty position we used to pick him 2003 Ben Sobieski G Iowa- No payoff due to injuries, but not a bad risk as we only used a second day pick on this player whose talent has been heralded. Oh well 2004 Dylan McFarland T Montana- Too early to judge this player entering his thir year or even to call him a bust as he has been cut by the Bills prior to last season. Hpwever, as he has been signed and sent to NFL Europe there is something the braintrust sees in him 2005 Justin Geisinger G Vanderbilt- Too early to tell for this rookie who dressaed for one game but did not play in any. Duke Preston C Illinois- A good year for this rookie as he earned a starting nod in a game and filled in for Villarial in several other games. he consistently appeared as part of the ST Free agent OL Corey Hulsey - Little cost and no yield Kris Farris - Little cost for this interesting development acquisition but no yield Jon Carman - Litle cost no yield John Romero - Little cost no yield. Marcus Price- Played a solid back-up role The fact he is out of the league means we timed this right Trey Teague- He is too small to play anchor the C position as we would hope and expect, but this athletic player has filled hir role well at times and for a low cost Mike Houghton- Little cost no yield Ross Tucker- A good acquisition as he took the starting LG job during the winning streak last year and stabilized the position. Injury issues led to his cut but still in league with NE. Gary Byrd - Little cost no yield Bernard Robertson- Little cost (late second day pick in huge 01 draft) but no yield as disipline problems did him in. Lawrence Smith- - a good acquisition as he cost back-up money and played starter when out original plans failed. He is not adequate as a fulltime starter but even after injury which IR'ed him last year may be a reasonable back-up. Chris Villarrial- On the backside of his career, at best a necessary but pricey pick up. Mike Gandy - impressive last year as there was no reasonable calculation to expect him to b even adewuate at LT. I hope he is replaced by a better player but will not wring my hands if we fail to do this because we are investing the cap hit elsewhere that leads to winning. Paying for a dominating LT that adds value to his teammates play would seem to be a pretty strong step toward winning so I wxpect Gandy to back-up (his cap allows) or play another position (as his experience allows). Bennie Anderson - Big disappointment. Some felt he actually showed some improvement in on the field play his last five games, but show us improvement quick or cut him. Greg Jerman- This journeyman played a small number of quality minutes for us this past season, but he is a journeyman who if he makes this team and is the best we can do we should wory. Jason Jefferson - DL player a mistake on original list Jasen Esposito - Low costt no yield. Fine looking group uh? : Actually I would judge this unit this way: 1. Bust- Showed nothing like a Ryan Leaf never justifying any hoped development 2. Failed Pick- He tried but he just was not a good enough player to justify pick 3. Average- OK choice who paid off while he was her but not worth resigning. 4. Good Pick- Should be resigned 5. Stud- Alright! By this standard of TDs 8 draft choice on the OL in 5 years: 4 Failed picks (Sully, MW, Pacillo, Sobieski) 1 Average pick (JJ) 3 Too early to tell (but there are good hopes for Preston. I know some folks would want to label MW a bust and this is not unreasonable IMHO given the huge contract he got as a #4. However, he strikes me as having been productive as a rookie and after he turned things around after his third year meltdown. Given that I think the best choice by far would have been to trade down from #4 in 2002 (unfortunately this cannot be expected by fans as it takes two teams to make a deal) since there simply were no obviously better choices who paid off with #4 production who we woulda/coulda/shoulda taken instead. Neither Harrington nor BM woud have been worth a #4 either. I think MW is a dreadfully (add as many adjectives as you want and it will accurately describe the disappointment of Bills fans over MW;s performance and contract) failed pick. However, I would not judge him a bust as I think Ryan Leaf was who clearly did not even deserve a 2nd year with his rookie non-play. My recollection also is that Mandarich demonstrated right from the start that his team had made a huge mistake in choosing him. I do not remember the details of the Patulski error (please correct if I am wrong) that folks have compared to MW, but I assume that he offered no real rational hope from the moment he took the field. Though there are a few folks so wise like BADOL who from his review of his college play could see what many professional draft pundits or NFL player development professional could not see and knew MW was not gonna make it, in general, fans and many pros had some rational hope after MW's production his first year and even some rational hope after he revived his career from his thrid season meltdown that he might somehow turn out to be at least a passable acquisition. MW did not work out and I am glad we cut him now and are moving on, but INHO I would label him a bust only if by this you mean a failed pick. Of the three too early to tell, I doubt Geisinger will become much, McFarland will be a back-up at best but I have hopes for Preston.

Boy I wish I had your crystal ball so that I could see for certains what would coulda shoulda happened if things were different than reality. In fantasy land, maybe MCKinnie would have held out on the Bills or maybe he would not have. It defiinitely takes two to fight so far be it from me to relieve the stupid Vikes from responsibility for the initial hold out of BM. They have demonstrated with their lack of discipline on the team as shown by the party-boat incidents, by their HC getting dinged by the NFL for scalping SB tickets, and by the unfortunate death of one of their players to heat stroke that their middle name is neither effective management or character. However, just as one cannot relieve MN of its reposponsibilities, one canot release BM from his. Maybe the holdout was a principled stand on his part. OK. But the indicitment against him for his acts on the sex boat move assessments of his character well into the fool me once shame on you, but fool me twice shame on me zone. Given him also getting pulled over for some driving while drinking infraction, there are a few too many incidents of idiocy, juvemalia, and I want mine incidents that one cannot reasonably overlook the character issues for BM and his team.

I completely agree with you that drafting an RT at #4 makes no sense at all. This is what lead me to GUESS that what TD and the Bills had in mind was to move Williams to LT as soon as they could. This plan APPEARED to me to be thrown off by several events: 1. MW was good but not great his rookie year. He had a quite productive year in 2002 as a rookie. On field production by the O he was an important part of as RT is the bottomline (though there can be an were many reasons to reasonably explain OL performance by any unit so OL production is the bottomline indicator but even that is not fully definitive in describing any single players performance in this ultimate team game). On the field, the O under QB'ing by Bledsoe had both a productive running game and a passing game as evidenced by the several Pro Bowl nods (again indicative though not decisive in declaring a player good) received by offensive players. The main thing MW the rookie had to learn was how to be a pro. He could be schooled in this by a pederstrian player like RG Sullivan. However, there was nothing Boselli-like in his game that demanded a move to LT even though particularly without opponents having a lot of tape on his strengths and weaknesses as a player he was productive his rookie year. 2. JJ also had a good but not great year at LT. JJ's performance gave the Bills a little breathing room to hope MW showed a ton at RT his second year and merited a move then to LT because he proved to at least be a reasonable stop gap at LT for another year. JJ showed that he had great potential to play and learn the game. However, he also began to exhibit the occurence of nicks and injury and made him a questionable candidate to be resigned to a big contract when he hit FA in a couple of years. At any rate the relative youth and good but not great play of these two players gave the Bills the room to keep them at LT and RT the next year and work for them to continue to develop. 3. It bacame obvious in 2002 that Vinky was not up to the job of OL coach. Vinky was made OL coach by buddy GW though he had never performed the job before. In his second year, as he struggled to design protection for the less than mobile Bledsoe and in the wake of GW's first OC Sheppard gettting the can, Vinky's failings were obvious. The situtation for MW was even worse because it was becoming clear that he would need some help in making the transition to LT which is the only position his 4th pick contract makes sense. However, MW's second year saw him staying still in development if not even disgressing a bit. 1. He was OK at best but reasonably judged less than productive at RT A. The O went completely south as Kevin Killdrive refused to vary his approach. B. Worse the Bills replaced the not ready for primetime Vinky with the almost equally inexperienced Ruel from Detroit. C. Even more bizarrely the Bills decided the "challenge" MW by cutting the Sullivan and instead putting Pacillo in at RG. This proved to be a mistake as MW really needed a vet to teach him beyond his failings as a player, but instead they put him into a position where he was supposed to provide guidance to Pacillo. MW was not nearly good enough to do this and the two of them often ended up staring at each other stupidly with "I thought you had him" body language over a prone Bledsoe after one them was beaten by a stunt. 2. JJ continued to make it OK (at best) to give MW another year at RT, but also continued to show that he was not worth a big contract to play LT when he hit FA due to his recurring nicks and injuries. MW's third year saw implosion and a "whistiling in the dark" revival. MW was essentially unprofessional in his reaction to the Grammy who raised him dying before his third season. While his reaction is certainlty understandable for a human being, unfortunately it is not condonable in our economic system where not only were the Bills paying him big bucks. more importantly, his teammates and all Bills fans were depending upon this well-paid publicfigure and he let us all down. On the good side, the Bills had finally gotten a much more experienced OL coach in JMac (who correctly said he was no miracle worker). he did a good carrot and stick job of using a public threat to move MW to guard and also rewarding him with a gameball after a good performance in mid-season to really revive his game to adequate from his meltdown. MW's 4th year saw a performance which made his cut a done deal due to his large contract. Overall, the question for you is if I am correct in agreeing with you that drafting an RT in the 4th slot is simply stupid, why do you feel the Bills did this. My thought is that they felt that since MW guarded the QB's blindside for a left hander in college, they felt he could make the jump. His combine stats on tests of agility like the shuttle run and subjective demonstrations of him having good (and actually great for such a huge specimen) mobility made this thought not unreasonable. For those who put a lot of stock in their subjective viewing of the college game, MW was a dominant RT there who showed some objective evidence of athleticism that he could be shifted to LT. Perhaps you are smarter that guys that make hundreds of thousands of $ per year from this game and could see that he could not make the shift, but I think it is far more reasonable that the Bills braintrust actually drafted MW with the idea they were drafting their LT of the future. I think it is reasonable for folks to complain their judgment he could not accomplsih this shift was/is better than the professional making the judgments on the draft. However, i do not think it is reasonable at all to feel that the Bills braintrust simply pursued stupid economics and paid LT $ for someone they viewed as an RT. I agree with you they could have had an equally competent RT for much less $. It makes no sense to me that folks are ranting about overpayment for an RT when there is no logical reason the Bills had that in mind.

As folks are doing their assessment and making their pronouncements as to who they think should stay or go on the Bills, i think a common error is being made. One can make a completely correct assessment as to which Bills is a better player, however, the answer on who to cut or keep may be the exact opposite. For example, when TD was asked in his job prior to becoming the Bills Prez about whether RJ or Flutie was a better player, he simply looked to Flutie's record of being starting QB for the Bills when they made the playoffs twice and RJ's recprd of looking good briefly but not being able to avoid injury and asked whats the question. Yet, right away when he came here he backtracked to say the QB question was an open one and ultimately chopped DF and kept RJ. In the end, both needed to be and deserved to be cut (RJ was too-injury prone to be our QB of the future, DF was too old and subject to end of the season wear down to be our QB of the future). However, RJ was so injury prone and Flutie was so dynamic while he was in there that IMHO clearly Flutie was the better player. Yet, when it came down to a choice between the two in TD's first season he made the right choice in chopping the better player and seeing what would happen with the player Butler cap indebted us to. The truth is Virginia, that simply being the better player is not enough here in the real world. It's a team game so how you get a long with your teammates is a big factor. TO for example is a far better player than any other Iggles WR, but they should not keep this idiot. When you expect to win makes a big difference. Holcomb is clearly a better player than RJ (certainly today and probably all year IMHO) but though we need to improve our Ws, the goal is make the playoffs. I really doubt Holcomb can lead this team to the playoffs this year and have significant doubts he will last long enough in this league or play consistently long enough to even lead them to the playoffs nxt year. I doubt even more RJ can lead them to the playoffs this year, but he presents a far better chance of developing into a playoff producing QB next year than KH. Holcomb is the better player, but unless JP really sucks and offers us no chance of winning games this year, I start JP. The salary cap makes a big difference. I like Milloy as a player better than I like Vincent, but given the relative cap advantages of cutting them (and my sense our Cover 2 will lend itself more to TV's demonstated strengths) there is not question in my mind that you cut Milloy before you cut TV. I love the chatter on TSW about who is a better player, but this is simply a different judgment than the question of who you keep or who you start. Its unfair, but life ain't fair.

Huh? There are so many key facts missing from this description that it ends up as little more than revisionist history. When TD came to town the key to all things regarding contracts was cap hell. The Bills had lived large and competed masterfully maintaining as much of the old guard as they could, but finally the grim reaper came calling and time waits for no man. As TD had said in his website job prior to taking over the Bills. when someone asked who was a better performing QB, Flutie who had led this team to a couple of playoff berths or RJ who had suffered recurring injuries and left the one playoff game he started in the lead most important the team ended up losing anway by saying "What.s the qiestion." Though even TD saw DF was the better QB (though neither was good enough) he had no choice but to cut the better player and keep the younger one with at least some potential of upside. Add to this a series of other players such as Big Ted who simply had to be let go and it is no surprise that virtually all observers assess his first season as not one which fits your description, but of one where anyone gets a mulligan for the record achieved. Does this mean TD made good choices when he came here? No and yes. Yes, I think he made some generally necessary and even some good choices in his first year as far as player selection and negotiating goes. Many of the folks cut such as DF or Big Ted were simply better players than the ones we kept. However, TD made the move we were forced to make unless we wanted to lock ourselves into perpetual losing status. Further, he made some very good moves such as his work leading his first Bills draft. Trading down the first pick and still getting the 1st CB taken in Pro Bowler Clements and getting an extra pick turned into Pro Bowler Henry was simply a nice piece of work. As with any draft there were some clinkers for example the Ron Edwards pick has not worked out as a Bills fan would want, however, other picks such as Schobel have worked out quite well for us. I think he deserves good marks for the work he did ending cap hell a year (or more) quicker than most experts predicted and also high marks on both the immediate (2 eventual Pro Bowlers and several starters on our bad team from his 7 rounds of picka) and the long-term impacts of this draft (3 players still on team from the 7 rounds). I think all of this is caneled out however by the horrible decisions he made in hiring gW as an HC. You are correct that the decision to switch to a 4-3 from a 3-4 at the same time as we were losing DL starters and reserve who left for a big contract (Hansen, Big Ted, Wiley and Bruce) in a rwo year period. However it is simply revisionist history not to recognize that amidst the fatal stupid errors TD made in HC hiring there were also some very good moves.

If you are looking for someone who has defended MW on this board to back down from this then pick me! Though trading down looked by far like the best thing for the Bills to do given that folks like Harrington (a definte loser so far), McKinnie (another definite loser so far) and MW (amother definite loser for the Bills as they cut him) I think it would be false and illogical for anyone to not recognize that past hope/calls to give MW a chance were simply wrong. What also strikes me as false or illogical however is for folks to try to jusify this by looking beyond the simple reality of claiming MW did not play anywhere near well enough to justify his contract but to make a claim that McKinnie was an obviously better choice. MW was a bad choice but based on his career it seems pretty clear that McKinnie would have been a bad choice as well for the Bills. He clearly had demonstrated he is an idiot with: 1. His initial holdout 2. His actions on the Vikes sex party boat 3. His arrest for some driving/drinking charge. I have not seen much of him but some film highlights (and lowlights) so please correct me if someone has seen him and he looks great as a Pro, but his first year was as best as I can tell a loss because of his holdout. His second year featured the usual struggles of a first time full year player and was actually not as productive as MW's first two years blocking for a pretty good O his first year and for 1200 yards for Henry in an ineffective O his second year. MW had real pass pro issue his second year for us as he and his colleague Pacillo could not coordinate to save their lives or the far less than mobile Bledsoe running a predictable K. Killdrive O he refused to vary even though clearly opponents had caught on to its tendenicies. I do not know what McKinnie's thrid year was like because I had already stopped paying attention to this fool. MW had a year which was the worst of times (his unprofessional meltdown when the Grammy who raised him died in the off-season but he played what many observers felt was his best ball as a Bill as the season went on and the streak began and he even got a gameball for one sackfree game. I think a lot of the hosannas come from a coparison between the two this year and though MW showed up for camp in the best shape of his fat life he clearly did not remain healthy or get the job done and deserved to be cut. McKinnie had what apparently was his best year as a pro (though this may not be saying much)/ However, it is not like his worked helped produce an offense for MN that was anything but marginally adequate at best. In addition, i have not heard any logical explanation of why better play by McKinnie this year was not better explained by him having less of a need to hold blocks for an experienced Brad Johnson than for a scrambler Culpepper. MW certainly sucks and good riddance to him being way to much way overpaid, but there simply has been little more than unsubstantiated and intensely epidsodic claims that McKinnie was a better choice to make. There have even been some rumors of MN thinking of also letting BM go and this would not be surprising given all I have heard about him. If you have other facts I would love to know.

Nod- I hope that having a double digit number of fingers on one hand does not hurt your social life in a big way. In addition to the plays against NE mentioned in a post above, I also remember Milloy making a goal line stop and then recovering a fumble (I think against Miami) in a game that year. It would only be intelligent to look beyond episodic big plays and also note BIG games within which a player is credited with a double digit number of tackles. Milloy rang up these totals at least 3 times this year and also did it several times last year as he once was the AFC Defensive player of the week (one of the reasons that merely looking for big plays is not the same as looking for good players). Add in to that Milloy in addition to contributing on the field was a big time and positive leader on a team which desperately needed some good leadership. I would merely reference the story of Milloy's arrival with the Bills when he went to a film session within which a lot of the team laughed when the film showed a Bills getting bowled over. Milloy made a point of vocally taking the team on and saying that this was not the approach of a serious professional and a good teammate to seeing this play. The offending Bill needed to play better and the faulty played should not be glossed over either by pretending the offending Bill needed to play better or that it was something to laugh about. He brought a sense of being a member of a TEAM rather than simply a team which was real because he was a leader on a Pats team which won the SB. If you want to claim that this should not be considered because it makes no difference on the field remember that his prescence with the Bills and the devastation which led NE players to publicly rag on the boy genius Belicheck for screwing up his resigning was a big factor in the Bills trashing NE 31-0 in the 1st game of the season only to have the patina wear off with our being trashed 0-31 in the final game. It only makes sense that the addition of Milloy was a big part of the difference on the field here. He deserves to be cut because he is not worth the big contract the market forced us to pay him (so we did not have to start Coy Wire at SS which may be what we are forced to do when we cut Milloy) but he has been a good player for us who might be saved by having the cover 2 duty but probably not.

My guess is also that the Turk will visit him and he will get cut. However, he certainly does not suck as a player. His play was a big part in making the zone blitz work for us for two years and he was credited with over 100 tackles last year because he is an experienced player who is not afraid to make a hit. However, he is well into the backside of his career and has a large cap number that will give us a savings of over 2 million bucks by cutting him. The Bills switch to a cover 2 (or maybe even a Kiffinesque cover 3 may save him. He will not be called on to play a run support/stuffing role which he could not play as well last year with his broken hand. Playing centerfielder will actually rely much more on his lengthy experience. The problem is though with the D switch the safeties will have a lot of ground to cover and toughness and hitting were more the Milloy game than having the wheels so I think he gets cut. Part of the reason he gets cut though is because it makes far more sense to keep Vincent: 1. He tied for the lead among Bills last year for INTs and fumble recoveries (the fact it only took w recoveries to tie for the team lead is another reason why it would seem silly to further reduce our turnover ability by cutting a team leader in this category. Any post which advocated cutting him without any semblance of a plan about how we replace these numbers is little more than a rant. 2. We only save 200,000 and change by cutting him, not only is the default replacing him with a rookie but a cheap one at that. 3. Vincent is also well into the backside of his career but playing the centerfielder role both lends itself to his experience and his pass Pro Bowl talent as a cover guy. He has certainly lost a step or two, but he started off with better speed than Milloy (and most players) and has speed to lose and is still faster than many real alternatives. The rant to cut Vincent makes little sense and actually no sense without a plan beyond get a younger guy.

I think there is evidence which cuts both ways regarding his attitude toward playing the game. On the positive side he showed tremendous work in rebuilding himself from his devastating knee injury to do his pre-draft "work-out" when many folks thought he would still be on crutches. Granted their was money on the line for him if he secured a higher draft position, but hard work is hard work for whatever reason it is done and he did show the ability to do hard work. In addition, after he signed with the Bills there were fiscal incentives for him to work himself into starting form, but also he had already gotten a bigger check than most mere mortals will ever see in his bonus. He onced again showed hard work by building his body back to the point where he was a quality rusher for the Bills. In addition, to that, he spent this past off-season working out wih the Boys at the U and came into this season having added what has been said to be another 5 pounds of muscle to his frame. Again this is a tangible sign of him working hard to get better at his craft. Someone would disagree with his choice in saying he sacrificed speed to get more muscle, but no one can argue that he does not have the tenacity and character to work hard. On the other hand, there are: Press quotes which indicate he feels he is one of the best RBs in the league. After a great first half of season in accumulating running yards he did not put up yards consistent with this claim. There are things which can be offered to uphold either the view he is committed or a view he is a legend in his own mind. My guess is probably both are true, but it says more about the poster than about WM to base ones opinion on the press quotes rather than his real world work and results IMHO.

The question Clayton used to frame the story is weird also. He states it is weird for Marv to come into such a troubled league. Well yeah, but does he suggest that Marv should have waited until a better opportunity to enter the league comes along in 3-5 years. If the league is in bad shape then simply pursue that issue directly. If he thinks that Marv will have a better situation to come into when he is older and he should wait then state that studidity. Its just a bizarre way of looking at the situation.

I know folks are down on Mike Williams right now and they should be. His cut by the Bills was well deserved and he failed Bills fans, his teammates and himself as an athlete by playing so poorly that he did not deserve the contract he got with the #4 draft pick slot. That being said, even though he deserves our ridicule, it strikes me as more than reasonable for a team to sign him to a pretty good contract and attempt to get some value out him. Folks need to acknowledge (if they have any interest in reality though this is not a requirement actually of rabid fans) that MW was cut not simply because he was a bad player, but that actually he deserved to be cut by the Bills because his play did not justify the huge cap outlay we were providing for his contract. MW was a bust for us because he did not become and did not merit the pay of franchise LT and that is how we agreed to pay him. However, any team which signs him gets him free and clear without the encumberances of the pay mandated by his draft slot. Even the best guards in this league make multi-millions of $ a year. The vet minimum is in the hundreds of thousands a dollar per year. MW# does not deserve to be paid like the best paid G (much less a good pay for a tackle). Hpwever, even the pay given to an adequate tackle or guard can easily amount ot a couple a million per year. In addition, the salary cap is going up this season so there will be some money around for teams to invest and since many teams are looking to run and to stop the run, an OL investment is a good place to go. MW can sign a new deal which gives him a low salary and pro-rates a substantial bonus over the length of that contract or allowed in an uncapped year if there is no new CBA. He can easily sign for a contract which rewards him heavily for reaching the incentive of appearing in a number or starting a number of games and it would be quite reasonable. While no one likes being rejected, being cut should prove to be a great financial boon for MW. He already is a mult-muillionaire with the intial bonus he received from the Bills. He now will get free money he had not contracted for by signing a new contract with a team paying him another multi-million dollar bonus upfront. One can feel sorry for MW for getting rejected due to his failure as an athlete, but overall one should not feel sorry for him career wise in terms of compensation as this cut leaves him laughing all the way to the bank.

I think if you ask a cop-out question you will get a cop-out answer. To attempt to pin one single event or decision as the biggest contributor is a cop-out in that it simply does not work that way. Its an inter-relationship between many factors which is the true cause or explanation of the problem. The difficult reality is that no one here is totally bad or totally good in terms of the job they did. If one is going to try to pin it down to a single person or action (which is certainly useful to spur or focus the entertaining activity of internet argument) then the ultimate cop-out is the most real answer in that it is Ealph's fault primarily. If one traces it back even to the last Butler draft, it was Ralph or misread what he was doing and failed to oversee his horrible last draft. It was in fact Ralph or fairly directly participated in the RJ/Flutie debacle as it was his pronouncement which led to the final playoff lost QB'ed by RJ, but ultimately lost becaise we had to go cheap for ST guys and they did not stay in their lanes as we compensated for the huge cap hit at QB for RJ or DF to sit and watch the other play. Ultimately, all these QB debacles go back to RWS making a handshake agreement to compensate Jimbo in his next FA contract which was a proof positive showing of a total miscalculation by Ralph of how much football Jimbo had left. The biggest contributor was Ralph, but screwing up the team is his right in our society because he is the owner and we live by the Golden Rule. He who has the most gold rules.

Thanks Stl Bills for the distillation! I'm sure the folks who gather at Duffs for Bills games are proud of you! However, it should be noted that any comparison which attempts to assign values to picks and then compiles results from multiple drafts has to be suspect for a variety of uses. 1. All drafts are not the same or equal and compilations end up weird- Last year's draft was pretty weak from top to bottom in terms of strength of the players. This year's draft looks pretty deep at several positions. To assign a static point value to a particular round when it was already getting thin midway through the second round last year and when there should be some talented players available on day 2 this year cuts against multi-year compilations. Picks 10-30 may be assigned a 5 and picks after #150 (or something like that) may be assigned a 2, but in years when there is a weak draft and some of the later picks are better players, compiling drafts looking at the quality of players produced gets fairly inaccurate fairly quickly. 2. All team needs are not the same- The 2001 draft worked well for us because our needs, the needs of other teams and the draft pool lined up well. Thus we were able to trade down several positions into the low 20s and still get the first CB taken when we had a crying need for CB help. Its hard to even do a simple static comparison within a draft because how it plays out for you depends so much on how your needs compare to that of others. TG clearly had faults and failing that led to him deserving to be fired. However, reading the market when it came to the draft was a strong part of his work. Trading down our first pick in the 2001 draft and getting an extra pick he turned into Pro Bowler Henry and still getting the first CB taken in that draft was simply outstanding work. Reading the run on DL players in the 2003 draft and seeing he could take WM (which surprised all) and still get Kelsay with our 3nd oick was a great reading of the market. When you add to that we had the 23rd pick that year because he tagged PP and though he deserved to be canned for mishandling the HC hires, his ability to read and predict the market were great. This factor needs to be thought about when figuring out a particular draft and is part of why any compilation is of limited use. Still, these are interesting numbers for the limited purpose of comparing college teams to each other in terms of training players who get picked high. This factor can be compared across years because regardless of the talent level of the draft and given that on the whole variations in team need will be a wash, one can reasonably compare how the colleges are doing their job of training pro athletes (though actually even this is rediculous since their job should be to educate kids, but instead our society seems to place more value on being entertained by sports than it does on little things like educating our youth).

I was going to read through all 6 pages of this thread and comment on the most interesting posts, but this one stopped me at page 4 because these comments cannot go without a reply based on reality. 1. Please. Simply being better than MW does not save one from ridicule. MW deserves grief and ridicule because he never played up to the predictions of the learned draft pundits (one site of the Bushchbaum level thiough I do not remember exactly who it was had him as a lock to be a solid pro for years) and certainly not to the level of his contract. As a person he is laughing all the way to the bank, but as an athlete he is a failure. Though McKinnie lasted longer than MW with the team which drafted him (it is still debatable which is a better athlete since each has about a year and a half of food play out of their 4 years under contract so far) he easily deserves ridicule for his own adequate at best play (the year and a half of his 4) and his stupidity and shenanaigans off the field. Why does McKinnie deserve ridicule? A. Held out a large enough chunk of his first year that he cost his team badly in terms of performance and himself badly as his rookie year was essentially a lost year of development for him. B. Was mediocre at best his first full season in play on the field. C. Added insult to injury by being one of the lead participants on the Vikes sex-party boat. D, Added foolish weakness to the insult added to the injury if his mediocre at best on field performance with a drunk driving charge. Clearly MW deserve ridicule for letting this region and Bills fans down, but this in no way clears McKinnie from also deserving ridicule for his play and personality. 2. Even if you want to overlook reality and claim that McKinnie will build on a not bad year last year (not great but not bad) thanks to Brad Johnson's decision-making and quick release, the idea that McKinnie would have teamed with JJ to make a great pair for the Bills overlooks the fact that Jennings was never worth more than vet minimum payment for his play. SF was really stupid to pay JJ a huge amount of $ when he hit FA because his play as Bill indicated he clearly wsd no worth full time pay as this injury prone player never ever never has played fulltime in the NFL. He has failed in every season to even start all 16 (or even 15 as his best season saw 14 starts. When one takes into account that both of these missed starts came after he missed the crunch time of previous games (I think it was a concussion once and a muscle tear or sprain the other time) he actually was unable to play all or substantial parts of 1/4 of his best season. I think the injury which put JJ on the IR for SF this year is pretty good proof that it is fair to label him as injury prone. Every NFL player gets nicked and it happens so they play through the pain (its part of why they get the big bucks). As you gain experience a player also can be subject to a recurring injury to some spot on his body that may cost him some time. However, i think JJ clearly has earned the label of being injury prone as because like RJ, it was not one injury that was a recurring problem, but a wide variety of injuries to various parts of this athlete's body which cut him down. He was injury prone in that he could be cut down not by an opponent picking on a weakness in his body or him failing to protect and favor an injury, but because he was prone to be injured in a wide variety of places/ Even worse, though some athletes and people simply suck it up and play through the pain, the injuries consistently cost him PT and performance. Rag on MW all you want because in addition to wishing him well this is the time to do it because he failed us. However, trying to do this by comparing him to McKinnie simply overlooks too many real flaws in BM's game and personality. To then try to rag on MW by somehow claiming that BM and JJ would have been great together simply defies logic.

We have needs at too many positions for us to give away picks and other resources to get one player who if he is like other first round picks is 50/50 tp evem contribute to this team in his first year. Even in middling cases of 1st year contribution there is the strong possibility that he plays in his first year like Mike Williams but is a bust for us overall in particular due to the large cap hit a first round pick is slotted to get. In the worst cases one trades up for someone who pulls a Ryan Leaf (concensus great product by most observers who does nothing) or you trade away your entire draft to move up and take (sshhhuuudddeeer) Rickey Williams. Trading down by far seems the better strategy for building a team.

There is another thread which actually has produced some interesting analysis (amidst the usaul sophmoric attacks by some folks who seem to have insecurities probably linked to some deficiency they feel they have about a part of their body) of the JP/KH issue. I think folks can have legitimate disputes about an assessment of their play ability and all fans are actually quite free to have silly opinions about who they like more as a person (though these fact-free opinions are generally formed without having ever met the guy and only having seen him on TV). I think the good news is that it looks like this dispute will be setled on the field as to which one is a better performer for reaching the Bills goals rather than the Bills making the same foolish mistakes of: 1. Assuming Kelly would last longer than he did before forced into retirement. 2. After failing to draft a replacement for Jimbo a year (or two) too late they over-reached to draft TC in the 2nd round and then rushed him to start when he needed a year or more of training to get rid of his happy-feet (if it ever could be trained out of him). 3. The braintrust then overspent on Billy Joe Idiot. 4. Finally, they made a good move that the rest of the NFL passed on and believed Flutie could play NFL ball, but then the panic caused them to pau the market rate for RJ, but they stupidly gave him the job without on-field competition. I ask this question not to rehash the is KH better than JP dispute because I think it is clear from their performances on the field last year that KH is a better QB than the young JP. However, I think the key to this decision is the one of what is an attainable goal for the Bills. I hope like heck we make the playoffs this year but think even that will be a tough goal. Though I think KH is a better QB right now and likely will be a better QB at the beginning of the season, I would start JP as long as he is passable and can allow us to compete at least while he learns. If I thought Holcomb could lead us to 11 wins and we make the playoffs in 06 I start him, However, I think he likely at best leads us to 9 wins and we miss the playoffs. Because I do not see KH as our QB of the future, nut MAYBE (just maybe) JP might be I am happy to see him start if he can get us to 7 or 8 wins and we miss the playoffs same as if KH starts. The two questions I think for folks who want KH to start is why do they serious believe he can lead us to the 10 (or maybe 11 in a tough conference) Ws we need to make the playoffs in 06 or do they actually see KH and the Bills QB of the future. I think neither is true but in the end this should be decided on the field of play. The unfair, but reality of the situation is that I then judge their on field play as the ability to get 7 or 8 Ws but learn the pro game is enough for me to start JP as long as I feel he is learning. While I only start Holcomb if I feel he has a good shot at leading this team to the playoffs and the 19 or 11 Ws that will make this happen, Marv says the mantra is win now and I believe him, but my sense is that what he means by winning is improve on last year's mediocre total and that if the goal is playoffs or failure then quite likey he will fail this year.

Kul- Thanks to you and Kelly F & B for sorting through the contract and CBA issues, its become such a long piece and subject to so many changes as the growing partnership between the NFL and NFLPA fine tunes it, its hard even for the professionals and experts like Clumpy to keep up with it. I disagree almost completely with your complete disagreement with me and for a couple of specific reasons. 1. There is the 20/20 hindsight which KB&F references that Butler should not have given such a huge deal to RJ before he proved himself. To some extent you are right that the only "proof" this would have been the right thing to do is the hindsight of his actual injury proneness and failure on the field. However, I would not say this was all hindsight because I remember (only vaguely since this was way back in 1998 but I am oretty sure this is the line I took and if someone wants to check the archives for what DikSmub said I will be impressed and grateful) making the point that even before RJ took the field that I was disappointed that Butler had not waited until at least after the 1998 pre-seaspn and actually I GUESSED that he really had up until about 8 games of watching RJ before signing him to the huge contract. The question is not whether the size of the RJ contract was huge or met the market standard at the time, the question was when Butler/RJ agreed to it. Players (and their agents) often take the stand that they are not going to even invest in the distraction of negotiating a contract once the season starts not only to elminate the distraction, but actually because they are trying to avoid the situation of having owership get the leverage of seeing how they play before they risk a big bonus. Players are generally interested in forcing owners to take a leap of faith and owners tend to fight against this (though they also play the leverage game in some cases of refusing to negotiate until after the season is over if they retain the leverage that the tag gives them). The key to this is that there is no rule against a team and a player agreeing to a deal whenever both parties choose to. My sense is that if the Bills had simply waited at least until RJ and DF took each other on in a "fair" fight in pre-season it would have had the effects of: A. Giving them a chance to see how RJ played before signing him to a large deal (even if $25 mill is what the market dictated to resign a starter QB this was a large deal). Though RJ's play in pre-season and even through his performance against SF early that season provided some reasonable hope he was going to be our QB of the future, his play was not that great that it seemed to merit the large deal he got. He began to suffer nicks early in his play for the Bills (he was not able to finish his first game even though he came back and played well in the second game) and making the leap of faith of signing him to an extension was wrong in hindsight but at least quite questionable at the time and I and others did so even without hindsight. Exending RJ was a move which seemed to be more prompted by the QB fear of life without Jim Kelly which prompted these professionals to make a series of miscalcuilations about when Kelly would be done, ove-reaching and over relying on TC, and over-reaching on Hobert. The mistake was forseeable and forseen by outside observers on TSW (even us stupid amateyurs). B. A lot of the bad blood with Flutie and the Bills stemmed from the fact they lied to him. When DF signed to an incentive laden deal, the public pronouncements were he would get a fair shot at winning or losing the jpb in pre-season. Most except for AJ Smith (and actually even myself as I was a consistent advocate even way back then that the best course for the Bills was to spend low on a QB as we sought a pedestrian QB talent capable of winning the SB (a new version of Jim MacMahon or Doug Williams) rather than a football god like an Elway or a Favre. I felt that it while it might be easier to identify a great player than the next pedestrian talent capable of winning, the emerging salary cap made it a better strategy for us to get a number of low budget talents and allow them to compete rather than risking it all on a high-paid QB. While I suggested a cheap player of this type beforehand of being a Steve DeBerg (who ironically did play in the SB that year for AT) I did not suggest DF beforehand. At any rate (he said resumimg the post to go away for a meeting) I think it was forseen and forseeable and not second guessing that Butler should not have signed a market rate contract for RJ so quickly. The second point worth considering was that there was at lwast one well placed person who really felt DF could do a lot as a pro. This was AJ Smith and that is why we signed him. The stories are legend of how he had to fight many non-believers to get DF even offered a contract. Obviously to convince folks to even offer him anything he had to make some fairly substantial claims about his abilities which some did not buy but finally conceded to at least give him a shot. It is wrong to claim nobody on the Bills foresaw what he might and did do for us. AJ Smith did and Butler and the folks who gave him an "unattainable" deal were foolishly wrong. One can forgive the NFL Black Box committee which judges incentives, but Butler and the pros are paid to make good assessments and they knew more than anyone about his skills and cannot be let off the hook with a Dick Cheney like argument that all the intelligence said their was quail in the bush and given the decision to make today I would still shoot my 78 year old friend in the face. Finally, Flutie is on record saying that he was quite surprised when the Bills agreed to roll his made incentives into his next year's contract because he would have signed anyway. Someone has maintained that according to the CBA this is true of all made incentives. I could not find it, but I (and many others have been wrong about the CBA before). Perhaps he is confusing it with the fact that made incentives are counted against the following year's cap, but I had not heard anywhere that DF's base salary for 1999 automagically included the incentives made in 1998 IN ADDITION to the the achieved incentives for 1998 couting against the cap. It was this 6+ million cap number that forced the extension and proration of the DF deal though his 1999 cap hit was still over $3 million. At any rate I do not see why you completely disbelieve these those and try to pass them off as mere hindsight when much of this was forseeable and forseen and alot of it appears unnecesary to have been done.

A lot of this is not simply an assessment of how much does a player cost versus the norm for the position, but also what is available to replace that player on the open market. One of the "benefits" Milloy received from Belicheck playing Russian roulette with him pushing him until the last minute and figuring that he would cave (or "do the right thing for the team" depending on how you want to characterize the exact same action depending upon your ideology) was that he entered a marketplace where the supply of former Pro Bowl safeties was low (namely 1) and the demand for any competent safety from teams with cap room was high (at least two teams who could bid against each other the Bills and the Bears). TD gave Milloy a "take-out" bid in a take it or leave it offer that was so high that Milloy took it and the Bills avoided a bidding war with Chicago. There were a bunch of safeties in the NFL who were better performers or on the frontside of their careers other than Milloy. However, none of these players was available and this Milloy was overpaid based on his quality of play, but the Bills made a great deal to get him we had only Coy Wire as an alternative as both had Cota and Ainseky Battle has reached agreements with the Bills to play safety and then up and retired. As far as expectations, a lot of folks on TSW were saying cut both and overpaid TV and Milloy, but these notes appeared to be little more than the usual whining and bleating of us disappointed fans which had little to do with real assessment of their play and even less to do with the reality of the cap (which admittedly I and a good chunk of NFL professionals do not fully understand actually as the CBA is long, changing, and convoluted). The kwy numbers quoted in this thread are the relative cap savings of cutting these players which is substantial for Milloy and pretty small if you cut TV. Add into this (and actually overiding this in real life) that the Bills are switching to the Cover 2 D which likely will require the safeties to play more like CBs who play centerfield rather like LBs crowding the LOS in the zone blitz. Both experienced players like TV amd Milloy will benefit from this switch in that it will use their skills in reading and diagnosing plays which is enhanced by playing a bunch of games. However in a traditional Cover 2 these safeties will have a lot of field to cover and speed will be a real asset (this is less but still true if what the Bills end up employing is something more like Monte Kiffin's Cover 3 which gives the safeties a "mere" 1/3 of the field to cover. My guess is right now that likely TV stays (particularly since statistically he tied for the team lead in INTs and FR last year) but the potential is really there when we see who gets cut and what the market looks like that Milloy will either have to take a significant readjustment of his salary or be cut.

This would be a real waste and a likely death warrant for a Bills team which took this approach. The reality is that there is a salary cap and a team can simply try to get and stockpile talented and/or well paid players who simply sit on the bench. Every player who simply sits without playing not only does not contribute on the field, but he takes a roster spot from another player who could be contributing to the team. The salary cap makes this calculus even worse as a player's cap hit whether he plays or not merely means we do not have the $ to buy more talent elsewhere. We saw this big time with the foolish manner with which Butler handled the RJ/DF contracts. When the smoke cleared and for 1999 we had a cap hit that included a $5+ million prorated cap hit to RJ AND $3 million in made incentives in 1998 to DF's 99 cap hit, AND another $3 million or so in salary now owed to DF, we had a combined QB cap for the QB position well above the highest QB salary in the league and probably well above what any other team allocated to the QB position. The result was: 1. We had to sign DF long term so we could prorate his salary over a number of years. 2. We still had to cut a bunch of vets who knew how to stay in their lanes and instead play cheap rookies and UDFAs on ST. The result was the TN Homerun Throw-up. The Bills are locked in at QB with a 1st round pro-rated draftee QB contract to RJ like it or not. We fortunately have a reasonably doable contract at back-up money for Holcomb. We simply cannot afford another QB from the FA market or even a first day draft choice without doing without a a player who will actually play merely to have yet another QB on the bench. Draft another QB if you want, but the effect would be that we would likley cut Holcomb as we have the JP cap hit whether you keep him or trade/cut him (the resulting cap hit would be even worse).

The key to making a decision as to who starts at QB in 2006 is that these two players have to meet different standards of on field performance in order to be given the start. The fact that they are going to be judged by different standards of production is "unfisir" in terms of comparing their play and production, but this is simply reality. Holcomb can actually be a much better producing QB than JP, but if JP produces well enough to indicate he has a reasonable shot at becoming quite soon a good enough QB for the Bills to win, he gets the start over the better QB. When Marv declared essentially that the future is now, this gave a real boost to Holcomb getting a fair run at starting. Unlike last year, where TD seemed willing to give JP a whole bunch of room to screw up as long as he was learning the game, the room given to JP to grow is going to be severely constrained. However, given cap room and the Bills investment in a longer-term contract for JP this factor is not going away. My sense is that JP will start: 1. Unless he sucks like last year in his first go round. While not showing impossibly huge problems like Todd Collins happy-feet which are difficult to cure overall and certainly not in mid-season. JP did look like a fish out of water with a tendency to rely too much on himself running the ball or dumping it off rather then going to his WRs. He still lost games in his late season go rounds like the Miami game, but did look much better and in control and went to his WRs effectively early lik the multiple TDs to Evans. If JP sucks he sits, but if even if he losses some close ones which Holcomb MIGHT have won, JP probably gets the nod to work on his game. 2. Playing against the vanilla Ds of pre-season and without the opponent seriously game planning against him he will do well enough to win the start in pre-season. 3. A real key fir JP is going to be the luck of the scheduling draw. If we open against several opponents like Houston last year it will help cement his place in the starting role (and his confidence in himself and his teamates in him which is a big part of succes in this league) and if we do not run into unexpected buzzsaw like our road game against TB with Caddllac, then I suspect JP will be OK and good to go as our starter going up and down through the year. Holcomb is the better QB as best as I can judge right now. His experience allows him to make better decisions and control the flow of the game. He has shown flashes of brilliance during his career, but never has been a consistent enough producer to win the starting job. The Bills MIGHT make the playoffs (with a likely early exit but simply making the plaoffs after the O-fer under TD will be a certain improvement and likely judged a successful season even with an early exit) with JP at QB. I think we will have a slight but noticeably better chance at making the playoffs with Holcomb as our starting QB. However, after 9 years of quality back-up QB play where he has amassed all of a slighly better than .500 record as a starter, Holcomb simply is not in the real world or by contract and salary cap the Bills QB of the future. Holcomb can certainly win the starters job if JP simply sucks next pre-season and in camp and Holcomb plays lights out. However, it is unlikely that JP wll suck as he seems to be a committed guy toward studying and showing good book smarts. He also is a talented athlete used to improvising and running for his life in college. He should be able to run simple stunts which fool opponents running a vanilla D who have not gameplanned for the Bills tendencies. How he does during the season will probably depend much on how hard he has worked and whether he is able to convert that work in production on the field this season AND whether he gets the breaks and this oddly shaped shaped ball bounces the right way in his early games. A lot of the NFL game is confidence. JP needs to develop confidence in himself (which actually he does not seem to lack with his cockiness), confidence in his teammates (he has developed some seeming chemistry with Evans, but never developed this with Moulds because to make it work in this league sometimes you have to lay it out there and trust your teammates to make plays for it to work) and most important have his teammates develop confidence in him. This latter piece is why a player MUST play and actually must succeed to develop in this game as this confidence mostly come from winning and making great plays. Holcomb strikes me as one ofthe best back-ups in the league, but I really doubt he gets the start unless JP screws up (which I doubt he will initially against vanilla Ds).

Devoting even larger amounts of our cap budget to the QB position by making the commitment of $ it would take to get Brees (and even the lesser but still substantial amounts it would take to get any other quality QB) would make the overcommitment of resources to RJ and DF which the Bills made look paltry in comparison. Maybe (and just maybe) if the Bills did not have more immediate needs to produce a winning team like (1. Resource commitment to bolster the DL to stop the run and get consistent pass pressure to make the Cover 2 D work well, 2. Resource commitment to simply make the OL adequate, 3. Replacement of the likely FA cap casualty losses like Moulds, 4. getting a solid back-up for WM, 5. getting adequate TE play then if all these things were not higher priorities than spending on a QB the getimg Bress would merely be a stupid risk. In light of our other real needs, doing what it would take financially to get Brees would simply be insane.

This assessment strikes me as simplistic. Looking at the hard to measure things, Winfield has a consistency in his play that "playmake" Clements simply does not match. With Clements you will get the great dynamic play which the Bills have sorely lacked in the pre-Clements days of the occaisional INT run back for a TD or his work on the PR game. However, with this good also comes the evil of occaisional boners like him getting taking to the clearners on a Hail Mary 4th down pass by Jax a few years back. Virtually all CBs get taken to the woodshed by a perfect pass to an acrobatic WR through good coverage from time to time, however, a long with Winfield coming up with paltry INT numbers, he almost always proved to be a shut down CB with great tackling ability to boot. Those Clements derserved the Pro Bowl nod he got in 04 with some "thrill of victory" work, he also was clearly responsible for some "agony of defeat" moments in 05 and through out his career. Winfield rarely got the picks, but also rarely got embarassed. Add to that some quality work where he not only shut down RBs, but he is a shutdown cover guy not only on WRs, but he toasted TEs like Gonzales in a game against KC and nailed Jax TB fo a couple of major losses which took away a big part of their gameplan in one our wins and I think there is actually a much stronger case to make that he is a better CB than Clements.

I think we look to FA for a possession WR whom we see as a credible #2 and compliment to Evans downfield speed threat. its unclear to me how much the market will provide Joe Jurivicius since though he is well into the backside of his career he did well with the SB appearing Seahawks last year, but he would seem to be the model for what we are after as we seek a Wayne Chrebet like talent. Moulds can more than play the role of this go-to possession receiver who is an Andre Reed like TD/RAC threat as well, but the cap cost appears to simply be too high to keep him. However, if the Bills get a even a sometimes possession go-to threat at #2 WR, this not only helps our third down conversion #s in and of itself, but compliments Evans talents well as opponents would want to but can't dt both at crunch time. Add Parrish's speed threat as a #3 WR and in 3 WR sets we create a world of problems for opponents. If this comes about, it sctually would make the ability of former RB cosch to raise some pass-catching ability out of WM as a key to our O being a juggernaut next year. The short answer to your question is YES!