Albany,n.y.

But, but but... It takes YEARS to figure out that a QB does or doesn't have it. HE JUST NEEDS MORE TIME! Look at the "mistake" that GB made deciding Brian Brohm wasn't good enough. Look at the "mistake" the Bills made not giving JP Losman more time-he's "haunting" us in Seattle as we speak! We must get McCoy, he has to be better than what we have! He hasn't busted in a Bills uniform, has he? Seriously, clubs CAN evaluate a QB early in his career. That's one reason I'm convinced that Brian Brohm is total trash & will never do anything in the NFL. Just because he isn't named Trent or Ryan, Bills fans give him a lot more credit than he deserves. I just re-watched the Bills-Indy game last night & my conclusion is Brohm is a worse version of Trent Edwards. He was throwing short passes & while Edwards was able to hit the long throw to Evans, any time Brohm tries to throw a longer pass, it doesn't get to the receiver. He's totally inaccurate and doesn't have the arm his fans think he has.

I've been retired for a week now & I don't have any plans to move out of the suburbs of Albany. I'm 4-5 hours from Buffalo & less than 3 hours from NY. On opening weekend I'm doing a doubleheader-Bills game on Sunday, going home immediately after the game, then a bus trip to the Meadowlands for the Ravens @ Jets MNF Jets' opening of the new stadium. I like the location being within a day drive of NYC, Boston, Montreal, Buffalo etc, without the headaches of the big cities. If I move anywhere, it would probably be to WNY because I could sell my house & buy a comparable house for 60-70% of what my house is worth here. The decision would be financial, but for now I have enough $ that I don't need to move.

He also had the 1st pick with the Jets & traded down for more picks. So 3 of the 4 teams he went to after establishing himself with the Giants (can't count his Giants stint since he was a rookie head coach with a strong GM making the picks) he went to with the #1 pick. Bill Polian did the same thing in his last 2 jobs having the 1st pick with Carolina (traded down on that one) and going to Indy when Peyton Manning was there at #1.

Using a high pick to draft a QB who would only play in wildcat formations when they already had RBs familiar with quarterbacking the wildcat was pretty dumb.

Now there's an invisible monkey playing TE, unbelievable.

You think we have better coaching. There's no evidence that this is actually true. A lot of those assistants were snapped up pretty quickly after they were left to find other jobs. Perry Fewell was 3-4 as a head coach. You don't even know that Gailey is a better head coach than Fewell was. Owens & Schobel are gone, as is just about every TE who put on a Bills uniform except Stupar. Bad teams tease their fans by losing close games. In 1984 the 2-14 Bills lost 6 of those games by 4 points or less. That means, in spite of being a horrible team, that went 2-14 the next year, they were in or won half their games. The 1985 team lost 6 games by a TD or less. Once again a bad team was in or won half their games. The 4-12 1986 team was within a TD in 7 of their 12 losses, meaning they were in 11 of 16 games & still were big time losers. Half of this year's team is already injured. ESPN doesn't hate the Bills as much as you think. There's a good chance this is, at best, a 3 to 4 win season.

In spite of the Brohm lover's fantasies, Fitzpatrick isn't going anywhere. So I don't think the Bears or any other NFL team was holding its breath waiting for Levi Brown or Brian Brohm. Teams that consider themselves contenders want a proven backup, like Todd Collins, not some rookie or a guy who started one NFL game & was horrible.

It's not that simple to say a guy has no upside therefore you dump him. In spite of the Brohm fans enthusiasm, he's still a project who has proven nothing in the NFL. Fitzpatrick has proven he can win or keep a pretty lousy team in games. Say in two years from now the Bills are a legitimate contender. They're still going to need a competent backup-"upside" be damned! There's a very good chance Brohm is not ready to play adequetly if thrust into the starter's role & that he never will be. Why would any competent coach or GM get rid of the guy who has proven he can step in when the guy who would replace him is still a mystery? The proper thing to do is if the Bills feel Brohm has as much upside as his fans do is to continue to develop him as the 3rd stringer, let him get a year in the system & then give him the opportunity of unseating Fitzpatrick. With the Bills line, and Edward's injury history,chances are #3 will end up playing some anyway. Why put Brohm in early in the season when he might fold, like he did earlier in his career, causing him to get cut in GB & like he did in his 1st start with the Bills? The main problem I have with the Brohm fans is they've continuously overrated him. The ones calling for Fitzpatrick's demise are blinded by their love of Brohm without much of a basis. Just because they don't like the 2 guys ahead of him, doesn't make him any better than he actually is. Obviously Gailey & his staff have spent a lot more time with all 3 QBs than any of us have seen and of the 3, they've decided they see more in Trent Edwards than the other guys. That should tell people something right there. If Brohm was as good as his fans think he is, he'd be #1, because Trent Edwards isn't a very good QB and is light years away from being a Franchise QB. The fact that Brohm is at best, even with Fitzpatrick should tell you all you need to know-he has very limited "upside" and at this point, for the good of the team now & in the future, Brohm should be developed at a much slower rate than his fans want. That translates either to #3 or the practice squad. PS: The franchise QB is not on the roster, putting Brohm or Brown in there won't help. The franchise is coming in next year's draft.

There's a lot more to the story than that. I think the crying story was just hype for the media when he signed with the USFL. Kelly was in the Bills office working out a contract when he got a call from the USFL right in the office. The secretary sent the call through & the guy representing the USFL told him they'd do whatever it took to sign him & he left unsigned by the Bills. Aside from an offer that topped the Bills financially & getting to play in a bigger city, I think one of the main reasons Kelly signed with the USFL was he didn't want to sit behind Joe Ferguson. The Bills plans were to bring Kelly along slowly & have him not play-Kelly wanted to play. People forget that Ferguson was still playing at a high level when Kelly was drafted with the 2nd of the Bills 1st round picks. Ferguson started the 1983 season pretty well (not counting the opening day shutout) and at one point the Bills were 5-2, scoring 28 points or more in 4 of those victories. It wasn't until the 2nd half of the 1983 season and 1984 where the Ferguson decline took place. Kelly would have sat his rookie year & possibly begun the 1984 season 2nd on the depth chart. He wanted no part of that.

That statement tell me a lot. I've always believed that there is no way Fitzpatrick gets cut, because he's the perfect #2 QB. What it says to me is that the 3rd spot, reserved for the unproven developmental guy will go to Brohm. What that means is that in Chan's mind, Brohm has more potential than Levi Brown (not terribly surprising given Brown was a 7th rounder). So you keep Fitzpatrick, the guy you can trust to come in games, and you keep developing Brohm, hoping he can develop & iron out those accuracy problems. If Chan feels Brohm has a better future than Brown, it doesn't matter if Brown gets claimed off waivers, and if he doesn't get claimed, why even bother putting him on the practice squad. Just let him go & continue to use the development time on Brohm.

What's your point? After his rookie year Favre was traded for a 1st round pick and played well enough in his 2nd season to take over the starting job in Green Bay. After his rookie year Brohm was waived, GB couldn't even trade him for a 7th round pick & he played poorly(the exact opposite of Favre's 2nd season) in the one game he was allowed to start. In fact, he played so bad that the coach at the time, Perry Fewell, couldn't wait to get Fitzpatrick back out there for the next game.

If a team claims Brown, there is no side deal-the Bills lose him without any recourse. They may see some potential in Brohm but feel he's not ready to step into the starting role this year. If that's the case he has to be #3, because Trent is odds on to miss games with his injury history. Fitzpatrick can win, Brohm has not won a game yet & a smart head coach doesn't go into the season with that unproven a #2 unless his starter has proven great durability, like a Manning. We're not cutting Fitzpatrick, so Brohm's best shot of sticking is being #3, with or without a 4th stringer.

In past years guys like Matt Moore (UFA), Derek Anderson (6th Rd), and Tyler Thigpen( 7th Rd) were claimed off waivers as rookies. If the Bills think he has any potential and are afraid of losing him, they won't waive him. Teams are always looking for that QB with potential who someone else might be trying to sneak onto a practice squad.

Here's the Bills dilemma. Let's assume Trent makes it through preseason & is named the starter. If Brohm shows potential, they can't cut him. If they want an experienced backup QB, they can't cut Fitzpatrick. If they think Levi Brown has potential and are afraid of losing him on waivers, they can't cut Brown. So, thinking outside the box, there may be only one solution-keep all 4 QBs. Clearly Brown isn't ready, but with 3 QBs he's #3. Brohm is too unproven to be the primary backup to an injury prone starter, but he fits the perfect profile of a 3rd stringer-a guy who you can continue to bring along slowly without risking your chances of winning if #1 goes down. I know a lot of you don't like him, but Fitzpatrick is a bonafide veteran backup who has proven he can put up Ws. If you're thinking long term, you need him to back up any inexperienced QB-a likely case in 2011. Plus, Fitzpatrick is the only QB other than Brown under contract for 2011. Brown may be too raw to even be #3, but he might just have too much potential to risk waiving. This is hardly unprecidented. Last year the Jets carried 4 QBs through most of the season. In 2000 there was a team that saw too much in a late round QB to risk waiving him. They kept 4 QBs that season & won the Super Bowl with that 4th QB the next season.

That's true. So if Trent has outperformed Brohm every step of the way, how really bad is Brohm?

But he's improving. He didn't throw 1 int last night. Still doesn't know what a TD pass looks like while he's on the field, but no ints is an improvement.

I'm not an NFL scout or GM. The NFL scouts & GMs determined he wasn't worth a waiver claim last September. I'll let the professionals tell you about his throwing motion, ability to read defenses, accuracy, pocket presence etc. Go ask any one of the 32 GMs who didn't want Brian Brohm on their 53 man roster last September & you'll have your answer. The reason he has a very large downside is he has yet to reach the endzone in any game he's played. Fitzpatrick has shown an ability to win (5 of the Bills 6 wins in 2009 were when he was the QB who took the majority of snaps), something Brohm has no experience at. Fitzpatrick came in cold as a rookie, threw for a ton of yards & led a come from behind victory in his 1st NFL game ever, Brohm s**t the bed in his 1st game, when he wasn't even a rookie, leading the Bills to 3 points, and his fans have made 1,001 excuses for it. Brohm put up 3 points again last night. If you want to score one field goal a game, Brohm's your man. Fitzpatrick's downside compared with Brohm's is infinitely smaller. He's shown he can light it up on occasion, win games and has the perfect makeup to be #2 and enter a game cold. Brohm has a lot to prove and I'd hate to see us keep him & let a proven backup like Fitzpatrick go based on a pipe dream of potential-something none of the professional evaluators saw when he hit waivers last September.

The only reason Chambers is on the team is because Brad Butler was injured early last year & Chambers already knew the offense, so he was broght back after nobody else signed him. Jauron cut Chambers last year & Gailey will cut him this year.

What are you talking about? Fitzpatrick was signed before LAST season. Brohm was signed in the middle of LAST season. How does a February signing vs a November signing translate into Brohm being Nix's & Gailey's guy & Fitzpatrick not when John Guy & Russ Brandon were responsible for both signings? What is upside other than one guy hasn't played enough to show how potentially bad he can be? If you follow the real upside, Fitzpatrick has more based on the actions of GMs around the league. Fitzpatrick was a 1st week free agent signee, Brohm cleared waivers with a yawn last September. Fitzpatrick was the main QB in 5 of the 6 wins last year. How much more upside can a guy get who could win 5 games with that O line? Fitz had the same bad team that people made excuses for Brohm's 3 point generation in Atlanta. What about Brohm's downside? With Fitzpatrick, there's a limit, with Brohm it's infinite. Your post is a prime example of how Brohm fans twist all sorts of facts to fit their boy. He now "belongs" to the guys who had nothing to do more with his acquisition than Fitzpatrick's acquisition. But it fits your case, so you just make it up in support of your boy.

How's your boy Graham Harrell doing, Super Scout? Cut more times than Nicole & Ron.

What exactly did Brohm do that Edwards hasn't done numerous times? He took the safe short stuff, just like Trent, and the Brohm boys are getting turned on. If you switched the names on their performances, Brohm's boys would be complaining about the QB not getting into the endzone & the numerous short throws for completions. They would have blamed Trent for no TD and having to settle for a FG before halftime. If Brohm had that long pass, they would have been anointing him the next Kelly. Look at the Tim Graham article in another thread for an unbiased opinion of what the QBs did last night.

We have too much talent at RB & not enough talent anywhere else but DB. Once Lynch & Jackson are healthy one or both (depending on how Bell & Simpson look the rest of preseason & beyond) should be shopped. The future is Spiller, Bell & possibly Simpson. By the time the Bills are legit contenders, management will have had enough of Marshawn's immaturity to want to give him a 2nd contract & Jackson will be too old.

Is there a symbol for a comment when someone posts something that is ridiculously false. I've seen a lot of revisionist history around here. Is it too much to ask that if someone is trying to state a fact rather than an opinion that the fact is actually true?

This is what the Brohm ball boys have sunk to, going back 40-50 years to an entirely different era. There's no nice way to say it-You're a bunch of morons! Even then none of these guys were high picks. You people are morons!

He's already FAILED in the NFL. You HOPE he won't FAIL in Buffalo. I'm using common sense-No QB ever drafted as high as Brohm has ever made it after getting cut on his rookie contract. You're ignoring history because you have some pipe dream that Chan Gailey will sprinkle some magic dust on him & he'll do something nobody else has ever done. Talk about a lack of common sense!