Albany,n.y.

Miami did it with a proven NFL caliber starting QB, whose main weakness was staying healthy, who managed to stay healthy the entire year. If they had stuck with the QBs on the roster during mini-camp they would have been lucky to have won 4 games. We don't have anybody who can hold a healthy Pennington's jock at QB. Look at where Miami is 3 years later-they're still no better than the 3rd best team in the division. 9-7 this year & still only 3rd best team in the division 3 seasons from now is unacceptable. I want to be a Super Bowl contender, not a playoff contender, in 3 years.

I've watched football for over 45 years. I know a 1st year rebuild with new offensive & defensive systems when I see it. I've also learned a team isn't built in a day. This team has a lot of holes. A realist fan is not always a pessimist. As San Jose said in another thread, it can be very enjoyable watching a bad team grow into a good team over the course of a few seasons. It's time to remember the goal is to play in and win the Super Bowl, not be satisfied because the Bills won the game you watched even though they lost 2 or 3 times as many games by the end of the season. 7 wins this year would be an improvement. I find 7 win seasons unacceptable. I'd rather my team totally stink a season or two & win a Super Bowl a couple of years later than 3-4 years from now be a team that sneaks into the playoffs every year & never has a chance of getting by the 1st or 2nd round. So the way I see it, this team is undermaned at C, OT, QB, WR on offense. I don't care if Chan Gailey has done a lot with little, he doesn't even have little with all the holes on the offense. Chan can't work miracles, he can only get the best out of players & the best our QBs & OTs can give might still result in a very poor offense. If one or 2 young WRs can prove they're NFL players & we can get a QB & LT in the next offseason, there's cause for a lot of optimism-next year, not this year. The team is switching to a totally new defense with question marks about the NT, DE, & the former DEs switching to LB has a lot of room for improvement. If a foundation can be formed on defense, the future could look bright. Right now our goal should be watching players who will be around for a Super Bowl run, not getting on the case of people who think the W-L record is going to be dismal. The odds are pretty good the record will be dismal. If it's the 1st year of a rebuild, so be it. Here's something to think about. In the 1990s I used to look at old programs from the mid 80s & see how many of the guys on our really bad teams were destined to play in the Super Bowl as Bills. The 1984 team had 2 guys who made it, 1985's team had 7, and the 1986 team had 16. That 1986 team had almost 1/3 of the Super Bowl teams, yet still won only 4 games-with Jim Kelly. How many of the current Bills could be on a Super Bowl team in 3-4 years? Here's my estimate: QB -none; RB Spiller; WR Evans, Easley; TE Nelson; OL: Wood, Levitre, Meredith, Wang, Calloway; DL: Troup, Williams, Carrington; LB: Batten, Posluszny, Maybin(?), DB: Corner, Langster, McGee, McKelvin, Byrd, 1 more who stays among vets. So my total is 21, about 40% of a potential future Super Bowl team. Take 2-3 away for the optimism I have on this rookie class & it would be closer to 1/3rd. A little better numbers for the 2010 team over the 4-12 1986 team, but that team had future HOFers at QB & DE, and some more wall of famers. If I conclude 4 to 5 wins for this team, it doesn't make me a pessimist if I have an eye towards the future. The optimists around here who are thinking they have to win every week, even though they know they won't will look at the small picture, "feel good" the week the Bills win that 4th game and miss the bigger picture. As I've said before, Herm Edwards had it all wrong, you don't "play to win the game" you play to win the Championship. The record a year, 2, or 3 years before that championship becomes irrelevant when you've got the Lombardi Trophy.

Interesting that last year Philly had 2 good backup QBs and McNabb as the starter. If Vick gets cut they're down to 4th round rookie Mike Kafka & UFA rookie Joey Elliott as their backups. I wonder if Garcia would get re-signed by the Eagles if Vick is cut.

More current & closer to where Johnson was picked, I like it. Kamil Loud has more meaning to me personally because I once got the regional manager at our Batavia office po'd at me for an e-mail string that Petrino started. Now if you know Petrino, the e-mails can get very strange. In Loud's day Petrino used to post his Ode To Kamil Loud on this board. To make a long story short, this e-mail string had reached the ridiculous point where I had Kamil Loud in the press box with dynamite strapped to his body threatening to blow up the stadium if the Bills cut him. What I didn't know, because I didn't read all the recipients was Petrino had copied in all the people he knew in Batavia, including the regional manager, since he was also a Bills' fan. I got a reply from him that said something like this "Why don't you get back to work and leave my people alone so they can work too."

Bellinger wasn't a last round WR pick, look at what I was responding to, it was about like players, not alliteration.

Where have you gone Kamil Loud a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Upside: Hasn't played enough to prove one way or the other whether he should be starting for the Bills or tending bar at the Big Tree Inn. Here's an alternative: A backup to a player the user of the word upside hates.

Since the odds are 1/3 that Brohm will be the starter, you're safe in never being called out on an absolutely ridiculous statement. I guarantee that if Brohm is named the starter, he won't get anywhere near those numbers. Projecting Pro Bowl numbers for a guy who has started one NFL game & stunk up the Georgia Dome in the process is insane. There is one way you might be right-If you project the 10 games Brohm starts in the UFL to a 16 game season. You're either Jeff Brohm or you've lost your mind.

He's too green right now. Let him spend some time on a practice squad, then we can sign him the 2nd half of this season. After that we can have him start a game & suck because he doesn't have our system mastered, and then next winter 25% of the people on this board will proclaim him as their choice to be the starter in 2011.

I agree with just about everything you've said. Three years after each draft, look at the Ravens picks vs the Bills & you can't help but get a case of "draft envy". One more comment: 2008 Chad Pennington was light years better any of the bums we have on our QB depth chart.

There's so much wrong information and revisionist history floating around this thread, it's just sad. Smith did not beat out Boller, Boller suffered what turned out to be a season ending injury in the 2nd exhibition game of the preseason. That's why Smith was supposed to start exhibition game 3-Boller couldn't play. However, Smith did not start or even play in exhibition game 3 due to his illness. The only QB to play preseason game 3 for Baltimore was Flacco. So if the game 3 starter starts the season, Flacco was the man, not Smith. The only reason Smith was the presumed starter was because Baltimore wanted to bring Flacco along slower than starting him on opening day. Once Boller got hurt and couldn't play, Smith was the only one other than Flacco left to choose as a starter. Once Smith got sick, Harbaugh didn't have much choice other than to start Flacco. For the final preseason game, Baltimore picked up Casey Bramlet off the waiver wire & he split time with Flacco. Bramlet was waived after that game and before the 1st week of the season Baltimore gave up on Boller getting better, put Boller on IR & signed Todd Bouman to be Flacco's backup for the season opener.

The Bills have a plan right now. It does not include signing any more stopgap players. They're trying to build for the future. They can't come right out & say it, but the W-L record this season is irrelevant. The most important thing is player development for the future when they can be a contender. Flozell Adams does nothing to help this team contend in the future. TO also does nothing for their plan. The only stopgap player was Green because Butler's retirement caused them to sign somebody to replace him & Green was available.

From the where there's smoke there's fire possibility: PFW's latest issue is out. The Bills are picked 32nd in the rankings. The words after the rating say "There's a slim chance the starting QB isn't on the roster yet." So how should one interpret that with the ESPN story? My guess: It's probably no secret among the media types that Gailey doesn't think much of any of the 3 QBs. That's why the battle has been described as very close. They're all bums & Gailey knows it. Close in this case means he's scared to death of the thought of trying to win games with any one of them at QB. As a result, any time there is the possibility of a QB that "they've heard of" becoming available for little or nothing, the media is going to speculate his acquisition by the Buffalo Bills. Either that or the media, not Gailey, has such a low opinion of the 3 or 4 if you include Brown, who is apparently not going to contend for the starting job, that any time there is the possibility of a QB that "they've heard of" becoming available for little or nothing, someone will write a story he's headed to Buffalo.

That's BS! You can't count guys who signed with the NFL before the common draft. Since the common draft the only #1 who never played a down for the Bills is Cousineau.

It tells me the other 2 have no business competing for the starting job either. The fact Gailey has the three that close indicates that we will have no QB qualified to start in the NFL, but by default, one of them will be starting. At least if Brohm ends up the starter, we've got a chance of getting Jake Locker, big time. So if I have to live with bad quarterbacking for one more season, let it be Bruce Mathison bad.

That's like the lawyer grilling a witness in court saying something like "Is it possible that someone who looks just like my client did the crime? You didn't do a DNA test, did you?" Anything is possible. It's possible that Trent Edwards will lead this team to a Super Bowl Championship this year. The team is 0-0, so it's possible. I'd prefer probable to possible, and a proven track record to some imagined "upside". Theres's nothing to indicate that any other team in the league would start Brohm, or even consider him a candidate for the 2010 starting job. That right there tells you how bad the QB position is on our roster. Someday, we'll see a worthy successor to Jim Kelly and we will no longer have to pin our hopes on a small percentage possibility. I hope that day is within a season or two, but the probability is it is not this year. As far as ability to absorb damage goes, the guy who has shown the most durability is without a doubt, Fitzpatrick. Brohm had 3 injuries in college & Edwards gets injured opening up the Buffalo News about every other Monday.

Joe Gibbs started off 0-5 in his 1st stint with Washington. If it takes Gailey that long to get things rolling, around week 5 or 6, with the QB they didn't want in there, you'll see a bunch of anti-Gailey posts. I remember sitting in the stands an hour before our home opener in 1998. We had been on the road & were 0-2. A guy sits down several rows below us & yells out either "Fire Wade" or "Wade Must Go".

From what I've seen around here, people are giving Gailey too much credit & think he'll be a miracle worker with at least one of our QBs. I don't see any Gailey is worse than Jauron posts, at least not yet. I'm sure at some point we will, especially when the poster's guy is not picked as the starting QB & the guy he hates the most is.

It's not that he was that bad a DC, it's the scheme he ran, that Tampa cover 2 which was bad. Maybe Jauron can be blamed more than Fewell for choosing that D, I just don't know. I don't think that's the defense he'll have with the Giants, so he may have a shot at adding to his resume, but that Tampa crap defense was ridiculous. That said, the many fans who think any new coaching staff will be an instant upgrade are in for a real shock. You may not like hearing this, but the coaching staff from last year isn't even half as bad as you make them out to be. You'll find that out as this season progresses and the growing pains of switching to the new O, D, & ST systems take time. Upgrades are not automatically instant. The easiest way to turn a team around is with a significant QB upgrade, not a coaching upgrade without the QB upgrade.

Overall, I agree with most of the original post with one exception, the knocking of the front office. I believe they're following through with the plan to build through the draft & develop players together. With a few exceptions, they only get one pick per round, especially the early rounds. You can't build through the draft in 1 offseason. There's no point in going after names like Clausen to solve a QB hole if they don't like Clausen. They have to go with their feelings on players, not Mel Kiper's. This is a 3 year rebuilding project. Those calling for the quick fix veteran free agents are missing the whole point. Think 1985 Bills when the team had a great draft but still had no starting QB (although we already had rights to a future HOF QB at the time). Even that team took 3 more years, 4 seasons, to win the AFC East, 3 of those seasons with Bill Polian at the helm in the front office. So let's give the front office a chance before we complain about their inactivity. Once they get their core of young players, including the likely addition of the QB next draft, then we can spend $ on key free agents. If the plan works the 2012 Bills will be a major player in the NFL. This season is bleak, especially in the W-L column. You can still enjoy a losing season by being a true optimist. A true optimist looks at the big picture. Sure I'm pessimistic about the W-L record for 2010, I'm looking ahead with a lot of optimism. Those claiming optimism for this season are ignoring all the evidence against it & rail on the more realistic among us as pessimists. Their problem is they can't see the forest from the trees. They will bag on anyone who doesn't think we're tons better than last year and any time you say something about the fact there aren't too many wins coming this year, they scream pessimist. They will likely be the first to start posting "Fire Gailey" a few games into the season, because the results will be worse than Jauron/Fewell and they haven't grasped the reality of what the 1st year of a three year rebuild is all about.

Kinnebrew didn't last very long that year. The funny part was when the Bills waived him, there was a cartoon in the Buffalo News with the owners of his favorite places to eat mourning his departure.

Based on his competition, Brohm could end up the starter & I wouldn't be shocked. All it would say is that our QB tandem is the worst in the league, which is hardly shocking.

Please, if you're going to try to make a case, know what you're talking about. Here are the facts: Trent Dilfer was not cut by two teams before winning a Super Bowl. He was not a 1st round bust with Tampa Bay. He played in Tampa Bay for 6 seasons & was granted free agency rather than be paid a $4.6 million bonus in his 2nd contract with the team-I did state that 1st rounders on subsequent contracts are released, a common practice when their cap $ get too high. Do you know that Trent Dilfer is the winningest QB in Tampa Bay Bucs history? Do you know that Dilfer started every game for 4 straight seasons before going down with a injury in his 6th year with Tampa? That is not the definition of a 1st round bust. Busts don't start 4 straight seasons & make it to the Pro Bowl like Dilfer did with Tampa. Doug Williams was no bust either. Williams played 5 seasons with (ironically) Tampa Bay. He felt he was seriously underpaid after he was a major contributor in turning around the team from NFL laughingstock to a playoff contender who once made it all the way to the NFC championship game. So what did Doug Williams do? He JUMPED to the USFL. Upon the USFL's folding, he was not shown the interest comensurate to his abilities, and signed with Washington as a backup until he ended up the starter & Super Bowl winner a season later. So, to sum things up, when we review the facts, you can't think of any real busts who rebounded.

Wow, you've taken spinning to a whole new level. You call me a Trent apologist after I responded to your response to a post where I concluded that FITZPATRICK would end up getting the most starts. How can you spin Fitzpatrick will get the most starts into being a Trent apologist. I gave up on Trent as too injury prone after he came in for one series and a la Rob Johnson, got a season ending injury. So, stop trying to spin anyone who sees through this Brohm charade into a Trent Edwards apologist. As I've stated, the Brohm apologists contradict every thought as their posts increase.

That's easy. However some Brohm apologists , I'm not saying you since I don't follow who is the poster on most posts, are spinning like tops trying to defend the reasons why he ended up here. Some will use the match excuse as you did, but the simplest answer is that they were just trying to protect their insurance policy of a 3rd QB on the practice squad who actually knew the system for the rest of the 2009 season because bringing in someone new, which they ended up doing twice after Brohm came here because the 1st new guy signed with another team's 53, required teaching someone new the system, making that guy as worthless to GB as Brohm was to the 2009 Bills. (Funny, the Brohm apologists use Brohm was too new in the system as an excuse for the Atlanta debacle, but can't grasp why GB preferred their insurance QB to know their system). I've often answered that question with the insurance premise & then asked -If they were so high on Brohm then why didn't they try to exceed the Bills offer. So far nobody has come up with a real answer to that one. The typical Brohm guy answer is "why would they exceed the offer if he was 3rd & would never start over Rodgers?" That answer backs my answer the Packers only were looking at Brohm's 2009 insurance value & nothing more. The Brohm apologists have spun in different directions in the same threads. The best oxymoronic spin is the Packers didn't have the roster space to keep 3 QBs and that's the only reason Brohm was cut in September, but then they cite the "match offer". They claim the match offer is proof the Packers valued Brohm, yet this is the same team that valued him so much they were willing to get NOTHING in return when they waived him. Once again that logic only backs my insurance premise. Sure you can spin it that the spot opened up due to guys going on IR as the season progressed, but the bottom line is they did not do anything to protect their interests in Brohm until the Bills' offer-once again confirming the only interested in 2009 in season insurance premise. Then there are the ones (like above) who will list all these UFAs & late picks who flew under the radar, got cut & either were picked up on waivers or spent time on a practice squad & then made it big. What they fail to understand is that 2nd round QBs are on everyone's radar & they don't fly under the radar like these UFAs & late round guys do. The chance of a guy who was already under the radar succeeding are much better that an early round bust, especially at the QB spot, who got waived already. Just look at how many shots the 1st round busts get-I can't remember any recent 1st round QB bust making it after his 1st team waived him, even though other teams have tried with guys like Leaf, Harrington, McNow, Couch, and of course our two poster boys that each cost us a 1st -Rob Johnson & JP Losman. Sometimes I think the Brohm guys are closet JP guys who have finally moved on to a new lost cause. (That is until we get the posts from the JP diehards claiming he'll now emerge as the man in Seattle) Then there are the worse ones-the ones who don't even know that Brohm was waived, cleared waivers by all other 31 teams, then landed on the practice squad. They say things like "He was never waived, we got him off their practice squad". Those people who don't know how he got to the practice squad can't be reasoned with. I've written off Brohm because history tells us that there are virtually no mistakes when a team lets a high picked QB leave with no compensation (unless he's a veteran salary cap dump, often on his 2nd or 3rd contract). There are plenty of late round mistakes because the guys are not scrutinized as closely, explaining the Warners, Bulgers, Hasselbecks, and Moores etc.