MattM

Just read on FinHeaven that John Clayton is reporting that Coles will now decide tomorrow among Buffalo, Miami and Cinci. Someone else on that same thread, however, said that Adam Shefter recently reported that Coles had an offer from the Bills, but not the Fins, so who knows what's going on.....

If we get Coles and consider moving Parrish what is your definition of "REAL value"--a 3rd? a 4th? Personally, I doubt we'd get a 3rd, but suspect we could get a 4th, although I'm not sure I'd do it for a 4th.

And when we did, the big man came up small almost every time. I hope it's correctable, but he just never seemed to fight for balls.....

The only difference is the perception of each team's fanbase--here, it's "of course we screwed up, we always screw up, it absolutely must have been our fault (even before anyone knows any of the facts)" whereas there it's always "no way the Pats* made a mistake--Belicheat* is God and God never makes mistakes, etc." which is a big part of why, of all the teams in the League, I hate the Pats* fans more than any others--the absolute arrogance (in the face of not winning a SB in going on 5 years now) is astounding. Call me a hater, but one of my all time favorite NFL moments is and will always be that Giants SB loss--".....but....but....we're a dynasty--waaah!!"

Fine looked mighty fine to me in at least a couple of games last year--I think he's got potential, but we still need to add another TE either via the draft or FA, as he and Schouman (who's a bit light to play at TE) alone won't cut it.

Like their Chad Jackson pick at about number 40 two years ago. Despite all the ball washing that goes on over the Pats* in the media they haven't had a good draft in several years now, and that was with Pioli and Dimitroff. Last year's pick of Mayo (at number 10, no less) was about the only really good young player they've added--Maroney's looking like a bust, Meriweather's pretty pedestrian and I can't even really think of anyone else from recent drafts there who contributes at all to their success. Will be interesting to see how they do in future without 2/3rds of their old braintrust.....

Beat me to it, Malta. What's worse is that it's done at a time to allow New England to also reload via FA, since this will free up about $20 million in cap space as well. Look to see them make way more moves than our moronic FO over the next few days.....

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writ...el/?eref=sircrc Sounds like it's both Vrabes and Cassel for KC's second rounder this year (No. 34). I hate to say it, but that strikes me as a at least in the reasonable ball park--lots of Pats* fans are going to be shocked that that's all they got, but I still think they're likely on the winning end of that trade, as Vrabel has at best one mediocre year left and Cassel will crash and burn in KC....

No, but next year's No. 1 might be (and that could turn out to be No. 1 overall if Cassel plays the way I strongly suspect he will in KC, combined with that team's overall lack of talent.......

I'd be happy if it played out that way, but from the little I've seen so far from OBD, I think there's little chance of almost any of that coming to pass. Get ready for more mediocre, "other people's trash" signings that OBD will try to pass off as "steps up" instead of at best sideways.....

You'll be called a "negative nancy", but I agree, unfortunately. Instead of plugging a few holes (C, TE and OLB) and trying to upgrade at some key spots they've just blown a few more holes in the team this week without any seeming plan to get better anywhere. The FA's left are not exactly inspiring and we can only count on so much help from the draft. What's frustrating is watching everyone else in our division get better--the Jets sign Scott, re-sign Moore and are bringing in a bunch of other decent FA's, while the Fins re-sign all their decent FA's and go out and pick up Gibril Wilson and will probably pick up Coles and the Pats* pick up a TE and Fred Taylor and will probably fleece some rube (Buffalo anyone?) for at least a 2 this year for one-year wonder Cassel (this year's Scott Mitchell, IMHO).

And the cheating--don't forget the cheating.... I actually recall an interesting piece from TMQ on how the Pats' cheating led to SB titles the result of which was that FAs are willing to play there below market rates. I think we've seen a bunch of that with them over the years, Randy Moss being the biggest ex.

Problem with Mack is that it will take a first round pick (for us) to get him, as he doesn't last until 42. What do we do at DE then? We'd need to at least slide back to the end of the first round to get Mack and maybe pick up a 2 or 3 for doing so, but I don't expect any impact DE's that far back, personally.

I mean look at the Jets and Skins--two teams supposed to be near the cap limit this offseason, yet those are the two teams that go out of the gate and land marquee FA's right off the bat. Especially the Skins--how the heck can they afford Sir Albert and Hall and then add Dockery shortly thereafter? Even New England, supposedly up against the cap due to Cassel comes out and signs Taylor and Baker and are rumored to be going after Peppers. The cap seems like it has no effect at all on big market teams wanting to just go out and spend what they want to, leaving us and other small market teams in the dust. What a joke. Parity is what makes the NFL great and when that goes, the NFL will go the way of MLB and that will really suck....

Me, too. I'll always love this team and am a Bills fan for life, but it's getting really hard to get excited about this franchise and all of the bone-headed moves they're making right now. It's making "Major League"'s plot line look like it could become reality here unless they start making some good moves to improve here. I mean it's fine to cut Dockery and Royal if you have a plan to get better at those two spots, but it looks like their plan is to replace a decent, but contract underperforming, player at G with someone else's marginal starter/backup (didn't the Tutan Reyes, Marvin Fowler experiments teach us ANYTHING!) and do Lord knows what at TE. Two steps back? The only thing this team had going for it in the offseason this year was that we were losing few starters from last year--Greer and Fowler/Preston--so we could presumably use this offseason to upgrade. Well that went out the window in day one it looks like, considering we now have at least 4-5 positions to fill (C, G, TE, OLB and I'd add WR--I'm giving them credit for Leodis, Youboty and Corner manning the CB spots adequately) and can only count on at most 2 of those to be filled via the draft, leaving 2-3 to be upgraded in FA, yet they've done jack squat so far and that looks like their plan--jack squat.

I had not wanted to believe that, but after seeing our actions this week (blowing two big holes in our offense with the release of Dockery and Royal, with no real chance or effort of replacing them with even comparable players), you may be right.

You took the words right out of my mouth. If Bell comes along as expected, we should have very capable backup O-lineman this year. Now let's hope they can get us the two starters we need as well.....

This makes sense to me, too. If we re-sign Greer, look for McGee to be moved before the draft, which makes sense in that someone else who could also use him in the return game would find him more valuable than we do (i.e, the most efficient use of McGee's talents) thus paving the way for a "win-win" kind of trade. If we got Daniels straight up for him or if we got a 2nd round pick for him I'd say do it, much as I like McGee.....

I've never had FIOS, but I can guarantee you one thing before you switch--they will have infinitely better customer service than DirecTV. Heck, you could have customer service run by chimps and you'd have infinitely better customer service than DirecTV, so it's not really saying much. DTV is truly, incredibly awful in that department. Not once, but twice did they have me schedule repair visits (making sure I was home for each during workdays, as is their requirement) and then not only be late, but simply fail to show up that day. If they didn't have NFL Sunday ticket they'd be out of business in 6 months or less. It's a a disgrace, really, that the League has done an exclusive deal with them, effectively subjecting all of us to this shoddy company.....

I mean, only two of their players have been caught with 'roids, HGH in the last couple of years, and only due to one of them being dumb enought to have used his own address and name to order them and the other being caught up in a much bigger scandal. Funny how old, washed up vets' careers seem to pick up when they go to NE, isn't it? I mean, these guys end up with melons the size of the moon (another sign of HGH use, BTW--called "the bloat" as per a power lifting dude I know)--take a look at Vrabel, Seau and Bruschi's noggins sometime and you'll see what I mean. Obviously, they're big guys, but those noggins look like they're size 16 noggins on size 10 bodies.....

Tim, the market for him is certainly more than the Bills are offering, but what do you think his likely real value is this offseason? BTW, who do you also think the Bills are really likely to target, if you don't mind my asking?

That's about what I expect as well (and which seems fair).

Huh, nice try, but the Republicans also controlled Congress from 2000 to 2006 and with a sitting President of the opposition in power the Democrats couldn't really do anything from 2006-8 over his veto. I just love revisionist history from conservatives who've been proven to have done the worst job EVER at governing this country the last 8 years and are now seeking to play politics for their own benefit (and not America's--Rush's idiotic statement about rooting against Obama spoke volumes about their true goals) with someone who's trying to clean up the mess they made. I'll grant that you're entitled to your own opinion, but you certainly are not entitled to your own facts....

As opposed to the minority party, which ran the govt into the ground in the 8 years it was effectively in power. Give us all a break--in November the "tribe has spoken".....

No, thanks. Personally, I suspect their cheating went far beyond what they were caught doing. From the very top down, they seem to be willing to do whatever it takes (and I mean "whatever") to win, right or wrong. For ex., I'd love to see Larry Izzo asked this week in Bonds' trial whether any other Pats* were doing up 'roids with him. We all know that at least one other Pats* player was popped for this (Rodney H., only caught by being dumb enough to use his own name and address to order HGH) and isn't it a miracle that older, washed up players seem to go there and thrive? I'm still very surprised at the media's lack of coverage of this. I suspect that if he played for anyone else they'd be all over it. Since Spygate, the media seemed cowed to cover anything negative on the Pats* (like this or Kaczur's 200 Oxy's last year--enough to be doing more than using himself).