OCinBuffalo

So I will take this as: you have 0 coaching experience, as I thought. Otherwise you wouldn't by trying to deride mine. Further evidence that you have little experience with coaching, or sports in general. High school is all about winning. The only real question is "how" you win. Do you want to be known as a coach who develops players? or a guy who consumes them? I guarantee from the players perspective, you want to play for the 1st coach, not the 2nd. It's the same reason Trent Edwards was happy to come here, and said so, because he knew this team would actually coach him. I had ALL my players playing over their head, killing people on the field, and throwing their bodies everywhere...but yeah, training players how to do that and motivating them to do that has nothing to do with winning. Well I suppose I won't reward poor reading comprehension by repeating myself. Are you on crack??? great argument. Go back and watch the SBs Adam Vinateri has won...I mean...Tom Brady has "won". Hint: it went down exactly as I say in every SB the Pats* have "won". Go back and watch the tape. You are confusing what happened two years ago...when Brady got rocked, and once again could not win the SB personally, with what happened when they did win. Because you absolutely can not. No one can. Contrast that with Belechik and Brady...realize that you can dispute their credentials based a number of things...and then realize the stupidity of putting them anywhere near Walsh and Montana. Apparently, you have a hard time with reading....for the last time, I played to win, I coach to win, and I would probably do that with any age group. The difference is not whether you win, but "how" you win. I would even argue that honest to God coaching even makes you win, MORE OFTEN What an amazing concept! But real coaching is also much more risky, and system coaching is by definition much safer. I am merely saying that a system coach like Belechick cannot hold a candle to real innovators/talent developers like Walsh/Shula/Levy/Landry etc....and Parcells, another system coach, still not being in the HOF, means I am hardly alone in that view. They have passed on him on multiple occasions when he was "retired", but I'm sure you know more than they do.

I enjoy discussing this issue with one of the few reasonable people on "your" side of the ongoing draft debate as well. Agreed, I would think you would want a team that had tendencies toward playing in colder weather...like a SS from Ohio State, rather than a RB from Miami, for example In all seriousness, I think we all know that Buffalo needs to be a good running team as long as the team is here. The problem is, you can't be when the other team has 0 respect for you passing game. Even if you have HOF lineman(and there are few in the league today compared to the 80s/90s, in terms of pure skill) they are going to stop the run if they know it's coming every play. Agree. I have never, ever, seen a confirmed report that some team was willing to trade up to #8. We heard all kind of crap here and elsewhere at that time, but nobody has ever said a thing about it. All we did hear is that we took the guy that people behind us wanted, but weren't willing to trade up for. I acknowledge that Marv could have poison-pilled any trade offers, but we simply don't know what happened for real. Marv wanted to build a secondary in the draft because that group was the worst, DBs are also the most expensive FA to obtain(see: Clements), and IMO you never get what you pay for with any of them. Marv's thinking appeared to be: "Easier and cheaper to get FA lineman, for now, to fill in the gaps, and we will draft all skill players as a group, and let them learn together(see: Lynch, Edwards) we can always draft O line later, once we get the skill players in place." Right or wrong, he stuck to that philosophy, and now we have a very good core of skill players on this team, and nobody can deny that. As I said, I think the stuff they did this year has been part of the larger plan all along. Let's face it, you cannot draft 5 starting caliber O line, or 4 starting caliber D line in 3 drafts, never mind 1 or 2. You cannot sign FAs in one or two years either. It simply cannot be done, but, the Bills had to do something, immediately, with both lines. I think they have taken a wise approach to slowly and soundly improve both lines each year, one player at a time, and not taken too much risk with any one player. As you said earlier, this front office learned that this team cannot afford JP and Fat Mike draft picks. I don't like the fact that Peters is gone. I think they should have paid him STFU money at the same time they signed Dockery and Walker...but that might not have worked either, so who knows?

What? Was I supposed to come up with an atypical attack? KC doesn't do his math properly, doesn't collect his data objectively and therefore draws conclusions that never accurately predict results on the field. Is there an atypical way to say that? Get back to me when you have that. No. Using one case to demonstrate a point is called: AN EXAMPLE. As I said we have already found many other instances of KC's crap-throwing monkey math. I could have easily used those as an EXAMPLE. Which EXAMPLE do you want me to use next time? I sense that's where this is going...if I decide to start really caring enough to prove you wrong. Buddy you don't want to be on the losing end of another "3.5" debate. HHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA! Yes, but only if you are an anthropologist... ....studying how the ignorant try to use tools whose purpose and function they don't understand. It's like watching an primitive person holding an M16 and yelling "bang". No. Reverse that whole thing and now we have the way for KC to PROVE his data collection, method, and thesis...in the first place! Which he patently has not. Show me where I can find his method reproduced effectively anywhere and then I can get to work disproving it. It appears you've got things backwards. KC has yet to provide the very thing you say I need: "the hundreds or thousands of conclusions???" I'll settle for consistent, comparable, raw data, which he still can't get right. Before we talk about conclusions, or methods, I presume you know that making sure your data isn't skewed is job #1, right???

Unfortunately for you, that is not case here. Sorry to disappoint, but my views on this represent the very "variance" away from what you say is invariably meant. And, look buddy there are pages and pages devoted to this already. Do we really have to dig up the entire thing? I frankly don't remember what the original point was 2 years ago, when KC first embarked on his "fun with statistics" amateur kit. Then as now, I stopped caring the second I realized that the methods used to derive his supposed stats were based on sub-standard math. I do remember that I didn't care what conclusions he was trying to draw, or what it might have meant +/- for the Bills, after I realized that a monkey throwing crap at a bingo board was a more reliable source of raw data. Christ where are DC Tom and Ramius when you need them? They have written 100s of pages on statistical methodology here ad nauseum, but the one time you need them to provide a link for my lazy ass, they are nowhere to be found. All that 3.5 stuff for nothing. Also, I might have time later today to dig this up and also provide a formal critique(read: shred KC's ass once again) of the new stuff.

I see Marv's time as more about cleaning up the mess, than building a winner. When your house collapses, you first have to clean up the rubble before you can start building. Marv had a clear "clean up" plan in the FAs that he signed = Price, Royal, Reyes, Fowler, etc., and some of it might have worked had he gotten help from the QB position. I didn't expect Marv to build a winner, I expected him to do what he did = prevent a complete embarrassment = 0-16. Also, football has changed significantly in the last 5 years. Whether we like it or not, this league is rapidly turning into spread offense/3-4/Cover 2 league, because those are the players that are coming from college. Whitner is not a setback, neither is Youboty, Corner, and definitely not McKelvin. Not when all of them won us games with individual skill plays last year. We know that now. Whether this is the kind of football, or the kind of football player, we like is irrelevant because they just aren't producing them in the quantity you need to build the old school teams. This is especially true of O lineman, and a 3rd+ round O lineman today IS the very type of O lineman you HATE(small, quicker but weaker, not tough, no killer instinct). The only other option is to create a minor league system that produces big guys, because college won't do it anymore. Due to the O situation, defenders that are available to draft are more and more "spread offense defenders". That means a whole lot of CBs, Ss, and undersized LBs who can cover. That's who is available to draft. Everybody after the first 2 rounds is a "undersized, quick, high motor, good football smarts" guy. When everybody is "the same" you might as well take the guy with coverage skills, because you are going to need him. 4 WR sets is where things are headed. That means we need at least 2 great and 2 good coverage guys, or teams are going to eat us up on 2-3 second routs, making the pass rush irrelevant. If you can't play defense, and defense wins games, then...what's the point?

No. You are not allowed to use statistics to waste our time telling us things we already know: Dome/Good weather QBs tend to have better passing stats...because they play in good weather. Who could have imagined that? Yes, we needed statistical analysis to tell us the obvious...thanks KC! Thanks billybob and Big Bad Boone! Let me know when you guys and KC complete your analysis of "QBs that are under 6'2" and their difficulty seeing over the line", or, "reasons why LBs can't cover Lee Evans", or, "Qbs that kneel with the ball and winning: a surprising connection, QBs that kneel the most are most likely to win!", or, "correlation between idiot posts at TSW and poor understanding of statistics". KC's other retarded habit: ignoring the obvious conclusion and replacing it with the nonsense conclusion, "based on the data". I.E. KC's conclusion in 2006: Tavaris Jackson and John Kitna are more accurate...and therefore better...than a lot of QBs in the league...because KC's "stats" say so. I think it's clear by now that this is not the case, and that the obvious conclusion, borne out by the 2007 and 2008 seasons, is that they both suck and their passing accuracy was misleading because it was padded by dome conditions. But yeah, go ahead and interpret what I am saying as: "duh, OC says we can't use stats cause dey have to be perfect", instead of what I am saying: statistical modeling is best left to those of us who know what they are doing.

No. You can go back and look that up here. That is specifically one of the things we debunked here. This "analysis" was tripped up by that difficult concept to interpret : "what if the wind is blowing". He doesn't adjust his stats for weather....hence teams with QBs who play in domes/West Coast...amazingly had a tendency towards better passing accuracy...who would have guessed? This is how Tavaris Jackson = "not as bad as you think" according to Joyner. Also that other chestnut...targets for wide recievers...dude, I'm not even going to start. You can look that up here.

I don't care about another Peters thread, besides this is a KC Joyner thread really. Which leads me to the problems I have with this thread: 1. KC Joyner AND statistics are construed to have a rational relationship to each other. 2. Many of us have proven on multiple occasions at TSW that KC Joyner has no idea what he is doing when it comes to stats 3. All conclusions based on KC Joyner's statistical analysis are spurious at best. I am familiar with the latest installment of this nonsense, and once again, KC has shown that he has no idea how to demonstrate a correlation or a causation, how to set up constants vs. variables, and how to prove his theories by being able to reproduce his "patterns" and/or provide accurate predictions based on them. Specifically how do our RBs compare with other RBs in similar situation KC??? Historically??? How does a missed block away from the POA differ from a missed block at the POA? What coefficient do you assign to missed non-POA blocks to correct for that difference? Certainly you don't expect us to believe that both affect the outcome of a running play equally do you? There are so many more things...but seriously...why bother?

Of course I can. It depends on whether you define "coach" as a guy who develops players, or as a guy who has the word "coach" on his t-shirt. I have coached high school players, helped them improve their game, and be successful at the D1/D3 level, and also won league titles, in 2 different sports(lacrosse and baseball) at the same time. I have also ran a "system" on a team where believe me, nobody was going anywhere after this, and won league titles(basketball). In the first instance, you develop your plan around the talent you have, work that talent extensively in practice to maximize it, and come game time you get out of the way and let the talent win. In the second instance, you demand compliance to the fundamentals of the system, work the system, and can replace any of the "parts" with other "parts" as long as the rest of the system is working and you keep each role relatively simple and strictly defined. Both approaches can be successful if all you care about is winning. But, if you care about being referred to by your players as their "first real coach", as in the players you helped improve still buy you beers every time they see you and genuinely thank you for helping them improve and get where they went, then the second approach is not for you. What? Did you think I was pulling this out of my ass? I still get asked to do private coaching in lacrosse and would if I had the time, not for the easy fat $$$, but because I really enjoy it. Let's hear about your extensive coaching/management experience and you tell me where I am going wrong. Yeah...this ought to be fun.. God....I am saying no such thing. I am saying: pick Belechick for creating a good defensive team by using players nobody else wanted(um, fat, slow DL and undersized fast LBs), OR, pick Brady for overcoming and doing well. One, or the other, not both. You don't get to pick both, unless you think Belechick "planned" to pick his eventual starter in the 6th round, in which case you are wasting our time. You cannot give Belechick credit for Brady...and call him smart for letting him sit out there for 5 rounds, in the same universe. Yes, which is why I am saying...he can't coach great players. Great players are, by definition, counter-productive for the Pats*. Good system players/guys who are past their "greatness" (see Seau, Thomas) are what you need in Belechicks system, none of which will ever represent Belechick's "coaching" ability. Did he make Seau better? Of course not, Seau got worse in NE*. He simply keeps the parts working properly and replaces them occasionally. In contrast, Bill Walsh drafted Joe Montana against the "wisdom" of the press at the time, developed his great talent, and turned him into the player that he still is: the greatest QB of all time. That's coaching, period. Having Brady throw to TEs for 4 yards, hand the ball off, and send in the kicker to win the game, is not real coaching. Nothing is wrong with that, if you want to win games. If you want to be known as an "innovative coach that changed the game"(Walsh, Shula, Landry, Levy, Holmgren), which is the standard for HOF coaches...not so much. What did Belechick change? Well all these comments seem heavily informed by the annoying madden/fantasy football mentality so.... I think I have made my point clear: I define "coaching" as improving players themselves, not sorting them into spots in a system and improving the system. Just because your title is "coach" doesn't mean you actually do any. It's easy to see this for yourself: Go hang out at your local athletic fields for a week and tell me how much "coaching" is actually going on. More like people yelling "run" at soccer games, and "hit the ball" or "throw strikes" at baseball games, and "shoot" or "pick up the ball" at lacrosse games. Clearly I don't put Belechick in that category, but he sure as hell isn't in Walsh's category either. As I have described my observations are based on my experience as a coach and D1 player. I believe they are objective and based on what the words we are using: "coaching", "system", etc. actually mean.

What is it gonna take for people to accept reality? 1. This is not the NFL of the 80's or 90's anymore. The rules changes have made the dominating defenses of those decades impossible to construct, never mind play effectively without mass penalties. You cannot keep an entire team D together for 5 years anymore either, due to FA. 2. The NFL gets its players from college, not Madden. The college game has been moving more and more to the spread offense and now the spread offense is dominant in college. QED, the vast majority of players available are spread offense players, QED college defenses produce spread offense defenders = lots of CBs, Safeties and undersized LBs. 3. Due 1+2, and that you can only draft who is available, not players you can construct/train on Madden, or go back to drafting players coming out of college in 1980-83, you have to draft the best players available now more than ever. After the second round of the draft, everybody is an "undersized, quick, high motor, good football smarts" guy. Given the choice of "the same" you take the guy with the best pass coverage skills = usually a CB, since you are going to be playing 4 of them a game, and somebody has to cover the 6'2" 215 lb WR that can jump and run. Due to 1-3 you cannot draft entire teams of "NFL tough guy LBs and Lineman" because the other 31 teams are trying to get those players too, there aren't anywhere near as many as there used to be due to #2, and even if you could, half of the ones you do get are going to be gone due to #1. This is the reason the 3-4 d is now the new darling of the NFL. Sure, because you hope that your smaller faster LBs can cover when your faster quicker OLB can get a pass rush. But more importantly, these are the players that colleges are producing today.

Yeah, and let's start comparing Tom Brady* to Joe Montana while were at it. And why not? It creates controversy and gives people something to talk about while were waiting (and the waiting is just starting) for the season to start.

Yeah you're right....and the Dolphins went to the Super Bowl in 2006. Just like Mort, Clayton, King and other predicted. I think the point that's being missed here is: the NFL today is nothing like it used to be. How many people honestly thought we would beat Seattle AND the Jags last year? The "safe" pick was that we would be happy with 1 win. How many people thought we would be drafting BEHIND both teams this year? How many people had the Cards going the playoffs? The fact is that with the parity now, making the right FA calls, having a QB fall in your lap, a good draft, good coaching, and some luck, you can go from crap to good in a year, hence the Dolphins last year. I think the other point that's being missed is that, just like with Pats* fans, the media is all about the bandwagon, and can easily be fooled by effective PR, hence the "Dolphins going to the SB" picks. That concept went from a hypothetical to an absolute certainty in a matter of months in that off-season...until Culpepper was sacked by Ko Simpson of all people. Let's face facts: THE MEDIA ran TO out of Dallas, not the owner. Jones cracked under the media strain, because Jones is a media whore. And why not? Being a media whore has generally worked for him...remember signing Deion, getting Parcells, etc.? It's just that being a media whore has a down side = Pac Man, Tank, TO, etc., and the bandwagon media will turn on you like a mother in law if it suddenly becomes "popular" to do so.

We'll see... Which means they aren't better than Brady/Belechick how exactly? So far you are doing so well on the idiotic ramblings buddy. This rambling from you is extra specially silly. And compare that to the Pats of the 80's = getting destroyed in SB they got lucky to be at in the first place, based on a lucky fumble recovery? Getting destroyed the rest of the decade? The Pats were the worst team in football from 86-96 and were going to be bought and moved to St. Louis in 1993. Primary reason: they flat out sucked. Kraft stepped in and saved their asses in 1994. Strike 2 on idiot ramblings from you. No, I mean the Steelers who have never been in danger of moving because they suck so badly, have few fans, and the fans they do have are bandwagoners. I mean the Steelers have how many HOFers? compared to the Pats*? I mean the fact that they have developed player after player, year after year, to be as good as he can be, not tried to fit JAG players into a system. Another whiff from you. No I'm asking this question: How can Brady be awesome, but get drafted in the 6th round, but Bill Belecheat is awesome, because he drafts so well, exist anyplace other than an addled brain? You can't have it both ways. Pick one and quit wasting my time. No I am simply getting ahead of the usual BS excuses people like you make when I apply logic to their position. The fact is Brady's rise to stardom was not an intentional plan by BB. No other conclusion is possible. You cannot describe Brady without using the words "luck" and "great defense". I can easily talk about Elway, Montana, Kelly, Moon, and Marino and not use the words luck or especially "great defense". Maybe you should watch some game films. Hint: having your FG kicker come in and kick a 45 yard FG with 3+ minutes left in the game is NOT leading a 4th quarter comeback. That = getting stopped on 3rd down, leaving the other team an ability to tie/beat you by giving them the ball back, not winning the game, and leaving the winning of the game to your defense....there goes that darn defense thing again. Go back and review, this is precisely what happened in the "Pats SB recent wins" and also what happened in the "Pats SB recent LOSS". In contrast, youtube is littered with what real comebacks, Elway, Kelly, Marino, Montana, Moon, etc. look like. More idiot ramblings from you.... And Brady has apparently had no running game/short passing game this entire time huh. Yeah it's all been down the field for noodle armed Tom. Buddy...idiot ramblings??? You did yourself no favors with this post.

Re-read what I wrote... To summarize, Belechick sucks compared to Walsh for the easons I have clearly stated, and Brady is not and never will be in Montana's league, as evidenced by the fact that on 3 separate occasions, in the playoffs, the Pats* have asked Brady to win the game, instead of simply manage it, and he has failed all 3 times. All Montana would have done in those situations is win, all 3 times. Period. Interesting...you said it, not me. I have yet to talk about cheating. I am talking about how the Steelers have been great to the Pats* good, and that getting lucky with a QB that you draft in the 6th round is not skill...they were trying to decide between Brady and Tim Rattay for God's sake. What the Bills have done since 2002 is irrelevant to my point, and this thread. Apparently you have no idea what you are talking about, and/or you can't pay attention to what I AM saying. Moss, Welker, Thomas and everybody else that the Pats* got in FA since 2002 would simply not be available under the 90's FA rules. If the 90's Bills, and let's face those guys would have stayed put on this team, could go out and grab top tier talent from other teams in FA, they would have been almost impossible to beat, and they surely would have won SB after SB. What if the Bills could have gone out in FA and singed Derrick Thomas? We'd have the best pass rushing team of all time, that's what. What if the 90s Bills could have signed any of the WRs from Miami or the Oliers of the time? =Passing records that would never be broken. Hint: the only reason we were able to get James Lofton in FA? He had domestic trouble, and got kicked out of Green Bay, and then didn't fit in with LA(Oakland). No, but if the Bills get up by two TDs, or come back after being down 2 TDs and go ahead by a TD, you can pretty much count on all of the quitting behavior I described. He has been consistent with it the last 3 years in the playoffs, why should it change? You can say what you want about Marino's character, I don't see it, but it's irrelevant, anyway. Marino personally won SEASONS for Miami, Brady has yet to personally win a single playoff game. Marino absolutely wanted to win a Championship more than anything(further proof that you have no idea what you are saying) and his hatred for the Bills insistence on keeping his fingers bare is well documented. To this day Marino will not talk about Buffalo of the Bills. Exactly. You willingness to dismiss a HOF QB who has stats that will never be broken is the icing on the cake of my "you really don't know football that well, other than what Madden tells you" point. None of which speaks to my point about drafting Brady, why he was almost cut, why Brady was relegated as back-up, never given a chance to compete, etc., yet we are supposed to give Belecheat credit for being a genius and drafting him? No. That's retarded. So you are right because, instead of backing up what you say with facts, you would simply pay Belechick a lot of money? No. That's retarded. You think a guy who drafts Brady in the 6th, and then gets lucky = great ability to draft players/see talent? No. That's retarded. The fact is that Belechick trades back for 2 main reasons: 1. It means he gets more 2nd/3rd round players, which means he spreads his risk across multiple people instead of one great prospect. In this way, he's never really "wrong" in the draft, because he doesn't get great players unless they are a sure thing. Besides, he's not looking to get great players, only good ones. He can't coach great players, and have them outshine him/his system. IF that were to happen Belechick loses his "infallibility" and the whole thing falls apart(see: Crennel, Mangini, etc.) 2. He gets more late round players, which means he gets to treat his entire team like a college program. You can't have a large ego and be a late round guy, and besides, how could you possibly squeeze another ego onto the plane, with Belechicks already taking up all the room? Later round players will gladly chuck their individual aspirations just to get a chance to play, but they are still no better than the system. Because of 1+2 he runs his team with lesser players(they suck everywhere else they go as FA)that fit into a system. It's a good plan, but it's not really coaching, it's system management. Belechick doesn't develop his players to be the best they can be...if he did that then they might outgrow his system, and he can't deal with that. Parcells had shown this type of "coaching" can be effective. Belechick copied it. But neither of them could hold a candle to real coaches who develop their players and build HOFers, not robots.

Yeah, maybe if you are playing Madden/are in college right now. Here are the answers to your questions: 1. Bill Walsh/Joe Montana. Both run circles round and round the Pats*. It's not even close. The NFC defensive teams of the 80's and early 90's would have escorted both Belechick and Brady out of the NFL years ago (um, D rules changes anyone???) ...as the Steelers/Bengals defenses, and the Oilers O already did to Belechick in Cleveland the first time around. Montana won games, he didn't "manage the system". Walsh invented entire offenses, Belechick lives off other people's ideas. Like I said, it's not even close. Walsh has 2 generations of coaching legacy(i.e. Holmgren, Reid, Dungy, Chucky, too many to name: his entire assistant staff were good/great head coaches, except one). Belechick has flop head coaches/disgruntled former employees who end up sucking. 2. The Steelers in general are better at everything than the 00's Pats*...take your pick of decade, etc. Player for player, it's not even kind of close. Coaching, development, scouting, drafting, the Steelers have always been better than the Pats* 3. IF we win 1 of any of the 4 SBs, you can easily say that Levy/Kelly was better...because neither had the Pats* defense. If the Marv Bills had the same Free Agency rules that Belechick did, we would have won 7 SBs in the 90's. 4. Elway was far and away a better QB...because unlike Brady*, Elway could lead comebacks. You get up on, or come back on, the Pats* and they will quit every time. Just like they did against the Dolphins last year, Giants the year before, and the Colts the year before that. Elway would never have let his teams quit. Brady leads the quitting-->see bitching at refs, whining in general, pouting on the sidelines. I can name at least 20 great QBs who wouldn't be caught dead doing that. 5. Marino was far and away a better QB...because Marino wasn't asked to win games by the Dolphins, he was asked to win SEASONS. The Dolphins spent crazy resources on Marino and their O line, got lucky with Duper and Clayton, and told them "go win" with a score of 35-28. Marino was the O, but he was also the D. You knew he could score on you in 2 mins, so you had to call plays on O that would hold the ball longer, etc. Nobody could beat the Dolphins in a shootout...until Kelly and the boys came along. Brady* has never been asked to win a SEASON, and Belechick looks to his D to win games. 6. From what I hear Otto Graham is better than all of the above, but I can't say, either way, cause I never saw him play. But here's the thing: If Belechick is so smart, why did he wait until the 6th round to take Brady? Why didn't he start him right away if he 'knew'(because he is such a good coach) Brady was so good? Ok, so if he was being "developed", then why did he start out 4th on the depth chart? 4th gets you cut. How come Brady didn't get to compete for the starting spot his second year if he was being "developed"? Is this another example of Belecheat's amazing coaching ability? Or just getting very, very lucky? And finally, why are we talking about getting massively lucky with a QB, on a team whose coach focuses on defense = his team is at least in the game, every game, and acting like that is the same as other QBs...like Elway, Kelly, Marino, or Montana...whose defenses were nowhere near as good, ever? Bottom Line: You give Payton Manning the Patriots Defense this decade and Tom Brady = Phil Simms...which is exactly what Belecheat "thought" he was drafting.

Yeah, but again, I argue that we had at least a serviceable team, even a playoff-caliber team(talent wise, not cap wise) when TD took over form Butler. The fact that TD essentially got lucky with an UDFA doesn't excuse drafting special teams/gadget/long shot players for 3 years in a row and failing miserably on scouting both Williams AND JP. I can give a GM one mulligan, not 2. Therefore, clearly Levy had a much more difficult job than Donahoe did. Comparing them by years or wins or whatever is silly when you realize that TD started at 0 and Levy/Brandon started at -10. Cap hell, yeah, yeah, yeah, BS. Multiple teams have bailed themselves out of that in a year, so it's hardly some magic trick that only TD was able to do. You still get to draft in cap hell years, and high draft picks the year right after.

Go back an re-read my disclaimer.

Disclaimer = I am assuming that Brandon years count as a Levy years based on your "hiring Jauron" rule, and instead of having to call it Marv/Brandon, I just call it Marv. Let's face it, Marv left an impression on these guys, one way or the other. Also, Donahoe was following Butler, who we all can agree did a very good job both with us and San Diego after us. Levy was following Donahoe, so instead of starting at 0, or even a 3-5 point head start inheriting a playoff team, Levy was starting at -10. This comparison is not even kind of close, but here goes: TD's QB = Bledsoe and JP Marv's QB = Edwards...and yeah they sure as hell drafted him for a reason, when they did, because he was/is their guy. TD's O line...do we even need to talk about this in general? Drafting Mike Williams not included...it's all bad. Marv's O line = stop gap/developed/FA/drafted players that have at least consistently improved...albeit not a very difficult task when you consider: Donahoe's O line. TD's TE = Kevin Everett, Mark Campbell, Ehus = crap Marv's TE = Royal, Shields???, Fine, Shouman, Nelson = crap and rookies we don't know about yet. This is a wash position since we haven't had a great TE since Metzelaars IMO. Remiersma was up and down. TD's WR = Traded Peerless Price, Drafted Lee Evans, Josh Reed, Roscoe Parrish. This is perhaps his only real bright spot. Marv's WR = Signed Peerless Price, and a whole boatload of other stop gap WR's special teams people, etc. Has not provided a real #2 WR to compliment Lee Evans....until we see how TO/Hardy/Johnson/UDFAs pan out. Drafting Lee Evans puts this position in the TD column...until we find out if any of this year's moves/drafted players from last year work out. It only takes one to work out to move this back into the Marv/Brandon column. TD's RB = Again, do I even need to cover this? Not to mention the wasted draft picks on McGahee? Marv's RB = Again, it's not even close. Lynch and Jackson's level at RB hasn't been seen around here since Thomas and Davis, and we are just getting into the good stuff. TD's DL = Schobel...ok, but Donahoe let our great DTs walk, and he never replaced them. Drafted Kelsay, who I like, but I am in a minority. Marv's DL = gets the benefit of Schobel, but builds on that significantly with trading for Stroud, drafting Williams in the 5th round, signing Johnson, and moving from 31st on D to 14th. "The Maybin Pick" will be one for the ages...we'll see. Getting rid of Tim Anderson(Marv)...vs. drafting Tim Anderson(TD) in the third round...you tell me which is a better decision TD's LBs = Spikes, Posey/Crowell, Fletcher. This was the other bright spot for TD, this was a strength...but, as we saw, replacing 2 great DTs with one good DT(Sam Adams) who has one good year left, significantly hurts the effectiveness of the LBs in a 4-3 system. Marv's LBs = Poz, Mitchell, and crap...and even Poz was inconsistent last year. Mitchell was a good signing. Dumping/trading Crowell, Posey, Spikes, Fletcher all ended up being good to great moves. However getting rid of ineffective players only solves half the problem. Major negative if we are still stating Ellison/DiGiorgio as Strong side LB mid-season. Advantage TD for right now. TD's DBs replacing stars with retreads, drafting Clements, signing Greer Marv' DBs letting the overrated Clements walk, and drafting quality DBs....in a league that is moving away from LBs and towards DBs = reality, deal with it Advantage Marv for Whitner, Youboty and McKelvin draft picks...and let's see if Simpson gets a fire lit under his rear by Byrd Special Tems TD provided most of the top ST performers we have today in Parrish, Moorman, Lindell, and even Denney:), so lets give him some credit..... ....the problem is, you don't use the top 3 rounds of the draft to fill out your special teams roster and/or take gadget players and long shot RBs..... And that's why TD<<<<<<Marv back in the 90's, now, and forever.

Yeah, yeah, Kelly. How's your aura doing today there Hollywood guy? How does it feel to know that watching people get kicked in the balls/step in crap(literally and figuratively) gets higher ratings than all but a very few shows that have "writers"? That would piss me off if that's what I did for a living, so I don't blame you for being bitter and lashing out at me. But I'm sure this is not due to the terrible product coming from Hollywood, because all Hollywood people are "so great to work with" and are so "good at what they do", just ask them, they say it all the time. I don't explain the exact same person who is far-right, I excoriate them. I can't stand them. This country is now and will be in serious, long-term economic peril precisely because of many on the far-right. Their stupidity has encouraged forgetfulness on just how utterly retarded socialism is. Instead of focusing on winning the wars, instead of making sure Wall Street was holding up their end, instead of providing oversight and keeping Barney Frank's ridiculous agenda, the root cause for this economic crisis, in check, the far-right had the Republicans worrying about if Mike marries Steve and touches his pee-pee, or, the far-right was caught stealing and made everybody look bad. To be clear, I equally despise: selfish, undisciplined, lazy hippies who think business is "easy" and therefore they are entitled to what I have created from scratch, presume that their political belief makes them "smarter", but then get offended when people prove that patently isn't true, or have been given independent wealth, and now seek to "do good" for "the poor" when they don't know how to "do" anything, and end up screwing us all over when the plan they got out of a junk science or economics book doesn't work in the real world, - and - pompous, judgmental, religious zealots who contradict their own ethos by claiming to know what God/Jesus is thinking, seek to control others instead of focusing on their own grace, and permanently ostracize those who make mistakes/live differently than them, but will callously give them "charity", even though their own playbook tells them over and over, specifically, to forgive and genuinely help others, especially those they disagree with or whose behavior "goes against the Good book". A long time ago, one of these mfers lectured me for a whole week about my lack of penitence, etc. and then he screwed up, ignoring our warnings, and nearly killed me with a 3-ton pipe(I know, "if only", right?). As they are dragging me to a truck, he had the audacity to say that God had something to do with it. Consider: 1. From the S&L scandal in the 80's to today, of all the Republicans, it's almost always the far-right bible thumpers that keep getting caught with their hands in the till. Why? Because they think they are infallible, just like the far-left. 2. IF this country becomes economically weak, all the "gay marriage" social nonsense issues won't matter. In fact, I guarantee you that a whole lot less "Christian behavior" will be happening. So, in screwing up with the corruption in 2002-6, and letting the left get a complete majority, they might create the very conditions they are supposedly against. They are exactly like the far-left in that their stupid ideology ultimately furthers the things they are against...because their ideology is stupid, we all know it, and therefore we punish them for it. 3. Due to #2, Social Issues should always take a back seat to Economic Strength Issues. It's the dumbass far-right that keeps playing the perfect boogey men for the far-left people who want socialism in this country. Every time we might finally kill off socialism/Communism, or do something important like overhaul Medicare/SSI, some idiot far-right guy does something stupid, out comes the distraction, and it's back to square one. Ultimately it is the extremists on the far-left, and far-right, that are responsible for holding this country back. The blind willingness of millions in this country to follow their ideology in all things, instead of common sense, is the greatest issue facing us today. The good news is that centrists/libertarians like myself outnumber them 2-1...but that doesn't matter when the entire government is being run by one extreme or the other.

Buddy, you may want to re-think using the word coward in reference to me. Seek life elsewhere, this is a bad plan for you. With that said, re-read my post, I did respond to your challenge explicitly, but it's still irrelevant to the point of this thread. I honestly have no idea what your "first challenge" was, but how about you go back and answer any one of my 5 questions before you start talking about who did what? Your comments have driven this entire thread, you have no one to blame but yourself, because you keep saying things like "the big joke when the mikes are off is". And when I ask you "what mike?" you obfuscate for 5 pages. But, I guarantee that you will keep posting here and keep carrying water for Schopp(figured out how to spell his name right yet pal?). Go ahead and prove me wrong.

A quality that I am proud of, given the current state of TV and TV people. You honestly believe I don't think that they are just as phony as the far-left? From where I am sitting one group is trying to out-phony the other. I would lump them in with televangelists, most lawyers, sports radio hosts(see the soon to be 30 page thread), pretty much every movie person right now, real estate agents, and most health care software providers. Basically the "overpay me for doing something that I tell you requires talent, but my results prove that I don't really have any" crowd. And yeah, unfortunately I have done extensive work for the Hollywood, once...had to do with line producing, so I am fully aware of just how ridiculous their very existence is...see: "my aura is bad today, so I can't get you those requirements you asked me for a month ago." = direct quote. I didn't say that. I said this is what happens when your thinking never gets challenged...where the concept of introspection is completely foreign...when you live in a phony little world that you and your buddies have created that is not based on principles, but expediency and entitlement...where the rules only apply to other people, or we change them when we can't get out of them applying to us...and where you call people racists/bigots/idiots for providing reasonable challenges to your supposedly infallible world view. Hmmm. Isn't that the very description of this BBC guy, and the far-left??? You bet your azz it is.

Because you keep posting things like this It's SCHOPP there genius. If you are going to be critical of spelling, work on your own first. Perhaps you need to get back to carrying Schopp's water. And if that had any relevance to the point of this thread, which is specifically about what he said the other day, then I would gladly accept your challenge and tell you that he has been positive about both the TO and the Peters issues. But it's not relevant to this thread, so no I don't accept your irrelevant challenge. The hell you aren't, and fanbois is the plural form of fanboi. Here you are still trying to change the damn subject 20 pages into this thread. That is the very definition of "FanBoy". Bull. As evidenced by the fact that a causal Schopp and Bulldog listener like myself would not know that: So now we are trying to marginalize people's right to demand Schopp talk about the Bills in return for their time, based on who pays what? Lame...ass...BS. But even if it wasn't, you are screwed compared to me, because of my crazy schedule and my job, I usually have to go through hell to see games and pay for it dearly. Sometimes I can't make home games at all (last year was a nice exception) so I end up paying out the azz to go to away games in NYC or Miami, etc. I have blown 1000's getting back to Buffalo so I could go to the game with my extended family, etc. over my lifetime. Most season ticket holders can't even hold a candle to me in terms of total $$$ spent. And still, none of what you said changes the fact that Schopp was an idiot for saying what he said.

How can you guys forget the #1 Bills hater of all time? Joe Namath ???? If you were watching games from 1985-1992 or so you know what I am talking about. Every single Bills game he worked it was always: "Well the Bills wouldn't be ahead 21-0 in the first quarter if it wasn't for Thurman Thomas(or Kelly, Reed, Bennet, Smith, etc.)" -or- "The Jets would be winning right now if they had a good offense, because they have held the Bills offense to 17 points in the first half" Yes Joe, and if my aunt had balls she'd be a juggler. The funny part about Namath was not only his blatant bias against the Bills, it was that we was so bad at covering it up he made himself sound retarded every game.

I guess I should have said, I don't see how complaining about talking about the Bills improves ratings, or changes anything really. So what purpose does it serve other than creating problems for Schopp? He could have not said it, schtick notwithstanding, and it wouldn't have mattered. So why be an idiot?

The Quest for 20 continues: (edit: bah, Lori beat me to it) 1. I still don't see how Schopp's comments "get ratings". Those of use who listen off and on to WGR when we can(traveling, no planned conference calls, meetings, etc.) aren't going to change that due to our schedule. Those of us that don't listen at all, aren't going to start listening because of a thread like this, or comments like Schopp's, and those of us who are Schopp fanbois(um Preston) are fanbois. So again, I don't see how Schopp's comments are "getting ratings", and therefore can be excused. 2. Can this be defined as edgy positive? We apparently have standards to live up to now. And this: is hysterical (just seeing how many wallbashes I can pack into a single post)