BillsVet

I'll be the first one to say Edwards struggled, many times against the 3-4 defense in the second half. And while his play left something to be desired, he wasn't getting any help from the coaching staff. Aside from the KC game, Buffalo's offensive game plan featured little aggressiveness or ability to adjust. Those 3-4 defenses always seemed to confuse Buffalo. Over the past 3 seasons, I've rarely seen many pass plays called into the EZ. In the RZ, I've rarely seen the go for the throat mentality. It was on display at home against Seattle, but after that it disappeared. The one constant to all of this is DJ. Despite a change at OC, it's clear that aggressive play-calling is not on display. Predictability is their watchword, and something every DJ has a big share of. The idea that he get better or is done is downright laughable. He's heading into his second season of starting. If he gets the time to throw, and is trusted by TS and DJ to do so, then he should be throwing for 3500 and 20 TD's. If he doesn't, his NFL career ain't over. The QB position can take 3-4 years before a guy is capable of playing well. Philip Rivers and Drew Brees come to mind.

Begin with a 4th. He's disgruntled, and Denver is cleaning house in McDaniel's first year. With the donkeys in sell mode, you might be able to get him for a song. Besides, 2nd and 3rd round picks are where you make your money in the draft. Forking them over all the time is what franchises like Washington do. This year's draft seems to have a lot of talent in the 2nd-3rd round who could be good down the road.

All valid points. But you've got to understand posters like Alpha are on a personal crusade to bash Edwards because after 23 career starts he's not an All-Pro. To them, QB play is solely responsible for all the faults on this team.

Trading 2 1sts and a 3rd is tantamount to insanity. It's easy to give up top picks when it's not draft day. But ask Phil Savage how he feels about the draft last year when the Brownies had to wait until the 4th to pick.

Mr. Excuse Maker. Funny you should show up to defend the Bills philosophy. Their record these past three seasons is worth backing, isn't it? At this point, I've got to believe you're an employee of the team. The point to all of this is simple: Buffalo hasn't won enough to say their way of doing things is a practical example of managing a front office. As for teams who keep coaches, who did the Patriots keep with 3 straight losing seasons? And the Titans? Referencing (I believe) Jeff Fisher's record more than a decade ago is a poor comparison. But don't let that absurd analogy get in the way. He only went to the SB by his fifth full season in the league. In DJ's fifth full season his record stood at 35-45. I suppose the next thing you'll say is because I haven't been the GM of a pro football team that I don't have any room to complain. Being forced to start a first round QB? That's downright hilarious. No less than 15 other teams in the league are "forced" to start former first rounders.

I think the Bills philosophy is to keep sailing the ship straight. Find every way to avoid making major changes and hope the team does well enough, meaning 8-8 or better in 09, to keep the front office the same until RW passes. Ralph is 90, and the Bills haven't made an administrative change since Donahoe was fired. I'd argue the Brandon era is an extension of Levy's tenure as GM. Modrak, Guy, Overdorf, Brandon, and the man behind everything Littman are still running the show. Jauron is still the HC, despite the fact that 31 other teams would have fired him by now.

Dean, the results aren't there to prove this point. The consensus based approach has produced three consecutive 7-9 seasons. This season Buffalo will struggle to make the playoffs, although it's not out of the question. The question is not about experience, just experience in the right place among the "senior football" people. If Brandon is making decisions, it's a gamble to think he's going to learn quickly enough on the job. In a division with the free spending Jets, Belichick and Parcells, that's not comforting to me.

They'll also be taking a DE, TE, and G in the first 2-3 rounds. Unfortunately they don't have enough picks. Not yet at least. Draft day for the Bills is all about having more needs than options to fill them with.

Everything will be revealed someday, but having Brandon there is Ralph's answer to hiring a legitimate GM. The franchise has been buying time since Donahoe was canned, first with Levy and now Brandon. They refuse to run the team like the other 31 clubs, and the product on the field will suffer as long as non-football people make football decisions. I don't hate Brandon. But I don't like the idea that someone who was devising marketing schemes a few years ago is going up against Bill Belichick, Bill Parcells, and the strongest football minds in the game. When you compare him to those guys, I don't care how many tidbits he got from Butler, it's not enough. Becoming a great personnel guy takes years of working in the arena.

The Bills are a business first, and it's cheaper to fill your team with late round draft picks, pronounce them capable, and put a team on the field which ultimately doesn't live up to expectations. Buffalo has been in rebuild mode for 3+ seasons now. This is the fourth off-season post-Donahoe, and yet they still have huge issues, particularly LB depth, a starting G, no one with starting experience at TE, and and lack a bonafide pass rusher not named Schobel. Keiaho isn't coming to Buffalo. It's not their style.

Ralph still runs the show, with Littman advising on financial matters, which pretty much covers all personnel decisions. Agree completely here...Brandon gets to make some of the smaller decisions, but among big issues, like firing the HC, he's about third in line behind RW and Littman. I would still like to know his vision for building a football team. Frankly, I don't think he has one, and when compared to Polian and Butler, he's still completely inexperienced.

Is he even the personnel decision maker for this team? When the option to can Jauron was there, it sounded as though 2 of the "inner circle" did not want to retain him while two did. I'll speculate here, but I believe Brandon was one of those who didn't want DJ. He's been given the keys to the football side of the house, but isn't he allowed to make the big football decisions.

Undersized SS who probably reverts full time to FS by his fourth year in the league. That's how I'd build a defense. Signed, Dick Jauron Marv Levy

Chambers is a nice story, but he's not starting caliber on any part of the line IMO. They tried him at guard when Butler went down and he struggled mightily. Expecting him to play an entire season is a smokescreen the front office is laying down. And the same thing goes for Walker playing LT for an entire season. I think a lot of fans think that because he played OK against Seattle that he can handle the role for an entire season. I doubt it. I agree on Hangartner. If he was as in demand, someone would have swooped in and offered him more than Buffalo did. He'll be unspectacular, which is indeed an improvement over Preston or Fowler. Not signing a veteran in UFA demonstrates the Bills are arrogant enough to think a rookie will come in and start right away.

It's a popular refrain to say trade Peters for picks and be done with the entire situation. Unfortunately, it creates another gaping hole on the OL, forcing front office to find more players who can be immediate starters. IMO, the front office hasn't had enough successes on draft day to warrant any trust, and hoping they'll find a LT, OLB, G, and to a lesser extent TE and DE with their top picks is wishful thinking. In effect, we're shipping out a known commodity who wants big dollars for unknown entities that while commanding less money, are completely unproven. Trading Peters because he's difficult is not getting this team into the playoffs any quicker. In fact, it would probably contribute to extending their drought to an entire decade.

The Bills have been fortunate their OL hasn't been injured like other areas of the team were in 07-08. I have no doubt they'll use rookies and untested street FA's to round out their depth on the OL. The idea of Chambers are principle backup is adequate I suppose. But the interior OL is thinner than one-ply TP. If they figure the draft will provide their depth, it's a serious lack of judgment. Bell is a year away from being a player in the NFL, if at all. The remaining non-starters are from the UDFA or street free agent ranks. That lack of experience is disconcerting.

Schonert was a career QB coach when DJ selected him from a pool of one candidate to become OC. Whenever he's questioned, Schonert talks about how much film he's watched and his relationship with Bill Walsh. A guy like that has some issues, but if he were still QB coach I wouldn't mind. Unfortunately, he's the guy putting together the offensive gameplan, and last year it was underwhelming. I understand the concept of the WCO, but no one said the ball can't be thrown into the EZ, or slants can't be used from time to time. Last year, that offense was extremely predictable, and Schonert could not figure out the 3-4 defense no matter how many times he saw it. I don't believe he adequately prepared the offense, and rarely after the first 6 games was his biggest weapon, Evans, used like he should have been. Frankly, I think he ran out of answers by about Week 7. Count me among the unimpressed by all of Schonert's talk. He's yet to back it up on the field. And just maybe the Buccaneers, Bills of 98-00, Panthers, and Giants knew what they were doing in keeping him just a QB coach.

To be fair, the Bills have exactly 2 interior OL with NFL starting experience on their roster. If that makes you comfortable going against the 3-4 teams in the AFCE, that's just delusional. I don't have anything personal against Hangartner. He might be a good player. But it's a risk to trust him to be an everyday player, especially in the division. Just once, I'd like for them to add a proven player who is capable of excellent play. But I don't trust the front office to identify quality players and pursue them. Instead, they'll try to find the golden nugget in the bargain bin. And usually it doesn't work.

Pats-Light (2nd) Mankins (1st) Koppen (5th) Neal and Kaczur (3rd). Steelers-Colon (4th) Essex (3rd) Starks (3rd) Kemoeautu (6th) Former OL Simmons (1st) and M. Smith (2) Colts-Ugoh (2nd) Pollak (2nd) Saturday (UDFA) Diem (4th). Every one of those teams does two things: Find talent in late rounds and draft solid OL on Day 1. The Bills don't draft OL early, with one notable exception, and they rarely find outstanding players late. Generally, they stock their roster with average players who are trumpeted as better.

Indeed he has. However, the fact that Carolina drafted Ryan Kalil in the second round 07 tells me he wasn't thought of as much as a starter like he was a key reserve. The Bills are gambling that he can start AND play well against 3 of the better DT's in the NFL. I wouldn't doubt this move if the Bills brain-trust had more successes than failures over the past 3 seasons. For a team needing to make the playoffs, gambling on former reserves is something I'm not keen on.

I'd like for someone to show what he's demanding, and what Buffalo's offering. There's plenty of speculation, but nothing more than that. Rumors say Buffalo put up 8.5M, while Parker wants 11.5M. No one knows for sure at this point, and saying he wants 12M is akin to saying RW's shoulder most likely has a rotator cuff tear. All we know is Peters wants more than what Buffalo is offering, something to the tune of 3M more than what Buffalo offered as of about three weeks ago.

When can we start playing in the NFCW? Specialty players sell tickets, but they don't win games. It's cliche, but Buffalo never seems to combine a strong OL with those aforementioned speciality types at WR and RB. On defense, the clear lack of a pass rush hampers everything else they try to do. If there's one type of defense requiring a pass rush, it's the endangered species of the C2. No one's running it anymore besides the Bills, Vikings, and Bears. So while it's nice to talk about CBs, LBs, RBs, and WRs, I don't see much changing until they can handle things at the LOS.

I always find it ironic that one of Donahoe's biggest shortcomings was a failure to build the OL. He went out and signed inferior talent to block for the "name" speciality players he drafted. The same thing's happened with Levy/Brandon. They've drafted no one above the fifth round on the OL, signed an average OT in Walker, and severely overpaid for Dockery. The result is an OL which blows no one away, and which will depend on rookies to keep Edwards off his back in 09. Meanwhile, the guy charged with keeping the blindside clean (and team's best OL) is demonized for wanting a new contract. In 06, both the OL and DL had issues. Three seasons of rebuilding later, both lines still need an infusion of talent. Levy and Brandon had/have little clue what they were/are doing, as exemplified by their rebuilding the OL. First they spent huge dollars on underachievers. Now they're going the cheap route with guys like Hangartner who've never started in the league.

I don't think you can point to one guy who's been developed from their rookie season better than Peters. So many fans rag on him for the bad 08 season, but his play at a high level from late 06 to 07 proves what he can do when he's there in camp. If the Bills trade him and throw up the white flag to Peters and Parker, it goes to show that the Bills are not interested in winning right now. Because what they get in return will be draft picks and that's not going to help in 09 like Peters would.

I can't see the Bills going with Pettigrew in the first. They've got too many needs on the defensive side of the ball. In the first I'd like to see either Everette Brown or Maybin. In round 2, Shawn Nelson out of Southern Miss, perhaps Cook from South Carolina.