Cash

Bushrod also got abused by Schobel when they played us. People need to realize that Brees makes that line look way better than it actually is.

I still like Derrick Johnson from the Chiefs. High draft pick (17 overall, maybe?) who was benched because he doesn't fit their new scheme. But he *does* fit our scheme. I can't imagine KC wanting to retain him, and since he's spending this year on the bench, his price should be pretty reasonable. Low risk, high upside kind of guy.

A real offense guided by a real QB.

Our highest realistic draft position is 6th. If we win either of our last 2 games, it's probably more like 10th. The 5 teams we're not going to catch are: St. Louis (needs a QB) Detroit (no chance of drafting a QB) Tampa (no chance of drafting a QB) KC (very little chance of drafting a QB) Cleveland (strong chance of drafting a QB) Plus, we probably won't catch Washington either, and it's fairly likely that they might go QB in round 1. Of course, a lot will depend on how free agency goes, so this is all quite premature. But it wouldn't surprise me if both Clausen and Bradford are off the board when our pick arrives. I don't know if there'll be anyone else at that point who can justify a top 10-ish pick.

Orakpo plays LB (in a 4-3) on running downs and DE on passing downs. He's spent more time at DE lately due to injuries on the D-line. I'm guessing around half his sacks have come from the DE position. English plays OLB in a 3-4, so there's no real comparison to Maybin there. Jackson and Hood play end in 3-4s, and are completely irrelevant to the Maybin discussion. Honestly, if Maybin was anything approaching an NFL player at this point, he'd be in the same role as Orakpo. Starting at OLB in run situations, switching to DE in pass situations. Instead, he's nothing but the 4th DE on the field, and usually looks terrible when he is on the field. It illustrates the incompetence of the Bills front office, because this is exactly what they planned when they drafted him. At #11 overall, and full of vital team needs, you can't take a part-time player. Everyone knew Rey Maualuga would be solid, but he fell to the 2nd round because he's only a two-down player. Maybin is a one-down player who isn't very good. That's not to say that Maybin can't ever be good. We know how young he is and how inexperienced he is and that he missed most of training camp. Got it. Thanks. But thus far, it's been an atrocious and indefensible pick. Maybe that will turn around at some point in the future, but there's no evidence to suggest that it will just yet.

Pittsburgh's O-line is also horrible, and was just as bad last year when they won the Super Bowl. That's not to say that the Bills should in any way ignore their offensive line, but QB needs to be the #1 priority. Unless Brohm shows something, in which case QB could move down to #2.

On the bright side, at least Maybin finally got to show us how explosive his first step is.

I always love those rumors. Reminds me of 1999 when people kept talking about the Bears drafting McNabb at #8, because McNabb's originally from Chicago. Except that McNabb went #2 overall, and Clausen will go no later than #3 overall. Unless Weis goes to the Rams in some capacity, those rumors will be ridiculous.

Kenny Britt at 28? Are they high?

I just noticed that as well. What a joke.

+1

How's his arm strength? That and coming from a small school seem like the only potential knocks on him. But I'd prefer a guy from a non-powerhouse in any case. You think Tebow or McCoy is going to get the same kind of protection in the NFL that he got in college? No chance. Nor will either one have as big a talent disparity between his skill position players and the opponent's secondary.

Dunno about that. The Browns thought that Corey Williams would make an excellent 3-4 DE, and that was a bust. The Raiders thought that Warren Sapp would be able to play DE in a 3-4, and that was a colossal bust. We have no NT on the active roster, and no proven 3-4 DE either. Stroud, Williams, and Spencer Johnson all are candidates to play end in a 3-4, but none of them have ever really done it, and history shows that not all 4-3 DTs can make that switch. Denney might be able to bulk up and play in a 3-4, but his contract expires this year, and he probably won't be back anyway. As for LBs, there's no guarantee that Schobel would succeed at OLB -- look at Aaron Kampman this year. Schobel & Kampman are pretty similar players, and I tend to think Schobel would struggle about as much as Kampman did. Maybin looks like an OLB size-wise, but has never played the position, and hasn't shown anything on the field that suggests he can. Maybe he can, but that's a huge question mark. In general, 3-4 LBs need to be bigger than 4-3 LBs, so we'd need to get some bigger LBs in there. But we need to do that anyway, so I don't think that's really a point for or against moving to a 3-4. I'm not a fan of the Tampa 2 either, but there are plenty of good defenses we can run out of a 4-3 alignment. Getting bigger, faster, better players is the real key. If Mitchell comes back at full strength, we have probably 5 legit starters for a 4-3, 3 of whom would be major question marks in a 3-4.

:P

The only time the Bills really could've taken a knee but didn't was on the first and goal from the 7. They could've ended the game with 2-3 kneeldowns there, but opted to run the ball instead. As a way of boosting morale on a downtrodden team, I think it was probably a pretty good move. But in terms of pure tactics, it's the wrong move, since it lowers your chance of victory. (From over 99.9% to maybe about 98%. Still lower, though.)

+1. Furthermore, why do so many people seem to think that there's only 2 possibles defense we can run: Either the Tampa 2, or the 3-4. There are many different variations on both the 4-3 and the 3-4. You think Pittsburgh runs anything close to the scheme that New England runs, even though both are 3-4s? What if we kept a 4-3, but went to a Philly/Jim Johnson style 4-3? Would that appease these people, or would they still insist on switching to a 3-4? Personally, I'd prefer to stick with a 4-3, as long as we get some bigger & better players in the front 7. Schobel, Kelsay, Stroud, & Williams all seem poor fits to me in a 3-4. Spencer Johnson, possibly Maybin, and probably Mitchell & Poz strike me as solid fits in a 3-4. And in my opinion, the most important position in any 3-4 defense is the nose tackle, and we don't currently have one on the roster. Stroud, Williams, Johnson, & McCargo would all be better suited at DE than NT in a 3-4.

If we had a real QB, I think you'd find that our WRs are perfectly fine. Even without TO.

I think the clear reason that Fewell was named interim head coach instead of April is that when a new guy is hired, there's no way he'll keep the interim head coach on staff. I don't think Fewell's a terrible defensive coordinator, but he's a lot easier to replace than April.

The point of our D (and the Colts, and Tampa's before this year) is to be filled with small, quick, finesse guys who can all fly to the ball and gang-tackle. It's a great philosophy for a dome team, because having a bunch of track stars on D can help combat high-powered offenses that are filled with their own track stars. But when the weather (and footing!) gets rough, our little guys just get shoved around.

What's really good about this is that the Bills can now open talks with Cowher, Holmgren, Shanahan, etc. That's not something you can really do while you've still got a coach under contract. But with an interim coach in place, you can be completely up front about making overtures to a new coach.

Last year's Super Bowl champs are on the line. Question mark?

San Fran owns Carolina's first round pick. They could very well be in the market for a QB, or at least more O-line help.

For the record, here are the official tiebreakers for draft position: 1. Strength of schedule 2. Coin flip Presumably they'll re-flip if the coin lands on edge. As for the draft itself, you never know for sure, but I'd guess the following teams will be looking to draft QBs: Cleveland (they hate both their current QBs) St. Louis Washington There are a few terrible teams that we probably won't have to compete with for QBs, either because they drafted one in the first round last year, or traded for one and gave him a giant contract with lots of guaranteed money: Detroit (Stafford) Kansas City (Cassel) Tampa Bay (Freeman) Then you've got the wild cards, who may or may not be looking for a QB in the first round. For these teams, it might just come down to who's there, i.e., they'll draft a QB if they think they're getting good value, but they won't reach for one: Tennessee (depends a lot on how Young finishes the season) Oakland (I think they'll pick Taylor Mays, but who knows?) San Francisco (also somewhat dependent on how Alex Smith plays the rest of the year) Also worth mentioning is Jacksonville, who'll probably pick behind us anyway, but in case they're in front of us, we should be pretty safe. They're still pretty happy with Garrard, and they drafted 2 OTs and signed 2 more last year.

It was reported as a death in the family. I haven't seen any reports of which relative.

Jauron has consistently underestimated the ability of his opponents to make field goals. There's the Dallas game on Monday night a few years ago, where we purposely avoided defending the quick out, even though Dallas had no time outs left, because Jauron didn't think they'd hit a 50+ yard field goal (wound up being 53). There's the Cleveland game from this year, where instead of letting Jamal Lewis score and having about 1:30 to score a TD to tie, Jauron kept trying to stuff Lewis, because he had some crazy notion that the Browns would mess up the snap, or that the Bills would block the kick. And then you've got this, where Jauron somehow thinks that 51 yards is "the edge" of Bironas' range, even though he's 8 of 13 from 50+ for his career, and 6 for his last 7. And a 10 second google search tells me that Bironas has hit at least one 60-yarder and at least one 56-yarder in his career, so 51 hardly seems to be the edge of his range. I don't know if Jauron doesn't look at the actual percentages before games, or if he just talks himself into ignoring them on game day, or what, but it's very frustrating when your team's game plan comes down to hoping the other guys miss, instead of trying to do something positive to prevent the kick in the first place. And all of the Jauron-logic in the first paragraph is paraphrased from his own post-game press conferences, by the way.