Cash

This sucks. No hard feelings toward Pettine, but why can't we have nice things? This does not make me hopeful for the future. And FU, Browns. You guys are the laughingstock of the NFL. Why not hire a DC from, I dunno, a GOOD team? Maybe like Seattle or San Francisco? Ugh. So what should I be hoping for now? Internal promotion (probably the LB coach that Pettine wants as his DC), or external? Could Wade Phillips be in the mix, or is Ralph still upset about having to pay him after firing him for insubordination?

I agree, but then we'd still need a new SS to replace Aaron Williams. And I'd argue that there would be a dropoff at FS from Byrd to Williams. Maybe not a massive one as Williams gets more comfortable at safety, but a dropoff nonetheless. There is definitely a price point/contract demand at which it makes sense to let Byrd walk or try a tag & trade, but in my estimation, that price point is somewhere around Troy Polamalu's contract. I really have no idea what Byrd's asking for, but if it's on par with Eric Berry's deal, I think the Bills should pay up.

1. No. If we only look at 2012 Fitz, it's close, because Fitz dropped off a lot in 2012. But even then, 2013 Manuel was worse than 2012 Fitz. Lewis was arguably as good or a little better. 2. Given that Stevie missed a bunch of games this year, and wasn't healthier than last year when he *did* play, this is closer than you might think. Goodwin also missed a bunch of time. But overall, I'll give a slight edge to 2013 over 2012. 3. No, I don't. Our defense was maddeningly inconsistent all year, whether it be giving up 3rd down conversions, ill-timed penalties, or backbreaking late scores. Our offense last year was straight-up bad, but capable of occasionally putting up a decent score. Our 2011 offense was half-decent though, and that's mostly because Fitz played a lot better that year.

I'm pretty sure our qualifying losses are Kyle Moore, Chad Rinehart, and Andy Levitre. As to our qualifying gains, I know Lawson and Branch count. If they're the only ones that count, then we get a comp pick. The salary match goes from low to high, so Moore would cancel out Branch and Rinehart would cancel out Lawson, which would leave us with a 3rd or 4th for Levitre. However, in addition to Lawson & Branch, we also signed Frank Summers and Doug Legursky as veteran UFAs. Summers was out of football in 2012, so he definitely doesn't count, but I'm not sure about Legursky. I've heard talk that there's a limited signing window for UFAs to count towards comp picks, and it closes around the draft, but I can't find any official confirmation of that. If it's true, Legursky wouldn't count, because he wasn't signed till June. I guess we'll see.

Re: bolded -- I love that a guy who constantly says that everyone is unfair to TJ Graham can also uncork a statement as ridiculous as that.

You need a Stevie-related one as well. If he's still on the team, he'll cost us games with either his "attitude" or a specific drop or penalty. If he's gone, it'll be that we don't have a reliable possession receiver and Woods needs another year.

So your plan is to emulate a 7-7 team as much as possible?

It doesn't bother me when fans are upset -- I'm upset too, because losing stinks, and it should upset you as a fan. But it does bother me when upset fans think that the way to get better is to get rid of good players because they aren't "good enough". How about getting rid of the bad players? The Bills love to employ the strategy of letting a guy go via cut, trade, or free agency, then spending a high pick on his replacement. THIS DOES NOT LEAD TO IMPROVEMENT. We cut Lawyer Milloy and drafted Donte Whitner. We traded Willis McGahee and drafted Marshawn Lynch. We drafted Spiller so we could trade Lynch, and drafted McKelvin so we could let Jabari Greer walk. Meanwhile, the scrubs around them have changed names, but keep being replacement-level players.

That's probably a good idea overall, but I personally hate the idea of watching games in a dome. I love the fact that football is played in the elements.

Plus, once a new thread gets merged into the 20-pager, all of the "go to first unread post" links stop working, meaning everyone who has been following the thread has to spend 10 minutes find their place again.

Agreed. If Brees throws a pick there, you chalk it up to a 1 in 1,000 shot and move on.

This multipost works well with your avatar, Dr. Manhattan.

Guys, every time you pay attention to Skip Bayless, he wins. His job is to get you to pay attention. He will say or do anything he can to get that to happen.

Oh come on guys. You never seen a corny pun before? I enjoyed the first and third ones.

Not sure how you missed the "29" next to the Bills in the quote the OP posted, but they're 29.

I'm not even sure there's more now. During the Gailey/Nix years, it seemed like the Bills signed or cut a practice squad guy almost every week. If there is an increase this year, it's not a huge one.

I'm pretty sure that the issue is that Brad Smith started 5 games at WR due to injury, but the Bills never stopped officially listing him as a QB on their roster. So it screwed up Pro Football Reference and they list 2 starting QBs for those 5 games. Deadspin got confused because Smith is listed *above* Fitzy in 3 of the 5. I was going to post this in the comment thread below to help clear things up, but didn't want to sign up for a Kinja account. http://regressing.deadspin.com/im-confused-by-brad-smith-having-a-1-2-record-as-a-star-1468430597 They have a basic handle on it, but I think they're still missing the piece that the Bills listed Smith as a QB on their roster even though he was starting at WR. Also I think the author doesn't want to take the time to update his fancy graphic, hahaha.

I think that was Marrone, regarding the Unga signing. Could be mistaken, though. In any case, you are correct that it's an almost verbatim Buddy Nix quote as well.

Yeah, this doesn't seem at all different from in-season roster management under Nix. Remember Scott Chandler, Kraig Urbik, and Erik Pears?

Money quote (emphasis mine): “We sat down and watched a lot of the quarterbacks across the league, the great ones, like Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers. Why are those guys so good? When you put on their tape they’re truly throwing the ball before the guy is open. They’re trusting their team. They’re just dropping back, they see it and they know and throw an accurate pass and let their guys make a play." This couldn't be more true. If your QB is only willing to throw to guys after they've beaten the D, you're in bad shape. First off, those opportunities don't come around often. Second, your QB will either take a lot of sacks while waiting for guys to get open (Hi Rob!) or check down all the time because no one's open yet (Hi Trent!). Third, if your QB waits till the WR is open to throw, there's a good chance the WR will no longer be open by the time the ball gets there. I think it's important for us fans to remember this, and not get too down on EJ when some of those "I trust my guy to make a play" balls get picked off. Graham did a nice job playing the ball in the air last week, but we can't expect that to happen every time. And if the WR misplays the ball, or just gets beat by the DB, that's not EJ's fault. The fair criticism is when he gives his guy no chance to make a play, like in the first Jets or Steelers games.

I don't remember any problems with Andre that game. Wasn't that the one where Bruce was out with the flu and the Steelers just ran away from Bryce Paup every down? Was that also the game where Kelly got hurt and Van Pelt came in for a series or two?

I wouldn't think of disparaging your knowledge of track. You make some good points there -- for example, that there's more to long jump than just speed. I'm disparaging your knowledge of physics. A couple of points: 1.) Given the same jump, the faster you're moving at the start of the jump, the father the long jump will go. This is true as long as Newton's First Law holds, and it's been holding steady for a while. Obviously a lot of the distance is determined by the jump itself, and that's why not all good sprinters are good long-jumpers and vice versa. 2.) I have no idea what definitions you were using for speed and velocity up top, but they definitely aren't the accepted ones. All right, enough off-topic posting from me. Sorry for the tangent.

Yes, with the ball on the 34, going into the wind. I can't imagine the Bills would have attempted a FG if the pass had dropped incomplete.

Someone needs to re-take physics.

Nice little piece; thanks for posting! I love Stevie and everything about him.