For those of you that actually like Bell

[rstencel]

I like McNabb but did you see him this past year? I'm not saying I watched every minute but seems like the game plan, especially when Westbrook was hurt, was to wait all day for Deshaun Jackson to get open deep. As many like to say on this board QBs more than O-line determine sack total. Care to change your stance on that Thurman#1?

 

What is really needed in these discussions is a stat that I wish could be found. Average Time to Throw (ATT)!!!!! This to me would be a great GREAT stat to truly gauge whether it is the QB or the OL that is responsible for the sack numbers and a teams offensive success.

 

ATT low and sacks low = QB is getting rid of the ball quickly possibly making his line look better

ATT high and sacks low = OL doing a great job of protecting affording their QB lots of time

ATT low and sacks high = OL it terrible and they are getting their QB killed

ATT high and sacks high = QB is holding on to the ball too long

 

One issue with that stat would be the play and drop back. Some plays are designed for 3, 5 or 7 step drops, and are inherently going to give different amounts of time by the way they are blocked, and the style of offense also affects the progression of QB which will affect the blocking schemes and amount of time QB is supposed to hold on to the ball if play works as designed. There is value there, but tough to use it as a one size fits all stat.

[rstencel]

Right on my man. If you're not one of the whiney "I hate Peters" crowd you will see that he was just one of many talented players that we let go over the years and made new holes for ourselves. Good teams keep their talent and develop more. Bad teams lose their talent and constantly try to fill the holes that they made for themselves. Couple that with an inability to accurately identify new talent in the draft or free agency and you have a recipe for disaster plain and simple.

 

Yes they let a lot of good players go, but I don't think they made mistakes with letting them go on a lot of them either. They mishandled dealing with Peters the year before, so while I think he had to go, think both sides mess up on this one. Bills gave him a descent raise at time they didn't have to, but can understand why he wanted another one. While they have given allot of extensions before first deal was over, the deal wasn't even at halfway point when he wanted to do another one, so can also understand why the Bills wanted to wait another year before discussing it. Both sides too way too hard of a stand however. With Peters holdout till last day, then not reporting in shape and saying things like i missed the block that caused my QB to fumble the game away but didn't feel bad because I didn't get a raise, I was glad they were able to get so much for him.

 

You can't keep someone on you team, and pay them the money it would have taken to keep him, which is more than Eagles ended up having to part with, after he gave half hearted efforts and alluded that even if they meet his contract demands that he would only play out the contract till could move on. I don't know all the inside information of details, no, but what I did hear about the relationship between him and the team, it was best to let him move on and start fresh.

 

As far as some of the others mentioned. " Pat Williams, Antowaine Winfield, London Fletcher, etc ....etc. "

They already had a replacement for Windfield and he would have been very expensive, and did not want to stay in Buffalo either. They also were coming out of salary cap issues at the time. London already was a retread before we got him, and the defense was better for letting him go in my opinion. Pat Williams was a huge mistake, and one they didn't have to make. He wanted to stay and wasn't asking to break the bank like the others listed.

 

While I don't always agree with the decisions, there are other factors than just how they did after leaving that can come into play. How do they fit the style of play, how do they affect the salary cap, do I already have a player on the team that could fill the same job cheaper, and would that allow us to improve the overall team by putting that money into another position, etc..

 

Yes, they obviously haven't made allot of great moves or they wouldn't have one of the worst records over the last decade, but don't think some of the ones listed would be in top 10, other than losing Pat.

[Thurman#1]

If only players could play partial seasons and be judged on those. Brad Butler was probably one of the best RT's in the NFL last season for those 2 games he played.

 

That's right, he was. Ranked extremely high. It's a damn shame he was injured and a damn shame he retired. Judging players by what they played, whether or not it was a full season is what NFL personnel people do. Do you actually have a point here?

 

anyway, Peters missed four games in five years with the Bills. He has proved very tough, and those two games that he missed at the end of both seasons both came in seasons where the Bills were no longer in playoff contention.

 

 

And him tearing his groin at the end of the 2007 season was the reason I said that he needed to show up to One Bills Drive to be checked-out by the Bills before they made him the highest-paid LT in the NFL. Not only did he not do that, he skipped the entire off-season, showed-up a day before the season started, played poorly, and again demanded to be the highest-paid LT in the NFL based on what he did in 2007

 

Yes.

 

 

 

To reward that would have been "stupid."

 

 

What? Are you trying to use quotation marks to point out how clearly wrong it is in the situation, are you being ironic? From your history, I'm guessing not. So you are actually trying to say that we were much better off with Demetrius Bell? That is one pathetic little argument. We would have been infinitely better this year with Peters in place of Bell. By the end of the season, Trent was dancing in place so hard it looked like he had palsy, out of fear of what was coming from his blind side past Bell.

 

 

And yeah, those 2007 stats on Peters are partial, which means they're useless. Peters played almost the whole season and they have him for only seven games. The rankings are cumulative. You get plus or minus points for each game. In other words, Peters

 

And no, for some weird reason, it wasn't the first seven games of the 2007 season, it was 8 of the first 11 games of the season. (Yet as you said, they only credited him with seven games in the page you were looking at. Profootballfocus is a good site, but they clearly had some kind of slipup, whether it was a computer malfunction or what. That is extremely clear here:

 

http://profootballfocus.com/by_player.php?...p;playerid=2148

 

For some wacky reason, they missed games 4, 6, 10 and 12 onwards. Which means that Peters' score would have been much higher if he'd simply played at that level, but you can see that there is a pattern to that season and that he was on a major upswing. Judging Peters' half a season (when he really played 16 games) and comparing it against the 16 game seasons of other players is like picking, for example, one season of Derek Jeter's career, saying that we lost the stats on about 56% of the season for Jeter, and then comparing Jeter to all other players in terms of total hits. It is simply invalid.

 

2007 was the year that Belichick said that Peters was the best player on the Bills offense, by the way.

 

 

 

 

 

As for whether the LT the Bills take (if they do) with the 9th overall pick is worth the $6M/year he'll get, that remains to be seen. But I doubt he demands a new contract after just 2 years, much less sits out the entire off-season as a result.

 

 

But if he turns out to be a fantastic player, and it becomes obvious that he's making less than a third of his market value, and he does indeed get frustrated at that (you know how these young kids are) then we should definitely get rid of him and draft another 1st rounder at LT. Because this path has proved so fruitful for us as a team.

 

 

And sorry but being the 8th best LT and 18th best OT last season did more to justify the Bills' decision than the Eagles'.

 

 

Ah, I see, you've gone beyond reason at this point. Got it. You're beyond logic right now. This'll be my last reply to you, then. Anyone who thinks that having had Bell rather than Peters justified the Bills' decision ... well, you're over the edge, and I won't bother anymore after this post.

[Thurman#1]

NKM' Sometimes your rare breed of humor is elusive to grasp.

 

 

 

Apparently you don't know that Butler was indeed extremely high in the rankings after those two games. Around 8th out of all tackles in the league, if I remember correctly. Here were his game scores:

 

http://profootballfocus.com/by_player.php?...p;playerid=3088

[Thurman#1]

The Bills handled a bad situation with Peters in textbook fashion. And being named to the Pro Bowl has proven to be a joke.

 

 

 

Wow, I'm glad you opened my eyes in the post above. "Textbook fashion." Classic!!!!

[Thurman#1]

I said probably not ready or not as good at evaluating talent. The decision to jettison Peters, switch Walker to LT, then cut him, and go with Bell had nothing to do with the OL coach?

 

 

Not nothing perhaps, but he wasn't the decision maker, that's for sure. He wasn't even the OL coach when we jettisoned Peters. Blame all these pathetic moves on the higher-ups who made them.

[Tsaikotic]

On the contrary, he's dead on. They already had Tuinei and Newton when they got Aikman, right, but in no way did they already have two excellent tackles when they got Aikman. If your argument is that Dallas already had two guys who would later become excellent OLs, then you're dead on, but so does Buffalo, with Wood and Levitre.

 

Before they got Aikman, Newton was an OK left guard. He really became excellent in about 1992, his first pro bowl year. Check out the AV in this career stats list.

 

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/N/NewtNa00.htm

 

And Newton was one of those high-round picks that you want us to use for a tackle, right? Um, no, he was a UDFA, who played two years in the USFL before moving to Dallas. They didn't exactly break the draft pick bank when they picked him up, and he wasn't playing particularly well by the time they got Aikman.

 

As for Tuinei, he was also a UDFA, in 1983. He didn't start any games in his first three years, though he did get a sack in 1984. Because he was a defensive tackle, by the way. Switched to LT in 1987, he started eight games. The next year, he started four games, but wasn't playing left tackle. The closest I can figure from the stats is that he was playing defense again that year. Not exactly a resume that would make a new coach say "Well, we've got LT sewed up for the next 12 years."

 

The next year was Aikman's first, 1989, and was the year when Tuinei became LT for good. He was a solid but not great LT for the first few years, but developed and later in his career became excellent.

 

Neither of these guys was anywhere near being the franchise guy they later became in 1989. Yet somehow, instead of snagging a lineman, Jimmy Johnson's first pick was Troy Aikman.

 

You're the one whose argument is SOL.

 

the fact is is that they were on the team b4 they got Aikmen..his statement was that Dallas got Aikmen and then got the o-line after Aikmen...fact is they had newton and Tuinei on the roster b4 Aikmen and they got there pro-bowl C in round 2 of the same draft as Aikmen...so they did not get 5 new o-linemen after they got there franchise QB...I'm not saying this is the way to build a team or not the way..just letting him know that his crusade is flawed.

[JohnC]

Apparently you don't know that Butler was indeed extremely high in the rankings after those two games. Around 8th out of all tackles in the league, if I remember correctly. Here were his game scores:

 

http://profootballfocus.com/by_player.php?...p;playerid=3088

 

I bet you his ranking for durability was not too high.

[Sisyphean Bills]

They've been using that same textbook for a decade.

It's called How to be an NFL Executive for Absolute Morons.

[Doc]

That's right, he was. Ranked extremely high. It's a damn shame he was injured and a damn shame he retired. Judging players by what they played, whether or not it was a full season is what NFL personnel people do. Do you actually have a point here?

 

anyway, Peters missed four games in five years with the Bills. He has proved very tough, and those two games that he missed at the end of both seasons both came in seasons where the Bills were no longer in playoff contention.

My point is that Butler's high ranking means little if he missed the rest of the season. And Peters has gotten injured every season for the past 3 years, so it's no longer a fluke but a trend. He was fortunate that he got injured at the ends of 2007 and 2008, otherwise he would have missed significant time (he missed playing in the Pro Bowl in 2007 and 2008 because his injuries were so severe, and the Pro Bowl happened a month and a half AFTER the season ended in those years). Can we only judge Peters on seasons/games in which he's totally healthy?

 

Yes.

It's a "what have you done for me lately" league. If Peters wanted to prove that he was good enough to be the highest-paid LT in the NFL, he should have prepared and played like it in 2008. He didn't, by a mile. I was a huge Peters fan, until he pulled that crap.

 

What? Are you trying to use quotation marks to point out how clearly wrong it is in the situation, are you being ironic? From your history, I'm guessing not. So you are actually trying to say that we were much better off with Demetrius Bell? That is one pathetic little argument. We would have been infinitely better this year with Peters in place of Bell. By the end of the season, Trent was dancing in place so hard it looked like he had palsy, out of fear of what was coming from his blind side past Bell.

No, the plan was to have Walker play LT, until they cut him right before the season started. Like they did with Schonert, turning play-calling over to an inexperienced and unprepared rookie OC. And the no-huddle proved to be a mistake. I have clearly made it known that I thought the Bills screwed-up the LT situation, and offense in general, after they traded Peters.

 

And yeah, those 2007 stats on Peters are partial, which means they're useless. Peters played almost the whole season and they have him for only seven games. The rankings are cumulative. You get plus or minus points for each game. In other words, Peters

 

And no, for some weird reason, it wasn't the first seven games of the 2007 season, it was 8 of the first 11 games of the season. (Yet as you said, they only credited him with seven games in the page you were looking at. Profootballfocus is a good site, but they clearly had some kind of slipup, whether it was a computer malfunction or what. That is extremely clear here:

 

http://profootballfocus.com/by_player.php?...p;playerid=2148

 

For some wacky reason, they missed games 4, 6, 10 and 12 onwards. Which means that Peters' score would have been much higher if he'd simply played at that level, but you can see that there is a pattern to that season and that he was on a major upswing. Judging Peters' half a season (when he really played 16 games) and comparing it against the 16 game seasons of other players is like picking, for example, one season of Derek Jeter's career, saying that we lost the stats on about 56% of the season for Jeter, and then comparing Jeter to all other players in terms of total hits. It is simply invalid.

 

2007 was the year that Belichick said that Peters was the best player on the Bills offense, by the way.

Most of the players ranked in 2007 were also done so based on less than 10 games (except for the Patriots' OT's, for some reason). I doubt they took Peters' worst 7 games and everyone else's best 7 to 9 games. But I'd be more inclined to say that he was one of the top LT's in 2007, despite what PFF might say. Again though, it still doesn't excuse him for 2008, and his performance in 2009 wasn't "franchise LT" worthy, excuses notwithstanding.

 

But if he turns out to be a fantastic player, and it becomes obvious that he's making less than a third of his market value, and he does indeed get frustrated at that (you know how these young kids are) then we should definitely get rid of him and draft another 1st rounder at LT. Because this path has proved so fruitful for us as a team.

If he sits out the entire off-season, plays poorly during that season, and demands to be the highest-paid LT in the NFL, sure. It's not like Peters was the difference between making the playoffs or not for the Bills, while on the contrary, his performance for the Eagles contributed to them getting bounced in the first round of the playoffs for the first time (in a playoff season) under Reid. Don't think that most Eagles fans didn't notice that, and lament the trade.