Adam Shatz/FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS Almanac on the Bills (not good)

[bills in va]

What part is true? That Hardy is the #2 receiver?

 

PTR

How about 10 years no playoffs, terrible O-Line, inexperienced WR's, the Spiller pick, Toronto fiasco? Do you want more?

Not sure what articleyou read but he sums it up pretty accurately. We Suck!

Now am happy about that? Hell no. Do I love the BILLS? Hell yes. Can I read a negative media article, realize that our team has more holes than swiss cheese and not call the author names? Hell yes.

People 10 YEARS NO PLAYOFFS...That fact alone should validate this authors points. If we weren't a bad team, run poorly then we would have seen the post season in my sons lifetime. Will things change? Hope so. But for now stop killing writers and posters who are negative, when the Bills prove them wrong it'll be a sunny day, but for now the weather sucks in Buffalo.

[MyHorseAteTheKid]

"What a mess.

 

Already struggling in a market no longer big enough to support NFL football, the Buffalo Bills spent the last few months hiring executives who were past retirement age and coaches nobody else wanted who will install schemes for which they don’t have proper personnel.

 

In our last few books, we’ve made fun of the Bills as the league’s least interesting team, stuck on an endless hamster wheel of 7-9 seasons. That’s no longer the case, and not in a good way. The decisions

made by the Bills in the past few months would make them the laughingstock of the league if the Oakland

Raiders weren’t so reticent to give up the title. Interim head coach Perry Fewell showed some promise after the

Bills fired Dick Jauron at midseason. The team finished 3-4, and Buffalo’s overall DVOA in the second half of the

season was a respectable 1.3%. Despite Fewell splitting duties as both defensive coordinator and head coach, the Bills had

the sixth best defensive DVOA in the NFL over the final two months. Nonetheless, owner Ralph Wilson wanted to clean house after five straight losing seasons, and that meant jettisoning both Fewell (now the defensive coordinator for the Giants) and general manager Russ Brandon (a P.R. guy whose P.R. moves, like signing Terrell Owens, didn’t do much for the

Bills on the field).

 

Plenty of big names swirled around the Bills — Bill Cowher, Mike Shanahan, Marty Schottenheimer —

but none of them actually came to work for the Bills. (As one former league executive told me, “You really think Mike Shanahan wants to live in Buffalo?”) Instead, the Bills promoted from within, elevating 70-year-old director of college scouting Buddy Nix to be their new general manager. Nix established an excellent record as a scout in eight years serving

under A.J. Smith in San Diego, but this is his first time actually running an organization. After the big names that had been

bandied about, the Nix hiring was underwhelming, and it seemed to be no accident that the Bills made the announcement

on the afternoon of December 31. The prevailing opinion is that the Bills hired Nix because he came cheap.

ProFootballTalk.com ran some scathing comments from an unnamed source, who called the hire “a

joke and a slap in the face to all hard working people in the NFL… [Wilson] elevates a 70-year-old scout to a position that requires work and energy… The eight years he spent in San Diego he never lived in San Diego. He lived somewhere in Tennessee. Someone who lives in another city is away from the day-to-day operations.” Could the Bills possibly follow up this unpopular executive hire with a less popular coaching hire? Why yes, they could.

 

Three weeks later, the Bills announced the hire of former Dallas and Georgia Tech head coach Chan Gailey, last seen getting fired as Chiefs offensive coordinator before the 2009 season had even started. In an offseason with plenty of bigname, well-established head coaches on the market, the Bills ended up hiring a man no other team was even considering to be an NFL head coach.

Gailey’s hallmark as an offensive coordinator has always been his adaptability, like the move to install the Pistol formation when injuries left Tyler Thigpen as Kansas City’s starting quarterback in mid-2008. His adaptability better be on display in Buffalo this year, because there simply is not a lot of offensive talent to work with. Gailey seems to be giving mixed

signals about his plans on offense, because media reports have run the gamut from “expect a college-style

spread offense like he ran in Kansas City” to “expect a hard-nosed conservative running attack like he ran

at Georgia Tech.”

 

While Football Outsiders has generally put forward the notion that passing leads to more success than running, we’re also great believers that you tailor your scheme to your personnel, not the other way around.

There’s no question this team’s personnel leans heavily towards running the ball as much as possible. Running

back is the deepest position on the team (an issue we’ll get to in a bit). The offensive line was dead last

in Adjusted Sack Rate but did a good job on run-blocking (except in short-yardage situations). The team has

to pick a quarterback between Trent Edwards, whose ceiling is mediocrity; Ryan Fitzpatrick, whose ceiling

is career backup; and Brian Brohm, whose ceiling is higher based on what he did in college but whose NFL

performance so far has been in the sub-basement with no ceiling in sight.

 

 

Worst of all, this team has a grand total of one wide receiver who would be considered good enough to

rank at least fourth on an average NFL depth chart. There’s Lee Evans and then dead space. Terrell Owens

may have disappointed last year, but he’s a lot better than what he left behind. James Hardy is currently penciled in as the other starting receiver, but he barely got on the field as a rookie, tore his ACL late in the year, and missed most of his second year recovering from it. He showed up out of shape to June OTAs and could barely practice. Behind Hardy is veteran Roscoe Parrish, coming off a three-catch year; longshot sleeper hope Steve Johnson; former New England bust

Chad Jackson; and fourth-round pick Marcus Easley, a walk-on at UConn who never started until his senior

year and will need a lot of time to develop his instincts and route-running. Lee Evans has accomplished a lot in his career, even when double-covered and paired with a poor quarterback, but this is the worst wide receiver corps in the league from number two on down. The Bills are more definitive about their new defensive scheme, but the decision to go with that scheme is puzzling.

 

The Bills brought in Miami linebackers coach George Edwards to be defensive coordinator

and will jump onto the NFL’s very heavy 3-4 bandwagon. For some of Buffalo’s current defensive talent, this is a good thing. 2009 first-round pick Aaron Maybin will fit in perfectly as the pass-rushing weakside linebacker. Paul Posluszny would be good in either the 4-3 or the 3-4. But for the most part, Buffalo’s existing roster was completely wrong for the

3-4. The change hastened the retirement of Buffalo’s best pass rusher, Aaron Schobel. The second-best pass

rusher, Chris Kelsay, is too small to play end in the 3-4 and doesn’t have the pass coverage ability to play

linebacker. A pass-rushing tackle like Kyle Williams doesn’t fit the 3-4. Marcus Stroud will need to move from 3-technique tackle to 5-technique end in the new scheme. Kawika Mitchell should be able to shift inside, but Keith Ellison and all the bench linebackers are far better fits for the 4-3. Worst of all, the only players on the roster in February who fit the role of

nose tackle were two practice squad scrubs signed to future contracts. The Bills were active in the free

agent market, signing veterans with 3-4 experience like end Dwan Edwards and linebacker Andra Davis,

but the massive increase in teams using the 3-4 over the past couple years means that 3-4 teams are no longer

getting more bang for their free-agent buck. The demand for 3-4 players has caught up to, and possibly

exceeded, the supply. The confusing decisions continued on draft day. The Bills had a desperate need for wide receivers, an

offensive line filled with question marks, and a 3-4 defense with a massive hole in the middle. Dan Williams, the draft’s best 3-4 nose tackle prospect, was available when the Bills selected ninth.

 

Every wide receiver was still on the board. So were outstanding offensive line prospects like Anthony Davis, Mike Iupati, and Bryan Bulaga. The Bills also could have traded down to grab a lineman and a quarterback of the future. Instead, the Bills adamantly chucked the concept of “drafting for need” out the window and took running back C.J. Spiller. (Somewhat in their defense, they did take a nose tackle in the second round, Torell Troup.) As with Denver’s pick of Knowshon Moreno in the first round of last year’s draft, the problem is not Spiller himself. It’s hard to find a scout who didn’t see Spiller

as one of the top two or three running backs in this year’s draft, and you’ll get no disagreement from the

numbers (his Speed Score is 107.5).

 

However, running back was the strongest position on the Buffalo roster. The Bills averaged 4.4 yards per carry, eighth in the NFL, despite numerous injuries on their offensive line. And this is a position the team has tried to upgrade over and over, spending four high draft picks on starting running backs over the past decade. Travis Henry fell out of favor after the Bills took him in the second round of the 2001 draft, so the team used its first-round pick in 2003 on Willis McGahee. He fell out of favor within a couple years, so Buffalo used its first-round pick in 2007 on Marshawn Lynch, but he fell out of

favor within a couple years, which led to the drafting of Spiller. Meanwhile, during all this time the most efficient

running back on the Buffalo roster has been an undrafted free agent, Fred Jackson. You would think

someone in Buffalo might get the hint. The only upside to the Spiller pick is that he might be Bills’ second-best

receiver by season’s end, but that itself says a lot about Buffalo’s depth chart at the position.

 

If you can fight your way through the smoky haze of question marks surrounding this franchise, you can

find a few reasons for optimism. The biggest, by far, is the team’s health, which was lousy in 2009. The Bills

had more Adjusted Games Lost from starters and important role players than any other NFL team last year,

ranking in the top three on both offense and defense. The 2009 Bills have the fifth-highest AGL total of any

team in our injury records, going back to 1998. They went through three quarterbacks. Three starters on the

opening day offensive line missed most of the year. Every member of the opening day secondary missed

at least five games during the season.

 

Unless the Bills have been cursed by whatever ghost haunts the St. Louis Rams, there’s just no way they are going to suffer this many injuries again. Often, a team that improves significantly in health will improve significantly on the field. That’s a big part of what happened with last year’s Bengals. It helped the 1999 Redskins and 2007 Browns each follow a losing season with a 10-6 record. Not every team, however, has ridden this injury trend to a strong season, because sometimes the talent that’s been injured wasn’t very good in the first place. The 2009 Lions didn’t suddenly get a lot better. Neither did the 2004 Raiders, the 2005 Titans, or the aforementioned Rams of recent years. The 2000 Carolina Panthers went 7-9 with one of the 25 highest AGL totals in histor; the next year, with above-average health, they went 1-15. So, which category did the Bills injuries fall under: talented enough to be missed, or replacement-level players replaced by other replacement-level players? Trying to answer that question is a bit confusing because the unit that suffered the most injuries was also the unit where the Bills got the best performance in 2009: the secondary.

 

“How did the Bills have such a good pass defense in 2009?” will go down as one of the great unanswered questions in recent human history, along with “What made a bunch of Palm Beach Jews vote for Pat Buchanan in 2000?” and “Seriously, Gary Cherone in Van Halen?” The Bills put up the third-best pass defense DVOA in the league even though the cornerback who started the most games was Drayton Florence, a complete free-agent bust in Jacksonville the year before. Their rising cornerback star of the future, Leodis McKelvin, broke his leg in the third game of the year.

 

Their original starting free safety, Bryan Scott, ended up playing half the season at linebacker because of all

the injuries there. (Actually, this is probably a good way to help the pass defense, although it won’t do

wonders for stopping the run.) Buffalo’s mystery pass defense was steady throughout the year, as the pass defense DVOA in the first eight games was within one percentage point of the pass defense DVOA for the final eight games. It was

steady across the field, as the Bills ranked in the top ten against all five “receiver types” that we track. It wasn’t

the product of unrepeatable good play in specifically important situations — the Bills’ pass defense DVOA

was best on second down, not third down, and it was no better in the red zone than it was elsewhere. The

Bills stopped opposing quarterbacks without a great pass rush — they only hurried opponents on 13.3 percent

of pass plays, the lowest rate in the league, and had a league-average 34 sacks. However, when the

Bills did hurry a quarterback, they made it count, with the best defensive DVOA in the league on plays with

a quarterback hurry.

 

A heavy opponent adjustment was part of the reason for Buffalo’s strong metrics; facing offenses like New England and New Orleans, the Bills’ average sack total translated into a top ten Adjusted Sack Rate, and

the Bills’ pass defense DVOA would go from -21.3% to -13.9% without opponent adjustments. But that still

would have ranked third in the league, indicating that Buffalo’s high rank is not an issue of opponent adjustments

being too strong. No one specific player stands out either, except perhaps for Rookie of the Year (Clean Drug Test Division)

Jairus Byrd. That means that the best explanation for Buffalo’s success was scheme — the scheme

the new Bills administration promptly chucked out the window, designed by the interim head coach who

is now plying his trade downstate. And while strong pass defense is a reason for optimism, the pass defense

is also likely to regress a bit, considering that the Bills ranked just 22nd in pass defense DVOA in 2008

— you know, when their defense was populated by all those guys whose return from injury is supposed to

make fans optimistic about 2010. As for the long term, we have yet to broach this team’s massive business problems. Buffalo is the 52nd-largest television market in the U.S. and the second-smallest in the NFL (and let’s be honest, the

real television market for the Packers is 35th-ranked Milwaukee).

 

The team still sells out all home games, but those tickets are among the lowest-priced in the league. The Toronto experiment has been a flop: “A sports marketing disaster of epic proportions,” according to Globe and Mail columnist Stephen Brunt. The once-a-year game was so darn popular in 2008 that the Bills cut Toronto ticket prices by an average of 17 percent before this year’s game against the Jets. And the Bills are right in the middle of the large market- vs.-small market infighting over revenue sharing that could help lead to a player lockout in 2011.

 

These issues do a good job of explaining why the head coach in Buffalo is someone no other team was considering. Ralph Wilson simply doesn’t have the money to bring a big-name coach to his team. The Buffalo Bills have now gone ten seasons without making the playoffs. Unless the rest of the AFC East completely collapses, 2010 will extend that streak to 11. Usually that’s one louder, but when a team falls in

Buffalo, it doesn’t make a sound. "

 

Aaron Schatz

 

 

 

Makes Buffalo look pretty bad... I only wish the Bills could prove him wrong!!

[Kelly the Dog]

There is a place for strictly statistical analysis like what is provided by Football Outsiders. They actually do a very good job of it, IMO. But that entire article sounds like it was written by a guy who did not actually see one play by the team, let alone a few or most of the actual games. It was 100% based on stats. Jairus Byrd's interceptions, if you watched the games, were not at all based on scheme, they were based on Byrd breaking on the ball, knowing where to be with the ball in the air and remarkable ball skills. If it were scheme, other FS's would be making INTs and they simply weren't and haven't been. You can't judge a team or player solely on stats, it has to be complementary analysis.

[BillsVet]

There is a place for strictly statistical analysis like what is provided by Football Outsiders. They actually do a very good job of it, IMO. But that entire article sounds like it was written by a guy who did not actually see one play by the team, let alone a few or most of the actual games. It was 100% based on stats. Jairus Byrd's interceptions, if you watched the games, were not at all based on scheme, they were based on Byrd breaking on the ball, knowing where to be with the ball in the air and remarkable ball skills. If it were scheme, other FS's would be making INTs and they simply weren't and haven't been. You can't judge a team or player solely on stats, it has to be complementary analysis.

 

Actually KFBD, I received my copy of the 2010 Football Outsiders Almanac yesterday, and their later analysis on Buffalo notes that on only 1 INT did Byrd break in front of a receiver and get an INT. In comparison, Darren Sharper had 3 picks this way. I don't have my copy here, but he did get about 4-5 picks either off a tip or when a player was significantly overthrown.

 

It also said the last guy to get 8 or more picks 2 seasons in a row was 96-97.

[Kelly the Dog]

Actually KFBD, I received my copy of the 2010 Football Outsiders Almanac yesterday, and their later analysis on Buffalo notes that on only 1 INT did Byrd break in front of a receiver and get an INT. In comparison, Darren Sharper had 3 picks this way. I don't have my copy here, but he did get about 4-5 picks either off a tip or when a player was significantly overthrown.

 

It also said the last guy to get 8 or more picks 2 seasons in a row was 96-97.

 

But if you actually watched the plays, Byrd broke on the balls before the pass was thrown. Those bounces and slight overthrows happen in every single game for every team. We just never had a guy who was there for them. He was in position to get the ball because of his split second decisions he personally made and angles he took and reading the QBs eyes. He even described what he did on a couple of them after the game. One in particular I remember looked like it was luck but it wasn't at all, he knew where the ball was going.

 

At least two were flat out diving catches that hardly any other player makes (having to be in position as well as time the dive and make the catch).

[yungmack]

The guy undermines any credibility he might have in his first sentence...."no longer able to support an NFL team." WNY and southern Ontario have several million people. Compare that to Green Bay for example. Then run a population base on all the other NFL markets. Then compare season ticket sales and overall attendance. I think you'll find that the Bills have a fairly stable market. According to a recent Forbes article, the Bills are worth just under a billion (!!!) dollars and are in the top 50 sports franchises in the world.

 

So after getting the most fundamental aspect wrong -- the value of the market -- why would anyone listen any further to his maunderings?

[C.Biscuit97]

Actually KFBD, I received my copy of the 2010 Football Outsiders Almanac yesterday, and their later analysis on Buffalo notes that on only 1 INT did Byrd break in front of a receiver and get an INT. In comparison, Darren Sharper had 3 picks this way. I don't have my copy here, but he did get about 4-5 picks either off a tip or when a player was significantly overthrown.

 

It also said the last guy to get 8 or more picks 2 seasons in a row was 96-97.

 

Dude, you are nails on a blackboard. A guy had 9 ints as a rookie & you still find a way to put it down. It's ridiculous.

[dave mcbride]

The guy undermines any credibility he might have in his first sentence...."no longer able to support an NFL team." WNY and southern Ontario have several million people. Compare that to Green Bay for example. Then run a population base on all the other NFL markets. Then compare season ticket sales and overall attendance. I think you'll find that the Bills have a fairly stable market. According to a recent Forbes article, the Bills are worth just under a billion (!!!) dollars and are in the top 50 sports franchises in the world.

 

So after getting the most fundamental aspect wrong -- the value of the market -- why would anyone listen any further to his maunderings?

You're presupposing that Southern Ontario is actually a real market for the Bills. I would like that to be the case myself, but I suspect that it's just wishful thinking. There ain't much of a fanbase there, as far as I can tell. There appears to be no fan base in Toronto either.

[mattsox]

No offense, but is there anything remotely optimistic about this team? I mean as far as competing for a championship? Are all the pieces in place? I don't think so. Sad to see such a once great team die like this... This team is one big ? Agreed. Hiring 70 year old GMs doesn't look like a long term solution, and cast offs like our HC doesn't impress me, especially when his coaching staff is even more inexperienced. Don't get me wrong. Love the Bills and hope the best, but Hope and a nickel is gonna get ya a big hot cup of JACK SQUAT

[bobblehead]

Dude, you are nails on a blackboard. A guy had 9 ints as a rookie & you still find a way to put it down. It's ridiculous.

 

 

There really are only a few posters of substance here anymore. It's no longer a board for discussion, its a board for agenda.

[tennesseeboy]

The defensive secondary is very good and has very impressive depth. The running back group may be one of the best in the NFL. The special teams can be exceptional, given the punter, kicker and a bunch of exceptional return men (and a new coach out to prove something). The center of the offensive line is looking pretty good. There are positive points. There are also, unfortunately, huge and glaring weaknesses.

[BillsVet]

Dude, you are nails on a blackboard. A guy had 9 ints as a rookie & you still find a way to put it down. It's ridiculous.

 

Football Outsiders watches way more tape than you dude. And I trust their analysis more than you, because neither of us have published any sort of football book. What have you done with your life? They're better than you and our opinions are worthless because we're not in the game or covering it.

 

[stuckincincy]

You're presupposing that Southern Ontario is actually a real market for the Bills. I would like that to be the case myself, but I suspect that it's just wishful thinking. There ain't much of a fanbase there, as far as I can tell. There appears to be no fan base in Toronto either.

 

My take is that there is a solid contingent of diehard Bills fans across the nearby regions of the Niagara Peninsula. I'll pick numbers out of my hat - perhaps 10K that are regular attendees. Maybe 50K that follow the club -who knows?

 

I agree about the lack of any significant TOR base. An NFL game for many Canadians, is just a pleasurable -i pricey piece of entertainment on a Sunday. If the Bills moved elsewhere, they would be just a remembrance. And TOR is a pricey place to live - how do you convince the average Joe to fork over NFL ticket $$$, in numbers enough to fill an NFL stadium 8 times a year?

 

I know some like to make jokes about the CFL. I don't - I've been a fan for years. Go Ti-Cats!

 

 

Here in the States, there is an ingrained football tradition. Many areas are ga-ga about H.S football. That's the case here in OH, when I lived in the PGH area, same in the south, in Texas, Oklahoma, the west coast, and so on. Then add in the rabid following of college football. That's really not there to any meaningful degree in Canada.

 

 

I think you are 100% correct.

[C.Biscuit97]

Football Outsiders watches way more tape than you dude. And I trust their analysis more than you, because neither of us have published any sort of football book. What have you done with your life? They're better than you and our opinions are worthless because we're not in the game or covering it.

 

 

Well done. But how in the world can anyone knock 9 ints from a rookie? Take stats from a geek who has never played a second of football in his life with a giant grain if salt.

 

Besides, how many players in the league have had 9 ints, much less as rookie? It was as simple as they made it out to be, the number would be way higher.

[BillsVet]

Well done. But how in the world can anyone knock 9 ints from a rookie? Take stats from a geek who has never played a second of football in his life with a giant grain if salt.

 

Besides, how many players in the league have had 9 ints, much less as rookie? It was as simple as they made it out to be, the number would be way higher.

 

We'll agree to disagree. I remember Byrd finding himself in the right place at the right time. Was it ball skills or luck? I don't know.

 

And if Byrd doesn't have 9 picks this year, I won't proclaim him a failure. But I expect him to be better in the run game and make a play or two in the secondary. I think the pass rush or lack thereof is going to hurt that solid secondary.

[Thurman#1]

An overwhelming majority of your points here (the author not having enough information to posit Stevie Johnson as the #2, his lack of clarification on what Brandon was "jettisoned' from, etc, etc, etc) are exactly the reason this is a poor article. You're arguing against your own point.

 

If the article was littered with inaccurate praise about the Bills instead of inaccurate criticism, I'd be up in arms too because a) I don't think the Bills are very good b) The issue isn't that he's down on the team, it's that he explains his feelings using false information, which is below the standard of the publication he is writing the thing for.

 

 

 

Is the bible flawed because it didn't say anything about nuclear reactors?

 

Neither is writing something early and therefore thinking Hardy would be the #2 on this team. He wasn't predicting the future. "James Hardy is currently penciled in as the other starting receiver," is not and was not wrong.

 

And no reader who knows the Bills should have read that sentence as meaning anything but that Russ had been jettisoned from the GM position. Only a person desperately searching for flaws would have misinterpreted it

 

Neither of those was a problem with the article. I'm not arguing against my own point.

[bobby.rasigliano]

Unlike most of the replies here I read the entire thing, and unfortunately I agree with a lot of whats going on there. It's the epic story of a small-market team with no money getting snuffed out. Let's go Capitalism.

How could you not agree with the RB draft flops. I'm still pissed that we took an fing running back in the first round for the exact reason stated, our running game was the only part of the team that needs no fixing. "He brings flash, and pizazz" WTF does that mean?!?!? Is this a '50s era burlesk show?! We don't need flash, we need linemen.

[Gugny]

This is just another example of a "journalist" going with what's popular. He's not at training camp. He didn't do any Buffalo-exclusive homework. He looked around at the pre-season rankings and wrote a rant on how the Bills are going to stink.

 

Holy crap. It's revolutionary!

 

It's akin to a weatherman in Miami saying in mid-July, "It looks like it's going to be a hot one today."

 

It's weak. Period.

 

(nothing against the OP, only against Schasdfsdf or whatever his name is ...)

[wardigital]

You're presupposing that Southern Ontario is actually a real market for the Bills. I would like that to be the case myself, but I suspect that it's just wishful thinking. There ain't much of a fanbase there, as far as I can tell. There appears to be no fan base in Toronto either.

 

Small sample size and all, but last year I went to the Browns game, the first game I've been to since '99, and Canadians made up about 33% of the attendance in my section and surrounding sections. To me, that qualifies as a market. Maybe they all came to see Cleveland play.

[wardigital]

Football Outsiders watches way more tape than you dude. And I trust their analysis more than you, because neither of us have published any sort of football book. What have you done with your life? They're better than you and our opinions are worthless because we're not in the game or covering it.

 

 

Football Outsiders is self-published through Amazon's print-on-demand CreateSpace. It's not as if a publishing company was overwhelmed with their tremendous writing and analysis and felt no choice but to put the product into their print cycle. The decision to put together a paper copy of their Alamanac was entirely their own and not based on any merit whatsoever.

 

For the record, the maintenance man at my place of work just self-published a book through CreateSpace as well. There is literally no qualification to self-publish there except having access to oxygen and a computer.

 

Finally, "breaking on the ball" is a totally subjective thing for which there really can't be a reliable metric. One person's breaking on the ball is another person's anticipation, and the idea of breaking on the ball is totally subject to the individual belief of what that actually means. This is among the litany of reasons that Football Outsiders exists mostly on reputation.

 

I will say this much: Their content generally has some pretty good prose, and its generally readable, but it's sort of goofy to champion it as some sort of accomplishment.

 

I, myself, have self-published two books through CreateSpace... a family history and a present for my fiance for Christmas. Seeing as this is, under your guidelines, some sort of determination of what one has accomplished in their lives, I will be waiting for my apparently well-earned round of applause.