It's no longer too early...

[Reed83HOF]

I have been thinking these past few days while reading the board, reading the headlines etc and began to wonder if there really is a master plan.

 

This season as I think everyone is becoming aware of is that this is our year to bottom out and really an evaluation year. I honestly had thought and hoped that we would be able to at least win 6 or 7 with a possiblity of that increasing to 10 knowing that Gailey would gain us a few extra wins from actually having an offense. We will be lucky to win a couple games this season, which is fine; we sure as hell could use a draft with high picks. We weren't very active in free agency this past off season, we only really signed a few players to get us through the season as we begin to transition back to a 3-4 and to fill a spot created by Brad Butler retiring. Seeing there may be a lockout next season and with the uncapped year and the adjustment in the CBA increasing the number of years of service for unrestricted free agency, we weren't very active - not many teams were. Knowing that we wouldn't be able to win it all this season and go for broke, it was decided by the Bills to just do enough to limp by and use this season as a talent assessment for players on our current roster and to reshape the organization as Buddy and Chan see fit. Buddy's early comments saying we are not that far off, were not necessarily the words of a used car salesman, but rather hoping for what most of us thought - about 7 wins and Chan's offensive mind getting us a few more wins on top of that.

 

Marshawn had to go, we all knew it. Was it what we hoped for?? revisonists say we took a guy in drafted in the top 15 and traded him for a 4th rounder. With him being 1 more incident away from a big suspension, no team was going to offer a premium pick. If the Raiders needed a running back, maybe we could've sent them there and extorted picks from them like the Pats* do. I was listening to Coach Sal's show, as PTR brought up in his thread, he brought up a good point Why waive Meredith when we could've waived Green - would the drop off be that much? The fact is is that Meredith was a previous regime's pick-up and Green was their's. I would assume that Evans, Whitner and company will be on notice. So I wouldn't be surprised to see more moves, whether its trades through the deadline on the 19th or after the new CBA gets hammered out and the offseason begins.

 

Seeing that I've given up hope this season, I began to look at FAs for 2011 and came acorss a Crypt keeper article from this past Feb, (My link)

 

 

Basically he states: "No one expects the union to change its position on free agency. In a new deal, look for unrestricted free agency to return to four years of service. If so, 153 contracts will expire after the 2010 season. The list of players affected includes Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.

 

Throw all of those things together and you have a list of potential 2011 free agents -- under normal unrestricted free-agent rules -- that might be around 400 or 500 players at the very least if the 2010 class of restricted free agents stick to one-year deals.

 

Imagine the bidding war then. Say what you want about owners wanting to cut costs, but the NFL is a competitive league. Any time there is competitive bidding for good players, salaries jump. The good players will get paid well no matter what happens, and two years of free-agent classes would come together in 2011.

 

What's scary is the small number of players signed through 2011 and 2012. I know it's crazy to look ahead to 2012, but slightly more than 500 players are under contract until then, with about 40 percent of those being players who just completed their rookie seasons."

 

Here is a link for the players who are eleigible to be FA's in 2011: "http://www.kffl.com/static/nfl/features/freeagents/fa.php?y=2011"]2011 FAs[/url]

 

Poz is apaprently an FA after this season???

 

Just looking back through things, I really billieve the intent was to limp through this year knowing that there will be a large FA class when the new CBA is reached and that they were going to evaluate all talent on our roster with our new coaching staff. I think they have found that we are talent deprived and the cupboard is really bare. We will have a top pick ion next years draft, more players will be purged, new FAs (role players) will be signed and impact players will be drafted under the best available mantra....

[Phil Hansen Forever]

So next year becomes a strike year, and we can sit and whine about this year. Three cheers to the owners and the fans. Hip Hip Hoorah, another year is done, so goes the hopes and dreams of a fair city and her fan base.

[bowery4]

Those defensive line and lb lists have some mindpopping names on them! I have thought for a while that we would cut/trade expensive non producers to have money room for next year. The Kelsey resigning makes me wonder a bit tho. Now our FO seem to be in change mode since the players are getting on the field and they are sure how bad they play during real games. IMO they will do this for a good part of the year and bring who they can and have a look too. I don't see us trading for players, they will and are trading for draft slots tho. The 2012 list is pretty impressive too.

http://www.kffl.com/static/nfl/features/freeagents/fa.php?y=2011

Thanks for the post This link will work better.

[Buffalo Barbarian]

I have been thinking these past few days while reading the board, reading the headlines etc and began to wonder if there really is a master plan.

 

This season as I think everyone is becoming aware of is that this is our year to bottom out and really an evaluation year. I honestly had thought and hoped that we would be able to at least win 6 or 7 with a possiblity of that increasing to 10 knowing that Gailey would gain us a few extra wins from actually having an offense. We will be lucky to win a couple games this season, which is fine; we sure as hell could use a draft with high picks. We weren't very active in free agency this past off season, we only really signed a few players to get us through the season as we begin to transition back to a 3-4 and to fill a spot created by Brad Butler retiring. Seeing there may be a lockout next season and with the uncapped year and the adjustment in the CBA increasing the number of years of service for unrestricted free agency, we weren't very active - not many teams were. Knowing that we wouldn't be able to win it all this season and go for broke, it was decided by the Bills to just do enough to limp by and use this season as a talent assessment for players on our current roster and to reshape the organization as Buddy and Chan see fit. Buddy's early comments saying we are not that far off, were not necessarily the words of a used car salesman, but rather hoping for what most of us thought - about 7 wins and Chan's offensive mind getting us a few more wins on top of that.

 

Marshawn had to go, we all knew it. Was it what we hoped for?? revisonists say we took a guy in drafted in the top 15 and traded him for a 4th rounder. With him being 1 more incident away from a big suspension, no team was going to offer a premium pick. If the Raiders needed a running back, maybe we could've sent them there and extorted picks from them like the Pats* do. I was listening to Coach Sal's show, as PTR brought up in his thread, he brought up a good point Why waive Meredith when we could've waived Green - would the drop off be that much? The fact is is that Meredith was a previous regime's pick-up and Green was their's. I would assume that Evans, Whitner and company will be on notice. So I wouldn't be surprised to see more moves, whether its trades through the deadline on the 19th or after the new CBA gets hammered out and the offseason begins.

 

Seeing that I've given up hope this season, I began to look at FAs for 2011 and came acorss a Crypt keeper article from this past Feb, (My link)

 

 

Basically he states: "No one expects the union to change its position on free agency. In a new deal, look for unrestricted free agency to return to four years of service. If so, 153 contracts will expire after the 2010 season. The list of players affected includes Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.

 

Throw all of those things together and you have a list of potential 2011 free agents -- under normal unrestricted free-agent rules -- that might be around 400 or 500 players at the very least if the 2010 class of restricted free agents stick to one-year deals.

 

Imagine the bidding war then. Say what you want about owners wanting to cut costs, but the NFL is a competitive league. Any time there is competitive bidding for good players, salaries jump. The good players will get paid well no matter what happens, and two years of free-agent classes would come together in 2011.

 

What's scary is the small number of players signed through 2011 and 2012. I know it's crazy to look ahead to 2012, but slightly more than 500 players are under contract until then, with about 40 percent of those being players who just completed their rookie seasons."

 

Here is a link for the players who are eleigible to be FA's in 2011: "http://www.kffl.com/static/nfl/features/freeagents/fa.php?y=2011"]2011 FAs[/url]

 

Poz is apaprently an FA after this season???

 

Just looking back through things, I really billieve the intent was to limp through this year knowing that there will be a large FA class when the new CBA is reached and that they were going to evaluate all talent on our roster with our new coaching staff. I think they have found that we are talent deprived and the cupboard is really bare. We will have a top pick ion next years draft, more players will be purged, new FAs (role players) will be signed and impact players will be drafted under the best available mantra....

 

So who the list do you think we should pull in?

[Reed83HOF]

We need to see who progresses and regresses this season with what have on our roster. I think we will see moves throughout the season and I wouldn't be suprised to see a trade or 2 before the trade deadline. The philosphy needs to be to keep our gamers and leaders and dump older players who don't fit our system. Nix's philosphy is to build through the draft, not through FA. I don't expect a big FA signing until a couple more seasons pass or there is someone too good to not sign. In any event, no big names will want to come here unless we severely overpay (not a good thing for a teaam rebuilding) or until we get a lot better. Not to mention, Washington and Dalls will be big players in what should be alarge FA class and cut us out of the running of big names. We will be stuck with mid - level signing thats get paid more than they are worth. A majority of FA signing's I think will occur on Defense.

 

OL - I would expect that Levitre, Wood and Bell will all continue to get better. The jury is still out on Bell, will he be an RT or an LT whenever the next season starts? He hasn't looked bad for the number of games he has started. Cornell Green is a stop-gap player that was signed to get us to limp through this season and will be a back-up next season if he is still on the team. They don't know what they have in Wang, Howard or Urbik. We know Gailey wants them to get bigger and impose their will on teams so they can do what they want to on offense. Wood is looking shaky this season, I think mostly because he is lined up next to Green. One of the 2 tackle positions needs an upgrade - I would expect a high draft choice will cover that or a young FA signing. It is possible that Urbik might supplant Wood at guard who will then take over the starting Center position.

 

QB - I am excited to see Brohm have his chance this season. Being the optimistic Bills fan, the guy was talked about as being the first overall pick if he came out as a Junior. Doing a little research, Brhom's biggest knock seemed to be that people thought he might be a system QB after he struggled in his Senior year after Petrino left. Check out this comparison between Brohm, Flacco, Henne and Matt Ryan Check this out. There is a chance that if he plays well when he starts this season (it's ineviable isn't it???), maybe we pass on a first round QB??? If he stinks the place up, then we know that drafting a QB is our top priority. We won't be signing an FA as a starter unless we somehow miraculously win enough games and aren't in a position come draft time to get the guy we want.

 

WR - I don't really think we will do too much here unless we trade Evans. Roscoe and Nelson look decent so far, Johnson doesn't suck but is probably no better than a #3 - Easly is the wild card. As this season unfolds I think (just from what I've seen thus far) Nelson being a bigger WR who isn't afraid to go over the middle will become our leading WR and morph into our #1 WR threat. Defenses will role their coverage over to him and Evans (if still on our team) will become more fo the #2 burner receiver. You won't see this change on depth charts, as they will be #1 and #2, but the way plays will unfold will be in that order. If a best availble player is a WR, I would expect we would draft one. I don't see a major FA signing here...

 

TE - Nelson will have his shot now. In any event yeah we need to draft or sign one big time. There a few names on the FA list we could go after...

 

RB - we are all set here unless a career ending injury occurs.

 

DL - I recall seeing a post or an article that said Indy wanted Williams or Stroud. I would trade Stroud and keep Williams. Possibly the Kelsay resigning was again a stop-gap to get us through the next couple seasons and for a strong respected locker room presence for the new players that will be coming in. yes he is a liablity on the field, but he plays hard, practices hard doesn't miss much time and is well respected in the locker room. His resigning is a reflection of that and to have a respected veteran player lead the new comers until one of them is ready. Troup hasn't played enough yet to know what we have, but we need more than Williams on this line. Another DE and DT are sorely needed, especially if we dump Stroud (who's contract expires at the end of this season). It is possible based on draft position and player availablity that we draft the best available DE or LB. Edwards and Williams are not enough...

 

LB - It's a disaster. We need lots of help here, bascially we need a at least 2...Do we resign Poz? This unit sucks, but I haven't watched the games closely enough to see if they just suck, or if the OL is blowing through our terrible DL and getting to the second level. If that's the case, it is very hard to gauge this unit without a better DL. If that is the case, I would expect the DL to get addressed in a bigger way than the LBs adn we might be another year out on addressing them. I would say that like the DL, if we are in a position at the top of the draft and can't get the QB or OL we want and the best DL or LB is there, we will definately take them.

 

DB- I feel bad for these guys. We have a good group that doesn't really need much addressing, their issues with no turnovers is a result of a lack of pressure on the QB and the offense's ability to run at will. WRs will run around and get open when the QB has all day to throw.