Merriman to IR

[Zulu Cthulhu]

GOOD GOD +1000!!!

Seriously. How people couldn't see this coming is baffling. Hope with your heart as I did but think with your head. All the "it's a good risk" talk was just delusional.

 

I think most fans who pay attention did think and did believe a relapse/reinjury was very possible. I know i leaned that way. But just as you said, i also hoped he could beat out those long odds and make a legitimate comeback, if only for one season or so.

 

As far as the good risk/bad risk argument goes, i suppose it depends on how you're defining the risk. Financially, the move was barely a risk at all, given the Bills cap situation and the remaining available talent pool at OLB when he was signed.

 

But i do see the move as a bit of a risk from a player development standpoint, if you believe merriman's presence hindered the 2 young OLBs development by taking away reps, gametime, etc.

 

BTW, PFT posted a story (citing Tim Graham) killing Nix for the signing in the past hour or so. The commenters at the end are worth a read.

[BillsVet]

Apparently, the contract is worse than initially reported for the Bills.

 

Well, they're 4-2 and they took a risk that just didn't work out. No big deal, right?

 

As if the Bills have 7M to invest in players with lengthy injury histories.

[The Big Cat]

Well, they're 4-2 and they took a risk that just didn't work out. No big deal, right?

 

As if the Bills have 7M to invest in players with lengthy injury histories.

 

Fantastic. It's been far too long since you've had some clingable minutia to get all pissy about.

 

Attention, everybody! We suck again!

[BuffaloBill]

Sucks, but now it's even more obvious we need an impact linebacker in the draft.

 

Agreed .. not likely to grab one through free agency.

[Jauronimo]

You seem to know something about assessing risk, cost benefit, and tolerance/aversion. You should see the truth of this statement then. ANY RISK YOU CAN'T QUALITATIVELY OR QUANTITATIVELY ASSESS IS A BAD ONE!!!!! If you can't even take a guess based on his injury and substance history over a relatively long sample period of several RECENT years then it is a BAD/undefined risk.

 

I also hate to state the painfully obvious but we now have the benefit of hindsight. $10.5 million contract, little impact on the 31st ranked defense, last game played week 5 and put on IR during a freaking bye week.

 

Can we at least agree in hindsight it was a bad idea?

Just because YOU cannot quantify the risk does not mean that it is IMPOSSIBLE.

 

Do you really think the Bills med staff and GM didn't assess the risk? Do you believe that they did not gather opinions from doctors about the severity of his injury, chances of returning to form, chances of re-injury? Do you think that they did not look at other linebackers with similar injuries and their performance after recovery to estimate what type of production they would lose? Do you think that they did not have Merriman pass a physical, watch him run drills, test his physical abilities and consult with trainers? You make it sound like they just faxed him a contract and signed a player sight unseen.

 

The only thing we can agree on is that it did not work out. If you have a 90% chance of doubling your money on an investment and a 10% chance of losing it all, and you lose it all, is that a bad investment? Maybe if we had a whole portfolio of Merriman's and they all ended up this way we could assume that the investment was a bad one and that the analysis was flawed, but we have only one. Without going through the process of assessing risk and estimating future return you cannot determine whether it is a bad or good investment. It may have been a bad investment, but not for any of the arbitrary reasons you have stated. It may have been a good investment, but not for any of the reasons stated in the original thread. Without seeing the analysis and what went in to the decision to sign Merriman its just opinions and gut feelings.

[Billsguy]

http://www.buffalobi...08-d6df5235663f

 

So long "comeback".

 

Anyone know how to find the post from a couple months ago that speculated on the over-under for the number of games played by Merriman this year?

 

I'm actually surprised he made it to three games (even though he made little impact in the games he played).

[gravytrain]

the way i see it, we took a shot with merriman and it didn't work. worth the effort. if he came back to even 1/2 the player he was it would've been huge. we took an assumed risk. san diego obviously knew much better than we did. but in the end, i'm glad we tried.

 

go bills

[PDaDdy]

Just because YOU cannot quantify the risk does not mean that it is IMPOSSIBLE.

 

Do you really think the Bills med staff and GM didn't assess the risk? Do you believe that they did not gather opinions from doctors about the severity of his injury, chances of returning to form, chances of re-injury? Do you think that they did not look at other linebackers with similar injuries and their performance after recovery to estimate what type of production they would lose? Do you think that they did not have Merriman pass a physical, watch him run drills, test his physical abilities and consult with trainers? You make it sound like they just faxed him a contract and signed a player sight unseen.

 

Actually to an extent yes. I think the Bills did do some due diligence. They might have even realized that his injuries would be difficult to come back from. They may have researched the likelihood that players come back from these injuries. That all being said I TRULY believe at the end of the day Nix gave him a good old boy hand shake deal between two former Chargers after a verbal a assurance from Merriman that he would get back to form. Nix was likely heavily involved in drafting the guy and I don't think he was being objecting. I think his vision was clouded by past glories and probowl level play while looking at the 5 year injury case, steroid user.

 

The only thing we can agree on is that it did not work out. If you have a 90% chance of doubling your money on an investment and a 10% chance of losing it all, and you lose it all, is that a bad investment? Maybe if we had a whole portfolio of Merriman's and they all ended up this way we could assume that the investment was a bad one and that the analysis was flawed, but we have only one. Without going through the process of assessing risk and estimating future return you cannot determine whether it is a bad or good investment. It may have been a bad investment, but not for any of the arbitrary reasons you have stated. It may have been a good investment, but not for any of the reasons stated in the original thread. Without seeing the analysis and what went in to the decision to sign Merriman its just opinions and gut feelings.

 

Hey if people owned up to it and said I have no clue whether it is a good risk or not and they were going with their gut and wanted to roll the dice, I'm cool with that as being someones opinion. Posters telling everyone it was a good risk is wrong, inaccurate and as you say impossible for fans to assess. Therefore as stated an unknown risk you are going to spend a few million on is inherently bad.

 

To back that up here is an article from profootball talk that discusses how bad the contract is financially. Before the season started the argument was about how much money would he actually make if he didn't make the final roster. Well lookie lookie since he was cleared to practice and made the final roster and played games it looks much worse.

 

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/10/26/merrimans-contract-gets-worse/

[QCity]

Thread summary: Bills fans are great at picking last week's lotto numbers.

[Jauronimo]

Hey if people owned up to it and said I have no clue whether it is a good risk or not and they were going with their gut and wanted to roll the dice, I'm cool with that as being someones opinion. Posters telling everyone it was a good risk is wrong, inaccurate and as you say impossible for fans to assess. Therefore as stated an unknown risk you are going to spend a few million on is inherently bad.

And if you owned up and said "I have no clue whether it was good risk or not and I was just going with my gut, and didn't think it was worth it to roll the dice in this instance" I'd be cool with that as its your opinion. Posters telling everyone it was BAD risk without seeing the inputs for the analysis are no more right than posters telling everyone it was GOOD risk. See how that works? Therefore as stated, a risk which is unknown to YOU is neither inherently good or bad, it is just simply UNKNOWN TO YOU.

 

How can you say that if they don't know the risk and think its worth taking that they are wrong, but if you don't know the risk then its clearly too high and that you are correct? Are you really claiming that if you, PDadDy, are unaware of the risk associated with an investment that is must be inherently too high?

Edited October 26, 2011 by Jauronimo

[billsfreak]

Thread summary: Bills fans are great at picking last week's lotto numbers.

That is way inaccurate, as many of us were guessing the lotto number in this case way before it happened, it being the extension.

[PDaDdy]

And if you owned up and said "I have no clue whether it was good risk or not and I was just going with my gut, and didn't think it was worth it to roll the dice in this instance" I'd be cool with that as its your opinion. Posters telling everyone it was BAD risk without seeing the inputs for the analysis are no more right than posters telling everyone it was GOOD risk. See how that works? Therefore as stated, a risk which is unknown to YOU is neither inherently good or bad, it is just simply UNKNOWN TO YOU.

 

How can you say that if they don't know the risk and think its worth taking that they are wrong, but if you don't know the risk then its clearly too high and that you are correct? Are you really claiming that if you, PDadDy, are unaware of the risk associated with an investment that is must be inherently too high?

 

If no one has told you before an investment of unknown risk is inherently bad. I define a "GOOD" investment to be anything that has a reasonable expectation of success given the cost benefit analysis. ANYTHING else is "BAD". You have to make sure the squeeze is worth the juice.

 

How can someone look at the last 5 years or terrible statistical performance and gamble that he would perform like his first 3 years injury free and on the juice? That is literally a hail mary. I don't know if your doing it just to keep the discussion going but I can't fathom how that is not considered to be incredibly risky by itself.

 

If we now throw in the cost benefit analysis we are going to be paying Merriman at least another 3 million dollars and that is if we cut him and he is not on the roster next year. What was the Bills expectation of performance? 50% of his former statistical performance? 60%? 75%? They were looking at spending a few million dollars on a guy with a 1 in a million shot for getting and staying healthy to at best be a shadow of his former self.

 

Those are just my assessments of it being a bad investment. As you mention in a rather academic, philosophical, ungrounded approach it is difficult to assess that risk but not impossible. The best people that argue against my stance can do is claim that no one can evaluate that risk. LAME!!

 

As I said before if you or anyone else really thought it was worth it and they were using their head not their heart, step up, be a man and make that evaluation and explain why. I have and did before provide a very clear and reasonable assessment of the risk involved and why cost vs benefit made no sense either. I think history has obviously shown I was right. He didn't suffer some big hit. He wasn't crumpled up. He is old broken down from steroids and his body just failed him under the very limited rigors this year of no OTAs and limited training camp and preseason. He limped it into week 5 and they shut him down for the year already. Come on man?!

 

In the salary cap age every dollar is important. Yes the Bills have decided to stick with their cash to cap strategy. That is a few million dollars spent to cap that could have been used to "HELP" sign a Ryan Clabo say or any other number of players we weren't successful going after or perhaps didn't even approach. Also please do not buy into the we are rebuilding through the draft 100% strategy. We sign PLENTY of free agents. Unfortunately they are all just cheap role players not difference makers although Barnett does look pretty good. I believe he did come relatively cheap though.

Edited October 26, 2011 by PDaDdy

[Bill from NYC]

Well, they're 4-2 and they took a risk that just didn't work out. No big deal, right?

 

As if the Bills have 7M to invest in players with lengthy injury histories.

 

Brother, your point is taken. In a risk/reward situation, the reward was huge. In the preseason game vs. the Bears, he looked like an all time great. If he would have played almost as good as that, this could possibly be a 6-0 team.

 

Nix has more to prove no doubt, but I can't fault him for taking a shot with SM. Jmo.

[onceagain778]

This doesnt suprise me at all. What I cannot understand is why he did not have this surgery last year. A "partially torn" achilles will never heal and will always be an issue until surgically repaired. This was known about for quite some time and to wait until now to address it properly seems a bit weird to me....

[spartacus]

This doesnt suprise me at all. What I cannot understand is why he did not have this surgery last year. A "partially torn" achilles will never heal and will always be an issue until surgically repaired. This was known about for quite some time and to wait until now to address it properly seems a bit weird to me....

 

if he had the surgery, he wouldn't have able to lie about his physcial condition and con Buddy into a $10 mil windfall

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

If no one has told you before an investment of unknown risk is inherently bad. I define a "GOOD" investment to be anything that has a reasonable expectation of success given the cost benefit analysis. ANYTHING else is "BAD". You have to make sure the squeeze is worth the juice.

 

How can someone look at the last 5 years or terrible statistical performance and gamble that he would perform like his first 3 years injury free and on the juice? That is literally a hail mary. I don't know if your doing it just to keep the discussion going but I can't fathom how that is not considered to be incredibly risky by itself.

 

If we now throw in the cost benefit analysis we are going to be paying Merriman at least another 3 million dollars and that is if we cut him and he is not on the roster next year. What was the Bills expectation of performance? 50% of his former statistical performance? 60%? 75%? They were looking at spending a few million dollars on a guy with a 1 in a million shot for getting and staying healthy to at best be a shadow of his former self.

 

Those are just my assessments of it being a bad investment. As you mention in a rather academic, philosophical, ungrounded approach it is difficult to assess that risk but not impossible. The best people that argue against my stance can do is claim that no one can evaluate that risk. LAME!!

 

As I said before if you or anyone else really thought it was worth it and they were using their head not their heart, step up, be a man and make that evaluation and explain why. I have and did before provide a very clear and reasonable assessment of the risk involved and why cost vs benefit made no sense either. I think history has obviously shown I was right. He didn't suffer some big hit. He wasn't crumpled up. He is old broken down from steroids and his body just failed him under the very limited rigors this year of no OTAs and limited training camp and preseason. He limped it into week 5 and they shut him down for the year already. Come on man?!

 

In the salary cap age every dollar is important. Yes the Bills have decided to stick with their cash to cap strategy. That is a few million dollars spent to cap that could have been used to "HELP" sign a Ryan Clabo say or any other number of players we weren't successful going after or perhaps didn't even approach. Also please do not buy into the we are rebuilding through the draft 100% strategy. We sign PLENTY of free agents. Unfortunately they are all just cheap role players not difference makers although Barnett does look pretty good. I believe he did come relatively cheap though.

 

 

all well and good, but in the end, you're just another shmo typing thoughts with only part of the information. would you have signed him at any cost?

[bbb]

This doesnt suprise me at all. What I cannot understand is why he did not have this surgery last year. A "partially torn" achilles will never heal and will always be an issue until surgically repaired. This was known about for quite some time and to wait until now to address it properly seems a bit weird to me....

 

Is this what it is? A partially torn achilles? I have never known what exactly the problem is.

[Jauronimo]

If no one has told you before an investment of unknown risk is inherently bad. I define a "GOOD" investment to be anything that has a reasonable expectation of success given the cost benefit analysis. ANYTHING else is "BAD". You have to make sure the squeeze is worth the juice.

 

Those are just my assessments of it being a bad investment. As you mention in a rather academic, philosophical, ungrounded approach it is difficult to assess that risk but not impossible. The best people that argue against my stance can do is claim that no one can evaluate that risk. LAME!!

You've relied on the "you don't know anything so you're wrong" approach while trumpeting the "I don't know anything but, I'm right approach," and clearly do not see the contradiction therein. Your argument rests on: 1. the risk being too high, OR 2. the risk being indeterminable (and thus unacceptable). The first condition is your baseless opinion, and the second condition is your uneducated opinion. Great foundation for all that follows.

 

And I never claimed the risk cannot be estimated. It certainly can be estimated in a reasonable manner which I briefly outlined previously. With your level of understanding, signing Merriman would have certainly been an unwise investment, since you cannot estimate risk and do not have the resources to gather information. For an entity with the resources to gather information and perform analysis, like say an NFL franchise, signing Merriman might have been a reasonable investment. Neither you or I will likely ever know what went into the decision to sign Shawn and are thus SPECULATING about the risk. But don't let the fact that you are totally ignorant of the situation and based your SPECULATION, can't stress that word enough, that the Merriman signing was a bad investment on almost nothing, stop you from asserting that the risk was much too high.

 

And there is nothing philosophical or ungrounded about the methods and approach I described. Its called investment analysis, and the framework I outlined is how it is actually performed in the corporate world. Whether its an equity, a new project, real estate or a football player the methodology and approach are similar. Analysis relies heavily on comparables to model potential future results.

 

Without meaningful analysis, we're just trading guesses and opinions. Your uneducated opinions and speculation aren't any more or less correct than the next guy's ignorant opinions and speculation. I don't expect you to grasp this concept or any others which spoil your "victory" lap.

[iommi]

http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/47233/shawne-merriman-surgery-a-success

[K-9]

Good to hear. Thanks for posting the info. Sounds like he wants to get a jump on his rehab ASAP.

 

GO BILLS!!!