R. Rich Posted December 27, 2004 Share Posted December 27, 2004 With beer, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 180537[/snapback] Uhhhhhhhhhhh (Homer-like drooling)!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thailog80 Posted December 27, 2004 Share Posted December 27, 2004 Uhhhhhhhhhhh (Homo-like drooling)!!!!!! 180547[/snapback] ?????????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. Rich Posted December 27, 2004 Share Posted December 27, 2004 You didn't know I was gay, did you, Rich? 180550[/snapback] No, I didn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thailog80 Posted December 27, 2004 Share Posted December 27, 2004 Yes, I did t......I am also. 180555[/snapback] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockpile Posted December 27, 2004 Share Posted December 27, 2004 Where is my fried baloney at the stadium ? 180528[/snapback] Sliced and simmering on Kenny's Pinto hood? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rico Posted December 27, 2004 Share Posted December 27, 2004 Is there anything to complain about now? 180342[/snapback] Izell Reese is still getting a paycheck. That's about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fake-Fat Sunny Posted December 27, 2004 Share Posted December 27, 2004 I wasn't the moron bitching about moving Williams to guard. So back off ****. I am curious to see if he can handle the LT spot now. Be much easier to draft a RT in the second round. Let jennings (Mr. I wanna play in Atlanta, and Mr. Always hurt) go. We do need a solid LG. Also, I for one have bitched about LB depth. To be honest we had first string DL in there at the end, but our backup LBers (outside of the INT) looked pretty bad. I really think we need to upgrade them. 180483[/snapback] This post is actually a vague attempt to talk about the football team rather than complaining about the complainers (or is it complaining about folks complaining about the complainers- of fuggaboutit). First things first as we are still in the hunt for the playoffs, but building this team for the future looks very interesting right now. The issues which you raise are real ones (find a starting LG, deal with the LT issue, are our back-up LBs good enuf?) However, I think that these issues are going to be determined by other factors than simply identifying the best athletes available in FA or the draft to fill these positions. In my mind anmong the lead factors are: 1. The salary cap determines alot: It would be great to simply get the best players at a position, but the brilliance of the salary cap is that all teams are on an equal footing of resources to be devoted to the team and their are large allocation issues involving timing and balance that play out in the cap. TD has shown his value in that his cap management has evidenced wonderful timing and balance such that we have now moved from cap hell (SF shows that even this task is not a no-brainer) to a point where we have reasonable problems of a manageable number of players hitting the market this year and next. We have a team in place which has great players and performer in all three aspects of the game (O, D, ST) who are among the best in the league. However, we have this within the constraints of the reality of the cap and good luck with injuries or players stepping up when injuries occur is key. There is a huge dropoff in talent at LB after Spikes/Fletcher, but I'm not sure what we can do about this and still stay within the reality of the cap. Our third LB Posey is quite affordable and shows only flashes of brilliance which actually allows us to maintain keeping and paying all three. The back-ups are a huge drop-off but each actually has contributed bigtime to the team on ST. The key is that if we get unlucky with an injury to a frontliner can one of them step up. I don't know but I see this as a particular problem where if you have a specific player solution folks can make a judgement, but overall the framework is good. I think our LT/RT situation is actually quite manageable. I don't think the market for Jennings is actually going to command a top 10 OL cap hit for him which we should not pay because he is not worth that much. I think that the Bills would and should pay him more money than he has ever seen before, but it needs to be an amount at the levels LTs like Petitgout and Clifton have gotten (2nd tier LT money) rather than Ogden type dollars. It only takes one offer so he may well be a goner, but the Bills will have 4 or 5 other otptions at LT other than paying Jennings too much. 2. Coaching is also key: One of the biggest upgrades for the Bills moving from the GW error to the MM era is that OL coaches Vinky and Ruel were simply not ready for primetime with their single years of experience at the position. OL play unlike any other unit is about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. Having JMac and his 15-20 years (whatever it is) of OL coaching experience really makes it a real possibility that he can improve the units play with a Tucker, Smith or some affordable FA in the LG spot without us having to break the bank paying for a Ruben Brown. Add to this the upgrade to Clements running a balanced O attack with creative play calling rather than Kevin Killdrive and his predictability and I'm also less worried on this front. 3. This a team: A big key to our improvement has been that rather than players operating as individuals and specialists, they really are operating more as a TEAM under MM and which I think has been a key to the winning ways off BB and NE. This is seem in several things: A. Athletes are football players rather than individual specialists- Troy Brown filling the gaps caused by injury at CB is the example of this for NE. Adams, Bannan, and Denney are examples of this for us. B. We don't rely on one star- We have been able to put up record breaking number of points with folks continuing to whine and B word about Bledsoe. We were fooled by the great play of Jim Kelly into over-focusing on a need for our QB to win the game for us. We now see how effective it can be when the TEAM wins the game for you and one can even have your QB fail to perform well as long as he does not kill you with mistakes (and in his three INT game we can even win going away even when the QB makes some big mistakes). C. ST is central to the game- Perhaps the biggest difference in the Bills of old from the losing Bills of the last few years to the current Bills has been the ST performance of the team. From assigning more talented players to this unit (we use starters there now) to having better schemes (April versus Smith) we dominate in this area of play and thus we dominate games. I'm not worried about the off-season at all as all I see there is opportunity for us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts