Moose Posted February 9, 2005 Share Posted February 9, 2005 The Big Three of that class - Kelly, Elway and Marino - have obviously been tough acts to follow for their respective teams. Which team do you think will be the first to find the true Heir Apparent? My hope is that, since Kelly retired first, it will be the Bills. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Navy Chief Navy Pride Posted February 9, 2005 Share Posted February 9, 2005 Has to be the Bills...Plummer is not the naxt Elway...Fiedler and Feeley combined cant hold Marinos jock...JP Livewire Losman will be the heir to Jimbo's throne! At least he fuggin better be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fake-Fat Sunny Posted February 9, 2005 Share Posted February 9, 2005 The Big Three of that class - Kelly, Elway and Marino - have obviously been tough acts to follow for their respective teams. Which team do you think will be the first to find the true Heir Apparent? My hope is that, since Kelly retired first, it will be the Bills. 233516[/snapback] We certainly have had our list of QB failures post Kelly. Some them I attribute to poor assessment of player quality which happens but a lot of this strikes me as being from avoidable bad management of the QB position as our GMs are haunted by the ghost of Kelly. Todd Collins- The beginning of horrible management decisions as Butler waited a year too long to obtain a QB of the future because he like Ralph (and the vaunted handshake deal with Kelly) both falsely assumed that Kelly would last longer than he did because he was tough guy. Butler added insult to injury by not only reaching for TC (he went a round earlier than most have him going) but by rushing him along to start when he needed at least another year to try to train the happy-feet out of him (if he could be trained in this way which is no certainty. TC had a pro arm with accuracy but just ended up being too scared to hang in there and take the hit. Billy Joe Hobert- pleez. We over-reached in trading a 3rd for him once Butler saw that TC was not the answer and he repaid this by being so stupid not prepare himself to play and even stupider to publicly admit this on Empire. What was the braintrust thinking in acquiring him and non-training this little boy who clearly needed his hand held. AVP- a quality guy who was pressed into service but clearly benefitted from what I called the AVP effect as he could savage opposing Ds which let down their guard after they killed our #1 to bring him in as he did leading us into competition and even wins in comebacks versus Denver, TN, etc. However, when the opponents had a little time to look at film and prepare for him as in a game here against NE or facing the Jets the next season AVP could be easily fooled by deceptive coverages. He never was or could be a starter in this league. RJ- The king of king of post Kelly QB errors as the team and AJ Smith cleverly bet on Flutie coming here for next to nothing in a cap hit, but then went out and acquired RJ and gave him a guaranteed deal focusing only on some nice work he did for Jax but an injury history there that should have raised some flags. The Bills paid the market price in trading for RJ (a 1st and a 4th) but stupidly gave him the ranch and the dog by signing him to a long-term deal without any rquirement that he prove himself on the field even in the next pre-season not to mention that I think they could have waited until 1/4 to 1/2 way through the next regular season and they still would have likely gotten him to sign. Even if they had to pay 5 million more because RJ played lights out in the first half of the next season, it would have been worth avoiding the risk of the mess we had. DF- Some folks hate him because they feel he was knifing RJ behind the scenes, but even if this is true, i find it hard to blame him as the Bills lied to him first by promising him a chance to win or lose the QB job on the field and then signing RJ to a guaranteed deal which made RJ the starter regardless of the quality of play. The Bills and Butler deserve our enmity because the way they got DF to sign such a low cap hit deal was that they loaded it up with $3 million in incentives (not bad I wish all contracts followed this model but then stupidly rolled all achieved incentives into his base pay the following year. It set-up a world in which RJ got hure (surprise?), Flutie played exactly as effectively as AJ Smith predicted he would and then we had a $6 million DF cap hit in 1999 added on to a $5 milion guranteed RJ cap hit for him doing nothing. We had no choice but to resign DF for the long-term to divert as much as possible of his salary into bonus and pro-rate it. Yech Bledsoe- Finally after the RJ era (error)we had a QB and TD did a great job in my view finding a starter when it looked like we were gonna have to go with Chris Chandler or Jeff Blake. Things looked great the first year as Bledsoe was warmly welcomed by Bills partisans smarting from a 3-13 season. His play in 2002 was central to us getting near record improvement to 8-8 and NE got raped in 2002 for choosing the better QB as the accelerated cap hit from the Bledsoe bonus probably cost the Pats a trip to the playoffs that year (a horrible year bookended by two SB wins). However, the hopes of Bills fans in 2002 were dashed in 2003 as Bledsoe's play simply sucked that year and Kevin Killdrive was not a strong enough OC to vary the Bills approach and GW was not a strong enough HC to force Killdrive to vary our approach, The real GM disaster in my mind came that off-season when TD should have just called the 2002 DB and 2003 DB play a wash and let him go, but he extended his deal and even though Bledsoe improved on his 2003 play in a way that surprised me, he still proved to be inadequate in 2004. Perhaps TD has finally headed us the right way as trading the 2005 1st for JP has turned into what looks like a brilliant move as the 2005 QB draft class looks weak and JP needed a year to sit, watch and mop-up due to his injury and his youth anyway. The Bledsoe accelerated cap hit will still be very hard for us to manage if we cut/trade him but our QB prospects will be good if JP steps up and wins the QB job on the field in competition and Bledsoe acknowledges that his best days in the past and his future is as a #2 QB willing to take one for the team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillsFan Trapped in Pats Land Posted February 9, 2005 Share Posted February 9, 2005 Bledsoe's hit is like 4 million against a cap of $85 million. Not minimal, but certainly not insurmountable especially if Moulds re-structures. Plus, the Bills have 9 million in cap room, and no 1st round pick (which can eat up cap room quick). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IDBillzFan Posted February 9, 2005 Share Posted February 9, 2005 Has to be the Bills...Plummer is not the naxt Elway...Fiedler and Feeley combined cant hold Marinos jock...JP Livewire Losman will be the heir to Jimbo's throne! At least he fuggin better be. 233525[/snapback] I think Plummer is definitely going to be more successful than Griese was in Denver. Plus...he even has his own smilie.... :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corp000085 Posted February 9, 2005 Share Posted February 9, 2005 I hope you're right about the bills being first to find the true heir. I'm just so gun shy about completely cutting ties with bledsoe and putting JP in with the lions, because of the TC debacle and the whole RJ thing. If there was a year to do it though, it would be next year. The defense is so tough, and the special teams is truly special. Maybe that can override the first year errors of a QB. Plummer is a decent QB, but he's not the answer to elway. I think the bills could be looking good next year. When's the next WNYTBDGPS meeting? We need to hold like 45 in a row and force JP to attend. Maybe those plates will fatten him up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fake-Fat Sunny Posted February 9, 2005 Share Posted February 9, 2005 I hope you're right about the bills being first to find the true heir. I'm just so gun shy about completely cutting ties with bledsoe and putting JP in with the lions, because of the TC debacle and the whole RJ thing. If there was a year to do it though, it would be next year. The defense is so tough, and the special teams is truly special. Maybe that can override the first year errors of a QB. Plummer is a decent QB, but he's not the answer to elway. I think the bills could be looking good next year. When's the next WNYTBDGPS meeting? We need to hold like 45 in a row and force JP to attend. Maybe those plates will fatten him up. 233775[/snapback] I think the key to your post is the observation that Plummer is not the next Elway. Well who is? if Denver'sstrategy revolves around finding the next Elway then they better get ready for a long wait. Likewise, the Bills strategy should not be to find the second coming of Jim Kellly and the Fins certainly shouldn't wait for the next Dan Marino because even if players perform exactly as well as these two they have HOF QBs but never win the SB. The Bills strategy has been savaged since the mid-nineties by the addiction of the GMs to try to find some marquee QB and that addiction led us to rush and reach with Collins, to trade value for nothing for Hobert, to totally mismanage the RJ/DF situation and to stick with Bledsoe way longer than he had even a good shot at delivering a winner. The Pats have shown us the way. Get over this we must have an outstanding QB addiction because if you build a winning team you can produce SB wins for a young QB far in excess of what young QBs have achieved and still have folks arguing about whether that QB is a good player or not (I don't care how he plays, all I want is a winner. If he is a great player great, but even if my QB is a lousy player who just wins that is great also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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