Lenny P Tip Sheet

[Rico]

Troy Vincent safety on the Buffalo Bills may not make that statement. Troy Vincent head of the players union HAS to make that statement. Welcome to the real world fellas.

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You're right... nevertheless, I want him off the team.

Ex-Felon loser.

[CircleTheWagons]

Because we are paying their salary

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Mr. Wilson, I never knew that you posted on TBD.

[Arkady Renko]

Virtually none of you knows what these guys go through.  They have valid complaints but because they make alot of money in the short term they haven't earned the right to complain?  Wrong.  I used to hear the same crap when I was in the military ("You signed up").  Utter bull sh--.

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Agreed. Football players are like everyone else: there's always something to complain about. There are a lot of things in my life so far that I thought that once I got I would be happy and have nothing to complain about anymore. Well... once you get there, you think things can be better, etc. People are never satisfied no matter what they are doing.

[Arkady Renko]

I do wish he tackled those runners busting through into the secondary a little better last year.

[Kelly the Dog]

I do wish he tackled those runners busting through into the secondary a little better last year.

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I think one of the biggest reasons the Bills were terrible last year, almost as big as TKO going down and Phat Pat gone, was because Vincent and Milloy both got hurt in the Tampa game and neither of them could wrap their arms around a runner and tackle until half the season was over.

[Pyrite Gal]

Since when does a safety playing Cover 2 not have to be able to tackle?

 

We've already had this conservation, save the stats for baseball, cause barring an outstanding camp & pre-season for him/disasterous camp or injuries to other DBs, he will be gone.

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Agreed we have already had this conversation but clearly due to my inarticulation or failure to write slowly enough you somehow have gotten the impression that I said TV is not able to tackle.

 

My apologies for giving you this false impression.

 

I had assumed that simply because my post said "TVs game which historically has involved laying some lumber on folks (which he has shown no reluctantance to do) but he is more of a coverage guy." that you would understand that from what I have seen TV has no reluctance to lay the lumber (this means tackle in my confused little world) on opposing players.

 

I think it is true that a healthy Milloy is a better tackler than a healthy TV, perhaps this iswhat yuou interpret as me saying TV will or cannot tackle.

 

Milloy is a better tackler but I think TV is more than sufficient (but again opinions by you or me are not worth all that much and people tend to see what they already believe).

 

The stats (whether football or baseball( are not conclusive at all but they are indicators of performance and often can be strong indicators.

 

While it is possible that the Bills will cut the athlete who was tied for the team lead last year in INTs and FRs, I simply doubt this. Perhaps there is some objective basis for this belief that you can share with all of us morons. Perhaps it is simply fact free opinion. We shall see.

 

As a Bills fan i really hope that TV does bit the wall that age brings to all of us eventually.

 

However, the good news is that many objective signs such as:

 

1. The aforementioned statistical leadership in turnovers produced by Vincent.

2. The Bills switching from an emphasis of safeties playing the line to safeties playing pass coverage.

3, The great youth DB acquisition in the draft and the utility of these youngsters learning the game not only from their coaches but also from a fellow player who has demonstrated great respect from players and also great respect for his past play as a multi-tiome Pro Bowler.

 

are all objective things which all can see which point to this team being much better if TV can play like he has in the recent past and thus the bills keep him.

 

In all our past discussions I have simply seen no objective arguments that would make it a good thing to cut TV. There certainly have been strongly expressed opinions I consider to be fairly fact free that he should be cut. However, just as these opinions were proven wrong or ignored when folks suggested TV was gonna be cut or that Milloy was a more likely keeper than TV, I suspect that folks who are phased by the soap opera aspects of getting pissed at him for doing his NFLPA job are quite likely to be wrong about this football decision to keep or cut him.

 

I certainly claim no clairvoyance or inside poop on Bills decision-making and if he has lost it on the field I say cut him also.

 

There just seems to be little objective evidence that this will be the case.

[ajzepp]

I am not sure what Troy Vincent was doing was complaining about having to work too much.  It sounds more, to me, like he is saying, in order to be focused on the football season, you need time away from it, for your body and mind to heal...it always makes me laugh when people compare their jobs to athletes.  They are not the same job. People just need to relax...so do football players...when you go home from your job, you go home to your family.  Many of these guys do not live in Buffalo (or wahtever city they play in), should they be denied time with their family (fiends, whatever), even during the off-season, because we don't like the fact that they are not devoting their lives 24/7 to making us happy every Sunday for 16-21 weeks?

 

I would prefer to see guys like Willis, Vincent and Vilarreall at the OTA's to, but it doesn't, to me, mean that they are valueless as players, if they are not there.  Get a grip.

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One week a month during the offseason is not going to have any bearing on their inability to "heal" their minds or bodies. Nobody is telling them that they can't live in the same city that they play in so that they can go home to their families at night - they clearly have the resources to make that happen if it was something they valued. And nobody is asking them to devote themselves to a 24/7 schedule. You're right, it's silly to compare our jobs to theirs, cause in the grand scheme of things theirs are basically meaningless. They provide a form of entertainment for the consumer, and they are financially rewarded for it.

 

I"m sorry, but one week here and there of getting together as a team and working on the playbook is not going to kill anyone....and for Troy to intimate that his, or anyone else's, "committment" (his word, not mine) to the season may not be 100% because they can't have their entire HALF YEAR of vacation is ridiculous, IMO.

[mary owen]

ajzepp,Jun 10 2006, 01:57 AM

 

They provide a form of entertainment for the consumer, and they are financially rewarded for it.

 

that's it. it's just entertainment for us, but it's still a job for them.

 

how entertaining is it for me that a guy showed up for an OTA? not very. sure, i may be able to sleep a little better knowing Willis might learn a little more how to pick up a blitz. but then again, I have bigger things to worry about.

 

another thing, we do share one thing in common with them. We must perform in our respective fields of work. If we don't we could be replaced by someone else.

they know this as well as we do. Everyone is accountable for themselves. Let Wilis worry about missing OTA's because it is his a$$ that's on the line, not the fans a$$es.

 

how about when a team has 100% or close to it, attendance for OTA's? seems like we had that a few times in the recent past, and it got the team where? and that's in a system they were at least familiar with and they still couldn't perfect their game enough. the camp and team practice with pads is going to give them the real benefit.

[Pyrite Gal]

One week a month during the offseason is not going to have any bearing on their inability to "heal" their minds or bodies. Nobody is telling them that they can't live in the same city that they play in so that they can go home to their families at night - they clearly have the resources to make that happen if it was something they valued. And nobody is asking them to devote themselves to a 24/7 schedule. You're right, it's silly to compare our jobs to theirs, cause in the grand scheme of things theirs are basically meaningless. They provide a form of entertainment for the consumer, and they are financially rewarded for it.

 

I"m sorry, but one week here and there of getting together as a team and working on the playbook is not going to kill anyone....and for Troy to intimate that his, or anyone else's, "committment" (his word, not mine) to the season may not be 100% because they can't have their entire HALF YEAR of vacation is ridiculous, IMO.

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I know there is a desire to adopt or support a one size fits all strategy for operating a team, but the fact is this is not how real life works.

 

Some players eat all this up, and profit in football performance from attending every OTA.

 

Others are fat pigs, know it and not only have to attend every OTA, but need and enforced diet or they will overeat, choose to live in the same town as their team and get a specific diet from the coaches and ask that the team recieve a report from them each week about what they put in their mouth and check their weight weekly.

 

Others cannot bring themselves to ask for help and gain weight anyway that effects their game and the team forces them to put weight clauses into their contracts.

 

Others like Chris Villarial are on the backside of their careers and are so nicked and banged up they miss a bunch of OTAs to allow their bodies maximum time for healing and to avoid even the potential for additional nicks received stretching or working out in shorts.

 

Others such as Willis have shown their dedication to working out by coming back from a brutal injury (he was highly motivated by money as he saught to get a 1st round draft pick and TD negotiated and incentive laden contract that demanded performance for pay from him). In addition, WM demonstrated last year that he could dilligently pursue workouts and pump up his muscle and weight working out at the U, and not attending voluntary OTAs beyond a drive-by visit.

 

Some make a point of attending voluntary OTAs as they do not have the on field rep to be leaders but earn in from their personalities.

 

Some do better simply forgetting about the game as much as they can until practices are mandatory.

 

All of this gets balanced off against a sense of building a team into a TEAM which attending a practice and abandoning your wife to take care of the kids while you bond with the boys is a way to do this.

 

However, if this type of interaction is required then all should agree to this and the agreement between the team owners and the players specifically sets some tteam activities as mandatory and some as voluntary. If a player breaks this agreement then he deserves to be chastised, but if the team goes back on its word and punishes players who meet the agreement then they should be chastised as well.

 

It MIDHT be nice if all vets showed up for all the OTAs (it would be pretty crappy and low character in my view for a player to abandon his wife to take care of the rugrats or if a child is sick to hanh out with the boys at a voluntary practice, It would be crappy and low character iIMHO if a player abandoned seeing a sick parent to hang out with the boys. I would be concerned if Chris Villarial whom I do not expect to last this season spends much time at all at voluntary OTAs.

 

The voluntary sessions are simply no required and its fine with me if these adults miss these sessions as long as they show up ready to play.

 

WM has clearly worked hard on his own these past three years and I have no problem at all (unless he shows up not ready to play and has not worked hard on his own) with WM skipping the sessions as he clearly works hard on his own.

 

My sense is that WM, like many athletes is an odd bird and actually he adds a little edge to his game by being different. he is not a leader of this team except by example and even with the production outage in the second half of last season, his production of rushing yards in his short career provides enough of an example and with his clear hard work as a Bill on his own and at the U i am happy to give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

If the team demands that he attend an OTA then they should hold out in negotiations to make it mandatory. They did not as attendence at OTAs is a good thing for some but not for others in term of their production of the field.

 

A one size fits all approach may be simpler to understand and deal with but this is not real life at all.

[ajzepp]

I know there is a desire to adopt or support a one size fits all strategy for operating a team, but the fact is this is not how real life works.

 

Some players eat all this up, and profit in football performance from attending every OTA.

 

Others are fat pigs, know it and not only have to attend every OTA, but need and enforced diet or they will overeat, choose to live in the same town as their team and get a specific diet from the coaches and ask that the team recieve a report from them each week about what they put in their mouth and check their weight weekly.

 

Others cannot bring themselves to ask for help and gain weight anyway that effects their game and the team forces them to put weight clauses into their contracts.

 

Others like Chris Villarial are on the backside of their careers and are so nicked and banged up they miss a bunch of OTAs to allow their bodies maximum time for healing and to avoid even the potential for additional nicks received stretching or working out in shorts.

 

Others such as Willis have shown their dedication to working out by coming back from a brutal injury (he was highly motivated by money as he saught to get a 1st round draft pick and TD negotiated and incentive laden contract that demanded performance for pay from him). In addition, WM demonstrated last year that he could dilligently pursue workouts and pump up his muscle and weight working out at the U, and not attending voluntary OTAs beyond a drive-by visit.

 

Some make a point of attending voluntary OTAs as they do not have the on field rep to be leaders but earn in from their personalities.

 

Some do better simply forgetting about the game as much as they can until practices are mandatory.

 

All of this gets balanced off against a sense of building a team into a TEAM which attending a practice and abandoning your wife to take care of the kids while you bond with the boys is a way to do this.

 

However, if this type of interaction is required then all should agree to this and the agreement between the team owners and the players specifically sets some tteam activities as mandatory and some as voluntary.  If a player breaks this agreement then he deserves to be chastised, but if the team goes back on its word and punishes players who meet the agreement then they should be chastised as well.

 

It MIDHT be nice if all vets showed up for all the OTAs (it would be pretty crappy and low character in my view for a player to abandon his wife to take care of the rugrats or if a child is sick to hanh out with the boys at a voluntary practice, It would be crappy and low character iIMHO if a player abandoned seeing a sick parent to hang out with the boys.  I would be concerned if Chris Villarial whom I do not expect to last this season spends much time at all at voluntary OTAs.

 

The voluntary sessions are simply no required and its fine with me if these adults miss these sessions as long as they show up ready to play.

 

WM has clearly worked hard on his own these past three years and I have no problem at all (unless he shows up not ready to play and has not worked hard on his own) with WM skipping the sessions as he clearly works hard on his own.

 

My sense is that WM, like many athletes is an odd bird and actually he adds a little edge to his game by being different.  he is not a leader of this team except by example and even with the production outage in the second half of last season, his production of rushing yards in his short career provides enough of an example and with his clear hard work as a Bill on his own and at the U i am happy to give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

If the team demands that he attend an OTA then they should hold out in negotiations to make it mandatory. They did not as attendence at OTAs is a good thing for some but not for others in term of their production of the field.

 

A one size fits all approach may be simpler to understand and deal with but this is not real life at all.

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I don't think they should be punished either. If the OTAs are voluntary, then they're voluntary. But don't tell me that ONLY five months off instead of six is such a huge sacrifice for the players that it's just unbearable for them, or that it will somehow hinder their committment, as Troy Vincent said. Should the players be punished for not showing up? Obviously not. SHOULD they show up? If you, as a player, are wanting to lead by example and do everything possible to help your team win a championship, then yes. My opinion is that they should be there. I think the star running back should make at least some sort of an appearance during the offseason, and I feel that way about the other veteran team leaders. If there is some physical concern, then focus on the mental aspects of the game. If you already have it all down (which is very hard to believe since we're installing new schemes on both sides of the ball), then serve as a mentor for the younger players or anyone who is having trouble. In short, if you are dedicated to your team, and you are dedicated to winning, I feel that opportunities to get better should not be passed up.

 

To say that there is "no offseason left" (as Troy Vincent said) for the players is ludicrous.....give me a friggin break. To me it's basically the same thing as whatever NBA player it was that said he was afraid of not being able to feed his family unless he was paid that extra few million.....cry me a frickin river.

[mary owen]

 

 

i would like to know if any of these guys who are so hyper-critical of a Bill missing OTA's, would do the same if say the following scenario happened where they work:

 

Boss sets up VOLUNTARY workshops on SATURDAYS for those in the company that wish to hone their skills and, in turn, help the company reach a fiscal goal later on.

 

So here we have Steve; a steady employee who has quite a talent and a steady position wih the company. He's very experienced at what he does although there are a few young upstarts who would love to have his job. But Steve is confident enough in his abilities and feels he can, when it matters most, work circles around these guys. He's a valuable commodity, and even if he does get demoted or leap-fogged by someone else, he has the luxury of knowing that several other established companies would snap him up in a minute and pay him his current or better wage.

 

He doesn't want to go to the saturday workshops, because that's when he and his buds go Harley riding or fishing.

 

To the outsider, this may seem trivial and they can't see how he could take that chance. But to him, he knows it's not a bad risk....after all, it's not mandatory he be there, he loves his time off, and he could always land a job elsewhere if his current employer is going to axe him for reasons they said would not be held against him.

 

This happens all the time in the real world. The NFL is a business too, with real people working in it.

[ajzepp]

Believe it or not, some people have more work ethic than those afflicted with the Allen Iverson mentality. There are people who are actually able to make sure their own situation is secure while at the same time focusing on what is best for the TEAM. Steve is obviously all about what's best for Steve. There's no Steve in team.

[Pyrite Gal]

I don't think they should be punished either. If the OTAs are voluntary, then they're voluntary. But don't tell me that ONLY five months off instead of six is such a huge sacrifice for the players that it's just unbearable for them, or that it will somehow hinder their committment, as Troy Vincent said. Should the players be punished for not showing up? Obviously not. SHOULD they show up? If you, as a player, are wanting to lead by example and do everything possible to help your team win a championship, then yes. My opinion is that they should be there. I think the star running back should make at least some sort of an appearance during the offseason, and I feel that way about the other veteran team leaders. If there is some physical concern, then focus on the mental aspects of the game. If you already have it all down (which is very hard to believe since we're installing new schemes on both sides of the ball), then serve as a mentor for the younger players or anyone who is having trouble. In short, if you are dedicated to your team, and you are dedicated to winning, I feel that opportunities to get better should not be passed up.

 

To say that there is "no offseason left" (as Troy Vincent said) for the players is ludicrous.....give me a friggin break. To me it's basically the same thing as whatever NBA player it was that said he was afraid of not being able to feed his family unless he was paid that extra few million.....cry me a frickin river.

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I'm glad you agree the players should not be punished for missing the voluntary practices by being cut or some other item that hits them in the wallet (thouh suddenly becoming an FA would be a great reward to WM as the bidding war for him would be intense. If TO can make out like a bandit financially from getting waived then the benefit to WM would be enormous. I'm amaxed that some folks want to reward him by cutting him.

 

This would only produce worse behavior by individual Bills.

 

I would not tell anyone that the players need the time off to perform because quite frankly none of them need the rediculous money they get for playing a boys game.

 

Working playing football an extra month or even an extra 5 months so it truly is a year round job does nothing to justify the outrageous amounts of money these men receive to play a boys game compared to someone who really serves society like a soldier, a fireman, a school teacher or what have you.

 

Worth and value are two different things in this society and world and it strikes me as poorly thought out to view an extra months work as making a big difference when none of these athletes remotely is compensated based on the value he provides to our society. Compensation is determined instead by worth and in this society even though a soldier provides far greater value, they are compensated based on their financial worth as entertainers.

 

For me, I value what a soldier does for our country far more than WM's contribution as an entertainer. Now do I think because one of these entertainers attends every voluntary OTA and is a leader of these men playing a boys game that eveb though he gives more value than WM that he still like Willis is not even a fly speck on Pat Tillman's dead butt. Mo.

 

I think folks will show they have a clue if the really want to assess the personalities of players that the real scale here is not WM's value compared to Rashad Baker (who attended all the voluntary OTAsas far as I know. Both are relative zits compared to Tillman who left all this money behind to truly serve.

 

This is a football board and its fine to compare simply the football players and leave reality out of this. However, some of the comments about personality and the value of a particular person as a player clearly extend beyond the field and football.

 

I'm not saying that WM deserves a free ride, i am simply saying that if his non attendance at voluntary practices is a problem then we will see it on the field. Until, then these assements by folks are of marginal import and if they try to make them seem important by asseting broader value judgments then they run head on into a real scale where even a player totally devoted to his team and the game do not even fit on the same scale as a soldier, perace officer, etc or someone who has real value.

[MRW]

Believe it or not, some people have more work ethic than those afflicted with the Allen Iverson mentality. There are people who are actually able to make sure their own situation is secure while at the same time focusing on what is best for the TEAM. Steve is obviously all about what's best for Steve. There's no Steve in team.

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Forgive my skepticism, but I have a hard time believing that people who spend their days on a football fan message board have a strong work ethic.

[obie_wan]

None of us go through the physical beating these guys take for 5-6 months straight.  Your body does need time to recover.

 

As for your mind...how would you feel listening to Mularkey for 6 months?  I thought so.  Let the vets get away and come back refreshed and ready to play.

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you asking these guys to show up for a weekend out of a month. They don't hit full speed.

 

 

Maybe if they actually lived in the city they played in it wouldn't such an inconvenience to show up for the kid's game they are getting paid millions to play.

[Mickey]

One thing you can always realy on around here is a healthy sprinkling of jealousy and resentment towards professional athletes because they make more and work less than we do. They are professional football players, they aren't working the swingshift at the factory. People with talent that rare who have worked their butts off to get where they are against cut throat competition are usually rewarded by our society with more money and less work. Doctors, CEOs, etc. get the same rewards.

 

Yeah, if Troy Vincent said that stuff in a normal job, he'd be canned, same with Willis and his prolonged siesta. Thing is, they aren't in a normal job. In their job, if you have the talent, you get away with that kind of thing.

 

That having been said, Willis should be here if he really gave a damn about winning. The fact that he isn't speaks volumes about whether, despite his talent, he has the fire in his belly you need to win in this league. If he doesn't, then we will move on when his current contract expires.

[Simon]

One week a month during the offseason is not going to have any bearing on their inability to "heal" their minds or bodies.

Yes it is.

[ajzepp]

Doctors, CEOs, etc. get the same rewards. 

 

 

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Huh? I don't know what kind of docs there are where you live, but the ones I know work their asses off.

[ajzepp]

Forgive my skepticism, but I have a hard time believing that people who spend their days on a football fan message board have a strong work ethic.

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is that directed toward me or a general statement? I spend more time on here in the day than I do at night, but that's because I am at work while most people are asleep in their beds. And I can assure you the fact that I post on a football message board has no bearing on my work ethic.

[ajzepp]

Yes it is.

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Anyone who can't take a few days out of the month to run through some plays with their team during their 6-month offseason is way too fragile and/or lazy to be playing in the NFL.