Ricard shows a nice thing about the new regime

[Pyrite Gal]

It looks doubtful that Ricard is likely to be a pivotal acquisition for this franchise. In fact, there are some fairly serious questions about whether he will even has much to contribute as a pro due injuries which put him on the IR early last season and some twinges he felt in his injured calves recently.

 

However, we do seem to have moved beyond TD trying to construct a franchise which will do the job perfectly (conceptualizing a successful team can be done by a good football mind and TD has one, however, putting a winning team together with the constraints of the salary cao, competition from 31 other teams, the need for leadership to make your team a TEAM, and in TDs case getting over the bruises of getting run out of town in his GM job in Pitts by a guy he hired is another thing entirely) to instead setting up competitions between players so a good TEAM may well emege.

 

We have a haphazrd bunch of players. No marquee stars like and Elway, favre or even a Ray Lewis. A number of the players we are counting on to play critical roles have failed elswhere at higher level jobs (like PP or Andre Davis), are talented but unproven (like Evans or Parrish), or have had spotty careers even here (like Reed and Aiken).

 

Yet. I used a number of WRs as examples of this key point because what this regime led by Marv has invested in is competition on the field rather than simply selecting the players which the genius mind of the GM is confident they can do the job. A look at WR finds:

 

1. Evans better step up actually because it is unlikely there is a #1 quality WR talent besides him.

 

2. PP is slotted as the #2 as long as he still has speed (a reporter says he does) and is healthy (the bonus he got from the Bills after their docs exame says he is fine) he has done the #2 job extraordinarily well before though he failed completely as a #1 with Vick in his hometown it is not unreasonable to tink he can do the #2 job for us. Even better, in camp Parrish is now getting some reps as the outside receiver which would fulfill his draft position and PP is doing time in the slot. Better yet, Reed is looking good in camp so far playing the #2 role we thought he would take after a good rookie year. There has even been talk of Davis being good enough to be the #2 though I hear little to indicate on the field this is realistic.

 

3. I do not think either Parrish or Reed will prove to be #2 quality, but I think they might well be #3 quality WRs (Parrish will create huge issues for the D if he, PP, and Evans put their speed ina 3WR set and though Reed was a failure as a #2 he dis the job for us as a #3 as a rookie. In fact, if we are successful in developing and installing a St. L like O, I have few doubts that Reed (whose good football mind has been praised by the coaches) can go to town in full house sets where he gets to analyze and pick apart zones.

 

4. Even though there are 4 candidates mentioned above for the top 4 slots, if Reed is going to lose out to those above to be #4 he would have to beat out pressure from below him on the depth chart as Aiken is having a good camp early on, there is still Davis and his aspirations to be our #2 ND even the college record and the height of Nance making him at least a PS keeper.

 

Add to that 2 year vet Fast Freddy Smith also drawing some attention for his play early in camp and the WR situation which most pundits have sited as a Bills weakness actually being a spot where we will almost certainly cut one NFL vet and maybe two.

 

The good thing about this regime is that rather than the pre-season being practice where they allegedly perfect and allegedly perfect scheme worked out by the front office and our coaches, the new order of the day is competition.

 

Pre-season is intersting this year because some vets capable of MFL play are going to get cut.

 

I was prompted to post this with the acquisition of Ricard today. He likely will not be a world beater, but he will provide some active competition for Shelton who was disappointint to me as a player.

 

I love it that this team like TDs crew will be finally constructed by the Front Office and the coaching staff, but what is different is rather than being constructed based on who these boy genii chose, competition on the field will make a big difference.

 

This is true at QB, at SLB. sooner rather than later it appears at FS, and to some extent and also due to injury in some cases at many other positions.

 

Competition is great. It really is different this year as it will happen on the field rather than in the front office minds.

 

It still is quite unlikely this team is even playoff ready at this point and it maybe that what we have here is a bunch of #2 quality players competing to be #1a. Even this may not portend doom though as competition and demanding players step up to start means that particularly the youngsters on this team may step up to #1 quality.

 

In addition, it clearly is the case that a team which logically and based on past performance is composed of players passed on by their original teams (about 1/3 of the Pats team which won the SB in 2001 were signed after the June 1st cuts which were a bigger deal back then) can actually become a TEAM under the right circustances and with the help of dumb luck and the refs (the famous tuck rule call in the conference championship game) can actually accomplish amazing things.

 

While some make think that the views of a we're doomed guy like Sullivan passes for realism, the only realistic prediction at this point is that until we see a bit of the competition in this pre-season, any prediction of exactly hoe this is gonna play out is rally unrealistic.

 

The interesting thing about this Bills team are the questions that are raised as to how players stepping up and how the oddly shaped ball bounces will determine the results of this competition. Folks predictions on what will happen (particularly if they are not generally fact-free opinions like Sullys who dismisses Schobel's top 56 sack number finish as evidence he is above average, but even though one correctlly can make the case that the RDE game involves run stopping in addition to sacking, a good journalist would also see that Schobel's game in the zone blitz involved pass coverage responsibility in addition to sacks and run stopping) really miss the real story of this pre-season which is how are the competitions going.

[/dev/null]

at first glance I thought this was going to be another Star Trek flamewar, but on further examination that first letter is an R not a P

[buffaloboyinATL]

Glad to see that your long posts are back. I agree that there seems to be a lot of competition this year and that no one is being handed a job. I believe Evans will be a great #1 and I hope we have enough depth at the position to keep teams from shutting him down. It would be a shame to have this fast receiving group spreading the field and a quarterback who is not able to throw a completion past 20 yards. That is why I am hoping JP wins the job, he seemed to have a good raport with Evans.