Someone I actually respect hate's buffalo's FA

[eball]

The magnitude of the "names" Buffalo has lost this offseason is what gets everyone hopping on the "Bills' offseason sucks so far" bandwagon. Seriously, though, the only impact players we lost to FA were Clements and Fletcher. Spikes and McGoofy were traded.

 

Nobody mentions the fact that we re-signed Lindell and Kelsay to prevent their departures as well. That counts as FA activity.

 

As soon as Marv completes the draft and we get to Pittsford, Jaws will be back in the "Bills are a darkhorse" camp.

[colin]

last season we lost

 

milloy

sam adams

vincent

posey

mike williams

 

losing them didn't really hurt us.

 

frankly i expect the only guy we will miss to be nate.

 

our running game wasn't good, so missing mcgahee won't make a big negative impact, and on d those guys didn't perform that well.

 

we have added 2 solid big men to each line and our young team has one more year coming together. i expect us to be better

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

Not even close. They may have not signed any good/big name players but they didnt let 3 pivotal parts of their team go like we did.

 

I agree with Bart. Marv is building this team for the future, not for the upcoming season.

 

Riiight. Because that's what Marv's philosophy is? Suppose he picks up Turner for our RB. Would he still be "building for the future" or would he be building to win next year?

[tombstone56]

Pro Football Weekly Interview with Jaworski

 

I respect Ron Jaworski and awful lot. He's really the only analyst who I think calls it straight and ignores the hype. However, he thinks the Bills are the biggest loser in FA. Frankly, I can't disagree. I don't have any problem with the reasons behind why we lost or got rid of the players we did, however I don't see how they are being replaced. We can't do it all in the draft, and we don't have the players on our roster that can immediately step up and get it done. There's no LB on our roster that makes up for our two LB losses. One DT doesn't equal two LB losses, especially in a rotational system.

 

I think the Bills are headed in the right direction, but I was hoping they would make a run for the playoffs this year, and I just don't see it with all the losses without a net gain.

 

jaws has the position ,the history and the podium ,, but it doesn t make him right!!!!!!!!!!!.. dont know what his problem is ..maybe hes still mad the bills didnt pick him up when he was cut.. hes trashed the bills teams for years from everything from the stadium location , the office ,to the uniforms ,,..he always says "after studying" ,, but cramming isnt watching, he been a joke for 20 years ,,, now he ll be a monday night guy , i ll watch the highlghts on tuesday

[Gordio]

The one thing I think noone has really taken into account is that the young guys are going to improve from last year. It will be tough to replace all that experience that walked out the door I suppose, but really what did they really have experience to teach the younger guys? How to fold on the road, how to loose a must win game at home when the playoffs are on the line. People talk about us losing these guys as if we made the playoffs for the last 5 yrs. Seriously , the only guy I wouldve liked to kept was Clements. As far as Spikes goes, I will be honest with everybody, I never viewed him as a leader. I always viewed him as a guy that you want on your team if your winning, but once things get tough he always started shooting his mouth off. Last year at this time everybody was in an uproar becasue we traded Moulds. This is the same scenerio. Both guys are hasbeen over the hills players that were me guys & the team is better off without them. Spikes is the Arod of football. I wouldnt doubt if Philly doesnt make the playoffs this year.

[Ramius]

I think Matt phrased his optimism and skepticism pretty well. I guess your post just goes to prove that if anybody says anything that is not totally positive you'll jump down their throats.

 

the second part wasnt directed at Matt, but at the board in general.

 

The first part was pointing out a very stark inconsistency in his post. Apparently no one around these parts can grasp that all those holes dont need to be filled from the draft. We DO have other players on this roster, younger players that are going to get better.

[tennesseeboy]

Our offseason IS disappointing if you just look at the exodus and not into the why of it all. Fletcher and Spikes did not perform last year, were getting fairly big bucks and weren't going to get much better. Clements was going to make obscene money and we would have broken the bank to keep him in a defensive scheme that didn't maximize his talents. MCgahee...well he's McGahee and we didn't want the distraction of him trying to renegotiate his contract. We didn't replace them but chose to shore up our weakest areas in the offensive and defensive lines, and have a good number of draft picks to go with. At this moment...it looks like we were losers in FA. I think we will be happy with our pickups and we'll draft wisely (going on what we did last year).

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

Our offseason IS disappointing if you just look at the exodus and not into the why of it all. Fletcher and Spikes did not perform last year, were getting fairly big bucks and weren't going to get much better. Clements was going to make obscene money and we would have broken the bank to keep him in a defensive scheme that didn't maximize his talents. MCgahee...well he's McGahee and we didn't want the distraction of him trying to renegotiate his contract. We didn't replace them but chose to shore up our weakest areas in the offensive and defensive lines, and have a good number of draft picks to go with. At this moment...it looks like we were losers in FA. I think we will be happy with our pickups and we'll draft wisely (going on what we did last year).

 

Exactly. It's Chicken-Littlian lack of perspective when it comes to this issue.

[Matt in KC]

 

Thanks for taking the time to list these out, Kelso's Helmet. I really do want to believe we'll do better next year. I've added my comments under your points below.

 

1. Same coaches, rookies, and starting QB with an extra year of experience now in the O and D systems.

 

--> I do think this is likely an area of modest improvement. I think the O and D were modified to fit our personell last year, so it will continue to change (such as passing to the TE's), which will help, I think, but not just because the veterans have experience with the plays/assignments.

 

 

2. An improved, more veteran-rich OL and DL from both free agency and also from the 2006 draft class' aforementioned new experience...or full health in McCargo's case.

 

--> As I mentioned previously, I think the O-line may take a few games to gel, but likely will be improved. With the Anderson-to-Walker upgrade we should be better. Of course we haven't factored in who gets hurt in 2007 (since we don't know), you've only counted who has healed. Do you think we had more or less than the normal amount of injuries last year? I think it was about average, so McCargo returning will help about the same as someone else getting injured will hurt us.

 

 

3. A disgruntled, low-IQ RB with average speed (McGahee post-Fiesta Bowl) replaced with a fresh-legged RB drafted in the first day (Bush?).

 

--> I respond to 3,4, and 5 together below

 

 

4. A disgruntled, slowed, unproductive post-Achilles TKO replaced with a speedier day 1 draft pick (Alexander, Black?) who better fits our D system.

 

--> I respond to 3,4, and 5 together below

 

 

5. A small, aging MLB who couldn't attack/fill his line gap responsiblities (London) replaced with a bigger, younger, faster, and equally football-intelligent Patrick Willis (no, I don't see the 49ers picking Willis over any of the top DL players at #11).

 

--> Response to 3,4, and 5: Any of these three scenarios may mean an upgrade, but I am very sceptical that we can draft three players who can play as well as McGahee, Fletcher and Spikes in their first year. I would guess only one is as good or an upgrade in 2007. (My money would be on the Spikes upgrade.) I'm not saying it is impossible, just very improbable. I do think, however, that 2-3 years in the future these players will play much better than McGahee, Fletcher and Spikes.

 

 

6. Loss of Clements compensated by true implementation of the Tampa Cover-2, as well as contributions from Youboty and whatever other CB's Levy can find in the mid-to-late draft rounds (and this scouting team's track record with CB's has been pretty good over the past 10-15 years).

 

--> Youboty was on the team last year as well. The only change here is we have lost Clements. A draftee/FA could fill in, though I think it's vertually impossible he will play as well as Clements did in 2006. Becasue of this, I don't see how this allows us to play a "true Tampa cover 2" if we couldn't do so with Clements on the roster.

 

 

7. RB being among the easiest positions in football for which a college-to-pro rookie can make a significant contribution. To only a slightly lesser extent, the same is true for cover-2 OLB's and CB's who are only responsible for small pockets of the field. At these positions, speed and agility can often trump years of play recognition experience.

 

--> CB and RB addressed above, except for the hypothetical that we trade 2 first days picks for Turner. I think trading would help this year and slightly hurt the next 2-3 years when we could have had other 2 young veterans on the team. I don't have a strong feeling either way.... (anything less than our second round pick and I'd be happy).

 

 

Am I putting too much of a positive spin on the 2007 season's potential? Perhaps. And I'm not saying I buy 100% into the "we make the playoffs in 2007" argument. Maybe Levy bombs the 2007 draft, and then we're screwed. But I do know one thing: we sure didn't win much when we had TD's assembled cast of name player choke artists like Fletch, Clements, and McGahee.

 

--> I'm still about as confident as I've been before each of the last few seasons. I suspect we'll end within 1-2 games of our record last year, out of the playoffs.

 

---------

Here are some other positives/improvements:

 

JP Losman. I think he is settling in to his new role, relaxing, and starting to play solid football. JP's experience, and resulting confidence/comfort/leadership can have a profound affect on our team performance next year.

 

In general I reject arguments that our players will have another year of experience under their belts, because on the whole our team is getting younger/less experienced. I'd have to do the math to see if our projected starters are getting older or younger (I suspect it's about the same average age as last year with a few positions getting younger and many getting a little older).

 

Better team chemistry. This is one of the biggest wildcards in my opinion, and could swing our record a couple games either direction, though I think we were still "finding our voice" last year, and likely will be improved here.

 

If we can land an average (or better) RB, the left side of our line should be able to dominate on several running plays each game. In this case, the synergy of Dockery playing next to Peters is greater than just adding Dockery.

 

 

Further Gripes:

I wish we replaced John Allaire (Strength and Conditioning Coach). Since Rusty Jone departed we've been poorly conditioned and have had a ton of hamstring pulls.

[marauderswr80]

didnt JAWS at one point after the super bowl say he loved what Buffalo was doing? Weird.

[Koufax]

Todd, I hate to say it but I agree with him as well. If you asked most NFL scouts who were the 10 most talented players we had on our team last year, I'd reckon most people would include Fletcher, Clements in that group. Spikes, if he has recovered to even 80% of his 2004 talent, would probably also be in that group. McGahee, even with his problems, would fit there as well. I don't blame Marv for doing what he's doing - but make no mistake, this is a rebuilding year and we should not expect to be any more than a .500 team.

 

My primary beef with the Bills front office is what we paid Walker and what we paid Kelsay - this resembles the Peerless signing last year - not bad moves per se, just way more than market value for their skill level - and these signings limit what we can pay potential game changers like Evans and (possibly) Losman. What I'm surprised at is the overwhelming number of knowledgeable fans on this board who have a hard time admitting that we will probably be worse before we get better based on our moves this offseason. Who knows, maybe we'll strike lightning in a bottle and Lynch (or Peterson or whoever in this weak RB class) becomes a capable performer instantly - or better yet, Willis or Poz is an impact starter that vastly improves our run D - or Youboty or Hall becomes a solid corner in short order. Overall, I expect our offense to improve a bit if we get Lynch or Turner but I don't see our defense looking better no matter who we draft. I'm a diehard fan but it's hard to deny we've lost an awful lot of leadership and talent over the last couple months.

 

I agree with many of your points but not with your conclusions. Overpaying Walker and Kelsey were not good deals, and there is a lot of pressure on Walker now, and I really hope he lives up to it, but have my doubts.

 

If we can get any sort of running back added to the roster our offense is clearly better than last year. A much better line JP and Lee maturing, JP getting better chemistry with Price and Roscoe (who each one a big game for us last season). Even if you are a big McGahee fan, average running backs running through good holes or a good one running only outside to the left because their are no holes? I think we will not just be a better overall offense, but I think we will be a better run offense too.

 

On D we have a huge hole to fill on LB and will probably do so with Willis or Poz. Until we fill that huge hole, this is a major major concern. But CB we take the downgrade from Nate to Youboty hoping it won't be to severe, and our line is clearly better. If we can address LB with a solid starter, I don't see how our D is worse. I just don't see the downgrade of Nate->Youboty as not offset by additions of Walker and McCargo up front and a year experience for everybody.

 

If TKO does great in Philly we will fill silly, but the Crowell-Fletcher-Spikes2006 starters we had last year (considering Crowell's injury too) don't seem so much better than Ellison-Crowell-Poz or Ellison-Willis-Crowell.

 

For the fans that are a little gun shy after Norwood missed and no playoff appearances this century, fine, be cautious and wait to see the results. But if you want to honestly appraise a football team without the emotional baggage, the Bills are a decent RB and a good LB away from being clearly better on both sides of the ball. I don't think a decent RB and a good LB is too much to ask for in the draft, and I hope we trade up (losing draft depth for draft impact) to get both of these impacts in the 1st round.