Walker...our new LT

[Big Turk]

Kirk Chambers must really be horrible because Langston Walker is a very average RT. Just because he signed a multi million dollar contract does not mean he is a good player. We need Peters back asap.

 

Really? Funny how almost all of Lynch's big runs were behind Langston Walker last year...also funny how RT runs had the highest ALY as tracked by pro football outsiders...

[Trader]

This is a very smart move by the Bills. We are not interested in guys that are only here for the cash. We don't care how much potential they have. You never will win a championship with pure mercenaries.

 

You have to love the game more than the money. Peters has shown his tru colors. Let him sit out the year. fine him and trade him!.

[BillsWatch]

Peters was an UDFA not signed to be LT; perhaps Walker has as much potential.

[AJ1]

This is a very smart move by the Bills. We are not interested in guys that are only here for the cash. We don't care how much potential they have. You never will win a championship with pure mercenaries.

 

You have to love the game more than the money. Peters has shown his tru colors. Let him sit out the year. fine him and trade him!.

 

I was curious as to when the Bills would start employing their contingency (no Peters) plan. It appears Peters is totally irrational and his agent isn't helping.

 

I speculate that Peters is physically and/or mentally disabled if he doesn't show in the next few weeks

[keepthefaith]

This is a very smart move by the Bills. We are not interested in guys that are only here for the cash. We don't care how much potential they have. You never will win a championship with pure mercenaries.

 

You have to love the game more than the money. Peters has shown his tru colors. Let him sit out the year. fine him and trade him!.

 

There is a simple answer to this. Walker is paid like a starting left tackle so let him start there. Peters is paid like an average center so let him play center. Cut Fowler and save even more $.

[El Presidente]

Maybe the Bills should switch Peters to starting Tight End on the depth chart, tell him he's well paid for a TE, and line him up as TE next to Walker at LT.

Hmmm...wasn't Bruce Smith a hold-out during training camps? Why don't we re-do Peters contract with only two changes:

He gets a few million bucks singing bonus (salary stays the same)...and a performance incentive based on # of sacks of the opposing teams quarterback...

We can fold the bonus money back in next year with the freed up cap space from him not achieving his incentive...

And I'm still willing to throw in an all you can eat buffet when he hems and haws...

[Patience]

4-12

[Trader]

Maybe the Bills should switch Peters to starting Tight End on the depth chart, tell him he's well paid for a TE, and line him up as TE next to Walker at LT.

 

The Bills are preparing to play without Jason Peters for the forseeable future that is the fact.

[nero47]

Peters was an UDFA not signed to be LT; perhaps Walker has as much potential.

Peters needed to find a spot or he would have been cut. He was offered his contract after playing very well at RT, with some work at LT. He and his agent agreed to take an extension rather than play out the contract he had. it turns out he has developed into an excellent LT after an above average LG was brought in, instead of the bums he was playing next to. Now it is time to come in from the cold, get on the field and then negotiate a new contract. i have watched athletes over the years " sit out the season", and never return to their previous form.

 

My gut says Peters has not recovered well from his off season surgery. until the bills see him on the field he will not get an extra dime.

[Trader]

Peters needed to find a spot or he would have been cut. He was offered his contract after playing very well at RT, with some work at LT. He and his agent agreed to take an extension rather than play out the contract he had. it turns out he has developed into an excellent LT after an above average LG was brought in, instead of the bums he was playing next to. Now it is time to come in from the cold, get on the field and then negotiate a new contract. i have watched athletes over the years " sit out the season", and never return to their previous form.

 

My gut says Peters has not recovered well from his off season surgery. until the bills see him on the field he will not get an extra dime.

 

Peters also could have mental issues. The Mike Williams syndrome. Maybe he really does not like football just the cash.

Peters had great athletic ability but no one drafted him. Maybe there was a reason that not one drafted him?

[Trader]

Peters also could have mental issues. The Mike Williams syndrome. Maybe he really does not like football just the cash.

Peters had great athletic ability but no one drafted him. Maybe there was a reason that no one drafted him?

[nero47]

Peters also could have mental issues. The Mike Williams syndrome. Maybe he really does not like football just the cash.

Peters had great athletic ability but no one drafted him. Maybe there was a reason that not one drafted him?

Good point. Has he been seen by the doctors to see if he has benn physically cleared to play?

[Pyrite Gal]

Sure sure, I knew that's what he meant. I guess I was looking for insight as to just how well LW as been. HAS he been really good?

IMHO,

 

1. Walker has pretty clearly been much better than he was with the Raiders (which may not be saying much given how sucky as a group the Raiders were), but even there, the analysis of some outside observers (JMac among them) was that their problem was in lots of other areas and the poor play was not all or even mostly Walker's problem.

 

2. The measurable performance of the Bills OL seems to support this contention as the team gave up the fewest # of sacks since the NFL started keeping the stat.

 

3. The running game also did fairly well with Walker as Lynxh out up very good numbers for a rookie and even in his absence or when he needed a blow, his back-up at RB, Div. III rookie player Fred Jackson did well. Part of this was likely that Jackson who experienced some success in Europe is actually a good player, but also this indicates some good blocking not dependent on Lynch's talent.

 

It also is generally felt that Lynch was actually quite effective running to the right and not dependent on going behind Pro Bowler Peters and highly paid Dockery.

 

These individual objectively measurable plaudits however, do not explain why the Bills O was ineffective in helping this team produce better than a 7-9 record. If Walker was in fact so good, then why did this team fail to make the playoffs?

 

Well Walker escapes getting a lot of blame for the team's overall failures as there are simply far more likely explanations such as:

 

1. The D finished statistically near the bottom of both run and pass D, if Walker and his O cohorts sucked badly then we likely would have finished worse than 7-9.

 

2. The O was pretty poorly designed and Jauron ran things conservatively in a successful effort not to get blown out all the time and even to steal a game sometimes as they did when none other than Joe Gibbs made a stupid coaching mistake when they played the Skins, Nevertheless, this team never used the RB as a receiver, and was up and down using the TE. Finally, this was a team which did not settle on a QB until late in the season. Was Walker great? Nope. However, did the team's O failings point to something other than a Walker problem? Yep.

 

3. In addition the team's large number of players who went on IR is a simple fact and is probably better thought of as a "reason" fpor disappointing results rather than as an "excuse." Finally, despite stellar play by the ST skill players punting and placekicking, the ST unit got a little long in the tooth and needed a major retool and reload in this draft.

 

All in all an assessment which jumps to the conclusion that Chambers must be bad because Walker is so bad does not really add up with the objectively observable evidence.

[2020 Our Year For Sure]

This is a very smart move by the Bills. We are not interested in guys that are only here for the cash. We don't care how much potential they have. You never will win a championship with pure mercenaries.

 

You have to love the game more than the money. Peters has shown his tru colors. Let him sit out the year. fine him and trade him!.

Wholeheartedly agree. If Peters was committed to winning, he'd be afraid of the damage missing practice time would do to his performance. But in his world, money clearly comes before winning. If I'm GM, he doesn't get an extra dime until he gets into camp, plays hard the whole season, practices harder, attends all voluntary and mandatory activities next offseason, and then reports to camp on time. Thats the only way he can show he's a player who is committed to winning, and therefore worth spending money on.

 

If he's not willing to do that, he can rot for the next three years. This team will go on.

[Pyrite Gal]

Wholeheartedly agree. If Peters was committed to winning, he'd be afraid of the damage missing practice time would do to his performance. But in his world, money clearly comes before winning. If I'm GM, he doesn't get an extra dime until he gets into camp, plays hard the whole season, practices harder, attends all voluntary and mandatory activities next offseason, and then reports to camp on time. Thats the only way he can show he's a player who is committed to winning, and therefore worth spending money on.

 

If he's not willing to do that, he can rot for the next three years. This team will go on.

My guess is that just like real life (rather than bulletin boards on the internet or "reality" TV) Peters has a more nuanced view than making a simple choice between winning and getting paid the maximum he can negotiate. Again quite simply Peters wants to BOTH win the game and get paid enormous (rather than just the huge sum he will be paid for playing this boys game) bucks.

 

Is he committed to winning the game with no regard to his salary? Nope.

 

Is he so committed to getting bucks he cares nothing about his teammates, the fans, or his teammates. Nope to that idea also.

 

Within the bizarre bazaar of the NFL, Peters strikes me as having made a calculation that right here right now he has maximum leverage to exploit the market if he can create one. There is no market for him right now because he agreed to a contract which rewards him richly at a level far beyond what a UDFA is likely at all to get and even handsomely for an RT.

 

However, what he either did not bank on or could not cut a deal for way back a bit over a year ago when he signed an extension that removed him from a free market for several years was that he would become by consensus one of the best LTs in the game.

 

He agreed to a deal which pays him handsomely for being an RT but is relative chump change for one of the best LTs in the game and a young one at that.

 

Peters IMHO has made a calculation that his current market leverage is higher than it is likely to ever be (if he gets hurts enough like he did last year he could quickly become Tony Boselli, if his talent suddenly goes south which is incredibly doubtful he could become Ryan Leaf). He is simply trying to create a marker where non exists by agreement prior to his virtually unprecedented success.

 

He is willing to do this because if he does not then he will not be able to fully exploit the marketplace and my guess is that he and his agent calculate that like Bruce Smith used to do at another position, he can actually skip most of camp and still come in late and with 15 games playing with the OL last year pick up close to where he left out.

 

The team has drawn a hard line and said that he will not create a market by holding out.

 

My sense is that his teammates actually forgive him because in the big picture as far as salary its short-sighted to view the NFL as merely a zero-sum game where because of the salary cap more money for one player means less money for everyone else. Actually under the new CBA, the money that the NFLPA forced to the salary cap rather than the owners is so huge that the precedent of getting a team to part with dollars for the players rather than the owner simply hauling it off to the bank has tended to raise all salary ships for the players.

 

There is a cost for Peters though playing the game this way, the fans will likely not forget all this, however, we fans have shown an ability quite often to forgive even if we do not forget.

 

I think Peters can actually play this game out through much of pre-season without demolishing the team's chances of winning or without demolishing his ability to make a dime from card shows, personal appearances and other forms of making money from fan adulation as long as the team is winning or he is acknowledged as a stud player by his peers.

 

Nothing is certain of course, but life is uncertain. His leverage is at a height now and he is trying to create a market where there is none. My bet is that he Bills are intelligently willing to pay him more as a young Pro Bowl LT can get if there were a free market. However, it likely will take some time for this dance to play out.

 

I like it in fact that the Bills and Peters are not talking as actually it is unlikely that either side would say something positive to the other in the current dance (and might say something which pisses the other side off).

 

I also like the fact that the Bills are working on developing a reasonable plan B if Peters does not come back of shifting Walker to LT and playing Chambers at the more protected by the TE RT position. The Peters injury in the last game last year shows that the Bills better have a credible back-up plan for all starters and Peters was suddenly so good that there was no credible back-up plan for the long-term.

[2020 Our Year For Sure]

My guess is that just like real life (rather than bulletin boards on the internet or "reality" TV) Peters has a more nuanced view than making a simple choice between winning and getting paid the maximum he can negotiate. Again quite simply Peters wants to BOTH win the game and get paid enormous (rather than just the huge sum he will be paid for playing this boys game) bucks.

 

Is he committed to winning the game with no regard to his salary? Nope.

 

Is he so committed to getting bucks he cares nothing about his teammates, the fans, or his teammates. Nope to that idea also.

Right now is the time when our rookie offensive coordinator is installing a new offense, presumably with altered terminology and a different playbook. This is when Peters' teammates are learning that system, together. He should be there. He should be there working out the rust from his injury, he should be there further familiarizing himself with Derrick Dockery, he should be getting ready for the season.

 

A team with serious expectations is implementing a new offense...and Peters has decided to be absent. You can't tell me he is committed to winning.

 

He has consciously and deliberately accepted a potential hit to his performance this season for a mere hope at getting more money. He's sacrificed at least some small part of the team's potential to win, for his own selfish financial reasons. In his mind, money is clearly first, and winning a distant second.

 

He will never get back the time at camp he missed. This team will never have the same exact chance at success as they would have if Peters had reported on time. In my humble opinion, no player who holds money and winning as equal priorities would begin negotiations by making that sacrifice.

 

I understand he's young, a top player at his position, and its the perfect time in his career to cash in. But sacrificing some small part of the team's potential for the upcoming season isn't the way to go about it. He could have shown up to camp on time, and thus begun the learning curve of the new offense, the process of shaking off the rust after offseason surgery, and continued the ongoing process of building chemistry with his linemates...all right on time. And while at camp, he could have negotiated a new contract behind closed doors.

 

In this league, you earn money by working and constantly showing your worth, not by pouting in the corner while you're supposed to be getting ready for the season. He has his work cut out for him to show he's a player that is committed to winning, and therefore worthy of a big contract in this league. Its going to take some time, and the clock is ticking.

 

And he's still sitting on his couch.