TimGraham

According to the Bills' depth chart from the game notes they give the media, Mitchell was the SLB, Posluszny was the MLB and Ellison was the WLB. On a game-by-game basis, the Bills designated Mitchell as the following on a game-by-game basis: LB for Week 1, SLB for Weeks 2 through 8, the generic "Played" for Week 9 (didn't start), SLB for Week 10, ROLB for Weeks 11 through 14 and SLB for the last two games.

You would have been at Marietta when Terry Mulholland was there, right?

I didn't have any feelings for this computer like I have my previous ones. Reliability wasn't a strong suit. It's the computer that crashed my last night at the Buffalo News in the HSBC Arena press box, preventing me from writing my farewell story. The Jets will settle up with Washington for sure. Maybe Jones, too.

Great baseball program down there, though. I went to B-W from 1989-93. Our football team was good back then, right before the Mount Union dynasty kicked into full gear.

They will seriously look ... http://myespn.go.com/blogs/afceast/0-8-44/...Tinoisomoa.html

Thanks! I love KC Joyner's work. I find it fascinating, and it feeds my stat needs. Sorry, but I don't have Hangartner's POA numbers. KC provided only the AFC East breakdown.

Sorry I haven't been around. Had a computer meltdown on Friday and had to buy a new laptop. Luckily, I was able to save my files through safe mode before the hard drive turned to cinders.

With much thanks to KC Joyner, I will have a breakdown of all four AFC East teams using his run-blocking analysis. Some interesting stuff.

There's no rule of thumb early in free agency or later. It's whatever the team and the player feel most comfortable with.

The Bills haven't signed him as far as I know. I'm guessing the tekkie that made that feature gleaned the names from John Clayton's story. John mentioned Jones as a possibility for the Bills, and the poll creator probably didn't look closely enough. http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/stor...&id=4148617

Levi Jones has said he would like to play for his hometown team, but the Cardinals don't appear to be on the long list of possibilities. Derrick Brooks is a mystery. He might be in the same situation as Rodney Harrison: Which came first the retirement or the lack of interest? But I do know Brooks has thrown himself into a variety of charity endeavors recently. Is he gearing up for life after football?

I'm hearing the Bills and Lions are the best bets.

Nothing brewing at all.

I have not heard Brian Waters' name linked to the Bills in my travels. The Bills will be paying attention to Levi Jones' situation. Levi Jones knows the Bills might be interested, too.

Developing angst and disdain during a contract dispute is common in sports. If Jackson signs a deal that makes him happy, all of the negotiations will be forgotten. But this can turn ugly for Jackson to the point he signs his tender and starts counting the days to free agency. But keeping a player happy comes in degrees and costs. For instance, the Bills making Jason Peters happy is much different than making Fred Jackson happy or Jon Corto happy.

I would be shocked. If the Bills don't make him an offer he's satisfied with, he'll likely sign the one-year tender and try his luck as a restricted free agent next year.

I'd add Rashad to your list. He's probably more recognizable among NBA fans these days than NFL fans.

I like to measure it on the idea of how recognizable the person would be in, say, Des Moines. But how about this measure for how well-known somebody is? The number of papers around the country that would run his full-length obituary. That's a measure of how a person's life has resonated and made an impact in people's lives outside of the place where he played. Scott Norwood would be a two-paragraph brief everywhere outside of Western New York. I still have to go with O.J., Jack Kemp and Doug Flutie as clear Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Not even close in my mind. Doug Flutie has been a household name since the 1980s. As for Al Cowlings being repeated on the list, he was involved in an infamous moment, but I think the White Bronco was the star of that scene. Few people even know what Cowlings looks like.

Jack Kemp ran for president and was the 1996 vice presidential nominee. I don't think Kelly was ever that big.

This is a fun idea ... I would move Rashad way up (maybe to No. 4) and drop Cowlings a few spots. I don't know how many people would recognize Al Cowlings if they saw him. People would know Rashad in New York City, Los Angeles or Chicago. Tom Flores I can see. He was a Super Bowl-winning coach, known on both coasts. As for the other list, I don't think you can count Dean Cain. He went to camp, but he's not an official Bills alumnus because he never made a regular-season roster. What about Conrad Dobler? Monty Brown?

Scouts I have spoken to don't like his footwork on the left side. He has great arm length to fend off pass rushers, but they think over the course of the season, the good ones will blow past him. Glad you're able to comment now. I have no jurisdiction over that part of the site, so I would be clueless on trying to help. I look forward to seeing your comments over there.

As far as the Bills are concerned, they already have him locked up. Jackson can't sign with anybody else, so he really has no choice but to sign or sit out a year until he becomes a restricted free agent. That said, it would be better for both sides if Jackson signed a contract he was happy with.

About 95 percent of what I write comes from me. We have a ton of freedom at ESPN.com. We do have assignments on occasion. For instance, over draft weekend we had two obligations we had to meet, one on Saturday night to look at the top couple picks and another on Sunday night to wrap up the whole thing. Aside from that, I write whatever I want. I think there were about 20-25 posts on my blog that weekend. The Maybin story came about because every week the bloggers are expected to produce one column-length blog. It gives us a chance to write something of substance as opposed to an endless string of four-paragraph blogs. I generally write long anyway. I probably write five or six column-length blogs a week, so my readers wouldn't notice a difference, but some other bloggers have a different style, and their column-length items stand out as something extra special. Maybin was supposed to be my column last week. NFC North blogger Keven Seifert and I usually run our columns on Tuesdays, but mine got pushed back because we were backed up with material from the draft. I thought to write about Maybin because I was in Buffalo for the draft and had an interview with Lavar Arrington (who was at One Bills Drive) in my back pocket, but so did every other reporter at the draft. To make my story different than the other Arrington stories you would have read on Tuesday, I took a couple extra steps and called Maybin's father and got Maybin on the phone Friday for a followup interview. I also put in a request to speak to Joe Paterno, but he doesn't do many phone interviews. I guess if you wanted to see some negativity presented I could have called ... Who? The Ellicott City Police Department to see if he has a juvenile record? The types of stories that upset people usually say a lot more about them than it says about the story. If you see stories like this as mythmaking, then I guess we'll have to wait until a player is in the league for a few years before we can accept him as a good person. Should we not be writing about Michael Oher's inspiring background because he might hold up a liquor store some day? My feature is a snapshot on where Maybin, a 21-year-old kid, is right now in his life and where he comes from. Not a testimony for the legacy he'll leave behind. When I write about Marshawn Lynch or Donte Whitner, I'm a hater. When I write a story about a kid who up until this point in his life has handled himself with class, I'm a mythmaker or a shill. I hope people who regularly stop by this thread or read the comments at the bottom of my blogs understand how frustrating it is to be asked to defend my work, a trend that has heated up over the past couple weeks. Consider this the last time I do that. If you want to ask questions about the roster or trades, fine. But from now on I'm probably going to be ignoring a lot of questions and comments, too.

Thanks for the kind words on the Maybin piece, Lone Wolf. They seem like genuinely classy people. They're easy to like.

I've written a few times that there would be interest if the Bengals cut him, but I doubt they were banking on that when they traded Peters. What made Levi Jones expendable was that the Bengals drafted a tackle in the first round. If they had gone a different direction, then Jones wouldn't be available.