DazedandConfused

How do you think his hold out and selfish attitude affect the team? I don't think it actually was a big problem for us. It impacted Peters' play a significant amount from what I saw as his play went down from a level which actually did deserve his first Pro Bowl nod for the 07 season to far below stellar play at the start of the 08 season. The really good news is that this had zero impact on the all important W/L stat as his very slow start while he played himself into shape and reinforced the chemistry of the OLhappened to coincide with the Bills facing relative weak opponents and OL problems did not cause nary a one L in the first four games because there were no losses. Thus in terms of Peters self-centered actions having their greatest impact there was no real effect on the team's results. Did his relatively poor play extend into the season beyond game 4 where one can detect the impact on the team's play which you are talking about? Maybe as I have not taken the time to do the analysis of the actual games to determine this and I would be overjoyed to see an in depth analysis of these games (rather than simple fact-free opinion that Peters sucked and blew up the team as all indications are that this analysis will not really indict Peters' play as a cause of any problems. 1. Peters did seem to improve in my judgment as the season wore on and he played himself into game shape and built chemistry with an increasingly fluid in terms of starters Bills OL. This seems confirmed by Peters clearly not deserving a Pro Bowl nod from his early season performances, but it was late and clearly the second half of the season which saw a resurgence of the old Peters. 2. The statistical analysis of who gave up sacks also show Peters giving up the vast majority of his dozen or so sacks early in the season which mostly saw the Bills winning so arguments that his selfishness had an on field effect would seem to be false. 3. One might fall back given that neither the team or personal stats seem to hold up the contention that Peters somehow hurt the team by giving a fact-free opinion that his emphasis on contract over the team's W/L was divisive and earned him the disapproval of his teammates. In fact , I heard nothing of this splitting the team and saw no sense thet the players were lobbying him to cave to the Bills. In fact, my guess is that the players do not view this as either go for the team or go for the player contract demands. In fact they want both things to happen, In fact if push comes to shove and there is no deal, my guess is that the players favored an outcome similar to what happened the player neither caves and the player does not miss any actual games.

The problem is that the Bills have been a successful business (which I define as maximizing profits for the stakeholders - aka Ralph) through a number of factors: 1. Small acquisition cost (Ralph was smart enough to buy in early and through successful decision-making through the days as the AFL and through his other business interests doing well enough he was able to buy and hold. The several 10s of thousands he spent to acquire the Bills and build the franchise slowly into a going concern was real money back in the day but clearly was doable and by buying and holding it is a substantial asset today and the closest thing going to a printing press at the mint for making money with little risk and almost by auto-pilot since the modern CBA forged a partnership between the owners and the workers. 2. Collaborative business practices beats out good ol American individualism for the economic approach of the NFL. The best thing that happened to this as a money0making enterprise was that the owners beat the NFLPA so badly with the mid-80s lockout, that the NFLPA could no longer fight the owners and a bunch of smart NYC lawyers talked the players into threatening to decertify the union unless the owners agreed to a CBA. The owners when confronted with participating in a true free market (where they would have to negotiate personal services contracts with every athlete they hired, virtually any collaboration between individual owners would have been judged price fixing and trade could not be restrained as it was by agreement with the NFLPA to hold a draft of players and ban adults from signing contracts until their college class had graduated, and other things) and ran kicking and screaming to reach an agreement with the players which actually delivered far more money to the players than they would have gotten under the "radical" 52% of the gross proposal pushed by the NFLPA under Ed Garvey. I think an irony in this was that the NFL had pulled off a neat trick compared to other major leagues like MLB and hockey where other parties (including guvmint with the many state schools in the NCAA) bore virtually all the costs of player development and assessment. The NFL simply cherry picked the results in a massive restraint of free trade known as the draft. The irony is that rather than buying young athletes when they were teenagers like baseball and hockey, they did not get them until they were educated adults. Many of these athletes were still pliable idiots as adults and the NFL quickly brought them into line or simply used them and disposed of them if they were real morons. However, they also seeded these athletes with a talented tenth or so of players like Gene Upshaw and Troy Vincent who were bright enough to understand the utility of threatening to decertify. Once the heavily testostroned men who made up the players were so badly shell-shocked and beaten when they tried to go mano a mano with the owners, they were able to swoop in and sell the lawyers ideas and force the CBA on the owners. Ralph is part of the old guard that seems to often treat the NFL as their personal play thing where they proved their manhood by fleecing a bunch of dumb kid athletes. However, Ralph is most of all a businessman and he too could see that the labor peace allowed them to provide a product to the networks which they could sell ads to beer and car companies. Ultimately (though over Ralph and the Bengals being the sole objectors) the owners agreed to the current CBA which got rid of the transitional approach of a designated gross to provide the NFLPA with 60.5% of the total gross. A real man would have held out for more than a minority share, but given that 1/32nd of 39.5% of the total gross was demonstrably tons more money than any individual owner would get if they did business the good ol American way, like our country which is turning toward socialism by nationalizing major industries when the good old Golden Rule ran business into the ground (he who has the most gold rules) the team owners were forced to collaborate and are making money hand over fist for doing so. What this means in the Peters case is that though it is sound business practice to simply force Peters to live up to the contract this adult agreed to. In the big picture this is a lot more than a mere business and the Bills quite likely will generate higher cash returns by maintaining good feelings and peace with their players and by taking risks to go for it for the fans by getting as close to the salary cap as they can to acquire talent. The Bills have been a great business over the past decade, but the problem is they have zero playoff berths to show for it. Maybe us rubes will keep on shelling out the bucks for a loser until Ralph dies and the team is sold and moves. Maybe the decade of failure has nothing to do with the Bills never going into hock to get the best players or rack up non salary cap controlled costs like paying for a Parcells instead of a Jauron. However, if this business wants to merely be a good business then simply screw Peters to the extent the rules allow. However, if they want to be a good football team in addition to being a good business then they will quite likely have to make payments to players which get closer to the limits of the salary cap and acquire and maintain solid relationships with 2 time Pro Bowl players even if the player is an idiot, The Bills appear to be tending toward an emphasis on being a winning football team as seen in the acquisition of bad boy and quite frankly self-centered idiot like TO. My guess is that Ralph wants an SB before he dies. They likely will show Peters the money. He may be a self-centered fool, but he is a fool who did well enough to make the Pro Bowl as a youngster twice, The Bills have few options for getting an accomplished player to replace or be trained up as a replacement for Peters, Going with a first round draft choice (or even two) for Peters would likely get a player whom the Bills would be lucky is he started at all his rookie year and simply would provide value for the Bills after Ralph may be dead. Warts and all my guess is that they sign Peters before camp starts (but likely after the draft as nailing him down before had merely gives info to the enemy).

Personally, I think Peters is a jerk. But this conclusion ends up as a so what for me because: A. I don't know Peters personally and have no personal interaction with this fellow who appears to be a jerk so what I think of him personally is fairly irrelevant. B. I do interact with Peters and the Bills as a wild-eyed fan, but in regards to a dispute between this player who I think is a jerk and this team which I root for whose FO from Ralph on down they appear to be jerks as well. However, choosing whose side am I on based on who I think is a jerk does not get me very far. I think that Peters does have leverage because in the end at worse he will make more money than he has ever made before (and a lot more than he deserves IMHO based on his contribution to society). The Bills however having missed the playoffs for about the decade are flirting with making what has been an obsession for most fans into merely another business. The Bills get little credit from this fan for making a good business decision about LT when overall they stand on the precipice of mismanaging their whole OL set-up just when they happened to get TO to team with Evans to give Edwards some powerful offensive tools to go with Lynch. It will be even more frustrating for this fan, if they welcome in this revamped O attack (TO appears to be a bigger jerk than any of them but he does put a weapon on the field that makes it very hard for the opponent to make it tough for the Bills by lining up 7 or 8 in the box and dting Evans) and trot out an OL which needs a new LG, a new C, and has a Pro bowl LT who is unhappy with his salary while we are sitting there with a lot of cap room. To me the key question for this team is that given the Bills OL last year Peters, Walker, Dockery, Butler, Fowler/Preston what order would you rank them in the play they showed last year (my guess is that most folks would rank them as players in about that order). However, their compensation was roughly in this order Dockery, Walker, Peters, Butler (once he got extended), Fowler. Something should be done here (I think it will this off-season as they will show Peters the money in part due to things playing out in a way that has strengthened Peters case). If nothing is done, it will be further evidence for this fan that the team that I love is merely just a business to the FO.

Thanks for a thoughtful response in keeping this thread going. I think these thoughts are getting to the main point of this dispute which is to find a solution to the quandary you lay out. My sense of why it is actually Peters with the leverage here and our Buffalo Bills who have to get off the dime and make something happen is: For Peters, the downside of no deal occurring is that he has to settle for the "booby" prize of a $4 million annual salary. This is a substantial paper loss in that as a consecutive Pro Bowl participant he is publicly judged by the league to be one of the top LTs in the game (though there are other opinions like the one a couple of posts back that held that Peters is the worst LT in football last year- one wonders why he even pays attention to the NFL when they elect the worst starter at a position to the Pro Bowl). Though not getting this cash is regrettable (I am sure that he is at least miffed over not getting the $11 mil he apparently is asking for or the $8 mill the Bills are offering according to the not always reliable Buffalo Snooze) my sense is that even in the worst case he is crying all the way to the bank. For the Bills though, the potential downside is that if no deal is made to extend Peters they save some bucks with this business decision, but it makes a pretty clear statement that they view the Buffalo Bills as merely a business rather than the obsession that many of us Bills fans have made it. Is there any danger of this whole endeavor alienating the avid fan base? Well apparently not since I am still writing too-lengthy e-mails and a couple of you are still reading them. However, going 0 for the decade in making the playoffs would seem to lay down a real baseline of risk and the simple fact the Bills will not show a 25is Pro Bowl making LT the money begins to confirm the notion this is merely a business.

Its still too early to declare his assessment of the market and work at Peters' direction a done deal yet (it ain't over 'til its over) but given some of the vitriol spewed last year about how stupid Peters and his agent were in how they played this negotiating exercise, I think a rational assessment of the current situation in negotiation is almost all in Peters' favor. I know there is no requirement and I do not expect any hardcore Bills partisan to be rational, but it is no surprise to me that even with the Bills and Peters reported to be about $3 million apart, I think one needs to realize that this is far closer to Peters' outrageous demand of the top OL contract in the market (which is now over $11.5 million a year that Jake Long signed for) than where the Bills started out which is wanting Peters to honor his existing (RT pay scale) contract. The Bills have moved from the $4 mill a year (which by far is the largest paycheck Peters ever saw but that does not seem to matter in the modern NFL where both teams and players seem happy to get every one of our dimes they can) apparently to 8 and given the situation I think its a pretty safe bet that Peters is gonna get a lot more than $8 million a year. Maybe Peters and his agent got to the current position through their intelligent gauging of the market, or through dumb luck, or through getting a couple of things to go their way and they took advantage of these opportunities, but whatever the reason (my guess is opportunism rather than Peters and his posse anticipating just how this would go) I think it takes real blinders not to see the superior negotiating position Peters is in. The 3 big events in this negotiation IMHO were: A. Peters aimed high and stuck to his guns for the most part last off-season- As with most games of chicken (which in essence what last year's juvenile multi-million dollar face off between the Bills and Peters was) no one really won and both sides should count their blessings they survived this dispute to live again. Peters missed camp by holding out until the last minute (the last minute was he crawled back before being docked a game check which would have been serious money. There was a noticeable effect in terms of his performance in the first half of last year as he got off to a slow start. However, this slow start had no real impact on the important stat of W/L as the Bills won despite the initial inconsistent play of Peters. In the more imaginary world of the media (radio and the web being the loudest) Peters was labeled as lousy. However, since the Bills got off to a fast start without Peters hitting the ground running, and many of his teammates rooting for the Bills to set a precedent of caving into player demands, and since Edwards was not killed due to lame LT play both Peters and the Bills escaped his holdout with their lives. B. Peters made the Pro Bowl- This accomplishment really put Peters in the driver's seat. Many Bills fans made leery of the validity of Pro Bowl selection after watching Ruben Brown get in year after year despite having some not very good years sometimes really devalue Pro Bowl picks. However, the critical issue here is market value and whether he deserved it or not Peters scored a big plus by getting voted in by a mixed and balanced opinions of coaches, peers, and fans. One has to give props to Peters for winning this nod as from a marketing/negotiating standpoint this validated his decision to hold out as even with the slow start he still got the nod from this mixed panel. Even for those who want to claim all they care about is play and not popularity, they actually are ignoring play to claim Peters is a bad player as part of his winning this was that his on field performance seemed to this viewer (and is born out by some statistical analysis that looks at which opposing DL player got a sack) improved in the second half of the season probably as he improved from his selfish holdout. C. Dockery was let go- This created a dual advantage for Peters in that this move not only made some cap room for Peters as the Bills cut him rather than pay him a roster bonus, but it also put the Bills in a situation where they already were replacing their starting center and several back-ups on the OL. While some seem to have their panties all up in a wad over Peters not honoring his contract (hello real world are you surprised) it looks really doubtful the Bills will want to replace the majority of their OL in one off-season which they would have to do if they cut Peters. An even greater departure from reality is that some fans are vocal about wanting to trade Peters for draft choices. This is simply a departure from reality in that actual NFL GMs realize that even though the conventional wisdom is a 1st round pick should be a starter (many Bills fans have been fooled by good picks like Nate Clements becoming a star after the Bills traded down to the last third of the 1st round to get him). It does happen a lot that a later pick becomes a starter, but the actual real world occurrence is that its only a little over 50/50 most years for a first round pick to be a starter at the beginning of the next season. Even if the Bills got 2 1st rounders for Peters (could happen but like franchise player Cassel and others a top vet may only bring later round choices in reality) they are likely writing off 09 in terms of OL play as these rookies learn to become vets. When Dockery got cut the cash registers started going off in Peters and his agents head. The bottomline here appears to me that despite the whines of many fans and media types like Ed Kilgore who have instant stories he would not have to work hard to do his job if the Bills stupidly drew a line in the sand, the Bills will likely wait until after the April draft to ink Peters. As the rookie cap is separate from the vet cap who they pick makes little fiscal difference (our decision to do our accounting based on cap to cash may to some extent link rookie contracts to existing contracts but not by a huge amount) and the Bills can roll over and sign Peters when they choose. However, by leaving the situation unclear they also send misinformation to our opponents so outside clarity probably waits until after the draft. However, in the big picture I give my props to Peters and his agent. They appear to have played this well and even in the worse case the Bills ship Peters and he probably really cashes in as his new team would almost certainly want to sign him for his career. Well played Peters.

Because they will happen the focus needs to be not in a fruitless attempt to get a player with no history of injury but in avoiding players who are "injury prone" (which I define as a player losing PT to injuries to different parts of his body 3 times in two seasons) and by having a reasonable plan B for when that player gets injured. Thus, I am more interested not simply in how many games Sheffler missed last year, but in how many he has missed in two years and if it was due to differing injuries. The irony for the Bills is that by my definition, Edwards is actually injury prone having missed PT (a game or more) these last two seasons for a wrist ouchee, a concussion, and a joint issue. This may not be a reason to simply cut him lose, but is clearly a reason to emphasize having a credible plan B. We will see if Fitzpatrick is that. As far as particulars for Sheffler, I think the Bills TE problem is that if we are going to rely heavily on a pass catching TE, I have hopes for Fine but he still in his injury plagued rookie season has not shown me enough yet to make me feel comfortable about him as a plan B.

It makes a difference as an indicator of whether the Bills are taking a longer-term team building approach to this situation or a shorter term dollars and cents based approach to this business. From a business perspective, the past is of course relevant, but the real question is what is the contract we both agreed to and signed and what does it obligate both parties to do. Under this perspective the Bills made several great moves in: 1. attracting UDFA Peters here, 2. in making him a player when he could have jumped ship as a PS player if someone else signed him to play 3. in signing him to a longer term deal at RT $ and then moving him to the LT spot where he played well enough to make the Pro Bowl twice. In this fiscal based view we both agreed to a series of contracts which paid him a ton more than he ever saw at any time in his life and we were smart enough to see that he could be developed into into a player who produced at an even higher level than we paid him. One can reduce the moral equation to simply being one that a player or the team simly must live up to their agreements which they entered freely. However, there is also a legitimate perspective which goes beyond the simple AIG a contract is a contract point of view that also acknowledges: 1. Peters play has far exceeded the admittedly huge $ that we have been nice enough to give him. Hindsight being 20/20, it would have not been unreasonable with the production he has produced for Peters to have been drafted (and in fact drafted quite highly as an OL player rather than as a TE which actually was what got him noticed), nor unreasonable to not only extend his contract but to give him LT $ to play. However, we were smart enough to get Peters for less than that. 2. The Bills are already way ahead of the game having got two years of performance judged worthy by outside observers (who many feel were too charitable in their Peters assessment)of making the Pro Bowl at LT while we paid him RT money. Under a pure fiscal view you are right that his past contracts make no difference. However, here in the real world where these overly proud kids who are worldclass athletes are heavily influenced by their "friends" who point out that if there were a true free market where Peters was compensated each year for the skills he demonstrated the year before and the likelihood of him being similar this year, Peter would deserve and get far higher compensation. The thing is that the NFL is pretty far from being a free market and it does not strike me as unreasonable that Peters is trying to take action to score big bucks while he can. Regrettable? Yep. Unreasonable? Nope.

Dibs, I hope you keep right on posting rants similar to the one which began this thread because though one can pull out and cut and past individual points to make a specific argument, I think that your point about folks being too willing to discard current players for the next designated savior is right on target. The items cut and pasted by billsfreak are almost certainly accurate cuts and pastes, but they strike me as being too focused on the small ball tasks of the individual statements and thus miss the bigger objective you are laying out (I think not seeing the forest because of all the trees is the cliche that describes this approach). In general, I agree with your sense that many of us fans are way too willing in the face of unsatisfactory results over the past decade to want to jump to a conclusion that it would have all been better if we just eliminated a some discrete number of overpaid and/or bad players. Though perhaps this is true in specific cases, it does tend to overlook the fact that 1. It was Ralph who has the ultimate responsibility for hiring the GM to organize this thing and the HC to lead this thing and that if one wants to identify any specific people, the buck stops with the big boss first, second and third. 2. it also glosses over the likelihood that the result even with better players is going to be a trainwreck with TD in charge and is going to mediocre except in the rare season with Jauron in charge. A focus on cutting this player or that player or even shipping out the whole team simply misses the point of who oversaw and created this mess of the past decade.

If he is a weenie and made of such fragile stuff that he lets this effect his play then quite likely he will never be the QB we need to take us deep in the playoffs. If he is a smart player then he lets this roll off his back. My guess is he ignores this until something real happens.

My first move would be to recognize that George Allen used to say, the future is now. This is doubly true for the Bills as we around 0 for a decade in terms of getting to the playoffs and because Ralph ain't getting any younger. If I am the Bills GM, I have no interest whatsoever in trading to get draft choices who at best are 50/50 in real life to even be starters in their first year (though the conventional wisdom driven by our interest in the draft powered by the over-promotion of ESPN and folks doing fantasy leagues is that a first year pick should be a first year starter- generally this is only true of the elite players {which I define as a top 10 pick}). The simple fact in the real world is that getting draft choices in exchange for proven NFL players is almost certainly a loser's strategy on the timeline that should be relevant to the immediate playoff berth seeking Bills and to old man Wilson. Thus, as GM- 1. I use the significant remaining cap room I have to strengthen the OL which has major holes left in it with the failure of Dockery, Fowler, and Preston. Hamgartner to me is a good pick-up but he interests me more as a G or back-up C than the Kent Hull we probably will not get but I long for. In terns of FAs folks like Simmons interest me or Bentley if the Bills docs say is worth the risk. 2. I think that the best move for this team is actually not to use the TE as a receiver. We do not really have two receiving TEs we can count on as #1s to be used as centerpieces in our O (Fine showed some flashes of potential in his injury plagued rookie year, but really needs to produce over a full year before anyone intelligent relies on him). Just as we need to see a full year of Fine before we rely on him, it strikes me as way too risky to figure reaching for a player like Pettigrew (seemingly the best of the TEs in this draft) is a bad strategy as there is a fair likelihood that he will need at least half a season (if we are lucky) and probably a full year+ and he can be counted upon as a starter. I would be more interested in seeing us go with 3 WRs as our base O and reduce the TE need to finding basically a sixth OL player with a primary duty for this team in opening holes for Lynch and keeping Edwards off his butt. Whether this is best done by an FB who primarily is a blocker or a TE who primarily is a blocker I am open for. If we insist on using the TE as a receiving threat I am more interested in trading the crapshoot of draft choices to get Gonzales from KC than I am in drafting a player who may (but probably will not not) be the Pettigrew (he is a good player but TE is simply a very different thing to play as pro than in college- LBs are simply quicker and can cover TEs unlike most college players and pro safeties are simply big hitters rather than failed CBs as they often are in college). Instead of the bad football moves mentioned above in order to give this team a chance to get into the playoffs this year I would A. Leading with the moves mentioned above to move to reinforce the OL. If I see an OL talent I think is a good depth pick later in the draft I get him but generally I do not think the draft is gonna get us a first year starter on OL. B. I am interested in reinforcing us at LB. I think the seemingly renewed interest in Crowell is either the cause of or an effect of us not signing FAs we were looking at like Peterson. I actually think we are sitting on a potential stockpile of LBs with some talents like JD, Ellison, and Bowen, but IMHO none of these players are the difference maker we want at OLB and at best are back-up level players. I do not feel horrendous if an injury to a quality starter (like the one that felled Pos in his rookie year force us to rely on a player like JD, however, I do not feel all that sanguine about things is the best we can do at LB is start JD. C. Depth and competition are always a good thing to have. This is the primary use I would put the draft toward. Those who have seen the players are a far better judge than I am or anyone else whose primary sources of info are websites and magazines. If I was GM I would be aware of what the public thinks because the customer is always right, but for the most part my advice would ignore anything offered on websites such as TSW or other fan advice or ranting. D. Show Peters the money and lock him up as a likely fixture on our OL for years to come. I know folks are pissed at his attitude but to let this stand in the way of us holding onto a LT in today's NFL would be simply childish. Did his production in 08 decline from his production in 07? Yep. Was this decline in some part due to his own greediness for missing pre-season and getting a slow start to the year? Yep. However, the fact remains that his production based on the popularity contest assessment of coaches, his fellow players and fans caused him to be named to the Pro Bowl at LT twice. He has flaws yep, but he also is good and by many judgments very good. he likely in part made the Pro Bowl last year because from the stats kept by how many sacks he was responsible for giving up last year a disproportionate number came in the first half of the season when he was making his too slow start and actually by the end of the season was beginning to look like the previous year Pro Bowler. The Bills made an outstanding choice signing this UDFA who has since made the Pro Bowl and they got him for a fiscal song. The Bills also intelligently extended him at starting RT money and then moved him to LT. The Bills have made out like a bandit on Peters for several years and even by overpaying him now the Bills are still ahead of the game financially. Don't be pigs show him the money. If I were GM this is what I would do.

Kilgore is an idiot if he thinks that the Bills do not already have a clear line in their head about the date they need to settle the deal with Peters on, and that plan does not include several contingencies of what the Bills will do if Peters does not make a deal by that date. He is an even bigger idiot if he thinks it helps the Bills in this negotiation to publicly draw a line in the sand and essentially move this from a negotiation about how many dollars does Peters want and how many dollars are the Bills willing to pay him and instead turn this into some mano a mano pissing match between the juvenile athlete Peters and the corporate monolith known as the Bills. In this negotiation, the status quo is on the Bills side as they like the current contract and pressure to change it is all on Peters side because he wants a new deal. What Kilgore is advocating is that the Bills blink in this staring match and instead hand the initiative to Peters. My guess is that Kilgore is advocating this because such a public announcement though likely counterproductive to the Bills negotiating a deal with an employee would be great for WGRZ and the newsmedia as the would get to fill air time and column inches with a ticking timebomb clock for Peters to make a deal. Perhaps he knows something about the negotiations which would give the Bills tactical advantage in getting a deal done, but far more likely is that Kilgore is playing to the sissies in the fanbase who have their panties all up in a wad about needing certainty and it is really these weak in the knees folks who would need some type of artificial deadline. The call for some line in the sand really would be a weenie move on the Bills part if they caved into this temptation.

I did take the time to read the article and actually went back and looked at the original PFT article on T.O and you are right I felt that both really sort of proved the points I was making: 1. Florio does not hold to what seems like a reasonable traditional standard for journalism To me this standard is to quote statements for the two (or more actually as most complex stories really have more than 2 sides and traditional journalism utterly fails the reader as it almost always tries to boil things down to two and only two sides) sides of a dispute. The article makes a flat out contention that Hardy may have been T.O.'s first victim and then fails to quote Hardy feeling victimized, T.O. slamming Hardy (though Florio himself tries to interpret quotes for TO as "translating" into flat statements that he is not gonna pay Hardy but on the face of it this is not what T.O. is maintaining with specific words so Florio has to translate it for us) and fails to quote any third party (like the Bills organization or even other players) about this issue. In fact, it would seem that if Florio merely worked a little harder, he MIGHT actually get into what can actually be a real issue here that the Bills organization seems to have taken Hardy's # away from him and given it to T.O. Who set-up the TO locker and made up a T.O. Bills jersey with #81. Was it Brandon who ordered this? What does this say about how the Bills value and treat any of their players. Florio simply seems to fail to ask the Bills what gives and what are they doing. The quote he does have from T.O. says nothing about any victimization effort by T.O. of Hardy or even how Hardy feels about these actual events, but the quote from T.O. would totally support a story that the Bills are behaving in a high-handed manner to one of their young players. Instead Florio hatches a conclusion to start this article that the reign of idiocy by TO has begun when he actually committed no act in this. He then translates TOs statements into something that support his original incorrect theory and actually misses what may be an interesting piece of interplay here. He then proceeds to go further off into la-la land hinting at a likely future even though his own article shows the base premise not to be true. 2. My second point was that Florio is a hack. Actually his reportage on the Vick matter shows what Florio can do when he is covering a real story which has complicate aspects in his area of legal knowledge. He is a hack in that he seems to want to blow up the relative trivia of jersey #s into some galactic case as though it were as big of an issue as Vick/dogfighting. Florio's work on the jersey issue comes off as really incorrectly informed trivia and simply pales next to revealing real facts about real issues in the Vick case. He is a hack because he has covered both and should know the difference and reflect that in his wrtiting. His work on this TO issue comes off more like his earlier ill-informed Bradshaw work than like his good apparently Vick work. The fortunate thing is that the jersey stuff is so trivial compared to printing incorrectly someone is dead that Florio and likely other hyperventilating articles about TO will be ignored to a greater extent.

I love this ProFeetsballSmack column because it establishes exhibit one in what may well be many overblown and overhyped TO stories about him being a cancer in the lockerroom and how likely regardless of how he is performing on the field (this is the real measure) from blogs to WGResque radio, to columnists like Sully, folks are gonna attempt to make nickels by selling ad space by filling column inches, air time and the blogosphere with ramblings based on conjecture rather than serious issues. If Hardy publicly says he is pissed or miffed or if Hardy tells two sources who confirm to a reporter than he is pissed/miffed then this is news. This column is not news its just blather unless Florio actually chooses to do a little reporting on this. An earlier post referred to him as well-respected. By who, as his Mom really does not count for labeling him well-respected. If Florio did some actual reporting and was diligent or good enough to get actual quotes or diligent or good enough to an outside source and a confirmation by another outside source then he would be respected. Merely making a bunch of guesses based on conjecture and then pointing to the several guesses that proved to be correct really only gets you the respect of folks who are not watching. Florio has provided piece of evidence #1 that the media is simply not to be believed unless they do some solid reporting and that stories like this one should simply be ignored for the most part.

The problem for us at TE is that we (Schonert/Fairchild and DJ bear the responsibility for this IMHO) never have established how we are going to utilize this player in our O. There are working models where your pass catcher is a stud who is a primary option in the passing game (Gonzo in KC for example) and there is another extreme such as the one historically (its been a bit different for them with McMichael but this silk purse looks more like a sows ear in this WR/RB oriented offense) the Rams would get maybe one or two catches from the TE position. This player was in essentially as a 6th OL player giving the long pass plays in the Greatest Show on Earth time to develop. It makes sense with the foul weather here not to invest totally in a pass-happy O, and in theory the TE could be prominently used as a check down guy to pass in bad weather and as another blocker during Beastmode. However, the Bills O never really established use of the TE as a consistent check down option, nor did they commit to 4 yards and a cloud of astroturf as our offensive style. Instead they would send Royal way downfield from time to time as we sort of pretended the TE was a feature in our passing attack when in actuality the TE was a poorly used distraction the way our O tried to work. We are confronted with a system where Royal simply has not shown the skills to be a consistent downfield threat nor is the position used as a go-fixture as a checkdown. I think neither Schouman nor Fine (nor Royal if we had kept him) have shown the talent to be a solid downfield threat or play the role as a solid blocker when asked. Folks seem to be all hot for Pettigrew as the next savior. However, this view seems to forget that TE as played in the Pro game is really a hybrid position that it is gonna take any rookie a year or two likely before he really can contribute a lot to the team. They also seem to forget that in this rugged game what happened last year to Fine of him suffering an injury that really cost him half a season does not happen to everyone but it happens enough a team needs to have a plan B. The idea that we are going to count on Pettigrew to be a big contributor this year it may happen but we likely are in for a rude awakening, Then if Pettigrew has a normal learning curve for a player, do we then expect Fine or Schouman to play some pivotal role? I doubt it. What's my solution? We are way deep at WR right now I would go three WRs as our base O and exchange the TE for another WR and 2 RBs. Its tough for us as we do not have the quality or depth at FB for much 2 RB work. If we have to make the TE situation work, It would be far more likely to see us get Gonzo who wants out of KC and then pick up another TE late or try to train Fine Schoman to make it work rather than simply go with the noting we got and then try to replace nothing with a rookie player who really likely will need to learn to become a pro.

The facts of the situation strike me as this: 1. In order to become a cancer dividing the team anybody be it TO or whomever needs to likely play for a team for a year building friendships and winning the hearts and minds of fans. Even if he wanted to it is incredibly difficult to see how any player is gonna divide the team under his 1 year deal. 2. Its a situation where everybody and his grandma are fully aware of the TO antics and like it or not these are to some extent an everyone from other team leaders, coaches, and the media are on the lookout for any antics. 3. All signs (besides his agent Rosenhaus) point to this being a buyers market for TO's services with several seemingly credible reports that we were the only serious suitor. At any rate, TO needs BOTH a solid year (he is older and in decline but even in decline he gained over a 1000 yards and scored at least 10 TDs in each of the last three seasons) and also need to not be judged a troublemaker. If TO fails in either task he runs a serious risk of at best being able to get an NFL contract for the vet minimum with incentives and if the Bills do something like cut him he would likely lose the NFL meal ticket forever. The Bills have the ability to not go after him or even cut him and all signs point to them even having retained the ability to tag him if he is so great we want him back. Idiocy can happen anywhere and actually seems to have the keys to TO's house, but really the chances of him being anything worse than a mistake we can quite easily walk away from seem pretty small.

You are right that Evans has not demonstrated that he is great (yet Bills fans hope) and Peerless both 1.0 ad 2,0 were not great receivers (if you want to make the case 1.0 was a great player then I will look for Arthur Blank who paid him a bunch of ATL money (and traded a first for this privilege) so you can talk about how great PP is. The facts are that with pro bowl quality receiver on the other side PP made 94 catches. Is TO Pro Bow, quality? Not any more in my judgment, but he is coming off of three seasons in a row with 1000+ yards and 10 TDs or better. Even a TO in decline is such an upgrade over PP 2.0, Reed or Hardy that it is not unreasonable to look for even a not-great Evans to have a far better year than he has ever had and to be teamed with TO helps both. This also in my mind is why you have Parrish man the #3 WR position because his proven speed and open field running ability from his extremely good PR work would reak havoc with the opposing DCs stategizing as he figures out how to defend against the Bills passing attack. This would eliminate the possibility of dting both Evans and TO. The team may roll the coverage to one side or the other in sort of a pseudo over and under DT, but the reads by Edwards and the WRs will be to figure out which way they are rolling and go for hook to the other side if the DB is backpedaling or the double pump and fly if the CB covers him tight, In 3 WR sets with Parrish as the slot guy, the opposing DC needs to decide whether to put his fastest DB on Parrish or Evans as well as deciding who to dt. Again Edwards needs to read who is singled and who has a mismatch and make the throw. In general, I think most teams zone against 3 Bills WR and this does several things: A. Creates space for Lynch who is rarely brought down by the first tackle to run. B. We run more empty backfield 4 WR sets with Reed now getting to replay his rookie year when the work of Moulds/Price allowed him to pick on LBs and slow DBs except this time it will be even easier for him. C. Keeps Edwards off his butt as when 5 defenders drop back into a zone this means it is 6 remaining defenders on 6 or 7 Bills as the other team tries to rush Edwards. I think that the major statement from the AFC east opponents was that BB went out and signed Springs right away.

Which is exactly what give the Bills power in this situation and leaves the bizarre mind of TO no realistic alternative but to be a boyscout next year in order to extort one more contract out of the NFL when he hits FA next year. Its not a good bet that TO will do anything logical, but this meal ticket for Rosenhaus and his hangers on will do everything they can to get TO over the finish line and into FA without a meltdown that virtually guaranteed no one will sign him even at the vet minimum with incentives. The Bills appear (none of us knows the contract) to be in a position where if they choose to they can even cut TO with no future cap impact and we have enough room in the cap this year to absorb the $6.5 mill hit and still have room to buy some more. If TO sets the world on fire in 09 (doubtful as is clearly in decline) the Bills (unless they gave up the right) could even tag him if he is great (again doubtful but nice to have options). The big news here for the Bills is that we now have a second WR who has racked up over 1000 yds and had 10+ TDs the last three seasons and even in decline far outpaces the #s of Hardy, Reed, Peerless or other #2s we had, I am overjoyed this seems to be TOs last shot and if he goes bizarro cut his butt and all it costs us is a cap hit we can easily afford.

Yeah and with the 4th pick we get someone of Mike Williams quality. The desire of some folks to trade proven vet performers for draft crapshoot players is quite incredible.

It seems to me all the doubts here are woulda coulda shoulda maybes about him melting down splitting the locker room and being a player in decline. To me the 1 year deal actually minimizes a lot of these negatives as worse comes to worse you walk away or cut the idiot at no future cap cost and a cap cost this year easily dealt with. I think he will meltdown but probably not until next year. I do not think he will split the lockeroom or the fanbase as it is going to take him at least a year to build any friendships and loyalty. I agree he is in decline but the sad thing is that even in decline he way better than any number #2 WR we have or can have on this roster. If the worse case is he is a stud and we need to decide whether to tag him next off-season this will be a nice problem to have. TO does not fill many gaps the Bills have or could improve but his cap level allows us to do this and his presence should attract players who want to win. Life is not guaranteed but I see no issues here that cannot be handled by 1 year deal.

Any player can be had for the right price (for example the Vikes gave the Boys a leg up on multiple championships for Herschel Walker). Even though a trade may be generally a bad idea if some fools want to give up too much for someone that is fine. Did Clayton at least have theory what we would get or is his usual fact-free opinion.

I am in the camp that the quicker the Bills can get away from worrying about the TE as a pass catcher the better. I think clearly after we finally got a #2 WR with the on field output that TO has had the last three years, the model for the Bills to follow is an east-coast version of the WR pass-happy Rams. The foul winter weather here and the outdoor stadium force the team to be able to run the ball a lot, but just as St L routinely had a TE with one or two receptions so too should the Bills use the TE as an additional blocker to give Edwards the time to check down from Evans to Owens to Parrish to Reed (with Johnson competing and stirring the pot) and not get our panties all up in a wad thinking that a rookie is definitely going to be a savior for this team. If we are really gonna use the TE a lot then the deal should be to get a proven commodity like a Gonzo rather than a rookie who is 50/50 to even be a starter in his first year and may take a couple before he learns the pro game and then one day becomes a star. Even worse, it TE is gonna be so important then we need 2 as a Plan B is critical in todays NFL.

There are such a significant number of stupid posts on TSW that often sarcasm is lost on us simpletons. if you are going to be sarcastic you have to raise your hand and wave it or risk being taken seriously on TSW.

No need to close the thread because the original post was not very well presented or thought out (more reverses as a mainstay of the offense? overuse of reverses is one of the reasons the current offense needs to be retooled). Some of us see the advent of TO as a good excuse for us to make the offense more potent and since the stats (Bills ranking well in the lower third of the league consistently in many offensive categories whether under Fairchild or Schoenert) indicate a retooling is essential any excuse will do. The Bills problems are not simply poor schemes (as I said given a far more productive #2 WR even the current schemes we use should work better) but the specific ways the Bills choose to run routes does not seem to get them the separation that one would expect given the blazing speed of players like Evans and Parrish or to produce more from RBs as receivers when the RBs are more productive receivers elsewhere (Lynch in college and even Willis was a more productive pass catcher in Balt than he was here). If the coming of TO gets the Bills to run more slant plays, make more use of pics (I'd rather we get s few more penalties in exchange for a few more touchdowns, and more uses of crossing patterns, this would be a good thing. The primary fallacy of the initial post is that it seems to maintain that because we do not want to force the youngsters to learn something new, we should keep right on doing something that has not been effective in producing receptions, yardage, or TDs. I think you raise a good point in that the question is: Don't you want the O to change? I think most Bills fans do and if TO is the excuse for doing this then so be it.

Some of us only wish that the arrival of Owens will force Turk to install a whole new offensive system since the system we use and have taught to all the youngsters flat out has not been productive. This is the starting point and if you do not agree with this assessment then there is a much more fundamental discussion we should have. As far as changing our approach to utilize a little but significantly to best utilize TO without redoing the whole thing, I think there are a number of things we can do. 1. Run the standard set- One of the problems the Bills have had is that #2 WRs from Peerless to Reed to Hardy have simply not been productive enough to stop other teams from rolling the coverage toward Evans or simply dt'ing him with a cover guy underneath and a fast guy over the top. The cover guy makes the short route difficult for Evans and the fast guy picks him up on fly patterns and closes quickly if Evans beats the short coverage guy. To Evans credit even with dt's he has been able to get some good yardage and be one of the NFL leaders in long TDs the past few years. Owens simply improves the Bills O by forcing the opposing DC to strongly consider rolling the coverage TOs way and/or dedicating his best cover guy to mark TO tightly since a lot of his game is actually turning the short catch into as big gainer or TD with his demonstrated good RAC ability, Even with the standard set TO should give Evans more single coverage and a bit more room to work underneath as the cover guy will not be able to rely as much on deep help if Evans gets away. You do see the simple difference that having a guy who produced 1000 yards+ and at least 10 TDs+ the last three seasons can make for covering Evans don't you. 2. Use our 3 wide and 4 wide sets more- Part of the current Bills playbook is using 3 wide sets (when Parrish is in the slot this is often a 3 wide set) and empty backfield 4 wide sets (we used these more when JP was in but Edwards turned out to be a nifty enough runner that on 3rd and long he also would go with an empty backfield. My sense of the real opportunity for our O to dictate the coverage of the opposing D is for us to use Lynch more as the sole RB (a formation he apparently did well with in college) and for us to get the freakishly speedy Parrish in the slot (I was quite surprised particularly after he got hurt in his first season that Parrish has demonstrated in his brief career that he does not fear going into the middle and can do this some though I would be reluctant due to injury fear to rely on this as our base set with Parrish in the slot). This set-up basically forces the opposing D to nickel and dime up as if oth Evans and TO are commanding a dt, then Parrish gets to go one on one with the opposing teams #5 DB or to the extent they put their nickel guy on Parrish in the slot this means that either Evans or TO gets to pick on a lesser DB who is now dt'ing him. Reed actually stands to benefit most from the pressure Evans and TO put on the opposing D as if he comes in as the #4 WR in an empty backfield set he will get to relive his rookie year when the wideouts were Moulds hitting the century mark in receptions and Price hauling in 94. With this compliment, Reed did quite well as a rookie picking on lesser DBs and even LBs who had to cover him when Moulds' athleticism and Price speed demanded two dts. Reed can not only be used in 4 WR situations to use his good route running to rip them a new one, but he also can compete with Parrish to be the #3 WR using his RB trained talents to break tackles and to be a possession receiver and not be miscast as a speed threat. 3. The other thing that TO brings in a standard set and certainly in use of our 3 wide set is that he spreads the field and gives Lynch more room to run. The 8 in the box days for the D even against a 2 RB set are likely over with the trade up from Price, Hardy, or Reed as the #2. So you are right that going to an end around or some other french pastry to get TO into the game would be stupid. The good news is that even with the standard set and formations we often use today, TO can add a lot to the O. The major issue is the question of what to do IF TO has the meltdowns which have been typical of him. In fact, I think they have been so typical of the question really is WHEN and not if. The good news here is that it is doubtful that he will be able to build the friendships with his teammates and relationship with the fan base to pull this crap in one year. Further, TO has made great advantage of being so good that folks would accept his crap. No more. He is at the end of his career and in decline. He has burned the candle at 3 stops and despite the sales job Rosenhaus did for him he ended up taking a Bills contract with a huge 1 year salary and no bonus which would count against our cap if we cut or traded him. The sad thing for us is that even a TO in decline has put up substantially better numbers than any of our WRs. He helps our O by simply being there to force opposing DCs to give up something to cover him. If he is a jerk then we cut him and we are in the same situation we are in right now. If he actually acts good for a year we are ahead of the game and we can deal with reality when it happens.

Unless we agreed not to, I see no reason why we cannot. We still have a franchise tag to use and I believe no FA next year we would use it on as I think Peters is under contract for several years with his extension and now Evans is done. There certainly is no advantage to the Bills to not have this leverage in the unlikely case TO is so great next year that we do not want to let him go despite his wishes to leave (its a problem we would be very lucky to have as though TO is still a consistent producer he is getting older).