DazedandConfused

This would seem to be an argument that actually is against franchising Greer though since I think there is fairly general agreement among fans (and even from Bills brass who have definitely given up on or reportedly given up on Triplett amd Price who are gone and and Fowler whom Bills Daily says will be cut and Royal whom Bills Daily says may well be cut. Arguing that extending a big contract to Greer is the same as extending risk to 4 players who disappointed big time as Bills would seem to be a good reason not to take the same "minimal" risk with a player who seems at best good but not great in Greer.

The mistake some seem to be making though is that there is an assumption here that a player has one single value which is defined by his level of play where his "worth" in this market (what teams are willing to pay) is different to different teams. It makes little difference what anyone's individual assessment of Greer's value is if he is not worth a commitment of resources by a team a team of a transition competitive contract AND the worth of the player traded to the Bills in some tag and trade scheme. Even if some team judges Greer's static value to be worthy of a transition level contract (a highly questionable issue for a player who suffered a major injury last season and this is before you even get to an assessment of his play) you have to add to that cost the value/worth of the player given up in a trade to get Greer in some tag and trade deal. There simply seems to be no way that Greer will be judged by anyone as worth a major contact AND worth the additional cost of some player traded for him AND worth the risk that this commitment of cash brings with him. Worth and value are simply two different things. Who is worth more Donald Trump or Mother Teresa (if she were alive). Most would say that the answer about their financial worth is clear. Who do you value more Donald Trump or Mother Teresa? Again the answer is clear to most but the results of the answers are totally different.

I think with the NFL cracking down on players who get in trouble with the law character has to be a big issue for anyone building a team. Even if you judge that how a player performs on the field greatly outpaces how he acts off of it, with the NFL forcing players like PacMan, Vick, and Henry off the field due to "character" issues which involve criminality then an intelligent GM needs to be concerned about character. The two big changes in how these issues are treated to me are: 1, The NFLPA clearly recognizes that the interest of the vast majority of its members rests in the goose laying the golden egg reflected in them getting 60.5% of the total receipts (which to me makes them the majority partner in this partnership). Nad character equals bad press and can kill the goose delivering big bucks to NFLPA members. It is no wonder that the NFLPA is tangibly switching from defending all players no matter what at all times to instead assessing each case and being more than willing to let an idiot walk the plank so he does not endanger the NFLPA members nickels. 2. Goodell has said that they need not wait for a conviction to discipline a player. This is a big shift which shows the reality of the NFLPA changing its tune and a recognition that an NFL contract is not a right its a privilege. Sure on the field performance is the only thing or even the key. Yep and go out and sign Michael Vick if you believe that.

However, I agree with you Lynch is stupid, Its fine with me to get rid of him as long as we replace him at a reasonable cost (or a benefit) with an RB capable of making the Pro Bowl and being a great tandem with a find like Jackson. However, I also realize that folks who want to jettison this idiot when I suspect he will beat this rap like he beat running over a woman on Chippewa are not emphasizing appropriately for those who care about how the Bills perform that sticking with him as long as he beats the rap until and unless we get appropriate value for him is just dumb. It would not surprise me if the cops were in black. Hello Bueller, black folks can misuse their power and be prejudiced as well as some white folk can. Do you think that if the officers were black they are somehow immune to being prejudice or making false conclusions even though they pledge to uphold the law. If so, take note that some of officers who shot the black guy minding his own business out for his batchelor party were black. The race of the officer does not make doing wrong right. Asserting their is probable cause in a case where they MIGHT have found none if it was a bunch of young white stupid punks rather than the black stupid punks there were in the Benz would not make this right either. Folks need to get a clue that just because Lynch was wrong here (he certainly appears to be IMHO) does not mean that the cops were right (they might be but do not appear to be from what I have read about the case and from what has happened time and again here in reality where some of us hang out.

It seems to me that both sides which take extreme positions here have somethings right, but though they seem unable to admit it also have significant things they are wrong about as well. Did Lynch break the law and so something stupid? Yep. Were the stupid things that Lynch did reasonable actions in an of themselves but were stupid because he did not take doable steps to avoid violating the law. Yep. Did the Culver City cops apply the law to Lynch that they likely would not applied to others who did not happen to be young black men in a Benz? Difficult to tell to the point of being impossible to prove but one would have to be a fool (be it Lynch or some of the posters who dislike Lynch or his actions are seem to be fools not to realize that young blacks are treated differently in this society than young whites and that these judgments even if based on some real assessment of society as a whole is prejudicial when applied to an individual) to not have a strong sense that the probable cause in this case was Lynch sitting in a Benz being black. Anyone who takes an extreme view on this be it a defense of Lynch that he was railroaded (the fool should have gotten a carry permit if he felt in danger) or an indictment of Lynch (probable cause was found in this case when in tons of cases it would not have been) is simply wrong wrong wrong on this one.

I would favor it based on football play, but oppose it because I do not think the the playoff starved Bills fans and the media like WGR and Sully who make their money out of fueling a QB controversy can deal productively with a QB who is arguably a potential starter on this team. Garcia with a 90 or so rating as a QB and a 2-1 TD/INT ratio would simply be too tempting to be a starter for the Bills when Edwards has a bad game or even two bad games in a row as generally happens to even the good QBs in the NFL. My sense is that the immaturity of a lot of the fan base and mercenary nature of the media would make it impossible to have a back-up here who meets the minimum criteria of a player who would give the Bills a winning shot when he is forced to fill in for the injury prone Edwards (I define injury prone as a player who misses PT 3 times in 2 seasons to different types of injuries). Unfortunately, I think this team is limited to finding a Frank Reich clone to be our back-up (good enough to give you a shot in any game but in no way visualized as the starter or has the temperament to demand that) or it will be a very bad situation.

I find it somewhat amusing that a poster would assert that it heightens the credibility of a post to say that it is from a !@#$ since if the source of info is truly someone well connected with the Bills this person would be operating most serving the Bills interest if they routinely lied to anyone who might spread rumors about what the team really intends to do in order to spread word that fools the enemy. I think that the info given to start this thread actually makes some sense and is pretty well integrated in terms of telling a comprehensive story that it actually smells a lot like a fairly detailed plan someone would put together to spread disinformation rather be a credible description of the truth. The path laid out here seems based on a logical path, but if we have seen anything in how the NFL off-season and particularly the draft works, it ain't logical at all (or more accurately the path is actually determined by how different teams take action based on different logical approaches and rather than our team having one fairly clear path with specific players targeted, the most intelligent way to deal with this is to have not simply a plan A, but also a thought out plan B and plan C to deal with the near certainty that even if you decide to make Haynesworth the richest player in the NFL, some other team which may be the hometown of his dying grandmama may make him a smaller offer that he accepts because he likes being in the other town so he can see his (or his wife's grandmama or whatever. This is all pretend hypothetical thinking because this whole dance is so hypothetical that as far as specific players I am more interested in who we have as our back-up plan Bs and Cs if some other team does something like draft Malauga before we get to him (in fact on this point it seems far fetched as likely the Bills would turn out to be giving up a year of productive play if they decide to make a rookie the MLB in their cover 2. The normal thinking is that it often takes a vet a year or more of play before he does well in a Cover 2 because the reads are so important and the chemistry of players making the same reads is critical to a cover 2. This even more essential for the MLB in a D better described as a Tampa 2 we run, If Malauga was thrown in as our MLB he would not only spend his rookie year learning the Pro game, but also spend it learning how to make the proper read as to whether he should pass cover like a safety or tackle like a DL player. A talented rook will learn this but quite often by making bad mistakes that get him burned. Ironically one of the best things which probably happened to Pos was he got IRed so he got to learn the scheme and the reads from the sideline without the distraction for his learning of having to play well. Drafting a rookie to be our MLB would seem mostly to be a declaration of surrender by this team as his learning curve could easily cost us a game or three. The explanation and the detail provided makes me think that the perspectives presented are interesting but if truly told to him by a !@#$ are likely disinformation designed to fool outside observers.

The actual wording of the second amendment is right on point here since I am certain that Lynch's actions were part of his being in a well regulated militia.

I also would give up on getting a serviceable FB (we have not had one sense arguably Sam Gash but actually I would say since TD cut Larry Centers in a seeming warning shot to GW to stay out of TDs realm when GW announced publicly that Centers would remain a Bill as long as he wanted to and within days TD cut Centers and signed Gash. This whole thing struck me as rediculous since TD shouldn't had to sent such a warning shot as though GW was going to pull a Bill Cowher on TD). At any rate, I think the base Bill O look should be a 3WR set using Parrish as the slot guy. Parrish is a bit small for this role but has demonstrated time and again he does have the moxy to go over the middle when asked to do this. In order to truly go with 3 WRs the Bills will need to do a couple of doable things. 1. Acquire another quality WR this off-season either in the draft or in FA. Evans and Parrish have tons of speed. Its way too early to give up on Hardy and deem him a bust (you cannot teach tall and he should be useful in the redzone in any case and the braintrus needs to focus on his running good routes) but he did not produce sufficiently his rookie year and more competition would be good. Jackson on the other hand did have an impressive once he forced himself into the line-up and while not Hardy big he is a tall guy. Reed is a serviceable #3 and I would love to employ him as a #4 when we go empty backfield from our 3 WR base. 2. Make even better use of Pro Bowler Lynch and the surprising RB Jackson to make this squad an east coast version of the pass-happy Rams O. Sure it is a snowy place, but we have the RBs to run when we need to and if we acquire or use what we got in an H-Back role we can even load up without and FB when we have to. No one will ever mistake our RBs for Marshall Faulk but we should be able to make this work.

I think the key to understanding the fact that JP did not win the starting job through competition is that JP himself publicly said this was the case. He was quoted at the time saying that he had not gotten the starter's job the "right" way but he would do the best he could to actually earn and deserve the job. Unfortunately he did not prove capable as a player of doing this. Again, I think that IF he were going to change and improve himself to do this, it likely would not have come through him not getting injured and getting more PT, but through his improving the muscle between his ears to really grasp the Bills (alleged) offensive scheme through him studying the Bills O approach and the Ds reaction to it. More PT is certainly a necessary to a rookie becoming a vet, but it is not sufficient in and of itself. The legit complaint about JP has never been about his athleticism and his ability to make good decisions under pressure (catching one missnapped ball on the bounce in his endzone, scrambling to avoid a sack and still keeping his eyes downfield leading to him completing a pass to the TE for a first down is still one of the best plays I have seen the Bills pull off going back to the Jimbo Days) has not been the problem of this kid schooled behind a turnstyle OL at Tulane. JPs problem is that he never has demonstrated the ability to run set plays like the best of the NFL QBs and to make the pre-snap reads that Edwards has shown an ability to make. Even under Edwards, the results are better but still inadequate. This fans sense is that the problem is that under Fairchild and Schonert, the Bills O has not been designed or implemented well enough to dictate to the opposing D the operation of our O. As best as I can tell we need. 1. Better pass route design which uses the speed of Evans and Parrish to get more separation because opposing defenders are forced to back-off and give them space for fear they will go long. The Bills O seems to be fairly predictable in that opposing CBs can figure from the Bills line-up and opposing DCs can figure out from the bills tendencies at various downs and distances whether this is a play for the CBs to play tight coverage because the dt'ed Evans or they backoff and allow the Bills to complete the pass but they get tackled before they get the 1st down. 2. In addition to better pass route design to get more separation, the Bills should flirt closer to the penalty line for having their O players set picks for each other. Sure we will get called for penalties from time to time, but the benefit of freeing up a WR for a big gain when we do this "illegal" (other teams seem to get away with doing it on us)maneuver and at any rate, opposing DBs will be looking over their shoulders for fear of getting clocked instead on solely focusing on pass protection. i think the Bills routes can get much closer to the line and still be good to go. 3. Under neither Fairchild nor the Turk have we effectively used the RBs as receivers. This was particularly dissappointing under Fairchild as he had been schooled for the OC job under Martz running the Rams O which made tremendous use of Marshall Faulk as a receiver. While no one would mistake Lynch for Faulk, he has shown some receiving talent in college which the Bills O has simply not utilized. Even with McGahee under Fairchild in his first year, the Bills would have some success with WM as a receiver early and then simply go away from it if they lost the lead (it was no mistake that WM was far more productive as a receiver soon after leaving the Bills and the Fairchild Noffense). Particularly with Jackson also showing good receiving chops, the Bills O under the Turk should simply make greater and better use of the RBs as receivers. If this happens. they will also be more effective rushers since the opposing D would have to be less aggressive at attacking the OL for fear that the RB is merely faking hitting the hole on a run and might stray out for a screeen. Turk is the professional and has forgotten more than I can remember about running an effective O. However, even this poorly informed fan can see that our pass routes simply do not generate the kind of separation seen classically in the Rams O and produced by the best WRs with a team like AZ. We are still a player a way from having deniable depth at WR, but the speed to Evans, the speed and surprising ability to work over the middle of Parrisn, the height of Hardy and the precision route running of Reed, and even the solid pass protection provided by the OL (as seen in their low sack #s last year) should allow the Bills to do more than they are doing with the pass game

I certainly felt that the "accident" could have been the best thing for JPs development if it had been handled properly. JP's problem had never been his athleticism and something which would have been helped primarily through his taking snaps. JP struck me as having the problem between his ears which my sense is would have been helped most by him sitting in the booth above the field with his ear sewn to the QB coach's mouth learning how he thought and understanding the offense. If anything, TD and the Bills rushed him into the starting job too quickly before even JP publicly said he had earned more PT at QB. In retorspect, IR might have been the best thing for his career that year, but instead he healed quickly enough to unleash those old JP instincts and win the starters job.

I am one fan who has little problem with Edwards play which I would categorize after years of too much football watching (at least according to my wife) I think is quite good for a young QB. He does a vet job at reading defenses, makes quick decisions, has a quick release and a very good pocket sense and is a better runner than most expect. The progression in the QB rating in the stats which start this thread (QB rating is far from a perfect numerical indicator of QB quality but though not perfect and in some cases bad it is the best indicator of QB prowess we got and can be a useful tool taking into account the caveat it ain't perfect) is one I would point to Edwards gaining experience as a QB. I expect even better things from him in his third year if he stays healthy. Yet, this is a big BIG IF. I think an objective definition of a player being injury prone is if he misses a game or more of PT to 3 different types of injuries in two seasons. If one accepts this definition, like it or not Edwards is injury prone. I hope he stays healthy and continues to progress in his development as a player. However, the Bills would simply be playing with fire and foolish to bank on this from a youngster. The Bills need to get a back-up QB who is clearly capable of starting and playing credibly in the NFL. This is certainly possible, but is gonna be a problem as the fan base is so bruised with the mistakes led by Ralph starting with his handshake deal where he incorrectly judged how much Kelly had left (even an outsider like me could see it and I was quite surprised when the Bills did not attempt to draft a QB to grow into the role a year earlier than they stretched to take TC and then were forced to rush him into the starter's role before happy feet was trained out of him (if it ever could be). A series of QB assessment and selection errors which mostly end (if not start) with Ralph signing a big check a QB means the fan base simply does not have the patience one usually needs to develop a QB in the NFL. Even worse media idiots like Sully and the WGR boys make way too much money selling airtime and filling column inches not to fan the QB controversy flame and I think this town is gonna have a tough time being a good situation for any QB. This being said, does this let DJ off the hook? Nope. Even if the blame is ultimately on the players, the buck simply stops at the HC. Jauron is ultimately responsible for training the JP he inherited and for picking Edwards. He cannot escape legitimate blame for 3 mediocre seasons in a row. However, he will escape firing because Ralph shows every sign of hating to pay an HC to go to his son's football games and like it or not he extended DJ. Fans prepare yourselves to root for a DJ led Bills for 09 and probably for 10 as well, Schonert is another question. DJ and Ralph deserve the ultimate blame for picking an OC not ready for primetime. If I had to pick one and only one change it actually would be TS. He ain't goin nowhere either but it is even less likely that changes will be made to DJ or voluntarily to TE, but I think poor development of a system for the player talent he has, poor route development so the WRs get no separation (cheat and run pick plays if you have to like the rest of the NFL) an unimaginative play calling are all legit indictments I can see.

The theory that Lynch leading Pro bowlers in rushing yards mostly because of vanilla D seems to ignore the fact that every rusher in the game was facing a vanilla D. The question of import is not simply how does Lynch in the pro bowl differ from Lynch in the regular season, it is a question of why did Lynch in the Pro Bowl rack up more (or at least equal to the best yardage totals) than the other quality RBs in this game. While a relative handful of carries in one game is way too small a sample to draw galactic conclusions, it does appear legit to me to say that Lynch's top flight performance on Sunday is a pretty clear indicator that rather than being an after thought who merely sleazed into this game due to injury, Lynch really does merit consideration as being among the top 5 RBs in the NFL. His hitting the 1000 yard rushing mark in each of his first two seasons, the episodic evidence of the way he hung in there and pounded for positive critical yardage essentially on his own on one play, and the fact he has shown both rushing and pass catching chops all speak to him being legit. The arguments about whether he is top 5 or top 10 are actually a little silly as the difference between any RB deemed #4 and any RB deemed #7 are likely pretty small in reality and Lynch has given strong and consistent indication after two years of very good performance and a leading RB performance in the Pro Bowl Sunday that he simply is the real deal

Both Nelson and Raji are good players who will add a lot to the teams which pick them (though Nelson seems a bit of a reach for a first day pick). However, the whole premise behind what the Bills seemingly want to get out of their two picks seems a little off. The simple likely occurrence is this: The draft should give the Bills good players (good players tend to get drafted) but outside of the first 10 players taken overall (my definition of an elite player) the draft is crapshoot and a team will be doing extremely well (due to their skill and luck) if even their first round player is a starter for the team at the end of his first season. I know the conventional wisdom is that a 1st round choice should be a virtual immediate starter for a team and certainly should be a starter by the end of his rookie year. However, just because this is the CW does not make it true. The truth is slightly over 50% of first year draftees are starters on the team's depth chart in their second year (this is based on my observations as a longtime NFL watcher and actual statistical analysis of one year a few back of the results of what was generally viewed as a very strong draft class). When one took the time to examine the depth charts at the start of the next year (it would be great if someone took the time to do that for last year's class and I among others would be grateful), I think it was 18 of the 32 players chosen in the first round were starters in their second year. In fact there was a strong bias to these starters being players taken with the first 10 picks (an obvious finding actually as not only are these players demonstrably good, but the teams which tended to have the first 10 picks were weak and had openings. It certainly can happen that a team will strike gold and find a starter taken late in the first (Nate Clements is an example). A team can be extremely good at picking players and find a starter like Pos in the second round or even amazingly pick a starter like Williams on the second day. However, back in the real world of this sport driven by fantasy drafts (isn't all we see or seem but a dream within a dream) the real world consists of not infrequent picks like a Mike Williams (if you think this was an unusual waste of a #4 simply remember that this draft also included Joey Harrington who was a waste of a #3) and that even when your team is good or lucky enough to get a Pos in the 2nd he missed most of his rookie year actually with a broken arm. The draft is a very entertaining thing. Between the advent of fantasy leagues and Mel Kiper figuring it out and theorizing is a whole industry. However, if the expectation or conventional wisdom is that the Bills are going to get a difference maker for next year from their 1st and also their second pick, the simple fact is fat chance. The Bills have actually done an extremely good job drafting under the current regime. When Marv came on board to lead the braintrust and with his leavings which are the current braintrust, they simply have produced outstanding results in the real world as not only have the majority of their first day choices become team starters and leaders but in the first three years which one must wait to accurately judge a player Lynch made the Pro Bowl, McKelvin not only has gotten significant PT at CB but is one of the best KR guys in the NFL and Pos has led the team in tackles. Sure there have been disappointments and arguably busts like McCargo, but even these failures have been directly compensated for by the teams ability to find starters like Williams on the second day. Williams is no great player but again like it or not, the simple fact is he won the starters job on a team which demonstrably improved with him starting from the horrendous 5-11 which "won" them an actual elite pick to a more solid though mediocre 7-9. If the premise behind these picks is the one stated that the Bills are looking for a second rounder to be the difference maker they need, then this is a premise which may work out but almost certainly will not. The Bills it is to be hoped will draft good players who with good coaching and a fair amount of good luck will become not only solid contributors but league leaders for the team (a good example is Eric Moulds who by most measures was a "bust" his first two years but proved to be the best athlete on the team an a legitimate Pro Bowl level player until his mental meltdown when a younger better performing Evans knocked him down in importance to the team's play. It is to be hoped that the Bills get lucky and good with the first pick (having a more consistent pass rush would help immeasurably and Raji might do it though the likelihood is that like Stroud and Williams as a rookie he will do well to simply prove to be adequate). It would be a strike of incredible good fortune to have a second round drafted TE prove to be a vertical threat which allows him to be a difference maker for the Bills (though if this happens, particularly with a first day reach like Nelson it would be downright extraordinary). The thing is not to hope for some silver bullet from the draft, but instead to see the Bills mix and match all the player acquisition and improvement resources available to them (use FA to get a center who can add value to the current line, I have seen different reports of whether Birk is going to be available) (use trade to get Tony Gonzales as we should have done this past season if we want a TE who stands a very good chance of giving us the vertical threat we need right away0 (look for a UDFA to strike gold with as we did with the signing of Peters or Jackson) (develop players already on the roster into quality players who can do even more for us I like Bryan Scott and think he can do even more). The simple truth has been that even with us drafting pretty well the last three years all it has gotten us to is 7-9 and quite frankly with a #11 choice I think that is all we will get out of anything the draft has to offer us for the 2009 season as well. Draft and draft as well as we can but if you are looking for a difference it likely will be FA or even trade that is going to be the more critical element for this team to become a TEAM.

My sense of the classic #2WR that the Bills want Hardy to become in not simply the possession guy we count on to run great routes to turn third and long into a first down but actually a player productive enough and a TD threat that he is good enough to demand a double team often. Reed has become a good player who has reversed the bad case of the droppsies he experienced in his second year. However, no one mistakes Reed for a player who demands a dt even on the third and longs which should be his bread and butter. The classic #2WR we want is a player who makes it very hard to dt Evans. Right now if I am a DC facing the Bills, my attitude is that they are not enough of a threat even to dictate what I do. Instead, I simply ask my CBs to cover both WRs straight-up and I have one of my safeties play centerfield cheating toward Evans side because if he beats my one-on-pne CB coverage he can go to the house. Reed does not scare me at all as #2 because even though he may be good enough to beat my CB doing one on one, their QB needs to get him the ball (if it is Edwards he may do this but it is because he has a quick release and I am happy to give Reed a short pass and try to tackle him cause he will not beat me deep) and he likely will not make me pay for one-on-oning Reed. Schonert has not demonstrated to me at all that he can call good routes or make use of illegal moves teams often do of running pick plays that get them separation deep. Hardy might be a handful because of his height on fade patterns in the endzone, but quite frankly the Bills are unlikely to drive the field except when they get desperate late in the game and tend to let Edwards go abit. They simply are not getting into the redzone much so I will deal with the Hardy difficulty when and if this happens, Reed has demonstrated he has the talent to be a good #3 in his rookie year playing with a great #1 with Pro Bowler Moulds and a very good #2 in the 94 catch Peerless Price. However, Reed failed completely with a bad case of the droppsies when he got a chance to be #2 his second season. He has rebuilt his game to make one confident of him now as a #3, but like it or not he still has not shown the good stuff to be more than an adequate #2 and quite frankly neither has Fairchild or Turk S. demonstrated an ability yet to design routes which give Reed the separation he would need to show off his RB chops even if he was good enough to demand the ball like a very good #2. We need some help at WR.

I draw the same conclusions as you do and clearly say so in deeming their mediocrity as inadequate. I have no problem classifying my views as those of a putz, but recognize that your views draw the same conclusion as the views of a putz.

This view has some truth to it IMHO, because the Bills are inadequate in what the produce from their TE and their FB. However, it heads off into non-reality in my point of view (as our internet rambles often do) because it really overstates the situation by simply declaring the Bills BAD at TE and FB. One can most reasonably make this case at FB where like it or not McIntyre is an NFL journeyman with stops in Philly, NO, Cleveland at least before settling in Buffalo. Make no mistake, he is an NFL quality player who actually has been notable for his ST play during some of his stops. The fact he has be signed by so many teams is a good indicator that he is really an impressive player who numerous GMs have been impressed enough with that they have signed him and tried to develop him on their PS and even a stint in NFL Europe. However, also make no mistake that he has not shown enough production to avoid having the Turk visit him at each stop and have the team wish him well but cut him lose. The fact he has stuck with the Bills does speak to some positive production from him as Lynch for the second time went over 1,000 yds for the season and earned a Pro Bowl nod as an alternate. Hid back-up Jackson was also quite productive at RB. The FB the way the Bills use him is a lead blocker for the RB and it shows a lack of football knowledge to simply declare McIntyre a bad player. However, as the stats also clearly indicate, just cause he ain't bad does not mean that he is good or even adequate. McIntyre failed to prove himself as a reliable short yardage FB hauling the rock or as anything of a receiving threat (we have seen good play receiving the ball in recent years at FB and no watcher would mistake McIntyre as a receiving threat. He ain't a bad player (as shown by his past productivity on ST that even led to him being awarded the ST captaincy in one of his journeyman stops) but his lack of production as a checkdown receiver and as a short yardage FB shows that he is not a good player either. The fact he was utilized much in either role by the OC us almost certainly testimony to him not being good enough to demand the rock and Schonert not being good enough to be able to demand adequate play from the FB or even to have a reliable back-up FB on the roster. Royal actually gets a bad wrap from many on TSW who want to simply label him as a bad player. Again, an intelligent Bills observer recognizes that an important part of the truly outstanding pass protection we delivered in the 07 season and the sporadically good and sporadically bad pass coverage of 08 and also the effective RB work produced in 08 and the pretty good though not great running work in 07 was in part because we used the TE as more of a 6th OL player than as a downfield receiving threat. Royal is a pretty good blocker and this is why he never was a journeyman and stuck with the DeadSkins after they drafted him and why he received some offers as a UFA when he hit the market. Royal in fact has produced career years as a receiver in 07 and again in 08 as Schonert and Fairchild tried to use more of his game as a receiver. He has demonstrated some nice toe-tapping ability and good field awareness on a couple of his TDs for the Bills. However, despite recognition of this events and achievements, Royal is OK at best as a receiver and is not a real threat downfield that any opposing DC needs to worry about and can take care of by simply assigning the LB or whoever has underneath coverage to take Royal out of the game as more than a short yardage threat. He is a pretty good blocker but as a receiver is little more than adequate. Even worse Schonert and Fairchild have never proven able to use him to be more than adequate. They have tried to use both Schoman and Fine as the back-ups and even despite some positive signs as a receiver from Fine once he overcame early injuries, there was no sign of our O using the TE position as a real offensive threat. Royal does not get off the hook for not producing as Turk has shown no indications of using the TE productively. Royal has produced well for the talent he has but his production has not been adequate to the Bills needs and on the question of whether this is Royal or Turks fault the answer is almost certainly both. One only has to look at the game by game stats of last year and see the number of receptions by Royal drop to one or none each game and it becomes clear that for whichever reason the production ain't there. This being said and understood though, it does not strike me as accurate to simply declare Royal and McIntyre bad and to hope that we simply acquire better players and the same O will work. Not likely. Schonert, since he has survived (the lack of O production demonstrated under both Fairchild and Turk really calls into question Jauron's ability to oversre productive OC work as even in his one great 13-3 season with the Bears his offenses were adequate at best and often inadequate) simply needs to run a better O. This uneducated fans prescription would be: A. Stick with a modified WCO as this plays to Edwards strengths at reading Ds and making a quick release B. However, one modification is to make it work with a one RB set and a spread offense to open up the passing attack and give Lynch and Jackson more room and less traffic to run in. it has proven difficult for opponents to bring Lynch down with the first hit and a wider D mandated by a spread offense is going to lessen the ability of the opponent to gang tackle and still allow Lynch/Jackson to operate as checkdown and Marshall Faulk type (and I do mean type as Lynch is a good receiver though he should not be burdened with comparisons to Faulk he cannot match even if he is good). C. The OL is well paid and IMHO has some talented players. I would sacrifice the TE to go with more 3 WR sets and dictate to the D they play a wider D rather than clog the middle which thankfully Lynch showed the escapability and Jackson showed the speed to deal with the clogged middle to perform well. A 3 WR set actually will dictate the opposing D that they play wide to deal with the speed of Parrish as the 3rd WR. If Hardy steps up or more likely if we spend a few dimes and our ample cap room on a vet possession WR, the need to dt Evans and a good #2 forces opponents to play a zone rather than condemn their #4 CB or a safety to covering Parrish head up. In an empty backfield set with Reed in he has shown production already as #3 with two good WRs and in the empty backfield he would get to pick apart zones or run past plodding big LBs. We could even run a D where Reed may line-up initially as a 5th WR but can shift to a more traditional RB spot which now is running the power game against a zone. This would basically be my O with our personnel (augmented by an FA #2 WR) and it would develop a personality as a high-flying Rams east unit which has the general desire to use Edwards skills with the tight passing game, but in the bad weather of the late season no dome Ralph can smoothly shift to the running game out of the 1 RB set (and even the 2 RB set using Oman from time to time.

Agreed about those specific FAs. The Bills though have been penny-wise and pound foolish though in their non-pursuit of these FAs and other opportunities like a trade for Gonzales or even going after Brett Favre (whom actually it was quite sensible that they did not go after at the time as we had both Edwards and Losman, it was unclear what he had left and it is doubtful he would have come here anyway to face that competition). However, though Favre proved not capable of getting the job done for NYJ, it is still the fact that neither Losman or Edwards got the job done even worse here. As Losman is almost certainly gone, Edwards is very good but injury prone in my book (which I define as losing PT to three separate and different types of injuries in two seasons) and this team clearly suffered from a lack of vet leadership and men who were players or had been to the SB before (Mitchell fills this description but the young Bills seem to need a couple of these types of players in order to be a real TEAM. This team probably would have missed the playoffs with Favre also, but we did miss them and might have made it with some more refuse to lose vet leadership. In the end, Ralph needs to take some risks and buy some players who even if the suck, retire, and leave MIGHT also have proved to make this team better or at least provided the players we did have with some competition and make them better.

I think more of Parrish than you seem to. He is certainly not big enough that one would count on him to win the jump balls one expects a #2 possession WR to consistently win and one would simply be playing with fire to demand that he take the punishment of the at least 80 catches in a season we hope for from our #2 (a # whose primary benefit would be that it would attract attention away from Evans and allow him to be at or above the century mark as he would be difficult to dt). However, I do like him as my as my #3 as I think his speed simply gives the opposing DC fits to cover and if we had a very good #2 (actually given history it was a silly for anyone to expect the rookie Hardy to produce anything near the 80 catches we should want from the position as a rookie) Parrish at #3 would likely get the 4th best CB on a team to pick on and really would simply force the opponent into a zone if Evans and an adequate #2 demanded dts). The thing that surprised me and impressed me about Parrish was that even though the bad tidings on his quick rookie injury, he has shown a willingness and ability to catch the ball in the slot in addition to having scary speed and the escapability he has shown as a PR guy. Hindsight is 20/20, so take this for the little it is worth, but the Bills should have used the considerable cap room they have to gone after the best WR they could get in FA last year and slotted him in at #2, where we could have used a proven producer instead of Hardy at best learning as a rookie. If we had done this, it would have liberated Parrish for use in 3 WR sets where we could have truly made the Bills into the snowbound version of the Rams east coast version. If we had this as our base set-up, I not only think Lynch would have performed well as a lone RB, but if we decided to go to an empty backfield, Reed would have come on as our #4 and this vet would have eaten zone coverage alive or feasted on mismataches as other teams tried to cover him with a slower than him LB or a lightweight safety he would have pounded into the ground. It would have made Edwards a better QB as well as his job would basically be to pick the best mismatch to exploit before the snap and throw as quick as he could to that receiver, or handoff to Lynch would be running behind the 5 OL players and Royal blocking, or likely check down and throw to Lynch or Jackson slipping out of the backfield. Instead we had no real identity on O for this team. .

Back to seriousness for a second, I agree with the post above that describes the Bills O as in essence a modified WCO based on the geneaology that led to Turk's O. I think an analysis which tries to figure out why it has problems comes down to questions of personnel. The modified hybrid the Bills use seems to vary from the classic WCO in a couple of ways that this watched a lot of football but really un formally educated observer sees it: 1. The Bills realized that their OL did not cut it and tried to improve it by paying a high price for players they judged to be talented like Dockery and Walker but also have gone with a system that used the TE as 6th blocker primarily rather than as a pass receiving threat. This made sense in that the former OC (whats his name who now HCs in college) was given his final schooling in the St. Louis version of an offense which did not use the TE as a receiving threat but compensated for this with a ton of WR talent and Marshall Faulk. The Bills acquired Royal seemingly with the idea that he was a very good blocker who could help the OL a lot and had more skills as a receiver than had been used in DC. While this proved true to an extent and Royal did set career records in receptions and showed some nice toe-tapping skills sometimes, he really has never proved to be a consistent receiving threat. The Bills OL did block well with him as Lynch up over a 1000 and last year before things got disrupted by the Peters hold out, the year before was very good at pass protection (helped a lot by the quick release of Edwards and mobility of Losman. Still overall the Bills hybrid which tries to make greater use of the TE as a receiver has left the Bills with inconsistent receiving help from Royal, the injured Fine and other back-ups. They either need much more talent at TE to make our current style work OR get more quality at TE and adopt a new style that makes things work with this player and his back-up. FB- The Bills simply have lacked a good enough FB to make virtually any O that makes use of the FB work, They really should shift to a one back set or get a couple of better FBs. 2nd WR- they never have established a productive identity for the #2 WR. Hardy showed an initial flash of competence on an early TD pass on a fade throw, but though it is way too early to give up on him they never established how they were going to utilize him and he did not play well enough to demand the ball be thrown to him. Reed can be a very good #3 but really never established himself as a consistent #2. Parrish is also a very good #3 whose speed forces opponents to account for him and he has shown some great pluck over the middle than his size would indicate. This team needs a difference maker at #2 WR.

The Vince Young story is a typical one in the NFL. He hit the league with a fairly unique collection of talents as a young player and actually did play well enough and did enough outstanding things that he made a Pro Bowl. However, he clearly drew a lot of attention from opposing coaches and in fact was such a good athlete that not team could simply assign one player to him and be sure to neutralize him. Thus opponents adopted schemes and approaches which made it hard for him to do the things he did well and forced him to do things he did less well if he wanted to beat them. Young did not prove capable of making adjustments to his game to allow him to perform like he had early on and his personality and mental make-up was such he did not deal well with failure. Will Young make a comeback. Probably not. However, the irony is that the basic elements of getting better which is to sit so he can watch and getting older so he deals more as an adult are what he has been forced to do. So the bottomline is we will see.

The devolution into extremism is simply one of the sadder aspects of humanity. It happens in the larger culture with folks from MSNBC to Fox-TV making big bucks off pandering to extreme views even though both networks are often quite stupid in their depictions of reality. If this can happen regarding the serious issues of war and peace, its no wonder that also it becomes a part of important trivia like the NFL. I think that the attitude which can serve one best is to generally roll your eyes at this silliness and comment from time to time on the bizarrely extreme view of the world that was shown in the lead post in this thread.

One thing that differentiates him (and the other busts) is that they are just like the rest of us except that they sit a little higher on the couch because their wallets are so full of cash. I think the truth is that the situation with these draft bust is certainly unfortunate. To have talent go to waste is always unfortunate. However, these players have parlayed their great play in college into being set for life financially unless the fall prey to Art Shlichter disease. Falling victim to things like the demon of gambling is sad. Vince Young also apparently might suffer from some somewhat severe psychological issues (who knows whether they are a cause or an effect of his failed play) that may make this one a sad tale to me (though it would seem a bit high-handed for us to declare someone with a mental illness as being at fault IMHO). Is the Vince Young situation unfortunate? I would say yes. Sad? probably not from what I think we can know as unless Vince proves to be mentally ill at worse he is laughing all the way to the bank.

There is no guarantee of anything in this life. This to me is why it is so silly that some folks claim its a stone cold certainty that the Bills are gone. In the big picture who knows. I agree that the ultimate determinants are going to be how Ralph choose to dispose of this asset in his will (the will not make the outcome certain as Ralph will be dead so the will can be interpreted to mean something other than what he intends, however, his will will make it very difficult to move or easy to move. On the face of it, my sense is that one of the easier ways for him to avoid taxation on this asset is to have it go to an irrevocable not for profit trust which essentially is controlled by his family. Likewise the other major business determinant will be the NFL which will maintain a veto over any buyer. Again, the big $ for the league appears to me not to come from selling to some highest bidder, but instead to expand the product to new markets in foreign countries. In this world the greater financial value of the team would be found in retaining its connection to the past by keeping the franchise here and selling to new eyeballs this connection to the historic past.

No one person has done this because no one person can do this. In the long gone past, on person could pony up their 10K or so and buy an NFL franchise. However, today no individual has the liquid assets to simply guarantee that the franchise will stay, move or do otherwise. Sure, there are individuals who have enough wealth that they can leverage, borrow, cajole and beg there way into putting together the ability to borrow big bucks from a large financial marketing institution that they could purchase the Bills. However, it is simply a misunderstanding of the modern economic system to look for one individual to do what you as. It is no wonder there is no positive answer to your question. The actual decision-making authorities you need to look to are: 1. Ralph- There are a number of ways for him to "dispose" of the Bills in his will which will make the team easier to move (with an incredibly heavy lift in doing this) or harder or virtually impossible to move if he disposes of this asset in a manner which limits the tax liability of his heirs and gets them a fair degree of influence over the future of the team. 2. The NFL which is currently led by former WNYer Goodell. In order to purchase the team anyone be it Bill Gates or Warren Buffett will need to win the approval of a majority of the current owners. If Goodell and other forces make the case that actually their is more financial upside to keeping the team here for the NFL rather than moving it, they may represent the holder of large amounts of capital you are looking for. The ways it benefits the NFL business to stay here rather than go are: A. One of the major cards which kept an NFL franchise called the Browns in Cleveland was that the threat was made of endangering the NFLs limited anti-trust exemption if it screwed Cleveland. Likely the same threat really raises a huge economic downside to moving. B. The actual NFL marketing strategy is one the aspires to expand to new markets increasing the size of the pie rather than merely moving the pie around to benefit individual owners. - A bunch of sad press about a town getting screwed when their franchise pulls out is not a great selling point for trying to sell a city on placing its hopes and dreams on a franchise. - building and keeping connections with original NFL and AFL teams is a good selling point for getting new cities to join the club. Essentially there is more money to be made selling the NFL as a stable product as an entity than there is to be made by trying to get the maximum # of dollars out of some individual.