[Anyone catch this about today about Jauron?]

True. Actually, even with Trent's poor play, if Lindell makes those kicks against Cleveland and SF, we are looking at 8-4 and there is probably a somewhat even divide amongst Jauron supporters and haters. The record itself would lend a note of credibility to the supporters. ("How can you talk about firing a coach that is 8-4?") Of course, the reality is this: Would the team have been any better if Lindell had made those kicks? Yes, the record certainly would have been better, and these final 4 games wouldn't be as do-or-die. But would the team have really been any better?

The fact simply is that if Lindell makes the two kicks against SF we lose 10-9 instead of 10-3. Once could make the case that if only we were closer in the game we would have scored again, but this fantasy approach can easily be taken by someone claiming that if the score was closer SF would also had more incentive to score.

 

The simple mathematical fact is that if Lindell had made 2 three point FGs we would have had 6 more points.

[Our next head coach should be...]

Steve Spagnuolo. The guy can coach but most importantly and this is something Jauron severely lacked; he can scheme. He posses a fire and attitude that this team needs. I think we have the players, we just need someone like Spagnuolo to put them in the right situations for success. If we had someone, anyone that could scheme with an attitude we would have only lost MAYBE 2 or 3 games to this point.

I am not sure who will be around in a few years when Jauron's contract time goes down to a level that Ralph would be able to stomach eating the remainder. Like it or not, Jauron is the man for the time being.

[Just go nuts and bring in Turner Gill]

The head coach is really there to motivate- make the players believe- give a good pregame speech, throw the red flag, and generally be the face of the team and a leader of men. Soon enough Gill be offered a chance to coach a BCS team...so why not just jump the gun and hire him as the head coach? He may not even want to coach in the NFL but it doesn;t hurt to ask.

Hey, we've seen the guy be fiery and emotional on the sidelines yet is also under control. He takes chances (i think UB has gone for nearly 20 4th downs this year)...his players love the guy to death and he is just a plain winner. To me, it's as logical a choice if not better than taking an unassuming "genius" coordinator who has never really led men.

I do not think the main problem is that the HC does not provide the motivation an HC can provide (in many ways we have seen poor performance by the HC provide the motivation players need by being so bad they join together as a unit to protect themselves as was the case with Barry Switzer with the Boys and even a great tactician like Belicheck who (inadevertently unless he is smarter than I think) mishandle the Lawyer Milloy situation so badly the players came together under this jerk).

 

The problem is that there is not a core of seasoned and successful player leadership the motivates and leads each other in a refuse to lose attitude. For the Bills of old, this was a group of leaders like Kent Hull, Darryll Talley, Tasker, Thurman, Jimbo and even Bruce (who was no rah-rah motivator and was a very selfish person but he led by example of just being good and self-disciplined.

 

The HC is key as in the case of a delegator like Marv, but this team strikes me as missing an element that someone who has been there before like a Favre and someone who is just scary good like a Tony Gonsalez can bring. If one wants to fault Ralph for sitting on lots of cap room and not opening his wallet, one need look no further than this team deciding to go with Royal rather than paying the draft choice price for Gonzales and deciding to go with the benched Edwards and the FA Losman instead of Favre.

[A Job Listing]

Wanted: A FA this off-season who can provide the on-field leadership necessary to put this team over the top.

 

Actually, it is going to take several players to do this based on what has worked for the Bills before (Kent Hull, Talley, Tasker, Thurman, Jimbo and even Bruce in terms of simply being great) had their roles.

 

My sense is that a big part of the problem here is that the Bills have invested in acquiring some very talented players in assembling the youngest team in the NFL. They seemed to have the idea that somehow behind the character of Dick Jauron (a quality guy I think) they could mold a team like they wanted.

 

It does not work that way in terms of NFL success and the braintrust needs to go into FA looking for several versions of players who can bring with them the respected refuse to lose sense that Favre has brought to the Jets,

[Fire Jauron]

The one thing I will never understand is Wilson has no problem dishing out $5mill per year for a bum like Kelsay but he will not pony up the money for a decent headcoach.

The salary cap forces Ralph to dish out a set amount of salaries whether he likes it or not (if he does not like it he can make a free choice not to be an owner and to make the huge profits which come along with labor peace).

 

HC salaries however simply come out of the enormous profits. Thus he seems happy to leave the details of player salary amounts to someone he trusts (though he has folks he has trusted like Butler, Wade-O, and others before so we can see how far his trust goes), but reverts to his old skin flint habits when it comes to HCs.

[While you were sleeping]

Automobiles manufactured by the Big Three do not hold their value:

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122706313908040047.html

 

 

The Big Three's union workers still earn an average of just over $70 an hour, compared with about $40 for Toyota and Honda's U.S.-based nonunion employees:

 

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB122792...glenews_barrons

The argument I have heard is that the $70/hour number is simply based on bad math by an author published in the NY Times. The # supposedly is derived from taking all the costs wgich the Big 3 pay out to labor both working and retired and then dividing it by the number of hours current employees work. This # does show the amount of money the Big 3 agreed to pay their current and past workers. However, it does not reflect the current contracts that the Big 2 pay.

 

There is a difference between the two in that the Big 3 have no ability to change the past unless they declare bankruptcy and escape the contracts they agreed to in the past (by welching on the past agreements and shifting as many costs as they can to the taxpayers who will pick up a substantial portion of their past deals if they go bankrupt).

 

Even if one wants to live in a world where you define the $70/number as true (even though it has no reality for the current pay of employees) it ertainly has no relevance for how they are gonna squeeze water from a stone to somehow ignore reality.

[UFAs and RFAs]

 

How many games have you watched? No, seriously. McGee is better than Greer in coverage, when healthy, and is top 3 in KR in the whole league!!! The Miami fiasco was all Fewell/Jauron's fault for playing an injured DB when they knew he wasn't anything close to healthy.

 

Hey, I'm one of the few who actually stood up for Jabari when Leodis was drafted. Too many tools wanted the rookie to start over our #2. Had the coaches actually listened we'd be way under .500 right now.

 

The only reason NOT TO RE-SIGN Greer is because you have that rookie now and Youboty to take his place. It's more of a salary cap move than anything.

I agree that almost certainly the Bills choose McGee over Greer if that is the choice that a Greer contract forces them to make (which I do not think it does so putting the question this way is a bit of an illusion from what I see).

 

 

Yep. Greer has shown a lot more than folks expected as he finally has proven able to match some outstanding pre-season work he showed early in his career with some good regular season production. However, McGee has shown a level of athleticism which earned him a Pro Bowl slot as a return guy and his CB work has varied between him showing early promise, followed up by good play which made the Bills comfortable in late NC walk, a downturn as he learned the Cover 2, and a recovery after a benching that saw him earn the #1 CB role for the Bills.

 

he is not a superstar at CB and the Bills were quite comfortable in going after McKelvin rather than filling a more pressing need.

 

However, as impressive as Greer has been he still is a youngster who has suffered some injuries and the Bills almost certainly are not going to show him the money he will likely get on the market. Its a smart football move if they treat it this way.

[Trade Roscoe Parrish during the offseason??]

While there are many resons to hate Bellichick one thing he said years ago that did impress me (when referring to the Bledsoe trade to Buffalo) was that you have to decide who you can win without, even if they are good players. I'm not sure what we could get in trade for roscoe but he is not an NFL threat at wide-receiver and it may be too much of a luxury to carry him as a punt return specialist only. Let McKelvin handle all returns - even if it means dropping him to nickle corner on the depth chart to level out his playing time.

 

Let's argue that best case you get a second rounder for Roscoe. You can get a quality o-line or d-line player in return. If you can't get at least a third rounder then it is probably not worth the trade. Maybe there is a package deal in there somewhere such that we get extra picks and a move up in the draft. Again, may depend upon who is on the board but an impact pass rusher or solid TE helps the Bills more than Roscoe does.

 

Flame away

Are we so strong at WR that we are willing to give up even potential assets there in exchange for the contributions of even a second round choice at WR?

 

I do not think so.

 

The simple facts are:

 

1. You would have McKelvin playing PR, KR and with his strong showing Sunday CB and I do not see the Bills doing this or it being intelligent to depend on a single player leading three units.

 

2. Parrish has not taken the world by storm at WR, but the lack of QB playing consistently at the position for anywhere near a full season has to have some role in this. Its not like Parrish has not proven anything (he is an inconsistent put powerful threat at #3, he is a proven PR performer, and despite his small size and injuries has proved willing to brave the slot.

 

It comes off as the usual fan panic to want to throw him away and simply bad football to do this with no proven alternative for him in a working passing game.