DazedandConfused

The assessments are pretty stupid. He has all the looks of a very good 5th round pick by the Bills. The covers like a safety but hits like an LB seems to fit his size and speed demographics and his use at multiple positions at OU. The huge upside of him becoming another Kyle Williams (taken in the 5th wish you had a better position player but since you do not his play is greatly appreciated since unlike most 5th rounders he is an adequate NFL starter) is quite unlikely. However, in this case the logical reason why this could happen is that he was actually a good enough player able to both pass cover and run plug. OU took advantage of this to fill their gaps but Harris may become much better at being an LB (or even at being a safety) if he is allowed/made to concentrate on doing the job at one position. If not, he seems like just the kind of player Bobby April has made shine. Not bad at all in terms of where he seems to fit into our scheme (unlike Nelson who still strikes me as a good pick of him based on individual talent, but in our scheme if we rely on a traditional starting TE Harris is at least a year away from being an adequate NFL starting TE and I think better of him as a starting TE than I do of special team phenom Schouman or the learning Fine.

I like the move a lot too IF we are running a scheme that uses the TE in traditional ways AND we have a credible plan for using vets on the team as credible TE options while Nelson learns to become a vet. I simply do not see this on this team. Schoman is a very good ST player but scares no one as a TE position player with either his blocking or extraordinary downfield receiving ability. I like Fine as a developing receiver, but his loss of a lot of PT due to injury last year leaves him as a near rookie in my mind and in no way capable of starting at TE in the NFL. I was actually made quite hopeful by the Bills extraordinary commitment to making up for the loss of their vet starting LT by though not replacing him straight up with a player judged worthy (even though falsely in 08) of making the Pro Bowl, they seem to emphasize durable flexible players so that with good coaching (another question mark on O under Jauron) they should be able to find 7 starters and two back-ups who are at least adequate and maybe good if they develop chemistry each week from Walker/Hamgardner/Wood/Butler/Chambers/LeVitre/Bell/McKinney/etc. However, the seeming commitment to a scheme where the TE plays a key role and this team simply does not have a player capable of being an adequate starter at TE (or the needed credible back-up) still leaves me feeling like this team is simply writing off a playoff appearance in 09. I am a loyal fan so I will hang in there, but the temptation to ask them to wake me in 2010 when the team is going to seriously go after the playoffs is quite high if they are going to commit to a traditional TE role in the O but on the face of it none of the 3 TEs are likely to be adequate starting TEs this year.

Yeah I think he is a good pick but likely for the 2011 season. In the future is now NFL, my sense is we would do better investing in a 3 WR set as our base O. A team does have to muscle up in short yardage at times, but I think we are better filling the TE gap with H-backs types dedicated to being good blockers in obvious run situations. I simply do not see Nelson as developing into a good enough balanced player (as TG did) for several years. The bigger problem is that in the interim if we are going to go with a traditional TE approach Nelson even today with his needing a couple more years seems ahead of both Schouman and Fine as TEs.

Nelson is an understandable pick as he appears to be a steal at this point in the draft. However, I find this pck disappointing as I was hoping the Bills had actually figured out a way to lower the use of the TE in an offense which would use 3 WRs as the base offense wth Evans/TO/Parrish as the WRs and having a great competition between Reed/Hardy/Johnson to complete the line-up. The pick of Nelson MAY indicate the braintrust is still invested in a traditional NFL O which utilizes the TE, but the problem is that it looks like it will take a couple of years at least for Nelson to develop the blocking chops necessary to be utilized often as a balanced TE. Even worse, I think Schouman is definitely a good ST player at best and that Fine though I like him as a receiver is also a couple of years away from being a balanced producer with both the receiving and blocking chops necessary to be considered a good back-up for Nelson. Nelson looks like a good player but I do not see how the Bills make it work with his developing skills to create a good O.

My sense is that the rotation looks something like: Schobel/Williams/Stroud/Kelsay as your starters- Their job is to be stout against the run on first down and be opportunistic in trying to sack the QB if the O attempts to pass. Who rotates in depends upon the success of this unit and the down and distance of the second play and also how individual match-ups seem to working out. Lets say that on first down the other team runs for three yards then you likely keep the first unit in. However. lets say they try to pass and it goes incomplete or even better Stroud reads the pass and blows through and sacks the QB so it is an obvious passing down, then I rotate in: Maybin/Denney/Johnson/Schobel. In each case I am giving one DE and the DT next to him a primary assignment of make the sack or watch the line (Maybin goes for it and Denney is prepared for the draw or some run and Johnson goes for it and Schobel has an assignment of watch for the run. I have 7 DL players in my rotation (maybe 8 if I have not given up on Ellis yet as it may be too soon to do this in his second year but he was fairly unimpressive last year so he better show me something in pre-season. Folks like McCargo and Bryan I thank them for their service and wish them well but I am done with them. I think one of the keys to this set-up is that I really can use a swing guy who can play both DE and DT and my sense is that Denney has shown the most ability to be this swing player from what I have seen of this crew.

This goes a bit too far in an assessment from what I hear. Maybin's specialty is certainly the speed rush around the edge, but while this is his game and will be his focus since he is a real mutant in terms of demonstrated flat-out speed (an indicator not to be simply accepted flat out as rush play is rarely straight line but though it should not be taken without question it is relevant and should not be totally ignored also), he also has shown some good ability holding the line against the rush. Specifically, 1. He was often called upon to play the strong side so he gained experience wading through the TE and often faced off against rushers sent to the strong side. PSU performed well, it is my understanding against the rush with Maybin and it goes over the top to claim he is a liability against the rush. 2. The other thing that facing off against a TE did for him is that he was forced to develop effective second moves in order to rack up his 12 sacks in a mere college season. Again, in order for one to make intelligent comments about the possibilities that Maybin offers and also takes into account what he does not do as well in the key is the Bills will rely heavily on a rotation. On first and 10 the Bills will likely start Schobel and Kelsay as our DEs. Kelsay's specialty is being stout against the run and Schobel elevated himself to Pro Bowl recognition status as he developed his strength at the point of attack in his first few years (a neat trick since this strength emerged while he was also dumping 15 pounds from his base weight as under Gray the team used him more in pass coverage in the zone blitz. Maybin may be a situational rusher for now (as he gains more experience as a Pro he will learn how to apply his body in ways that maximize his leverage and use of his speed) but he is gonna be used in our rotation on 3rd and 5 if/when the Kelsay/Schobel/Stroud/Williams crew bottles up two straight running attempts and makes 3rd down a passing down. Further, if Stroud should shoot the gap on 1st or the opponent decides to pass and the Bills secondary locks them down and Schobel gets one of his patented relentless effort sacks then second down may also be a passing down and you bring Maybin in early on a 2nd and 10 or greater. What sounds good about Maybin are three things: 1. At PSU his specialty was the speed rush, but he has shown himself to be a smart player who can both recognize when the other team tries a run on lets say 2nd and 7 and further that he has demonstrated strength at the POA against TEs and has a reasonable chance of being stout against the run rather than being a liability. 2. The key to whether Maybin becomes an extraordinary player is going to be whether his recognition is good enough to recognize whether the TE is going into the short zone or an RB coming through is faking a block on him and actually is going out for the screen while the backpedaling QB sucks him in to a futile rush and then dumps it over his head. If Maybin is good enough at recognizing the screen or uses well the long arms which Jauron talked about he will be a formidable player. 3. If Maybin shows a mutant level first step he demonstrated in college as a Pro, blockers facing him will need to lean in toward him and cheat to being ready for his first step. If the Bills use a zone blitz which sees Maybin at most fake the rush but drop back into short zone pass coverage, the blocker may be left standing there waiting for Maybin who never comes as he guards against the short pass and our SLB whizzes in untouched for the sack (in a perfect world, Maybin proves to be so mutantly quick that the O is forced to assign not only one blocker to take him on directly but also has a second blocker watching him to launch a chip block on him if the beats the lead blocker with his first step. If Maybin proves to be the force we want as a rusher he may at times occupy two blockers on a zone blitz play while an opportunistic SLB swoops in untouched for the kill.

Once we get beyond the first round or into the second I have not really seen enough of the players to make an intelligent judgment. However, since the TSW approach is usually based on fact=free opinions why let this stop me. 1. With the seemingly nonsensical pick of Byrd (non-sense to those who do not realize as the crapshoot known as the NFL draft is primarily about marketing the product often by telling entertaining stories and is secondarily about building a winning team) the Bills showed their devotion to following their board assessing player talent rather than being primarily driven by need. The Bills do go for need often with their 1st pick (Whitner for example) but to a large extent the Bills follow their pre-determined rankings of who is the best player available. They seen to factor in what other players will be available(thus they leapt up a few spots to get McCargo and as it turns out no other DT was even judged worthy a second round choice so they made sure they got McCargo because need is a factor but mostly in the first couple of picks. They chose Pos in the 2nd with a substantial nod toward need, but they also chose Edwards in the 3rd with no perceived need at QB at the time(the quality of Edwards play was a bolt of lightening as many had him as our disaster QB and then after he fought his way to #2 it was a dirty hit by a Pats player that forced him into the game showing that the model of choosing players based on how good we think they are rather than being driven by need is the way to go. Likewise with the McCargo pick the team reasonably could have been done at DT in this draft, but they judged Williams to be the BPA in the 5th and lo and behold he not only beat out McCargo but proved capable of starting. So from here on out, need is a diminishing factor and knowledge (guesses of the Bills board will drive choices. 2. That being said, looking at need is a good way to assess this draft so far. Overall, the baseline for a team is two first day choices and it is to be hoped two starters (though if a team got 2 players on the first day of a draft who were first on their team's depth chart starting the next season they would call it a great draft rather than simply meeting the often false conventional wisdom that a first round choice should start. it happens to be true a bit over 50% of the time, but the course taken of a player Eric Moulds where for two years he produced nothing for the Bills and then for years was a perenial Pro Bowl threat and consensus was he was the best athlete on the team despite many fans being more than willing to call him a bust after two years. My assessment of the team unit by unit after day is- DL- The team invests heavily in a rotation system here so there actually should be serious PT deep into the lineup. Maybin is a very good fit here given the talents he showed in college. The complaints that we should have taken one of the DEs who has shown the capability to play 3 downs which Maybin has not simply demonstrate a lack of football knowledge because a 3 down DL player is not what the Bills will use well since a 3 down DL would rarely if ever be called upon to play 3 downs consecutively, Maybin is a mutant who does one thing insanely well at the sacrifice of being a 3 down player. However, the thing he does well with his fastest in the draft first step, great straight line speed (an indicator not an absolute measure as players rarely go straight line) and tremendous arm length. Maybin was ranked so highly because he is clearly situational, but still he has ability to rush from either side, often played the strong side where he developed his ability to make a second move instead of just depending on his speed and he demonstrated some ability to play the run which often came at him on the strong side. If he develops any ability to pass cover in the short zone for the zone blitz schemes we run he can become a potent force. If he is a fast enough rusher that two players get assigned to him on each play (one head on and one chip blocker) and instead he drops back into the short zone and the SLB fires in while blockers are looking for Maybin he might be just what our pass rush ordered. The Bills will be returning about 10 DL players who saw PT last year and with the addition of Maybin we may see three guys who made the squad last year get cut (Brya, McCargo, and maybe Ellis who it is too early to give up on but the Bills sorry sack totals last year and the team going to a 1st to supplement this has got to be a vote of no confidence in Smith. Ke;say may be at risk but I doubt it. LB- Still probably an LB short (we will see how highly they think of MacKenzie) the one need pick they might still make. However, with Bowen coming back after losing his entire rookie season and with the FA addition of Thomas the situation with the current roster is not optimum but not devastating either. DBs- A pretty full house here makes the pick of Byrd interesting (They musy really like him. It's no wonder that they are openly talking about him at safety with 5 guys returning though I think the Bills would prefer 6 with one having primarily an ST contribution. Like LB we can use another bu Byrd looks to be it and if they pick up no other DBs its not devastating. One must wonder whether the arrest of Whitner may actually be a sign of him being at risk as a team leader. OL- Massive improvement since yesterday morning with three players who will compete to start being taken already in his draft. Still by the numbers we will be fortunate if two of these payers prove good enough to start and the unit lacks a natural leader until folks like Wood are around for a while or Walker really steps up his game, Usually seven-eight OL players make the active roster each week and with the 2 draft picks likely making it and FA Hamgartner this means at least one player who made the roster last year (or maybe two) will be sitting each weekend this year. RB- Once Lynch works through the suspension this becomes a deep unit with surprising jackson bound to the Bills (though Peters demonstrated that the FO will cave and send you to make big bucks elsewhere so maybe Jackson follows up his skipping voluntary workouts with a hissy fit to get the Bills to cave again, TE- We are not one but two players short if we view the TE as playing a key role in our attack as a TE in this role needs to be adept at both receiving and blocking (and preferably is a real demonstrated talent at one of these. Schouman is a contributor at ST primarily and Fine has potential as a receiver after a rookie season hindered by injury but neither is a credible plan B at TE. I advocate skipping TE in the reat of the draft and instead look for H-backs to solve both the TE and FB deficits. An H-back is simply not used or called upon to show the balanced skills of a player capable of starting at TE. WR- We are quite deep where even with the current roster seeing Evans, TO, Parrish, Reed, Hardy and Johnson being pretty sure at getting a spot that is 6 and all they may keep on the roster after pre-season with two players Jenkina and Huggins who saw gametime last year probably being the odd people out. With the Bills having the skill jobs on each ST unit set some folks are gonna get cut who credibly could stay. Its no wonder the consensus among pundits is that the Bills did quite well on the first day. They had four choices in the first two rounds and as 3 of them might start this was a very good day.

Competition will be the key word on the OL. They would Wood to take the starter job but Hamgardner is passable if necessary. Butler, LeVitre and Hamgardner will compete for the G slots. Walker likely flips to LT and Chambers, LeVitre and Bell (whom they seem high on internally) compete for the RT slot. Add McKinney to this mix as a back-up and if the best man wins at each position they will have starters and a serviceable back-up at each position. Interesting.

I think our base O is actually gonna be a 3 WR set with Evans and TO out wide and Parrish manning the slot. We are way deep at WR with Reed and Johnson giving us the ability to even run a lot of empty backfield sets, The problem for us looking to use TE as a central part of the O is that you need a TE with both pass catching and blocking ability which Pettigrew might have done (but may be not as he is just a rookie) and if Pettigrew got injured or took time to develop we have no all around TE to back-up (do you see Schouman as more than a good ST player and though Fine is fine receiver no one sees him as a 6th OL player as our TE will need to be. My sense is that this team goes 3 wide and tries to get H-Backs to fill out both the TE and FB roles as you do need these types of players for some situations. However, as H-backs these players will have specific duties on specific plays and need not show the diversity of a starting TE or when we had a Centers or Gash at FB. No TEs is the way to to as best as I can tell.

No TEs. We would need 2 as Schouman is an ST guy and Fine can catch but is not a good enough blocker. We are also pretty FB less at this point and I expect the Bills to rely more on getting pedestrian players to fill the H-B roke rather than make a fruitless search to find Tony Gonzales in the third round (and then do it again with a later rookie pick.

Look for us to concentrate on FAs for H-backs to fill the TE and FB roles. These players actually need less talent than that called for a 3 down player (maybe Pettigrew will be one but who is your back-up neither Fine or Schouamn are well rounded enough to do the job. Look for us to depend on the coaches sending in the right journeyman at the TE and FB roles and our base offense is gonna be 3 WRs trying to use Parrish as the slot guy and from time to time use Reed with an empty backfield.

The FO is correct not to give two sh** for the TE position. We would need not 1 but 2 TEs with blocking and receiving ability because you need a credible plan B for each starter in the NFL. Schoman is an ST guy not capable of being a all around TE and I like Fine as a receiver but the youngster is a couple of years away from being a credible back-up TE. Particularly given our failings at FB it makes more sense to get some H-B players as you need less talent for these roster fillers instead of blowing a bunch of resources on TEs and the futile search for a new Centers/Gash.

When the Bills decided to cave to Peters demand and trade their vet LT to another team willing to meet Peters' salary demands they sent a pretty clear message they were not going to make expenditures to make the playoffs this year. I think the implication of this for Wood is that the Bills may be happy to go with this as a learning year for him at C as they are emphasizing winning this year. The person who may be most effected by this is TO who like it or not is only guaranteed to be here for a year. If the Bills are not gonna stretch to go with more than flipping Walker to LT and going with a journeyman or rookie level talent at RT in Chambers or Bell then it is not outrageous at all to see them let a rookie man the C role.

Like mist draftees (even first day choices in most cases after Rd1) Byrd's major contribution to this team will be on ST. In fact given the depth the Bills have at CB and the fact that is doubtful he will unseat any of the vets (even converted WR guy Wilson) I think this poll would be more accurate if you put in ST along with CB and S as the choices for his primary contribution.

I think he fits in well with what we are trying to do. Whether we can get done what we are trying to do is another question which goes to whether you have confidence in Jauron's D, but in terms of what he brings to the table in terms of demographics and performance for PSU, I think there is little question he fits well. This team is not one with a static 3/4 or 4/3 set-up. They deliberately play their 4 DL positions in waves, The fact he does not have the experience of being a 3 or 4 down player is of little consequence since he is not going to be used to play even 3 downs as a Bills player. I think it also appears to be the case that he is being brought in as a situational pass rusher, but this team so badly needs help in pass rush situations I have no problem with us acquiring a player who is expected to help the pass rush immediately. Schobel and Kelsay are the starting DEs on this team and actually the FO has parked so much cap money on these two that they better start in terms of use of cash. I think these two getting the lionshare of the calls when we need run stuffing is fine by me. Maybin is going to be used primarily on 3rd down and on 2nd and long nd if he makes a noticeable impact in this role (which his MO of mutant speed and taking tight turns and great lines for the tackle when running the outside rush means perhaps he can contribute immediately). The questions I would have about him (or in fact any rookie who is not an elite enough player to go off the board in the first ten picks are not whether he can play 3 downs (he is not gonna be used that way in our D even if he could) but instead: 1. Is he just simply a pass rusher or is he most easily defeated by running right at him or putting lots of bodies in the rushing lanes? We'll see when he actually plays against pros, but the initial read that generally he played strong side for PSU and having to wade through the TE and that he already has shown the ability to make a good second move as he registered 12 sacks last year bodes well. 2. Can he cover the short zone on passes? The fact that he was usually lined up over the TE gives me some hope he has learned to read whether the TE was gonna block or go out. The Bills and most NFL teams run a bit of the zone blitz and demand of the TE that he occaisionally cover the short zone and let the LB come in on a surprise rush. The fact Maybin has a rep for a great first step and mutant speed means that opposing OCs and opponents will need to account for him on every pass play and as such he may do an awful lot to make the SLB an even more effective zone blitz guy if Maybin attracts the attention of 1 or 2 blockers even if he is actually dropping into the short zone. 3. Is he such a rush only guy that his presence simply telegraphs how we are gonna play the D? For the reasons above and the fact he has good size I think he can be a great pass rusher with his mutant first step and speed, but he does not have to be a liability when asked to pass cover in the short zone or hold the line if asked to do that. He could use some more weight to play the pro game and the simple fact is that you cannot teach height but with a proper diet and ori weight training he should be able to add pounds without losing a lot of speed. However, he sounds pretty sculpted already and we will have to see how he does with putting on some more pounds. Overall this looks like a good pick given his skill set, background story of high character and his demographics.

which will be further disappointment to those of us so cheezed off at going 0 for the millennium the future is now and draft picks though essential to reloading are a down the pike investment which are quite unlikely to pay off in 09. I wish the FO had: 1. Been smart enough and not so penny wise and pound foolish to extend Peters after his first (and deserved unlike this year) Pro Bowl nod and managed this employee well by investing in him rather than in the Dockery failure and the we'll see risk we are about to escalate with Walker. 2. Going with Edwards was a very good pick after we had mismanaged the Losman pick by TD giving him the starting job sooner than he had earned it (in his longball shot after he stupidly extended Bledsoe). However, Edwards is looking pretty injury prone (which I define as losing PT to three different injuries in two years). Fitzpatrick better be good because it seems quite certain that he will need to meet the Frabk Reich standard (able to start 3 games creditably as a back-up in a season but not feed the media and some fans into having a QB controversy). Its gonna be tough and we will need some luck but we will see. 3. Picking up TO was an interesting move and the FO realized that if you get a year or his typical (though waning since he like the rest of the world is getting older. However, if you are going to get him for a year then go for it in that one year and the Bills have not followed up this investment with the appropriate commitment to the 1 year plan we should. 4. Jauron is a good guy and building a team in his mold is not a bad idea, but it has never proven to be enough and this team should have invested in some admittedly high priced, but accomplished vets to lead this team. Oh well. Instead the FO has essentially surrendered for 09. I hope what has happened is that I am simply not bright enough to see what their plan is to acquire players starting today who will deliver pronto for this team while Ralph is still alive.

No. Actually I think the key to sorting through this is to understand that Graham and the Bills FO have two different goals on the same issue and that they can and actually are doing two contradictory things which accomplish their two different goals. Its really apples and oranges to approach the situation with an assumption they are the same thing. I think the key here is a slavish devotion to basic economic principles as though when reality and principles diverge one must choose principles. One needs to take care as you travel along the slippery slope doing the realistic thing. Eventually (and quite quickly in times of high stress such as the 911 attack one can get into a world where the ends justifies the means and you are torturing folks to get unreliable information if you want a stark example). The Bills decision to sign RJ to a huge guaranteed contract differs in several significant ways that the foolishness of this signing is pretty apparent IMHO 1. The Bills made a major faux pas in guaranteeing RJ money because they had also signed a deal which delivered massive money and a cap hit elevation to Flutie if he did what some Bills hoped he would do if they needed him. RJ got hurt, they needed DF, he did what AJ thought he could do and hit his targets. Because the Bills also agreed to roll his targets achieved into his base salary (DF said he was surprised they did this but also some say because of CBA rules they had to do this- I do not know the intricacies of the old CBA to say which is right- but either way the Bills did not simply do the market rate thing in the RJ extension as they could have avoided their being a market at all if they had simply waited half a season before extending him. This was their foolishness. 2. The foolishness was based on a dumb player assessment of RJ. Even an outsider like me could see from RJs record of great achievement when he played and not playing as much as he could due to injury before the Bills guaranteed him a huge cap hit that he was an earlier version of Jonas Jennings in terms of being a player who was very good when he played but he had trouble staying on the field. Add to this insult the injury of the Bills both guaranteeing big money to RJ whether he played or not AND guaranteeing big money to Flutie if he played like our scouts felt he could play this is the forseeable recipe for disaster. I am not even sure why you somehow find irony in comparing one's assessment of the media blather and this contract situation as revealing some irony. These are not only apples and oranges, but a floor wax and a desert topping. Maybe you want to claim they are the same thing because they both are creamy white stuff from a spray can, but these strike me as such different things any sense of irony is lost to me.

I do not see Schoman as more than a good ST player and though I like Fine as a receiver I think he is a couple of years away at best from being the balanced pass/rush talent we need at TE. If the TE is gonna be such a well used or important part of our O we would need two pick-ups of TEs before the season began as even a 1st round drafted Pettigrew can not be counted upon to be a vet immediately. Also just as Fine started out the first half of last season injured, this speaks to this team needing a viable plan B for Pettigrew if the TE is going to be central to our O. As an alternative I would go more with an H-Back approach to manniing the TE spot. To function as an adequate HB we would need a far less talented player than a Pettigrew and this would also allow us to get less than studs to fill the gap we need to fill at FB.

One prob we have is that if the TE is gonna be an intergral part of our O scheme we actually need not 1 TE but two. If we go this route not we are depending not only on Pettigrew proving to be a real player (this is not something you want to count on from a rook for a least a couple of years) and the real world experience has been that a 1st round choice is only a hair more than 50/50 to even be a starter beginning his second year). We are also depending on him no to get hurt unless we have a credible back-up. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble but Schouman has demonstrated that he is a good ST player at best and is not someone you want count on to be both a receiving and blocking threat if you are forced to have him start more than a game or two if Pettigrew were to go down. Once he got off the injured list I liked Fine as a receiver. However, it will likely be another couple of years until he is adequate at both the blocking and receiving game we would want from a plan B at TE if Pettigrew went down or developed slowly.

No I embrace the reality that most teams are not telling Graham the truth about how they see the situation. If the are normal people and if they have even half a brain they are saying things to him which will benefit the team's mission of winning the game and will not let their personal credibility to heck because they obviously lied. I view the whole dynamic here as one of truth being an important basis of life, but I hope like heck that the Bills are lying to me if it helps them fool other teams. I think that is reality and this football fan embraces it!

In addition to the possibilities that you lay out that all Bills fans hope is not the way it turns out, there are some real hits in 09 that will almost certainly be the case: 1. The best option at LT for the Bills seems to be to flip Walker to LT even though this now creates an OL hole at RT, to go along with the hole at LG, and testing and breaking in a new C. As bad as anyone wants to judge Peters as being in 08, most felt he deserved the Pro Bowl nod in 07, at 26 he is still a young player with likely upside and the he has won the contract dispute which led to him missing last pre-season and almost certainly distracted him. In return for the benefit of not having the malcontent Peters, the Bills are going to likely go with a rookie at RT (maybe #11 but likely in the 20s as we have pass rush holes to fill or a journeyman FA. Almost certainly the OL will be worse in 09 than the troubled 08 crew unless they have chemistry immediately (wished for but pretty doubtful) or lightening strikes several times with acquisition and development of the OL. 2, The OL hit comes at a particularly bad time in a year where we very much want to make the playoffs due to our 0 for the millennium record, we likely will not put out as good an OL with TO only around guaranteed for a year, with protecting Edwards blindside of extraordinary importance, and with Ralph not getting any younger. 3. It is far from certain but a good guess is that the mental outcome of this for players is that now that the FO has proven they will cave and send a player off to a good payday, other players may decide to throw a hissy fit even with little leverage such as Peters. In fact we already see Fred Jackson going down this road with his sit out of "voluntary" practices just like Peters did. We will see if he also skips the first couple of mandatory workouts even though this may bring him fines in the hope that there is some twinge in Rhodes' hammy forcing the Bills to run and not walk to give Jackson the huge raise he want. 4. It is also far from certain how TO will play it but the FO has demonstrated that they will not pay a wad to put the best OL possible on the field in front of him. My guess is that we will see TO go everyman for themselves because the Bills are not making the maximum possible effort in 09. I hope this is not the case but I do not think anyone is betting on TO's maturity. The bottomline I think is that this trade may work out to be a good one, but the Bills will almost certainly take some immediate hits which end writing off the 09 season. We might not have had much of a chance anyway if Peters pulled the same shanangans as last year this year, but even if he did my sense is that unless Ryan Clady once every couple of decades lightening hit that this team is worse with a rookie learning to become a vet than we would be with a malcontent Peters. In a perfect world, the Bills would have given Peters a market rate extension after his 07 Pro Bowl nod when he was at the top of his game. Instead the FO proved to be pennywise and pound foolish as Peters caused plenty of media and fan dissension with his poorer performance in 08.

Maybe this could be true. However, back in reality it is a fact Peters is laughing all the way to the bank about that because the Bills caved and traded him he now has what may well be the highest salary of any LT in the league (at worst one which exceeds the avg, of the top 5 OL players by a couple a mil a year. Though it is tough for many to admit it, Parker honestly gets to sale the fact that he got a player with two years left under contract and a team reluctant to pay him more a new contract at unprecedented levels. Thats simply the reality.

I think a trade of a vet (particularly your starting LT on an OL which needs an LG and will change Cs) for a rookie is a bad move for those who want to reverse the 0 for the millineum streak. It's only 50/50 that a first round pick is gonna be 1st on the depth chart at his position even after a full year (some folks seem to buy the conventional wisdom that a 1st round pick will start at some point his rookie year, though this does happen it is far from guaranted and there is a strong bias to starters being elite players who draw top 10 pivks. Even if the Bills decide to use the #11 on an LT then 09 is likely to be a learning year for him doing this experiment may waste the only year we are assured TO's presence and we need to protect Edwards. Likely I think Walker flips to LT but this creates a likelihood of the rookie or a journeyman like Chambers getting the RT slot. Since I believe the future is now we are weaker ditching a vet for a rookie we are reduced to hoping for a couple of Ryan Clady lightening strikes. It is not likely to happen once that we get an LT from the draft and pretty impossible it will happen twice with our late first round pick turning out not to be a mcCargo or Losman. The 09 surrender of trading our starting LT for mere draft choices may be a good trade if you live in Mel Kiper land but I think it sets a bad precedent that even if you lack leverage like Peters hang tough and the Bills will let you achieve your demands by trading you. Add into that TO probably realizing he is on his own as the Bills are not willing to invest in putting their best options on the field in 09 and we will see what will happen.

I think one of the big bottomlines in this though that the Peters/Parker strategy worked. My understanding is the current franchise tag salary for OL players (an average of the top 5 salaries) is $8.4 million. Peters comes in at an annual salary of about $10 million so for all intents and purposes the Peters/Parker strategy simply worked. My guess is the Bills FO will come to rue the day when they caved to Peters demands by trading him so he could achieve his goal. As Fred Jackson is already going down this path with his missing voluntary practices, the Peters example almost certainly has him thinking if the Bills FO will cave to a player under contract to get $4 million by creating a market for his services then perhaps Jackson who is an EFA can get the Bills to cave for him as well if he throws a hissy fit. Jackson has far less leverage than the two time Pro Bowler Peters and less so since the signing of Rhodes, but Jackson is one twinge in Rhodes hammy from being in the drivers seat and with the Bills FO failing to sign Peters for what likely could have been $8 million a year or so back the Bills may regret that they have demonstrated they can be rolled.

It really depends on what Peters/Parker goals were in determining whether they did the right thing (btw is it just me but I have never seen Peters/Parker and Spiderman together at the same time- I wonder about secret identities). My sense is that if Peters had dual goals of retiring as a Bills and being paid at the current market rate for LTs then he only is half way there. However, I think his goal actually was to simply get paid at the current market rate for LTs and it would be nice to finish his career as a Bill but if the Bills were not going to pay him something at or at least approaching the current LT market rate because he had signed a contract based on the starting RT salary rate and he was bound to that for 2 years unless the Bills decided to rip his contract or trade him, then his goal was to simply get the money. Fortunately for Peters, it merely took the hissy fit of him holding out of pre-season and not getting fined a gamecheck to get the Bills to give him everything he wanted financially by trading him to Philly. I liked Tucker's article because he did not pretend as some posters do that he could predict the future. He interestingly has a ton more info than many posters who have never played with Peters and have only seen him on TV and his stats from the game. Even with his far greater knowledge than the avg Joe or Josephine, Tucker knows it is impossible to predict what will happen. The simple facts are that Peters is one of the most gifted OL players in the game. The fact is he worked hard enough to achieve amazing things for a UDFA TE by the 3rd year of his career. However, the fact is that at the very least he was distracted last year and this was reflected in much poorer results in 08 than he saw in 07. What will happen in the future and which Peters will show up in Philly? No one knows and that is what I liked about Tucker's article. I did think it fell short of giving correct analysis on a couple of points but they are so inside baseball for the Bills it is no wonder to not see them in an article. Specifically they are: 1. If I am Fred Jackson or any Bill who thinks he deserves more $ (pretty much all of them) and I think that the market would give me more if there was a market (some of them this is true but most pro athletes are legends in their own minds and think more highly of themselves than the market will actually give them) then the Bills have demonstrated it does not take a lot to get them to cave into financial demands by either getting them to give you an undeserved contract (Kelsay and Schobel are real world examples though apparently it helps to be a white DE with a good motor) or to cave by trading you to someone who will meet your fiscal dreams. Fred Jackson is not in a strong negotiating position because under the CBA even though he is not under contract the Bills have retained exclusive rights to him with a qualifying offer. Jackson though has now seen that the Peters/Parker strategy can work and he has sat out the voluntary workouts. The Bills have increased their leverage by signing Rhodes, but Jackson is almost certainly thinking about if i sit out for at least a couple of mandatory pre-season games then maybe the Bills cave and trade me while they can get something or the first time their is a twitch in Rhodes' hammy the Bills FO will run and not walk to sign me long term. Its all speculative so I can see why Tucker did not go into this vision, but given the Bills seem to choose between whether they can cave institutionally and roll up the vault to Kelsay, or cave by letting some other team meet Peters demands, the Bills FO has demonstrated that the approach for dealing with them is to withold services as long as you can. Perhaps with other teams there is enough internal leadership that the dumb players peers can reign him in. However, one of the side-effects of the Bills getting rid of a lot of the higher character old guard like Fletcher-Baker and even TKO is that here really is not much in terms of vet leadership on this team. I think the braintrust viewed folks like Dockery and former SB winner whathiasname at LB playing that role. However, Dockery repaid the Bills for his huge contract by supporting the radio silence of Peters/Parker (my guess is that this is one reason why he is gone) and Mitchell just has not asserted himself as a leader as best as this outsider can tell. Jauron is a nice guy but he simply does not replace having refuse to lose internal leadership from fellow players. 2. The other piece of speculation I would have is that with the Bills relegating protection of Edwards blindside to Walker (this may work as he did a good job last year but now creates a hole at RT), or unfortunately to a journeyman, ior even worse to a rookie (who by definition will not be an elite player capable of getting a top 10 pick, but even if they were Mike Williams was a #4 and rookie holdout McKinnie was a #7, the Bills have demonstrated to me that I am simply here to put on a show for a year and I need to choose whether it floats my boat more to get a huge contract next year or to be a prima donna this year. My guess is that TO has to look at this trade and think it may work out, but really I need to do what I judge is good for me in 09. It is my hope as a Bills fan that TO judges that one year of him playacting to be a team player is worth it because with even moderate production if he can fake sincerity for a year it will be a very nice FA next year. This makes sense, but as TO has routinely done things throughout his career that make no sense I will not bank on this happening. The adoption of a 2 year plan (if we are lucky) would convince me as TO that its every me for himself in 09. We'll see.