BB-Gun

My vote is NO to Billick. We don't need an offensive coach that does not field a good offense. It would be like having Jauron being our head coach with a 30th ranked defense.

I don't think Hardy can be labeled a bust yet. True, he hasn't done anything yet, but you have to give him a fair chance to prove us wrong (or right). He needs to be given 3 years and a QB to throw to him before officially labeling him a bust, and running him out of town. I like to see Evans, Hardy, and Johnson on the field together. If a QB could successfully throw to them, this would be fun to watch.

I agree, the Bills will need a very good QB. But we need a very good LT, LB, DT and DE as well. The thing is we do not need to draft them all in 1 year. I believe the Bills are in a full-blown rebuild, so we are looking at 2-3 drafts to restock this team. I hope we get lucky with our picks and pickups. By the way, I definitely do not want Brian Billick as a head coach. He is supposed to be an offensive coach, but his offenses suck. He relied too heavily on his defensive coaches to make him look good.

Whether he is cheap or shop-a-holic, he has kept the team in Buffalo. He could have moved the team to a bigger market and made more money, but he hasn't. Some people wish him gone, but after he is gone, what of the team. The new owner(s) may decide Buffalo is too much of a decaying town for them and move the team. How about the Albuquerque Bills.

I wished the buddy system worked to save Rusty Jones. I hope now it works to save Bobby April.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Buffalo bring Nix in after the last draft? If so, Nix had nothing to do with Maybin being drafted. Besides, so what if he did. Maybin is a raw rookie. Give him a chance before calling him a bust. Good thing Jim Kelly didn't play for this team as a rookie, or the fans would have run him out of town.

Buddy Nix sucks. Is that the best he could do? If he was any good, he would have drafted ALL the pro-bowl players in the last two decades.

I'm impressed. Excellent, well thought-out information. Truly, a great reason the implement a rookie salary structure.

If you blame him for all of the Bills problems and ills, then you must credit him for the Superbowl era. If he is the reason the Bills are the way they are, then logic would be to say that he is the reason the Bills were one to the most dominant team in the late 80's and through the 90's.

I am not saying Poz will be a problowler, but he is a good middle linebacker. I think he would be a very good one someday. Bruce Smith, Jim Kelly, Cornelius Bennett did have better players around them. Ray Lewis has had good players around him. He told the Ravens he would continue to get to the probowl if they spent their 1st draft picks on big D-linemen. So they did, and so he did. I don't know of any LB that does not sometime goes backwards when trying to tackle, since the back has a full head of steam and he is coming from an angle, or standing still. I don't know what game you have been watching, but Poz has been making tackles at the line and getting picks. Plus, if you knew what our defensive philosophy is, you would better understand. Our D plays an aggressive run defense. They blitz the run with Poz. He picks a gap and shoots it immediately. Since his odds are 50/50, he would take himself out of the play sometimes. That is the nature of our defense. The safety is supposed to come up and cover behind him. So stop hating on Poz. He is a good player. Plus, he was NOT a 1st round pick.

Let's see... Poz has 2 inexperienced scabs on either side of him, that he has to try to help out. He has a DT (Stroud) in front of him, that does not seem to be playing very hard. Stroud is often pushed out of plays with just one O-line man. I'm noticing Williams facing more double-team than Stroud. If anyone on defense that should be criticized is Stroud, not Pozlosky or Schoebel. If you paid attention, Poz always plays hard and makes many tackles around the scrimmage line.

I agree with your assessment about the O-line. I really would like to see the Bills use a 2nd pick on a LT. I like Bell, but I am not sure he is a starting LT yet, or ever will be. I like his athleticism, but he needs to get stronger. I like our inside 3. I think Woods should be fine. If he had just broken bones, then no problem. Bones heal, and are stronger than before. If he had nerve or ligament damage, then it could be a while. In the draft, I think we should get a LT early, preferably in the 2nd, and get another guard late in the draft. It think this is how we should address the O-Line. We now have a bunch of young players that have some playing experience, due to injuries.

I don't understand why some people want to flush the entire team, and start over. I understand our team has been terrible, but not everyone is bad. We just need good coaching and few players. Most of all, we need to stay healthy. I don't know of any team that can compete when they placed 1/4 of their team on injured reserves. The offensive line has only 1 player playing every game at the same position. ONE O-LINE MAN!!!! That's all. If you have no idea what the person next to you is going to do, it's hard to be a blocking wall. Where is the free-agent left tackle going to come from, since that is the hardest position to fill via free-agency. Good starting LT do not go to free-agency. 3-4 nose tackle is not easy to find. We don't have one on our team, and not having one would make our run defense even worse next year. If the offense can even out the time-of-possession and have a lead more often, that will help our defense in that they will not be so tired out in the 4th quarter. Most games, you can see the defensive players are having trouble running to the ball because they are so worn out. Defense can use more depth on the D-line, and another starting LB, to go with Poz and Mitchell. I think our biggest issue is finding a QB and a LT. I don't know if Bell is that LT but he could be. We could get one in the draft for insurance.

Here's my attempt at this: QB - David Carr / Brady Quinn / Sam Bradford RB - Fred Jackson RB - Marshawn Lynch WR - Lee Evans WR - James Hardy/Steve Johnson slot WR - Josh Reed TE - Derrick Fine/Shawn Nelson LT - draft / Demetrious Bell LG - Levitre C - Hartgartner RG - Woods RT - Butler DE - Schobel & Maybin DT - Kyle Williams DT - Marcus Stroud DE - Kelsay OLB - Mitchell ILB - rookie McClain OLB - Posloszny SS - Whitner FS - Byrd CB - McGee CB - McKelvin Nickel - Florence K & P - no change

If we paid Peters what he wanted and built this team around him, we would still have Bell playing left tackle. Since he got his money, Peters showed little will to better himself. Right now, he is injured again. I believe a lot of people would be mad that we paid this huge ransom to Peters, built a team around him, and he is not even playing. Hmmm. Doesn't sound like a good plan to me. Bell may be below average LT currently, but he could start for some other teams. Namely, Arizona. I'd rather have Bell than Gandy. Remember, Bell is extremely raw. He was supposed to be on the practice roster this years, originally.

I like Bell's athleticism. I have not seen him get beat to the outside. He is quick and agile enough to push out the pass rusher wide. What I noticed him having difficulties with is bull rushers and double moves back into the inside. Blocking to his left, he is excellent. Blocking to his right, he has difficulties with getting infront and staying infront of his man. I think that is from lack of experience and strength. Both could come as early as next year, with a off season to work that out. I agree, our interior looks good. They remind me of the Jets when they had all those high draft rookies starting for them. It took them about 1/2 the season to get things straightened out. Then, they became good. Right tackle. We are down to our 4th string on this position, so I just accept it. We have to wait till Jonathon Scott is healthy again. Next year, we'll have some depth at right tackle. Lets see. We drafted Mike Williams. Then this year we drafted OL in rounds 1 & 2. We paid big bucks for free-agent OL. Granted, they did not all work out, but you cannot saying this front office is ignoring the offensive line. If any position they are not paying much attention to is tight end and full back. I'm excited about this young team. I think we should be getting better as the o-line gets better and more experienced.

I'm not sold on Trent Edwards. I become less confident in him each week. But, who the hell would be good when you have no pass blocking. Almost every time Edwards dropped back, he was hit in 3-4 seconds. I started paying closer attention after the 1st quarter, because I wanted to see if it was only Edwards making bad decisions. He was making poor decicions many times, but most of it was the pressure. I don't know of any qb's that can do well with 2 or 3 pass rushers in his face as soon as he finished his 3 or 5 step drop. Neither tackles were very effective. They were only there to escort the defenders into Edwards. TO was going pretty slow out of his cuts and was not doing enough to get separation. Also, TO kept dropping his passes. I think they need to stop playing with an empty backfield. Give him a RB to stay and block for him. Stop trying to appease TO. Start throwing to Evans and Reed. I'm not sure Edwards is the answer, but he needs some blocking before we can decide if he should be run out of here.

I don't like Parish for anything other than punt returns. He is too easy to knock down. I have never seen him break a tackle. He seems to get knocked down by a hand waving near him. I have no problems trading him.

Great idea. Trade Lynch for a first rounder. Then use that 1st rounder to draft Lynch's replacement. Then wait couple of years till he is well rounded. Then trade him for a first rounder..... .... stupid.

Look at Pittsburgh. They do not throw money at free-agents. They don't over pay for their own free-agents. In fact, how many of their pro-bowl players have they released because they got too expensive? How many expensive, well known named, coaches have they hired? (none) How many championships have their coaches coached, before before being their head coach? (none) How often have they gone to the playoffs lately? (almost every year) What is the difference between Pittsburgh and Buffalo? (other than results, continuity is the biggest thing) Perhaps if could maintain continuity, we could have positive results as well. Oh, by the way, Patriots seemed to do just fine with a head coach that everyone else thought sucked, because he had poor results the first time around, in Cleveland.

Why are people trashing Schobel? He was clearly the best pass-rusher on the field. I guess a sack, 1 int, and 1 TD. Not to mention the numerous times he forced Brady to get rid of the ball is not good enough for people's crazy expectations. You guys are right, we need to cut Schobel. Obviously, he is no better than other teams' backups. Kyle Williams, another bum. That offensive line, no future. Alex Van Pelt, only reason he is not the towel boy is he comes cheap. We should bring in expensive players and coaches with big names. How about Norv Turner or Chan Gailey. Trade Schobel for Kabeer Olarewaju Gbaja-Biamila (KGB). Kyle Williams for Chris Hovan or Tank Johnson. That will fix our problems.

Fingon, why bother trying to get them to see things in a realistic view. They want to look for any reason the berate the team they claim as their own. It's a losers mentality. They would have driven Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas and Bruce Smith out of town. Remember, these are the same type of fans that wanted Jim Kelly benched in favor of Todd Collins. I for one would like to see our players play in a real game or two before I want to think that fans of other teams are smarter than we are.

and ... Someone we cut starts for another team. Players that started for other teams were cut by us.

Give the team a chance to play a regular season game before you give up on them. It's still preseason.

I understand what you are saying, but I think you are undervaluing Bills players because they are not all household names. NE MIA NYJ BUF passing 1 2 4 3 rushing 4 1 3 2 OL 1 3 2 4 rush D 2 4 3 2 pass D 1 4 3 2 Special Team 2 4 3 1 Coaching 1 2 4 3 This is how I would rank the AFCE teams pre-training camp. I don't think we are so devoid of talent as you think, we just could definitely use more. Hopefully, we have that in our roster, and just need to be developed.