PDaDdy

10 million?...11 million? Who cares? Sounds about right for an elite LT with 3 concurrent probowls AND counting. Where is the old.."it's just preseason it doesn't count!" Guess thats only the reply when it's a guy that you like thats screwing the pooch in preseason or when your starting offense can't get in the endzone.

I love him but how many rushing TDs did our "star" starting tailback have?

Objectivity is my specialty. Yes you are 100% correct as far as pessimism and optimism go. There is a LOT of that. BUT, do not mistake realism for pessimism. Do not mistake optimism for objectivity. Optimism implies hoping for the best of a bad situation. To do this you must acknowledge that the situation is bad. Being optimistic when things are going well isn't really being hopeful is it?

Sometimes repeated excuses just get old too!

Are you so quick try to squelch the bleating cries of his supports who continue voice their opinion on how everything in the world other than Trent is the reason why he has failed? Lee Evans isn't a #1, The offensive line sucks, Jauron wouldn't let him throw deep, he got a concussion 3 years ago...etc...etc...etc. Be fair if you want the haters to stop tell the defenders too as well. If you really look IMO the haters are merely replying to these lame threads the supporters try to start to make excuses.

I love a good trashing of Trent like any other fan that is tired of seeing him fail on the field. That being said I don't really agree with hecking your own teams players. I have voiced my opinion of Trent almost daily at times in this forum and much more calm bar conversations but I wouldn't go so far as to heckle any of our guys. I'm still not a fan of Edwards. At best my hope is that with any luck Gailey can make him a game manager that at least won't lose the game for you. Edwards had good numbers last week and was 5/8 93 yards and a TD which aren't bad with a great QB rating. Lets not forget that was over the course of FIVE series. Basically Gailey asked him to throw 1.6 times an entire drive!!!! Not really putting the ball in the hands of your QB and letting him win it for you. I do not mean to discount the TD to Lee just like I don't mean to discount Spillers big run...but...take away some amazing play action and a pass to a wide open Lee due to busted coverage and Edwards numbers are VERY unimpressive. Let's hope Chan can make the guy a game manager who is adept at handing off to the 3 headed monster and occasionally exploiting play action.

Sounds like trickle down economics.

If we had someone else that could play guard that would probably be a good idea. lol. I guess the questions comes down to these: Do we screw with what little chemistry we have on the offensive line? Is it worth making Trent get used to the QB/Center exchange with a new guy? Is Wood a significant upgrade over Hangartner? Who do we have that wouldn't be a significant downgrade at guard?

Man you guys are bored. "No comparison" is a figure of speech. Don't bother entertaining the sill troll. He already knows it's a figure of speech.

Don't let the facts get in the way of a good Trent Edwards defense....oh....I mean....Lee Evans bashing. Those slants thrown to Reed and Rice from the likes of Jim Kelly, Joe Montana and Steve Young were thrown by QBs with the balls to make the throw. Why would an offensive coordinator have his WR run that route if he knows his QB can't stick it in there?

Again we agree. It's just another sorry attempt to stir up some anti Lee sentiment as a backhanded defense of Edturds. Saaaaad. I haven't seen the insider article but it could be boiled down to one simple statement under the head line. Trent Edwards and the crap QB crew vs Tony Romo Could have saved a lot of discussion. This is why I am so desperate to get anyone to come in here to compete with Trent. It is so sad how this kid has been sheltered and given the job. Our backups are so bad they wouldn't be on any other team in the league. Needless to say Trent has never been challenged by a QB that has had even the slightest, the most remote chance of being a starter in this league. QB competition? HAHAHAHHAHAHAH!!!! We are expected to believe this when Trent has run against straw man candidates with no real chance of winning. We are expected to believe that he EARNED the job and it wasn't just given to him by Ralphie. What a joke.

The Nelson issue is galling. I have suspected the same damn thing going back to Kevin Everette. We have had guys on the roster that can be great receiving TEs but because our line is so piss poor at the tackles they never get on the field because they aren't SUPERB blockers. Stupar is the best blocking TE that can actually catch a pass so he gets the start. If that guy Michael Matthews, our 270lb Free Agent TE, could catch a pass to save his life HE would be the starter. I thought one of Gailey's positives unlike Jauron was that he would find ways to get the best out of his talent. Nelson can catch the damn ball and stretch the field to open up the underneath stuff. The problem is he can't make a single catch FROM THE BENCH. We will see if Gailey is about getting the most out of his players and play makers or if it is just lip service. I don't mean to be too hard on the guy because he represents hope where Jauron represented futility. That being said like Jauron he has named Trent the starter and a guy like Nelson isn't being utilized. Maybe all our hopes of a high flying offense are unfounded and we will really be an old fashion power running team with a couple of twists. When they were healthy we definitely had the RB core for it. It could be/could have been very successful if our guys were healthy and we could have worked out the kinks and gotten things down in the preseason. Per Gailey's comments around preseason week 1 he had a lot of two back plays. Perhaps he is going old school with the running game. Perhaps that is why he is putting up with Cpt Checkdown as he expects every play whether it be a run OR a pass to be 3.5 yards and a cloud of dust.

Over looked in your point is that those teams have been a better team than the Bills!!!! Soooo given none of the above have won a super bowl including the Bills, whose strategy is better relative to the others?

I wondered when you would crawl out form under your rock. As usual you judge a post by the messenger not the message. Let it go buddy. Still sore from the last verbal beat down you got? LOL. Building through the draft when you resign your star players and supplement them with quality free agents IS a great way to build a team. Continually restocking the same positions over and over because you don't want to pay market value for the talent you developed and bringing in lower budget free agents that you over pay IS NOT!! You should take a minute to read what someone has to say instead of skimming and assuming you disagree because the most important thing to you is the name of the poster.

Come on man. What you failed to mention is that they kept those players for longer periods of time AND didn't let them go until they had already developed someone that could come in an take their place without skipping a beat. Many of those examples were traded away for something in return as well. The Bills don't always get screwed on that one but more often than not.

Amen Brother.

Those teams RETAIN their good talent and use the draft to try to get better at positions of weakness. Buffalo unlike the rest of those teams continues to make the same positions of weakness every year by not resigning probowl and high level talent. We keep spinning our wheels, restocking the same positions over and over and over and over. How many DBs do we need to draft in the first round? Try resigning one or two. How many RBs do we need to draft in the first and second round? Antowan Smith(Won a super bowl with the Pats), Travis Henry (1000+yd rusher TD machine), Willis McGahee (TD Machine in Baltimore), Marshawn Lynch (1000+yd rusher, TD machine), Fred Jackson(1000+yd rusher, tds not so much), and now CJ Spiller. Maybe if we signed one or two of them beyond their rookie contract we wouldn't need to keep wasting new draft picks restocking. Apparently this IS brain surgery since the brain trust at 1 Bills Drive hasn't figured that out yet.

You may not know it but we said the same thing. My point is that the Bills inability to keep exceptional talent is by design. When you take a look at our draft strategy, undrafted or late round talent at certain high profile positions like LT and our pro bowl/high level talent retention it is painfully obvious that this is THE PLAN not an unfortunate whoa is me result.

This is 100% the case. Not just for the Bills but for all teams to some extent or another. This partially explains things like our CB and LT situations. The Bills are bound and determined to start undrafted or very late drafted LTs. What other team in the league does that with the second most important position on offense? Other than getting lucky with Peters, how is that working out for us? A few years ago I went back and looked at our first round draft picks. At the time almost 50% of them were from the secondary? (I checked again and currently in the last 20 years we have drafted 8 guys in the secondary out of 18 first round picks.) Many of them have been great players. Why do we keep letting them go and drafting more DBs in the first round instead of other positions of need like QB, LT, LB, etc? It's because the Bills don't want to renew first round draft pick DB contracts an pay market value if the players becomes a valued commodity. This means we keep wasting valuable draft picks year after year trying to restock the same damn positions. Let's take it a step farther which is damning information indeed about the Bills supposed build through the draft strategy. In the last 17 years 3 first round picks have stayed with the Bills longer than 6 years. 6 years being the approximate length of a first round pick rookie contract. That is a 17% retention rate for rookies beyond their rookie contract!!!!! I don't know how that compares to the rest of the NFL but to me that seems LOW. What is really a kick in the junk on this is that the Bills don't take that freed up money to bring in quality free agents. What they do is resign or bring in mediocre low budget talent and then proceed to overpay them more than any other team would. This keeps our roster stocked with over paid average to slightly above average players. A great recipe for mediocrity.

Great idea. Let's get rid of one of our most talented players. Thank god you aren't GM.

Until they get it right!

How accurate was reading into preseason last year?

What needs to stop is the fodder we have trotted out at QB the last 4 years. It really hit home the comment about how long will the organization will continue to spit in the face of the fans by not getting a real QB. Maybe Ralph will eventually follow the lead of his fellow octogenarian Al Davis who took 3 years to realize Jamarcus Russell was a complete and total bum. Too bad the fans had to put up with Davis' ego that thought it was just coaching and time that was needed to polish that turd into a diamond. Ralph may actually admit that he made a mistake. Hopefully he will realize that Trent Edwards is not tough enough, despite Gailey's company man endorsement, and see that he crumbles once a glove is laid on him. He shows enough in practice to fool the coaches to get the start and then plays like a scared biatch when the bullets start flying. How many years of tape showing the same thing do they need to see to finally get it?

It took me a bunch of years but never bet against Kyle Williams. The ONLY way Troup starts is if he somehow becomes a better run stuffer who plays on 1st and 2nd down with Williams coming in on passing downs.