PDaDdy

We lost all our speed by trading Lee Evans and Donald Jones, Marcus Easley and Roscoe Parrish going down. Those were all of our guys that could run faster than a 4.5. How do you throw deep when he got rid of the ball on average in less than 2.36 seconds and nobody had the speed to get open? With the revolving door of WRs with no timing and chemistry developed I wonder how he connected on any of them sometimes. I find it funny that people ignore all of the injuries and crap this team had to go through by the mid point of the season. Did he miss Donald Jones? YES! Was Donald Jones great? HELL NO...but he was fast. Speed ALWAYS draws attention. We didn't have any and defenses squatted on the short to intermediate routes on our slow WRs. Throw in the rib injury which probably affected his deep ball the most and you gets what we got. I'll not only give Fitz the benefit of the doubt I will do this optimistic thing of supporting him. You should try it. Our guys usually play better when people are cheering not bitching and moaning. The list is long of all the things that went wrong with this team including Fitz's own injury which he was a tough guy about and hid until his WRs brought it up and blew him in. Instead of trying to be a manly man he should have just been open about it, put himself on the injury report and then maybe people would have seen things in a different light. He did make some awful passes and his WRs had some awful drops too but nobody is hating on them.

So using the Matt Cassel example. He LEAD the Patriots to a 11-5 record in relief of Brady having not taken a snap since High School in a game that mattered. He goes to the Chiefs who gave up a poop load to get him and he LEAD his team to 4 -12(2008), 10-6(2009) and a 4-5(2011). What happened? He is a leader! He is a great QB! Didn't he PROVE he could do it? Maybe, just maybe KC wasn't as good of a TEAM as New England and he isn't as good of a fit in their system? Maybe just MAYBE TEAMS win and lose games. Isn't it just possible?

Offenses will also adjust to defenses of the course of the season. It is the yin and yang nature of the game. We agree the accuracy drop off the second half of the year has to be looked at. We just seem to disagree a bit about how much of a supposed head start a week of throwing routes to WRs at a summer home in shorts and t-shirts jump starts the offense and how much defenses can catch up while offenses themselves are trying to catch up with the defense. As I have for the last 5 years I have just prayed for good health which we have had little of being a league leader in injuries. We always seem to get hit hard at a handful of positions and lose a valued play maker or expose a lack of depth at a position like WR where we normally employ 4 at a time. Maybe I should start going to church so the prayers will work

There ya go. I pretty much agree 95%. I find it difficult to attribute his drop off in accuracy midway through the season to defenses catching up with him because he wasn't throwing to the same guys after about week 6 or 7. It certainly could be "A" factor I just don't know how to assess it because we aren't comparing apples to apples, healthy talent wise, after all the injuries to the o-line and WR core.

1) His accuracy was great the first 6 or 7 games of the season until he ran out of targets to throw to and got blasted by London Fletcher. 2) Don't fool yourself. There was no head start the offense got. QBs and WRs getting together for a week at somebody's summer home doesn't count for spit. You also can't simulate playing against a defense or practice your offensive alignments. The cliche about offenses needing more time is a cliche because it is said over and over because it's true. It is what it is. I know the haters love to attempt to judge Fitz in a vacuum and blame him for all the ills of the world but it is foolish to ignore all of the real world factors that made this a 6 - 10 TEAM!!! Let me know when Aaron Rogers, Drew Brees or Tom Brady become available and then we can talk. Until then try actually supporting your team and it's QB instead of bemoaning the fact that he isn't one of the best ever. It's like your girlfriend whining because you proposed with a 1 carat diamond ring not a 2 carat diamond ring. Those types of QBs are RARE. Accept what we have and try supporting them to make them the best they can be instead of biatching.

What does 2008 have anything to do with 2011 and beyond? As it is always said defenses take less time to get up to speed and offenses need time to develop chemistry and rhythm. I would say the exact opposite is true. Our defense got worse as the year went on. Our offense got worse as well due to an overwhelming number of injuries at key spots like WR and O-line. By mid season we had a wild cat QB and a RB starting at WR. Add that to a banged up injured groin SJ and that is piss poor talent to work with as a QB.

Sadly this is probably the single biggest factor for this proposal being a fantasy but man would it be sweet! The thing that is frustrating is that I think it is possible if we said screw cash to cap this year and we were truly aggressive in FA and push for a play off run. The Bills have spent money before and will likely do it again if we make the play offs and decide that a few high priced additions could take us over the top. I'm sure it can be said almost any year but these are two unique players that could have an incredible impact with the guys we already have. Specifically Williams and Dareus. Four guys in the front 7 that are each legitimately 1 on 1 match up nightmares. That doesn't even count Merriman who I have always thought of as an expensive lottery ticket that so far hasn't paid any dividends. Exactly! National recognition and respect overnight. It would show the entire football world that Buffalo is again interested in winning! I'm not talking fielding just a very competitive team with some B level FAs I'm talking about a team built to beat the division rival Patriots who have won the division forever.

Downfield accuracy is tough with broken ribs when you can't even call a whole play with one breath in the huddle

Again...dose of reality taken but is it financially possible? With money rolled over from 2011 aren't we going to have at least $30+ million in cap space without making a single cut?

Believe me. I know it's crazy. If I could play armchair GM this is the shot at greatness I take. I was just wondering if the numbers actually worked out. From what I heard it might take to get these guys it seemed financially within the realm of possibility. I would go to each guy and say we are looking to get the other to show that we were serious about taking down the Pats this year and pointing to our success last year with far less talent and rookies. I would say we want to bring you in and put you in the mix with Dareus, Williams and prop Merriman up with some crutches and have a ridiculous defensive front to go crush Tom Brady for the next few years. You can't pass if you are eating dirt. It's not a passing league if you don't have time to throw it.

You bring up a good point. 2010 in a weak division Cassel did have a very good year at QB. That's 1 out of 3. The year he was hurt by the way he was on pace for a whopping 19 TDs on the year and 18 INTs and played over half of the year. Guess we should just put him in the Hall of Fame now! Was 2010 also the year that Jamaal Charles had almost 2000 combined yards and averaged 6.9 yards per carry on a RUNNING team? Was 2010 the year their defense was 11th in the league allowing only 20.4 pts a week? Those things probably had nothing to do with it. CROWN HIM!!!

Ah...thank you for your useless, factless non stop personal attacks. Keep em coming. Your contributions are valued *cough* *cough*

I'm no cap expert but I do like difference making talent which has been our problem for SOOOOO many years. I know Nix doesn't want to get into bidding wars but is it possible to sign both Super Mario and Kamerion Wimbley? I've heard numbers like $17 Million a year for Super Mario and $11+ million for Wimbley. Is it possible with our cap situation to get both of these guys for $30 Million or less a year and be absolutely set on defense? I think with the cap money rolled over from last year we would still have money left over. Drop some dead weight and we could still have enough to sign our rookies. We have so much crap and fodder on this team that we pay to be average or useless depth especially on defense. Why not go big and go from nearly last in the league on defense with Edwards to nearly first in the league with Wandsted and two HUGE new toys to play with? We should still have a little money to throw at 31 year old FJ to make him happy. If not tough titty. Make friends with Jason Peters. There aren't very many players especially on defense that I would not shoot out of a cannon from 1 Bills drive to get these two guys. Kelsay, who is not bad at all, could save us $5 million or so a year alone. If Merriman is still an injruy wreck jettison his butt too! We have a log jam of used to be 3-4 DEs that will have no place in our current system. Get rid of them too and save some money.

1) Manning WAS the offensive coordinator for the Colts 2) MegaMind isn't going to scrap the offense he has been installing for 2+ years and hand control over to Manning 3) We still don't know if Manning physically has what it takes to play 4) Manning is not likely overly impressed with our O-line and would need a 2.36sec release to avoid getting pummeled. (If anyone can do it he probably can but forget that nice 3 - 5 second pocket for his WR to get open) 5) Our defense guarantees a shoot out every week being 30th in the league and giving up 27.1 pts a week. 6) We already gave Fitz the money to be our guy for the next few years. 7) Fitz has the support of the front office, the coach and the team.

That sir makes you a "hater". He is that good a QB in this situation. His performance before the team fell apart around him and we had a wildcat QB and a RB playing as starting WRs should be proof of that. To supporters that is encouraging and provides optimism for next year. Haters ignore this and dream of his replacement while blaming Fitz for the performance of the entire team.

Haters want to hate. Nothing you can do about it. Even if the Bills come out on fire like they did last year you will still have people whining about why the Bills didn't do everything they could to go get their "pet" QB of choice and pointing to the TEAM falling apart the second half of the season. Some people get that Fitz is not the problem and in THIS system at THIS time in his career he is very capable and effective with the Bills. Pointing out the exception doesn't invalidate the rule but nobody cared that Kurt Warner was bagging groceries for years before he got back into the league, got the starting job due to injury and happened to be in the right place, right time and right system to win a superbowl. Afterwards Warner had many ups and downs and his career was considered over when he started losing with the Rams and was replaced by a rookie Eli Manning in NY. Suddenly he ends up in Arizona with Fitzgerald and Boldin and he was a star again and made it to the NFC championship game. Most people don't get that it is a team game and the system, scheme and team around a guy are as much of a factor as the individual play of the QB. Matt Cassel set the world on fire in New England when Brady went down. In KC, not so much. Keep the faith. Haters are just going to hate.

Mayock is one of many talent evaluators. He likely says that Mercilus is better suited to 3-4 OLB due to his athleticism and speed imo. I don't think that is a bad thing for a 4-3 DE. I think he has all the measureables that you need for a 4-3 DE and can play with his hand in the dirt as I believe he did in college. Unless Buddy goes against his statements of liking the DE's in rounds 2-5 we won't be taking him at #10. Nix doesn't seem to be a trade up or trade down guy so it is highly unlikely that he will end up with the Bills. I imagine we would need to move back in the first or move up from the second back into the first to get him maybe around the Jets pick at 16. Problem is that the Jets might like him at 16 since Upshaw's stiffness and lack of athleticism might prevent some teams from looking at him as an NFL 3-4 OLB. If Mayock is listing Mercilus as 3-4 OLB I wouldn't be surprise one bit to see the Jets try to get him. If we want him I think we might have to move up as high as 15 or drop down from 10. I doubt Buddy will make our first pick a one year wonder no matter how promising he looks. I just know I wouldn't like to play against him twice a year if he went to the Jets.

Already agreed to that. No argument here. I don't think Nix will draft him if he does fall either. I wouldn't mind at all if we did but I think we are going LT unless we can't find a WR in FA.

He is also the lone dissenter that doesn't believe that Coples is the top DE prospect. So...either he is brilliant and EVERYONE else is wrong or...maybe this is one of the times that he is wrong and EVERYONE else is right. Just sayin'.

Nor is he the solution He is ok but can easily be upgraded with an upper tier DE like Mathis and the like.

I'm an ass for even bringing this up by I hope beyond hope that we will actually take one of our extra crappy picks from round 3 - 5 and move up from our #2 spot high enough to get Mercilus. IF only he had 2 years or just a little bit more of production we might be taking that guy at #10. With only a 1 year body of work he doesn't fit Nix criteria.

Well Mayock has never been wrong so....

DESTRUCTION!!!!!! I have no problem with Coples but don't recommend going up to get him. I'm really starting to like Mercilus a lot but with his short resume he is one of those guys that isn't proven enough to warrant the #10 overall pick but DEFINITELY won't make it to the 2nd round. So sad.

AGREED AAANNNNNHHHHH! Wasn't me. Never said it. Is tgre99 really marauder agreeing with himself?

Right on. As stated, yes Stevie is a #1. I should have said that up front to avoid confusion. Basically anyone in the top 32 pass receivers is a #1 pass receiver. Anyone in the top 32 WR's is a #1 WR. Some teams have more than one some teams have none with that quantitative criteria. Using somewhat qualitative criteria all 32 teams have a #1 WR which may or may not be their #1 pass receiver as they are usually the #1 option in QB reads and where the plays are designed to go to most of the time. They are #1 WRs in name and title. There are obviously many ways you can define a #1 whatever which is why this conversation, like the franchise QB conversation, can be debated so passionately yet no answer ever found because no one agrees on the criteria by which you measure what one is. In 2010 Lee Evans was a #1 pass catcher in name but SJ was a #1 in the stats. Which criteria makes more sense to use?