BADOLBILZ

Yep that was Morrissey. https://www.amazon.com/Morrissey-Rides-A-Cockhorse/dp/B0013AOUJS

I don't recall a back and forth with anyone named "Left Overture". What were you wrong about? And I definitely didn't ban you. I have never been a moderator on this site. Contrary to what you perceived it's unlikely you got under my skin.........I'm still actively posting here because I don't take it that seriously.........people quit posting because they get mad about the tenor of the board or what people are allowed to say to them or board politics etc.. That's more real estate than I am selling.

1) "Dude".......YES you can't be discussing Star retiring and NOT be discussing the fact that doing so would mean forfeiting $10M. It was never going to happen because of that. He can say whatever he wants.........talk is A LOT cheaper for Star than retiring. 2) No, I don't think McD is lying. He went out of his way to express displeasure about Star not showing up to any of the voluntary OTA's. This week he threw more shade on him by saying he had "a lot of work to do in the next month" to be ready for camp when he has had the past 18 months to get himself ready to play!😉 3) As usual you are looking at my opinion thru your hyper-emotional eyes. I am not you. The Bills are all entertainment to me. Win or lose. Same with TSW. What you see as emotionally "hell bent" is just me making legitimate arguments and/or making fun of a topic of interest to Bills fans. If discussing Star Lotulelei depresses you then you should ask your doctor about "less football". Maybe you wouldn't have regrettably dropped your 24 year season tickets after the 2016 season if you had your hobby in the proper perspective. The journey = the reward. Instead you had to hear me gloat about being at both home playoff games this past January while you were cryin' them tears of remorse into your pillow of regret.

No, it's simply common sense. $10M is probably in excess of 20% of what he's earned in his entire career to this point. Why would he just quit and forfeit that money when all he has to do to earn that is show up to mandatory team activities? Eric Wood is beloved among Bills fans.......an organization guy.......did he give back his unearned bonus money so the Bills could have that $10M in cap space back when he decided to retire due to concerns about his neck? Of course not. The issue with Star returning has been his lack of performance prior and what that will look like when he plays his next game 20 months after his previous one. The retirement or conditioning/overweight/underweight questions are just tiny, straw-stuffed tomato cans lined up to be easily kicked over by people who ultimately want to defend him for entirely different things.......performance.......performance for the money........and his rationale for opting out (knowing that his pay was guaranteed anyway). The diversion tactic is amusing to me..........like watching children mimic their parents interactions. Basic and often very comical. I'm fully expecting someone to start a narrative that Tremaine Edmunds might hold out of training camp for a long term deal just so we can all be SO relieved to find out that's not the case.

Yeah like I said, Ray Ray was killing McKenzie on the field in OTA's and TC........it was no contest.......and that's not just my observation from when I was there......he was getting hyped almost daily by the media. But in the games it was totally different. I'm not putting a lot of stock into a possession receiver making plays in a camp setting either..........that's actually been the most common example of misreads from OTA's in recent Bills WR history. I have seen Hodgins make contested catches in college so I assume that will still be something he can do to some extent..........but getting open was not a strength of his at that level so there is cause for pause IMO...........doing that and making plays in game type action has proven to be very different. I hope he forces the issue with his play but I certainly don't expect him to make the final 53. He could still end up on the practice squad....even if he plays well. The league is absolutely loaded with WR talent from the past few drafts so it's not like teams are going to be desperately searching for chain moving possession WR's. Hodgins is gonna' have to show quite a bit to get playing time in the NFL, IMO.

At worst it adds an interesting storyline to camp. We've seen a bunch of WR's who were great in OTA's but were immediate non-factors when the intensity ramps up. Most recent was Ray Ray........that guy looked like the best player on the field in OTA's and even in camp practices at times..........you'd have sworn Isaiah McKenzie had no chance to beat that dude out.........then when the preseason games started their roles reversed.

His wife wasn't ready for him to retire and walk away from an otherwise guaranteed $10M? Who are these people who thought he was going to retire? Eric Wood had a busted up neck and he wouldn't retire........he made Beane PAY him his guarantees before he would sign off.

Yeah this did not age well. Two poor play choices and two things that haven't happened at all with Star on the Bills defense. First of all........on the run play Star gets a single block and like everyone on the line he holds his ground/gap against an outside zone run. A single block against a center should end that way with any NT or 1 tech.......they have a big advantage in a single block situation with the center having to snap the ball and quickly get out of his stance and drive the defender to the run side in unison with the other blockers to *hopefully* create cutback lanes for the RB. That's how outside zone works. Luke Kuechly simply makes a very instinctive solo tackle. Star doesn't keep Kuechly clean.......that isn't even his job on this play. Star just occupies one man like everyone else and Kuechly anticipates and deftly beats the block of the left guard and makes the kind of instinctive play that he made regularly and Edmunds simply doesn't. Should the Bills defense be in this position you are much more likely to see Edmunds get blocked by the left guard OR select the wrong hole OR be a tick too late to get thru that gap and get to the runner before he bounces it. Kuechly plays it like a RB and gets into a narrow space in a hurry. Edmunds rarely looks like a reflection of the RB position........he's a DE playing MLB at this point. The pass play against Green Bay has Star lined up as a 3 tech in a gimmick look where the fake blitz fools the Pack into sliding protection. How Turner anticipated seeing this a lot in Buffalo I am not sure. ANY 3 tech is going to get at least a double in that slide protection. Turner is acting like Star "forced" the Pack to triple team him LOL. The point of the positioning of a DT at 3 tech on the outside shoulder of the guard is to create a one-on-one with the OL for both the 3 tech AND the DE on that side of the ball. The Pack just got pantsed. Because they had the wrong protection called they even had the RB on the wrong side of the formation to assist with Peppers. Just a very effective defensive play call. Neither of those plays really exhibit exceptional work by Lotulelei.........rather they highlight the importance of positioning, play calling and having instinctive play makers. As I said........these are NOT things that Star has done for the Bills defense..........definitely not the "impact" he's had on the Bills defense.

"It's bring your synthetic life partner to work day at OBD"

After they lost to the Chiefs they said they needed to get bigger, were lacking at the TE position and needed more team speed. The only one of those weaknesses they even addressed with a blue chip pick or above minimum FA deal was getting bigger at the LOS. Basham is much bigger DE than a Jerry Hughes and more stout than Daryl Johnson........he is a Shaq-type build that they now can use on early downs and *hopefully* not sacrifice much in pass rush. And Rousseau and Obada are giant sized DE's. What they haven't addressed even once since Star opted out is a non-pass rush capable 1 tech type like Lotulelei. So yes there is plenty of evidence that they aren't putting much stock into the position. There have been plenty of big bodies available but they have rarely even tried any out let alone signed one to the PS or otherwise.

Could be. Hal Steinbrenner has gotten kinda' spoiled with his team making 10x the profit that George-lead teams made annually when the team was winning WS titles regularly 20-25 years ago. Despite a decade of half-billion $ annual gross profits he used the pandemic as an excuse to double down on dodging the luxury tax and got extra tight with the wallet this offseason tryna pinch pennies at a time when they really should have been taking advantage of the market. Their payroll is less than it was in 2004 and in 2019 their revenues had tripled since then. Their inactivity in the free agent market the past few years (aside from Cole) has taken it's toll. If you don't actively try to get better you will eventually cycle out and have down years. Their farm system is very deep but the talent is all a couple years away from reaching the majors and maybe longer from having a big impact. And even then they will still need to be adding stars because you don't get as many of those drafting in the late 20's and with new restrictions on international free agent spending. One thing baseball has that football does not though is that you can follow the minor league progress every day. One click takes you to all the live box scores in the system on one page........including the GSL and Dominican Summer League's when they are active. It's almost like being able to follow college football while knowing what players will end up with the Bills. Keeps it entertaining even when the big team is meh-diocre like this season.

He was drafted as a QB not a TE so the "7 years" thing isn't particularly relevant to his TE history........which essentially started with the Bills as a pro(though he was on the Lions practice squad for 1 day after agreeing to convert to TE late in 2016). He played sparingly for a Bills offense for two years that was, at times, compared to the very worst in the history of the NFL. They simply mis-evaluated him. Same thing happened with their evaluation of 2018 Wyatt Teller. It was a challenging time to evaluate offensive talent because they had bankrupted an OL and WR corps that had been pretty talented prior to their arrival. They weren't up to that challenge in identifying the potential of either player in the chaos they had created on offense. Lesson is that bottoming out one side of the ball during a re-build can cause THESE kind of mistakes. Fortunately, you gotta' be making mistakes constantly to not be competitive in the NFL. They got a QB so they can afford to have a good deal of strikeouts and still be competitive.

They've had 27 straight winning seasons and won 5 titles in that span.........between rooting FOR the drought riddled Bills and against the Yanks you haven't been getting much joy for a generation or so.😂

You said he was a HOF receiver if he had better QB play. I disagreed. First, he wasted his first two seasons being an idiot.......as I mentioned that ended up being a difference in 1800 yards between he and Torey Holt to start their careers. That's 6 years of 300 extra yards he would have had to make up........the bad start cost him any chance of getting in as an accumulator even though the Bills QB's fed him the ball relentlessly for the rest of his prime. He put in the work in year 3 but then worked harder than smarter after that and got too bulked up and stiff and slowed. A great QB wouldn't have wanted him as their #1 target. His increasing inability to get open consistently between 2000-2005 meant he had to be thrown a lot of 50/50 balls. So middling QB's on desperate, bad teams were his perfect fit to get fed the ball 150 times per season. Sometimes players are just better fits on bad teams where they can be the focal point. SJ13 is another example.

Great thread. It really illustrates an important point..........aside from Josh Allen, Stef Diggs and Cole Beasley nobody else on the Bills had a "career" year kinda' season in 2020.......and still the team went 13-3 and reached the AFCCG. There are MANY breakout(and bounce back) candidates returning.........and free agents like Hollister, Lamp and Obada all offer a lot of promise

Carl f*ckin nailed it!

Here's Noah Spence then getting released after getting zero sacks that season! https://www.bucsnation.com/2019/8/31/20842517/buccaneers-waive-noah-spence-2019

Targets also don't mean he was open. Meh on Aaron Brooks. Career passer rating in the mid-70's........like Flutie and Bledsoe...and less than the oft-injured Rob Johnson. All were decent enough passers to throw jump balls to Moulds whose skills steadily eroded after a brief peak in 1998. Far too much is made about the lack of quality QB that Moulds had in his prime. People remember who Jim Kelly, Doug Flutie and Drew Bledsoe were because they were all at least pretty good and Rojo could really light it up at times. By the time Moulds got to JP Losman level QB play he was running in cement. A lot of Bills fans were tuned out of the league during the Seahawks run but you couldn't write the history of the NFL in that period without Lynch. From the "Beastquake" to the huge rushing seasons and playoff dominance to Seattle not giving the ball to him at the goal line against the Pats in the SB.........he was a pivotal player.

Nah, beef is too lean for the job. Pretty sure the Bar-Bill wings with blue cheese are about 300 calories apiece though.

Yep, makes sense. It's well known that summer and training camp is the best time to put on weight.

The people who have been selling Star as an impact returnee to the team......and have been upset by the assumptions that he won't be at least "the same" quality......are desperate for anything to latch onto. Big Star is now Little Star. We will see how that goes.

Disagree on Moulds being a HOF talent or that he didn't get enough chances to produce because of the Bills QB play. If anything the Bills QB's fed him the ball a bit too much at times. He had 3rd, 4th and 10th NFL rankings in targets during the lamented 2000-2004 years when he was still good.......including 180 in 2002. He was given a ton of opportunities. The player he is most comparable too in style and production is Joe Horn. Horn got a later start than Moulds but caught more TD's and had a higher ypc. Their primes are similar. Also similar style, but Horn is more memorable because of his TD celebrations and now having a son in the league. Horn didn't have great QB play either. The best players from the drought actually ended up on different teams. Jason Peters is a HOF'er. And Marshawn Lynch has a much better chance at the HOF than any drought era Bill other than Peters.

Another Star Ukulele thread?

Yeah if you were an adult at the time you should probably have remembered that he kept the Bills team attorney very busy early in his career and the talk going into camp in 1998 wasn't if Moulds would break out it was if the Bills were going to cut him. A lot of the Moulds worshippers on here were a little too young at the time to know about what a low-life he was off the field. The incident with the assault on the female........he reportedly had her lifted off her feet by the neck. IMO his 1998 season was the most dominant performance by a Bills WR ever though........IMO even more dominant than Diggs last season........he was big, fast, quick and powerful. But he wasn't smart about training either........he kept putting on muscle and his legs got heavy and he lost speed, quickness and flexibility.