hondo in seattle

I was a card-carrying member of the OOO for years. But look where it got me. I think I'm joining the NNN. Gotta try something different.

A team's medical staff can never say with absolute certainty if a college player will be physically ready for the upcoming season. Similarly, college scouts can never say with absolute certainty that a college player will develop the work-ethic and skills necessary to succeed at the next level. It's all about probabilities. A team's scouts and medical personnel will sometimes suggest probable success in a player who ultimately fails. That's just the nature of the draft. No team bats 1.000. No team comes close. So I seriously doubt that the Pegulas lost faith in their medical and scouting departments over Shaq. And while the surgery is a disappointment, it's far too early to judge whether Shaq was worth a first round pick.

You talk to Russ a lot? Ask him how involved the analytics department was in the draft.

Any wideout named Andre R. can't be all bad.

He doesn't mention the Bills at all on his Twitter account: https://twitter.com/Dri_Archer1

I wish I could find the video where thousands of Buffalonians welcomed the Bills home and shouted "We love Scott!" or "We want Scott!" or whatever it was. Forget about Buffalo '66 and the star's desire to kill "Scott Wood." It seems to me most Buffalonians respect Norwood.

Nice job, Rob. I'm excited but also cautious. Lots of rookies look good in their college highlight reels. How many times have we heard, for example, of young QBs who can 'make all the throws' but actually can't - not with consistency - not in the NFL. The only thing I'm convinced about with Listenbee is that he has NFL speed, and then some. Is the rest of his skill set up to NFL standards? For me the answer is: wait and see.

This is right. DW probably balanced the report of the medical staff with Shaq's own report that he's played effectively with the injury since his freshman year and DW decided the risk was small. We all might have reached the same conclusion if we had been in DW's shoes. But without knowing exactly what Whaley was told, who knows? The one puzzling thing is that Schefter claimed surgery would be necessary while Lawson denied that. What was Schefter's source? What was Lawson's? Why did they disagree?

I'm no doctor but this line of thought makes sense to me.

KC Joyner: "a pioneer in the analytical football revolution." Dr Z liked him - a good sign in my book. Just listened to the interview. Interesting stuff. KC loves our running attack. "I think they can definitely make the playoffs." I don't always agree with his logic but I really want him to be right.

Although I grew up in its suburbs, I'm not the biggest fan of the City of Buffalo. Many other cities are bigger, more vibrant more diverse, and warmer. There are reasons I choose to live elsewhere. But calling Buffalo a "rancid, rancid place" is childish, mean-spirited, and uninformed. There are beautiful places in and out of the city. If you like historical American architecture, Buffalo is a gem. One of my memories about Buffalo is this: in winter my friends and I never worried about being stranded somewhere in the snow. Whenever we drove a little fast for the conditions - as young men are prone to do - and ended up stuck in some snow bank, it wouldn't be long before some good Samaritan would come along and pull us out. In my experience, that kind of neighborliness doesn't exist in a lot of other cities. People in the Seattle area are nice enough but if I got stuck in a snowbank here, I'd have to call AAA. If I was a less polite person, I would say Matt is a rancid, rancid writer.

I hear ya, 26CB. I was a little negative there. I'm just trying to paint the side of the story that Joyner's simplistic article leaves out. I really hope he's right. The Bills did indeed do some good things in '15. Hopefully, we sustain those strengths and add some new ones in '16. But to make a Super Bowl run this season we need to do more than shore up the run defense. Last year was Rex's first year running the team and the D, Roman's first running the O, TT's first as a starting QB. It'll be interesting to see what they all do this season with a year under their belts.

One of the great teachings of Buddhism is that nothing is permanent. Everything is subject to change. While we won't recapture the magic of the 90s, this current mediocrity will change too. This isn't the new reality. There is no new reality. Just a constant unfolding. As the Sufis like to say, "This too shall pass." More change is coming. Let's hope it's good change.

All good points. But I'm not sure there's a better way to quantify the work of the trainers than by looking at AGL (adjusted games lost) like BringBackFergy and PFF did. I'm sure all the doctors and trainers on the Bills staff are highly trained people who take pride in their work. If we're going to question their competency, I think we owe it to them to back up the criticisms with good solid analysis, not just a few anecdotes and general impressions. I gotta admit though that the Shaq case is a little weird. Schefter seemed to have a clearer understanding of the severity of the shoulder injury than our medical staff and even Shaq himself did.

I love the optimism yet... Joyner talks a lot about how excellent the Bills were last year. We we're 8-8 last year. He very specifically says, "That leaves rush defense as the only area where Buffalo needs an upgrade." So the right side of our line doesn't need to improve? Nor our sack totals? Nor TT's ability to throw over the middle? Nor our FG/EP kicking? Nor our TE utilization/production? Nor our...

I'll never understand why people insist on bringing facts into the conversation.

Good point. You gotta wonder if the Titans know something about Mettenberger that the rest of us don't.

I get that Archer and Goodwin have not had productive NFL careers thus far. And that's probably not going to change with Buffalo. But we have 3 of the fastest players in modern NFL history. Archer and Goodwin both posted sub 4.3 40s and Listenbee's coach says he could run in the 4.1s. I'm really wonder what Roman is thinking. TT might have had some shortcomings throwing over the middle but has looked good throwing the deep ball. If my memory serves, Jim Plunkett was successful in Oakland years ago with an offense that ran the ball a lot but also took a lot of deep shots down field. If you can be proficient at both, it really stresses a defense.

You gotta cheer for this young man.

A match made in heaven... * Martin was mentally weaker/more sensitive than the typical football player. * Incognito was a loudmouth with little sense of boundaries (this is what KW said about him). While most players seem to like Richie, in this case Martin was the victim and Richie was wrong. Richie should have been wise & compassionate enough to see he was hurting another human being and backed off. Good post.

Btw, Bill Polian once said of Clayton, “Having a discussion with him is like having a discussion with another general manager. It’s as though you’re talking with a peer.” http://www.thenewstribune.com/sports/nfl/seattle-seahawks/article25862434.html (This is an awesome article if you want to know how Clayton became so successful as a NFL reporter and what makes him different). Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/sports/nfl/seattle-seahawks/article25862434.html#storylink=cpy

Clayton knows a lot about the NFL in general but he's not an expert on the Bills. I'd trust him more when he reports on his two favorite teams: the Steelers and Seahawks. I tend not to give much credence to the national media guys. They don't study every move of the Bills like we do on OBD. Then again, Buftex is more right than many of us may want to acknowledge.

Someone in Buffalo ought to buy that animal and outfit her in Bills colors. She'd make a great pet and conversation starter.

For what it's worth, we have 2 of the top 18. And Washington at #38 almost grades out as a first rounder in terms of expected impact. If we all agree with these rankings at the end of season, huge congrats to DW.

For some reason, I always assumed Gruden's enthusiasm for certain players was genuine while his criticisms were prompted by some producer. The praise and positivity just seem to come more naturally to him. But Dr. D is probably right that he's often positive to start building good relationships with college guys who could be tomorrow's NFL stars. And OldTimer is probably right that producers may sometimes ask Gruden to be negative when a contrarian view is required for entertainment value. For the millions he gets paid, Gruden's probably positive and negative more-or-less where ever needed. It'd be interesting to have a private, confidential conversation with him and find out what he really believes after all his film study.