Hplarrm

Agreed as to your thoughts and also thanks for the compliments. It does seem clear from the limited coaching changes made that the braintrust sees the focus for change as being not only the usual player changes but also the old LB coach being inadequate (a sign to me that the coach was simply not getting his players to make the right reads or use their individual techniques properly). However, Gailey also seems to have identified a strategic problem such that he saw it necessary to get Wammy. Good theoretical move from my perspective, however, now we have the hard part of making it work. The question arises though as to whether Gailey sees the strategic problem as being so bad that really what Wanny is here for is to make up for Edwards DC failings? I actually think that this is not the case as quite frankly the off-season moves are a backhanded endorsement of Edwards being seen as an important part of the team's future by the braintrust. I say this because after the putrid run results this past season who would have shed a tear or been the least bit surprised or questioning if Edwards had been fired? It really took an intentional act to keep Edwards on as the default clearly would have been to let him go. Edwards is around because Gailey/Nix bought something from his performance that the team kept him around. I am not sure what it is but they decided to keep him on board.

The Bills have discovered that the point you make that he can play anywhere is true. However, even though he is adequate to great anywhere, he is better at one position (NT rather than DE is my sense). You want to play him where he is best if you can, this is simply common sense even if he is adequate at other positions. Further, again the determining factor for where you play him is not only his talent, but also what are the talents of his fellow teammates. Williams may be a better performer at NT than at DE, but if I am gonna employ Terrell Troup, he is clearly a better performer at NT so my inclination is actually to play Williams at a position where he is good but not great IF I have a player who can be great at the NT position and my alternatives at DE are substandard if I am forced to go with Stroud or Carrington at DE in order to play Williams at his best spot. Another variable enters into this judgment which makes it a bit more complicated than Williams can play anywhere in that my opponents are NFL professionals as well and they are doing things where they have the initiative on offense which I must defend. This factors in because if my defensive alignment chosen is going to tip off the opposing QB and OC where best to attack me. The point made in the very detailed article about DL line play is the key that various techniques which require different players to perform them adequately tips off the O as to how best to attack you. For example, if I am using Troup as my NT on a 3rd and 3 and thus employing Williams as my adequate to good playing DE, the offense now knows that running up the middle against Troup is unlikely to produce 3 yards. I also know Williams is a sometimes outstanding player due to his intensity and desire. So what I do is run a play where my blockers seal Troup inside as best they can (we are not going to run at him so if he is gonna stop me he is gonna have to show a lot of speed against blockers trying to seal him inside. Williams is a very good player, but I know he is better as a disruptive force inside. If he is going to make an outstanding play at DE he is good enough to do this, but to do this he is going to have to guess right and commit himself fully to pressuring the rush either inside or outside the tackle. My RB is handed the ball and basically needs to read which way Williams is committing and go the other way if mt DT blocking of Troup seals the inside. This is why its the ultimate team game because the likely key to this play succeeding or failing is whether the OLB does well nailing the RB now that I have committed two blockers to seal Troup. dealt with Williams by having one blocker steer him even more to the direction he wants to go and have my RB read Williams move and go the other side. My RB is now at the LOS with forward momentum and he now has the difficult job of beating the LOB with one move and he might be free to roam (particularly if my WRs have sold the crossing pattern and the Bills safeties are dropping into pass coverage or simply late in attacking the LOS. If the Bills however amidst shifting DL players in waves to keep them fresh and a player such as Stroud can also adequately be a DT or DE, then it is harder for me to pick a blocking scheme and more difficult for the QB and RB to know who to read. To make this even more complicated, if the Bills can adequately play a 4-3 or 3-4 and do so with the same players, the offensive read cannot happen until the actual play starts and the Bills may be shifting in mid snap count. The bottomline is that while it is great Williams can play multiple positions adequately, he needs his teammates also to be able to do multiple things adequately or it simply makes it an easy read as to how to best defeat or avoid Williams.

Definitely. My one big hope for the Bills in regard to the draft is that I hope like every thing that they not only lie to me but are incredibly successful in lying to me. If a person is interested in this sport because they are interested in whether Mel Kiper is right or not then what they require from the Bills is truth. However, if what they are interested in is the fate of the Buffalo Bills they should want the Bills to not only lie about their draft plans but lie incredibly well. We saw an example of this when some blog vehicle like Pro Football Weakly was whining about Gailey emphasizing ST walk throughs at the Senior Bowl rather than taking the route used by Marvin Lewis with the North squad of hard hitting position position practices. Not only is this view wrongheaded in terms of actually showing the players learn and pursue the area, ST play which will actually determine whether these players contribute to the teams which draft them (the reality is a huge chunk of even the first rounders will not even be starters for the team which drafted them after a full season of play. This view shows an lack of football knowledge as in fact most of the Senior Bowl players desperately appreciate getting to walk through NFL level ST drills before they actually get drafted and have to prove themselves in pre-season. Even better, it is great for the Seniors to avoid injury just before the draft which might cost them millions if a Senior Bowl practice or game injury slows them down at the Combine. I am more than happy if in order to fool our competitors the Bills also fool their fans as to their draft plans.

I hear and understand where you are coming from as actually my over the top vitriol is actually prompted by what I interpret as the over the top vitriol by those who seem to insist that their opinions are more than just opinions but are fact (actually many of these rants are what I call fact-free opinions). You raise a legitimate point that perhaps the best way to fight against groundless personal attacks is not to resort to personal attacks (even if they are grounded in facts or do not claim that my opinions are stone cold certainties which are beyond dispute. Taking the high road is the better way, but in the word of Jester Jackson, God has not finished with me yet and I am a lot less perfect than I want to be.

I think that looking to the past is not conclusive in terms of what Gailey will do but it certainly is a good indicator of what he MIGHT do. I think that the typical claims of certainty of a stone cold lock in terms of what he WILL do or SHOULD do say a lot more about the stupidity of the poster making this dead certain claim than they do about reality. The indicator which I think folks should pay attention to is this> What are the past examples from Gailey which see him picking a rookie and entrusting him to be developed into the QB he wants? The sound of crickets that you hear is one because as far as I know there is no (meaning zero, nada, none, or whatever of Gailey entrusting his O to a rookie or developing a rookie into a winning QB. The Gailey MO has been to take a QB who has a bit of experience looking at NFL Ds, diagnosing them, and making quick decisions on how to exploit them using a Gailey designed O. He has pulled of this neat trick with QBs who actually were deemed total busts in their previous gigs such Fiedler, Bulger, and Kordell Stewart (and arguably is on this track with Fitzy for the Bills. If anyone wants to make the claim that Gabbert is the franchise QB we want (if we choose to once again try to force someone into the next Jim Kelly role which has brought us an 0-for a decade plus in failing to even make the playoffs) then the two things you need to do are: 1. Make the case that Gabbert is in fact a franchise QB, and, 2. Show any example of Gailey actually successfully developing a rookie QB I think all the indicators point toward Gailey going toward trying to improve a Firtzy rather than draft and develop a franchise QB.

In retrospect (which is always 20/20) letting LeBeau go to Pitts in favor of Gray being the DC here sent an SB winning DC to his SB win. This being said, Gray actually made this faux pas possible by doing a surprisingly good job as DC here. It was interesting to see the Bills bring LeBeau in as it looked like Gray was really the DC in name only. However, Gray did a good job at game day play calling of the D he and LeBeau designed each week. When LeBeau left apparently because he wanted to do game day play calling, it looked like the team had lost its ability to do strategic planning. However, the D did not miss a step under Gray as they not only demonstrated an ability to do good game planning for what the opponent had to offer, but also showed an ability to make in game adjustments at half time which diagnosed what an opponent did well in the first half and designed, installed, and implemented adjustments which worked well in the second half of games. This was demonstrated in the results where if I remember correctly the Bills D actually scored a top 5 finish in overall D measures (understanding that while game stats are not conclusive they often are indicative of the truth) under Gray/LeBeau and then improved on that ranking under Gray alone. In the end, Gray lost his job here because changes needed to be made, but he escaped unscathed to a job he wanted and its nice to see him still in demand to come back to the NFL.

My understanding of the legal situation and the ACLU operates in this reality that it is pretty well accepted that it is not simply the word God that folks have problems with, it is using it in a manner contrary to the Constitution and the state establishing a religious belief with it. It is well founded law that used of the word God such as In God we Trust being on the dollar bill actually are pretty devoid of religious meaning. In fact, the constant and rote us of language which bow toward the general phrase of God but really do not describe any particular belief or practice are well accepted by the Supreme Court as an allowed reality. There still is that anti-constitutional concern of the ceremonial use of phrases like in God We Trust even if it does not have the state endorsing a particular religion does have the state (even if merely in a ceremonial way establish a belief in a Supreme Being. It's exactly because of this dynamic that I for one am glad the ACLU is there. Even in cases where I disagree with their specific stances like when they defended the Nazi's right to assemble peaceably and march in a taxpayer supported march in the predominantly Jewish community of Skokie, IL, I definitely opposed the specific ACLU action but I was happy to see someone is out there doggedly fighting for the words of the US Constitution which makes this country so great!

A friend of mine use to sing the national anthem often at Sabres games. She said that the stock phrase they used to use to describe duties was 2 anthems, 2 minutes and out of here. So at least there was some practical aspiration to do the Star Spangled Banner and O Canada with an allocation of 1 minute a piece. I will ask to find out whether there was an even split of the time.

Actually, speaking of singing, I have to admit that I found the Halftime SB showed sponsored by Bridgestone Tires to be more entertaining than any halftime show I had ever seen. I simply laughed until I cried when I saw this bizarre extravaganza which seemed to have noting to do with anything. The bandless chanting was at first confusing to me then grew more hilarious as our group watching the game launched tons of lampooning comments. When the light up blockheads came out (we are not sure what they are really are called), but that is how we ended up reffering to them, I was laughing so hard tears came to my eyes. I have been to too fights when suddenly a hockey game breaks out but this was allegedly music and comedy reigned. Remind me never to buy Bridgestone tires and ask your friends not to buy them as well.

Aguilera did butcher the song. The over the top Mariah Carey esque approach is horrible for me and messing up the words is just stupid. However, it is just a song at its base and to the extent it can have special reverence that actually stems from the circumstance and not from the simple words themselves. I make no personal demands that anyone sing it exactly as it was written but only that one make changes which work. Aguilera's rendition is not bad because it changed the original words it was bad because it was not good communication, sharing, entertainment, etc. My personal favorite national anthem was a personal one when a bar in Greenwich village I was in to watch the US Hockey team beat the Russians in the 80 Olympics spontaneously sang the anthem. The best performance of the anthem I have seen was by Marvin Gaye at an early 80s NBA All Star game > < Ironically, he probably changed more words than Aguilera (but at least his changes made sense and evoked a sense of reverence in most. He simply showed his mastery of music where he employed a beat timing which was appropriate to the song but unusual in its presentation. Personally, I think America the Beautiful (in particular the Ray Charles version) would be a far better national anthem than the Star Spangled Banner (easier to sing and speaks to glories of the land that we love rather than the more martial Banner, but either can work in the hands (and pipes) of a good artist.

The thing I find most odd about the Marv set us back by 4 years is that even if one agrees that Marv was a disaster, what could possibly make folks think that even if he was gone that Mr. Ralph somehow would have made the right moves except for that dastardly Marv? Do you really think that the Bills would even be in the playoffs if they had chosen Mr. X and not Marv as GM with the surrounding context being: 1. Mr. Ralph actually having been such a bad football guy that he proved to be so smart he hired this idiot Marv as GM? It simply makes no sense to me that anyone could identify Marv as the primary problem and simply not instead identify the man who picked Marv as the actual primary problem. 2. It also seem nonsensical to me to blame Marv for the current Bills state when he was not even here for the majority of our decade+ failure to make the playoffs. Even if one chooses to blame Marv for not only his two years of actions when he was GM, and then also blame him as the primary cause for all that happened after he left (a fairly silly concept since it seems odd at best to let everyone who actually made poor decisions post Marv off the hook. 3. Speaking of this, do you see any relevance at all to the fact that Mr. Ralph chose to hire Marv as GM after he had been a part of toxic relationships which saw bad endings with his three previous GMS, Polian, Butler, and TD. 4. Who would have been your specific candidate that Mr. Ralph should have hired as GM instead of Marv? It is my strong sense that past SB winning types like Cowher and Shanahan were candidates for Nix's job but likely did not seriously consider taking it due to Mr. Ralph's clear record of mismanaging relationships with is past GM employees. I simply see no evidence that there was any candidate forthe GM job after Mr. Ralph fired TD, developed a toxic relationship with Butler such that he left us high and dry and fired Bill Polian (who then went on to Indy and built an SB winner. I am not saying Marv was good or that he was even adequate. I am saying however, that assigning blame to Marv and ignoring who is primarily responsible for the majority of our dismal record Marv was a part of just misses the point as to the real problem here. Was Marv even remotely adequate in the decisions he made while GM. No, his decisions were bad. Is Marv the primary blame for our problems? No to this also. Don't you see that a focus on Marv simply misses the point as to who bears the primary responsibility for our dismal record as Marv was not even hear when the initial majority of these failures happened. Further, to attempt to lay blame on him for everything which happened after his short reign simply lets the guy who hired him and then was unable to hire a GM to replace him after he left has to bear the lionshare of the blame.

As Darth Vader said, "Luke, I'm your father" This actually is another demonstration that this is the Hall of FAME and not the Hall of Great Stats or the Hall of Good Character. I have no problem with his winning this popularity contest 1st time out or whenever. The HOF voting is under no illusion (except for folks who get exercised about the results) that it is about even reasonable character (OJ is still in) or about good stats.

Brady yes for legendary, but Peytom while a great QB falls short of legendary status due to only one SB win on his roster of accomplishments. A legend perhaps as the best QB to only win one, buy right now mostly his memory of him will be a shake of the head to wonder why he did not win more.

Agsin, the question at hand is not whether it is necessary (or even good) to have a franchise QB. The answer is yes (duh) The question is whether the Bills should draft a QB at #3 (see the thread title). I think the answer here is NO for several reasons: 1. Look at your own list and ask how many of these 10 winning QBs were drafted in the first round by the team they led to the SB. The answer is 2. The actual fact is that QBs capable of leading teams to the SB certainly and being reasonably dubbed a franchise QB can be had through other means than drafting a player in the 1st (much less at the Joey Harrington or near Ryan Leaf spots. It just seems completely counter to the facts that anyone would insist you MUST draft your franchise QB if you have the #3. Your own list says so. 2. The NFL is cool because it is the ultimate team game. This means you take a RoboQB IF you believe this rookie QB can be the thing which puts you over the top with the other players you have acquired who have you knocking on the door. You draft a Peyton if your OL has been heavily invested in so you can protect the franchise due to his incredibly quick release (and then you in real life are committing to be a perennial bridesmaid (or ring bearer actually since even with your franchise QB, investment in the OL, use of a high pick the next year when your franchise QB does nothing to improve your results as a rookie, but finally you supplement him with a great GM who builds a team, the best D minded HC in the league and have the best kicker in the business.. etc) History indicates your franchise QB does not lead you to the big win without a ton of help and actual team leadership. Even worse, given your OL is a player and a half away from adequacy it is really questionable in today's NFL whether your franchise QB even survives if he is your choice with a #1. Ironically I could potentially see the Bills taking Newton with the #3 and getting a big advantage out of this. However, my sense of how this works successfully in today's NFL is because Fitzpatrick is still your starting QB next year and as long as it makes sense. Newton actually gives you an immediate contribution because he gets used as mush as possible like Smith in NYJ and can play the QB position for you in the Wildcat offense. Ftizgerald has proven he has a good football head and is agile enough he can survive behind this OL. With newton allowing O genius Gailey to do even more with this O we still lose a lot of shootouts because our run stop game is so horrid, but at least its fun. Actually, the best outcome might be to trade down a few spots and get another second round pick and use both these second rounders to reinforce the D with another LB and in the deep pool of DL candidates.

Actually, I hope Buddy is lying to me and I think anyone who is a true Bills fan has to not only hope is lying but actually is quite successful about fibbing. If you ask me whether I value more hearing the truth from the Bills or having not only pull the wool over my eyes but more importantly fool our opponents about what our true directions and draft choices will be I emphatically say lie to me and lie well. If I was Me; Kiper or some blogger at Pro Football Sneakly then I would care desperately to want Buddy and the Bills to be totally honest. However, what this Bills fan cares about is winning ball games. The advantages of the team successfully lying to me and more important our football opponents is by far the bigger value for anyone who cares about the team. The foolishness of some "journalist" was sharply on display last week where some blogger had the football foolishness to complain bitterly about the Bills staff walking the South Senior Bowl squad through a bunch of ST drills rather than doing what Marvin Lewis did (a tip off right there if they are holding Lewis out as an example of the way things should be done). This self-centered football dumb view might be a reasonable ranting for someone in the business of selling magazines with their "expert" ratings and Combine analysis saying some jock is the next 7th round drafted Andre Reed, but the reality is that what will actually determine most whether an athlete gets drafted and even makes the team, and actually contributes to it as a rookie is ST play. There is no doubt about this. Check the numbers and see how many players drafted in the first round are actually starters (first on the team's depth chart at the end of their first season. From my examining a couple of draft classes in detail (including a draft class considered pretty strong a few years back) only slightly above 50% of 1st round selected players were starters even after a full season of play. The Mel Kipers and ESPNs of the world have actually made it the conventional wisdom that a first round drafted rookie should start in his first year or he is a bust. No, this is not what the facts say. The facts are that yes there is a strong bias among the top 10 picks for starting the first year. However, even this likely has to do with the current player at a position of need being so bad as it does with a clear statement that any rookie is so good. The NFL, even for the best of college players is simply a world of difference from what they faced and played well against in college. Based on what the pros say the big difference for even the best athlete is simply the speed. In college, even in the best conferences, every week you face several players on the opposing squad who simply are not that good or are good at one aspect of the game. Your coaches job is to pick out those weak spots and your job is to pound them. In the pro, all the weakest players are gone or the remaining problems are covered over as best they can be. The reality is that a good chunk of rookies (1/3 and most likely more) will not start as rookies. it diminishes precipitously from there. Yes, the good teams do find a diamond in the rough each year. In fact bad teams like the Bills seem to often find 5th round drafted Kyle Williams who not only starts his rookie year but proves good enough to make the Pro Bowl. Even more outstanding the Bills even developed UDFA Peters into being seen as one of the best LTs in the league. Have the Bills and their scouts sucked at drafting idiots like McCargo. Sure. However, they also deserve credit for getting a Pro Bowl worthy DT in the 5th round. I have much more problem with the Bills coaching staff totally failing to get more production how of consensus 4th best QB Losman than I do with them picking him 4th among the QBs. I have a much bigger problem with the FO extending Bledsoe after a season where he deserved to be cut with us calling him a wash after a great first year here than with them selecting Losman. I have a much bigger problem with the FO deciding Losman was ready to start his second year when even Losman himself said he did not deserve it yet. I have much bigger problems with the FO going out of its way to overpay Dockery and Langston Walker when this ended up meaning they could at best give Peters the third highesr OL contract on the team. The big problem here though with the FO is that even despite their bad problems, the fact Mr. Ralph developed toxic relationships with Polian, Butler, and then TD is the central thread. Concern about the scouts is a minor issue.

I would not call the original post good points as much as it completely ignores the reality that not only were playoff worthy QBs like Favre, Vick, and even McNabb available as FAs but folks like young franchise eventual HOF players Favre and Young were traded away by TB. Elway and Eli Manning were both acquired by trade by the teams they led to SB wins. 1st round choice Dilfer was carried to an SB win by a team which intelligently used their draft for other positions. As pointed out as recently as the last SB, NO got their franchise QB through FA. Heck TB won an SB with a two time loser in FA- no one mistakes Brad Johnson for a franchise QB, but if the booby prize is merely winning an SB I would take it. This actually compares to what in many ways are the aberration of Peyton winning his one SB (he clearly is a franchise QB but the interesting thing is a franchise QB does not guarantee an SB win and also Pitts drafting RoboQB but then again maybe this incidence is just a co-incidence in terms of team building rather than a trend. The last QB drafted who helped his team to an SB before the aberration and coincidence was actually Troy Aikman drafted at the end of the 80s. The actual facts pretty directly contradict your claim that drafting a QB in the first is the way to go. i like the coincidence of drafting Brady in the 6th more than I like the co-incidence of drafting RoboQB in the 1st.

I think it goes a bit to far to claim that his anger at NY is ALL about the income tax (afterall the proof is in the pudding that buckets of big money guys who work on Wall St. do quite fine living in NYS when given the many offices of multi-national firms they not only do not have to live in NYS if they do not want to but in fact need not even pay federal taxes if they do not want to. One of the great canards of all time is that rich folks use the tax complaint to gin up Tea Party folks and others to whine. Meanwhile they use arcane laws and a tax system which is rigged by the golden rule (he who has the gold rules) to avoid onerous tax payments and live where they want. Your claim goes a bit to far in that it is pretty hard to imagine that the fact NYS voters pretty roundly and soundly rejected Golisano (despite the huge amount of $ and the fact that many rubes are loudly buying his tax whines{. The electorate from my perspective made the correct judgement that Golisano is rich because he cares about Golisano (no prob as that is his right under our system)and the interest of the body politic is a secondary (at best) concern of his. Do you really think that the electorate's rejection of Golisano had no effect on his thinking? This is a man not used to being said no to and by the millions NY residents were smart enough to reject him.

Pegula's stance and profiteering of of fracking mat well say a bit about his attitude toward the broader community and this may well be relevant to how he manages the Sabres. One can have whatever opinion one chooses to have about the modern process of hydrofracking (yes, I know we have performed versions of it for as much as 50 years, but even its most ardent proponents have to acknowledge that the way the technology and process are done today are functionally vastly different than what was done historically. If one refuses to acknowledge this then one has to believe that the gas industry could have done this for decades because the technology is old but simply chose to pass on reaping the profits for some reason. Instead the manner in which Pegula pursued hydrofracking to generate huge profits speaks volumes about how he was willing to take risks to do this investment but actually do this in a manner that allowed him to get huge profits but really lay the risk and uncertainty off on taxpayers. What does this mean for the Sabres. We simply have to wait and see. However, careful watch reasonably should be taken by fans to judge whether he is a legend in his own mind (as is often the case for those willing to gain huge profit while passing off risk and uncertainty to the taxpayer or potentially having used his campaign donations to the GOP to gain this low risk high reward scenario with taxpayers really taking on the risk he now feels a need to give back to the public he took advantage of, How he handled the uncetainties of fracking says a lot about how he might deal with spending to win,

I think the NFL brand point is an interesting one which I think many of the biggest Buffalo bashers on TSW ignore. Will the Bills leave Buffalo when Mr. Ralph kicks the big one? Maybe and really no one knows. However, I do find it amusing that some try to treat this as a definite outcome as there is clearly much more money to be made by the individual owner in LA or some other town. This is flat-out true but it misses the point that the decision about new ownership of the franchise is one which will be determined not by who has the deepest pockets but by the NFL which mandates 75% approval by the current owners to approve the sale. Thus by rule (and by reality as the 75% is likely to go to what makes them the most money) the 75% are likely to get their largest take not from selling the franchise to the highest bidder (Osana Bin Laden might have the most cash but even if he was the highest bidder his ownership would do such damage to the franchise that clearly there is a value higher than the deepest pocket). In the end it is the NFL brand which delivers the cash to the NFL. The Bills value to the NFL is actually found not in the value of 1/31st of the franchise fee that each owner gets by selling to the highest bidder, but in fact by preserving the brand name so that one can set up multiple new franchises in Mexico City, Tokyo, Berlin, etc. These places provide access to more eyeballs which is what the real cash cow the TV networks want. Buffalo is most likely to remain a franchise as its presence in the NFL provides a connection to old AFL and the original brand. The NFL is unlikely to simply toss this asset. I really doubt that the Bills will move. As far as the NFLPA and decertifying goes. I agree it also wants to defend the NFL brand. However, while the owners are likely more committed to the socialist style market organizing in the current CBA because it generates more $ than a free market approach, I think the players actually make more scratch from a free market. I think the players do better financially from a system which sees the NFL weakened but still around competing for eyeballs with a new league which is based on the most marketable players. Just as the emergence of the AFL cranked up player salaries and even the failed USFL cranked up player salaries (ask Jim Kelly) so to would the players do better overall and even individually if a new league offered competition to the NFL. Rather than killing the golden goose, I think the players do better with the NFL brand being maintained but another competitive mechanism being created. Just like Bill Maher the players make more money with market competition.

Judging from what actually happened in the past, the NFLPA should almost certainly decertify itself because their low leverage situation is just as you describe it. They are simply going to lose and have their heads handed to them if they continue on in the same negotiating situation. Just as it took the the total destruction of the NFLPA negotiating plan in the mid-80s lockout to get the traditional AFL-CIO guys like NFLPA head at the time Ed Garvey out of the way so that the players led by Gene Upshaw could move toward decertification (which led to the team owners and NFL run kicking and screaming to sign a CBA rather than actually compete in a free market) so to is the current events leading to a situation where the players can do best by simply kicking the team owners to the curb. The reason I tune into the NFL each Sunday (and increasingly other days of the week) is to see the players compete. The team owners and the NFL as an entity add little to my enjoyment of the product. Particularly since the actual money to drive this process is from the TV networks and the team owners are simply a middle man adding little value to the product, as a viewer I can easily do without them. My sense is that the players as their leverage diminishes in the current set-up as you articulately lay out will also see decreasing advantages to having this middle man of the league scrape dollars off the top and add little to product. I think the mistakes that the NFL has made in this situation are: 1. They took advantage of the colleges laying out the cash to train and develop the players so that they did not have to lay out the cash other leagues like MLB and the NHL lay out to sign speculative contracts with teenagers. Instead they laid this cost of to the colleges (which were happy to take it on as it gave them huge profits from the college bowl situation). The problem for the NFL though is that though they made a bunch of nickels by laying this cost off (often to taxpayers who paid for football mills like U. Nebraska and other state schools) is that they did not buy the loyalty of players as youths but not until adulthood. Most players are testosterone driven steroid infused idiots. However, there is a talented tenth of players like and Upshaw, Troy Vincent or Takeo Spikes who spend their off-seasons at Ivy League business schools understanding the business. This talented tenth are likely in my mind to lead the players away to a solution that brings them more cash upfront from the TV networks and has the additional advantage of getting rid of the middle man owners who add little to the product. In the old days the owner added cash, but in the new economy there is cash lots of places and the team owners are really just an added burden. 2. I think the team owners miscalculated in simply assuming that because the vast majority of the players are simply drugged show ponies that all of them are the same. They failed to understand that a side effect of then getting others to pat for training of their workers that they also now would face and educated adult talented tenth of players. it was this Upshaw led crew which took advantage of the players routinely being used to following orders which they had done since high school to really galvanize and lead the NFLPA. The players and owners were given a clear example with the first CBA battle how to win this fight by forcing the owners to choose between the more socialistic CBA model or the a free-market. The irony here (which folks like Bill Maher are now recognizing and publicizing) that there is much better profit to be made in the more socialistic model embodied in the CBA than in a free market model where team owners actually competed against each other. What this current fight is setting up is the likely realization by the talented tenth of the players that they will be more money to be made by not having to split the take with team owners who really add little value to the final product. I think the players might not be willing to take much risk under the current CBA. However, as it becomes clearer that the owners are likely to win due to decisions like the NFL court win and the leverage situation which is obvious enough that even outsiders like you and me can see it, the situation is one where the talented tenth of MFL players can lead their fellow overly proud colleagues to pull off a maneuver like the one which brought the CBA into being/ No one knows for sure (do you really want to claim you do) so we will see.

If Pegula is not smart enough to run circles around NYS government regulations and regulators then he is not much of a smart businessman. Think about what you are saying. If NY is such an impossible place to be a businessman and do business would there be any businessmen operating here? Have you ever heard of this little place called Wall Street, Believe me the folks in charge and actually well down the food chain of a wide variety of brokerage houses and related businesses have more than enough wealth that they can live anywhere and in fact with the internet, the fact that the big companies are multinationals which can have their central offices anywhere, and the speed of modern travel they could be just about anywhere. Yet, with the exception of a few of their folks who have their main residence in the tony climes of CT suburbs like Darien a big chunk of these folks live in the city or in NYS suburbs like Riverdell. Get a clue bud. Life is dictated by the Golden Rule. He who has the gold rules! There is a lot of gold that lives in NYS (and even here in WNY which due to its small population easily ranks in the upper reaches of per capita population listed in social register. One of the big games is to whine and complain about the nasty regulations on business and then laugh all the way to the bank when you sucker Tea Party folks into doing the whining for you and you can undercut regulations that actually do get in your way (while wealthy businesses are happy to support regulations which act as a barrier to smaller businesses joining the fray and undercut big businesses. Feel free to go live in Cuba or some place they tell you where to live. Its the US of A bud and if you do not like NYS you are free to move to AZ or someplsce (unless you need the state to help you get a transplant in which case you are dead.

My sense is that Mr. Ralph exercised owners right to meddle when he made a handshake deal with Jimbo to reward him in his nest contract when he hit FA. Ralph flat out made a bad football judgment about how much Kelly had left when it turned out there was no next contract and he was out of football, It was a bad football move since even this armchair GM could see that Jimbo was done soon as an effective player. The Bills waited at least one year too long before they began to find/train a replacement for Jimbo and thus they reached by at least a round to get TC and then rushed him to start when he still had happy feet, Mr. Ralph has presided over a series of QB miscues which either he did directly (such as the handshake deal or even if he hired someone directly responsible (as when he set Donahoe loose) he still is responsible (he did not extend Bledsoe TD did but he still legitimately bears the blame as he hired TD. This leads to another series of mismanagements when he had toxic relationships with GMs Polian, Butler, and TD. Once is an incident, twice may be a coincidence, but three times may well be a trend. Given the toxic relationships he also had with Wade and Mularkey, it seems pretty clear Mr. Ralph is a major part of the problem here. He deserves credit where credit is due for keeping the Bills here when there was clearly more money to be made by moving. However, right along with this credit comes blame. One may falsely chose to blame Marv, Jauron, TD or whomever for failing to make the playoffs for over a decade, but these theories are simply wrong as none of these men were here for the entire decade plus of failure. Mr. Ralph is the common denominator for all failures,

Its easy for me to say as this is someone else's money, but as a Sabre's fan, $14 million to get rid of Larry Quinn is money well spent and an investment into finally having a consistent winner here in Buffalo. Perhaps he is not primarily at fault for the perpetual one step forward two steps back Sabres antics of the past decade plus, but even if he was not the primary driver he seemed to have his hands placed on the throttle of the faltering machine by Golisano and the end of the Knox era. My sense is that whatever results both bad and good were a group effort and in the end all correctly get both credit and blame for the good/bad pieces and ultimate results produced. However, if one attempts to disagregate the pieces though the group bears total credit/blame for the total results, Quinn seemed to be the man most easily linked to the two steps back (wasn't he the driver in the silly lowspeed chase which signaled the total devolution of Sabres management when he brought Regier into town, wasn't he preening like a legend in his own mind when he had the temerity to pull on skates and an old Sabre uni to skate with the players which symbolized his falling out with HC Teddy Nolan who was really leading his team. From his lame apologetic public appearances when the scoreboard fell to him sucking up to Golisano and presiding over the mismanagement of the roster which saw him let both Briere and Drury walk away Quinn has simply been a disaster for the results produced by this team. $14 mill, Pegula would be well served paying twice that to get Quinn to simply not let the door hit him on the way out.

I think folks may not want to move on because this comment makes little sense. I agrees that scouts want to see how players perform at the aspects of the game which will determine whether they are going to contribute as NFL players or not. Does this or other posters think that what is going to determine whether the overwhelming vast majority of drafted players are going to contribute to a team or not is how they perform on ST. Only a little over half of players who even merit 1st round choices are going to be starters for the teams which chose them after a full year of play (at least that is my observation from an examination of depth charts in a couple of seasons comparing who was drafter the previous spring and who is listed as #1 on team's depth charts after the season). A real miss in the conventional wisdom is the declaration that a player drafted in the first MUST be a starter his first year or the pick is a bust. While an example like perennial Pro Bowler Eric Moulds is the exception rather than the rule (a legit Pro Bowl talent eventually who simply produced next to nothing his first two years) it certainly seems to me that there are a ton of players who while they never ascend to be judged Pro Bowl worthy (yes a popularity contest but to some extent players become popular by producing on the field. The Scouts post seems to fall victim to the problem which is present in many casual fans that they focus too much on how an athlete plays a particular position when the truth is that starters take up 22 positions and a few specialty guys but half the roster is made up of guys who if they do not play ST well they are not gonna be on the roster. The real scouts are likely pleased as punch to get players who they get to judge how they perform in an ST oriented practice they are watching. Further, the players themselves if they are smart are quote pleased to get walked through an NFL ST drill several times so they can make a great first impression whatever team they go to. Folks at Scouts Inc are likely pissed that seeing mostly ST stuff forces them to do some real work in assessing players. However, given the game score and the pro oriented practice the folks who actually make their living scouting rather than punditizing are likely quite pleased for what is described as the Gailey style rather than the off=point and it appears less game effective Lewis style.

From what U have seen of the NFL and the draft if in fact what this is all about is scouting then Gailey is doing exactly the right thing. Scouting is all about determining how/if a player is going to help your team. How are virtually all the drafted players going to be used to help their team next year. Special teams. Only slightly over half of the players drafted in the first round are going to be starters on the team's depth charts at the end of the rookie year. The numbers drop precipitously after that. The major determining factor of whether a player makes the roster is going to be ST play. In fact, if I was a Senior Bowl player and had a choice between whether I was on the South squad which walked me through professional team ST drills so when I hit the practice field for the team which drafted me I looked like I knew what I was doing and could concentrate on my showing my skill rather than figuring out whether I am in the correct position for an NFL drill, I would much prefer this to being on a North squad which ran through position player drills I had done before. If Gailey is drilling his charges on ST play he is showing the braintrusts of other teams exactly what they want to see to make judgments on who to keep. If he is focusing in ST he is drilling the players on exactly what most of them need to make NFL rosters. He is not however helping the pundits who sell magazines or use lots of hairspray on TV get info that they trade in. This is my guess on why Scouts Inc. or other bloggers may be pissed.