Hplarrm

My dream for the Bills has actually been to dispense with a TE oriented O in favor of an east coast version of the Greatest Show on Earth passing oriented attack ala St. L. Most folks reject this approach figuring that what Buffalo is all about particularly in the bad weather of December has got to be about a grind it out ground game and this means means a blocking TE style. Fine, except that the classic St. L style actually did feature a blocking TE who was in no way a receiving target At its peaks the TEs would have zero or maybe 1 reception a year and the show came from a steady diet of three receiver sets utilizing a 1 back set to give them a 3rd WR. The TE was simply a max protect addition since they were passing a lot with a Faulk type as the running/receiving RB. With loss of Schuman for an unknown period of time and the loss of Nelaon for the first four games and any future problems this may be the time to formulate a Bills specific version of a wintereized St. Louis style game. My sense is that this new version would employ our 3 very good RB with two of them lining up as a wideout from time to time. We would give up on trying to find the next Tony Gonzalez at TE as we repetitively have failed at doing and instead look for folks who are more like good H-backs (hard to find but easier than finding a Gonzalez type)

I think you have to add WR to the essentials needed by this team in order to be competitive. I was pleased as all get out to see Evans catch a long bomb yesterday, but actually given that he was so wide open and it being the first pre-season game it yelled out to me blown coverage from the opponent not game-planning and practicing as a normal opponent would do for the Bills. The lack of a credible #2 WR who does not at least attract some attention away from Evans means to me in the regular season he is gonna gets dt'ed with impunity and the short coverage guy will be in his face and the deep guy will be backing him up so plays like this one will be few and far between. The thing which bummed me out most about the Jackson/Lynch injuries was that I had hoped that the Bills envisioned Spiller as getting ample use as a wideout as I think he clearly has great speed and freakish moves (as seen yesterday) that simply would force an opposing DC to double him if he lined up wide. If this happened, the opposing DC would actually simply be forced into playing a zone and Lynch/Jackson would get this to run against rather than 7-8 players in the box formation they will have to run through this season unless we have a #2 WR that demands some attention. In fact, if the Bills ran a 3 WR set with Roscoe. Spiller, and Evans I think the opposing DC has got to go with his dime coverage as he seeks to allocate his DBs in a manner where all three Bills WRs credibly could demand to have the fastest CB the opponents have covering them. As it stands right now, with Easley likely gone for the season, Hardy hobbling (again), Parrish playing much better so far but in the long run he is the slot guy at best, and Jackson impressive on paper but like it or not he regressed in terms of catches, and yardage last year (simply not the result very good receivers produce), I think we have a pretty substantial need at #2 WR. Particularly with our troubled OL and QB situation this WR gap strikes me as huge.

My guess is that Gailey at the very least is striking a balance between the important task of having the players get a for how each scheme feels to line up in game situations (simulating the game feel seems important to a Gailey coached team as seen in pre-season camp where the team not only practices punt formation with not only the O and D lined up as if it were a real play, but the team actually practices what seems to be little more than lining up in the correct position and coming out of their sets as they run these set-ups several times but do without caring out the play, Interestingly this practice play seems only devoted to filming to correct them lining up incorrectly or possibly how a player comes out of his stance as not only does Moorman catch the ball and not punt it but the pass rusher/blockers then do little engagement as they grab the opponents arms but do not even seriously simulate a rush on the punt, They even have McKelvin and Parrish alternate standing downfield for a punt that never comes. These plays seem little more than being better able to accurately visualize the play as studies indicate this actually can be a useful way to practice in terms of achieving real world results later. It sounds a bit airy fairy but I think the Bills will display some formations they will rely on in regular season, buy also I think the team only will use certain schemes once the regular season starts so as not to give opponents much film to work with. Thus I think all the formation viewing in pre-season needs to come with a huge grain (if not a boulder) of salt.

Is this really true? I have not checked the actual numbers lately for the Bills (or more importantly for the teams we aspire to win like) but are e these teams really made up huge majority of the players being men they drafted. I would not be shocked if this is simply not the case. I doubt that is the case. Particularly in today's NFL where player movement and mobility is increased and the general demand is that a team wins now, while there are some teams that may well have 51% (or actually lets say 66% of their rosters which would constitute meeting the huge majority standard you have declared as being the norm), my guess would be that what you say may demonstrably not be true. Yes, the Bills have a roster pockmarked by having no players from quite recent drafts still on the team, any ranking of how many draftees are still on the team not too long after they drafted would likely find the Bills near the bottom of the league. However, whether this is a cause of their losing ways or a side effect of other errors has not been demonstrated by those who want to make either case. Further, though my guess is that there are probably cases of successful teams with a significant number of roster spots occupied by players they picked, my guess is that though this is likely true for the Pats (a reflection of their policy and ability to stockpile draft choices) it is unclear whether their winning records are a cause or effect. Certainly FAs from Antoine Smith to Randy Moss have played a key role.

My sense is that interpretation of looks generally says a lot more about the interpreter than about the person who ix being judged, It actually would strike me as saying many good things about the importance of the team and the game to a player who could in fact looked so bummed out when he is being paid even the NFL minimum for playing a boys game. One would really have to care a bunch about your teammates (a good thing in my mind), or about the game (in both cases its gotta be pretty clear you are on a team that ain't doin well but perhaps you are willing to overlook how very good your personal situation is (the aforementioned 100s of thousands annually to play football and in addition all the girls you can eat) that you are deeply bummed by being on a hapless team. Again caring that deeply is to some extent admirable. On the other hand, perhaps what was going through the heart of shallow Hal here is that he is do focused on being a top quality athlete that he is in fact bummed out by playing for the hapless Bills in this game. I actually view this IF this is the source of his unhappiness (which again assumes that the interpreter is not merely reflecting his or her being bummed out about their own sorry life and is reading the player correctly- I mean the player might have an ingrown toe nail which really hurts or it might be the anniversary of the death of his Mom or Dad). I think all of these an million other uncertainties make reading a look something that likely says more about the looker than the lookee.

Oops, Gailey's "QB" rebuild process (sorry for the fumble fingered typo way too late at night. My thought is that I am interested in the past when Gailey has developed an O system which better utilizes the limited skills of a particular QB there has been any history of stops and starts in success in installing the new system until the QB begins to "get" as far as performing it in game situations. The theory would be that part of Edwards marginal play in his first game implementing things the Gailey way might naturally be tentative until he gets a couple of games under his belt? Does anyone remember or can find out what the speed and/or process of Gailey's past O scheme implementation was?

Does anyone out there know the actual facts of Gailey's QN rebuild process? In his previous work he pulled off with folks such as Thigpen or Bulger how long did it take for him to design and implement a scheme which worked with the limitations of past mediocre QBs he has managed to make them productive. I personally do think Edwards would be able to play a full season due to him being injury prone, but it would not be shocking if with him making it work with a new QB it simply takes some time.

Talk about anomalies! When RoboQB won the SB with Pitts, this marked the NFL finally breaking a string of no (I mean zero, nada, none) teams winning the SB with a QB they had drafted in the first round going back to Dallas picking Aikman at the end of the 80s. Manning winning it all with Indy seemed to start a new streak perhaps of teams winning the SB with men they had drafted, but one time is an event and twice may be a coincidence and you need at least a third time to even hint at a trend and the fact remains that it is still unusual to see a team win the SB with a QB they drafted in the 1st. There simply is no tried and true method which one can say works a lot of the time or even has what can be described as a good chance of working out. If you want to follow the method which has worked the most in the past decade then you are looking at the draft but thanks to Tom Brady getting your QB in the 6th round (without the disastrous investment of JaMarcus Russell, Ryan Leaf, Akili Smith $). I am not sure though why you want to claim it is such an anomaly to find your SB winning QB in FA though because not only is there the most recent example of Drew Brees to show this can work but the last 10 years finds this anomaly joined with cut reject Trent Dilfer leading his team to an SB win and 2 time loser Brad Johnson leading Tampa Bay to a win. So while there is nothing which happens with the frequency to say it is the way, I think that drafting a player in the first round and building a team around him is the anomaly. Particularly in the Bills situation after such a long playoff drought the thought of committing to what in even the best case is a near decade long strategy of building around a new savior seems dismal.

If we were to look to the draft for a first round QB choice I think the playoff less streak has a fair chance of being a decade and a half long streak. Think about it. Lets say we go 3-13 in Gailey's first season and we spend the great pick next year on Locker. Lets take it as an assumption he is as good as Peyton Manning, Like Manning his stellar rookie play (the only QB to start all 16 that year) delivers the same 3-13 record. A course of events not unlikely for a bad Bills team that earned them the right to Locker, The Bills by def are not like the Steelers who won it all with rookie RoboQB, We are on the Indy track even with the best QB. I am not sure what happened in Indy but do you believe Gailey would survive two back to back horrible results. My sense is that if we look to the draft for a savior QB we end up rebuilding in 2010, 20011, and 2012 as well and that is if it works out well, Our next QB needs to come from FA and be at least somewhat proven.

Does it matter that Maybin is not meeting someone's expectation of what a 1st round choice should do? Yeah it matters a a lot if one is evaluating the draft pickers and the regimes approach to drafting. However, since Jauron is canned and there is a whole new game in town in terms of how the team is being schemed and built the selection of Maybin is not much of an issue as Jauron is gone and the structure has changed. The issue which does make a difference is that like it or not Maybin is a Bill right now how do you make him the best Bill he can be is the issue of concern. He has some fairly clear deficits in terms of him switching to a new position, questions as to whether he is big enough, questions as to whether he will maintain his speed as he puts on more tonnage, technique issues, etc. Its great to read conversation about how to improve these issues, but most of the answers to these questions are going to be found in reality over time and not in silly theorizing which may not apply to reality. Has he not developed as fast as other #9 picks? Quite frankly this comparison really matters little (perhaps it matters in evaluating the now fired Jauron but why would anyone want to waste their time going in depth on this?) I think this whole focus on whether he has developed like a 1st rounder should is actually fairly silly as it is generally a smart consensus that a player cannot be intelligently evaluated until he puts in 3 seasons. Too many good players are unproductive for a variety of reasons their first, second and sometime even their 3rd season before they hit their stride. Also frustrating is that there are also one year wonders who have a great start but then due to injury, opponents figuring out their game or them getting a swelled head and going off the deep end, the 3 year thought is a good one. Does this mean you do not evaluate until the 4th year? Nope, a smart team evaluates constantly. It simply means it is pretty dumb to make any galactic conclusions or take difficult to reverse steps based on that evaluation until you see how it plays out for a couple of years. Maybin has worked out to be a poor choice so far (well duhh). The question is whether Bills fans should spend their time wringing their hands about the fired failure that picked him or spend a lot of thought on some pretend woulda coulda shoulds of who we could have had, or alternately what are worthwhile thoughts for dealing with the reality we got. I think that Gailey has this just right that you put the boy through his paces in these meaningless games so that he either learns fast how to use the good things he's got, learns fast what he needs to improve, or we learn fast that he is another Mike Williams, Joey Harrington, Akili Smith or whatever. Play him a lot, play him hard and let reality guide us. The musings about the mistakes of the old regime, the dumb notion that we should make a decision right now to give up on a 1st round investment at the start of his second year, and the fantasy that 1st round players must contribute immediately (my more detailed examination of the real world results of a class year considered pretty talented was that it was little more than a 50/50 proposition that a player drafted in the 1st round was even a starter after a full season points to the reasonable course with Maybin being to stay the course.

I also suspect that part of the listlessness or lack of aggression came with the being a new D style and basic assignments and the boys are thinking rather than flying around. Making a conclusion based on one game is simply stupid. I think its best to keep performances from last night in mind simply to see if poor performances continue in the next game, but if not I think that Thurs nights results are imminently forgetable.

Most judgments expressed about whether he looked pissed, angry, frustrated, embarassed, etc, actually sau more accurately about the poster than they do about Gailey. Posters seem to tend to see whatever the bring to the table in how they think Gailey should feel based on their own perspectives on the game expressed in the post. They then attribute those feelings to Gailey whether they really are true or not. My own sense of Gailey (based in my own biases if course) is that he came off as guarded. He seems to want to use public statements as a training tool less than other HCs (the demonstrative Rex Ryan for example who clearly seems to be acting to me and doing a bad job as he tries to fake sincerity. In general Gailey comes off to me as doing something necessary in terms of talking to the press, but not something he views as a key tool in how he is molding the players. He knows it will have an effect so he does little things which appear directed but I see little evidence of him launching any coherent campaigns. He comes off to me as fairly honest and knows that one does not want to start off with a rep as an apologist for his employers. He comes off as someone who does not want to say a lot but knows he has to say something or even bigger tempests in the press will energe. He is guarded and then folks write on this pretty blank slate whatever they choose to see.

Do you realize if you are right then we ought to fire Dick Jauron and to boot totally do a virtually complete changeover in the General Management leadership and bring new different perspectives into the leadershio mix at OBD! Oh wait,, I guess we have seen action on the key points of this post already. Perhaps we are ready to stop rearranging the deck chairs on drafts already been done and instead focus on how we get better with what we got. Certainly those who do not remember the past are destined to repeat it. Analysis on issues like how good are Penn St draftees is really relevant at some other time. However for right here and right now those who choose to live in the past are destined to fail in the future. I think the two choices are you either bench Maybin if you have decided (at least a year and actually probably two) that he is a bust. Otherwise you play him until he drops in crash course to get better or croak trying if you think there is any possibility to train him up. The key point is whether you want to play his butt off or prematurely evaluate him and cut him loose.

Perhaps there are two (or more) fairly fundamental things Maybin needs work on such as making sure he keeps proper leverage at the point of attack, using elemental pro moves not needed against weaker college talent like the spin move when engaging a bigger but plodding blocker and also getting up out of the stance. If the coaches have him working on the first two issues and we will deal with the stance issue in practice or later he might have played from the three point stance he was used to in college rather than upright like an LB . Maybin may well be a bust. However it is simply stupid to draw that conclusion on one year and a pre-season game of play since 3 full seasons of play is often what is needed for a player to show his true stuff. True there should at least be some rational progress, but the fact is we have seen players like Moulds where it took a full two years of non-production before the perrenial Pro Bowler emerged. It is simply too early for anyone to declare a youngster like Maybin done. Add to this that much of the analysis gleaned by us local yokels in our armchairs watching a TV feed is no where near a platform for true evaluation (and actually can give a false evaluation) and I think that the usual broad conclusions drawn on the internet may end up being correct but even if so it may well be dumb luck rather than incisive analysis. I think that the opinions worth paying attention to on TSW are folks who clearly know that they do not know it all.

Straws are all that you, i, and all other sitting in front of the TV watching the game or in front of our computers have actually in terms of impacting this. What I think the way this is playing out actually is that Gailey in terms of success and his understanding with Nr. Ralph gives all appearances of being on a two year plan to demonstrate he is turning around this aircraft carrier and likely on a 3 year plan to need to show objective results such as a winning record and make or at least compete seriously for the playoffs. In this light, what this year is mostly going to be about is evaluation and teaching. Maybin getting a good very long look last night leads me to the guesstimate that the good news is they still think he is teachable. If they had made the decision already that Maybin was a Jauron mistake and a loss cause, then they would have easily gotten by with a quarter of play on his part and then attention could be turned to finding the next answer. Perhaps with OLBs, Kelsay, Ellison, and Batten all out they decided this was a good opportunity to test Maybins stamina. Again regarding the physicality, this really smacks of the coaching staff looking to fix something difficult or hard to detect from watching the game being filmed for broadcast versus the game being filmed for evaluation. You really don't think that these are the same thing do you? In regard to Trent, I think the play of the QBs on roster and acquisition strategies are items which firmly point toward a 2 year or more plan. The situation looks to me like the Bills may simply be looking to see if the catch lightening in a bottle from any of the 3 QBs. Its unlikely but so what as this unlikely choice is more likely than any of the injured rookie QBs in this draft. My sense is that even though there appears to a bunch of better prospects in the next draft, even if they went 0-16 and took the best (probably Locker) the odds are that he turns out to produce as well as Peyton Manning in his first year and we are on a 3 year plan to merely on a 3 year plan to post a winning record (much less make the playoffs). I hope we go FA to get our QB rather than waste time in the crapshoot known as the draft. However the lengthy play strikes me as them working with improving him rather than them building a case to cut him. Half a game not only gives them ample time to evaluate but to show they have given him a fair shot.

Again, there is simply a difference between him looking like crap and getting thrown around like a rag doll and the coaching braintrust benching him and the same shabby play and the coaching staff sticking with him. They are investing valuable PT in him one assumes because they expect it to payoff. One explanation for this is that the coaches are deranged and are just obviously wasting time in a move that will cost them their livelihoods and reps OR they see some fairly fundamental flaws (for example highly drafted from a quality football manufacturing outlet Ryan Denney simply could not be put on a football field playing against scrubs because he did not bend his knees properly at the point of a hit and thus could not get proper leverage and apply his big body and great strength. With training however, he became a competent (though not a star at all pro. The more us outside observers make a case that he looks horrendous out there simply makes even more of a case if true that the PT he has gotten means the braintrust sees a lot there and a potential for correcting it that MAY be phenomenal.

The most important thing here is appears to be not that Maybin sucked but that Gailey apparently gave him so many minutes of play to suck. Given the simple large roster size and the fact that a lot players can use a lot of PT getting used to a new D and that players need to get used to playing with each other, the significant investment of PT that Gailey gave to Maybin is simply a testimony that Gailey must expect this investment to pay off. I hope that the analogy in the long run I hope we think applies is that it proves to be like learning to ride a bike. When almost all people start it just looks ugly the fondering around and the spasticity. However, almost suddenly the body/mind gets it and one almost not even remember what one would have to do to "ride" in such an uncoordinated way for any length of time. One hopes that the Maybin PT is a sign that Gailey and the crew simply expect him to suddenly get it.

He just asked for positive views, he never mandated that they be rational. I try to take a Tea Party view at all things pre-season.

It was a preseason result which puts us firmly on the Marv Levy track for a successful regular season!

The problem I fear with Johnson is that he regressed pretty badly in terms of statistical accomplishments last year. Understandable in that he is far less valued on this team than Evans and the team added TO who actually far outpaced Evans in terms of production last year (like TO or not the simple fact is he led the team in both catches and yards last year). My fear for SJ is that my experience has been that the best WRs simply demand the ball be thrown them because they are so much better than their competition that they get wide open a lot. What happens is that the superior player forces the OC to call plays with him as an option and the QB begins to throw that players way because they are clearly open a lot. Further, when the catch the ball even on short check-off plays, the top quality WR turns them into extraordinary gains. Johnson did not do this last year and though it is not impossible he will do better this year, him making a great step forward in his play to produce merely adequate #2 numbers simply is not good enough to force opponents to think twice about dting Evans (a demonstrated method of neutralizing him). SJ runs great routes, has good hands, etc, but there is simply nothing in his real world performance record to indicate he can be the type of performer we need in order to make our passing game even adequate. I expect SJ to step up quite a bit now that he is #2, but even doing this I think we will not be adequate. The only solution I see on this roster is if Spiller shows the ability to be lined up wide. If so, this creates match-up issues for the opponent which I think would make Evans a far more effective WR.

The debate over Butkus on this board is an indicator of how much bias on these all time lists depends upon whether one saw a player play or not. To some extent whether a player strikes one as all time or not was how dominating that player was compared to other players of that era. I think Jim Brown leaks through even though he is from the before time because he was simply so much better than the competition he faced as opponents and relative to what other RBs were accomplishing he stands out (particular as he did this in a societal framework which discriminated so badly against him as an African-American. The films I see of Brown and my recollections of Butkus were that a thing which made them singular was that they were like a men among boys out there when they played. They seemed to be going at a different speed than their opponents and that is what impresses me.

I did see Butkus as a kid growing up in Chicago and thus am biased but Butkus was a singular force. Its hard for me to imagine another player who just exerted his force of will on a game singlejandedly. He was so good he made me feel sprry for the opponent and I was rooting for the Bears. Its horrible to even hint at praising his play for it but he literally killed Chuck Hughes of Detroit with a hit.

I would only have to guess at what it is right now, but 3 or so years back I took the time to take and in depth look at the previous year's draft class (which many pundits seem to feel was a pretty strong class) at the beginning of the next year to see how that class did as far as producing starters. I found that only slightly above 50% of the 32 first round choices (I think it was 17 or 18 players were first on their team's depth chart at their position even after one year of play. Some of this was probably due to injury (though after an off-season of healing the depth charts tended to reflect where a player was expected to be) but in general, I think it is simply a fantasy that a 1st round pick is going to be an immediate starter. There was a strong bias in performance of players in that player picked in the top 10 were in fact starters, but this makes perfect sense in that these were the best players in the entire draft and they were generally playing for the weakest teams. However, basically across the board, rookies all say that the one thing which surprised them about becoming a pro was how fast the players were and thus how much faster the play was (in terms of decision-making). It simply takes time for even the best college players who routinely made their opponents seem to be playing in cement shoes, suddenly gets reduced to merely be a very good human being rather than a superhero when they come to the pro game. It is simply reality that very good athletes never get it, that very good players take a while before they perform consistently well and in outrider cases that a perennial Pro Bowler like Eric Moulds can produce results his fist two seasons which were quite bust like, but then become a perennial Pro Bowl quality player. Like it or not, even though Mel Kiper and ESPN has conspired with the NFL to sell folks a bill of goods that college players can be nearly perfectly assessed as to how they will perform as pro, the draft remains for the most part a crap shoot. Every year there are gonna be a couple of top ten players who turn out to be Ryan Leaf, Mike Williams, or a JaMarcus Russel and get paid millions to stink up the joint. There also are gonna be a few Jason Peters who do not even get drafted but a few years later make the Pro Bowl. I think you can pretty much throw out any assessments of players drafted in 2010, 2009, and 2008 which make a suggestion other than arguing what the best way to keep developing that player is going to be. Almost always the right answer is going to be either stay the course or give them another chance.

I find your rankings to fairly reasonable but there are caveats: 1. I think ranking any player in his first 2 or 3 years is a pretty dicey proposition in terms of being a meaningful thing. Th exhibit 1 example is Eric Moulds who by virtually all measures is pretty clearly a B in his first two years. However, thank gosh that no action was taken based on this assessment. There really is not other choice besides give a 1st or 2nd round player another chance and work with them to make them the best they can be once the team marches to the podium and a name is called. There is plenty of time to declare the player a bust reasonably after 3 seasons of results but any rating is simply not useful early on. 2. The rating is good but why the rating happened is hugely relevant to the extent of the rating alone being potentially very deceiving. Was the problem the quality of the player? Was it something the scouts or FO could know? Was the problem not the scouts but position coaches and development? It probably was a combination and if so how did this dance play out. Just as the writer recognizes the stark case of Kevin Everett, the details matter if you want to think about this with any intelligence.

Oops. I mean declare him a bust (though it sounds like he is being quite busy in camp this year).