ganesh

This is so untrue. Buddy did not offer Whitner a contract. The only team that offered him a contract was the Bengals before the 49ers gave him an offer at the last minute. I don't know why Whitner picked the 49ers instead of the Bengals. And the Pro-Bowl. Kudos to Whitner for embracing the 49ers contract and working hard to be a starter on that stellar defense. May be he got lucky that the 49ers turned it around in the year he joined them. May be he was part of the success. Who knows and who cares...Good for Whitner.

People are jealous because he is on a SB bound team. Bills fans always want to see former Bills suck and fade away.

+1

Good for both of them. Both deserve it. When Wood was out of the line up, our OL looked pretty weak. Or as the Bills love to do, may be they have a clause for giving him more money for the # of games that he DOES NOT Dress up (and play catch with TJ).

And when they gutted that D (1st year of Williams), RJ went 3-13 and resulted in the trade for Bledsoe.

+1

40M over 4 years (with a ton of upfront money) and 100M over 7 or so years is not an apples to apples comparison...

That 2001 was a really good draft and also was a "need" based draft. We needed a RB, needed a DE, needed a DT and an LT and we got good ones for all of them.

This is a most stupid comparison....Sanchez did play very well in the playoffs in those two seasons, but has regressed since then as the Jets have lost quality players at RB (Thomas Jones), OL, and WRs. On the other hand Flacco has blossomed and has improved his game every year. And if you are not aware, the Jets in spite of Sanchez's struggles gave him a 40M+ contract with close to 20M+ guaranteed money.

+1. He is at least on par with Big Ben

Even in the next years draft, there are only 1-2 can't miss for sure QBs and they will be gone with a Top-5 pick. There is no guarantee that the Bills will get one of the Top-3 picks to rope in that kind of franchise QB

+1 Plus Smith has a good set of WRs/TEs to throw the ball and have the 49ers commit to a Frank Gore led running game. Besides Stevie, we have scrubs as our WRs.

Alex Smith is not in the same league as Flacco (other than being in the NFL). Flacco has won many playoff games for his team and some of them actually due to his play. If not for stupid mistakes by Evans or his DC (Rex Ryan) Flacco could have beat Brady last year in the AFC Championship and also Ben's steelers 4 seasons ago. Having said that the Ravens will lock him up for that kind of asking price.... Sure. BUt over the years Flacco and the offense (RIce) have won many of those games too...

:wallbash: It doesn't matter. The guy has taken his team to AFC Championships back-to-back years and to the SB this year and has won many playoff games. He can WIN GAMES for the team. How does it matter whether he is same as Brady or Manning etc. He can make the CLUTCH throws and keep his team in the game for a full 60 minutes...And BTW, the teams that he beat on the way to the SB, Mannings Broncos and Brady's Patriots... You pay 20M if you want a Franchise QB.....Simple....Or you have to get the Top pick of the draft to get your choice...

We paid 100M to Mario with 50M Guaranteed...If we really get a shot at that # you quoted, we should be jumping on that....All the elite QBs make 20 to 23M per year. 40 Guaranteed in my opinion is pretty low.

Correct. But I think the chance of Alex Smith being release is pretty high while Vick and Sanchez are slim due to the contract they have signed.

I agree that no one were foreseeing that Wilson or Kaepernick will be 10 year starters. Otherwise, those guys would have gone on the Top 5-10 of the draft. However, I believe the flaw is in Nix's premise that he wants to draft a QB only if he thinks he will be a 10 year starter. The Draft is a crapshoot and you have to take a risk. If he really wanted a "for-sure 10 year starter" then he should have traded up for RGIII with the Rams.

The Bears have definitely expressed interest in Levitre and also have the Cap space. Levitre will become one of the highest paid Guards in the NFL this offseason.

hindsight is 20-20. There is a no given that a AJ Green, Julio Jones or Aldon smith would have succeeded here. Heck, even a Mario Williams had a piss-poor average season. It is not just the players...It is the coaching staff, building the winning mentality.

+1. The biggest flaw in Fitz game is that he is wildly inconsistent. I think he can make the down the line throws if he wants to, but just is not accurate enough. His strength is his pocket presence and quick release.

Isn't the answer in your own question....If the folks ahead of you don't pick a player, isn't there a legitimate concern about the player ? Which one, the pre-Cardinals-Concussion Edwards or the post-I-am-scared-but-DJ-wants-me-to-run-nohuddle-offense Edwards ?

And does Pettine use a headset ? (Just going back by a decade :-)) I doubt Anderson has any trade value. Anyways I see us cutting Spencer Johnson and Chris Kelsay this summer...Which means we have enough roster spots for DL. I don't want players who "can play" the position. I want players who "excel" at their position. This has really been a big problem with the Bills for the past decade. They have tried to fit square pegs in round holes....

To Kelly's point, Nix has tried upgrading the QB position via other means. It is just that it did not work out. If Vince Young was able to get his career on track, we could be having an excellent starter for the next 4-5 years. Some of Nix's hands may have been tied due to what Chan Gailey wanted and that might have been his single biggest failing . Gailey wanted a scat back and Nix picks Spiller and in the meantime couldn't figure out if his QB was Trent Edwards or Fitzpatrick. Gailey wanted a wild-cat QB and Nix signs Brad Smith in FA for 15M Gailey wanted a QB who knew his offense and Nix signs Tyler Thigpen to a FA contract The only time Nix probably went above Gailey was in signing Young to a FA contract and when that failed, trading for Jackson. However, I think due to Gailey's stubbornness and rigidity, they never could get Young into the program and never attempted to get Jackson into the program. The fact that Gailey started Fitz in a meaningless final game against Jets instead of evaluating Tavaris Jackson shows me how much Gailey was reluctant to figure out the QB position. I would like to give a one-time pass to Nix due to how Gailey has toyed around with this position and put Nix in a bad situation. For a team to be successful the GM and HC must be able to work together and Nix did just that, except that his trust in Gailey as a HC and Talent evaluator was misplaced. Chan Gailey has single handedly put back this franchise by 3-4 years. To make it worse, the Bills defense has been 30th and 31st in the league in the past two seasons against the Run and Nix has been forced to close that leak unsuccessfully. He has been forced to invest top draft choice in Dareus, Gilmore, Troupe and big time FA money in Williams, Anderson and Barnett. Again, some of that blame goes to Chan for not hiring the right defensive coaching staff that can put the players to succeed.

+1. George Wilson sucks.

Which is "more" displeased ?