ny33

This is a fantastic point. This is a deeply flawed comparison. Baseball involves guaranteed money for player contracts without a salary cap; there is tremendous incentive to go to a team that offers the most money, and Detroit has a strong team that will push for a championship this year. Buffalo has the worst recent track record of teams in the league, and is easily the worst city in the NFL, to be honest. While the city of Detroit is a desolate place, there are some excellent suburbs there that pro athletes are happy to live in (Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills for example) while Buffalo doesn't.

Unfortunately, this is one of a number of posts in which people have just copy-pasted lists from websites. Taking the time to compile a quality list is worth it, and avoids the errors that people will spend most of the time in their posts responding to. The inclusion of SJ and Welker as "mid-level" free agents, for example, or the inclusion of already-extended Pears, make it hard to see what one is getting at. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of these players have re-signed with their teams, as Pears has with us. That being said, Williams isn't coming here. There are numerous good teams with money to spend (Cincy and Atlanta for example) that Williams could get the big contract he's looking for from if he doesn't re-sign with Houston. Buffalo has a shot at guys like Cliff Avril, though, and Vincent Jackson on the other side of the ball; those are the types of players we should be thinking about. Avril just said that he wouldn't be happy about a franchise tag, and I think he leaves Detroit for a big contract somewhere else. Buffalo has a shot.

Is honesty so jarring to you?

Claiborne, Blackmon, and Richardson won't slip that much. Buffalo doesn't have a shot at the top CB in the draft, unfortunately. Brockers is way too high, but I do agree that he will be a riser on draft boards, and might be a top-10 pick.

I stopped reading your post when you mentioned Landry Jones. Is it so difficult to post accurate information? It looks like you copy-pasted your list from some NFL draft website a few months ago.

I'm assuming you mean martial law?

Please explain to me why Mario Williams would choose to sign with the Bills? He's likely to re-sign with Houston (even for less money), and there are plenty of good teams with money to spend this year: Atlanta and Cincy come to mind, and the Patriots have more space than we do, although they need to lock up Wes Welker and a few other guys. Williams isn't coming here.

Matt Stafford Calvin Johnson Darrelle Revis Jason Pierre-Paul Von Miller

Here's a link:http://espn.go.com/blog/afceast/post/_/id/24815/shawne-merriman-thrilled-with-bills "Merriman has some interesting language for 2012 also tied to last year's Achilles injury. His base salary will be $4 million regardless. The minute he's cleared to practice -- even if it's a month from now -- $3 million of his 2012 salary becomes fully guaranteed whether he's on the roster or not. Of course, he would need to remain with the team to pick up his $1 million roster bonus and $250,000 workout bonus for 2012."- from Tim Graham

I'm sorry, but I didn't read the rest of your post because of the inaccurate information posted in bold. Three out of four million dollars owed to Merriman next year are guaranteed; we wouldn't save that much cash from cutting him. There is more incentive to keep Merriman than there is to cut him.

Right. So, Jared Allen isn't great because the Vikings give up a lot of points (second-most in the league); neither are any of the Giants defensive lineman like Pierre-Paul (the Giants give up the fifth-most points in the league). That's not to mention, of course, that Mario Williams should be cut because Houston's defense is doing so well without him.

There are three things I really take issue with in your assessment. McIntyre, as others mentioned, is a critical part of our special teams unit and, when on the field, meant that FJ had a higher Y.P.C. Dwan Edwards is a "marginal" player, yes, but he's been moderately productive and has actually been one of the more underrated players on this team. There is no reason not to keep him for depth. Finally, Merriman's contract is mostly, if not all guaranteed. Besides the fact that I think he was a key part of our pass rush (tape shows how many times he was held without a call), cutting him when we wouldn't save any money has zero benefit.

I like Williams a lot; he's looking like the best CB out of this draft (Patrick Peterson has been beaten more often). That being said, I hope Buffalo doesn't make a rash decision and get rid of McKelvin, who, as some posters have pointed out, seems to be playing much better without all of the criticism and pressure on him after making mistakes. Florence and McGee look to sadly be aging and increasingly ineffective, but I hope we keep all of our young corners. If Buffalo can grab him, I'd like to get Cortland Finnegan as a motivating vet in free agency.

The problem with the offense was that our red zone offense was abysmal. This is, in large part, due to the fact that Fitzpatrick has slipped, as well as Gailey's refusal to use CJ in the red zone. We need to keep FJ and Spiller next year for a 1-2 punch; Fred was money in the red zone.

Wrong. We had no issue with the salary cap and the team is making money. That's not to mention the fact that Maybin is the ONLY first round pick from that year to be cut. There's no reason we shouldn't have given Maybin another year, at the least.

All things considered, this is shaping up to be one of, if not the, greatest draft classes of all time. I've never seen so many rookies make an impact.

He reminds me of Jevon Kearse, personally.

Sorry, but I care more about winning than incremental increases in draft position (unless we're TERRIBLE and losing the #1 overall pick, or something). Winning gives the players confidence, and if we are capable, we'll draft well at whatever spot in the first round. That's besides the fact that I hate Tebow and am glad to help ruin his season.

What? Flacco isn't a game manager. He has a big arm, but poor deep accuracy. Flacco's biggest problem is that he holds on to the ball for far too long and is slow to make reads. This is proof that the term "game manager" is just thrown around to describe an average QB. He and, say, Alex Smith, though of similar caliber, have completely different styles.

As multiple people have said, we wouldn't get enough value back (certainly not a second-round pick) trading Fred Jackson. FJ will stay but, unfortunately for him, won't get the money he has earned. We'll re-sign him next year to a deal for something like two years, $5 million guaranteed $11 million total.

Andrew Luck would never sign with Buffalo. Poz was an excellent pick for his draft position. He's a good player who wanted more money than Ralph would dole out.

What is the point of this post? We had no shot at Newton. It's irrelevant.

That's a fair point. Brady hasn't won anything recently because Belichick's drafts have been terrible, worse than ours on some ways. Their defense hasn't been enough to get them titles. That being said, they wouldn't succeed at all if they didn't have Brady who, ironically, was a late-round pick. This Super Bowl will be interesting based on the fact that Baltimore, San Francisco, Houston and the Jets (not to mention teams that will likely lose in the first round, like Denver) will all be playoff teams with average quarterbacks and excellent defenses. If those teams get blasted out by teams like New England, Green Bay, or New Orleans, that will be further validation that teams cannot succeed in the playoffs without elite QB play.

Over the past seven years, all of those teams have made the playoffs, some multiple times. In the context of the past seven years, Buffalo has easily been the worst franchise in the league. In terms of the future, Miami, Jacksonville, Washington, and Cleveland have excellent defenses. All are in better position to grab one of the top quarterbacks (Barkley, Robert Griffin III) than we are. Cleveland has drafted well under Holmgren and has two first-round picks this year thanks to the Julio Jones trade. I think we are in better shape than Minnesota, St. Louis, Kansas City, and the Colts, but it's evident that we are a bottom-ten team until we start hitting on our first and second round picks consistently while keeping our most productive players.

Yeah, but parity in baseball is practically non-existent, when teams can have $200 million payrolls and others can only afford/choose to pay their players $30 million collectively. MLB is adding another wild card spot, but that will just mean that the big market teams- and well-managed smaller ones, like Milwaukee and Tampa- will continue to make the playoffs. Losing consistently in the NFL is inexcusable compared to baseball because of the competitive nature of the salary cap.