In-A-Gadda-Levitre

Fixed

I totally get the $80M playmaker, Greer, etc. I'm curious, who was the last (good) FA Safety we didn't resign? Not being sarcastic, I just don't remember letting good Safeties go.

You keep spewing the same bullcrap and no proof whatsoever to base it on. You don't know who they talked to, when they talked to them, or have any clue what was said. Neither does any of the media, so give it up!

and you know this because?

excellent post!

I think the NFL requires more than a page or two, but less than reams of paper, to delay multi-million dollar bonuses payments. DD obviously didn't nix the actual deal beforehand, but he might have declined to sign the paperwork that delayed his bonus, since he knew he would be a free agent after midnight on Thursday. It's all speculation and nobody outside OBD, the Lions, and DD's agent knows what actually went down or why.

you're welcome again and you're right again, this almost never happens. but think about it another way... The draft has evolved into a high-energy marketplace, where lots of things can happen in a short time. Draft picks can be easily traded and players can dealt to other teams while the clock ticks. The teams practice and strategize to the nth degree and have 'all their ducks lined up', so to speak. All the people that need to be there...are there. There's not a lot of requirements involved, since the NFL doesn't want to shut off an exciting, last second deal on national tv just because team A didn't get form Z signed before the clock expired. I'm guessing the team's word is taken in 99% of the transactions, with any and all paperwork filed after the fact. The bonus payment system and changes to long term contracts aren't designed to allow for lots of quick mods, and there's gotta be tons of bureaucracy and signatures involved. So the idea that a FO that can wheel and deal within seconds on draft day might be the same as crossing all the Ts and dotting all the Is in order to allow the Bills to delay a $1.75M payment is like apples and oranges. A really good question is whether the Bills and 'Skins ever talked about a trade for DD?

You're making a lot of assumptions that (maybe) aren't necessarily true. Knee jerk reaction? There's no evidence of that. Only that they wanted to avoid paying the bonus he was due. We have no information about when the Bills FO made the decision to cut him, or what effort was made to trade him. I don't believe Peters' contract demands and Dockery's situation were that interrelated. Dockery's performance was very poor in the eyes of the coaching staff and he was going to be traded or released regardless of what happened to Jason Peters. Moreover, in February, who knows how the JP situation was going to play out? I'm no GM, or sports agent, nor do I claim to know how they do their job, but as a business person, it doesn't make sense to cut a big check to someone in the hopes of moving him later. You try to trade the player, and if unsuccessful, you release him and move on.

I've done a lot of business contracts in my career, and I have no clue what the NFL requires to push back a bonus payment, but I assume it's more than a page or two, as it involves millions of dollars and lots of lawyers... According to Mark Gaughan: All I know is this; the Bills could have gotten a trade with a 7th round pick from the Lions, and likely significant other financial incentives, and they determined there wasn't enough time to file the necessary paperwork. Instead they got nothing by waiving him, so, unless there's some serious brain damage at OBD (and it sounds like you're on that page), they made the only choice available to them at the time.

You're welcome. Yes, they agreed in principle on Thursday, but it was too late, and DD wasn't in Detroit the same day as he hit the waiver wire. Nor did they essentially release him; they officially cut him on Thursday, 2/26. He went to Detroit on Friday, after he'd been released, one would assume to try and salvage the deal with the Lions, now that he was a free agent. Apparently Joe Bugel, the 'Skins OL coach, called DD about 60 times, pleading with him to come back to Washington "where he belonged". As I said in my post, the Lions contacted the Bills about DD at 2 pm, and there was no deal by 3:30, so the Bills had no time to file. If the Lions had called like an hour earlier, DD might have been signed. I stand by my original (and others like Mark Gaughan) argument that the Bills FO did not blow this opportunity with the Lions. I ask you what, given the circumstances, OBD could have done differently, other than aggressively trying to trade DD well before midnight on 2/26? The problem is that we don't know if they did or not. If the Bills knew he wasn't performing up to snuff, the chances are the rest of the league also watched his film, and there were no takers.

No disagreement with the perceived value of Dockery by the Bills. From what I read here, here, and here, DD visited Detroit on Friday, 2/27, the day after the Bills released him, and he ended up deciding to go back to the Skins. What is not clear is how aggressive the Bills FO were in trying to trade him before 2pm on 2/26.

The facts are that the Bills were planning to release DD on 2/26 outright because he was due a $1.75M bonus at 12:01 am the next day, and the Lions contacted the Bills front office at 2pm that day, just two hours before they would have had to file paperwork with the league at 4 pm, that would have pushed back his bonus in order to make the deal possible. There was no deal as of 3:30 pm and therefore no way to get the paperwork filed in time. IMO, DD probably wouldn't have agreed, since he would be a free agent that could sign with any team. There was no botching of paperwork; there simply wasn't enough time to get it done based on how it went down.

looks like nationalsportsreview.com is offline or has some DNS problems, maybe try later on...

Is Bills' Peters slipping from Pro Bowl standard? - tough love from JW

Are you saying that anyone who is convicted of a vicious felony can never be rehabilitated? That seems rather harsh. Every situation has to be looked at in its entirety; the player, the original circumstances, the precedent it might set, what's best for the NFL, etc. etc.

Yahoo! asks for site approval, tax break in Town of Lockport

Tim Graham wrote about the AFC East unworthy of first-round fantasy picks and he linked to ESPN's FFL Sortable 2009 Projections

WMD or WMO (weapons of massive offense)

My bad, I messed up RDE and LDE. I hate when that happens!

It's mind boggling that the Bills defense would rotate out their Pro Bowl pass rusher during obvious passing situations. The real question is how will Bob Sanders maximize Schobel and Maybin on the field. Maybin is a pretty young football player, without a lot of experience. Who's to say what he really is at this point?

as of today, Chicago hadn't even offered a contract yet. AFAIK the Bills are the only team that has put a contract on the table.

Parrish is practicing

+1

thanks bluefire PFT links to Chris Brown's OTA Day 2 and Day 3 logs on bb.com. ok, the tempo was a little upscale and it doesn't sound like it was a big deal. He played with the 1st team in spots, he's learning the defense... PFT doesn't give us a clue who was calling Maybin brutal, so where's the beef?

I have heard from several people that Ralph acquired the naming rights just before the 1998 season, when he negotiated with Erie County for stadium and practice field improvements. He apparently hates the practice of selling the name to a corporate sponsor...