Dan

If you take last year's "stats" at face value, Peters gave up nearly 1 sack per game that he played in. Do you really think Walker is going to average allowing more than a sack per game if he's the LT? Point being, why would he suddenly get killed just because it's someone other than Peters giving up 11 or so sacks a year? If I recall, the one game where Edwards did get killed (Arizona), Peters played. Albeit the killing sack wasn't a result of Peters' play; but it points to the fact that having Peters in the lineup does not guarantee a clean jersey on the QB.

I completely agree. And please don't take my comments as an attack on yourself. I was merely using your post as a sounding board because I can see those arguments already. I consider myself as patient as any person. I gave Jauron 3 full years. And the fact that he posted 3 consecutive 7-9 seasons is not what concerns me the most. What concerns me is exactly what you just alluded to. For 3 years we've been vanilla, predictable, and apathetic on the field. You would think at some point the offense would improve and not continually make the same mistakes. You'd think the defense could recognize a slant pattern after 3 years and do something to break one - just one - up. You'd think so many things that we as fans sitting on our coaches see as plainly as the noses on our faces could be recognized and corrected by our coaching staff. But, they're not. The only summation I can arrive at is this coaching staff doesn't have that ability. Now, with a 4th year approaching, all we can do is wait and hope that this is the year Jauron et al. put it all together. And of course, we'll wait and watch in anticipation. But, I find it hard to believe that the light will suddenly come on. If I had some reason to, perhaps, but where's the glimmer?

So what's the going rate for a strapping middle aged man sitting in a hotel room?

So will this be the excuse this year when we finish 7-9 with several poorly coached games in for good measure? Peters is gone, the new LT gave up 10 sacks. The other guys are still rookies. And so on and so forth. Edwards this. The weather that. At what point, do we say we have enough talent on this team to compete in the NFL? Can anyone honestly say that our players, as a whole, are in the bottom 3rd of the NFL? In recent years, we've seen former Bills that were considered vastly inferior go to other teams and contribute. Look no further than Gandy on the Cards and Leonard on the Ravens. Just 2 examples of players that supposedly shouldn't even have been in the NFL let alone start while with the Bills, yet other coaching staffs figured out how to use them. So what gives? At some point, isn't it the coaches job to put the players in a position to win? Yeah, the players have to execute and all those great cliches, but when it's 3 and 4 and you motion Reed to the side that you're running to for the 20th time that game while 8 and then 9 defenders rush in presnap.... well you're just not getting it done as a coaching staff. I'm sorry.

And 50 years from now, there will still be people bitching at Ralph because he didn't secure the team's really long, long term future. Because by selling it to Kelly he somehow made money off of it and hence, we only got a cumulative 100 years of NFL football. In other words some people will always find a reason to B word. Kinda like how someone starts a thread stating that Ralph should sell the team a day after what is arguably our best draft* in a decade. Incredible. *Disclaimer: By best draft I refer to the many pundits who rated it highly based on purely arbitrary rankings and in no way do I verify that this draft was either good nor our best. In short, I mostly wanted to make a point so I used hyperbole.

Please, if you will, which side are you on? I really need to make sure I'm on the other. Although, yours might be more comical.

You gotta love the subtlety of the slap.

Too late for that. Trust me.

I was going to start a similar thread, but you beat me to it. I, too, have to give the FO a nice congratulations. Yeah, they chased DBs late. But, all things considered... we had several big time needs. And each of these areas were addressed with top rated players. Not much more you can really ask for. It'll take few years to know if they made the right selections; but at this point, you have to give them some credit for identifying the needs and trying to address them. It's also nice to see all the draft pundits on ESPN and NFL Network in agreement that the Bills had one of the best drafts in the league. I know their opinions don't mean much in the final analysis, but it's refreshing none the less to see the Bills talked about favorably on the national scene. The FO definitely did their job this weekend. I agree. Now, let's hope the coaching staff can do theirs this summer and fall.

Please email this to someone at OBD and ask for an explanation. Excellent points all around. I know you don't normally expect late round picks to do much in the NFL, but continually drafting guys that play the same position as well-established starters just pretty well ensures that they won't do much. IMO, what they just did is tantamount to throwing these picks away. Why not at least try and get someone that could contribute to the team or at the very least trade them away for something next year if you just don't want them?

Seriously... why not just give the late round draft picks to someone and write it off on the team taxes as a charitable contribution. This is borderline obscene.

why

I'd let him do that to you if that's what it takes.

Is it possible the FO has a clue?

I agree. I'm gonna go out on a limb and pretend I know what I'm talking about; but I think Maybin will stay at DE. So, they still need a LB. Not sure if anyone is left worth much though.

So, for those of us that don't know all these college guys.... who had the better day 1? I'm thinkin the Fish.. wtf? Jets? wow. Pats* I have no clue.

Thanks. I know little about any of these guys. According to PFW, Maybin is the #1 DE, Levitre is the #1 G, and Wood was the #2 C. For whatever their rankings are worth. So, yeah, I guess I'm reasonably impressed with the FO. I agree. THE OT and DT positions are still an area of concern. But, we can't fix them all at once. I would say of our lines, the DE and C/G positions werer the weakest; so I'm glad that's what they addressed. I'm actually more concerned with Ellison starting at LB than I am Fine/Shouman at TE (not that I think either of those 2 guys are good). With luck at least one of those positions gets an upgrade.

More likely. I agree. Jauron has shown a strong preference for not starting rookies if he can at all help it.

I've been out working all day (I know missed all the fun). I gotta say though, on the surface, a DE, a Center, a Guard on day 1... wow. At least we have to give the FO credit for trying. I'm not smart enough to know if these guys are the best guys, good guys, or suck; but at least they're linemen. I'm happy. Now, the safety pick is a whatever. But, 3 out of 4 ain't bad. So, seriously, Bill, how do you think we did with day 1? You know the linemen better than I.

"Somebody call Dave and Buster's and get a table for tomorrow. Vontae's gonna be a hungry boy!"

No doubt. They've really built a rather weak, soft team that has as much difficulty playing in the Buffalo elements as the Dolphins. It would be nice to see them reverse that a little. There should be several options this year based on all the mocks I've seen. It'll be interesting to see how they go to say the least. I gotta say, fundamentally, I still don't think any of it matters as long as we keep the current coaching staff. But, I guess all we can do is sit back watch, pray, and think of glory days gone by.

I gotta have more Motor, baby!

You're welcome. I suspect come Monday, we'll know just how incompetent they are or are not.

Yeahhhhh ME! oh.. wait. . never mind didn't get past the title.

I would very much agree with this last paragraph! My laptop is XP and has very, very few problems. But, the co-workers... forget about it. We've got one person... she can't' use her computer more than 2 days without a complete lockdown. I'm about to either take it away or put an internet filter on it. I don't' even recommend it anymore.. I just hide Internet Explorer and make Firefox the default browser. But, that's an IE issue not so much a PC/Mac issue. What I do find interesting is that people have historically classified Macs as a niche or they're just for playing (i.e. not for real business) or say that it has limited software. When pushed, one of the first deficiencies listed is you can't get good games for the Mac. Funny, since the Mac is supposed to be the machine for those that don't want to do serious work. In my experience, there's very little you can't do on a Mac - high end mapping/GIS (ArcMap specifically) is one. I'm sure there are a few other things. However, for general business, accounting, statistics, graphing, presentations, etc. There's a mac equivalent available. People just don't realize it. The primary reason I haven't switched our entire operation over to mac is one thing.. .cost. It's hard to justify to our Business Manager spending $1200-$1400 on a laptop when you can get a similarly equipped one for $700-$800. Although, after the last week, I can easily say that I've spent far more than a few hundred dollars of my time fixing things on these machines that I'm certain I wouldn't have done on a Mac. Although I work with some real idiots, so who really knows. Regarding the virus issue. Yes, I think it's mostly because Macs are used much less; therefore, the virii writers spend less time on them. However, as I look at it, does it really matter "why" there's fewer viruses. The fact remains there "are" fewer mac viruses. Perhaps that'll change in the future, but until then, virus issues on a Mac are much less of a concern. So, if virus issues are a concern why wouldn't you consider a Mac.