BarleyNY

Was hoping there'd be a good place in Buffalo for Thursday night. Haven't found much due to the lack of interest in town (no pick). Possibly Santora's on Transit as they seem to be the only place I can find that is having any sort of draft party. Probably watching from couch though. Better for my current diet anyway.

Yes, the cap issue would be huge. Rivers is set to make $15.75M this season and the Bills have just under $7M in space. Ouch.

If they did think it prudent to trade Rivers the Chargers would want to acquire his replacement in advance or as part of the trade. Also there isn't as big of a hurry as you might think. While the league has specifically stated that a player can't be tagged for the purpose of trading him, it still is technically legal and it still happens. As long as the Chargers continue to work to sign him long term they wouldn't get into any trouble. So they can kick the can down the road a year if they want. If the Chargers do acquire a quality QB or quality QB prospect without trading away Rivers in the process, then sure. Why wouldn't the Bills go for it? But he's got to be available first.

Well, I've got something that's totally inflated now!

Agree. Rremove pot from the banned substance list and substantially increase PED testing. Still too much cheating. Oh, and I'd be more consistient in punishments.

One more week.....

This is pretty typical cap management. In '95 during the MLB work stoppage I happened to be in a graduate economics course with a prof whose expertise was in the economics of sports. The money flows to the real difference makers and the players most likely to get squeezed out of jobs are the vets who are paid more than younger players, but don't offer vastly superior play. Younger, developing players also have the potential of improving and becoming difference makers in the future whereas vets are pretty much who they are. Basically, players need to be able to effect the outcomes of games or they'd better be cheap. Everyone else is expendable.

My point remains. Many groups of players who were just as promising failed to produce and are being viewed in hindsight now. You can't compare those known quantities to the possible potential another unproven group has - especially when the situation has to be qualified by ignoring the QB, OL, etc. It's ridiculous.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Right now we're comparing potential to proven production. There have been a lot of groups of skill players that had the potential the Bills 5 have, but failed to achieve for some reason or another - injury, poor support (QB, OL, coaching), miscast pieces, etc. Realistically the Bills have a lot to negotiate and need some luck for this group to all excel as we hope. I see the following concerns:Watkins - health, including coming back 100% from labrum injury Harvin - injury history and malcontent history Woods - none Clay - production must increase to live up to his contract Shady - scheme fit Support - QB and OL play must be considerably better than last season and I don't see the big upgrades there. Defense should take a lot of pressure off of the offense, however. Specials are a plus, too. Coaches are more than capable of putting players in position to be successful, but new schemes must be learned which sometimes takes time - especially with so many new players. I hope it all comes up roses, but I am cautiously optimistic and fully expecting it to take time for things to come together. I expect to hit some bumps in the road along the way, too. Still, there's a lot to like about the overall direction. Edited to add: I'm not saying that I expect that all of the concerns I noted above will play out that way. I just think that, from an odds perspective some will and some won't. Thus, we won't see the maximum potential realized.

NFL contracts are definitely structured so that players are not overpaid for their level of production (or at least that it does not go on for long). Holdouts like this are the only way an UNDERpaid player in the position Brown is in can get fair compensation for his value. It should be a two way street. Absolutely true. The real reason why the athletes in the NFL don't have guaranteed contracts and a why they have a generally worse collective bargaining agreement than NBA and MLB athletes is that their union is the weakest of the three - by far. MLB is the strongest. It all stems from national versus local revenue generation, but the end result is that the NFLPA does not have the power to demand guaranteed contracts, nor is it really in their best interest to do so since they negotiated in a spending floor.

http://overthecap.com/position/wide-receiver/ Here is a link to WR compensation numbers. Difficult for me to fault him for wanting to be paid equally to WRs he has outperformed. If he'd significantly underperformed his deal you can bet the Steelers would be telling him he needed to take a pay cut if he didn't want to be cut.

Agreed. I also wonder if he sticks. He doesn't seem to last longer than 3-4 seasons before his schtick gets old. He's definitely in a better spot in college than in the pros, though. His players will be college kids and will only be around him for 3-5 years so that'll help. If he wins and beats tOSU the scUM boosters and fans will let a lot slide. As a tOSU alum I am not exactly rooting for him. We shall see.

This is probably the dumbest part of the article. Talk about selling low. If in early August the Bills are looking to trade EJ (or any team is looking to trade a QB), then the situation is obvious - the FO/coaches think he is terrible and are looking to deal him before he shows in preseason because they know he'll stink. Does anyone think EJ won't show well in preseason games with simplistic offenses and defenses? Especially if he runs second string? It isn't like the coaches couldn't put him in a great position to look good. Then other teams might come calling. Then his value is up. It is certainly worth the risk unless he looks abysmal in camp. Please note that I am not lobbying for this to happen (unless the Bills acquire a better long term prospect than EJ). I am just pointing out a pretty bad flaw in the article.

What do you think Spikes meant? He was obviously referring to the Hernandez verdict as the tweet was sent just a few minutes after the verdict was read. He obviously thinks Hernandez shoildnt have been convicted. I can't believe that he is dumb enough to think that there wasn't enough evidence to show guilt. So what else was it? Oh, and before you answer please note that he followed it up with this after he took flak for his comment: “Let me get off this cus yall wanna joke and [stuff] smh #coldworld,” Spikes tweeted. “I’ll get back on [tomorrow] when yall done fake caring.”

Nice work on the mock.

I will wait and see on McCoy. Not much else to do at this time anyway. The questions about scheme fit are definitely a concern for me - especially considering his contract and what the bills gave up for him. He's going to have to run well between the tackles or a lot of people are going to be complaining that he became a CJ clone.

The sell-because-player-X's-value-will-only-decrease is a fair arguement, but I'm not sure that it fits right now with EJ. The Bills need one QB who has a possibility of being a long term, quality starter. Right now I don't see a better option on the roster than EJ. If the FO brings in another QB who they think is a better option, then fine. Trade him at that point, but not before you secure such a player. Besides, how much less are they going to get for him if they wait and he fails? A late round pick instead of a mid round pick? Whoop. I'd happily chance that decrease in value against the possibility the light goes on for EJ - that is unless a better option comes along.

It is important to note that Watkins was responding to a question about EJ, not making a statement that he thinks EJ should start over Cassel. 7 pages is way too much over comments like these (yes, I realize I just added to it). It's good to hear that EJ has been working hard and looking good. I hope he put it all together this offseason, but there really isn't much to be said one way or the other until he shows what he has on game day. No need for any cheering or any griping at this time.

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with the whole "Some white cop got away with murdering a black kid so Hernandez should be able to get away with it too." line of thought. There might not be a dumber arguement. Our system sucks, but it got this one right. Spikes' comment was clearly directed at Hernandez's guilty verdict. I must have missed his social commentary on the various other police and legal tragedies of our time. Spikes is, at best, an idiot and maybe much worse. The whole " couldn't care less what people think" attitude should come in real handy in the near future.

I'm pretty sure that a person's opinions and judgements go a long way in demonstrating what kind of person they are and how smart/stupid they are. Spikes just put his out there for the world to see and he's getting judged on them. Harshly. And he brought that on himself. In short, if you don't want people to think you're an idiot then don't go around saying idiotic things.

This is the entire "Personal" section of Wikipedia for Brandon Spikes: As a child, Spikes was raised by his brother, Breyon Middlebrooks, while their mother, Sherry Allen, worked 12-hour days at a fiberglass plant. In 2003, Middlebrooks was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, the result of a drug deal in 2001. He writes to Spikes regularly and watches what games he can from his cell at Scotland Correctional Institute in Laurinburg, North Carolina. He is the younger cousin of former NFL linebacker Takeo Spikes.[19] Sheds some light on his opinion of Hernandez, no? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Spikes

He did. A buddy of mine who was a lawyer (before getting sick of it and changing careers) had read Cochran's book. It had defense tactics for when there really was no legitimate defense. One of them was to play the racism card, which Cochran did perfectly in the OJ case. From jury selection all the way through final arguements. The lengthy sequestration due to the prolonged trial and threat of having to go through it longer if a guilty verdict was returned was brilliant. Add in some semi-competent prosecution, a semi-competent judge and the already racially tense LA area and OJ bought himself a little freedom before he screwed up again. The judge, prosecution, jury, general environment and lack of any race/socioeconomic/religion card to play made this a totally different situation than OJ's. The burden of proof seemed about equivalent though.

Agree with NoSaint. His attorney took the only path he had - try to put enough doubt into the jury and maybe get one or two people to create either a hung jury or a verdict of 2nd degree murder so that he could get parole at some point.

10-6. Wild Card, but 1st round playoff loss.

Yup. His name has been up for HC positions in the past. With any success I expect that to happen again be it next offseason, two years from now or whenever. He's going to have to strike while the iron is hot.