AKC

You might chase Danny Duckhorn's former winemaker Tom Rinaldi over to the new Provenance property in Rutherford- you'll find he's got an especially great touch with Rhone varietals.

The only stat in which Moulds breaks into the top 5 anymore is his annual salary and amortized bonus. He right now is among Moss, Owens and Harrison as a top 4 WR in the league- in salary only of course. If we were talking about the top 35 money you suggest by the players on your list this discussion could be substantially different.

I don't necessarily see it as dark as this- Eric Moulds has at his very best been an "inconsistent" top receiver in the NFL. These days he's clearly fallen from the "top" category yet he remains the same old inconsistent Eric Moulds we've paid out the type of money earned by the consistent WRs around the league. Take his draft-mate Marvin Harrison. Harrison has built a career on making the tough grabs we know Eric makes on many occasions but Marvin also has long spans over which he also catches EVERY ball thrown his way he's supposed to catch. I can't think of as much as a 6 game span over Eric's career wherein he's caught "every ball" he should have come up with; Harrison on the other hand goes stretches like 30-40 games. Eric has both won and lost games as a WR, Marvin Harrison has really only been on the "W" side of that equation. All the things Eric has been able to bring over the years have always been balanced by his attention lapses, and I believe in the NFL of the new millenium the simple difference between the good offenses and the bad ones is which offenses can take advantage of more opportunites. Teams who have brought in RELIABLE hands guys are winning more often than the Superstar Wideout teams like the Raiders. We suffer from two "unrealiable" hands guys in Moulds and Reed, and this in my mind has had as much to do with our O struggles this year as any other dynamic save our "learnin'" period for our new QB. I'm thankful we have Lee Evans, a guy who appears to have VERY reliable hands, and if ever there could be a case of addtion by subtraction it might be this off-season with a good complement being added on the other side of Lee and one very substantial cap hit being softened with a trade of our "superstar" WR.

While I'm no fan of the inmates running the asylum, to be fair to Sam Adams he has been asked to do things that don't fit his talent set perfectly, mainly looking for him to be a line anchor when he's not good at it and sacrificing his exceptional one-gap skills as a result. Sam is one of the best penetrators in the middle in the game but that skill in our D is ony valuable in our basic running D if you have a complementary 2-gap lineman to play to his side, and without rotational help to spell him int he run D his pass down efectiveness is subject to the fatigue of playing every down. Adams might be fighting a losing battle, but the cause was the team foolishly entering the season shy at the very minimum one more quality DT and considering the limitation of Ron Edwards more realistically shy 2 DTs. I'm going to hold back from laying all the blame on Big Sam when #1 he's the ONLY starting quality DT on our roster and the warning signs going into the season were so evident yet Donahoe wildly misjudged the talent- or perhaps lack of talent- he had signed up at the position.

As awful a taste as '05 will leave in my mouth due to the defensive personnel misteps, we can remedy our ills very quickly with attention to our trouble spots. There's as much talent on this team as there is on most of the contenders this year, it's simply the distribution of that talent that has hurt us along with poor coaching on the sidelines. Both of these can be corrected in a hurry, if Ralph insists in it.

When was the last time you enjoyed a Salt Lick? Dickel is on the menu. Labatt's Blue buckets are a good deal.

This Sunday a contingent of TSW rivaling any table at the Mos Eisley Cantina will assemble for the NE game at Del's Saloon in West Los Angeles at 9:00 a.m. to commiserate our collective hangovers, both football and Christmas Party induced. Western New York "treats" are in transit. First place door prize will include the privilege of starting the Jet's game at Left Offensive Guard. Mapquest the location at: 12238 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90025, it's a block west of Bundy. Call me if you have any questions- (310) 963-7640

Peters had a better game when facing Jason Taylor than a lot of "real" OTs around the league, and Gandy is one of the best cost/performance ratio LTs in the league. To me it makes no football sense in the Cap era to replace Gandy when we have true weaknesses elsewhere; Gandy is arguably a major strength considering he uses minimal cap space. Williams is the opposite end of that argument and no bench warmer can eat ths space he would consume next year so he should expect a big Sayonara. The caveat to this though is that I expect he'll end up somewhere on a productive line for many years to come and become one of those "we should have never let him..." names, but the reality is we MUST let him move on. Benny stinks and will be joining Big Mike in the Bon Voyage party. Conjures up images of those two in a canoe ;-) That leaves us with a OG spot to fill (once again!) AFAIC. Conditioning could be some factor in the offensive ineptitude, but it doesn't answer the question of the fast drop-off after the first quarter. Even a slob on an OLineman (see Benny Anderson) can get 2 quarters our of his carcass. Our team fades after the first 15 minutes. It's coaching, coaching, coaching. We can script a great opening quarter but when asked to actually COACH as the game unfolds we're getting beat. No matter if some small percentage is conditioning and some other small percentage is talent, the reality is borne out by the performance drop every 15 minutes- the VAST majority of the offensive problem on this team is the offensive coaching. The most objective measure we have is "how does our team do when measured exactly in point production against the other teams in the league?" We have only 6 teams better then us after 15 minutes, but 21 better during the second 30 minutes, and 29 better in the third quarter- we fall to dead last in the league for the 15 minutes prior to the final whistle. This isn't a rating system, it's not a subjective and elusive number with a million variables- it is the absolutely objective measure of what our team does in direct, head to head comparisons with the other 31 teams in the NFL.

If you look at rosters like Indy, there are 5 guys in their DT rotation, any of whom would be an instant starter on our team. We have lesser talent at the top of the depth chart and laughable talent on the bottom. The best personnel staffs around the league have built large, high quality rotations in their interior- the Bill's have neglected one of the absolute key positions in the modern game. It's time to change this.

I'm not sure Anderson and Bannon would crack the USC starting lineup.

I heard the same thing from the game crew but I got different numbers from this source: Stats I haven't analyzed their acuracy but the detail seems consistent.

There are a number of objective assumptions that can be reached from our rank among NFL teams in performance by quarter. Patterns tell us much about the team we’re fielding and the conclusions IMO are clear. Here’s some critical patterns from the 2005 Buffalo Bills: Our defense has opened games allowing the 2nd least number of points in the league during the first quarter. We drop precipitously from there to 22nd in the second quarter before getting a halftime breather and rising to 14th in the third before falling all the way to 26th in the 4th quarter. Offensively we open up the first quarter as the 7th best scoring offense and then fall to 22nd, 30th and then last in fourth quarter scoring. The defensive numbers are an easy read- we open each half well and quickly fade. The rank of 2nd overall holding our opponents in the first quarter suggests good preparation during the week and a well designed strategy entering the game. The fall in the second quarter and fourth quarters is the classic symptom of personnel issues along the defensive line. The graph clearly supports the supposition that we simply don’t have the horses in the middle to carry a defense. And when you get tired in the middle it’s really of little consequence the quality of the balance of players in a defense, you will fail. See: Sunday. Offensively there’s an inverse outcome to having a poor middle- you’ll simply be a poor starting team out of the chute. Based upon all the squawking about our offensive line you’d expect our offense to be poor initially and throughout the game, the classic symptoms of a weak OLine. But that’s simply not what is happening to the 2005 Buffalo Bills. Our offense has come out after the Pledge of Allegience and scored more points than all but 6 other teams in the league during the first quarter. The reality is you simply don’t do this with a poor offensive line. There is much to learn about our offense in studying the scoring trends by quarter and seeing the steady plummeting from a top ten offense right down to last in the league by the fourth. Here’s some fair assumptions we can make based upon our offensive scoring graph: A) It tells us the background staff who handles “quality control” for the Bills are doing their jobs effectively. It also tells us the offensive coaching staff- under the approval of the head coach- are doing a good job in preparation. They’re devising strong opening game plans and getting the offensive players ready to play leading up to the game. B) Most importantly it tells us our offensive coaching and those they answer to are failing dreadfully on the sidelines on Sundays. They have the talent necessary to outperform 25 other offenses league-wide when having the advantage of all their research, film study and preparation; yet in real time their strategies each week are uncovered in our opening drives and opposing coaching staffs very simply are beating us mentally as they adjust to our game plan. We’re good enough physically to score with regularity, and this is proven by our rank as the 7th BEST OFFENSE IN THE NFL during the first quarter. Where we fail is when we have to do it over the course of the game. Fans will be begging for Tight Ends and OTs and other players on the offensive side of the ball this coming off-season, even though this would directly contradict the greatest needs of this team based upon our performance throughout games this season. If the team is to find any level of improvement in 2006 the focus on off-season personnel acquisitions must HEAVILY favor the defensive side of the ball. At the same time it will matter little if it is the same decision-makers on the sidelines and in the box calling the game- our offensive coaching is unquestionably failing us every week. Whether heads must roll is the biggest question, IMO at least one head must be sacrificed and responsibility for failing us should end up at the feet of the OC. Most good OC’s with a top 10 first quarter offense will end up with an even better rating by the 4th quarter, ours instead falls to the bottom of the league. The bodies are there- sure we can add some wrinkles and depth, but it’s the decisionmakers doing the substantial damage to this offense at this time. The stats simply show that we have a good enough OLine and balance of our O to compete- yet our coaches are failing us all over the course of the games on Sunday. New OC + big time defensive personnel additons= a better 2006.

It seems the other members of your little "Mensian" group here who insisted all would be well with our franchise the day we dumped Bledsoe have learned that once it has become absolutely crystal clear that you've wedged your foot 4 feet up your colon the most prudent reversal begins by hiding somewhere very dark while strategizing the removal of the foot. It's interersting that instead you've chosen a Darwinian strategy by continuing to publicly display your continued effort to see that foot reappear first through your oral cavity.

The old "Drew effect" that has his current team in first place in their very competitive football division, while we are chaffe in the weakest division in the league? Yeah, we wouldn't want any of THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I went to a game there in maybe 2000 and we were among maybe 10 to 12 Bill's fans who showed up, in fact the bar was pretty much empty except for another 4 or 5 cheering other teams. No food available or any suggestions about where to snag a plate of wings, etc. It's possible the week was an organized "away' game or something but from all appearances it looked like a regular Sunday back then. From what is going on now it's safe to say there's been a dramatic improvement from the "old days".

It's dramatically better now than in the past.

The place you want to go is called "Blind Melons" and it's in Pacific Beach on the northwest side of San Diego. Tell Jimbo you're a Two Bills Drive contributor.

If you're talking about the second play of our last drive, IMO you're absolutely correct. In 4 of our previous drives on the day he had met similar situations the same way he had been before the benching by sliding sideways when the line was doing a decent job and he had a pocket to move into. Bailing on the pocket is this kid's (initial) Achille's heel- and it comes with a debilitating effect on your linemen if the slide out results in a poor outcome. But FINALLY after all this time I've been waiting for it to happen, and literally moments after I had just explained to J.P.'s biggest fan that the benching was due to the team hoping he would learn to step into the pocket- VIOLA!- there it was, J.P. looking like a veteran NFL QB by making a good if not spectacular play as a result of moving up into a protected pocket and in this case checking down a read. His big supporter turned to me and yelled "JUST LIKE THAT?", followed by my own "Just like that". Now if he can be convinced to show us the same thing 6 or 7 times every Sunday, the road ahead may begin to look a lot more favorable. Well, for our offense anyway ;-)

But isn't accuracy better represented in completion % rather than in skewing the marks for a passer by crediting him for the good feet and blocking of his receiving corps and the quality and philosophy of his OC and the level of defensive talent they face?

You've expanded from the simpler "passer rating" to offer an overall "quarterback rating" and your findings are interesting. I can see my original primary concern regarding uncontested passes behind the Line Of Scrimmage is in a very small way addressed, but I'd think the results would be far more accurate on the passing side if there was more weight given to the opportunity for a pass to be defensed in any of the ways it might be as the difficulty of the pass/time to develop increases. As it is, a few QBs are throwing 10%+ of their passes behind the line with absolutely no chance of the pass being defensed. To allow these as whole "completions", or in other words to suggest they are in any way equal to a 45 yard pass completion skews the results DRAMATICALLY in favor of the few QBs in the league who play in the behind the line type of passing attacks. For instance a guy who throws a lot of downfield balls yet is only putting 2 or 3% of his passes up in the indefensible areas behind the LOS suffers mightily in the ratings versus a Tom Brady type who is throwing 10% of his behind the line. You point out that simply removing RAC yardage from Brady's stats drops him well down the QB rating ladder, if you additionally eliminate or reduce the factor for all the indefensible passes he throws behind the line he ends up in the bottom half of the league among all starting QBs at about 18th or 19th in the NFL. And to be fair to a typically very good game manager like Brady, that intangible would allow him to gain 4 or 5 spots in the ratings against the whole of the league and put him at about 14th league-wide, probably a fair spot for a guy whose team has been hovering around .500 all season.

Were you but one the smell would remain, alas there is no truth to your words. Odd- no; pathetic- of course.

Your ecdysis in these wee hours compels me to ask whether you will now continue only under your Troll name of Hollywood Donahoe or whether your alternative "Rico" moniker still have breath of its own?

Liars are the prey of the scavenger- please try to recover some semblance of dignity before retiring at least one of your screen names.

How about in 1200 of the garbage posts you've put up on this board insisting Brady produces your household wine from his own urine! 4 picks- nice day of work for "the best ever"! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Things "slow" over on the Pat's board? GET USED TO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But leave your other posting name "Rico" here when you linevitably leave with your tail between your legs- we'll enjoy whipping you under either name!

"Saved" a franchise- BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So based upon your this idiocy post you and your alter ego Hollywood Donahoe are posting here tonight, you accept "passing yards" as a measure of productivity? I approve! Where we differ is doing it for one season versus doing it over a career- but flushing your dual identities out has been a real vomit festival :-p