D. L. Hot-Flamethrower

Ah an educated man! That means your not a field agent. Great Work!!!!

LMFAO

We need productive players, not names we've heard of. This board seem to always be focused on bringing in the next big name available. Did you ever stop to ask yourself why this name player is available? I'm sure there are many other O-linemen available we don't know what their names are who more productive.

The most explosive playmaker in the Draft would look great in our Uni. If this is the case then we should go TE later on!

I really wish someone would check Kiper's record over the years. My guess is he does worse than a coin flip.

After watching them all play. I rank them :1.Robinson 2. Mathews 3.Lewan. I think Mathews is the most polished, but has less upside than Robinson, Lewan is a bit stiff in his movements for me.

Does anyone believe Seattle would have won the SB will our offense? I sure as hell don't

,Good point. The teams that are willing to innovate, and move away from the norm will bear fruit. Just like buying stocks, you aren't looking to buy the stock today that everyone says is great, it is too late. The Oakland A's have been practicing this strategy under Billy Beane for years. It is not so much that you are re-inventing the wheel, as it is identifying undervalued assets(players in this case). And yes Seattle has done a nice job scouting, drafting and decision-making wise-they have also been the beneficiary of positive fortune. A QB making 550K leaves a lot of space on the cap.

Excellent Post!

http://www.nfl.com/features/freakonomics/episode-15 This has been researched and debunked as I said earlier. I doubt seeing the evidence will change the opinion of those who cling to clichés. This argument is very similar to those who believe baseball is 75% or 90% pitching. It is wrong whether or not you believe the evidence. May I point out that if Seattle's offense had played poorly yesterday, or all year for that matter, the outcome would be very different.

This! That old defense wins clich has been debunked many times over. There are a lot of different ways to build a championship team, and enough defense is one of them. Just like enough offense. Enough of a running game, enough of etc.. I expect to hear all the oversimplification of building a winner now that the Super Bowl is over. THE FORMULA is.......blah blah blah. Leave that to the media please.

This!

I think your definition of a dynasty is very limited. Ever team starts out with a goal to get to the SB. A dynasty by my definition is dominating your conference over an extended period. The Bills clearly did that! Where the 91 Redskins a dynasty, or the 90 giants for that matter?. The Dynasty of the NFC during that era was Dallas.

Yes it was a dynasty-no question! Much harder to get to four SBs than to win only one. In retrospect, it was so enjoyable to have those multiple years of excellence as a fan. Should they have won the first one and never returned it would not have been as enjoyable a period IMO. I was frustrated crazy like a lot of BIlls fans, but age and wisdom has caused me to reflect on the period. It was awesome, I just wish my son and daughter could experience the week after week excitement of winning those conference championships. The most resilient sports team ever!! I would also add that group of Redskins who beat the Bills, are regarded now as a great one-year wonder. The other years surrounding the Super Bowl victory, were mediocre only. Why? because they were a very good team, who had a great year. The Bills were a great team, that had a very good season, and a very bad performance in one game.

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!

Oh..What happened to being a reporter, and reporting the news, passing along you know....accurate info! Everyone in the media has to editorialize and give their own opinion. I really don't give a **** about how Graham thinks a team should be run. Has he ever run one? Does anyone want him to run one for that matter? The answer of course is no !@#$ing way!

Very well put, I don't know that I've ever heard it put so succinctly! Makes a lot of sense. The only thing I might not agree with is a player drafted at the top part of the first round, as we do at #9. I think you pay for and expect a starter at this level of the draft.

Looks like a quality hire by the team.

Jacoby Jones is a FA and WR we could use. I wonder if they got along?

Weaver and Henderson!!

I re-thought it with everyone's help. Thanks. I looked at all the boxscores, time on clock, score. Also, took into account whether any garbage scores occurred. Results are below: We were actually 2-3 in decisive games, and 4-7 in close games! DECISIVE VICTORIES NOTES NYJ W23 MIA W19 TIGHT WINS JAX W7 BAL W3 MIA W2 CAR W1 TIGHT LOSSES NE L2 CIN L3 OT ATL L3 OT NYJ L7 KC L10 FG W/2:00 LEFT CLE L13 LATE TD INT W/2:00 LEFT NE L14 LATE TD W/3:30 LEFT DECISIVE LOSSES PIT L13 3-23 BEFORE VERY LATE TD NO L18 TB L21 The point of all this is how close are we really? Well we were 4-7 in the closer games; and it is not hard to envision winning the 2 OT losses, the first NE game, and the KC game! That gets us to 10-6 overall and in the playoffs. However, to be fair, we beat Carolina, Baltimore and Miami the first time in nailbiters that could have gone the other way. I guess it is fair to say we were pretty competitive 13 of 16 games. I think we are getting there, but only 2 decisive wins over weaker teams (NYJ,MIA) is clearly not enough.

Nice effort! I think our needs are prioritized as follows: 1. Taller, longer, receiver with jumping ability and catching radius. We do not have anything close to this, and it hurts in the redzone especially. Draft 2. Another TE to be our number 1, with Chandler as our second TE, you need to have two good TEs in this offense. Draft or FA 3. Right Tackle. Pears was not strong last year and is getting older. Draft. 4. Interior O-LINE. Speaks for itself. Do this free agency. All these things will make EJ that much better.

Great Point! I had always thought we did worse in defensive points allowed than we need to. We kept the yardage allowed down, forced turnovers....but gave up touchdowns in the redzone too frequently.

Thanks! I agree with the critique. There are definetly other, and perhaps better avenues to explore this question. However, I would disagree with the person who said the Bills played in more close games than normal. They were as average as average is.One thing is very clear from this, even if the boundaries are controversial, the really good teams do a lot better in the decisive games. The Bills, were 2-6, in these games. The stronger teams,like the super Bowl squads, DEN&SEA, were a combined 18-0 between them in these types of games!Also, CAR 7-2,SF 9-2, NO 6-2, CIN 6-2 etc. The flip side is HOU 0-5,WAS 1-6, CLE 2-7, TB 2-7,OAK 2-8 were awful. The point is the Bills are a lot closer to these teams still, and lets not fool ourselves into thinking we are a player or two away. WE NEED TO GET BETTER IN ALL AREAS! Another good draft, some more quality free agent pickups, and some more improvement from younger players through better coaching. I think what we did this year was improve our confidence, team direction and our culture. The next step is starting to put away some of those teams we had on the ropes. And, not make that bad play or two that seems to crop up way to often-KC game. When we are able to go 6-2 in those decisive games to go with a 4-4 close games record we will be a playoff team. I want to get there that way, not going 7-1 in close games, get lucky and have an unsustainable record. We want a dominant team year after year.

A common theme is that the Bills were very competitive in a lot of games, and lost a lot of tough games. I decided to do a little study not knowing the answer. What I did was figure out each teams W/L record in close games, 1 possession or 8 pts or less. Obviously, a victory of more than 8 pts can be described as a decisive win, I figured these as well. I also created an adjusted record by using a teams decisive wins plus a 50% record in their close games. Obviously, the difference between the teams actual record and adjusted record can be described as lucky or unlucky. A few observations: In decisive games Seattle 8-0 and Denver 10-0 led the way. New England 5-0, NYJ 5-1, and Indy 6-1 had the best records in close games! THE BILLS were 4-4, 50% obviously smack dab in the middle! Their adjusted record was 6-10!!! We are who we thought we were. What the Bills really need is to win more games by 9 or more points, they were only 2-6!