KurtGodel77

Willis was a great pick, and I'm glad he's on the team. As for Losman . . . people complain about Drew, then they complain when TD does something to try to replace Drew.

The QB only has a certain amount of time before he has to either throw the ball or take a sack. If your possession WR is spending some of that time running back toward the line of scrimmage to avoid the second cover guy, your passing game is going to be more limited and less threatening. Basically, your possession WR is going after the short stuff because he no longer has the talent to burn people deep. Sam Aiken could do the same thing, and we'd be rid of that entire $8.5 million cap figure come 2006.

In general, when you start a first-year QB, he WILL be the culprit for a loss or two. Look at Peyton Manning's first season. Now, what would have happened to Manning had he been benched after a bad game or two? Would he be the same QB he is today? Once you make the commitment to your first-year QB, you have to stick with it for at least a year. If at the end of the year he shows no signs of improvement, you need to sit down and reevaluate. But even then a guy can suddenly improve. Trent Dilfer got better after leaving Tampa. Drew Brees is in his third or fourth year, and he's lighting the world on fire (as opposed to last season when he looked like he was a bust). In general, Buffalo fans aren't patient enough with developing young QBs.

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The main advantage to getting Bledsoe was that his excellent play in the first seven games of 2002 attracted Takeo Spikes and Sam Adams to this team. Compare that to keeping Rob Johnson: Positives for Johnson: - Johnson's QB rating was better than Bledsoe's. - Johnson wouldn't have cost us our 2003 first round pick. - Johnson's backups get a lot of work/experience, because of him always getting hurt. Had Johnson been our QB for 2004, we'd have a better idea about where we stand with Losman. - Johnson was actually fairly good at running. Negatives about keeping Johnson: - Wasn't the same leader as Drew - Wouldn't have played as well in the first seven games of 2002 (might not have played at all due to injury) so we wouldn't have attracted Spikes or Adams. - We really would have had to invest a lot (money, draft picks, whatever) into making sure our backup QB was good. I guess we did this anyway with Losman, so this point doesn't count.

Calling someone stupid for disagreeing with you. How original.

If we start Losman next year, the QB play won't be much better, at least not at first. We need WRs who don't drop what should be easy passes, and who don't always need the ball thrown perfectly to make the catch. For every circus catch Moulds makes, there have got to be at least five drops. Even if he were to restructure down to a $4 million deal, I think there would be better ways to use that $4 million in cap room. Ways like improving our offensive line.

If the ball hits Moulds in the knees, he should catch it. The Patriots have receivers that catch anything within a mile of them.

A lot of times when I see Moulds actually catching passes, it seems like there is only one defender right near him. To me, catching the ball in double coverage means you've got two guys hitting you just as the ball arrives, and you somehow manage to make the catch anyway. I don't see Moulds doing that as often as the big-time possession receivers.

While I voted no to the idea of Drew starting next year, his arrival wasn't an all-round failure. His good play in the first seven games of 2002 caused us to go 5-2, giving the impression the Bills were a team on the way up. Attracted by this offensive success, players like Sam Adams and Takeo Spikes signed with the Bills, even though they could have had more money by going with a team like Cincinnati. Had Drew played like Todd Collins in 2002, we wouldn't have the same defense we do.

In 2003, injuries to Moulds and the removal of Price caused Bobby Shaw to be our featured receiver for much of the year. He had 730 yards receiving in that role. In 2004, Moulds had 1000 yards receiving as our featured receiver. Unlike Shaw in 2003, Moulds had Evans to stretch defenses. He had a running game that caused defenses to put 8 or 9 men in the box. He had an offensive line that learned to pass protect reasonably well. He had a QB who learned to play better in 2004 than in 2003. With all those advantages, Moulds should have been MORE than a 300 yard upgrade over a guy who couldn't even keep a roster spot. Sam Aiken is just as good, if not better, than Bobby Shaw. If Bobby Shaw could produce 730 yards, Aiken could produce 800 - 900 yards as our possession receiver.

Yeah, but I didn't want others on this thread going to that website looking for the number of drops Moulds had, only to see that you were just telling a lame joke. Worse, I didn't want the rumor spreading that Moulds had over 100 drops.

I believe that we'd take a cap hit of $6.5 million for keeping Drew, $4 million (or thereabouts) for releasing him before June 1, and $2 million over two years for releasing him after June 1.

Good post, Deep2Moulds, but I think you're selling Aiken a little short. He played well today, and it seems like he does well when given the chance. That said, you hit the nail on the head with Moulds. Let's face it: some of the passes he caught today weren't against double or triple coverage. Probably that's been the case all year: if a team is blitzing, or sending extra men into the box to stop the run, that can leave Moulds with man-to-man coverage. At least some of his numbers came from passes caught in situations like that.

Of the three, Jennings is the most valuable because the offensive line is so important, and because he is nice and young. Pat Williams and Eric Moulds are both still capable of good play, and both are nearing the ends of their careers. Despite the travesty of our late-game run defense (or lack thereof) I liked the way big Pat played all year, and I'd like to see him stay. You need depth at DT, and Pat can be part of that rotation. As for Moulds, I believe we may already have his replacement on the roster in the form of Sam Aiken.

Moulds also had a lot of bad plays/dropped passes in that Baltimore game. Having Bledsoe throwing to Moulds should inflate his numbers, because a lot of times Bledsoe locks into Moulds while ignoring his other WRs.

We're not in a position to use $8.5 million in cap space on a player who's only worth $3 - $4 million in cap space.

Those weren't dropped passes, those were fantasy owners dropping him for whatever reason. If anyone can find out how many real drops he had, it would help this discussion.

If you take a WR of average NFL talent, make him the primary focus of your offense, and keep throwing him the ball, he will accumulate some catches and yards. Moulds may have 90 catches, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that he also has 45 drops. Sam Aiken outplayed Moulds today, and maybe he could do so over the course of a season. Certainly Sam Aiken could have equalled what Moulds did in Cincinnati, and there are probably several other games where the Sam Aikens of the league could have equalled or bettered the production of Eric Moulds.

After Sterling Sharpe's career was prematurely ended by injury, Brett Farve actually got better. He started looking at all his WRs, instead of always keying in on just one guy. Getting rid of Sharpe made the other receivers better, not worse, and Sharpe was twice the WR Moulds is now.

Moulds had two drops today. As the year went on, teams began putting 8 or 9 men in the box, showing they had no fear of Moulds. He's just another guy.

I can think of another team unwilling to overpay for talent: New England. New England got rid of Lawyer Milloy because they thought he was a good player, but overpaid. They won the Super Bowl that same year.

I never said we should get rid of McGahee!

That guy drops too many passes, and he's scheduled to make $8.5 million next season, his tenth in the league. This past year, he just barely surpassed 1000 yards, despite being Drew's main target on most plays. Moulds has three seasons when he got to about 1300 yards or better, and that was when we didn't run the ball often enough to take pressure off the passing game. If we put some other guy in the possession receiver place he might do just as well if not better.

TE: Tim Euhrus was quietly getting better before having a season-ending injury. Any time your two best TEs go out with injury, you won't look good there. If we can get a game-changing TE we should go for it, but if it's just a chance to get a competent player at the position we shouldn't bother. We already have two guys who meet that description. WR: I agree this is a need, and would become more of a need if we follow my advice and cut Moulds. Brett Favre actually became a better QB after Sterling Sharpe's career was prematurely ended by injury. Instead of locking in to one guy, Favre started distributing the ball better. Aiken outplayed Moulds today, so there is a chance Aiken is the answer. It's too bad he didn't get more playing time during the year so that we could know where we stand with this guy. RB: Shaud Williams is good enough to be a backup RB, and I like Joe Burns as a number 3. This team has more pressing needs than upgrading the McGahee/Shaud Williams/Burns trio. OL: This is probably our biggest need. S: Rashad Baker is our FS of the future, but we are thin at SS.