Ramius

Freddie has had fumbling problems going back to last year. As someone else stated, he led the league in fumbles (by a RB), despite being a part time player. I love the guy, but he's gotta hang on to the ball.

Under the new CBA, rookies can't sign new contracts until after their 3rd season. Its precisely the reason Colin Kapernick didn't receive a new contract last offseason. The 49ers must wait until this upcoming offseason for their 1st chance to give him a new deal.

Leaving Schiano out of this, as someone who watches Tampa all the time (when not watching the Bills), i can tell you that Freeman is garbage. He's the typical guy who has shown some flashes and has the physical tools, but lacks the remaining skills to ever develop into an elite QB. Tampa is a cluster-f*** for sure, but Freeman is part of the problem, not the solution. Freeman is NOT a leader. He's far from it. He's whiny and pouty. He's not the type of guy that teammates look up to. Freeman is INACCURATE. He simply doesn't have the accuracy of the top level QBs. 2/4 his 4 seasons as a starter he was completing passes at a 54% clip. That won't cut it. 3 games into this season, he's at an ugly, almost tebow-like 45% completion %. Freeman put up big numbers last year, but was a big problem as to why the Buccs tanked at the end of last year. His poor decision making and inaccurate passes led them to finish 1-5 after a promising 6-4 start. Adding in this season, in Freeman's last 9 games, he's 1-8 as a starter, with 8 TDs compared to 13 INTs. Those are rookie QB numbers, not "potential franchise QB" numbers, especially for a guy in his 5th season. And its not as if the Buccs don;t have a ridiculous OL and a plethora of talent on offense. With a halfway decent QB this year, Tampa could easily be 3-0. Any semblence of decent QB play would have won them the 1st 2 games, and would have put up 17-21 points last week in newengland* instead of 3. Tampa will suck with Freeman, so they've got nothing to lose by going with Glennon. If he's good, they his on a QB. If he sucks, the end result is the same and they take a QB high next year.

Despite the much proclaimed "fact" that he has so much talent, not a single team thought highly enough of him to even spend a 7th round pick on him.

I'm not much of a 'bama or Saban fan, but you know he's still smarting over the loss last year. I hope they beat manziel into an unrecognizable pulp in 2 weeks.

JP-era? that you?

In their defense, if you ignore all the good players the Bills have re-signed (Kyle Williams, Stevie Johnson, Kraig Urbik, etc) then we do in fact let all our good players walk.

Got it too, and i'm just getting into it (or will be this weekend). nice to see i shoudl switch the defensive scheme to 3-4 attack. I was planning on moving positions around, ie Branch to DT, AW23 to SS, etc. From my few play now games, running has gotten too easy. I'll hafta adjust the sliders. RBs shouldn't have 8-9 YPC.

Sorry, this is wrong. Manuel came in for relief of Ponder (when Ponder was hurt) during his first 2 seasons. In his final 2 years, when he was the unquestioned starter, the only game he missed was the Clemson game in 2011. He got hurt against oklahoma, so Clint Trickett started the next game, Clemson. Trickett also started the Wake game the week after, but played so poorly they put an injured EJ in the game at half time. The Wake game was the last time someone other than EJ started.

Cromartie looked "awful" until Pettine got a hold of him in NY. Anyone saying McKelvin can't play CB apparently wasn't watching the latter parts of last season. He showed a marked improvement later on last year, something to build on. As for his salary, 4.25 million per year is peanuts for a 2nd/3rd CB. The people whining that he's overpaid are the people that still have yet to grasp the current pay scale in the NFL.

Exactly. There was that Class of 1983 draft special on this year on ESPN, and it was said by (can't remember his name, Norm Pollum?) that the reason the Bills passed on a QB at 12 was because they would have been with equally happy with Kelly or Marino, and were guaranteed 1 of them at 14. without pick 14, Kelly is the pick at 12.

As for "turning rookies loose," what the OP said is patently false. Russel Wilson went over 200 yards passing only 3 times in his first 10 games. Both Wilson and Griffin had 393 attempts, just under 25 per game. They tied with each other for 25th in number of passing attempts. In fact, that rank is dead last in number of passing attempts by QBs that started/played the entire season and didn't miss significant games due to injury or benching. Not exactly running the air raid.

The bigger problem i had with them releasing Levitre is that they made no effort to replace him. There were 3 or 4 FA guards in the 5 million range (guys like Louis Vasquez) that could have been had and i believe we would have seen a minimal drop off in play. But to do nothing and then go with scrub leftover FAs? Also, i was with the rest of the crowd that believed that Levitre leaving was the precursor to signing Byrd long term.

Its not a big day for EJ. Sure its his first "real" action of the NFL, but at the end of the day today, whether he goes 10-10 for 2oo yards and 4 TDs or 0-15 with 3 INTs, its still just the first real action for a rookie QB. In the grand scheme, its meaningless, and has no bearing one way or another on his future. That being said, i fully expect a freak out/coronation depending on how he looks today.

We're not the only team to do so. The Buccs ditched the toilet seat collar; their jerseys on thursday night had an all white collar. Its sucks actually, because the Buccs jerseys look so much better with an all-black, non-toilet seat collar. Damn Nike for ruining collars. And yes i do wish the Bills had a red 3rd jersey.

I believe what Bill is referring to is the baffling decisions by this front office to push cap hits onto the 2014 books, when we have enough cap space right now to take all the hits and clear our books. Example: What was the point of pushing a 7 million cap hit for Fitz into 2014 when we are carting 20 mil in cap space right now? They could have taken all the hit for Fitz's contract this year and had that much more to spend next season. Same deal with Mark Anderson. Its frustrating and stupefying, really. Its as if they're intentionally handicapping themselves for next year.

What issue would be created with a custom facemask? As SJBF said, as long as the facemask conformed to size/color/safety rules, whats the harm in allowing them? Smack of Goodell just continuing with his banning any and everything that brings any individuality to the game.

Kolb will be gone before 2014, not 2013. Unless Overdorf decides to stick his nose into business again.

Anyone ever "split" the max package with an out of town friend? Since i got the ticket for free and will watch the games here at home in FL, my friend who just moved to michigan asked if he could pay me to upgrade to Max so he could watch online, using my login.

Or some fans could be reading waaay too much into it. Sometimes trying a player out is just trying a player out. That's not sugar coating it. That's the simple reality of the situation. People are going to run with the news and twist it to fit whatever agenda they need to. Sure they aren't happy with the LG situation, that much is obvious. But they dug their own grave with that maneuver. Not so much in letting Levitre go (he was extremely overpaid and not worth the money he got), but in their insistence on doing nothing during free agency to bolster the position. There were plenty of decent OGs on the market and they chose to ignore all of them. Good OTs don't typically move, but Glenn isn't nearly as good of an OT as Thomas.

Not necessarily. If your backup OT is better than your backup OG, then you slide Glenn inside and bring out the backup OT to ensure you have the best 5 out there.

Predicting negativity is the easiest thing in the world to do. Given the extremely low odds of player/team success in the NFL (or any professional sport), if you always predict the negative result, you'll be right much more often than not. There are numerous posters on this site that wallow in their own filth when the Bills suck for yet another year, because they are proven "right" about their predictions. Negativity (and positivity) is much easier to take from posters who occasionally show opinions that come from the other side as well. So the positive article is a "PR puff piece" while all the negative articles from the locals is "objectivity." You've highlighted and done exactly what most of us "sunshiners" have been arguing about this entire thread.

BillsVet tends to make himself scarce when the Bills are winning. When we started hot in 2011, he was nowhere to be found on these forums. Until we started losing.

Just did the annual song and dance. I'm coming in as someone who has been with them for 6.5 years, and was out of contract. They put me on the phone with some loser who says the best he can do for me is offer a $10 credit for 1 year, and can give me the ticket for $180 instead of $225. He wouldn't budge on giving me anything else. I tell him no and asked for customer retention. Without blinking, customer retention gives me: the original $10 off for 12 months additional $25 off for 12 months Free Sunday ticket 4 months of free showtime so i can watch Inside the NFL And i only had to sign a 1 year contract Not a bad haul for 30 mins on the phone.

It wasn't a simple question. It was a 5 question badgering (after 4 questions yesterday) that served no purpose except for the local guys to further an agenda or grind their axes. The buffalo media didn't like the answer they got, so in typical fashion, they act like petulant 12 year old girls, with TIMMAH!!! ( © LaBillzFan) Graham leading the way. He's one of the most immature childish "journalists" i've ever seen. But hey, why not ask the question 5 times. Its not as if there's a dozen other things they could ask about. 1. QB battle 2. LB position battle 3. how do the WRs look 4. LG battle 5. CB battle (behind Gilmore) 6. How are the safeties besides Aaron William looking 7. K battle 8. P battle 9. Are the LBs generating a pass rush 10. How are the other starters on the DL, such as Dareus, looking 11. Any injuries at camp? 12. And rookies/UDFAs impressing early at camp?