Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

So how is this rookie QB going to develop? Backup QB's hardly get any snaps during the regular season working with the offense. All the #3 guys does is run the scout team. That's fine if you're #1 guy is Tom Brady and have no real plans to play the other guys. But if you're suspect of your #1 which I'm not disagreeing with getting a rookie QB has little value. He's so raw you're still going to need a Tavaris Jackson type of player in case your #1 get's hurt or does much worse than expected to the point you bench him. You're not going to make the #2 some un-tested rookie unless he's a real high draft pick. You're not going to get a free agent QB either who is leaving one team as their backup to go to another team as a backup unless he's bee naround long enough to know he's not going to be the starter. I doubt Matt Flynn would have wanted to sign with Buffalo to be Fitz backup. Likely I'm also certain he never would have signed with Seattle if he thought there was any chance he wasn't going to be the starter. Right now, all you're going to get are more Levi Browns. If Fitz does have a weak season, then likely they will change QB's but then they are either bringing someone to be the starter either via free agent or trade, or drafting likely a fairly high rookie, maybe #1 or 2 pick. But the odds of him working out are no better than Fitz.

For about six years starting in 1988 (the year they lost to Cinn in playoffs) they were the best team in the AFC and probably the only better team than the Bills was Dallas the last couple of years and Washington just had one amazing season. The Bill's never won a SB though over that team I've always felt with a better coach they likely would have won one of them. I also also felt that Marvs somewha easy going methods was the only reason they were able to get back to four in a row. Make JJ the head coach and they never get to all four, but I would have gladly traded Marv for JJ to coach that one game. Some peopel feel they should have won more than one, purely on talent I agree, but If they had won one of them, as loose as that team was (and not in a good way) they never would have even made it back to the SB the next season. Likely the team would have imploded.

So if you're going to waste time teaching him the WC plays, then he'll never become the #2 QB He doesn't even know the regular playbook yet, he doesn't have time to become the wildcat guy. 1500 posts, I'm a vet now!!

Because then the people who ripped the Bill's for cutting Edwards would be screaming again if you cut a vet to keep a draft pick. The Bill's are getting stronger so there is more chance of draft picks getting cut. From my accounts looking quickly at the Bill's Daily site the team lost seven players that were on the 53 man roster at the end of last season that were free agents or the Bill's didn't want back. The signed 4 FA and had 9 draft picks, plus one un-drafted FA made the team. In addition to that there were a ton of FA signings that for everyone that they signed they then cut. Basically though they lost 7 and added 14 so do the math someone is going to be cut. If they had one more good inside LB, then maybe they would have cut Morrison and kept Tank, but they felt they needed the depth there. Based on their judgement they kept the best 53 and/or the 53 with the most upside, both from a play and a contract standpoint. Could they have made a pre-draft trade of their 5th and 6th round picks to move up a few spots in an earlier round, in hindsight easy to say that now. But at the time, you'd be needing to make this trade say at the beginning of the 3rd round to move up. You're not moving up enough into the late 2nd as teams drafting late are the good teams with a few holes to fill so they usually don't want to move down. So maybe they could have moved up to near the top of the 3rd round ASSUMING some team is willing to move down for an extra 5th and 6th round pick. Maybe there would have been a good player in the 5th round now that you can't draft. The other unknown between April and now is you have no idea who's getting hurt in training camp and having thos extra picks could come in handy. What if a LB had got hurt in training camp, then likely you'd have let Carder or if Woods didn't come back healthy then maybe you would have hung onto Asper. The Pats cut one draft pick a 7th rounder, but cut five players who were from last years team, so does that mean they made an even bigger mistake by keeping the guy for one whole season and now cutting him?? Bottom line is these are low draft picks these things happen all the time. Or just means that Cleveland has even worse LB's than we do

Agree with most of what was written with the exception of one minor point. I think today Gilmore is the best CB on the team rather than Mcgee

LOL Yesterday people are ripping the Bill's for dumping Edwards a vet, now they get ripped for "throwing draft picks away". Guess they can't win either way in some peoples eyes. He's a 5th round pick, the fact that they are dumping those types of picks shows that the team is getting better, they have more depth.

I think sometime between now and Sept 9th either Tavaraus Jackson or Tyler Thipen will be cut freeing up another spot As long as they are cut prior to game 1 they don't qualify for the full years pay, so then like you bring back another WR. It also may be they plan to do some special things with Dorin Dickerson that would line him up outside too. I also doubt John Potter will last the full year unless the team stays very healthy. At some point, they likely will need that roster spot.

Actually there is a huge salary benefit. If you release him now you save having to pay him for the year and could use htta money to sign someone else. If you keep him on the roster beyond opening day, you then pay his salary for the season, then if you wish to sign someone else, you're paying for the new guy plus Edwards. Higher priced backups rarely make it through the cuts, it's just not woerth it.

Robert Griffen got cut, lets bring him in as a backup QB!!

I was just trying to determine the amount of churn at the starting QB position from year to year. Looking up the number of changes per team was pretty easy took less than an hour. I wasn't going to do an in-depth analysis to find out did they switch because the guy was injured or because he sucked. However the fact that there were less than maybe ten total times where they went back to the same guy which likely would have happened more due to injury told me the numbers were pretty valid and the churn was most likely due to the degree of suckedness.

I keep reading all the posts from various people that the Bill's are crazy to think Fitz is a franchise caliper QB or give him this season and if he doesn't turn things around get someone else next season for sure. I'd like nothing more than for the Bill's to get that elite QB But how easy is it to find one?? Is the problem the Bill's just have a terrible front office and are unique in not being capable of finding one? Since Kelly retired the Bills have tried four to five times to find that guy and by that I mean using high draft picks or significant $$: Rob Johnson, Drew Bledsoe, JP Losman for certain fit that bill and you could probably argue that Fitz and Edwards fit the definition also as while no high draft picks were involved, they gave them a decent sized contract, not huge, but enough to say they were hoping that they found their guy. Below is a table of all teams since 1995 listing the number of attempts teams made at finding that starting franchise QB's I chose 1995 as that was when Kelly retired. A team could only have one QB per year on the list, so whomever started the most games for the season was considered the starter for that season. My rational was if a guy started one year and not the next, there was only two reasons why, either he wasn't getting the job done and was replaced, or got hurt. There was some cases where "Fred" started one season, the next season the starter was "Joe" and the season after they were back to "Fred" Was that because "Fred" got hurt and went with "Joe" but once he was healthy went back to "Fred"or was it because after starting "Joe" for a year they realized he was even worse? I didn't dig into it to find out, but did count them as another notch on the post, but will tell you that number of times that pattern existed for all the teams total over 16 seasons, was less than 10, so even if all were due to injury, it didn't happen all that much to sway the numbers. Two clear cases of this were the year Brady got hurt and last season for the Colts when they went without Manning. Without their injury replacement the totals for those two teams would have been one lower. The one thing that kind of surprised me was how many teams lists did Vinny Testaverde show up on, I believe it was 7 Cleveland tied for the highest with four less seasons to work with. There are a couple of teams that you'd say must have done a decent job as the total is low like Jax and Tenn. But today they are not any closer to finding the answer than the Bill's are, so while their total looks good, it's not like they are doing a better job than others. There also were a couple others with lower totals that kept a guy as the starter for five or six years before giving up, again in most cases they aren't any better off today, they just held out hope longer. Many with low numbers were either due to luck (Brady) or just being in the right place at the right time. (Colts twice maybe??) My point in all this is for all those screaming for the Bill's to give up on Fitz and go get that franchise guy, the odds of them getting him are low, not because the Bill's are inept, but because with 32 teams there just aren't enough good QB's to go around. So that's why teams will stick with a Fitz or a Chad Pennington longer than most fans would like because they know there's better than a 50/50 chance that the replacement to Fitz may be a Chad Pennington, Damon Huard, or Kerry Collins clone. If Fitz does stink up the year, likely they will go in another direction, maybe they will find the next Peyton Manning, but if they due it was more just luck that skill as in my opinion the high numbers for all teams bear that out. Not trying to paint it all gloom and doom, but just to throw out a warning of be careful what you wish for! (Well guess this site doesn't like tables very much!) Team Starting QB's since 1995 Packers 2 Texans 2 Only had a team since 2002 Colts 3 Pats 3 Jaguars 4 49'ers 5 Broncos 5 Rams 5 Steelers 5 Titans 5 Chargers 6 Eagles 6 Giants 6 Lions 6 Seahawks 6 Chiefs 7 Cowboys 7 Falcons 7 Saints 7 Bengals 8 Bucs 8 Panthers 8 Ravens 8 Bills 9 Cardinals 9 Jets 9 Raiders 9 Bears 10 Browns 10 Only had a team since 1999 Dolphins 10 Redskins 10 Vikings 10 Average 6.72

I live in NC, a guy down here was big Steelers fan, his father still lived in Pit area. He bought some type of box, think it started with a "H" shipped it to his father. Father hooked it up to a spare cable outlet in his house, box also was hooked up to internet. He then connected down here to ip address of box and he could watch games down here that weren't on locally. He said quality was good, little lag, he was watching in SD as no HD TV. I recall him saying how he could mess with his father and change channels on him while he was watching box. Maybe this is the same concept as the Sling box?? Speaking on Sunday Ticket. I ordered this year for first time. Is there some place I can go to find listing of what games are on what stations? Do they use same number range every year? If so, what would it be?

To say the Bills had a huge need to draft a QB, I'd agree only if you are either going to start him or make him your #3 guy. The backup QB gets what somewhere between 10% to 30% snaps each week in practice. So how is a guy who doesn't even get to practice much become a good backup if Fitz were to go down. It's good to use him as a #3 and give him time to develop, but considering the Bills have Brad Smith that isn't going to happen. He's too good to cut him and hope to sign him to PS so you're only choice if you picked him was to make him your #2. Too me doesn't sound like a very good strategy to have a rookie who's not even getting many practice snaps to be #2. Seattle is starting him, does that mean he's looked real good, or did the other two guys look worse. Actually I don't think Jackson even came into play he wasn't going to start, the plan back in the spring was Flynn was the starter, but then he didn't look good so they going with Wilson now. I think the one thing you could criticize the Bills for is having Brad Smith on the roster as that limits your other QB moves you can do. If there #3 QB was say T Jackson, then you take a flyer on a guy like Wilson as your #2. Fitz goes down, by rule you need to bring in your #2 until the 4th quarter. But doesn't mean the following week you can make your #3 guy the starter and again leave a rookie as #2. Maybe only teams with very strong #1 QB's can afford a guy like Smith as your #3. Kind of like the mess the Jet's could be in if Sanchez goes down. Certainly if Fitz has a middle of the road or worse year likely the Bills will be looking for a new QB likely either through the draft or a free agent. And quite frankly whoever they may get, the odds are better than 50/50 he will also fail. That's nothing against Buffalo's front office it's just reality, more often than not, QB's fail.

Not surprised about Clowney,he just never seemed to take the game very seriously!

The last drive doesn't bother me too much. Not that it's a good excuse or anything, but I have to believe the Bill's D was already mentally out of the game. Pre-season, under 2 minutes to go essentially in the game for many of these guys as will be sitting out the 2nd half. It's kind of like when a team is up by 25 points with 5 minutes to go, you kind of let he other team do as they want, main plan is to get out healthy. Likely assumed Pitt was going to just kill the clock and go into halftime. But Pitt made a good pass on 3rd down for the first, once that happened, the Bill's couldn't turn it back on. Likely the Bills were in a prevent style defense, but maybe testing out some extra wrinkles that apparently didn't work very well. The fact that the D looked as good as they did up to that point, I'll give them a pass on that drive.

Yes he likely will be a good nickel back. The reason for being the whipping boy is due to his high draft selection combined with play below that level. In the long run these things tend to balance out, guys selected in later rounds make All Pro and there are many 1st round busts. However that doesn't stop people from ripping the under-performers.

Biggest problem with Modrak seems to have been his love of small college players, or maybe I should say not taken into account a guy wh's a stud at South Dakota St doesn't mean he can play that level in the NFL

I don't from everything I'm hearing about Gilmore it's hard for me to believe Keuchly would have been better. Yeah, may have been better at LB, but what would our secondary have looked like. Plus am tired of the Bills using high draft picks on white MLB's that never work out. Gilmore also played agaisnt much better competition too in college so I'll take an all SEC draft . (or close too it) I think in the long run, and even short run wil lbe the better pick.

So where is Sully, I recal he had surgery back in the spring. Is he still out? True, be he helped amplify it more. I think the distrust dates back to the TD era, he's the one who froze out Schoop and started the ball rolling down hill and it hasn't stopped yet.

Here's my take on the issues between Schopp and WGR vs the Bills. The people in Buffalo have limited $$, so they have to decide, do I spend it going to a Bills game or a Sabres game? Since WGR was broadcasting the Sabres, Schopp kind of figured he'd help things along, wouldn't even surpise me that was encouraged by his management to bash the Bill's and remind people how inept the Bill's are whenever he had the change so go spend your $$ at as hockey game instead. Since he admittedly doesn't even like football very much was easy for him to do. So for a number of years did that. Well I don't think the Bill's liked that too much so they made things a bit tougher on him, wouldn't grant interview requests, wouldn't give him a story, etc and again can't blame the Bill's for doing that either. So what did Schopp do, he took that personal so he racheted things up even more against the Bill's to the point they both I'd wager a guess won't give each other the time of day. I'm sure the Bill's treated others somewhat the same at WGR as the bashing was somewhat station wide, but since Schoop was the worst offender and he seemed to take it personally, things were worse with him that others like say Howard Simon. Now WGR is broadcasting the Bill's so no longer want to bash them, instead wish to prasie them, but again with Schopp it's personal so I don't think he read the memo about that part. I no longer live in western NY so haven't heard him in awhile, is he as negative as ever against Buffalo or has he toned it down some, but still as bad as he was, even toned down is still pretty bad. It wouldn't shock me if he keeps up the negative stuff, the next time the Bill's broadcast writes are up, they make it part of the deal with WGR, either Schopp goes or we go!

Actually I thought he was OK back in the Rochester days. I think his biggest problem was too many early on told him he was destined for bigger things, so he leaves Rochester, goes to Buffalo to work his way up. Figues two to three years he'll be in Chi, or maybe Boston or a city of that size and in ten years he would have been the Mike on Mike and Mike or something like that. So now he's in shock as he can't believe how many idiots out there must be running all the radio stations all over the country and don't realize how great he is as no one is banging down the doors to hire him. So he's stuck in a place that he's way to good for. Trouble is the more people that post threads like this, the more relavent he is. You want to see him off the air, everyone needs to stop talking about him and stop all the Shopp's are idiot threads! When he gets no press then WGR will think about replacing him.

Well Chan stated he's back to form, that may be true, but form for him is playing an OLB in a 3-4, playing DE in a 4-3 probably not something he's well suited for. They didn't lie about his health, he just can't play the position I think in hindsight (which is always easy) it may have been a better shot for him trying to latch on as an OLB in a 4-3. It may have ben the same outcome, but would have thought it to have been a fairer assessment?? For those suggesting the Pats or Jets wil lsign him, it could happen as they both play 3-4's Maybe that was their fear, if they kept him til lthe final cut the Jet's would have signed him and by then the Bill's likely would have been putting in their game plan for opening day agaisnt the Jet's. Cutting him now, "he knows nothing, nothing!!"

Mentioning Brady and getting penatration in the same sentance can be troublesome!

Just because he hasn't publicly announced a succession plan doesn't mean he doesn't have one in place. I recall Larry Felser writing columns about how there's no plan in place. To me all that means is Larry assumes since Ralph didn't inform him of his plans there can't be one. For whatever reason, it may just be that RW doesn't want anyone to know his plans until he's dead. I certainly can understand peoples argument that RW would be much more liked if he announced his plans now, while I totally agree, that doesn't mean he needs to do it.

So I called back again, finally talked with customer retention, complained how I was a new subscriber in April, 2 weeks after I signed up they started offering Sunday Ticket for free, complained about the Viacom disruption, some equipment issues, the fact that three times when I called up I got disconnected. What probably helped sell it was during the call while the person explained how reliable their call system is, we got disconnected. He did call me back though, this was initially promotion department, so then talked with retention. They make it so confusing with all these credits and stuff hard to figure it out exactly what I'm getting, so will see on the actual bills. I ended up getting a $15 credit for three months, then a $30 one time credit, so added all up getting Sunday Ticket for $125. In addition I'm also getting because of the Viacom issue, a $10 credit for three months and another $5 credit for three months. Whether these credits are concurrent or consecutive, not certain, but either way wouldn't care. Why they have to make it so confusing I don't know, maybe they figure by making it hard to figure out prevents others from calling and saying well you gave "Fred" this deal as who knows exactly what "Fred" got. So if I get these credits on top of the $125, essentially would be paying $80 for Sunday Ticket. For a new subscriber who already has a bunch of credits coming, I'm happy. Took alot of effort and phone calls, but finally got someone who gave me a decent deal. Now I just need to sit back and watch the games.