Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

You have to take into account the fact that Super Bowl and even AFC/NFC championship game teams all get more prime time games, more ink, etc, so their players tend to get voted to the pro bowl more than other teams. While not saying those guys were bad, how much of a difference was there between them and an average caliper tackle both in ability and compared to salary? Having the average guy, you likely get more bang for the buck!

OK, so it's less. We don't take the offer from Philly. Maybe by Saturday Philly will increase their offer, or maybe they'll go in a different direction totally and we're left with likey a hold out unless we agree to pay him $11mil. From what I've read Peters value may have decreased as some teams are becoming scared off by his behaviour. Peters has had one very good season and a questionable attitude, so not sure how much more we could have got.

Yup, we should have showed Peter's who's boss. Make him play under his current contrct at least another year. Tell him no new deal period. That would have taught him a lesson. Of course most likely he wouldn'y have reported till game ten then at best half out of shape and owuld have been totally useless. But that's the mentality our front office needs to have. That will definitely work in todays NFL

But did he play last year like that's how much he's worth. I don't think so! If he had reported to cmap last year participated in all the off-season work, he likely could have played like the prior year, and I believe he would have had the same contract with the Bills, maybe even better. The Bill's did give Evans what he was worth, so calling the Bill's cheap is not based too much on fact. The problem the Bill's hae had is not spending their money wisely, more than not spending it at all. My precdiction, this season he likely will play like he did two years ago, though not sure that warrented him being the highest paid tackle, but certainly top 5 to 10. Will he elevate his game above that, not so sure, we'll see.

Read online yesterdy someplace, may have been Tim Graham's article that teams are becoming a bit concerned with trading for Peter's because of his "attitude" This article was more geared towards the Bill's having a more difficult time trading him as teams are becoming wary of picking him. Conversely though the same thing can be said for his value as a free agent. Teams are going to become nervious about signing him based on his work ethic. I suppose the Bill's could tell Peters, hey we tried to trade you, but no one wants to give us what we think a pro-bowler is worth so we're not trading you for nothing. And oh BTW, Since no one else views you as a pro-bowler, we're not paying you the most in the league either so take our offer or leave it. You're ours for the next two years and fro mwhat we're eharing you'll never get an offer basee on what you think you're worth.

Agreed, the coach doesn't have to get involved with contracti ssues, his job is to have the players like him, so no need to tick off Peter's The problem here to is everyone sems to think that they are owed nothing but the absolute truth from the Bill's regarding how they feel about every situation. What the Bill's or DJ have told Peters privately may be much different and they don't owe us this info.

I've had both DTV and cable. For the money DTV tends to be a better value. The problem I have is where I live no locals in high def. Yes I know DTV will supposedlly supply you with this box to get locals over the air and run into their DVR, but I don't want to use an over the air antenna. My 1st year into price recently expired with cable so my rates would have gone up by quite a bit. So called TWC and asked them what they'd do to retain me as a customer. They gave me this price guarantee which locks in my price for two years and was about the same as I was paying for my intro package. I figured if I switched to DTV for the fist year could have saved about $50 per month and second year around $25. Not a bad amount, however that included dumping RR and going to DSL which definetely isn't as fast, so would have lost something there service wise. I could have kept RR, but then take $10 off the savings I'd get. I don't live in western NY anymore, now in Eastern NC and I must say the selection of HD channels I get is pretty good. For sports I get: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNnews, the local Fox sports, Versus, and MLB HD all in HD. I haven't looked lately at what other HD stations I'm not getting, but they just added about five more and to be honest I can't think of anything I watch that isn't in HD. The other nice things about cable are I have a TV in my garage, don't watch much, wouldn't want to pay for a converter box either for cable or DTV, but do like the ability to watch channels 1 thru 75 essentually for free. (yes I know you can dup the signal from another TV, but there are limitations in doing so, as in can't be using the feeder box on different program) I also do like the local cable station. When I lived in Rochester, they use to show a number of SU basketball games. When I had DTV I bought ESPN full court, but some of the games shown on the Time Warner station were then blacked on on Full Court so the only way to see them was on cable. Local weather is nice though these days go online more for that. What do I not get? Sunday Ticket but even if I were able to get it, I doubt I'd pay that much for it as it 's up to close to $300, then another fee for HD version, NFLN which would be nice, but for a half dozen games a year, not going to get too upset about it. If a Bills game is on next year, can always go to a bar, or watch online or something. The other area where DTV exceeds is for packages like MLB Extra Innings, or Full Court, DTV has many more games in HD than cable does. Cable has like one Extra Innings game per day in HD where as DTV has probably over half. Now that I have two HD TV's in house I've become an HD snob. If it ain't on HD, I don't watch it! Eventually I'm sure DTV will get locals in HD, then may go back again. I'm also hoping by then DTV will have the TIVO DVR's again. The last time I had them and they were great, though I must say, I have the same DVR here in NC as I did in NY from TWC, but it works much better here, appears to be running different software version. With the price break I got I'd save some money through DTV, but to be honest really can't complain much about cable and it's convienences.

I was talking "tongue in cheek" I'm sure there are a group of people involved. Regardless of the numbers this will still mean more work for how ever many are involved.

I'll tell you one person who isn't likely to be happy with the TO signing. Most likely by now the 2009 schedule was in it's final stages, being checked and re-checked, verifying stadium availability, getting buyin from TV, etc..... Now most likely as a result of this deal, there will be some re-working of the schedule to put buffalo in more prime time games. That person will likely be working some OT over the next copule of weeks. And it's all RW's fault!!

I doubt you'd trade Jackson as he won't give you much of anything, plus you don't know the status of Lynch. Lynch without the off-field issues would likely get you a #1, maybe even a bit more. So if anything, I think maybe they'd consider trading Lynch, maybe gets you a 2nd??

Add to that this is a John Clayton story, who has a grudge against the Bill's so he writes a story like this to make them look bad. Was there a tiny remote possibility of this being true? Sure, but I doubt you'd get more than a 7th rounder for him. Granted a 7th rounder is better than nothing, but consider the source. There was deadline before a bonus took effect, but I thought htta was mid March sometime.

IF Crayon's is correct, I would think it stand to reason that would also mean any players on west coast teams do not become free agents until 3:00 AM eastern, time, therefore you can't talk with them until that time. So if correct, works both ways, the east coast players would have an advantage then too as they could sign offers before free agetns from west coast teams. I recall one year the Bills had a player signed by 1:00 AM local time. That's money that a west coast player never has a shot at getting. All this makes me doubt it could be true, as players and teams would both be at a disadvantage

I don't often agree with you, but on this one, I think you might be right Thats the tough part. Like was pointed out in other posts, Fred Taylor or someone of that level isn't likely to sign here to be 2nd or 3rd string. On the other hand, you need someone in case ML gets suspended (which I'd put the odds at over 50% he does since the NFL tends to be coming down hard on these things) so if you keep ML, it may make it difficult to sign soneone else who's good. It also will be tough to get much in return for him as who'd want him. (well there's always the Raiders) There's been rumors of other little issues too. I think if the Bill's know of other things that also did happen, they may just dump him to the highest bidder, and take what they get. Maybe he has a clause in his contract regarding behavour and they can go after part of his bonus or something.

The franchise tag only works if the player is worth that type of money. In Greer's case, he's not so you don't tag him. Otherwise you're in a situation like NE is when Cassell signed the tag. If Greer had been tagged, I'm sure he'd have take nall of 4 minutes to sign the offer sheet. Clements, Winfield, yeah maybe, however in Clements case, the Bills i.e. Levy agreed after tagging him the year prior not to do it again. You could argue that a real GM would have said ole well too bad, we're gonna tag you anyway. Tagging Clements after agreeing not to, really shows a strong ethical front office. That's the way to get players lining up at the door to sign here. You can certainly argue it's just busniess and the Bills's could have done that. But it doesn't impress soon to be free agents or others. You want to argue that the Bill's front office are poor talent evaluators, fine. But for their part, the people they let walk got contracts paying them much more than they were worth, so I'd say they did a pretty good job there. As was pointed out, every team loses players who go on to sign inflated contracts with other teams. The Bills are no better or worse. The question is when these players leave, who do you replace them with? That's an area you can argue the Bill's have been weak. Even there, is it the players or the coaching?

No it makes no sense, thankfully the "braintrust" does have more brain than you! He's not worht $10 mil. If the Bills were to franchise him, if I'm Greer, I'd sign the tender in about 10 minutes as I know I'd never get than on the open market. Totally stupid to franchise him!

How's that any different than anything else reported? Already back in December we all heardd about the Ill governor. Should not a word been said until he was impeached? Even then he wasn't convicted in court, so should nothing still been said. Should perspective cabinet nomminees not be named until they are voted in? Should there be no mention of the election until after Election day?? Alot of talk on Mike and Mike this morning about not believing A-Rod's latest disclosures. Granted, many people could argue that should be the way things are handled (wait until after the fact), but they're not. While I'm not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with Sully and Hamilton, they are just doing their job. You make decisions based on what you know at the time. As you learn more, you can change your opinion, but at any given point in time you go with what you know. In this case, I think their conclusions aren't too far off, if at all.

The exception being if the player is kind of "winding down" his career. The guy Minn had, can't recall his name, "Mr Headbutt goalpost" He was old enough that I think a guy tlike that would be more agreeable to come to Buffalo with the understanding he will likely be the backup, barring injury. Maybe Garcia falls into that group too, though he may feel he still has something left as a starter. However he needs a team to agree to that too. The other arguement you could make for a guy to come here to backup Edwards is, he's not an entrenched starter. No matter how bad a Manning or Rivers, etc were to play, they won't get benched. While I like TE and think he can be a good starter, he certainly has shorter leash than some others may have

The other thing to also consider is how much it would take to sign a guard in 2009 dollars. Yes the Bills likely overpaid for him, but if you cut him, you likely will pay as much for a replacement as you're paying him. I alos don't think he's as bad as some make him out. In 2007 our line hardly gave up any sacks. This past season, not so good, however there were many leaks on the line. If anything it seems our lines biggest problem is run blocking, but again he isn't the only problem there either. Seems none of them can run block very well. One positive I wil lsay for him is he has been very healthy. While it would be great to have an all pro at every position, you can't afford that, so you need to pick and choose and only give up on someone who is terrible. I don't think Dockery is that bad.

Note to people who say we should franchise Greer. This is why you don't do that. If the player knows he really isn't going to get top five salary on the open market, you sign the tender. This year an added twist might be that salaries tend to be down a bit becasue of economy. Teams may not be willing to spend as much. However tender offers are based on past year, so by accepting again good way to get top $$

Yeah, but what if team A has a decent offense and a weak defense. Team B has a great offense but a weak defense. Team B all around is stronger. However Team A wins the toss goes and scores a field goal against Team B's weakest part of team. If team B had the chance to get their offense on the field they would have very likely scored a TD. But they never were given the change. I agree all three parts are requally important, but each team should be given a chance to uitlize all three parts of their game. I did think Roger Godell had an interesting rebuttal though somewhat of a cop out to Costas comments about changing OT. His defense was the present system makes teams try harder to score in regulation rather than risk outcome of game on a coin toss.

Has there been any comments about their presenters? I heard Smith state awhile back he'd have either Marv or Ted Cotrell present him. For RW, I would think Marv could be the person, or wouldn't shock me to see him reach to the past and he were to ask Al Davis. Seems like he and Bill Pollian have patched things up so he's a possibility though remote. Maybe Bud Adams the owner of Tenn, though RW doesn't like owners who move teams, so that might knock him out?? Lamar Hunt's son, another long shot. Don't think it will be TD or AJ Smith! Any other rumered names??

Well certainly the recent picks have a better offensive line. It's really not fair though for the TD regime to get all the credit for guys like Shobel, Evans etc. Those guys are still playing very well so there was no reason for current rigime to replace them. They should get some credit for keeping them. Conversely they should be faulted for letting any players go who went on to become stars elsewhere after current rigime cut them. You vould put Clements in that group, however I think it was wise move to let hime go for what he wanted. Also need to give the TD regime props or boo's for letting players go or keeping them from the JB years if they were bad or good respectively. Bottom line I really don't think any fair way to make an assessment like this as you do need to consider if they kept the good ones or cut the bad ones, then it becomes very muddied.

Fine for me, I'm watching on HD station. I had problems in the early game in first half where video kept pausing while audio would continue.

It switches each year who gets the late game. Both networks want the late one. Next year the NFC will have the late game regardless of where it's played. Just like the past two weekends, each networks gets a late game one day, and the early one the next. Years ago was based on time zone, weather, dome vs outside; now it just switches back and forth each seasonr.

It likely would have been if he hadn't started 5-1 and got the extention. No doubt in my mind or most others, the way the second half of the season went, without the extension he would hvae been fired.