dave mcbride
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Posts posted by dave mcbride
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Cliff noted begin: Draft picks are over-valued by fans. In the best cases a second rounder gives you Ryan Denney or Chris Kelsay and in the more likely cases he gives you Bucky Brooks. Cliff notes end
Say what? Are you crazy? Our opening demand is a #2, if someone offers us a 2nd rounder, a smart runs and doesn't walk to accept it!
I disagree and if you care hear me out.
I pass on this offer not because I think TH is so worthwhile as a player, but I pass on this because I am not impressed with a draft choice (even one has highly regarded as a #2 for Henry.
Argue all you want about whatever negatives you think Travis has and I'll say fine because I think a judgment of how you or I assess him is beside the point (as I've said the claim that any particular player's value can be stated in draft choices as though they are some adsolute value defies reality. It's just silly to claim someone should develop like a 2nd rounder for example when a second round pick in a weak draft is going to develop very differently and at a different speed than a second round pick in a strong draft and the variation only begins there).
I would pass on getting a draft choice for Henry (particularly in what looks like a spectacularly weak draft) because I think posters value the draft far too highly in terms of its contribution to building a winning team (that's what it is all about Charlie Brown). I'm not saying the draft is unimportant, it is important. However, it is just one aspect of building a winning team and actually from what I have seen is not the most important aspect,
Good players do have to come from somewhere and many of them come from the draft. However, as best as I can tell the draft is for the most part a speculative crap shoot which is important but does not lead in telling the story. It amuses me that some folks actually try to describe the NE way as building a team through the draft when actually that ignores the fact that a key to their 1st SB run was the fact that they acquired about 1/3 of the team using the FA and waiver wires after June 1st of 2001.
The draft is important but it does not surprise me at all that this team could lose 1st round pick Seymour on DL and barely seem to notice in terms of results. Folks emphasize the importance of the 1st rounders and early picks but the strongest case you can make for the import of the draft to the Pats was actually a 6th round choice of Brady that was merely a footnote at best as the draft was judged.
I would say the major import of the draft which I see is that team's routinely devote huge cap hits to 1st round choices who then brgin to perform more slowlty than people want even in the better cases (Pennington sat on the bench for two years while ICE rants a 1st round QB must start his first year, even Vick sat most of his first year and we all saw how long Moulds took to perform) and in the not infrequent worse cases, you end up paying Akili Smith, Andre Ware or of course Ryan Leaf for nothing/
Even in the middling cases you get a great performer like Manning who has yet to do much more than Leaf in terms of playoff wins or impatient fans give up on Brett Farve, Steve Young or Trent Dilfer because they didn't produce like a 1st rounder should.
The thing as a Bills fan, I want to win now and getting even a second rounder for Henry merely seems far more likely to give me a Kelsay or Denney who contribute nothing to my team next year. Bucky Brooks perhaps?
Trade Henry by all means because it is pretty clear he no longer wants to be a Bills and much of the braintrust and many fans are done with him. However, if we can parley him into a less productive player than TH, but one who might produce more than Neufeld at TE (our likely best producer there if it takes an Edgerrin James like year and a half for Euhus and/or Campbell to recover) I'ma happy camper. The best of all worlds is if Miami tends to over-value the draft as most fans do and have some fevered thought that Henry will have an impact for them like Corey Dillon and are willing to part with TE McMichael in exchange for former Pro Bowler Henry since they already have traded away their second.
A guy can dream can't he.
he will in all likelihood sit out next year if the bills don't trade him - you can bank on that. so, a #2 (not that there's a snowball's chance in hell that we'll get that) is highly preferable to no production at all. as for second round choices, round #2 has been exceptionally kind to the bills, historically: thurman, joe cribbs, marcellus wiley, sam rogers, nate odomes, darryl talley, phil hanson, schoebel, peerless price, travis henry (!), kelsay, john parella (didn't perform for us, but turned into an excellent nfl player) etc. the list goes on. of course, there are some duds along the way - todd collins, gabe northern, bucky brooks, some players no one remembers - but even among the three mentioned, collins is still in the league as a competent #2, northern gave the bills 3 decent seasons, and brooks would have been excellent in my opinion if not for a serious injury.
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darin - i agree. aside from brady, he's really the only qb who looked good against the bills last year. i don't know if you recall, but he played a very smart game and was extremely accurate and savvy.
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he did look pretty good in the 2 full games he played this past year (he was exceptional against the bills).
fiedler is not a bad move, actually.
in any event, all of this goes to show that the bills will have some options that will be as good as bledsoe and a good bit cheaper.
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he's great when healthy, and while he has been hurt a lot lately, it's not like we would be signing him for the long term. he won't be back with the raiders by all accounts. he's a big step up from bledsoe, and his game isn't terribly different from losman's as far as i can tell.
how about this plan:
dump bledsoe and pick up gannon.
trade henry for a third
resign jennings
let pat w go - i'd love to see him stay, but DTs like him are so valuable and hard to find. i imagine he'll get a really big offer from someone.
use the second rd pick on an outside LB
use the 2 3rds on a guard/center and a running back
use the 4th/5th to go after safeties/tight ends
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from this week's tip sheet on espn.com:
Look for the Raiders, whose miserable running game ranked dead last in the NFL in 2004 at an average of 80.9 yards per game, to make a run at LaMont Jordan when the Jets backup becomes an unrestricted free agent in less than two months. The only misgiving about Jordan, who has already been closely studied by some Oakland coaches and team officials, is whether he can be the kind of workhorse back favored by head coach Norv Turner. Under the Raiders coach, the feature back almost always gets at least 325 carries. Jordan averaged just 65.5 carries in his four seasons with the Jets and never got more than 93 rushes. But the Raiders like his power, his deceptive speed to the outside, and are desperate to upgrade the position. Oakland used a lot of backs in '04 -- Amos Zereoue, Zack Crockett, Tyrone Wheatley, Justin Fargas and J.R. Redmond -- and none of them was effective. "We're not lining up with that bunch again (in 2005), I can promise you that," said one Raiders staffer. Oakland also likes Buffalo tailback Travis Henry, a lot, but his penchant for fumbling concerns the Raiders. The Bills, of course, have given Henry and his agent permission to speak to other teams about a trade. Among the veteran backs who are, or might be available, the Raiders have no interest in Reuben Droughns of Denver, who also has permission to seek a deal.
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i agree, simon. i'm just, as they say, speculatin'. given denny green's proclivities, though, to my mind it makes a certain amount of sense. probably won't happen, but AZ/green seems more likely than any of the other 30 teams in the league ...
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gerry, i'm only quoting donohoe, and i agree that the two week thing does seem weird. that is what he said, however. i do think that pitt game stuck in the entire organization's craw like no other, though, and someone's going to have to walk the plank. given the talk emanating from donohoe, that someone is most likely bledsoe.
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one thing to think about - in the past 2 seasons, the patriots have been crushed only twice - by the bills on opening dayin 03 and against the steelers this year. both games were on the road against defenses engineered by dick lebeau.
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green has done it before with big armed qbs with bad reps and who were counted out - randall cunningham and jeff george. bledsoe would fit his offense too. donohoe said that this would be sorted out in "a couple of weeks" which according to my calendar falls long before march 1. so something is up. also, the gauntlet he's thrown down to bledsoe is exactly the same one as the one thrown down to RJ in early 2002 - take a pay cut or you'll be released. bledsoe is a goner, i think, and i wouldn't be shocked to see some sort of package deal where the bills send bledsoe and henry to AZ for a second and third (they're not going to get the #8 overall for them). then, they could use their 2 #2s to move up into the high teens if there is a player they really like. i'm not saying it's going to happen, but given that bledsoe will almost definitely not be a bill next year and henry certainly won't be, i do think something is up.
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madbuffalo, as a bills fan and an initial supporter of the DB signing, i have to say that defending his play in the steelers game is delusional. he had one good series - again, one good series - and was ineffective the rest of the way. the patriots offense didn't "win" the game in any case - the pats defense and special teams won, by intercepting stewart twice at crunch time and completely shutting down their running game.
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Modrak should get all the credit in the world for the stuff he did BEFORE coming to Buffalo. Lets remember, he was the one who took McNabb over the pot-head Wicky Williams and got blasted by the Philly fans and media. I bet they arent complaining now.
By the way, could you just imagine how much faster Wicky would have been out of the NFL if his career started in Philly? Imagine how much the fans would have destroyed whatever self-esteem he had.
that's a disputed story. reid's side floated the story that modrak didn't want mcnabb, which modrak vehemently denied. not sure who to believe ...
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green's guys are people like robert smith and michael bennett. he's not going to give up anything higher than a 3rd for henry, and i doubt any other team will either.
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qbs the team drafted in the first round:
culpepper
mcnabb
vick
rothlesberger
pennington
manning
the other 2, brady and bulger, were 6th rounders and still play for the team that drafted them.
that shoots down the once popular theory that teams were just as well off with journeymen scrubs playing for them at the qb position, i think ...
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except for the fact that they were on their own 49, not the pats 49. and that punting there, when the offense had had problems all night and it was a 6-3 game-- in which the colts had kept their opponent out of the end zone into the third quarter in inclement weather -- was a wise move.
also, he says that the pennsylvania teams are 1-5 in the last decade. they are in fact 1-6 -- besides philly's three losses, pitt lost to denver, san diego, and the pats. and by the way, the broncos didn't lose to the colts because they blitzed. they lost because a) the colts are a better team and match up well against them, and b) because they played at indy and not denver. i like easterbrook, but he's full of crapola a lot of the time.
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Who cares? I don't think Bills' fans do and in fact we hope he is wrong.
What I care about as a Bills is getting the maximum return for trading Henry (in my the preference would be a player who can produce now rather than even a highly rated draft pick who is good as RJ but gives us nada in his first year).
I think Travis' comments that if he were used what he see's as correctly (gosh knows that Kevin Killdrive and the Bills's offense did few things correctly and that going with WM over TH was the correct thing for the Bills to do) the he would put up top 5 RB numbers are correct if his premise is correct and getting a Pro Bowl berth his second year at least makes his premise arguable.
The issue here is not where Travi ranks among RBs, the issue here is whether the Bills can get good trade value from a team which desperately needs an RB and could use a former Pro Bowler to move beyond the Rickey Williams fiasco.
Is that not true?
agreed, but as i said in my other post, i'd be thrilled - absolutely thrilled - to get a third rounder for him. that said, the third round has been a black hole for the bills since forever. going back to 1984, the only really productive players they've landed in the 3rd round have been jennings, glenn parker, and frank reich (1985). don beebe and matt stevens were third rounders, but they're marginal players in my opinion. only jennings has been above average, though, and even he's not what you'd call an elite player. incidentally, in 1984, the bills picked 3 guys in the third round. all were nonentities: rodney bellinger, sean mcnanie, and speedy neil. it's a pretty dismal record, actually. maybe they should demand a 4th rounder instead of a third rounder - they've had some success in that round (andre reed, terrence mcgee, ken irvin (entering his 11th year!). in all seriousness, though, that's been a pretty unproductive round as well - about 4 really solid picks, and 16 weak nonentities. hell, maybe the draft is overrated ...
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????
how does the second clause of this sentence qualify his claim that he's a top 5 back?
to translate, here's what he said:
"i'm one of the five best runners in the league, and if the bills coaching staff had continued to start me, i would have continued to pile up the same numbers that so evidently made me a top five player in the years previous to this one."
that's patently ridiculous. he played very poorly in the first few games this year, and was hardly in the top 5 - let alone the top 15 - in 2003. in 2002, he was probably the 12th best running back in the league judging from numbers. he's always been a bad receiver despite the fact that he caught a decent amount of passes in 2002. he's only good for swing passes and screens (which he is still poor at). he can't line up outside, and is incapable of running circle routes or any of the other routes that made thurman such a good receiver and faulk so great.
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You can probably remove Kevin Jones (Detroit) and Julius Jones from this list, since they have yet to *really* prove themselves in the way Henry did (read: actual playing time over a few years). Henry has been in the league for 4 years and his numbers were steadily getting better, so I'd put him above those two for now. I might even put him ahead of Warrick Dunn (remember...he's in an offense run by Michael Vick, which makes him better - I don't see Dunn as a guy that defenses must account for on every play) and Deshaun Foster (average RB that had a good year behind Stephen Davis and an OL that was playing lights out in 2003). On the flip side, a healthy Stephen Davis is probably better than Henry.
Overall Henry is an above-average RB. What doesn't make him good is his lack of breakway speed, size, and inability to pass-block (how many times did he not pick up a blitzer in 2003?). So, no - he's not a top 5 RB in the league right now.
Having said, I don't think he's saying exactly that. If he was given the opportunity, he *would* be a top 5 RB. Basically, he's trying to sell himself and he's not doing a good job of it. Leave that to your agent, Travis.
some good points, although i have a couple of quibbles. i think foster is really, really good and will prove that to a lot of people next year. i also think that henry didn't improve from year to year: middling rookie season cut short by injury followed by strong second season (plus lots of fumbles) and then followed by a less good but still solid third year (100 fewer yards than 2002, 0.6 fewer ypc) and finally followed by a bad season in which he was horrific at the little things, below average as a runner (especially at crunch time), and then finally dinged up.
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I suggest that everyone who wants to shoot fish in a barrel by taking Henry's comments in the worst possible context and a false light read the article.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/dolphins/cont..._fins_0118.html
The important part to me are these quotes:
"I have put up the numbers to prove I'm just as good as him," Henry said. "(The Bills) had a chance to have the best of both worlds. But they went in another direction. Why? I don't know. I'm one of the top five running backs in the NFL and I would have continued to put up the same numbers."
Henry said he's been told that Oakland, Miami, Carolina, Tampa Bay and Arizona are among the teams that have expressed interest.
"Forget this cold stuff," said Henry, who grew up in Frostproof. "It took me a while to adjust to the cold. And the turf. I mean, I grew up rooting for Buffalo. Something about their colors. And Thurman (Thomas). And (Jim) Kelly. And (Andre) Reed. But I'm ready to move on. I'm ready to blow up the league next year. And I hope it's in Miami. I want to be there. I know they need a back. I hope they want a top-five back."
Folks have been dumping on him as though he said he produced like one of the top 5 backs in the NFL this year. If that is what he said, that is obviously wrong and stupid but that is not what he said if you bother to read the article.
1. He starts off by saying that he did not put up the numbers this year to be considered a top 5 back.
2. He then says that he believes that if he were used the way he should be used he would produce numbers like a top 5 back in the NFL.
3. He expresses his long-term rooting love for the Bills and says that in his first three years he felt he was improving as he got used to the cold and the turf.
I think that Henry could easily be correct in these assertions which have been wailed on today on TSW by really mistating what and why he said it.
Is Henry one of the top 5 backs in the game today? No. And he says he did not put up the numbers to make him a top 5 back this year. Do folks disagree with that?
Has Henry arguably been one of the top 5 backs in the league at any point in his career? No. Bit he doesn't say that he was and actually given that he did make the Pro Bowl as a reserve his second year he quite arguably has produced in the top 10 early in his career.
Has Henry impressed and improved his play during his brief career? Yes, at various points. He did not play great but pretty good for a rookie his first year gaining over 700 yards for a 3-13 team. He correctly acknowledged that playing in Buffalo took some getting used to for him which is reasonable given that he was rookie and used to warm weather.
In his second year, Henry made the Pro Bowl and also demonstrated some pass catching ability as he not only ran for over 14 yds, but caught over 40 passes even though with Moulds, Peerless and Centers he was not anywhere near the first look on most plays.
In his third year Henry fell just short of 1300 yards rushing, but actually increased his per game average and won the hearts of many Bills fans as played through a broken bone which held him to 14 starts. The recieving yardage fell off with some noticeable drops as the Bills offense totally died that year.
His numbers sucked in his fourth year.
Are Henry's comments in the paper credible? Yes! Fkat out I would argue they are. Given that he had production which won him a Pro Bowl appearance in his second year which easily places him in the top 10 RBs, I think that it is more than credible for him to claim that if he had an OC other than Kevin Killdrive his second year and was in an offense led by Bledsoe which tanked that year while Henrt still racked up good rushing yards that he was on a track to be a top 5 NFL rusher.
HE CLEARLY DID NOT SAY HE WAS TOP 5 BECAUSE HE DID NOT PUT UP THE NUMBERS BUT THAT HE COULD BE IF USED IN THE WAY HE WANTS.
I have no problem with that and in fact have problems with anyone who starts in the NFL, has made the Pro Bowl, wants to improve and does not feel this way.
The other thing which I think must be taken into context and makes this a very Pro-Bills statement and exactly what we want him to say is that he said this in a FLA paper. Show confidence and get the hometown folks riled up and in his corner and it helps the Bills get the best possible trade value for this player.
I'm glad Henry said what he said in this FLA paper. I think those who are raggin on his comments should reconsidet their views and look at this as a Bills's fan.
"I'm one of the top five running backs in the NFL"
"I hope it's in Miami. I want to be there. I know they need a back. I hope they want a top-five back."
let's stop the sophsitry, yvel varm!
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where's curtis martin? he was the best back in the league the past year, and not just because he won the rushing title - he's a great receiver, a great blocker, and never fumbles.
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1 Walter Jones / LT / SEA
2 Orlando Pace / LT / STL
3 Charles Woodson / CB / OAK
4 Corey Simon / DT / PHI
5 Julian Peterson / SLB / SF
6 John Abraham / DE / NYJ
7 Edgerrin James / RB / IND
8 Shaun Alexander / RB / SEA
9 Darren Howard / DE / NO
10 Bubba Franks / TE / GB
11 Matt Hasselbeck / QB / SEA
12 Drew Brees / QB / SD
13 Pat Williams / DT / BUF
14 Mike Wahle / G / GB
15 Marco Rivera / G / GB
16 Casey Wiegmann / C / KC
17 Jon Ritchie / FB / PHI
18 Donovan Darius / SS / JAC
19 Plaxico Burress / WR / PIT
20 Kenoy Kennedy / SS / DEN
21 Chad Lewis / TE / PHI
22 Jermane Mayberry / G / PHI
23 Troy Brown / WR / NE
24 Dexter Jackson / FS / TB
25 Freddie Jones / TE / ARI
26 Tony Richardson / FB / KC
27 Hugh Douglas / DE / PHI
28 Kareem McKenzie / RT / NYJ
29 Rudi Johnson / RB / CIN
30 Ian Gold / WLB / TB
brees is #12, after a probowl year, and possable "franchise" tagged.
i found this list on a lions message board. so i dont know who made it.
and H. Douglas got cut by the jaguars. he should not be on that list.
jon ritchie is higher on the list than jonas jennings? please ...
Would you cut London Fletcher for
in The Stadium Wall Archives
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you're forgetting - pp-era has to fulfill his quota of at least one absolutely drop-dead ridiculous post per day. remember yesterday's? that tom brady isn't very good?