Fake-Fat Sunny

This read is correct regarding MW working out this past off-season and is part of the reason though I agree that while he did act unprofessionally and let his teammates and the Bills fans down when he melted down after his Grammy died (again understandable though not condonable for the Bills fans he pledged himself to by taking the big contract) he does not totally lack heart. A player completely lacking in heart would likely have went south just after signing his contract like Ryan Leaf did. MW had a good rookie year. A player completely lacking heart would not have bounced back from his near meltdown last pre-season but he reacted well to the sticks and carrots JMac applied last year to be considered by many observers to be the Bills' best OL player by the end of last season. He came back and played well enough tio get a game ball. A player completely lacking in heart would have replayed his eating himself into oblivion this off-season but many observers felt he came to camp in the best shape his considerable form has ever had. MW is not the bulldog we all want our players to be, but I think the indictment that he has no heart does not match events.

To me this has been the Bills problem even well befpre they rolled Jimbo out of the Jax game on a golf cart. Buffalo's front office and its fans became so addicted to the idea of having a stud QB that both parties have lost the laser beam focus on building a good team and consistently hurt the team trying to get the silver bullet of a great QB. Specifically: 1. Butler and the gang refused to confront the fact that Jimbo would not last forever and failed to follow the path you correctly suggest of trying to get a replacement well in advance to ride the pine and learn. They should have drafted a lower round development QB a year or two before they drafted Collins and instead suddenly confronted with the reality over-reached for TC in the draft. 2. RWS joined the psychotics in over-estimating how long Jimbo would last and he made a handsake aggreement with Jimbo before his last FA year to reward him in the next contract. When Jimbo was wheeled off the field and out of football, RWS had to break NFL rules but was not formerly punished for the cap violation of paying Jimbo a million bucks walking away money (It would not shock me to find out that psrt of the RWS difficulty in being voted to the HOF was this act). 3. The Bills braintrust rushed TC into the starting role when it was clear that he needed to have happy-feet trained out of him if possible. 4. Butler really panicked at not having a QB when it became clear TC was not the answer and over-reached trading a 3rd for Billy Joe Idiotbert. 5. Kudos to AJ Smith for recognizing that Flutie was worth a risk. However, brickbats to Butler and the gang for: A. signing a deal with Flutie which apparently much to his surprise the Bills were willing to roll his achieved incentives into his base salary. B. Them reneged on their understanding with Flutie he would get a fair shot in camp and signed RJ to a huge bonus guaranteeing him the starting job. C. This combo of moves set the Bills QB fate for years as when RJ proved to be injury prone and Flutie made the incentives, the Bills ended up with a $10 million buck QB cap hit (DF's achieved incentives from 1999. DF's new base salary unless they renegotiated, and RJ\s prorated bonus). The Bills were forced to sign DF to an extension or they would have had to cut a lot of players. 6. The Bills actually made a great move IMHO trading the 2003 1st round pick for Bledsoe. Once again I think the media and fans over-value 1st round picks and the need to cut DF and then RJ left the Bills with AVP at best as starter. Bledsoe was clearly not the scary opponent he was as a strong armed rookie and was not going to lead a team to an SB, but he clearly was much better than AVP. His 2002 where his production deserved selection to the Pro Bowl as a reserve was deserved (if you think not then name the player (s) who you feel deserved the reserve nod more that year). However, rather than cutting their losses as a wash when Bledsoe followe a very good 92 with a horrible 03, the QB addicted front office and fans instead saw him extended. 7. Having committed financially to Bledsoe for the semi-long term the front office instead reversed field and took a cap hit this year cutting him and instead rushed JP into a starting role even he said he did not earn on the field or get the right way. The Bills front office, media and many fans have been too addicted to trying to find the next Jim Kelly and it has hurt this team big time.

To me this has been the Bills problem even well befpre they rolled Jimbo out of the Jax game on a golf cart. Buffalo's front office and its fans became so addicted to the idea of having a stud QB that both parties have lost the laser beam focus on building a good team and consistently hurt the team trying to get the silver bullet of a great QB. Specifically: 1. Butler and the gang refused to confront the fact that Jimbo would not last forever and failed to follow the path you correctly suggest of trying to get a replacement well in advance to ride the pine and learn. They should have drafted a lower round development QB a year or two before they drafted Collins and instead suddenly confronted with the reality over-reached for TC in the draft. 2. RWS joined the psychotics in over-estimating how long Jimbo would last and he made a handsake aggreement with Jimbo before his last FA year to reward him in the next contract. When Jimbo was wheeled off the field and out of football, RWS had to break NFL rules but was not formerly punished for the cap violation of paying Jimbo a million bucks walking away money (It would not shock me to find out that psrt of the RWS difficulty in being voted to the HOF was this act). 3. The Bills braintrust rushed TC into the starting role when it was clear that he needed to have happy-feet trained out of him if possible. 4. Butler really panicked at not having a QB when it became clear TC was not the answer and over-reached trading a 3rd for Billy Joe Idiotbert. 5. Kudos to AJ Smith for recognizing that Flutie was worth a risk. However, brickbats to Butler and the gang for: A. signing a deal with Flutie which apparently much to his surprise the Bills were willing to roll his achieved incentives into his base salary. B. Them reneged on their understanding with Flutie he would get a fair shot in camp and signed RJ to a huge bonus guaranteeing him the starting job. C. This combo of moves set the Bills QB fate for years as when RJ proved to be injury prone and Flutie made the incentives, the Bills ended up with a $10 million buck QB cap hit (DF's achieved incentives from 1999. DF's new base salary unless they renegotiated, and RJ\s prorated bonus). The Bills were forced to sign DF to an extension or they would have had to cut a lot of players. 6. The Bills actually made a great move IMHO trading the 2003 1st round pick for Bledsoe. Once again I think the media and fans over-value 1st round picks and the need to cut DF and then RJ left the Bills with AVP at best as starter. Bledsoe was clearly not the scary opponent he was as a strong armed rookie and was not going to lead a team to an SB, but he clearly was much better than AVP. His 2002 where his production deserved selection to the Pro Bowl as a reserve was deserved (if you think not then name the player (s) who you feel deserved the reserve nod more that year). However, rather than cutting their losses as a wash when Bledsoe followe a very good 92 with a horrible 03, the QB addicted front office and fans instead saw him extended. 7. Having committed financially to Bledsoe for the semi-long term the front office instead reversed field and took a cap hit this year cutting him and instead rushed JP into a starting role even he said he did not earn on the field or get the right way. The Bills front office, media and many fans have been too addicted to trying to find the next Jim Kelly and it has hurt this team big time.

Some folks seem to be addicted to the notion that the Bills have no choice but to go through a painful cycle of losing with Losman in order for him to be come the QB all of us Bills fans want him to become. I think this is incorrect. However, this is not wrong because onfield time is not useful or even not necessary to develop QB skills. I think it is an incorrect truism to over-focus on because: 1. Even to the extent playing on field is necessary it is far from sufficient to properly develop a QB. Some folks seem to want to trot JP out there as the starter and have him learn by losing come heck or high water. This is wrong. Not only can he learn a lot by playing the game, but he also can damage himself, the team, or lose confidence and ruin himself as a QB if the main thing playing get him is a series of bad beats that teach him little or cause his teammates to lose faith in him. A great QB will certainly refuse to lose and respond to bad situations by doing Jim Kelly, John Elway or Joe Montana like things. However, Bueller it would be dumb to require that Losman produce like Kelly, Elway or Montana and if he does not he then is clearly a total loser. If JP only achieves the less than best QB ever performance of a brad Johnson, a Trent Dilfer or has a couple of outstanding seasons surrounded by journeyman performance of Kurt Warmer that should be fine with us if he can unite with the rest of the team to win SBs. JP should not be thrown out on the field simply to lose and get training. This is partocularly true if he then is going to get run out of town by impatient fans and the media for losing as Steve Young, Brett Favre and Brad Johnson were done in their failed training attempts. 2. Just cause on-field play is essential this does not mean that off-field learning has no value. Nothing can reolace the learning a player gets looking at Ds over the center's back in a game. However. there is a lot of useful knowledge to be gained watching the game from the sidelines and seeing what everyone is doing. Even better is watching the game from upstairs and not being distracted by yukking it up with your teammates. I hope JP used his enfrced absence last year to sit up above with Sam Wyche and get an invaluable download of a former HC's perspective from up in the booth. The clock is ticking on JP and unfortunately the alarm bell may already be ringing because the Bills front office appear to have rushed him along. By jettisoning a vet QB and going with the youngster, it appears that the Bills players may have taken it as a message that the Bills braintrust was willing to wait for JP to develop and the team would take its lumps losing until he came around. The D simply did not perform even before the injury to TKO and I think that the players may have in the back of their minds may have simply have made the judgment that no matter how bad Bledsoe was, the team voluntarily decided not to put their better QB on the field to give JP more reps. I think the players saw the team treating our O performance as practice for JP which they hoped would work and the D ended up playing against the run as though it were practice and got killed. Nexty year, I think Holcomb and JP should come into camp with the knowledge that the best player will win. There is simply no need for this team to name a #1 QB right now and simply allow this to be decided on the field with a resolution by the thrird pre-season game next year.

No, he doesn't totally lack hart (IMHO). However, he does fall short in the football heart category in that he is not tough and driven enough to become one of the best players at his position or to do even an adequate job with out a lot of help and guidance. I think folks have to wrong when they look to blame this ALL on MW if it means they are going to let the coaching staff off the hook completely on this. MW strikes me as having the physical ability as a player to be a good RT certainly and probably an adequate LT as well. He has shown with a good performance for a rookie his first year and when he turned things around from his near meltdown in "voluntary" camp last year that with proper leadership on the team (he was world's better with Villarial steadying him than us foolishly asking this troubled player to school Pacillo next to him). In addition, proper management by his position coach (JMac did a much better job managing him last year than Vinky or Ruel added to his game his first two years). However, I think folks have a not unreasonable expectation that a player who merits a #4 pick and who gets the huge contract this slot commands would be a bit more self-motvated than mW demonstrated. While I do not think that the real world occurences in fact do indicate he is more than a total loss as a player: A. He showed good achievement as a youth in college and this obviously does not guarantee success but does count for something. B. He showed good production and growth up to the level of being a pro rather than a "mere" college player as a rookie and this also is not near enough for a #4 choice but does count for something. C. Losing the Grammy who raised him as a Mom is a real world blow and it is more than understandable it was a set back for him. However, while understandable it is not condonable as he is an adult, he is paid the big bucks and the deal was his teammates and the city was depending upon hi. I don't fault him fpr having a hard time, but he can be easily and legitimatelly faulted for not dealing with this tough situation in a more professional manner which his teammates and the region deserved. D. He did make a nice comeback from this meltdown however as by the end of the season many felt he was the best lineman on the Bills (which may not be saying much given the quality of our OL players. E. Impressively, he appaently did report to camp this year in the best shape he had been in and showing the signs of a self-motivated workout regime this off-season. However, with the bad break of an injury marred initial start, MW simply did not produce well enough to maintain the fiath of the braintrust and his teammates in him. He has used up all his chits last year and when the situation did not go well for him with injuries this year and the team was in the middle of a meltdown itse;f, rather than take the time to help MW out and through his woes, his colleagues and Bills fans simply moved on to devote their time and attention to other problem. I don't think one has to worry about MW at all. With his #4 slotted contract the boy has already taken in enough cash that with reasonable prudent fiscal mamagement he will be set financially for like. In addition, he is still a young player at a premium NFL position who part of his problems were certainly poor training and development by his coahes (particularly Vinky and Ruel his first two years. I think the Bills will be forced to cut him this off-season rather than pay him the contract we agreed to pay him if he is a Bill next year. It appears to me that both CBA rules which restrict his pay from being cut to a reasonable level for a Guard (and it is no done deal he can make the switch successfully there for the Bills). It also looks like it would be dumb for the Bills to sign up for additinal years of MW by extending him in order to right size the payment due him in 2006. Thus, i think the most likely scenario is that: A. We cut him and the final amount of bonus he has already been paid accelerate into a one year cap hit for the Bills. This approximately $5.5 million in dead space is a bad thing, but it is better than the $10.+ million in cap space he takes up if we keep him. I don;t think he can even agree to a cap hit of less than $7,5 million if he took a simple pay cut and I cannot see it being intelligent for us to extend his contract and give him more money but prorate this bonus to lower his 3006 cap hit. B. MW hits the free market and probably gets evem more riches from his new team MW is a young player whose orginal position coaches were idiots (Vinky and Ruwl). With good breaks with injury as happened last year, he and the Bills demonstrate that with good management (the sticks and carrots of JMac) and a solid RG next to him (Villarial) he can be productive. My sense is that he should be able to shop for the right fit and can sign an incentive laden contract geared toward him commanding a starting job that will give him an NFL minimum cap hit (and nothing more if he fails) but reqards hium handsomely if he catches on and does the job for his new team. I blame MW a lot as ultimately each player is responsible for his play. However, i think it lets the Bills managment off the hook completely for piss-poor player development if one attempts to only blame MW and sites a lack of heart as the key reasons for him being an almost certain bust as a Bill. MW deserves a lot of the blame (not that you would notice him being blamed due to the huge contract he signed), but right up there with him is A. TD for hiring GW (over Fox or Lewis), B. GW for not having the offensive chops to be an HC and hiring the fired Sheppard to make up for his failings, GW for condemning MW and the whole OL to Vinky's not-ready-for-primetime OL coaching leadership. C. GW for advicating we take Kevin Killdrive as the Sheppard replacement. D. TD for letting GW have his choice (TD's reported choice at the time Clements has his own problems but I think he would have been better than Killdrive). TD seemed to be more interested in creating a world where he was protected from a firing like the one Cowher engineered in Pitts by him aceeding to GW failures as long as GW took the hit and not him. E. GW by not managing Killdrive effectively and forcing him to abandon his system in 2003 when the NFL clearly had gotten enough tape and a roadmap had been provided by BB/Crennel about how to demolish a Bledsoe led Killdrive O. Killdrive needed to diversify his attack as the team went into a multi quarter TD outage in mid 2003 and GW should have canned Killdrive (as NYG did with its OC in mid 2003 if he refused to change). Its too bad that TD, MM and the crew did not realize that MW needed some hand holding that an adult should not need in the 2004 off-season. With Ruben gone from the Bills because of his public fights with Killdrive (Ruben was correct actually but its tough for an employee to take on his boss and not get killed even if there is a new boss). Is MW a total failure in terms of heart? No, he is not a TOTAL failure as he has shown some signs of productivity on the field as a Bill (his rookie year where he was not great but did show great promise, last year when he came back from his near meltdown to earn a gameball). However, though he does not have a TOTAL lack of heart, his internal resolve is not strong enough for him to do consistently well without a lot of help. The Bills did not have the talent among the coaches to provide the hand holding he needed in his first two year. Even tougher, we have had other huge problems which has made impossible for the team to do the extra work needed to turn MW into a good (or possible great as he still has the tools) player. His contract next year will be to big for him unless he is a good player. He has not produced well enough on the field to make it even reasonable to extend him to lower his immediate cap hit. The CBA prevents a cut in size of his contract to a rational size (what an OK starting guarrd might command) for his production. He is gone.

I do;t think it is fully accurate to describe this as impending possible contract problems with the NFLPA but in fact they are DEFINITE limitations (or problems if you wish) caused by the CBA which means the source of the issue is the aggreement between the NFL and NFLPA. There are real limitations which prevent the Bills from reaching an agreement with MW to pay him the smaller than agreed to salary which his level of play deserves. Its not merely the NFLPA demanding that the Bills pay MW more than he deserves, it is the continuing growing partnership between the nFL and NFLPA which mandates that that a player's salary can be only cut a limited amount from year to year which in essence forces us to choose to pay MW far more than he deserves or instead to cut him, take the foul medicine of the Bills making a bad drat pick and allow (subject) MW to the free market. Its simply not accurate to imply that what is going on here is a battle between the union and the owners when what is going on here is the Bills and the player dealing with the rules they agreed to through the league and union in the partnership embodied in the CBA.

I aggree that he has been impressive so far. However, his accumulation of some bad penalties (a personal fould for a late hit against the Bengals and the occaisional play where he has been out of position are indicators that he still is a rookie and no one needs to clear a spot on the Wall of Fame for him. Will he start at safety for the Bills in a couple of years or maybe one. The answer is this could well happen but it says more about the gaps we will have at safety as it does about the quality of his play. As it stands right now, the situation is: Milloy- probably gone next year due to contract and age and certainly gone in two years. Vincent- a good ballhawk at safety and not an unreasonable contract. Probably a keeper next year if he plays football but expect injuries to keep him from playing a full season. Certainly gone in two years. Wire- a disappointment as the Bills never really developed him properly making him a safety when he had never played the position at any level of organized ball. He is too small for LB where he was trained and really the only hope for him would have been if he had been focused on ST from the start. There is little possibility of him beinmg our starting safety in 2 years and may be gone next year unless the market mandates a pay cut from his 3rd round pick contract. He simply is not worth a higher cap allocation by the Bills. Baker- Leonhard is about at his level of rookie achievement that Baker had last year when he earned a starting slot on the @2 NFL D. However, his level of production led to him being inactive Sunday on a D that is not a good D. Can Leonhard start in 2 year? Yeah. In fact, he might be the best safety we have next year unless we supplement the position with some quality acqusitions.

Great job with this article and thanks! However, the unanswered question which deserves some consideration in this article is: If credit should be given to the old staff for the quality of the 2001 draft which was TD's first, what the heck happened and what is the judgment about the quality of the 2000 draft (Butler's last one). Of the 8 players selected, only 2 (Sammy Morris and Dashon Polk) proved to be a legitimate contributor to the Bills. Perhaps one wants to make a case that 2 players (Drew Haddad) can even reasonably be said to have become contributing NFL players (and this is a stretch- someone may want to make a case that Traveres Tillman contributed elsewhere though the Bills decision to pick him offered him little more than training as he contributed little to the team. Any bad mouthing folks legitimately want to do about TDs choice of Mike Williams simply cannot stand as evidence that the old guard was better at never picking a first round bust given the production of Erik Flowers who did not even have the 1-1/2 productive years of play that MW gave the Bills. The credit given Adams for 2001 simply raises the big question about what the heck happened in 2000?

This true not because JP Losman is a better QB (He is not). It's not even true because JP is the hope for the future (maybe he is and may be he isn't) This thinking is stupid because the primary problem the Bills had with their QB selection this year was that the decision about who was the 2005 starter was made in the front office based on contract and in the papers based on who is this week's flavor rather than the decision being made on the field by who produces. I'm fine with Holcomb being the QB against the Jets this weekend, because he demonstrably is a better QB of the Bills right now and quite frankly this game does not matter in terms of the standings. Start Holcomb and see how it goes and get in JP for some practice if the game is a blow out for the Bills or for the Jets. Its simply silly to declare one of these two players our QB for next year when we have seen nothing of how these two players perform next year come mini-camps and training camp. I agree with Marv that in general when you have two starting QBs you have no starting QBs. However, this team has no need to select a starting QB until after the first two pre-season games or until after the draft at the earliest. A QB controversy between these two right now is so pre-mature it ain't evenm funny and seems to me a lot more about selling ads in the paper or on TV rather than about football.

I'd doubt we would know the name of Tom Brady if it was not for Mo Lewis. His hit to Bledsoe collapsing his lung forced BB abd the Pats to go with Brady and really pushed NE into a gut check which made them a TEAM instead of merely being a team. Belichick deserves a ton of credit for choosing Brady after the rest of the league (and Belichick himself) passed numerous times on picking a player who arguably has had more success more quickly than any player in NFL history. BB also deserves tons of credit for creating a capable of uniting around the need to step up for a teammate and themselves when their first round drafted QB got hammered (though then one also needs to give BB "credit" for mangling the Milloy situation so badly it united the team in universally aggreeing how badly he bollickeds this situation. Before we get all wet in the eyes (or pants) about BB, I think it is important to realize that without Mo Lewis and his collapsing Bledsoe's lung, I think it is really doubtful this Pats team would have even made the playoffs much less the SB that year (and even with the luck of the hit, without the refs odd application of the tuck rule in the playoffs, this NE squad would not have made the SB). If so, it is a strong possibility that the BB era might never even have taken off and his resume would more likely feature his 5 years leading Cleveland to one losing playoff appearance. In a significant way, one makes one's own luck in life, but even acknowledging his skill as one of the best game HCs ever in the nFL, a key factior for BB has not simply been skill, but dumb luck also.

Clumpy, first thanks forthe great work, your salary cap page and discussions are one the great add values to finding my way to it through TBD. Second, what specifically are the restrictions on hw much a contract can be reduced under theCBA? Many have talked about keeping MW at a contract level more appropriate to his level of contribution. My assumption is that this will not happen by fact because some team will want to take a flyer on a still young formerly well-regarded OL player no matter if his play sucks now and will pay him well beyond his output on the field. Second, by rule under the CBA, my understanding is that player contracts cannot be cut by some number (25% or so) and that MW's play does not even merit 75% of what he is owed under contract for 2006. I think turning his remaining bonus into dead space as his contract accelerates is regrettable but likely has to be done. Is this recitation of the rules correct?

There are even other considerations, most are goners but most should be given a chance. Anderson- Should be gone as he simply has not produced despite his large cotract. His particular problems of taking undisciplined penalties as part of our ineffective blocking unit indicate that attitude adjustment which is unlikely to happen rather than training is needed here. If the cap allows he should be gone which should be doable in a year the cap will expand but I would not make that assumption unfortunately. Williams- A likely goner as he simply does not play well enough to justify the cap space he will occupy. The sad irony for us is that as MW was on a good track his rookie year, had a bad sophomore year as he and Pacillo were unable to coordinate, suffered a near meltdown when the Grammy who raised him died in off-season his third year but turned that into some productive play during last year's win streak and the followed that with an implosion this year as injuries and poor play made him a bust, it is not certain but not improbable that a change of location may get some production out of him elsewhere. Good play from him is far from certain and not even likely unless he finds the right situation he rarely had with the Bills (namely reasonable position coaches which Vinky and Ruel did not provide and an RG capable of leading him to be all he can be as niether Sullivan nor Pacillo were good enough to do that. Yet, we did see him become more productive last year with JMac and Villarial pulling him back from his meltdown. His time as a Bill is done and we will see next year whether improvement last year or the injury riddled 2005 were the aberration for him. Teague- I like him as a player actually because he is a bright athletic player. However, he has had trouble doing several tasks he can do well on their own all at the same time. I don't mind us keeping him if: 1. He does not command an exorbitant contract as an FA. 2. He plays elsewhere than center where multi-tasking is required and it is difficult for him to do all he can do as a blocker when he also has to make line calls and deliver a quality snap. We'll see. but he is not worth the big bucks and if the market gives it to him then adios. Jerman- His name should be journeyman. He is gone IMHO. Gandy- Folks want to re-role him and that is fine, but with a credible OL around him he is even capable of playing a credible LT. Unless someone has a suggestion for who this credible gettable LT is then he probably stays in this slot. I see no crying issues which says he will be a great guard, the drive here seems more to be the recognition that he will never be a great LT. Getting someone better than him at LT is the key to moving him. Peters- I think we have our starting RT (and maybe he can make the jump to be a quality LT since he is just ending his first full year as a tackle and handled it adequaely. Villarial- I think he is well into the backside of his career and between missing games from injury and occaisional mistakes or unprofessional blow-ups like Saturday, i can easily see him gone as well. Preston- He provides hope that he is ready to step up and take the center spot or be a solid starting guard next year. Geisinger- Gets another year to prove himself but I have seen little from him. McFarland- He's been cut and is gone as far as I can tell and is not on the practice squad and has no affiliation with the team. However, there are some additional OL players with ties to the team which at least earns them a look see though I have heard or seen nothing in their play which makes them a likely 06 OL candidate. Lawrence Smith- Is on injured reserve and did not deserve a starting role last uear or this one based on his play. However, he jumped from the Ravens PS to a starter's role for us until redzone and other problems got us looking to Tucker to take the LG role. He oddly had more trouble with run blocking than pass blocking (most young OL guys have the problem the other way around) and he deserves a look see to see if you used the enforced down time to bulk up and learn and visualize the proper technique. He is unlikely to be more than a back-up but we will see. Ben Sobieski- showed great talent at multiple positions in college, but injury issues as a pro following injury issues in college almost certainly mean has RJ type injury proneness. Goodbye. Jasen Esposito- On the PS at guard two years so he must have learned something and also impressed the coaches that he was a better bet than McFarlans, Sullivan, Pacillo or some of the other former NFL players cut. A likely cut. Marques Ogden- Good college credentials at the small college level and has made the switch to learn the Center position. A likely cut but may get a PS look. These are the holes I see and reasonable answers: LT- Big hole and Gandy or some continued meteoric rise by Peters appear to be the only in house answers. It will be expensive but this may be the FA purchase. LG- Anderson is not the answer. Thia looks like an FA purchase as well unless we find and LT and Gandy can move over to this slot. C- We need Preston to step up and take this slot. Perhaps the braintrust have backing up C in mind for Ogden or yet another FA purchase is important for a plan B in case Preston goes down or cannot make it. RG- I hate to say it because at least he has some anger at this stituatio rather than simply punching the clock and collecting his check. However, I think at best he can hold down the position but miss a significant number of games to injury in 06. We could use an FA starter purchase here (but other OL positions may be a priority forcing us to stand pat. Geisinger or a rookie will need to step up bigtime to be a solid back-up here because if we sticl with Villarial the back-up almost certainly will start a significant number of games. RT- Peters should continue to learn and hold this position.

I aggree with your thought that we want quality rather than serviceable, but disagree with your thought that the draft is a road to get a player who is much more than serviceable next year. There are relatively few cases and is a real rarity that a drafted OL player is much more than what I would call serviceable his first year. Folks seem to operate under a false assumption that every 1st round OL pick is going to be Tony Boselli when it is actually much more the case that a first round pick is likely to be a player who ends up being a bust like Mike Williams or a hold-out with as lost first year like McKinnie. Even the best of the LTs taken in the 1st that year, Levi Jones is a solid player now but one would be hardpressed to label him accurately as being more than serviceable and providing some hope that he realized his first year. I agree with you and DiCaesare that the way to build a team is from the inside out and would not mind at all if the 1st round pick next time is an OL player. However, I am not under the illusion that this player is likely to be anything more than serviceable his rookie year.

First off JDG, thanks for some great research and thoughtful comments. I think this issue about how the Bills and TD deal with leadership are actually keys as best as I can tell to the Bills implosion this year and the production of a piss poor record. My sense is that among the lead factors in producing this record which should be noted are: 1. 10 of 11 guys are back on a D which was quite productive the last two years ranking statistically sixth and then second among NFL teams. Even for those who do see the loss of Phat Pat as a real reason for this downturn, it clearly cannot be the only explanation for why this D has been so bad this year. Even with the loss of TKO, this D simply failed to produce in the 2-1/2 games before his injury and Crowell has been no TKO but has been a reasonable replacement whose play with the unit does not add up to our horrib;e results. If the loss of Phat Pat and TKO is only a part (an important part. but only a part of the explanation for our horrible play then what explains the rest? To me it is a question of how the braintrust has dealt with the vets and whether this team is in fact a TEAM. 2, The Bills have continually failed to show a killer instinct getting off to fabulous starts (even with the spotty results overall from JP we have a very good record of getting scores on the first drives and point in the first qusrter) only to see us fail to put up points to seal the game at crunch time or the D stop the other team and give the ball to WM to run out the clock. Even the one game we really did this where Schobel pulled down a great INT on Rosenfels, it merely made our breakdown even more tragic as we failed to stick a knife in a Fins team who we had down 21-0 in the blink of an eye. This game and horrors like the failure to capitalize on a good play by Holcomb in the first Pats game strike me as a showing by the Bills of our failure to build a TEAM that wins games instead of a team that simply takes the field. JDG I think your argument does have a couple of tragic flaws (holding the Jets up as the way to do things right is a dubious proposition even despite them having a better record of playoffs appearances - not hard to do- than the Bills in the TD error). However, just because I degree with some of your assessment of what is a good method being correct does not mean that I also think that your assessment of the Bills is wrong. Jets aside the point that the key to the Bills probs in my mnd has been poor leadership and management of the TEAM is right on target IMHO. To me, I would not several signal events as real indicators of our problems: 1. TD made a huge mistake choosing GW over Fox and Lewis when he was hiring his first HC. The proof in the pudding when one compares the records achieved by Fox and Lewis in their careers with equally bad and probably worse teams compared to what GW achieved with the Bills. Even those who want to pretend that the key to this was Lewis (and his wife) did not want to come here are ignoring the fact that TD and the rules at the time preventing ACs from negotiating until after the SB was done made the Bills HC job the only opening available. Was Buffalo Lewis' first choice? Nah, almost definitely not. Would he have come here if TD went after him as this was the only HC job available at the time. Almost certainly. Even if one judges Lewis to be a bad choice (a decision which looks dumb if what you care most about is winning since he has proven to be a winning HC with the Bengals) that is fine because it still leaves this advocate with necessity of justifying GW as a better choice than Fox which the Lewis complainers convenently let slide. The initial TD error was picking an HC he knew he could beat in a fight if it came down to a Ciwher situation rather than picking an HC who could suceed. 2. The Larry Centers cut was not the key to the Bills keeping better players or lesser players. However, to me it presents a clear-cut example of how TD has put more of a priority on maintaining his personal power and authority over the HC than he has making sure this team is a united TEAM. To remind folks about this footnote episode. Centers had spent a couple of seasons with the Bills and showed himself to be a TEAM leader. He showed that the on field production he had exhibited in his long career leading to him having caught more passes than any other FB to take the field where not gone. He proved to be a major receiving threat for both RJ and Bledsoe I think easily rigning up over 30 catches a season (and I think I vaguely remember him getting about 50 catches his best year). Add to this that not only did Centers remain a receiving threat but he remained among the best at blitz pick-up (a role he was forced to play all too often behind an inexperienced Bills OL in 2002- deapite the many sacks that year the O was still productive) but he also demonstrated that he was also a change-up rushing threat putting up a couple of 40+ runs which were the longest he ever achieved as a pro. Add to this, that he even showed up GW airhorn foolishness when GW tried to asset himself over the team by requiring every Bill to be there for the "voluntary" mini-camps publicly. Centers responded publicly by saying that he had a clear demonstated record as a player of showing up for camp in top shape ready to go when camp began. He understood that some players (particularly youngsters) needed to show up but the HC needed to talk with him if he was going to propose one-size-fits-all dictums because he was not going to interuppt his training regime which had worked or give away his family time. GW and he talked and in general GW backed down. Nevertheless. when the 2002 season ended, GW publicly announcd that though there was debate about the Bills 2003 FB plans that Centers would remain a Bill as long as he wanted to be one. Within days. Centers was cut and Gash was signed. In my mind this move put GW in his place which was clearly not TD's GM place. I like Sam Gash and he is the type of pass catching change-up FB we needed with TH. However, I think again the proof is in the pudding that this was a better O with Centers providing the change-up of top notch FB pass-catching than it was with Gash providing the change-up with top notch FB blocking. In my mind TD cut a player team leader to prove his cojones were bigger than GWs and the Bills suffered for it. I don't know what role Kevin Killdrive played in this drama, but one of our great failings in 2003 was that GW did not exercise good control over Killdrive and force him to diversify his failed O when other teams had clearly caught on to what we were going to do. This event may have been a true sign of GW having lost all control of "his" O. 3. The real irony is that I fear the real sign of our immediate issues in theMM reign or error was actually the cut of bobby Shaw last year. One of the things which was hard for me to understand last year was how the Bills sudden turnaround from a dismal start (0-4 beginning) ended up with seven wins a row up to our failure in the last game and missing the playoffs by 1 game seemed to coincide with the cut of Bobby Shaw being the only personnel change of note before the winning streak. There were other major changes around this time (mosty notably TH sitting down and WM taking the RB role), but even this RB switch did not seem coincide with events on the field as closely as the coincidence of the Shaw cut. Wasit mere coincidence or did something meaningful to team performance occur with this cut? It clearly was not on field personnel improvement that made the difference the same personnel for the most part simply performed better. Shaw was not involved by the choice of who got sent in off the becnh during the intial losses and he was not on the field during the winning streak because he was gone from the team. Though the individual players were the same those players had improved performance. Shaw was generally considered to be a good teammate who took his diminished role quietly and waited his chance if injury provided one. Despite not being a cancer he was not contributing. The MM cut of Shaw sent the message to all players that unless they were contributing on the field they may well might get cut. This move provided no financial gain to Ralph as after Shaw was on the roster for two games Ralph had to pay him for a full season whether he was cut or not. My sense is that the Shaw cut did provide a great short-term benefit for the Bills. The players got the message that they had to contribute to this team one way or the other or they might get cut. This greater focus potentially led to the Bills players making a marginally bigger effort after the Shaw cut and in the tight world of NFL competition where there really is only a small difference between winners and losers this made the difference in the Bills pulling off the winning streak. However, it now appears there was a long-term cost to this short-term gain last year. It reminded the players that when push came to shove this was just a business and though it would be nice they were not a family and really not a TEAM It was everyman for himself in this mechanistic world. Merely being a nice guy, not a cancer, and a good teammate was not enough. Shaw got cut. This was quite useful last year as this cut got better performance. However, in the long-run, this was followed by Bledsie getting cut at a financial disadvantage to the team (He still wieghs against our cap this year) and JP was given the job whether he earned on the field or not. Overall, I think the Bills did not produce this year because the braintrust had demonstrated that the focus was on the short-term fortunes of the team first and the medium term fortunes of the team were merely a bridge where we hoped we got lucky and survived JPs grpwomg phase. It became clear to the players that TD had given up on the medium term reality when the team did not deliver in the short-term with a playoff berth last year. Ultimately the braintrust did not keep the faith with the team though the rough times and the team imploded.

Once again, he cannot take a paycut of the size that would mstch his production for the Bills. I can't remember what the % of maximum reduction is (if anyone is curious emough to wade through the legal language the entire CBA text can be found in the Media section at NFLPA.org. Player contract details are in Article 14 of this several hundred page (with updates and side agreements). At any rate I think that MW by rule can agree to a new contract that reduces his 2006 cap hit no more than 10-25%. At this restricted level his 2006 cap hit would still give him a contract that places him in (or at least very near depending on new contracts negotiated under the new higher salary cap next year) among the top 10 NFL contracts for OL players. I don't know anyone who feels that even with the largest pay cut allowed under the CBA anyone judges MW as playing at a level which deserves a top 10 OL contract. He almost certainly is a goner,

The CBA restricts how much a contract can be reduced and though I do not remember the exact numbers off hand even with the maximum "adjustment" down in his salary he is scheduled to be making starting LT money and the contract will be too large of an allocation for a player to play RT, LG and certainly to warm the bench as we experiment with him at LG. Contracts also usually require the salary allocated to a player to be paid as a bonus at some point in the off-season which forces the team to commit to the player since they already have paid him (this is why a cut of Ruben Brown was forced. From the looks of the contract (the totals we do know) MW is a goner as a Bill and likely this will be forced as a necessity this off-season.

If the rotting corpses include those who have argued that the bad play of MW does not make the choice of McKinnie a good one that the Bills should have made then count me among the dead. The only step left in MW not being a bust is his cut that will occur this off-season. However, if we are gonna invest in advocating choices which did not occur, then clearly trading down would have been the right thing to do with this pick as it was when we got Clements and and an extra choice or tading our first rounder away for the immediate value Bledsoe provided in 2002 and the extra training our QB needed when we traded the 2005 pick for Losman. McKinnie is not the bust MW has become, but using a #4 for this idiot who 1. Got involved in a holdout that made his first year a wash out. 2. Has had off field issues that indicate a lack of judgment that he would have carried with him whereever he went. 3. Would likely have been a disaster here with Bledsoe anyway as he had a QB who held the ball too long as Culpepper did when the Vikes OL with McKinnie was less than productive. Good decision-making and a quicker release from Johnson has really helped their whole line and OL alot. I also suspect as just as Vinky and Ruel had little to offer the defective MW who was well handled by the stick/carrot approach JMac took to him last year they would also have had little offer McKinnie who certainly appears to also have a defective personality. The MW advocates may be rotting corpses but the McKinnie advocates are pretty smelly folks themselves based on the play and record of McKinnie's career..

I think the key here if we are trying to win next year regarding the QB position are: 1. Realize that no QB wins it on their own. Whether he is a great one like Elway who could not fet over the top until Terrel Davis and the rest of the team got it together. Like pedestrian QBs like Trent Dilfer being part of a great Ravens team led by the D (and even considering great QBs like Peyton Manning who has not even appeared in an SB game and finally has a shot this year with one of the grestest WRs ever in Harrison catching the ball, an annual 100 yd. rusher in Edggering, a make ever kick idiot like Vanderjagt, Bill Polian assessing and signing great contracts for ST players and depth and finally one of the best D HCs in the league crafting Indy's D into a league leading unit he may FINALLY make it to the big game if his luck holds) there needs to be a realization that the Bills QB needs a TEAM around him so he plays a useful but not leading role on this team. If our plan is to have the next Jim Kelly or more than an adequate QB in order to make the playoffs or the SB it isn't likely at all to happen in almost any case. The primary focus needs to be on building a winning team rather than a focus on the QB position. 2. Make JP earn the job. It will be great if JP performs well enough next pre-season to deserve the starting job, but Holcomb or whoever needs to come into camp with the idea of starting on their mind and really be allowed to compete for the job. Next year should not be a learning year for JP if only because if he needs to learn he is going to have to do it from the bench, in practice, when injuries to the starter occur or if he merits it as a sparkplug brought into the game if the starter falters (though I think the Bills should be reluctant to replace the starter if they have decided the starter can do the job. if the starter needs to be replaced a lot by a sparkplug its time to look for a new starter. If JP earns the job he has it, it not he needs to wait his turn rather than us merely use our games for him to practice for the future.

On the question of being committed to his profession, i think the McGahee case rests upon: 1. He accumulated 2000 yards rushing faster than any Bill in history. 2. He (last time I looked) led the league in % of yards from scrimmage amassed for his team this year (I did not see this stat after the last game where WM's yards from scrimmage were so small, but given that the O basically consisted of two positive long passes to Evans and an electrifying run by Reed this number at the very least has WM aomong the league leaders in team dependency on one player) 3. He suffered a devastating injury in his last college game and somehow managed through hard work and diligence that nobody did for him and his career but him to build himself back to not only re-enter the game but actually be a workhorse capable of multiple 30 carry games with little more than Shaud Williams to back him up. Quite frankly if one wants to close the case, the evidence and real life events point to WM having shown through his achievements versus vaunted Bills RBs like Thurman and OJ, the dependency on the O on him to gain yards and the fact that he came back from multiple knee injuries which have ended the careers of others that hard work and commitment are not his problems.

No prob. Clements is likely to remain a Bill one way or the other if we want him (I think we do unless the market of available CB choices yields a better choice for us factoring in talent and price. As the Bills have no other major resignings and ample salary cap room, if we choose we can tag Clements and resign him for the average of the top 5 CB cap hits. The news that the top 5 CB hits are going down not only makes Clements more affordable to sign but lowers the cost of tagging him. Clements will be richly rewarded either way so him throwing a hissy fit if he is tagged is not reasonable (not that players are always reasonable but his ability to be silly is lowered after he has had an up and down season) so the Bills can work outa deal with him long term if we have the two to tango or we can simoly tag him unless the gutting of teams makes the market a better choice for us.

Perhaps Gray and JMac deserve the central blame as the cause of the 2005 OL D and OL failures. However, if this is true then one must explain: 1. Were the D and OL of 2004 last year good or even better than expected under Gray and JMac? I think the answers are yes in both cases. The results this year were in fact disappointing because their units (especially the D) and their work was good last year (and actually the last two for Gray). 2. If they and their work was good last year and the results sucked this year what was different? I think if one is going to point to them as problems the useful and logical thing to do would be to point to how they were different this year or provide arguments that the success last year was due to other causes and it was their failure this year that was the problem. While there may be a case that the success experiencd by the D was due to LeBeau's scheme he brought hear in 2003, I think that the fact this unit improved its performance under Gray with LeBeau gone last year points to its success being more than a simple matter of LeBeau's work. Even if you want to argue that 2004's results was simply LeBeau's doing and once changes occured to make this Gray's team the devolution began actually ignores the fact that since 10 of 11 players were the same this was still the LeBeau team. Why was LeBeau's team better without him in 2004 and then sucked without him 2005. His prescence or absence does not fit the direction of Dperformance. My sense is that what was different was that the overarching leadership provided and how the team responded to this MM/GM leadership are actually the lead issues here. The performance outage impacted both the O and the D so i would look to a common problem to explain the devolution not focus on two underlings.

I think folks are non-reacting to the Bills commiting the cardinal sin of an NFL team in that they simply are not entertaining. What's fascinating is that the team can still sell-out like yesterday when they are not providing much entertainment on the field.

America is about the individual and individuals react to things different ways. My sense is that there are likely a few key players on a team which might profit from losing and while I doubt they try to lose (that often is easy to see) they just end up not going that extra mile and laying out for a pass reception or making a Don Beeb like rundown of Leon Lett. This can make all the difference in a game like TN/Hou. As far as a game like SF/Sea I think the difference it makes is that players cash it in early. They see know reason to get injured in order to lose by 28 points instead of 35. I think folkd like conspiracy theories because it provides the illusion of control, but vonspiracies take a lot of time, effort, and luck. There really are too many people involved for them to work or remain secret. They also tend to be unnecessary because the same task of losing the game can be accomplished through a few individual acts of non-effort so why engage in some huge conspiracy.

On the serious side I do wonder what the rules are for compensation of coaches that change teams and how that might actually relieve some of the burdens of the NFL firing of a coach under contract. Specifically, I was actually surprised but pleased to find out last year that when a team fires a coach they do owe him to be paid the entire amount they contracted to pay him. However, under NFL rules if a fired coach is hired by another team in the league his salary is actually the amount he was guuaranteed under his old contract plus any amount over that total under the new contract. Thus, if a coach is canned and owed (let's say) $100K under his old contract, if another NFL team team hires him for 50K his old team need only pay him 50K. The fired coach remains whole as he gets the $100K he planned to get under his old contract, his old team gets relieved of $50K of the their burden and the coaches new team gets subsidized by the old team and are only paying $50K fpr a coach the market judged worthy of $100K Under this type of deal, the fired coach does miss out on getting paid his old contracted salary and a total new salary on top of it/ However, in exchange for not having access to this bonus, it does make the fired coach a great investment for a new team to make as they get this asset with a subsidy from his old team. While I think that even a rich guy like Ralph will have to swallow hard if he cut MM loose and still owed him 3 years at almost a million a year, this move might be a little easier to stomach if MM get picked up as an offensive cooridnator for some other team for half a million a year (or if MM goes to work for Dan Snyder for an OC contract which likely will exceed what he made as an HC for the Bills, I think it would be a very tough thing for RWS to let MM go (I think it is more likely that TD would go if RWS is so embarassed by the reality of the 2005 Bills el foldo) but if a new GM comes aboard he may well want his own guy as HC and the shenanigans with Moulds, Adams and Shaw may well have so soiled the nest for MM that he has to go as well if TD goes. Food for thought and consideration,

If by management you mean the owner, GM and HC it is clear from the Moulds episode that they are not on the same page re-establishing control. THe delay while Ralph arbitrated the MM request and waited to hear Moulds side shows that they have no effective conspiracy to cooperate. His decision that he described as a Solomanic splitting of the difference between the two undercuts any sense of pure control the HC and GM might have, Even this consideration does not address the point that if pure control by MM simply means that his bad decisions will happen without a check or balance this is a bad thing. TD has done a good job negotiating contracts, pulling off draft day manwuvers and moving the business side of the team into the 20th century from the days where will call tickets were stored in shoeboxes means that I can see him rationally being stripped of most on the field responsibilities and he euns the business side (though I doubt he would accept this). Add to this that firing MM means eating 3 years of contract this looks difficult as well. It's a tough tough thing. However, I see little good football alternative beyond starting over from scratch.