Fake-Fat Sunny

Scenario 4: Wait to see what happens in the 2004 season before we worry too much about 2005.

Your question speaks to the difference between playing left tackle and playing center in this league. LTs generally are speed rushers in this league and if they engage the LT at all physically and certainly attempt to use their strength to run through the LT then advanatage to the Tackle over the End. A speed rusher certainly needs more than a quick outside move, but even when they go inside it usually is because they faked outside and got leverage on the tackle who went the wrong way. Teague could do well enough at LT if he was fast enough and agile enough to get good leverage against the opposing end. Unfortunately at center, particularly against the growing bigger DTs like the Miami boys or Big Ted leverage is still important bit raw strength and size are real important too in a way that wasn't the same for a tackle. Nevertheless, there is a lot more to center play than pure size and Teague has held the job because he has shown the coaches something in these other areas: 1. Intelligence- This is critical for the center who must recognize the defenders set-up at a level which is only surpassed by the QB on the offense. Teague is pretty much unquestionably recognized as having good football knowledge and I'm willing to take the Braintrust's word on this. As pisspoor as Vinklarek was and not ready for primetime as Ruel turned out to be, the fact that he has never been questioned as the man for the job by McNally points to estimations of his football knowledge as being correct. 2. Communication and leadership- The thing which separated Kent Hull from the rest in my mind was his ability to communicate his football knowledge to his peers on the OL in line calls and in the locker room to make them better players. I have little real sense of how well Teague does this as first, the OL scheme he has had to work with from KG was too complicated and simply sucked once people caught on to it, second, the players Teague had to work with were so inexperienced (only Brown had started before at his position in Teague's first year at center) that his communication and leadership tasks were far larger than the norm. 3. Shotgun snaps- No other area really calls for heavy-duty multi-tasking as asking the center to deliver a firxwful accurate snap over several yards while simultaneously doing line calls for his peers and being ready for the opposing DT to pound his head in. This facet of Teague's game has not been a disaster which it easily could be, but a lot of this is thanks to some good ball handling skills by Bledsoe on errant snaps. Nevertheless, Bledsoe clearly seems to have to concentrate on receiving the ball which slows down his reads in the shotgun. Further, opposing defenders seem to recognize Teague's difficulty in doing line call changes and make use of a schoolyard rush when Bledsoe goes into the shotgun. Quite frankly this issue worries me a lot more than the weight disparity. Overall, we all see Teague get bowled over from time to time and the weight disparity issue emerges, but in my view Teague has actually improved quite a bit in using his agility to get good leverage on DTs. he i far from perfect yet, but this issue seems workable to me. The solutions seem to me to be: 1. Teague needs to improve- However, in my view this is happening. He played center the first time as a Pro year before last, but he is a younger player with some good athletic chops. I think he has improved but a lot of this is quite frankly lost with him improving in a horrible O in decline last year. 2. His linemates must improve- Teague can help everyone, but the OL players need to improve and help themselves because Teague has his hands full with all the multi-tasking he still has not mastered. Replacement of the experienced Brown with the experienced Villarial should be a wash, but having the experience on Williams side who simply was incapble of helping the virtual rookie Pucillo when he was a virtual rookie himself was a problem. Now the virtual rookie Smith is in so we will have to see. 3. Chemistry is key- Perhaps the biggest problem with the OL (as several posts in this thread point out) is that this crew has not been able to use the pre-season to play together. If I'm Mularkey, rather than doing the usual thing and taking my first string OL out with the rest of the first team in the 4th pre-season game, i think he is forced despite their healing injuries to play them together as much as possible. The key here is not simply to get the 5 best players but to get the 5 players who play best together. 4. Run, eun, run- In general OL players like run blocking better than pass pro because they get to attack rather than retreat. i think this conventional wisdome is generally true and the more the Bills go to running which is their area of strength and pass performance by the OL anyway, the better it will be. 5. Drew needs to help the OL out- it's tough because his plate is full improving his own game, but he needs to take the time and show the ability to monitor communications within the OL and call a TO if he perceives there is a problem. He needs to read the opponents and correctly feel which defenders may come or need extra watching and insert himself positively into the OL communications if he feels they need the help. This is difficult to do well and if he thinks he will muck it up worse he needs to then shut up and pray. Is Teague good enough to play center like we want? No, we fans are spoiled by the glory of Kent Hull and he will never be good enough for us so for the most part he needs to ignore us fans. Is Teague good enough to be an adequate center in this league? Maybe, but the fact seems to be is that he is the best chance we got on this team. if not Teague then who?

Douglas deserved some consideration by the Bills because our DE situation lacks a huge sack threat, but since Douglas is an RDE rather than competition at LDE where we need an upgrade over Denney's performance last year there is a huge question as to whether he is a fit for us (particularly with only one pre-season game left on Thursday for him to learn a new role if he can. Also, from all I hear Douglas was a stand-up guy for Jax as a person but simply did not produce on the field. My guess is that given his drop-off in production last year, one should not count on Douglas for more than a reserve role and both Kelsay and Denney are younger players who can do that though neither has shown even starter talent yet, much less been a threat that forces OCs to scheme toward them making the rest of the DL better players.

His presence would be somewhat surprising since from what I read of Krabbe's disease there is some talk of stem cell research potentially being useful for research into understanding this disease. Perhaps his religious leanings make him unlaterably opposed to this or the stem cell talk is simply the talk of scientists looking for research money and had little to do with reality. Yet, blanket opposition to stem cell research has certainly moved many a conservative such as Nancy Ragan to openly question the President. Perhaps Jimbo is there to try to light a fire under the conservative elements who control the GOP platform to have a concern about kids who are alive and not simply kids who may be alive.

Perhaps you are reffering to #74 Mike Sullivan who did not look good at all filling in for Jennings and Price at LT. On the firedrill blitz which led to a sack of Bledsoe it was Williams man who did the honors. He also logged the holding penalty which made it 2nd and 30+ after the sack and penalty. Williams plays RT not LT and as many observed (but few of us can really tell from the outside because TV limits your ability to see warfare in the trenches and we don't know the blocking scheme or responsibilities on most plays) looked OK in his play. As far as Sullivan, he played at the poor level that a 3rd stringer usually plays at. The Bills did the right thing in terms of preparation for the regualr season which is give Jennings and Price a rest to heal up for the real deal. Building of chemistry would be the preference but reality is reality. As far as Sully's poor performance, it sucked, however, the damage to Jennings and Price even in pre-season is an indicator that we may have to use a guy who sucks to play if reality forces that. I don't feel horrendous about giving Sullivan some more experience against better player, gosh knows he needs it.

It was an odd game for me as well. I was taping it because my wife and I were at a buddy's for dinner (a woman more into Josh Groban and church tunes than the Bills but hey its pre-season so building up chits is important for regular season). I caught a little bit of the score just as we left and it was 30-10 so I started getting worried that the D had gotten underessed by Manning. Upon further review of the tape, I was pissed to see that the ST wheels had come off and that we got hit hard by the injury bug, but so far as I slowly plow through the tape, the starting D is producing fairly good results, When manning gets the ball in the red zone to start, I count holding him and Mr. Automatic Vanderjagt to an FG as about as much production from a D as can be rationally hoped for. The Bills should not fall behind 13-3 to anyone, but the fact these scores came from the D holdng Indy to an FG after some stupid redzone starts and from an ST TD is pretty good news in terms of D performance. Maybe this was just a one-time ST faux pas that can be fixed, but after watching much of the 1st half and knowing there are still a couple of picks and a TD off a pick to come, i still feel very good about the D.

If Brees were cut I doubt he will command a big contract. it will be just prior to the season and most teams will have allocated their cap room, In addition, his new team will have to cut some QB they have making the team even if they have cap room, which many teams are not likely to do just prior to the season. I think that the analogy would be the situation we found ourselves in with Lawyer Milloy that his late cut only surfaced a couple of bidders who had both cap room and the opening at the position. I know if I were Brees I would be real interested in backing up Bledsoe because their in a greater than insignificant chance that I might be starting if he gets hurt or sucks. I doubt that will be he case in most situations.

The boat we're in coming off of the injuries to JP (seemingly at least half the season if not IR'ed) and Brown (sounds like the whole season and he will be IR'ed from the rumors I hear) is an odd one. Point 1: If we lost any gack-up in the real life of the last two years who cares as our starter at QB would have gotten the nod anyway. If future real life were like past real life (which it is never guranteed to be) these injuries would have been meaningless to out production. Point 2: The 03 production by Bledsoe sucked though the 02 production earned him a Pro Bowl berth. Its not unreasonable to bet he will also suck in 2004 all things being equal. However, all things are not equal as it is our plan to rely on him a lot less by running more and make him more effectiove by training him and working with him as was successfully done in the past to throw the damn ball. Where I think this leaves us is that the Bills braintrust is making a bet that they can revice Bledsoe's production. In addition, i think t hey will also hope he avoids injury as he has the past two years. I don't think they seriously expected Losman to be able to produce in 2004 without a lot of training from Wyche anyway. I think betting that Brown would be a capable back-up if necessary was a dicey bet to make anyway. I think the Bills also have felt this way hence the vigorous interest in Volek way back when and flirtation with Kordell. However, hey probably correctly had a lack if faith in Kordell that he was a good enough player to command a good salary and it appears they had similar doubts about Volek. I think the bottomline is that our #2 is not someone who was available this off-season and we will have to get one now but he likely will be a player cut by some team who has given up on him. This also is risky, but I feel OK about it as this player will almost certainly be cheap (for example if Brees gets cut it will be a buyers market as cap room will be limited for most teams and SD will have already paid him habsomely). i also don't feel bad because this reject can not be expected to be starter quality for the Bills, but we are looking for a back-up who with luck will never play and even with moderate bad luck will play the 3 starts max Frank Reich role. So all in all, it sucks big time that our #2 QB got hurt, but given that I was never a Travis Brown believer, i don't mind the concet of us getting a better #2 off the waiver wire.

Actually, it depends a lot on the nature of the injury as to when the time is possible or right to do an MRI and none of us can tell this from TV. I'm no doctor (though I play one on TV) so this should be fact-checked, however due to a range of medical maladies in my family I am soewhat familiar with MRIs. There are several advanatages to the MRI over the X-RAY. the main one is that MRIs allow soft-tissue imaging as opposed to the simple bone imaging that an X-RAY gives you. However, if one is talking soft tissue, then swelling of these tissues can become a big issue in reading them correctly. As in partiticular with Knee injuries, the amount of an healing of microfractures which may not even be visible to the MRI are a big issue, an immediate MRI of Brown may not give one a totally accurate or accurate enough diagnosis of the state of the injury and amount of time needed to recover. In addition, the immediae treatment of the injury can make longer term diagnosis more difficult to do and provide falsely interpreted readings. Was immeidate swelling reduced by application of ice or coldness and was this good or bad. it varies as the immediate swelling does provide some benefit in terms of immobilizing the injury and reducing pain though it can push back good diagnosis. How was this pain/diagmosis balance struck in this case? it varies. My guess is that Indy doctors or traveling Bills doctors worked first to immobilize the injury (first do no harm) and also reduced any pain Brown felt (meet the patients demands). They may well have done an X-RAY first to determine whether there was any gross break that needed more immediate treatment or surgery, cross-referenced this heavily with what Brown was reporting about where it hurt and how much (usually these days by asking him to state the pain level on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the worse pain he ever felt). The Troy Vincent case was interesting as he was apparently reporting numbness rather than sharp pain and an X-RAY at the stadium revealed no jaw break so based on elimination of the break issue and his reports of the type of pain the likely diagnosis is of a pinched nerve (particularly since feeling relatively quickly was restored). In Brown's case who knows because we do not know the details of the injury. My GUESS however, is that they will talk to him and probe manually and then likely do an X-RAY because its quick but mostly to determine whether it is safe for him to travel and go through the changes in air pressure and swelling of a plane flight and treat him to reduce swelling on the manually immobilized injury and get him ho,e to the MRI machines and technicians they know.

This is exactly why though we fans love the mano a mano match-ups, the key to understanding and analyzing it is that it is a team game. Just because Freeney may end up with some big numbers will not mean that a particular Bill failed oe alternately if Freeney ends up with lousy production this will not mean a particular Bill succeeded. If folks are interested in rationally making a statement (and we're all just fans so rationality is totally optional here) assess whether: 1. Williams who plays RT and Freeney who is listed as an RDE actually line up against each other. They won't by the positions they are listed at, but as Ds usually flip-flop to confuse Os they may from time to time. However, since this is pre-season and neither will see a full game the chances of this happening are reduced. 2. Take a look at the rushing plays of the D. Freeney may line up facing Williams on a particular play, but if the D rush is built around stunting, Freeney's rush may actually be to the inside if Williams sticks with him rather than guarding his zone he may stop Freeney but be blameworthy for a sack by a DT who stunted and came through his spot. 3. Take a look and try (and I do mean try since no outside observer can usually no for sure)to figure out our blocking scheme. Perhaps Freeney may come wide and beat Williams hands down but if our blocking scheme call for the TE to stay in and pick up the wide rush, I'd say there was no sack on the play but advantage Freeney who has taken 2 men to defend 1 and taken a receiver out of the pass pattern. The game is interesting to me because it is far more than the man-to-man face-off we fans tend to love and falsely categorize in assessing the game. if one really want mano-a-mano faceoffs I suggest you watch boxing and not football.

The thing i find most amazing in assessing the TD performance is how when so many of the individual facets of performance have been so good (the many As I judge his performance in various areas of a GMs job that the bottom line results in terms of production of Ws has been so horrid. If ever there was a real life example of the sum of the parts not equaling the whole it is my assessment of his performance. Individual aspects of his performance are simply outstanding, but the total performance as I measure it has not produced the Ws and the playoffs appearances (much less wins) that are the true goal in my book. My sense of explaining this oddity is that performance in many areas of the game are necessary to achieve greatness, but no one area is sufficient to gurantee or produce greatness. TD has shown himself to be one of the best football guya I have seen in the speed with which he righted the ship of state and got us out of cap hell at least a year earlier than I expected. He has shown himself to be a cagey and productive business manager for the Bills (the measure which ultimately will determine whether Ralph is happy with him or not). He has shown himself to be a great negotiator of contracts and represent the team's interest and still be appealing to the market of FAs. Most impressive in my book it that he has confronted items like the conventional wisdom that you can't get a team in your division to trade you a QB, that losing an FA determined to go home (PP) is simply a fact of the game for which you will receive no compensation, or that WM's value had dropped him well beyond the 1st round. TD has gone against the CW and it has paid off for the Bills (at least in Bledsoe's first year production and the excitement restored to WNY) with these moves. However, though his performance has been beyond was is necessary to compete and win in this lwague in many areas, he has simply sucked in one of the areas which is essential to having a competitive and winning team. He has been great in my judgment in most facets of his work, but fail horribly short in one essential facet of hiring a good HC and then working with him to get good enigh production. I think TDs great failing to date is that he has seemed to be more driven by making sure that an issue like Cowher running him out of town and firing the guy who hired him never happens to him again. He has participated in a management structure for GW where TD simply made sure that GW was given the ability to run the team himself and absorbed the blame if it failed and TD's hands were left clean. I for one would have preferred to see TD: 1. Risk hiring a guy with the chops to be a winning HC (GW was a great DC but simply did not have the ability to run a good offense without lots of help, and then did not have the cojones to rein Gilbride in when the league caught up to KG) even if hiring a Fox or a Lewis meant they might turn on him and pull a Cowher if they were successful. 2. Failing him having the strength to hire a great potential HC who might gain the strength to fire him like Ciwher did, he instead seemed to be most interested in giving GW enough rope to hang himself if he failed. I wish TD had been strong enough to insist that GW build his first coaching team with some individuals with experience. Failing to do that, I wish TD had forced GW to take Clements as OC to replace Sheppard as TD apparently advocated instead of accepting GW's candidate who was Gilbride by all reports I hear. Finally, even though the Bills O improved drastically TD's second year under Bledsoe, it was pretty clear to this outside observer that the NFL had caught up to KG and Gilbride in the second half of the 2002 season and that GW was not doing what was necessary to force KG to change in order to win. It would have undercut GW completely to force him to fire who drastically change his O and co-ordinator after the second year, and TD should have canned him and moved on then. Overall, i think TD is a great football man. However, his human desire to say never again to getting fired by the guy he hired has really undermined his ability to manage this team to glory in my mind.

This is a post which attempts to inject some factoids and rational consideration into what will become an increasingly hot and relevant topic regardless of which way the Bills perform in 2004. Some will hate TD and call for his ouster even if the Bills were to win a playoff game (I doubt even the most virulent TD haters will call for his head if the Bills won the SB or even if they did the laughter would be deafening). Others will defend TD as long as Ralph writes him paychecks regardless of how stinky the team does under his reign. The question actually strikes me as an easy one though the logical answer comes in two parts. 1. TD's tenure as GM has sucked!- One need look no further than the team's horrendous record under his three year tenure to draw this true conclusion. There are obvious mulligans which have to be part of any description of this record. For example, the 3-13 record of his first year was clearly not due to his competence or incompetence as much as the unavoidable result of the cap hell he inherited. However. 3 years is a long time in football land and this was clearly his team last year (and even the year before when the record of improvement was outstanding as the move from 3-13 to 8-8 was a turnaround of historic proportions by NFL standards). W/Ls and playoff appearnaces are tje true measure of success for any GM and any way you cut it the results after 3 years simply sucked. 2. However, TD deserves to stay and get another chance!- Further, as a Bill a look at the underpinnings and individual decisions which resulted in the horrible record and recent steps to reverse it give any rational Bills fan good reasons to be quite hopeful about this year. Look, it is clear and undeniable to me that his record sux. However, it is my assessment and my guess that this horrible record included both some outstanding decisions and efforts by TD which give one hope. Further, the really bad mistakes he made (and I make no mistake, they were TD's bad choices) have been reversed or changed and if the changes are based on the good kjudgments he has made and like any team we get lucky, things can work out well in 2004 and even make us a serious threat to achieve the ultimate win in 2005. This is my sense of TD, the good, the bad, and the we'll see what happens this year of him. The big summary for me is that TD's team must suceed this year or he should be gone. Success probably means at least making the playoffs or if not then come darn darn close (we may not make it but if we don't it beteer clearly not be TD's team's fault. so my judgment is we better make it if it is rational for him to stick around). As we move toward the beginning of the season I plan to post a few of my usual semi-lengthy diatribes about aspects of TD's GM work. This will be me thinking out loud so the grades below (and even some of the topic areas) may change as I write and think this through. I have divided TDs work responsibility in my mind into several areas. Obviously some are more important to me than others (ex: player selection is a major part of the GM job and contract negtiation is another intensely related but different part. I view both as essential places for performance by a good GM but I judge player seclection as of greater importance) but performance in almost all areas is essential to winning. Overall: TD Grade- Incomplete. As long as he has a job or until I as a fan turn on him this grade is always incomplete in my mind. I was an advocate of firing GW after the great turnaround of his second season because there were things I judged about his peformance as to make it the best course to get more Ws sooner by firing him even though he had a year left on his contract. My guess was that wwith a new HC doing better than the 8-8 of that year would take a tremendous effort, but I judged (correctly as it unfortunately turned out) that GW's third year would see our record fall. My sense is that even though TD has been a failure to date, the internals of the changes made, new hires and new direction taken actually give us a better shot at a winning record and even making the playoffs than we would under a new GM. Folks may disagree and that is fine and even great, but if you call for TD's ouster at this point then it also demands that this advocate say who he would replace TD with and why this replacement would do better. I do not see a reasonable replacement for TD (Jimmy Johnson, Deirge Seifert, Pete Carroll, Marv Levy?) so at least for a year you dance with the one who brung you so I give him an incomp;ete overall. Player Selection: A- This area also get subdivided into a number of assessments below, but overall I think the Bills roster has seen very talented players come from a number of different areas under the GMs control. TDs player selections include some failures (and real potential boners) as all GM's records include but these failures for things to workout like one would hope are easily balanced by some great acquisitions and non-conformist picks that have worked out that are against the conventional wisdom. Overall, player selection has been impressive to me. The subdivisions are: The Draft- B+: His first 7 picks each of his first 2 years have started at some point in their Bills career. A few likw Spoon were starters due to injury and weakness of the guys in front of them, but for the most part YDs draft has included contributors with his early picks the forst two years. One year is really too early to judge last year's crop, but one can al;ready begin to see the increased competition of quality vets as a quicker release from cap hell was secured than reasonably could have been expected. The grade is knocked down primarily because of the poor mental performance of highly picked Williams (it still is too early to declare him a bust) but if he proves to be a bust this grade will go down. Trades- A-: The performance here has been outstanding as one must take into account that not only were our needs huge after the many cuts of Butler leftovers, but we had no value to give. Despite these needs and negatives and the difficulty with doing any trades in the NFL, each of the last three drafts have seen moves by TD deened virtually impossible to pull off before they happened, The grade is not perfect since Bledsoe's results were so bad last year after being outstnading his first year. However, assessments of the Bledsoe trade which seek to ignore he really should be compared to whether we upgraded at QB over Rob Johnson and the fact that his performance Drew a Pro Bowl nod his first year make a rational overall assessment of the Bledsoe trade as evem-steven for the Bills at worst and we will be able to ultimately judge the effectiveness of the move based on the results of this year. FA signings- A: TD has been a tough negotiator for the Bills who somehow also manages not to drive off or piss off potential signees. He has attracted signed and signed some outstanding defensive players like Spikes, Fletcher, Milloy, Vincent, Posey and most impressively to me the way he got Sam Adams. On the O he pulled off a surpirse of getting a QB from a division opponent when we were at the AVP level at best, He also was quite opportunistic in getting Henry to extend for a year. He has used the draft rather than FA for offense and the failing shows, but overall i loke who he has gotten and almost like who he let go. yet overall, this area has been outstanding. Coach Signings- F: Signing GW (particularly over Fox and Lewis who have procen to be winners) was a big mistake. Even worse he let GW make the team his ownd when he simply made it bad with his choices of Co-ordinators. My major fault with TD here now turns out to be as I learn more that I wish he had been more of a control freak. Losing the debate to GW over hiring Gilbride or Clements (as apparently TD was advocating) really set this team and ultimately TDs record of success back big time. TD seemed to want to protect himself from getting run out of town like Cowher did to him not by standing on his new HCs neck and not letting him gain power, but instead to allow his new HC (GW) to make his own moves and sink or swim with them. GW got sunk and rightfully took the blame for making stupid moves and comments. However, it was Bills fans who paid the price. TD needs to sink or swim based on how this team does regardleaa of who does it. GW is his one mulligan in my book. Business management: B+ I couldn't care much less about this aspect of the game unless it effects what happens on the field. However, in the end, this is a business so this aspect is important. Sellouts do not lie. TD has overseen production of an entertaining product despite a horrible record. The Bledsoe trade not only improved things on the field in trading up from Rob Johnson but really created an excitement in this town which should xreate an underpinning to a total sellout of all seats this year. management of the product from St. John's Fisher, interplay with the business community, and making seat selection and purchasing for the fans a huge step up from the tickets in a shoebox days of the past phenomenal. I'm sure there are other factors and i am happy to read feedback and suggestions or will introduce them as I do more details in the future. The next detailed post will probably be a draft review.

The idea of JP/WM/Evans bonding through this seems so speculative that though it is possible it seems not worth much worry or thought. As I have said in earlier posts, I think that never playing in a game this year and not even worrying about playing seems far far very far more likely to be the key to making Losman a better QB for the Bills future than having him devote his time and effort toward the unlikely potential of him playing that I do not see his injury (assuming he recovers fully) as being a negative for him or for the Bills prospects. My thought was certainly to see him not play and concentrate on learning as our disaster QB, but he certainly can do the same injured or on the IR as he couyld do as our #3. The big bonus from his injury is actually not for him but for us as we will not have to listen to Pats partisans, idiots or whomever calling for Bledsoe to be sat (mostly regardless of whether sucks or is playing well enough, or even platying well) and Losman to be rushed in and put on the Todd Collins player development track. Personally, I want to see Evans bond with Bledsoe or bond with Brown if our back-up plays and have him waste his 2004 time on bonding with JP kept to a fairly minimal level. Likewise, if WM devotes his limited time to keeping up a positive competition with Henry (a fulltime job given the trouble-makers in the media and even from his own agent who seem to want a controversy regardless of its effects on the TEAM) rather than worrying about bonding with Losman I think its appropriate for him to devote little time to JP. I'm happy to see Losman happy and if he needs someone to bond with, my nominees is that he bond with Sam Wyche. I think it will be best for Losman as a player and the Bills for the future if JP uses his phusical rehab time when playing will be a non-possibility for him to learn as much as he can from Wyche. [ Bad break for JP, maybe a good break for the team? 9011[/snapback]

Hey man, don't you see this is all part of the conspiracy theory. Losman is not ready to play because few (none except maybe that great Sean King for TB a few years back) QB can produce over the course of a season as rookies. JPs superior play was simply going to get the media and the uncritical fan to foam at the mouth for JP to start which would piss off Bledsoe, pass over Brown, not produce any Ws anyway and ruin JPs development as a future productive Bills QB as the Todd Collins development plan is used. Now the conspiracy starts. JP must be "liberated" amd given the freedom to sit in the booth and learn the game. Bills fans and WGR will never accept this, particularly when Bledsoe has the bad game that virtually all NFL players have from time to time (and particularly as they do on the back-end of their career like Bledsoe). Instead, we get an experienced defender (lets call him Troy) to lay an unfiar pretend weird hit on JP. We order JP to get up and limp and then fall down for 5 minutes while we pretend to minster to him and then gamely cart him off the field. The vet defender is apologetic for this outrageous hit on the red jersey but survives the disccord because he is apologetic and because we have no #2 CB anyway to replace him. JP spends his time in casual clothes in the booth up above the field learning the game at Wyche's knee like he should and the media loses interest because he can't play so their hoped for QB controversy is gone. Mel Gibson would be proud.

Brown has shown up surprsingly well so far and appears to have been headed to being our #2 behind Bledsoe and Losman and all of his potential (this simply means he hadn't done anything real yet) was likely going to be our disaster QB in my judgement anyway. My sense is that the JP injury heightens the importance of really testing Brown to see if he has the right stuff to be our #2 (I doubt it up to this point but his initial success indicates I may well be wrong). My sense is that the Bills will become far more interested in the waiver wire as some QBs deemed and paid as starters will prove not able to cut the mustard. I would feel bad taking one of these losers as our starter but certainly do not feel bad at all taking them as our disaster QB if Drew sucks, and Travis B. sucks, or more injuries occur. Quincy Carter as disaster QB anyone?

Exactly. In my view, some folks love the NFL as a entertainment and seeing the guy they love go down is a horrible thing. Others love it as a sport and are actually pretty callused about individuals and are willing to sacrifice any individual player for the good of the team. Both are fine and viva la difference but they are different. The loss of Losman for much of this season sucks for him as an individual and as a Bills fan I think this is bad. However, it seems to me to make little difference for the prospects of putting up Ws in 2004 for this team as long as we are in the hunt. If Losman were to play it is very doubtful that any rookie is going to lead the way to many Ws and it would mean in reality that our #1 and likely #2 QBs have been hurt or sucked. I think many who look to the NFL mostly for personalities and entertainment are really bummed by this injury, however, most of those (me among them) who get our entertainment from how the team does in this sport see this injury as a sidelight which is mostly notable because it was not a joint injury which will stop Losman from learning the game at Wyche's knee. In fact, one whould really take serious council from the words of Kyle Boller at the 2004 NFL draft that there are many important things that an NFL QB learns on the sideline when he can't play that surprisingly to him you cannot learn when playing the game. Boller may have simply been blowing smoke and trying to make lemonades out of the lemon of starting at QB for the Ravens last year and then getting hurt. However, what he says makes a lot of sense because it is a very different game with different learning when one is preparing yourself because you might play as the #2 than really analyzing not merely what happened by why it happened as the disaster QB or sitting in the press box. The irony here is that the Losman injury may be simpy the Perfect Storm for him as a Bills QB: 1. He did get to play against real opponents a few time in the 2 pre-season games and the scrimmage and experience and do well at more real speeds and wet our appetities. It does not compare to the learning of a full season at fuller speeds, but the exposure was real, important, and he did well. 2. The part of his game which is most "un-Kelly-like" in my mind is that Kelly developed an ability to feel the game and even call plays from his apprenticeship in college, in the CFL and playing behind future great players like the young Howard Ballard doing swinging door imitations. He seems to already have the pre-Kelly moxiee, leadership, arm and an additional escapability on the run. I really look forward to him gaining a better command of the game from watching what works and what doesn't work and most important learning why in the pressbox. 3. In addition to sitting and focusing most appropriately as the season begins and goes on, he will actually get to comeback and even apply these lessons on the ractice field the last quarter if the seasons and if the season situation allows and his body heels even play real games as a back-up later (though I hope this is never even possible because our real players are preparing to make and contribute in the playoffs as the season draws to a close. I have been a bigtime advocate of JP being no more than our disaster QB in 2004 and quite frankly as far as I am concerned him spending 2004 on the IR seems the good football thing to do as long as the time is spent by him learning the game. Part of this certainly may be my won making lemonade out of the definite lemon of him getting hurt. However, from a sport sense I do not feel bad about this at all as long as he makes a physical comeback which this unfortunate injury seems to allow. Its not WM and his knee in terms of severity or import as an injury and one can even comeback and contribute from that.

Why not? The rest of the world is half-assed and inconsistent in their application of static rules so why should football players be any different. Hey following the rules which are convenient to follow is good enough for Presidents like Bush and Clinton or candidates like Kerry, Perot and Nader it should be good enough for a multi-millionaire idiot who I'm glad to have as my CB like Vincent. The silly thing here is the untrue assumption that many posters seem to make that there is one and only one set of rules for what is right and what is wrong and that these rules are applied the same way in every case. I would be a great world if this were true, but it simply isn't reality. Sit down here a second my son and listen to me. I don't know jack either and I get confused all the time myself (just ask my wife). However, we lost AW who filled a critical role on this team thought the way he filled it did not produce enough INTs for us to spend the ranch and the dog on him. Picking up Vincent was a great replacement move because though he is aging, he is a proven turnover getter and a far less effective hitter than AW but is generally feared by OCs and many WRs. Sure I would cut any scrub CB that hit and injured a QB in the red jersey. I'd make an example out of him if that suited my purposes as well and I judged it helps my team win. However, pinning this on Vincent hurts my team and what I'm trying to do. We need him to replace AW and to play well. Losman is a potentially very good player who is the future of the Bills in a big way. However, if I had to really play him in games this year it probably would be a sign that my number 1 QB, Bledsoe sucked the big one, my number 2 Brown proved to be not-ready for primetime and my season was over anyway. Do I discipline Vincent for injuring the guy in the red jersey? No. In fact, because he has said the right "teammate" things about injuring Losman and apologized, I probably try to use vthis hit as an example of how Bills are rewarded for playing tough and playing hard all the time. I certainly work hard to protect my own from each other in this contact sport, however, the main thing I want is for all the Bills is to knock the snot out of all opponents and never lose that aggression. I'm bummed that fostering this spirit may have cost me an injury, but actually I'm thanking my lucky stars that a sitting JP probably will deliver more to this team in the long run concentrating on learning the game from Wyche this year than contributing on the field anyway.

Look. virtually any injury to a player is a horrible thing and an injury to a Bill is a double (quadruple or infinite) bummer. However, I'm just back from vacation (a little lurking on TSW but even less posting) and what do I find upon charing into the web before bedtime but a brken fibula for Losman. However, my immediate curses were fairly quickly replaced by my usual calculated football analysis and as much of a bummer as an injury to one of your own is, I also see lots of advantages that come from this break: 1. I'm interested in winning this season and a rookie QB almost certainly, in all cases, even if he were one of the best rather than a #21 pick is not going to so that. The Bills may not do it with Bledsoe at QB either, but from my experience it is a virtual gurantee they would not have and cannot win consistently with a rookie QB starter. Quite frankly the loss of the temptation will do wonders for fans on TSW and the media at lweast keeping some connection with reality. Losing a player to do this is a stiff price to pay, but since I do not see Losman as being a player for us this year (no matter how well he played this pre-season) unless we were giving up on the season, the loss of Losman's ability to play for 9-12 weeks is no loss at all as far as my interest in the fortunes of the teams are concerned. 2. I do see JP's first year as a Bill providing him with great stuff to insure his future as our future. However, I think he can get the same benefits I have hopes for him to get injured as he would as our disaster QB. In fact, his ability to not even bother with tugging on a uni because he can't play may actually make this learning process even better for him. I think the highest and best use of Losman this year is to surgically attach his ear to Wyche's mouth and have him watch, absorb and learn how the game is played. I know that players can best learn the speed of the game by playing the game at real speeds. However, as shown by his two pre-season and scrimmage performances, the key to JP's game is not learning to cope with the speed. The key to his becoming a great QB in my mind is him learning and mastering the game by watching. Jim Kelly is still the prototype Bills QB. However, the differences between the very talented rookie and this HOF player are obviously huge because one is a rook and the other and HOFer. Yet the I'm not worried about JP building on his obvious moxie, his obvious leadership ability, his obvious commitment and even his escapability which his has shown great talents at though he is at a rookie level. Where I think the biggest difference is that understanding the game and being able to even call most of his game is a Kelly forte that JP will need a lot of work to even begin to be comparable. I think this learning process will be greatly speeded by Losman sitting and watching with nary a worry about what he will do if he is called to play (Billy Joe Hobert showed us all how important this preparation is even when you think you won't play but you might). I always had JP pegged as my #3 and hoped he never saw the light of game day. Now this will clearly be the case. 3. One worry I had about Losman was that his running habits garned running for his life at Tulane influneces the way he plays as a Pro. No one wants a player to get happy feet, but if this unfortunate injury in practice results in JP sliding insted of diving, or in him giving up a couple of yards to go OB, I think this is a very good thing. So I hate to see any player get injured, but this bummer doesn't bother me at all.