Fake-Fat Sunny

I think the most frustrating thing for me is a Bills fan is that voluntarily the HC with the support of his GM and then the owner made a decision to suspend Moulds and not put their best team on the field. I'm not annoyed that this happened because life isn't fair and things happen. Sometimes a quality player gets injured and you have no choice but to suck it up and make the best of it. We saw this in the past when multiple Bills WRs got dinged and Billy Brooks sucked it up and played admirably as our #1 WR. Even looking at the current casr of characters, Moulds got hurt a couple ofseasons ago and Josh Reed failed to build on his good rookie season and Bobby Shaw did not prove to be a #1 quzlity WR, but I was proud of the way this #3 quality WR sucked it up and filled in as best he could for Moulds even if he was ineffective as a #1 WR in the big picture. However, what is frustrating for me as a fan and even more odd for me as a customer of this product is that the Bills voluntarily decided to not put their best team on the field. I understand and agree that there are situations where the actions of a player are in fact so detrimental that it is the right thing to do to forge forward without him. If he were an OJ and killed somebody or impregnaated the owner's granddaughter then I'd sit the idiot myself. However, there certainly has been no action taken by Moulds that has been shown to us fans that would merit a voluntary decision not to put our best team on the field. It\s frustrating as a fan and worse as a customer,

Cliff note: MW is a bust for us but the reasons this is the case are rooted in the Bills being so bad in O leadership under Kevin Killdrive and this year. MW cannot be absolved from blame because he is wellpaid to deal with whatever the context is he confronts. However, the bad thing for us is that he almost certainly must be cut by the Bills after this season and if he finds better context with a new team it is possible (its debatable how probable it is) for him to not only laugh all the way to the bank for being a bust, but to laugh even harder going to the bank for a new team which helps him be all he can be. Cliff notes end. This issue has been reviewed in recent threads, but I am taking a different approach to this (acknowledging the negatives that he in essence is a bust as a #4 pick). Rather than asking what we did wrong, instead I want to track what could it would have looked like if it had gone right AND Then looking at whether these were reasonable hopes or why those hopes did not play out. The Pick Itself: The best justification for the pick was that we could not find a partner to give us value in trading away the pick. While, in a perfect world we would pick the best player available at #4 and he would turn out to be a stud who worked out ( a brief look back at past #4 picks actually revealed a plethora of players like Peter Warrick or Philip Rivers who disappointed), it ain't a perfect world and trading away this pick for value seems by far in 20/20 hindsight to be the correct move to have made. As far as the pick itself if no partner for a trade emerged, then picking the best OL guy you can get is the likely the correct move. This player is guaranteed to be slotted at the #4 salary level which the market mandates is for an LT. The two reasonable choices are MW and McKinnie. MW has questions because he guarded the TX QB blindside in college from RT and he must be able to make the switch to justify the pick. McKinnie can play the LT position right off the bat, but is a small below MW in combine performance and also he and his agent seem to be a bit of jerks in discussions. This is borne out in the early problems between McKinnie and the Vikes (no or double fault assigned here because it takes two to tango) and the Vikes players being idiots and McKinnie fits right in MW shows great aglity for a player his size in both objective measures like the Combine shuttle run results and subjective measures in terms of nimbleness that he shows he on film and with workouts. The question of whether he can make the flip to LT is certainly there. He presents as a nice likeable guy rather than a mean cuss but this presentation is little more than a balance as there are strengths and weaknesses associated with both presentations. If he is a mean cuss then proper modeling and leadership will be critical for him to make sure that he remains positive and team focused ratherthan becoming a cancer who is self focused. Since he is a nice guy, the training he needs is for a mentor who keeps him on track and diligent. Either way a good answer(s) for mentoring a player needs to be found. Rookie year- The reasonable track for MW his first year would be for him to earn his way into the starting line-up virtually immediately if only based on his size, athleticism and college experience. In an average world while he would have the growing pains of any rookie, he would be productive in his individual work. Further, it would be a real demonstration of progress if he was a critical part of a productive OL. Actually, in his rookie year, the mission was accomplished (to borrow a phrase from out El Presidente) in all regards. MW made the starting line-up no problem. His individual work was good and he certainly was not a glaring issue in the problem areas we had (we gave up way too many sacks but the lack of a mobile QB in a pass-happy game with only Ruben having any previous experience at his OL position were even stronger reasons for our sack problems). An objective measure which points toward MW at least being part of a productive OL and having a good year himself is that this O qualified 3 players (including an RB who ran for 1400 yards) for the Pro Bowl and the WR who did not get this accolade had 94 catches. MW did not accomplish everything we wanted or could be done his rookie year, but he set himself up on the road to become the LT we needed. Second year It reasonably can be judged that MW had an adequate year here, but the wheels began to come off a bit. Overall, the Bills O sucked as they went roughly 10 consecutive quaters at crunch time during the season wityhout producing an offensive TD. However, the lead reasons for this debacle seemed to be an unwillingness to change the O from Kevin Killdrive. The running attack was still productive as TH racked up over 1200 yards. The worse thing regarding MW was that his faults seemed to play a role in some of the most egregious sacks. The interesting thing as far as diagnsoing this issue is that his problems were not realted to him repetitively being beaten by speed rushes around the edge due to some lack of mobiliy related to his weight, but actually a real difficult coordinating with RG Pacillo which all too often saw them standing over a sacked Bledsoe with body language that cried out "I though you had him" after an opposing DL pulled some stunts and switches and the right side of the Bills OL got lost. My sense of the problems here were that in his rookie year, MW lined up next to Sullivan at RG and even though Sully is not a great player, he had played the game before and at least could teach MW a thing or two about what it meant to be a pro. In his second year, MW found himself as being the more experienced of the two players at RG and RT and he proved incapable and likely too inexperienced to carry along Pacillo who had never player RG as a pro. Likewise he was operating within a horrendous context as not onlywas this O anemic and struggling under Bledsoe's guidance, but Kevin Killdrive was in the process of running an O which produced so badly it led to him being fired. Even worse his OL position coach Pat Rule took over for the equally inexperienced s an OL coach Vinky who had little to teach MW beyond the basics of being a pro. Ruel, like Killdrive ended up getting canned with time left on his contract. The adequate news for the Bills was that Jonas Jennings had come into his own as the LT so there was no immediate outside need for MW to make the jump to LT in 2004. However, his non-development in 2003 raised the stakes for 2004 as a year where MW needed to jump to the next level and justify the switch to LT because JJ would be a free agent after next year. Unless JJ showed that he was beyond the injury issues which has not allowed him to play 16 games at LT his first two years, the Bills really needed MW to resume the progress he made as a rookie a justify a move to LT. Third Year The wheels came completely off for MW in the off-season. The grandmother who raised him as his mother passed away. Being deeply upset from losing the woman who raised you is only human and easily understandable. However, responding unprofessionally and letting down your teammates and the region that depends on you is not condonable at all given the big bucks he is paid. He got authorized absences from all the "voluntary" minicamps. However, he failed professionally as he let the pain of losing his Grammy cause him to not stay in even marginal shape. The Bills were in the midst from the transition from tje Vinky/Ruel/GW reign of error to the JMac/TC/MM era and they did not really watch MW like a hawk to make sure he was performing even marginally as a pro. He came into training camp fat and not ready and it was bad. However, JMac did a pretty good job from outside observations applying both sticks and carrots to improve MW. From vocalizing a threat to move MW to guard which would cost him a lot of money in his next contract to awarding MW a gameball when his play improved he got far better production from MW as the season progressed. It ended with many outside observers feeling that MW was the best OL player on the Bills line. This accolade did not say much for 2005 because the OL players the Bills had were still pretty bad or had clear failings as individual players (Villarial at RG is a solid player but clearly is on the backside of his career and has shown some increasing injury issues, Teague is a bright guy who can call line changes, can block well enough due to his athleticism, and did finally learn to make shotgun snaps after a sure-handed Bledsoe saved his bacon several times as he learned this job- however, h has trouble multi-tasking though he can do these individual jobs and occaisionally would get bullrushed when he had other tasks to do, LG was a real adventure with finally Lawrence Smith stepping up after Pacillo and Sullivan were so bad they got cut and finally Tucker took this job though injury got him cut for 2005, and the LT spot went almost by default to pick-up Mike Gandy as JJ proved when SF spent too much on him abd he proved to be injury prone). MW's 2004 performance provided some hope that his 2005 performance would be based in his good rookie year or the better parts of his 3rd year. However if he messed up again like when his Grammy died or with the poor coaching and mentoring he had in 2003 the year could easily become a lost year for MW and honestly justify him being called a bust. 2005 Unfortunately this has been a disaster year that likely spells an end to his career as a Bill. If he remains with the team he is scheduled to get paid by his contract next year a sum which cannot be justified at all for his level of play and the position he occupies. He and the Bills are limited by the CBA from arranging a pay cut for him which would be more appropriate to his level of play and the position he is playing. A cut if MW will hurt the Bills as his bonus already paid acceletates into deadspace which counts against the cap next year, but this bad outcome is better than the horrible cost of paying him huge amounts at a level he has not earned. His failure this year is at least partially linked to injury as he did show up for camp in far better shape than he reported last year or in his career. However, he never turned being buff (for him at least as he still is a bigboy) into on the field performance. His demise has not been painfree or even smooth as the team was falling apart as well on its way to a 4-7 record so far. The move of him to LG really was no more than flailing around looking for someway to get some value out of the #4 contract he signed. However, he sucked at this new position (moving him inside did not solve his big problem which has never been a lack of athleticism but a failure to cooridnate well with his teammates. The irony is that a new lease on life of a new team MAT be just what MW needs to renew his career, but a trade by the Bills to this new team looks unlikely as there is little reason for a team to assume the huge contract he would get, particularly when they might get him at no player cost as an FA. Overall, I think that MW was a reasinable pick to make though by far trading the 1st round pick would be the smart thing to do (as the Bills did in 2001 getting an extra pick that became a Pro Bowler and still getting the first CB picked in the draft even with the trade down, as the Bills did in 2003 getting a replacment QB for RJ in exchange for the 2004 1st and still being able to gt a new 1st for nothing from AT for PP- even better they were able to spend that 1st on WM and get an injured #5 or so quality player for #23 money, and also did with the 2005 1st getting JP who needed the training of being picked as their QB of the future in 2004). MW was the best hope for a pick at #4 that year if you had to make one. In his first year, MW did not disappoint with his production in the real world (though the only reasonable alternative McKinnie did disappoint big time his first year). I think the theory that his becoming a bust is not demonstrated by his having a good first year as a Pro (and a pretty good second half of his third year). The theory which makes more sense to me is: 1. MW became a bust because he had stiinky position coaches his first two years in the league. Its hard to say how not-ready for primetime and OL positio coach duty Vinky and Ruel were. They both lost their jobs after their year of work with the Bills. Even if one looks to some other factor as the lead in MWs fate, one cannot discount the impact that having Ruel and Vinky as his OL coaches had on his career. Folks who want to find some other point of blame must anwer the question what impact do they think Ruel/Vinky had on MW and whether this impact was significant or not. If they want to claim their failings were insignficant they have some splainin to do. 2. MW never had the teammates around him to propely mentor him and help him become the pro we wanted. Ultimately the blame falls on MW. Even when you are dealt a bad hand in life, it is the responsibility of the individual to play that hand. My sense of reality does not absolve MW of blame at all. However, I think it is reasonable to explain MW's failings as being rooted in his inability to become a productive Pro with the Bills utterly failing to provide him with adequate mentoring and guidance as an OL player from his trsmmstes. As a rookie, only Ruben Brown had the experience to play this role for the whole OL and I am even more impressed with Ruben's work in the 2002 season after thinking this through. In 2003, MW's great failing is that he was incapable of providing the young Pacillo with the guidance he needed when it was actually MW who still needed guidance. i think it is no coincidence that 2004 turned out to be MW's most productive year as a Pro with the steady Villarial next to him as the primary guy he had to coordinate with. The Bills failed uttlerly on the OL in the late 90s and early 2000s not only because they failed to invest to get the horses to play OL, but failed to invest to get some old hands to mentor and school the talent they did acquire. 3. The O lacked a positive context to build around. JMac said he was no miracle worker and proved he was right about that. From Kevin Killdrive's failure to diversity his approach after opponents had ample film on the Bills and BB drew a roadmap on how to take advantage of Bledsoe and the Bills to Clements failing to develop a consistent O with JP at the helm, the Bills have never provided a reasonable consistent context for the OL to perform within. A quality OL is by all means NECESSARY to make your O work, but it is not SUFFICIENT in and of itself. JMac had made silk purses out of sows ears with OL before in CIN amd with NYG. However, the context simply is bad and thus the OL does not perform. 4. MW does not have that nasty edge and is a nice guy. Granted this is true but it falls shot of explaining why he has become a bust. A nasty edge really helps a player perform in some cases, but it also can be accompanied with a me-forst attitiude and a chip on the shoulder than can be cancerous for a team. Being a good guy is not sufficient at all for performance, but you do not have to be an asswipe to be good. It helps to be a nice guy if it means you can work and cooridinate well with your teammates. The deal here it seems to me is that one can make it work with an edge or with being a nice guy. The key however to making it work is that the other players and the coaches need to coordinate and supplement with the type of player who either has an edge or is a nice guy. The problem with MW seems to me is that given the positives he brings to the table and the negatives which also exist, the Bills had idiots for position coaches MWs first two years and due to a lack of OL player leadership called on MW to do things he could not do and it all fell apart. The sad thing here is that not only must the Bills cut MW but there is a reasonable course that may emerge in his young career which sees him become quite productive with his new team. If a team signs MW at RT which has a stable OL and a good OL coach, he may surprise some folks by having a good year and good career. In the worse case for us, with proper training, MW mat still be enough of a player to become an LT. We'll have to see. It all comes down to MW having at least some motivation to become a qualit pro (his good 1st year and second half of his third year and showing up to camo buff for him are signs that this desire is there). I doubt that personal motivation will be enough however (his penalty for getting the cut he deserves is that he is rich and set for life and can sign a new deal to make him even richer at the NFL minimum) if he signs with the right team and they have the personnel and the OL coaches to work well with him and help him be all that he can be, the worst may occur that not only do we draft a bust, but after he busts abd we cut him her earns Pro Bowl accolades eslewhere. It is doubtful but can also happen.

Thanks for the kind words and good observations BINYC. One of the other things I wonder about is also what role getting out of Dodge has in Parcells success. One ofthe reasons he has been successful in a number of places is that he does not hang around in one place too long. I think part of the Parcells model is when he realizes or sense he has gotten as much out of a situation as can be produced he takes off. I think not overstaying his welcome is part of his success. I doubt that if he had stayed with the Jets there would have been any additional success for the team or for him. By leving when he did, I think thi episode is reasonably judged a success by him as NYJ made a big jump from absolutely putrid to about average. As they were not going to be much better for several years, he did not waste time or his rep here.

I aggree that if one player knows what happened then they all know what happened. In addition, given the nature of the press, the NFL and the public, if one player knows what happened it is likely only a matter of time until we begin to also get a pretty good idea what happened. Given that his action was so public, impacts the quality of the product we put on the field and present to the public and given that costing a player a gamecheck involves the CBA, I think it is a matter of time before we have a clearer idea what happened. In fact, the main thing that makes me suspect it was some outrageous act by Moulds which prompted this is that we do not have word yet after 5 days what went down. Again, the thing which concerns me as a Bills fans is not the particulars of what happens to Moulds, it is the uncertainty about why this happened, the fact that RWS did not immediately endorse his coaches and GM's actions and whether here is any connection with the handling (mishandling?) of Adams and Bobby Shaw. In light ofrecent events, the Shaw cut now begins to look like a Tom Coughlinesque maneuver. There may have been immediate (and ultimately short-term) benefits in getting the players to focus a bit more on the game or risk that they too might get cut if they did not produce. However, in the long-term the visitation of sudden and unsuspected changes in team status can cause problems. NFL teams do well by striling the proper balance between cooperation and competition. The players are competing against each other on the depth chart, but in the end its my team against your team. When it is everyman for himself then your team is not a TEAM and thus will not win many games.

Lots of thins is the real answer. Feel free if anyone wants to insist that only ONE thing (or even a relatively small number of things) is THE key and our intrepid posters will come up with myriad examples where an HC is judged by most to be successful even though he did things in a fairly opposite manner to the theory presented. However, for discussion (and arguments) sake, this post will attempt to narrow it down to a couple of things that really strike me as of great import to being a good coach. The first of course is dumb luck. It's the epitome of something which is necessary for success but not sufficent at all to assure success. its easy to be so bad that even luck will not save you (yet Barry Switzer is a great example that it is possible to build a team so great for Jerry Jones commitment of cash, to a collection of great players on the field, to Jimmy Johnson having built a great team with the hep of Mike Lynn trading him the farm for Herschel Walker that even a fool like Switzer could not screw it up and fail to win the SB. One need look no further than Bill Belichick for an example of one of the most (if not the most) successful NFL HCs in history to see the essential role that dumb luck has played in his success with the Pats. While he made a lot of his good luck himself (picking Tom Brady in the 6th after he and every team in the league passed on picking him numerous times which turned out to be a key to taking advantage of the dumb luck of Lewis collapsing Bledsoe's lung with a tough hit). it is clear that a lot of his success would not have occured without dumb luck: 1. The Refs application of the tuck rule in a game against the Raiders was essential to the Pats winning a must-win game in their first run. 2. BB completely misreading and messing up the Milloy negotiations and having his players publicly turn on him and call him out for doing this (a mistaken read so bad even BB was apologetic) yet, this error ironically united the team (though it was in thinkinghe was dumb) and it was the fact that this team was a TEAM which won them their first SB, A series of injuries and the initial debacle against the Bills forced a gut check on the team and united by their shared disdain for BB's GM work and appreciation of him being one the best game coaches in the league they roared to victory. 3. Weaseling out of his pledge to NYJ to become their coach and defecting to NE put him in the position to win 3 SBs even though it showed that as a person you can trust Bb as far as you can throw him. 4. The aforementioned Bledsoe injury. As said, he deserves the credit for picking Brady, but no one (including BB knew or even thought he would be this good. If Lewis had not knocked Bledsoe out of the picture, I'm far from the only one who is pretty sure that the Pats would not have even made the playoffs under Bledsoe the year they won their first SB. With a failure to make the playoffs his first year on top of a record of almost total failure in Clevelnd (1 playoff game in 5 years to his credit) its not hard to imagine a world where BB might be nothing more than the best HC never to win the SB were it nor for Lewis' hit. The other item I would flag as essential for a good HC is more relevant to our current situtaion with MM. I think the other important factor to identify is something I would call PREDICTABLE INCONSISTENCY. What I mean is, that while in a perfect world it would be wonderful if all people were treated equally and/or judged simply on their accomplishments in life or the NFL, it is not a perfect world. In fact, simply because accomplishments do matter alot all people are not treated equally. As someone pointed out in another thread, if you are a reserve TE and you show up late for a meeting or mouth off the wrong way, you might easily be cut and few would blink an eye. However, if one is a player of the caliber of lets say a Troy Aikman, you can show up late a few times (he nver would though which is part of why he was Troy Aikman) and you would never be cut. I think that when one looks at a great HC, you get good examples from Bill Parcells case. He epitomizes for me prredictable inconsistency. Parcells has a rep as a hard ass. However, hiseasy acceptance and good relationship with idiots like Keyshawn Johnson and sometimes tragically failed performers like Drew Bledsoe belies in many ways his rep as a hardass. I there is something which is always consistent about Parcells is loyalty to his players as an HC and a leader IF the player does let down their teammates. His loyalty is unflagging if a player steps up to the plate and does his best, but his loyalty flags like a shot if a player fails to respect his teammates and/or himself. He seems to have one of the best senses of humor among HCs in the NFL and he uses it to find fault with a smile. He is not consistenly cheerful, but it is fairly predictable what is going to get his goat and bring forth his ire. What the problem seems to be with MM as best as I can tell is that he has become fairly unpredictable in terms of how he relates to his players. The problem I fear from the cut of Shaw, the benching of Adams, and now the suspension of Moulds is that I hope it is clear internally why MM lowetred the boom on these particular players in the way he did. However, for me as a watcher from the outside, MM does not seem to be predictable at all in terms of the exoectations and performance he requires from players. Things do not appear as bad as the random fear which Tom Coughlin seemed to sow in NC. However, though there is often a short-term payoff in these acts of toughness (Coughlin's early success with NC until they gave up on him, and perhaps the Bills respoding to the wake-up call of the Shaw cut last year until the implosion this year) in the longrun i think an HC dies well when he operates inconistenly as life and good results dictate, but does so in a predictable manner so everyone on the team knows where they stand.

The problem is here is that it is simply hard to imagine what actions Moulds could have taken that were so detrimental to the team as to merit a one game suspension. Did he say something to Tyke Tolbert or MM? Maybe, but it is hard to see ideas being equated to actions. This is particularly true in the heat of an NFL game and calling someone a name meriting a suspesion and a gamecheck. Did he refuse to play? Maybe, but again its hard to imagine this occuring without some apparent activity on the sideline that the cameras or bystanders notice. This includes yelling and screaming in the heat of battle or some buddy of the teammate in question begging the player to play. Did he impregante MM or Clements daughters during halftime? Who knows. I think the TV quote s helpful to note in that it may be a sign of some lack of support for Moulds among those who should support him. if he did do something so egregious that it has turned off his teammates (one can see from a chunk ofthe Iggles now vocally supporting TO that some of the players will sink pretty low in terms of excusable behavior) and those who support the players virtually of what they do (NFLPA reps), then there is some hope. What is more likely about this quote though is that TV as NFLPA head was not sure what the correct tack to take might be in doing his job and thus he made a statement which commits him to nothing in particular so he can say whatver down the line.

Bill- I'm responding to your post because you obviously took a little time to think about this issue and my post and respond, but this post responds to the one just below yours from Corp0000etc. that I think gets at the key point: "guys, there is no bottom line for us... we don't know exactly what happened." However I do disagree with his point that because we don't know what happened we do not know whether they handled it well. I'm a big advocate of OBD flat out lying to me in order to gain any advantage (even a remote potential advantage like not knowing who we might start at QB). However, in this case, I think we can reasonably judge that OBD has done a horrible job because at best its customers are confused about the nature of the product they are selling at a fundamental level. What's bad about this is that there is no apparent advantage to this confusion in terms of also confusing an opponent. What is potentially worse about this is that the players may well know more than we do about what happened and because this is justified in thei eyes this is a positive. However, it seems far more likely that many, most or potentially all players are just as confused as we fans are about what happened and why. There appears to be a real chance that just like when Coughlin lost his team and they gave up their primary focus on winning to instead focus their attention on trying to anticipate what difficult thing to understand the HC would do next (in Coughlin's case it was weird edicts like his assistant coaches could not where sunglasses, in MM's case it appears that he is taking players like Adams and Moulds who want to play or be central to the gameplan and instead managing their being downgraded in the gameplan so poorly that they respond with a hissy-fit when they are downgraded. I think there are few (one person in this thread) who argue that the outcome may be a good thing for the team. I think my views about managing this team to success (the playoffs at least and really fairly deep into them is success to me) are actually somewhat complex. They certainly are far more complex, somewhat convoluted and get far more of my time than my lovely wife thinks thst football deserves. I think they are complex in that in general I think taking an ideological perspective on this is probably almost always wrong. The NFL is great because its a team game. Like marriage, once you get more than one person involved as principal stakeholders, ideology really goes out the window. In the NFL dozens of folks are central stakeholders to the team. Even if someone must be in charge, it is not that everyone else's views now do not count for anything and can be totally ignored or ignored at all without a price being paid for ignoring them. What MM (and thus TD and ultimately RWS) have done here is simply create confusion as to how things are going to operate in the real world likely for the team (which almost always stops them from becoming a TEAM and thus racking up the Ws) and even worse created confusion among the customers that may well stop them from buying the product. I think that understanding this situation in the correct way is to recognize that what Moulds did is not a good thing and probably should not be excused without some sanction (my understanding of what he did was conduct that was judged detrimental to the team and that conduct revolves around him having an argument with Tyke Tolbert and ultimately pulling himself (leading to his being pulled) from the game). However, though what Moulds did is wrong it does not then make the way the situation was handled by MM right. Whos right here? No one it appears. When that is the case it is tough to sell the product.

There simply is no evidence beyond theory to support this notion. Could it possibly happen. Yeah, well maybe coulda. Is there any real reasons beyond theory to belive this has happened? Naaaaahhh.

but the way Mularkey handled it is probably worse. Choosing between the two is like choosing between the Democrats and Republicans. Both sides are stupid and can't seem to do anything more complicated than folding a paper bag. However, there is no credible third option and like it or not they represent the geographic area where I live so I'm stuck with them as my options. Like it or not Mularkey is here and with 3 years left on his contract (ironic number) I'm stuck with him as my leader. I will support him and hope for the best. I just hope he doesn't claim that this clusterdfluke he has gotten us into is going just according to his plans and everything is hard but going OK. Its not. There is pain and suffering everywhere on our team and merely blamimg this problem on someone else or running out the clock on the next three years is not the answer.

My sense is that MM appears to have over-played his hand badly. 1. If you are going to suspend a player (which costs him $ which is the only language many players understand) that is fine but you better have the power to suspend him. The fact that this issue is twisting in the wind is not good. 2. Leading a team is a combination of respect and fear. This appears to be a situtation where the players may end up not respecting MM (cause he did not facedown Moulds directly behind the scenes) and they may end up not even fearing him if going to cry to Daddy (RWS) saves Moulds 1-4 games worth of money. 3. The tough thing here is that it is hard to win a war with 52% support. The opponents (whether they be opposing NFL teams going for the SB or terrorists in Iraq) will exploit the disenssion at home and beat the crap out of you in significant ways. MM may end up losing it all because the players whom he leads will know they have to look out for themselves ratber than their teammates first because like Bobby Shaw and now Moulds they may not have the same teammates much lonnger. Even worse if running to Daddy (RWS) saves Moulds some scratch) though my guess is that he is done as a Bill then MM will have neither the respect or fear from his players. There is more to be told regarding this but it does ot look good.

There are several "adjustments" or different cuts I would have on your thoughtful take: Are there really only two extreme choices here (players are lazy or studs, coaches are hardasses or weenies)? I think one of the failings which applies to many TSW debates (and ubfortunately many political debates in this Fox News driven times) is a false dichotomy that there are only two extreme positions and if you are not on my side totally then obviously you are a total weenie, cut and run, surrender like a Frenchman idiot. I'm sorry, but the real world is a little more nuanced than that. Players run the gamut from being lazy bums to being studs who always show up, but when an HC or a GM attempts to treat everyone the same based on some ideology (a good idea in theory) he runs head on into the reality that very few (and sometimes Brett Favre aside no players) actually are 100% lazy or 100% studs all the time. When an HC attempts to hold to some ideological approach 100% of the time, he eventually ends up punishing everyone severely on that day a player happens to be having a bad hair day and is more lazy than stud. Bill Parcells is such a great HC because he demonstrates and has honed the skill of not being one way all the time (he always is a hardass) but he is good because he works and operates using both extremes. He is a hardass and a disciplinarian a significant amount of time, but he also has a great sense of humor and really makes life a party a significant amount of time as well. Take the example of Keyshawn Johnson, Drew Bledsoe and several other players who have been everything from major idiots in their approach to life to failures on the field. Parcells is great not because he holds to one ideology or doctrine, but because he has found a way to vacillate all over the map in the way he deals with people but he is consistent in how he takes extreme approaches. Where Parcells and MM differ in my book is that Parcells uses both extremes but for a player he is predictable so a player knows where he stands. The worse thing about this Moulds episode is that it is really unclear to the broader public (and probably to the players to who hear the same things we hear in terms of public knowledge and get more information but get different perspectives from multiple sides they have to sort out) who is in charge (MM cannot pull the trigger until he speaks to RWS in a conversation which should have occured or been understood before MM pulled the trigger). It is the inconsistency (Moulds and thus the other players are confused) that is the problem. One can get short-term performance and benefits out of the HC instilling a reign of terror. However, eventually it gets a bit old living with this uncertainty and NFL players are set for near life fiancially and have skills in many cases which they can get a bunch of money for if they make it to the free-market. Like Tom Coughlin In NC, eventually many of the players turn off to a difficult to predict coach and even when cut lose make out like bandits in the free market (Kerry Collins) or even make it to the SB. Even worse when the team gives up on an inconsistent HC they fail and get him canned. What unfortunately may be going on here is that MM did bring discipline to the players and get performance from them when he cut Bobby Shaw. Shaw was a quality guy who was not performing on the field in the MM system. However, he had really stepped up to the plate when Moulds was hurt under GW and Reed was bad and played as our #1 WR when he was more of a #3 in WR talent. He was cut when there was no financial benefit to the Bills in cutting him and little impact on the field. It may be that we went 9-7 with this wake up call that focused effort to work last year. However, it also behind the scenes in players heads focused them to worry about themeselves more than to worry about being a team and we paid for that this year, My sense is that I agree with you that the Bobby Shaw cut may be a big deal for us here, but ironically the effect may have been that Bills like MW and the rest are playing every man for himself rather than being a TEAM like the Pats.

My recollection is that Pippen refused to take the court for the final seconds of one game because Phil Jackson called a play where rather than Pip being the go-to fuy for the final shot, he was merely to be used as a decoy to get another Bull open. I think this occured after Jordan retired (the first time) and Scottie saw his role on the team as Jordan's replacement and the best player who was always called upon to take the last second shot with the team and the game resting on his shoulders. Obviously Pippen is really only one of top 50 players in NBA history with MJ there drawing coverage and finding Pippen when he is double (or triple) teamed. I think the Bills are like the Bulls without MJ, merely a pedestrian team without a go-to guy. Moulds exaggerates his skills and importance if he does not realize that he has great skills (and probably still is the best athlete on this team) but his value to the TEAM winning is just as likely to be as a decoy as it is as a go to guy. MM (TD) should also learn from this situation as they can try to hold to some dogma about what an athlete should do an be, however, Phil Jackson and the Bulls braintrust were smart enough to overlook this transgression (a much bigger sin in my mind than Moulds pulling himself out of Sunday's game if that is what he did) and once MJ came back Pippen played a key role in helping the Bulls get 3 worl championships with Pippen leading MJ's "supporting cast" It looks to me as if both the Bills and Moulds screwed up on this one. However, in my mind, I find MM having no other tools besides suspending Moulds in his employer/team leader tool chest than I'm worried about Moulds being pissed for not relied upon as our go-to guy.

The word is right now that Mort is reporting that Moulds's actions detrimental to the team was missing a mandatory meeting with Mularkey. I hope that if MM is asking for a suspension from Ralph its a lot more than that, because if that crime is what we're disciplining him for, it would seem that there should be a lot of other discipline items in the MM toolkit before he resorts to putting a poorer quality product on the field. I have no problem at all with the an HC (or any employer or leader) discipling an employee. In fact, if an HC, an employer or any leader is any good, the he/she must discipline employees who get out of line and hurt the team effort. However, there is a lot of explaining that seems due the players teammates and the fans (customers) of the team if the HC is going to choose a method of discipline that it going to impact the quality of the product that they present to the public. i think that in many cases discipline like this is best kept between the managers and the employee or best kept within the team. However, if the discipline wanders off into the area of fan interaction with the team by impacting the product we put on the field, then a fuller explanation is merited and is necessary in any case or its reasonable for the customers to lose confidence in the product. The Bills do have lots of rights to keep things private if they choose, but if they choose to be less forthcoming to the fans, then they should not be shocked or object if some of their customers do not like it if the team chooses not to put the best product on the field. I really aggree with a case like TO in Philly where the player took actions publicly detrimental to his teammates and the team and they disciplined this player by costing him cash (unforutnately the only language many players understand)by suspending him and putting a less competitive and entertaining product on the field. However, in Moulds case, if this is in fact disicipline as reported for him missing a mandatory meeting with MM, then disciplining him by putting a worse product on the field seems to be poor disicipline. Fine him? Yes. Strip him of any team honors of leadership tokens (some report he was named a team captain)? Sure. However, not putting your best product on the field and working to win each game one game at a time (playoff eligible or not) seems to me to be poor management. This inquiring mind really wants more info on why this is a merited decision and I hope that this request is justified. The worse case to me would be to make a decision which impacts his teammates and the public's chances at winning the game and for the managers to then claim that no explanation will be given. It would seem a poor business and team practice on their part if this is the case and they should not be surprised if they lose some support unless they can reasonably explain why they are going to suspend Moulds and put a lesser product on the field.

The only problem here is that in 1986 and on the old guard that was wrong and were primarily at fault for the problems the team had. Unfortunately, in this case, a team which TD built to be led by the old guard and transition into a new guard has not achieved due to some bad play by the newest of the new guard (JP) and bad game ions by tne new braintrust (MM,TC). You are correct that transition is a natural thing that will happen one way or the other whether you want it to not. However, it is relevant and it is TD/MM's job to set that transition up so that the change is from good (though still inadequate since we did not make the playoffs last year) to better. Instead, this team under our HC has gone from good to putrid. The key question is whether this transition could have been done better with these players. Unfortunately, it is looking like the answer to this question is yes. The problem appears to be that the main failing of this team was not the old guard bitterly hanging on when better players were available, but team management really failing to manage this transistion well. As best as I can tell, the old guard still had a bit more in them than this management got out of them and this management also has failed to get adequate production out of the new guard.

I think it is prettty clear folks do not think Moulds is being a TO. The question is then why MM thinks a TO reaction of suspending Moulds is the appropriate thing to do. It makes no sense to me.

I acknowledge that Eric Moulds took actions (I'm still not sure what they were) that were detrimental to someone else. However, its hard for me to see how his actions were detrimental to the team. 1. He certainly did not serve JP's interests by apparently advocating a switch to Holcomb several games back. However, it was clear then and even clearer now that JP was in over his head and really needed to sit down, take a deep breath, possibly watch and learn how it is supposed to be done (which thanks to some controlled and productive play by Holcomb he was able to see what could be done with this Bills team by a QB who played within himself). Moulds thoughts as I understand them were correct and since he did not throw a vocal public hissy-fit like TO do not appear to have been detrimental to the team at all. 2. While all players must be willing to to be used in the gameplan as a decoy rather than as a target for passes, there is a balance here that should be expected and that you want players to have a "just give me the ball" attitude and they want and do step up an make a difference. While I do think it is detrimental to the team for a players actions to be to sit on the midfield mark and hold his breath because he is not thrown the ball, I do not think it is hands-down detrimental for a player to want, ask or even demand the ball. If Moulds were merely pissed at being used as a decoy I see this as a management problem which is probably best managed by the HC with a stick/carrot talking to rather than a TO nuking of a player with a suspension. The most disappointing thing to me about this is that it seems to be a case of MM/TD handling this situation poorly. If anything, my sense is that Moulds may have had some correct ideas which were too the detriment of MM/TD. It may well point out that poor management by MM/TD may be the thing which is truly detrimental to the Bills, If so, Ralph may be justified in disciplining or canning these two if he has the cojones and cash to do so.

My vote in my own poll is that it is too early to tell, However, I think even in most of the worse cases Moulds actions are no where near as bad as the sins of TO. I aggree that TOs actions were detrimental to the team because he took a public shot (and an esoteric one at that as his public theory that with Brett Favre they would be in first place both undermined a teammate and was impossible to make happen in reality). However, though it seems clear that Moulds took a shot at JP which led to his benching: 1. JP demonstrably has not completed or even thrown a lot to his WRs and was not getting the job done. 2. Moulds was vocal about this but though word got out it was generally behind the scenes and not publc like TO was taking on McNabb. 3. TO offered no doable change but Moulds advocated going with Holcomb and darned if it did not work. Obviously, whether the team is in fact a TEAM is a big deal, so Moulds call for a QB switch and the Bills plan to put most or all their eggs in the JP basket need to be reconciled, but in this case, as long as Moulds is not being outragous publicly or doing something like hiding bags of dung in JPs locker repeatedly so folks laugh at him, then the results of the switch (or not switch) determine a lot how you reconcile this issue. As best as I can tell, Moulds was correct in his on-field diagnosis of the QB problm and the switch to Holcomb not only improved QB performance, but is now virtually universally agreed to be a good thing for JP's development. Maybe there is some shoe still to be dropped about Moulds activity and he really has done something detrimental to the team (it would not be good if he impregnated JP's sister and we would not know this). However, I find it hard to believe at this point that there is anything remotely as bad as what TO did that would justify a suspension of Moulds at this point.

An inquiring mind wabts to know

I aggree that it appeared to be the gameplan to isolate Evans and go deep to him as Miami has been routinely burned by Moulds in the past and dt'ed him. You are also right that this obvioulsly worked as 3 TD passes went to Evans in short order. However, your key point and my thought as to why we lost was that we went into a shell when we were up 21-0. I think the conclusions you seem to draw after this are where my thinking departs from yours. 1. Even if Evans is a better player than Moulds right now (certainly a debatable point if only due to Moulds experience and Evans being a second year guy and how they are covered due to their reps) it does not mean at all that Moulds sucks completely. 2. The great failing of the Bills Sunday was that the passing game lacked balance overall. Aggod passng attack would have followed up the great use of Evans scoring his TDs with use of Moulds when the MI coverage shifted to help out on Evans. Instead, the Bills shifted to the run game to take advantage of MI helping out in pass coverage, but really failed to effectively capitalize on the running attack )i was OK but not good enough). It might have worked better if they completed 2 or 3 passes to Moulds to force MI to cover both sides of the field for passes giving WM more room. However, they shifted to take Evans out of the game, stopprf WM well enough and we took Moulds out of the game. It was going into the shell and our lack of balance (our starting TE was gone due to injury) that allowed MI to come back because we they were reeling we did not kill them.

There are limits in the CBA to how much of a cut MW can take at Tackle and I do not think that his salary can be lowered enough to justify keeping him around, so I'm afraid he is done as a Bill. The other issues I see with your list is that though individual players look fine as player choices, the thing missing from this team are internal leadership on the field. In the absence of solid and successful guidance from the coaches this on field leadership deficit becomes even worse. As you cut several of the folks seen as onfield leaders (unfotunately folks such as Milloy, Vincent and Moulds are on the backsides of their careers) I do not see replacement leaders on your lists.

For the most part this post seems like a lot of woulda, coulda, shoulda. MM could be shown to be a pretty good choice at this time last year and can be shown to be a pretty bad choice at this time this year. Fact is that almost all HCs are demonstrably bad choices at the end of their term and that even the great ones are demonstrably bad at some point in their career (Levy with KC, BB in Cleveland) or even for their good team (BB before Bledsoe got hurt). Your broad conclusions about MM may be true and may not be. Your recomendations which flow from your analysis are also fairly unprovable and unproven. If you want to buy into your analysis of what makes a good HC and TD's choices you would make a far better case if you pointed to blowing your gasket at his chice of GW (a proven loser at HC who got fired from the job) and advocated that he should have hired Fox (an SB appearance and a team on the rise right now) or Lewis (a team clearly on the rise right now from their paltry beginnings when Lewis joined 'em). These assessments and predictions would be far more impressive than railing against MM who has been adequate and bad as HC with the Bills and who still has significant time on his contract and with advocating proven NFL winners as HC rather than theoretical coordinators.

This was a gteat post. Once I had the time I was going to go through our roster and take the same approach and not only did you do it first but outside of a quibble here and there regarding some back- I think your take on the players is right on target. The post really does point out that leadership and organization are the issues rather than talent, I'm sure we could find better players at almost any position if we are willing to spend the cash but it would probably make little difference in the outcome. Many thanks.

Simon, I for one don't think you are a moron at all as I think your observations about DB play (the difficulty of doing good coverage when your D style does not allow you to press cover) are gemerally good. However. I do think some of your conclusions assume some circumstances that may (or may not) be true in in terms of what happened and why things are being done the way they are done. 1. The call on Clements for the personal foul seemed a bit bizarre to me also- There is little that a player can do to control another player exactly as he is taking him to the ground and since NC wrestled the WR to the ground when theWR was well in play it seemed over the top to label it a personal fould. In fact, my thought from seeing the play in real speed was that the call was on Milloy for teeing up on a WR in the grasp (actually when I saw that the WR was well in bounds even this call would have been outrageous). My guess as to why this call on NC was made also may well have included something that NC said as he legitimately threw the WR to the ground and though he seemed to be in the face of the prone WR based on the body language and probably said something. I do not know that he did or did not. My sense is the ref should have kept the flag in his pocket, but some combination of an aggressive hit and some extra curricular langauage by NC may have prompted the call legit or not. 2. The lack of press coverage may be a reasonable response- One of the main things which seems true about this Bills D is taht they are not getting significant one on one pressure from the front four. There certainly are a number of specific plays where Schobel does a great rush or Adams beats a DT with his explosive first step, but just as often Schobel gets handled one on one or Adams guesses wrong and Bills braintrust does not have enough confidence in their CBs to have them press or take a player one on one as they will get beat some of the time and if this coincides with mistakes on the pass rush the other side may get 7. The sag CB coverage seems to me to be the product of a weak pass rush which does not force the OL to shift toward two or even one rusher with a double team. In addition, the problems our O has scoring points makes giving up a TD a huge thing and lack of confidence in our pass rush may be a legit reason for the sag coverage.

The game simply was not entertaining. Even with the heartbreaking loss in the Home-Run throw up the game was at least entertaining. This game was noted by a brief (but thrilling) flurry of activity by the Bills in the first quarter, followed by about 3 quarters of the team mailing it in for the most part. Perhaps the end result was exciting for Fins fans (the few who were still watching it on TV which was was likely very few judging by the many empty seats in the stadium at the end) simply due to the result, but I find it hard to believe that many of their fans found it terribly exciting to watch their team play high school ball for about three quarters. When Rosenfels came in after the safety we saw a full dose of what I use to call the well documented AVP effect where a team would trash our starting QB and then with a bg lead start thinking about whether they wanted to go to a club or a movie after dinner and AVP would lead the Bills to glory against a team that had mailed it in. There were some nice plays (Schobel's INT) but mostly in a dual between Chambers dropping passes and Clements missing tackles it was two teams working hard to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory. Things have become spectacularly random in the National Football Lotto but Sunday's game was really bad in terms of a total lack of entertainment.