Tortured Soul

I think just about everyone had McKinnie tops. The writer says the Rams took a chance on Warner and look how that turned out. The way I remember it, Trent Green went down with an injury and had no other choice. In terms of ranking players, hypothetically, if every team was left to analyze the prospects in a bubble, with no contact with other teams, no media buzz, no mel Kipers, I bet their lists would look radically different from each other. In another thread, people are criticizing Bills Digest for putting Winston ahead of D'Brick. Yes, everyone we read has D'Brick on top, but everyone has been wrong before.

I think their income numbers have to look beyond attendance because the bigger the market, the more teams are able to charge. It doesn't matter if you're selling out a 20,000-seat arena for $20 a ticket if another place would have 15,000 tickets sold at $50 a piece. The Bills do well in attendance, but probably rank near the bottom in gate receipts.

I actually this analysis is well done and interesting. I agree that the best places for baseball to move teams, were it not for complaints from owners, are the New Jersey and San Bernadino areas. Imagine a new stadium in Jersey City, looking out on the river. I think it's odd, though, according to their numbers, Tampa has the least ability to support its MLB team, but the best candidate, Orlando, is just 85 miles up the road. This may work for football, but not for hockey. How many people drive hours each way for a hockey game especially on a weeknight? Because northern New Jersey is a subcategory of a larger area, not an expansion of a smaller area as western New York is.

I didn't see this discussed anywhere else, so I'll say it here. I think it's a shame that Art Shell took the Raiders' job. That situation is going to be very hard to turn around, and he will be axed quickly (two years is my guess). That'll give all the bobbleheads on ESPN the ammunition to say, "See, that's why he wasn't hired all those years."

Gotcha. I agree with that. Hypothetically, if we took the five members of Denver's or New England's offensive lines, having never played together and without the tutaledge of Belichik and Shanahan (and his staff), do you think they would be any better than what we have? I don't.

How are we ever supposed to catch up to teams if we sign players for big money right after they do well if they keep on signing players for cheap before they have career years?

Unless Warroad High is a premier program, the difference to me is one is an All Star team made of the best women in the country, with players in their 20's and 30's, against a small group of teenage boys selected for all living in the same corner of Minnesota.

I apologize for doubting you. It won't happen again.

I'd be really interested to find out. I can't believe this happened and it didn't get a ton of media attention. It also doesn't seem like the kind of thing they would do - risk public humiliation to gain nothing.

And the Broncos and the Falcons. It helps to look at more evidence, because picking these two teams, who happened to meet in the Superbowl, is a coincidence. Those were the same lines they had last year and the year before, when they didn't meet in the Superbowl. We're having this debate in another thread, too, but that is part of why I'm arguing that the key to success is continuity and schemes. The longer these lines stay together, the better they get. The Bills have no continuity. They change two or three starters every year, and that is what this board wants again next year. It takes patience to develop a QB. It takes patience to develop a line, too.

I'm not sure what your first point is arguing - that you do or do not need a 1st round QB. I believe every team has a certain set of circumstances that make a certain year their year. I think it's a mistake to look at past teams to try to isolate the variable that causes them to succeed, because doing that leaves out two very important factors - luck and injuries. Were the Steelers led by Big Ben? Maybe, maybe not. I give him more credit than most people on this board do, but I'm open to others' opinions. I did not see Cutler, but I wouldn't trust one game anyway. All I was saying is if Marv and the good people at OBD determine it's the right move and Losman was a mistake, then OK by me. Continuity is one part of it (the main part I think). Schemes are the other part. Denver and New England start low round picks or UDFA's on their line. The Patriots threw a rookie 3rd round LT (100th overall) in this year, playing alongside another rookie, and they had little trouble adjusting. Is it just that the Patriots have a scouting department that much better than ours? Maybe - I think that's the most frightening scenario, because that gives us the least chance to compete with them. But I think that it's a whole lot of factors that cause the Patriots and Broncos' lines to be better than ours. One thing it defintely isn't though, is their reliance on high draft picks.

General point, but you can prove anything by looking at one example. The way to win is by passing - Stl in 1999. You need a highly drafted QB to win - Pit 2005. You don't - Bal 2000. There is no one recipe to winning a Superbowl. It helps to look at trends and not individual examples. What I take from the Denver example is that you don't need first rounders on your OL. They start an UDFA TE at LT, and no one on the Denver board is clamoring to replace him. Schemes and continuity - that's how to build a line. Yes, Pit and Sea do have a lot of high picks on their lines, but they also have a tremendous amount of continuity. I think all three of those teams have had four of five starters in place since 2001. You know how many starters we've had in place since 2001? Zero. As for the QB question, if Marv sees something in Cutler that he absolutely can't live without and doesn't see anything near that in Losman, then I could live with a QB pick.

Very beside the point, but...why did you switch your preference of 7th round running backs? I have no clue who either of them are. I just thought it was strange. After only two picks on defense in the past three years, I think we have to look more heavily to that side this year. I do, however, believe we will get at least a 4th and probably a 3rd for our free agent losses. So we'll see. I know you're not making this mock thinking your players are going to flop, but what are the odds of a 3rd, 4th, and 5th rounder panning out into a starter? I 'd say you'd be lucky to get two starters and more likely one. And considering our past two drafts, that just won't cut it. Unless Davis is Antonio Gates - and odds are he isn't - a TE that high is not what we need.

I think after exclusive rights, you're a restricted free agent for a year, then an unrestricted FA.

Small points, really... Isn't Howard going to be quite expensive? I don't know how much he's worth. You're spending a lot on free agents. I'd be wary of Shaffer. He may be a system lineman, benefitting from years in the same place, the same system. It might take him time to adjust, and the fans don't have that patience now. (Although it will take years for our line to gel, no matter who's on it.) I like picking two players from Michigan, especially Avant, but I'm not high on Watson. He always struck me as fat and lazy. And I don't know what Washington has left in the tank. The Huff pick is smart and will pay off handsomely. I think we should be able to get more from our pick if it is traded in a situation where teams are fighting for Cutler. I'd rather have J. Reed than Finneran, and I'm not sure what McDougle adds. Overall, I like the plan, especially the draft. I'm not sure about adding eight guys from outside the organization, especially when Howard, Flanagan, Glover, Washington, and McDougle are at or pushing 30. It might make more sense to go after one or two key free agents that will be here a while than a bunch that are temporary fixes.

Grading him on this scale, I don't think he played well, and he certainly didn't make those around him better.

I see what you're getting at - that subbing Holcomb for JP in Week 5 was a sign of lacking allegiance. I view it as a desparate attempt to save the season. Jp's start was going much worse than they expected. They figured that even if he didn't play well, they could still win games. Even still, they went back to JP after four weeks. And afterwards, Mularkey was starting Holcomb after it was a foregone conclusion that TD was done. I think handing JP the starting job at the beginning of the season was a tremendous show of support for him. He was laying his job on the line with JP, and by Week 12, it was clear that he had lost. And my theory on your theory is that there just isn't that much talent there. I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but what some on this board see as talent, I see as that old saying about the broken clock.

One more point: it's the sunken costs principle in economics. A CEO will pour much more money into a failing project or sector if he was responsible for its founding and funding than if he inherited it from his predecessor.

I'm not saying I know ML and DJ will do this. I just think it's important to consider. I don't think JP's expectations would be as high for TD this year as they are for ML. (Would Harrington be starting in Detroit last year if Millen wasn't still the GM?) If JP flops, he's TD's mistake, not ML's. Did TD not put the players around JP to help him succeeed? In hindsight, yes, but at the start of the season, it looked like JP was coming into a situation with a great defense, a solid running game, and an improving line. So, yes, I think TD was designing this team with the intention of having JP succeed, and I don't think that is as important to ML.

I think a lot of people on this board are underestimating the importance of Levy and jauron not having loyalty to Donahoe's players. The fact that he was a first round pick that cost us a 1st, 2nd, and 5th was extra incentive for TD to ensure he succeeds, but ML and DJ will view JP much more objectively.

What I don't understand about people suggesting an Ivy League conspiracy is that Harvard and Yale are rivals. It's like someone alleging a Big 10 conspiracy because a GM from Michigan hires a head coach from OSU. If anything, the fact that Jauron went to Yale probably worked against him.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2322331

What I find interesting in these numbers is the disparity at some positions as opposed to others. The way I understand it the franchise price is the average of the top 5 and the transition price is the average of the top 10. So the closer the two numbers are, the more bunched up the salaries are. The smallest difference betwen the two numbers was at quarterback - not what I would've expected - and the largest difference was at defensive end, meaning there are very few defensive ends that get paid much more than the rest. Any thoughts?

Wow, I can't believe you saw this. It got so little attention in the American press I thought I was the only one.

I agree that Big Ben was average tonight, but Jp would've lost the game for Pittsburgh.