Fan in Chicago

Not really. IMHO, Martz's play calling puts undue pressure on the young/newish line and they dont have the experience together to deal with it. Oh, and the fact that the entire Bills D played lights out made them look worse. As one of the Bears players said, the Bills were is regular season form. I liked what I saw of the D and if this was a 'vanilla' D, I salivate at the thought of their performance once the real games start.

Agree about the D - if this is a sign of things to come, I am quite excited. However, I respectfully disagree about the performance of the OL. They flat out sucked. Few holes opened, not holding blocks long enough to allow a pass play to develop. The majority of the line has been the same since last year (yes there were some injuries last year but still). 'Allow time to gel' should not be an excuse any more. Heck, if it takes Urbik, Pears etc so much time to gel we should have acquired linemen who can hit the ground running much faster. If there is a OL to be had in a trade, the Bills better be ready to deal. But, I realize thats not how we roll.

Fully agree, AD. I am furious right now. I elaborated on my anger before the trade and was hoping it wouldnt happen. But it did and I am not fully on the anti-Nix camp unless he proves me wrong. So far, under his tenure we have lost 3 #1 and 1 #2 rounder from before. Build through the draft and keep your own ? Really ? Isn't that what Nix said when he came in ? And he proceeded to purge the roster of players from the earlier regime without proven replacements. Created holes where we didn't have to. This is entirely meaningless. Thoroughly stupid move in a line of questionable ones.

That is it, isnt it ? I, for one, am not arguing he is elite or even top 10 in the league. My point is that he is the most proven WR on this team right now. And that is what is important. The team will be poorer in this season without him no matter the development of other players that MAY happen. It is a question of managing risk and it is better to keep him for at least one more season till we see what talent we do or dont have. I dont see any replacement on the FA market and certainly dont want to depend on the waiver wire to fill slots. As a side note Nix has said his philosophy is to keep our own and build through the draft. If he trades Lee, he will prove himself to have half lied to us.

Late to this discussion but I am with you on this topic, Kelly. I will be seriously pi$$ed off if we get rid of Lee. Since last year, I have given the benefit of doubt to the new FO but this will flip me over and make me wonder what the real strategy is. Consider: 1. Last draft, in the face of severe shortage of linemen, we pick a smurf/gadget player in Spiller under the guise of BPA. He proceeds to do pretty much nothing his first year 2. Traded away Lynch which I kind of understood given his penchant for getting into trouble 3. Let Whitner walk. While not an impact player, he was a known commodity and his price was reasonable. We should have kept him till at least such a point in time that we knew for sure one of the current players is good enough to take his spot 4. Let Poz go - again, my argument is similar to that for Whitner but understand as $7 MM was a bit much 5. Did not get Zach Miller or Kevin Boss . A position of need for sure and even though they werent cheap, WE HAVE THE MONEY. What on earth are we saving it up for ? Esp with the rookie cap, it not like we need it to sign a high pick like Luck next year So, in my mind the questionable decisions are adding up and while I still am supporting the FO, a Lee trade will totally change the balance. Why give away our #1 draft picks for low compensation in the name of building a new kind of team ? Unless one of the other WRs proves themselves to be capable of being a #1, we have no business trading him away. I cannot be convinced otherwise despite his lack of production last year

Okay, you giveaway the product to me and I will look at your post Seriously, just read it, Google +1'ed it and it is well done and quite thorough. Great start. We like posters who write.

I am keeping DTV only for the Sunday ticket. They allow 'account suspension' for up to 6 months at a time but only like once a year or something. So you can save some coin. Mind you, i dont think this is a firm rule so I have gotten varying offers once I got the suspension for 8 months and twice for 6 months.

If she did, she would have never gone from here. Tells you how thin we are on the OL. We dont even have enough starter caliber players let alone backups. Much as we have loaded up on D, our OL is a disaster

Thats my problem - simply having competition does not imply we are in good shape. If anything we added a small question mark to the contingent that looked most solid on this team.

So much for the "keep your own" philosophy. I am mildly bummed. So far our big FA decisions have been: - Loss of Poz and replaced with Barnett (I will give benefit of doubt to FO and call this even) - Addition of Brad Smith (definite +ve) - Loss of Whitner and expected to replace with Wilson/Scott/Byrd/rookie (I call this net negative unless proven otherwise) We MAY be mildly positive overall but certainly haven't done much to bolster our roster with free agents (ours or other teams')

On that note, Aaron Williams better play well else the twitter mafia will be all over him. See the frequency of his twits errr.... tweets

Well, I called a third time and this rep was very friendly. Gave me $150 off ST + $15x6 off other programming. Sweet. I am sooo ready for some football !!

Called twice and even spoke to customer retention and they are not budging at all ! Wonder what the deal is (or not).

As I argued with the Brad Smith signing, if DW costs ~$3 M/yr, it will not affect our signing any OL or Boss (why hasn't he attracted more interest ?). Problem is, there arent too many FA OL out there. Carey ? a potentially injured McKinnie ?

Au contraire - he tweeted 4 hours back that "I want to come back ..." I presume he meant to say "to Buffalo". I don't think he has closed the door on that option. So, considering that the Bengals interest is likely waning, he may be more willing to come back for cheap

So which free agent did you want him to over-spend on ? And which of our own (besides Kelsay) do you think he has overpaid for ? Be specific please

Just wanted to bump this thread as I am very curious about how there is no news about teams interested in Whitner. What a fall from grace for a former 1st rounder. I am again wondering if the Bills will be willing to have him back for a reasonable price (say 4 yr, $4 million each). I realize he is not a high impact player, but perhaps we should keep him till one of the rookies can prove themselves to be a worthy replacement.

Good points. One thing I don't understand is how an O coach like Gailey cannot modify an offense to take advantage of a TE. Any weapon should theoretically add more dynamism to your offense. And given that our OL is not likely to hold blocks for too long, a receiver that can work in the short to medium range should be a very desirable option. I am not entirely content with our TE production from last year but we can chalk it up to needing said TEs to stay back for blocking. Lets see what the FO does. At least their action from last week (pursuing Clabo) indicate that they are not happy with the state of our OL. As is said, the first step to solving a problem is accepting you have one.

Fully agree. Boss + (at least one) OL will make this a very satisfactory off season and instill hope in my heart after many years. I wonder what the situation is - is he not interested in suitors or are the Bills not interested ?

Speaking of Gaither, I remember last year when he was on the trading block, several on this board were summarily bashing the FO for not doing the deal. Stats were posted about how the Ravens OL with Gaither were better at run blocking than with Oher in there. I was also one of those puzzled about why we were not making a strong push to get him. Just maybe, the FO does know better. The best moves may be the ones we dont make.

Now that his release is confirmed, let us look at the possibilities of him coming to the Bills http://www.kcby.com/sports/professional/126484183.html He is 6-0', 250 lb. Good size Age 28. Good age and possibly in his prime Was slated to make ~$4.3 million in 2011 season. Quite cheap Injuries - big concern. He has been injured quite a bit and his 2010 season was, I think, one with fewest tackles (88) for full season played Reportedly good in coverage especially TEs. We should bring him in and have the docs evaluate him. What I would be leary of is having three of our LBs (Merriman, Barnett and Tatupu) all with a history of injuries.

If he swore on your dead body, his intentions may not have been entirely noble.

You have, ofcourse, seen the time stamp on that article (?)

Wow !!! Terrific , if eventually confirmed. P.S. I think Bill in NYC needs a change of pants right about now.

And he has shown results compared to Parrish who had potential but delivered in very small batches. I prefer Smith over Parrish, with no ifs, ands or buts.