Pac_Man

NOT a reassuring thought!

Tell that to the Patriots. When they held the Indy offense to 3 points last year in the playoffs, it wasn't because they had the most athletically taleneted defense in the league. Far from it. It was because players like Tedy Bruschi had learned Belichick's complex defense, and also knew quite a bit about Indy's offense. Chris Spielman was the same way when he was here. A WR who lacks football intelligence won't recognize the blitz, and won't adjust his route. That's what happened to Pittsburgh in their most recent Super Bowl. Neil O'Donnell threw two INTs, and both were because the receiver failed to adjust his route for the blitz. Had it not been for those INTs, the Cowboys might have lost. Just as they should have lost the last three times they went there.

Finally a decent pick! I'm tired of us neglecting our offensive line, and even a 4th rounder like Preston is a LOT better than ignoring the line! I'm sure McNally had a lot to say about this pick, so I'll trust his judgement. Now we need a LT, but what kind of LT can we get with a 5th - 7th round pick?

Another draft with no first-day picks used on offensive linemen. While in Buffalo, TD has found only two permanent offensive line starters via the draft. Both came on the first day. This idea he has about using good OL coaching to make up for a lack of OL talent is the same mentality the Giants had the last year they had McNally as their OL coach. You know why they fired their coaching staff at the end of the year? A lousy offensive line led to a lousy offense; and therefore a lousy team. But what do we have instead? A guy who--if he works out well--will become our #3 WR? Another guy to add to our stable of TEs? Because after all, having Neufeld, Euhus, Campbell, and that big UDFA isn't enough depth at that particular position. I mean, if you want a low-IQ guy to create matchup problems at TE based on his physical potential, we already had someone like that on the roster. Oh, and it looks like we will have a year of TH's services as a backup RB instead of getting something of value for him in a trade. Lucky us. It also looks like Clements will be leaving a year from now, with us getting zero compensation. Thinking about how good this draft might have been makes me mad!

The game is one of emotion and physical ability, but it's also one of intelligence. The smarter your players, the more complex you can make your scheme. Neil O'Donnell threw two interceptions in the Super Bowl. Both were because O'Donnell recognized the blitz, and threw the ball to where the WR should have been had he adjusted his route for the blitz. In both cases, the WR ran his normal route, allowing a Dallas defender to make the interception.

I'd like him to be smart enough to run the right route. The Patriots put a high value on intelligent players, and they've done okay with that drafting philosophy.

I can't believe we wasted a 2nd round pick on a 5'10", 170 lb WR who only got a 10 on the Wonderlic test.

Why would the Bills take a DT or a CB when their biggest need is clearly OL? We need to upgrade ourselves at C and LT.

I have zero interest in trading for Shelton. He's not good enough to be a long-term answer at LT, and $3 million a year is too much to pay a backup. The Bills would be better off trading TH and our third rounder for Arizona's second.

I'd like to see us do a deal to get Matt Jones on the team. Matt Jones has the speed to do what Lee Evans does, and the size and strength to do what Eric Moulds does. There's already a player in the NFL with that combination of size, strength, and speed. His name is Randy Moss. The difference is, that Matt Jones has never said he only plays when he feels like it. If we take Jones this year, then next year we can upgrade ourselves at possession WR while solving salary cap problems by cutting Moulds.

There will be no putting the Nate Clements talk to bed until he is either a) traded, b) re-signed, or c) leaves next year via free agency.

These comments about Pacman Jones are getting me worried. Anyone with a name like that needs to live up to it!

Let's face it, the Bills aren't going to win the Super Bowl this year with a first-year starter at QB; and that's true regardless of what we do or don't do with Clements. The chances that Nate will be with us this time next year are slim, but that's when we will need a playmaker the most. That's when Losman will (hopefully) start to come into his own, and will be able to take advantage of the talent that surrounds him to hopefully do something . . . unpleasant . . . to New England. We need to think about 2006: Nate will be gone, Losman will be seasoned and ready. Drafting a playmaker this year will help Losman in 2006 a lot more than Nate's empty locker.

If we're already using up $10.67 million on Mike Williams, that makes it even harder to pay Nate the $8 million. At some point you just run out of money. The new TV contract will be as much a curse as a blessing, because whatever extra cap space it creates will soon be eaten up by a higher price for CBs. We've already lost Winfield to a team that was desperate to have him, and we got nothing in return. Let's not let the same thing happen with Nate.

I like the idea of trading Clements, because it's a better alternative than TD pulling an Antoine Winfield. Clements is younger than Surtain, and young players typically command much higher trade interest and higher salaries than older players do. Compare what Troy Vincent got from us to what Winfield got from Minnesota. 1Billsfan is more optimistic than me about what we could get from trading Henry and Clements. I'd be happy to trade both players away in exchange for the Mike Williams pick. Our 2nd could be used on Baas (hopefully). We'd take a LT in the 3rd to replace Teague a year from now. What about our secondary? Vincent could be moved back to CB to replace Clements, while Rashad Baker could take his place as FS. We'd use the 4th round pick on a CB who could hopefully grow into a starting role. Mike Williams would replace Moulds starting in 2006. Between getting rid of Moulds and trading away Clements, we should have the salary cap space to re-sign whichever of our other players deserve extensions. We'd have gotten younger and better at possession WR. We'd have set the stage for possibly having an elite offensive line.

Flutie's QB rating for 1999--the year his SB chance "was just taken from [him] without reason or rhyme"--was 75.1. Drew's QB rating for the 2004 season was 76.6. As passers, both players were about equally inept. Flutie could run well, but let's face it. When he was under center, it was the defense winning the games, with Flutie giving himself credit for playing "well enough to win."

Moving MW to LT would be a mistake. I mean, MW's strength is run blocking, and his weakness is he's not good at dealing with the speed rushers. DEs get smaller and quicker on the left side, where pass protection becomes more important. Besides that, even if we needed a right tackle, Kenyatta Walker is not the answer.

I don't like the idea of going for a TE right now, unless it's a real playmaker like Matt Jones. But I'd like to see what we have in Euhus before investing more picks in that position. The idea behind taking a WR is to get younger, cheaper, and better at our #1 possession WR spot. Eric Moulds can still play, but his cap number is too big, he's not as fast as he was, he drops too many passes, and quite frankly the team might be better off if he could be replaced with a player like Mike Williams. With a new QB you want new WRs, so they can develop chemistry together over the years.

Uh, their QBs right now consist of A.J. Feely and some other guy who's going to be competing with Feely for the starting position. How could they have bigger needs than at QB?

I read that Baas had an extremely high score on the Wonderlic test. The Patriots place strong emphasis on intelligence, and they've done okay.

I don't see Shelton as a long-term answer at LT. You don't want to pay a guy $3 million a year to be a backup; and you don't want to trade for a guy whom you're trying to replace. My vote would be to package Henry and Clements to a team like Arizona for their first and maybe something more (like a third). We then trade the picks from Arizona to someone else to move up a few spots in the first, so we can take Mike Williams.

I like the way TD is handling this. Shelton doesn't seem to have all that much value, or there'd be teams beating down Green's door trying to trade for him. So instead of doing a player-for-player deal for a $3 million a year LT you'd like to put on the bench, TD is doing the right thing by giving himself options. Dennis Green may have fallen in love with Travis. If he has, we should squeeze everything we can out of him.

I could easily see Mike Williams or Matt Jones taking the field as a Buffalo Bill this fall. That would be awesome! Trading Clements (and if necessary Henry) away to get an eventual replacement to Moulds--like Mike Williams--would make good sense. With his second round pick, TD should select Baas if available. It's about time we upgraded at center. The third round pick can go to LT to replace Teague in a year.

Mike Vick gave his longtime girlfriend herpes by having unprotected sex with her. Actually, she asked him to use protection, and after a while he agreed; but in the meantime some contact had already been made. "Ron Mexico" was the alias Vick used when going to the clinic to see if he had herpes. He knew he had herpes at the time he got his girlfriend infected. Now that they're broken up she's suing him.

Those who talk about how the U.S. has less respect for human rights than other Western nations forget about France. I know several French people, and they've told me that country places zero emphasis on ethics. Zero. Generally speaking, attitudes like that don't appear overnight. In any case, look at France's human rights record over the years: - In the French and Indian War (1700s) France allied with Native American nations against the British. France made no effort to stop its allies--various Native American tribes--from butchering the British settlers in the 13 colonies. - In the period 1919 - 1933, France exploited Germany economically; even at times when the Germans were close to starving to death. - France's exploitation of the Germans was also sexual, as France made little or no effort to prevent its soldiers from raping the German women in French-occupied Rhineland. - In the 1930s, France pledged itself to defend the worst mass murdering government in human history--the Soviet government--from any kind of invasion. - After WWII, France engaged in various forms of torture and other human rights violations in its colonies. While no nation has a perfectly clean record, France's is appalling. I have to think that its lack of emphasis on ethics has a lot to do with that. Moreover, its record has gotten worse as the nation as become more secular. Contrast France's treatment of the Russian prisoners of war under Napoleon with its behavior in the Rhineland over a century later. In the first case, France made an effort to feed the POWs; even at times when its own soldiers were not completely fed.