MRM33064

Perhaps a little review of the Wade Phillips/Ralph Wilson relationship is in order. Wade's parting with Uncle Ralph was slightly less than amicable.

Also FWIW, I'm not sure this board was filled with a bunch of "Brohm lovers" ... more like folks wanted to give the kid (or for that matter any other warm body who just might show more upside than Fitz) a look.

One might take a quick glance at the stat sheets and conclude that this particular message had been delivered to Maybin fairly consistently throughout the season. The "tenuous" knock on Donte; however, is pretty dramatic for CoachSpeak®. That sounds more like "don't let the door hit ya on the way out" than typical negotiation posturing.

The fact that the question even supports a thread actually highlights the issue. Evans is a nice player, he seems like a polite, soft-spoken guy (which buys him a lot of extra space in Bills fan land), he would start on most teams ... but he is not a game changer. Was he missed? Sure, he's missed out there - particularly on this team. Would his presence have had a major impact on the result? How often has it?

Bills Nation eagerly awaits the potential return of a meaningless 4th quarter tackle followed by an ill-timed, highly emotionally charged, overblown celebration dance.

Kay Stephenson/Hank Bullough 1985 Bills, courtesy http://www.jt-sw.com/football/. Perhaps a tad more potential on that roster? S Martin Bayless RB Greg Bell DB Rodney Bellinger WR Mitchell Brookins WR Chris Burkett DB Derrick Burroughs WR Jerry Butler T Greg Christy RB Joe Cribbs T Justin Cross G Joe DeLamielleure T/G Joe Devlin LB Anthony Dickerson QB Vince Ferragamo LB Guy Frazier DB Steve Freeman LB Hal Garner C Will Grant LB Jim Haslett G/C Dale Hellestrae DB Rod Hill RB Anthony Hutchison DB Lawrence Johnson T/DE Ken Jones P John Kidd LB Larry Kubin LB Steve Maidlow LB Eugene Marve QB Bruce Mathison DE Sean McNanie TE Pete Metzelaars RB Booker Moore TE Ulysses Norris K Scott Norwood DB Jim Perryman DE Dean Prater FB Mike Pruitt TE Eason Ramson WR Andre Reed QB Frank Reich WR Eric Richardson G Jim Ritcher DB Charles Romes LB Lucius Sanford NT Fred Smerlas DE Bruce Smith NT/DE/DT Don Smith RB Anthony Steels LB Darryl Talley WR Jimmy Teal G/C Mark Traynowicz C/G Tim Vogler DE/NT Ben Williams RB Van Williams DB Don Wilson LB Eric Wilson

Right now it looks like Rosemary's baby. Ralph will open his wallet for players (frequently even overpaying for the wrong ones), but for whatever reason does not believe in investing in top front office talent. No offense to Evans, but I wish it were possible to dump the $9mm or so we pay him and instead invest it in the front office. Meanwhile, the Patriots* continue to reload.

It's a bit like staring at a gaping, sucking chest wound and debating which bandage to try: Band-Aid or Curad.

Cheer up. Moves are underway. We've already got Chris Kelsay locked down - 31 other GMs just had to cross him off their wish lists. (?!)

"I respect _______ so much that I'd gladly take a pay cut to play for him." That is a phrase we haven't heard in Buffalo for many moons. Quite the opposite - I fear that any talented free agent won't even give us a thought without getting a ridiculously overpriced deal. Modrak, Guy, and the rest of the "braintrust" has put us into a hole so deep, that it's going to take some dramatic stroke of good luck to turn around this rickety broken-down ship.

Perhaps a little fun? ------------- Edwards is Chan’s star Suddenly, “exit stage left” Ralph behind curtain Jags snag Trentative Sims-Walker books vacation Jack Del BrainFreezo Johnson, Losman, Trent Bills love West Coast gunslingers Brady? Guy said “who?” Last play of the game Drops back! … Looks! … runs out of bounds Our Trent, we’ll miss ya.

Whatever happens with Trent from this point forward is largely irrelevant, because it was painfully clear he wasn't going to succeed here. The only question in my mind is whether we could've scraped some kind of consideration for him from one of the teams lower down on the waiver priority list. However, there was also going to be an intangible cost of having Trent still around, looming as a theoretical - if not realistic - "option" if (or, when) Fitz and Brohm tank. That kind of call is just a straight up judgment call best made by the GM ... and they obviously felt it wasn't worth it. PS: I'm giving Buddy the benefit of the doubt by assuming Uncle Ralph wasn't the primary driver behind this. This kind of move - how it went down, etc. - does have some Ralph-ish fingerprints on it.

Interesting - and possibly illuminating - contrast. Ralph WILL pay for players (arguably overpay for players), yet when it comes to the front office - the staff that is supposed to identify/pick players - the budget experiences rapid shrinkage. Assuming the Bills are going to have some quality draft picks next season, I wonder if we'd be better off dropping/trading one of these overpaid players and using any freed up funds toward recruiting some of the best scouts, talent evaluators money can buy. Put some serious capital behind the process that could impact the team's future for the next 10 years.

As of 7:45am Eastern Time, one of the websites that allegedly reports betting activity (from online sportsbooks)is showing the Bills/Patriots game is: (a) the most heavily wagered on the board; and (b) 82% of the bets are on the Patriots. That, coupled with all the newspaper predictions and the ESPN blowhards all looking at this like a "why bother to play it" game ... maybe today is the Bills day. I couldn't get myself to bet on the Bills, but if you're inclined to do such things today might not be a bad day to snag them with +14.5 or more.

"KAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHN"* (Apologies to James T. Kirk)

Next week, and the Patriots match-up after that. Beat the Patriots. Once. Please. It'd be all the sweeter knowing how badly it would hurt them to lose to this heinously bad Bills team. Grab Jim Zorn and run some of that 70s Seattle Seahawks "throw-any-kind-of-crazy-sh*t-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks" offense. Bring the disco ball, the rhinestones, crank up some BeeGees and let's see that double-reverse, flea-flicker, statue-of-liberty in action.

Lee Evans sounds like nice, soft-spoken guy during his press interviews. With his numbers, his contract, his lack of any overt leadership characteristics (at least publicly) ... good grief. The spotlight could be a lot hotter than the one on Marshawn. I realize he can't throw it to himself, and he was JP's guy, and so forth ... but it's kind of interesting how if you're perceived as a nice guy in Buffalo the fans will give you (literally) millions of dollars worth of room.

The personnel decisions have just been mind-numbingly bad. We're seeing on the field the direct result of poor draft selections coupled with poor cash management (with respect to team performance that is, not with respect to the team's financial performance). "For whatever reason" - a key phrase now in Bills land - Ralph has almost always been willing to stroke a big check for a player, but completely against paying any kind of premium - arguably even market value, let alone a premium - for top front office talent. He'll overpay for Dockery (and several mediocre free agents like him), commit player-related mistakes that cost literally millions of dollars and impact the cap for years, but he absolutely refuses to eat a single year of Jauron's payroll to get him out of here. Somewhere along the line in his 10,000 years or whatnot of non-football business, Ralph convinced himself that management is fungible. It's not hard to envision Ralph looking at the entire front office staff as overhead, simultaneously writing a $3mm check to Josh Reed while scrutinizing his spreadsheet wondering how many $100K/year college scouts he can cut to save a few bucks.

Have any of the more well-known, generally respected female NFL reporters commented? I'd think their opinions would be more than relevant on this.

Well, there may be some upside to a lockout. Trent may finally be replaced .... Somewhere, Dan Manucci is already licking his chops, working on his timing with Reggie Bynum.

Hamdan 2.0

FWIW, one of the well-respected analyzers of this stuff (Brian Burke, www.advancednflstats.com) just tweeted the following: "Re: BUF intent. Sfty-The numbers say all 3 options-punt, go4it, and sfty all about 0.03 WP. Data is very thin there." Basically, as was so ingeniously pointed out earlier, with Trent Edwards at the helm it was indeed the Kobayashi Maru.

It's a good watch, no question ... and if you call up central casting looking for a guy to play GM, Buddy certainly fits the part. About as "straight talk" as you're going to get from an NFL front office. I think most folks are going to agree with the vast majority of what he said. That said, let's hope he's got a laser eye for QBs.

Come on folks, Trent needs a chance to "look at the film" because, after all, "it's hard to win in the NFL" <cringe> (Query: When he says "the film", is he talking about Groundhog Day?)

Addendum: Could [iNSERT NAME HERE*] be worse? * Fitz, Brohm, Howard Simon, The Earl of Bud, my mother-in-law, etc. Trent has mysterious flashes of marginal competence, which seem to occur when someone tells him to take 3 steps and just chuck it to a spot on the field. The second he starts with his reads, the "bad things will happen soon" clock starts ticking.