Orton's Arm

I'm also looking forward to the Bills beating Cleveland. Which, depending on the NFL scheduling committee, could happen as early as 2010.

You haven't quite convinced me, but you've expressed yourself well, and have given me something to think about.

My expectations for you were low. Very low. But not, apparently, low enough. In my wilder flights of fancy, I've sometimes entertained vague suppositions that my utter disdain for you, and contempt for your postings and opinions, might, conceivably, have been misplaced. The substance-free, puerile nature of your response helped put those doubts to rest. So thank you.

If you would like to accuse me of having made specific statistical errors, by all means do so. If you expect me to take your criticisms seriously, you'll need to point out the alleged specific errors, explain what you would have done differently, and rigorously defend your alternative methodology. But for you to make vague, unsupported, fact-free accusations about my statistical methodology leaves you wide open to the criticism that, frankly, you're just throwing stuff out there in the forlorn hope that some of it might stick. To address the other portion of your post. Back in 2005, I'd wanted Holcomb to be the Bills' starting QB over the short-term, with a high draft pick used on his replacement. In the weeks leading up to the 2006 draft, I suggested that the Bills use their 8th overall draft pick to take Jay Cutler. Please explain to me why, in your world, you think I deserve to have egg on my face for any of that! Given that Losman's near-term career plans involve the Las Vegas Locomotives, don't you think that rabid Losman supporters, such as yourself, have more than a little egg on your faces? Were I in your shoes, I'd be deeply concerned about salmonella poisoning.

No. It'll be more like, "A broken clock still tells the right time twice a day." Are you, by any chance, expecting a nuclear war between now and then? That could have the effect of wiping out the existing QB talent in the NFL, thereby making room for JP.

You also predicted that the 2009 Bills would go 19-0.

Jauron: Like DC_Tom

This post brings up another possibility for my list. Patriots' fans are likely to form different conclusions about whether specific calls were bad than are Bills fans. From the perspective of Patriots' fans, it probably seems like that team has benefited from questionable or one-sided officiating calls to a much smaller degree than it does from our perspective. But even after the effects of bias (on both sides) have been taken into account, I would still believe that the Patriots have, overall, been significantly helped by Patriots-friendly officiating. I would tend to think, however, that the explanations for that bias I'd mentioned in my original post (such as a bias in favor of big name players and/or large market teams, or political factors on the NFL rules committee) are far more likely explanations than is the possibility of bribery of officials.

If Donald Trump ends up owning the Bills, do you really think he'd keep the team in Buffalo if another city made a better offer?

You know? That's a very good idea.

Good point about Sammy Morris. The Bills drafted him in 2000, using a fifth round pick. Since then, they've used the following early picks on the RB position: 2001 - 2nd - Travis Henry 2003 - 1st - Willis McGahee 2007 - 1st - Marshawn Lynch Had the Bills kept guys like Sammy Morris and Antowain Smith, there wouldn't have been as much need to address the RB position so early and so often from 2001 - 2007. Even if Morris and Smith represented somewhat inferior RBs to some of the guys on the list, the bottom line is that we needed help elsewhere a lotmore than we needed a moderate upgrade at the RB position. A team should, if at all possible, become solid on both lines and at QB before going after shiny, early round DB's and RBs. During the time when the bulk of a team's draft value is being funneled into the lines, the QB position, and the #1 WR position, a Sammy Morris-level RB is perfectly acceptable, even as a starter. And, later, he can always become a perfectly productive change of pace/backup RB.

That's a good point. If Kraft or other Patriots' officials have created "relationships" with a few key officials, that could help explain things. Especially if those "relationships" involved the transfer of large numbers of small, unmarked bills. And there wouldn't have to be a lot of people involved, as just a few heads of officiating crews could make a huge difference in how games are called. I'm not saying I have any evidence to support this possibility--I most certainly don't--but neither do I have any evidence which would cause me to dismiss it, either. On the other hand, the latter kind of evidence is typically very hard to gather. It's generally almost impossible to prove a negative. On the whole, I'd prefer to avoid placing too much emphasis on this possibility, unless at least some evidence surfaces to support it.

I basically agree with everything you've written in the above post.

It's been fairly obvious, to me at least, that a fair number of games have been officiated in a Patriots-friendly way. Specific examples of this have already been enumerated in this thread, and there is little need to belabor the point. There are several possible reasons why this Patriots-friendly officiating has been observed: Coincidence. Suppose that each team has a 50% chance of being the beneficiary of any given bad call. If the number of truly game-changing bad calls is small, then it's possible for a team to disproportionately benefit from them due to random chance. An unweighted coin, when flipped ten times, will not necessarily come up heads exactly five times. Selective memory. Suppose that you get mugged in an alley, and $20 is stolen. The next week, one of your friends gives you $20 for a pizza or something, and says, "Listen, buddy, don't worry about paying me back." Ten years later, you're more likely to remember the mugging than you are the $20 gift from your friend. It's possible that people remember the times when officiating has unfairly benefited the Patriots, while forgetting those times when it unfairly harmed them. I very much doubt, however, that an objective analysis of officiating over the last ten years would demonstrate that the Patriots have been treated no better than other teams. It's also worth noting that selective memory works both ways: Patriots fans are likely to remember the (few) times when they've been harmed by officiating far more vividly than the more numerous times when the officials have helped them. A general penchant on officials' part to give the benefit of the doubt to big name players, larger market teams, or both. I first saw this issue brought up in the early to mid-'90s, when it was pointed out that Michael Irvin got away with a lot of pushing off of defenders which would draw penalties if done by a no-name WR. I strongly suspect this general tendency explains a considerable portion of the favorable officiating the Patriots have received. Patriots-specific political factors which have caused officials to be favorable to them. The NFL is run by committee, and committees can often be highly political. Whether the Patriots are the beneficiaries of committee-based politics largely depends on whether Robert Kraft has a disproportionate influence with the NFL rules committee.

The bolded statement is simply untrue. You might want to recall the AFC Championship Game between the Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs' quarterback was Joe Montana: the very definition of great QB play, even at that stage in his career. But Montana's supporting cast was flat-out dominated by the Bills' defense. As a result, Montana led the Chiefs to just two first-half field goals, before being knocked out of the game with a concussion around halftime. His replacement--Bono--led the Chiefs to 7 points in the second half. The Bills won that game, 30-13. Good QB play can accentuate the strengths of your offense's supporting cast, while masking some of its weaknesses. But even the best QB can only do so much to make the rest of your offense look better than it really is.

Here's another stat for this thread: the Bills' offense has allowed 16 sacks over the first four games. They're on pace to allow a whopping 64 sacks over the course of the season. And keep in mind that during the first games of the season, we still had Bell and Butler. Now that Butler's done for the year, and Bell is out at least for a while, we can expect that 64 sacks a year pace to accelerate.

Calling Evans one of the best wideouts in the game is going way too far for my taste. Evans is not capable of having a Marvin Harrison-type career--or anything even close--unless he significantly improves the quality of his play. Yes, occasionally he'll burn someone deep, especially in one-on-one coverage. Losman was at his best when throwing long bombs to Evans; which would often result in one or two big plays a game. But Evans is one-dimensional. He's short, which means you can't throw him jump balls the way you could with a Randy Moss. Maybe that's the reason why Evans disappears when the Bills are in the red zone. Unlike other short receivers--for example, Steve Smith of the Carolina Panthers--Evans isn't particularly good at using good routes and quickness to get open on intermediate routes. I view Evans as a #2, in the speed/deep threat, Alvin Harper/Peerless Price mold. Yes, Evans is a better player than either of those two. But he's a better variant of their same basic theme. Our offense needs a true #1 WR. In addition, of course, to all its other needs.

Both sides of the ball are responsible for the lousy time of possession stat. Our defense can't get off the field on third down. Not only does that hurt our time of possession and cause the defense to tire out more quickly, but it deprives the offense of some of the possessions it otherwise would have had. Not that the offense would have done anything useful with those possessions anyway.

I agree that Trent is playing scared. But our offensive line seems intended to strike fear into even the bravest of men. I'm not talking about them striking fear into opponents--that would be absurd!--but into the heart of the poor fool tasked with lining up behind center.

Allowing 472 rushing yards over the course of two games equates to allowing nearly 4,000 rushing yards over the course of a season. Imagine if the offense had as many yards rushing as the defense allowed in rushes. Our starter would have 2,000 yards rushing, and the change of pace/backup RB would have 1,776 rushing yards. I strongly suspect that would be the most dominant rushing attack in NFL history! Which, unfortunately, is how our defense is making other teams' rushing attacks look.

Holcomb was, clearly, hands-down, better than JP. Better decision-making. Better at getting rid of the ball quickly and avoiding sacks. Better at infusing life into the offense despite its many failings. At one point, he even had the Bills on the verge of breaking our losing streak to the Patriots. In Foxboro, no less. Over the course of that game, he and the offense played well enough to score a lot of points; and needed just one more score to take the lead. Late in the fourth quarter, with the Patriots' defense on its heels, Holcomb completed a key third down pass to Moulds for what should have been a first down. But then Moulds got called for a ticky-tack offensive pass interference penalty, which turned what should have been first and ten into fourth and long. Holcomb takes a lot of heat for his subsequent dump-off pass to Moulds on that fourth and long. And maybe some of that's deserved (even if his primary option on that play--a rookie named Roscoe Parrish--was double-covered.) But the thing people forget about that game is that Holcomb had played well enough for 3+ quarters for that fourth down play to matter. Can you imagine Losman playing well enough against a Bill Belichick-coached defense for a late fourth-quarter play to matter? Trust me on this one--something like that has not, will not, and could never happen. Edit: my hope, back then, was for the Bills to use Holcomb as the short-term answer at QB; while using an early draft pick on his eventual replacement. Which, in hindsight, is exactly what the Bills should have done. For you to point to my advocacy of that plan in an apparent attempt to diminish my credibility is absurd.

I was anti-Losman from the beginning, and now he's the starting QB for the Las Vegas Locomotives. Or, at least, he's in the running for the starting slot. Your support of Losman does not enhance the credibility of your criticisms against Trent. That said, Trent had a very bad game today. Yes, his offensive line was a joke, especially at tackle. Yes, his receivers let him down and couldn't get open. There was no running game. Alex van Pelt did a much worse job of play calling than he did the first two weeks. But none of that changes the fact that many of Trent's throws were often off, his reading of the other team's defense was slow, and his decisions sub-par. Maybe he'll bounce back, but the quality of play we're seeing from him right now is simply unacceptable in a starting NFL QB.

It's true that, if your goal is tight pass coverage, a good pass rush really helps a lot. Hence the fact that many of the critics you mentioned would have preferred to see that 8th overall pick be used on a defensive lineman who could help that pass rush!

The deal that the players' union negotiated with the owners requires older, veteran players, such as Runyan, to be paid a higher level of minimum salary than rookies receive. Minimum wage for a rookie is about $200K (give or take), which increases on a sliding scale to over $500K for a guy with a lot of experience. That said, I strongly disagree with the original poster's argument. This is likely Runyan's last season in the NFL; assuming some team is willing to sign him at all. The only value he'd provide to the Bills would come in the form of whatever playing time he received this season. For Runyan to get playing time, one of our (current) starting tackles would have to go down; and Chambers would likely have to go down also. Even supposing Runyan would be slightly better than Meredith over the short-term (a dubious assumption!), we still would likely get little to no short-term benefit from that fact. On the other hand, Meredith has the potential to become a good long-term addition to the line. Maybe not as a starter, necessarily, but as a guy who can provide quality depth.