Orton's Arm

He already did. He stated that the masses think the team will be bad, and that the masses are stupid and generally wrong. Ergo, the team will be good! Let's see where else that logic can get us. The masses think it will be cold in the winter and warm in the summer. The masses are stupid and generally wrong. Ergo, I should open my pool in the middle of January, and have my snow blower ready to go come July! On a somewhat more serious note, he later provided better, more well thought-out reasons why this team might do better than most fans expect. And, in fairness to both sides of this question, there are a lot of unknowns here: 1) How well will the offensive line gel over the course of the season? 2) Will we get the good Trent or the bad Trent? 3) How well will Alex van Pelt do as an offensive coordinator? (Or, technically, as the "passing game coordinator"?) 4) How much of a problem is it that we have a passing game coordinator and a running game coordinator, but no offensive coordinator or quarterback coach? 5) How quickly can rookies such as Maybin, Byrd, and Levitre adapt to the pro game, and begin making solid contributions? 6) Will our opponents be as good as they appear to be on paper? 7) How much time does Bell need to recover from his back injury, and how well will he play once he does so? Without knowing the answers to these questions, it's easy to imagine the team doing as well as 7-9, or as poorly as 2-14.

His post is better thought-out than I would have anticipated, though I suspect that his childish insults directed against Lori will make it less likely that people will take it, and for that matter him, all that seriously. But, as best I can tell, his logic is as follows: Step 1: NFL teams collectively show zero interest in Losman. Step 2: Losman responds by abandoning any thoughts about playing professional football again. He starts thinking in terms of his life after football. Step 3: The Las Vegas Locomotives call Losman, and express their interest. Step 4: Losman decides to play for the Locomotives. If this is, indeed, the argument he's advancing, it seems fairly plausible. He just needs to learn to present his points in ways that are less likely to create negative emotional responses.

Kudos for owning up to having made a mistake.

How is this a solid defense, you ask? Hmm . . . this is a solid defense because . . . it's soft against the run?

I disagree about Walker being an above-average RT. To be considered a starting-quality run blocker, you have to win 80% or more of your individual battles. Last season as a RT, Walker won slightly less often than that; indicating he was below the bare minimum you'd expect for a starter in that area. And it would be hard to argue that Walker was anything more than decent as a pass protector. Overall, I consider him a waste of Ralph's money, and I'm happy to see him go.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but your earlier argument had been that Losman didn't sign with any other NFL teams because he was no longer interested in football. Lori pointed out that he'd signed with the Las Vegas Locomotives, thereby indicating that he was still interested in being a professional football player. If Losman is still interested in playing football professionally, why isn't he on an NFL team? Two explanations come to mind: 1) No NFL teams wanted him, even as a backup, or 2) He would prefer to be the starter for a UFL team than a backup on an NFL team. (That said, there is no guarantee that he'll be able to keep Tim Rattay out of the starter's position for the Las Vegas Locomotives.) Given the fact that he didn't receive any tryouts for NFL teams, my suspicion is that the first option is correct. Losman's deal with the Las Vegas Locomotives didn't materialize until well after most NFL free agents had already been signed. Supposing that, for whatever reason, the Locomotives would have been his first choice, he still should have been exploring his other options until the Locomotives deal was finalized. His failure to do so--at least with respect to NFL teams--would seem to indicate that those teams weren't interested in him.

Good call!

I like this move. There was no way Langston Walker was going to be the long-term solution at LT. Or even RT, for that matter. By getting rid of him now, we get to see whether Bell can fill the LT role. If he can, great. And if not, then we'll know that LT is a serious need, come the 2010 draft. If, on the other hand, we'd retained Walker while keeping Bell on the bench, then, come the 2010 draft, the Bills would have to guess about how well Bell's career might work out. Guessing incorrectly could lead either to using a high pick on a LT they didn't need, or it could lead to failing to address the LT position when it was one of dire need. I've also read that releasing Walker hurts our chances of beating the Pats. But I'd disagree. We're not going to win that game, either with Walker or without him. Getting Bell in there as quickly as possible will give us a better chance to win games in future weeks.

Are you certain the KISS approach was being employed? In the weeks leading up to Schonert's firing, do you think the Bills were relentlessly and repeatedly practicing a few, simple, bread and butter plays, the way the 49ers once relentlessly practiced the quick slant to Jerry Rice?

My preference is to place greater emphasis on a player's potential to achieve greatness, than on whether he fills the biggest possible immediate need. Drafting for need is a strategy that got us Whitner and McCargo. Had we been less focused on the most "urgent" or "severest" of our needs, we could have drafted Cutler and Mangold with those two picks instead. If you have a mediocre/serviceable player at position A, and nobody at position B, you don't have to feel forced into drafting for position B. If you have a chance to get a significantly better football player by going for position A, then do that! You can always get a mediocre/serviceable player to fill position B in free agency. And even if you have to wait a year to fill position B with someone who's even halfway decent, it's still a good idea in the long run to draft for whichever position gives you the chance to take the better football player.

Unfortunately, there's a tendency for bad content to drive out good. Or, in this case, for obnoxious or disrespectful people to drive away the ones with whom you wanted to interact. While I'm not familiar with the details of the situation John has described, I don't see any particular value in keeping around the kind of poster who'd drive him away.

A few years back, there was some debate on these boards as to whether the Bills' starter should be JP, Nall, or Holcomb. Maybe the game between Las Vegas and Florida can help settle the question of whether Losman or Nall is better. Assuming, of course, that Losman is able to keep Rattay from wresting control of the starting position.

Very solid post!

A totally different team, you say? Well, that could be either good or bad. Let's throw ideas out there, and see where our guts tell us the chips will fall . . . 1) The team will look "totally different" once the regular season begins 2) The season begins against the Patriots 3) Bill Belichick has had all off-season to prepare . . . The more I think about it, the more ominous "totally different" sounds.

Vividly. I hated that decision! The passage of time has only reinforced my opinion that they should have stayed where they were while drafting Cutler, or they should have traded down to take Mangold. Or they could have taken both players. Mangold wasn't taken until slightly after McCargo was picked up. So it would have been Cutler instead of Whitner, and Mangold instead of McCargo. . . .

Can you prove that that last statement is true? If not, then the only way to truly decide its truth is acquire all the DBs in the world, and to see if they do or don't make up for those two or three pass rushers. And I know of a head coach determined to do exactly that!

Last season, we didn't have an interior line, but our tackles were decent. This season should be the opposite. The lack of an offensive line will condemn an otherwise mildly promising offensive unit to mediocrity at best. If the Bills can add a quality LT in the offseason (ideally with their first round draft pick), then next year's squad could be a lot better.

Cutting this guy is the absolute last thing this front office should do. If he goes, the safety position suddenly becomes one of "need." Which means that the front office would throw a top-10 pick at it, even if the pick is a reach, and even if it means denying the lines of the talent they absolutely must have.

Jack Straw did not assert that DJ was out-coaching Belichick. He simply suggested that Jauron might have decided to give Belichick as little information as possible, about whatever it is Jauron is preparing for opening day. Obviously, the Patriots will win that opening day game, and it's equally obvious the Bills will be out-coached. But it would be nice to see a closer game than usual.

I don't really see this situation as being reduceable to pro or anti positions. Has Whitner come close to justifying his #8 overall draft position? No. Is he still a good football player? Yes. Should we, as Bills fans, hope that he plays well for as long as he's here? Again, yes. (But the fact that his bark is worse than his bite gets a little annoying after a while though.)

They could probably get away with a little of that, at least up to a point. But with the way the front office makes decisions collectively, odds are that most of the people who were saying that was a good decision back then are still with us today. So cutting Kelsay would involve a little egg on some people's faces--and not just the faces of people no longer with the Bills. However, with Kelsay getting older and Bryan and Ellis coming into their own, it won't be long before the level of play of the latter two guys reaches or exceeds Kelsay's level of play. If the Bills got rid of Bryan or Ellis in order to keep Kelsay, Ralph Wilson will ask, "Why am I paying money hand over fist for Kelsay, when I could get the same or better level of play from younger guys who play for peanuts?" (Peanuts here being a completely relative term.) So it's a choice between getting a little egg on one's face now (by cutting Kelsay), or getting a little more egg on one's face later (by keeping him). A front office type might be tempted to try to avoid that dilemma by keeping Kelsay now, and replacing him with a high draft pick in a year or two. There are, however, several problems with that plan: - Those high draft picks will be needed at other positions, such as LT - Other Bills DEs are getting on in years. Within the next three years or so, we will probably need to find replacements for Kelsay, Schobel, and Denny. Do we really expect to find three guys that will be that much better than Bryan and Ellis? If not, we should keep them both while getting rid of Kelsay. That would leave us with just two aging DEs to be replaced in future offseasons.

You know, I was thinking the same thing. Kelsay is overpaid, he's getting on in years (making him a short-term solution), and his play is sub-par. We have guys like Bryan and Ellis, both of whom seem to have the potential to be solid role players/contributors for many years to come. It's not obvious to me that one or the other of those promising young players should be kicked off the roster in order to save space for an overpaid, aging veteran. The problem is that Kelsay's contract--which he'd signed a few years ago--contained a high proportion of guaranteed money. Cutting him at this point would be tantamount to admitting that the front office's earlier decision to pay him all that guaranteed money may have been a mistake. From a selfish standpoint, individual people in the front office may feel motivated to pretend that the Kelsay extension was a good idea all along. And the way you do that is by keeping him here until the end (or very near the end) of his current deal.

Yes, Losman was injured in his rookie year; a fact which doubtless slowed his development. But . . . he had practice time both before the injury occurred, and more practice time after he'd healed. And in between those two times, he still had the opportunity to do film study and to take mental reps in practice. His rookie year wasn't as good a learning opportunity as it would have been without the injury. But it was still a very solid learning opportunity. You'll recall that in 2007, Trent was a rookie; and that Losman entered the season as the starter. Are you trying to suggest that the Bills' coaching staff deliberately changed their offense to make it better-suited to their rookie backup quarterback, and less well-suited to their veteran starter? While that's certainly one possibility, I don't view it as being all that likely. It's true that the offense probably became more complex, on the theory that Losman should have a better mental grasp of it in his second year in that offense than in the first. And it clearly de-emphasized long bombs to Evans as compared to 2006. But there, it was a case of defenses double covering Evans to take away the one real threat Losman posed. Trent was obviously better-suited to the 2007 offense than Losman turned out to be. But how much opportunity did the coaching staff really have to make the 2007 offense more Losman-friendly? They could have simplified it to deal with his mental limitations. And they could have emphasized roll outs and QB runs more than they did, because Losman seems to do better on broken plays than he does as a pocket passer. The long bombs to Evans had been taken away by other teams' defenses, so it's not like the coaching staff had all that much opportunity there. And even with the other stuff, non-pocket passer quarterbacks who try to get by on roll outs and running plays may find a little success here and there, but overall tend to be easy to contain. Especially when they merely have Losman-type speed, as opposed to, say, Michael Vick-type speed. Please don't mention Steve Young here; as he was a very gifted pocket passer who, in addition, had good running ability. The Bills' coaching staff understood that if Losman was going to experience long-term career success, he had to become a good pocket passer. So they put him in a situation where he had to live or die by his pocket passing ability. That was the right decision. The alternative--to try to do other stuff to mask his weakness as a pocket passer--would simply have postponed the inevitable recognition of his failure as a quarterback.

Despite what I believe to have been a good draft this past April, the Bills are still several years away from fielding a good team. Let's look at the starting talent on-hand already. I've rated each guy as a "yes" type player (meaning we can count on him for good play for the next several years, a "maybe" player (meaning we may or may not be able to count on him) or a "no" player (a guy who due to age, contract issues, or quality of play, will need to be replaced). Offense QB - Trent Edwards. Rating: Maybe. We'll learn more about him this upcoming season RB - Lynch. Rating: Maybe. He's playing at a high level now, but durability could become an issue over the next few years. LT: Langston Walker. Rating: No. There's no way that guy is the long-term answer at LT. However, we have a "maybe" player at backup LT, in the form of Bell. LG: Levitre. Rating: Maybe C: Hangartner. Rating: Maybe RG: Wood. Rating: Yes RT: Butler. Rating: No. Butler isn't good enough to be a solid, long-term solution at RT WR: Lee Evans. Rating: Yes WR: Terrell Owens. Rating: No (he's gone after the season). But we have Steve Johnson and James Hardy as backup #2 receivers; both of whom are "Maybe" players. Slot WR: Josh Reed. Rating: Maybe. The problem here is that Reed was drafted in 2002; and this chart is about how well guys are likely to play two or three years from now. TE: Nelson. Rating: Maybe Totals Yes: 2 Maybe: 7 No: 2 Defense DE: Maybin. Rating: maybe DE: Ellis. Rating: maybe DT Stroud. Rating: maybe. The problem here is that it's not clear how much longer Stroud can play at a high level. DT: McCargo. Rating: Maybe. Maybe this will be McCargo's breakout year OLB: Mitchell. Rating: No. He's a hot and cold player right now. In a few years' time, the cold periods are likely to become longer and more frequent. OLB: Keith Ellison. Rating: No. ILB: Poz. Rating: Yes. SS: Donte Whitner. Rating: Yes. While Whitner hasn't come close to living up to his #8 overall draft position, he should be able to play SS at a solid level. FS: Byrd. Rating: Maybe. CB: McGee. Rating: Maybe. McGee is entering the last year of his contract, and the Bills aren't exactly known for a tendency to retain their best CBs. Another "maybe" player, such as Corner, could step in if needed. CB: McKelvin. Rating: yes. (At least until his first contract expires.) Totals Yes: 3 Maybe: 6 No: 2 Aggregate Totals: Yes: 5 Maybe: 13 No: 4 Under a best-case scenario, each of those 13 "maybe" players will turn out well, which would probably allow the Bills to field a very good team just one year from now. Unfortunately, that best-case scenario requires an almost Senator-like level of optimism. A more realistic scenario would involve six or seven of the maybe players turning out well, with the other six or seven needing to be replaced. Adding in the four no players, you're looking at ten or eleven holes that need to be filled. Filling those holes via free agency is problematic, in the sense that it's very rare for a good player to be allowed to hit free agency in the prime of his career. Typically, free agency will get you second-rate players, or else aging veterans nearing the ends of their careers. Usually, free agency is more likely to produce a Band-Aid solution (Robert Royal, Trey Teague, Melvin Fowler, etc.) than a permanent solution. So the main burden of filling those ten or eleven holes is going to be in the draft. Let's assume that a first round pick gives you a 100% chance of filling a hole, a 2nd round pick is a 50% chance, a third round pick is a 25% chance, and the remaining picks taper off from there. You'd be looking at filling about two holes a year; which would imply roughly a five year rebuilding project. The problem is that by the end of those five years, some of the players you'd been counting on earlier in the analysis will start to reach the ends of their careers. That would create more holes to fill, and would delay the rebuilding project even longer. Clearly, the rebuilding period needs to be shortened to just two or (more likely) three years. How can that be effected? 1. Don't let your own success stories leave via free agency in the primes of their careers. Extending McGee would be a good start. 2. Each year, sign a good free agent in the prime of his career. (This may be difficult, due to availability and budgetary constraints.) 3. Decide which positions are critical, and which are merely important. Be content with solid but unspectacular play at the latter category of positions. The Bills shouldn't use high draft picks on DBs for the next several years, for example, because the guys we have on the roster already should be able to hold their own. And because DBs are less critical than some other positions. Doing those three things should accelerate the rebuilding process enough to lead to a relatively complete team in about three years time; and perhaps a very good team in just two years. Of course, that hypothetical success is contingent on a well-run front office, a good coaching staff, and an owner willing to support the first two by opening his wallet.

And just who was it who selected Fewell and Schonert in the first place? One of the single most important responsibilities of a head coach is to choose good coordinators and assistant coaches.