Orton's Arm

You'll recollect that the same offense was in place for Losman's first two years in the league. And if I recall correctly, Wyche was his QB coach for both of them. Losman's initial failures came despite this continuity. Going into his third year--2006--he did indeed have to learn a new offensive system from scratch. But supposedly, 2006 was his one "good" year. In reality, the 2006 offense was dramatically simplified to compensate for Losman's (severe) mental limitations. And it was "opened up"--i.e., it heavily featured long bombs to Evans--to capitalize on one of the very few things Losman did well. But it's worthwhile here to note that Losman's best year came immediately after a change in the offensive coaching staff and philosophy. By 2007, defenses had learned that if you want to stop Losman, you double cover Evans and dare Losman to beat you with his short game. The change in defenses--rather than any dramatic change in offensive terminology or philosophy--is why Losman's production on a per-play basis declined so dramatically from 2006 to 2007. Losman was most successful immediately after dramatic changes in the offensive system and coaching philosophy (2006). He was less successful during periods of comparatively greater continuity (2005 and 2007). At least based on the empirical data, it would appear that Losman's career was actually harmed by offensive continuity. On the surface, that conclusion might appear nonsensical. However, it's worth bearing in mind that continuity works both ways. It gives the offense the chance to hone itself, and to play progressively better year after year. But in the process, the offense becomes more of a known quantity. Presumably, defenses get progressively better at preparing for a given offense each time they encounter it. If your offense's execution is good enough, that increase in the quality of defensive play will fail to balance out the offense's better play. But only if your execution is good enough! If you were to put Losman in the exact same offense for ten years straight, would he be a lot better in year five or seven than he'd been in year one or two? Or would he continue to make the same, basic-level mistakes year after year, while defenses got progressively better at defending against that particular offense? To the extent that the latter is true, continuity can not help, and would probably harm, Losman's performance.

At least for part of his career, JP had Sam Wyche as his position coach. I'd argue that while Wyche was on board, the quality of the position coaching Losman received significantly exceeded the quality of the Bills' overall coaching.

A good post overall, but I'd like to comment in particular on the bolded portion. The fact that a first round pick like Losman wasn't given a second chance is remarkable, as you point out. If I was forced to speculate about the causes of that, I'd say some of it's because of his bad attitude after being benched, some is because of his overall poor play; and some is because quarterbacks with loads of physical talent but no brains are no longer as popular as they were ten or fifteen years ago. The move away from pocket passers, which had happened back when the Cade McNown and Akili Smith-type players were drafted in the first place, may now be at an end. I think that a lot of general managers have come to realize that de-emphasizing pocket passing ability was a fad that led to a lot of busts. The fact that a lot of people have learned from this mistake is, arguably, a key reason why there is no longer room in the NFL for Losman.

It's true you don't need a Hall of Fame QB to win a Super Bowl. But it really helps. Look at the groups of players who have won multiple Super Bowls: '70s: Steelers: Terry Bradshaw. Mediocre stats during the regular season, but Hall of Fame play during the postseason. '80s: 49ers: Joe Montana. Best QB ever. '90s: Cowboys. Troy Aikman. Not at the same level as Montana, but a Hall of Fame QB nonetheless. '90s: Broncos. John Elway. One of the best QBs ever. 2000s: Patriots. Tom Brady--a surefire Hall of Fame QB. 2000s: Steelers. Ben Roethlisburger--a very good QB. If you want to win multiple Super Bowls, history indicates that you need a top tier QB. Even the teams that made it to the Super Bowl multiple times with the same core group of players--such as the Broncos of the '80s or the Bills of the '90s--tended to have very good quarterbacks. You could point out that the goal doesn't have to be to win multiple Super Bowls--just one would be enough. But if you devise a plan that could win you multiple Super Bowls, and something goes a little wrong, maybe you'll still come away with at least one Super Bowl win. If on the other hand your plan will win you just one Super Bowl even if everything goes according to plan, you're not leaving yourself any leeway in case you get a few bad breaks.

The Bills have someone else's backup as their center, a pair of rookies at guard, and mediocre players playing out of position at the tackle spots. So there's obviously plenty of room for criticism. Long-term, I feel that Levitre and Wood will go on to have very solid careers; and that Hangartner will be a good player as well. However, it will probably be necessary to find replacements to our offensive tackles, starting with our LT.

That is substantially different from what I actually contended. I'm not familiar with the posters you've mentioned; so I won't attempt to compare Mr. Weo to them. All I can say is that the posts I've read from Mr. Weo sounded like they're from someone who hopes for the best for the Bills, but realizes those hopes may not come to fruition over the short term.

I've seen Mr. Weo defend the Patriots against inaccurate or unsubstantiated accusations; just as he would disagree with inaccurate posts that had nothing to do with the Patriots or the Bills. I haven't seen him defend the Patriots or their players against legitimate accusations. If you have, please point me to those posts. He almost certainly believes the Patriots are currently a better-run franchise than the Bills. The win/loss record bears out that belief. Unlike the Senator, Mr. Weo does not expect the Bills to suddenly jump from three consecutive years of 7-9 to 19-0. But the fact that the Senator is more optimistic than Mr. Weo does not make him more of a fan. A lot of longtime Bills fans have had some . . . less than completely positive experiences with this franchise. That kind of experience tends to lead to more moderated expectations. But there's a huge difference between expecting negative things for one's team over the near term, and hoping for them. If you can show me a post in which Mr. Weo has hoped for bad things for the Bills, I'll stand corrected. Frankly, I don't think such posts exist.

The assertion that Mr. Weo is a Pats fan is a wildly inaccurate statement, and is supported by nothing he has written. At some point, I get tired of hearing baseless, fact-free accusations repeated over and over again. And I come to the realization that the people making those accusations don't actually care about their veracity; only about whether they are believed. Sometimes people tell lies in order to discredit those with whom they disagree. This is one of those cases.

I'm not familiar with some of the posters you've mentioned; as I haven't followed these forums all that closely lately. But I consider Mr. Weo to be someone who's good at analytic thinking; and who makes solid contributions to this forum. Some people (not necessarily you) have accused him of being a Pats fan. That is, of course, a bald-faced lie. There's a lot of emotion surrounding the Pats franchise. Partly because of us being tired of going 0-2 against them every year, partly because of the cheating, partly because of Kraft's presence on the rules committee/the way the refs always favor them, and partly because a lot of us are tired of the way the media kisses their collective . . . hind areas. But Mr. Weo clearly understands that the presence of that emotion does not justify the acceptance of inaccurate statements. If for example someone announces that Tom Brady is gay, and does not provide a single shred of evidence, Mr. Weo will point out that the claim is baseless. That does not make him a Pats fan; any more than pointing out that Reagan didn't create the AIDS virus would imply that that person is a Reagan supporter. The fact of the matter is that the Patriots are run by people who are both smart and sleazy. The Bills are run by people who are less smart and less sleazy. One would hope that the Bills would learn from the smart things the Patriots have done, without learning from the sleazy things they've done. But a person who holds onto too much emotion with respect to the Patriots will find it very difficult to learn from their successes. Which is why you have to set the emotion aside for a while, objectively learn from everything they've done, and then use that learning as a tool with which to destroy them. Or at least to win a few games against them.

Walker seems like a much better fit at RT than at LT. I'm not 100% sold on Bell, and I think (or at least hope) that the Bills address the position of LT very early in next year's draft.

Losman had the worse career, but Harrington was taken a lot higher. The latter factor outweighs the former, making Harrington the bigger bust.

I admit to having mixed feelings about whether to root for JP. He seems like a nice enough guy; though not a very good quarterback. And I do feel bad for him. Losman's been through a lot, and for his sake I hope he bounces back. On the other hand, I have a real problem with many of Losman's supporters. If humility represents one end of the spectrum, and calling someone an idiot for disagreeing with you represents the other, quite a few Losman fans fall firmly toward that latter end of the spectrum. Yes, they've been humiliated, and have had their hearts broken. They deserved this punishment for their arrogance. And they deserve more. Let their punishment continue until they learn humility. However, I'm not going to sit here and wish away a young man's future in hopes that doing so will teach a lesson to a few arrogant, immature posters on a message board. Frankly, some of the people on these boards may be incapable of learning maturity and humility. Or, if they are capable, it will take far more than the failure of a particular football player to drive home that life lesson. Let Losman succeed as a starting quarterback for a UFL team. And let the incivility and arrogance of the worst of his supporters be punished in some other way.

There is no correlation between how well someone does on an interview, and how well that person does upon subsequently being hired. On the other hand, those who are unqualified for positions tend not to get interviews. And those who bomb interviews badly enough tend not to get hired. So it's possible that interviews can be used to weed out some bad candidates, despite the aforementioned datum. On the other hand, there's a solid correlation between scores on well-designed aptitude tests and subsequent job performance. I, personally, am much more interested in a person's level of general intelligence, than I am in the specific skill set of making up something that sounds good to ace a job interview. I'd also take what a player's coaches say with a grain of salt. If I knew the coach, and if I knew that the coach wouldn't lie or embellish anything out of loyalty to his players, then he'd be a potential gold mine of information. Problem is, there are a lot of coaches out there; and you don't necessarily know which ones are being honest with you, and which ones aren't.

No question. Sometimes football is a paper-rock-scissors game. Problem is that our coaching staff doesn't seem to realize that, when the other team keeps choosing paper, maybe it's time to stop choosing rock and start choosing scissors.

I agree that there's a lot of responsibility on Trent's shoulders to improve over what we saw from him against 3-4 defenses from last season. On the other hand . . . it's a lot easier to have a quick release if there's somewhere in particular you're supposed to put the football. If there are eight guys in coverage, and if your own receivers are smurfs, it may be very difficult to find a good spot to put the football. Now that the front office has gone out and gotten some bigger targets (especially T.O.) the onus is on the coaching staff to develop plays that will work even when there are eight guys in coverage. And the onus is on Trent to execute those plays.

If it was like the SAT; then that's reasonably reassuring. The SAT is (or at least was) designed to measure the general intelligence factor. I have seen concerns raised about the Wonderlic being poorly designed. For example, one can supposedly significantly improve one's score by studying; which suggests that the test may largely be measuring the "achievement" of studying for it; as opposed to raw intellectual aptitude. Only the latter has any real applicability to football. Conversely, the sample version of the Wonderlic I saw online had one or two questions which, apparently, were deliberately intended to waste the test-taker's time; and to thereby prevent him from having enough time to finish many other questions on the test. (That gimmick is not the sign of a well-designed test for general intelligence.) If a player unfamiliar with the test design got caught in one of those traps, the result could be a score which significantly understates his intelligence. One wonders if this is what happened to Dan Marino, Neil O'Donnell, or some of the other players whose level of play appears to significantly exceed the mental limitations suggested by their Wonderlic scores. If I were a GM, I'd find a high Wonderlic score reassuring, and a low score a serious cause for concern. But in neither case would I regard the scores as conclusive. I'd look for other evidence to either confirm or refute whatever the Wonderlic score seemed to indicate about the player's intelligence. But even once you're sure that you have a smart player at a position where intelligence is highly prized (such as quarterback), you're not necessarily guaranteed a successful player. On the other hand, I would not make the mistake of drafting a stupid quarterback, no matter how athletically gifted he might be.

The Bills went 0-6 against the 3-4 defenses of the AFC East; largely because of the collapse of their offense. Typically, you saw the following: On passing downs, the defense would rush three, and drop eight into coverage The Bills had smurf receivers. Which means that you can't just throw a jump ball to some guy who's covered and expect it to consistently work. Josh Reed missed a significant amount of playing time, further depriving the passing game of good targets. Guys like Fowler and Preston--the whole interior of the Bills' OL, really--typically got dominated by the NTs of the 3-4s. This meant that the QB usually had a lot less time to throw than one would expect, given that the defense was only rushing three. Trent Edwards played less well against 3-4s than he did against other kinds of defenses The Bills have attempted to address many of these issues in the off-season. They significantly upgraded the center position in free agency; while using a first and second rounder on a pair of OGs. Together, these measures should solidify the interior of the Bills' OL against those ugly NTs. The Bills signed Terrell Owens and drafted Nelson. That should help solve the problem of there being no one to throw to when the defense drops eight into coverage. If all this works, I'd expect Trent to look significantly better against 3-4 defenses this year than he did last year. Partly because I'd expect to see some improvement in the quality of Trent's play. But mostly it's because the situation in which Trent was placed, last season, when going up against 3-4 defenses, was absolutely terrible. The Bills' front office very clearly made a conscious effort to upgrade those circumstances in the off-season.

If you goal is to replace Edwards with a quarterback from the UFL, why focus in particular on Losman? I'm sure the UFL has plenty of other quarterbacks from which to choose. And there's always the CFL. Or you could sign some guy from the (now defunct) NFL Europe. Personally, I don't think the Bills should attempt to replace Edwards at this time. If he has a bad year, then you start thinking about drafting a potential replacement. Note the use of the word "drafting," as opposed to replacing the Bills' starting QB with a first round bust who's now out of the NFL.

I noticed the following quote from the Las Vegas Review Journal article: > UFL commissioner Michael Huyghue said the signing of Losman was a huge step in the league's attempt to build credibility. And a different quote from another article: > NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said that getting rid of Losman was a huge step in the NFL's attempt to increase its credibility.

I felt that McKelvin would have a very solid career. I also felt (and feel) that he'd leave Buffalo after his first contract was over. I wasn't too happy when the Bills took Hardy--my heart was set on Limas Sweed. In two or three years, we'll see how smart or foolish that particular preference looks. I didn't have a strong feeling one way or the other about Ellis. I thought, if he turns into a good DE, then great! But you're usually not going to get a first-rate DE in the third round. I also felt that the odds were against getting a first-rate TE in the fourth round, which is why I didn't get my hopes up for Fine.

Clearly, the fact that Whitner hasn't lived up to his 8th overall draft status has caused some people to become embittered with him. But it wasn't Whitner's fault that he was drafted too high. Now that he's a Bill, it probably makes more sense to keep him than to trade him. He's probably a better fit in this system than he'd be in almost any other. Unless our hypothetical trading partner was some other team running the Tampa-2, he wouldn't be as valuable to that other team as he is to us. Which, in turn, suggests that a mutually beneficial trade would be hard to arrange. On an emotional level, there would be something satisfying about trading away Whitner. Depending on what the team got in return, it would be an acknowledgment that taking him so early was a mistake. But teams should not be run based on emotion. Bill's idea of trading away Whitner as part of a strategy to re-allocate talent away from the secondary, and toward the lines, makes more sense. I'm not completely comfortable with the idea though; and part of me would prefer to keep the players we have (at least, those worth keeping) while using future early picks first and foremost on the lines. Once the lines have been sufficiently built up--a process which could take several years--the Bills could then use their early picks on other positions. There is one thing we should NOT do however. We should not allow Whitner, or McGee, or any other young, talented player, to go first contract and out. Trading such players away is infinitely better than letting them walk, and getting nothing in return when they go.

It sure proved to be a big advantage last season. Oh, wait . . . never mind.

I wish I could say your reaction surprised me. Unfortunately, it didn't.

I don't know how closely you've followed Mr. Weo's posts, but I consider him to be an intelligent, level-headed guy.

As far as I know, the comeback game against Houston was the biggest comeback in any NFL game, period. Is there some other, more significant comeback game of which I'm unaware? Click here for the full article.