Orton's Arm

That's an extreme reaction based on too little information. I feel that most of the people on these boards--including you--know very little about Hamdan. Have you watched him in practice? Have you watched footage of his play in NFL Europe? Given that we--and I include myself--know so little about Hamdan, I think it's best if we let the coaching staff decide whether he should be promoted to #2 QB status. Thus far, their decision to stick with Losman as the #2 indicates either that Losman has shown more in practice etc. than Hamdan, or else that they prefer Losman's experience to Hamdan's inexperience. Or it could just be a question of preferring the devil they know to the devil they don't know. (By this I mean they've seen a lot more of Losman in regular season games, than they've seen of Hamdan.) But whatever the coaching staff's rationale for preferring Losman to Hamdan, it's something that could change, if Losman were to play badly enough, or if Hamdan were to show enough in practice. If Hamdan were to take the field for any length of time, it would be a chance to see whether he'd make a viable #2 QB for next year, or whether we'll need to draft a backup QB in April.

I agree with your points, especially 1 and 3. As for point #2, I'm not always a big fan of blitzing. But, in the circumstances we faced today, I agree a lot more blitzing would have made sense. The defensive style we chose got us killed.

We would have lost today's game even if we'd had Joe Montana in his prime back there. Our defense let the Cards score practically every time they touched the ball. Our offensive line turned in another bad performance. That said, I thought the play calling demonstrated little faith in Losman. It doesn't seem like the coaching staff trusts Losman to pick defenses apart with short to intermediate passes the way Edwards can. What we saw today is standard-issue Losman: a QB who lives and dies by the big play, because he lacks the ability to sustain many-play drives. Defensive coordinators don't exactly lose much sleep over the thought of Losman carving up their defenses with a million small cuts.

Good points. Warner ripped our defense apart today, and the offensive line turned in another bad performance. I strongly feel the offensive line should be our top priority going into the 2009 draft. Unless we upgrade it in the off season, expect Edwards to take more injuries like the one he took today.

A good post overall. But was it really necessary for you to throw in a swipe at someone whose political views you disagree with in the middle of what should be a football thread?

If you're not interested in hearing Bill's thoughts, please find some other thread to post in. Bill's posts tend to be insightful and well worth hearing, IMO.

I agree with this. Edwards would have played better than Losman, but it wouldn't have been enough to get the win. If you can't play pass defense--which we couldn't--the only way you're going to win is to come in first in a shoot out. And with yet another disappointing performance turned in by the offensive line, this team would have had a very difficult time winning a shoot out no matter who was back there at QB.

I agree with a lot of what you wrote, but I disagree with the Bledsoe/Warner comparison you made. For his career, Warner has achieved a QB rating of 95.3, and an average yards per pass attempt of 8.1. Bledoe's career numbers are 77.1 and 6.6, respectively. The main virtue of Bledsoe's career--at least statistically--is its longevity. He looks great--perhaps worthy of the Hall of Fame--when you look at longevity-based stats, such as the number of career passing yards. But when you look at the stats which relate to the quality of his average performance, he appears a lot more mediocre.

I looked up Warner's stats. This year his rating is 100.8, and his yards per attempt is 8.7. Last year his numbers were 89.8 and 7.6, respectively. By comparison, Tom Brady's career average is a QB rating of 92.9 and an average yards per attempt of 7.2. In Kurt Warner's monster year, he achieved a QB rating of 109.2 and a yards per pass attempt stat of 8.7. Based on numbers, Kurt Warner played at a high level last year, and is playing at an even higher level this year. However, he's not achieving quite as much as he did the year the Rams won the Super Bowl. Matt Leinart's career average is 71.2 and 6.5. This year, Warner has given them nearly 30 points more in QB rating, and 2.2 more yards per pass attempt, than Leinart had been giving them with the same supporting cast. I'm a little nervous about this game, and Warner is a big reason why. If we give that guy time to throw, and if the Bills' offensive line turns in its usual putrid performance in the first half/3rd quarter, this game could be a real problem.

Different protections might have solved part of the problem. But a lot of the problem would have remained unsolved: offensive linemen getting cleanly beat, barely slowing down the guys they're supposed to be blocking.

Trent has typically spent the first half, and much of the 3rd quarter, lying on his back. I don't care who you have at QB, he's not going to make plays when the offensive line fails as completely as the Bills' line has in the early and middle parts of the game.

What, specifically, has McGahee done to make me care about whether he sees the field again this year? He strikes me as a selfish, self-centered player who isn't afraid to party/go to nightclubs/impregnate as many women as possible, but who hasn't really made the effort to justify the millions he was paid while in Buffalo. Whatever playing time McGahee loses, someone else will get in his place. And maybe that someone else will be more deserving of it than McGahee is.

We have our starters in place at DT, but I agree that we'll need another rotational guy if McCargo doesn't improve his play. Also, Keith Ellison isn't the long-term answer at OLB, so we need to either re-sign Angelo Crowell, or else draft a replacement LB at some point. That said, unless the offensive line dramatically improves its pitiful play, that needs to be the Bills' #1 priority heading into the 2009 draft. Melvin Fowler is in the last year of his contract, and nothing he's done could possibly indicate he's the long-term answer at center. There's a good center in the upcoming draft who's expected to be taken in the first round. The Bills should take a long, hard look at that guy, and they should draft him if they like what they see. Then they should come back and draft another lineman with their second round pick--possibly using their 3rd rounder to trade up and get a better player. They can use their picks in rounds 4 - 7 to add depth, including that rotational DT you mentioned. This would leave the OLB problem unsolved for a year, at least assuming we don't re-sign Crowell. But as important as it is to keep Keith Ellison off the field, the offensive line has to take higher priority. When the line blocks badly--as has usually been the case this season--the running game grinds to a halt, and the passing offense is ineffective. However, the line looks good in the 4th quarter, because that's when defenses are tired out. If you look at Trent's 4th quarter stats, that should tell you how effective our passing offense could be if we gave the QB protection for all four quarters. And just imagine what Lynch could do if he didn't have guys meeting him in the backfield on practically every inside running play. The absence of competent offensive line play is dragging the offense down more than Keith Ellison is dragging the defense down.

The main reason for the slow starts is that the offensive line's play has been abominable in the first half. St. Louis had 3 sacks going into their game with the Bills. They got 4 sacks in the first half. In addition to allowing those 4 sacks, the line blocked for fewer rushing yards (18) than offensive linemen had in penalty yards (at least 20). Throw in numerous hurries and knock downs allowed, and you have a pathetic performance even by the standards of the post-2000 Bills. As the game wears on, defensive linemen become tired and start to slow down a little. This line can, at times, play very well against tired defensive linemen. The transition is amazing--it goes from looking like a camp fodder line in the first halves of games to looking like a top-10 line in the 4th quarter. Trent has shown that when he's given decent to good protection he knows how to light up a scoreboard. Because that good protection only happens late in the game, his 4th quarter stats look a lot better than his stats for the first three quarters. And I think that's fairly typical of QBs--even good QBs. If you let guys rush unblocked to the QB, even the best QBs in the league aren't going to be all that productive. While Trent has some improving to do to find himself in the "best QBs in the league" category, the "no offensive line in the first half" problem won't solve itself no matter how well he plays. The only solution to that problem is to either get our current offensive linemen to play a full 60 minutes of football, or else to find replacements who can.

I completely agree we could use an upgrade at TE. No question. But unless we see significant improvement on the o-line, then that's hands-down our biggest need going into the 2009 draft, and should be addressed starting in round 1. My reason for thinking that is this: if you give Trent decent to good protection, he's shown he can be productive and score points with the targets he has. But it's hard for Trent--or any quarterback at all, for that matter--to accomplish much of anything when you have pass rushers coming in unblocked. Give the Bills a decent offensive line, and the Bills' offense will be able to score points for four quarters, and not just late in the game when the other team's defensive line is tired. An offensive line upgrade will also help Marshawn. A lot of times he takes plays that should have been 2 yard losses and turns them into 3 yard gains. With a decent to good o-line, he'd be taking plays that should have been 3 yard gains and turning them into 5 - 6 yard gains.

In the first half of the St. Louis game, the offensive line had more yards given up in penalties (20 or more) than the Bills had rushing (18). The offensive line also allowed 4 sacks, plus numerous hurries and knock-downs. I'd rate that performance as a 1. If you want to give it a 5 for the game as a whole, then you'd have to say its level of play was about a 9 for the second half. I don't feel it deserved a 9 for its second half play. There were times it looked dominant, but other times when it got dominated. Give it about a 6 for its second half play, which brings its average for the game to--wait for it!---3.5.

Very true. Earlier in this thread someone described the line's play as "average." That's being a little generous. On a scale of 1 - 10, I'd rate the line's play at a 1 for large stretches of games--especially in the first half. There are also times, particularly later in games, when it looks like a 7 or 8. But those happen less often. Overall I'd rate this line's performance at a 3 for the year. If we could get that up to 6 or 7, then we're a legitimate contender for the AFC Championship.

Interesting point about the injuries. In my opinion, injuries hurt a team over the short run, but help it in the long run. Backups gain experience, and the coaches get a chance to see who can play and who can't. If I recall correctly, Fred Jackson started getting playing time due to an injury to the A-train. Trent Edwards started getting playing time because of the injury to Losman.

I agree with what you've written. If anything, I'll go even further. In the first half, the offensive line helped the Bills to 18 rushing yards to go along with the four sacks allowed, three penalties, and numerous quarterback hurries and knock downs. While part of the problem was Peters being out of shape, plenty of offensive linemen other than Peters didn't come to play. This is not the first time this season the offensive line hasn't come to play until late in the game, and it's not acceptable. They just looked like boys among men out there in the first half, and at times in the second half. Based on what I've seen of the season thus far, offensive line is by far this team's biggest need going into the 2009 draft. I would have no objection whatsoever to the Bills using their first three picks on offensive linemen. If they only want to upgrade two positions, I wouldn't mind using the 2nd and 2rd round picks to trade up into the lower first or early second. The bottom line is that this level of performance has got to improve. If the guys we have can't improve on it, we need new guys. Marshawn Lynch is a perfectly good RB who gets met in the backfield far too often. His average hasn't been pedestrian this year, but that's totally on the o-line. There's Trent Edwards, who's shown he can light up the scoreboard on the rate occasions when he's given decent to good protection. But it's hard for any QB to look good when you have guys rushing unblocked to the QB. This offense could be something special if we had even a decent o-line. And if we started replacing the weakest linemen with dominant players, watch out!

I felt we cut him due to dissatisfaction with Keith Ellison. It went something like this: 1) After last season, the Bills decide they no longer want Keith Ellison to be a starter 2) The Bills sign Kawika Mitchell, pushing Ellison into a backup role 3) With the addition of Ellison to the ranks of the backup LBs, there was one less roster spot for some other backup LB 4) Due to his injury, Wire was the backup LB selected to lose his spot

That was a very good article. The Bills seem to have excellent team chemistry this year!

I eschew rodomontade as indign to my sublimity! Thanks! I've been busy with other things, but my happiness with how this season is going drew me back here.

But there are more teams now than there had been back in those glory years (pick your favorite decade). If the number of good QBs stays the same, it stands to reason the overall talent level at that position is being diluted. Which would explain why there seem to be more older guys than usual who are still starters for their respective teams. Besides that, the point he made is that colleges are just now adopting spread option offenses less suited for developing NFL quarterbacking talent. If he's right about that, this should slow the pace at which good young QBs enter the league. If the flow of good QBs slows over the next 2 - 3 years, and retains that slower pace, it could lead to a long-term reduction of the average quality of NFL quarterbacking.

That's an awful lot of negative, unsupported assumptions for such a short post! Or maybe you weren't trying to direct any of that at me (?) and were hoping to make conversation? Strange way of going about it, if you ask me.

I disagree with any list which rates Brett Favre as being better than Aaron Rodgers. Favre has had a Hall of Fame career, but how good is he right now? Do you honestly believe Green Bay would win more games this year if it was Favre instead of Rodgers at QB? I think that having Rodgers under center gets the Packers at least one extra win. I also noticed you left Tony Romo off your list, and I cannot agree with that. Tony Romo is better (IMO) than Drew Brees, Big Ben, and probably a few other guys on that list.