Orton's Arm

I disagree. If your QB is merely average for a starter, he may well be worth the 8th overall pick. But typically SS is considered a lower-impact position than most. No SS is worth 8th overall unless he's a special player. I don't care who else was available, or what defensive tackles were available where, or any of that other stuff. The Bills had more holes than a pound of Swiss cheese. A team in that situation can't afford to spend the 8th overall pick on a SS, unless it gets a real difference maker in return.

I have to say it takes guts for a Dolpins fan to come here and post on a Bennie Anderson thread. Anderson was a failure here as a LG last year. Any GM who chose to sign this guy would have been ridiculed. The fact that it's the Dolphins, with a Mularkey-led offense, only makes the situation more amusing for Bills fans. That said, a bigger, slower player such as Anderson is probably much better suited for RG than LG. He'll be at his worst against quicker, penetrating-type DTs: the kind of DTs the Bills are installing with the cover-2.

I view this as a good thing. Say the Jets win an extra game or two because of this. Say that one of those extra wins comes at our expense. That will only help the Bills get closer to drafting Brady Quinn or some other difference maker, while at the same time helping downgrade the Jets' drafting position.

Good point . . . when you take into account fumbles, blitz pickup, and those playoff yards you mentioned, Antowain Smith has probably done his teams at least as much good since 2001 as Travis Henry did.

Since the beginning of the 2001 season, Travis Henry has rushed for 4184 yards. In that same timespan, Antowain Smith rushed for 3952 yards. TD used a 2nd round pick in a failed attempt to upgrade the RB position, when he should have been addressing the offensive line. Then there's Antowain Winfield, who's gone on to have a very good post-Buffalo career. You see first round picks being used on the secondary all the time; and too often you see those guys leaving after four or five years. TD chose to let Winfield leave after five years. Back in 2001, TD had protected himself from the future loss of Winfield by taking Clements in the first. Later TD chose to let Clements' contract expire . . . but I'm getting off the subject.

It's one thing to be a pessimist. I've predicted a 6-10 season myself. It's another to tell players not to sign long-term contracts with this team, to tell fans to not buy tickets, and to tell the team itself to move. While fans may not always predict success for the team, we always want what's best for it. Clearly, this guy doesn't.

This was the point at which I stopped reading the article. He doesn't want players to sign with this team. He doesn't want fans to support this team. He doesn't want the team to be here at all. If he feels this strongly, he could save a lot of time by driving a truck bomb into the middle of Ralph Wilson Stadium.

Wade Phillips wasn't a great coach either, except for defense. Butler did a better job of finding players earlier in his career than he did towards the end. For most of Butler's career, the Bills had a higher talent level than the bulk of TD's career. However, the talent level on the Bills died down towards the end of the Butler era. A key difference between the two GMs is that Butler did a much better job than TD of keeping his players in Buffalo. So the success stories Butler had early on helped him achieve wins throughout his tenure. Meanwhile, TD released or failed to re-sign players such as Antowain Smith, Antowain Winfield, Jonas Jennings, and others while these players generally had years of good football in front of them. Because TD got rid of talent at a faster pace than Butler, he had to acquire talent at a faster pace to achieve the same results Butler did. Obviously, TD failed to do this. The continuity Butler helped build allowed players to get the most out of their athletic ability. Take the left side of the Bills' line: for years it was manned by Fina and Brown. Any offensive lineman will tell you continuity is critical to success. TD chose to build his lines largely through older free agents such as Villarrial and Teague. Because older free agents seldom last more than a few years, it's a lot tougher to build any kind of continuity this way. This strategy's failure was evident on the field. I'll grant that Butler made a mess of the salary cap; and was too willing to vastly overpay aging veterans to achieve continuity. But as bad as Butler's salary cap mistakes were, TD's errors in talent evaluation and talent retention were far worse.

It's hard to believe that you of all people--or should I say of all monkeys--are accusing me of having a warped mind!

Interesting remark. In the five years TD was here, he compiled a winning percentage of 39%. Excluding the rebuilding season of 2001, TD's winning percentage was 44%. In the five years prior to TD's arrival, the Bills' winning percentage was 56%. But, you say, while the Bills may have won while Butler was here, he left behind a roster that was too old, with too little young talent. But there was some young talent on that 2000 roster: Antowain Winfield, Antowain Smith, Eric Moulds, Pat Williams, Peerless Price, and probably a few other guys I'm forgetting. What young but proven talent did TD leave for Marv? Nate Clements, Terrence McGee, Willis McGahee, Lee Evans, Aaron Schobel, and Angelo Crowell. Not a huge difference. The Johnson/Flutie quarterback situation of the 2000 Bills has an eerie similarity to the Losman/Holcomb controversy TD provided Levy with. Both the Bills of 2000 and the Bills of 2005 featured relatively old, inept offensive lines. In fact, the offenses of those two teams were relatively identical: lousy lines, quarterback controversies between a young first round guy and a savvy veteran, reasonable to good talent at WR and RB, older and rather ineffective TEs. On defense, Butler gave TD one good lineman with a future: Pat Williams. TD gave Levy one good defensive lineman young enough to have a future: Aaron Schobel. The Sam Cowart/Takeo Spikes injury situations are similar to each other. TD found Angleo Crowell, a promising linebacker whose future may be like John Holocek's. In the secondary, Butler gave Donahone the young, talented Antoine Winfield, Travares Tillman, as well as some older players. TD gave Marv Nate Clements, Terrence McGee, and some older guys. Not a huge difference there either. Both the Bills of 2000 and the Bills of 2005 had good punters and kickers. Overall, the roster TD inherited from Butler is very, very similar to the roster TD has given Marv.

The aging Villarrial had one good year for the Bills--just one--before injuries kept him from doing much in 2005. You seem to expect him to be the player he was two years ago, while I don't. You admit Shelton had an off year last year, and that you're basing your favorable assessment of him more on what he's done in the past than on his more recent production. He'll be 34 come September. Should the Bills really count on getting above-average play from him in 2006 and beyond? Fletcher has indeed been above average, but he's 31. Sooner or later--probably sooner--his play will decline to a merely average level. In 2005, McGahee had a rather uninspiring 3.8 yards per carry, and fewer than 200 receiving yards. He isn't a particularly special back based strictly on production, nor did he seem to have the same burst he had in college. He may well turn out to be a significantly above-average back, but he hasn't proven this yet. As for Spikes, he was a relatively young but proven player that TD chose to throw a lot of money at. It was a good decision at the time--don't get me wrong. But everyone in the league knew Spikes could play, and that he played with passion. Signing him took about as much acumen as picking up a $100 bill in the street. Considering TD was merely displaying a grasp of the obvious when signing Spikes, I'm not in a hurry to give him more credit than Spikes' future value to the team will probably warrant. I think the fundamental difference between our two approaches is that you're willing to give TD the benefit of the doubt for older free agents such as Villarrial or Shelton who have had off years in 2005. I tend to take a more pessimistic view of such players: to me, if an older player has an off year, I feel he's probably on the decline.

There are several points you've made I'd like to address. The first is that the 2004 defense, while good statistically, was by no means the second-best defense in the league. Its stats were inflated because it faced a number of lousy offenses, and the defensive scheme was ideally suited to making bad offenses look awful. But the 2004 defense did a worse job in both Patriots games than the average defense the Patriots faced that year. Moreover, the defense let the team down in games against Jacksonville, the Jets, and Pittsburgh. Despite the fact the 2004 defense was over-hyped and over-rated, it was still probably a top-ten defense. But the loss of Pat Williams and of Takeo Spikes took their toll. Perhaps equally important was the effect caused by the declining levels of play from guys like Lawyer Milloy, Sam Adams, Troy Vincent, Nate Clements, and others. The problem with building a defense via free agency is that guys will hit the wall quickly; as Sam Adams clearly did. The pitiful ranking the defense achieved in 2005 supports the idea it had below-average talent. But mine was intended to be a forward-looking analysis. So even if a guy like London Fletcher had had an above-average season for 2005, it's likely his play will be merely average for 2006 or 2007. Many players on the roster at the end of 2005 were nearing the end of their careers: Sam Adams, Lawyer Milloy, Troy Vincent, London Fletcher, Eric Moulds, Chris Villarrial, Trey Teague, Campbell, and others. Then there were those who were young and unproven: Losman, Parrish, Everett, Geisinger, Preston, Evans, Baker, Peters, etc. It's easy for fans to imagine all of TD's young, unproven players turning into success stories. Some of those unproven players probably will go on to do something, while others follow the lead of Coy Wire, Mike Williams, Ryan Denny, and other TD disappointments. But at the end of 2005, there were very few players on the roster who a) had been in the league long enough to prove something, b) were young enough to have a future, and c) were actually under contract beyond the 2005 season. Schobel fit these criteria, as did McGee, and maybe Evans and McGahee. If you want me to be generous, I'll even give you Crowell. That's four guys, maybe five, upon whom the team can safely rely for at least two years. I find it extremely difficult to believe very many other teams are in similar straits.

This Glitter guy is a real idiot. He's got enough money to live in basically whatever country he wants to. He has a thing for kids. So where does he choose to live? A place where adult/child sex is punished by death by firing squad! Amazing.

Fair enough. If Losman starts, the defense had better be able to keep the other team from scoring more than ten points. That's the only way the Bills will have a hope of winning! To get back to your original point, no defensive scheme can turn coal into diamonds. If we get more production out of Kelsay/Denny, it will mostly because the players themselves have improved, and not because of the defensive scheme.

Sorry . . . a really disturbing image came into my head when I read this post.

A random thought that I should have had earlier: The total rushes per game stat measures three things: - A team's commitment to the run versus the pass - A team's tendency to run more often when protecting a lead - A team's total number of offensive plays in a given game Let's say that in a given game, you ran ten more offensive plays than your opponent. Since some of those extra plays will have been running plays, you'll almost certainly have had more running plays than the other team. This doesn't mean you're any more committed to the run than they were. Some teams with below-average levels of commitment to the running game have had success. Take the 49ers of the '80s, or the Patriots team that won the Super Bowl with Antowain Smith as the starting RB. Are such teams anomalies or the norm? To find out, you could replace the number of rushes per game stat with % of rushing plays.

Fair enough. But if TD was average in terms of talent input, why don't the Bills have average talent? When TD left, the starters were as follows (+ indicates above average for a starter, 0 indicates average, - is for below average): Offense Gandy 0 Anderson - Teague - Villarrial - (based on age and injuries) Peters 0 (based on potential versus how much he's actually proven) Campbell - QB Losman/Holcomb - (most teams are more comfortable at QB than the Bills) McGahee 0 FB - Moulds 0 (below average for a #1, especially based on future potential) Evans 0 (better than average for a #2) Defense Shobel + Anderson - Edwards - Kelsay/Denny - Posey - Fletcher 0 (based on age and future potential) Spikes/Crowell 0 (based on concern for Spikes recovering from injury) Clements + McGee + Vincent - Milloy - Totals +'s: 3 0's: 7 -'s: 12 For TD to be considered average at talent evaluation, there should be as many above-average players as there are below-average players. But the numbers are even more lopsided than they look. Of the three players who have proven themselves above-average for starters, Clements is halfway out the door. Of the seven average players TD found or retained, Moulds isn't here anymore, and Fletcher may be in his last year.

I suppose we could argue back and forth about which stats are meaningful, and which aren't. You seem to be suggesting there's a correlation between the number of rush attempts, and how many yards you're averaging per carry. Fair enough. But sometimes the rush works better against a tired defense in the 3rd or 4th quarter, than it did against a fresh defense in the first. Teams that are ahead will run the ball often, thereby benefiting more from this defensive tiredness than teams that are behind. You bring up a valid point about how teams that tend to throw more often than they run can inflate their yards-per-carry stat. A good example of this was Travis Henry's yards per carry average under Kevin Gilbride. To get to the bottom of this, perhaps you could run a multi-variable regression analysis, with yards per carry, number of rushes, yards per pass play, etc. as your X variables, and winning percentage as your Y variable. I'd be curious as to which variables would continue to have decent r^2 values in this test, versus which ones would get explained away.

Not the giggity giggity goo I expected from that avatar! As was pointed out, one thing your data are picking up is that teams with the lead tend to run more. So the number of rushes per game has to be ignored for this reason. What I found interesting is that passing yards per attempt had a higher correlation than rushing yards per attempt. This may not mean much though, as the sample size is probably too small to allow conclusions at 95% or even 90% confidence anyway.

I agree: Bledsoe provided half a year of good football to both the Cowboys and the Bills. While you may well be right about Bledsoe helping us get a first rounder for Peerless, I can't really see this whole situation as a reflection of TD's intelligence or skill. You don't part with a first round pick hoping that a) your #2 WR has a monster year, b) that some other team falls in love with him, and offers you a first round pick for the guy, and c) that said WR then proceeds to go downhill. If TD was this eager to obtain high draft picks for players on their way out the door anyway, he could have traded away Antoine Winfield. The only justifiable reason for trading for Bledsoe was to solidify the quarterback position for at least the next several years. As your post made clear, Bledsoe only gave us a half season of good play. Those eight games were great while they lasted, but they weren't worth a first round pick.

You're really scraping the bottom of the barrel with Posey. Vincent and Villarrial are too old to provide much help to a hypothetical 2007 or 2008 Super Bowl team, and Fletcher will be on his last legs. Look at all the Butler draft picks and UDFAs for the Bills, who are still in the league: Antoine Winfield, Antoine Smith (I think), Pat Williams, Eric Moulds, Peerless Price, Travares Tillman, Bryce Fisher, Ruben Brown, and probably others that I'm forgetting. In 2006, will those guys collectively contribute more to their teams than TD's draft picks and UDFAs will contribute to the Bills? Quite possibly, and that's not any kind of indication of TD success.

One thing I should have added earlier: with the exception of the guys you mentioned, how many of TD's players have shown they deserve to be starters? I'm not asking for super stars; just guys who belong in an NFL starting lineup. Not that everyone on your list is a proven commodity. Will Spikes come back from his injury? Can Evans be the go-to guy? Can Losman be a quarterback in the NFL? Is Peters more than just a flash in the pan? Will McGahee be the running back TD hoped for when he drafted him? Some of those guys will turn out well; others won't.

After five years of TD, the Bills were a 5-11 team. Those five wins were achieved largely through the efforts of aging veterans such as London Fletcher and Eric Moulds; players with little good football left. But there are young TD players who've shown flashes or potential. Peters had some good games last year, Everett, Parrish, and Losman are very athletically gifted, etc. It would be nice if every guy who's shown flashes, or who has abundant athletic potential, will work out well. Some will work out well, others will be decent role players, and still others will be busts. The Bills ranked near the bottom of the league in both offense and defense. It's one thing to be ranked near the bottom if you've just cut all your old guys, and are going with younger players. Some feel that exposing weaknesses in your own pool of young talent is a good first step toward correcting them. But the Bills used older players such as Lawyer Milloy to keep the Coy Wires of the team on the bench. But suppose many of the younger players TD found go on to have good careers for the Bills. Should he get the credit for that? Of course. But the real question is whether he assembled more young talent over a five year period than an average GM would have. I'd have to hear an awful lot of "Justin Geisinger makes Pro Bowl" kind of stories before I start thinking of TD's pool of young talent as anything close to average. Of the TD draft picks on the roster, how many have made the Pro Bowl? McGee made it as a return man, and Clements made it once as a defender. But Clements regressed the next year, and he's got one foot out the door anyway. With the dubious exception of Clements, Marv was handed a roster with no young Pro Bowlers on offense or defense. Given that fact, it's a little early to be awarding TD partial credit for a future Super Bowl ring.

I agree there was a lot of excitement when Bledsoe was first brought in. Even in the late '90s, Bills fans were used to having quality football teams that could often make the playoffs, and that could come close to winning playoff games. (Think Music City Miracle, or the close Dolphins game the year before.) But Butler's teams were built largely through the draft, so players tended to last longer. TD's teams achieved success largely through high profile free agent signings or trades. With a Butler team, an 8-8 season could be a building block to 10-6. Younger players would mature, things would come together. Naturally, most fans assumed that when TD's team went 8-8, it might well be on its way to something better. Instead, those high profile free agents faded quickly, Bledsoe's weaknesses were exposed halfway through the 2002 season, and the team went 6-10 in 2003. And that was with additional high profile free agent signings leading into the 2003 season. While many of New England's players were indeed obtained through free agency, not all players are created equal. Tom Brady was obtained via the draft. Replace Brady with Gus Frerotte, and I don't seen New England winning any Super Bowl trophies. Other core players, such as Matt Light, were also draft picks. Then there's Pittsburgh: since 2000, it's drafted the following guys in the first round: Casey Hampton, NT Kendall Simmons, G (starter) Troy Polamalu, SS Ben Rothlisberger, QB Heath Miller, TE Having a core of young, quality player such as those will give the Steelers a solid foundation for many years to come. To make a long response short: 1. The excitement the Bledsoe deal created was based on a mirage. 2. TD should have been motivated to hold onto or franchise/trade away his young, promising players even without the Bledsoe trade. 3. Every Super Bowl champion I'm aware of has built a solid core for itself through the draft. Fans tend to undervalue the draft, while placing too much emphasis on big name free agent signings.