Orton's Arm

Interesting that poor offensive line play didn't find its way into your description of why Holcomb went short as often as he did. If I'm playing behind that line, my expectations for how much time I'll have are quite low. A short gain is better than an incompletion or a sack, and the line just didn't give much time for things to open up deep. Could the Bills have used improvement at the safety valve? Absolutely. But having been dealt the same hand as Losman, Holcomb was able to take advantage of the safety valve options that did exist. Elsewhere I've shown the offense produced an average of seven more points per game under Holcomb than it did during Losman's second stint. So Holcomb's passes weren't as unproductive as all that. If we wanted a QB who could play well when given a good offensive line, strong running game, good playcalling, etc., then we should have stuck with Bledsoe.

Fair enough, though it looks like we're going to have to agree to disagree about whether personal insults heaved Eric's way are deserved or not.

Lots of things aren't crimes, but are still wrong. Fathing kids out of wedlock is one of those things. With Moulds' "personal advisor" saying he'll never play for the Bills again, I really wonder how much Moulds' kids will ever see of their dad. Some would say that he makes up for his off-field behavior by what he contributes to the Bills. Well, let's look at those contributions. He refused to work with JP in the off-season. Even as someone who's expressed doubts about JP's ability and future, I think it was Moulds' responsibility to go the extra mile for the Bills by running those routes with JP. Especially if Moulds is going to demand $7 million a year of Ralph's money. Then there was the Miami game, where Moulds refused to go back in. Yes, Moulds is a talented athlete, and he generally works hard and contributes to the team. But let's not confuse him with a stand-up guy.

Green Bay's offensive line hasn't exactly been All Pro these last few years either.

You're accusing someone of being a KKK member just off of a "rap album" remark? That's a new low, even for you. A lot of football players listen to rap. Do you know for sure Eric isn't one of them? Moulds has fathered nine children out of wedlock, and I've heard he's hit one of his girlfriends. But Levy's Era is a KKK member for saying Moulds might produce a rap album!

On the one hand, you're saying Holcomb went to his safety valve too often, resulting in a high completion percentage but low yardage. On the other hand, you say Losman didn't have a worthy safety valve to go to. If Holcomb compensated for bad offensive line play by always going to his safety valve, why couldn't Losman do the same?

Thanks for reinforcing my point.

As far as I know, the big name offensive linemen have signed elsewhere. Not that there were very many to begin with. Clearly, the Bills' line is a disaster, but the draft may provide a much richer opportunity to upgrade it than this year's free agent crop has. The Bills can make their draft opportunities even richer by trading away players such as Moulds.

The Culpepper analogy is somewhat flawed, because he was clearly outplayed in 2005 by Brad Johnson. What happened in 2005 gave credence to the view that Culpepper's prior success had more to do with Randy Moss than with Culpepper. Add to that the uncertainty about whether Culpepper will fully recover from his injury, and that's why his trade value was what it was. If the Vikings really thought he was the answer at QB, they wouldn't have traded him away in the first place. The Patriots gave up a 2nd round pick for Corey Dillon; a guy who'd been in the league a while. A team that thinks it's a WR away--such as the Eagles--may be willing to give us at least a 2nd round pick. As for simply waiting until the Bills are forced to release Moulds, I don't think that's a viable plan. For one thing, the Bills have enough salary cap space that they could keep Moulds should they choose to do so. On the other hand, I haven't seen a whole lot of high profile free agents on whom the Moulds cap space could be used. So unless the Bills get a competitive trade offer for Moulds, their best option would be to keep him through the 2006 season. Other teams have to know this, and hopefully won't lowball us too much.

Some would call it A Depressing Thing.

There seems to be disagreement about whether being the next Jake Plummer is a good thing or a bad thing. But ten years from now, I doubt there will be much controversy about whether it'd be good to be the next Losman.

Maybe you're right. I'm curious to see whether Craig Nall will be good enough to send Holcomb to the bench.

Back in the early '90s, the cold was a good thing, because it meant the Bills didn't lose playoff games at Rich Stadium. Today, the Bills have maybe 9 home playoff wins to go with their one loss, and the Packers have something like 12 home playoff wins to go with their one loss. If I'm Marv, I'd sell players on the idea that cold weather=home playoff wins in January. As a fan, I liked the fact that teams from warmer climates would be intimidated by the Buffalo snow. Of course, you have to have a good football team too, which lately hasn't been the case.

Sometimes, contracts are designed to force the team and the player to renegotiate at some point. Say you've got a deal that pays a player $2 million a year for four years, then $10 million for year #5. Everyone knows there's no way the player is seeing the $10 million. What's the advantage to this? For one thing, the team gets to spread the signing bonus out over five years instead of four. For another, the team gets the sole right to negotiate with the player after year four. But the player has power too, in that he can force his way out by refusing a paycut. When Moulds' contract was signed, both sides had to know it wasn't very realistic for Moulds to expect $7 million a year during the waning years of his career.

McNabb's overrated. That said, while Losman may not be the next McNabb, at least he replicated McNabb's ability to not see eye-to-eye with his go-to receiver!

This is the best post I've seen making the case against Losman, and I include my own posts on the subject in saying this. Time will tell if you are right and Losman's highly vocal partisans are wrong.

In that case, why isn't he in your sig's mock draft?

Think of me as a guy who knows how to use his noodle!

Losman's had 8 1/2 games last year: Houston, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, New Orleans, 1/2 Kansas City, San Diego, Carolina, Miami, and New England. His 8 1/2 games only seem like seven because some of those performances were so forgettable!

I just jumped to the last page of this thread, and this is the first thing I saw. I'm shocked--shocked!--that a thread involving J.P. Losman could possibly degenerate into namecalling. Who'd have thunk it?

I think what the original poster was referring to was this: http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-b...ov=ap&type=lgns Bye bye Eric. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

I completely agree with your points about TD. One thing I like about Marv's signings is that even if they're not name players, they're young players that can help the team a long time. As for JP--it's possible some members of this board are already familiar with my thoughts about him, so I won't repeat those things here.

In economics terms, the investment in Losman is a "sunk cost." Economists agree that sunk costs should be ignored, because they're in the past and there's nothing you can do to change them. Obviously, TD saw enough from Losman in college that he thought the guy deserved the type of chance to develop first round picks usually get. Going over that same college film, Levy needs to decide if he agrees with TD's assessment. If he does, then he should give Losman the same three year minimum development period you'd typically give a first round QB. (This is year 3.) But if Levy came to a different conclusion--perhaps that Losman belonged in the 3rd round just based on college play--then you have to think of him as a 3rd round pick.

I consider it a credit to Polian for building a team with continuity. The Bills' best players, for the most part, spent their whole careers here. That's a big reason why the team had as much success as it did. As for the discussion about Levy as a coach, it's fairly obvious that a team's win/loss record has more to do with the players than the quality of the coach. Barry Switzer's Super Bowl ring is a case in point. So you look at the things the coach can control. The most obvious is the coaching staff the head coach assembles. Levy's successes at the coordinator positions include Wade Philips and Ted Machibroda. His mediocre to bad results there include everyone else. So it's a mixed bag. Then you look at motivation. Surely, the comeback victory against the Oilers ranks as one of the greatest feats in football history. But if you're giving Levy credit for that, you also have to give him the blame for the despondent mood that set in on the Bills' sideline in the second half of the #2 Dallas game. The Bills had a first half lead, and for a while it looked like they might win. But it seemed the team responded to adversity by giving up. One factor you usually see with Hall of Fame coaches is a coaching tree. Belichick is a good example. He groomed Crennel, who's now coaching in Cleveland, and he groomed Charlie Weis, who's now at Notre Dame. Levy doesn't really have that kind of coaching tree. Not that his Hall of Fame status should have hinged upon this point, but it's something to consider. As far as X's and Os go, it was clear the Bills were outcoached by the Giants in that Super Bowl. I don't think anyone on either side of the discussion is saying Levy was an elite X's and O's guy. Levy in a nutshell: - Selection of coordinators: two successes, the rest mediocre. - Motivation: more successes than failures, but the 2nd half of that Dallas Super Bowl was pretty bad. - Coaching tree: poor results, though this category isn't as important. - X's and O's: about standard for an NFL coach. So why is Levy in the Hall of Fame? Maybe for some of the selectors, Levy's induction was a way to honor the Bills of the early '90s. No other team has made it to more than two consecutive Super Bowls, so the early '90s team should be considered a success. While the Bills' success may not always have been due to Levy's brilliant coaching, he was the guy standing on the sideline while these results were achieved.

They couldn't afford Mike Williams as a failure either, yet he's no longer with the team. The Bills need to base their evaluation of Losman strictly on what he himself has shown, and not on draft status, the team's wish to avoid drafting a QB early, etc. If Losman isn't the answer--which seems likely enough--there's no sense in blinding ourselves to reality.