Orton's Arm

When TD came to Buffalo, the defense was well coached, while the offense was not. What he should have done was to bring in an offense-oriented coach who would leave the defense alone. Instead, all four of the final candidates were defensive guys. When Gregg Williams was hired, it turned out his defensive system required a different kind of player than the 3-4. Some of Butler's players could play, just not in the Williams/Gray system. Overall, TD's decision to find a defensive-minded head coach - Did nothing to help the quality of the offensive coaching. - Actually caused the quality of the defensive scheme to regress. - Unnecessarily caused him to part with defensive talent Butler had acquired. It wasn't until Mike Mularkey was hired that the Bills had a competent offensive line coach. Such a coach can implement his system, and point out players in the draft that seem to fit what he's looking for. But the lack of direction before McNally led to unfocused player selection, and ultimately, to poor results. Then there was the issue of player character. In Pittsburgh, the scouting staff leaves no stone unturned to find out about a player's character. But based on the types of players TD often selected in Buffalo, I see no evidence that this system was transferred here. I just never got the sense that the Bills as a team were in the habit of wanting victory more than their opponents. The bottom line is that TD made a number of decisions which may have seemed reasonable when viewed in isolation. But there was never any overarching theme inside of which these individual decisions could exist. We heard about how TD wanted to win by running the ball and winning with defense. In five years, he used three first-day picks on the QB position, three on WR, two on pass-catching TEs, two on RBs, and only two on the OL. TD was penny wise and pound foolish when it came to the Bills' best players, letting guys like Winfield, Jennings, and Pat Williams hit free agency instead of signing them to extensions. TD didn't act like a man who had an overarching vision in his head, and who just needed time to implement it. Someone who sees in his mind what he wants to build knows which trade-offs to make, and when to make them. TD acted like someone who just wanted to improve a little here, or a little there, without really knowing how his actions in the present would get him to where he wanted to be. This was his downfall.

I think Moulds will try to milk the Bills for all they're worth. Even if negotiations don't work out, at least nobody is likely to have egg on their face. I'm sure it's become a-pear-ant to Levy that Moulds isn't the same player he once was. I'm sure Moulds' agent will try to butter Levy up. Levy won't bite though, and he'll insist on getting to the meat of the matter. After a fruitful discussion, they'll veg out.

It's always good when you can give your defense hope!

You're right. Normally I'm a fan of building the OL through the draft. But one or two free agents won't kill you, and Bentley's only been in the league four years. If it's a choice between keeping a declining Moulds or acquiring a top-flight OL in Bentley, it's not even close.

It's the whole one man/one vote thing. Since I'm 7101 times as much of a man as the average man, I deserve 7101 times as many votes!

I don't know which QB they would have chosen, but I can tell you what his throwing motion would have been like. As the ball left his hand, he'd extend his arm in one of those Hitler salutes.

Well then, maybe you should get off!

I'd like to see the 3-4 defense myself, but I don't think it's in the cards. From what I understand, the coaching staff's experience is in the 4-3 defense.

Gentlemen, gentlemen. Could you please take this quarrel elsewhere? This had been a pretty good thread before this started happening. Or at least, it should have been a good thread.

IIRC, you were incapable of addressing the Wonderlic topic in a mature fashion. Instead of saying something like, "Hey buddy, a lot of the questions are knowledge-based, and you can study for them," you simply handed out a personal insult. You chose the vehicle of personal attack, instead of a more reasoned, information-based approach that could have moved the discussion forward. How on earth do you know what I do or don't understand? Let me guess . . . disagreeing with you about something means I don't understand the underlying topic. As for my system to understand QB performance--no system is perfect, but you haven't explained why mine is any more flawed than most. Casually dismissing ideas without providing explanations is one of your more annoying and less useful behaviors. This is in sharp contrast to the deep maturity displayed by someone like yourself, who only argues through personal attack. I'm sorry, but that's not how you came across in the discussion about the Rooney Rule, and it's not how you come across in many other discussions. Maybe you're able to have reasonable discussions with Bill from NYC about topics that aren't near and dear to your heart. Good for you. But that doesn't excuse your arrogant, obnoxious, and inappropriate behavior at other times. I can only speak for myself, but you've given me no reason to see you as a reasonable person. I don't think you've even tried.

Did you ever stop to consider how little your opinion matters to me?

That's the third time you've mentioned that!

Okay, okay. I get it. You work in data research, and that makes you Einstein. You're brilliant, and anyone who disagrees with you is not only wrong, but an idiot. I understand. In your world, you can just proclaim opinions from on high, without showing a single reason or fact to support any of them. We--who you envision as your minions--must meekly accept your lofty words of wisdom and intelligence, because you work in data research, and the rest of us don't. Do you have even the slightest idea how arrogant and repulsive I find your personality? Of course you don't. Oh, oh, let me guess how you're going to respond to all this. Let me take a wild guess. You'll call me an idiot again, as though there was actually any validity in this accusation. Go back to your data research, you worthless piece of trash.

When you're right, you're right. Several pages back, I'd already come to the conclusion that there was no arguing with the Senator. Why I kept on trying to argue with him anyway . . . well, it probably wasn't my wisest choice ever.

I can see where you're going with this, and I agree Bledsoe was flawed. But the Bills had a veteran defense built to win now. Many of the defense's veterans only had a brief window in which they'd continue to be good, so for them it was a now or never situation. Unless you could find a very polished college QB--like Roethlisberger--it would have been a mistake to use a high draft pick on a long-term project like a rookie QB. Better to use those draft picks on the OL, and on defense. So that leaves the two choices for the 2004 starter as Roethlisberger, and a veteran QB. But the market for veteran QBs was pretty thin. You wouldn't want to get rid of Bledsoe to bring in a guy like Gus Frerotte. Kurt Warner had potential to give you an upgrade over Bledsoe, but there were questions about him. I can't think of any other veteran QBs that might have been an upgrade over Bledsoe, but maybe I'm forgetting someone. I'm not saying this to praise Bledsoe; it's just that I really don't think there was much of anything on the free agent market.

I can't believe you actually have the cheek to make such wild claims. Is there no limit at all to your audacity? Someone suggested measuring a QB's contribution to scoring by the number of TD passes he threw. I didn't agree with him. But did I accuse him of deliberately manipulating data to make Losman look good? Of course I didn't say this. I simply explained why I felt the TD pass wasn't an accurate measure of a QB's scoring contribution. Now along comes the Senator, otherwise known as "Mr. Intelligent Discourse." When Mr. Intelligent Discourse saw that I had created a system to measure a QB's contribution to scoring, he immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was deliberately trying to manipulate and distort data. Did Mr. Intelligent Discourse bother to understand the system before making these accusations against my system and my character? Of course not. Did Mr. Intelligent Discourse ask which QB's average points per game suffered the greater level of reduction through the adjustments I made? Of course he didn't. Had he simply asked this question, he would have learned that Holcomb lost more points-per-game through the adjustments I made than Losman did. Your accusation that I deliberately manipulated data to help Holcomb makes you seem like an ignorant fool. But you haven't let that worry stop you so far, so why start now?

You have acted neither concerned nor like a human being. But apparently that doesn't bother you. What you are describing is a computer programming concept, and not a mathematical concept. Mathematically, zero is zero. Putting a positive or negative sign on it doesn't change it. The floating point arithmetic you're describing relates to numbers very close to zero, which of course can have positive or negative signs, and which are (somewhat sloppily) designated as "positive zero" or "negative zero." True zero has no sign. But even allowing for the sloppy floating point concept of "negative zero," you still spoke incorrectly. (What else is new?) There's a clear difference between less than zero--which is what your posts in this thread are worth--and your so-called "negative zero." Oh, the irony!

Actually, you were the one who began throwing stones with this post: It's one thing to politely ask, "How do I know the system you've created isn't biased?" It's another thing to flat-out accuse me of dishonestly trying to create a flawed system to prove something that isn't true. For crying out loud, did you even try to understand my system before complaining so loudly about me manipulating statistics?

You have a sense of decorum? Wrong. I've acknowledged that you've offered opinions, which you supported neither through factual analysis nor intelligent reasoning. That hardly counts as addressing my--or anyone else's--points. Let me give you a little advice. If you're going to call me stupid, you might want to make sure your own facts are straight. I gave an explanation of why your posts in this thread were worth less than zero. Not negative zero, you dimwit. Less than zero. Negative zero and zero are equal to the same thing!!!

Well, maybe my opinion is 7109 times as important as everyone else's! Did you ever think of that? (Just kidding, by the way.)

Welcome to the boards, and thanks for the good post.

This isn't true. The way the cap works, only your most highly paid 48 players (or whatever the relevant number is) count against the cap. So getting rid of the Tai Tupais of the roster won't save cap space.

Maybe having my hopes repeatedly dashed by TD's teams has made me overly pessimistic. We'll see . . .

Only if the goal is to improve our draft position.

Speaking of those unwilling or unable to argue with any tool other than the personal attack, look who just showed up!