Orton's Arm

I agree that Pears' contract seems fair, in light of what he provides to the team. I also agree that Cameron Wake is ridiculously good at getting to the QB. Even so, I wish Hairston had had a better day. Maybe when they face each other again he'll do better.

> QB's are more important than LBs, and though the Bills need more help at LB, the real question, as > always, is whether or not there even IS a game-changing QB available in the draft. There really are years with none. A very excellent point. This is why a disciplined approach to team building is so important. Like you said, there are some drafts in which there just isn't a real franchise QB available. That's why a GM has to see things as they are; without allowing himself to be led astray by wishful thinking. If you take a QB based on wishful thinking, then not only will you waste draft picks, you'll also deny yourself opportunities to draft real QBs. Examples: in 2001, TD drafted Nate Clements instead of Drew Brees. This was largely because TD had convinced himself that Rob Johnson was probably going to be the long-term answer. In 2005, Aaron Rodgers was drafted late in the first round--by the Green Bay Packers, not the Buffalo Bills. Partly that was because TD didn't have a first round pick in 2005; having traded it for Losman. Nor did TD see a need to attempt to trade into the late first round of the 2005 draft. Why do a trade like that for Aaron Rodgers, when you already have Losman on the roster? If avoiding the wrong guy is half the battle, the other half consists of doing whatever it takes to get the right guy. When the right guy comes along, you have to take him! Trade up, trade away players, do whatever you have to--but get that right guy! There has been one franchise QB in Bills' team history: Jim Kelly. The Bills haven't been back to the Super Bowl since Kelly retired. That is not a coincidence. Getting a QB of Kelly's caliber is a franchise-altering event; and creates a decade long window of opportunity in which to win the Super Bowl.

I'm glad that our standards for the OL have improved to the point where a day which once would have been considered superior is now a mild disappointment. Had Pears been healthy, do you think he would have done a better job against Wake than the one Hairston did?

> this was far from a complete game Agreed. It's like the guys on this team take turns. During the first half of the season, it was the offense's turn to be productive, and the defense's turn to stink. Against the Dolphins, the defense actually showed up to play, but the offense was mediocre. I feel fairly confident that either the offense or the defense will show up next week. I don't know which of those two units it will be--just that it will be one or the other. On another matter, I'd like to thank Bill for once again providing a very solid OP. I'd like to hear his thoughts about how the offensive line did against the Dolphins.

> the scheme which is tailored to his abilities is also ALL ABOUT SHORT PASSING AND YAC (not per attempt). If Fitz completes a 5 yard pass, and if the receiver obtains an additional 15 yards after the catch, Fitz gets credit for all 20 yards when computing yards per attempt. There is no hidden benefit that Fitz is providing to the offense, which yards per attempt is failing to capture. The reason the Bills' offense is predicated around the short passing game is because Fitz is incapable of throwing intermediate to deep passes with the level of accuracy one would expect from a backup, roster-worthy NFL QB. This is a very serious limitation. Fitz's inability to punish defenses for selling out against the short passing game is one of the reasons why his yards per attempt stat is not higher. Flutie had the same problem in his second year as the Bills' starter.

Kelly Holcomb and John Elway have almost identical career QB ratings. Clearly, Holcomb was not nearly as good a QB as Elway. But Holcomb focused on short, high percentage throws; whereas Elway gravitated toward longer, lower percentage/higher reward opportunities. QB rating takes completion percentage into account; which means that it unfairly rewards QBs in the Holcomb/Trent Edwards/Ryan Fitzpatrick mold, and unfairly punishes QBs like Elway. John Elway has a significantly higher career yards per attempt stat than Kelly Holcomb; correctly indicating that Elway was the better QB. This season, Ryan Fitzpatrick is averaging 6.8 yards per pass attempt. Eli Manning and Andrew Luck are each averaging 7.3 yards per attempt on the season--consistent with the observation that both QBs are playing at a much higher level than Fitz. Cutler is averaging 7.1 yards per attempt; Stafford 7.0 yards per attempt. Tannehill is averaging 7.1 yards per attempt--not bad for a rookie! His season average should go up a little on Thursday. On the other hand, some of the guys on your list have lower average yards per attempt stats than Fitz. Weeden, for example, is averaging just 6.2 yards per attempt. Some of the QBs you mentioned are playing significantly better football than Fitz, some are playing slightly better than him; and a number of those QBs--such as Sanchez--are below average players; and are not playing at the same level as Fitz.

I agree with what you've written. > Donahoe trusted his draft board and went all in for JP Losman, which turned out to be a far reaching failure that has had negative repercussions for years. A very far reaching failure! The Bills have had one franchise QB in team history: Jim Kelly. The Patriots have had 1.5 franchise QBs in their team's history: Tom Brady and the first half of Drew Bledsoe's career. The Dolphins have had two franchise QBs in their team's history. The Jets have had one franchise QB in their team's history: Joe Namath. TD had several chances to obtain the second franchise QB in Bills' history: In 2001, he chose to draft Nate Clements instead of Drew Brees. In 2004, he chose not to trade up for Roethlisberger Also in 2004, he chose not to draft Matt Schaub In 2005, he was unable to draft Aaron Rodgers; having squandered his first round pick on the Losman debacle Admittedly, all the teams in the NFL passed on Schaub at least twice. If you like, I'll give TD a pass on 50% of Schaub. This means that TD had 3.5 legitimate opportunities to add a franchise QB to the team. He squandered every one. If he'd hit on even one of those, it would have been the second time in the ~50 year history of this team that we would have had a franchise QB.

TD's misplaced faith in Losman was by far his single biggest error, and was his defining moment as the Bills' GM. 1) In the 2004 draft, TD inquired about trading up with Houston, to be able to draft Roethlisberger. However, Houston asked what TD felt was too high a price. TD seemed to conclude, Why get ripped off by Houston for a QB like Roethlisberger, when it would be a lot cheaper, in terms of draft picks, to take a guy like Losman? 2) Matt Schaub was taken in the third round of 2004. TD didn't feel the need to take Schaub, because he'd drafted Losman in the first round of that same draft. Schaub has become one of the five or six best QBs in the league. The only time Losman achieved top-5 status, he was playing for the Las Vegas Locomotives. 3) Aaron Rodgers was drafted toward the end of the first round in 2005. TD didn't have a first round pick in the 2005 draft, because he'd traded it away for Losman. Nor did he feel a need to draft a QB, because he had Losman. Rodgers has since become a better QB than Brady. Had it not been for TD's misplaced faith in Losman, he would have had three separate opportunities to draft a franchise QB for the Bills. The problem is that TD paid too much attention to Losman's physical measurables, and too little attention to intelligence, accuracy, and intangibles.

No. 100% No. Franchise QBs are very rare. Generally, 0 - 1 franchise QBs enter the NFL each year. This means that a typical NFL team will receive a new franchise QB about once every 40 years. Nine of the last ten Super Bowl winning teams had franchise QBs. It is almost impossible to win a Super Bowl without a franchise QB. If you don't already have a franchise QB, and if a franchise QB is there for the taking, you take him. The absolute worst, most boneheaded, dumbest thing you could possibly do in a situation like that is to say, "I won't take a franchise QB right now. I'll fill a hole at ______ instead, and get my franchise QB later." If he's lucky, a typical NFL GM will get one chance to obtain a franchise QB. With the average team adding a new franchise QB once every 40 years, most GMs don't even get that one chance. If for any reason a GM chooses to pass up his one chance to get a franchise QB, he all but guarantees that his team will not win a Super Bowl on his watch.

> Again I'm not a Fitz supporter but I won't ignore he is given nothing to work with. Nothing to work with? How about one of the five best offensive lines in the NFL? Or a RB who has the second-highest per-carry average since 1960? Or a #1 WR who can consistently get open against Revis and other elite CBs? Or a reliable pass-catching TE in the form of Chandler? Or an emerging deep threat in the form of Graham? (At least, Graham would be emerging as a deep threat if he had a QB capable of throwing the long ball.) More recently, Donald Jones has started coming into his own. Assuming Jones' progress continues, the Bills are a quarterback away from having a complete offense. > The defense is a major facotr in all of the games you listed. I agree that the defense is a joke. But it's a mistake to wait until all your other holes are filled before drafting a franchise QB. The earlier in the draft you pick, the more likely you are to be able to get the guy you really want. The Bills should take the franchise QB now, and fix the defense later. Once both areas of the team have been fixed, they'll become a serious threat to win the Super Bowl. > The most useless stat in SPORTS is qb win/loss. Agreed. Football is a team sport. There were plenty of times when John Elway's teams went 7-9. Elway was great, but the guys around him were often disappointing.

Good post, and I strongly agree with each of the > observations you made. > It's easy to pad stats when you have a pass-happy coach (like Gailey) and your defense can't stop anybody. Some stats are easier to pad than others. Total passing yards is a nearly useless stat, because it's driven largely by the number of passing plays called over the course of a season. A pass-happy team like the Bills will call a lot more passing plays than more run-oriented teams. Any stat involving completion percentage can be easily padded as well: just dump the ball off to your RB all the time. Trent Edwards was no stranger to this tactic. But yards per attempt is much more difficult to pad. A while back, there were some comparisons between Fitz's stats and Jim Kelly's. The problem with those comparisons is that they looked at easily inflated stats (yards over the course of the season, completion percentage) while ignoring more difficult-to-inflate stats, like yards per attempt. For the most part, the Bills called a roughly 50/50 mix of pass plays/run plays while Kelly was the QB. In some years they actually called more running plays than passing plays. This makes yardage per seasons comparisons meaningless, because Gailey is clearly a much more pass-happy coach than Kelly's coaches had been. But when comparing difficult-to-inflate stats like yards per attempt, Ryan Fitzpatrick's best season of 6.8 yards per attempt does not compare to Jim Kelly's career average of 7.4 yards per attempt. One last thing: the Bills called a lot of running plays during the Kelly era. Anyone who called Jim Kelly a caretaker QB on that basis would be sadly mistaken. The Texans also call a lot of running plays; and Matt Schaub's career average of 7.8 yards per attempt is even higher than Jim Kelly's.

You are absolutely, 100% right. This season has been a disappointing one for Schaub--at least by his standards. He's averaging "only" 7.3 yards per pass attempt; as compared to his career average of 7.8 yards per attempt. This has been a very good season for Fitz. Only once before in his career has he equaled the yards per attempt he's put up this year; and never before has he exceeded that number. The problem being that the number in question--which is tied for Fitz's best season--is only 6.8 yards per attempt. This season, Joe Flacco has averaged 7.5 yards per attempt. This represents a considerable improvement over his career average of 7.1 yards per attempt. Matt Schaub's career average of 7.8 yards per attempt is higher than Peyton Manning's and Tom Brady's career averages. A very strong case could be made that Schaub is among the five best QBs in the NFL. To make any comparison between Fitz and Schaub, or between Fitz's season and Schaub's season--goes well beyond mere inaccuracy.

> When you're losing I don't think you get to gloss any part of your team as top 5 I disagree. The Bills lost plenty of games in the '70s, including every single game they played against the Dolphins. But pick any given year during the '70s, and you won't be able to show me five other teams which had better RBs than OJ Simpson. It works the other way too. If a particular team--such as the Patriots--wins more games than it loses, you can still point out weaknesses on that team. (Such as their pass defense.)

> More and more I'm thinking our next big acquisition (early draft pick or FA) needs to be a power back, not a QB. I couldn't possibly disagree more. Where to begin? 1) According to a regression analysis performed by The New York Times, passing offense is four times as important as rushing offense. 2) While Fitz seems to have improved a little these last few weeks, he's by no means a franchise QB. Also, that apparent improvement occurred against some bad pass defenses. 3) Of the last ten Super Bowl winning teams, nine had franchise quarterbacks. 4) Power running backs typically have short careers. A team like the Bills has no business using first round picks on short career duration players. We have plenty of other holes which should be filled first. 5) A franchise QB would transform this offense. The Bills have one of the five best offensive lines in the NFL. They have a #1 WR who can consistently get open against Darrell Revis. Donald Jones is emerging as a decent #2. Graham is a very good deep threat--or would be, if he actually had a quarterback capable of throwing the deep ball. Chandler is a reliable pass catching TE. Spiller, as we all know, is electric. If you were to add a franchise quarterback to this mix, the results would be very pleasing!

I don't know whether you're trying to imply that LBs are comparable in value to QBs. But if you are, you're wrong. An Aaron Rodgers changes the game in a way that a Greg Lloyd or a Chris Spielman does not. You could say, well what about Lawrence Taylor? Two things about that: 1) Not even Lawrence Taylor created nearly the same impact as Aaron Rodgers. 2) Lawrence Taylor played the pass rushing LB in a 3-4 scheme; which is a lot like playing RDE in a 4-3. Someone playing the position Taylor played will be asked to rush the passer a lot more often than will any LB in a 4-3 scheme. As for the Kuechley versus Gilmore comparison: LB is a position at which a player can often come in and make a big impact his rookie year. At CB, it often takes a bit longer to adjust. Gilmore clearly has the athletic tools he needs to succeed. He's just making rookie mistakes. If, a few years from now, he's still not grasping the mental side of the game--much like McKelvin--then there's a problem.

I noticed that the Bills' OL was rated among the top 5 in run blocking, and among the top 5 in pass protection. No other team was top-5 in both category, and only two other teams were top-5 in one and top-10 in the other. (The Patriots were fifth-best in pass protection and 6th best in run blocking. The NYG were second best in pass protection and 8th best in run blocking.) An argument could be made that the Bills, Patriots, and Giants have the three best OLs in the league--at least assuming their statistical ratings are valid. I'll grant the argument that the OL is probably siphoning off some of the credit due to Spiller (for making something out of nothing) or to Fitz (for getting rid of the ball in a hurry). Even so, the Bills' OL is clearly a source of strength. How useful is it to have a good OL? The answer to that question largely depends on how good your quarterback is. Take the Ravens of 2000, for example. They had a very good OL, led by a HOF-level LT in Jon Ogden. But they had a mediocre QB. The main point of having a good OL is to receive good pass protection. The point of having good pass protection is so that the QB can make good, accurate throws. The problem with a guy like Trent Dilfer is that he can't make good, accurate throws no matter how much pass protection you give him. The Ravens offense of 2000 went five straight games without scoring a touchdown, despite having a very good OL. On the other hand, consider a guy like Eli Manning or Tom Brady. If you give either of those guys good pass protection, they'll typically eat the defense for lunch. A good OL--and specifically good pass protection--matters a lot more when you have a QB like that, than when you have a QB like Dilfer.

Don't think in terms of making the playoffs next year. Think in terms of building a Super Bowl winner. Making the playoffs next year is not a natural progression toward building a Super Bowl winner, for the same reason that building a successful riding mower is not necessarily a natural progression toward building a successful racecar. If you want a racecar, you have to build it from the ground up. For a team like the Bills, building a Super Bowl-capable team means upgrading the quarterback position. (Among other positions.)

I strongly agree with your post, except for the last line. If the franchise QBs are expected to be gone by 5th overall, and if you pick 8th, then trade up to fourth overall! If there isn't a franchise QB available in the draft, don't waste your time with a non-franchise guy. When you finally pull the trigger on a QB, you want him to be The Guy. Not Sort of The Guy.

The Bills have achieved plenty of meaningless, draft position-destroying wins over the last decade. How much have those wins helped create a culture of winning? On the other hand, you've raised some good points. If you tell a group of players to tank a particular season, it's hard to tell that same group to give it everything they have, and fight for each other like brothers, the next season. If I was a GM just hired by a rebuilding team, I would tank the first season. My method of tanking would be as follows: 1) Release almost every player over the age of 30. I'd be especially inclined to release players who'd make good short-term stopgaps, but who are only a few years away from retiring. 2) At quarterback, I would do one of two things. a) A franchise QB, if possible, or if already on the roster. b) A QB competition between Brian Brohm, Tyler Thigpen, and Alex van Pelt. The absolute last thing I'd want at quarterback would be a Ryan Fitzpatrick. Fitz is good enough to get you a few wins you couldn't have gotten with Brohm or Thigpen; but he's not good enough to be the long-term answer at QB. 3) I would treat a number of other key positions the way I'm treating the quarterback position. Either you get a long term answer at the position, or else nothing. I would not sign any credible stopgap players--at least not in the first or perhaps the second year. 4) I would not hesitate to put key players on injured reserve, if given the slightest excuse. After 1 - 2 years as GM my honeymoon phase would wear off. I would then have to worry about winning enough games to avoid getting fired. During the honeymoon, I'd want to have at very least acquired my franchise quarterback; and ideally a few other building block players as well. Unfortunately, Nix's honeymoon period ended without him having acquired a franchise QB. Now he has to figure out how to win enough games to keep his job, while losing enough games to have the draft position needed to get that franchise QB. His options are very constrained. But if he somehow manages to get a franchise QB despite having painted himself into a corner, he will be more than halfway toward building a Super Bowl champion.

> To OP: It's called draft picks. You trade them in order to move up in position and take the guy you want. If only it were that simple. But what if you're picking in the late teens, and the guy you want is Andrew Luck? Do you have any idea what kind of price you'd have to pay to move from the late teens to first overall? (Assuming that deal was available at all. Which it might not have been.) But for the sake of argument, let's assume that the Colts would have been willing to seriously consider trade offers for the Andrew Luck pick. Let's furthermore say that the Bills had given their next few drafts to the Colts in exchange for Luck. The loss of all those draft picks would have been very painful. The Bills wouldn't have Gilmore, Glenn, or Graham. I'll grant that Luck is considerably more valuable than all three of those guys put together; and that the trade would have worked out well for the Bills. (Assuming the Colts had been foolish enough to make it.) But by avoiding meaningless wins, the Bills could have had Luck and those other players.

Regarding the minimum wage thing, there's a natural price point at which labor supply meets labor demand. That price point represents the wages that would be paid in a free market, absent any minimum wage law. That "natural wage" can go up. If business conditions are good, businesses will tend to demand more labor. This will drive up wages. On the other hand an increase in the labor supply will tend to drive wages down. The actions Democrats have typically taken have often resulted in a relatively low natural price point for wages: - Their immigration policy greatly increases the supply of unskilled labor, thus driving down its price (wage rate). - Many of their policies impose additional burdens on would-be employers. Those burdens also drive down wage rates - They often tend to impose onerous paperwork requirements or other measures which subtract from business efficiency. The less efficient businesses become, the less eager they will be to pay for additional labor. Policies such as the above are why the natural price point for unskilled labor will tend to be low when Democrats are in charge. They seek to solve the problems this would create by imposing a significantly higher wage for unskilled labor than the wage the market would have chosen on its own. The problem with this is that the farther away the minimum wage is from the wage that the market wants to pay on its own, the more unemployment will be created as a consequence. If (for example) the market wants to pay $5 an hour for minimum wage, and Democrats insist on a minimum wage of $30, many jobs will be lost as a result. To illustrate this, think about how you personally act. If a trusted neighbor was willing to mow your lawn for $5 an hour, and another trusted neighbor was willing to babysit your kids for $5 an hour, you would probably utilize their services more often than would have been the case, if you'd had to pay $30 an hour for them. To make a long story short, I agree with you that the growing gap between rich and poor is a serious problem. Where we disagree is that I do not see what constructive measures Democrats have taken to solve this problem. I feel the correct solution is to create an environment in which the free market pushes wage rates up naturally, due to companies trying to outbid each other for workers. To create an environment like that, the labor supply needs to be low (less immigration), and the climate for business needs to be favorable (less paperwork, simpler regulations, fewer lawyers).

> First off, the relevance of where he is born literally has ZERO impact on his ability to lead a nation. Perhaps. But the U.S. Constitution states that in order to be eligible for president, you must have been born in America. > Secondly, there has never been an AMERICAN president in the history of this country...why, because > the ONLY AMERICANS that existed where exterminated by European WHITE men. We seem to have drifted a little from the main subject. But for whatever it's worth, "exterminate and replace" was a fairly common strategy once upon a time, among both whites and non-whites. The Aztec tribe, for example, would fight against other American Indian tribes. If victorious, they would exterminate large numbers of their defeated foes. It was a standard-issue "exterminate and replace" strategy, with religious overtones of human sacrifice. > Thirdly, there is no proof he wasnt born here in the first place . . . Again, the question hasn't been subjected to an in-depth critical examination. We simply don't know whether it's legal for him to be president. > Finally, and most importantly, I did not see ANY republicans B word about Schwarzenegger not being born here when he was elected governor of CA. That's because it's legal to be a governor even if you were born in another country. However, Schwarzenegger is ineligible to run for president. > This is country founded on diversity and freedoms, not white power. This country was not founded on "diversity." "Diversity" is a made-up value used to justify a whole host of new leftist policies, including the 1964 Immigration and Naturalization Act. Back in the 1600s, the Pilgrims felt England had become too corrupt; and so moved to Holland. However, their children began learning Dutch, and began absorbing at least a little of Holland's corruption. Wanting to get away from that, the Pilgrims moved here, to America. The objective--at least for the Northern colonies--was to be a "city on a hill" and a "light to the nations." The idea was to build a community with a high degree of moral purity--hence the name "Puritan." In the South, colonies were founded so that younger sons of nobles could have lands of their own. (Typically, the eldest son of a noble inherited most or all of his land.) > And people wonder why minorities have been moving more and more to the democratic side. . . . It's a straightforward proposition. Step 1: Democrats open the floodgates to large numbers of new immigrants. Most of these are from Third World nations. Step 2: These immigrants often bring with them many of the same beliefs and expectations which caused their nations to become part of the Third World in the first place. Step 3: The immigrants vote Democrat. Step 4: Democrats create new legislation which moves the U.S. ever-closer to Third World status. Step 5: rinse and repeat. I don't see how Republicans--or any other group--can break this cycle, or prevent the U.S. from eventually being absorbed into the Third World.

> still think he wasn't born here During the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, a wealthy supporter of Hillary filed a lawsuit alleging that Obama was ineligible for office, not having been born in the U.S. The judge threw the case out, arguing that the man didn't have the right to file it. (As though it should have been no concern of that man whether his nation's president was constitutionally eligible for office.) The question of Obama's birth has not (to my knowledge) been subjected to in-depth critical scrutiny. In the absence of such scrutiny, it is erroneous to express full confidence he was born here. > think he's trying to take their guns away People in Western European nations often lack the right to own guns. In some cases, they are prosecuted for murder for defending themselves against those who have broken into their homes. If gun rights and self defense rights can be taken away in Europe, they can also be taken away here, by people who think the way that Western European politicians think. There had been at least some discussion about using the aftermath of Operation Fast and Furious to justify new anti-gun legislation.

This.

> If the Bills had the mumber 1pick in the draft each of the last 5 drafts, the would not be significantly better tham they are now. I strongly disagree. With five years of #1 picks, Andrew Luck would be our QB. Even without a first overall pick, Buddy was able to fix the Bills' OL. Spiller is averaging more yards per carry this season than either O.J. Simpson or Thurman Thomas have ever averaged in a season. With a franchise QB like Luck, a very good offensive line, and with a reasonably solid collection of receiving threats, the Bills' offense would be something special. Even if the other four first overall picks were wasted, Andrew Luck alone would have been enough to have fundamentally changed this team.