Orton's Arm

I strongly agree with the two main points of your post. 1) That a good defensive coordinator is critical. 2) That the Bills currently lack one. That lack goes back to the very first decision TD made. Which is the same thing as saying it goes back to the very first mistake TD made! When TD took the reins, the Bills had a very good defensive scheme, and an uninspiring/mediocre offensive scheme. You'd think that TD would have hired a stellar offensive coordinator--a guy who could fix the Bills' offensive coaching woes, while leaving the defensive scheme alone. Instead, the final four candidates he interviewed for the head coaching gig were all defensive coordinators! This strategy resulted in a failure to fix the coaching problems on offense, and a downgrade in the quality of the Bills' defensive scheme. I would love to see the Bills add a defensive coordinator of Wade Phillips' caliber. If this defense needs a new jockey--and it does--it also needs a few more horses. My wish list for the latter category is 1) a pass rushing OLB, 2) an Antoine Winfield-caliber CB, 3) an ILB, and 4) maybe another NT, to allow Dareus and Kyle Williams to man the DE spots. I'm certain I want both of those two at DE. But it's possible that the Bills already have the talent on the roster--or perhaps on the practice squad in the form of Jasper--to put together a good rotation at NT even without adding new players or using Williams or Dareus at NT.

You're almost certainly correct about the Bills not drafting another QB in the first round of next year's draft. There are a lot of things I like about Fitz, including his intelligence, ability to read defenses, quick decision-making, and leadership. At this point I question whether he has the consistent accuracy needed to become a franchise QB. But I'd be delighted to be proved wrong on that point. I'm right often enough that I can afford to be proven wrong now and then! I would love to see a Bryce Paup added to the Bills' defense. If the Bills had a top-5 OLB, Dareus at RDE, Kyle Williams at LDE, and Kellen Heard or some other player at NT, I think you'd see a very good pass rush. I also like your idea of adding a quality ILB. The Bills' defense of the late '90s was effective for two reasons. 1) Three of the guys in the front-7 were players that deserved to be double-teamed. (Bruce Smith, Ted Washington, Bryce Paup.) 2) You could put Antoine Winfield on an island against the other team's best WR and have him be okay. This freed up a player for use elsewhere, giving the defense more flexibility. Of those factors, I'd say that 1) was more important than 2). However, good DBs will force the QB to hold the ball longer than bad DBs would have. A good defensive secondary accentuates the effectiveness of your pass rush. But I'd still rather have a good front-7 and bad secondary than the reverse! There have been several problems with the Bills' DB picks of the past. 1) (By far the most important.) The position has been regarded as a revolving door. The mentality has been that the Bills can afford to allow their DBs with the best combination of youth + proven accomplishment to go first-contract-and-out, because they can always be replaced by a first round pick in an upcoming draft. Unless a team has Pro Bowlers at nearly every starting position, this is an exceptionally stupid way to make decisions. Fortunately, the revolving door mentality seems to have gone out the window with Nix as GM. 2) Some Bills DBs have been reaches, and were chosen when better players at more important positions were available. (Yes Donte Whitner, I'm talking about you.) 3) Lately, a number of the Bills' early DB picks have been busts. But! If the Bills were to avoid these three errors, I would be okay with them using an early pick on a DB. He'd have to be a non-reach, there can't be a better player available at a more important position, and above all, if he plays well, he must not be allowed to go first-contract-and-out! But DBs aren't the only players at which the Bills should be looking. If it was up to you, who would be the starters on the Bills' offensive line of the future? Just to clarify that question a little, would you want the Bills' LT of the future be Hairston, Bell, or a draft pick? Would you want the Bills' LG of the future to be Levitre or some other player? And so on.

I agree that Dareus was too good an option for the Bills to pass up. I would disagree with anyone who'd contend that the selection of AJ Green would have been Spiller-like. For me, a dream scenario would have involved the following: 1) Instead of taking Spiller 8th overall, the Bills trade out of the pick. They end up with a late first or early second round pick in the 2010 draft, and a first round pick in the 2011 draft. 2) The first rounder the Bills acquired by trade turns out to be the 4th overall pick of the 2011 draft. 3) The Bills pick Dareus and Green back-to-back. A scenario like that would have made me very happy! Hopefully I'm not coming across as overly greedy here.

I personally would see an AJ Green pick in a different, much more positive light than the Spiller pick. In order to put Spiller on the field, you'd typically have to put Fred Jackson on the bench. The better Fred Jackson plays, the more painful that is to do. Even if Spiller plays very well, you have to ask yourself whether he's going to be that much of an improvement over Jackson! Yes, there are ways to use Spiller here and there even while keeping Jackson as the featured back. Spiller at WR! Spiller at backup RB, because Jackson needs a break every now and then! Two RB sets! But the bottom line is that the Bills didn't draft Spiller to be a WR, Jackson doesn't need a rest all that often, and a two RB set isn't going to keep defensive coordinators awake at night. Compare an impact like that to what AJ Green would have provided the Bills had he been the pick. With him on the roster, Stevie Johnson would become the team's second-best WR. One of the keys to the Jets' success was their DBs' ability to cover Bills' WRs one-on-one, freeing up other players to rush the passer. A one-two punch of Stevie Johnson and Donald Jones is much less threatening to the other team's defensive secondary than a one-two punch of AJ Green and Stevie Johnson! AJ Green would be on the field almost every offensive snap; as opposed to Spiller who gets put on the field in very limited doses. AJ Green's presence would exert significant influence on almost every passing play, whether the ball was thrown his way or not. There have been efforts to have Spiller exert influence too. Spiller as a decoy. Spiller as a blocker. Etc. But these sources of influence are considerably less than a dominant go-to receiver like Green would exert every time the QB dropped back to throw.

First, thanks for posting your thoughts of the game. Whether the Bills win or lose, yours is always the thread I look forward to the most each week. I'm intrigued by Hairston, and think there's a chance he's part of the long-term solution as a starter at OT. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this player. Even though Fitz is one of the better players on the roster, the Bills may have a need for a quarterback. Typically teams need an elite QB to win the Super Bowl. Fitz has played at a higher level this season than last season. But a lot of those good games came against weak pass defenses, and he hasn't been playing as well recently as he had earlier in the year. Depending on how he plays the rest of the year, the Bills may or may not be justified in taking a first round QB. (But obviously they shouldn't use a first round pick on a QB unless they're reasonably sure he's franchise.) I agree with your point about the lack of a pass rush. The Bills could very easily justify using a first round pick on a pass rushing OLB, especially if there were no QBs worthy of their first round pick. I could also imagine the Bills using an early pick on a CB. McKelvin is your long-term answer at nickel back, if he's even that! If all works out, Aaron Williams will be the long-term answer at one of the two starting CB positions. That would still leave the Bills in need of a long-term answer at the other starting CB position. Players like McGee and Florence aren't getting any younger, but their presence on the roster might allow the Bills to delay drafting a CB by a year or two. But I suspect that sooner or later, the Bills will need to use another early pick on a CB.

Negative one and 17!!! The best (worst?) anyone else could do would be 0-16! I'd be one game worse than anyone else in the standings, and that much higher up in the draft! I'm not sure how on earth I'm supposed to win -1 games, or lose 17 games. But where there's a will there's a way!

Your bolded statement is the one part of your post with which I agree. Some people reading this thread will be familiar with a study involving children and marshmallows. A given child was placed in a room, and given the option of eating a marshmallow placed in front of him or her. But if the child waited until later to eat the marshmallow, he or she would be given a second one. It was found that children who delayed eating the marshmallow to receive a second would later go on to have significantly higher SAT scores, lower divorce rates, etc., than the children who ate the marshmallows immediately. Other studies have shown that certain brain centers light up (figuratively) when contemplating immediate gratification, and other brain centers become active when processing delayed gratification. People who spend more than they should, live in the moment, and run up a lot of credit card debt tend to have higher-than-normal levels of activity in the brain centers associated with processing immediate gratification, and lower than normal levels of brain activity in brain centers associated with delayed gratification. Conversely, people willing to delay gratification for the future were just as happy thinking about the benefits of $100 a year from now as they were thinking about receiving $100 today. In theory, one would expect the fans to demand instant gratification, and those actually running the team to be comfortable with delayed gratification. In practice, there have been many times when the reverse was true--when TD and Marv used their first round picks to receive instant gratification, rather than employing them to implement a disciplined, long-term plan to build the team. The strategy of tanking a season to obtain Andrew Luck represents trading short-term pain for long-term gain. The three arguments to be made in favor of that general strategy are as follows: 1) Andrew Luck has a significantly higher probability of being a franchise QB than a QB taken later in the draft. 2) Even if a QB taken later in the draft works out, odds are he will not have the same ceiling Andrew Luck has. 3) A franchise QB with a high ceiling elevates the ceiling of your entire team, and makes a Super Bowl win much more likely than it otherwise would have been. The Andrew Luck strategy is a very viable option--arguably the best possible option--for any team in need of a franchise quarterback. I'd divide the anti-Luck crowd into three categories: 1) Those who don't think Luck will be good at the NFL level. (A relatively small number.) 2) Those who are convinced Fitz is a legitimate franchise QB. (A growing number of fans, considering that Fitz is playing better this year than he had last year.) 3) Those who believe Fitz is not the long-term answer, but who do not want to see the Bills tank the season to take Luck. I have yet to see a member of the third group put forward a viable alternative to the strategy of drafting Luck. Instead, I've seen YouTube clips of Herm Edwards saying, "you play the game to win." I find that approach stupid and annoying. My sense is that those who advocate it have absolutely no idea how the Bills are supposed to obtain their franchise QB, but feel that bravado and assertiveness are adequate substitutes for a viable long-term strategic plan. At most, they will point to isolated examples of franchise QBs taken outside the first round--such as Tom Brady and Drew Brees--without performing any kind of analysis about the likelihood of that strategy actually succeeding, were it to be employed by the Bills. Note that the above objections do not apply to the second group--those who legitimately believe Fitz is the long-term answer. If you already have your franchise QB on board, there is obviously no need to tank a season to obtain another franchise QB.

Please, man. Hold onto some shred of dignity. Not just for your own sake. But for all of us. If you must do something to degrade yourself, run around your neighborhood naked. Or arrive at a fancy restaurant wearing nothing but shorts and a smelly t-shirt filled with holes. But please, please do something less self-degrading than listening to--let alone enjoying--Nickelback! The thought of anyone enjoying that group is every bit as bad as the thought of someone enjoying a feces sandwich! Even New Kids on the Block wasn't as bad as Nickelback, and that's not a statement I ever thought I'd make about any other musical band. (Except for country singers, but that's different.)

It's funny that you brought up Peyton Manning. I see him as the exact illustration of the difference a good quarterback can make. With Manning, the Colts got into the playoffs almost every year. They would often advance in the playoffs before being eliminated by the Patriots or some other first-rate team. The Colts even won the Super Bowl with Manning at quarterback. Without Manning, the Colts do not seem capable of winning, period. One guy made the difference between last year's Colts and this year's Colts. Manning was drafted in '98. Even if he never plays another down of football in the NFL, he will have had a very long and illustrious career. If, in exchange for a season of ineptitude, you can add a guy like that to your football team, you'd be a fool not to do it! (Especially if you need a quarterback.) Andrew Luck may or may not be the next Peyton Manning. But if I'm the GM of a rebuilding team in need of a quarterback, I'd try to figure out how to go -1 and 17, just to be sure I could draft him!

Very good post! I fully agree that it's generally better to get one elite player than two solid players. One Clay Matthews is better than two (insert current Bills' LB's name here). While you didn't come right out and say it, I think it's clear the Patriots really miss Scott Pioli. He and Belichick made a good team.

You make valid points. Off the top of my head, I remember a play in which a Redskins offensive lineman blocked the wrong guy. As a result, a Bills DL didn't have anyone even trying to block him. Needless to say, that guy got an easy sack. On another play, the Redskins WR fell down while running his route, thereby allowing Byrd to get an INT. The Redskins made mistakes like that all game long. A team that played as badly as the Redskins played yesterday would likely go 0-16, unless it faced this year's Colts or Dolphins teams. Even then, the games would probably come down to the wire. On the other hand, I have to admit that the Bills' defense looked a lot more impressive yesterday than it had earlier in the season. Last season the defense improved as the year went on. It's possible we're witnessing the beginning of a similar improvement this season. But it would be premature to assert that with certainty. I'll wait to see how this "new and improved" Bills defense does against NFL-level offenses before pronouncing judgment.

Tampa Bay, England--same difference really. They're both right next to the Atlantic Ocean after all--at least if you consider the Gulf of Mexico part of the Atlantic.

Looks like Polian may have painted himself into a corner.

I agree with the bolded text. Just to add to what you've written, Losman was given his rookie year to sit on the bench and absorb the offense. Going into his second year, he was anointed the starter, and asked to produce while running that same offense. It was around that time that his position coach was Sam Wyche, one of the best quarterback coaches in the league. Based on some of the comments here you'd think he was thrown into the fire as a rookie (he wasn't, except for two or three snaps), that his coaches were all very bad (they weren't), or that he could have somehow blossomed into a good quarterback under just the right circumstances. The bottom line is that JP never had anything to offer the Bills beyond good physical tools, his long bomb to Evans, a decent work ethic, and the desire to be liked and accepted. Those things were never going to be enough to turn him into a good quarterback. In his fourth year in the league, he was outplayed by a rookie. It's not like we're talking about a rookie Joe Montana or a rookie Tom Brady. No. He was outplayed by a rookie Trent Edwards. Since then, he's bounced around the league, trying to hold onto a backup or third string position. Why some people still hold out hopes for this guy is beyond me. That said, I'll be rooting for him all the way, in hopes that the Dolphins' draft position gets spoiled.

The Jets sign Maybin, and he gets a few sacks. Now the Dolphins have signed JP. Somewhere in New England, Bill Belichick is scowling. If anyone asked him what he was thinking, he'd respond with a snarl. Translated, that snarl would mean, I know I need to sign either Mike Williams or John McCargo--I just don't know which. Don't interrupt me while I'm figuring this out!

The pleasure is mutual. You've put a lot of thought into your responses to me, which I appreciate. I used to be a big fan of using QB rating to evaluate QBs. But after gathering additional data, I decided it was a flawed tool. As an example of this additional data: Kelly Holcomb's career QB rating is 79.2. John Elway's is 79.9. I'll grant they played in different eras, with only three years of overlap between them. But still . . . those two QBs should not have the same QB rating! And this is coming from a guy whose screen name was once Holcombs_Arm! Holcomb's career yards per attempt (YPA) is 6.6, and Elway's is 7.1. Clearly there was a difference between the two quarterbacks, and YPA does a much better job of illuminating that difference than does QB rating. Therefore YPA is the better tool--at least in this instance. Having looked at a number of other QBs' YPA, I've concluded that it's a very solid and reliable tool. Obviously no tool is going to be perfect, especially not anything based on simplistic raw data like throwing yards, completions, etc. If a WR makes an acrobatic play to catch a badly thrown pass, the QB gets the credit. If a WR drops a perfectly thrown pass--or worse, bobbles it in a way which causes an interception--the quarterback takes the blame. This flaw cannot be overcome unless each play is individually analyzed to determine how much credit or blame the QB personally deserves. If highly labor-intensive evaluation tools are taken off the table, the best single option left is, IMO, yards per attempt. I'm not really a big fan of TD percentage, for two reasons. 1) The number of TDs an offense scores depends on many factors, only one of which is the quarterback. Do the defense + special teams frequently give the offense good field position? How good is the running game? Does the offensive coordinator call a lot of run, run, pass, thereby increasing the number of punts? 2) The percentage of an offense's TDs scored by the quarterback will vary. For example, suppose it's first and goal at the one. Offensive coordinator A decides that in this situation, he'll call run, run, run. Coordinator B decides he'll call run, run, pass. Coordinator C is of a mind to call pass, pass, pass in that situation. Clearly, a QB with coordinator C is going to get the highest percentage of his offense's touchdowns, and someone with Coordinator A will get the lowest. Even though I'm not a huge fan of looking at a QB's TD passes, I do like the idea of looking at his interception percentage. As you correctly pointed out, INTs are almost always very bad in themselves. They're also a good yardstick for measuring a QB's propensity for either a) making bad throws, or b) taking risks with the football. To expand on your earlier point about Terry Bradshaw, Bradshaw had a much higher/worse interception percentage than Joe Montana or Roger Staubach. The New York Times performed a multiple regression analysis to determine the factors involved in winning football games. Their dependent variable was a team's number of wins during a 16 game season. The independent variables were yards per attempt, INT percentage, yards per rush, and the defensive analogues of these three measures. The model explained 80% of the observed variation in winning or losing, thereby proving that special teams is not worth 1/3 of the total. (Despite claims by Marv and others to the contrary.) Yards per rush and a QB's interception percentage were of equal weight. Yards per attempt was three times as important as either. The situation on defense was a mirror image of this. A one standard deviation improvement in a defense's ability to generate INTs was just as useful as a one standard deviation improvement in a defense's ability to limit yards per rush. A one standard deviation in a defense's ability to limit yards per pass attempt was three times as useful as a one standard deviation improvement in limiting yards per rush.

I agree with this post, and would like to expand on what you've written about Rob Johnson. Every quarterback needs a certain amount of pass protection to be effective. But the amount required varies from one QB to another. Short amount of time in pocket required: Aaron Rodgers Moderate amount of time required: Tom Brady Long amount of time required: Drew Bledsoe Very long amount of time required: Rob Johnson Rob Johnson was certainly the most sack-prone QB in NFL history. But when you gave him lots of time to throw, he looked good. Often very good. At this point, some might respond with, "All quarterbacks look good if they're given all day to throw." My response to that is twofold. 1) That isn't necessarily the case. 2) Many starting quarterbacks given that kind of time don't look nearly as good as Johnson did when given lots of time to throw. There's a reason the Bills traded away a first round pick for him. When Tony Boselli protected his blind side, he played very good football! He threw the ball down the field, attacked defenses, and his intermediate and deep passes were things of beauty. Very accurate--well beyond the accuracy one associates with most Bills starting QBs. If you protected Rob Johnson he'd carve the defense up. But if there was a flaw with the pass protection, the guy was a sack waiting to happen. Johnson had both significant virtues and significant shortcomings. Clearly there must be 50 QBs in NFL history with significant shortcomings, but without significant compensating virtues.

Thanks for this well thought-out response! I agree with most or all of what you've written above. You bring up good points about Bradshaw. My main point about Dilfer was that if a good/great defense significantly boosts a QB's stats, you'd expect Dilfer to have achieved his best stats during the year he spent with the Ravens, his second-best stats during his time with the Bucs, and his worst stats during his two years as Seattle's starter. Instead he put up significantly better numbers during his two years as Seattle's starter than he had either with the Ravens or the Bucs. You hinted at one reason why this was the case when you talked about how a QB paired with a bad defense needs to play catch-up football or punch for punch football. A typical offensive coordinator would design a more conservative game plan for the Ravens offense than for the Seahawks offense; knowing that the Ravens wouldn't need to score many points each week in order to win. I could easily imagine this conservative style of offense negatively impacting a QB's yards per attempt stat. On the other hand, I agree that a QB is likely to have more TD passes if paired with a good defense. It's a question of field position and the benefit of turnovers. The effect of a good running game on a QB's number of TD passes is harder to quantify. The better the running game, the more TDs the offense will tend to score. However, a good running game means that the offensive coordinator will be tempted to run the ball when nearing the goal line. Every rushing TD for some RB is one less TD pass for the quarterback.

You express yourself well, and posts like yours elevate the quality of these boards. However, there are some points you've made with which I do not fully agree. You wrote that a good defense can boost a QB's stats. A good test of this theory is Trent Dilfer, who had one of the three best defenses in NFL history. In 1997, '98, and '99, his average yards per attempt was 6.6, 6.4, and 6.6 respectively, while playing for Tampa Bay. Then when he was paired with that Ravens defense of 2000, his average yards per attempt jumped to . . . 6.6. While with the Ravens, he had a very good running game in the form of Jamal Lewis, and a good TE in Shannon Sharpe. The Ravens released him after that Super Bowl win, so he went to Seattle. In 2001 and 2002, his average yards per attempt was 8.3 and 7.0 respectively. He then became a backup in 2003. The Dilfer example seems to suggest that a good defense does almost nothing to boost a QB's stats, and that a good running game might have less of an impact on those stats than many believe.

Perhaps they traded two high draft picks for a 3.5 year QB.

It's been said that to succeed in any endeavor, you should set your sights on your ultimate goal, and judge each of your individual actions by whether it moves you closer to that goal. The question which needs to be asked is, should the Raiders' ultimate goal be merely to make the playoffs? Or should their ultimate goal be to win the Super Bowl? If the ultimate goal is merely to make the playoffs, then your conclusion is spot-on. But if their ultimate goal is to win the Super Bowl, then making the playoffs this year is irrelevant. You could argue that their making the playoffs this year becomes relevant if this year's Raiders team, with Carson Palmer at quarterback, has a realistic chance to win the Super Bowl. Frankly, I don't think it does. Might the addition of Palmer be a step toward a Super Bowl win at some point in the future? For example, a good record this season might help attract free agents who want to play for a contender. To me, it's a very risky gamble to hope that the value of the free agents thus acquired will outweigh the loss of those two first round picks. The absolute last thing any NFL team should do is to adopt the mentality of this guy. I don't care how cool a song it is! Back in 1997, the Colts took a big step toward winning the Super Bowl by going 1-15. Doing so allowed them to draft Peyton Manning. The trade for Palmer seems like the exact opposite of that. It will likely improve Oakland's fortunes over the short-term, while substantially reducing its long run probability of hoisting a Lombardi Trophy.

Not to worry. I'm sure Harrison will be traded to the Eagles again next year.

Very funny video!

At least based on last season, Aaron Rodgers was playing football at a higher level than any other quarterback. That includes Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. Do I think that Andrew Luck will do that? No. I think the most likely outcome is for Luck to be very close to the level of Rodgers/Manning/Brady, but just a little bit worse. For a player like that, I would trade away the fruits of ten years of Bills' drafting. (The Bills' drafts of 2000 - 2009.)

Thanks for the compliment. I appreciate it! When I wrote my earlier post, I thought to myself, the image that will come to people's minds is of Aaron Rodgers trying to win games by himself, without any real talent at all around him. No one--not even someone as good as Rodgers--can succeed after having been set up to fail so dramatically. But a trade doesn't have to result in a situation as dire as that. A lot of times, getting rid of one player makes room for another to emerge. The departure of Terrell Owens made room for Stevie Johnson to contribute. Trading away Lee Evans gave Easley the chance to contribute. Easley's injury created more playing time for Nelson. I realize it's overly optimistic to assume that every hole on one's team can automatically and instantly be filled in this manner. But it would be overly pessimistic to assume that no holes would be filled like this, especially over the long run. Suppose the ten players I mentioned earlier were in their primes, and on the Bills' roster. How much would the Bills lose by trading all ten of them away? Player lost: Nate Clements. Replacement player: Aaron Williams. Comparison: too early in Williams' career to compare. Player lost: Aaron Schobel. Replacement player: Marcel Dareus. Comparison: Dareus appears better than Schobel. Player lost: Terrence McGee. Replacement player: Leodis McKelvin. Comparison: McGee in his prime is better than McKelvin. Player lost: Lee Evans. Replacement player: Easley. Comparison: Evans is the better player for an offense which needs a deep threat; Easley is the better player for the Bills' current offense. Player lost: Kyle Williams. Replacement player: Kellen Heard. Comparison: Williams in his prime is better than Heard, but that's not to take anything away from Heard! Player lost: Demetrius Bell. Replacement player: Hairston. Comparison: the two players appear to provide roughly similar levels of play, though it's too early to be sure. Player lost: Stevie Johnson. Replacement player: Nelson. Comparison: Johnson has proven more thus far, but Nelson shows significant potential. Player lost: Eric Wood. Replacement player: the backup center from Carolina we recently released. Comparison: Wood is significantly better. Player lost: Jairus Byrd. Replacement player: George Wilson (with Bryan Scott as starting SS). Comparison: this would result in a moderate downgrade of play at the safety position. Player lost: Andy Levitre. Replacement player: Rhinehart. Comparison: Levitre is a significant step up from Rhinehart. There would be a noticeable amount of pain associated with trading away the ten players I mentioned. On the other hand, the benefit of having a franchise QB is huge. Does anyone think that Green Bay would have won a single playoff game, let alone the Super Bowl, if Rodgers had gone down with a season-ending injury? After acquiring Aaron Rodgers in a trade like this, the Bills would still need a year or two to become legitimate Super Bowl contenders. That time would be required to fill their (self-created) holes at center, CB, and elsewhere. But it's a lot easier to find reasonably good players to fill in holes like that than it is to find a quarterback like Aaron Rodgers! Under a scenario like this, the Bills would be virtually certain to become legitimate Super Bowl contenders within a year or two of making the trade.