Orton's Arm

Ha!

Right. You'd obviously have to have "derangement syndrome" to think that Polian should want to draft a replacement for his aging franchise quarterback.

This sounds true. Polian knows that the Colts aren't going to win a Super Bowl this year with Garrard under center. On the other hand, finding an improvement over Collins would hurt the Colts' draft position just when they're planning on drafting Manning's replacement. Polian might indeed be planning on tanking the season with Collins and using the resulting early pick on Luck or some other highly ranked QB. Polian knows a lot about player evaluation. If he thinks he needs good draft position to find Peyton's replacement, he's probably right.

I didn't mention Merriman for two reasons: 1) I think he proved a lot more in the preseason than he did against Kansas City. Merriman's main value is as a pass rusher, but the Bills seemed more interested in using him to contain the Chiefs' running game than their passing attack. 2) Everyone should experience exactly the right amount of giddiness over this game. No more, no less. Getting giddy over Merriman--especially when he didn't do much as a pass rusher against the Chiefs--seems like a little too much giddiness for one week. Let's save the Merriman-related merriment for when he gets some regular season sacks! That said, I agree with you that he's likely to be a very important part of this defense. I also agree that having Wannstedt here is huge, especially given the inexperience of the Bills' defensive coordinator. I know that Wannestedt has traditionally been a 4-3 guy. I hope he takes the opportunity to become a guy who knows both the 4-3 and 3-4. A guy who can use either tool as the situation requires.

Let's say Bledsoe hadn't gone down with that injury, and had remained the Patriots' starter through 2004 or 2005. How many Super Bowls do you think the Patriots would have won with him under center?

I'm sorry to hear this Lori. You have my condolences.

It's almost always a mistake to read too much into a blowout win. If the Bills and the Chiefs were to play each other ten times, very few of the games would go as well as this one did. But that shouldn't stop us from recognizing that this team has taken a significant step forward from last year. Chandler, Dareus, Barnett, and Aaron Williams are new additions to the team, and played very well against the Chiefs. I imagine each of the four will be an important part of the Bills' plans for many years to come. Additionally, several players from last year seem to have taken a step up: Jackson, Fitzpatrick, Scott, Byrd, Bell, and others. Maybe some of those guys just had a good game and will soon revert to last year's form. But it's easy to imagine some of those guys playing better than they had a year ago. A third source of optimism comes from players who weren't necessarily starters this past Sunday, but who very well may have bright futures for the Bills. For example, it wouldn't shock me if at some point Hairston became the Bills' starting RT. I also thought White looked pretty good at RB.

Edwards would occasionally throw a very good long ball. I remember one preseason he threw an excellent deep ball to Scott Mayle, only to have the pass dropped. I'll grant Edwards didn't do this very often, and that his preference was to check down to RBs. But he threw enough deep passes to prove his arm strength wasn't that bad. His physical attributes were probably part of the reason why Gailey initially gave him the starting nod over Fitz. I feel Flutie had the weakest arm of the three. He played well in 1998. But in 1999, defenses learned that when you play Flutie, you're supposed to take away the short stuff and dare him to beat you deep. I don't think the problem there was an unwillingness to throw it deep, as would later be the case with Edwards. I think that he couldn't throw it deep due to lack of arm strength. I therefore voted Edwards-Fitz-Flutie.

I also ended up giving my game ball to Fred Jackson. I felt he played about as good a game as Thurman in his prime would have played had he been the Bills' starting RB against the Chiefs. Any time a player does that, you have to think about giving him a game ball! However, I also wanted to give the game ball to an offensive or defensive lineman, because both lines played so well against the Chiefs. I found myself tempted to vote for either Dareus or Bell. Then again, I also thought Fitz had a very good game, and the same could be said of the Bills' DBs. This was a very tough call, even though Freddy had a great game!

Good post. Just to add to what you've written: my impression was that the Bills defense was very good at stopping runs to the inside, but was sometimes vulnerable to runs to the outside. That's a significant improvement over last year, when they were vulnerable to both inside and outside runs! I also thought that the Chiefs had a hard time getting a running game going with any consistency. My impression (reinforced by your post) was that they'd get a few long runs here and there, only to have most of their running plays be three yards or shorter. That led to a lot of stalled drives.

I love this thread! Below is a list of players who played better than I'd expected: Ryan Fitzpatrick. I'm among those who are convinced he shouldn't be the Bills' long-term answer at QB. But I give him credit for having played very well today. Demetrius Bell. Just a few days ago I referred to him as a below-average LT. He sure didn't play like one today. Fred Jackson. I expected him to play well, don't get me wrong. But I didn't expect him to play this well! He looked like a top-5 RB today! Scott Chandler. The last time the Bills had a real TE, Clinton was president, Google didn't exist, the World Wide Web was just getting started, and Netscape was one of its most important companies. Having a real TE again--or at least a guy who played like a real TE for a game--felt like a weird trip back through time. I'm not complaining though! The Bills' defense as a whole. I was expecting the defense to be significantly improved over last year. But I didn't expect it to look like this! This defense gives the impression of being cohesive, and of making you earn everything you get. It seemed to have very few weaknesses to exploit, and gave the impression of all-around solidity. Today's victory was a combination of the Bills playing well and the Chiefs playing poorly. I'm curious to see how the Bills will look against better-prepared opponents. But while the BIlls won't usually look as good as they did against the Chiefs, I think it's become clear they've become a much tougher team to beat than they'd been last year.

The list of success stories during Marv's era as GM begins and ends with Kyle Williams. With that one exception, every draft pick and free agent signing of Marv's era failed to live up to expectations, or was an outright failure. However, TD's focus had been on building quickly, rather than the long-term. One example of this was his decision to trade away a first round pick for an aging Drew Bledsoe. It's unwise for the GM of a 3-13 team to trade away first round picks for quick fix solutions with no long-term value. Another example was Antoine Winfield. At the time he became a free agent, he had the best combination of youth + proven accomplishment among the Bills' DBs, and was among a small group of very good, young players that could have been part of the team's core for many years to come. TD let him walk so that he could overpay for Lawyer Milloy and an aging Troy Vincent. Some might argue that over the short-term, Vincent and Milloy might have been as useful to the defense as Winfield. But those players hit a wall, while Winfield kept right on playing at a high level. In 2005 the Bills went 5-11 in large part because of a sharp drop off in defensive production. The offense didn't play well either: there was no long-term answer at quarterback, and no long-term answers on the offensive line except for Jason Peters. The Bills of 2005 were not just a bad team. They were an aging bad team. TD's shortsightedness and quick fix solutions had finally caught up with him. If you want to have a very good or elite team, you need to have a core of very good players who will be with you for a long time. The Super Bowl era Bills had a core consisting of players like Jim Kelly, Andre Reed, Thurman Thomas, Kent Hull, and Bruce Smith. TD never really build a core for the team. With the exception of Lee Evans, none of his first round picks became part of whatever semblance of a core the Bills had.

I agree with the heart of your critique of Jauron. (And also with those who pointed out that Jauron's wins generally came against lousy teams.) If I was going to nitpick, I'd say that he could probably have coached the very best Patriots teams (talent-wise) to a 9-7 or 10-6 record, only to go 0-1 in the playoffs. A season like that seems to be Jauron's ceiling. Jauron was not the passive victim of bad personnel moves. As a head coach he bore a significant share of the responsibility for those moves. Consider the first round of the 2006 draft! The Whitner and McCargo selections seem to have Jauron's fingerprints all over them. I'm not trying to put all the blame on Jauron here. As GM, it was Marv's responsibility to tell his head coach no if that head coach wants to make a terrible personnel move. It is not immediately clear how Jauron was able to ascend from being a mediocre defensive coordinator to a second or third rate head coach. Part of it may have been that he was in the right place at the right time: he became Detroit's interim head coach after their head coach was fired, and used that as a springboard to land Chicago's head coaching gig the next year. After being fired by Chicago, he once again became Detriot's defensive coordinator. Later, the Lions fired their head coach again, and again made Jauron their interim head coach. If I'm a head coach for the Lions, I do not want to make Jauron my defensive coordinator! Jauron played RB in college before becoming a DB in the pros. He got his start in coaching as a DBs coach. All of this may or may not be related to the fact that while he was head coach, the Bills used nearly all their early picks on DBs and RBs.

Bill's comments, in no particular order, are something I very much look forward to after each game. The board is a better place with him here.

This is a great set of videos, and a great way to start the season. Thanks Jack!

If Wanny is a three star general and Gailey is a four star general, then that makes Edwards . . . a 3.5 star general?

Good post. You've made an excellent point in that the Bills of the late '90s were an aging team, whereas this is a young team. I also agree that the Bills began their decline in the mid to late '90s. While complacency may have played a role in that decline, I think the main driving factor was the fact that Polian's replacements weren't as capable as he was. (Edit: an argument could be made that the decline began as early as the 1992 draft. That was Butler's first as GM, and he began by using his first round pick on John Fina. He obtained fairly little from the '92, '93, and '94 drafts, and not much in '95 except for Ruben Brown.) One poster pointed out that in every comparison I made, the late '90s Bills were better than the team of today. He made a good point. This year's defense will probably be a step or two below the defenses of the late '90s. (And I agree with whoever said that Wade Phillips is a better defensive coordinator than anyone the Bills currently have.)

If I was building a 3-4 defense, I'd want a very good DE, NT, pass rushing OLB, and #1 CB. __________________Late '90s team____Present team Good DE_________Bruce Smith/Wiley____Dareus Good NT_________Ted Washington____Kyle Williams Pass rushing OLB Bryce Paup_________Merriman Good #1 CB______ Antoine Winfield_____TBD Another similarity is that the teams of the late '90s had weak offensive lines. ____________________Late '90s team______Present team Below average LT____John Fina__________Demetrius Bell Below average RT_____some random guy____Pears Good OG_________ Ruben Brown_____ Andy Levitre Both teams had QBs who showed flashes, but who were never able to become the long-term answer at the position. Doug Flutie had some good games, until defenses learned that when you play him you take away the short stuff and dare him to beat you deep. Rob Johnson had some good performances until defenses decided to blitz him to death and dare him to beat them with quick throws and pocket awareness! Fitz also has some very positive attributes, as well as an Achilles Heel (his lack of consistent accuracy). The team of the late '90s had a good WR corps led by Eric Moulds and Peerless Price. It also had a pretty good TE in the form of Jay Riemersma. There are some intriguing possibilities on this Bills team's WR corps, but it currently seems weaker (especially at TE) than did the teams of the late '90s. The teams of the late '90s were known for having significantly better defenses than offenses, and I suspect the same will also be true of this year's Bills team. Overall the teams of the late '90s seemed better. They had a better version of the 3-4, the better #1 CB in Winfield, the better TE, and probably the better receiving corps. Partially offsetting all that is the fact that Gailey is a far more innovative offensive mind than anyone on the coaching staff of the late '90s Bills.

Good post. Just to add to what you've written, earlier in this thread someone posted a link to an article about Whitner. One sentence from that article really stood out to me. ******** Whitner was the targeted defender on more TD passes than any other player in the league in 2010. ******** Looks like Marv was a genius for picking this guy 8th overall, and the fans were idiots for thinking he was a reach!

If Smith's performance in the second of his two Super Bowls was that impressive, why did the Patriots release him almost immediately thereafter? Why wouldn't they want to retain a player who you seem to feel had been instrumental in their second Super Bowl win and the playoff victories which led up to that win? As for Smith's #52 yards of all time stat--that's mostly a function of longevity and of carries per year. It's certainly not because Smith's average yards per carry was anything special. (It wasn't.) Drew Bledsoe has passed for more yards than all but a few QBs in NFL history. Other than his first few years in New England and his first eight games in Buffalo, his play was nothing special. Antowain Smith's career was just like that, except shorter and without any excellent seasons or half seasons thrown in. Also, Bledsoe was clearly better than backup-caliber players like van Pelt; whereas there was not necessarily a huge gap between Smith and his backups. Shawn Bryson averaged 3.9 yards per carry while in Buffalo, which is the same average Antowain Smith compiled. Sammy Morris averaged 3.6 yards per carry while with the Bills, which is moderately worse. As for your point about Jerome Bettis and Eddie George--I admit their career averages are lower than I would have expected. While I do not claim to know why this had been the case, I suspect part of it may be because of defenses ganging up to stop the run. I assume you are not trying to put Smith into the same category as Bettis or George. Your point seems to be that a big, between-the-tackles RB will tend to have a yards per carry stat which understates the true quality of his play. Even granting that your point may be correct, I still don't see a strong case for Smith. It wasn't like he was considered a sizzling hot commodity on the free agent market after the Bills released him. Had he set the league on fire his first three years only to be hindered by turf toe in 2000, then certainly he would have garnered far more interest than he did. When the Patriots signed him--and actually won a couple of Super Bowls with him--it was seen as evidence you can win despite having a mediocre RB. Smith was a better player than TD may have given him credit for, but was not anything special.

As the link you provided earlier pointed out, Smith averaged 3.9 yards a carry while with the Bills, and 3.9 yards a carry while with the Patriots. Is that any better than Smith's backups would have done, had they been given those carries? Sammy Morris's career average is 4.2 yards a carry, and Shawn Bryson's is 4.1 yards a carry. I'll grant those averages were compiled with generally different OLs than the ones Antowain Smith had. But "different" doesn't necessarily mean "worse at run blocking." I don't see a whole lot of evidence that Smith was a huge improvement over the other RBs the Bills had at the time. And as the Red Squirrel has pointed out, Smith was generally not a major factor in the passing game. You mentioned Smith's performance on the home run throwback game. During that game, the Titans' defense was much more committed to rushing the passer than to stopping the run. They figured that Rob Johnson was vulnerable to being sacked, so why not go after him? Similarly, when teams played the Patriots, they were typically much more interested in stopping the Patriots' passing game than their running game. During the regular season Smith only averaged 3.9 yards per carry for the Patriots despite the pressure their passing game took off their running attack, and despite their good OL. If that represents the successful use of a first round pick, Fred Jackson is clearly worthy of the Hall of Fame! I'll grant that it was an error for the Bills to have released Smith. Travis Henry didn't provide enough of an upgrade over Smith to justify the use of a second round pick, especially considering the fact the team was riddled with needs at other positions. The last time the Bills picked a RB in the first round who lived up to his draft position, that RB's name was O.J. Simpson. Since then, no other first round Bills' RB has come remotely close to doing so. This is incorrect. Winfield played very well as a cover corner.

Antowain Smith's career average yards per carry is 3.9. That includes his four years with the Bills, three years with the Patriots, and a couple of partial seasons with some other teams as his career wound down. The Bills' OL was better at run blocking than pass protection, and the Patriots' OL was good. 3.9 yards per carry doesn't really seem all that impressive to me. Other than his rookie year, he never averaged more than 4.0 yards per carry in any given season. By contrast, Fred Jackson's career average is 4.4 yards per carry. I haven't yet figured out who Smith's backups were during the late '90s. But in the 2000 season, he averaged 3.5 yards a carry for Buffalo, while Sammy Morris and Shawn Bryson each averaged 3.7 yards a carry for the Bills. There's a reason why Smith was simply released instead of being traded away.

I gave Wood the benefit of the doubt because of his injury. Maybe I should have listed him in the "too early to tell" category. Lynch was traded away after three years with the Bills. In theory, a RB's trade value should be at its high water mark around this point in his career. It's a long enough time for other GMs to see what he can do. A RB's trade value will presumably start to decline after the three year mark because of wear and tear. After Lynch's three years with the Bills, the other GMs in the league collectively decided he wasn't worth more than a fourth and sixth round pick. (Or a third round pick, if those running the Saints are believed). Assuming the Saints really did offer a third rounder for Lynch, and assuming their pick would have been about #20 in the third round, that pick would have been worth 170 points. The 12th overall pick is worth 1200 points. At most, the Bills could have had 14% of the value of their original pick, which I would classify as a "major disappointment." McGahee never played in a Pro Bowl for the Bills (but did play in one for the Ravens). Like Lynch, McGahee was traded away after he'd been in the league at what should have been the peak of his trade value. He had his initial injured rookie season, plus three active seasons. He was traded away for two third rounders and a seventh round pick. The 15th pick in the third round is worth 195 points, and the 15th pick in the seventh round is worth 8.6 points. That's a total of 398.4 points. The 23rd pick in the draft is worth 760 points; which means McGahee returned about 52% of his initial value when traded away. I'd put that in the "moderate disappointment" category. The Lynch pick was three times as disappointing in terms of squandered draft day value. (As an aside, Baltimore's third round picks may have been less good than 15th overall; so the 52% value retained may be a best case scenario for McGahee.) Antowain Winfield was by far the best football player on the earlier list, and amazingly is still a starter in the league today. The Bills could put him on an island against the other team's best WR, and know that over the course of the game that WR would not get out of hand. He was also a much better tackler than any CB has the right to be. If he had a weakness, it was his inability to catch potential INTs. A lot of fans base their Pro Bowl voting on whichever DB has the most INTs. Winfield clearly played at a Pro Bowl level while with the Bills, but didn't always receive the recognition he clearly deserved. The Bills got a very good return for the 23rd overall pick in the draft. (Or would have, had they not let Winfield go first-contract-and-out.)

It's my understanding that both Buddy Nix and John Wawrow agree that Overdorf was responsible for negotiating the Lee Evans trade. There has been some speculation that Overdorf and/or Littman may have initiated the Lee Evans trade for financial reasons. But I have not seen Wawrow or any other credible source assert this as a known fact. People were extrapolating from what we do know (that Overdorf negotiated the Evans trade). I've seen the Bills foolishly overpay for second- or third-rate players like Peerless Price part 2, Langston Walker, Larry Triplett, Cornell Green, etc. I've seen the Bills foolishly let some of their best players go (Antoine Winfield, Jabari Greer, etc.). Even if the Bills had established a budget of (say) 90% of the cap, the team could have been much better run had they spent their budgeted money wisely. Even this most recent offseason, the Bills attempted to sign Clabo or Colon to upgrade the RT position. Had one of those efforts been successful, it would partially or completely negated whatever money they're saving from the Lee Evans trade. It's not like a RT signing is a more-flash-than-substance, put-fans-in-the-seats, Terrell Owens style signing. Back in the late '90s, the Bills were in salary cap trouble because they were spending too much money on players. But in more recent years the Bills have spent well below the salary cap (as have many other teams). The general trend in the NFL has been to spend less than the salary cap, in large part because the salary cap has grown so much faster than have shared revenues. Three possible reasons occur to me as to why the Bills are no longer near the salary cap limit. 1) Ralph is unwilling to spend the money. 2) Ralph is unable to spend the money because of the Bills being a small market team. 3) The Bills have drafted poorly in recent years, and so have had few players deserving of big contracts. I suspect the truth may be a combination of the above three points. In particular I'd like to expand on point #3. Starting in 1997, the Bills' first round picks have been the following: 1997: Antowain Smith, 23rd overall 1998: none (traded away for Rob Johnson) 1999: Antoine Winfield, 23rd overall 2000: Erik Flowers, 26th overall 2001: Nate Clements, 21st overall 2002: Mike Williams, 4th overall 2003: traded for Drew Bledsoe 2003: Willis McGahee, 23rd overall 2004: Lee Evans, 13th overall 2004: JP Losman, 22nd overall 2005: none 2006: Donte Whitner, 8th overall 2006: John McCargo, 26th overall 2007: Marshawn Lynch, 12th overall 2008: Leodis McKelvin, 11th overall 2009: Aaron Maybin, 11th overall 2009: Eric Wood, 28th overall 2010: CJ Spiller, 9th overall There are only two or three guys on this list who have met or exceeded the expectations associated with their draft positions. Winfield, Clements, and maybe Eric Wood. Maybe. Everyone else was either a mild disappointment, a moderate disappointment, a major disappointment, an outright bust, or (in the case of Spiller) too early to tell for sure. With drafts like this, it makes sense that the Bills would be far below the salary cap. Almost nobody on the above list is worth throwing major money at.

Apparently Gailey agreed with you. And decided to go one step further by not allowing Martin to be a Bill at all!