JDG

Its a total hoax, and ESPN should be ashamed of reporting it. Grimm is getting HC interviews every year in his current position. Why would he come here if none of the HC opportunities pan out this year?

False. TD did not, quote, "ignore upgrading the OL." Its just plain not true. He used our highest draft pick in decades on an OL, used several mid and late-round picks on the OLine, and brought in several UFA's and street free agents. He did not succeed in upgrading the line, but he did not ignore it. I think it is a huge mythology of fans that teams have "QB Competitions" in training camp. Mularkey and Donahoe made their decision based on several weeks of in-season practice, and limited game performance of Losman, and continued to re-evaluate the team constantly (which is why Losman was benched.) They made the decision to try and develop Losman this year, and there is no reason why the Jeff Blake's of the world should have had the chance to start the opening game over Losman once that decision was made. The point was to develop Losman, not to start the best QB *today* (which was Holcomb, BTW.) Moreover, "struggle" hardly begins to describe it. Losman was playing at a level that was barely NFL-caliber, and you could make the case that he was the worst starting QB in the League last season. False. After the stinker JP Losman put up in Tampa, followed by another stinker at home against Atlanta, he trotted him back out again for the Saints game. Only after Losman put up yet another stinker against the woeful Saints was Mularkey *forced* to pull the worst QB in the League (at that point of the season.) A wilting rose would have pulled the plug in training camp - or after the Tampa game, or *at least* after the Atlanta game. False. Kelly Holcomb was 4 of 6 when he was injured, with both incompletions resulting from intense pressure up front. He also had one drive killed by the infamous "fake sneak" play. False. The Bills were very much alive to steal the division from the Patriots with divisional games against Miami (which we lost after Losman went in the tank with sub-50% completion percentage in the second half) and a home date with the Patriots (in which Losman got killed.) Maybe Losman is Rich Gannon - though we may never get enough chance to find that out. On the other hand, maybe he's Akili Smith. Everyone wants to stick with Losman because he's a 1st Rounder, but sometimes 1st Rounders are Busts. And if you don't detect the bust quickly enough, you end up investing 5 years in Joey Harrington and going nowhere. You started your post by complaining that Losman was handed the starting job without competition - now you want the Bills do exactly that.... griping about every start that Holcomb had instead of Losman because of Holcomb's superior performance. You don't seem to think much of Kelly Holcomb (who's actually taken a team to the playoffs - something the Bills apparently don't know much about lately) - if Losman can't beat out Kelly Holcomb on *performance*, should the Bills really be starting him? For as good as he looked against what was hardly one of the NFL's elite defenses, he still only completed 56% of his passes - which is o.k., but not good/great by any means. Were you watching Browns games all season? Holcomb was twice as good as Losman this year, so I have no idea what you base that on. JDG

Go-to-guy on Third Down? Funny, I thought that was some guy named Novacek.... And as for Irvin being "clearly the leader"???? Now this was a long time ago, and I sure knew a lot less about football then than I do no, so this could all be total BS, but my memory is that when the Bills played the Cowboys, I was worried about stopping Emmit Smith and Jay Novacek. Irvin didn't particularly scare me or worry me. I guess you could say the same thing about the Cowboys planning for Andre Reed and the Bills, though. So I guess that I put neither of these guys in the category of TO and Randy Moss. JDG

Realfootball 365, apparently being repeated by Leo Roth, has suggested Norv Turner. I find it hard to see Mularkey brining in an established offensive guy with his own system. Mularkey will either bring in a guy who knows his system, or a young guy who wants to learn Mularkey's system. So we'll see who is right on this one. Steve Fairchild from the Rams (and Gregg Williams' RB coach) apparently has an interview, and I like the idea of trying for Josh McDaniels - New Bruschi's (we're not worthy) QB Coach (think Tom Brady.) I still think that a lot has to be said for Arians - hopefully he's available come Sunday night. On defense, I'm not excited about Ted Cottrell - but with Marv as GM, he has to be the front-runner with Mularkey really needing a strong defensive guy. Maxie intrigues me as a young up-and-comer, and learning defense from Jim Mora isn't a bad thing on the resume. And of course, time in New Bruschi (we're not worthy) is an instant coaching qualification these days, so Pepper Johnson, NE's DL coach makes sense too. My money's on Cottrell, unfortunately, but would still love to see us at least check out Ryan from Oakland. JDG

Peter King and the AP are all morons for not calling Thurman Thomas a "headliner" on this class. Its hard to make comparisons between eras, so you kind of have to judge people against who they played against. Thomas is the *only* NFL Player to lead the League in Yards from Scrimmage for four straight years - not Jim Brown, not OJ Simpson, not Walter Payton, not Emmit Smith. Case closed - he should be a unaninmous pick. JDG

If you ever manage to get a tape of the low-scoring Bills-Broncos playoff game from January 1992, you might have some idea. (O.k., maybe it was a well-played defensive battle, and maybe the Bills were ahead for a lot of it - I don't remember any more, but for my money it was one of the finest crowd performances in NFL history.) At any rate, booing your own team during the playoffs has to be about the dumbest thing that a football fan could do. Not that it stops them. JDG

I give Tiki Barber a mulligan on frustration. The Giants had just one the second-toughest division in football with 11 wins (in retrospect, they were clearly overrated, being the beneficiaries of having 9 home games this year, and having no significant road wins on their resume), and suddenly all of that glory is dissippited into one of the most embarassing losses in playoff history. Sorry, but teams and seasons are judged by how they play at the end of the season, not at the beginning of the season, and no good team should *ever* be shut out at home in the playoffs. JDG

Basically, assuming Moulds plays out his current contract, Moulds will count for a certain pro-rated bonus amount under the 2007 cap whether he plays for us in 2007 or whether he is cut following 2006. If we cut Moudls now, we have to expend that cap space in 2006 instead of 2007. But there is no "additional" cost. My comments about the QB situation were in discussing Moulds' attitude *this year*. Do my comments make sense now? JDG

So, let's say the savings from Moulds are $5mil in cap space. Do you want to start Roscoe Parrish at WR next year? If not, cutting Moulds means that we need to sign another WR... which will cost us around $2mil, give or take, in cap space. Thus, the *real* savings from cutting Moulds are $3mil in cap space. O.k., that's something..... but it is *not* the no-brainer decision that way, way, way, too many people on this board have made it out to be - especially for a non-cap-strapped team. Now, maybe you understand something about the NFL Salary Cap that I don't, but if we keep Moulds under his current deal, I don't see any way in which there is, quote, "additional cost to cut him in 07." I don't have a problem with Moulds' attitude. I think that Moulds, in his old age, got a little frustrated with the Bills trotting out a QB this year who was not NFL-caliber in a year in which the Patriots were mediocre and the AFC East was there for the have been costing him his job. The case for keeping Moulds relies very heavily on the numbers he put up with Holcomb at QB, who was at least smart enough to know who the playmaker is on this team (memo to JP - it ain't Josh Reed.) If Moulds had to suffer for an entire year while the incompetent JP Losman may or may not have worked his way up to NFL-caliber that $3mil in cap savings might look really good to a lot of people, and would certainly diminish the amount of money Moulds would get from the Eagles upon release. There'll be a time for the Bills to part ways with Eric Moulds. With proper management by One Bills Drive, it aught to be the day when Eric Moulds retires. JDG

Funny, I thought you were going to advocate drafting Vince Young because you thought that he might win football games for them. The NY Jets are in a Metro Area with a gazillion people. They don't have to worry about selling tickets on the basis of a draft pick..... Chad Pennington is beloved by Jets fans, and a new Head Coach always generates a bit of buzz. Even if Vince Young is there, and its hard to see how it is, unless they know more about Pennington's shoulder than we do, its hard to see them going in that direction. JDG

Well, you've done a remarkable job of insinuating that you don't consider him to be starting caliber. But anyhow, Moulds will *not* be paid $10.85 million next year. The signing bonus is in the past, and it counts against the cap whether we keep Moulds or cut Moulds, so acting like Moulds sill be paid his full cap hit is not an accurate or precise way of talking about this situation. Moreover, Bills Daily has the following contract info: WR Eric Moulds - 3 yrs. $18M. SB $5 M. Base $1.5 M (2005). These numbers appear to not be 100% accurate, based on the $10.85 figure from WGR, but I'll go through the exercise here using the Bills Daily numbers for demonstration purposes, since they are what we have: Moulds would have a $5mil, or probably slightly less, base salary next year (obviously without any information on incentives). So, tack onto the base salary that $1.67mil in unamortized signing bonus for a cap hit that is closer the $7mil. But according to these numbers, if we cut Moulds, we only save $3.3mil in cap space ($5mil base - $1.67 in accelerated unamortized signing bonus.) Out of that $3.3mil, some portion of that will have to be used on signing a free agent WR - unless you want Losman throwing to Parrish as a starting WR next year. Thus, our true cap savings, presuming that you replace Moulds is ($3.3mil - 1st Year FA WR cap hit.) The true figures are probably somewhere in-between, but I don't think it helps anything to speak of Moulds being *paid* $10.85mil - which suggests that somehow that amount of money can be saved. The true savings subtracts the dead cap money, plus the cost of a replacement. JDG

In 7 games with Kelly Holcomb at QB, Eric Moulds had 54 catches for 588 yards, an average of nearly 8 catches (7.7) and 84 yards per game. This on a team that even with Holcomb at QB was hardly a highly dynamic offense. Project these 7 games (hardly a small sample size) over an entire season, and you get 123 catches for 1344 yards. That would be 20 catches more than League Leaders Larry Fitzgeral and Steve Smith. The 1344 yards would rank 6th, ahead of guys like Tory Holt, Joey Galloway, and Marvin Harrison - and again, on a non-dynamic offense. I'm not saying that he would have achieved these numbers if he had a full season of Kelly Holcomb, but I think that these numbers do make it ridiculous for you to suggest that he is not starting-caliber. You can talk about 10.9 yards per catch - but 10.9 ypc means that Moulds is, on average, getting us a first down every time he touches the ball.... *and* he is touching the ball as much as anybody in the League - which is more than can be said for some of those lower-paid possession-types you are thinking about. Finally, you and I both know that Eric Moulds isn't making $10.85 million next season. Sure, I'd like to see Eric Moulds' numbers come down a bit - but if not, I think that keeping his better than the alternative of cutting him, absorbing the dead cap space *and* paying for his replacement, for a team like the Bills that has decent cap room anyways. JDG

If he continues to average 9 catches for 102 yards per game like he did in the three games with Holcomb after his suspension, then we don't need to find a new role for him. In fact, we wouldn't even really need to force him to renegotiate his cap hit. JDG

I think you are going too far in trying to pick out individual teams as winnable games. A more reasonable analysis is to just look at which divisions the Bills draw for next year. The AFC East will acount for 6 games, and it looks like it could be shaping up as an average to above-average division. The Patriots will be solid, *again*, albeit maybe not as spectacular as in 2003-4; the Fish look like they could be very solid under Saban, which is problematic for us - but they have enough talent questions, especially at QB, that they might not take a step forward next year, and could even go backwards a step; the Jets could get better just be virtue of having a few less injuries - though on the other hand, if Pennington's injury drags on into next season, the Jets could be heading for another Top 10 draft pick under a new coach. Overall - hard to see the AFC East being one of the top divisions in football again. The AFC South looks like a favorable draw. The Colts should be awesome again as long as Peyton is healthy - though losing Edgerrin James in free agency could send them backwards. The Jags were the worst 12-win team in NFL history this year - the inflated record will hurt their ability to move forward; the Titans are still rebuilding - but the youngest team in the NFL should be better if Fisher can regain his grip on the team that otherwise seems to be lossening; and the Texans are just plain building - and now will be adjusting to a new HC. Overall - should still be one of the weaker NFL divisions next year. The NFC North looks like another favorable draw. We'll see if the Bears' miracle-run this year can be repeated, and every other team in the division will have a new Head Coach. Overall: Should once again be the weakest division in football. The bad news, of course, is that everyone in the AFC East has the same schedule above. So the key feature is how good the Patriots, Dolphins, and Jets are - since in the realigned NFL the Wildcard Spot is basically just a consolation prize.... its all about winning the division. The Bills' final draws are vs. San Diego and @Baltimore. I'm definitely happy to get the Chargers at home - who are essentially a playoff caliber team this year, despite the 3rd-place finish. Baltimore is a huge questionmark, and could be very good to just as bad. At the end of the day, the Bills have 6 games scheduled next year against teams that are hiring new Head Coaches. If we can get a bunch of those games early in the season, it definitely could help us. Unfortunately, with our current talent and Mike Mularkey as HC, I'm not at all sure that we can take advantage. JDG

I think you hit an interesting question on what Clements will receive as a FA. Obviously cap cuts haven't happened yet, but taking a look at the early FA market, and Clements is *easily* the #2 CB available behind Ty Law - and Clements has the added bonus of being young. The next best guys I saw were of the caliber of Deshea Townsend and Jerry Azumah. So, Clements might well get a big pay day by default - he holds the supply, and there is plenty of demand. As for Mike Williams, I take a middle road. There will be some demand for his services, just based on pedigree and potential, so he could get more than Gandy - but it won't be a huge payday. As for the proposed OLine above - I think that is the first Fantasy Football OLine I have ever seen. The cap hit of the above oline would completely hamstring this football team. JDG

It's possible that Eric Moulds is not a good player any more, but I don't think that is the case. I think we saw the real Eric Moulds when we started a QB, Kelly Holcomb, who could get him the ball. While I dislike the term "#1 WR", I think that Eric Moulds, who played only 14 games this year, at minimum belongs in the same group as the leading pass-catcher for a number of teams, including, Derrick Mason (Ravens), Antonio Bryant (Browns), Jimmy Smith (Jaguars), Laverneas Coles (Jets), Eddie Kennison (Chiefs), Drew Bennett (Titans), Michael Jenkins/Brian Finneran (Falcons), Muhsin Muhammad (Bears), Keyshawn Johnson/Terry Glenn (Cowboys), Travis Taylor (Vikings), Joe Horn/Donte Stallworth (Saints), Reggie Brown/Greg Lewis (Eagles), and Brandon Lloyd/Arnaz Battle (49ers). Look, I'm hardly saying the Moulds is a better player than everyone listed. We can quibble about Laverneas Coles or Muhsin Muhammad or whomever you want to pick out. I do feel very confident in saying, however, that Eric Moulds is *not* the worst starting WR, or even the worst leading pass-catcher in the League. If the Bills bring Eric Moulds back next year, which I hope we do, the Bills are *not* going to be a team with a #1 WR. We simply will not have one. There isn't going to be a "Randy Ratio". We will be a team with two good WR's, each of whom are going to get their opportunities. That might not be a recipe for getting one WR the gaudy stats and fantasy-football title of "#1 WR" necessary to go to Hawai'i in February, but I think that it will be sound football. I also believe that Eric Moulds has shown in the games with Kelly Holcomb under center that he definitely can still play in the League. Maybe Eric Moulds started dogging it with Losman under center - they certainly don't show that on the games at the bar that I get to see - but I am reluctant to believe that Moulds suddenly turned it on once Holcomb came back from his injury. But I do think the fact that Losman seems to throw far more balls in the direction of Josh Reed than he does in the direction of Eric Moulds is just another leg of the case against Losman's miserable performance this year, based on what Moulds was able to do once Holcomb started getting him the ball. JDG

So, are you saying that Eric Moulds refused to run routes for JP Losman, but then turned it on again for Holcomb? I'm not saying that's impossible - but serious charges demand serious evidence, not snide one-liners...... JDG

We gave Todd Collins a game before calling him a bust?

Moorman was found by Modrak/Donahoe, I am pretty sure. At any rate, he was brought in as an UDFA, not as a street free agent from some other team's camp. JDG

A friend of mine has pointed out to me that Arians was Kelly Holcomb's OC in Cleveland, and Kelly Holcomb rung up 36 points on the Steelers on the road in the playoffs. Sounds like a winner to me. I'll be rooting for him and McGinnis. JDG

Gerry, I know you quoted my post, but was this post really in response to me? I never accused you of calling Losman's stats better than Eli's. I accused you of calling Losman "on par" with Eli, as the text you quoted indicates. I also never accused Eli of not making bad decisions. Indeed, elsewhere in the post you quote, I accused Eli of making "truly bad decisions." With all that being said, you do have a fair point about Eli's differing surrounding cast. If forced to choose, I probably disagree about that supporting cast explaining the disparity in stats, but it is at least a fair point. The NY Giants are blessed with some really unique play-makers in Tiki Barber (who else has a Tiki Barber?), Jeremy Shockey, and then having Strahan and Umeniyora as bookends on the other side of the ball. So, o.k., there are some differences there - but I'd also argue that Losman bears some of the blame for not figuring out that he should be chucking the ball to Eric Moulds and not Josh Reed. ;-) JDG

Yeah, it must all be Cowher's fault. That's the ticket. JDG

I'm not a huge fan of the QB Rating system, but 10 points *is* a significant difference. The scale effectively runs from about 60 to 110 for starting NFL QB's. In stats going back to 2001, only the most miserable full-time starting NFL QB's have even managed a 59 rating, with Kordell Stewart in Chicago being the one notable exception at a 56 rating. On the other end, its rare for a full-time QB to top a 110 rating. You occasionally see a 111, and given that the rating overweights TD passes over rushing TD's, Peyton Manning managed a near-unheard-of 120 last year. But for all intents in purposes, starting NFL QB's fall between 60 and 110, and so the difference between 65 and 76 represents fully 20% of the variance in the QB rating measure. Moreover, the truth is that Eli Manning, controlling for differences in games played, managed to have better stats than Losman in almost every single way this year - all while playing abysmally. Name your measure: completion percentage, yards per attempt, interceptions between attempt, sacks per game, etc. - and Eli Manning looks better by a not-insignificant margin. (The closest you get to a tie is completion percentage, but Losman's just barely sub-50% is so terribly bad, I still give the nod to Manning's anemic 53%.) About the best you can say for Losman is that he outrushed Manning - and even that is mostly offset by the yards Losman lost in sacks. So, while GG has probably watched more Manning games than I have (and given my travels during the early part of the season, he's probably watched more Losman games than I have too), I have to disagree with him putting Losman on par with Manning *right now.* Besides the obvious factor of them both being 1st Round QB's from the same draft class, I think there's a number of possible reasons for Bills fans to try to equate Losman and Manning, and to otherwise defend Losman: 1) Manning has been so bad so far, it really is hard to conceive and accept the idea of another full-time QB being measurably even worse. 2) Unlike Manning, in the games I have seen, Losman seems to rarely make the really truly bad decision. Losman also seems to make a number of really good plays. Its my general sense, though, that it is the sheer number of plays that Losman *doesn't make*, which make up that sub-.500 completion percentage that have really made him so bad... and "not making plays" is a hard thing to detect - in comparison to the self-evidently bad plays that we seem to see from Manning. 3) I think that the thought of having traded a #1 pick for Bledsoe and getting so little in return, followed by trading so much for Losman and getting even less in return is almost too much to bear. We're all trained to accept the idea that players drafted in the 1st Round are future stars - or at least solid players. And yet, sometimes things just don't work out. Look, I'm not going to say that Losman will never be a good QB for us. Nevertheless, I think we all need to accept that Losman's game-performance so far ranks among the very, very, worst QB's in the NFL; that Losman has not yet even had a single game that could be statistically described as "good", despite nine starts; and that he does not even compare favorably, let alone "at par" to, many other very young QB's early in their career -even some of the bad ones, like Eli Manning. JDG

I dunno about that. To use a recent example, it looked to me, after Jim Fassel was let go from the Giants, that he had a decent shot at landing on another HC opportunity right away. Instead, he's gone on to the perennially-struggling Baltimore offense, and has hardly been heard from since. Dom Capers has now been fired from two HC gigs - to get a third gig, he needs to succeed somewhere. As another example, Wade Phillips has gotten a few HC nibbles this time around - if he had taken a DC gig where he wasn't succeeding, that would not have happened. In other words, it looks to me like Dom Capers has his choice of a couple different DC gigs, and his Top Concerns should be: 1) Likelihood of Succeeding 2) Responsibility and Autonomy 3) Money I find it hard to see Buffalo's gig rising to the top of either criteria. JDG

No way. They both stink, but at least Losman isn't being paid a salary commensurate with a #1 overall pick. JDG