Pyrite Gal

I like Johnson as well, but the simple fact is that though you seem pretty disappointed in Roscoe thus far Roscoe has shown not only greater potential as an NFL WR than Johnson has shown in his brief career, but in fact he has demonstrated productivity that my sense is that if Johnson produces as much as Roscoe has half way though his second season playing (getting hurt as a rookie is the big blemish on Parrish as a player thus far), Mr. Johnson will be a happy man. Is Parrish a top WR in the NFL? Nope. Is he even a solid #2? No to that as well. However, it is simply unrealistic and non football wishing that visualized his contribution to this team being measured by achieving these two standards. The simple fact is at 171 pounds, it was pretty clear from the start that he was going to make a name for himself as a #3 who could use his blazing speed to make our 3 WR sets more formidable and he would need to be a true contributor on ST as a return guy. It would be easy though football foolish to compare him to Randy Moss and declare him a bust. The simple question is which #3 WRs and PR guys would you prefer we had instead of Parrish. The simple fact is that he is not in the lower third of #3/PR guys who are busts who deserve to be cut and actually he is well into the top half of these players in the NFL. In fact, looking at this subjectively the major problem I had with his pick (particularly after he went down to injury early in his career) were of durability and toughness, and Parrish has impressed me with the fact he is not afraid to patrol the middle like a slot receiver should. Perhaps the only complaint folks might make is that he was the first pick for the Bill in a draft they traded their #1 away, but even this view is from those who over-estimate the value of the draft (it is a good tool as good players have to come from somewhere and good players get drafted). However, between fantasy football and ESPN hype folks put to much stock in the draft. There is an assumption that every first rounder should be a first year starter when actually it is about 50/50 whether this is going to be true. The poster seems to have good fan expectations of both Parrish and Johnson but they certainly are not expectations consistent with reality.

While drafting an developing talent on the OL as Indy had done would be a preferable alternative to building an OL through FA, if if one has a goal to make the playoffs in 08, 09 or likely even by 2010, drafting and developing a solid OL is not the method the Bills should pursue now (or likely should have began to pursue prior to the 06 draft when Marv took over as GM) for the timing of the goals of this team and the other critical needs this team had (and have) there simply is not enough time to focus on building an OL in the preferred method of using the draft. TD (and his designated offensive genil GW, Kragthorpe, Bresnahan, and then Gilbride) simply blew it using the preferred approach you endorse when they spent a 1st rounder on bust Mike Williams and a 3rd rounder on the good playing but injury prone Jonas Jennings. One can argue that their problem was not sticking with your advocated strategy and drafting some more potential OL studs after they screwed up with the draft picks they made. However, the quality of these OL choices (and also the OL alternatives available like the stupid McKinnie) raise many questions about how much of a cure an OL draft focus would have been given initial (and I would argue more important) failures that Ralph led this team to in mismanaging the Butler situation so that he was forced to take TD who then through his own insecurities of not repeating the situation where Bill Cowher ran him out of Pitts he made bad choices in hiring coaches here. If one's goal is to make the playoffs and even the SB through building your OL through FA rather than the draft you are simply flat out wrong in saying that the draft though a preferable method in the long run is the only alternative for building an OL. NYG is one clear example that it is certainly possible to substitute FA acquisition for the draft as an OL building method. FA acquisitions can be a substitute for building a successful OL, the issue is the same one though as building an OL though the draft if you pick bad players (Mike Williams), provide them with bad coaching (Bresnahan), in a dysfunctional offense (Kragthorpe and then Gilbride) you do badly. If one wants to reasonably advocate taking a different approach to OL development than the one the Bills took then this case to be credible needs a little more detail than simply stating the obvious.

I actually could see why the Bills let Fletch go, but this was not because he was a bad player but because I think this team was getting rid of the old Bills leadership (TD to start and then on field guys like TKO and Fletch) so this team could get a fresh start and really be built in an image of Jauron and Marv's choosing. I think it is great that Fletch has maintained a good level of play to get this mid-season nod even though he is on the wrong side of 30. I think you are correct in noting the similarity of the tackling results of Pos and Fletch because in general I think this is true that both easily piled up a team lead in tackles but in both cases the C2 (more like a Tampa 2 that requires the MLB to not only plug holes on runs but also do deep coverage in the middle of the field. I would actually say that in the long run it is not unreasonable to judge that Pos will end up as a more accomplished player than Fletch, Fletch was a far better producer on the field than the rookie Pos was in his brief initial season but actually I think his last years with the Bills were more productive than Pos is producing for the Bills right now. It was not through a series of lucky breaks that Fletch not only led all LBs in the NFL in INTs his last year here but in fact led all the Bills in INTs. Fletch is on the wrong side of 30 because he has played this game a long time and did a great job of reading plays and covering the pass. Pos seems to have the natural football smarts that after a few years he also will have the vet ability to read plays. For now, those of us who root for Pos will have to make do with him having profited from seeing a full season of NFL games from the bench, but he still has to make use of the superior speed he has to to recover from getting fooled like many a young player into taking a false step forward on pass plays or a false step backward on run plays. The end result because he is a fast player with good football sense he makes the tackle but like many young players he makes the initial hit too far downfield to be a dominant player.....YET.

Another thing that impresses me about Tasker is not simply did he have to be gameplanned for but he actually forced the NFL to change a rule to deal with an innovation he developed and pulled off because opponents game planned a way to stop his kick coverage. It is illegal for a player to cover a kick by running out of bounds and essentially behind his team off the field to cover kicks. Tasker was quick enough and understood the game well enough that he could run down outside of the field of play and get back onto the field to make the tackle. Simply phenomenal. I understand when some argue that a player needs to be good enough that his team puts him on the field as a position player. Tasker was forced to "fill-in" as a WR due to injuries and it became clear that he was on ST not because he was not good enough to be a position player, but in fact he was such a productive ST player that the Bills chose to sacrifice his productive position play to have him be gameplanned for and revolutionize the ST game. While his relatively minimal but impressive WR stats in no way qualify him for the HOF they do show strongly how those who argue that no ST player can be considered a good enough player to get the HOF, Tasker was a skilled player by any measure.

Taking two lives and putting your own life at risk to pull off an economic and egotistic game. Both are evil but there truly is no comparison between the two.

Any given Sunday, homefield advantage, and the Bills injury situation all add up to make this a very tough game. I like most folks look for the Bills to win on Sunday, but it does not surprise me that some folks would judge the Fish as favorites in this game.

I think this argument/comparison actually does not give Whitner enough credit/ It has taken a bit over 2 years of results to make it clear that the choice of Whitner was the right thing to do but in a bit over 1 year of activity the Surge has succeeded in its initial goal of chopping successful violence in Iraq against Americans, but the jury is still out over this drop in violence will allow the necessary political compromises in Iraq to occur. Whitner is the real deal but the jury is still out on the ultimate success of the Surge beyond its initial goal of drastically reducing the number of Americans killed. Still the Surge has had a year less to work so we will see if it succeeds in its ultimate goal on the same timeline as Whitner achieving success. It appears likely though that the Surge will become a moot point if Iraqis do not agree to a continuation of the mandate beyond the end of the year as appears may be the case. The analogy would be broken as this would be the same as if Whitner had been knocked out the game after a season and a half and fortunately this did not occur to this great Bills player. The analogy seems to offer very little in addition to being totally inappropriate as football is merely a game and too many people are dying in Iraq when the original reason for going in, to stop WMD development proved meaningless.

This is also the way that the Troy Vincent situation went down a couple of years back. If he is judged healed by his docs it would seem reasonable that he could file a grievance to come back and that the team would not be able to sign him unless he cleared waivers.

I agree wholeheartedly with your first paragraph but it seems somewhat counter-intuitive to your second paragraph. I think the big diff in the game outcomes is in fact seen in the mistakes we forced Rivers into and the performance Warner had. However, it would seem to me the big factor in this had little to do with Losman and a lot to do with our pass rush being far more effective against Rivers. The oddity is that this happened despite our Pro Bowl DE not being able to suit up against SD. I think the factors that explain the diff were: 1. The D got motivated big time against SD after AZ ripped 'em a new one. Better players are in fact better players, but motivation can allow even lesser players to strap it on and perform big time after they are embarrassed. I think a healthy Schobel is a better player than a healthy Denney, but in this game Denney and the rest of the D were motivated big time and it paid off with more sacks. turnovers and most important shutting down one the best RBs in the game after getting rolled by the old Edge. 2. I think another big factor was that an injured Schobel who was handled by none other than Mike Gandy (who was probably also well motivated by getting chopped by the Bills) was replaced by a motivated Denney and the rest of the D crew. 3. The Bills coaches made great use of the bye week to install a D scheme with a good number of LB and corner blitzes and good stunts by the DL so that the loss of Schobel co-incided with far better DL production. I think Edwards does bring a confidence to this team that they are not out of a game even if they are two scores down in the 4th. While Losman has demonstated an outstanding ability to hit the long pass and even lead the team to good O performance (and fully demonstrated when he took a team where Trent had an anemic day last year and he led the team to victory), this proven ability is no where near the same as the confidence TE gives the entire Bills squad in the bad times. However, as you point out, JP hit an outstanding pass last week to put the Bills back in the game but they could not hold it. I think the big difference between AZ and SD was the pass rush and that TE/JP may be a the story ESPN decides to go with but it really made little more than a marginal difference in this game.

The big key in the results produced by this popularity contest will be linked the Bills continuing to win. This happening has these effects: 1. Obviously it helps the bottomline of stats as it means he continues to have performances like the one yesterday. 2. Word will spread among opposing coaches as he becomes the one team's gameplan for week after week. 3. Opposing players who in the end are really just fans will see him featured on Sportscenter more. 4. Many local press folk noted how many national media were in the box yesterday and this will cause a political campaign rivaling electoral battles. The irony of this all is that the pivotal game in Edwards development as a star may turn out to be the AZ game. For those of us who watch too much the key to this game was actually a putrid performance turned in by the D. However, the general takeaway for the media is gonna be when Trent plays we win like yesterday and when TE does not play we lose like week before last. If the media covers the NE game with a narrative that this game marks the change of the guard from an injured Brady to the new flavor at QB, Trent then the deal will be done.

Nah I plan and hope for 3-0. Going 2-1 is unacceptable to this fan (that is until we lose one of them then I hope and plan on us being 2-1 in the 3 games. I was flat out rooting for us to go 19-0 this seasons (until the AZ game and now I plan and hope on us being 18-1)!

If you're a Bills player the only thing you should be thinking about is reaching 6-1 by squishing the Fish. Thinking too much as a player about going 2-1 in the next games is how you end up going 0-3. As for us fans I also disagree with the concept of hoping we go at least 2-1 in the next three games. 3-0 is what we plan and hope for.

I think TD in addition to the overarching disasters which led to his dismissal and me being quite comfortable describing his term as a reign of error was some very good moves related to the draft, namely: 1. Downright raping Arthur Blank for a 1st in exchange for Peerless has to rank right up there as one of the great football felonies of all time. 2. I think the intent and a lot of the way the RB drafting turned out spoke fairly highly of TD- - he assessed correctly in drafting a Pro Bowl quality talent in Henry -realized the error he made though with the mental make-up of Henry as he got to know him and not only took advantage of Henry's drug addled nature to get an extra year of eligibility out of him but began looking to replace - folks hate WM because he too was an idiot, but not only did TD make the right call in replacing the first idiot when many derided the choice as unecessary because we were set at RB, but he made the correct call in trusting the Bills docs that WM could recover from a seeming career ending injury with a year off to rehab. -TD even proved to be a cool tough customer when some nattering Nancys were urging him to cut Henry or trade him for a late pick but he read the market to get a first day pick in exchange for Henry (who promptly got suspended afterwards for substance abuse. He definitely was not perfect handling the RB situations as he drafted two mental midgets, but they were mental midgets who became Pro Bowlers and c;early tons of folks did not see things as clearly as TD did for what he was trying to do.

I think this thread mostly speaks to the sense that the conventional wisdom simply over- values the draft (and the 1st round in particular as THE key to building a great team. Yes, the draft is important, but no it is not THE important thing. The CW is that a 1st round choice should be a starter his first year, but the CW as in many cases is simply wrong. I looked at one year in depth (I think it was the 06 draft or it was some year generally perceived to be a pretty strong class around then) and it was about 50% of 1st round choices being #1 on their team's depth chart at their position a year later. Polian may be right that eventually folks turn out to be like Eric Moulds (a bust after his first two years who then becomes a Pro Bowl quality player), but I agree with the post above which says his study after ten years of play showed most players picked when looking back at their careers turned out to be disappointments. Expectations are so high for 1st rounders that it is no wonder they disappoint because in the end the draft really is a crapshoot in terms of results. Good players have to come from somewhere and it is simply true good players generally get drafted. However, the facts simply are that all of the talk of stone cold certainty is just talk whether one studies at Mel Kiper levels or you are simply a fan on TSW.

Not all MRIs are the same and perhaps they got one quickly done (or more likely someone looked at one already done) and a new diagnosis emerged. For example, I remember hearing about an MRI technique called "gating" (or something like that) where the MRI is put in sync with an EKG readout and the images are taken between heartbeats. In some cases, the heart action creates enough turbulence that fairly small intrusions of the bulging disc onto a nerve cannot be seen and by doing a gating MRI a resolution emerges where a bone spur or some other small intrusion which might cause a lot of pain is rendered visible. A treatment for this type of problem may be extended traction or quite invasive surgery (if the bone spur is high enough the best surgical route may even be through the mouth. At any rate, fairly straightforward but beyond the norm diagnostic techniques can reveal problems which were reasonably missed by other docs.

It sounds like (though without the medical detail it is impossible to say for sure) that there is a potentially straightforward difference in medical philosophy or opinion between the Indy docs and the Bills docs. For example, both medical staffs might agree that McCargo likely will not do any more damage to himself simply by playing and practicing (even players with "normal" medical check-ups are at risk from being hurt by a hit that goes a particular way0, but both medical staffs can agree that McCargo does not face any extraordinary increased risk from practice or play. However, the medical philosphy in Buffalo may be to suggest the player invest in heavy physical therapy to solve the problem and they might judge McCargo won't do that and were happy to part with him even though he is able to perform. On the other hand, maybe the Indy docs upon looking at his case more exhaustively suggested that surgery is the best way to go but if they did this his recovery time would involve a year off they were not willing to pay for as it would also move him a year closer to FA and all they get is to pay for his rehab. Or there may even be some third option that McCargo wishes to pursue that neither team agrees with. At any rate, many refer to it is the Medical "Arts" rather than simply medical science because three people can look at the exact same measurements and readout on a case and legitimately come up with four different approaches to moving forward. McCargp could easily be judged not to do himself any greater risk of damage by practicing and playing but there could still be a medical reason for the trade to be voided. This is an example of why a second opinion is often a good thing to do.

I would think that the question of whether the Bills fall under SOX seems pretty clearly to be unsettled law. I do not think any regulatory agency or elected official has made the case they should and as such it is simply an unsettled issue. TSW folks can have a real debate on this if they want but the question is not whether SOX covers the NFL (it does not because I know of no one in authority who has asserted this) but whether it should. I do not think so because the whole thing is complicated enough already that another layer or requirements would not add anything to the game or to the debates about it.

Hermaphrodites UNITE!

There are several increased TV exposure leading to increased exploitation of the marketplace (ie more $) that Gonzales is likely considering if this is a major drive for his ultimate decision: 1. The Toronto deal made by the Bills: One of the big deliverables for a well-regarded player is that he likely would become in Buffalo a face which we use as a wedge in the Bills attempts to exploit the Canadian marketplace. If Gonzales were to come to Buffalo, the Bills will almost certainly use him (and deliver him lots of dollars in the process) as a focal point for selling the product in Canada. The Tony Gonzales show on CBC (or some other Canadian network) would be a definite if this trade gets done. This would be the wedge to Gonzales getting deals to be the spokesmodel for auto dealers, pizza places and whatever he chooses in Toronto. 2. Steve Tasker demonstrates what can be done with the Buffalo market. It ain't national press but the money is still green. Could Gonzales make more going to NYC? Maybe and almost certainly, but this does not mean that by going to Buffalo he makes nothing and most important from the Tasker example does not mean that he writes off getting a national network gig. 3. Competition is key and there will be far more competition for endorsements in NYC with the Gints than in Buffalo. If Gonzales goes to NYC he is definitely below Eli Manning in sales and importance and actually behind even non-player Coughlin and a perhaps a host of other Gints who have exploited the marketplace. Gonzalez almost upon arrival is like the 20,000 fans who showed on a winter day at the Ralph for the Buffalo welcomes Bledose gig. He is the top choice for market opportunities with unproven youngsters like Whitner and Edwards being the primary other options. The Buffalo marketplace is smaller by far than NYC but is an open field for Gonzales and with modern electronics and travel reducing distances to near nothing it not only is a jumping off point (as shown by Tasker) to a national spot but is a starting point for trolling the unexploited Canadian dollar. 4. Being Latino is a natural for exploiting a multi-cultural marketplace like Toronto and an embrace of multi-culturalism which has been a centerpiece of the Canadian way going back to its decision to legally include a distinct culture in Quebec. The US is moving this way by force as the population demographics of this country will make the gringos a minority by mid century, but by choosing to primarily exploit the US marketplace Gonzales will choose to pick and choose his opportunities while the current prevailing culture fights to retain a primacy which it will ultimately lose demographically anyway. As far the Canadian market goes exploitation of it will simply involve the difficult task of riding the wave headed in his direction. 5. Nothing succeeds like success. If Gonzalez comes to Buffalo he MAY (and probably will) be part of a team which improves by making the playoffs for the first time. If he goes to the Gints this team at best (and probably won't) reach the same level as last year by winning the SB. It will be a great thing for Gonzales individually if the Jints win the SB. The plugging in of TG into the Shockey spot will be an important addition, but there is simply no way the result will improve with him in place.

Unfortunately (since I would love to have a talent and the potential leadership of Gonzalez) this move MIGHT (and this is a hypertheoretical might) have been something the Bills would have hopped right on the off-season or (or maybe they should have before the bye week) but in the over-systematized NFL we live in today, this trade may be more than Schonert can digest and make changes without a lot of experimentation. We should not live in the illusion that this trade would be simply as simple as you just plug in a more talented TE into the line-up and just play in order to get true value from this trade. For example: 1. Is it all so simple that Gonzales just runs routes designed for the skills (and mostly the limitations) of Royal and Schouman and just go? I do not think so. How long would it take for the Bills coaches to revamp the offense to design routes that make use of Gonzales superior skills as a long pass route runner and then how long would it take for the players to learn this new implementation of the system. These guys are skilled professionals so not long actually, but at mid season where every game can be crucial, the two to three weeks needed to get the implementation changes up to an adequate level might prove critical. 2. Is Gonzales perfect in every way and able to learn new use of him immediately? No. What person is perfect. Gonzales is a great player and far better than anything the Bills have had at TE in quite awhile. This being said his superior route running and pass catching skills make it easy to accept the fact he is not equally outstanding as a blocker. I think he is a good blocker (if he was not he would not be a superstar), but in many ways it is a waste of his superior pass catching ability to merely utilize him as a blocker. One does not make this sacrifice utilizing Royal's very good OL quality blocking ability. There is an argument to be made that with Gonzales at least for awhile our running game will suffer as we choose to go with 5 OL players and a pass catcher rather than 6 OL players with the Royal set. I am not saying that this team is better with Royal rather than with Gonzales. i am simply saying it is different and design and implementation with these differences cannot simply be assumed to work perfectly or even well without some time and work. 3. What is the chemistry going to be for this team? One can guess fairly well because nothing succeeds like success and if this team is winning any problems are either overlooked or easily dealt with. However, the Bills family has been working all pre-season and regular season to achieve a balance of the team having leaders (Whitner for example has become a public leader though Kelsay as team captain has also assumed (and it is to be hoped earned as the coaches essentially chose this position) a leadership role on the D. How will Gonzales work into the O (particularly with the uncertainty the QB issues have created) and again these guys are professionals so they should make it work. However, these guys are humans as well and the outcome will not be like falling off a log and cannot be assumed. I can see a reasonable judgment being made by someone who knows this team from the inside and controls the O (like Schonert or Jauron) making a true judgment that even though Gonzalez is a great player that adding this part and this time may not produce the best results from the whole. We will see.

I'm sure all agree with the obvious that the Bills OL and DL have not done anything to help this team even reach the playoffs Duh)! The question is what should they do about it and/or is this team capable of doing it. I too have my doubts about the FO but this is mostly because I think like Fish rotting starts at the top. Ralph deserves the gratitude of Buffalo fans for keeping the team in this small market he bought because this was the best market he could get at the time. However, with this note of thanks reality also demands that we recognize that Ralph has swerved between some odd expenditures beyond what the market demanded (Kelsay's play nor prospects seemed to justify the amount the FO gave him or Ralph signing off on it). I think the main Schobel problem is that he clearly merited significantly more in terms of real production than Kelsay and when the Bills set the market for payment/production for DE Kelsay they set up a situation where they also were gonna overpay Schobel or deal with him being upset. The Bills have managed to muddle there way through a situation where they have a little of both. Whose fault is this? Ultimately it involves the actions of GMs Marv and TD and this leads to the ultimate correct conclusion that the fault if one chooses to dwell on things one has no control over is Ralph. Should Ralph get more capable GMs? Sure. However, any GM even if it was the competent Bill Polian (whom Ralph already burned through in a personal dispute) he would have to sleep in a bed built upon giving a seemingly market inappropriate contract to Kelsay and the impacts of that it is impossible for reality to deny that Schpbel does not deserve more than the stupid market value we set for Kelsay.

My concussion story was one of the weirder experiences I ever had (and this comes from a full selection of usually self-selected weird experiences. I remember watching coverage of the Clarence Thomas questioning on Nightline and going to the can. Apparently over an hour later one of the guys I roomed with said he was awakened by me standing over his bed saying that I was in trouble and think I hurt my head. He woke up the other roomie (an EMT actually) and a visual exam revealed no blood but a likely lump on my noggin. They called 911 which had them ask me questions to determine my condition while an ambulance came out. They could tell from my answers that I was not with the planet (even more than normal). The ambulance came and I seemed to be more with the program and they suggested they take me to the emergency room for observation. I was in VA and offered that I used to go to GW hospital back in the day and that they likely had my records. The ambulance guys said they could not drive me across the river, but if I stood up without falling over then likely my buds could drive me to GW. I stood up and stayed up so off we went to GW hospital. We were in the waiting room for a little while after checking in and apparently I kept trying to stand up saying I wanted to go to the phone and call my honey back in Buffalo to say I was OK. My buds convinced for a few minutes that this was unnecessary as no one if Buffalo knew I was at the hospital. Finally, I went into the ER where the doctor asked me what day it was and I correctly answered it was Thursday, but that I really did not know for sure whether it was February or October. This is the only thing I remember about the episode since going to the can after Nightline. I was walking and talking and occaisionally coherent remembering things from years before. However, I have no memory of any of this. The kept me in the hospital overnight. The next day I talked to one of my roomies and asked him to bring my wallet down. He replied that I had insisted on bringing it with me the night before and it was in the pocket of the sweats I was wearing that night. Lo and behold he was correct but I have no memory of this. It was likely a grade 3 concussion as I lost conciousness. The likely cause was something called micturation syncope which means when you micturate (piss) your fluid balances change in your body and it is supposed to compensate for this because one fluid that may change is blood and if it rushes from the brain you can collapse. I apparently did this and clocked my head on a towel rack. It did take a bit over a week until I felt normal though i was back to work in a couple of days. The abnormal thing which did not stop me from working but felt weird was that I realized that the way I remembered things was to riffle back through my memory incredibly quickly. Immediately after my concussion I found that often I would begin rifling back and I hit the missing slot and trying to remember just stopped. I would remember things way back by mentally leaping to a time and the checking to see if I went back too far or too little and triangulate my way in (all of this happened incredibly quickly normally (dozens of years accurately with miliseconds) but I noticed because it did not work well for a good week, In the end I built up enough new memories so there was no problem but it gave me a new respect for an athlete who could still perform after getting his bell rung.

The problem I see though is that there may only be one missing piece but honestly it is gonna take 2 players to fill it. Even if Ellis were to play and be found to be the "missing piece" it will take 2 games max or simply just a halftime adjustment for opponents to pick up on this one player being the key. Today's successful teams have the ability to play multiple styles (one of the things which actually makes Schobel good is that he not only is a good "effort" rusher, but he also has developed good athleticism which allows him to be a key part of a zone blitz AND though experience and weight training he can stay at home or play the run. A player may have one great move or be great in one approach or scheme but if he does not at least play adequately at other facets of the game his appearance immediately telegraphs to the opposition what D style to expect. Either Ellis will have to show tremendous diversity or the Bills will need two players with similar skills as part of a rotation. My guess is not that Ellis sucks but something about his game his easily handled or not diverse enough not to tip off the enemy.

I do not think more practice is going to solve the problems the team showed on Sunday. More practice rarely hurts but the problems we saw on Sunday were not problems that they did not do things correctly, it seemed to be a lack of internal fire to use the skills which many of the individuals have to play collaboratively to beat an opponent that showed some desire. I am not sure what will solve the problem but it seems to me more practice will not.

I do not think any rational person was pleased with Schobel and the Ds performance on Sunday (I suspect the fact he popped off at Sullivan is an indicator that he likely is frustrated with his play Sunday and may have the usual injuries that come with the territory so he would be accused of whining if he talked about this reason for his level of play). However, in general I think Schobel is a victim for many fans of Bruce Smith disease such that as a highly paid player at DE fans are going to measure his performance by the showy stat of sacks and other contributions will be ignored. I think there is a reasonable middle ground here (though middle views tend not to have a lot of currency on the web generally or at TSW regarding the Blls0 but my sense is that Schobel's play and performance against noneother than former Bills stiff Gandy was not good. However, part of the outstanding D performance (weak competition or not we beat them and the D controlled them overall or at least at the critical times) was some good play by Schobel reflected in his being a team leader in many D stats on a team which sports a very good 4-1 record. Schobel has been a contributor and leader on the Bills (statwise as Kelsay actually is the captain and Schobel has shown more focus on him as an individual with his attendance at voluntary camps) for years to the extent this has been recognized with Pro Bowl berths and big contracts. However, the simple case is that he contributes in different ways than the standard has been set for Bills DEs by Bruce. Schobel can in fact stack up some outstanding sack numbers but these are almost a by-product of his high motor style rather than him being the type of player with a series of outstanding first moves who must be accounted for on every play with a dt.