Pyrite Gal

I think the contrast between Culpepper and Harrington and how quickly they get rid of the ball is the same factor which made for improved performance by an OT such as McKinnie going from blocking for Culpepper vs, blocking for Johnson. Its not that Harrington is so quick in the release, it simply is the case that Culpepper is not and he is used to being nimble enough that even if he held the ball a long time he could still get off the pass as he evaded the sack and even when wrapped up was strong enough to get off the pass.

I agree with Dibs that I find your arguments a bot difficult to grasp as perhaps this is because of my own limitations I find the general points and the specific applications somewhat contradictory. I agree with the general point thathaving a good run stuffer is a very good thing. I also agree with your specific point that Sam Adams is a talented player. However, I think if one agrees with the first point about the need for a run stuffer and particularly if one does not want to emphasize going after penetrators at DT (folks like a Triplett or the lighter weight DTs we have) then I think clearly you do not pass GO and you cut Sam Adams as quick as you can. The thong which makes Adams such a singular player is not at all his stoutness against the run, nuy his ability to rush and be disruptive. In fact he is the quintessential type of player you seem to suggest that Jauron has an interest in with our system. My sense is that Jauron followed your suggestions exactly in this case as despite Adams having all the features he would seem to want in our system (besides him weighing more than the norm which you flat out say in a post above that you are not insisting that he dogmatically chooses by weight). Sam Adams by most judgments (and likely by Jaurion's and Levy's since they appeared to give deep consideration to keeping Adams) plays the type of game that fits the Cover 2 scheme, however, the Bills braintrust decided not to keep him because other factors indicated to them he would not be a good player for us. Specifically, Adams is clearly an older player on borrowed time on the backside of his career and if you are trying to build a team which at best will compete in 06 but actualy achieve in 07 and win it all in 08 it is questionable whether Adams is your guy since there is a fair chance he is not in the league in 07 and really doubtful he will be around in 08. Using the arguments you seem to present it would lead to a cut of Adams. Perhaps instead you want to argue that run stuffer Phat Pat is the guy a Jauron should have kept, but even this argument makes no sense as it was TD the year before who bollicked the PW resigning issue and there is no evidence whatsoever that Jauron is opposed to having PW as a player. It simply is confusing that the two specific players you site seem to either cut against the point you are making (Adams) in terms of Bills actions or were dealt with on a timeline (PW) not relevant to the point you are making.

My understanding was that the Bills were seriously considering keeping Adams despite his size not being demographicallt the prototype for a Cover or Tampa 2, but they decided not to do this not because of some doctrinaire commitment to a particular type of player, but because Adams had proven hard to get him to play cooperatively in any style which required him not to play the game he wanted to play. If anything the rap on Adams which seems legit from what I saw of his time as a Nill was that he actually refused to stay at home and use his large bulk to stop the run because he much prefered to use his incredibly fast dfirst step to penetrate the OL. This apparently was shown in him refusing to alter his contract in any way to lower his csp hit and the Bills cut him. Actually given his age, i think this was a good decision. I see no real objective evidence that the Bills braintrust is so doctrinaire that they would reject a player who can play the game for them merely cause he is a big boy..

Personally, from what I have seen of the various examples and studies out there, if I had several hundred million laying around and economic development for the community was my general goal, building a sports stadium (particularly a few event venue like an NFL stadium) would not be my first choice for investment. However, life is relative. The choice is not between making a perfect investment with a bunch of bucks we have in hand. The choice is between the potential opportunities to pull together Other People's Money (money from non-WNY taxpayers) to build something or to simply muddle along as we WNY taxpaers are currently doing investing out own resources in an generally unplanned and uncoordinated manner to foster redevelopment of the central city, Buffalo, in WNY. The real opportuinity for WNY taxpayers here is that a new stadium for the Bills presents an opportunity for Ralph to stick the entire state up for investment in paying off the loan to create a sports authority which would be funded by bonds paid off in the long run by the entire state population. This authority could build a new stadium downtown which uses the ample beautifully situated and underutilized lands on the Lake Erie waterfront downtown to build not only a football stadium designed for state of the art good play and viewing, but I think tailgating and public gathering as a central feature of its design. Would a new Bills stadium downtown kill tailgating for the Bills as we know it? Yep. Would a news Bills stadium downtown kill tailgating for the Bills? Nope. Not if the design is intelligent. In fact, I think intelligent design of a new sports facility for the NFL in this community would emphasize creating accessible public space where fans could lay out their tailgates in an orderly fashion and tailgate to their hearts content aided by the buying opportunities they choose from the NFL and the Sports authority and not having buying opportunities forced down their throat by over control of the site by the NFL and the Bills. My sense would be that a Sports Authority would want to plan a new stadium for the Bills to built in conjunction with existing and already planned downtown Buffalo sports and recreation venues such as HSBC Arena, Dunn Tire Park, the new Bass Pro Shop scheduled for the Aud space, and the new Seneca Casino to be built in the Cobblstone district. While I think some of the existing efforts are old and silly or new and silly, the fact is they exist and it would be even sillier to pretend they do not and not take advantage of any synergies to be had. i would also though attempt to add some things to add value to this effort and to attempt to make up for one of the primary failings of an NFL stadium as a venue in that we simply are not talking many dates for use. My personal favorite would be to build a site nuit by an authority floating a bond to pay for it for an institution that rivals the Cleveland Rock andRoll Hall of Fame which would be a Sportsfan Hall of Fame. Each year, the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL and some selection of individual sports with NASCAR and the PGA being my first thoughts would get to select on sports fan that enbodies their sport who would be inducted into the HOF. These initial sports can develop some standard objective criteria for adding additional sports to their ranks. This insititution would be marketed as a major tourist attraction and pay homage to the sports fan who makes this all possible and worthwhile. The Authority would fund and own the institution, but the attempt woyuld be made to have this institution fund itself by extortubng money to get a cut from each of the major sports leagues, selling commerical tie-ins, ticket sales etc. ot something like that. In general, i think public money should go for public things and not to line thepockets of a for-profit activity like the Ralph and the Bills. However, it is clear from the last go round as the Bills stuck up Erie County for big bucks to get them to stay in Buffalo, that this type of corporate welfare is going to happen. We are not in a position to argue over whether we are prostitutes or not to the private sector, we really are only in a position to negotiate over how much we get paid for a roll in the hay. In general, it makes more economic sense for WNY to invest in other economic development strategies besides a sports team and venue. However, in this case, Ralph seems happy to join with WNY to stick up non-WNY residents in NYS to get investment here, and if we can do this in a way that builds a tourist attraction which brings in people from other states with their nickels and also sells things to the private sector for advertising, setting up a sports authority can work out to be a very good deal for WNY.

I think it is not unreasonable to figure McCargo as being done as a contributor the Bills this year. The good news is that it sounds like though this is a serious problem (anything that requires suegery to fix it with an indefinite recovery time is serious IMHO) it sounds like he can make a full recovery from this injury at some point. However, when one factors in that he is a rookie who is still learning the game who at best was holding his own as a plsyer and was not a dominating factor, what this injury will cost him is intensive playing time he could use to get better. It appears that evem if his recovery went well and he and the trainers put the pedal to the metal and rushed him back ASAP, the season would be well into the second half before he could conceivably contribute. I hope he does come back to play this year, but I hope this for his development as a player and not for any particular team need.

If you add "recomsiodering some of my previous unsupported fact free opinions" to the reiterating and summarizing you started this post with then we are talking something which is worthy of being taken seriously. I don't think that folks would disagree with some of the work in progres or jury still out comments you make in this post. It is the stuff you state is stone cold fact, or that Evans will never get better, or even the potential reading of the comments in this post about McGahee (I agree that he is not a championship qualiy RB at this point, but while he is not Thurman or OJ at this point, the fact that he is the fastest Bill RB ever to reach 2000 yards rushing and one can see the still unfinished but much improved WM work on blitz pick-ups in his game by contrasting the whiff he made last year that led to a JP safety, his misses in the Jets game this year and some pretty good performances in the last two games. It is this which you depict as stone cold trusth which is clearly beyond anyone to actually predict unless you have a crystal ball the rest of us do not have and which even your own arguments actually contradict. While there is no stone cold truth in terms of predictions about the very young and still well on the frontside of their development of players like Evans and WM (and even JP though you correctly do not seem to make stone cold predictions about his play) the actual facts (which legit predictions cannot be made from though we alll are enttled to express out hopes for what will happen and try to substantiate those hopes by citing facts - though why any troo Bills fan would hope Evans or WM will fail is beyind me): 1. Like it or not Evans is the #1 WR on this team and the facts are he has led this team in catches the last three weeks in a row by a substantial amount. In each game against substandard Ds as the Jets appear to be and the best of them as the Bears clearly are he has produced about 100 yards with some nice grabs. If one indicts his fellow receivers as being no better than #3s then this performance is even more impressive as he has performed without a legit #2 threat on the field with him (though clearly Moulds has a legit #2 threat in Evans by his side. One can complain (read that as whine actually) about particular aspects of his performance such as his like Marvin Harrison only having put up 1 TD so far this year, but given his moving into the top 10 now in receptions after a horrid start in the firdt two games he clearly is getting better and he and JP have the same chemistry they showed last year in the fiest quarter against Miami. 2. The fact remains that McGahee is also a work in progress, he really is not that far removed in terms of time from a compound knee injury which seemed at the time likely to end his career. It is truly a testimoney to hard work on his part (whether prompted by wanting the money or character who knows though the answer is likely both) that he made it back to get chosen in the first round and he has demonstrated to date that TD made a good choice as he acquired a man who showed top 5 player talent before his injury at #23. We'll see how this turns out ultimately, but as the quickest Bill RB to ruh for 2000 yards, by his howing some glimmers of receiving talent though he is not utilized that way by the Bills O, he has one of the best stiff arms in the league and he has had and continus to have as recently as a couple of games ago big blitz pick-up problems, but has demonstrated some very good blitz pick-ups the last couple of games including one play where he actually made two good blitz blocks on the same play. WM is also clearly a work in progress, but since the fact is to date he is 3rd in the NFL for yardage among RBs he has a great base to progress from. Some folks seem really cheesed at WM for odd comments like his baby momma comments and I agree they seem stupid. However, I simply think folks should make a decision no to sleep with WM and simply enjoy some ough running he is doing for us. The only stone cold trooth here is that this team is a work in progress from top to bottom. The good news unless the observer has some great affectiion for te accomplishments of the 05 Bills the progress the 06 squad is showing from last years play is real and the prescence of a large number of young players in key roles for this 2-3 team bodes well for the Bills.

The comment that there is not enough time or smilies to do justice to these over top weird comments are true. 1. Willis- feel free to add into an assessment the Chicago performance because even with it he still is easily the #3 player for rushing yards this year. While it should not be taken as the total measure for RB greatness, it would be tons more senseless to totally ignore or disregard this as a factor. Even in the Chicago game folks who are not reluctant to fault Bills players or WM personally such as the Bills Daily assessment specifically praised him for doing tough running and hard work in a game against a team that like it or not was much better than us. His blitz pick-up worked which failed miserabl;y against NYJ has improved substantially the last two weeks so we'll see but a flat out indictment of this part of his game seems over the top and simply ignores the most recent reality. He generally has not been used as a pass catcher but when he has he has caught enough balls to begin being a target for JP as je was last week. Heneeds to produice more, but the fact is to do a rationale assessment of this also it is on DFairchild and Losman to use him more. If he had a clear case of the droppsies such as the one Reed had a few years back criticism would be legit, but he has not and disappointment that he has not been used more rather than criticism seems more appropriate.. 2. The indictment of Evans as never being able to be a legit #1 seems worthy of someone who uses a crystal or Ouija board for predicting football rather than looking at the players performances. In a blowout against the best D in the league I was quite impressed with his hauling in 9 catches for 94 yards I only wish the rest of the receiving corps had been this productive. in fact you seem to dismiss his impressive performance the first two seasons as being because he was running with a receiver who attracted a lot attention. Perhaps then Moulds performance or perhaps Evans performance this year is also because of the performance of his partners but you seem to both disregard Evans being a part of Moulds accomplishments and also do not judge Evans play by the fact that Reed and Price not being the 2002 PP means that Evans has three consecutive good games while being the primary threat the D is trying to combat. Even a post by VA Bills which questions a post opposite of your ideas is correct that flirting with 100 yards 3 of 5 weeks is only 60% rather than every week, but certainly if you are going to predict his future development, the fact it was the last three weeks in a row has one weight when measuring his full season but an different weight when measuring his trendline. His coming down with 107 yards against NYJ may simply be a one time deal after two less than stellar performance. The second good game in a row where he hit the 90 mark in MIN may be a simple coincidence. However, his logging 94 yards as the primary target for JP against an outstanding Bears D is likely a trend and certainly any rational prediction puts alot more eight on the last three games than the first two is assessing his prospects. 3. I agree that I do not expect miracles from the recieving corps but mioracles does not strike me as a rational standard for assessment of their play. In order of their catches: Reed- He has impressed me so far this year, but this is because I saw him as our #4 receiver while he has held the two job for the most part. I agree he is a #3 at best, but I am impressed that he has proven to be enough of a go to guy with some RAC ability that he is a legit #3. Price- the drop he hd against the Bears when he got enough separation that he started running before he caught a JP pass which was an OK throw at best, was a real error on his part. However, his TD run against MN was outstanding and if he can be the receiver he was against MN rather than he was against Chicago he may in fact be aq legit #2. The bottom line is he is not there yet, but his play and production shoes some potential that while yiour are right one would be foolish to expect miracles it also strikes me as foolish to not expect him to become solid, He hs shown the capability in spots to do this. Parrish- He was such a stud against NYJ it is hard to be dismiss his possibilities as well. I hope he can become the #3 you seem to give him credit for being because I think Reed has commanded that slot. Still one of the ways players get better is competition and that is what the Bills have so i think your dismissal says more about the lack of quality and detail of your assessment than the simple facts of their play. 4. Assessing JP is touigh since this is one case where I think that his poor statistical performance against the Bears twlls a very different story than hs overall play in the first four games. Overall, I think it is a legit assemment that he is not there yet. However, if one is trying to be predictive of the future it becomes more important to take the specific games apart and look at them. The Bears game actually is helpful in judging him because it was a demonstration that he is not a good enough player to add value to this team so they can beat or even hang with a much better team. I hope JP gets this as well because the key to good performance by him seems to be him managing the game and being managed by the OC. I have no problem with this as I think he can play an excellent game wkem ke plays within himself (as was shown when Evans beat the Bears secondary deep on the first series and would have had an excellent shot at a scoring a TD if JP had not simply not thrown an uncatchable ball which went virtually if not totally out of the endzone. I see JP becoming the QB the Bills need to win it all or at least go deep in the playoffs not when he becomes John Elway (he won't) or Peyton Manning (I do not think he wants to pattern his achievement after a great QB who only once had the achievement of taking a team deep in the playpffs. Instead, I think JP can become the QB we need to in a bunch if he becomes a palyer equivalent to a game manager like Trent Dilfer who is actually better than him because he does what he is told and stays out of trouble like Dilfer but has extraordinary athleticism that allows him to make playswhen things break down. I think in 3 of the 5 games he showed that management ability under the guidance of Fairchild and in the game against NYJ he tried a bit too hard and though he put up great yatrdage he fumbled twice and threw an INT trying to make things happem rather than letting the game come to him. Perhaps the Bears game has shown him that he must not panic and should lay back a little and then he will be the QB we need to go far. If he had to do more than he has shown I would be seeing this as a fools quest, but as he actually needs to do less than he tries to do this can be done though it is often difficult for the athletic heart. 5. I agree that the OL is not likely at all to deliver us a good performance over the rest of the season, though i do not understand from your analysis if you make this judgment for other reasons beyond the fact free opinions we are entitled to. Specifically, I think our problem is a lack of depth. As the season goes on an any players are injured as happens unfortunately too often in this brutal game and most likely we gen to see the nicks which often occur which slows a player down I do not see us having the experience to make this work. I agree that FA is the best course for improving this team, but the good news is that rather than two seasons, I think we can get players who can provide this depth and even compete with the current starters in one FA go roung. The bottomline is this predictions about the future by anyone are merely fact free opinions with out some analysis with the depth or correctness to back them up. despite the length of your post while the truth can hurt, opinions are entitled to but simply are just that. The contradicttions (is Evans bad because the supporting receivers are inferior or are the supporting case poor becaue Evans is no #1) and as as yet unsupported claims (why would one totally ignore his production in the last three games when looking for trends) just hang out there despite the length. Your RB opinions seem very at variance with facts. I do not remember the career stats of Ronnie Harmon but if his career is in fact a parallel for WM how many yards di he rush for after 5 games to rank #3 in the NFL (again i am not saying that rush yardage is the only factor to assess and RB by, but it simply make no sense to simply dismiss this completely particularly when the player you compare him to did not show the same real world production. You also state that he does not scare anyone. Do you really have any evidence to support the claim that either MN or CHI simply ignored game planning for a player who was then the #1 RB for rushing yards in the NFL and had peeled off 150+ againstthe Jets. From watching both games, MN concentrated heavily om securing the middle of line by backing up the Williams boy and he was able to rush for 90 and retain the #1 rushing yardage slot when MN continued to focus inside and he got outside the tackles to put up major yards in a winning game. in fact it was the willingness of Fairchild/Jauron to stick to rushin WM up the middle despite a lack of success which allowd him to "scare" the DBs into rushing toward the middle of the line before they realized he was bouncing it outside. Again looking at the Bears game, they certainly stoped him from getting more than fiftyish, buit this was because they are among if not the best in the NFL right now and they keyed on him. In general you do not throw players for losses unless you are keying on him right from the start.

I tend to listen to the radio or ignore the TV commentarors unless there is an injury or something that needs specific explanation if I am forced to listen to ABC. When you said you were going to give us your favorite Theisman moment, my first thoughts were not of his game commentary, but when David Letterman did his Joe Theisman imitation by placing the leg of some football model on a pencil shapener where the twist in the handle was the knee joint and the sharper turned in directions impossible for the intact human leg. I never root for injuries, but this joke afterward was a sight gag which made me laugh and I doubt I would have if the target were someone other than Theiezman (who changed the pronunciation for the Heisman battle during college.

Rather than improve it, I ould abandon it because I think I cam get a better deal from the state if I float a proposal for the state to issue a bond to build a new stadium located in downtown Buffalo. The NYJ proposal failed in part because voters in WNY saw nothing in it for them, a bond issue if subjected to referendum would have a lot of support out here as even those who have more interest in the Philharmonic than football should support downstate where the revenues are generated byy the far greater population and Wall Steet up this way. A vote downstate is going to be a close thing, but if they sell this as when WNY gets there's it will lay the groundwork for downstate to get there's those who support the Manhattan deal or some other stadium will be saleable in campaign which has support from the major political players. I think that WNY would be able to secure a situation where the Bills agree and in fact want to stay in a new stadium for the forseeable future rather than us having to cut some shorter team deal with a buyout in case Ralph gets called home if we simply redo the last deal but add new improvements to the current stadium.

I think the thing shown here is thst it is possible to even win the SB with a QB who makes mistakes or is not really a great QB. Certainly as the NFL ran into an unprecedented group of stud QBs, the vast majority of teams who won it all were directed by players who happened to teams which had players who were in the amazing class of 1983 or were rarities like Joe Montana. However, when you look at recent do not make mistake guys like Gilfer, twice cut players like Brad Johnson or even QBs you judge to be still learning like RoboQB, teams can win it all without putting all their hopes and dreams and investment in a stud QB. When one adds into that the last few SBs where guys who appeared in the big game who in fact turned out to be great QBs like Tom Brady, l;ate draft picks like Hasselbeck or even UDFA Delhomme saddling your team with an investmant in an early QB appears at best to be a dicey proposition. Further add into this that failures drafted early like Ryan Leaf or the cut Joey Harrington have taken the team which drafted them to exactly the same number of SBs without a ticket as stud QBs with major cap hits which hold their team back like Peyton Manning and Michael Vick, again paying a mint for a stud QB appears to be a dicey proposition which has low rate of success for building a team capable of making it to the last weekend.

I would have since I always gave insisted that even if one declares Bledsoe to be a statue incapable of elusing anyone you have to present the threat that he will run the bsall if the opposing team abandons the center of the field. I think ONE of the key to TC's offense having a lot fewer sacks of Bledsoe than the keving Killfdrive Noffense of 03 was that he used Bledsoe as a runner. He need not be anywhere near the equal of John Elway to force an opposing D not to completely sellout to blitz and sack the statue. If an opping D is happy to let its LBs choose outside routes as the best way to sack Bledsoe or stunt their DL to allow Bledsoe to stumble forward for a few yards, much less a TDthen they are being stupid. Bledsoe may get hammered by a tackle if he runs it, but so what at 6' 5" he not only is a big boy but actually he gets to deliver the blow as a rusher rather than simly getting creamed by a sack if one insists on keeping him in the pocket. The fact is that a team is likely to be far more successful if they employ Bledsoe as aa runner and kudos to Parcells for HCing a team for which he ran for a TD. This is far from an endorsement of Bledsoe since one of the things you need to do which TC did is reduce Bledsoe\s ability to audible down to changes only to avoid a play which totally will blow up and not to switch to what he thinks is the mostly likely play to succeed. In 03 the pass-happy Killdrive seemed to call too many pass plays and when he did call a run, Bledsoe had so much confidence in his ability to use his rocket arm to thread the needle on what proved to be low probabilty passes that the two of them essentially eliminated the run from the Bills playbook on third and short yardage/ Bledsoe is adequate to run occaisionally and if fact a team must do this to make his pass game more effective.

I assume you are referring to the fumbled fake punt to begin the game, but this call does not freak me out at all. Quite frankly, the Bills were beaten today by a team which is better than they are at every phase of the game (on O, as long as Grossman is healthy he is a better QB than JP and the D provides enough positional benefits that if their game is cooking the O can be brilliant- on D the Bears are simply one of the best in the NFL and their ST unit has been clicking and getting outstanding kicking). They had to get momentum early in order to win this game on the road. They actually got off to the game start they wanted, but simply failed to hit the long pass to Evans, failed to run on short yardage for the first. amd then failed to convert a faked punt which if the announcers were correct was well designed and called and would have went for a first if they had gotten the snap correct. If anything, while generally I like teams that are aggressive, I thought the go-for-it call on 4th and 1 where Daimon Shelton played poorly doing an unforced false startwas a lot more questionable than the fake punt call. I I do prefer aggressive teams generally and I was happy to see DJ have the team go for it on 4th and 1 against NE in the first game. However, I did not realize at the time how much better the Bears were than us, and I was thinking that the aggressive move might have been to ask Moorman to pin them deep in their end and look for our D to begin winning the positional game. This move would have not played to the Bears strength which would be getting an even short yardage 1st down against their D and instead play to a strngth of ours getting our Pro Bowl kicker to seal them deep and then require their O to make plays. Instead, I think that the fake punt call had a better chance of succeeding on 4th down than a run up the middle. The Bills got their taled whipped primarily on the field today anf DJ calling a more conservative game would not have made the difference from all I saw.

Not only are there no atheists in foxholes, but there is nothing like sharing a team and a dream to bridge differences in religious doctrine

I actually had hope that Denney would actually be used like the Stork given a lot of similarities in their physical make-up and capabilities (amazing wingspan and enough agility that he was sometimes used as a cover guy in the zone blita- he even got an INT duriing the pre-season a few years back a good 15-20 yards downfield(, I guesss his sack performance against the Fins earlier this season he has adopted the LDE role as his nitch, but given he has even played the DT role for us because he is stiff against the run, I think he could play this versatile role if a D used him that way (which ours does not and I think cannot).

If the Bills are disappointed enough in JP to look elsewhere I really incredibly doubt they will look to the draft for a replacement. From Michael Vick to Leinarty, to Pennington (to arguably even Peyton Manning who as a rookie QB brought his team from the 3-13 record which got him all the way up to a 3-13 record) a drafted QB unless their is a team around him to carry him like Pitt and RoboQB is merely another development project who will condemn the Bills to yet another playoff less year that lines up behind the 5 loser years under TD. If JP fails then I think we get serious about an FA QB who can some uin and produce more immediately and put nutts om tje seats fpr this franchise. Regardless of how good Stanton is or is not, picking a QB in the firs would be psychotic.

While I think someone getting ticked off at TKO over whether he is back offers a more relevant commentary on the ticked off individual rather than on Spikes (I agree with the comments that negative complaints about the time it takes TKO are ill-founded as the truth is when he is able to play is when he is able to play. There is no legitimate sense that he is a malingerer gtiven the type of nagging injury, the relatively short time he has been out because of it, and he is coming off a more traumatic injury. Even the complaints about him talking too much about coming back seem ill-founded since he actually did take the field quicker than can be reasonably expected by lining up for the first snap and the fact he got a sack leading to a Brady fumble and a TD simply means that whatever talk he made he backed up. Complaining about this hammy strain simply comes off as whining). However, this post did get me to take a more intensive look at the current LB stats. While comparing Crow's stats so far to some extrapolation of what TKO did to this point for a different team in a different situation seems relatively odd, the better more relevant comparison to make is Crow's stats this year compared to Fletcher-Baker's. Now this is impressive! Fletch historically has led this team in tackles by a longshot year after year. His team leading totals are not flights of fancy since he actually has been credited with more tackles than any other NFL player over the past 5 years. His best year for the Bills was a team record which legitimitately put his name in the record books with producers like Spielman. However, afte 4 games (which is far from an entire season but is a representative chunk of games to propose some thoughts) Crowell is actually totaling more tackles than even Fletch. This is impressive. I think a lot of this would have to do with the scheme switch. In the Tampa 2. the MLB plays a lot more zone pass coverage on 3rd down and his tackle numbers naturally go down as he plays off the line. Yet, he is on track to produce tackle #s which while not comparable to his best years for the Bills are in fact comparable to the 2004 year where Fletch wracked up 150 tackles for an effective D. Crow has racked up his team leading tackle numbers not simply because Fletch is tackling less, but because he is tackling more on this team. Also impressive is that both he and Fletch are producing these numbers of tackles while also being productive in other parts of the game. Fletch had a crucuial INT last week which simply showd great awareness and great hands. Crow has 2 INTs a quarter of the way through the season. Angelo also has a sack to his credit. I'd forget the TKO comparisons because they are fairly unsubstantiated and senseless. A comparison to the Fletch output is an indicator with not bad production by Ellison that the Bills may in fact have one of the best LB corps in football even today and that their is potential that TKO may be able to resume play at levels where his initial sack may indicate that as long as he recovers from the hammy strain, we may end up with 3 LB who deserve Pro Bowl level consideration (though likely none of them will get that nod this year).

Bingp. I think it is exactly the case that one of the main probs was that ome of the central TD motivations seemed to be making sure he never got fired and run out of town again by a guy he hired. Hence he, 1. Hired an HC who would have made a much better Admin Asst. to the GM with his lists and contacts than an HC given his lack of O skills and seeming insecurity or foolishness which led him to hire a staff without a lot of experience. 2. Set-up several tools to compensate for GW failings, but never pull the trigger to frce these men into place over incompetent guys hired by GW. 3. Showed a willingness to let GW win battles he should have overrode him on (the choice to hire the wounded former HC and thus no threat to GW Killdrive over TC who was TDs candidate). 4. Slapped GW back if he strayed into GM areas such as GW's comments that Centers would remain a Bill as long as he wanted which was quickly followed by the Centers cut and Dash signing. I think GW actually had some good ideas and contacts, but most all he seemed to want to make sure he was not blamed for losing rather than taking risks that he might get Cowhered again to try to win.

I think the problem is here that folks seem to take a Fox News view of the world that things are all one way or they are all the other way. Reality is not like that and is really far more accurately described by a nuanced view. Some Bills fans come off as crazed because they do refuse to admit that TD did a number of things right in his 5 years here and actually did a number of things very well and far better than other GMs (he really pulled off some great trades like tagging PP and getting s 1st for him, showing steeely eye nerve in waiting to get a 1st day draft pick for Henry, negotiating some great deals gettoing players for less than they were offered elsewhere apparently or might get on the free market and a set of business deals for the Bills that moved us into the 21st century. HOWEVER, despite this episodic good and even great work, he erred badly in hiring GW and the buck stops with him over the dysfunctional unit which was rarely a team (much less a TEAM) during his tenure here. Overall, his recprd os simply one of failure becaise team failed to make the playoffs in any of his 5 years. End of story. However, some chose to diverge from reality by falsely claiming that everything he did here was bad when it was not. Claims like he was a bad drafter (MW was a bust but his other work was pretty good generally) or that anyone can cut people so his getting us out of cap hell at least a year earlier than most expected simply are unproven by an analysis of the facts. Lest Mort thinks tht this indictment exonerates him, on the contrary. He seems to be guilty of trying to choose facts to fit his pre-ordained notions. He seemed more than willing to throw Lwvy under the bus just after draft day and now that this draft has yielded a bunch of players who are able to start immediately for a .500 team he nows seems to want to give Modrak the credit rather than TDs successor. Fine if he likes TD and actually wants to give him credit for the good things he did do here. However, if Mort expects to be believable in doing this, he also should acknowldged TDs errors which play a central role in this team failing to make the playoffs during his reign. One cannot both correctly recognize that he deserves credit for getting us out of cap hell and finishing .500 in his second season, but then somehow want to emphasize the salary cap issues for our horrid performance in his 3rd and 5th years. This makes no sense. Further, his failure to give Marv any credit for this draft simply comes off as sour grapes. Us fans can be as stupid as we want to be and should be forgiven actually. However, as a journalist, I know he wants to maintain a good relationship with a good source but his bending of reality makes him come off like a fan than a good reporter.

I don't think that folks saw Biscuit as a finesse player just because he was not considered as vicious a hitter as Bruce or even Nate Odomes who had the rep as tough customers and big hitters. Rather than as a finesse player, I think that folks simply viewed him as a gifted athlete whose big hits came as a result of his being so quick and mobile rather than having guile that most folks associate with finnesse. A true finesse player may well remain good even when he gets older because though he might lose a step in speed, he gains half a step or more in learning to be more efficient in his moves or shortens the ditance he has to make-up by learning to be in the right position. Biscuit on the other hand was not viewed so much as a smart player but as a gifed athlete who covered a lot of gound because he could. Cornelius was viewd in my recollection as a big hitter, but it was because he had the speed and athleticism to take advantage of opponents mistakes not necessarily because he forced the other team into mistakes with his finesse or sneaky moves.

I would not be surprised if a big factor in this game is Jauron having saved up siome special surprises to use against the team that fired him. As both teams have a pretty good and an extraordinary D I expect this game to be low scoring. This plays to the Bills advantage as the key for them playing a better team on the road is to hang around, and hang around and hang around and then hope to get or make a big break. Generally in the past, Chicago has not been a team which simply hangs it on an opponent. However, this is a different Chicago squad than most recent versions of the team because Grossman has escaped injury this year and he is playing well. I think the key will a Bills D which has been wellpcoached by Fewell which if they get or already respect Jauron enough to give themselves special motivation to win one for the old man this could be a surprising trap game. I think that the usual hyper marketing of the QB in the NFL has fooled folks into seeing extraordinary play from JP as the key to this game. In fact, Fairchild/Fewell have managed JP well so far this season by getting him to emphasize no trying so hard unless he forced to by the other team. We saw him succumb to the pressure of trying to win the game on his own against NYJ and the results were his first INT and a couple of other turnovers by him, If Jauron lobs in a few special schemes for the the Bears amd the team is motivated or is self0motivated to play above their heads, this could well be a trap game for the Bears, I would not say this is likely but it is certainly quite possible on Sunday.

The "hangnail" comment was the usual internet hysteria comment, but it certainly is based on the grain of truth that you acknowledge that he is on the backside of his career. The recitation of his impressive numbers of game starts are a pretty clear example of why stats are not conclusive of most things in football and even can be a false indicator of health to even the casual Bills observer. While I would not have put the +/- for CV injury at 4 games (I am a wishful thinker) it seemed pretty clear that he was not likely to last the season and that he was certainly the OL player most likely to go down with an injury. While the GS stats are impressive, a more realistic story is told by him being excused from working out this off-season and in almost all the OTAs as the Bills appeared to be trying to save his body for the regular season. In addition, the casual observer last season did note that CV was suffering from what would have been mere nicks he played through in the past and that Preston saw a lot of time in reserve of Villarial. On a team whose major OL issue is a lack of reserve talent, it speaks volumes that the single reserve they have with some notable starter experience, Preston, was acting as a reserve for CV. In fact, though Preston is also the reserve for Fowler and a natural center, the Bills gave Geisinger every chance they could to be the back-up center so they could free Preston up to be the RG back-up because he almost certainly was gonna have to start and likely see significant time at RG this year. CV himself took a personal foul last year for the unver like act of jawing at the ref and one could see his frustration at what appeared to be his body letting him down ad not performing like it used to, It is a bit untoward to claim that a longtime vet and tough guy Villarial would be failed by a minor injury. However, making a converse claim that he is a resilient player whom one could have counted upon based on the stats you site is also a bit over the top in believability.

Not so fast with this observation. On the fortunate drop of an overthrown but catchable ball for the Vikes Whitner blew shifting over from the center of the field coverage to cover the Vikes receiver (Robinson I think) who had eluded McGee's attempt to stop him up with press coverage in the shallow zone and Robinson streaked into the clear where fortunately Johnson overthrew him by a little bit and the WR could not gather it in. If our D was the Tampa 2 is was not well run as Whitner was not back to keep the WR in front of him. If it was simply a cover 2 and Fletch was blitzing then the TMQ observation is correct. None of us fans knows for sure what the cover scheme was and I do not remember the play well enough to guess what it looked like they were trying to do to us outside observers, but if someone has the tape and Fletch is blitzing they were not running the Tampa 2 and we were fortunate that the Vikes could not execute well enough because the scheme was right for them.

The interesting thing to me about MM (and I have a fairly unbiased view about him and most NFL personalities in that I think those who are heralded as great are usually not that great and those usually heralded as complete losers usually have some aspects of their game they do well) is that I think that under his guidance as OC and HC, he has a proven track record of rehabiliting QBs who had stunk up the joint previously. I think the facts are whether folks want to lay the reason as coincidence that Kordell, Maddox and Bledsoe all experienced far greater success under him than they had in recent runs. One event may be something that just happened. The second time may be simply a coincidence. However, when it happens a third time, one should consider seriously whether there iis a trend here. Folks who simply dub him Meathead simply do not want to consider reality and actually some have gone so far as to invest in unreality that his time in Pittsburgh saw no offensive success. The interesting question to me is whether there is something about his gameplanning and style which lends itself to good work with failed vets, but is simply unproductive in developing young talent. If true this might explain why the team was such a dismal failure with him attempting to run the O with Clements as the OC. When he went to Miami, the situation seemed to make sense asCulpepper demographically fit the type of QB whome he has had success in rehabbing. However, the Miami team looks so troubled and the O is so bad that the best thing you can say about MM in this case is that maybe Culpepper is simply the exception that proves the rule he works well with older QBs, because no doubt about his work this year simply stinks.

I agree about the need to take a full team approach to actually being a winner in the NFL rather than falling for the promotional machine that attempts to deal with the fact that we Americans are so individualistic we have trouble accepting that it takes a whole team. We would much rather have one person served to us and we root for that individual br it Montana, Brady oe Elway as though the rest of the team was a mere supporting cast. The MFL is great IMHO because it is such a team game. There is a reason why Elway as amazing as he was as a player failed to win it all until Terrell Davis got there and their D came around or why Peytom Manning who is by far the best QB in the NFL has never been to the SB unless he had a ticket. The real challenge for Bills fan is that current whipping MM (known affectionately as Meathead) actually HC'ed this team to a winning record exactly because they operated as a team rather than as a bunch of individuals. As sioon as they cut the hated Bledsoe and turned last season into a training camp for JP, we lost that edge and fell apart. It wasn't that Bledsoe was any ggod, its that he provided the team with a better (even if bad) chance to win than throwing JP into the job. We paid the price and thankfully MM resigned so we could get a fresh start.

I think there is a reasonable distinction here between killer instinct (which I think Jauron and the OC/DCs have to some degree) and killer execution (which I do not think this young Blls team has yet). In fact, there is a good argument to be made that this divergence is part of the problem in particular games so far this season and that our record MAY be better right now if Jauron actually reigned in the killer instinct a bit and was not trying petty continually to force his team to stand up and make plays they are not good enough to make (yet we hope). An example of this was seen in the NE game. The Bills were up by 10 early in the fourth quarter or so and deep in NE territory. On 4th and 1 Jauron showed that killer instinct by going for the 1st and NE stopped us and then bouyed by the triumph while we were stunned we could not pick up a measly yard, they marched the length of the field to draw within 3, then kicked an FG to tie and then beat us on a safety as they were winning the field position battle. I Jauron did not have a killer instinct he simply would have kicked an FG and we would be up by 13. Two scores would beat us, but IF we had gone the weenie route, our field position would likely have still been good, we would have burned some more game clock and we would have 3 more points. As it was, I agreed with Jauron's effort to stick a fork in them as if we had picked up the measly yard, not only would we have burned even more clock, but we had a good chance to go up by 3 scores instead of 2 on the road. As it was, the young Bills team learned a hard lesson about what it takes to win and the difference between a recent past SB champ and us. The killer instinct was there, but the effective killer execution was not. Yesterday's game also saw the coaches show killer instinct as they called two pass plays on one of the final Bills drives. Both passes were poorly executed and stopped the clock when they failed. The announcers note repetitively that MN was operating on borrowed time from the Bills because if we had run the ball twice more on that series, even if we were stopped short of the first, we likely would have forced them to take TOs out of desperation rather than managing the clock and their final 3 plays which all occured with under a miniute left on the clock may never have happened. The good news here is that our problem of less than efficient execution canget better with more play. In fact, there is no doubt and plenty of evidence to indicate that more play has accompanied JP playing much better. This creating killer execution is tough to do but it is easier than if we had to give Jauron and Fairchild personality transplants to try to create killer instinct in the Bills coaches. They have it, but as that fool Gregg Williams was fond of saying, we simply did not execute. I think that will come with more game expriece and success.