Pyrite Gal

My sense is that Jauron is making decisions about playing time based on his particular plan and you did not see A-Train employed as much as he could have been in pre-season and relied upon less in pre-season than he was Sunday because Jauron felt he already knew enough about what he could do he saw no reason to get more looks at him in different situations. Another part od perception of play for us fans is also the amount of chatter about that player on TSW. AT drew little chatter here and what he did was generally negative as folks wrote him off or declared him a goner because many posters had adopted Gates as their new savior of the day.

I think you named the subject line of this thread quite well. It's focus is obviously based in his performance, but what the comments mostly really speak to is how folks rate him. I disagree with the general sentiment in that I think most Bills fans seem to have a pretty clear idea of what WM can do and cannot do and do not really overrate him at all. I think most people were quite impressed with WM in that he came back from what initially looked like a career ending injury in his final collegiate game. However, i think most view him as a player who was reasonably considered to be among the top 10 and more likely the top 5 picks in the 2003 draft class before his injury. However, it was pretty clear to most objective observers that after his injury it seemed unlikely he would be able to play the pro game. The Bills pick of WM with the 1st TD worked hard to get from AT was a surprising move which after the initial shock had potential to be a brilliant move. The key would be if the Bills docs were right and the nature of the multiple knee injuries was such that it would allow him to resume something approximating the level of potential talent he showed in college. I think virtually all Bills fans who have more than a casual allegiance and pay attention to the game feel WM has fulfilled the risk TD made in that he did come back to play and has merited a starting role as an RB in the NFL. However, i think most thinking fans feel that WM's talk of being one of the elite RBs in the NFL is simply incorrect. Its good that he aspires to be this, because if an RB of his collegiate talent did not say he was the best, I'd feel even worse about his desire and play. WM has shown some very good positives in his time here: 1. Fastest Bill ever to reach 2000 ards rushing 2. Great stiff arm shown in 04 (though it went away last year. 3. Came back to play the next game after injury led to expectation he would miss next game and in general has shown himself be a durable RN who can be called upon to carry the rock a bunch of times. However, he has also shown some real limitations in his game: 1. After an extremely prodductive 1st half start last year, his production came no where near equalling his talk of being an elite back with a second half of the season production outage. 2. Has never shown much production as a reciever which is necessary for him to truly be considered an elite back. 3. Could not beat out Shaud Willians as the 3rd down go-to guy for the Bills last year. I think the only folks who overrate WM are those foolish enough not to see the limitations mentioned aboce. I don't see thinking fans ovverating him at all. Perhaps he does not produce like they expect a Bills #1 RB to produce or at a level they think a 1st rounder should produce at, or at some vision they have set based on Thurman Thomas producing for us. I do not know, but TT is a HOF level back and it would be unreasonable to expect every back to produce at his level even if all Bills fans want a HOF RB. I think many Bills fans have a rational rating of WM. With his impressive comeback from the injury in his first year of play in 2004 and his production last year WM is in noway an elite back. However, he is a young player who has produced a bunch of yards quickly as a Bill so there is way too much upside for someone to give up on him given his # 10 in the NFL rushing performance last year and the fallur of TC/MM to guide an effective offensive performance last year. WM has not produced as a pass reiever or 3rd down back as one would expect an elite RB to do, but he was not used that way last year either so the jury is still out. I think to the extent WM is overrated, it says more about the person doing the rating than it does about WM's production in the league to date (above average as a rusher) but in no way an elite back. however, his recovery from the injury shows an ability to work hard and it would be foolish to give up on him yet. This is particularly true if the alternative is Anthony Thiomas as the starting RB. Thomas was very impressive on Sunday, but one would really be overating an RN to claim that he is a #1 RB in this league. I think he can be a great Kenny Davis type producer for us, but even this is asking a lot from an RB who is several years removed from 1000 yard production.

This post was way cool and I hope you make it a regular feature!

I also thought Denney would get called for a facemask, but apparently he did not grab anything but Maroney;s uniform collar to bring him down. What call do you think was missed and is there any objective proof of it or was it simply a judgment call?

I think folks should agree with you on the stats you site becauce it does not seem to me to make any difference which stats one chooses the big point is the same. Whether one asserts that the numbers were 15-2 or 7-1 there was a grpss disparity in the number of penalties assessed. This coul be explained by a number of occurences most prominent among them that it was an effect of a young undisciplined team drawing fouls while a hardened experienced team play relatively without error. Alternately some may claim that it was another case of the conspiracy against the Bills. In my view an explanation is found that certainly a lot of this was based in better more penalty free performance by the Pats, but also while I do not think a conspiracy exists, I think an objective look at the game indicates that the refs made several calls and non-calls which were bad calls and these disadvantaged the Bills significantly. Whats your call on this question?

Exactly. I use the word "credited" with tackles rather than offering it up as a clearer statistical claim (you either scored a TD or did not, you either got credited with an INT because you got one or you did not get credited with one) as the tackle "stats" are a bit lousy-goosey. To answer BINYC question, I used these numbers because this is what the Official Bills page gave in its listing of stats for the game. I contemplated trying to state a measuirement of accomplishment by the individual players by parsing out whether they were credited with solo tackles or assists the Official Bills page does break out these numbers this way) but did not bother as the point of the post was merely to compare this year's rookie contribution to contributions from other Bills rookie groups and not to try to compare rookies with each other this year. Such an analysis can be done, but really seems to make little difference in terms of judging the teams performance right now. (Though as an aside, I am going to keep looking at the relative performance of kyle Williams vs that of McCargo for us. Ironically, I think that the way this is playing out right now is generally a kudo in the Bills 2006 draft performance. The team had clear needs on the DL as the loss of Adams, Edwards and Phat Pat in 2 years represents a substantial meltdown in talent in a short time. The top 3 DTs on the depth chart in 2004 sre all gone. As a replacement, the Bills got Triplett from FA, hoped that the retained fisrt day pick Anderson would develop and still they saw a need because of the desire to finally have a real rotation at DT to stetch up into the 1st and take the first player selected in the 5th round (with the pick acquired from Texas for Moulds) on the DT position. It looked like a dicey move in the first half as Maroney and Dillon hit for big runs. However, things calmed down a bit as their play against the run improved. I was impressed with the Bills pass rush yesterday as the initial blitz by TKO produced a score on the 1st play. They overplayed a bit early and Maroney in particular got some huge yardage on cutbacks. However, eventually, they got their act together on run plays and the speed which allowed them to get some sacks, block some passes and generally mess up some plays through quick penetration or pressure resulted in holding the Pats under 20 at home. The interesting story that the tackle numbers imply though is that though this draft looks for now like a success for the Bills as they got contributions to the DL rotation in the very first game from two draftees. Ironically, it appears to be the 5th rounder Williams who is more of a contributor than 1st rounder McCargo. Quite frankly i do not care which one is the lead guy as long as one of them is doing the job. In fact, it is very impressive that the Mev led draft team got two players able to immediately contribute as DTs from the draft. However, the credited tackle #s which saw McCargo log 1 assist and Williams log 3 solos and 3 assists are an interesting reversal. Did the Bills make a mistake reaching up to get McCargo? Right now the answer appears to be yes. It will take 3 years before we can rationally assess (fortunately there is no requirement us fans be rationale). However, before anyone gets into prematurely haranguing Marv for this move, they also should prematurely praise him for getting an immediate contributor in the 5th round. It comes out in the wash when assessing the Bills braintrust, but will play out in interesting ways as we assess the individual players. My guess is that the jobs of the RDT and LDT are that one job will be to penetrate and the sack numbers will show success at this job (or more likely QB pressures) while the RDT will be the stay at home guy there to seal up the center against the run and credited tackles will be a better indicator of success for this job.

was the way that the first draft class under Marv played for the Bills yesterday. The majority of the players Marv oversaw the selection of contributed to the team positively in the first game of the season. This is simply a welcome change of events for a Bills fan who saw occurenes like folks like Denney and Edwards really need to sit for a year befor they were able to contribute to the team or a player like McGahee need to rehab from injury for a year before he could contribute. I think it would be too simplistic to simply chalk this up to Marv being better than TD (though in the end, I think TD was likely driven by an underlying motivation of never getting fired again by a coach he hired as Cowher did to him in Pitts the end results produced under him were badly skewed). It really is a team effort of a bunch of folks who produce a draft. For the most part, though the overarching management of Marv is very different from that of TD, the specific people doing the scouting out around the country, managing assessment of college players which Tom Modrak does, directing prio personnel as John Guy does, giving position guidance and direction as JMac does, or neogtiating deals and getting them into camp as Jim Overdorf does are the same folks under Marv as they were under TD. However. when one looks at the specifics of: Donte Whitner- Impresive game as he came off the bench to record an INT and credited with 8 tackles John McCargo- Not nearly the stat productivity of Whitner, but the Bills used him as a regular part of its DL rotation which held the Pats O well below 20 points at hiome Ashton Youboty- Inactive unfortunately but missed a lot of time in camp due to the death of his Mom Ko Simpson- Second day pick did better than the norm as he was forced to fill in for an injured TV. Was credited with an impressive 7 tackles in a productive D performance. Kyle Williams- Also, a nice find on the second day as he also played a key role in our DL rotation, and in fact after being crdited with 6 tackles seemed more productive IMHO than 1st round choice McCargo. Brad Butler- Inactive Keith Ellison- Stepped up impressively as hamstring injury to TKO forced us to go into the back-ups for significant PT. He answered the call being credited with 9 tackles. Terrance Pennington- No gametime that i could see, but it was quite interested that the higher regarded Butler was inactive and he was active yesterday. We are almost certainly in big trouble if either starting taackle goes down to injury, but it is nice to see that a player viewed as the lesser of the two tackles drafted is actually ahead of his colleague in use. Perhaps this is becaise though Penningon is still rookie bad Butler is worse. However, it could also be that while Butler is rookie adequate Pennington is better. We'll see as time goes on. Aaron Merz- Also inactive One could try to explain this away as the rookies starting simply shows how bad the starters were and does not mean they really played well or even adequately. This is true. However, results in the game are the real proof in the pudding. There is work to be done because the ultimate result of losing, even on the road is that you are 0-1. Yet, again in terms of analysis of the game, holding a team which has won 3 SBs in the last 5 years to under 20 points (the conventional adequacy standard of play) at home is quite impressive. Due to injury (TKO and TV), player rotation, and poor play (Wire) these rooks logged significant time in producing this outcome. I was impressed. It is depressing to watch your team lose and that is simply a fact. However, the oddity for me is that I really find it hard to remember feeling so positively about a situation where the team I root for lost than the way events occured yesterday. Perhaps, I am just whistling in the dark and I think NE fans should be after they rung up a win yeserday (If given the advantage of being at home and some not insubstantial benefits they received from some odd ref penalty calling and non-calls yesterday results in them needing to mount a nice comback to beat the Bills after the Bills misfired on a 4th and 1 which a better team would have made easily, this is the best they can do this may be a long season in Patland compared to their previous recent great records). However, likewise, this is setting up to be a very interesting year in Bills land compared to our recent record of lack of production. I do not feel good at all about losing, but i do feel far better about this team losing in a 4th quarter meltdown in Gilette to the Pats in our opener than I do about this team losing to Jax in the Ralph in another 4th quarter meltdown.

I think the most amazing thing here is that TC's numbers are way off, but the "real" results 7 penalties on the Bills and 1 on the Pats still indicate a game where the results were strongly in favor of one team over the other. There can be a number of explanations for this such as they younger team simply being less disciplined and making more mistakes and the older team having gone through a # of high pressure situations and thus they played more disciplined ball. In fact, I think this was part of the explanation. However, I think it is hard to look at the actual plays of this game and try (its hard for us partisans) to be objective and conclude that there were simply a number of bad calls and questionable non-call by the refs which seemed to advantage the home team and the team expected to win with the script of conventional wisdom for this game. Clearly all fans rant that their team got screwed by the refs while the other team was helped, but I think it is hard to look at the particular plays of this game (like the flag/whistle on the Whitner interception) and no go huh? or look at non-calls like a couple of the plays where rushers "ran into" Moorman and say "what?" These are simply the breaks and there is really no choice but to suck it up and move on. However, when the Pats come to town and if the refs happen to badly blow a couple of calls (or make bad calls on things like the coin flip as they have done and it advantages the Bills, I will note that it is too bad they influenced a game, but overall the scales of justice will be balanced. The Bills gave this one away against a not very good team that played better than them and the refs helped the not very impressive Pats in gaining this win.

I think folks may want to wait a game or two into the season (actually probably about 8) before they panic and bench their starting RB who has far greater potential upside as a young player originally thought to one of the top 5 players in college football who we acquired with a pick inthe 20s because of his injury. In his still less than 2 full seasons of starts, WM is a youngster who is the fastest Bill to rush for over 2000 yards. The idea you would bench him to start your back-up RB who really impressed us a lot yesterday but who is coming off of two poor seasons and last went barely over 1000 yards rushing in a season in 2003 would really be the height of panic. In fact, to take extreme action as a motivational tool says a lot more about the person making an assessment of the character of a player whom they really do not know beyond their interpretation of his motivations based on what they see on TV than any real assessment. I think the key thing for the Bills at RB yesterday was that for the first time since the good ol days way back when which saw the obviously higher upside RB Thurman Thomas spelled by Kenny Davis did I feel quite good about the 2 players we had at RB. One thing which I thought the CBS announcers were right about yesterday amidst all their blather and trying to make reality fit their storylines, was that NFL teams seem to be going much more toward having tow RBs they iuse extensively with though one is clearly the #1, they both are productive and pose specific threats. Clearly the Pats have that will Maroney's production working with Dillion, and while clearly our back-up Thomas does not present the impressive potential upside of their #2 Maroney, despite the rants of some fans who were ready to cut Thomas this pre-season to keep Gates, i think the bills may well prove to have 2 RBs capable of important contributions to this team.

This was from my first curspry glance watching the game while it was plaued (and of course increasingly addled by refreshments as it went on) and I will try to take amore detailed look at the tape as the week gpes on.

Clearly the announcers operate with the idea that good storytelling on their part is the job and they prepare several story plots to chose from which they study in depth and are ready with pithy stories which indicate they are respected insiders and stats to pretend they know it all. Since it is hard to know everything and actually few of these ex players are diligent or snart enough to absorb more than a few story lines, when something they have passed on studying up because they feel its unlikely to occur happens, they can pretend it did not even occur. I think the Bills are considered such a long shot by the conventional wisdom and folk like Phil Simms judged it unlikely that TKO would even play adequately much less get a fumble out of their chosen story Brady, they simply ignored this pretty obvious great story that would have made their work more compelling even to the non-Bills fan.

I think the most enjoyable thing about A-Train's "surprising" performance was that it was apparently no surprise at all to Jauron. The folks who accused him of cronyism or lambasted him for keeping Thomas over Gates and simply called him a fool for not knowin football as well as these legends in their own minds do really owe Jauron an apology of similar length and derision as some of the posts which ragged on him. I am more than happy to concede I was wrong in simply supporting the idea that Thomas was a better pick because Gates did produce better as a rusher, but not emough to separate himself from a vet who could blitz pick-up, block on occaisional end-arounds sn because Yhomas did in fact show better production than Gayes as a pass catcher and dump=off target. However, even I as a supporter of keeping Thomas underestimated his effectiveness as a rusher. There are many YSW regulars who can demonstrate whether they are fan enougj (or man enough) to admit that they appear to be all wrong in denigaraing Jauron abd A-Train in various posts.

With what? I aggree that we gave away one that we could have won if we were a better team. When I first saw the schedule I chalked this one up as a definite loss because: 1. I expected little from us with a new coach/GM/etc. 2. We were facing a team which won 3 SBs in the last 4 years. 3. We would be on the road. Yet, as I think it occured rather than NE simply beating us like a good team should do to a bad team in the good team;s house, we actually gave pme away we should have won because: 1. Our team has gotten better players such as the speedy WRs in a St L based O, filled our SS and DT holes nicely with Triplett and Whitner as have a cast of youngsters one can reasonably feel hopeful about. 2. NE does not look like the dominant force they have been the past few years with qurstions at LB, WR, and apparently on OL. Brady;s decisiveness and good play and that winning habit makes them a better team than us able to step up and capitalize on opportunites like the one we handed them for the safety, but I favor the Bills to beat them in the friendly confines of the Ralph assuming huge amounts of injuries do not disrupt the Bills. 3. I had forgotten that we already saw signs of this implostion when we gave away a game in NE last year. I'm not sure what you disagree with.

However, the Pats did not look as good as advertised and the Bills did not look as bad as advertised by the conventional wisdom. This finding which I think is fact IMHO was seen in the line for this game being the Pats minus 8 points. The fact simply is that it took over a TDs advabtage from the bookies to get bettors to bet on the Bills when actually as little as a 3 point advantage would have won a bet on the Bills. Wynnung the line is no victory at all moral or otherwise. However, when one turns your attention to next week it would be foolish to ignore that the Bills showed some positives which bode well compared to last year's sorry performance and gives some hope for better play in the future. I agree with those who say there is no such thing as moral victories. This was a lost and we are 0-1. However, as silly as it would to somehow call this a victory in any way, it strikes me as equally as silly to ring ones hands over this lost and not recognize both the actual failings of this team which must be improved: 1, The coaches need to do a better job of making adjustments at half time and anticipatin the adjustments that the opposition may make and counter them. There were few Bills who I thought were individually overmatcned in terms of the quality of their play (Wire should have been cut) but though other performers had disappointing injuries which raise questions about their ability to perform on an ongoing basis (TV led the team in INTs last year and it was dumb that some seem to assume he would be cut, but he appears to have hit the wall in terms of age with injruoes in pre-season and this game, It was great to see TKO cause a fumble but frustrating to see him go out with a hamstring pull). There were a plethora of Bills who seemed to look good on most plays but did commit a critical error aon one or two plats that must be altered. Perfection is dumb to require because it will not happen, but the dichotomy is that a player must aspire to perfection or bad things will happen at the worse times. I thought Crowell, Haggan, and Royal played pretty well but each threw in a wrench on a critical play which cost us points which was frustrating. It does not seem to me that any of these players should be thrown under the bus, but they simply gotta do better in either eliminating all errors or producing some gamenreaking positive plays consistently. I would place Whitner in a special category by himself that he showed both the best of times with his INT and the worst of times such as the pass play Watson took down with Whitner as the nearest cover guy. IP was impressive and his development continues. He reminds me of a player like Bledsoe who could do extraordinary things at some times, but is not the player who can be exoercted to produce great plays consistently. Nevertheless while DB was well into the backside of his career when he got here, JP is still developing and should be able to do better as he gets some time. The origress he shows in his control of the game compared to last year's talented but oftern panicking player is quite impressive. The good news for us is that as unimpressed with the Pats win at home as I was, i was even less impressed with the Fins losing effort on the road a few days ago. I think that if this team can iron out some individual performances, some youngsters can be trained not to do some dumb thins and our coaching staff can do a beter job with adjustments I like this team alot. Please do not call this a moral victory, but please do not live in fear and claim we are doomed either. Neither is a rational conclusion to draw.

It is clear a few other shoes have to drop on this one. I think the most useful piece of info is going to be to find out how Fast Freddy feels about this. If he feels O.K. about how he was treated by BB and the Pats then end of story. If BB were hpnest with him about the possibilities (which we cannot know) or Fast Freddy was appropriately cynical about how a team can treat a player, or the last hired, first fired view of life many have comes into play here for FFS's thinking then end of story. Also if he feels intimidated enough that he cannot decide what actions to take in a timely way last night because he does not wanna get a rep as a player who is a malcontent even when he has good reason to be he might not want to fight with a team when is looking for work with a team. However, if he feels abused there will be several options for retaliatory actions from sharing whatever info he shared with the Pats with the Bills so we know what they know and also what info he has about the Pats, to working out a strategy with NFLPA pres TV, to what I think is the big potential problem for BB is that if this an example of he and Pioli abusing an NFLPA member with effects on the player's career (for example, FFS had a more lucrative offer on the table from a dog such as Cleeland and chose the Pats instead and is now hosed, then a chunk of NFLPA members who happen to be Pats may feel very bad about this and we may see some of the dissension which occured when BB tried to roll Milloy and got rolled himself in many ways. Interestingly, i wonder if part of this in the mind of BB was payback to the Bills for their late signing and getting perspective and potentially info from Milloy priot to our 31-0 victory in the opener against the Pats. They are completely different cases as Milloy was paid a king's ransom and kept a good long time by the Bills rather than FFS waling out the back door as soon as he walked in the door. However, BB is renowned for looking at the world differently than normal folk (sometimes to his advantage.

Given that the OL talent of players like Reyes and Fowler likely exceeds that of Anderson and Teague chemistry is the main question regarding the OL IMHO until the season goes along and nicks and injuries likely occur I am mpre hopeful than worried about this. Given JP and Peters are in their next season improvement regarding these two is also not unreasonable to hope for or even expect. Given that the run game will be a little more diverse in playcalling this year with a ST. L type O attack and greater use of WM in the check down and even probably at a better weight for him I like how this should improve the run game. Given that McGinest is gone and Bruschi recovering I think there LB situation is uncertain. Seau should be at his peak until he goes down and given he played 8 and 7 games the last two season and is in his late 30s nut made the starting LBs this is probably the clearest sign of trouble. I think the running game should work better than in the past. Given that last year we should have best them in NE with old worse players I think the run game and blocking should be fine. We'll see.

OK, figure it this way, it would be a bad thing for any fan to hope for a permanent injury, but I do hope TKO hits Brady so hard he knocks him into next week (where he can best the crap out of NYJ) and we face whomever the Pats have as a reserve. They caught lightening in a bottle when DB got his lung collapsed by a Jet (Boy Genius Belicheck must be thanking his lucky stars because if he had to build a case for moving Bledsoe out and Brady in voluntarily the Pats would have almost certainly missed the playoffs in 01 and BB might have posted the same record with the Pats he posted HCing Cleveland). At any rate if TKO or anyone somehow stumbles into a surprisingly effective hit on Brady which knocks him out of the game (it is a no more outrageous concept that the surprise of Bledsoe getting a collapsed lung) then one is probably prudent to talk blowout. The big reason I hope we see Maroney is that I would love to see a rookie trying to pick-up the blitz as it often does not happen against complicated NFL disguises of rushes even against talented blocking rookies. I agree that Maroney looks like a good rusher, but no one should fault Ferrel/Jauron for salivating if BB should happen to ask Maroney to pick up the blitz against pros on some third down Sunday. If this happens expect that it will definitely be a run by Maroney because one would be foolish to ask a rookie to protect the franchise by not getting fooled in his first game by a blitz scheme.

I certyainly accept your opinion that you hate, are dismayed by. disappointed in or whatever opinion you have about Bledsoe, as customers we have the right to say what we want short of liable and other illegal utterings. We do have the same opinion about Bledsoe if you feel like i do that he sucks under some circumstances and also plays well under other situations where he is asj/tp;d tp dp what he can do well and ask/rold not to do the things he sucks at without a specific good reason (for example he sucks as a runner but you have to run him a little bit to stop the opponents from selling out guarding the short middle of the field in passing situations for the blitz- he cannot run well, but if defenders abandon the middle of the field to take outside angles to the QB because the blitz works better there a big boy like Drew who cannot run well can stumble forward for a significant gain into empty space). While you certainly have the right to your opinion as I do mine, I do think there is a big difference between the opinion that DB cannot do anything right and sucks basically whereever he plays and the opinion I have that he actually can be quite productive (he can QB a team to a winning record even now on the backside of his career with correct usage and possibly even to a playoff berth) under the right circumstances. The difference is that my opinion is supported by actual real world occurences of play by DB: 1. He QB'ed the Bills to a winning record in 04 though he was not good enough to lead the team on his shoulders alone as the ST (the Lindell shabk and the NC fumble) and the D (giving up over 100 to Parker and letting Maddox QB his squad) joined DB in not doing the job. To merely blame this failure on Bledsoe (he was a part but simplya part of the failure) fails to recognize the reality of other failed Bills and fails to recognize the reality that he was the QB for a winning team that year. 2. He did have a Pro Bowl deserving season for the Bills in 2002 which teamed up with his horrendous 03 to make this deal a wash for the Bills. The first round 03 pick we traded to get him cost us nothing in 02 and was replaced with the pick used to get WM in 03. One has to engage in the did not really happen conclusion that if only we had not traded the pick we would have had two 1st rounders in 03. Maybe, but it was the absence of a 1st round pick which gave TD the cojones to take the unsusual step of tagging Peerless and then holding out for a 1st so this woulda/coulda argument is not credible the way some use it. Our mistake was extending Bledsoe for 04 and thn insult was added to this injury as TD took a cap hit for cutting Bledsoe after extending him. He should not have been extended but once this bed was made we should have slept in it because JP was not ready to start in 04 and the disagreement fostered by turning 05 into a learning session for JP split this team. These opinions are supported by far more reality than the unsupported opinion that DB sucks everywhere in most or all ways. 3. Further, this year looks like it may provide more real world evidence that DB can be the QB of a good team and potentially even a playoff team if the punsdits are right. I think they are wrong in labeling the 'Boys an SB contender, but given the reality of Bledsoe: A. QBing the Boys to a winning record in 05. B. Rejoining Parcells who has already proven to be enough of an HC to get to an SB with DB at QB. C. DB QBing the majority of a must win game in the 2001 successful SB run, resurrecting his career after correctly being cut by NE and keeping the younget better Brady but scoring a deserved Pro Bowl berth with his 2002 Bills play, AND once again resurrecting his career QB'ing Dallas to a winning record in 05 after the Bills cut him. The strong possibility exists with Bledsoe having built up a bunch of top 10 cummulative stats, with him being an essential part of the 2001 SB win so he has a ring he deserves, with him leading the Pats under Parcells to an SB, and now with him having been thrown on the ashheap and rejected by NE but QB'ed the Bills to a playoff short but winning season and now QB'ed the Cowboys to a playoff short but still winning season that Bledsoe will likely get into the HOF. Who knows for sure, but in the end this vote is a popularity contest of the NFL committee. It depends on the competition, if Favre and Bledsoe are both up then Favre gets the nod and DB probably waits. However, it appears that DB will be able to retire at a time where Favre is already in and the likely competition for stud QBs will be folks like Vinny Twataverde. My opinion is that DB easily makes the HOF if these are the voting alternatives and the HOF Committee suffers from the same psychotic overemphasis on the QB positions which fans do (this is part of the reason Warren Moon is in and Art Monk waits still). They likely will vote in a QB and Bledsoe with is longevity accumulated stats (a good thing because longevity in the NFL is tough to achieve), with his deserved SB ring, with his rocket arm and good demographics, and the reality that he led two teams to winning seasons after being cut by the Pats and Bills my opinion supported by real citable occuirences are that he is likely destined for the Hall of Fame because he is well famous for this QB work. You or I may disagree because we like stunning stats but whether a player actally deserves tp be in reality is determined by the popular vote of the committee. I think there is a real difference between my opinioms which are supported by citable fact and other opinions that claim DB sucks in most ways and in most cases which is actually contrary to reality. If you agree with this Great! If you disagree with this Great also but an opinion that disagrees with my points also disagrees with the reality of the citable facts. What you seem to offer in more detail in your argument is the concept that DB cares only (or mostly about the money and not about the teams). Could be. I have never talked to the man to judge his motivations maybe you have and can do this mind and heart reading. However, the what is likely dimestore psychology based opinion you offer is a more effective argument if it plays to the paranoia of many Bills fan that Drew has it out for Buffalo in particular. I was actually pleased to see I was wrong in assuming you were laying out a Buffalo conspiracy theory based argument from the initial DB does not care statement. Instead you argued he does not care anywhere. This is not as an effective argument for the Bills partisans as saying he hates WNY but it would be totally unsupported. As it happens when you look at his actions in HE and Dal and folks reactions to them that considered his giving back the QB job to Brady without much whining as a class act of someone who cared more about the team than himself, even your points seem pretty unsupportable with any real world events. Far be it from me to claim that my opinions are always correct or even to claim that you have no right to your opinion. The good thing in this country we all do. However, evem though we are both Bills fans, this does not mean that I do not recognize the difference between fact-opinions such as the claim Bledsoe only cares about the money and even partialy supported clams by real world events such as my modetate view that he sucks in some situations but can do well in others. I think TBD is great because it provides a forum where some of us choose to go into stultifying detail about the items which provide real world support for opinions. At least that is what I think.

I think Kelly F & B is essentially right that your cut on things based on the Bills would be fine with lower TV revenues if only the revenues were like they were in the before time is essentially nonsense. The reality is that TV revenues are the lionshare of the NFL revenue take and that even if that revenue amount dropped we would be working from a reality embodies in the CBA that was designed with TV revenues being the lead source. It is nonsense to propose a world based on the 60s revenue reality because that situation would not be recreated merely by cutting the revenue numbers. The big change between the 60s and now is that what use to be a war between the team owners and players is now a partnership (with the players arguably being the majority partners (because of their % take of total revenues under the new CBA). To argue that life all things would be like they were in the 60s where the Bills existed quite nicely makes no sense because it is quite unlikely to be true. Actually, if revenues from TV dropped, the partnership between the players and team owners would likely turn to trying hard to increase other revenues. Likely this would mean a far larger bias toward placing teams in large markets and working to enhance the take not merely from ticket sales (which the Bills do nicely in but no where near as well as the sold-out waiting listed large markets like DC for example). If TV revenues dropped then I think it would be quite likely you would see the Bills move to LA where they would work hard to sell T-Shirts and Zubazz pants to the millions of LA residents and the increasing number of emigrants coming to LA and get a cut from that rather than trying to sell to the slightly over a million Erie County residents or even the 2-3 million potential customers in a Bills regional strategy. In fact, without the wonderful subsidy which TV revenues give to small market teams like Buffalo, what probably makes the most sense is to move the Bills to what is becoming by many measures the richest city in North America and the growing population base of Toronto. Maybe you keep historic ties to Buffalo for marketing purposes and to take advantage of exchange rate difference by calling them the Buf-Tor Bills but if we are lucky this formulation results in a 4/4 split of regular season games (though there are also worlds where we simply get the pre-season and camp at the Ralph). However, understand as unlikely as either of these scenarios are they are actually far more likely than a simple return to a world of the 60s where Buffalo does quite well as TV revenues drop. In essence this view is nonsense because i does no recognize that the TV rvenues subsidize the small market teams big time because we get an equal cut with team owners in NYC, Dallas, and Atlanta even though we provide far fewer viewers which is why companies pay large amounts to the TV nets. If this TV money went down the rationale of us providing competition rooted in history to the big market teams is further diminished and it likely would be a very bad thing for us. As unlikely as LA and Toronto scenarios may be they actually are far more likely than the nonsense of the Bills being fine here with the TV subasidy for small markets lessened or eliminated.

I'm not sure why you draw this conclusion. First, it seems contradictory to me that on one hand you argue that he did not seem to care about Buffalo but then site at length examples of him not caring IYHO in NE. Perhaps you want to argue that you do not like him because he doesn't care enough as a football player, but linking in particular to Buffalo does not follow from what you say. As far as saying overall he does not care (or does not care enough). I'm not sure where you draw this conclusion from. He is an older player who could walk away from the the game and "merely" drink brews and fly fish on his several thousand acres he owns in Montana. Maybe he has no answer to the question how much is enough and the paychecks bring him back. However, given that his lung was collapsed and his statue like aspects have forced him to endure dozens of sacks and analysis that he takes this abuse just for the money and does not care would need a little more support than just the theory to be credible. Outside comments and observable incidents seem to indicate that he has taken a variety of actions that most would say were good moves for the team. One can easil y imagine most NFL players throwing a hissy-fit when they played QB in a reserve role for Brady in the must-win AFC championship in the majority of that game and in fact through the winning TD. He definitely lacked passion in not crying more but this seemed a far better response than a TO might take in this case. Tom Brady has also been on record saying how critical it was for him to have Drew's sideline council as he suddenly had to learn to be a vet for NE. Many other players such as fan favorite of many Buffaloanians Flutie were renowned for how little help they gave to a QB they were competing with. Again this may be the lack of passion you are talking about, but given the bruising amd team destroying QB battles here, such a lack of passion would have been nice. I think folks the problem which many TSW folks have with Bledsoe was that he simply sucked here in 2003 and he failed to deliver like the savior they wanted in 2004. I think folks are so pissed off at these horrid performances they allow this bad experience to make them forget the reality that Bledsoe has definite weaknesses which brought about a losing performance here, but also definite strengths (the rocket arm, a ton of experience, a good ball handler) that if he is used properly a team with him at QB can win and probably even make the playoffs (The SB talk abiut the 'Boys seems silly to me and probably mostly stems from folks knowing their names). I think the real explanation is that many TSW and other observers are so bruised by their disappointment that they refuse to acknowledge that with a good HC/OC that uses DB's strengths and stays away from his weaknesses (to some part through one of the great football uronies is that one way to fight DB from being overwhelmed by the blitz you have to run him on the QB draw from time to time to force LB and rushers to not sell themselves out for the sack by taking outside angles) one can get results of the team certainly having a winning record and possibly even making the playoffs with DB at QB. At this point on the backside of his career. DG is clearly not capable of being some savior who can carry a team to the playoffs on his shoulders. However, he shows signs of being a QB who is adequate to the task of sharing leadership with good ST players and a good D with big play guys to produce a good result for your team. In general, many Buffalo fans are even more locked into the past that your QB must be an HOF player as Jimbo was than they are locked into a mode that every DE needs to be Bruce Smith or they suck. They loved it that Flutie twice QB'ed this team to playoff berths, but he did not have the right demographics of being tall enough or his arm strong enough that the fact the team won under him was not good enough. Bledsoe disappointed many Bills fans because finally we got a guy who was tall enough and had a great arm, but lo and behold he was not good enough to get us to the playoffs, therefore folks jump to the false conclusion he can do nothing.

As far as this ssituation I think TD and his crew can reasonably be faulted for making bad evaluations on the two candidates they selected on the first day of drafts for the T spot (Jonas and MW). In adition, the large number of second day choices they made of potential candidates for all OL positions including LT (Sullivan, Pucillo, Sobieski, McFarland, Geisinger, Preston) also includes a number of bad choices who simply did not work out. If the theory here is that TD shoul be faulted because he did not devote draft resources to the OL, I do not think this fits the facts. 1. TD chose at least one (and sometimes 2 OL players each draft he ran. 2. TD devoted significant draft resources to these picks having spent a #4 o MW and another first day choice on Jennings. 3. with the exception of the 04 draft where spending a #2 on Parrish and a #3 on Everett (though particularly given the injuries both suffered its way too early to pass judgment credibly on this draft) , every other first day pick was arguably the best player available (Evans, WM) or a need pick (Losman, Kelsay, even the horrendous Coy Wire started at SS his rookie year). For those who think there is some theoretical problem here of too little OL focus in the draft, who would you have picked instead of Pro Bowl or possible Pro Bowl talents like Clements or Evans, valuable good players like Schobel or Crowell, or need picks like Denny and even the horrible Wire to go for some OL player. This theory gets hard to justify in reality beyond 20/20 hindsight and even with that advantage it ain't a slam dunk. 4. In fact, even with hindsight, the best cases are that they should have picked Levi Jones rather than MW. Yet, this shows the problem that there is not a theoretical miscue by TD as he spent a #4 on OL. The problem was they made a bad assessment. This is clearly worth noting, but is the height of needing to fire his butt and move on rather than consistent claims not borne out by the facts that he needed more OL focus in the draft. The general rule is actually, your GM and his team need to be good at picking OL players (well duhh). TD hired GW who hired his buddy Vinky and the inexperienced Ruel when it was obvious his buddy was not up to the teaching or assessment job. In fact, TD seems to have done well by finally acquiring JMac to deal with the mess on the OL left by Butler and worsened with their miscues on the OL in the 01 draft. There problem was not that they ignored OL but that they made bad picks. JMac has dealt with this bad situation by attempting to get the availble cut rate players since as you point out the good ones are locked up. He misfired badly on Bennie Anderson, but did quite well getting adequate LT play in most outside observations on the cheap from Gandy and did extrordinarily well getting Peters who most feel he merited an extension (I actually argued he had another year to assess Peters as he was an RFA and if he played well he could lock him up next year when the Bills still held the cards on this EFA, however, the Bills and JMac took your advice and signed him long-term. The Anderson miss is not a good thing, but given reality do you expect every attempt to reverse pass poor OL draft assessments to work? He has done as well as he could given reality with what he inherited and what he has IMHO. I guess the bottomline is what do you and other OL draft fanatics suggest we should have done instead. 1. We should have given huge extensions to MW and JJ to meet your theory of good teams hang on to their OL players? I think not, both would have been bad moves. 2. TD should have passed on getting good and arguably best available players like NC, WM and Evans and instead should have gotten some OL player you fail to name even in hindsight? I think these players are as good or probably better than the OL players really available to us even in hindsight. 3. TD should have passed on filling needs at SS, DE, and DT when he made those first round choices and instead gone for OL and we would have been fine with Jenkins at SS, Chidi Ahanatou at DE, and Ron Edwards at DT? Most of these need picks sucked but there was a need because the likely alternative that your OL draft strategy would have given us was even worse. If you like most of us found Wire unacceptable imagine what it would have been with worse than even Wire at SS. 4. Do you want to argue that the Bills should have gonr to an OL draft focus right here right now to reverse their previous errors? I don't think so with this draft. The only OL players taken in the first round were D'Brick, Joseph and Mangold. They would have needed to give up even more resources to trade up for D'Brick and aleady we had gaps at SS and DT to fill. You really would need to propose some alternative fantasy strategy to make this work and I do not see what this is. Even if one buys into your strategy of OL first, this is diffrent than an OL first through draft strategy. I'm no sure that any of the winning teams you base the OL through draft strategy on do it by yes building the OL first, but do this by not only ignoring other needs like DT or SS but in fact increasing this need or lessening our draft and other resources by trading stuff to move up. You need a partner to trade down so already going after Mangold or Josepph is theoretical. However, i do not think that either of these two first round picks are being hailed as the long-term answer to TB or Jet woes. In essence in reality, your draft OL proposal just does not seem to make sense in reality though it is a reasonable theory.

I thimk one of the other things which apparently helped BM's productivity was the switch away from Culpepper and to Johnson. Culpepper is notorious (he is highly regarded if it works but notorious since it has not worked lately) for hanging onto the ball and scrambling around. From my understanding, BM had difficulty holding blocks for a long time or dealing with the more athletic DEs when your QB was jumping around a lot. Not only did losing Culpepper help his weaknesses/strenghts out a lot, but Brad Johnson with his many years of experience made plays with his head and sense of the rush rather than with his feet. If the WR was not open or he sensed the BM or someone else was getting beat, he checked down and dumped it off before a sack occured,

The sad thing is its still true, but some folks are so devoted to a football theory that reality seems to make no difference.

Are you actually arguing that the Bills should have dug deep in their wallets and exrended Jonas Jennings? I agree with the theory of your argument that it is great to draft top flight OL players on the 1st day and sign them. However. would you argue that this theory should be applied to the 1st day OL choices the Bills made? I do not think amyone is crazy enough to say that the Bills should have extended Mike Williams so if you want to be a slave to your theory the reality says no. Perhaps one can argue that the Bills made poor OL choices and assessments (well dun!) but there is certainly nothing brilliant about that observation and if you want to engage in the 20/20 hindsight of arguing we should have chosen Levi Jones that is a well duhh also. The direct implication of your post that you feel a good GM would have hauled out the big bucks to extend Jennings when in 4 years here he never started )oreven was available for) 16 games at OL. In fact his last season here saw him rack up 14 starts but given that he went out early in the games before the two missed starts the Bills needed a back-up like Price to fill for Jennings in 1/4 of the games that season. It is no wonder that the injury prone nature of Jennings which was hinted at strongly here (he not only missed a chunk of the games but his injuries occured to different parts of his body with a concussion here, a damaged pectoral muscle there and an ankle sprain another time. It was no wonder he quickly went on IR with SF last year with uet another injury. The irony here is that though Gandy is probably judged to be as adeqiate at best as LT last year, TD and JMac at least deserve some credit because he did start 16 for the Bills at LT (see it can be done). His record prior to that was ot one of a player that you can expect to start 16 for you. The difference is that Gandy cost a little over a million to be an adequate player and Jenning would have cost some huge numeber (I think his cap hit is in the $5 million or so range) to sit on IR. Gamdy was clearly a better LT than JJ last year and his prospects for being a better LT are pretty good as JJ shows all signs of being a lost cause due to injury and Gandy is a we will see at worst. What are you arguing here, because if it is based on the reality of the players with the Bills it seems to make little sense.

I think the Bills brdt hopes of winning lie in two areas which seem quite obvious to identify: 1. The Bills O performs even better than is expected- I think it is reasonable to asaum it has improved if only because it was so pathetic last year. 2. NE finally implodes as happens at some point to every SB winner. Though I think these points are likely to be the focus, it is another question as to how these two points will actually turn out in reality. My sense is that though the O production should be much improved over the disrupted cluster thang that was the end of last season. A. The OL has better players than the crew which started last season. The back-ups are best unproven (and I mean at best) the early games are when this crew may be at its best and at any rate a unit based around Reyes, Fowler and Peters should be better than a unit based around Anderson, Teague and Wiiliams. B. WM will be used as a 3rd down back which is better than his non-use last year and better than a Shaud Williams led attack on 3rd down. C. Losman was putrid last year and should be a season better than last year. D. The WRs have more deptg and speed than last year. The question is how much is much and we will see. My guess this unit has better personnel and seems to have a better structure as Fairchild learns at Martz's knee. The question I think is whether NE has begun the implosion which always occurs with SB teams with their finally missing the SB last year, My guess is that Brady has in the past and can make marginal players better. However the bragging of some Pats fans of 14 wins really sounds like whistling in the dark as the loss of their top two receivers from last year could easily become a struggle. Seau escaping from retirement to actually win a starting job is a clear demonstration of the limits of the talents at LB. The last two seasons have seen Seau play 8 games and 7 games. Anyone who does not have an expectation that he is gonna be around for less than half the season is simply deluding themselves. The Pats probably will not break down in this game, but it really is merely a question of when rather than if.