Pyrite Gal

If we are taking it at this simple level then football regular season begins in a couple of weeks so I am more excited about that than something that happens in a couple of months. If we take it at a larger level I stick to the answer above.

Fortunately, i see no reason to have to choose. My allegiance is actually to Buffalo and WNY and I am happy to root for any team that my fellow residents in general choose so I can share the experience with them. I think the finest moment in Buffalo sports history that I have seen in my brief time here since 1989 when I got married to a life-long Buffaloanian was when 10-20K Buffaloanians gathered in Niagara Sq, to welcome home their Bills after theu gave us the first of 4 consecutive great rides but lost as it happened in each successive year in the SB. It was a great moment on the Sunday night before when 20 or so of us held hands to watch the Norwood kick which ended up wide right, but it was excelled seeing the community essentially forgive him for missing the kick. I am a lifelong Chicagoan who rooted madly for my Bears and rejoiced with my best friend in DC who was also born in Chicago when our Bears won SB XXV, but feeling that sense of shared community when we all imitated the Bills holding hands before the errant kick, with the forgiving of Norwood for failing in this game and then to enjoy that feeling of Jimbo emdodied with WE'RE BBAACCK, simply elevated sports for me beyond the simple equation of winning and losing. I love the Sabres. Recent years gave been dominated by the travesty of Rigas announcing in Niagara SQ. that he would do what was necessary to bring the Stanley Cup to Buffalo after the No Goal ruling that was even more galling than the missed kick. He deserved to go to prison for his ripoff involving Adelphia, but deserves to burn in Hades for a while for lying to this community. I am quite pleased to see the resurgence of the team under Golisano's ownership (though that it has also come under Larry Quinn and Regier's guidance means that this resurgence may more be dumb luck caused by their fiscal conservancy coninciding with the players coming together in an extraordinary year after the lock-out, we will see and I will enjoy rooting for them to do well). I think that most fans brains are big enough and mostly that their hearts are big enough that they need not choose between the two.

My sense is that there are a ton of question marks as to whether certain approaches which appear to have been chosen will work. The tons of questions are subsidiaries which fall under 3 broader categories: Category 1: Offense A. Will the team develop an offense which is successful enough to be called St. Louis Rams East? Likely answer- Probably not. It appears Fairchild will lead the way by implementing an O patterned after the quite successful pass-happy Mike Martz designed O in St. L. Some conclude that this style will not work or even if it works will not reasonably be described as St. L East because of the winter weather and unpredictable Ralph winds. I think this view fails to understand that though the O will be pass-happy, it will not rely on a ton of vertical long passes all the time which would be tough to do consistently in the Ralph, but instead will rely on a lof of short passes and run after the catch. The keys to this are: 1. Fairchild designing plays which rely on the speed of the WRs to get separation quick anb. design of plays which use intricate crosses and could be illegal picks to get separation. 2. WM showing enough production as a receiver to play the Marshall Faulf role. 3. Fairchild developing something different that makes this O his own and this likely will be fargreater use of the TE than the Rams do. B. In addition, there are some particular unit and player performances which will be key: 1. The OL- The starters are much improved over last year's starters, but it is unclear whether there will be adequate back-ups beyond Preston when/if we get hit with the usual injuries. 2. RB- As mentioned WM verstile performance will be key but finding a back-up who is also versatile is another question, 3. TE- Using Royal as a 6th OL player makes sense but also how will he build upon his career year (which is not saying tons) in receptions last year and can Everett not only develop into the receiving threat he should be but can he learn the blocking well enough to be a good Royal sub. Also TE use in the redzone might be a notable difference with Biutch Rolle/Metzalars as the models C. QB issue I actually hold this to the last O consideration NOT because of it importance. Any player who touches the ball on virtually every offensive play is crtically important. However, the key to the Bills O performing is not whether our QB is a transcendant god of a football player, but merely whether he proves to be adequate. JP will not perform like Elway or Favre individually because he is too young and not good enough. However, the plan seems to be that if all the above items work, the QB merely (a big merely) has to be adequate in doing proper reads, transfering in the plays and formations he gets over his helmet mike, and in distributing the ball. JP will have opportunities to improvise and run for his life as he did behind the turnstile OL at Tulane, but only as a change-up and when things occaisionally break down as they do in the NFL. JP will be hailed as a productive QB and th next big thing IF he actually gets to spend more time merely being adequate and just doing stuff. Ironically if this happens he will hailed as a great QB and collect major bucks. If instead we end up relying too much on his athleticism and escapability this means the scheme has broken down and likely other O players have not performed and I suspect we will get killed. I think the answer is probably not in terms of our O being productive because though it makes sense how it can work, too many things have to happen for it to work well. Category 2. Defense- Later on this this one as I have to run off with my lovely spouse to do a wedding in Ithaca. Category 3: ST- Ditto

Let's presume that JP will not pan out because we judge he does not have the right stuff or that our clairvoyance allows us to see that even if he can develop as a player that he slips in the shower and is killed. The answer to the question how do we replace JP still leads to us not trying to do this by drafting Cutler or Leinart in the draft as taking a QB in the 1st has simply not been a good method for building a team caoable of going deeo in the playoffs or reaching the ultimate goal of winning the SB. The facts on the ground remain that Ben RoboQB was the first time a team won the SB led by a QB they drafted in the 1st round since Dallas chose Aikman in the 1st in 1989. I'm not making this up, these are simply the fats. Instead there has been more success in both winning the SB or eaven reaching the SB by acquiring a QB whom you pay at or neat the vet minimum, rather than taking the higher risk approach of drafting a QB in the first. While real world experience shows no tried and true method to adopt which describes all or most ultimately successful teams (Tom Brady winning 3 SBs skews the results to look like a second day QB draft pick is the way to go rather than a 1st rounder) though looking back at all the recent how the SB QB was acquirs by the team which went to the SB shows: 05- RoboQB 1st round pick- Hasselbeck 2nd day pick 04- Brady 2nd day pick - McNabb first day pick 03- Brady 2nd day pick- Delhomme- UDFA 02- Johnson- FA- Gannon (either FA or trade) 01- Brady 2nd day choice- Warner UDFA 00- Dilfer- FA- Collins- FA 99- Warner- UDFA- McNair 1st round 98- Elway- trade, Chandler FA or trade 98- Elway trade- Favre- trade 97- Favre- trade Bledsoe 1st round pick. The results of the last ten years show that SB appearing QBs were acquired by 2nd day picks- 4 1st day picks (all 1st rounders actually) - 4 FA- 6 Trade- - 4 Trade or FA- 2 Overall, I think past experience shows us there is simply no one way to acquire a QB capable of appearing in an SB. However, the facts of past experience indicates that: 1. A significantly higher % of success over he past 1o years has come from acquiring these QBs from FA or getting an experienced vet whom you have a pretty good idea what he can do rather than drafting a well regarded rookie. In fact, when one takes into account that 2nd day QB draft picks accomplish success as much as 1st round picks and you take into account that being even a UDFA is no barrier to reaching or starrting in the SB, it draws into serious question folks slavish devotion to drafting the next big thing (such as JP Losman) in the first round. Its no wonder that many Bills fans are willing to throw JP under the bus, he was a 1st rounder and like most QBs they fail. What is odd is that folks simply want to replicate this failed method yet again and roll a bunch of bucks into acquiring a new savior. When one considers how the cap burden of a big QB contract really limits ones ability to build a winning team around him, the experience simply guides us to the large field of approaches where what the stud QBs share in common is that: 1. They have performed in the NFL and even if they are failed QBs previously such as Dilfer one knows what you are getting and what you need to build around him and supplement his talents to produce a winning squad (I am reluctant to mention Dilfer here because he is just one example of how an SB winning QB can be acquired cheaply but he is such a textbook example of how experience tells us this can be done correctly so understand he is mentioned as an example and rather than dismmissing this as an aberration please explain why the aberration of an SB winning QB who was orginainally paid at or about at the vet minimum has occured a number of times). 2. Or if the are rookies who have no NFL record, the winning team intelligently only commits vet minimum money to acquire this QB rather than devote a Ryan Leaf size slotted contract to this player incapable of leading a team to the SB (the same actually is true to date for the Indy commitment of cap room to a great QB like Manning). I think the summary is that when you take into account the large hit that the Bills have already taken for team building opportunities in trading resources for JP, you are advocating adding to this burden by forgoing spending the 1st rounder to draft a player we judge as useful to building our D to spend resources again on a high stakes speculative QB choice, The chances of your approach working out appear to go against past experience and even if Cutler or Leinart prove to be great, the best that the Bills would likely produce is a result like that of the Peyton Manning led Colts where you have a stud QB and an D which proves incapable of getting you to the final weekend. Are you so certain that Leinart or Cutler will be as good as Peyton Manning and even if you are right with this dream do you really think the payoff of 10+ wins and no SB is worth the cost. I think drafting cutler or Leinart would simply have been a high risk move that would involve us pursuing the same path that led to exactly the problem you are trying to remedy. Experience shows us there are tons of other ways to go that have worked.

The sad thing is that while the old pricks were probably delerious if they thought they could do a good job running the team, they were probably right if what they said was that they could do a better job than the young whipper snappers who ran the team like TD and GW.

I actually agree that Simpson will likely be the starter at FS by the end of the season certainly if he is as impressive as many hope he will be and more importantly if he plays against the pros the way he did in his best highlights from college (particularly iimpressive was one where he picked off a ball and was in full stride when he did because he seemed to read the play and the QB's eyes perfectly. However, the virulence of my reaction actually stems not from any sense that TV is great or certainly will be much more than wheelchair bound if he chooses to play next year, but the stone lock certainty expressed by many for quite a while that he should be or will be cut. These statements were flat-out wrong when folks made them before Milloy ended up being the safety cut and are flat out wrong now, It is not that TV is so good or more than adequate even as a safety, its simply that ffolks seem to cavalierly want to cut him. I site the simple fact that he led this team by tieing for the team lead in INTs AND by tieing for the team lead in FRs (with a paltry 2) it means that this cut which seems so obvious to some would mean that this real world output would need to be replaced. They do not suggest it because it almost certainly will mot happen, I think it would great is Simpson proved to be so great so fast that he sat TV down. However, this is simply such a longshot to occur that it ain't gonna happen. The idea that even if this wonderful event were to occur that you would then cut TV rather than make him your #2 is simply a non-football idea. It really is not that i love TV its just that I hate repeated football stupidity. Generally, I do not go out of my way to start pro-TB threads (there may be some general overview of the team I started which states positives about him) but almost entirely I have made my repetitive rants about TV in response the equally repetitive and mostly nonsenical rants that he should be cut.

It will be interesting to see what "the word" is if Nall plays well at all against the Browns second and third team on Saturday, Its hard to see how anyone could be in the start Holcomb camp after his INT against Carolina and poor results against the Bengals second string. On paper, a St. Louis east offense is built for him in that rather than this pass-happy offense emphasizing a lot of long passes, it actually emphasizes short passes to speedy receivers whose patterms give them a good shot to bet big yards running after the catch. A St. L type O emphasizes an ability to read plays to pick which receiver is going to be isolated for a deep arcing pass he can run under rather than needing a strong arm to throw him a rope and to read that the coverage is tight so a dump-off to the RB (if WM can pull off the Marshall Faulk role or to the TE since i think greater TE use than happems in St. L will be a wrinkle Fairchild can add to make his version different. Concerns voiced by some that the winter weather and the winds of the Ralph make it impossible for us to truly run a pass-happy O ignore the sense that the key to the St. L O is not throwing the ball vertically a bunch, but using the vertical pass as a threat and change-up for the dimp-off with RAC. On paper, Holvomb's 10 years of experience and tendency to dump off anyway makes this O a good one for him. However, his antics in the first two games once again shows that the game is played on the field and not on paper. If there is any truth to musings/nleatings of King I think they likely stem not from a pro-Holcomb movement but an anti-JP feeling which may exist among some vets. JP initially came across to many as a brash idiot and there was a strong sense that YV went out of his way to discipline the little punk when he bailed on a pass and ran to quixjly for a player wearing the practice QB tu-tu and gave him a good shove that ended up with his injury, I think Nall's performance may tell us alot in that if he does well, those who are driven by an anti-JP sentiment will quickly abandon KH (as the caoching staff has already done by stripping him of reps and moving him down the depth chart) and a new QB controversy will be created with calls for Nall to get a fair chance in the final game. I doubt this will happen as though Nall appears poised to take over the #2 QB role form KH, not only would Nall have to play well but JP would really need to stink against the Browns (and this means a game worse than the good/bad he showed against the Bengals and Panthers) in order to make the Bills willing to allow another QB controversy to consume this team and its fans.

I think that the announcement was badly worded (it takes one to know one) but I do think that we will be sayin good bye to the Ralph in the not too distant future. It appears to me as though a post Labor Day feature in the gubernatorial campaign will be an effort to extort commitments from the candidates for governor to extort promises to spend tax dollars to support keeping the only football team which plays in NYS here. This subsidy can be delivered in the form of an Upstate sports authority similar to that proposed and defeated downstate to float bonds at the far better rate that the government can get than the private sector to bottow cash to build a stadium. By proposing to build a new stadium and keep the Bills here contractually for a long time the gubernatorial candidates will likely fall all over themselves to support such a move. The question of specifically where the stadium will be located (in Buffalo as part of a major investment to anchor rebuilding downtown, at its current location, or in the northtowns) will likely be finessed to gain support from all areas. Even forces in downstate will likely support this as an opportunity for NYC stadium supporters to suceed in asking for theirs once upstate is given state dollars andNYC stadium opponents will likely not oppose an upstate investment counched in urban renewal language and will try to use the investment as an argumenet for NYS not to go further into debt after an upstate investment. In any of these cases, the box currently known as the Ralph will be gone.

I doubt some folks will listen to a voice of reason and reality, Unless his recent injury is some sign of the onset of constant injury which reduces him to #2 status, the Bills will certainly start the man who led them in turnovers received last year by tieing for the lead in both INYs amd fumble recoveries Vincent this year. The dirty little secret that you are right about is though i think it is unlikely he will play next year, the chances he will start yet again for the Bills unless he hits the wall appear to be not far from the chances a second day draft pick starts for us in his sophomore. The reality of how the 2006 season goes will tell the tale and given that no one knows for sure how the season will go and the unpredictable nature of how the ball bounces and the difficult to predict occurence of injury (though with an older player like TV a prediction that age will catch up with him at some point is a certainty). The whines about his tackling should also mention the key fact that the scheme change from a zone blitz to a cover 2 is probably the biggest factor impacting TV's performance rather than the simplistic wisecracks. The funny thing about these bleatings about his tackling desire is that if TV met many of (if not any of) these posters in an alley he would walk out and they would leave like JP Losman after TV merely shoved him last year.

I like what Reed potentially brings to this O, but there is no way that I can see him being in serious competition to be our #2 WR this year in a Fairchild designed and un O which should be our version of the Rams style. He is currently #2 on our depth chart behind our #2 WR, Peerless, and PP has not been anything to talk about in our two pre-season games (though he has had a number of long receptions in practice that drew mention). However, even if one were to judge Reed to have beaten out PP (a doubtful proposition even if you are so driven in your assessments by pre-season game production that you ding PP, Reed's pre-season game production has involved a couple of bad misfires as well), then in order to make out scheme effective speed freaks like Parrish or Davis are better partners for Evans in 2 WR sets than possession recievers like Aiken or Reed in what should be a high-flying/pass-happy/RAC oriented O. I think there is a specific need for good possession WRs in our O as it appears to be conceived. However, it appears to be good route work against an opponent who is forced into zone coverage by the speed threat we present. I think that among the potential aspects of the Reed game which attracted the Bills to extend him is that WR coach Tyke Tolbert has publicly and broadly praised his football smarts and thus his ability to diagnose the coverage the opponent will use and find the vulnerable seams in a zone. Likewise, he was an RB earlier in his college career before the great hands which won him the Biletnikoff award as best college WR his senior year brought him a full time WR job. This RB ability presents the possibility of great RAC work by him after he finds the seam to make the catch. I have not seen a lot of outstanding RAC work from him as a pro even though unfortunately he did demonstrate a noticeably horrible case of the droppsies his second year. His RAC has not produced this same sort of anecdotal notice. However, his very good ypc stats last year and his catch% #s which may well indicate that there was something good going on here which could speak to him actually having solved the droppsie problem and retaining RAC ability. The O was so bad and generally unproductive last year that the good stats could be an actual representation of how the Bills plan to use him even though there are few outstanding events that build good anecdotes. I think Badol is correct in noting that stats can be manipulated or chosen to demonstrate a reality which is not there. However, stats can also be an indicator to show the way to a reality which is there or could be developed but which is hidden in the overall lack of production of this O. The Bills are making a bet that the Fairchild O will be productive such that with Josh Reed playing the same type and level of game he played last year that seemingly overnight we will see his work turn into team rather than simply individual production and also reveal some great anecdotes which produce large gains on the run after catching short passes and TDs which will lead to a new script being adopted by Bills fans to describe Reed. The interesting things to me about the WR depth charts is the fact that Parrish is now the #3 LWR behind Aiken behind Evans. I think this is due to some quality production by Aiken in the first two pre-season games and a hallmark of the new Bills coaching staff is that production matters. I think and hope this is not due to any judgment of Parrish issues, as I do not think Aiken brings to the table the big play ability Parrish does which will make our O more difficult to defense. However, i think in any case even if he is not the first WR off the bench or the 3rd WR in 3WR sets, Aiken will get plenty of time on the field and as a contributor on ST. It is also interesting that PP is first on the depth chart at the RWR position. If production matters so much, then between PP not producing in the first two pre-season games and also him making an error and sleeping through a practice (it is forgiven with a fine but there is no production here to elevate PP when he does not show and back-ups got a chance to elevate themselves) it would not be surprising to see PP lose the #2 WR after 2 games and someone else step up. This has not happened and it must have been an interesting conversation between Jauron/Fairchild/Tolbert and probably Marv about what the WR depth chart should be. My sense of the WR performance so far is: Evans- Clearly the #1 WR and his game production last weekend showed why. He has shown some good examples of concentation and recieving skills in practice rather than simply relying on his freakish speed which is a great sign for Bills fans. Price- Looks far better on paper than with his production in games so far and even his practice production has been more about hinting how useful he might be rather than consistent production in this area. He has demonstrated some good character in terms of showing vet leadership to our young WRs, but even these intangibles are cancelled out by him misreading the schedule and missing a practice. Still despite this lukewarm at best output, the observation from outsiders is that he still has his speed and even though some fans are slow to forgive someone who chose to leave Buffalo as a FA (and thus they complain without any substantiation of him having a bad attitude or being a bad route runner) he still presents a threat that can stand to make Evans more effective and make us really be St. Louis East if the speed potential of hean and Evans, the two of them and Parrish force the other team into zones. If so, the plan is for Reed to pick on the zones and show some RAC and WM to be a dump-off threat with RAC potential and this offense could be fearsome. Preseason production (or lack thereof) does not matter as long as he presents a real threat in the regular season. Aiken- The most consistent performer on this team in pre-season besides Evans. His on-field production of a few catches with good ypc is an added bonus for a player who justifies his roster spot with his ST output on a solid ST unit. From his first campaigns, ST will likely be his major contribution to the team as his talents have been as a possession reciever whose production in the regular season never has equaled some good past pre-season work. However, it is possible that this is a breakout year for him as a position player. If his vet experiences allows him to do the job envisioned for Reed of working zones for seams then he can supplant Reed as #4. Reed would have to not realize his RAC potential or re-develop a case of the droppsies as his Reed's blocking skills are another leg up he has. If not winning out over Reed, the major impact of Aiken's production is that he has made it much tougher for Nance to make this squad as he is only an inch shorter. His production makes it a lot easier for the Bills to cut Nance and risk him signing elswhere or they sign him to our PS. Reed- As I said, I think the Bill's coaches feel they know what he can do and theyHowever, maybe the coaches already are confident he can be used in a role which calls for more production by him and showing things even us outsiders can see is not required. However, i doubt they can have that much confidence in him that they are holding back. visualize a bigger role for him in terms of production as a 4th reciever in our new go-go offense. Parrish- His speed and the gamebreaking skills which make him a PR threat also do a lot for our scheme as his prescence with Evans and Price forces even the best D opponents into a zone or if they man up they risk our QB identifying who is single covered and sending him by audible on a fly pattern which may turn into a footrace which ends up looking like the Losman-Evans TD last week. It is interesting that Aiken has surpassed him on the depth chart, but I think this more because of Aiken's achievement than due to problems for Parrish. He has not been used as a PR guy there so Parrish definitely needs to show more to seem to merit more time. Amdre Davis- He has only shown moderate success in a variety of roles. It's not bad, but I do not think it is enough for us to choose to keep him over a young player who shows more upside or over a vet whose contract makes us want to keep him. If the Bills keep 6 WRs, then Evans, Price, Parrish, Reed, and Aiken have a leg up on him and its gonna be tough for him to win the one spot. Wilson- He has probably been the WR who has stood out the most in camp catching everything thrown his way. Too bad he did not drop his second foot in bounds on one play against Cincy since it would have been a great catch against real opponents. Johnathan Smith- I think he has done everything he has been asked to do, but not done it so extraordinarily well that he shows himself to be better than the competition for the last WR spot. Nance- Aiken playing well makes him a likely candidate for the PS if hr is gonna stay, but as I suspect he will get other offers if cut to go onto the PS he probably is gone. Denney- camp fodder though the aggressive competition has even squezzed some producton for him. I really do not take a final opinion on who survives the final cut as it probably comes down to how the ball sails and bouinces in the final two games.

Dibs has trudged through my garbage (my apologies, I tend to be less clear and accurate when I am multi-taking and listening to a conference call while composing- I am sort of lik Trey Teague who hike well, OR line call well. OR block well, but he had real trouble doing all three at the same time) to get what I was trying to say. I was not saying at all that you or anyone else who judges our OL to be inadeqate I do actually) or crap (I don't actually as these two are different things) is not a Bills fan or a bad fan. These wo judgments are rational. What I was saying is that it says something about a fan whether they choose to enjoy the game by being optimistic about the rational possibilities or pessimistic about the rational possibilities. In addition, to totally discount either the possibility they will be crappy performers (it can happen and did last year, OR to totally discount the possibilty they can be adequate (I think they were in 2004 with the win streak, good blocking for WM, and better blocking for DB than in 2003) would be irrational in either case. For someone to recognize that Reyes and Fowler showed some very good things in 2005 and claim they are simply castoffs is irrational.

Definitely looking for this OL to do well is optimistic. However, what really strikes me as amusing is that any fans choose not to be optimistic as they reasonably can be at this point when every team is undefeated and tied for first. Its a free country and everyone is entitle to do whatever floats their boat. However, what amuses me is that some fans seem to get the most enjoyment out of espousing a pessimistic rational view rather than an optimistic rational view. The attitude one chooses to take is rational but it tends to say a lot more about the attitude of the poster than it does about the prospects of the team. I think the key question here is what is rational and is it reasonable at all to hope for a good performance from this OL. I think yes and easily so based upon the facts we know and real world occurences during the 2005 season. Specifically regarding player assessment: LT- Gandy actually surprised many including this watcher with a performance on a horrible O which to most observers was at least adequate. Fell free to disagree, but I hope one has some other observations or stats to support this claim. Will Gandy get better? Cannot say one way or the other with any certainty, but given his age still heading toward his atletic peak, him having position coaching which has experienced success, and the impact confidence has on play it certainly is reasonable to expect him to have at least an adequate season and really to get better. LG- I think it is superficial to merely look at Reyes being castoff (which is true) but then to simply dismiss the reasons why he was castoff and not resigned. Even an advocate for a view that he is done would have to admit that there is a difference between being castoff because you suck as a player and not being resigned because there is a younger and/or better player on the roster and as an FA the team is not gonna give you much a contract to resign or give you much of a chance to start. Reyes was "castoff" by Carolina if you like, but the facts simply seem to be that they would have been happy to give new RG Mathis significant time last year and even have gone to him as a starter, but Reyes simply performed to well in 05 and the team had good chemistry so they started and played Reyes 16 games. Anyone who make a claim that his opinion is based on the |facts" provided by reality cannot simply ignore the facts of a players' 05 performance in assessing how he will be in 06. Actually, there are more real reasons why one would question what the impact of Reyes will be for the Bills. He was an RG and not an LG as we are going to use him this year. If he was so solid last year, why did the Bills get him relatively cheaply this year. However, pessimists do not choose to raise these points as their superficial ciews do not even recognize these legit questions and actually there are reasonable (but not proven) good answers for both of these concerns as he has started at LG several times as an NFL player and it also appears he did have opportunities to go elsewhere for more bucks, but he judged the Bills situation as his best chance to start and star as an NFL player who is still young enough to cash in with a big contract. We;ll see. C- Likewise with Fowler, one could truthfully pessimistically emphasize him not being resigned and thus "cast-off" by the Bikes. But this view is superficial enough to be laughable to anyone who really follows football. The Vikes had a choice betwenn multi-time Pro Bowler Matt Birk whom Fowler was signed to fill in for as Nirk was IRed last year. It would simply be dumb to pay Fowler the started money which the market would give this natural center in 06 to sit on the bench and back-up Birk. To declare all cast-offs the same would be to judge Vike C Cory Withrow whom Fowler beat out last year and who was cut by the Vikes as being exactly the same as Fowler. One would have to ignore the reality of anedotal testimoney of Culpepper;s olat improving immediately with Fowler replacing Withrow and ignore the Vikes reeling off a 6 game winning streak with Fowler who end coincided with him going out, Again their our legit questions to raise for the more rational observer, but again there are legit answers so the real answer is we will see but there are even better reasons to look for good things from Fowler than the good things to say about Reyes. RG- Villarial is the weak link here in the improved player theory, but actually his likely replacement Preston fits the better player theory well if CV simply sucks. RT- Peters is well known to be well regarded and he also fits the better player than MW theory quite well. It is true that the production was not great against either the Carolina or Bengals starting unit. Yet, an optimist can legitimately hope that the lack of chemistry so far for this new OL combination playing in a new Bills O is at the heart of these problems. One can legitimately choose also to be pessimistic about this, but again I think it says as much or more about the poster as it does about the team.

The problem is that since there are no proven back-up tackles on our team at all, the chances are pretty high that the third best tackle on our team is going to have to do at least one or more starts for this team this season. I am comfortable with Butler as a back-up who reasonably and somewhat slowly breaks into our OL line-up. If he actually logged a couple of series after game 8 or so and by the end of the season was actually seeing significant periods of time (even a start in game 15 or 16) I would be overjoyed because he would have developed at a far greater speed than anyone can reasonably hope for. However, as it stands right now, we are going to go into the season with Pennington as our plan B at LT and the injured McFarand with Butler as our plan C at RT on our depth chart. Cal it playing with fife, Russain Roulette or what have you, this is simply not a good plan. My sense is that the contributions of an OL player can reasonably be broken down as: Category 1: Solid starter or better 2: Merely adequate starter 3. Struggling starter or back-up forced to start but there is some hope 4. Back-up who can give the starter rest or recovery for a couple of series because he has no need to pace himself. 5. Player in development who really sees play only in practice. Maybe you activate him once to give him the feel of preparing but you hope he does not play. 6. Trouble. Its hard for me to see a rookie being anything but category 6. If Butler does well he could actually be a category 5, but we are going to set it up for him to be a category 4 player or if we get unlucky a #3. This is not good and we need to get lucky. I think it is reasonable to think we can get lucky for about a quarter of the season, but it gets pretty tough I would guess by about game 4 where the typical nicks and scrapes begin to impact players and we are simply lucky not to have someone not be able to make a start. I think we are most likely to either see someone like a Jerman step up (really doubtful) or slightly more likely we get someone off the waiver wire.

I think the major assessment going on right now is whether Geisinger as a back-up C to Fowler is worthy of that job. If he is, then the Bills and JMac can comfortably use Preston at RG as Villarial seems to be the OL player most likely to go out with or have his effectiveness reduced by injury. I hope Fowler works out as our C because it relieves us a bit at our most likely trouble spot, but if Fowler goes down (I think his history of getting nick and injured such that he has no history of starting or even playing 16 games at C in his brief career) then we either go with Gesinger if he is up to it, or Preston if the is not. If we are forced to go with Preston, then Aaron Gibson stepping up is the likely option at RG, but i hope we never have to explore that approach. Though i do think we have options at RG, our big problems are if/when one of our tackles either Gandy or Price gets hurt or needs a blow during a game. It was unsettling that when Price suffered a brief injury in practice that the Bills actually had to go to Greg Jerman as the back-up. If it ever happens in a real game, i think we will be fortunate if Jerman simply holds his own briefly cause he is an inadequate starter. The guys on the depth chart at tackle are the inured McFarland and the rookies Pennington and Butler. (Shudder) As I have said for quite awhile, our OL starters are at least an upgrade over last year;s OL starters. In addition, both Reyes and Fowler performed well last year as the RG in a good Pathers line and the C of a Vikes team that put together a nice win streak. Those who declared them to be merely rejects their old teams would not resign, had a superficial view that did not recognize that there is a difference between not being the best player to resign (this is what they were as Mathis in NC and Birk in MN are better players which made paying starter money to Reyes or Fowler a dumb thing to do) and being a bad player (they played well last year. I think this outlook and assessment of them makes the OL not only better than last year but actually probably pretty good once they develop chemistry with each other. However, it is a long difficult season in the trenches and getting reliable back-ups from the youngsters and true rejects we have is going to likely be the key to getting good or even just adequate performance from the OL.

Looking at the thread, almost all folks saw him as a good back-up and never thought of him as a starter, This seems about right as folks in particular emphasized how he would be in a Clements scheme rather than the Fairchild scheme. If one does not see a marked difference in KH's performance last year when the assessments in this thread were done and this year with KH trying to run the Faircchild scheme then ask yourself if you think that a KH led team would even 8 wins. I do not think he would. Either KH has suddenly hit the wall in the quality of his play or there is something about the Fairchild scheme which KH does not get. It does not seem that the problem can be found with blaming his teammates because clearly JP and Nall are more productive with our scheme than KH. Scheme matters in terms of both design or implementation and folks just simply saying Holcomb sucks are right but really say nothing important in terms of why.

I agree with folks above and am willing to use the bandwidth to underscore the point. There would seem to be a big difference between GW bromgomg in a washed up Eddie Robinson to start or a washed up Jenkins to start and Jauron bringing in folks who found to be good character guys in Chicago to play ST and back-up. If Odom cannot cut it, too bad but well OK. However, when Jenkins could not cut it then we were forced ti start Coy Wire. If you want to worry about something, I had Watson penciled in as our plan B at MLB and now it is Liam Ezekial on the depth chart and really probably Angelo Crowell at #2 MLB. I do not think Ezekial can come in with even a manageable but large drop-off we had last year being forced to go form Pro Bowl worthy TKO to good but no one is TKO Crowell. I do not see Ezekial or the likely cascade of Stamer stepping for Crowell who has moved to replace Fletcher if he is injured as manageable. its tolerable at best. However, on the half full side, I'm glad that the worry is about adequate back-ups rather than whether we have adequate starters which proved to be the case with the 03 rebuilding.

After Watson proved to be a dry hole, I'm actually most worried about the #2 MLB slot if Fletch ever goes down or if we have to let him go when he hits FA (I like his play but his little body has seen a lot of mileage these past 5 years as he has been creditied with more tackles than any other player in the NFL over this time). I think we are fine at the Sam slot as the many observations from knowledgable football posters who predicted TKO would need more than a year if he ever recovered from his achilles tear based on their experience that it had cost other players their career. While this is true these folks showed that while they certainly know history they are not the team doctors. Its too early yet to declare TKO totally healed and back to his old Pro Bowl self, but certainly all objective signs point to him being ready to play if necessary and being held back as a precaution rather than out of necessity. If TKO and the team were speaking with guarded language or lowering expectations or if he spent all his time in shorts or in the locker room on the trainers table rather than being dressed and doing non-contact drills then these predictions of DOOM and GLOOM would be justified. However, he seems to be working hard, still talking about thje first regular season game (if not a pre-season appearance being his first outing. It appears not that folks were wrong about how long achilles tear recovery will take, but it appears that the initial description of this as a total tear were probably not completely accurate. Though any injury which requires surgery justifiavly put him on the IR last year, my guess given the work and predictions is simply that the tear was not as bad as first reported given the speed he seems to have come back with. He will lose some speed likely but this seems to have been taken into account with the move from Will to Sam. As the depth chart shows Haggan, the now impressive Hunter and the well-regarded Ellison behind him, i feel good about the Sam position. At Will , I feel good about Crowell starting as I think he is the real deal after he was quite impressive filling in for TKO last tear. I look forward to seeing him start. Stamer from what I have seen is not gonna be the kind of fill in which Crowell proved to be for TKO last year if necessary. However, I think Stamer has shown us a bit in his fill-in play and actually can be counted upon to give the starter a rest for a couple of plays and fill-in if necessary for a handful of plays with no drop-off. If he needs to pace himself to last the whole game we are likely in trouble, but if he can let it all hnd out for a few plays as he has on ST and in a reserve role the last couple of years I think he can perform well. We saw this with some of his ST work last year and also with a nice bat of a ball at the line and then he kept track of it and made a leaping INT in 2004. I like his attitude and athleticism as a fill-in and on ST. We'll see regarding Odom, he sounds like an SE demon when he plays but has a history of injuries. Mike is my worry with Ezekial being the current back-up. If Fletch goes down I likely would move Crowell over to Mike as he was #2 here until TKO went down. We'll see,

Right now Jauron seems to be giving players reps to test them and see whether he wants to keep them rather than giving them reps because they are better. For example, i think Geisinger is the #2 C not because he is clearly better than Preston, but I think the Bills want to see whether if Preston has to take Villarial's place whether Geisinger can really be the #2. I think Shaud Williams is doing a lot of KR work not because there is any illusion that it is him rather than McGee we will count on this year, but to test whether there is good reason to keep Shaud around since both A-Train and Gates are probably better RBs. In this light, i think that the Bills may not make the judgement that Hunter is #4 among the LBs but they want to get a really good look at him when they decide whether he is a keeper or should be cut.

While stats do not mean everything, they are indincative of some things and it would seem to be a gross overstatement to claim they mean squat, I think the little argument regarding Reed here is interesting. Badol claims he drops a significant number of passes and does not produce big yards. From what I have observed watching the Bills over the years and thus Reed, my sense has been he has been so up and down as he generally has been a non-factor as a player to me with his career being: First year- nice start for a rookie who produced well as the #3 WR in a productive O and merited being promoted t0 #2 given his college pedigree and rookie production. Second year- Huge disappointment as he developed a case of the droppsies and clearly did not have the sports will to be more than a bit player at that point. Third year- Showed some signs of escaping the droppsy problem, but never really produced for us big time in his first year under TC/MM and season ended with an injury. After 3 years, I began to draw some conclusions about what I could really expect from a player and the verdict on Reed was not good from this fan's perspective. I simply expect more as from an early 2nd round oick who many called a likely 1st round choice. What may be reasons to explain his lack of production were simply reduced to excuses by his lack of production since his freshman campaign. There was no need for me to write him off as a fan since he had a year to go on his contract and last I checked my phone machine the Bills did not ask me for adbice anyway. However, I was not gonna purchase any Josh Reed jerseys. Fourth year- The team's bad play and his past efforts did not draw a lot of this fan's attention. Ywt, I did get the sense that he actually played well amidst a dismal Bills team last year. He actually seemed to be JPs go-top guy as a possession receiver and did not deserve the same dismissal which he did deserve after his sophomore campaign or the yawn which was probably the most rational response to his third year. The argument in this thread interested me since it produced a clear dispute between whether Reed deserved a reaction similar to one after his second year disappointment or whether the inkling of improvement I felt from a non-intensive overview was really a more accurate judgment of Reed. Stats can be manipulated or looked at in a way to give a false impression. However, while it is rare for them to settle a football argument totally in a slam dunk way. They should not be disregarded totally or simply dismissed as squat by a rationale person. While not telling all truth in and of themselves, I feel they can be good indicators which support or force one to reconsider general views. Overall, I would say that the stats presented in posts by crackur and Matt actually provide a fairly strong indicator that Reed is probably more accurately thought about as a productive player rather than living in a view legitimately prompted by his dismal sophomore year which seems to be reflected in Badol's views. The horrid miscues Reed was involved in the last game clearly show he should be on a watch list for us fans. However, I think: 1. The anecdotal feel of his play I have from last year. AND 2. The stats presented which indicate strongly that he not only was a go-to guy last year who produced first dowms, but did so with a pretty good yard per catch average and no more droppsies than the best of the Bills receiving crew. AND 3. Most importantly, the Bills braintrust chose both to extend his deal based on their judgments and they also speak highly of him as a player. We certainly can have opinions but the braintrust puts Ralph's money where their mouth is and once should not dismiss that. In the end, anyone who claims that Reed should be cut now and he is a complete stiff really has an attitude which is not supported by the market, by the braintrusts word, or the stats. They do themselves a disservice in presenting believable views by taking a harsh view which does not seem supported by objective facts. Other like Badol and the poster who labeled him a #3 at best actually I think provide comments which are supportive of Reed remaining a Bill even though their presentation of these views comes off as harsh against Reed. I think he will likely be a valuable member of the Bills this year because I view him as playing a contributing role as our #4 WR and as a solid member of the #1 ST in the league. My sense is that the top three receivers are Rvans, Price and Parrish. If Reed plays a role in allowing us to go to 4 WR sets where the freakish speed of our top 3 WRs forces them into a zone and Reed's role is to run routes which find seams in these zones and then run after the catch that will be a huge contribution to the team successfully running a St. L style O. Since Reed has produced as a rookie at #3 and revived his game a bit last year, I am totally comfortable with us keeping him, getting some bang from him onf ST and then making frequesnt use of him as a #4,

Given the injury issues throughout his career, this may be one for the Bills docs to make a judgment about. This of course assumes that the lack of effort noted by a couple of Bears posters regarding Odom's play in SF is either not really an issue or is one solved by him finding a new life in Buffalo. Play him. Judge him and we'll see as best as I can tell.

KH has already been paid a bonus such that if the Bills were to cut him it would not result in any salary savings for the Bills but in fact they would pay him to carry the clipboard for someone else or sit at home on his couch to watch the games. Ralph clearly hates to pay $ for someone else to sit at home so is simple financially whether they keep him and the answer is WAY.

You bet. A friend of a friend of mine once told me a situation which actually happened that he read on the internet about this guy getting a "loan" from the girlscouts because he was putting together money to bet on a can't lose prospect in a horse race. The horse did not win and some girlscout whose name was Vito came to his place in the middle of the night to collect on the loan which the scouts had charged some amazing vigorish on. Fortunately, the scout messed up reading the numbers on the houses and came in next door and beat the crap out of his neighbor. He was able to sell all the items he had borrowed from his neighbor, Ned, which he inherited because they could not be used by a neighbor who could not walk (the lawn mower, a tether ball set, the neighbor's daughter) and he used this money to pay off the loan. Man the girl scouts are tough and Kid's Day is one of their biggest rackets in this area.

I'm not sure what you mean by this since WR position coach Tyke Tolbert is already on record at the start of camp singing Reed's praises specifically as one of the smartest players he ever coached. Its crowded at WE so who knows who will get cut since I think at least two former NFL vets will need to be cut to get down to a reasonable number, but a lot of the braintrust will have to eat crow if this is Reed in addition to it hitting Ralph in the wallet as he already has paid substantial bonus money to reed for the extension. Given his ST contribution as a member of the hands team and also he did a little KR work last year there would need to be a stronger case than simply pointing to a few plays to make it likely he gets visited by the Turk.

Another interesting to look at regarding cuts is that the Bills every other season or so seem to cut a guy early in the process and then sign him up adter the least roster cuts. They did this because there was some rule advantage which came to the Bills regarding cutting a player early and not exposing another player who would be signed and then after the rosters were set they could make a move which allowed them to resign the player whom they seem to have some agreement with that he would not use being an FA to sign elsewhere. I am curipus under the new CBA and with the expansion of the PS size whether these types of moves are necessary or allowed.

What message is it that you want to send. The Bills would simply be stupid to be seen by the players as leading the charge in retaliating against the NFLPA. If players decided to retaliate against us by FA's choosing to go elsewhere or simply wasting our time stringing us along only to not sign with us it would be a horrible thing for our team. No individual team would want to be seen as the leader of an anti-NFLPA effort because they would suffer compared to the other teams seeking players. This would simply be a dumb competitive and a dumb business strategy for the Bills. Overall, the NFL under Tagliabue was smart enough to realize that they make far more money and actually this is a far better game if they operate in partnership with the NFLPA rather than if they compete with, beat up or send messages to the NFLPA through self-defeating acts like retaliating against players. TV may in fact deserve to be cut if his current injuries are a sign of his body breaking down. However, as he is back on the field and even pulled in an interception of a tipped pass he seems to be physically recovered. TV will not be missed if he cannot play, but given that: 1. He led the team in turnovers produced last year by tying for the team leads in both INTs and fumble recoveries. It would be odd if we somehow would not miss losing the team leader in these two categories. 2. The major whine that folks seemed to have about TV last year was about his tackline, but given that the team is moving away from the zone blitz where the safeties played more like LBs and to a Cover 2 where the safties play more of a centerfielder role, our schemes are going toward his talents developed as a CB and away from the major complaint. 3. They clearly have drafted the players to replace TV taking Whitner and Simpson, but these two are youngsters along with CB Youbouty who can benefit greatly from having a former Pro Bowl DB and a team leader in getting players to behave like businessmen (he got TKO and several other players to take a college course toward getting MBAs). Vincent clearly has so much to add to these younsters learning how to be good pros both on and off the field, it would be dumb to pass on using this resource even if he were not good enough to start. by keeping him a a reserve. It would be a good move to make TV #2 on the depth chart if he cannot cut it as a starter. but partticularly since there is little cap advantage to cutting him, for the Bills to cut him would really be pretty dumb.