Dibs

I see that there are some reasonable arguments for getting rid of some of our players......the thing is though that if the player is good(and in ML he is probowl good).....replacing him could take years and many resources. Some believe FJ could take his place....that is yet to be seen. It obviously comes down to how much of a risk does his out of game antics effect his long term reliability compared to the risks of being unable to replace him to a similar talent level. The roster spot is really quite irrelevant as realistically any given player takes up the 53rd spot. The 53rd spot is usually taken up by STers or 3rd/4th string players. I refer back to my thoughts that if a player is good enough for an opposing team to not only trade valuable picks for.....but sign them to a new contract.....then they are obviously valuable to the Bills. It's not like we have cap issues, so paying a little bit extra for a PRer is no problem. In terms of other PRers on the roster.....it comes back to how valuable one believes the position is. RP has the best PR average of all time. On average he is not only shortening the field by at least 5 yards per PR(compared to an average PRer).....but is regularly setting the offense up in good field position(due to long returns). If FJ or LM can be a consistently good PRer and the drop off isn't so bad then.....again I can see a good argument. But why take the chance on a high dropoff when all you get in return is at best a 3rd round pick(far more miss than hit)? Again....there is a decent argument for doing this. It happens regularly around the league.....though it is far more common for teams to keep the player for the extra year. Had we re-signed Greer I would have said McGee is very tradeable this off season. At the moment however he is our best CB and to trade him for a piddly draft pick is not IMO wise. Overall it makes little sense to continually get rid of good players(for whatever reason) without viable replacements for them......particularly when there are only a handful of them on the team. An overall look really needs to be used when looking at the concept. Once you start saying....."Hmmm, we could get more value by trading him now rather than the uncertainties of later."......you can apply the same philosophy to many of the players of value. Where does that stop? It's a good way to go about a total re-build if you have an old roster.....but with a young roster is a virtual guarantee of treading water at best. (All IMO of course )

Do you really think that when he initially asked for a raise and told "Not this year" that they wouldn't have already decided that they would re-work the deal the next year.....and told him as such(give or take)? Everyone knew he was a shining young talent on the rise and was being underpaid.....IMO the Bills would have(should have) known they would most likely be re-working Peters' deal in 2009 even before he asked for a raise. And yes.....I totally agree that his play last season(as the result of the holdout) has not helped his position this year.

There is something which has been puzzling me. Cutler is a probowl QB......carried the Broncos last season.....he is 'one of the best young QBs in the league'.....and the Broncos invested heavily in him using a 1st round pick.......why were the Broncos even considering getting rid of him in the first place?

I think that is probably true also.....but the issue in my head is why was Peters holding out? The only logical conclusion is that he asked for a raise and the Bills said "Not this year." At that point both parties are at an impasse which then left Peters with two options.....to accept things.....or hold out. The rhetoric from Bills FO about not negotiating until he got into camp was irrelevant since they were not going to be negotiating that season anyway. All pure speculation on my part.....but I can't really see any other logical progression of how things could have developed.

The point is you can't use selective stats to try and prove your thoughts and ignore other stats which counter your thoughts.

I truly value your insightful thoughts and feel terrible that you seem antagonistic towards me. You have quickly become a doyen of TSW and I know all of our fellow posters will be cut to the quick that I have upset you. Please.....enlighten me where I am wrong. I don't really have any idea what point you were making.....so therefore have no idea where I may have said something which was incorrect(in relation to your points). ***BTW, it wasn't me who said you were just arguing for the sake of arguing......but I'm not arguing with the poster who said it.***

Agreed this is all splitting hairs & quite irrelevant now but..... ....why wasn't he at camp? Either he was told that he would not get an extension that year......or he was told they could work out a deal during the season & he wanted one worked out pre-season. Considering the 'effect' of a holdout......and also considering the fact he had 3 years left on a fairly recent existing contract.....I'd say it by far more likely the former rather than the later.

Really? You must have a strange stat site you look at......it obviously shows only a few of the stats(those being the ones where TE regressed in). From year 1 to year 2..... QBR up from 70.4 to 85.4 YPA up from 6.06 to 7.22 TD% up from 2.6 to 2.9 INT% down from 3.0 to 2.7 Yep....no improvement there at all.

What difference does it make how he came into the league in regards to his value as a veteran?

I totally agree. I guess it comes back to a similar situation to his talent level in that time will tell.

Has there actually been anybody in this thread that has stated that Cutler>Edwards? I guess there might have been but I certainly don't recall anyone actually making that argument.....just the argument that TE didn't play as bad as some are saying. I think when assessing sub-par production.....one really has to take into consideration the length of time in the league. By any reasonable measuring stick TE has played well above par to this point in his career.

What? Huh? Your cut and paste of my 'statement' was followed by a rolleyes( ). I was being sarcastic. My entire thread is based upon me thinking the opposite of that. .....and my second post to you stated...... "I never said that anybody said trade every starter....." Which was in response to your.... "I don't recall anyone besides you ever coming on this board and saying trade every starter." What are you talking about??? I'm sorry I used quotation marks when I paraphrased the common knowledge that the Bills said they would re-work his contract after the 2008 season. I'm not going to rummage round and find you a link for something that was widely known at the time. I've read a 'report' saying he wants to be the highest paid LT in the AFC.....putting him $3mil apart from the Bills offer(which is what I said). The fact that you believe he is not worth the money is irrelevant. His value will be determined by the contract he ends up getting(whether it be with the Bills or with another team).....not by some emotional fan.

I agree that he has shown plenty to be concerned about in regards to his durability but that is a seperate issue to whether he has the ability to be a good QB.

Why not? Considering injuries, shoddy QB play, line troubles & bad coaching I'd say it's amazing that we have gone 7-9 for 3 straight years.

I know what you're alluding to......but I don't tend to comment much on RW since I can't figure out how much he sets the agenda(apart from hiring GMs). The whole 'Ralph is cheap' thing I find is overstated.....though an earlier poster in the thread(8and8forever) raised an interesting concept of RW playing favourites which I feel might be closer to the truth. Before I went blaming RW for everything.....I'd like to see what this team could do with a QB who could play at a high level regularly.

I never said that anybody said trade every starter.....what I said was that virtually every good player we have regularly gets people strongly calling for them to be cut/traded.....with high support from many posters. This is usually done with little to no thought about the repercussions or logic of the cut/trade.....and quite honestly cuts out reasonable and rational football talk due to the basic hysteria of the many posters. I don't want to pick on you......but you provide a perfect example. You state..... "Many have said trade Peters, and I agree if he doesn't want to play and only wants to B word and moan, get his ass out of here..." What has actually happened this off-season in relation to Peters? Has he held out? Has he bitched & moaned? Has he acted like he doesn't want to play? NO. Last season he wanted a raise.....the Bills said "You're not getting one, but we'll give you one next year." It is now next year & they are negotiating the contract. Unless I'm mistaken, the only word to come out on the subject was 'reported' information stating that they were about $3mil apart at this point. Where is all this 'bitching & moaning' stuff being generated from?

I was going to make a point on this in the opener to the thread but figured I'd covered too many issues already. But since you bring it up..... Another thing that has been bugging me....and it relates to the "We should get rid of players." concept....along side with the "We have no talent on the roster." concept....is..... There is a general consensus that the coaching/gameplanning/co-ordinating has been sub-par to say the least.....yet we still end up with 7-9 seasons. Logic would have it that if we were as devoid of talent as many believe....and the coaching is sooooo bad.....we should be finishing closer to 3-13 each year. Putting Wins on the board has the magical effect of turning all of the players into better players. 'Average at best' players become solid starters....solid starter become good....etc. It happens regularly.....sometimes dramatically. Usually it occurs in unison with good QB & line play.

My point on Dockery was more to highlight the mass mentality of...... Happy to cut a serviceable player because he is overpaid.....but have very little thought/concern about the concept that there is nobody on the roster to replace him. Either those that subscribed to the "Yay we cut him" mentality have great faith in the FO that we'll not only bring in a valued FA(or trade) to replace him, but that they will get it right this time.....or.....they have an unrealistic view of what can be expected from a rookie from the upcomming draft.

It's not just me, is it? What is it with the continually incessant ramblings about cutting/trading our good players? It seems to me that unless our players are playing at HOFer level(from their rookie year)......never get injured.....are happy to play at reasonable salaries(based on salaries from 4 year ago)......and never do anything wrong.....there is a large contingent here who will continually agressively argue that we should get rid of the player. If OBD were to listen to the vocal minority here(I'm assuming it's a minority.....I bloody hope it is), we would be saying goodbye to.... Peters(2 probowls, widely considered one of the best young talents at LT in the league): Greedy, lazy, no good, troublemaker Lynch(1 probowl): Thug who is not a superstar Schobel(2 probowls, very few match his sack production, injured last season): Over-rated, over-paid, useless. Whitner(Generally considered a very solid player): No big plays, isn't N'Gata. Parrish(Best punt returner statistically in NFL history): We could get something for him. The only other 'good' players we have are Evans & Stroud.....and apparently Evans is over-paid & Stroud is OK. And it's not just the good players.... Edwards Hasn't hit probowl levels yet....after his 2 seasons. Poz Isn't an instant star....after his 2 seasons(missing his first). McGee Getting older....should be traded while he is still worth something. I know....let's trade every starter.....we'll surely be able to re-build a superbowl team with all of the draft picks. Hell.....big cheers for cutting dockery! Over-paid....obviously a bad player. Still landed himself a $5mil/year deal shortly after being cut. Five Million per year.....for a player that was garbage for us! I still can't believe that there were far more comments about being glad that he's gone than about the huge hole at LG that was created. Draft picks always look better than our current players. Let's trade them for draft picks....we can easily fill the holes via the draft. For those that are not aware.....DRAFT PICKS ARE HIT OR MISS! There is no guarantee of success and in fact there is more chance of failure. And why do people think that our players are more valuable to other teams than to us? It boggles the mind to think that some other team is willing to not only trade valuable draft picks for our guys....but to also then pay them top dollar. If it was going to happen, surely the player is valuable to us!!! Sorry about the ramble/rant but it feels like the patients have taken over the asylum around here lately.

LOL....all that to say that Cutlers TD percentage was a lot higher than TEs....4.1 to 2.9 Hadn't we already covered that several times previously in this thread? BTW....why go to all the trouble of going to 2 decimal places for TE while rounding down to the nearest whole number for Cutler? For those that care, Cutler averaged 38.5 pass attempts per game.....which is actually 8.58 passes per game more than TE. And to put that into perspective.....taking a ypa of 7.3(around average for the two QBs).....that translates to an extra 1000 yards in the season. You are right though in that if you extrapolate TEs attempts out over the season he would have ended up with 479 attempts(12th)......mind you Cutler still threw by far more passes with 616(2nd). I really don't know what it is you are trying to do Alpha.......you say you see TEs potential....and you obviously are aware he has only played 2 seasons in the league.....yet you seem to take every opportunity you can to argue how bad he is.

Attempting more throws obviously will increase certain numbers....i.e. INTs, Cutler 31st, Edwards 11th In terms of per pass play..... In yards/attempt, Cutler 10th and Edwards 11th Percent completions, Cutler 14th and Edwards 6th TD percentage, Cutler 13th and Edwards 27th INT percentage, Cutler 26th, Edwards 19th Is Cutler better than TE? He's had an extra year in the league and at this point certainly does look better. All this talk of trading for him is IMO ridiculous. If the Bills get Cutler we would likely have to give up a decent amount of resources.....and sign him onto a huge contract. Knowing our luck, TE would then become a probowler in Denver while Cutler regresses to JPL levels.

And what do you suppose would have happened if there was 3 years left on Harrisons contract(instead of 1) and the Steelers said to him "We are not re-negotiating your deal this year."?

What sort of crap is he pulling? He held out last year(which is not uncommon)......he was told his contract would be re-worked for this year.....and now they are trying to re-work the contract. What is it you are imagining he is doing?

It makes me wonder what sort of contract people think he would be getting from his new team if we trade him. Any team trading for him will likely make him one of the highest paid players in the league. Where is the logic in thinking some other team would value Peters to the point of letting go at least a 1st round pick plus a massive contract.....yet he is not worth a massive contract from the Bills?