Koufax

While I appreciate the position by position breakdown (which didn't take into account an unusual quantity of injuries unlikely to be repeated, plus the fact that three of our offensive line starters had zero experience and now they do, plus the no-huddle fire your OC stuff)... ...if you really think that ZERO wins (happened once in the history of the NFL) is more likely than FIVE wins (which the Bills have done each of the last eight years), as indicated by your "0-4", then I think you are leading with your pessimism and not rationality, and that is a conclusion that should not be attached to a fairly reasonable attempt to break down this team. I know we have a lot of sad and scared football fans out there who are still not right after Scotty Norwood broke their hearts or the Titans lateraled, but right now I think the prevailing winds have us the opposite of Cubs fans. They are fans of a mediocre team who they regularly think will be good. We are fans of a mediocre team who we instead think will be doomed. I'm going to try to enjoy our 7-9 record if that happens, and hope for a victory each week out and that we get rolling and do better than reasonable expectations.

Which ones? And if you are willing to bet, I would like to take the over on your 2-4 win estimate. I don't see the tea leaves that show this team so much worse than any of the last 8 years when we failed to win fewer than 5 games. I guess we can let the season play out instead of trying to win a preseason pessimism contest, but I just want to be on record against the "we are doomed" threads. I hope we play for the future and develop young guys and am willing to put up with the learning curve if that is what it takes, but I think Chan is not interested in losing football games for the big picture. And I think he has a more talented roster than Mauron had last season. So why is he going to fail so much worse than the last season perfect storm: 1) Our QBs are terrible? Yeah, that has been that way for a while...nothing to see here. 2) New defensive scheme to learn? Okay, some room for growing pains, but didn't DJ put in a new scheme and win 7? 3) Our line is terrible? Is it worse than last year? Experience and the probability of fewer injuries has me saying no 4) Our schedule? Nobody knows the strength of schedule from one year to another...there is too much turn over in teams. So I'm still not clear on the arguments why 2010 is supposed to be so much worse than 2009 when we won six games. Go Bills.

+1 I will see your point and raise you that these teams also tend to draft the best players and not "with the 9th pick, the Buffalo Bills select Bryan Bulaga, Tackle, Iowa, because John Clayton thinks they need one right now". At the end of the first training camp it sometimes is nice to have your need filled by a draft pick, but the winning teams just keep pouring talent in wherever they find it, and patch any holes with free agency. That beats the crap out of "I think we should go OT in the first round, LB in the second, and NT in the third, and then start all three of those guys" As to the original post, no I don't think the draft focus is a salary cap one. It is both a talent one and a "salary" one, not related to the official league mandated restraints, but to the general limited resources restraints that affect every MLB team other than the Yankees.

I don't see it. This team has has bad QBs and bad coaching for a while now, and has had the following results: 6-10, 7-9, 7-9, 7-9, 5-11, 9-7, 6-10, 8-8 and hasn't picked higher than #8 in that eight year span. Now suddenly something has changed worse than the past and we are the laughing stock? We are not the laughing stock for any given single year, we are only that way because we haven't made the playoffs in a while. I think that will happen again this year, and anybody who things we are one of the worst 2 or 3 teams in the league is just doing lazy journalism and overestimating a bunch of other teams. I'm also not convinced that the 1-15 top pick cleansing that people point to with Indy, the 80s Cowboys, the recent Fish is that helpful. I won't repeat myself from another post, but I think a lot more 6-10 teams vault to being contenders and not just the 1-15 ones, especially with the huge Jamarcus Russell paydays that are involved now. I'd rather have a Roethlisberger type pick at #11 in a deep class than hope for the Peyton Manning franchise changer.

As my disappointment mounts that Trent can't seem to throw (mentally not physically) the 15-20 yard pass down the middle, I am starting to get in the Brohm-curious camp. For the supporters of Brohm, the best path to being the starter is to NOT be the starter week 1 of the preseason. Excelling instantly with the new system and our current team would be very difficult, and it would put him in a more stressful and controversial situation if he had won the position over two veterans based on some summer practices. His best path to be our starter is for Trent to struggle and him to shine, which he can do this week against Indy backups. I think the pro-Brohm goal for week 2 would be Trent struggling and Brohm excelling, but it would have to be enough to make the #1 change for the third pre-season game, since they won't make a change prior to the starters-barely-play fourth pre-season game or between pre-season and week 1. So either a huge differential of Trent bad/Brohm good on Thursday or Trent will be starting the opener and playing until he fails or is hurt. And if he can't complete some 15-20 yarders in the next two weeks he is officially losing any of my remaining support. Something between a dump off/checkdown and a bomb to Lee has to be part of our passing game.

Aside from the previously mentioned fact that he is not a DE anymore (and maybe should not have been), and the fact that he is younger and less experienced and drafted (stupidly) as a project, I think we will have to wait and see. I don't want him thrown under the Donte Whitner bus (good player drafted too high, but after he is given the jersey that is the front office's mistake, not his fault). If he brings commitment and intensity and adapts well to the 3-4 (a lot of IFs), I think he could be a good and valuable Shawn Merriman type (type, not quality) player, and help this football team win games. Bad pick, bad rookie year, occasional bad haircut, but too soon to say if he will be a bad player (having played less than one half at his career position) and that he will be clearly the worst on that list AND will be out of the league in a couple years.

At #9? Who would you have taken? Anthony Davis went at #11, and is likely to play RT for the 49ers. #11 seems a little high for us for an RT, although maybe he could have been a fit. Still less talent with that pick than Spiller obviously...and if you draft need you ensure future need. At #39? Zane Beadles went #45, and Ducasse and Charlie Brown at the bottom of the round. And Jered Veldheer before the Bills picked in the third. I don't think any of those are great enough players to reach for on need and not get the NT we also really needed. In the 3rd? John Jerry or Shawn Lauvao? I don't think either of those guys are world beaters compared to Wang. Maybe Bruce Campbell who went a pick before us in the 4th, but there also might be a reason he slipped that far. In the 4th? Okay, here I could agree with you and wouldn't mind seeing it if there was a guy with the upside we want and is more valuable than Easley, but with our lack of good receivers I don't consider him a luxury pick. In the 5th? Oh yeah we did. Could be a pretty good one who adds depth. This draft just didn't shape up to our need at OT well enough to not bend over backwards to reach for players instead of taking better players at other positions of need. Things could have unfolded differently with Okung or Williams falling to #9, Baluga or Saffold falling to #39, or them working out a trade up. But I don't see a Maybin over Oher or Whitner over Ngata pick in this draft that angers me. And I also think our OL healthy is MUCH better than people think and better than it was last year. We don't have as much quality depth as I would like, but I don't think Bell-Wood-Hartgartner-Levietre-Green is going to be the train wreck a lot of people expect, especially if they can stay healthy (as O-Lines sometimes do for a whole season, but as we know too well, sometimes don't). Okay, end of my off topic rant, but after suggesting we have the dumbest front organization with little to base that on in the Chan/Buddy department, and not proposing a single specific thing other than "addressing OT", I wanted to respond.

REALLY?????? That means that: 1) You are sooo confident that the #1 pick will be better than the #5 or the #9 or the #11. History backs you up sometimes, and not others. I certainly am not sure enough that I would put that as my primary goal for the season 2) You don't think that our young guys would be better off winning some games in their collective learning curves and development, or would happily sacrifice this for an extra chip at the roulette wheel. 3) You think that the #1 pick Locker would provide enough 2011-2012-2013 joy to compensate for the misery of an 0-16 run and the lack of fun during the year as a Bills fan. I personally would much rather see us win all the games we can, see our young core learn winning ways under our new coaches, and draft the best players available. If we really have to get to #1 you can trade up to do so, and I think that requires less sacrifice than a 0-16 season. But I'm not confident that I want to be at #1 to fix this franchise. This could very well be a 2004 like year where you aren't sure whether you really would want to be at #1 (Eli Manning), #4 (Rivers), or #11 (Roethlisberger). Or 2005 where you would really rather have Alex Smith (#1) than Aaron Rodgers (#24) Or 2006 where you would really rather have Vince Young (#3) over Jay Cutler (#11) Or 2007 where you would really rather have Jamarcus Russel (#1) over Kevin Kolb (#36) Or 2008 where you might be fine with either Ryan (#3) or Flacco (#18) I challenge you to go back through the last 20 years and tell me how many times the FIRST QB SELECTED in the TOP 10 was clearly the best QB in that draft. Maybe you have some different judgments than I do, but I count since 1990: Steve McNair, Peyton Manning, and Carson Palmer. I'm open to other examples, but I really think that hoping for 0-16 to draft #1 is about as idiotic a strategy as I can imagine. Yes, Dallas in 1988, Indy in 1997, and Miami in 2007 vaulted from 1-15 season back to respectability, but there are many many more cases of teams vaulting from 5-11 or 7-9 to the top, and many more cases of teams vaulting from 1-15 (or 0-16) to ongoing no-so-good-ness. Go Bills! Let's find a way to get to 1-0 against the Fish, and then we can worry about week 2.

+1 This is my concern. I still think he has the chance to have a good season and emerge as the starter for the next few years, but my confidence in that wanes not by his overall play, but by his lack of ever throwing the ball 15-20 yards. This represents a gun shy and passive way of playing (hence the Capt. Checkdown) which I think we have seen every since his concussion. He only goes deep when he has big protection and the right coverage, otherwise everything is within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. I still think he deserves more time coming out of the cluster-$#@% of last season, and am not one to say the sky is falling, but I agree with thesir that he doesn't just have to do what he is doing a little better with better protection. He has to add something different (the medium pass). It is on him to prove he can do it in the next couple weeks or I am jumping on the Brohm and the 2011 draft pick bandwagon as well.

The sky is falling! We got beaten up the first pre-season game and made some mistakes! If only we had found a way to dominate the first preseason game we would be legit Super Bowl contenders! Not too pleased with our first stranger-practice, but not ready to jump off any cliffs. Trent sure didn't show anything really positive that I would have liked to have seen, but I think I will wait until next Thursday before jumping to the still-way-too-soon preseason conclusions. I would rather we play well than badly, and I would like to see healthy guys and progress. And I also wouldn't mind seeing Brohm get more playing time, but we are talking about less than one half of early August practice football...

I wish Clausen the best, and had been hoping we would take him in round 2, but there is a lot of Brady Quinn to the situation, so we will have to see. But I think that in 2010 Trent is a better alternative to Clausen. And since Trent was already on the roster I think that Trent + Troup are more valuable than Clausen would have been. If the 2011, 2012 Clausen has us regretting that decision only time will tell, but running a 3-4 without Troup would certainly be a little trickier, and I'm expecting a solid Trent this year even if he is not spectacular. And I will go as far as say that I would put it at only 50/50 we will be considering a first round QB in the 2011 draft.

Do you have any money left after buying Sunday Ticket to PM me and put your money behind your pessimism? I will take the over on the "four wins" that you agree with "exactly". (P.S. Disclaimer: Koufax may or may not be just blowing hot air himself, and may or may not do any real football gambling since losing $20 on the fourth straight Super Bowl some years back. He does not officially condone any sports gambling nor view TSW as a place to conduct such wagering, unless someone will really let him take the over on four wins.)

+1, especially when the reason he is valuable is because he can make dynamic plays when he touches the ball that change the game. We have two other chain moving RBs so this is not like having your QB play the wedge buster...this is taking one of our top talents and trying to put him in place for making an impact. We also don't have to worry about him being gassed because it is not a problem to have Freddie or Beastmode in there on the first down or two of a series and then have him rotate in. McKelvin and Roscoe are also very good at returns, so he also doesn't have to be fulltime at either of those return positions and we can go with who is healthiest/doing the best/most dynamic. But having two explosive deep men on kick offs also prevents teams from kicking away from the home run hitter.

+1. Dick and concussions create a big if, but I wholeheartedly believe he has the talent and brains to be successful in this league. Not sure if too much damage is done already, but I'm sure hoping not, and that Chan can work some magic.

+1 Even in game 16 of a lost season, hope your team wins. I will say it again and again: the experience of winning football games for the 30+ guys who will return always matters more than a slot or two in the crap shoot. Is Luck Manning or Leaf? There are so many busts of top 5 QBs and many success stories later, that throwing a whole season down the drain and every hoping for a loss even a single game much less a whole season is completely foolish and also embarrassing. And I still don't have the slightest idea why people think that this team is worse than the team it took a perfect storm to drop to 6-10. This team is a middle of the pack team from 5 to 9 wins, and with those numbers draft position doesn't matter as much as decision making. I would rather have Trent succeed surprise, etc, and have us a month in to the season realize how nice it is not to have Mauron in charge. I don't mind that others are setting the bar very low, but I will put my dollar down on the over for the season.

I'm sorry to see it play out this way, but this is the way it is in the NFL, and I don't have a big problem with it. Too bad he didn't want to be with us during the rebuilding and the new defense. Too bad Houston didn't want to give us anything. But he is not interested in playing for us, we don't have a trading partner, and we aren't going to deal with a mini-Favre situations of having a guy in camp who is only there to get out of there and force our hand. As for the you have a contract you should show up and play, I love the unicorn-filled world where that is true, but we know the NFL is all about contracts that are not to be respected...either renegotiated because they aren't enough, or released while years are left because the team needs to save cap space. So I don't have much more of a problem with this than if he were a free agent and signed a two million dollar one year deal with the Texans. Would be nicer to have seen him retire a Bill, but not worth shedding a tear. He has been a good soldier and a good player through a lot of stuff and very little winning. I don't begrudge him whatever he wants to do in 2011, whether be with the Texans or go try to win somewhere else.

Grammer aside (since that was covered). I think that the concept of due probably applies less to football offenses than anything else. Being bad doesn't create an increased likelihood of being good. But, on the other hand, doing as poorly as we have done on that side of the ball certainly makes improvement a pretty obtainable and reasonable goal.

I've never regretted passing on a DT that the Ravens later selected...no wait... Nose tackle is a tough position to evaluate for reasons like this, but the first practices don't mean much...I'm sure he will be contributing to the Ravens soon enough, but I am still glad we didn't take him.

I couldn't agree more. I love how we are this year's whipping boy. We are a team that needed a perfect storm to fall from 7-9 to 6-10. Now somehow getting to 6-10 would be a miracle? But the reality is none of these guys can really follow and understand all the teams, and it is easy to focus on "no QB, no LT, no playoffs in a decade" rather than actual analysis. So somehow they place us in a position to win 2-3 games for the season and despite our young players, positive new coaching staff, etc., we should be the worst Bills team since we drafted Bruce Smith if not worse. If John Clayton will put some cash on the table I will take the over...

I agree, especially with the second and third point. LT is clearly a very very important position, but Orlando Pace and Jonathan Ogden have two combined rings, not every championship for a decade. We need to be solid at LT, but our guys can be solid without being on the Hall of Fame track. I especially think with Chan using Trent effectively on shorter passing to Spiller, Freddie, Roscoe (I enjoyed the first 58 minutes of last season's opener) we don't need a LT who can pancake Julius Peppers or let Bledsoe count to seven in his head without getting flattened to be successful. I think a healthy Bell has a good chance of being a solid performer. If we can get better at this position (or any other) in a way that makes sense to our overall progression, even better than the status quo. And a bold move for Marcus McNeill? Not sure how the Nix-AJ relationship is, but that could be a win win that makes both teams better in the right way. AJ gets to show his Chargers you toe the line or get shipped off to Buffalo, McNeill gets big money for a team with a bright future and the Bills get a young good proven LT who is otherwise about to risk taking a prime of his career year off. Go Bills.

Thanks. I appreciate your permission to continue kidding myself. Next time I will make sure I submit a written request with your office before doing any self-kidding just to make sure my paperwork is legit. Everyone is entitled to their opinion of our LT situation. I am always going to err on the side of irrational but just barely plausible optimism. But it also appears that our very experienced front office combo of Nix and Gailey seem to think our personnel on hand are qualified to play LT. If they thought it was as dire as you pretend, then they wouldn't have passed on LT for four straight rounds with good players. I'm sure they do feel it is an area that could be improved, and Gaither will remain on their radar if the price is right, but that Bell can not be "reasonably expected" to avoid being one of the six worst LTs I think is more uncertain than you do. But we don't need Bell to be named to the Pro Bowl this year. He can be a solid player if he continues to improve and learn after being thrown to the wolves last year. And if that doesn't happen maybe we can finally have that "top 5 pick" that the "realists" have been insisting on each of the last five years. My money is on 8-8, we forget about the LT situation a few weeks into the season as we get adequate performance from the guys on our roster, and we welcome some of the "realists" back on to the excitement bandwagon for the 2011 season if there is one.

We have a LT. We have several. The coaching staff passed on LTs in the first four rounds with a pretty good understanding of our personnel. I expect Bell to have a better and healthier 2010 than 2009. I don't think he will make the pro bowl. Can he be passable and have us not talking about a "hole at LT" all season? Absolutely. Will he? We will have to wait and see. Losing a second rounder in the second draft for a new GM with a scouting expertise only makes sense if the value is there. If they think the Gaither-Bell upgrade is not as great as we think, and the dollars it would cost will hurt in other areas (forget the cap, whatever Ralph allows is what we have and spending it smartly still matters), then giving up a second would be silly. The equation is if: Gaither > (Bell + 2011 2nd + Gaither extension dollars spent elsewhere) That's a lot of potential value on the right side. Everyone acts like all we have to give up is a 2nd that would be wasted on a Parrish or Hardy. But it is more complicated than that, and I trust Chan/Nix are better off at evaluating the each of those pieces and how they impact the ability to get the Bills to the playoffs. I would still love to see Gaither as a Bill, but I would also be happy to see Bell do well, and the Bills keep building with an impact player with next year's 2nd rounder.

Hmmm...I can't say that I agree with your detective work. Pessimist: overly negative "EVERYTHING AT OBD SUCKS!!!!" and "With the #1 pick the Buffalo Bills select...", but also those who Optimist: (me) overly positive "EVERYTHING IS PERFECT!!!!" and "19-0", check Realist: someone who has assessments of the team tied to reality Realist is someone who decides independent of whether Scott Norwood missed a kick, or that our streak without the playoffs guarantees we won't be in the Super Bowl, or that Eric Flowers, Mike Williams, etc. have anything to do with this team. Realist does not indicate you are completely accurate in your assessment, just that it is based on reasonable analysis of the things that make teams win and lose. I think realists probably have this team as a 4-12 to 9-7 team. I think outside that range and you are an optimist or a pessimist (who could end up being right, but just because the outcome is different doesn't mean the expectations were reasonable). I am an optimist. I admit it, and I will routinely value this team as better than they are (but probably by one or two wins, and not way off the chart). But the guys who say we will be 2-14 and are "just being realistic" are not. I do think this team has more talent than people realize, and that it was obscured by Jauron and injuries. Whether a new coach and a switch to a 3-4 outweigh that and we really are worse than the 6-10 of last year remains to be seen, but I have a tough time seeing it. It took a perfect storm last year to shake this team off of its 7-9 foothold, and I don't understand why that is out of reach for a much better coaching staff with a draft class at quick impact positions.

How many of Bell's penalties were false starts on no huddle plays? I think Bell will be a much better football player Sept 2009 than Sept 2010, and will be in a much better situation to succeed. And I think he will once again be our starting LT in the opener. How he does remains to be seen, but if our guys are healthy I think our line will be much less of a problem than the current conventional wisdom would lead you to believe.

I'm always an optimist, so just because I think they will be okay has no bearing on reality, but consider: Clayton doesn't really know anything about the Bills. He has three real teams to follow and has to occasionally fulfill his contractual AFC East obligation and make up some stuff about the Bills. He doesn't really have an idea of what is going on, and I STRONGLY assert on the having a clue scale the following order: Coaching Staff & Front Office > Studious Bills Fans (like us) > Clayton/King > Casual Bills Fan To be very blunt, I think that Clayton spends LESS time looking at the Bills than we do, so why would he somehow be in a position to offer an insightful observation that would make us all interested? Nope...he offers fluff pieces for the casual masses. The 3-4 could present a bigger challenge than I understand and help make us worse on the front 7 then we were last year. I don't personally see it, and think our added talent (draft + Maybin from nothing to maybe something - potential loss of Schobel) on the front 7 will make a bigger difference than the learning curve. Secondary is intact, Byrd with a year under his belt and McKelvin healthy? BETTER O-Line. Here is where I think people really are missing the picture. The median expected outcome of our O-Line with average expectations on growth and injuries to me is a ton better than last year when we set some injury records, set some inexperience records, and did the whole Walker/Bell No Huddle fiasco. Backfield...three headed monster vs. Freddie by himself for four games then Marshawn trying to catch up? Way better. Even if we trade Lynch way better Receivers: Clayton picks on us here, but Owens and Reed were not in the plans of the coaching staff because they think the other guys will help us be better. Is Reed really better than Stevie Johnson? Is Hardy really never going to play? Is it impossible that Chan finds a way to use Parish? Might we have drafted a surprise contributor (not to play the Colston card, but we might get something out of that). Is Spiller going to get some touches out of the slot too? A lot of questions, but with any O-Line/QB improvement compared to last year I think we clearly have the potential to have a more effective receiving corp than last year. Special Teams: Here we are going to miss Bobby, but we still have the same kicking/punting and return personnel plus Spiller, so while I would expect some regression, I think we will be good just the same. Coaching: I will withhold comment, but those who think 2010 will be worse coached than 2009 raise a hand. So while Nix and Chan might be willing to take some punches as they build for the 2011 season, I have a hard time seeing how this team is worse than last year. And last year it took a lot of going wrong for us to get to 6-10. If this season ends up being a 4-12 year as we retool I can probably live with that, but I think the talent and the focus of the coaching staff will both lead to 7 to 9 wins. The good news is that as every full year ahead mock draft shows us, we don't need to be drafting #1 or #2 to get the player that people say NOW will be going in those slots Go Bills