Cash

Mamula was a solid but unspectacular player whose career was cut short by injuries. Definitely a bust considering how high he was drafted, but not nearly the "one workout wonder" that people think he is.

I'd much rather have Locker than any LB in the first round. I'm not sold on Locker by any means, but you have to consider positional value. The 49ers hit a Grand Slam with Patrick Willis. Hey, that's great, enjoy your 6-10 seasons. That's not a knock on Willis, he's amazing and I'd definitely rather have him than Poz. It's just that no linebacker can make that big a difference in the win column. QB is a different story on that front. There's no sure things at QB in the first round, but if you hit (e.g., Flacco), you win big and keep on winning. Even if you hit on a Hall of Fame linebacker, you just don't get the payoff of hitting on a money QB. Also, Arthur Jones is a DT. He could probably play DE in a 3-4 (as DraftTek has him listed), but he's played DT in a 4-3 in college. I like him, but not before the late first round, preferably second round. I know you weren't advocating us drafting him as a DE; I just wanted to point that out.

Quite possibly. I know that he was on the Greatest Show on Turf Rams, and Madden was all about him at that time, but I don't remember if he was specifically the Cankles guy.

Commit to Captain Checkdown for another year? Why not just bring back George Bush? I think he's finally gonna turn it around. At this point, I think I'd take Bush under center over Edwards.

Hot dog! We have a wiener!

Yeah, loved the bounce-back game from the special teams. Really got a jolt out of seeing my man Terrance McGee back there on the one kickoff, too. Can we maybe cool it on the "fire Bobby April" talk? Five bad games do not outweigh five excellent years.

<Sigh> Really, dude? I go through box scores and one game log to compile and post stats showing that Edwards goes to WRs 49% of the time and Fitzpatrick does so 81% of the time, and I'm the lazy one? Let me hit you with some knowledge, chief. When I say "...I can't recall Edwards successfully throwing to a WR on the move, except for the occasional go route," that doesn't mean the same thing as (your words) "TE has not thrown downfield to a WR." Of course he's thrown downfield to WRs. Duh. But first of all, less than half of his passes even go towards WRs, and secondly, when they do go to WRs, it's usually to either a stationary WR or to a WR running a go route. "TE has gone deep to both Evans and TO." No kidding, ace. We know. That's why we say things like "except for the occasional go route." Also called the fly or 9 route, it's the quintessential deep ball. Trent throws a fair number of those. I don't want him throwing many more. Only Al Davis thinks you can still build an offense around the fly pattern. Trent doesn't throw nearly enough slants, crossing patterns, ins, outs, and posts. Yes, he throws some, but very rarely, and with little success. Off the top of my head, I can think of two slants to TO that were both bad throws resulting in interceptions, and one really nice circle route to Marshawn in the Cleveland game, where Edwards hit Lynch in stride and Lynch picked up some nice RAC. So Edwards has had at least one good pass to a target on the move, but I can't think of any that went to WRs. "But the vast majority of Fitz's passes are short also." This strikes me as one of those Poz-type vast majorities, i.e., about 40%. But you know what? Back up this statement with evidence, and I'll agree. All you have to do is take a look at the game logs of the last two games. Every pass is labeled as short, deep, etc. Just find the total number of "short" attempts by Fitzpatrick, then divide by his total attempts on the year, and you'll get a percentage. Don't be lazy.

The only reason I wouldn't put WR at P9 is that there's a significant chance that all 3 of TO, Josh Reed, and Roscoe Parrish are gone this offseason. Reed will probably get re-signed, but you never know, and I'd be surprised to see either TO or Parrish on next year's opening day roster.

I think he meant that the Bills are 10th against the pass, which is true. The Panthers are #1. That's the official ranking, which is passing yards per game. If you look at yards per pass, the Bills are #3 and the Panthers are #12.

Yeah, Fitzpatrick isn't a very good QB. Anyone getting excited about him is fooling himself. He would play better with a better O-line (a bunch of his misses came when he was hit as he threw), but that's true of any QB. Bottom line is that Fitzpatrick is no more than a backup. But the point is that he's at least trying to be a good QB. If he had better ability, he would be a good QB. But Edwards isn't even trying to make plays downfield. How many times does he have to throw to a covered RB at the line of scrimmage on 3rd or 4th and long before it's clear that Edwards just doesn't get it? You could give him the best arm in the world and the best O-line in the world and he'd still suck, because his decision-making is nightmarish. Now, if Edwards had the best arm in the world, I might be willing to wait on him, and hope his decision-making miraculously turns around. But Edwards doesn't have a good arm. His completion percentage is only better than Fitzpatrick's because Edwards makes so many more safe throws. On WR throws, they're both around 50%. And I can't recall Edwards successfully throwing to a WR on the move, except for the occasional go route. You just can't have a successful offense made up of hitches, checkdowns, and fly patterns, and that's all that Edwards gives you. Even the rare (extremely rare) times that he throws to a WR on the move, he's way too inaccurate. He's gotten intercepted twice on slants, and both times it was because the pass was high and behind TO. And he turns the ball over way too much for a guy who never makes any risky throws. I'm actually really surprised Fitzpatrick hasn't turned the ball over yet, because his willingness to take risks plus his lack of accuracy plus our bad pass protection should equal significant turnovers. Don't be surprised if Fitzpatrick tosses a couple picks against Houston.

Why can't we try to do both at the same time? Fitzpatrick might be able to lead a team to 10-6 or so with a great O-line, but that's a best-case. Edwards is worthless. I'd like to go QB at the top of the draft, and make O-line (especially the tackles, but there's currently no depth in the middle) the overall top priority in the off-season. I'd like at least 1 decent veteran signing and at least 1 pick in the first 3 rounds.

How much more evidence do you need? Edwards is a terrible quarterback. If he was capable of being a good quarterback, he'd have shown signs of it by now. Offseason need #1 is a starting QB. I'll admit I was wrong about Fitzpatrick: I thought he was a total wasted signing, but after 2 games, I think he's more or less an okay backup. Now we just need a good starter and a good O-line for him to play behind.

On second thought, I'd remove RB from P9. Too injury-prone a position to get complacent, plus late-round gems are often found at RB.

Where's QB? I would put QB at P1, but our O-line is so bad, I'll go with: P1 = None P2 = QB, OT P3 = LB, DT P4 = TE, DE, OG P9 = FS, SS, RB

http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/index.php?...t&p=1615656 Cliff's Notes version: Edwards has thrown just under half his passes at WRs, with about a quarter each going towards RBs and TEs. Fitzpatrick has targeted over 80% of his passes at WRs, with about 12% going at RBs and about 6% going at TEs. No guarantee that Fitz's numbers continue at this pace, but so far, the difference is extreme.

Better to look at targets, not completions. That helps account for drops and both QBs' poor accuracy, and just distill it down to decision-making. Luckily, espn.com's new box scores have targets in them, so it's pretty easy to add them up. For the Jets game, I went through the play-by-play and just counted a target every time it said a pass was intended for whoever. I probably wound up being off by 1 or 2, but my count should be close enough for these purposes. Anyway, I figured out the percentage of targets by WR, RB, and TE. It's not a perfect methodology, because a couple of the RB passes weren't checkdowns (exactly two, if I remember correctly), and some of the WR passes really were checkdowns (e.g., WR screens, TO caught a 6 yard hitch on 3rd and 18 in the Jets game, etc.). But it's still pretty good, and I doubt any of us has the time to go through every game and chart every pass play. So here goes. For the year, Edwards' percentages of targets are as follows: WR - 49.0% RB - 27.8% TE - 23.2% I was honestly surprised to see how high WR was. Here's Fitzpatrick's percentages: WR - 81.3% RB - 12.5% TE - 6.3% Wowsers. Of course, Fitzpatrick's played less than two full games, so he doesn't have much of a sample size, so take this with a grain of salt. But I think the trend will continue, even if it doesn't stay quite this pronounced. And even if it doesn't, the point remains: So far, Fitzpatrick has definitely thrown to his WRs more than Edwards did. Not with great success, which is why Fitzpatrick is a backup. He's playing the right way; he's just not good enough to execute at a high level. Captain Checkdown has NOT been playing the right way, and I tend to doubt that he could pull it off if he tried.

Precisely. Only Al Davis thinks that you can build a successful NFL offense around the deep ball. Folks, there's a lot of different passes that fall somewhere between Checkdown and Deep Ball. Edwards' problem is that he mostly just sticks to the extremes, and when he does throw a deep ball, it's usually so close to the sideline that the receiver has to go out of bounds as he's catching it, and gets no RAC. Another good example from yesterday's game was on the 3rd-and-12 from our own red zone. Fitzpatrick dropped back, was pressured almost immediately, started scrambling around in the pocket to buy some time, clearly looked to his left where he had a RB for a checkdown, then looked back upfield and hurled a pass as he was hit. It looked dangerous as he threw it, and it did sail on him a little bit, but it ultimately went to an open TO, who made the jumping catch and held on to it. I have no doubt whatsoever that Edwards throws that checkdown that Fitzpatrick passed up. How can I be so sure? Because I've been watching Edwards play all year.

Delhomme and Derek Anderson have both been terrible all year. Sanchez has looked good in a couple games, though.

Dropped him for Poz right before the Jets game. So far, so good.

Who was the last star NFL QB who came from a super-loaded football factory? Carson Palmer, I think. Who before that? I have no idea. McCoy strikes me as a potential bust, especially in Buffalo, where he doesn't have the arm strength to cut down the wind. Even though he's a massive d-bag, I'm hoping we get Jimmy Clausen. From what I've seen this year, he looks like the real deal. And unlike Bradford and Pike, he actually takes snaps under center.

I remember that play. It was utterly stunning. Was that the first time in the Jauron Era (or Meathead or Gregggg Eras, for that matter) that we picked up a first down by outfoxing the other team?

What's nice about the 4pm start is that by the time the Bills kick off, I'm already half in the bag from the 1 o'clock games. It tends to ease the pain.

The play of our D-line, particularly the white guys. (I expected good things out of Stroud, and Maybin has done nothing of note. Spencer Johnson and John McCargo are who we thought they were.)

I'd prefer to stick with a 4-3, but just stock it with players who are both big and fast (i.e., good), instead of trying to find the smallest possible guys to play every position.

Sanchez's struggles: http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/tag/_/name/mark-sanchez Two long pieces already this week. Jenkins' injury: http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/i...-void-in-jets-d Henne's third career start? Seriously? What is there to write about that wasn't covered before the first two? Tom Terrific: Thankfully, Tim has not dedicated any full-length posts to this yet this week. I for one am glad. Fitzpatrick starting: I'd expect Tim to wait until later in the week, when it's more definitive that Fitzpatrick actually will start. Also, the Buffalo News just did two articles on this topic, so it's not like there's a lot of fresh ground to cover. My only complaint with this post is that Tim forgot to tag it "Buffalo Bills." I haven't seen much out there talking about how bad our run D has been, and it was nice to see it put in a historical perspective. Also, there are no predictions in the post, just speculations.