Cash

Freddie's reaction: https://twitter.com/Fred22Jackson/status/250641435597086720 WTF??? Released Mooreman??? For What??

From Tim Graham: https://twitter.com/ByTimGraham/status/250640412438564864 Bills cut Moorman apparently for shaky games w/directional punts, which are called by coach. Powell's weakest trait directional/pooch punts.

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I'm definitely keeping an eye on Geno Smith this year. Very intriguing prospect.

I LOVED the Glenn pick when it happened, and I've seen nothing to change my mind in preseason. He has had a few penalties, but that's very forgivable for a rookie. And he's looked pretty good against a couple of the best pass-rushers in the league.

Okay, I'll bite. 2002-2011 (no point in including 2012 yet, duh): 2002 QB: Josh McCown - the better of the McCowns. Not saying much, but he was a marginal starter for a while. WR: Marquis Walker, Cliff Russell, Eric Crouch - yikes. 2003 QB: Dave Ragone, Chris Simms - *THE* Dave Ragone? Wow! Simms wasn't totally awful until he broke his spleen. WR: Kelley Washington, Nate Burleson, Kevin Curtis, Billy McMullen - Burleson's decent and Curtis doesn't totally suck. 2004 QB: Matt Schaub - best player on either list so far; would be a much bigger star if he could stay healthy. WR: Derrick Hamilton, Bernard Berrian, Devard Darling - The immortal B-twice makes an appearance! 2005 QB: Charlie Frye, David Greene - Frye was pretty bad. I don't think I've ever heard of David Greene. WR: Courtney Roby, Chris Henry, Brandon Jones - Henry was fairly decent when he could get on the field, and came to an unfortunate end. Never heard of the other guys. 2006 QB: Charlie Whitehurst, Brodie Croyle - Not exactly Montana/Young on the 49ers, huh? WR: Travis Wilson, Derek Hagan, Brandon Williams, Maurice Stovall, Willie Reid - Hagan is the only name that stands out, and that's only because he's fighting to make our team. Good luck, Derek! 2007 QB: Trent Edwards - No further explanation needed. WR: Jacoby Jones, Yamon Figurs, Laurent Robinson, Jason Hill, James Jones, Mike Sims-Walker, Paul Williams, Johnnie Lee Higgins This is a good year to show why this is kind of a dumb comparison (not calling you or anyone else dumb, Luxy). Eight WRs drafted in the 3rd, compared to only 1 QB. The QB was a crappy starter for a couple years, got cut, and (for now) is still in the league as a backup. Of the 8 WRs, 1 is a return specialist, 2 more have had 1 good year each, James Jones has been very meh in one of the best passing attacks ever, and Johnnie Lee Higgins once had a good game against the Bills, and that's it. In total, that's more value than Edwards, but so what? Obviously 8 guys should out-produce 1, especially since every team starts at least 2 WRs, has at least 2 more that play significant time every week, and frequently rotates them in & out of games. Whereas only 1 QB starts, and if he's any good, he's the only one who ever plays. Anyway, enough editorializing, the show must go on. 2008 QB: Kevin O'Connell - I remember when he was drafted, all the analysts couldn't shut up about how brilliant Belichick was, and how O'Connell would probably be dealt for a haul of picks in 2-3 years. Instead, he promptly got cut. The lesson is, just because they're paid to talk about football doesn't mean the analysts are smarter than you. WR: Earl Bennett, Early Doucet, Harry Douglas, Mario Manningham, Andre Caldwell - another solid win for the WRs, although mostly by default. Everyone but Manningham has shown some flashes but ultimately not been good enough to own on a fantasy team. Manningham's legit, but I'm still glad we didn't pursue him. He's a starter, not a star. 2009 QB: None - WRs win by default. WR: Derrick Williams, Brandon Tate, Mike Wallace(!), Ramses Barden, Patrick Turner, Deon Butler, Juaquin Iglesias - One big star and a whole lotta scrubs. Any of these other guys still in the league? 2010 QB: Colt McCoy - Technically the jury's still out, but I always thought he would stink in the NFL, and nothing he's done in the last couple years has changed my mind. WR: Damian Williams, Brandon LaFell, Emmanuel Sanders, Jordan Shipley, Eric Decker, Andre Roberts, Armanti Edwards - Decker's okay and may do really well with Manning throwing him the ball. Sanders has had a catch or two for the Steelers, and may be a good player going forward. Ditto for Shipley, but for the Bungles. LaFell is supposed to start this year, but I think he stinks. Never heard of the others, but they're young. Keep in mind that a lot of WRs "break out" in their 3rd pro season. All of these guys are theoretically candidates for a break-out season this year. 2011 QB: Ryan Mallett - Hasn't played in the regular season yet. I don't count Terrelle Prior, because he was taken in the supplemental draft. Fundamentally different process than the regular draft, and not germane to this discussion. WR: Austin Pettis, Leonard Hankerson, Vincent Brown, Jerrel Jernigan - Hankerson was the #1 "who is he?" guy drafted in my fantasy league last week. Brown was pressed into action last year with underwhelming results. All of these guys are too young to judge, though. So there you have it. To go back to Luxy's original assertion, definitely more WRs have had success in the NFL over this span, but a lot more have been drafted and a lot more have been afforded opportunities to play. In terms of stars or at least borderline stars, it's pretty subjective, but I'd say only Schaub for QBs, and only Mike Wallace for WRs. If you wanted to throw Manningham in for WRs as well, I couldn't fault you, but I think history will prove me right that Manningham's a decent player, but eminently replaceable. But I digress. The point is that your success rate at either position isn't very good by the 3rd round. I don't find that very surprising, because QB is the #1 hardest to find/biggest impact position, and WR is probably #3 or #4. I'd expect success rates for guards, safeties, and linebackers to be much higher in the 3rd round. I don't have the time to total up the percentages of starters for the players listed above, but if anyone else wants to do it, have at it. Keep in mind, though, that there are 2-3 starting WR jobs for every starting QB job, so it still wouldn't be an apples-to-apples comparison. I don't count John Skelton, but you have to admit that 4 years is not the best sample size. If you look over the last few decades, you wind up with something like a 10% chance of finding a starter (not necessarily a really good starter; maybe just Trent Edwards) for every QB drafted in the 3rd round. This compares to about 25% for the 2nd, 50% for the 1st, and a little over 5% for most of the rounds after the 3rd. I don't really disagree with your argument, but I also don't think anyone should be swayed by it. If a guy's available in the 3rd round, it's unlikely that he'll become a star or even a marginal starter - that's absolutely true. But it's not impossible. In the abstract, I agree with you that you should generally be looking to draft your QB at the top of the draft, where the chance of success is highest (but still pretty low). But for a specific case like Russell Wilson, it doesn't matter. Pro Bowlers do occasionally come from the 3rd round, and he *could* be the next one. If someone sees specific NFL-caliber abilities in him that suggest he could be the next late-round Pro Bowler, the statistical argument isn't going to work. And nor should it: Population statistics (like round-by-round QB success rates) can't be applied to individuals. Otherwise you could say that every QB ever picked in the 3rd round was a bad pick. Anyway, I don't really have a stance on the Graham vs. Wilson argument. I liked Wilson pre-draft, but also thought the 3rd was too high to take him. Maybe I was wrong. I hated the Graham pick at the time, but hopefully I'm wrong, and it's way too early to say either way. I *do* know that we could stand an upgrade over Fitzy (I still love him, but he's far from elite), and our current backup situation terrifies me. T-Jack is 29 and probably as good as he'll ever be. He is not the answer. It would be nice to have a young guy with potential, who's looked good in the preseason, a la Wilson or Mallett or whomever else. But the bottom line is winning. If the Bills win games, I'll be happy. If they lose games, I'll be bummed.

The problem is that the NFL has decided to 100% tie together the completely independent ideas of 1) shortening the preseason, and 2) lengthening the regular season. The only proposal on the table is to convert 2 preseason games to regular-season games. That doesn't actually save season-ticket holders any money, but it does serve to increase injury risk and dilute the NFL's product.

Doesn't surprise me after watching most of the 2nd half of the Vikings game. Merriman was up against 2nd & 3rd stringers, and did absolutely nothing in pass rush. (I actually thought he was pretty good against the run.) I was focusing on him a lot, because like everyone else, I had heard all the stuff about how he was feeling so great (just like last year)... but I just didn't see anything. No burst, no power moves, nothing but just getting stood up 1-on-1 by a backup.

Possible, but it'd be surprising. McIntyre is essentially the designated special teams player, a la Mark Pike & Steve Tasker (or more recently, Mario Haggan and some other LB I can't remember). The fact that he doubles as a useful lead blocker in short-yardage situations helps his cause even more. The only way I could see Dickerson taking his spot is if Gailey felt comfortable going to the wildcat as his primary short-yardage formation, at which point you have virtually no use for a FB ever. The other factor in this scenario is that Dickerson would have to be at least comparable to McIntyre on special teams. I really liked the Onobun signing last year on a risk/reward basis, but part of that equation is cutting the guy if he doesn't pan out. I hope he does well, but Dickerson is also intriguing from a pure athleticism standpoint. I think I'll wait until I see these guys crushing 4th-stringers in preseason before deciding whom to root for.

What a great idea! What's the capacity on the shuttle?

I didn't like the attempt to sign Meachem. That guy is nothing special. I'm glad they passed once his price tag got high, so no harm done there. I didn't like the Teej Graham pick, but we'll see if it works out. I wasn't thrilled about them pursuing Mark Anderson (if you don't know what "regression to the mean" is, google it), but for the money they got him at, it's not a bad risk. I question the wisdom of drafting a 27-year-old backup C who never played C until after his college career was over, but that was a late pick, so whatever. I didn't like the Vince Young signing due to possible attitude issues; hopefully Young either proves me wrong or gets cut in training camp. I would have liked to see a little bit of attention paid to the DT spot -- I know our starters are awesome when healthy, but our backups are mostly 3-4 DEs and underwhelming NTs. Maybe they plan on going Giants style and rotating DEs at DT on passing downs. And that's everything I can think of. Overall, I'm very happy with this offseason; it's the most I've liked an offseason in a long time. Obviously it would've been nice to draft a QB as a developmental guy, but the only one I liked at all (that we had a shot at) was Russell Wilson, and the 3rd round seems way too early to draft that guy. Frankly I'm stunned that Pete Carroll pulled that move, especially after signing Matt Flynn. Even though I hated the Graham pick, I don't know that I would've preferred them to take Wilson in that spot.

Seriously. I think Chan's 10-22 record speaks for itself. Obviously the guy is right about every football decision all the time.

That's one reason, and the other is that it's called the *practice* squad for a reason. Those 8 guys practice with the team throughout the week. I don't think any team runs an in-season practice that has any use for an extra kicker or punter. I believe Gailey even made a very similar point when Levi Brown was cut (and not offered a spot on the PS), basically saying that they don't have any practice reps available for a 4th QB, so it made no sense to put him on there. Likewise, there's no practice reps available for a 2nd K or P. LOL According to the Buffalo News article linked in this thread, he's 6'4", 245 lbs. Doesn't mean he can run, but he should be able to give/take a hit or two. I'd guess he'll outweigh every returner in the NFL by at least 25-30 lbs. Speaking of that article, man is it well-written. After I finished it I basically penciled this guy in for the All-Pro team. Definitely someone to pay attention to in preseason. If he beats out Moorman, I'll be sad to see Brian go, but as others have mentioned, Moorman's performance has noticeably slipped the past few years. At 36, his best years are probably behind him, and the numbers back up what we were perceiving during games. This might be the end of an era. And if so, I'll wish him well. Really like Moorman a lot -- the guy was absolutely elite at his position for a few years, he was always a total class act, he's still one of the best FG holders I've ever seen, he has the best passer rating in team history, and he's crazy fast. He crushed the 40-yard dash and obstacle course competitions at the Pro Bowl for years. If I recall correctly, they actually changed the obstacle course rules one year specifically to prevent him from winning again. Awesome. Plus he had like a 90 speed rating in Madden. I always make him the kickoff specialist and watch him beat the coverage team downfield to make the tackle.

Great news!

A basketball board I belong to uses green font to denote sarcasm. It works fairly well, but it's not perfect.

Yeah, that was interesting. Anyone care to speculate on who the other 3 were?

Great montage. I stopped playing at the first picture of RJ getting sacked, but I'm assuming he runs up a 20,000 ft mountain at the end?

Week 1 9/9: Buffalo Bills at New York Jets L Week 2 9/16 Kansas City Chiefs at Buffalo Bills W Week 3 9/23: Buffalo Bills at Cleveland Browns W Week 4 9/30: New England Patriots at Buffalo Bills L Week 5 10/07: Buffalo Bills at San Francisco 49ers L Week 6 10/14: Buffalo Bills at Arizona Cardinals W Week 7 10/21: Tennessee Titans at Buffalo Bills W Week 8: BYE Week 9: 11/04 Buffalo Bills at Houston Texans W Week 10: 11/11 Buffalo Bills at New England Patriots L Week 11: 11/15 (Thurs) Miami Dolphins at Buffalo Bills L Week 12: 11/25 Buffalo Bills at Indianapolis Colts L Week 13: 12/02 Jacksonville Jaguars at Buffalo Bills W Week 14: 12/09 St. Louis Rams at Buffalo Bills W Week 15: 12/16 Seattle Seahawks at Buffalo Bills W Week 16: 12/23 Buffalo Bills at Miami Dolphins W Week 17: 12/30 New York Jets at Buffalo Bills W

Nix has referred to White as an inside linebacker this offseason, so I'm guessing it'll be Chris White to open camp, but I'll also guess that it'll be Carder or Bradham by the end of camp. I also think that if Sheppard gets hurt, Morrison will shift over to MLB on run downs. I don't expect either Sheppard or Morrison on the field on pass downs. Last year our 2 nickel LBs were Barnett and Bryan Scott, and I'd expect that to continue this year barring injury. I'm interested to see where the coaches put the two rookies once camp opens (minicamp might even tell us something). I don't think they made any definitive statements post-draft about where Bradham or Carder will line up. It's very possible that they want to see both in practice before they make one an MLB and the other an OLB.

Bummer. I liked Florence, and I loved the fact that he's all about intercepting Brady. True, he got burned a fair amount last year, and probably was making too much, but it's still sad to see him go. Best of luck to him at his next stop, unless he signs with the Pats.

F5

Disagree. I liked the TO move at the time and still in hindsight because 1.) T.O. had never been a problem in year 1 with any franchise. 2.) A lot of clowns like Skip Bayless blew T.O.'s look-at-me stuff way out of proportion because they are clowns. I didn't have a problem with TD celebrations then and I don't now. 3.) Even T.O.'s legit attitude problems weren't/aren't *that* bad. They basically stem from over-competitiveness (a good thing in the NFL) and overconfidence (sometimes a good thing in the NFL -- you have to be insanely confident to make it). Usually his sideline tantrums would boil down to T.O. being pissed that the offense stunk, and believing that if he got the ball more, they'd be able to move the ball and score some points. Which was probably true in most cases, but that doesn't mean he handled it well. 4.) On a 1-year deal for an incredibly boring team that stinks, there's no downside to signing T.O. The worst-case scenario is that you continue to stink, but in a less boring fashion, and part ways with him after the year. I don't think the 2012 Bills will stink OR be boring, and Vince Young provides little to no entertainment value. He's had some success in the NFL, but hasn't really gotten better since he was a rookie. That suggests that like T.O., he's very full of himself, but unlike T.O., his self-esteem doesn't correlate with reality. Now, if he "gets it," Vince Young could totally turn his career back around, because he certainly has the physical ability to be a good NFL starter. I doubt he will, but what do I know?

Because a lot of people think that if you miss out on "your guy" and wind up settling for a player you don't like as much, he's likely to be a bust, but if you aggressively trade up to ensure you get "your guy", that means he'll work out. These people also tend to be swayed more by anecdotal evidence than broad-spectrum data. Hence the anecdote about a time when our favorite team aggressively traded up to get "their guy", but he wound up a bust anyway.

Certainly his agent may have let teams know that he wants an opportunity to compete for a starting job, but if he can't get that opportunity, being the #2 guy somewhere else is definitely a step up, not a lateral move. As the #2 guy, you're 1 hit away from playing, and if you play well enough, you'll wind up starting one way or another. As the #3 guy, which he's been for most of his career, you're not even really active on game days (until last year, when he was probably outright inactive on most game days), and if the starter goes down, there's a chance the team signs another QB with starting experience who leapfrogs you on the depth chart. There's a reason Drew Stanton got upset and requested a trade after the Jets brought in Tebow. The #2 job is a lot better than the #3 job.

I don't think we'll have a very good idea until training camp. From what I understand, there's not as big a difference between the MLB and OLBs in Wannstedt's D than in most others. After all, we're currently slated to start 3 guys who have been MLBs most of their careers.