Cash

Well then I apologize. Without the benefit of tone or facial expression, "what's to like?" came across as snarky. Sorry.

I voted "other" = RG3.

6'6", 264, sub-4.5 40, only 3 years of organized football experience. Lot of upside for a guy on a minimum contract with little to no guaranteed money. Would you prefer leaving the roster spot open to save Ralph a few grand? Or is there some other street free agent currently available that you'd have preferred? No, Onobun will probably not turn into an impact player for the Bills, and easily may never even get into a game. But I'm sure some a-hole on a Chargers board dumped all over the team when they signed Antonio Gates as an undrafted free agent. And I know there were plenty of a-holes on this board who dumped all over the Scott Chandler pickup last year. Sure things are not available on the waiver wire, chief. Save your whining for the offseason, when our GM is asleep at the start of free agency.

SF also lost their excellent NT Aubrayo Franklin to free agency this past year. He was probably their 2nd-best defensive player last year. I think there is already some real talent on the Bills D when healthy: Williams, Dareus, Barnett, Wilson, and Byrd are all very good, and Edwards, Sheppard, maybe Moats, Kelsay when he plays DE, Davis, Morrison, maybe Carrington, and most of our corners are serviceable (remember how good our pass D was the year that Schobel, Kelsay, & Denney combined for 25.5 sacks?). You don't need beasts at every position. We are definitely at least 1 pass-rusher short, and that should be something we focus on, but otherwise, I think the coaching is the biggest problem. George Edwards is probably a nice man, but he seems in way over his head as an NFL D-coordinator. The Cam Newton comment is spot-on; they'd probably be in the playoffs with even a mediocre defense. But the Bradford comment is way off-base. The OP's basic argument is that we should be trying to build an elite offense moreso than trying to build an elite defense. Nothing about "bring in a great QB, that's all we need to win". And even if you accept that Bradford is a great QB (not yet, but he very well might be in a few years), the fact remains that the Rams' biggest problem is lack of offense. They've scored 140 points in 12 games this year. That's under 12 a game! They scored 31 in an outlier win against the Saints, and otherwise their best output was 20 against Arizona's terrible defense. Their other win besides the Saints was 13-12 over the Browns. Their D is also bad, being 25th in points allowed, but only a field goal per game away from the Jets and Packers (which are the two middle teams in points allowed). For the Rams' scoring to match Oakland/Philly (the two middle teams in points scored), they'd have to score about 11 more points per game. The Rams' D is WAY ahead of its O, although it's still pretty bad.

Way over my head, but I'm not ashamed. Here's a workout video of our new stud TE: I like the signing.

Lack of size is NOT the Bills problem on D anymore. If anything, they need to get smaller, especially at Spencer Johnson's position. There's a reason most teams don't line up a 300+ lb. DE/DT hybrid at OLB. The way I see it, the Bills' defensive problems stem from: 1.) Scheme - playing D-linemen at LB is killing our run D. And when was the last time we ran a blitz or stunt that got a free rusher? I can't remember one. 2.) Lack of talent at OLB 3.) Kyle Williams' injury

Ditto. I always liked Bryson, from the day we drafted him. Fastest player on the team!

MICHAEL IRVIN STABBED A TEAMMATE IN THE NECK

Agreed. Although I thought it was a bit puzzling that the Bills instantly IR'd Fred Jackson when they were still very much in playoff contention. The timeline on his injury would've given him a shot to come back for a hypothetical playoff run. Even the quotes from Gailey at time sort of acknowledged this by saying "regular season" instead of just "season." On the other hand, we kept Lindell on the active roster for what, 3-4 weeks? before IR-ing him, and probably about the same for Kyle Williams.

Again, I think you're going too far here. This logic is kind of BS. If your defense is bad enough, it'll give up a TD on every possession. Which is better, your ridiculous hypothetical of a 0-0 tie every game or my ridiculous hypothetical of a 56-56 OT game where the coin flip truly decides the winner? Both. Your Q&A is absolutely correct, and something that is sometimes underplayed. The ONLY way to win is to finish the game with more points than your opponent. That means you want to score points for yourself, and prevent your opponent from scoring points. A top 5 offense combined with a bottom 5 defense will probably net you about a 9-7 or 8-8 record. Suggesting that our legitimately bad defense should be ignored is just silly. I think you make a good point if you stay away from the hyperbole. I'm also not super fond of the old-school/contrarian fans who insist that winning games 13-7 is 1.) the perfect recipe for sustained success, and 2.) the pinnacle of entertaining football. There's probably a lot of overlap between these fans and the "bigger is always better" crowd, who constantly demand increased size as a panacea for the O-line and defensive front 7, even though our biggest problem on run D is playing a DT/DE hybrid at OLB. (Seriously, re-watch the Jets game. Almost every good run of the Jets happened because Spencer Johnson is way too slow to play LB, both physically and instinctively. A healthy Kelsay isn't as bad, but still woefully out of position. Replace that guy with a real NFL OLB and you'll see leaps and bounds in the run D. But I digress.)

#1, I'm totally sold on RG3. Count me in. Second, I love the bizarro world that is college football. In real life, RG3 is a grad student. In college football, he's a junior. http://packersnews.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20111207/PKR01/111207162 http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/139573-graham-harrell/

Your general point (bolded)is not wrong, but it seems to me like you're taking it to too much of an extreme. Your Colts example is a really good one -- they've never had what I'd call a classically good defense with Manning. But what they do have is Freeney and Mathis, which translates into a very nice pass rush. Their whole D is built to protect leads, and it does a pretty good job of that. Of course, when Manning goes down and you never get a lead, the D looks really really bad. Anyway, my point is that you need *something* on defense to complement your awesome offense if you want to go anywhere. The Packers D isn't great, but with Raji, Mathews, and Woodson, they've got playmakers who frequently make big game-changing plays (sacks/fumbles, big INTs, etc.). I agree that an elite offense is a better goal to build towards than an elite defense, but my point is that an elite offense with NO defense will still be an also-ran. An elite offense with an average defense needs a little luck in the form of turnovers, but can definitely win it all, and should contend year after year.

Easterbrook constantly cherry-picks to "prove" his points, and frequently bashes teams in hindsight for weak reasons, and he does so in the most haughty, pompous way possible. Good example: he frequently calls out teams for having too much turnover in the front office/coaching staff, and points to Indy's stable FO/coaching situation as a reason why they're always so good. So what, if the Bills had never fired Gregg Williams, they'd be a perennial Super Bowl contender by now? No, dum-dum, winning teams have continuity *because* they're winning, not the other way around. No one gets fired after winning the Super Bowl. The worst is, Easterbrook is smart enough to know better, and not use such garbage arguments, but he keeps doing it anyway. I used to be a fan of his, but once I caught on to his game, he got tiresome really fast.

+1. Every team has injuries, they're a part of the game. Once in a blue moon you'll get lucky and stay pretty healthy in a given year, but those injuries will be back next year. Ask the 2010 Packers about injuries (including our new friend Nick Barnett). Besides, if anyone can B word about injuries this year, it's not us. It's Chicago, then Indy, then Houston, then Oakland, then KC.

I've never seen any iron sharpeners. Usually it's a stone of some sort.

So who are all these winners that are getting fired from their HC or DC jobs? Del Rio has had success as a DC in the NFL, and ran the D pretty well as HC for Jacksonville. I'd take anyone with a history of successfully running an NFL defense at this point. Please no more "teachers," which is just code for inexperienced and cheap. I'd prefer the next DC to have several years of running a top 10 NFL defense under his belt.

Warren Sapp is a poor comparison - all his success was as an "under" 3-technique DT in a Tampa 2 scheme. Fundamentally different position from what Dareus plays: http://subscribers.footballguys.com/2009/09bramel_idpguide.php Scroll to "How the "Under" Front Made Warren Sapp a Star" - also remember how big a flop he was in Oakland, who played a 3-4. Sapp was very very good, but interior D-lineman will only put up those kind of sack or tackle for loss numbers in a scheme that makes them hard to double-team. Note that Ndamakong Suh also plays in a similar role, and Nick Fairley did in college as well.

Absolutely. After 11 years of no playoffs, no losing season can be considered a success. "Yay, we went 7-9!" That's pathetic. Jauron was (rightly) run out of town for going 7-9 year after year, now we're supposed to celebrate it? Give me a break. That's like hoping you "win the lottery" by hitting 2 numbers and getting a $2 payout. Root for success, not mediocrity!

What kind of D combines a four man rush with no deep safeties? That's crazy.

No. Also, "tiebreakers", by definition, are used to break ties. So we definitely are tied. If the tiebreaker was applied, that would break the tie, but until that happens, it's a tie.

In everyone's defense, we signed a clean-shaven Ryan Fitzpatrick in 2009. Pretty underwhelming. If he'd had such a masculine and sexy beard back then, the reaction would've been much more positive.

Yeah, he was a force. Was definitely noted at the bar yesterday. Corey Mac is on the Pro Bowl ballot for special teams player, so vote vote vote!

I'ma guess Sergio Kindle.

Buh? Didn't watch much of the G-men last year, huh? http://www.nfl.com/player/jasonpierre-paul/496843/profile Pierre-Paul played all 16 games and had 4.5 sacks. Very promising rookie season. Of course, if this was baseball, maybe he'd still count as a rookie this year, since he didn't play enough downs last year.

Probably more than usual this year, but I wouldn't say a lot. The majority of the time we rushed 4, and got a very good push up the middle. Most of the sacks resulted from Beck panicking once the line was pushed back in his face, then one of the ends or DTs would bring him down as he tried to scramble. Definitely some pressure was from the blitz, though. Jairus Byrd had a nice sack on what looked like a 7-man blitz - Byrd was untouched and took down Beck with a Flying Mare. Just going from memory, I'd say maybe 3-4 of the 9 sacks were on blitzes?