Cash

Has to be Freddie. It took our passing game a while to get going, but we were still able to move the ball thanks to his excellent running. The guy is so shifty and so great at finding holes, it's amazing. The line blocks the same for him and Spiller, but the difference is night and day when it comes to their vision and timing.

Gailey was fired by Herm Edwards in preseason the year before Haley was hired.

Yeah, the Bills have multiple nickel packages, and the one they seem to use the most plays a lot more like a classic dime, with four down linemen, then Barnett and Scott as the linebackers. Chris Brown had a good breakdown of the various personnel packages recently, but I can't find it on my phone right now.

This. The Bills have played well in stretches of games, but it's hard to recall any game, even a win, where they played consistently well throughout and put the other team away. Usually they either start making mistakes or start playing not to lose, and the game becomes way more nerve-wracking than it ought to be. It was awesome to watch a Bills game without any anxiety in the fourth quarter.

That's nice, but how's his relationship with God?

In my case, nothing! This week is gonna be one long party! Can't wait to see my Steelers fan buddy at work. Now if the phins can somehow pull off the upset, my Tuesday will be amazing!

Please Fitzy don't hurt 'em!

Exactly. It bothers me a bit when homer fans slobber all over statements like Chan's ("See? He's a great coach!") but then don't hold anyone accountable when the team continues to stink. Remember "Show me the baby?" He hasn't shown us the baby. He hasn't even shown us a pregnant woman. There's no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt until he can produce a baby of some sort. Having said that, I would always prefer the standard coach's irrational boasting/confidence over Dick Jauron's occasional bleak defeatism. (Although Jauron certainly did make his share of irrationally confident statements from time to time.)

For a team that's very close to the salary cap, yes, management could publicly justify jettisoning a player because his salary didn't match his on-field production. But for a 4-12 team with $26 million in cap space - bottom 5 in payroll - you can't bring up salary savings as a reason to dump a good player. That's tantamount to saying that you're not trying to win. You have to promote the idea that either the player is not good, or that he can't fit your system. The Bills have gone partially with option 2, but also with some bizarre stuff about making room for young receivers, which apparently means only Donald Jones? Because Roosevelt was cut, Parrish isn't young, and Nelson hasn't seen any change in PT or role (still only playing slot in multi-WR sets) since the trade.

I remember Jerry Rice quite well. It's insulting to compare the best WR of all time to the likes of Donald Jones, David Nelson, Roscoe Parrish, and Marcus Easley. He played mostly D-line at his first school, but played only OG at Bethel.

Meh, not sure how big a difference it makes. The line got really banged up last year, but how much did it really hurt us? What's the difference between Cordaro Howard, Mansfield Wrotto, and Cornell Green? After all 3 of those guys got hurt last year, we turned to Erik Pears, who is now an entrenched starter. Same with Urbik at RG and Wood at C - those players only started there due to injury last year, and are now unquestioned starters at those spots. I'm sure if Young gets into a game anytime soon, there'll be a dropoff from whomever he replaces. At least until Young learns the playbook. But fundamentally, I don't see our crappy backups as being that much worse than our crappy starters. We'll see, I guess.

Nope, definitely 53: http://www.buffalobills.com/team/roster.html

So who gets cut to make room for Young?

This. I would swap LT & TE in priority.

That's a good point. I think that back in the 50s and 60s, teams would have to either wait for the newspaper the next day, or make a series of local calls because the owners were too cheap to pay long distance. So even if the Raiders had a spy in Buffalo, it would take several dozen phone calls and a couple hours for the cuts to be relayed back to Oakland. No advantage there. Especially since the message probably decayed over the course of all those telephone calls. It wouldn't surprise me if Al Davis once put in a waiver claim on Jack Kemp, when in fact it was Johnny Camper who got cut.

Any reports on Easley?

I'm sick of hearing about what a "threat" CJ is. No one cares about empty threats. Come back when he actually does take a couple to the house. Until then, could we please have a moratorium on "he's a threat to score every time he touches the ball"? That statement does not sync up with actual NFL results. No beef with you personally or your other points. Just really really sick of that one nonsense argument.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/players/5036/career;_ylt=AgV_EFdlu5eelgiLEpomGVj.uLYF High AZ yardage = 511 (56 yards/game). High AZ YPC = 3.7. High AZ TDs = 5. Big-time bust until he got to Chicago. Yeah, well, everyone in the top 300 is basically a high pick. I have to say, I love this exercise, but don't really like your criteria. First of all, a 7th round pick can never be a bust under any circumstances. If he ever plays in a regular-season game, that's a win. Second, the list becomes pointless when you include all draft picks and UDFAs. So only 0.5% became stars with 2nd/3rd teams? Who cares? What percentage of all draft picks and UDFAs become stars for their original teams? And there are plenty of good players who aren't stars. So basing the list around only stars is kind of silly, if you ask me. According to your argument, signing Scott Chandler (or Urbik, or Pears, or whoever) was a waste, because there's a very remote chance of him being a star. But what's the opportunity cost? If the Bills (or any team) followed your advice, who would they sign instead of another team's cast-offs? No team can fill out a roster (much less a training camp roster) without a bunch of minimum-salary-type guys. So if none of those guys have been cut by another team, who will they be instead? More UDFAs, most likely. And are those guys MORE likely to become stars than the Scott Chandlers of the world? If the answer is yes, then your strategy is great. Otherwise, it's not very helpful. The nature of late-round picks and UDFAs is that they weren't drafted high for a reason, the team has no investment in them, and they won't be given the kind of leeway that high picks get. So the Wes Welkers and James Harrisons of the world aren't very informative, in my opinion. Most of these guys won't pan out in the first place, or if they do, it'll frequently take a few years for them to develop. Sometimes they can stick around with one team until they develop (a la Jason Peters or Pat Williams), but sometimes they get cut in the interim. Look at Danny Woodhead last year. The Jets knew he could play, but he was 4th on the depth chart because there were higher-profile (and better) guys in front of him. So he was the odd man out when the Jets needed a roster spot. If Woodhead had been a 2nd-round pick, there's no way he's behind Joe McKnight on the depth chart, and no way he gets cut mid-season. I do think it's very valuable when you look at actual busts, i.e., high-round picks that did nothing for the team that drafted them. Because these are the guys who were (usually) given every opportunity to succeed, allowed to make mistakes without being cut, given extensive coaching resources to help them succeed, etc. And what this thread shows is that very few of those guys ever turn it around with another team. I think the lesson here is that if you're hoping to find another Thomas Jones or Marc Columbo, you'd better have a good idea of *why* he didn't do anything with team #1. In the case of Buster Davis, Buddy Nix thinks that the problem was injuries. I'm not sure if Rex Ryan has a justification for signing Maybin beyond "he went to high school with my kids" or "the Bills are incompetent," both of which are fairly weak. For me as a fan, this thread has shown me that when the Bills sign another team's bust, I should keep my expectations very low.

Brees was a Pro Bowler in SD before moving on to NO, although he did look like a bust his first couple years. Gallery has been with the Raiders his whole career. Simeon Rice might be a decent one, but I think he was pretty good as a rookie for the Cardinals. Maybe 10 sacks? I remember my relatives in Phoenix being really psyched when they had Rice and Andre Wadsworth at the ends. (Wadsworth was "the best DE prospect since Bruce Smith" who went #3 overall, had something like 5 sacks in his first 3 games, then tore up his knee and never really played again.) It's interesting that two of the definite players who make this list - Thomas Jones & Garrison Hearst - were top 10 picks by the Cardinals, and Rice might be a third. Says something about Cardinals management, I think. I agree with your definition of a bust. It seems like most of the candidates in this thread were either low picks/UDFAs that one team gave up on, or high picks that played well, faded, then rejuvenated themselves with another team. I'm surprised at how few true busts have ever actually panned out for another team. Definitely an argument against signing a guy like Gholston or Maybin. On the other hand, RB seems to be the most likely position to find a gem in a former bust (Benson/Jones/Hearst). Definitely an argument for giving CJ Spiller a long leash.

Great question. Donte wasn't offered a contract, but I would say that his 5 years of (disappointing) production count as distinguishing himself. Whitner wasn't really a bust - he was probably our second-best defender over the course of his career. And more importantly for this discussion, SF isn't taking a flyer on him as a reclamation project, they're paying him decent starter money to be a significant part of their defense. So I definitely would not count Whitner, even if he blows it up with SF.

Yeah, that would make me pretty comfortable, too. I still don't get the Poz hate. He's a solid but unspectacular starter. And loyal enough that Jax had to back up the truck to get him to leave town. Good for him. I know I wouldn't turn down that kind of money.

New Orleans traded two #1s, two #3s, and a few garbage picks, got 2 good years out of 3 Ricky was on the team (maybe 1.5 considering injury), and ultimately got two #1s from Miami in return. I'm sorry, but that worked out just fine for New Orleans. I think it's much more appropriate to exclude trades. A team could think that the "bust" is capable of turning it around, but also feel like they'd rather take whatever compensation is being offered than commit more time to developing the "bust." In any case, if you get something in return for him, it's not such a bust. Leaving as a free agent should count, though. If John McCargo suddenly became an All-Pro, would it matter that the Bills never cut him? As long as the player in question never distinguished himself during his rookie contract and wasn't offered a new contract, that's basically the same as cutting him.

I refuse to believe that neither Bryant McKinnie nor Jared Gaither is better than Cordaro Howard.

I arrived at that conclusion by watching Jones play. He's welcome to prove me wrong, but I doubt he will. And physically, they're not particularly close. If you dig up that WR picture from Camp Fitz during the lockout, you can see how much bigger Easley is.

I hope so... Jones is a nice feel-good story, but let's get real, he's not a starting WR in the NFL, and probably never will be. Easley probably won't be ready for prime time this year, but at least he has the size, strength, and speed to be a legit starter down the road. I hope he puts it together.