Cash

I think Chris Brown said that it's the same labrum that sidelined him last year.

But why does it have to be all or nothing? Okay, so d-line and linebackers come before o-line. No problem. But what's stopping them from signing Morrison AND McKinnie (or Gaither, or Waters, or Starks, or whoever)? Why was Plan A to hope Bell becomes a stud and never gets hurt, and Plan B was to panic and move Levitre over? I just don't get it.

No surprise, no big loss. Gotta figure Morrison will be at least a wash if not an upgrade. I just wonder why the Bills sometimes behave like a team that's trying to win (LB corps), and sometimes don't (OL, Evans trade)? If Demetrius Bell or Erik Pears went on IR a couple weeks ago, do you think the Bills would have signed Bryant McKinnie or Jared Gaither? If it happened today, would they sign Flozell Adams or another Morrison-esque veteran? I strongly doubt it. Both the head coach and the GM have publicly expressed concerns with the O-line, but the response has been only to shuffle around the existing players. That's puzzling. If the Bills treated the LB position the way they do the O-line, the response to Torbor's injury would've been the signing of an undrafted free agent or other young, inexperienced, unpromising player, and increased reps for the guys already on the team. Maybe moving Danny Batten back inside.

Count me in. I like how PO'd she looks in that photo, too.

Welcome back! Did you get everything sorted out with those day traders? To answer your question, no. That play didn't remind me of Darryl Talley at all. Much too handsome.

Uh, no. Extra points are made about 99% of the time. 37 yard field goals are made maybe about 80% of the time. Big, big difference.

Wow, the bolded part is just incredibly wrong. So far from correct. Nothing personal, but that is just a false statement. Remember that Plan A for replacing Peters was to move Langston Walker to LT. So the Bills didn't even think "go with Bell" was one of their options. Starting Bell was a fallback once it became clear Walker wasn't working out at LT in the preseason, and there was no one else on the roster to replace him. But wait! Let's rewind a bit. Peters was traded prior to the 2009 draft. We already held the #11 pick, and traded him for the #28 pick. We used those picks on Aaron Maybin and Eric Wood, respectively. However, the Bills could have easily chosen to use either pick on a LT prospect to try to replace Peters. Michael Oher would've been a great pick at #11, and that's right about where he was rated pre-draft. Eben Britton, Sebastian Vollmer, or Will Beatty would've been reasonable picks at #28, and the latter two were also available when the Bills drafted Jairus Byrd at #42, and also when the Bills traded up to pick Andy Levitre at #51. So yes, there were certainly other choices besides just "sign Peters" or "go with Bell." The Bills convinced themselves Langston Walker would work out at LT, so they passed up other options, and when the Walker move failed, that's when they had no choice but to go with Bell. But that problem was the Bills' own doing. No sympathy for a team that dug themselves into their own hole.

Not sure how that adds up to savings for the Bills. Because every time you put a guy on IR, you sign a new guy to replace him. The Bills haven't carried <53 players during the season at all, so putting guys on IR would cost money UNLESS you put high-salaried guys on IR and sign minimum-salary guys to replace them. Which hasn't been the case, as far as I recall.

So two off seasons rebuilding only the three-man defensive line, check. How many additional off seasons will it take to rebuild the five-man offensive line? Two more, or maybe three because there's more positions to address? So let's tentatively schedule the playoff tailgate for 2014, and hope a QB falls into our lap at some point as well.

The Bills are like $30 million under the cap and very low on talent. One of the few talented players just got traded in what might be a cost-saving measure. It's hard to blame anyone for voting with their wallet. If Ralph won't spend money on this team, why should we?

Wow, our coaching staff appears to have defused a potentially problematic situation through openness and communication. I'm surprised and pleased. Benching Jackson was a mistake, but how you handle your mistakes is usually a lot more important than the mistakes themselves. It's nice to see some good news for once.

Sorry, I forgot that going 4-12 puts you beyond reproach. Turns out the coaching staff must be really good at their jobs.

This. +1 to everything in this post. I was hoping "Trent Edwards is our QB. Oops, wait, turns out he sucks, now he's cut," was going to be the last of the head-shaking mismanagement from this team. Sadly that was not the case. I also put moving Moats back to ILB in this category. The problem is that Gailey (and just about every coach) constantly talks about competition - how important it is and how great it is. "Competition makes everyone better." "We just got better at that spot because we brought in two guys to compete." Etc., etc. Levitre's demotion from entrenched starter to "guy rotating with the 1's, competing for a starting job" was spun by both Gailey and fans as healthy competition that'll be great for the team. But there was NO ATTEMPT made, either this offseason or last, to bring in any competition for Demetrius Bell. One of the shakiest starters on the team, no depth behind him, at probably the 2nd-most important position, and the Bills decided they were all set. That's insane! And now the coaches look like boobs because Plan B is to take the guy who just got demoted at LG (and yes, going from entrenched starter to competing for a starting job is a demotion. Levitre & Rinehart have been rotating with the starters since that fateful day) and stick him in as a starting LT. It would make a lot more sense if you hadn't just undermined him by playing him with the backups. Anyway, I'm getting a little off track. My point is that it's fine for them to think (although I'd use the word "hope") that Bell would develop, but it's not fine to assume that that's the only possibility, and there's no need for depth or competition to push Bell's development. They didn't need to sign a big-ticket free agent (wouldn't have hurt, though), but they needed to do something. A cheap veteran, a decent draft pick, SOMETHING.

Yep. Waiver-wire pickups. I'll give you Merriman, though, because they "re"-signed him to a contract. For the record, Barnett was not offered a contract by his previous team. Legit free-agent signing, though. All waiver-wire pickups or cut by their previous teams. On second thought, I'm not sure about Martin. But I'd be shocked if the Dolphins had offered him a contract when we signed him. Scott was acquired under Jauron. Did he sign a recent extension that I missed? Both UFAs, neither offered a contract by their previous teams, although the Jets did theoretically want Smith back. I think we all get that "building through the draft" doesn't mean you literally never acquire a player any other way. I mean, the numbers don't work. You usually get 7 or 8 draft picks a year, and the roster is 53. So yes, some players must be acquired through free agency. But minimum-salary guys and waiver pickups (except Merriman) don't really count. They're like the undrafted free agents of free agency. Yes, occasionally you'll find a Jason Peters, but most of them are just warm bodies. Here's my point: Of the players you listed, how many of them are good? How many are starting because they are average or better NFL starters, and how many are starting by default? I count 5 starters, including Brad Smith. Maybe I should give you Andra' Davis as well, so that's 6. But that's it. No one else can be considered a "significant" free agent acquisition. John McCargo wasn't a significant free agent acquisition for the Bucs, and Mansfield Wrotto isn't a significant free agent acquisition for the Bills. I don't care if Urbik or Rinehart wind up as starters, unless they wind up as good starters. Someone has to start at every postiion, whether you have anyone good at that position or not.

That's because he was benched. (In only one game so far.) Had Gailey done the more common preseason move of starting Jackson, but taking him out after a few plays so that Spiller could get a lot of time with the 1s, I doubt Jackson would've been upset. But that's not what the Bills did. They benched Jackson in favor of Spiller, and that's specifically why Fred Jackson is upset. And despite the vast gulf between their current abilities as NFL RBs, Gailey praised Spiller's performance in the Denver game, and currently says that they're both #1 backs, and that Jackson is "slightly ahead." We're reading between the lines a bit, and thinking that it looks like either Gailey or someone above him wants Spiller to start, and is probably going to make that happen. Both Jackson and Levitre expressed confusion over a lack of clear communication from the coaching staff. Not a good sign. Plus, haven't all the Gailey boosters been talking up what a great culture he's instilling in the team, and how that leads to winning, etc.? I don't know about that. What kind of message does it send when Fred Jackson works hard and performs well, only to be benched for a #1 pick who continues to underperform? Now, if it winds up only being 1 preseason game that he gets benched for, Gailey can do some damage control, and probably everything will be fine. But if Spiller starts the regular season opener, what message does that send to the rest of the team?

Faster does not equal more talented. Fred is the more talented back.

GMs usually get at least 2 coaches before they're fired. So after Gailey is fired, Nix's next hire would have to fail for Nix to get fired. That should be several more years, especially if Ralph takes the same path he did with Jauron (firing him a year too late). I'd say at minimum, Nix has 4 more years on the job, assuming he's able to fill it. I'm no actuary, but my rough guess is that the percentages would say that Nix is the last GM Ralph will employ. Just curious, which offseason are you not counting, this one or last one?

Great post Trooth! I needed some levity after last night.

+1

1.) I'm pretty sure that every blocking scheme in the NFL is designed to have both DEs be touched at some point on a 4-man rush. So regardless of the schemes, there were at least a few breakdowns tonight. 2.) No one's line got to gel in the offseason. They haven't all looked bad. Bell looked the worst tonight, and he's been a starter the last 2 years. Now, they won't always play that bad, and not every RE/ROLB is as good as Dumervil, but it's not like our line were world-beaters last year. If Bell and the other young guys are going to get better, it better start showing up in games at some point. 3.) "I can see that train coming at me, and I'm standing on the tracks, but it's a long ways off. I'll just wait until it gets here before I worry." Luckily, this is just football, not life or death. It's looking like another brutal year so far, though. I'm just saying maybe don't throw down any bets on the over for the Bills this year.

He's still young. Lot of raw physical talent there. Probably won't put it together this year, but it's not crazy to think he might be decent as soon as 2012. People used to think Eric Moulds was a bust and Stevie Johnson should be cut. WR is not like RB. It's very rare that a rookie makes an impact. Some WRs bust out in their 2nd year, but the most common is the 3rd-year breakout. Easley is functionally still a rookie right now, since he basically missed all of last season. And he looks like a rookie. But let's not get the torches out just yet, please. He's the only WR on the roster with the physical tools to even remotely replace Lee Evans, and his teammates spoke very highly of him at Camp Fitz in the offseason. I don't care how bad he looks right now, I'd prefer to keep a guy with his youth/upside over any amount of hardworking schlubs like Huggins or Hubbard or Roosevelt.

I wish I had more hands. So I could give the Bills four thumbs down!

No one cares about the W-L record in pre-season. But it does matter how the starters perform. They looked abjectly horrible tonight. Very reminiscent of last year, when the pre season was a great predictor of the regular season. There's no reason to think that these same players are going to start winning their individual battles once the regular season starts.

Our O looks a lot better since Denver put the third string in. Maybe that's Gailey's plan - play against third stringers?

Nice back shoulder throw by Thiggy for the TD. I like him as a backup QB.