Cash

Not suprised a bit. It's interesting how people talked themselves into being sure he'd come out over the course of the season. Go back and read stuff from September/October. The prevailing opinion back than was one of uncertainty, but that Luck was more likely to stay in school than come out. Anyway, given the likelihood of a lockout, and the fact that he had 2 remaining years of eligibility (and 1 year left to get his degree), this shouldn't come as a big shock. Keep in mind that the 2011 draft is covered by the current CBA, but *only* the draft. No draft pick can sign a contract until a new CBA is in place. No one knows how a new CBA will affect rookie salaries, but it's unlikely that different rules will be set up for the 2011 and 2012 drafts. So there's little to no risk in terms of worrying about a rookie wage scale. There's 2 real risks: 1.) Injury, which is mitigated somewhat by Sam Bradford. It's not a stretch to think Luck's draft stock could also overcome a season-ending injury to his shoulder. 2.) With a new coach and maybe worse teammates, Luck has a down year and is exposed as not being the real deal. As a fan, I'm glad he's going back, because if (2) happens, then we avoided a bust. I can't think of any QB whose draft stock dropped when he stayed an extra year, who then went on to amount to anything. Brohm stinks, Jevan Snead stinks, and I'm guessing Locker will stink as well. From Luck's perspective, if he's truly a competitor, and he thinks there's a good chance that the NFL doesn't play a season in 2011, what other decision could he make? From his perspective, he's not passing up any money, because he can't get a signing bonus until there's a new CBA anyway. And as a competitor, wouldn't you want to get better? How is not playing for a year going to accomplish that? Personally, I think Luck will wind up a lot more like Peyton Manning or Sam Bradford than Brian Brohm or Jake Locker, but we'll see.

Classic coachspeak BS. You either "are what your record says" or you're not. If you are, then at 4-12, you're not close to success. You're not anywhere near success, and you have to admit that. I don't mind the basic coachspeak of "we're closer than our record says, because of injuries and close losses" (ignoring that every team has injuries and loses some close games), but I hate this move. Trying to appear like a straight shooter who faces reality and tells the hard truth, but in reality making the same excuses as everyone else. And in truth, we're exactly as far away as our record shows. Sure, we had some close losses against some legit teams, but good teams rarely get blown out. We got blown out FIVE times. And on the other end, all 4 of our wins were against losing teams, 3 of which finished with 5 or less wins. And the only one even close to a blowout was the Bungles game, where we still got down 17 in the first half. I was willing to forget about the horrific start to the year, since it looked like we were making real progress in the second half, but those last 2 drubbings were a reality check. This team stunk and nothing about it was encouraging. Let's hope for another '85 or '87 draft in 2011.

Who are these "great" OTs who are hitting the market? Even good OTs rarely are allowed to hit free agency, much less great ones. Is Khalif Barnes a free agent? He backed up Langston Walker at RT for the Raiders last year. I think we'll try to keep this Raiders RT pipeline flowing.

2009, 2008, 2006, 2004, 2001, 1999, etc. Reference Having said that, I don't like any QB at #3, at least not right now. I don't watch a ton of college football, so I reserve the right to change my opinion. (Obviously Luck wouldn't be there even if he does come out.)

I'm not a fan of this idea that we should keep our bad coach around until he screws up a talented team, and only fire him then. Unless we're gunning for another high pick in 2012.

Some people need to stop projecting their own desires onto the Bills front office. I don't like it any more than anyone else, but the OP has a very legitimate point. This year, the Bills had 7 DBs who got regular/significant playing time when healthy (8 if you count Bryan Scott, who mostly played as a nickel LB). Of those, 3 are unrestricted free agents, and another has fairly significant injury issues, especially given his age. Those 4 are arguably our top 2 safeties and top 2 corners (when healthy). Definitely 2 of the top 3 in both cases. If Florence goes and management has concerns about McGee's leg, they're looking at a starting QB tandem of McLovin & Corner, with either a re-signed Youboty or a gimpy McGee as the nickel back. That's the kind of situation that can justify an early pick on a CB. Safety would be a lot harder for the Bills to justify, but based on their history, I wouldn't put it past them. To reiterate, even if every free agent in our secondary leaves, I would personally prefer that the Bills still focus on either the O-line or defensive front 7, and take their chances with a crappy secondary. I'm sick of having the worst run defense in the NFL. I'd also be happy with a move up to get Luck. Drafting a DB in the first 2 rounds would greatly upset me. Having said that, if Prince Akamura is a Revis/Nnamdi/Champ Bailey/Woodson type lockdown CB, he would be a great pick at #3 for any team. Those guys are very hard to find and almost invaluable defensively. No idea if he is or not.

I fully agree. What the Bills (and some of us fans) don't seem to get, at least for the last decade or so, is that you don't get better by dumping your best players (even if they're mediocre) and drafting guys to replace them. You get better by dumping your worst players, and drafting guys to either play alongside your best guys or take their jobs. Poz takes a lot of blame, but what if he was our 3rd-best LB? That'd be pretty good. And what if Whitner was the 7th-best guy on our D instead of the 3rd-best? Not too shabby. Off the top of my head: Lawyer Milloy wasn't cutting it, so he got cut & we drafted Donte Whitner Willis McGahee wasn't cutting it, so he got traded & we drafted Marshawn Lynch Takeo Spikes & London Fletcher weren't cutting it*, so neither was offered a new contract, & we drafted Poz & signed Kawika Mitchell Now Poz isn't cutting it*, so we let him go and ? For Whitner, I'll give the Bills a pass, because while I would like to see him back, he's apparently asking top 5 money for a safety, and a small-market team like the Bills can't afford to play an average to above-average starter like he's a difference maker. (I also sort of give the Bills a pass on all the CBs, because I tend to think that if the finances were different, the Bills would've loved to keep Clements, Greer, and maybe Winfield. Criticizing the Bills for being cheap is a different topic. I'm criticizing the Bills for doing a poor job of team-building.) *THEY MAKE ALL THEIR TACKLES 5 YARDS DOWNFIELD! GAH! Every other team's linebackers make at least half their tackles in the backfield!! Right? Anyway, for a team who's stated goal is to build through the draft and essentially not use free agency to acquire talent, I hope they realize that for that to work, they have to 1.) have good drafts, and 2.) almost never lose a good player to free agency. They're looking 0 for 2 on that right now, but we'll see.

I can't imagine rooting for something called "Blaine Gabbert" and being happy with the results.

The first part is correct, but head to head is never factored in. (Presumably to prevent a team throwing a game for draft-pick tiebreaker.) If strength of schedule is tied, the 2nd tiebreaker is a coin flip.

I'd also like to point out that Spiller's return numbers are okay, but not great. His kickoff return average is 24.3 with 1 TD. Among players with at least 10 returns, his average ranks 20th. 15 players have returned at least 1 kickoff for a TD, and 21 total kickoffs have been returned for TDs. Spiller has 2 kickoff returns of 40+ yards (including the TD), which ties him for 17th in the league. Purely as a kickoff returner, Spiller is about average. On punts, he's done a little better, but with a very small sample size. His average is 14.6 with a long of 34. Among players with at least 9 returns (Spiller has only returned 9 punts so far), that average ranks 5th. Three of Spiller's 9 returns have been for 20+ yards, which is probably the second-highest percentage in the league*, and probably won't hold up. Still, his 3 20+ yard returns rank him tied for 9th in the league. No 40+ yard returns or TDs to date. *Bryan McCann, who took over punt returns for Dallas when Dez Bryant got hurt, has been sick. He's only returned 4 punts, but 1 was a 97 yard TD and two others went over 20 yards. He's currently averaging 34.5 yards a return. I don't expect either that average or his 75% rate of 20+ yard returns to hold up. NFL.com stats

Too bad he knocked out Favre. T-Jack is faster than Moats and can escape him. Favre would be a sitting duck on some of these rushes.

This. Question Maybin's talent, but not his effort. Dude gives it his all, he's just not good enough.

A man walks into a talent agency and says, "boy, do I have an act for you. It's called the Aristocrats." Don't lead with the punchline. But Brett Favre jokes are always welcome!

That was one of the keys to the "Greatest Show on Turf" '99-'01 Rams. Bruce, Holt, Hakim, Proehl, et al. would usually go down in a slide instead of taking a big hit over the middle. As long as the WR isn't giving up any potentially big RAC, I'm all for it. You can't help the team from the trainer's table.

This. I might need to get me a Steve Johnson jersey.

The line looks better because of the QB. The C calls out the protections, but the QB determines them. When the QB recognizes a blitz and quickly unloads the ball, even for an incompletion, the o-line looks a lot better. When the QB has a pocket presence, and is able to step up to avoid the rush, instead of backing up then going sideways into the rush, it makes the line look a lot better. Put Trent Edwards back behind this line, and they will appear to magically regress to their earlier "horrible" play. They didn't look any better at pass blocking in the first 2 weeks then they did last year.

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

Good for him. Could he really be that much worse than Charlie Whitehurst was last week?

Exactly. Plus, even though the front changed, that doesn't necessarily have to affect the coverages you play in the secondary (Rex Ryan said as much when asked about our switch to the 3-4 before we played the Jets). And yet we went from arguably the best pass defense in the league last year -- even on a per-play basis -- to a truly awful pass defense. On a per-play basis, we might have the worst pass D in the league this year. The raw numbers would look worse, except that we have by far the worst run D in the league, so teams don't really need to pass against us. I'm sorry, but a lot of this has to come down on George Edwards. The guy was not qualified for this job when he was hired, and proceeded to head a defense that's worse than last year's in every way, with mostly the same personnel. I know Schobel retired, and that hurt the pass rush, but enough is enough. Why does Miami's inside linebackers coach get a free pass just because it's a transition year? I could understand giving him a pass if he was an experienced NFL D-coordinator with a proven history of success. At that point, we say that the players don't fit the scheme, and let's try to get him some players that do fit the scheme. But that's not the case. If there's even 1 legitimately qualified NFL D-coordinator available this offseason, Edwards needs to be canned.

Not bad.

Moats is clearly ahead of Maybin on the depth chart, and Coleman may be as well. (Maybin & Coleman were both inactive last week, but Coleman was active the week before.) I don't see how claiming another OLB on waivers would move Maybin up the depth chart. As for Kelsay, we'll see. The people who defended his extension by saying, "They can just cut him at any time with very little penalty," might think that this means that Kelsay gets benched with plans to cut him if Merriman works out. I am not one of those people. I think that you don't sign a guy to an extension unless (as Buddy Nix said) you think he's one of your core players. And if you think he's one of your core players, then you plan on keeping him in the starting lineup for the foreseeable future. I maintain a small sliver of hope, but if the Merriman acquisition decreases Kelsay's playing time, I'll be very surprised -- and very pleased.

Unless you're getting crazy bad value, you've gotta go with the best OT on the board at that point. If you're lucky, it's a guy with a 1st-round grade. If there was a huge run on OTs in the first round, and there's just no way you can justify the top guy left on your board, then you go with whatever value fills a need. Which could mean TE, DT (if you're sticking with a 4-3), NT, DE, OLB, or ILB. One of those positions will definitely have a legit player.

You don't get better by cutting your best LB and bringing in someone to replace him. You get better by cutting your worst LB, and bring in the same replacement. Poz is not the problem; he's just not good enough to be the solution by himself. If we'd re-signed Fletcher and drafted Poz as well, we would have wound up with a pretty solid LB corps. Instead, Poz was drafted as Fletcher's replacement, and Keith Ellison kept racking up starts. And for what it's worth, Fletcher is more durable than Poz, but that's about it. Both are solid but unspectacular NFL starters. Neither has ever made an All-Pro team or been voted a Pro Bowl starter, and I doubt either ever will.

I made it a point to focus on Kelsay a fair amount yesterday. Every time I focused on him for a run play, Kelsay was easily pushed around to wherever the D wanted him. On inside runs and off tackle runs, Kelsay was sent way outside. On outside runs, Kelsay was jammed inside, easily letting the RB turn the corner. I think the whole "he's solid against the run" thing was a myth that originated because it's hard to tell how 1 guy is against the run unless you specifically watch that guy on run plays. Everyone knows he's not a great pass rusher, because we would notice if he was getting to the QB with any regularity. But he could theoretically do a good job against the run and be pretty invisible. As it turns out, he's probably our worst run defender (he was yesterday, anyway), whether at DE or OLB. I like the fact that Moats is getting a good amount of playing time now. But Kelsay continuing to play every down (or at all, actually) is just nuts. If the coaching staff truly feels that Maybin is useless and won't get better, then play Antonio Coleman instead. But at least one of those guys needs to be playing Moats' current role. Moats should be playing Kelsay's current role.

Absolutely keep him. His presence does help open up things for other guys underneath, because teams do have to respect Evans as a deep threat. Plus he's a good player. Plus he doesn't make that much money. Plus, even young/rebuilding teams need to have SOME veteran presence. Lee Evans is one of those guys.