Cash

Great post. That's my main problem, too. I have no fundamental problem with taking your lumps and rebuilding, and Nix was fairly clear that this was going to be a rebuilding year. But what rebuilding have we done? What are we building around? From the end of last season to right now, there's been only 1 move of significance on the O-line (Cornell Green), and zero change at QB. No TEs or WRs of any significance were acquired. There were a few pieces acquired on the defensive front 7 (Troup, Davis & Dwan Edwards [EDIT: forgot about Torbor & Ayodele]), but they're pieces of the puzzle, not guys you can build around. Maybe Troup will be, but he hasn't shown it yet. Detroit was really bad last season, but their fans didn't mind so much, because they felt like they had 2 core pieces they could build around in Stafford & Megatron. The Rams are going to be terrible this year, but with Bradford under center, at least they & their fans feel like they've got something to build around. How about this Bills team? Who's our franchise player on either side of the ball? CJ Spiller is a change of pace back in a 3-way timeshare, so it's not him. What's our identity on defense? How about on offense? There's just nothing there. Nix was hired on New Year's Eve last year. In the ensuing 10 months (almost), almost nothing has been done to shore up the crumbling foundation of this team. That doesn't mean there's no hope for the future, or even that the current regime is incapable of shoring up that foundation. It's just depressing to know that the rebuilding was essentially extended by a full year because of this wasted offseason.

I'm into it. Still wouldn't pass on a potential franchise QB in the 1st, though.

Wow, that's tough. QB is the most important position by far, but elite pass-rusher is probably 2nd or 3rd most important. I love Jimbo dearly, but at the end of the day, I've always considered Bruce to be the best DE in NFL history, whereas Kelly is probably outside of the top 10 QBs ever. With a tear in my eye, I take Bruce.

The one thing I'll give the Bills is that at the time, they played a 4-3 scheme and felt that their #1 need was pass rush, particularly from the DE position. Mathews was only projected as a LB, never (at least that I saw) as a DE. And he's one of the most classic fits for a 3-4 OLB I've seen in a while. Wouldn't be nearly as good playing OLB in a 4-3 (moving to DE on passing downs). Still light years ahead of Maybin, though. Defensible pick at the time, bad pick in immediate hindsight, and unforgivable now that we've switched to a 3-4. Cushing is not much of a pass rusher, much more the 3-4 ILB or 4-3 OLB type, like Kawika Mitchell. Plus, it's hard to fault the Bills for passing on the dude until we see him do anything special without the help of steroids. What's Shawne Merriman done since being busted? I give the Bills a pass here. But passing on Orakpo to take Maybin? Orakpo was not really seen as a tweener, much more a straight DE. 260+ lbs. of solid muscle. Washington did wind up playing him at OLB on run downs, but he did most of his damage with his hand on the ground in pass situations, and he would've been an every-down DE for the Bills' 4-3 defense. And he still looks great as a pass-rushing OLB in Washington's new 3-4. There's no scheme in the NFL where Maybin could even come close to Orakpo in terms of on-field production. This is just unconscionable. And yes, there were some concerns at the time about Orakpo taking plays off, and the Bills have had some bad history with Texas players, but there were certainly plenty of red flags around Maybin as well. The bottom line is that these 2 guys play exactly the same position, but one is really good and one is really bad. The entire job of a scouting department is to figure out who will be good and who will not, and they royally botched it on this one.

Jake Locker is dead to me as a potential 1st-round pick. There's no way you can complete 4 passes in 20 attempts against any college defense and justify 1st-round status. I know Nebraska's D is very good, but you know whose is better? Every team in the NFL. Locker is looking like a possible Jevan Snead 2.0 right now. A friend of mine who watches a lot more college football than I do thinks that Foles is the best QB so far this year. I'll have to check him out.

It still bothers me that Chan Gailey needed to see 2 additional games of Trent Edwards before realizing what most of us have known for a while. Were there no available tapes of Bills games from the last 3 years?

Way too early for any serious evaluation of the draft class, but one thing does continue to surprise me: 2 picks (albeit 7th-rounders) cut in preseason and not invited to the practice squad. That's somewhat rare, especially when you consider that it's the first year of a new regime. Typically new regimes do some housecleaning with the roster, getting rid of a bunch of the previous regime's guys, and bringing in their own guys. Every draft pick is by default one of the new regime's guys, but 2 of them were unceremoniously shown the door. It's not really a good or bad thing, it's just unusual. And for what it's worth, DTs, especially nose tackles, usually take some time to develop. I like what I've seen of Troup so far, but he's not going to be an impact player as a rookie.

How is Lee supposed to fight for the ball? Hang around behind the line of scrimmage and try to rip it away from Spiller or Jackson?

If Marshawn's going to continue to get 3 carries a game, the Bills would be moronic not to trade him. What's the difference between 3 carries of Marshawn Lynch and 3 carries of Joique Bell? Maybe 2 yards?

The same idea occurred to me several times during Sunday's game. I say go for it. Maybe not 100% of the time, but why not have our base offense be reminiscent of the Single Wing? (Actually, we should probably just run the Wing-T, but it apparently takes a couple of years to really learn.) We can throw a QB out there in obvious passing situations or 2-minute drills, but other than that, let's go for the Triple Bison. What's the downside? We lose? We're already doing that! At least it's an attempt to shake things up. Plus, Marshawn & Fred have both shown some success on HB passes (I think Marshawn also had a few at Cal), and Spiller might have a decent arm as well. Who says we have to run every time? The main problem with this idea (besides the fact that no NFL coach is ballsy enough to try it) is that our TEs are crappy. If we're going to be running 90% of the time, we'd need at least 2 TEs who are solid blockers. Maybe we could have Meredith play TE or something. But there doesn't seem to be much point in having any non-Lee Evans WRs on the field.

Miami may not have looked good, but they beat us at home. So that's not a great argument for saying we're better than them.

No more Batavia Party Zone? That stinks. I always got a kick out of seeing that banner on TV.

At least we're not the only team with an embarrassingly pathetic offense. The Jets' last drive was a decent bit better than our last 2 drives, but still really really bad. At no point did I get the impression that there was any chance of the Jets scoring to win the game. In fairness to the Jets, they were playing the Ravens, who are bringing back most of a historically great defense from last year. But is anyone surprised that the Sanchise isn't living up to the hype? He's a 2nd-year QB who was promising as a rookie, but ultimately bad (like almost all rookies). He'll have a couple of nice games this year, but he's not ready to start winning games with his arm yet. If I had to take either Edwards or Sanchez as my QB for just 1 game this year, I'd probably go with Sanchez, but I'd have to really think about it.

Nah, he just needs 5 Hall of Fame O-linemen, giving him 8-9 seconds to throw every time he drops back. Then he'll be a B+ quarterback.

A little embarrassed, but used to it. The team isn't any worse this year than they have been. What new taunts can opposing fans come up with that I haven't been using for 3 years? I'm mostly resigned to idea of the Bills sucking at this point. I didn't even feel all that bad after the loss yesterday, because I was so mentally prepared for it, both leading up to the game and while watching the game itself. That's not to say I was hopeless while watching the game. When we scored on that 4th and 11 play, I had some legitimate hopes that we might win the game or at least force OT. But there's a difference between hopes and expectations, and while my hopes were up, my expectations were still zero. One good drive can't erase years of ineptitude from Captain Checkdown.

Yeah, McKelvin looked like a guy who deserved to be drafted #11 overall. Florence actually looked real good, too, and McGee only had like 1 ball thrown his way in the 2nd half. Our secondary is definitely legit, although we already knew that. And truth be told, the coverage units on special teams looked pretty good as well. I was very concerned about them after the preseason. And I thought Roscoe looked like his old self returning punts. Those are all of the positive things I'm able to say about yesterday's game.

Mortensen used to be a good reporter, but his sources seemed to have dried up, and his recent track record has made him a laughingstock. Schefter is a very good reporter who still has excellent sources. Neither's opinion as an analyst is any better than the average fan. ESPN tries to blur the line between reporter and analyst as much as possible, but there's a big difference between guys like Mort/Schefter/Clayton and guys like Allen/Golic/Hoge.

How exactly is Miami's gameday performance affected by Bill Parcells going from VP of football operations, with a GM underneath him, to a consultant, with that same GM now more empowered? Even if Parcells is some kind of football sorcerer, shouldn't his magic spells be about equally effective, since he's still employed by the team?

Any time my favorite team hires a head coach who: 1.) Got fired from his last job, which was offensive coordinator, 2.) has no other job offers pending, 3.) had 1 previous stint as NFL head coach, where he was a bit of a national joke, and was fired after 2 seasons, 4.) has gone 12 or so years between NFL head coach gigs, 5.) never won a bowl game in 5 or so years as a college head coach, then I'm going to need to see a winning record before I give him any credit or confidence whatsoever. Just a longstanding rule of mine. Hope he works out, but let's see it. Words are meaningless; nearly every coach talks a great game, regardless of how bad the on-field product is. Gailey's resume/track record is very underwhelming, and a few nice drives in preseason aren't enough to counteract that. And what's unfair to Gailey is that we got so burned in 2008 that even a hot start won't win me over. I'll hop on the bandwagon when he mathematically clinches a winning record.

I doubt it was a factor. If Wang was a higher-profile player (maybe 1st round, or plays a skill position), maybe. But for a 5th-round pick at an essentially anonymous position, who in China is going to buy his jersey?

Didn't TO last year show people that regardless of how much talent you have at WR, you need a decent QB to have a successful passing game? Vincenzo's a very good player, but he's not going to turn Edwards into Rivers. Now, if the Vikings went and got him, that would be a pretty good move for them.

During every actual game, I will want the Bills to win, be happy if they win, and be upset if they lose. But from a "take a step back and look at the forest" perspective, I think we may be better off next year if we went 1-15 this year. Another 7-9 year might be just enough to give Edwards 1 more year, or maybe we just miss out on any blue-chip QBs in the draft. 7-9 isn't a strong indication that we have the right coach/schemes/personnel, but it's decent enough to give them another chance. That's how we wound up with 4 years of Dick Jauron. Maybe it's just because that regime has left a bitter taste in my mouth, but I think the team is better served by spectacular failure than another year of mediocrity. Doesn't make sitting through it any more palatable, though. Here's a slight variation on the question: Would you rather: A.) The team goes 2-14, but in entertaining fashion, i.e., losing 42-37 on amazing last-minute drives, lots of highlight reel plays by both teams, the Bills are aggressive and go for gambles, but we almost always come up a little short, or B.) The team goes 7-9, but it's as listless and boring as Jauron Ball. More 6-3 wins (and losses), the team never takes a chance on offense or defense, the highlight shows gloss over all of our games. For me, it's A. At least then I'd feel like we've got something to build on.

I think I'm keeping my expectations for Maybin as low as possible. I.e., I'm assuming he'll be an abject bust until I see him do something useful in a real NFL game. This way, he has nowhere to go but up.

Actually, most of the time the QB stays on the field, but lines up as a wide receiver. I assume it's because if the defense sees the QB running off the field, they'll substitute a very run-oriented defensive package.

Honestly, people. Schefter is a respected NFL reporter who has an excellent track record. He has two sources who say that "the Bills had ongoing discussions this summer regarding Leinart." He also apparently has a source that says that the Bills are interested in trading for Leinart right now, but it's not by itself a good enough source to merit printing that in an article. Chris Brown works for the Bills and is obligated, at times, to serve as a corporate mouthpiece for them. Consider also that Brown cited no Bills source in his denial of the rumors, and the denial was posted on his blog, not as an article. This is about as weak a denial as you could possibly see. Now, just because Schefter isn't the drooling boob that some posters are making him out to be, doesn't mean that we'll be trading for Leinart any time soon. Even the ESPN article that mentions us specifically states, "Buffalo is unlikely to make a trade for Leinart because the Bills are uncomfortable about bringing aboard the quarterback's contract, which carries a $2.485 million base salary this season and balloons to $7.36 million next season." Which makes perfect sense. Why would we trade for a guy who's stunk in preseason, has never particularly been good, and carries a high salary? Plus, given Leinart's crappy preseason, can anyone really say with confidence that he's actually an upgrade over Edwards? It makes a lot of sense that the Bills would've discussed trading for Leinart extensively over the summer. It also makes sense that they'd be much less interested now, even if talks are still continuing in some form. But all of this head in the sand stuff, where they'd never even dream of thinking about even talking to the Cardinals about Leinart, I don't get it. I don't need to be a pro coach to know what I've seen in Edwards over the years. And I can't believe that the front office could be so sold on Edwards that they wouldn't explore options for an upgrade. I realize that 2 good preseason games has gotten a lot of people back on the Edwards bandwagon, but enough is enough. This is Trent Edwards, not Peyton Manning. Don't get so upset when it turns out that our team would prefer a better QB. That's actually a really encouraging sign. I don't want my team being complacent at the most important position in football.