MDH

That's a great line of thinking: "will they be wrong if an outlandish hypothetical happens next year?" I prefer to judge the extension based on what has actually occurred not some fantasy.

LJ also gets to run behind one of the best OLs in the league. That has something to do with his success.

Despite what people think Rosenhaus rarely has clients hold out and generally signs team friendly contracts and gets them to camp on time. This is the reason team GMs like working with the guy. Of all the top contracts in the league Rosenhaus has none of them. The guy has a big mouth and attracts a lot of attention but he's not the guy that most people make him out to be. His bark is much worse than his bite.

Yeah, let him sit on the bench when the team has no shot at the playoffs. How exactly is that the team coming first? The team's best interest is in getting its first round draft pick ready to play, particularly when the season is lost. Not to mention it's very close as to who the best QB on the roster is and in that case you go with the young guy every single time.

Yeah I fixed that after I realized the mistake, thx.

Manning 1st Plummer 2nd Palmer 1st Brady 6th Rothlesberger 1st Leftwich 1st Hasselback 6th Grossman 1st Manning 1st Simms 3rd Delhomme undrafted Brunell 6th Seven of the 12 playoff teams sport QBs that were drafted in the first round (granted Leftwhich may or may not reclaim his starting spot this year if/when healthy). I'm not going to argue that there aren't other ways of getting a QB, obviously there are but I think you're undervauling grabbing a guy with a good pedigree coming out of school. That beging said it seems to be about a 50/50 shot with any QBs drafted in the 1st but the same can pretty much be said of any other position.

Had the Bills used this year there shouldn't have been a need for another one...

The only two games I've been to at the medowlands are the two mentioned above. Riemersma made a spectacular TD catch right in front of me in the '97 game. I thought about going to tomorrow's game (err, today's) figuring tickets would be easier to come by but changed my mind when I learned that Check Down would be getting the start.

I don't know about best ever as I don't really have the knowledge base needed to make such a claim but they are the best I've seen in the 20+ years I've been following the Bills. A silver lining in this giant toilet of a season.

Yeah, he must not have enough to qualify. Funnily enough even if Roscoe got 0 yards on his next 7 returns he'd rank #14 in the league. Parrish is doing a good job considering he's coming off an injury and had never returned punts in the NFL before. However, after that muff in the Miami game I cringe everytime I see him move up to make a fair catch.

Shhh, Tom Brady sucks...at least that's the word on the board.

Clements has had two years in which he's returned more than 10 punts, in neither of those years has he averaged more per punt return than Parrish has this year. There's absolutely no point in risking Clements on punt returns.

There's also a method that the Eagles have used to great success in which they do end up with a higher cap figure than the league sets. I don't recall the specifics of it though.

It's a matter of mortgaging the future for the present. The way it is done is giving out huge signing bonuses to players and then signing them to long-term contracts that they have no intent of completing. The players get all the money up front in the bonus and it's spread out evenly over the entire contract for salary cap purposes. The team can basically stretch the deal out over any number of years they want to ensure that they can get the player under the cap...though it will cost them down the road when they cut the player and have to deal with the dead cap space. For instance, let's say the going rate for a top flight DT is 5 million a year. The team could give a player a $20 million dollar signing bonus right off the bat and then sign the player to a contract that was for the vet minimum for the first 4 years. To keep is simple let's say the team signed the DT to a 10 year contract with 500k a year salary in each of the first four years then 5m a year salary in the last six years. The 20m signing bonus would be spread out evenly at 2m per year. The cap hit for the first four years would be 2.5m per year (2m from the bonus and 500k from the salary). The way this contract is set up it makes it pretty obvious that the team is going to cut the player (or rework the contract) after year four. If they cut the player after four years they'd have the option of taking the full 10m cap hit (what is left of the bonus) in one year (if they cut him before June) or to spread it out over two years (if they cut him after June...I think it's the 6th). I'm no capoligist and it gets way more complicated than this, but this is the basic idea behind it. It's not a bad idea if you think you're team is one player away from the SB and you need to do this in order to sign that player but otherwise it's generally not a great idea. TD is (rightly) not a guy that likes to work the cap this way so I don't see it happening.

It's not only a matter of the cap (the cap can always be fudged to get guys under), it's a matter of RW springing for 2 of the best (if not THE best) OL in FA this year along with the best CB in FA. That just isn't going to happen, the Bills are not going to be able to outbid the rest of the league on the two best OL in FA.

I was about to say the same thing...though I would have gone with accuracy as his primary problem.

Obviously you need to pass effectively as well, nobody is arguing otherwise. I take issue with your idea that running the ball isn't important. As for the attempts thing if you have lots of attempts it means you're picking up first downs. A lot of 3 and outs doesn't equate to a lot of attempts...

I love the idea that people have that teams throw the ball to get ahead and then run the ball with the lead, as if teams suddenly go into a shell with a 7 point lead in the 4th quarter. Games in the NFL are generally close and teams that rack up lots of rushing attemps don't do so by simply trying to control the clock once they have a lead. They do so because they show a commitment to the run both early and late.

Also, let's take a look at the top 15 teams in the league in rushing attempts this year. 1. Falcons 2. Steelers 3. Broncos 4. Cowboys 5. Seahawks 6. Redskins 7. Chiefs 8. Jags 9. Bears 10. Colts 11. Panthers 12. Chargers 13. Bengals 14. Giants 15. Bucs 11 of those 15 teams are going to make the playoffs. That leaves only ONE team not in the top 15 in rushing attempts in the playoffs (the Pats). Let’s look at the leaders in passing attempts 1. Cardinals 2. Packers 3. Eagles 4. Rams 5. Titans 6. Raiders 7. Patriots 8. Giants 9. Ravens 10. Dolphins 11. Saints 12. Bengals 13. Chargers 14. Lions 15. Colts Only 4 teams are in the playoffs that are in the top half of the league in passing attempts (and 3 of those are in the top half of the league in rushing attempts) Yeah, screw the run!

Smash mouth football means commitment to the run. If you call 8 and 12 rushes in games "commitment" then I guess we run a smash mouth offense. The Bills have ran the ball 398 times this year, good for 21st in the league. Compare that to real smash mouth teams like the Steelers and Broncos which have each run the ball over 500 times.

Zero.

I guess I've seen a different player than you have. I'll agree 3/4 of his first four starts were bad. However once he came back from the benching I saw a QB who made better decisions, threw the ball more accurately and used the entire field. While he didn't look spectacular he looked good for a young QB. The stats don't tell the entire story. I'm wondering how many of the games you listed above by other QBs you actually watched or are you just looking at a stat line? Also, I don't see how you think Grossman's game was better than Losman's game against Houston or his game against KC, but whatever (and yeah, I saw the Grossman game you listed).

Rob Johnson's career QB rating is 83.6. Kelly Holcomb's is 81.4. Stats don't tell the story, one has to watch the games to understand the value of a player. I've seen enough of the guy to know that he's not what I want in a QB.

What you're forgetting in all of those examples (except Grossman, but I'd hardly call those stats "good the whole game") is that each of those players had a larger sample set from which to draw their "good" game. If JP had gotten to start 16 games this season I'd guess that he'd have a few flashy number games too. Who knows what the kid does for the entire KC game. It's unbelievable to me that anybody has given up on a first round draft pick who has only gotten to start eight games. There are maybe 2 QBs in the history of the NFL who have looked good in that number of starts. Until JPs last start the kid had shown much improvement over his last 3-4 games. It might not show up in the stats but that's why you actually have to watch the games. The way this team has handled the QB situation this year has been a complete joke. You either show full commitment to the 1st round draft pick and let him play hell or high water or you don’t cut Bledsoe and see if JP can beat him out in camp. If he doesn’t you go with Drew. Cutting Drew and not showing a full commitment to JP was a huge mistake and we’re reaping the “rewards” of it right now.

Or maybe they're willing to accept the known commodity of a below average QB rather than risking a season while waiting for JP to come around (if he ever does). These guys don't want to wait to win but I wouldn't take their backing of Holcomb to mean that they think the guy is anything more than he is: A below average QB that doesn't bring much to the table. As a fan I'd rather roll the dice with JP than go with Check Down though I can understand why the vets on the team don’t want to roll the dice.