Still dismayed by personnel decisions

[NoSaint]

 

 

What you said is partially true. Successful teams have to make these value decisions all the time... And they couldn't/shouldn't pay Levitre $7-8 Million per year... BUT... I don't see that "REPLACEMENT" you mentioned...

 

On a related note, I find it interesting to see so many of my fellow TBD posters espousing the idea of drafting Chance Warmack, another Guard, to replace Levitre... Wasn't drafting Levitre a mistake in itself because he is ONLY a guard (and therefore not worth $7-8Million per year) and now we want to replay that same mistake by again drafting a lowly unimportant position like OG in the 1st round?

 

You can't have it both ways folks... You simply can't demean the OG position by saying "we can always draft one in the lower rounds" (ESPECIALLY with Buddy's track record so far...) and if you are advocating draft Warmack you are setting yourself up for another failure down the road like Levitre...

 

A good GM would also have worked out a cheaper long term deal with Levitre last year and not wait till the last minute when you know his price is going to be significantly higher...

 

I think you've inserted a lot into a pretty simple statement. Unless you think we are lining up 10 men on offense, levitre will somehow be replaced. We don't know the plan and we aren't owed that information.

 

Further, you can say a good GM locks him up cheap last year, but a good agent can just as easily get him to wait. It happens. A lot.

 

Otherwise, I agree that by not paying premium money for a guard is very possibly a tip of the hand that we won't use a premium pick for one.

[machine gun kelly]

I'm fine with trimming most of this roster, and some of these decisions should have been made a couple of years ago on people like MCGee and Kelsey. Jones I'm betting will look better on the Pats. As for Levitre, NFL Radio commentators said it well, Levitre was good in pass protection, but was not a beast at the run, and was over paid.

 

Now the mistake was in Nix not offering him not last year, but two years ago when he played well and durable for two years an extension cheap at 3 mil. and we could have locked him up for two years. He was very serviceable, and at 3-3.5 mil for four years, it would have been steal for us and he wold have been ecstatic. We have not been a forward thinking team which is why we keep losing.

[John from Riverside]

I love how people lament moves like not signing levitre....but dont have a clue of what that would do to the cap situation of the team....WITHOUT IMPROVING IT

 

Levitre is a good player......he was NOT worth the money he got and the bills could NOT afford to pay him.....simple as that.

 

Nelson has been hurt each of the last 2 years and that last injury is a really iffy proposition.

 

You can find Reinhardt's on the waiver wire

 

I have not problem with armchair QB fellow bills fans....but for christ sake list the alternatives along with your B word session

[BillsVet]

Honest question: do you even like the Bills?

 

After 6+ years and 5k+ posts do you have to ask?

 

I guess this is your response when facts get in the way of your optimism for optimism crusade. Sorry if we're not all unicorns and rainbows because you tell us we should be.

[3rdand12]

I love how people lament moves like not signing levitre....but dont have a clue of what that would do to the cap situation of the team....WITHOUT IMPROVING IT

 

Levitre is a good player......he was NOT worth the money he got and the bills could NOT afford to pay him.....simple as that.

 

Nelson has been hurt each of the last 2 years and that last injury is a really iffy proposition.

 

You can find Reinhardt's on the waiver wire

 

I have not problem with armchair QB fellow bills fans....but for christ sake list the alternatives along with your B word session

still mispelling Rinehart.!

I am going to miss Chaz

[BobChalmers]

Remember how inept we were when Lee Evans was released?

 

Speaking of which - that Ozzie Newsome guy sure was a genius upgrading his team by giving us a pick for Evans, eh?

 

THEFT!

[leper65]

 

Now the mistake was in Nix not offering him not last year, but two years ago when he played well and durable for two years an extension cheap at 3 mil. and we could have locked him up for two years. He was very serviceable, and at 3-3.5 mil for four years, it would have been steal for us and he wold have been ecstatic. We have not been a forward thinking team which is why we keep losing.

 

We tried that approach with Jason Peters. He got fat, lazy, and held out wanting more money. It was a good move trading him.

 

Maybe Levitre would have been fine living out the extension you proposed, maybe he whines like Peters did. We'll never know now. I'd be pissed if we had re-signed him for 7 or 8 M a year. Too many memories of him him being forklifted/thrown straight back into the QB. He is durable and played well enough at C and LT when asked, but TEN is nuts for paying him that much.

 

After the draft there will be a few players released as well. With only 6 picks in the draft, it seems like they HAVE to do something at WR in free agency for some depth. And I assume they are drafting a WR in the first 3 or 4 rounds.

[BobChalmers]

We tried that approach with Jason Peters. He got fat, lazy, and held out wanting more money. It was a good move trading him.

 

Maybe Levitre would have been fine living out the extension you proposed, maybe he whines like Peters did. We'll never know now. I'd be pissed if we had re-signed him for 7 or 8 M a year. Too many memories of him him being forklifted/thrown straight back into the QB. He is durable and played well enough at C and LT when asked, but TEN is nuts for paying him that much.

 

After the draft there will be a few players released as well. With only 6 picks in the draft, it seems like they HAVE to do something at WR in free agency for some depth. And I assume they are drafting a WR in the first 3 or 4 rounds.

 

There is zero comparison between those two - Peters was whining for a new contract with 2 years remaining, remember??

[Hapless Bills Fan]

you can now designate guys as "june 1st cuts" in march... so thats not really true anymore. you still get guys that are replaced by better options through the offseason but june 1st itself holds no real significance as far as i know with the new cba

 

You can, but you are limited to 2 of these designated cuts per year per team.

[NoSaint]

 

 

You can, but you are limited to 2 of these designated cuts per year per team.

 

And most teams, I venture, don't even use that many. Point stands that June 1st is not the second round of free agency that it once was.

[Nitro]

Basic economics. Levitre wanted more money that the Bills thought he was worth. Even though the original point in re-singing quality vets was dead on, Levitre was not worth it. OG are easier to replace than OT or C.

[leper65]

There is zero comparison between those two - Peters was whining for a new contract with 2 years remaining, remember??

 

You missed my point...IF we had extended Levitre 2 years ago like in machine gun kelly's post, we very well could have ended up in the same situation as we did with Peters...disgruntled player with 2 years left on his deal holding out. I was not comparing Peters situation to Levitre's actual situation this year.

[BillsWatch]

Here is thinking outside of the box; Maybe, Levitre did not want to be a Buffalo Bill anymore.

 

...and wanted to move on to another team

 

Levitre realized it was the scheme and QB which made the OL look so good hence it was time to leave once Head Coach and OL coach were cut. It was time to get the big contract NOW.

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

 

Ill never understand why anyone makes these posts. We Didnt make the playoffs with these guys, what makes you think we're actually getting worse without them? The suicidal posts about the management needs to stop. It is what it is, a younger FO with new coaches. There are going to be some changes.

 

This. People who feel that the players lost will result in some huge implosion are curious given how the team has performed. I can understand the ravens fans saying all the roster losses will result in a catastrophie, they have far to fall.... The bills lost a decent but now overpaid guard, a 1.5 string guard, a group of udfa WRs and some other aging vets. The team must get better at wr, QB, safety and lb, o-line because keeping what they had wasn't cutting it.

 

Of all the players gone Levitre is the only one that is a guarenteed starter elsewhere.

[vincec]

I still can't get over the Bills letting Levitre walk, then letting Rhinehart (a much lesser talent) go. With the Kolb-for-Fitz switch, the dumping of the young wide receivers (leaving them next to nothing on the roster to work with), I just see this franchise spinning its wheels.

 

The draft is just going to be about plugging holes they created after the end of last season, with players no better and likely worse. You draft and develop a guy like Levitre, then just let him go. Same story as Antoine Winfield, Nate Clements, Ted Washington, Marshawn Lynch, Jason Peters, yada yada yada.

 

I have generally been a positive outlook guy on this board, for many many years. I basically avoid hating on specific players and I don't like that form of fan behavior. But I have never been so bleak about an upcoming draft and season. I really hope they prove me wrong, but I have no confidence in this new management. I just have the fatal feeling that this loser franchise will never be good.

Levitre was probably unretainable for the salary it would've taken, especially after overpaying for Mario Williams last season. I'm also ok with losing Nelson, Rinehart, Barnett and Wilson. Wish they would've kept Fitz, D Jones and K Moore.

 

However, my biggest issue is not that some players have left. That happens to all teams every year. It's that they aren't replacing them with any free agents. They really need to bring in some role player FAs because there's no way that they can fill all the holes that they have with 6 draft picks, most of whom will probably not turn out to be NFL caliber players.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

Levitre was probably unretainable for the salary it would've taken, especially after overpaying for Mario Williams last season. I'm also ok with losing Nelson, Rinehart, Barnett and Wilson. Wish they would've kept Fitz, D Jones and K Moore.

 

However, my biggest issue is not that some players have left. That happens to all teams every year. It's that they aren't replacing them with any free agents. They really need to bring in some role player FAs because there's no way that they can fill all the holes that they have with 6 draft picks, most of whom will probably not turn out to be NFL caliber players.

 

Probably though they'll have more undrafted FAs than is typical on an NFL roster.

[thewildrabbit]

The OP has every right to be dismayed as a Bills fan. 13 years running and the cycle just continues coach after coach. So now an unproven college coach that barely had a winning record in college takes over from a HC that made things worse then the man before him.

 

Sorry guys, but things just look worse and worse with no end in sight. Still rebuilding after 3 years of rebuilding under the same GM. This is the man who stated three years ago.... "It doesn't matter what kind of splash we make today. What matters is two years and three years down the road, if we have this thing turned around in the right direction and we're winning," Nix said. "I know before I'm asked this, you're going to think I'm crazy, but we're not that far away."

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4785461

 

Here it is three years later and things have gotten worse under Buddy Nix, no question. Now we all need to pin our hopes on an unproven staff of coaches, and another backup QB.

[Floridabillsfan1]

 

A good GM would also have worked out a cheaper long term deal with Levitre last year and not wait till the last minute when you know his price is going to be significantly higher...

 

I agree with this comment totally. When Nix signed Kelsay (early) he said we have only a few great players and we need to keep those guys on our team. The Bills finally got the o line working well and now they are allowing one of them to walk . We could have Levitre signed instead of Fitzpatrick which would have made sense since no one was stealing Fitzpatrick from the Bills . Hopefully we draft a mobile QB so it's not that bad of a hit.

[RuntheDamnBall]

What was our record with all those players we released? We sucked. When you suck as long as we have anyone is expendable and damn near all the personnel needs to go.

[....lybob]

Which would you rather have Kolb, Branch and Brad Smith or Levitre that's the decision you have to make for yourself .