mary owen Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 A few months ago when teams were dumping veterans, the Patriots made a run at wide receiver Peerless Price -- another former excellent player who no longer played up to his contracts -- with the same typical offer as always. The offer to Price was the veteran minimum to play for a playoff team with Tom Brady throwing the ball to him and a chance to reinvent his career. David Givens had just left for the Titans and the opportunity was staring Price in the face. Hard to turn down. But the Buffalo Bills also had salary cap space and presented a better offer on the table. Price became a Bill and not a Patriot. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/9482175 ok, those who b*tch that ML/RW are too cheap, does this make you just a little happy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark VI Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 ok, those who b*tch that ML/RW are too cheap, does this make you just a little happy? 704289[/snapback] I kind of wish the Pats had won that competition. Price had a career year in 2002 but is gutless when it comes to going over the middle and won't block. He'd have 150 more catches if he didn't have alligator arms and hear footsteps. I don't miss his half efforts at all. This was the one off-season signing I couldn't understand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cåblelady Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 This was the one off-season signing I couldn't understand. 704290[/snapback] It's because I still have his picture tacked to my wall. The next cåblelady wall signing will be Jim Kelly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eball Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 I kind of wish the Pats had won that competition. Price had a career year in 2002 but is gutless when it comes to going over the middle and won't block. He'd have 150 more catches if he didn't have alligator arms and hear footsteps. I don't miss his half efforts at all. This was the one off-season signing I couldn't understand. 704290[/snapback] I'm on record with my prediction that the return of Peerless Price will be a success story in 2006. I believe this is going to work out very well for him and the Bills. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stinky finger Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 I'm on record with my prediction that the return of Peerless Price will be a success story in 2006. I believe this is going to work out very well for him and the Bills. 704300[/snapback] ......what about his seeing eye dog? What's in his future? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ganesh Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 This was the one off-season signing I couldn't understand. 704290[/snapback] The worser one was signing Josh Reed.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Gross Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 Well, as we all know, the Patriots, in being able to keep a team together for their historic run, know exactly what a player is worth and offer no more than that. The Bills outbidding the Patriots only shows that the Bills overpaid for Peerless... I, too, am concerned about whether he's the Peerless we knew and moaned about, or whether his experience matured him to the level that he realizes he needs to do more than catch passes when he's wide open to succeed in the NFL. With the fact that he will have to fight to be a starter on this team, hopefully that will entice him more to block and actually catch the ball over the middle. If not, there's always George Wilson... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramius Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 A few months ago when teams were dumping veterans, the Patriots made a run at wide receiver Peerless Price -- another former excellent player who no longer played up to his contracts -- with the same typical offer as always. The offer to Price was the veteran minimum to play for a playoff team with Tom Brady throwing the ball to him and a chance to reinvent his career. David Givens had just left for the Titans and the opportunity was staring Price in the face. Hard to turn down. But the Buffalo Bills also had salary cap space and presented a better offer on the table. Price became a Bill and not a Patriot. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/9482175 ok, those who b*tch that ML/RW are too cheap, does this make you just a little happy? 704289[/snapback] Well, since the Bills offered more, we overpaid. But had the pats signed him, ralph woudl have been accused of being cheap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave mcbride Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 price doesn't need to catch 94 passes for the signing to be a success. if he catches 60-65 balls, averages between 12-13 ypc, and scores 5-6 tds, the bills will have hit a home run. i fully expect him to do that. believe it or not, he plays very, very well in bad weather. remember the home game against miami in november 02? against NE in the december 2000 blizzard game? he played very well in those games. in fact, going through the box scores from bills' bad weather games from 2000-02, he never underperformed. perhaps one of his problems in atlanta was never being able to use his superior ability to deal with adverse elements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 The Pats offered Price a one year vet min contract. So what does Marv do? He gives Price a multi year deal with a couple million in bonus money! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadBuffaloDisease Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 Looks like Marv got played by Price's agent, who obviously over-inflated the Patriots' offer when talking to Marv. The Bills overpaid considering what the Patriots reportedly offered, but if he produces, it won't make a difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PromoTheRobot Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 I kind of wish the Pats had won that competition. Price had a career year in 2002 but is gutless when it comes to going over the middle and won't block. He'd have 150 more catches if he didn't have alligator arms and hear footsteps. I don't miss his half efforts at all. This was the one off-season signing I couldn't understand. 704290[/snapback] You can bet that if the Pats signed Price, it would have been called another masterstroke by the genius Bill Belichick. Since the Bills signed him, it's just another blunder by Team Senile. PTR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave mcbride Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 The Pats offered Price a one year vet min contract. So what does Marv do? He gives Price a multi year deal with a couple million in bonus money! 704345[/snapback] question: why do you care how much the bills paid him? it's not as if the bills are anywhere near being in cap trouble, and in any event $2 million/year is peanuts when the salary cap is over $105 million. again, seriously: why do you care? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuntheDamnBall Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 You can bet that if the Pats signed Price, it would have been called another masterstroke by the genius Bill Belichick. Since the Bills signed him, it's just another blunder by Team Senile. PTR 704392[/snapback] True, that. The other side of that logic is, if we're following a Belicheck model (and I think we are with 4-5 No. 2a-b caliber receivers), it could work out really well for us. Tom Brady has never had a bona fide No. 1 receiver, yet a hungry cast of all-No. 2-3s seems to find a way to get receptions. I'm not saying any QB on our roster is close to Brady, but I do think we have a receiver corps that is deep, if not superb, and that helps out your QB. I have to say, I like the Peerless signing. The guy's got something to prove and a number of competitors to rise above. He's got the chance to do it with the team that gave him his first chance, and his best production. He's got a receiver on the up in Evans to work with. And, if he isn't there there's a hungry Andre Davis and a healthy halfling with some skills to push him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelly the Dog Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 question: why do you care how much the bills paid him? it's not as if the bills are anywhere near being in cap trouble, and in any event $2 million/year is peanuts when the salary cap is over $105 million. again, seriously: why do you care? 704397[/snapback] I somewhat agree with that. The Bills signed Price with a 1.8 m signing bonus. He makes 800K salary this year. That's 2.6 mil this season, where we have plenty of cap space and wouldn't need it for other players because the signing was so late. It could have or would have been an issue if this money was paid early when a lot of players were available. Next year, he gets 1.6 million. We will probably keep him for a second year, which is not a lot for a #2 or even #3 WR. Reed makes around that. Parrish doesn't make a lot on his first contract. If he doesn't play well we say buh-bye and it doesn't cost us all that much. We will be on the books for only 900K in dead money which really isn't a lot. If he plays well, at 2 mil in his third year, he is a steal. Not that I expect him to be great, but he could be a very decent 2-4 WR because both Parrish and Reed are completely different kind of players. Fairchild may just be the guy to know how to use their talents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyrite Gal Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 I kind of wish the Pats had won that competition. Price had a career year in 2002 but is gutless when it comes to going over the middle and won't block. He'd have 150 more catches if he didn't have alligator arms and hear footsteps. I don't miss his half efforts at all. This was the one off-season signing I couldn't understand. 704290[/snapback] No, this Peerless Price whom the Bills drafted we are talking about and not the player you seem to be talking about as niether objectively PP's stats or subjectively what you describe fit the reality here. Its hard to tell exactly what you are describing here since it seems to be mostly fact-free opinion rather than something substantial but.. 1. PP did put up tremendous numbers in 2002 (I'm not sure at all why making 94 catches is somehow part of some grand idictment), but rather than being simply an exotic explosion of unexpected production, one need only look at his production the first three years and he had a nice (though not overwhelming) rookie year and improved in catches, yards and TDs each year until his breakout year. There simply is no case to be made here that his "career" year was somehow inconsistent with his career track. He did make a huge jump in production in 2002, but this simply continued his consistent improvement in production to that point. 2. What Josh Reed had in his second year could be reasonably described as alligator arms, but PP never had anything remotely like that level of droppsies either demonstrated by any stats I have seen or complaints at the time from observers. Someone posted some stats yesterday which showed Moulds as 6th in the leage in terms of catching balls thrown his way he should have caught but has PP not far behind him at #10. These results were a sharp contrast between some well-regarded top recievers like Chris Chambers who were actually on the other end of the spectrum in the top 10 of pass droppers. 3. Again this gutless comment may say more about the observer than PP as while the stats indicate no alligator arms, he did have a season with a few fumbles. However, my pretty clear recollection is that rather than indicating he was a weenie, they provided contrary evidence. PP's fumbles that year actually occured when he was fighting for an often meaningless extra yard and with one defender hanging on to his ankle, the second one hit him and knocked the ball lose. If anything, I was wishing that PP was more of a pansie and would go down on the first hit, but I do not care how tough you are, if you get set up as astationary target for many NFL LBs, they are going to give you a jarring hit. 4. Its hard to measure PP's blocking and difficult to see it as WR blocks often occur away from the ball. However, if this was such a big issue, one never saw it in 2002 in terms of T. Henry's productuion as an RB. I think the bottomline is that while Price was in no way perfect a a player for the Bills and completely imploded for AT and is not a #1 WR in the NFL, so what as we dod not plan for him to be our #1. We are going to give PP a shot at being our #2 and as noted above if he has a year at even 2/3 what he has ALREADY PRODUCED in his best year for the Bills we should be quite happy. In fact, PP should be locked in competition with good moves, nice speed and OK hands Parrish showed last year, and against the uncertain possibilities of Andre Davis brings to the table. My hope is that actually Parrish will step up and take the #2 role because if I am comfortable with PP at #2, I'm certain he can perform as our #3, In that role given his speed and past prosduction, with the speed and past production shown by Evans and the prospects of Parrish other teams will hve big problem with us in 3 WR sets. It really amazes me that folks seem to want to set up a demand that PP perform at his 2002 levels (or better at #1 WR levels) and then since he obviously did not and cannot be expected to for any team they then claim he is a total loser. Nope. We need PP to perform as a #2 or even a #3 for us and couple (triple actually) his speed with that of Evans and the potential of Parrish to create a coverage problem for opposing Ds which he and Moulds and with Reed adding in created in 2002. The facts both objective and subjective do not indicate he has been crap, and the way we hope to use him is pretty reasonable. The bigger questions as to whether we can produce a high-flying O as productive as St.L taught to new OC Fairchiild are: 1. Who will be the QB to run and perform in this O. 2. Evans had already surpassed Moulds as our #1 (hence the Moulds meltdown which led to his suspension) but can the even better speed draw DTs and rule the middle of the field like Moulds did and thus allow our #2 to wreak havoc. 3. WM has been an outstanding rush yardage producer his first two years, but can he be utilized as a pass receiver and third down threat as Marshall Faulk was by the Rams and Clement/MM never attempted to do. His yardage drop-off in the second half of last season seems better explained by our overall O breakdowm and piss poor bliocking than the soap opera rants of some concerned about his "baby mommas" but we'll see. The PP concern is well below the top 3 issues of worry for this O and as long as his health is good it seems like a good beat that he can produce like an NFL #2 and certainly a #3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mary owen Posted June 7, 2006 Author Share Posted June 7, 2006 well, i hope it turns out to be a steal considering we didn't re-sign him to the numbers he wanted before he left. I partly believe that PP is all about money. can't fault him for taking the better offer monetarily....but when you look at what he chose in coming back to the Bills, he chose to come to a team that is in no way the contender that the patriots are at this point. hard to believe he did it because he likes Buffalo. we'll have to see how he plays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyrite Gal Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 well, i hope it turns out to be a steal considering we didn't re-sign him to the numbers he wanted before he left. I partly believe that PP is all about money. can't fault him for taking the better offer monetarily....but when you look at what he chose in coming back to the Bills, he chose to come to a team that is in no way the contender that the patriots are at this point. hard to believe he did it because he likes Buffalo. we'll have to see how he plays. 704443[/snapback] Actually, it is easy to see him coming back to Buffalo if its advantages: 1. He will be a big fish in a little pond in this sports crazy town. 2. It has the usual American city diversity of urban core if one likes the gritty stuff, top antiseptic suburbs if one likes safest city in America (based on crime stats) Amherst, to small town America like East Aurora. 3. One upside of the populaton slump is that there is zero commute time and nothing like the total gridlock of traffic jammed Atlanta, LA, etc. If Buffalo's city population was anywhere near its peak of 650K in the 50s versus the just below 300K now i would not live here. 4. Oddly, depending on what you like the weather is OK or even a plus. It is much less cold and harsh than the Chicago I grew up in. The lake adds moisture which becomes lake effect snow, but also adds temperature so it rarely is sub zero or even single digit cold here. In the summer, the same lake effect which dumps snow air conditions the area so summer temps in the 90s are quite rare. In general Buffalo is a great sittingoutside place in the summer and it is football weather in the winter. Overall, PP was in his hometown of AT and was a flop on the field. I suspect he wants to come "home" to Bufffalo where he experienced his greatest success as an athlete and can hunker down behind the millions he has from his AT bonus and make his immediate world in Buffalo however he likes. To the extent he wants to come out his hovel and deal with the public they likely will adore him here rather than question him as happened in AT. If he wants he has the bucks to rent a driver/limo or even a chopper and Toronto is 2 hours away and even Cleveland and Pittsburgh are less than 4 hours away. Since the coast curves in, Boston, NYC, Philly and DC are all 7-8 hours away according to Mapquest and you leave after an early lunch and you are in for a late dinner. If one can deal with the snow being moved out of the way within 4 hours of it stopping regardless of how much falls, Buffalo ain;t a bad place to land. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rico Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 One thing's for sure: if he has any football left in him, better for him to show it in Buffalo than in New England. It would've pissed me off to see him burn us 2x a year with Brady. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyrite Gal Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 One thing's for sure: if he has any football left in him, better for him to show it in Buffalo than in New England. It would've pissed me off to see him burn us 2x a year with Brady. 704480[/snapback] The neat thing about the acquisition of Price is that he provides a lot for the Bills O with the threat of his speed and his rep rather than requiring him to put up #s at his 2002 levls to be effective for us. Obviously he needs to be consistent and produce at a reasonable level or he will lose that rep. However, if there is a reasonable remnant of the world class speed he showed upon entry into the NFL, opposing DCs will need to make tough choices about whether their fastest CB gets Evans or PP, how he will array his nickel of safties to provide deep cover to both sides and even still in 3 WR sets they will have to deal with the speedy and shifty Parrish (or vice versa if Parrish beats out PP). I think the Bills will see a bit of zone coverage this year, particularly as the season wears on and DBs get nicked. I also think showing an ability to gety RAC yardage is going to be critical for the Bills as they will see DBs give them cushion so they do not get burned. Interestingly, if this passing game clicks, the performance which stands to benefit the most will be that of McGahee. If opponents commit to the nickel and 2 deep to deal with out potential speed, he will not face the 8 in the box sets that jammed up the running lanes. As WM strives to get outside he will be using his stiff arm on DBs rather than LBs and you gotta like that match-up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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