Shelton Out Again.

[gr8slayer]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2006-12-28-injuries_x.htm?csp=34

[YardRat]

He won't be back next year, methinks.

[gr8slayer]

I don't think so either.

[mchurchfie]

Why??

[LifetimeBillsFan]

Obviously his concussion was serious enough that they have felt that it was necessary to hold him out these last couple of games. As anyone who follows the Sabres should know, concussions can be serious and tend to re-occur more frequently the more one has them. And, the more one has concussions, the longer it takes for that person to recover from them until the person reaches a point where "post-concussion syndrome" is so serious that it can be career-ending (as has been the case with a couple of Bills players in the past and may be the case with the Sabres' Tim Connolly now).

An FB, like Shelton, who does a lot of blocking in the offense that the Bills run, would be having a lot of collisions that would make him more likely to get a concussion--or, in this instance, to have a recurrence. Since the Bills are likely to only want to use one roster spot on a FB and, if Shelton were to suffer another concussion, a recurrence would take even longer for him to recover from than it is taking him to recover from this concussion, the Bills would probably be better off trying to obtain a younger, healthier FB who has not had to deal with this kind of concussion to replace Shelton this off-season. Otherwise, they would risk losing Shelton to another concussion at some point during next season when it would be a lot more difficult to find someone to replace him--which might also leave them short-handed at a critical time and force them to limit some of the plays that they would otherwise use in a game with a healthy FB.

And, none of this has anything whatsoever to do with how well or badly Shelton has played. It is strictly based on the medical issues and risks that the team would be running if they retained Shelton.

No player--certainly no blocker--is perfect and it won't be easy to find a blocking FB to replace Shelton because a lot of colleges have gotten away from using FBs as lead blockers, going more to one-back or spread formation offenses, so it is hard to say whether the Bills would want to bring back Shelton, a Jauron favorite, if he were perfectly healthy. But, this problem that he has had with this concussion is likely to play a major role in whether they decide to bring him back or replace him this off-season simply because it is a serious problem that could impact how the rest of the team will be able to function next season if it were to happen again.

[RedEyE]

I think he sucks, personally. He's committed quite of few penalties when on the field and he really adds nothing in the way of the runnning game or the passing game. We need a new full back.

[Jan Reimers]

I think he sucks, personally. He's committed quite of few penalties when on the field and he really adds nothing in the way of the runnning game or the passing game. We need a new full back.
He's primarily a blocker, and a pretty good one.

[RedEyE]

He's primarily a blocker, and a pretty good one.

Hardly. He's done nothing in the way of improving the Bills running game. The Bills are the same team with him as they are without him.

New FB please.