According to PFT Buffalo Bills are favorites to sign london Fletcher!!!!

[BILLSROCK1212]

http://www.profootballtalk.com/rumormill.htm

FLETCHER DEAL NOT DONE?

Although there are rampant rumors that the Washington Redskins have reached a deal with Bills middle linebacker London Fletcher, a source close to Fletcher says that a final decision has not been made.

The Redskins, Patriots, Lions, and Bills are interested in Fletcher, and the source says that the Bills currently are the favorites to land London, with the Redskins at No.2 on the list.

Ideally, however, the Bills should have the exclusive ability to negotiate with Fletcher until Friday. But that's simply not how it works in the NFL anymore; virtually every team violates the prohibition on tampering when the time comes to talk to pending free agents. Indeed, we're not aware of a single team that doesn't get an early start on chatting with players who technically are the property of others.

This would take care of another one of our needs....although I would love to draft Patrick Willis I would also love to trade down and draft Marshawn Lynch or one of the WRs or even a CB like Daymeion Hughes or stay wher ethey are and take Amobi Okoye if he is available

[gr8slayer]

Bring him back. He still has two great years left in him.

[xXSpIkes5IXx]

even though i would love to have london back...that info comes from PFT, which is generally unreliable.

go bills

[gr8slayer]

even though i would love to have london back...that info comes from PFT, which is generally unreliable.

go bills
They called the Kelsay deal.

[Novacane]

Bring him back. He still has two great years left in him.

He may have a couple good years in him but great?? He's never been a great player. I can't believe the homers on this board.

[gr8slayer]

He may have a couple good years in him but great?? He's never been a great player. I can't believe the homers on this board.
He's doing something right. He leads the league in tackles over the past five years. He gets turn overs and every now and then turns them into points. I'll take him over any LB we have on our roster right now.

[JJamezz]

Now this would be a bigger surprise to me than even resigning Nate.. okay, maybe not quite, but... am I nuts, or didn't Marv and/or Dick specifically come out and say they were looking to get bigger at MLB?

[Ed]

He's doing something right. He leads the league in tackles over the past five years. He gets turn overs and every now and then turns them into points. I'll take him over any LB we have on our roster right now.
I agree. I still really like London too, and thought he had his best year last season. I'm not sure why so many people have soured on him so quickly. However, I don't think I'd take him over Crowell.

[DraftBoy]

I wouldnt mind resigning Fletch as long as we draft his replacement, the LB depth is too good this year to pass up on

[OpIv37]

I want to know how we're going to get better at run D with the same DL and the same LB's.

[gr8slayer]

I want to know how we're going to get better at run D with the same DL and the same LB's.
A whole year in the system and two off-seasons can make all the difference. Maybe Spikes comes back healthier.

[Ed]

I want to know how we're going to get better at run D with the same DL and the same LB's.
Re-signing some of our own players doesn't make us worse. We can still sign and draft other players. Keeping our team intact only gives us more flexibility to improve our team. If we don't re-sign London, there's no guarantee that we can find someone better.

[OpIv37]

A whole year in the system and two off-seasons can make all the difference. Maybe Spikes comes back healthier.

and maybe Williams and McCargo will play better and maybe Simpson will be out of position less and maybe....

it seems like we're going into the season with a lot of "if's"

[gr8slayer]

and maybe Williams and McCargo will play better and maybe Simpson will be out of position less and maybe....

it seems like we're going into the season with a lot of "if's"
I think that's every team though. Well get it going.

[OpIv37]

Re-signing some of our own players doesn't make us worse. We can still sign and draft other players. Keeping our team intact only gives us more flexibility to improve our team. If we don't re-sign London, there's no guarantee that we can find someone better.

but we're trying to get better, not just keep from getting worse. At what point do you have to say "we weren't good enough with this guy, so we have to take a chance and hope someone else is better"?

I could understand this "re-sign your own guys first" if we were the Chargers who lost in the first round of the playoffs, or the Broncos who were right on the cusp or even the Jets who overachieved and are on the way up. but we were 7-9 and didn't beat any good teams last year. Keeping our own only ensures mediocrity.

[HHURRICANE]

The only thing I can think of is that with us losing Nate maybe the front office wants to entice teams into running on us fulltime so our weaker secondary doesn't get exposed. Why else would you bring back the same D that was ranked 29th against the run?

[HAMMER]

I want to know how we're going to get better at run D with the same DL and the same LB's.

Because our two young DT's are going to get better everyday. They were first year players last year and everyone else was in a new system. It is a shame no one wants to give Marv's first draft a chance. It takes time to learn to play at the NFL level, half our defense last year were rookies. Just be patient people.

[OpIv37]

Because our two young DT's are going to get better everyday. They were first year players last year and everyone else was in a new system. It is a shame no one wants to give Marv's first draft a chance. It takes time to learn to play at the NFL level, half our defense last year were rookies. Just be patient people.

well that certainly is a positive- there are a lot of young guys who will most likely get better, but I don't know if that's enough to improve the 29th ranked run D. I stil think we need an impact player or two on D to get the results we need to win.

[Ed]

well that certainly is a positive- there are a lot of young guys who will most likely get better, but I don't know if that's enough to improve the 29th ranked run D. I stil think we need an impact player or two on D to get the results we need to win.
And who said we won't get those players? Free agency hasn't even started and the draft is still two months away. Why don't we actually wait to see how the roster fills out before assuming we won't have the players to be a better team?

[OpIv37]

And who said we won't get those players? Free agency hasn't even started and the draft is still two months away. Why don't we actually wait to see how the roster fills out before assuming we won't have the players to be a better team?

well we currently have 3 DE's under contract and 3 DT's under contract, plus Anderson tendered and it's likely that we'll re-sign Hargrove. So, who exactly are we going to replace on the DL? And if we sign Fletcher, how are we going to add another LB? FA doesn't matter if all your cap space and roster slots are filled before it starts.

[X-Era]

http://www.profootballtalk.com/rumormill.htm

FLETCHER DEAL NOT DONE?

Although there are rampant rumors that the Washington Redskins have reached a deal with Bills middle linebacker London Fletcher, a source close to Fletcher says that a final decision has not been made.

The Redskins, Patriots, Lions, and Bills are interested in Fletcher, and the source says that the Bills currently are the favorites to land London, with the Redskins at No.2 on the list.

Ideally, however, the Bills should have the exclusive ability to negotiate with Fletcher until Friday. But that's simply not how it works in the NFL anymore; virtually every team violates the prohibition on tampering when the time comes to talk to pending free agents. Indeed, we're not aware of a single team that doesn't get an early start on chatting with players who technically are the property of others.

This would take care of another one of our needs....although I would love to draft Patrick Willis I would also love to trade down and draft Marshawn Lynch or one of the WRs or even a CB like Daymeion Hughes or stay wher ethey are and take Amobi Okoye if he is available

I like the way he plays, I like his heart, I like his style, I like his character. But without monsters in front of him hes a liability vs. the run.

I wont be ticked if we resign him and I think we will, but I wish we upgraded the position to a guy with better size that tackles at or behind the line of scrimmage to be honest.

[Jan Reimers]

I want to know how we're going to get better at run D with the same DL and the same LB's.
I agree. I don't mind the Kelsay signing, I'm not up in arms about Anderson, and I wouldn't mind Fletch back at a decent price.

But we STILL need another DT and an ILB, regardless.

[Ed]

well we currently have 3 DE's under contract and 3 DT's under contract, plus Anderson tendered and it's likely that we'll re-sign Hargrove. So, who exactly are we going to replace on the DL? And if we sign Fletcher, how are we going to add another LB? FA doesn't matter if all your cap space and roster slots are filled before it starts.
Because we're going to go into camp with 85+ players or whatever it is. If we can sign a big run stuffing DT, then Anderson won't be on the team when we cut down to 53.

[HHURRICANE]

I'll bet money that we don't sign Fletcher. He hired the wrong agent.

[THATHURMANATOR]

I want to know how we're going to get better at run D with the same DL and the same LB's.
1) Spikes getting healthier
2) Whole defense back (minus Nate) with another season in the defense
3) 2 young safeties more experience
4) Healthy Crowell for entire season
5) Healthy Mcargo and another years experience

[patmoran2006]

Fletcher won't sign with Buffalo. Obviously, LB will now be addressed in round one of the draft..

[OpIv37]

1) Spikes getting healthier
2) Whole defense back (minus Nate) with another season in the defense
3) 2 young safeties more experience
4) Healthy Crowell for entire season
5) Healthy Mcargo and another years experience

So, now we know for a fact that Spikes is going to recover? We know for a fact that Crowell won't get injured again? We know for a fact that McCargo won't get injured and that he will play better? 5 games is NOT a year.

Seems to me our D struggled even when Spikes played. Seems to me our D struggled even when McCargo and Crowell were healthy.

Sorry, but it's not just the system and an injured rookie. All of that might get us from the 29th ranked run D to the 24th ranked run D. This team needs to add some talent to be competitive.

Yeah, I know "But FA hasn't started yet!" Well, we're not re-signing guys only to replace them in FA. What I see is the status quo, and the status quo was 7-9 and 29th against the run.

This is exactly the mentality that keeps this team down- thinking we can get by with the junk we have instead of trying to improve.

[gr8slayer]

So, now we know for a fact that Spikes is going to recover? We know for a fact that Crowell won't get injured again? We know for a fact that McCargo won't get injured and that he will play better? 5 games is NOT a year.

Seems to me our D struggled even when Spikes played. Seems to me our D struggled even when McCargo and Crowell were healthy.

Sorry, but it's not just the system and an injured rookie. All of that might get us from the 29th ranked run D to the 24th ranked run D. This team needs to add some talent to be competitive.

Yeah, I know "But FA hasn't started yet!" Well, we're not re-signing guys only to replace them in FA. What I see is the status quo, and the status quo was 7-9 and 29th against the run.
Op. Now your just trying to be a negative nancy.

Crowell said himself that he is extremely excited because he is entering this offseason 100%

McCargo is still raw and we don't know if we have Warren Sapp on our hands or Tim Andersen.

Spikes being healthier is just common sense. He played all sixteen games this past year and he has another full off-season to recover. Will he be the same as before? Only time will tell but him being healthier six months from now is just common sense man.

I don't really care if we sign any FA on Defense. Our guys will have a whole year under their belts in the Cover 2 (a very hard defense to learn) and will have more chemistry (something money can't buy.)

I get your point but there are two sides to everything your saying.

[raphael120]

Actually the cover 2 defense is really easy to learn, its just everything has to go right, you have to have the right talent. If the talent isnt good, theres nothing to learn. You can't learn instinct.

And where the heck were you last season saying that Spikes played all 16 games last season? He was injured for most of the first part of the season with a hamstring injury. I know how most people look on the brighter sides of things, but there is such a thing as an intelligent, informed response to those who say these are all bad things that are happening.

[DynaPaul]

They called the Kelsay deal.

They call a lot of stuff but some people on here still insist they're the National Enquirer.

[OpIv37]

Op. Now your just trying to be a negative nancy.

Crowell said himself that he is extremely excited because he is entering this offseason 100%

McCargo is still raw and we don't know if we have Warren Sapp on our hands or Tim Andersen.

Spikes being healthier is just common sense. He played all sixteen games this past year and he has another full off-season to recover. Will he be the same as before? Only time will tell but him being healthier six months from now is just common sense man.

I don't really care if we sign any FA on Defense. Our guys will have a whole year under their belts in the Cover 2 (a very hard defense to learn) and will have more chemistry (something money can't buy.)

I get your point but there are two sides to everything your saying.

First, Spikes didn't play every game- he missed several with an injured hamstring.

Second, Crowell was 100% going into last season. He's not a bad player and he's probably not one of the guys we should replace, but the point is that last year's D wasn't good enough. We need to add more talent. We can't just keep doing the same thing over and over and wondering why it never works.

Third, McCargo's had the same injury two years in a row now- that's at least some reason for concern. And like you said- he's an unknown. We can't just go into the season hoping he's going to be better. We need to do something that we KNOW will be an improvement. Well, I guess nothing's ever 100% but we have to try something.

Without injuries and with more experience this D will be marginally better, but it still lacks talent and we won't win until something is done about that.