LifetimeBillsFan
08-01-2008, 08:24 AM
I’ve been away without access to a computer and my home computer still hasn’t been properly fixed, so I really haven’t been able to post anything lately. But, having had a chance to catch up on things the last couple of days, I thought I would post a few random observations about the Bills for your comments.
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Regarding the Jason Peters situation:
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There is no doubt that Jason Peters is the Bills’ best player, that they need him on the field this season to seriously contend for a playoff berth, or that he is seriously under-paid and deserves to have his contract renegotiated. And, given some of his actions in the past, it would be easy to blame Ralph Wilson for being “cheap” in this situation and Russ Brandon for taking an overly harsh stance in demanding that Peters report to training camp when the team has acknowledged that Peters’ compensation should be adjusted.
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However, considering the Bills claim that they have not heard from Peters since January or had an opportunity to discuss his situation with his agent, Eugene Parker, and given the fact that the St. Louis Rams have just taken the same stance that the Bills have taken towards Peters with regard to Steven Jackson, another Parker client who is also holding out, it seems to me that the cause of the Peters impasse is considerably more the fault of Eugene Parker and the tactics that he is attempting to use to get his clients new contracts. If the Bills were the only team confronting a holdout by a Parker client and taking a hard-line stance in response to that holdout, the Bills’ front office would be open to criticism. But, with the Rams taking the same stance as the Bills in the face of Jackson’s holdout after five days of talking with Parker, IMHO the comments that the Bills’ front office have made on the situation and the position that they have taken about negotiating a new deal with Peters have taken on added credibility.
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As I see it, Steven Jackson is as important to the Rams and Jason Peters is to the Bills. Yet, after having had a chance to negotiate with Parker for five days, the Rams have decided that they will not continue to have further contract discussions with Parker until Jackson reports to their training camp. The Bills have not even had the opportunity to talk with Parker, let alone Peters. So it is hard for me to really blame the Bills for the situation.
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On the other hand, if Ralph Wilson and Bills management are serious about making the playoffs this season, they are going to have to find a way to resolve this impasse. Reaching out to Parker now that his time is no longer being taken up by the Rams and giving him some kind of assurances that the team will be amenable to working out some kind of contract extension with Peters that will put the kind of money that an All-Pro left tackle deserves to be paid in Peters’ pocket if Peters reports to training camp and passes a physical would seem to be a logical start. If Parker and Peters reject that proposal, there really won’t be much beyond that that the Bills can do except try to wait the situation out.
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There are 37 days remaining before the Bills’ opening game of the season. This will be the seventh day of Peters’ holdout. If Peters does not report before Aug. 8<SUP>th</SUP>, he will lose a year of vesting, which may not be that big an incentive to report if he receives a big contract and bonus, but could be significant were he to be seriously injured if he reports later in the season in order avoid losing this season on his current contract. At $ 15,000 a day, 37 days is a long time and holding out until the tenth game of the season is even longer and would pose more of a risk to Peters. Logically, that would seem to indicate that it would behoove Eugene Parker to contact the Bills and move to a position where he can start talking about a new contract for his client with the Bills fairly soon, particularly since the Bills have publicly indicated that they recognize that Peters’ is under-paid and are willing to discuss some kind of new deal for him.
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While I expect Peters’ holdout to continue in the short-term, I believe that the stance that the Rams have taken with regard to Steven Jackson will put a pressure on Parker to get one or both of his holdouts into camp sometime in the next two weeks. If that proves to be the case, even if he misses half of training camp and half of the preseason games, Peters should still be ready to play effectively on Opening Day. Last season Brad Butler missed most of training camp and didn’t work with the rest of the starting offensive line until after the last preseason game. With 15 games of working next to Derrick Dockery under his belt, Peters could probably miss nearly as much time and still be able to play better than any other offensive lineman on the team against Seattle. So, I don’t have that much concern about him holding out during the preseason, so long as both sides are able to come to some kind of arrangement that will allow Peters to rejoin the team a week or more before the regular season starts.
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However, I expect there to be considerable posturing by both sides before a resolution to the situation is reached. And, it is essential for Bills fans to recognize that this is likely to be the case and see it for what it is. I would caution my fellow Bills fans against getting caught up in that posturing and over-reacting to it (Pat, that means you!—although you are by no means the only one susceptible to doing this). The Bills have the means and the motive to get a deal done and, if Peters’ agent, Eugene Parker, is smart and doesn’t play things too cute, there is no reason there is no reason that the two sides can’t come to a mutually agreeable resolution to this situation in time for Peters to be in the starting lineup for the Bills on Opening Day.
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There are only two reasons why the Bills would not be willing to pay Peters what they know he is worth as one of the top left tackles in the NFL: 1.) if he has not recovered fully from his hernia surgery and/or is not in shape to play; and 2.) concern that he will not honor a new pact and will holdout for another raise again in another couple of years. Obviously the team will and should seek some concrete assurances that neither of these will be the case should they renegotiate Peters’ current deal. The rules governing what is permissible in contracts under the current CBA now that the owners have chosen to opt out of that deal will make the latter difficult, but not impossible. If Peters and Parker are not willing to give the team those assurances, however, then the Bills will have little choice but to move on without Peters, even though this would be a serious handicap for the team and seriously detrimental to its playoff chances this season and perhaps beyond.
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I know that Peters isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, that Parker is trying to become the next Rosenhaus, and that Ralph Wilson has had a well-deserved reputation for being cheap and “cutting off his nose to spite his face” when ticked off (Lou Saban, Bill Polian, etc.), but I think that both sides realize that there is too much at stake here not to find some mutually satisfactory resolution to this current impasse. Consequently, I do expect that it will be resolved in a way that won’t jeopardize the Bills’ chances to contend for a playoff berth this season.
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Lee Evans’ Contract Situation:
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I think that the Bills will try to get Lee Evans signed to a contract extension before the end of training camp. I think that he and his agent have gone about pursuing a new contract in a way that the Bills’ front office can respect and I think that Evans has shown the kind of work ethic and leadership in the off-season and in training camp that Ralph Wilson likes to see from his players.
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The only thing that I can see holding up a deal with Evans is that, perhaps, the Bills may want to find out what kind of up-front bonus money Parker will be demanding for Peters before they commit to a contract with Evans. Even though Ralph Wilson will be receiving $ 78 million from the Rogers Group in Toronto for the Bills’ games there and the team is well under their “cash-to-the-cap” salary cap, the up-front bonus money in these contracts has to be paid right away and, without us fans knowing when and how the Toronto money is to be paid, it is possible that, given the current condition of the markets, this could create a cash-flow problem for Wilson and the team. A short-term problem, albeit, but nevertheless it could be enough of a problem to impact how much money the team would be in a position to lay out in up-front bonus money in these contract negotiations. (Think of it this way, we’ve all had cash-flow problems at one time or another where we have had or were about to get the enough money to buy a couple of items that we wanted, but, because a check hasn’t cleared or arrived yet, we just didn’t have enough cash in our pockets to pay for both of them right then and there. Just because R.Wilson has a lot of money, that doesn’t mean that occasionally he doesn’t find himself having a similar problem—the only difference being that, in his case, there are probably a greater number of zeros involved in his transactions.)
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Still, after seeing how Evans has worked on his own with Trent Edwards, assumed the role of being a spokesman for the team with the media, and taken James Hardy under his wing, I think the Bills realize that Evans could well be on the verge of a major breakout season and will try to get him signed to a long-term contract before the season starts.
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Angelo Crowell’s Contract/Injury Situation:
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I’m coming to the conclusion that the Bills are not going to go out of their way to re-sign Angelo Crowell, even if he has a good season.
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Crowell is likely to want a long-term deal and fairly significant up-front bonus money as well. It is going to take quite a bit of up-front money for the Bills to get Lee Evans and Jason Peters signed to new contracts and the Bills may find that they simply don’t have enough money available to give Crowell the kind of up-front money that he will want and can get elsewhere. But, more importantly, the Bills may not want to commit to the kind of long-term deal that Crowell is likely to be seeking because of his knees.
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This is the second year that Crowell has had to miss time in training camp because of fluid on his knee. Even though this is considered a relatively minor problem and didn’t cause Crowell to miss any games last season, persistent swelling in a knee is usually an indication that there is some kind of problem that exists or is developing in the knee. Sooner or later, that knee is going to require some kind of more radical treatment than just rest in order to relieve or eliminate the cause of the swelling. And, as good as the MDs who treat NFL players are, there is no telling what the outcome of that will be. Even if the surgery is successful, there is a chance that it could still cause him to miss playing or preparation time and inhibit his effectiveness as a player down the road.
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Linebacker is a relatively easy position to fill in the NFL. There have been a lot of rookies in recent years who have been able to step into the NFL from college and have an impact their first season: Hawk, Merriman, Ryans, Beason, Harris, and even Poz before his injury, to name a few. In terms of cost-effectiveness, it can make more sense to replace a veteran LB who has a potentially troublesome knee with a rookie than to re-sign him to a long-term contract. And, even if the Bills were not to replace him with a rookie, there are always productive LBs available on the free agent market, like Kawika Mitchell, who may not command the same kind of commitment in terms of years or dollars.
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As good as Crowell has become, he is much more easily replaced than a Lee Evans or a Jason Peters. And, as a result, I do not see the Bills making re-signing him much of a priority. Indeed, I would be quite surprised if they were to re-sign him to a new deal, particularly before the end of the up-coming season.
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Darian Barnes and the Fullback Position:
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I know that there are a lot of people here who don’t like Darian Barnes and see him as nothing more than a scrub. But, having seen him play for the Jets when they had Curtis Martin, I think that those people are under-estimating Barnes. Barnes isn’t the kind of fullback who is going to put up big numbers like an Alstott or catch anyone’s eye, but he can play.
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Barnes is a traditional blocking fullback. He hits. And, he can block. He may not knock people out like Schmitt, but he doesn’t have the concussions that are likely to limit Schmitt’s career, either (remember the Bills FB—Mueller(?)—whose career was ended prematurely by concussions?). And, he’s not a converted halfback who can break a big run or screen pass like Leonard or Hester. He just blocks people. If that is what the Bills want their fullback to do, that’s what he does. Pretty well.
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The fact that Barnes hasn’t caught many passes or carried the ball much in his career doesn’t mean that he can’t do those things. It just means that he hasn’t been asked to do them in the offenses that he has played in (I know for a fact that the Jets never threw him the ball, preferring to use their tight ends as their safety valve instead when Barnes was with them). Now, I don’t know how well he can run or catch, but I know that he can block. And, with the tight ends—Schouman and Fine—that they can use as receivers out of the backfield—and M.Lynch to run the ball in short-yardage situations, the Bills don’t really need to have Barnes run or catch the ball much if they find that he can’t do those things very well.
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But, the Bills didn’t bring in Barnes to be a big-time runner or receiver they brought him in to block. And, IMHO he will give them what they were looking for when they signed him.
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While Barnes will be the FB in the standard two-back sets that the Bills run, particularly in the red zone and short-yardage situations, I think that Schonert will use Schouman and Fine in the backfield as an H-back in certain situations and there will also be other packages that where the Bills will either go with one RB or use both Jackson and Lynch at the same time.
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Note: I find it interesting/ironic that some of the very same people who complained the loudest about the Bills’ offense being too predictable (and rightly so!) last season don’t seem to be able to see how Schonert is trying to use different personnel groups and different looks to diversify the Bills offense and make it less predictable this season. We won’t know how well that’s going to work until the season starts, but it should be obvious that this is what he is attempting to do, at least with some of the personnel. Now, let’s see what he does with them to mix things up.
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Trent Edwards, et al:
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I found it hilarious to read some of the posts here and on the BB.com forum when I was trying to catch up on all of the stuff that I missed. The hysteria from one day to the next depending on how Edwards and the offense or the defense performed was mind-boggling!
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If you are really honest with yourself, you must admit that, just as there are some days when you are really “on” and everything you do goes right, there are also some days when it seems like you just can’t do anything right and everything goes wrong. Well, the same thing is true for professional football players: they have their good days and bad days just like you and I do.
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Now, of course, because they are professionals who are supposed to be so much better at what they do than everyone else, we expect them to do their jobs well all of the time. We tend to forget that they are human beings who put their pants on one leg at a time, just like we do and have their bad days at work, just like we do, too. The reason that there has only been one team to go undefeated through a NFL season in the roughly 80 years that they have been playing pro football is that even the best players and the best teams have their bad days. And, at this stage, the Bills are not close to being one of the best teams in NFL history.
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The Bills are still a young team and Trent Edwards is still a young, inexperienced quarterback who is still learning how to play the game on the NFL level. As a group, the team is going to have its bad days when it makes a lot of mistakes and doesn’t play well. And, Edwards, being a young QB learning the game, is going to make plenty of mistakes and have his “off” days. That is something that should be understood and expected.
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It should not necessarily be a cause for hysteria.
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I am not making excuses for anything here.
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What I am saying is that it is foolish in the extreme to make snap judgments about a young player or football team based on a single performance or practice session. Young players make mistakes. They always have and they always will. And, sometimes they have absolutely horrendous days or games. They always have and always will—especially young QBs!
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Young players and teams also have an annoying tendency to be terribly inconsistent. While it hasn’t really happened with this bunch of Bills players the last couple of years, historically, young teams have been known to have the occasional great game where they look like world-beaters and upset some superior team and, then, will turn around and play horribly and lose to a team that they should easily beat. It has happened so many times over the years that it is something that fans of any young team in the NFL should expect their team to do during the course of a season.
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This being the case, Bills fans should expect that Trent Edwards and the Bills are going to be inconsistent and have some bad days at times this season. It is going to happen. Because it is the nature of the beast. And, if you go crazy over every one of the ups and downs, you are likely to give yourself a serious case of agita from the roller-coaster ride you’ll be on.
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The only way that anyone is going to be able to fairly judge whether Edwards has what it takes to be the Bills’ QB of the future or the team is good enough to make the playoffs is to look at the body of Edwards work and the team’s play after the first third of the season to see if there has been improvement over the same period last year. With a new offensive coordinator trying out new things and attempting to tailor his plays to his young QB’s strengths and new players being acclimated to their new teammates on defense, it will be difficult to draw any solid conclusions from watching the preseason games, let alone from a handful of practices.
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I know that won’t satisfy those fans (myself included) who want to know about everything that happened every day in practice during training camp or the critics who can’t wait to proclaim that the team stinks the first time Edwards or the team has a bad day. But, you have to be patient as a fan when you are looking at a young team, especially one with a new OC and changing approach on offense, and trying to assess whether the team and specific players are making progress.
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I’m not saying that you can’t or shouldn’t come to conclusions or make judgments, just that, because of the inconsistency, you have to have a larger sample—you have to see more—before you have enough information to make a reasonable, informed conclusion or judgment.
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Personally, while I am expecting the Bills to be an improved team and Edwards to be better overall this season, I am also expecting them to have some games that are absolute stinkers. While I am encouraged that Edwards rebounded from his terrible performance in the night practice on Tuesday with a good practice on Wednesday and another on Thursday night, I am not at all surprised by the fact that he had a bad day on Tuesday night because he’s going to have some bad days this season—and this was only practice.
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And, speaking of practice: I think that, as much as we, as fans, hang on everything the team does in training camp, it is important to keep in mind that these are still just practices. Practice makes perfect, but you practice to make perfect, not because you already are perfect already. There are some things that the Bills are going to do during their practices because those are things that they are good at and want to make the center-piece of their game-plans. But, there are other things that they are going to do during practice that are things that they aren’t very good at doing yet and have to work on—practice—in order to get better at doing those things. And, those are things that they probably aren’t going to do perfectly or even very well—certainly at first. So, they are going to make mistakes.
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Lest you think that I am trying to make excuses for the Bills: I’m sure that most Bills fans are familiar with the clip of Vince Lombardi that is used in a commercial where Lombardi is in front of a chalkboard talking to his Packer team saying “What we want is a seal here and a seal here”, as outlines how a certain play is to be run on the chalkboard. The play, as those who were around back then know, is the famous “Packer Sweep”. Lombardi’s Packers were machine-like running that play. It was unstoppable. So why was Lombardi standing there with the chalkboard explaining the play to his players in that film clip? Because the Packers didn’t always run the “Packer Sweep” perfectly—before it became their signature play, they had to practice running it and if they had been running it perfectly in practice, Lombardi would not have been standing there explaining to them what he wanted them to do. So, even Lombardi’s Packers made mistakes in practice!
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The difference between the good teams and the bad teams is that the good teams correct the mistakes that that they make in practice so that they do not make those same mistakes once the games start to count. The bad teams keep making those mistakes and never manage to correct them.
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I’m not worried about Edwards or the Bills making mistakes in practice during training camp or even the preseason (practice) games (although it would be encouraging to see that they have become sharper as the preseason progresses). But, they are going to have to show that they have corrected most of those mistakes once the games start to count, if they are going to be a good team this season. And, that is what I want to see before I come to any conclusions about Edwards or the Bills’ prospects.
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The Rookies:
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In that same vein, I would caution Bills fans from having overly high expectations of the team’s rookies this season. Not because they aren’t good or won’t contribute, but because they are rookies.
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I know that there are a lot of folks who believe that, because Leodis McKelvin was the 11<SUP>th</SUP> pick in the draft and the Bills desperately needed a tall wide receiver like James Hardy, these two rookies will probably end up in the starting lineup on Opening Day. That’s not likely to happen.
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Unlike the past two years where the Bills had so little talent on their roster that they were forced to start their rookies—especially their top picks—and let them learn as they went along, the Bills are in a better position going into this season than they were then.
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Even though Hardy fills a desperate need in their offense, there is still so much that he needs to learn that, even if he works his tail off (as he appears to be doing), it is still going to take him awhile to get to the point where he does enough things well enough to be able to start at the # 2 WR position. Oh, make no mistake about it, he will contribute right from Opening Day—because Schonert will install some packages where Hardy will only be called on to do the things that he does well—but Hardy will still have to improve considerably to take over the starting job and play most of the snaps by mid-season. With Terrance McGee and Jabari Greer ahead of him, it could also take McKelvin that long to push his way into the starting eleven as well.
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But, if it takes McKelvin and Hardy that long or longer to break into the starting lineup and some of the other rookies don’t play that much, that should be taken to mean that they aren’t any good or that they aren’t going to become stars—or at least good players—in the NFL (there are some here that think that a guy who isn’t a star by the end of his rookie year automatically “stinks”). Hardy and McKelvin both have shown signs that they are going to be players, but also, like most rookies, that they still have a lot to learn. And now the Bills are in a position to give their rookies time to learn what they need to learn before throwing them into the starting lineup right away.
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Dick Jauron and his staff have shown that they aren’t afraid to play rookies, so McKelvin and Hardy and some of the others will play and they will contribute. But, they are unlikely to be in the starting lineup on Opening Day and may not even be called on to log heavy minutes until mid-season. And, when they do play, they will make mistakes. So, I wouldn’t expect that much from the Bills’ rookies this season…at least not going into the season or in terms of stats (although I do think that Hardy, with his height, could put up some nice TD numbers as something of a specialist in the red zone).
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Stroud and the Defensive Ends:
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If he stays healthy, Marcus Stroud could well transform the Bills’ defense into one of the better units—at least in terms of scoring defense—in the league. The guy is a beast who makes everyone around him better. And, that’s what the Bills have needed.
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In addition to what his play can do to make the others on the field with him better, I am hoping that Stroud will also be able to show John McCargo what he needs to do in order to become a better player as well. We’ve seen McCargo’s talent in flashes, but he has to show it more consistently (apparently he has had conditioning issues that he feels may be related to the extra weight that he put on). And, who better to show him how to be more consistent than Stroud?
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Even if the Bills had not acquired Stroud, I was anticipating that their pass rush, particularly from the defensive ends, would be better this season than last year. With Hargrove and Denney missing games at the beginning of last season, Kelsay and Schobel had to play a lot more snaps than they would have otherwise and that extra playing time clearly had an adverse impact on their effectiveness for the rest of the season. Even though Denney and Hargrove returned, it didn’t really help because, then, Kelsay got hurt and Schobel, while he continued to play, got nicked up (one thing that Schobel’s critics have failed to take into account when going after him for his poor sack numbers last year was the fact that Schobel also required treatment for an injury that he played with after the season was done—which was something that was not widely reported, except in the list of Bills players who had surgery or were treated for injuries at season’s end on BB.com). Just having Schobel, Kelsay and Denney healthy going into this season should help make the Bills’ pass rush better than it was last year. And, the addition of Chris Ellis and Spencer Johnson should help to make up for the loss of Hargrove—at least in the pass rush.
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The acquisition of Stroud, however, has the potential, if Stroud can stay healthy, to make the Bills’ pass rush doubly effective as opposing teams will have to double-team Stroud and leave the Bills’ defensive ends singled up. The need to double-team Stroud will also leave lanes open for the Bills to be able to send blitzes through as well.
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If Stroud and Posluzny can jam up the middle against the run and Perry Fewell can figure out how to keep his defense from being burned by the draw play on third downs, the Bills could end up having a pretty good defense this season. The key to that, IMHO, is going to be Marcus Stroud and whether he can remain health for the whole season. If he can stay healthy, I think that it is going to be a lot of fun to watch this defense play.
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Regarding the Jason Peters situation:
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There is no doubt that Jason Peters is the Bills’ best player, that they need him on the field this season to seriously contend for a playoff berth, or that he is seriously under-paid and deserves to have his contract renegotiated. And, given some of his actions in the past, it would be easy to blame Ralph Wilson for being “cheap” in this situation and Russ Brandon for taking an overly harsh stance in demanding that Peters report to training camp when the team has acknowledged that Peters’ compensation should be adjusted.
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However, considering the Bills claim that they have not heard from Peters since January or had an opportunity to discuss his situation with his agent, Eugene Parker, and given the fact that the St. Louis Rams have just taken the same stance that the Bills have taken towards Peters with regard to Steven Jackson, another Parker client who is also holding out, it seems to me that the cause of the Peters impasse is considerably more the fault of Eugene Parker and the tactics that he is attempting to use to get his clients new contracts. If the Bills were the only team confronting a holdout by a Parker client and taking a hard-line stance in response to that holdout, the Bills’ front office would be open to criticism. But, with the Rams taking the same stance as the Bills in the face of Jackson’s holdout after five days of talking with Parker, IMHO the comments that the Bills’ front office have made on the situation and the position that they have taken about negotiating a new deal with Peters have taken on added credibility.
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As I see it, Steven Jackson is as important to the Rams and Jason Peters is to the Bills. Yet, after having had a chance to negotiate with Parker for five days, the Rams have decided that they will not continue to have further contract discussions with Parker until Jackson reports to their training camp. The Bills have not even had the opportunity to talk with Parker, let alone Peters. So it is hard for me to really blame the Bills for the situation.
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On the other hand, if Ralph Wilson and Bills management are serious about making the playoffs this season, they are going to have to find a way to resolve this impasse. Reaching out to Parker now that his time is no longer being taken up by the Rams and giving him some kind of assurances that the team will be amenable to working out some kind of contract extension with Peters that will put the kind of money that an All-Pro left tackle deserves to be paid in Peters’ pocket if Peters reports to training camp and passes a physical would seem to be a logical start. If Parker and Peters reject that proposal, there really won’t be much beyond that that the Bills can do except try to wait the situation out.
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There are 37 days remaining before the Bills’ opening game of the season. This will be the seventh day of Peters’ holdout. If Peters does not report before Aug. 8<SUP>th</SUP>, he will lose a year of vesting, which may not be that big an incentive to report if he receives a big contract and bonus, but could be significant were he to be seriously injured if he reports later in the season in order avoid losing this season on his current contract. At $ 15,000 a day, 37 days is a long time and holding out until the tenth game of the season is even longer and would pose more of a risk to Peters. Logically, that would seem to indicate that it would behoove Eugene Parker to contact the Bills and move to a position where he can start talking about a new contract for his client with the Bills fairly soon, particularly since the Bills have publicly indicated that they recognize that Peters’ is under-paid and are willing to discuss some kind of new deal for him.
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While I expect Peters’ holdout to continue in the short-term, I believe that the stance that the Rams have taken with regard to Steven Jackson will put a pressure on Parker to get one or both of his holdouts into camp sometime in the next two weeks. If that proves to be the case, even if he misses half of training camp and half of the preseason games, Peters should still be ready to play effectively on Opening Day. Last season Brad Butler missed most of training camp and didn’t work with the rest of the starting offensive line until after the last preseason game. With 15 games of working next to Derrick Dockery under his belt, Peters could probably miss nearly as much time and still be able to play better than any other offensive lineman on the team against Seattle. So, I don’t have that much concern about him holding out during the preseason, so long as both sides are able to come to some kind of arrangement that will allow Peters to rejoin the team a week or more before the regular season starts.
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However, I expect there to be considerable posturing by both sides before a resolution to the situation is reached. And, it is essential for Bills fans to recognize that this is likely to be the case and see it for what it is. I would caution my fellow Bills fans against getting caught up in that posturing and over-reacting to it (Pat, that means you!—although you are by no means the only one susceptible to doing this). The Bills have the means and the motive to get a deal done and, if Peters’ agent, Eugene Parker, is smart and doesn’t play things too cute, there is no reason there is no reason that the two sides can’t come to a mutually agreeable resolution to this situation in time for Peters to be in the starting lineup for the Bills on Opening Day.
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There are only two reasons why the Bills would not be willing to pay Peters what they know he is worth as one of the top left tackles in the NFL: 1.) if he has not recovered fully from his hernia surgery and/or is not in shape to play; and 2.) concern that he will not honor a new pact and will holdout for another raise again in another couple of years. Obviously the team will and should seek some concrete assurances that neither of these will be the case should they renegotiate Peters’ current deal. The rules governing what is permissible in contracts under the current CBA now that the owners have chosen to opt out of that deal will make the latter difficult, but not impossible. If Peters and Parker are not willing to give the team those assurances, however, then the Bills will have little choice but to move on without Peters, even though this would be a serious handicap for the team and seriously detrimental to its playoff chances this season and perhaps beyond.
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I know that Peters isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, that Parker is trying to become the next Rosenhaus, and that Ralph Wilson has had a well-deserved reputation for being cheap and “cutting off his nose to spite his face” when ticked off (Lou Saban, Bill Polian, etc.), but I think that both sides realize that there is too much at stake here not to find some mutually satisfactory resolution to this current impasse. Consequently, I do expect that it will be resolved in a way that won’t jeopardize the Bills’ chances to contend for a playoff berth this season.
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Lee Evans’ Contract Situation:
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I think that the Bills will try to get Lee Evans signed to a contract extension before the end of training camp. I think that he and his agent have gone about pursuing a new contract in a way that the Bills’ front office can respect and I think that Evans has shown the kind of work ethic and leadership in the off-season and in training camp that Ralph Wilson likes to see from his players.
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The only thing that I can see holding up a deal with Evans is that, perhaps, the Bills may want to find out what kind of up-front bonus money Parker will be demanding for Peters before they commit to a contract with Evans. Even though Ralph Wilson will be receiving $ 78 million from the Rogers Group in Toronto for the Bills’ games there and the team is well under their “cash-to-the-cap” salary cap, the up-front bonus money in these contracts has to be paid right away and, without us fans knowing when and how the Toronto money is to be paid, it is possible that, given the current condition of the markets, this could create a cash-flow problem for Wilson and the team. A short-term problem, albeit, but nevertheless it could be enough of a problem to impact how much money the team would be in a position to lay out in up-front bonus money in these contract negotiations. (Think of it this way, we’ve all had cash-flow problems at one time or another where we have had or were about to get the enough money to buy a couple of items that we wanted, but, because a check hasn’t cleared or arrived yet, we just didn’t have enough cash in our pockets to pay for both of them right then and there. Just because R.Wilson has a lot of money, that doesn’t mean that occasionally he doesn’t find himself having a similar problem—the only difference being that, in his case, there are probably a greater number of zeros involved in his transactions.)
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Still, after seeing how Evans has worked on his own with Trent Edwards, assumed the role of being a spokesman for the team with the media, and taken James Hardy under his wing, I think the Bills realize that Evans could well be on the verge of a major breakout season and will try to get him signed to a long-term contract before the season starts.
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Angelo Crowell’s Contract/Injury Situation:
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I’m coming to the conclusion that the Bills are not going to go out of their way to re-sign Angelo Crowell, even if he has a good season.
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Crowell is likely to want a long-term deal and fairly significant up-front bonus money as well. It is going to take quite a bit of up-front money for the Bills to get Lee Evans and Jason Peters signed to new contracts and the Bills may find that they simply don’t have enough money available to give Crowell the kind of up-front money that he will want and can get elsewhere. But, more importantly, the Bills may not want to commit to the kind of long-term deal that Crowell is likely to be seeking because of his knees.
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This is the second year that Crowell has had to miss time in training camp because of fluid on his knee. Even though this is considered a relatively minor problem and didn’t cause Crowell to miss any games last season, persistent swelling in a knee is usually an indication that there is some kind of problem that exists or is developing in the knee. Sooner or later, that knee is going to require some kind of more radical treatment than just rest in order to relieve or eliminate the cause of the swelling. And, as good as the MDs who treat NFL players are, there is no telling what the outcome of that will be. Even if the surgery is successful, there is a chance that it could still cause him to miss playing or preparation time and inhibit his effectiveness as a player down the road.
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Linebacker is a relatively easy position to fill in the NFL. There have been a lot of rookies in recent years who have been able to step into the NFL from college and have an impact their first season: Hawk, Merriman, Ryans, Beason, Harris, and even Poz before his injury, to name a few. In terms of cost-effectiveness, it can make more sense to replace a veteran LB who has a potentially troublesome knee with a rookie than to re-sign him to a long-term contract. And, even if the Bills were not to replace him with a rookie, there are always productive LBs available on the free agent market, like Kawika Mitchell, who may not command the same kind of commitment in terms of years or dollars.
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As good as Crowell has become, he is much more easily replaced than a Lee Evans or a Jason Peters. And, as a result, I do not see the Bills making re-signing him much of a priority. Indeed, I would be quite surprised if they were to re-sign him to a new deal, particularly before the end of the up-coming season.
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Darian Barnes and the Fullback Position:
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I know that there are a lot of people here who don’t like Darian Barnes and see him as nothing more than a scrub. But, having seen him play for the Jets when they had Curtis Martin, I think that those people are under-estimating Barnes. Barnes isn’t the kind of fullback who is going to put up big numbers like an Alstott or catch anyone’s eye, but he can play.
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Barnes is a traditional blocking fullback. He hits. And, he can block. He may not knock people out like Schmitt, but he doesn’t have the concussions that are likely to limit Schmitt’s career, either (remember the Bills FB—Mueller(?)—whose career was ended prematurely by concussions?). And, he’s not a converted halfback who can break a big run or screen pass like Leonard or Hester. He just blocks people. If that is what the Bills want their fullback to do, that’s what he does. Pretty well.
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The fact that Barnes hasn’t caught many passes or carried the ball much in his career doesn’t mean that he can’t do those things. It just means that he hasn’t been asked to do them in the offenses that he has played in (I know for a fact that the Jets never threw him the ball, preferring to use their tight ends as their safety valve instead when Barnes was with them). Now, I don’t know how well he can run or catch, but I know that he can block. And, with the tight ends—Schouman and Fine—that they can use as receivers out of the backfield—and M.Lynch to run the ball in short-yardage situations, the Bills don’t really need to have Barnes run or catch the ball much if they find that he can’t do those things very well.
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But, the Bills didn’t bring in Barnes to be a big-time runner or receiver they brought him in to block. And, IMHO he will give them what they were looking for when they signed him.
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While Barnes will be the FB in the standard two-back sets that the Bills run, particularly in the red zone and short-yardage situations, I think that Schonert will use Schouman and Fine in the backfield as an H-back in certain situations and there will also be other packages that where the Bills will either go with one RB or use both Jackson and Lynch at the same time.
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Note: I find it interesting/ironic that some of the very same people who complained the loudest about the Bills’ offense being too predictable (and rightly so!) last season don’t seem to be able to see how Schonert is trying to use different personnel groups and different looks to diversify the Bills offense and make it less predictable this season. We won’t know how well that’s going to work until the season starts, but it should be obvious that this is what he is attempting to do, at least with some of the personnel. Now, let’s see what he does with them to mix things up.
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Trent Edwards, et al:
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I found it hilarious to read some of the posts here and on the BB.com forum when I was trying to catch up on all of the stuff that I missed. The hysteria from one day to the next depending on how Edwards and the offense or the defense performed was mind-boggling!
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If you are really honest with yourself, you must admit that, just as there are some days when you are really “on” and everything you do goes right, there are also some days when it seems like you just can’t do anything right and everything goes wrong. Well, the same thing is true for professional football players: they have their good days and bad days just like you and I do.
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Now, of course, because they are professionals who are supposed to be so much better at what they do than everyone else, we expect them to do their jobs well all of the time. We tend to forget that they are human beings who put their pants on one leg at a time, just like we do and have their bad days at work, just like we do, too. The reason that there has only been one team to go undefeated through a NFL season in the roughly 80 years that they have been playing pro football is that even the best players and the best teams have their bad days. And, at this stage, the Bills are not close to being one of the best teams in NFL history.
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The Bills are still a young team and Trent Edwards is still a young, inexperienced quarterback who is still learning how to play the game on the NFL level. As a group, the team is going to have its bad days when it makes a lot of mistakes and doesn’t play well. And, Edwards, being a young QB learning the game, is going to make plenty of mistakes and have his “off” days. That is something that should be understood and expected.
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It should not necessarily be a cause for hysteria.
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I am not making excuses for anything here.
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What I am saying is that it is foolish in the extreme to make snap judgments about a young player or football team based on a single performance or practice session. Young players make mistakes. They always have and they always will. And, sometimes they have absolutely horrendous days or games. They always have and always will—especially young QBs!
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Young players and teams also have an annoying tendency to be terribly inconsistent. While it hasn’t really happened with this bunch of Bills players the last couple of years, historically, young teams have been known to have the occasional great game where they look like world-beaters and upset some superior team and, then, will turn around and play horribly and lose to a team that they should easily beat. It has happened so many times over the years that it is something that fans of any young team in the NFL should expect their team to do during the course of a season.
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This being the case, Bills fans should expect that Trent Edwards and the Bills are going to be inconsistent and have some bad days at times this season. It is going to happen. Because it is the nature of the beast. And, if you go crazy over every one of the ups and downs, you are likely to give yourself a serious case of agita from the roller-coaster ride you’ll be on.
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The only way that anyone is going to be able to fairly judge whether Edwards has what it takes to be the Bills’ QB of the future or the team is good enough to make the playoffs is to look at the body of Edwards work and the team’s play after the first third of the season to see if there has been improvement over the same period last year. With a new offensive coordinator trying out new things and attempting to tailor his plays to his young QB’s strengths and new players being acclimated to their new teammates on defense, it will be difficult to draw any solid conclusions from watching the preseason games, let alone from a handful of practices.
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I know that won’t satisfy those fans (myself included) who want to know about everything that happened every day in practice during training camp or the critics who can’t wait to proclaim that the team stinks the first time Edwards or the team has a bad day. But, you have to be patient as a fan when you are looking at a young team, especially one with a new OC and changing approach on offense, and trying to assess whether the team and specific players are making progress.
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I’m not saying that you can’t or shouldn’t come to conclusions or make judgments, just that, because of the inconsistency, you have to have a larger sample—you have to see more—before you have enough information to make a reasonable, informed conclusion or judgment.
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Personally, while I am expecting the Bills to be an improved team and Edwards to be better overall this season, I am also expecting them to have some games that are absolute stinkers. While I am encouraged that Edwards rebounded from his terrible performance in the night practice on Tuesday with a good practice on Wednesday and another on Thursday night, I am not at all surprised by the fact that he had a bad day on Tuesday night because he’s going to have some bad days this season—and this was only practice.
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And, speaking of practice: I think that, as much as we, as fans, hang on everything the team does in training camp, it is important to keep in mind that these are still just practices. Practice makes perfect, but you practice to make perfect, not because you already are perfect already. There are some things that the Bills are going to do during their practices because those are things that they are good at and want to make the center-piece of their game-plans. But, there are other things that they are going to do during practice that are things that they aren’t very good at doing yet and have to work on—practice—in order to get better at doing those things. And, those are things that they probably aren’t going to do perfectly or even very well—certainly at first. So, they are going to make mistakes.
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Lest you think that I am trying to make excuses for the Bills: I’m sure that most Bills fans are familiar with the clip of Vince Lombardi that is used in a commercial where Lombardi is in front of a chalkboard talking to his Packer team saying “What we want is a seal here and a seal here”, as outlines how a certain play is to be run on the chalkboard. The play, as those who were around back then know, is the famous “Packer Sweep”. Lombardi’s Packers were machine-like running that play. It was unstoppable. So why was Lombardi standing there with the chalkboard explaining the play to his players in that film clip? Because the Packers didn’t always run the “Packer Sweep” perfectly—before it became their signature play, they had to practice running it and if they had been running it perfectly in practice, Lombardi would not have been standing there explaining to them what he wanted them to do. So, even Lombardi’s Packers made mistakes in practice!
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The difference between the good teams and the bad teams is that the good teams correct the mistakes that that they make in practice so that they do not make those same mistakes once the games start to count. The bad teams keep making those mistakes and never manage to correct them.
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I’m not worried about Edwards or the Bills making mistakes in practice during training camp or even the preseason (practice) games (although it would be encouraging to see that they have become sharper as the preseason progresses). But, they are going to have to show that they have corrected most of those mistakes once the games start to count, if they are going to be a good team this season. And, that is what I want to see before I come to any conclusions about Edwards or the Bills’ prospects.
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The Rookies:
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In that same vein, I would caution Bills fans from having overly high expectations of the team’s rookies this season. Not because they aren’t good or won’t contribute, but because they are rookies.
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I know that there are a lot of folks who believe that, because Leodis McKelvin was the 11<SUP>th</SUP> pick in the draft and the Bills desperately needed a tall wide receiver like James Hardy, these two rookies will probably end up in the starting lineup on Opening Day. That’s not likely to happen.
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Unlike the past two years where the Bills had so little talent on their roster that they were forced to start their rookies—especially their top picks—and let them learn as they went along, the Bills are in a better position going into this season than they were then.
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Even though Hardy fills a desperate need in their offense, there is still so much that he needs to learn that, even if he works his tail off (as he appears to be doing), it is still going to take him awhile to get to the point where he does enough things well enough to be able to start at the # 2 WR position. Oh, make no mistake about it, he will contribute right from Opening Day—because Schonert will install some packages where Hardy will only be called on to do the things that he does well—but Hardy will still have to improve considerably to take over the starting job and play most of the snaps by mid-season. With Terrance McGee and Jabari Greer ahead of him, it could also take McKelvin that long to push his way into the starting eleven as well.
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But, if it takes McKelvin and Hardy that long or longer to break into the starting lineup and some of the other rookies don’t play that much, that should be taken to mean that they aren’t any good or that they aren’t going to become stars—or at least good players—in the NFL (there are some here that think that a guy who isn’t a star by the end of his rookie year automatically “stinks”). Hardy and McKelvin both have shown signs that they are going to be players, but also, like most rookies, that they still have a lot to learn. And now the Bills are in a position to give their rookies time to learn what they need to learn before throwing them into the starting lineup right away.
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Dick Jauron and his staff have shown that they aren’t afraid to play rookies, so McKelvin and Hardy and some of the others will play and they will contribute. But, they are unlikely to be in the starting lineup on Opening Day and may not even be called on to log heavy minutes until mid-season. And, when they do play, they will make mistakes. So, I wouldn’t expect that much from the Bills’ rookies this season…at least not going into the season or in terms of stats (although I do think that Hardy, with his height, could put up some nice TD numbers as something of a specialist in the red zone).
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Stroud and the Defensive Ends:
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If he stays healthy, Marcus Stroud could well transform the Bills’ defense into one of the better units—at least in terms of scoring defense—in the league. The guy is a beast who makes everyone around him better. And, that’s what the Bills have needed.
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In addition to what his play can do to make the others on the field with him better, I am hoping that Stroud will also be able to show John McCargo what he needs to do in order to become a better player as well. We’ve seen McCargo’s talent in flashes, but he has to show it more consistently (apparently he has had conditioning issues that he feels may be related to the extra weight that he put on). And, who better to show him how to be more consistent than Stroud?
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Even if the Bills had not acquired Stroud, I was anticipating that their pass rush, particularly from the defensive ends, would be better this season than last year. With Hargrove and Denney missing games at the beginning of last season, Kelsay and Schobel had to play a lot more snaps than they would have otherwise and that extra playing time clearly had an adverse impact on their effectiveness for the rest of the season. Even though Denney and Hargrove returned, it didn’t really help because, then, Kelsay got hurt and Schobel, while he continued to play, got nicked up (one thing that Schobel’s critics have failed to take into account when going after him for his poor sack numbers last year was the fact that Schobel also required treatment for an injury that he played with after the season was done—which was something that was not widely reported, except in the list of Bills players who had surgery or were treated for injuries at season’s end on BB.com). Just having Schobel, Kelsay and Denney healthy going into this season should help make the Bills’ pass rush better than it was last year. And, the addition of Chris Ellis and Spencer Johnson should help to make up for the loss of Hargrove—at least in the pass rush.
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The acquisition of Stroud, however, has the potential, if Stroud can stay healthy, to make the Bills’ pass rush doubly effective as opposing teams will have to double-team Stroud and leave the Bills’ defensive ends singled up. The need to double-team Stroud will also leave lanes open for the Bills to be able to send blitzes through as well.
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If Stroud and Posluzny can jam up the middle against the run and Perry Fewell can figure out how to keep his defense from being burned by the draw play on third downs, the Bills could end up having a pretty good defense this season. The key to that, IMHO, is going to be Marcus Stroud and whether he can remain health for the whole season. If he can stay healthy, I think that it is going to be a lot of fun to watch this defense play.