What troubles me about McGahee:

[WG]

The thing that really has me concerned about McGahee, is not his current injury alone as most are concerned about, but rather, the fact that he's sustained a serious enough injury in each of his last 3 seasons played to have to miss very significant playing time or end his season. This past injury, had it happened earlier in the season, would have ended it.

So it's not the recovery from this surgery that has me concerned, it's his overall ability to stay healthy. I mean we all clamored about RJ, but at least most of his injuries were only of the "game or two" variety. Heck, McGahee is making RJ look like a poster boy for health in a sense.

I'm not going to be sold on McGahee until he actually plays out a full season of 350+ carries w/o getting hurt at all! If/when that happens, I'll then be somewhat less concerned going into the following season. Two such seasons will alleviate my concerns for good.

But if Henry even plays the way he did this year as last, assuming he gets more carries, I'm not so sure that he should go. We'd be getting rid of a top NFL RB in the hopes and w/o any proof, that McGahee does several things:

A. Doesn't reinjure his current injury
B. Doesn't continue his current streak of very significant injuries at the rate of one/year over his last three years started, and in far tougher competition and physical stress
C. Plays at a level for which he was drafted and better than that of Henry, quite frankly, a level at which he played only for one season.

Quite honestly, McGahee wasn't having the best game prior to his getting injured. He had 20 carries for 67 yards, less than a 3.5 YPC avg. and only 3 catches for 5 yards in the CG v. OSU.

So while everyone is all but penciling in his greatness as an NFL RB, I really think we need to be cautious before trading away one of the top, if not the top, RB in the NFL for a bucket full of hopes.

The Canes also didn't play the toughest schedule over this past season. They played absolutely not top 10 ranked teams. The best team they played was probably WV and McGahee didn't even average 4 YPC then. 3.5 YPC. The next best team was probably FSU and McG only had a 3.7 YPC avg.

While they played some ranked teams during the season, 13, 16, 19, 20, and 23, they only played teams with final rankings of 14, 20, 23, and 24.

So they didn't have a tough schedule at all w/ only 2 teams finally ranked in the top 20, bottom half at that. They played absolutely no teams in the top 10 except for OSU in the CG and they lost and McG did not have the kind of game worthy of all of the current hoopla in that game prior to getting injured.

The championship game speaks more loudly than playing against a bunch of scrub teams IMO. 3.4 YPC isn't good and McG simply didn't have the type of game that screams out that he'll be the next Walter Payton. The best game, and an outstanding one, that McG played this season was against an overrated VA Tech team. Nevertheless, McG shone. But one game does not greatness make and I think we should look a little closer at why so many think he'll be "the next Walter Payton." I'm a little more skeptical, especially at all the talk about possibly blindly trading what has become one of the league's best RBs in Henry!

I'm quite sure he'd be good, McG that is, but there is no guarantee of that. But I think we need to proceed with caution and not send Henry packing before this season. If he's not happy, he may well say that he wants a trade and given the above, I'm not so sure that would be wise.

[WG]

Not to mention, he's currently on a three year streak of getting injured in a season, and that has nothing to do w/ this current injury. It's a pattern that has developed independently.

[Pride]

I agree with you, but noone else does

[WG]

Clearly. I just find it amazing that people have turned on Henry so when he's at the top of the league. It reminds me of that fable about the dog standing on the bridge w/ the bone in his mouth looking down at the reflection of the "other dog" w/ a bigger bone. The dog barks and then obviously loses the bone it had.

I can see the same situation playing out here. Many will be screaming out to trade Henry at year's end in the hopes of what? Getting an extra 100 yards out of another RB at the risk that he won't play at all due to further injuries of one variety or another.

I just don't get it. Heck, even if Henry fumbles 8 times and loses 5 of them, if he hits 2,000 yards rushing, who cares? Big deal!

Everyone rages about 11 fumbles only one of which altered the outcome of a game from a win to a loss, while completing ignoring the 7 times as many games thrown due to Drew's TOs. Meanwhile, Drew's fine and Henry needs to go.

I just don't get it sometimes. People read the front page hype and don't look under the hood or check out the background of a situation.

[Turf]

It's a good point. We drafted a lot of players this year who have been injured. I think this draft will go down as the worst overall (NFL wide) crop of talent ever.

[WG]

Originally posted by Travis Hunter
It's a good point. We drafted a lot of players this year who have been injured. I think this draft will go down as the worst overall (NFL wide) crop of talent ever.

Wow! I agree w/ that too. The [/i]only[/i] positions drafted that fill immediate needs, other than McG, were Kelsay and Sobieski, both of whom have injury issues.

I agree as well. I think this will end up having been the Bills' worst draft since prior to the Butler/Polian eras. If McGahee ends up doing anything else than being spectacular, it has the propensity to be what you say, it will go down as one of the worst drafts NFL wide ever.

[Turf]

The proof of the drop off in talent to me was, is that you never see anyone, regardless of talent, spend a first round draft choice on a player that may not play the next year. It just never happens. When I saw that happen, it told me that TD and the crew didn't like the talent pool and figured there was only upside in taking a risk because everyone else fell out in the middle.
Personally I think McGahee will pan out well in spite of it all.

[WG]

He may. I'm not saying he won't. But what I am saying is that "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", eh. If Henry continues on at his level of play from last year while getting the number of carries that a RB playing as he did should actually get, namely 22-30 carries/game instead of over half the games well below that, he'll lead the league or come very close to it in rushing yardage and TDs.

I just cannot fathom trading him in the simply hopes that McGahee works out on several fronts. It just makes no sense to me to risk that much for such a marginal gain in productivity. And there might possibly be no gain in productivity. If Henry reaches 2,000 rushing yards, how much more is reasonable to expect? 2,500 rushing won't happen and McGahee has not shown that he's even capable of achieving 2,000 judging by the way he played v. the top 3 opponents at Miami. He averaged well below 4 YPC in those three games.

If in fact, McG's really perceived as such a budding star in spite of his total unproveness at this level, especially regarding being able to make it through 16 games w/o hurting himself somewhere, then we should be able to get at least a 2nd rounder for him, maybe a first. I can't see us getting much more except for possibly a player of not top caliber.

I just cannot imagine that there wasn't any player available who wouldn't have been able to contribute this season and still be a future contributor. Water under the bridge. But McG's status is not water under the bridge. It's a very real risk for us now. The way many fans and media are talking is as if they are ready to trade Henry away and pin all our hopes on McGahee regardless that he'll not have shown a thing this season. Again, if he were to get injured in limited action this season, I doubt we would get much more than a 2nd rounder for him, and maybe not even that. He'll have "risen" to the injury status of RJ.

[WG]

This season will be very interesting. It will really bear out where TD knew what he was doing and where he didn't.

I'm clearly not happy w/ Posey and have very little faith that players like Fletcher, Teague, Bledsoe, are only about average and are all getting paid more than they're worth.

I also think that TD's draft reputation is at stake given last year's marginal draft outside of our top two picks at #4 and #36 overall. I don't think that Kelsay was a justifiable pick where we got him, nor do I think many if any of the subsequent picks will work out to anything other than depth and STs players.

The two biggest moves made this year were Spikes and trading Price for a first rounder. BUT, if McG doesn't work out, then that pick will have been wasted.

Shaw, Reese, Posey, just don't do much for me right now.

Indeed, this season will reveal much!

[lunatic_bills_fan]

I really cant agree with with your Kelsay tyheory Wys. This kid was not supposed to be around where we got him and from what everyone is saying at camp, he is a workaholic. I think he will do just fine.

[justasportsfan]

I'm not going to be sold on McGahee until he actually plays out a full season of 350+ carries w/o getting hurt at all! If/when that happens, I'll then be somewhat less concerned going into the following season. Two such seasons will alleviate my concerns for good.

With that statement I am not ready to count him out as well.

As far as I am concerned McG is a non-factor with this team this year. He does not exist. Henry is our no.1 rb and our future rb until McG proves otherwise.

As far as our draft goes, it's easy to harp on the negative. What about the positives? What if Kelsay does turn out to be another Hansen? Thing is we have a good starting corp and I'd rather concentrate on that for now. Healthy or not any draft would be a project unless of cousre we were drafting w/in the 1st ten in the draft w/c we didn't.

I hope there's someone out there after June 1st that we can grab. I'm not sold on the wr department yet.

[BillsNYC]

i haven't turned on henry at all...this is a simple case of having two great athletes and whoever comes out on top wins..i don't understand how you guys don't understand that?

[justasportsfan]

For as long as Drew doesn't have to carry the load on his shoulders, I think he is perfect. If you force the team to depend on him, he tends to blow the game. The running game has to be dominant for Drew to lessen his (big) mistakes.

Last years game against Miami @ Buffalo was picture perfect as far as I'm concerned. Henry ran well and when Miami concentrated on him, wham Drew's arm came inro play and killed them.

[Tatonka]

list his injury history please wys..

date and injury..

[Doc]

McGahee tore his LCL (the only ligament that didn't tear this time BTW) during his senior year of HS. I don't know how it happened then, but I guess you could argue that McGahee MIGHT have a propensity for having guys tackle him at his knees with their helmets. In much the same way, you could say that Bledsoe is an injury risk because of that torn artery he suffered in 2001.