Originally Posted by
LifetimeBillsFan
If this signing is confirmed, it fits the profile of the kind of QB that M.Levy said he was going to try to bring in and the type of player that he is obviously looking for in free agency.
Marv said that he was going to bring in a young, veteran QB with potential to compete for the starting QB job. Nall who has NFLE experience and some experience backing up B.Favre and was considered as a possible successor to Favre before the Pack drafted Aaron Rodgers fits that profile.
Moreover, Nall is the kind of player that anyone who read Marv's book would have to expect Levy to be interested in as a free agent: the younger, more or less obscure player who has had some time to develop who appears to be on the verge of breaking out. If you read Marv's book, you cannot help but be struck by how much he talks about these types of players (Diron Talbert, Jeff Wright, Steve Tasker, et al) and how valuable they are to the composition of a winning team. Tripplett, Royal, Bowen, Nall, Wells, Idonjie and even Davis all fit that same pattern, as do some of the players the Bills had in who signed elsewhere, like Pickett, or have not made up their minds yet, like Lennon and Neal, etc.
Like it or not, these are the kinds of players that Bills fans should expect Marv to look at first to build the foundation of the team around. The team already has some high-profile players, like Clements, McGee, Fletcher, Spikes, McGahee, Evans and, yes, for as long a he remains a Bill, Moulds and will add a couple of others in the up-coming draft. And, Marv is going to try to fill in around those players with the kind of "no-name" young veterans that he indicated in his book that he sees as being keys to building a winning team.
It doesn't matter what Marv and DJ say to the press or to the team--as Herm Edwards so eloquently told the NYC area press when it was obvious that his team had suffered so many injuries that it had no chance to win, "It doesn't matter what the situation is, you don't play the games to lose! You always play to win!"--it is going to take at least another year to turn this team around and put it in a position to be a winning team. Of course they are going to try to "win now"--what do you expect them to say to not just the fans, but, more importantly, to the players on the team? They are not going to say, "Well, we're really not good enough to compete for a playoff berth this season, so it doesn't matter if we win or not...." They're never going to say that! Naturally, they are going to tell the players that they want to win and that they are good enough to win, etc., so that they will play as hard as they can and try to win as much as they can. But, the reality is that, unless they get very lucky, it is going to take a couple of off-seasons (this being the first) for them to put together a team capable of being a consistent winner. And, what they are trying to do at this point is build the foundation of that team with the kind of players that fit into a certain mold.
Whether Nall can actually beat out JP or Holcomb and be a good NFL starting QB or any of Levy's other FA signings this offseason can emerge as solid starters in the NFL remains to be seen. What is obvious, though, is that Levy and DJ are approaching free agency with a definite, discernable philosophy in mind. Now, you can disagree with that philosophy or not as you wish, but, like it or not, that is the approach that they are taking and anyone who read Levy's book should not be surprised by the fact that it is.
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