| March 01, 2008 | « Previous Story | HOME | Next Story » | Posted at 04:20 PM |
I am upset and very, very disappointed.
I think that everyone here knows that I am probably as positive and optimistic about the Bills as the limits of my objectivity will permit in analyzing the moves that the organization makes.
I don't expect them to do what I want them to do--and I really try to limit, and be as realistic as possible, with my desires in what I think that they should/need to do.
I make a scrupulous effort to look at what the Bills decide to do, and try to understand why they decided to do that, and how that decision makes sense as part of some plan that they may have for the team.
But, tonight, I have to tell you that I am having a VERY hard time understanding or making any kind of sense out of what the Bills did on Friday.
We all know the positions on the field where the Bills need to get better if they are going to be able to play well enough this up-coming season to secure a playoff berth, and to be in a position to become serious playoff contenders in the near future. That's no secret: we know what they are, the Bills know what they are, everybody who knows anything about the team knows what they are.
Given the players who are going to be available in the draft, and the draft picks that the Bills have in the up-coming draft, I think that it was pretty much apparent to everyone that, one way or the other, the Bills were going to have to at least fill three of those positions with players who are better than the players that the Bills now have at those positions. And, depending on what positions they were able to fill with veterans prior to the draft, they might still have to draft rookies to develop at one or more of those positions.
We all pretty much knew (and still know) that they would have to move quickly to secure the services of the top players available in free agency, because those players were going to attract a lot of attention and be snapped up quickly.
At the last minute, suddenly, the Bills were surprisingly presented with a golden opportunity to address the weakest spot on their whole team relatively cheaply, when several quality DTs unexpectedly became available. Each one of these newly available DTs had some kind of flaw or drawback to him, but each had the potential to be a major upgrade for the Bills that could catapult their defense to the level needed to make the playoffs this season.
The Bills zeroed in on what appears be be one of the two best of the group. I can't necessarily fault them for chosing the guy that they chose. But, the problem was--IMHO--that they "zeroed in" on him to the exclusion of all of the rest:
While I might have prefered Corey Williams to Marcus Stroud, I didn't have a problem when Williams went to Cleveland and Kris Jenkins went to the Jets, because those deals set the "going market price" at a very reasonable level--much more reasonable than the price would have been had the "Tommy Kelly" deal set the market. So far, so good.
Like everyone else here, I was excited about the possibility of the Bills getting Stroud. And, then, the waiting started and time began to pass.
When the Kawika Mitchell deal went down, I was happy. From watching a lot of the NY Giants, I like Mitchell, and think he will be an upgrade over Ellison. Getting Mitchell also means that the Bills won't have to spend one of the first day picks on a linebacker: they can use one of their lower round pick,s or pick up a cheap free agent to help on special teams. But, while I think that adding Mitchell will give the Bills a very solid LB corps, I was never as down on Ellison as a lot of Bills fans (and apparently the coaching staff!), and didn't see adding a veteran OLB as being one of the Bills' "must get" positions in free agency.
So, while I like the Mitchell signing, all in all, I see it as being a relatively minor upgrade in comparison to the Bills' needs at some other positions.
DT, on the other hand, was the Bills' biggest and most difficult to fill need going into free agency. In my view, if the Bills could fill that need with a quality player before the draft, they would be in great shape.
But, time was flying by with no word about Stroud. And the remaining top-tier DTs were being taken off of the market at the market price, with there being no reliable word of the Bills trying to get involved in acquiring any of them.
Just when it seemed that there could be no plausible reason remaining to explain why there was no word about Stroud coming out of OBD, Dick Jauron tells everyone that the Bills aren't finished yet at the Kawika Mitchell press conference. The announcement of a deal with Stroud seemed imminent.
The release of Larry Tripplett came as a shock, but only reinforced the sense that the Bills were on the verge of wrapping up Stroud and filling their biggest DT need. Information that the Bills were working on contract details to protect them if Stroud were to get a second suspension only added to the anticipation, while seeming to explain the continued delay in any word coming out of OBD.
Then, nothing.
In the meantime, while word had come that the Bills were going to meet with Ben Troupe, and had talked with Bryant Johnson (my least favorite FA WR), top-tier and quality back-ups at positions that the Bills need to address kept being signed all over the place...again, without word of the Bills showing any real interest in those players at all.
Seeing this, I couldn't help asking myself, "What was going on at OBD? Why aren't the Bills at least trying to talk with some of these players?" A sense of deep concern began to build...an ill foreboding accompanied by a thought that I really didn't want to have settling into my mind....
More time passed and it was becoming clear that either everyone had called it a night at OBD, and they were going to "sleep on" what they had been negotiating (not a good sign when someone has to "sleep on" a deal), or the deal for Stroud had fallen through. Either way, things weren't looking good at all--without Stroud and with Tripplett now gone, were in even worse shape at DT than they were at the start of the day.
Tripplett may not have lived up to his contract, but he was at least serviceable. It would be difficult to describe most of the DTs remaining on the FA market as being even that good. A bad feeling was starting to settle in, especially when the Bills failed to jump on Shaun Rogers when the deal sending him to Cincy suddenly fell through and he was briefly available again.
Then I got the news of Wawarow's AP article saying that negotiations between the Bills and Stroud had broken down. And over money.
Now, anyone who has read my posts should know that I, while I have openly said that I thought that Ralph Wilson was "cheap" back in the "bad old days", I have staunchly defended Ralph against those who have tried to call him "cheap" in recent years. Not because I particularly like Raph, but because I understand some of the limitations that he is working within and, while working within those limits, I have still seen him lay out a lot of money, like he did last offseason, for players.
Now, there are players and positions that you spend money on (and situations when you have to) and there are players, positions and situations where you don't. When you have a huge hole in the middle of your defense and you have a chance to acquire a player who can pretty much fill that hole at the market price that has been established (or maybe even a little above that), that's when you spend the money and pay whatever the price is. In short, you do what you've gotta do.
But, if you're not going to do that, then you've to to be ready--and I mean fully prepared with your finger on the trigger--willing and able to immediately pursue the best possible alternatives that are available.
Unfortunately, however, that's not what I saw Ralph Wilson and the Bills do on Friday.
And, that's where that sneaky, ugly, nasty, ill foreboding feeling that had been nagging me all afternoon and evening comes in.....
I can understand why the Bills may have decided to let Stroud walk. Given his health and the suspension, I can see why they may not have been able to get what they needed to get from him, or why there may have been a point where his demands might have exceeded what they were willing to risk on him. Fine.
But, what I don't understand is, how they did not get the sense at a certain point in the negotiations that they may have needed to explore one of the alternatives that was still available to them. Sure, Corey Williams and Kris Jenkins were "off the board", but Shaun Rogers was still out there, etc.
If they had been quick enough in perceiving that the negotiations with Stroud were starting to bog down, the Bills should have been ready to make a move that would have either netted them one of the other top-tier DTs or given them more leverage in their negotiations with Stroud (while sitting all day with just him, they were letting one opportunity after another slip away fruitlessly, and losing leverage in dealing with him with every passing minute). Not smart.
If the Bills are going to operate under the financial limitations that it appears that they are going to have to operate under, then Wilson and his FO people are going to have to make up for those limitations by being extremely well-prepared, perceptive in not only their player evaluations, but in assessing the progress of negotiations and every other kind of situation that crops up, and, equally importantly, they are going to have to be nimble in their dealings and able to deal with multiple situations at the same time--able to "zero in" on a quality player and "strike while the iron is hot", but also prepared to quickly shift their focus and "zero in" on another target or two other targets at the same time.
What they cannot do, if they are going to be competitive--especially in the player acquisition process, is be myopic or let themselves get bogged down in a situation where they are going to be missing out on other important, prime opportunities.
That is precisely what that ugly, little, stomach-churning fore-boding feeling that I had was telling me that they might be doing. And, what, at the end of the day, I see that the Bills did.
IMHO, that is NOT a good sign. Not good at all.....
The Bills, as an organization--as a football team--absolutely cannot afford to operate the way that they did on Friday if they are going to have any chance of making the playoffs this season or being serious SB contenders anytime soon.
They are going to have to look at the mistakes they made today, and learn from them quickly because they cannot afford to make those same mistakes on Saturday--or ever again. If they are going to be successful, they are going to have to be better prepared, more perceptive, better able to multi-task in dealing with player acquisition, and much, much quicker and more nimble in making their moves. They are also going to have to learn the value and use of leverage quickly and thoroughly--because right now they seem to be ignorant or have only a limited, clumsy understanding of how to best and most effectively use it.
And, I regret that I have to say that, as much as I want to see the Bills new front office structure work well and produce superb results, based on their performance on Friday, I'm not sure that they are going to be able to do that because it certainly looks like they have a long, long way to go before they are going to be able to do what they need to do to put together a successful football team (on and off the field) within the financial limitations that the franchise has to work within to survive.
So, what did the Bills come away with on Friday?
Not much.
They did make a marginal improvement at one position of need that they now will not have to spend a high draft pick on trying to fill.
They had a shot to fill their most important and weakest position with a quality player, but, at the end of the day, the guy they targetted walked and the other players who were readily available slipped away. And, to top it off, they also lost an adequate (mediocre, if you will) player who may not be that easy to replace with equal quality.
Their situation at DT is now so bad that, unless they are able to get Stroud to come back to the table and work out a deal with him or swing a highly improbable deal to get Dewayne Robertson, they are going to have to spend their top draft pick (and perhaps more) on a defensive tackle who, unless they are extremely lucky or are willing to do whatever it takes to trade up wellinto the Top 10 of the draft, is likely to be quite raw and a considerable risk.
Now, I'm not saying that the Bills can't, somehow, get out of the mess that they created for themselves on Friday--because there are some possible ways for them to do so and actually end up going into the draft in pretty good shape. But, they are going to have to do a much better job than they did on Friday to accomplish that.
And, based on the way that they performed on Friday, I now have very grave concerns about whether they have what it is going to take to do that.
We'll have to see what the Bills are able to do from here until the beginning of the draft: free agency isn't over and they still have a chance to do what they need to do. And, I will give them a chance to show me whether they can do that.
But, right now, I have to say that I am extremely disappointed and very upset by what I saw the Bills do--and how I saw them do it--on Friday. And, if an optimist like me is disappointed and upset, I can only imagine how upset and angry those who were already disenchanted with the Bills management are right now. In all honesty, I don't blame anyone for feeling that way right now.
