What Might Have Been: A Scenario
by Macktruck on Nov 8, 2009 4:20 PM EST
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PrintSince this is the bye-week, it's a good time to look back over the past year to consider what might have happened if different decisions had been made. Here's my alternative scenario for people to ponder:
a) The Bills had extended Jason Peters' contract to his liking last January and made him a happy LT.
b) Hangartner was acquired as a FA and a decision was made to keep Walker and Brad Butler at their previous positions.
c) In the draft, the Bills traded down in the first round in exchange for an extra second round pick, then used the new first rounder to select Eric Wood.
d) With their two second round picks and their third rounder, the Bills selected Jarius Byrd, Andy Levitre, and the best DE available. If they preferred to use their new pick in the second round for a DE and Levitre wasn't still on the board in the third round, they could have taken T.J. Lang, who has done so well at Green Bay (he's now their starting LT, but was also playing OG effectively).
The o-line would then have been: Peters-Wood-Hangartner-Butler-Walker. If Butler had been injured in the second game (as did happen), Levitre or Lang could have become the starting RG. Demetrius Bell would have been the swing tackle.
If this scenario had played out, does anyone doubt that the Bills would now be at least 6-2 and possibly 7-1, with a very realistic chance of making the playoffs? And if that had happened, wouldn't we all be celebrating Trent Edwards as our franchise QB and possibly even praising the FO for its wisdom in extending Dick Jauron?
What's maddening is that it all could have happened. It was within the power of the team to have made it happen. And it shows that the disaster that the 2009 season has become all started with the decision not to pay Jason Peters his market value.
If nothing else, it's an interesting "what if" to discuss.
Just another great fan opinion shared on the pages of BuffaloRumblings.com.
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Yeah – don’t think we’d be 6-2 or 7-1. That O-Line doesn’t automatically make our QB play lights out.
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your scenario
discusses trade downs, massive contracts, and bunch of other twists and turns. Its pretty tough for you to criticism them like that.
I’d like to see what your reaction , and all of ours, would have been if the first two picks in the draft were a center and free safety. It would have been an outrage.
To me, the sucker is the person who runs when there’s trouble, especially when this situation was so easily foreshadowed….
this is nice, but….
as Brian pointed out, Edwards doesn’t immediately start winning games just because we can block now.
That’s some spending that we just weren’t in position to do, or, rather didn’t want to do.
Lang is a member of the worst offensive line in football, even worse than the Bills’.
And poz makes a great point, we would have crrrrrushed the Bills if they had that draft, especially because no one knew Byrd would have this kind of impact.
Also, this doesn’t do anything to solve the stupid special teams mistakes that have cost us games or address the poor run defense we’ve suffered.
I just don’t think it’s wise to consider the past to see what could have been. We need to get better and smarter now and worry about the next regime, not start thinking about what we could have been.
I would disagree with Brian here — I think Edwards does start winning games if he has more pass protection and a decent running game to work with. I’m not sure Trent would have played “lights out,” but we were very close against several of our opponents and having a solid o-line would almost surely have put us over the top. I’ll bet we would have won in Miami as well, since it was the OT’s that essentally cost us that one. And with the offense scoring points the defense would have been even better than they have been (which has been pretty impressive).
Yes, the spending was something we didn’t want to do. But if we had done it the team would have been much better off financially in the long run.
Lang is on a poor quality o-line right now (not as bad as that of the Bills) but he is doing very well individually. I don’t get your point.
And yes most fans would have screamed if we took a Center and Safety as our first two picks in the 2009 draft, but in reality they would have been very stupid to do so. The team can’t make its decisions based on the whims of the fans (though it ultimately must satisfy them by providing a winning team that plays entertaining football).
On the special teams mistakes, they seem to be behind us now. And a solid offense would have essentially made them inconsequential.
As for looking at the past, there’s an old saying that those who don’t look at it are bound to keep repeating their mistakes. That’s what the Bills have been doing. The big mistake here was not paying Peters. It seems to me there is a lot of value in highlighting that and hoping that everyone will learn from it.
Yes, the spending was something we didn’t want to do
I don’t think that was it at all. I think Buffalo felt like Peters hadn’t earned the huge contract he was looking for (and never really asked the team for) when he held out with three years left on his deal. Buffalo then offered Peters what they felt was a fair contract (in the 8-9 mil per year range), but Peters had already made up his mind and wanted out of here for a Jordan Gross type 10 mil per year. It’s not that Buffalo wasn’t willing to pay Peters, they didn’t think he was worth the money he was asking for. So far, Philly is probably wondering if he’ll ever live up to the contract.
I signed up for Second Life about a year ago. Back then my life was so great that I literally wanted a second one. In my Second Life I was also a paper salesman and I was also named Dwight. Absolutely everything was the same. Except I could fly. - Dwight Schrute
I don’t have time to check the stats, but my understanding is that Peters has allowed only one sack so far this year. I get this from someone I know who is an Eagles fan and who tells me that Peters has been doing a great job for his team so far.
The Bills didn’t think Peters was worth Jordan Gross money, but they were totally wrong since that was the price he was able to command. He was easily worth $11 million in reality to the Bills given their need to have a winning season in 2009. Once he was traded away the whole o-line fell apart.
As for T. J. Lang, he did have a rocky first start against Jared Allen (who wouldn’t) but did much better last week and as I understand it would have started today except for the fact that he was injured. He certainly has been having a good rookie season there (as Levitre has been having with us). My point is that had we passed over Levitre to get a DE we could have picked up Lang in round three and done just as well.
Green Bay O-line
They have allowed 37 sacks to our 23. Is that enough evidence that their O-line is worse
My proudest moment as a bills fan was watching Don Beebe chase someone down in a blowout. Is that sad?
Buffalo Rumblings
by partyboybackformore on Nov 8, 2009 7:50 PM EST up reply actions
and to say one more thing I agree that you can’t dwell on the past especially this horrific one with the Bills. My prefered old saying is…
“One reason God created time was so that there would be a place to bury the failures of the past”
It fits this team well.
My proudest moment as a bills fan was watching Don Beebe chase someone down in a blowout. Is that sad?
Buffalo Rumblings
by partyboybackformore on Nov 8, 2009 7:59 PM EST up reply actions
The team can’t make its decisions based on the whims of the fans (though it ultimately must satisfy them by providing a winning team that plays entertaining football).
They havent been and they havent won.
To me, the sucker is the person who runs when there’s trouble, especially when this situation was so easily foreshadowed….
by poz on Nov 9, 2009 3:17 AM EST up reply actions
TJ Lang made two starts in place of an injured Chad Clifton and was absolutely abused by Jared Allen in one of them. He may have played some guard, but he hasn’t started a game there.
I thought the Bills handled the Peters situation the right way. He had three years left on his contract and randomly held out without even directly asking for a new deal. Buffalo forced him to show up, told him they would give him a new deal after the year and when they actually tried to offer him a contract, Peters wanted nothing to do with it.
I don’t think people realize how much money Buffalo had already invested into this roster for this season. If Buffalo had given Peters the type of signing bonus he was looking for, they would easily be in the top 10 in salary again, even without TO.
Peters has really struggled in Philly so far too.
You honestly think it would have been realistic for Buffalo to trade down in the first round and then draft two guards and a free safety?
Seriously, anybody who likes to go back and do these what if scenarios needs to do a real time mock offseason with me this year. I’ll set up all the Bills contract situations, UFA, RFA, ERFA stuff, minimum salaries and everything else that’s needed. If anybody can do an offseason without at least one major screwup, then I’d love to see it.
I signed up for Second Life about a year ago. Back then my life was so great that I literally wanted a second one. In my Second Life I was also a paper salesman and I was also named Dwight. Absolutely everything was the same. Except I could fly. - Dwight Schrute
I watched Peters closely in the second half of the Dallas game when he was playing with an injured ankle. As Chris Collingsworth commented, Jason was simply dominant against Demarcus Ware. He looked as good as any LT I have ever seen and definitely worth $11 million (given the going pay for LT’s). One can only imagine what a difference he would have made playing for the Bills this year. Trading away a player like that is just plain stupid for any franchise, especially when it has a long history of poor play on offense caused mainly by weakness in its o-line.
Just one problem. He didn’t want to play for us anymore. Say what you want about his ability but he had no desire to play for the Bills any more
My proudest moment as a bills fan was watching Don Beebe chase someone down in a blowout. Is that sad?
Buffalo Rumblings
by partyboybackformore on Nov 9, 2009 11:07 AM EST up reply actions
Our O-Line is getting schooled and it will pay dividends. In the future.
If you truely wanted to evaluate your potential franchise QB, without jeopardizing his carreer, then yes This would of been a more promising test. Instead, we have this tremendously young and inexpirenced group of young men that will some day prove their value over the likes of Jason Peters and Langston Walker. As far as QB is concerned who the hell knows. I’ll give Trent as many chances as the coach does, if its every game then every game. A sign of improvement is needed real quick. We are changing QB’s, O-Lineman and Coaches way to much lately. This half of the season will be all on the QB. The O-Line has shown us for eight games what to expect, they will get better but not a whole lot. The QB on the other hand needs to lead this group with much more confidence and without doubt leadership.
Excuses are a sign of weakness!!!!!!
Yes, but if you follow my scenario we still would have had Wood, Levitre, Bell and Hangartner. The difference would have been the chance to maintain continuity. As you say, we are changing QB’s, o-lines and coaches much too rapidly. The most successful teams don’t do that, and following the scenario I outlined would have given us a reasonable chance to avoid it. As things stand, we will likely be starting from scratch next year — once again. And as Brian has pointed out, don’t be sure that the new coaching staff will want to keep the present o-line, even though we are now going through the pain of watching them get experienced.
As for the QB, there was a lot of talk at the end of last season about the need to give Trent a fair chance by providing him with good pass blocking and a running game. That was the right way to think, but as soon as the organization decided to trade Peters all of that went out the window. We may end up starting from scratch with a new QB as well, which means waiting two or three yars for him to develop, and in the end he may be no better than Trent would have been with a good o-line.
It’s frustrating.
What might have been....
In horse racing (where I am a fan) your analysis is called “red boarding.” The “red board” reports the results of the race. A “red board” analysis is figuring out how it was easy to predict the winner of the race after you saw how it was run. It is the staple of racing writers.
The Bills’ management needs better “handicappers and bettors.” In the draft, free agent and trade markets, management is predicting the results. I think it is fair to say that these markets are very inefficient – meaning that a number of people all possessed with the same information arrive a different conclusions. By definition, inefficient markets can be successfully exploited by the participants who judge the information correctly. The amount of guaranteed money currently in the market makes mistakes very costly. Even with revenue sharing and a salary cap, resources are very different around the league. The Wilson lead Bills have been consistant in their inability tocompete in the market.
As bloggers we are “red boarding.” On this blog we are fortunate to have several people who devote extraordinary amounts of time to forecasting player markets. Brian devotes a weekly column to it all season. He and others are our “handicappers and bettors.” The Bills’ handicappers and bettors have demonstrated that they are ill equipped to win at this highly complex game.
by jpheff on Nov 8, 2009 9:19 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
Market efficiency...
Another wrinkle to your market efficiency theory is that media generate a baseline against which to judge market performance. The media have access to the same information as teams, with which they generate mock drafts that represent the consensus choice for each draft slot — the conventional wisdom.
In an inefficient market, smart market participants will be able to exploit inefficiencies to perform better (or at least as good as) the baseline, while stupid market participants will perform worse than the baseline.
So, to determine whether the Bills are smart or stupid, just compare the Bills’ draft performance to Mel Kiper’s Draft Board. It’s embarrassing! Basically, over the past decade, if the Bills Front Office did nothing but sit around and do exactly what ESPN told them to do, we would have significantly better drafts.
by Flutie Flakes on Nov 9, 2009 5:13 PM EST up reply actions
Why don’t you write up a post comparing the two? :-)
Playing Realistic Optimist at Buffalo Rumblings since 2008.
"Matt’s pretty valuable to y’all. Cherish him." - BG
by MattRichWarren on Nov 9, 2009 7:57 PM EST up reply actions
more on efficiency
Very interesting. The NFL GMs are the equivalent of “active investors” and the Mel Kipers of the world are the equivalent of the “market.” The active investors are trying to outperform the market. The Bills have underperformed the market and would have been better off “indexing” which is just owning the market.
You nailed it.
Rec’ed. Perhaps the most insightful summary of what’s wrong with the Bills organization.
The market for coaches too (and probably all personnel) is inefficient, and Wilson has not competed well here either. When you hire people out of Pittsburgh, you need some way of judging whether they had anything to do with the success there, or, at the least, learned anything while there. We’ve seen Wilson err in the other direction, too, by firing competent assistants (scapegoating, i’d guess) while letting the underperforming HC off the hook (OC Gilbride, who now has a SB ring with the Giants; DC LeBeau, with a long and unassailable CV and recently, SB rings with the Steelers.) Yeah, it’s all about judging talent, or hiring someone who can.
by Sixteenthback on Nov 11, 2009 12:40 PM EST up reply actions
Gilbride left cause he was terrible in Buffalo.
LeBeau left because he had a one year contract and when Gregg Williams wasn’t retained he went back to Pittsburgh where he had coached for a bunch of years.
I don’t see how either are relevant. The Bills have had a bunch of lousy assistants. You won’t hear me banging the drum for very many of our coaches.
Playing Realistic Optimist at Buffalo Rumblings since 2008.
"Matt’s pretty valuable to y’all. Cherish him." - BG
by MattRichWarren on Nov 11, 2009 1:20 PM EST up reply actions
Just want to say that
for all the talk about how bad Edwards and Fitz are, and I don’t buy it in the least, Rodgers and Cutler, the two main young studs, are not doing great things with their teams. Both Green Bay and Chicago are 4-4.
Our Edwards and Fitz are 3-5 but they’ve put us in position to win at least 4 games, possibly 5. I think this regime is doing well. This is what rebuilding should look like. It is messy and you take progressive steps forward and at times you look like you regress. But for the first time in many years, we feel like we have a solid foundation. The defense is good and the offense is looking up.
I don’t think keeping Peters or Walker would have done wonders for us. It would have helped, but at too much of a cost.
In reading this board, when you realize that as bad as the general sentiment is about the Bills, even nationwide, we are 3-5 and we have a shot a winning record and possibly playoffs. So I think we should respect the great work the FO and coaches have done and love what we have in Edwards and Fitz, because getting dreamy about others is a frustrating exercise but even then, we’ve seen other big names not do a darn thing. The linebacker guy for Chicago, Pisa T_ (who we wanted to have sign with us) played on series got hurt, returned and is out for the season. Cutler, who at this stage, should be carrying his team, is bust. He has great fantasy numbers, but he is not carrying his team to victory. Same with Rodgers.
There’s still a lot of football to be played. I remember the Viking teams and Lions teams of the 90s they always tended to start horribly and then pull of this great playoff run in the last 8 games. There always seem to be teams get to a flying start and collapse and then others that are talented and obviously figuring it out and then bust out in the second half of the year. I’m hoping the Bills get healthy, figure a few things out, add in a couple of third and short packages, and voila . . . “championship” (a la TJ whooseyourdaddy guy)
Huh?
Rodgers isn’t doing great things for Green Bay? I guess 282 yards per game, a 103 rating and 18 total TD’s in 8 games, along with leading an offense that scores 27 ppg is nothing special. It’s not his fault the Packers are 4-4. That defense is pretty atrocious, and their OL is worse than ours. A QB can only do so much, and leading an offense that is effective like GB’s is exactly what he should be doing.
Comparing Edwards/Fitz to Rodgers is just a slap in Rodgers’ face….
Edwards and Fitz have not put this team in position to win four games. The defense and mistakes of the opposition have done that. Our QB’s have been some of the worst in the league this year. Saying they’ve done anything positive towards helping this team win is being incredibly kind.
“This is what rebuilding should look like”. Yes, in year 1. Not in year 4. Having it happen now is pathetic and shows how poor this regime has been.
~K
"As the governor of Louisiana once said, the only way Chris Kelsay can lose his job is if he got caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy."
It’s true the Green Bay o-line has allowed more sacks than ours, but I’m not sure that necessarily indicates they are worse. You have to keep in mind that GB has not gone to max protect on passing plays while we have done that about 90% of the time. We play with 2 WR’s and keep two TE’s in to block in order to minimize pressure and sacks on our QB. GB takes the opposite strategy and floods the field with receivers. The result is more sacks but also far more targets for Rodgers.
I’m not sure which is the better way to go, and the fact that the Bills have resorted to max protect most of the time may indicate that they have less faith in the ability of their QB’s to elude the pass rush than GB does with Rodgers (which is obviously a virtue in a QB). But I do think this reality has to be taken into account in any comparisons.
To go back to my original point in the fanpost, though, it seems clear to me that Trent Edwards has consistently performed well at QB when he has had decent protection. If that’s true, then the Bills organization needed to make every effort during the offseason to make sure he had it. Instead they engaged in a series of decisions that almost guaranteed he would be running for his life this year. Had they not done that — had they followed the scenario I laid out in the fanpost or something close to it — I am convinced we would all be talking now about how the team had finally solved its QB problem rather than the intense discussions we have in fact been having about who will be available in the 2010 draft.
You are right sacks aren’t everything. But it is the only tangible way to judge an O-line.
Worst sacks allowed each season(10 years)
’09-GB-74(Pace)
’08-SF-55
’07-KC-55
’06-Oak-72
’05-Hou-68
’04-Chi-66
’03-Buf-51
’02-Hou-76
’01-Det-66
’00-Car-69
That puts GB in the neighborhood with the worst O-Line ever. Houston’s abysmal inception season.
Looking back and saying we should’ve kept Peters does nothing for us. I felt it was the best move we made this off-season. We got rid of a guy who didn’t want to be part of our team. In return we got a 1st round pick that led to us getting Eric Wood. The Madden’isque trades you talk of would never have happened.
We need to look to the ahead if anything, not back. I know many people are pulling for a QB in this coming draft but I wanna see us take the best LT( maybe Okung falls to us because of the huge need at QB or possibly Bruce Campbell out of Maryland) move Bell to the RT position where he could hopefully flourish like Winston Justice. Shore up tho O-line give Trent one last season to prove himself(I also feel with decent protection he could win us 10 or 11 games and get us to the playoffs) and if not we hopefully have a the players in place to allow a new QB to actually succeed in ’11.
I know that requires patience but good football teams aren’t built overnight.
My proudest moment as a bills fan was watching Don Beebe chase someone down in a blowout. Is that sad?
Buffalo Rumblings
by partyboybackformore on Nov 9, 2009 12:00 PM EST up reply actions
There is NO evidence whatsoever that Peters didn’t want to play for the Bills if we paid him what he was demanding. It’s true that Russ Brandon indicated that Peters was unwilling to listen to our offers, but the offers were way below what he wanted until the very end, and Brandon is of course the same guy who said we had no discussions whatsoever about Michael Vick last August. It’s probably true that Peters was disgusted with the Bills by March and wanted out, but if we had made him a good offer back in December or January he may well have taken it.
As for the “trades” I outline being “Madenesque,” that’s ridiculous. I only spoke about ONE trade — moving back from pick #11 to the back end of round one. I’m sure there was a team that would have done that had we been willing to move back far enough (in effect giving them some value). That’s hardly “Maddenesque.”
I’m also appalled by the people who keep saying we should never look back to try to figure out our mistakes. That’s an attitude that dooms you to perpetual failure. How can you correct mistakes and avoid them in the future if you don’t know what they are? And the big mistake here was not being willing to pay one of our very best players - who happened to be at an especially crucial position - his fair market value. The point I’m making is that that set off a cascade of further mistakes that destroyed any chance of having a decent season and being able to maintain continuity in our rebuilding effort rather than having to start over from scratch. Of course, one can also say that all of those mistakes stemmed from not having a capable GM at the helm.
Rodgers has great fantasy numbers
but as a great QB he is supposed to carry that team on his back and will them to wins. The great ones have done it and made their teams look better than they actually were. BTW, a good chunk of Rodgers sacks are Rob Johnson like. He can get rid of the ball if he wanted to. Like Rob Johnson, because of his big arm, he is holding on to the ball in the hopes of getting the big play.
My point is that play makers are useless unless they are wining games for you (Orton v Cutler—although I feel like I am going to eat my words on this one—I see Denver collapsing in the second half). I think Edwards and Fitz are just fine, they are good enough to win even deep into the playoffs. What we need now is on offense have our line block well enough to give the offense’s play makers the touches to make the big plays and give the defense TOP equity to keep them fresh and let their big plays count.
I see the Buffalo situation as a legitimate rebuilding effort. It was from scratch. Not much is left from the old regime and there was not much of a direction or philosophy in the Mularky/Donahue era. So the current crew did not have much to build on. They drafted and signed their own people to rebuild and that is never a smooth operation.
Ive been arguing for over a year now
thta Rodger is overrated and was just crowned as a good QB because he puts up big numbers. Fact is, the Packers have not won since Favre left. Yet everyone loves him because he throws big stats. So did Jeff George. So did Elvis Grbac. Doesnt make him a great QB. Rodgers may yet be great, but as of now hes not a winner and has a worse record than Trent.
To me, the sucker is the person who runs when there’s trouble, especially when this situation was so easily foreshadowed….
by poz on Nov 9, 2009 1:25 PM EST up reply actions
6-2 or 7-1 with these hypothetical modifiations?
Special Teams, and (truly moreso) defense lost the MNF game. Defense lost the Saints, Jets, and Texans games. I see no way a different line allows the offense to become a juggernaut. They might have won the Browns game because of less penalties.
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by TheAfghanTwilight on Nov 9, 2009 1:53 PM EST reply actions
I would have to disagree strongly. The defense “lost” those games because the offense couldn’t put up points or stay on the field. In each case the defense held off the opponents until late in the game, then gave way because they were winded and demoralized. It’s been the same story for years now. And if the offense had been able to take advantage of obvious scoring opportunities against the Pats McKelvin’s fumble wouldn’t have mattered.
The bottom line this year should be obvious: we have a very good defense that is doing the best it can despite a lot of injuries and an offense that is almost 100% ineffective.
The simple fact of the matter is that the defense was on the field during the plays that caused the Bills to lose those games. The offense can’t be held responsible for a complete breakdown in run defense. Buffalo could have put up 40 on Miami and ’Nola and probably still lost, given how the defense was playing.
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by TheAfghanTwilight on Nov 9, 2009 3:07 PM EST up reply actions
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