NFL Free Agents 2012: Two Buffalo Bills In Pete Prisco's Top 50

Bell should be number one?

They must taken his injuries into account……which is hard ti do…..

Stevie is a top 50 defintly. He is young has shown consistency. He.has also shown the ability to beat any corner in the league. Alot of teams would love to have that in a number two. Bell so much injury risk how is he top 50.

I think the Bills could do as well with Hairston or other players. But last year D-Bell played very well, well enough to put aside the doubts that he wasn’t be a starting level player. I believe he can be a starting caliber player in the NFL. But while I could buy him being on the list, I think No. 32 in the free agent list is perhaps a little high.

Nightmare scenario: Johnson & Jackson both end up as New England Patriots. Ugh, I think I just made myself sick…

Bell’s rating seems more a demonstration of how thin the LT market is than an endorsement of his abilities.

As to Johnson, the Bills have yet another highly rated free agent at a position of need. History suggests that the Bills will let Johnson walk; Nix’s inaction has ensured the opportunity to lose Johnson exists.

I’m fine with the rankings, absolutely. I hope they don’t stay FAs for long though (like, no time, since OBD will sign them before the period starts).

More to what the FA class can bring to our roster more so than the players we could lose. Those additions to the roster will add more value to who, what and when to draft certian players/positions.

With more of these articles coming out in the next few months, Stevie’s bargaining position will only strengthen. Buddy needs to act now and get him resigned or else other teams will begin to float offers out.

I think both are close to where they should be ranked but Stevie behind desean Jackson? Come on! Stevie played most the season with an injured groin and played really well, desean afraid of getting hurt took most plays off. How can they rank him higher?

As for bell it’s the same thing. Even though he is injury prone he has proved capable when he does actually play. Gaither in the meantime has shown nothing in 2 years now. He was a backup in KC this past year and the only play I remember seeing of him was when he came in for Brandon Albert and committed a false start and then was taken right back out. That game was the night game against the chargers I believe. Hard to justify him being ranked ahead of bell.

Bell’s underrated, but this must be a pretty weak FA class.

Love the picture of Stevie and his wife. An awards banquet is absolutely the right time to be goofy.

Also, Stevie, your wife is beautiful. I’d take her over Giselle Bundchen anyday.

I rather have stevie than any of the wr’s listed, save desean jackson. I want bills to keep both steve and demetrius

and that the author didn’t know it was a shoulder this year, not a knee. I guess, actually that isn’t that surprising. He named a guy on our team by the right name, and put him in the right position. I don’t know why I expected more than that. Aside from that: Stevie is too high on this list. Teams can’t be taking him from us. PLUS their interest only drives up his cost. I really really really don’t want him to be somewhere else. That is just plain unacceptable to me. I don’t care HOW you write the contract, what kind of escalators are there, to keep him cheaper if he doesn’t keep up the production for a bit, or if we end up improving at WR so he gets SOME less production (not that I want to screw him outta money, mind you. Just that i want there to be value on our end, with potential bonuses on his) and just keep him. KEEP HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I refuse to accept otherwise still.

From PFT: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/02/12/new-cba-gives-teams-the-right-to-carry-over-cap-space-automatically/

So, IF this is true (sometimes PFT gets things wrong), then not only did we not sign key players and left $20 mill in cap space on the table………. we could’ve also rolled it into this year’s pot of money.
That would’ve gave us more cap this year to sign Free Agents and sign Stevie, Bell, Fred, etc.

Is this article incorrect? We shall see.
Did Buddy Nix actually already roll the money over already? I dunno, I guess we’ll find out. I can’t wait for the local press to ask Buddy these very questions.

Bring back stevie and sign garcon. That is both realistically and a good move.

I was a bit surprised that Demetrius Bell made the list at # 32, but, after looking at the list of offensive linemen in this class, I can’t argue with his rating at all.

I think Bell finally showed why the Bills had such faith in him when he was able to play this season, but the problem with him is all the injuries that he has suffered. That makes him a question-mark and a bit of a risk.

As much as I would like to see the Bills re-sign him—because I don’t really see Hairston being quick enough to be as good at LT as Bell can be—I would have to defer to the Bills’ FO on whether he is worth re-signing because they have access to info from the MDs who have treated Bell. If the MDs think that any of the shoulder and knee injuries that Bell has had are likely to be chronic, bad enough or likely to recur so that Bell is likely to continue to miss games or even have his career shortened, then I could see the Bills being reluctant to sign him for a lot of money or years.

Now we all know that MDs for different clubs can come to different conclusions about how and whether a given player will be able to come back from his injuries (Drew Brees being the classic example). So, the Bills’ MDs might give the Bills’ FO a very different opinion about Bell’s prospects than some other teams’ MDs will give their FOs. So, it’s hard to say what the Bills will do or whether their MDs’ opinion will turn out to be correct in the long run. But I do think that what their doctors say will play a big part in whether they really make a serious effort to re-sign Bell.

IF he can play, though, I do think that Bell not only would belong on this list but would be ranked even higher. What has him ranked # 32, though, is whether he will continue to be injury-prone or not. And, given that we don’t know the answer to that, ranking him as # 32 in the free agent class is about right.

As for Stevie Johnson, I would have him ranked higher. And, I also think he should be the Bills’ top priority to re-sign—at any cost lower than the franchise tag.

I think that those who have already said that fans tend to see more of the short-comings of players on their own team than others do are absolutely, positively correct.

When I see fans on message-boards saying that they would take D.Bowe over Stevie, I cringe.

Yes, Stevie has had a couple of really bad drops the last couple of years and we all know about how he hurt the Bills with some of his antics. But, Stevie loves the Bills and Buffalo and wants to stay if he gets paid. He plays hurt and always gives his best effort. He may not have elite speed, but he’s a tough possession receiver that his QB can rely on.

But, what makes him so valuable in my eyes is his unique ability to get off the line of scrimmage against press coverage (which I believe teams are going to increasingly use). Stevie doesn’t try to beat press coverage in a textbook way. Instead, he has developed his own approach to getting off the defender that he can and does adapt to the strengths and weaknesses of each DB he faces. That’s why he was able to do what no other WR was able to do against D.Revis this season and why he was able to make as many catches as he did this season against double-coverage even though he doesn’t have elite speed. And, he uses his body to shield off defenders really well also.

I’m pretty sure that one of the reasons that KC hasn’t gone all out to re-sign D.Bowe yet is that he’s a bit of a prima donna who doesn’t hustle all of the time. While Stevie Johnson has had a couple of big drops that got lots of coverage because they could have altered the outcome of those games, D.Bowe has had his share of big drops, too—it’s just that they didn’t get as much coverage: there was one last year that should have been a TD early in the season and another that I saw this season that killed a drive on third down in opposition territory. What’s worse are the catches/drops that didn’t happen because Bowe didn’t even try for the ball—there was one throw at the end of a game against the Chargers, I believe, where Bowe didn’t even try to go up for the ball because he was double-covered in the end zone—the announcers of the game rightly ripped him for his lack of effort. In fact, if you look at his career closely, Bowe has only really thrived when KC has had another big target in their passing attack (be it Moeaki or the speed receiver from Pitt, etc.). And, he has been known to complain as well.

Compare that to Stevie Johnson who stepped up when Lee Evans was traded and continued to play hard, even though he was still not 100%, after D.Jones and then Chandler got hurt.

Yes, Stevie has cost the team with his post-TD antics. But, he knows that now. And, he has promised that he will stop having any post-TD celebrations. I believe that, once he gets paid (he has said that the antics were his attempt to get some attention for himself)—regardless of which team pays him, he will.

Receivers like Stevie Johnson are hard to find: a consistent big receiver who can get open against double-coverage against a team’s best CB. Take away the antics and you’ve got a guy who is going to get 1,000 every season in this offense. And, given that this was only his second season as a starter, he’s only going to get better.

DeSean Jackson is a home-run threat who can alter the outcome of any game as a receiver or as a return man. The problem is that he’s a “me-first” guy who has had some issues with injuries and is an all-around headache. Is that spectacular ability to alter a game worth the money he will want and the possible problems he may cause in the dressing-room? I don’t know. He’s a very different kind of player and much more explosive than Stevie, but I would trust Stevie to be less of a problem in the long-run.

Garcon would be the ideal compliment to Stevie, but, as Chris Brown just wrote on the Bills website, Garcon’s size and track record and, in particular, his upside will probably make him a much bigger target in free agency for teams than where he is ranked on Prisco’s list or than most fans might think. Brown says that the Colts have made Garcon a priority to re-sign and I don’t blame them for doing so.

Meacham has the size and speed the Bills would like, but his inconsistency is a problem that has to give every team some pause. It depends on how much he wants because I really don’t know if he can be trusted to be consistent. The Bills need a speed receiver to stretch the field, but I really don’t know if he would be worth the money because, if he can’t get off the line of scrimmage or catch the ball consistently, how much better than a Donald Jones or Marcus Easley would he end up being?

Which brings me back to Stevie Johnson: I just think that, without the antics, he’s too good to let go.