I'm not taking credit for this just passing it along. Very interesting though.

When Mayock broke down Glenn right after the selection, he showed two clips from Senior Bowl practices. The first was supposedly Glenn getting smoked to the inside. Except it wasn't Glenn (#71), it was Jeff Allen from Illinois (#72). The next clip of textbook balance and anchoring was actually Glenn.

http://www.nfl.com/d...lenn?id=2532849

(Click on the first video link of Phil Hansen reading the selection - Mayock is right after that.)

I think Trent Edwards has a form of Chuck Knoblauch syndrome, sometimes referred to as "the Yips" - "Steve Sax disease" - and "Steve Blass disease".  I'm not being facetious, hence the fan post title "In all seriousness". 

The definition of this disease or syndrome is:  the apparent loss of certain fine motor skills seemingly without explanation in one of a number of different sports.  Sometimes they recover their ability, sometimes they compensate by changing technique, or may be forced to abandon their sport at the highest level.

After doing a bit of research there have been many athletes in all different kind of sports that have been effected by this syndrome, and at the highest levels. 

I liken it to "stage fright".  Someone that can sing in the shower, but can't get in front of an audience.  Even if the audience is a karaoke bar and the person has the words right in front of them and has sang that song a million times in their head.

To me there's a distinction between Edwards and a QB that can't play.  That distinction is that we have seen him play well.  We saw it in the early games of 2008 and in pre season.  So we know the ability is there.  Then after several hard hits and concussions the guy just lost all ability?  I don't believe that.  I think he's got a mental block.  Heck even the national media is baffled at why he won't throw the ball.  It has to puzzling Gailey as well.  He saw the guy flat out win the job with an admitted open competition.  Then he goes out with real bullets flying and performs like that.  I truly believe it is pure stage fright and a "loss of certain fine motor skills seemingly without explanation."

We've all heard the term "QB's need to stay healthy."  How does a QB stay healthy?  How would we break down the dichotomy of whether these injuries can or can't be avoided by the player himself?  The final question - including the pole is;  What percentage of injuries to QB's could have been avoided by the player?

I think a good healthy discussion or debate (depending on how this goes) might help answer some of the questions surrounding such an undefined statement as "stay healthy" for a QB.   I'm hoping at the end of this discussion a reasonable definition of what we mean by "QB's need to stay healthy" can be determined, as I'm sure all sides of this proverbial coin can be debated.

Here in Buffalo we have a QB that we've often and for good reason labeled "injury prone".  But is this label a matter of fact, is it avoidable, or have we just resigned to saying that because we don't what else to say? 

.... what fans should be focused on this year? 

I'm not looking at this season in terms of wins and losses.  Obviously I would love to win, but I think the more important outlook is to use this season to answer questions in regards to personnel.  In year one of the Nix/Gailey rebuild, we have several areas that are unknown in regards to our current players.  This season is going to be a season of  evaluation within the framework of trying to win, and with all of the new changes in scheme and players only playing will determine what this FO needs to address.

My optimism comes from my confidence that the new regime knows how to evaluate.  I'm on board with how they've handled the entire off season so far.  From the FO hirings, to coaches, the draft, and free agency.  Now we need to see how much of the question marks we already knew about were addressed properly, which areas we've tried to address but need more improvement, and what of the unknowns become priorities. 

I'm hoping my next round of optimism comes from their ability to address the questions that come from a full season of seeing the team play. 

In summary, I'm interested to see if the areas we've addressed improve i.e. outside and inside LB's, NT, DE's, etc.  If we can get a clearer and more focused idea of where this team needs to build after this season and the areas of concern become more specific, I think this will be a successful season regardless of wins.  It would be great to come out of this season with questions answered by what we've done this offseason, and have a more narrowed focus, and have less pieces of the puzzle needed than we did this year.

I'm going to attempt to put my thoughts into one post about my feelings for the upcoming season. If most of us would admit, all of our opinions about the upcoming season are unsubstantiated, none of us really know or have any special thoughts that somehow are able to see the future.

In saying that, there have been a myriad of thoughts about the entire off season, and now how its going to translate into the season. I for one think the entire spectrum of thoughts are not only possible, but I have been up and down that spectrum myself. I go from feeling this team won't compete to all the way to feeling they are going to surprise people on how competitive they will be. Wow, could there be more polar opposite feelings? But I have them both.

One day I'll lean towards believing we are going to struggle to be competitive. Anytime a team: changes the entire staff, switches an entire defensive scheme with only one year to put the proper pieces in place, one off season to teach the new system, didn't address the identified most important needs of the team identified by the Front Office - media - and fans alike Left Tackle and Quarterback. You could continue your pessimism by saying NT was at the very minimum the 3rd most important position needed and the cornerstone needed to switch to the 3-4, and we addressed that position with a rookie who is thought by many to be drafted above more talented players.

Then I'll get a totally different opinion that comes over me. Optimism buys me a ticket on "The Bills are on their way to being significant" bandwagon. Our current QB core is better than anyone we could have drafted and Gailey has the ability to coach one of them up, Spiller is going to make the offensive line issues less present, Troup is the perfect fit NT that should have been chosen over "more popular" names, we got bigger on defense and have a plethora of Linebackers to field a strong group.

As I stated earlier, the concerns about this team and the reasons to be optimistic are all possible of being true reasons for the success or failure of this team.

For those of you that have made it this far through my post and haven't hit the back button out of sheer boredom, your probably anticipating me to take a neutral position on the Bills upcoming season. And to say that some of the positive things we feel will come true, and some of the concerns will be true, therefor we should take the approach as fans that we won't be real good, but we should see enough positives to start feeling good about the future. Well Heck no.
Stop stop with thinking I'm just going to ignore all the issues and go on a rant of how good we're going to be, and how our division foes acquisitions will blow up in their face, blah blah blah.

I think this team has a real chance of being good. In my view our ability to be good hinges on one person, and one person only (in regards to the overall team being good); Trent Edwards. If Trent wins the QB job, this team is on its way. It will mean that an excellent QB talent evaluator (Gailey), chose him, and that a new commitment to Trent will have been made by the new regime. I think we should all be hoping Trent wins the job, for what it will mean to our future. If he doesn't win the job, we are still in project QB mode or drafting one next year mode. Which in my view means the ability to compete for the division won't happen till the QB to build around arrives.

Isn't it worth trading with St. Louis to get Bradford?  I think we could probably swap 1st round picks (obviously) and our 1st and 3rd next year for their slot.

Then we can use the remainder of our picks this year to continue to build through the draft.  Bradford may be the closest thing to a "for sure" franchise QB that we've seen in a while.  I know the cost is high, but in my opinion its not too high. 

What do you think?  And more importantly, would our FO even think of doing something like this?

I don't think the Bills FO would have traded Peters if they felt they could'nt fill the void with players already on the roster. You know they didn't talk about Peters for an hour or two, it was the topic for weeks. I believe they convinced themselves that they can still go forward with their draft plans, in lieu of trading Peters.   I just can't imagine they said "well we don't think we can solve the LT issue in house, but lets trade Peters anyway and hope this LT is there at #11 or this LT at #28", etc.

I believe they are going to draft Pettigrew. I think they believe he is the best player at his position by such a large margin that it warrants taking him at #11. I think they feel drafting a DE or LT will reduce them to the 3rd or 4th best player at either position.  And that the argument for drafting Pettigrew at #11 is more justifiable than taking the 3rd best or 4th best LT or DE. The 11th pick is just too high to not draft the best or second best player at a position.

Now in saying all that, I am now officially deciding that Pettigrew is the player I hope they draft.  I made a comment earlier that I could argue a pass catching TE could do as much for our pass coverage issues with Peters gone as a blocking TE could.  Well Pettigrew can do both and do both very well.  I feel comfortable saying Pettigrew can play every down.

Good teams win even when they aren't playing particularly well.  That is what happened today.  Oakland is a bad team.  Their defensive line played well (especially the first half), they won the field position battle, got some strange turnovers ie: Evans fumble, and the simultaneous possession.  But they couldn't close.  If you keep giving a good team an opportunity to beat you, they will, and we did.  The Buffalo Bills are a good team, keep your head up high Bills Fans!

Both of Jacksonville's starting guards are out.  Could this be the year Buffalo's luck turns.  First two games of schedule were tough teams and we are already catching positive breaks.  Tutan Reyes is one of their backups, remember that project?  Jacksonville is already playing without starting center Brad Meester.  This game is playing right into our hands.  I predict another blowout.  The link to the ESPN article is below.

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http://www.nfl.com/news/story?id=09000d5d80aa5239&template=with-video&confirm=true