Buffalo Bills start of the season press conference

TheBillster · #1 (**permalink**) 10-09-2004

So, as far as I expect the preseason starts today and iam already very excited.
At first i want to say that iam happy to be in the league and iam sure it will be huge fun for us all. To be the manager and partly the coach of a NFL football team is an exciting job to have in this league. I wish you all the best and hope that we can play this at least 5 seasons with all the owners involved till the end.
BTW, I looked at my schedule and was surprised that we have 22 owner teams in the league right now, but iam playing 13 games against owner teams and only 3 games against CPU teams. That’s pretty hard, but the Bills can handle this. HAHAHA! LOL

Now I want to do some comments in general about my team and the league.

At first I took over an already very good team with the Bills, but the team had to much older players on the roster in my opinion. It would be very hard in years 3 till the finish to replace all of them at the same time. To avoid a fiasco in the final years of the game I had to do some roster moves to make the team younger in some spots. Two of these victims were DT Sam Adams and CB Troy Vincent. Hopefully the players I received for them will help us right from the start till the end of this game, and that wasn’t guaranteed by Vincent and Adams. The other thing I want to mention here is, that in one point I could understand a guy who was here at first and is not anymore, who said trading to much isn’t good and he still thinks he plays with the real NFL team and not a team that he traded for. I think the same, and I still think iam playing with the Buffalo Bills. I tried only to trade away guys, who aren’t Buffalo Bills since they were drafted (except of WR Reed). I will never ever trade away Bills like CB Clemens, WR Moulds, WR Evans and RB Henry, even QB Losman and others will be a Bill for the 5 years we play. Once a Bill always a Bill.
I did 5 trades but none of them was a big deal, none of them changed the character of the team massively.
I think I managed to build a good team with a nice combination of youth and experience. The Bills should be contending team right from the start till the end.
And I want to add one thing here, I fear that some teams will be in huge salary cap problems for the next years after I saw the cap hits they accepted, but I hope iam wrong. I want a competitive league will a teams able to beat the every other team.

Back to my Buffalo Bills, I will try to manage my team to at least 10 victories. I decided that QB Losman is my starter and I think he will be a big positive surprise for me. He has almost the same arm power and accuracy as QB Bledsoe and only lacks awareness. But with growing experience he will only get better. I traded for TE LJ Smith and FB Richtie who give Losman more weapons to throw next to Eric Moulds, Lee Evans and Bobby Shaw. The passing game should work fine. The running game is dangerous, with RBs Henry and McGahee at the start. As long as none of these players gets injured for a long time the offense looks good.
The defense is very good and should have a lot of big-plays and dominating game. The switch to the 3-4 defense should give my defensive unit more flexibility and more speed all over the field.

Iam very optimistic for the next season and for the whole game of my Bills…

If you got question pls ask me

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheBillster

Back to my Buffalo Bills, I will try to manage my team to at least 10 victories...

At least 10 victories in every single season of course...

jdcoplnd · #2 (**permalink**) 10-09-2004

a) You traded away a top cornerback for a fullback and a mediocre tight end. How can you justify the trading of a talented skill position player for a couple of avergae guys at lesser positions?

b) After the preseason, do you still expect Losman to be your starter? We know what happens when rookies get thron into the fire, even peyton manning threw 28 interceptions his rookie year. And Losman is certainly not Peyton Manning. How cvan you expect to win 10 games with such an unexperienced quarterback, especially when you have one of the leagues better ones as a backup?

If you can't tell, i like to ask questions. Helps get conversation going.

TheBillster · #3 (**permalink**) 10-09-2004

First of all, thanks for your questions.

a.
CB Troy Vincent is already 34 and he will probably only be 1 or 2 years with the team. He is very good at the moment, no question, but losing him without compensation in 1 or 2 years would hurt me much more than trading him away. And the players i received for him are exactly what i wanted. FB Richtie is an exellent two-way FB, who will be a decent blocker, an acceptable receiver and an occasionally runner. he helps us much and our RBs will benefit greatly of his blockings. Dont underestimate the importantance of these positions, i speak of FBs and TEs.
The second player of this trade i got is LJ Smith. LJ Smith is among the best young TEs in the league. He is more of a receiving TE and will take pressure away from WRs Moulds and Evans. He will create matchup problems in opponents defenses and is a very, very good redzone target for Losman. Smith is a dangerous weapon to have and i personally expect him as my 2 best receiver in the first 2 years. He will have plenty of TDs and yardage each season we play. And if you compare what i got and what i traded to get them, i have to say this is probably my best trade. Trading away a decling and soon retiring CB is a good thing if your offense gets more flexible.

b. Again i have to say, dont underestimate players. Losman has all the tools to become one of the top QBs in the league within the 5 or 6 seasons we play. He has great arm power and accuracy only lacks awarness. He only can get better with experience. I expect him a 83-85 QB in year 3 and thats absolutely enough to win rings. One other thing is that i place him behind a pretty solid O-Line, where his lack of awareness at the start wont hurt us that much. And maybe the most important thing to say, if you look at our roster, you see that we are a running team. I dont have RBs Henry and Mcgahee on my roster if i dont use them. That will take a lot of pressure from Losman...

One last note, i expect TE LJ Smith to be at least 88 rated for year 3. Thats pretty nice and is a good player to have in your team...

Chaos6 · #4 (**permalink**) 10-09-2004

How does Drew feel about "Sitting"?

Is there any concern that he may not be happy being relegated to "Second String" and become a distraction in the locker room?

What if Losman cant handle the pressures of "Being thrown into the fire"? Are concerned you may have a quarterback contriversey?

TheBillster · #5 (**permalink**) 10-09-2004

I don’t think that the benching of Drew Bledsoe will cause troubles in the team and kill the team spirit. Drew is a real professional and he accepts my decision. Choosing Losman as the starter was for me very tough to decide, but I thought that my team needs a new leader at QB. Losman has all the time to develop and progress into an elite QB and he has all the abilities to lead us to great success. But iam still very happy to have a very good backup as Drew Bledsoe in my team who can fill in immediately if Losman gets injured or plays clearly under our expectations.
This is a big chance for J.P. to show us that he deserves to be drafted in round 1 and is a premium QB. You can never throw in a QB to early into the battle, he has to take responsibility for his team from the first day on after he is drafted. I believe in him.
He is surrounded now with a very talented group of offensive players and there wont be any excuses if he underachieves for very long times. Losman has the chance of his life to show me how good he is and he is wise enough not to disappoint me…

SlickRick1382 · #6 (**permalink**) 10-09-2004

A the season progresses you do know that Bledsoe's morale will drop and that he will request to start or be traded. What are you going to do. Furthermore Bledsoe counts for $9mil in cap space which will make moving him almost impossible

TheBillster · #7 (**permalink**) 10-09-2004

I dont care about the high salary of Bledsoe, it is the team success which counts. I even consider to release Bledsoe after the end of the season and take a cap hit but save a lot of money for the next years for salaries of other players. But now it is to early to release Bledsoe. QB Losman is a rookie and you never know how he plays the whole season. But if Losman plays up to my expectations there is a huge probability that Bledsoe gets released... (I hope Drew hasnt heard this)

One question in general, has the pre-season started yet?

Ghs · #8 (**permalink**) 10-09-2004

Coach, the Un-happy Bledsoe issue was already addressed but a bigger one was skipped, what about Willis McGahee and his attitude problems? He did say if he didn't start he would want a trade.

TheBillster · #9 (**permalink**) 10-09-2004

I think i can be very relaxed about this issue. Willis McGahee will have enough carries per game to not to go mad. He knows that Travis Henry is our No.1 guy at RB but a regular season is very long and Travis cant be the only runner of the team. I expect a productive teamwork of both players...

titansrule · #10 (**permalink**) 10-10-2004

why dont you just put drew on the block now? he will not sit, a quaterback of his talent will not. if sitting him doesnt work out, will you consider starting him again?

TheBillster · #11 (**permalink**) 10-10-2004

Right now Losman is our starter for the season. Iam not sure if he was able to play at the pre-season or if his injury has prevented his debut for the Bills. It would be a big help for me to know how he was on some preseason games, but if he was not able to play i will test him in the regular season. I will give him at least 5-6 starts from the beginning and if he plays the way i hope and expect he will be our starter for the reminder of the season. But if he plays really, really bad i think i will switch back the starting job at QB to Drew Bledsoe.
But right now i expect Drew sitting 16 games at the sideline in a sulked style. If Losman plays good there wiont be a reason to bench him.
One other thing is that i had Drew Bledsoe on my trading block for several weeks but no team wanted him seriously. All i wanted for him at the end was a CB arround 80 and not older than 26 but i didnt receive a serious offer for him. Team owners spring back after seeing his huge salary...
But lets see what happens. Iam very exited about the preseason games and the start of the season.

SlickRick1382 · #12 (**permalink**) 10-10-2004

Who is your #2 WR now that you acquied Evans. Will you keep Josh Reed at the #2 spot or leat an unexpirienced Evans take over? How do you feel this will affect the progression of Losman (if you lean towards Evans)?

TheBillster · #13 (**permalink**) 10-11-2004

We have traded Josh Reed and got CB Drayton Florence in return who has a bright future. Josh has good hands but really lacks top end speed for a young receiver. Our No.2 WR will be of course Lee Evans who is a good combination of speed and hands. He is our deep threat and should stretch the defense and get a lot of carries. With his speed he opens chances for our running game to gain unexpected yards when opponents are focusing for a passing game called and we run. We need his deep threat speed very much, it will give our TE LJ Smith and FB Jon Ritchie catching opportunities to gets catches if the defense concentrates to much on Moulds and Lee. Lee Evans is exactly the type of WR this team needed, that is what we saw last season. Things have changed now, the combination of Moulds, Evans, Shaw, LJ and Ritchie should be very, very productive and QB Losman should develop nicely with so many targets to throw for...