Commentary /By Larry Felser
Mediocrity is a tough sell at ticket-renewal time
Woe to the person in Buffalo Bills’ management who is assigned to write the annual letter to season-ticket buyers about renewing for the 2009 season.
How would you start? “We have re-established our commitment to mediocrity?”
Or, “We promise we won’t mangle game management in ’09?”
Or, “Our players will no longer get into a fracas 20 seconds before halftime while the clock runs out on a probable tying field goal?”
How about, “Our coach is already practicing how to throw the challenge flag without worrying that he might disturb the concentration of the zebras?”
Three weeks ago owner Ralph Wilson stood outside the Bills’ dressing room in the New Jersey Meadowlands after the team ceded what appeared to be a slam-dunk victory to the Jets and proclaimed that “we just don’t have the talent.” Now he’s saying that there is enough talent on his team for it to emerge from this dark decade, that it just needs another draft similar to those of the last few years.
Ironically, the franchise’s Wall of Fame committee will meet this week to begin sorting out who will be honored as members of the Bills’ 50- year team. The fans will have their say later. I don’t know how the fans feel, but from this vantage point the only players who were in the Buffalo lineup in the last four seasons who will even get a mention are punter Brian Moorman, middle linebacker London Fletcher and wide receiver Eric Moulds. Fletcher and Moulds have been gone for two years.
How does this team get better when the entire football organization is loaded with the usual suspects?
Don’t hang your hats on a mother-lode draft in 2009. In the last four drafts the Bills have selected just two players you might consider game-changers — Lee Evans and Marshawn Lynch. Evans’ receiving skill is largely wasted since they can’t get the ball to him often enough or when he isn’t blanketed with coverage. Lynch has been a 1,000-yard rusher in his first two years, but with much better blocking he might be in the 1,500 to 1,700 category. Trent Edwards? Eventually, maybe, if he survives physically.
Game-changers often arrive as pass rushers, interceptors, wide receivers and pass-catching tight ends. With Aaron Schobel lost for most of the season, the Bills had no reliable pass rushers. With no Buffalo pass rush, opposing quarterbacks were at their leisure to find open receivers, which severely limited the interception possibilities. This season was another lost one to exploit Evans’ skills.
Since the Bills’ deep thinkers have earned a reputation in the new millennium as a stolid, unimaginative group that is now confronted by the resurgence of Miami, a New England power buttressed by the return of Tom Brady and a determined Jets’ organization that be counted to buy its way out of 2008’s sour finish, the need to do something daring is obvious.
Among Buffalo’s many needs is a second quarterback to guard against Edwards’ shaky physical history as well as a tight end who is able to pull Edwards out of trouble when the inevitable headhunters converge upon him. The Bills need to think beyond their usual hum-drum.
Some NFL teams are already thinking this about Tim Tebow, Florida’s 2007 Heisman Trophy winner and the man who drew the most first-place votes for the 2008 Heisman: Since he is such a great athlete, physical specimen and very intelligent man, consider drafting him as a combination quarterback and tight end. That would assume Tebow, a junior, will turn pro after the BCS Championship Game against Oklahoma this week. Some draft forecasters think he would be available in the second round.
The idea would probably violate the Bills’ guidelines for their system. Which brings up this question: What in the three seasons of Dick Jauron’s coaching reign have we seen that would make his system sacred?
Larry Felser, former News columnist, appears in Sunday’s editions.
