Things could be worse: Bills could be coping with Favre

By Anthony Bialy  |   Wednesday, January 21, 2009  |  Comments( 61 )

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Obscurity has its benefits. Nobody bothers you for an autograph and cell phone picture during dinner or at Starbucks, plus agents aren’t killing your lawn by camping out on it. And relatively unnoticed football franchises don’t attract and therefore don’t have to cope with the NFL's queens, as gaudier owners snatch players with the biggest name recognition regardless of current value. For one, the Buffalo Bills could have possibly been a candidate to pursue Brett Favre last summer, and the fact that either they didn’t or couldn’t was an eventual blessing for a team that’s letting its current starter work through unavoidable early lapses.

As agonizing as it was to watch him forget to play some Sundays, Trent Edwards needed to take the lumps he took last season. Just about every non-Ben Roethlisberger-named quarterback has to sail through rough early waters, and Edwards wasn’t quite ready to serve as a second exception: His midseason tendency to throw to 1) any player regardless of jersey color or 2) the ground was a miserable condition that’s both unfortunate and necessary.

It takes hundreds of snaps for nearly all quarterbacks to even start clicking in the NFL, and that bad experience is the only way to get to good experiences; he’d be a year or so behind schedule if Favre was aboard.

For all their failings, the Bills have wisely avoided making huge splashes in free agency or trades. While that might not be by choice, the fact remains that this team didn’t have to endure Favre’s diva-style personality or dumbly heaved interceptions. Aside from the upheaval brought upon franchises by some variously ridiculous personalities, the true way to build a team is by letting one’s own draft picks grow and make mistakes.

Specifically, Edwards’ occasional bumbling wasn’t fun to endure, but the alternative was to let him watch Favre not lead the same team to the playoffs. Instead, we’d see the Stanford man make his mistakes this upcoming season or in 2010. It’s one thing for, say, the Arizona Cardinals to have Kurt Warner on the roster, draft Matt Leinart, and ultimately choose Warner, but pursuing a quick fix despite already having a youngster aboard is mortgaging the future for a usually vain chance at present glory.

The funny thing is that Favre could have been happy as a Bill. He would have found himself in a smaller market whose fan base compensates by being admirably rabid, not unlike the conditions he found at his previous gig as a Green Bay Packer. Buffalo’s followers have been desperately prepared to lionize a quarterback ever since the Todd Collins Era, and instead Favre threw fits until he ended up in New Jersey as part of a transaction that’s ultimately going to be noxious for both the New York Jets and the player.

The Jets are already coping with Favrian drama, as the Southern Miss product is of course acting more like Hamlet than Hamlet while contemplating how much he likes people talking about his employment status; the regular season wouldn’t be over without it. Meanwhile, the franchise is stuck worrying both whether Kellen Clemens is the future and whether unapologetic turnover factory Favre and his accompanying theater work are nuisances which were or are even worth tolerating.

Besides, Edwards falling to pieces in the middle of the season was better than Favre doing so late. The results were the same, only the Bills don’t have to cope with the same nasty champagne hangover.
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About Anthony Bialy

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CommentsComments: 61  |  Sign Up  View all comments
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No.1
flda-dennis		10:12 AM
01/21/2009
Got to give Bialy credit--he just keeps writing. Temp got to 30 degrees this am. Thats pretty cold for us. When the Bills start...
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No.2
ddd		10:58 AM
01/21/2009
Hillarious commment from now ex- Bills DL coach who wanted ourt of Buffalo despite being under contract... “Coach Jauron had...
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No.3
Goose		11:08 AM
01/21/2009
flda-dennis--this is from the Texans site, it boils down to he felt he had a better chance of winning with the Texans. Now he...
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