Bills fans thoughts on Fletcher

[Griff]

Here are some images of our new monster in the middle courtisy of BuffaloBills.com:

[PapaDRoc]

he sounds like he will work out fine, but what do we call him? london fletcher? london baker? london fletcher-baker? LFB? or just plain old london?

London Fletcher is how I knew of him in the past. I'm pretty sure noone says Baker.

[thr0xx]

London Fletcher is how I knew of him in the past. I'm pretty sure noone says Baker.

ive heard mark schelerth call him london baker a few times in the last day or so

[JPG]

Dman he looks small in that pic where he is shaking hands with the coach. IF ihis heart and leadership make up for it then we got a steal. We need a guy who can help adjust to the other teams offense and cover. He can do that.

Welcome. Mr. Fletcher.

[MPASkinsFan]

I wonder if they're checking ES to see what we say about Dock?

[JPCreativelab]

looks like we just picked up Art Monk, MLB

[MartinC]

Here is a link to a nice piece about London Fletcher on Sportsline saying he is one of the guys who will prodce and deserves to get paid. Looks like we got a good one - and the contract was sensible as well.

http://www.sportsline.com/nfl/story/10028995

[chronicdesi]

Reading this makes me feel a little upset about not being more like this towards DD. He came out, played his heart out. A few penalties here and there, but regularly a good guy.

[NVskinsfan]

Joe Gibbs kind of guy. Character counts.

Agreed 100 % :thumbsup:

[Morneblade]

Nice Post Griff. These are the reasons I have been supporting his signing for some time now. Yeah, he's the same age as Marshall, but he is a real leader on the field and in the locker room and a class act on and off the field. And the guy produces.

And yes, he is not tall (5'9 or 5'10 depending) but at around 245-250 he isnt small.

Welcome to Washington London, I for one have been hoping you would make it here for some time.

[TheREALJBird]

Reading this makes me feel a little upset about not being more like this towards DD. He came out, played his heart out. A few penalties here and there, but regularly a good guy.

He didn't deserve Steve Hutchinson money, that's for sure. If we could have kept him for a reasonable price I'd have been all for it, but I'm glad we didn't match Buffalo's offer, it was outright ridiculous

[WinSkins]

Thanks Griff. Will be good to have a football player and person like London in Burgundy and Gold! :notworthy

:allhail:

[Macd36]

Nice Post !! Thanks !

[Fifty Gut]

exactly what everyone was asking during the season... who's our Ray Lewis? who's our vocal, in your face, hold players accountable, leader? looks like London may be just that

[Peregrine]

Wow. Thats a lot of high praise for one individual. Looks like we got the best LB in FA.

[rlhjr34]

I had someone come by this morning to pick up something from me that I sold on Craigslist. He was from Buffalo and a big Bills fan. He saw me sporting my Skins sweatshirt and asked about Dock and said he was sad to see us get Fletcher. He was very complimentary of his skills and thought we did well to get him. I of course tried to let him down gently on his expectations for Dock especially for the salary they signed him for. Just thought I'd throw in my :2cents: worth from a Bills fan.

[Peregrine]

Reading this makes me feel a little upset about not being more like this towards DD. He came out, played his heart out. A few penalties here and there, but regularly a good guy.

Completely different. On one case you have a guy who spent only a few years here(the young guy of the Oline, by no means a leader), and only really started playing well the last couple, and then who left for a big payday, versus a guy who was the heart and soul of a teams defense for 8 years, played great year in and year out, then left for a contract half the size of Docks. Playing well for a year or two is a little different then playing well for almost a full decade.

[redskins4life234]

http://www.billszone.com/fanzone/showthread.php?p=1873437&posted=1#post1873437

I just made that thread there, to see what they have to say.

[SprintBomb]

did not know he was that well respected as a person. we need that.

[JoeKnowsBest]

Now I really feel alot more confortable with him. He sounds just like my kind of guy. I love the people who have big hearts.

And with fans like that, they sure make it hard for me to dislike Buffulo. Buffulo once upon a time was the team I loved to hate more than any other team. That was the Jim Kelly super bowl years so I guess the winds of change are blowing. Doh! This is making me hysterical! Shame on you great compassionate Buffolo fans!

[21dave]

Wow its nice to read something like that about a player we just signed. That's a 180 from what the SF boards were saying about Lloyd last year.

[shaw66]

Hi guys -

I'm a regular poster on the Bills board, came over to see your thread about Dockery - great comments! - thanks! Actually, I think over here, just like on the Bills board, people haven't gotten used to the raised cap. The simple fact is that everyone's going to get more money over the next few years; it's just that this year's free agents are in the best position to take advantage.

So, I don't know how good Dockery is (has to be better than what we had!) - but I think he's probably closer to being worth it than several people on this board think. He's no more overpaid than Nate Fletcher at $80 million - that's nuts!

But I really came to respond to the Fletcher thread. (Sorry, I'm long-winded!)

First, the Bills board is far from all peaches and cream. It's pretty nasty over there a lot of the time. So when you read the comments people posted about Fletcher, it says more about Fletcher than the people of the board. McGahee isn't even gone yet, and he's been savaged for weeks. Travis Henry, Eric Moulds, Drew Bledsoe all have been ripped way beyond what's fair.

But NOBODY can rip Fletcher. The only things you can say bad about Fletcher is that there's a youth movement on in Buffalo, and London isn't getting any younger. And the Bills dove into the Tampa 2 big time last year, a total change in defense, and London probably isn't the best suited to play MLB in that defense. In other words, London doesn't play like Brian Urlacher!

So that's the bad stuff about London. Well, one more thing. I don't think he's a leader. He isn't a problem, but you'd think that the way he plays, the players would get behind him and follow him. That doesn't seem to happen. I think he's just too quiet.

Okay, that's it. That's what's wrong with Fletcher. (By the way, I think he likes being called Fletcher-Baker - didn't put it on his jersey last year becasue he said it was too long. Might switch now that he's switching teams. The story is something like Fletcher's father's name was Baker, but his father took off when he was a baby and London was raised with his mother's last name. Some time ago, Fletcher decided he wanted to know his father, tracked him down, built a relationship with him. So he wanted to honor his father as well as his mother and he hyphenated his name. I'm not sure that's exactly it, but it's something like that. Whatever the details are, the bottom line is that London has his head screwed on real straight.)

So what kind of a football player is he? He's a tackling machine. Check out the league leading tacklers for the last 10 years. Go look. You'll find London is way up there every year. I haven't looked lately, but I wouldn't be surprised if you found that he's top-10 every year, 10 years in a row. Top-5 a lot. He rarely misses.

I don't think he's a big hitter. And that's part of why the Bills let him go. He's more of a pursuit linebacker than an attack linebacker. He doesn't really pop people a lot. But he's always around the ball.

London was in his glory the year we had Sam Adams and Pat Williams playing tackle. They always occupied three, sometimes even four blockers. London said he could just follow the ball and meet the ball carrier in the hole, and when London meets the ball carrier, the ball carrier goes down. He was able to do it becaue he didn't have to fight off blockers to get there.

Problem is, in the Tampa 2 the MLB has to be a play maker - he has to attack, fight off blockers and make the play. London doesn't do really well in that style of play. When a blocker gets on him, London gets neutralized more than you might like. (What I'm saying is that's something he doesn't do really well, but you have to wonder how big a liability it is, because he still makes a ton of tackles.) So if you play a 4-3 with run-stuffing tackles who stay at home and occupy blockers, London will be great.

The other rap on him is that the Tampa 2 requires the MLB to play the deep zone, and people say pass defense has never been his strong suit. He is short, which doesn't help. But this year in the Tampa 2 he had, I think, four interceptions, so he couldn't have been all that bad. Also had a bunch of passes defended.

Add it all up and what do you have? A guy that every Bills fan, except meanest, contrariest guys - you've got 'em here, too - a guy that every reasonable Bills fan was happy to have on the team every game he played. You'll be happy, too.

Good luck this year (except when you play us with our new over-sized offensive line! Oh, and if you weren't watching the Bills last year, I'll let in on a little secret - if you ranked the four quarterbacks taken in first round of the 2004 draft on their 2006 seasons, they'd rank this way: Rivers, Losman a close second, and Manning and Roethlisberger way behind. We have a quarterback in Buffalo for the first time in 15 years.)