Darwin, we hardly knew you

By Chris

He never put on a uniform for us. He never played a down for us. He never even practiced for us. He didn't want anything to do with us; he just wanted his money and that's why Darwin Walker has been added to the Buffalo Sports List of Public Enemies. Without even taking a snap for the Bills, Walker has joined the likes of McGahee, Mularkey, Rob Johnson, Slava Kozlov, Doug Gilmour and Dominik Hasek as former Buffalo sports figures that have their own line of voodoo dolls for fans to play with.

Walker never wanted to be a Bill, at least not for what he was being paid. He wanted a raise for not proving anything and was willing to hold out until he got what he wanted. And now he's the Chicago Bears' problem, where he should fit right in replacing Tank Johnson for the first half of the season. The Bills would have been compensated with a 6th round pick from the Eagles, who would also get him back, if Walker didn't report to camp by August 5th. It didn't look like he was going to, so the Bills flipped him to Chicago for a 5th rounder.

It's still not a fantastic trade by any means, essentially a 5th for Takeo Spikes and Kelly Holcomb, but what can we do but continue to trust Marv and the front office? This may be the first "bad" deal they have made, but then again, they moved two players out who they didn't have in their plans, neither right now nor in the future. The Bills are bringing in who they want and who they feel will succeed here, and while we still don't know if it'll work, getting a likeable, competitive team to root for is better than the sad, mentally weak Bills we've had to deal with over the last 6 years.

With Walker gone, it opens the door for John McCargo, last year's second first round pick, to play a much larger role. Allen Wilson's piece in The Buffalo News today, obviously written prior to the trade, does a nice job analyzing McCargo's role on the defensive line as well as the expectations placed on him.

So what are we looking at? Quite simply, the Bills traded a guy who wanted nothing to do with the team in the first place and got a higher draft pick for him than they would have if they had done nothing at all. In that regard, maybe this isn't that "bad" of a trade after all. In Marv we trust....