NewHampshireBillsFan

Through the late '90s New England was characterized by the following: 1.) Most people didn't even follow the Pats* closely and didn't mind missing games to do other things. 2.) Pats* fans constantly ridiculed their players and coaches. 3.) Pats* fans constantly complained about officiating and felt every call against them was a bad call. 4.) Pats* fans were nothing like Red Sox fans who stuck through with their team through thick and thin. Its amazing what some clever cheating can do to raise the fortunes not only of the Pats* but also their entire "fan" base.

We have had something like 17 winning seasons in 50 years as a team. There are always drafts, and new coaches, etc. that supposedly will turn it all around. To quote Al Davis from his earlier successful era: "JUST WIN BABY" That should be our only philosophy for every game. Screw next year's draft, its only a crapshoot anyway. But if you insist I analyse the current situation, winning helps more than anything. This is a young team with some decent talent at several positions. We want to build on that and we want a new FO, GM, HC to build on that. We don't want a new group to come in here and blow everything up so that they can look like the big geniuses in 2017 when we win a SB. Some of us don't have that much time left. We want the playoffs next year and to have that we have to start to learn how to win now. "JUST WIN BABY"

Kelly is not an owner and may never be one. He has a role as a commentator on the Bills and his views are helpful. Hopefully, the FO listens to what he is saying, esp. about QBs. Any new potential coach will draw his own conclusions on TE and everyone else and won't care what Kelly had to say. Unfortunately, we as an organization and fans have had an overly rosy view of the QB situation on this team since Kelly's retirement. At times everyone from Alex Van Pelt, to Rob Johnson, to Doug Flutie (who I liked), to Drew Bledsoe, and even the ridiculous JP Losman, and now Trent Edwards has been hailed as the answer. The QB situation is the single most crucial issue that demonstrated that this organization didn't have a clue about winning big anymore starting in the late 90's. If you showed this list of QBs to any respectable winning organization or coach like Belicheat* they would fall down onto the floor laughing, laughing until they cried. For me I just feel like crying when I see the list. I'll skip the laughing. All those wasted years of futility. This year there are fans that are glad we are losing, just so we can draft yet another QB!

Mularkey should have taken that deal. First of all Levy is not some dictatorial type leader like a Parcells. Mularkey would probably have had a lot of input and gotten people he could work with. The problem is Mularkey left looking like someone that didn't have the temperment to be a HC in this league and will probably never get a chance again, even though he is still fairly young. When you simply quit as HC the whole league sees that and remembers. Saban never got a chance again, even though he was respected as a coach. Of course Saban had quit for the 2nd time and this time in the middle of the season when he never got a chance again.

It is a question of who has the final authority. Top name coaches like Shanahan don't want to do both the job of HC and GM, they just want the final say over the GM as to personnel matters. Basically the GM reports to the HC instead of the other way around. Chuck Knox had this arrangement with the Bills and he did a great job both on the field and making the final personnel decisions. Bringing in a top GM first means likely not bringing in one of the very top HC candidates but rather a up and coming coordinator to be a first time coach. Look at KC this year and Miami as examples of that and the Bills under Donahoe. Personally I would rather bring in a top HC and let him bring in his own personnel people so that the whole team is on the same page.

Cowher always depended on the assistants he had more than many of the other great coaches. Look at Belicheat*, he keeps losing assistant coaches and still is successful. Cowher never has proven that he could do that. Dick LeBeau has been suggested for the HOF based on his innovativeness and success as a DC. Would Cowher have been able to win the SB without LeBeau? Also, Pittsburgh has a whole tradition of drafting certain kinds of players and having a style which Cowher excelled at maintaining and even improving. How does that all play out in another city without the Steelers system and tradition. I see Cowher as more of a Mike Ditka figure, big success and a SB win in Chicago with Buddy Ryan running the defense, but no success later with the Saints when he had to try to recreate the whole thing from scratch without Ryan.

Totally agree, except I never wanted him as the Bills coach. He is one of these ex-defensive tough guy players who can get teams playing hard at times because they can relate to him as a former player. But that is not enough. He has no innovativeness, no great sense of talent evaluation, and not even great game day instincts, though better than DJ. The celebral kind of HC's like Belicheat (hate to admit it), Shanahan, and Holmgren in the end usually make mincemeat of the Haslett type coaches, if they have good talent.

Now is the time for quiet negotiations behind the scenes. The good thing for the Bills is that they have a jump on some other teams who have yet to fire coaches. But it would be stupid to have a big public fanfare about bringing in big names to coach and it would be awkward for Perry and the whole current coaching staff. The point is take a few weeks quietly to have interviews and make decisions about who will get the job for coach/GM and then make the announcement either at the end of the season or near the end of the season. If the decision is that Perry will not be back in any capacity next year then the announcement needs to wait until after the final game. Otherwise how can anyone reasonably prepare for the last couple of games when they all know they are gone for certain.

Shanahan will have learned some things from the past. What is great about Shanahan is that he is a true offensive innovator and would know how to develop a QB. Even with someone like Fewell as DC we would probably be in great shape overall as a team. The thing is a decent chunk of our defense is already there, esp. the defensive backfield. I don't like Cowher as much because although he is a tough coach, Pittsburgh was set up to be a tough, smash mouth team for decades and he continued the tradition. I see Shanahan as more shrewd in dealing with the Bills mess quicker.

If Perry does a good job for the last 7 games he might get a chance as DC somewhere else. If the Bills do lousy the last 7 games Perry will be all the way back to coaching DB's for some team or in the college ranks. Very difficult for an interim HC to stay with the team the following year, if not retained as a HC. Tough to go back to DC after all the players looked at you as HC for half a season.

Fisher stays in Tennessee. His contract is too big for Adams to eat and Adams knows that he is a good coach. Adams will dictate more things like QB from above. The re-evaluation at the end of the season is meant as a signal to the fans that Adams is not happy about the bad record and performance the team has had. But Bud Adams is 86 years old and he probably isn't in the mood for some major shakeup at this stage of his life. And by the way Fisher knows that Adams is not that bad of an owner to work for compared to many others. I lived in Houston when the Oilers were still there and I would say that Adams gave a lot of free reign to his coaches, even that egotistical idiot Jerry Glanville.

In 4 seasons with the Bills DJ has first started Losman and then made the decision to start Edwards early in the latter's career. DJ has done a lot of things wrong but he is not guilty of starting QB controversies. In addition RW supposedly dictated that Rob would start in the playoff game over Flutie. So Fisher's actions, not seemingly being happy about his owner's decision, far from impressing RW, would make him dead meat as far as having any potential future with the RW.

I don't think it is worth it to hope the Bills lose. Most of their history has been losing and if that would have solved the problems, they would have been solved a long time ago, many times over. If the Bills absolutely stink with a record of 5-11 or less RW may have to fire DJ. But then another cheaply priced coach will be hired, cheaply priced because in RW's mind he will be paying two salaries at once. Probably we will try to stay at least $3 million more under the cap to make up for DJ's salary, and the new coach will be given 3 years to get us to the playoffs, especially considering how badly we did this year (bad enough to get DJ fired). We might as well hope against hope that DJ turns things around and actually finishes his contract. At least the team is on some mini-roll at this point. Let us hope that can continue.

When we had Ted and Pat both what an awesome interior DL we had. Ted and Pat used to alternate in Pat's early days. I remember after a game Pat Williams explained their approach. He said "first he (Ted) punishes them, then I punishes them, then they be about done." Man, when was the last time an opposing interior OL felt about done after facing us. I think Stroud and Williams are quite good, but not like the old days. And then Sam Adams after that and we let him go. The thing with the idiot Donahoe and Pat Williams was not even a money thing. He wanted to bring his own people in so that HE would get credit for the team, not his predecessor. He once joked that his job wouldn't be done until he had replaced all the players who were here before he arrived. That was his stupid insecure mentality after he was booted out of Pittsburgh in the power struggle with Cowher.

I hate to pick on any poster because I know people are trying, but the trade this person and cut this person type posts usually do not make much sense. First of all when were 3 relatively not great players traded for one 2nd round pick. A second round pick is a chance to get a really strong player who will play at a relatively low contract for several years. Jairus Byrd is a good example of that. Trades for high draft picks are pretty rare in the NFL although the Bills have had more than their share (Rob Johnson, Bledsoe, Peerless Price to Atlanta, Jason Peters). In most cases, with the possible exception of Peters, the team that gets the picks does much better. So most GMs are very wary of giving up big picks and most of the suggestions on this board will never fly. The cut this guy threads usually don't make sense. Most teams don't cut someone unless they are beaten out by another player in camp. A lot of the money in contracts is paid up front, so even if someone is under performing there is not much incentive to cut a player. In some cases, such as Langston Walker, the team will cut someone who still could be useful. Then fans complain about that. The point is many wanted to cut say Kelsay, and he is clearly playing better than anyone else who was in training camp, opposite Schobel.

I agree. When we lose a close game that we should have won, I get no joy out of it at all. Only misery. So when we win in any possible way, such as the last two weeks, I am totally happy about the win and have no complaints about any lapses or poor performances that may have occurred. Winning is the only thing that matters in football, not run defense or turnovers, etc. And it is not true that quality will always out in the end. There have been some rather mediocre teams that have ended up winning the super bowl and some fantastic teams that didn't even make the playoffs. I think the Bills will win some more games this year, not because they are that great but because they are starting to find ways to win, something they have not been able to do well until the last 2 games.

NO. From the best we can tell RW was solidly behind DJ coming back for another year ($ reasons of course) but others in the organization were not convinced. I would expect Brandon made a strong case for firing DJ and being allowed to bring in his own HC (with RW's approval of course). Brandon probably even said he could recoup the money in merchandise and other sales. So after this season if the team does poorly Brandon will be in the strong position of saying see I told you so DJ should have been canned last year. I see RW saying OK go out and get us some coaches to look at. I don't see why Brandon gets fired. He can make the case that it was mostly DJ's fault that we had a bad record this year and he had wanted to replace him. I see Modrak and Guy also going before Brandon. So again this is the type of thing where FANS say RW has to blow this whole thing up. No he doesn't. More likely Brandon is STRONGER next year than this year.

The NFL has lost all credibility in their dealings with NE*. Goodell is a total loser as the commissioner.

I think Revis is turning his frustration wisely on the Bills (because we don't hold grudges--look at us versus NE*) instead of his own offense and Sanchez. When your offense gives up 6 interceptions and you still hold the other team to one touchdown in the entire game including overtime, your defense has done fantastic! Give the Jets credit where credit is due, their defense was great considering the 6 interceptions by their offense (and special teams). I don't know exactly what learning Revis and the defense should be doing after this game. They played great. With Sanchez, I hope we have shaken his confidence for a long time.

Do you really think DJ is that bothered by a billboard! He knows that is the least of his problems. He can see the Bills aren't winning and he is at least nominally in charge of what happens on the field each and every week. He is putting all his energy into trying to get wins, knowing full well that the fans will be happy with him if he wins games. He also knows full well fans won't be happy with him if the Bills lose games, regardless of whether they express it publicly or just sit at home and stew about it. He has a lot more control over how others view him than most of us do. Just make good decisions and win the stupid games!!! Then there won't be any billboards. Tell McKelvin to go down at the first contact. Tell Roscoe not to stupidly try to field a punt. Don't punt on 4th and 1, down 10 with 7 minutes to go in a game. Had he shown the intelligence that many on this board have, he wouldn't even be in this mess and the Bills would be at least 4-2.

A lot of truth in the original post. Not true however that Knox never came close to winning the big one. In 1980 all five playoff teams finished with identical 11-5 records. Even though the Bills won their division they were the odd man out on the tiebreaker and had to play the divisional playoff game in San Diego. They had already beaten the Chargers in SD a few weeks earlier and came close again in the playoff game. As usual for the Bills the officials called a very homer game in favor of SD (remember Miami with Flutie), but the Bills still came close. Had they won that SD game they would have played the Raiders in Buffalo for the AFC Championship. They had already beaten the Raiders 24-7 in Buffalo earlier that year and matched up extremely well against them. Instead the Raiders got to play the Chargers and Eagles en route to winning the SB. Buffalo would also have been favored against the Eagles and probably would have beaten them like the Raiders did. But probably the saddest thing about the whole Knox experience is that he was not given the authority to be over player contracts and the Bills constantly had hold outs and bad feelings between the players and management on the financial side of things. Stew Barber, a former player but a total jerk, was the person on the Bills responsible for negotiating contracts and he did a horrible job maintaining good relations with the players. Knox wanted to replace him with someone from his previous LA Rams staff but RW would not allow it. Finally when Knox quit RW finally did fire Stew Barber as well.

We still have Fitz and Hamden and you can only dress 2 qbs anyway. TE may also be back in a week or two.

These are also my three. Many disappointments of course but I don't know any other team that could have Evans and Owens and not make other teams quake with fear. That nice TD pass and run over the middle of the field by Fitz to to Lee showed how much could have been done this year. Why not even do some more end arounds to TO just to get the ball in his hands. TE speaks for itself. Maybin I was always nervous about. He is sort of a Roscoe Parrish version of a DE, fast as anything, but easy to knock out of the play with a good block.

People set up certain boundaries of what is acceptable for an NFL team to do and not lose its fan base, etc. One of these is that DJ has to go unless he makes the playoffs, etc. These are not RW's boundaries and he runs things. He never said DJ had to make the playoffs to survive. As far as the marketing disaster, etc., you could say we crossed some point a long time ago where fans would be totally disgusted. We haven't made the playoffs in now 10 straight years! Fans are still going to games and season tickets sales peaked this year with DJ back again. All OBD has to do is draft a QB with a first round pick, sign another FA like TO, or even hire some new hot shot OC with some new fancy offensive game plan to get the fans revved up again. We, as fans, are a lot more gullible than you give us credit for. And RW's loyalty is not to coaches but his loyalty is to contracts where his money is guaranteed for the said coaches.

I think this firing everyone kind of thing is not at all what RW has been setting up. RW admitted that hiring Donahoe was not a good idea. Since then he has been trying to set up an operation where Brandon is COO, Modrak does the draft, Guy the pro personnel, etc. If DJ and the Bills really do badly this year all that changes is the HC. The FO remains the same. The HC also of course brings in mostly new assistants. RW is not a clean house kind of owner. Even with Donahoe it was not really clean house but the previous GM left and so did the HC. Even with Knox, Stew Barber was retained to negotiate contracts with players (a huge job in the pre free agency days). Bringing in a new HC to work with the current FO is about the best we can expect. The only HCs who would consider this arrangement are young coordinators or possibly some really desperate out of work former HC. RW's closest adviser overall right now is probably Brandon. He is not going to suggest cleaning house! Even if DJ goes 7-9 again we might only get a fresh and experienced OC to work with DJ. Seeing how RW has worked for close to 40 years tells me a new HC with the current FO or possibly only a new OC for DJ is all we are going to get.