Sisyphean Bills

Talk about conflating nonsense with hyperbole. Nix wasn't here for most of this past decade and he wasn't in control of the front office as the "National Scout". If you paid attention, people were disappointed that the Bills looked at ZERO people outside of the building to fill the role of GM. Yes, that raises eyebrows and for good reason. Even if Nix was the best man for the job, his only competition was John Guy for the GM job. John Guy was VP of Pro Personnel, so obviously he was involved in scouting pro personnel in some capacity. It's equally obvious to anyone that follows the team that the Bills evaluation and signing of free agents has been nothing short of a disaster in recent years. You were the one claiming that someone on some blog said John Guy made the decisions and forced the coaches to play specific players like some sort of all-powerful tyrant. Now, the incorrect assumption that "everyone" was mad Guy wasn't fired immediately when Nix was hired (despite being the only other candidate for the job himself, which implies someone inside the organization actually liked the work he was doing enough to consider giving him yet another promotion) somehow lends credence to the wild speculation that John Guy was running the entire show. Wow. The snow is deep.

Realfootball365.com is as much an authority as any other fantasy football blog, I'm sure. This is a recurrent knee-jerk though. People have been blaming the Guy (pun intended) that gets terminated for the bad decisions for the past decade and change, and yet, unsurprisingly, the bad decisions just keep coming. John Guy's "strategy" of only going after players that were already interested in playing in Buffalo had no hope of working, but his value as a scapegoat to shield the cronies that have come up through the Bills organization is inescapable.

Hopefully, Nix will be making these decisions and flat out fire people that make asinine decisions such as having zero depth to save a couple of bucks.

The word has been that Overdorf has cut several "high priced" veterans without the input or even knowledge of the coaching staff. Either he has a much larger say in the makeup of the roster than most people will admit, or he is merely a puppet who has his strings pulled by the master puppeteer in Detroit. Take your pick.

May also be that he knows he is best suited to play at G and that with the 2 kids at guard his days as a starter there were at an end. Just conjecture, but some guys really do know their own abilities and want to play and contribute, but want to be put in the best position to succeed and not be embarrassed. I'd guess all the injuries are certainly a factor as well.

They need to reload talent at the OT positions, that much is patently obvious. Counting on scrubs to "switch the light on" and excel despite all evidence to the contrary is just fool's hope.

So, in terms of experience, the Bills have gotten rid of everyone that played on the OL 2 years ago, including the TE and #2 C. Well, it won't be surprising when the Bills target OL.

The special teams focus was a strategy the team used when Dick Levy took over. They wanted to build a team with an advantage there and win games with plays made on special teams. Unfortunately, it's a team sport, and with the noffense going absolutely nowhere, some nice kickoff returns and a bunch of good punts weren't going to make the Bills winners.

He has a lot of work to do to become below average. Good? Let's not get that far ahead of ourselves...

My original post was chuckling at the irony of the "Bradford or bust" campaigning, the "all you need is a QB" campaigning, and then sweeping the carpet right out from under the whole pomp and grandiosity with an excuse of "he had scrubs up front"... To your point, the injuries are a bit of concern because they were absolutely, positively not huge hits by big lineman but routine tackles by a college linebacker and a corner. It may be a fluke, as you imply, but it's a big investment to make if the kid is brittle and doesn't know how to take a beating and protect himself when tackled. He's going to get hammered in the NFL like he's never experienced before, especially if he goes to a team with a crap line like Buffalo.

What was that comment about 1 year wonders again?

Sounds like you are saying Oklahoma's OL was much better than the Bills the last 2 years and, well, Bradford didn't stay in one piece for very long this past season.

Bingo. Gailey will design the offense around the players he ends up with, not the other way around. Running an option game with a brittle QB like Trent Edwards, for example, would be supremely stupid and unsuccessful.

The Saints have been in the NFL 43 years and won a Super Bowl 2 days ago. And while the Lions haven't been to a Super Bowl, they have been in the NFL 80 years and did win an NFL championship. In fact, they won that championship game over the Cleveland Browns, who had won their own championship a couple years earlier. The Browns have been in the NFL for 57 years after starting in the AAFC in the 1940s after WWII. The only teams to never win an NFL championship or be in a Super Bowl are the expansion teams: Houston Texans and Jacksonville Jaguars.

First point: sure, a lot of WRs that are drafted don't do much. They are often drafted for some combine measurement, for example. Hayward-Bey was fast. Hardy was tall. When you look at the players that have played the position at an elite level, you find a wide range of players. Many do not have world class speed, etc. Most players aren't highly successful period. Second point: it takes a team. WR is a position where you can be doing everything right all day long and never touch the football. If you're on a team with a bad QB, bad line, and a pound-on-the-ground coach, you're just not going to be a superstar. That's the way it goes. Conversely, you may be on a team that is airing it out every down in college and post some good looking numbers despite not really being a complete player and weak habits. Third point: Timeframe is a new, different point. It takes time and reps to develop a passing game, even with veterans. By the same token, you don't find a lot of rookie QBs that come in day 1 and light it up in the passing game. Even Peyton Manning and Dan Marino took a bit of time to get rolling, and they are the exceptions.

Economics. They can't make enough money.

The correct answer was zero. No other head coach has been fired/retired twice and had their former team go to the Super Bowl the next season both times. Ralph Wilson needs to hire Dungy for a year, fire him, and win the Super Bowl the next year.

To be fair, the Colts were still only a play or two away in that game. Somebody has to lose in a game between two great teams.

It's kind of interesting that both times Dungy was removed, his former team went straight to the Super Bowl. How often does that happen?

Fixed. 2 expansion teams, 1 semi-expansion team, and the Lions.

Guess that one went wide right. The point was that I'd rather have a QB that can walk and chew gum at the same time running my offense and making the quick, snap decisions that differentiate winning and losing. Vick has historically forced coaching staffs into turning their playbook into mental pablum that he has some hope of executing. He's not just a dog killer; he kills coaches' careers.

Let's put it this way. If you were at a party where all the guests were Mensa members, would you be more surprised to see Peyton Manning or Michael Vick?

No worries. The Bills can just draft an experienced veteran like Peyton Manning.

Why waste your time with RFAs? You sign them to a deal, and if their current team wants them back, they simply match the deal. With no cap, why not? And, if they let the guy go, chances are you just boned yourself either with an obscene contract in terms of value/cost or got a player that his own team was ready and willing to part with anyway or both.

Indeed. Who'd think twice when asked to perform the next "Langston Walker special"?