Sisyphean Bills

Not really. In the short-term, Marv made many fans feel good about the Bills again. By reaching back to the past glory days, the Bills were marketing a mirage in 20/20 hindsight. Fans were fed up and angry with Tom Donahoe. Marv Levy was a familiar and calming face to put on the franchise. It turned out that Mike Mularkey hit the nail on the head, though. Marv was ill-equipped for the job and the structure then put in place has been a bad one that hasn't given the Bills a serious chance of competing. So there was a nice, warm honeymoon briefly. 4 years later, we can truly evaluate the direction the Bills were sent in back then. And, the results are dismal. The draft looks bad. The coach has been fired. No free agents remain with the team. And, the word is that the front office may undergo a total overhaul after this season. So, yes, over the long-term, you are right. It was a failure and the glow of that honeymoon is forgotten.

"Way different"? That is exactly what I was referring to. He was GM. That means it was his job to bring the right people into the building to turn this thing around. He said in no uncertain terms that he still believed in those people and defended the course he set and those people were still following. Jauron, Modrak, Guy, et.al. were doing a good job, just be patient. Which isn't "way different" in context in any way, shape or form at all. He was defending his decisions by defending the people he made his primary decisions about. So, if you went out and blew your inheritance on buying a real-estate investment that turned out to be a swamp and told anybody that would listen, "I still think the property is worth something and it's value will go up if I'm patient enough," you think people will be tricked into believing your idiotic purchase decision is unrelated to your present feelings about the property?

Way to let 'em wriggle off the hook. This defense boils down to: 1) Marv has no accountability for his own work because people in the past screwed up. 2) Marv is a mindless automaton and puppet. As for the second argument, it's too bad that Marv, just a few weeks ago and over a year removed from the job, was still defending his efforts as GM of the Bills. Apparently, even he didn't think pawning the current stink off on someone else would ring true.

Short-term success as token marketing move.

Depends on the coach. Here is an excellent article on the subject. http://www.trojanfootballanalysis.com/usc_...nt_defense.html

Next you'll want them to practice blocking and tackling!

One could do much, much worse than Dungy. Besides, like it or not, the defense under the Dick Levy regime has been reconstructed to mimic Dungy's own Tampa-2 defenses. Who better than Tony Dungy to actually make it work on that side of the ball?

It doesn't add up. The Titans had the best record in the NFL last year. This year they started off 0-6 with the same QB. They then went on a winning streak with a QB that many in the media had written off as a bust. The Steelers won the Super Bowl last year. This year they have an ongoing 0-5 run, with loses to some truly bad teams, with the same QB. Derek Anderson was a Pro Bowl QB one year and then the wheels came off. Same QB and same team and it all went in the ditch. All of these are the same QB and the same franchise, but year to year the teams around the QB change, although admittedly not all 52 other members of the team, the coaching staff, and front office -- which in your thesis don't matter. The Patriots went 11-5 last year after their Hall-of-Fame QB went down in the 1st game and with a QB that hadn't played in a game since high school. This year they get their Hall-of-Fame QB back and are struggling, unable to win on the road. Meanwhile, the guy that took them to 11-5 last year was sent to Kansas City and the Chiefs are 3-9. So far taking Cassel off an 11-5 team and putting him on 2-14 team is worth 1 more win (ignoring numerous other changes of course). Hall-of-Fame QBs aren't traded all that often, and if they are it is usually at the end of their careers. One notable exception is Steve Young. He's said it publicly and often: the difference between playing for Tampa Bay and San Francisco was night and day. The 49ers put him in a position to succeed. The Bucs roster was full of players that just wanted the money and couldn't care less. People that say Steve Young sucked in Tampa simply don't know what they are talking about. Some would say Jay Cutler is a stud QB. But he left a team that just missed the playoffs, joined a team that just missed the playoffs, and his new team has struggled and is worse than last year. Of course, QB is a very important position. Bringing in someone competent, such as an aging Brett Favre or Joe Montana, can really help stabilize that position on your team. The Vikings have made more hay by having Favre than the Jets did last year, but that's because they started out being a much better team. The Vikings won their division last year in spite of some highly suspect QB play between Frerotte and Jackson. The Jets had more problems than just Pennington and Clemens sucking.

All the CA teams are struggling with their stadiums and the argument to have a stadium built in LA has been ongoing with little traction since way before the Rams left. To paraphrase an old coach, "It's tough to get a new stadium built in California."

It may not be that silly. Tucker was there and what he may not be writing is that Esposito was an obvious dead weight, lacked talent, and was never going to get on the roster, that the Bills just kept Jasen around as an extra body for practice and everyone in the room knew it. Esposito was given as an example of "What not to do: Some teams treat the practice squad spots almost as throwaways and simply take the best guy in training camp at a certain position where they desire an extra practice body during the week." The implication is fairly straightforward. Quite frankly, this is exactly what has happened this year with the Bills practice squad OL. The Bills are more likely to sign a guy off the street or off another practice squad to their roster than the kids on their own.

I get it that your oversimplification of the game is that it is nothing but the QB. Basically, football is no different than two QBs facing off at the bowling alley. Manning would be negatively effected by bad, unsophisticated, revolving door coaching, schemes that don't suit him (really anyone), and having his team draft busts and special teams players while taking the low road on depth. He'd struggle more than he does with the Colts with terrible pass protection, a line that can't get a push to save its life and gives the team no chance of an effective running game, never having a TE on the roster in his entire career, and WRs that don't fight for the ball or make plays. Manning is obviously very important to the Colts, but it is still a team game. It's a rather moot argument really. The Bills haven't been able to develop or build a team around any QB in well over a decade. So what if they had drafted Manning? Why assume it would be different? Because he's a Manning? Because he did it all on his own? There was no support at all from the rest of the organization? Polian, Mora, and Moore were just riding Manning's coattails until the Fates propelled him to his pre-ordained pedestal? No, I don't think so. It's likely that the Bills would've pulled the plug on a QB as immobile as Manning (read Bledsoe) rather than invest any money in the "overrated fat guys" and fix their OL and sent him to another team like the Bucs did Young. He might have been bounced like Drew Brees for a shiny new kid. Or, he might have gotten injured or just never developed at all like so many others. Yours is an interesting take in that the Colts and Polian just got lucky when they chose Manning over Leaf, when the proverbial 'everyone' had rated the Washington State QB the better prospect. Yet, "the Bills did nothing wrong" when they drafted Mike Williams at #4 despite questions about his work ethic and love of the game when 'everyone' was hyping the big fat kid out of Texas as a great player who could switch positions to LT easily enough.

And, your point is? Throwing $10M at someone that has the know-how, connections, and ability to turn a sinking ship around 180 degrees isn't really all that bad of an investment for a billion dollar business. They pay T.O. $6.5M for one season and he doesn't fight for the ball. They paid Derrick Dockery $8M+ a year and he was a bad player; and, that move was cheered raucously by many fans. Dick Jauron was making around $3M, I think, with his new contract; and, despite hoping he'd figure it out someday, he never had a clue how to build a team. So, it's not the price tag that Bills fans should be wringing their hands in worry about. It is what the Bills get for their investment. I also enjoyed the article. That one paragraph quote from Polian just underscored a number of issues and highlighted why the Bills and the Colts are on separate ends of the NFL spectrum. Polian has built and continues to maintain one of the best football teams, not just now, but of all time in a small market that has been more associated with auto racing. The Bills continue to flounder as they have throughout most of their 50 years and with the one notable exception of the team Polian himself put together in Buffalo. That is about the future. The Bills need to learn from their stupidity to get over the hump and do a U-turn. Even Ralph knows this is almost certainly his last chance to get it right. No need for Bills fans to play ostrich and perpetuate the self-delusion that every subtraction is really an addition.

A shelf with a bunch of Lombardi Trophies?

Heard he was running in the Honolulu Marathon on the 13th. Oops. Probably a different guy.

Some dreams never die.

By some, yes. Not by me.

Building through the draft? Nope, we suck at that. Athletic ability? Under Donahoe, we looked for overachievers and "high-motors". Football temperament, aggressiveness, and love of the game? Exhibit A: Trent "I'm not a fan" Edwards. Durability? Exhibit B: legions of walking wounded and the never-ending IR bonanza. Players with firing neurons? Exhibit C: Losman, McKelvin, Roscoe, Bongs Away Lynch. Meanwhile Polian keeps racking up wins in a small market, which used to be known more for auto racing.

Gholston was a overhyped, one-trick, pass rushing tweener from a high profile Big-10 program. A lot like another player who will remain not-so anonymous.

Speaking of Gray, his star has been on the wane for quite some time now.

Yeah, too bad. Rolling with Dickie the J. a couple more years would've been top o' the world for most fans.

Fans pay to watch the refs.

If (and that's a BIG if at this point) Losman gets another shot and really does turn his career around, just be happy that the Bills were able to develop yet another player for some other team. It's what successful farm teams do.

If Shanahan takes the Redskins job, it means he's cooked and just looking to cash his chips in and be out of coaching or looking for yet another new gig in a couple of years. Snyder may throw money around, but he is a terribly capricious owner.

Maybe the guy doing the photoshop work on the team photo wanted too much money to take care of the rest of the problem.

The pre-game panoramic shots did show an empty stadium, but there was a crowd at the actual game. So those shots were not live, unless Canadians can fill a stadium in a few milliseconds.