Sisyphean Bills

It's time to grade the 06 draft as this class is now in the "prime" of their careers. Whitner - now serving as a backup and dime player McCargo - bust Youboty - minimal contributor, plagued by injury Simpson - traded, injured again Williams - a good value find Butler - plagued by injury Ellison - a role player pressed to start Pennington - gone Merz - hasta la vista, baby That draft class is looking pretty threadbare.

It might suffice to say that trying to become the Indianapolis Colts was not a great plan as put in motion by Dick Levy and it minimized their chances of success.

Has Roscoe suffered about 6 dozen concussions in the past year or something?

Yes, I know about the "40 times" and pre-draft data. I watch him on the field though. Guys with worse 40 times run right by him.

I get the sense that they are just auditioning "Mr. Versatility" in various roles to see if he can succeed in any sort of secondary position on this team. He's 3rd on the depth chart at SS behind Scott, a street FA, and Wilson, a converted WR. They aren't going to bench Byrd and his ball hawking instincts at FS unless they are insane. He's more of a CB/S tweener, but his lack of instincts and speed mean he's not really suited to CB or covering the slot as other guys on the team. Whitner is playing out his string and is almost certainly going to be trade bait this off-season. Dick Levy's first draft class is panning out to be nothing but silt in the pan.

The running game requires some sort of blocking to be consistent enough to yield a high average. The Bills OL is, simply put, crap.

They lost by 6 and Kellen Clemens was trying everything he could from the JP Losman bag-o-tricks to give the game away. Heck, he even put a pretty bow on it...

Is there a slower group of "high-motor" DEs in the NFL? Oh, and our OLBs (yes, I know one of them is just a SS playing out of position) are complete garbage, even though they may be a slight upgrade to the original starters.

Personally, I was a bit more appalled at the $6.5M receiver who didn't even go after the ball multiple times.

Bobby Bowden makes more sense. Bowden actually won and dominated at that level. Weis couldn't even surpass Ty "Where is he now?" Willingham as HC at ND. Heck, Bowden is nearly as old as Ralph as well.

Can he bring along Kerry Collins? We need more ex-Nittany Lion "superstars" in the building.

First, he was out-coached. Now, he's officially un-coached. Rough stuff. Ralph should be holding a sign reading, "Thanks, Marv."

Even with the "day 1 starters" metric it is interesting to note that the Bills have drafted 10 players in the first 2 rounds in the Jauron era. 50% of these have been day 1 starters, which is well below the 70% figure thrown out above. If you factor in injuries, suspensions, and overall level of play, the Bills have sadly gotten far less value than even that. For a team that is exceptional young and barely mediocre at best and for a team that often paints themselves in a draft-for-need corner, 50% seems even more pathetic. C'mon, Ralph. Let's get some new football people in here!

Winning a few games doesn't hurt as bad as drafting busts.

Maybe it takes more than just having Tom Bundchen take snaps from whoever you line up at center.

He has a LB's body, but so does your Aunt Matilda.

Good thing we lost that game to New Orleans.

Where are the people that were saying his suspension meant nothing and he'd be better than ever coming back from it?

Weis and Clausen can bring their winning formula to the Buffalo Bills.

Actually, it has very much to do with who he is which directly affects how he goes about his life. Saying it is unimportant or could be removed with no effect is incredibly ignorant.

Millen was "totally underutilized"? You really know your stuff!

The Bills needed to build their team around a franchise QB or, if that wasn't there, start building in the trenches. It's not a complete coincidence that the dysfunctional teams that have stayed on the losing side picked two undersized S and a midget LB, while the teams immediately after that were actually making a push towards returning as playoff teams and they dared to take two QBs and a Pro Bowl DL. Dick Jauron was, of course, burned to a blackened crisp in his first gig when he selected Cade McNown, and it's hard to say to what degree that may have influenced the room against Tom Modrak, who supposedly lobbied hard for Cutler. (Which should make you really wonder who it was that really wanted JP Losman, not that the answer isn't obvious.) The 06 draft is not living up to its pre-draft hype, and the Bills are not alone in getting minimal value. That's not exactly anything to celebrate, but the Bills compounded this misfortune by jettisoning their veterans, the locker room leadership, and signing a bunch of "under 30" free agents that they felt were "up and coming" but which turned out to be nothing but bad players one and all.

They really need to bring in an outside consultant to evaluate the organization and suggest a plan to move forward to Mr. Wilson. Having Russ Brandon jet around the country and present sales pitches to big name coaches indicates they are willing to consider something different this time around. That is a big step in the right direction for a team that has throughout their history taken their chances on uninspired retreads, promoting from within, and rookie HCs. But, there is more to fixing this thing than just a new coaching staff. This team has done a dreadful job of putting together a competitive roster and that reflects poorly on the front office: contracts, self-scouting, pro-scouting, college scouting, knowing what it takes to put together a champion and leading the team down that path. While the latest hit of hope to the fans may be this hare and hounds chase of big name coaches, the entire organization should be put under the microscope for the boneheaded decisions that have been made. The track record of the decisions made by or with the approval of Brandon and Wilson, would give any skeptic cause for pause. The cynic must ask, "Is this just another marketing ploy? Does Brandon really know anything more about how to fix the front office (which he is nominally overseeing already) than he does about player personnel management, where he has shown he is inept?"

The Denver Broncos are also a cold weather, old-line AFL team with a rabid fan base. When Shanahan took that job the Broncos were 0-4 in Super Bowls and suffered the stigma of "always being the bridesmaid". While Denver is bigger than Buffalo, the two cities are more relatively similar in terms of "glitz and sizzle" factors to one another than either is to, say, Washington, Dallas, or Chicago. Side note: There is something to be said for the good fortune of tradition as it relates to the Dallas Cowboys brand establishment. The Cowboys are associated through their divisional rivalries with the major money and power markets of the east coast in New York, Washington, and Philadelphia, when they could have instead been tied to, say, New Orleans, Atlanta, and a couple of teams from the west coast. The Bills franchise has a very similar marketing position when you get right down to it (New York, Boston, and Miami); but, unlike the Cowboys, the Bills have never established a long haul track record of sustained success.

This is false, and I watched him play from the 50 yard line. The team he was on sucked. There is a difference.