Sisyphean Bills

Didn't expect you to, Mr. Wawrow. Just saying is all.

What press conference were you at/watching? He was asked point blank who made the call and said he overruled Schonert's call. That's not rushing to the defense of his staff and that's hardly "transparent". Despite what you may want to think, it is really not that hard to say, "It was my responsibility. It doesn't matter who made the call. Next question." It's really easy. People can take the heat in a situation in a professional way without having to concoct some sort of fantasy. Why would Jauron say, "Yes, I overruled him," if he in fact did not? Really, it smells like BS, it flies like BS, and it has flies like BS. Oh, I get it. It was all part of the giant conspiracy to present a mammoth smoke screen to BB for the MNF game.

Melvin Fowler sucks.

I didn't say he would, my old friend. It just wouldn't surprise me. Jauron does have an eye for DB talent and several of the "scrubs" the Bills have let go in the last couple years have ended up being OK at their next stop. Ko could be an exception, of course.

Hmm. Jauron flat out lied if that is the case. He didn't say it was his responsibility. He said that he called the play. He was asked if he overruled Turk often and he went on to explain he didn't do it often, but that he did do it some, and that it was a reasonable call for various reasons. It's one thing to accept responsibility for a mistake by someone under you. It is quite another, IMHO, to grossly misrepresent what happened and bring your character into question. If that's true then, wow. Just, wow.

Not so refreshing. They said the same thing when Schonert replaced Fairchild. And, Schonert gets the ax between the last pre-season game and the opening game. Yikes.

Nope. That was the next draft.

In essence, why waste your time trying to "steal the blueprints" for something that everybody can see the players can't execute anyway? Would you spend effort picking the brains of an architect trying to understand his blueprint of a castle when you can see the castle hasn't been built and the only defense is a broken section of rotted picket fence?

That doesn't square real well. Donahoe signed Sam Adams, who played the same position, when he was turning 30.

The same 7th rounder they passed on when they might've traded Dockery, no doubt. It wouldn't surprise me if Simpson goes on to have a decent career.

OTOH, the line is porous. The shotgun keeps Trent upright long enough to get the ball away. Even if it was only for 3 inches.

There are many smart coaches in the NFL and every other coach out there calling plays on offense or defense has more experience than Van Pelt. He's never even called a pre-season game.

Can we now say that the Schonert hire was completely ridiculous? The offense is still screwed though. They've gone head over heels for this no huddle scheme to try and run an offense behind a weak OL. They have no running game. This can't inspire the team or give them much confidence. AVP has never called plays in the NFL, never run an offense, never made halftime adjustments. Hell, he is green for a QB coach. Throw on top of everything else that AVP has to somehow fix this offense and make it work. What a mess.

On the other hand, it's a little hard to tell with Evans since they almost never throw the ball in his direction.

And the Lions were only 7 plays away from being the Bills, I suppose.

Way to dodge a simple question. The point of the question is to see where you draw your line; otherwise, you're just posturing.

A culture of competence and winning goes a long way towards getting players excited about climbing aboard and signing up with the program. No team keeps every player and players are motivated for different reasons. Still, if the team is near the bottom of the heap, even middling players like Laveranues Coles and Pisa Tinoisamoa will take the offer sheet as a bargaining chip as they continue to shop greener pastures. Let's face it, the city of Buffalo is not going to sell itself to most people. A culture of winning is thus all the more important for teams like the Bills. The Packers and Steelers have found ways to do exactly that. The Bills, other than a brief "near-Camelot era", not so much.

If they finish this season with 5 or fewer wins, are they a shambles or merely underachievers?

I'd take the Vikings OL and DL over the Bills.

Far better to finish in the bottom 12 of the NFL than in the top 12.

Trent must've been brilliant in practice.

I don't recall a lot of things either. Doesn't make them any less true. I thought I tried to be pretty even-handed in my post. Was this TD just doing a CYA? Or was there more to the comment? For that matter is Mr. Wilson playing a bit of CYA? It's fairly clear from your revelations of your discussions what he thinks of Mr. Donahoe. None of us were there behind closed doors and bugging the phones. Personally, I understand that they are both human beings and thus flawed and both at fault. PS: FWIW, I am hardly a "TD homer". The Bills were the 4th worst team in the NFL during his stewardship of the team. TD hasn't been an NFL exec since his firing. That tells us something.

You missed one very key comment that Donahoe spoke about, and that was that the fans don't know the sorts of constraints he was placed under when he was trying to hire coaches. To me that remark fully implicates Wilson. (Donahoe answered to no one other than Wilson.) It also casts a shadow on the financial aspects of the Bills organization, suggesting that they are quite reluctant to tender attractive offers to prospects in the coaching ranks. OTOH, Donahoe may have been (read: was to some extent) covering his posterior, but the fact is that the Bills have been near the bottom of the NFL in coaching salaries in recent years. Indeed, I'd say they've only had one big NFL name coaching hire in their 50 year history, Chuck Knox. (Saban had a very brief stint in Boston. Levy was a retread that had failed in Kansas City; many were very skeptical of Levy at first.)

I can vouch for the Butler comments. I remember Mr. Wilson being quoted quite candidly that he felt John Butler was not qualified to be a GM, was disorganized and dishonest, got far too much credit, and (in Wilson's opinion) the Bills would be much better off without him. The record speaks for itself and tells a rather different story. Butler was central to turning around two floundering small market NFL teams as far as their play on the football field, which certainly doesn't hurt the bottom line if costs can be kept in line.