Sisyphean Bills

Ancient history. Blame the Babylonians.

Don't forget about the JaMarcus Russell comeback bid. "The trouble with always aiming lower is you eventually blow your own feet off."

Sure, but think about all the fantasizing over "something better" that you'd miss out on.

So, 2-14 is on its way? As to the OP: it sure does look like the roster that Russ Brandon said was "unquestionably more talented" is getting a good gutting.

He'd seen him do it before.

Well, it's for sure that the Mario contract flies in the face of Buddy's "that money belongs to the guys we develop here" mantra. On the other hand, it did generate some good press along with the warm fuzzy feeling of having Dave Wannstedt cranking up a dominant top 5 or 10 defensive unit. Did someone mention the Jets...

Is "useful" a euphemism for "bargain bin"?

On the other hand, it was known since Byrd and Levitre signed their rookie contracts that they would both be coming up for second contracts at the same time. That is plenty of time for someone to come up with a plan on how to manage the cap. In fact, a child could probably figure out how to save their allowance over 3 years to buy 2 toys that they want. Why penalize yourself for actually drafting well enough once in a generation that you have more than 1 player that you should keep? Do the better teams franchise a DB and let the lineman walk?

Yet Levitre's agent says they haven't negotiated. (Talking about the weather isn't getting down to business.) At any rate, we agree that just because this draft has OL talent, it is not making progress to let your best OL walk because you may be able to draft a guy that someday might be an NFL player to save a little money. To be competitive for a team at the bottom means, as Hopeful has said, to increase the overall level of talent by doing everything possible to keep your best players. Which quite simply means you must negotiate with their agents (assuming the title of this thread has any validity at all).

Suppose Levitre is telling the truth and they haven't approached his agent. How would they know what he wants? Crystal balls?

It's true that you can't force a player to sign a second contract. On the other hand, a team should be willing to up the ante a little to keep their own. There is a lot of talk about "home town discounts" and trying to diffuse these situations by saying real players that the Bills develop aren't worth paying for, but all that accomplishes is more treading water. Develop one solid player, save a million or two, and try to fill the new hole for a few years. Nix seemed to understand the point and the Bills did pay some of their own well to keep them in recent years. Not negotiating with Levitre smacks of the days before Nix when they could only negotiate with one player at a time because they had to know the cash-to-cap parameters of each deal to the nickel...

Maybe they are thinking a line of Urbik and Pears fringe NFL players will be just fine.

I don't see that there is really any question that his agent has talked to other teams. He's a very good player and the Bills seem content to play the role of farm team.

Buddy? Is that really you?

Exactly. It's not going to kill the business to continue down the road they've been on and gut the team and start over every 3 years or so. They'll still sign players and fans will still go to the games. On the other hand, it's difficult to see how improvement in the on-field product is made by losing the better players. Queue the "he's not worth the money" takes.

While it's nice to grant a revised timeline, this is torpedoed by the facts on the ground. Before last year, both Buddy and Chan were talking about 2012 being time to deliver. After their failure, Chan was fired (not given 2 more years) along with his staff and there has been some not insignificant changes in the front office with Ralph stepping down and steady speculation as to Buddy's impending "ride into the sunset". So while you may be right that the Bills won't see the playoffs for at least 2 more years, the evidence is no one in the organization actually subscribed to this ex post facto "5 year plan" 3 years ago.

By virtue of the fact that Dave Wannstedt is no longer an NFL DC, it's a given that the spread option will take a hit in production.

Just burning resources on defense soft sells it. He's burnt the majority of his resources on defense and the unit has gone from bad to putrid. And, they're obligated to pour even more resources in to the defense again after cutting starters. It's a bit like giving a blind, stoned guy a welding torch and a pile of sheet metal to build your race car, while you wind rubber bands in the office because you don't have an engine.

Sounds a lot like what they said about Gailey and QBs. How'd that work out again?

Brandon was the GM the year they gutted the OL and drafted Wood and Levitre and talked up Bell as being better than Peters.

Sure, because the high-end velocity of his 2 yard passes was why he sucked.

Maybe they're using the same calculator that led them to conclude Buddy Nix is a top 5 GM and Dave Wannstedt would easily put a top 10 or even top 5 defense on the field in 2012?

Trent Edwards 2.0?

The other side of that same coin is that the Bills organization has sucked so bad that Kelsay was actually one of the better and most reliable players they had for (almost) his entire career. And, that is not his fault by any stretch.