Sisyphean Bills

Well, it's possible that Te'o was a complete dupe and suckered all the way through. When the prank was given up with a call from a dead person, even a very stupid person would find that rather irregular. I read some article were "damage control" was more or less openly stated; however, that is also saying the "nice, naive simpleton" who was duped for 4 years without ever being suspicious was able then ran his own damage control for weeks before spilling the beans to his bishop. The real story actually turns out to be orders of magnitude more screwy than the simple "my girl and my granny both died" as the length of this thread attests. "Damage control". More like, as someone said up-thread, the hoax is on us. I find the Notre Dame involvement totally bizarre. They hold a press conference for someone no longer on the campus and point to that person and a well-respected national investigative service, while not having any notes, and come to find out the well-respected investigators never talked to anybody involved. We can call it "damage control", but not with a straight face.

Sure, in the big scheme, it's all irrelevant. OTOH, if he (or Notre Dame) is guilty of deliberate misrepresentation of a (can we at least call it?) suspicious situation for personal gain/fame, then that's not considered real ethical by some folks. The rationalization that others have done it notwithstanding. I agree that he seems guilty of being a naive mark, telling some whoppers, and not coming clean when he knew the truth. BFD. Given the duration of the hoax, it's actually plausible that the feelings of the perpetrator of the "scam" became more than merely playing a role. Hoax imitating life imitating hoax. It's also plausible that the real feelings that may have developed in the actual phone relationship also influenced Manti to continue to want to cover up the situation and protect the hoaxster(s). (I don't really think Deadspin had to be "tipped off" to figure out something was extremely "catfishy" when they did the slightest amount of investigation of the story. Really, the story should have never even run, but it did and that was likely because Manti was so convincing and compelling to the reporter. It really was an incredible story, though complete, weird fantasy.)

I don't see how this clarifies the motive for Te'o's embellishment of the situation or why he and Notre Dame had to be outed into telling the truth by Deadspin.

Interesting. Are they going to impose quotas?

Transparency would be the best option, wouldn't it? Just confirm he never really met her face to face, etc. I would think he'd have been more pissed than embarrassed when getting a call from a "resurrected girlfriend". He may have embellished things along the way, but that embarrassment seems to pale (hugely) in comparison to realizing a person you had feelings for has made a public moron out of you, no? Perhaps he still is emotionally confused about how he feels about this woman.

If the concept of the alleged victims was to perpetuate the fantasy world rather than face embarrassment, then the joke is still on them. And in the wake of the Sandusky scandal and fallout therefrom, one might expect more out of an athletic department, frankly.

The timing and such are really quite strange. It would be best for Notre Dame AND Manti Te'o to have a joint press conference, address the issues head on, and present their own report based on what the PI's found. Instead, we get that they knew about this for about a month, already hired a PI and concluded their investigation, and Swarbrick waves his hands and says things like "I don't have my notes in front of me". Instead of dousing the fire, they threw more gasoline on it. If he truly was the victim of a hoax, I hope he just takes a break from NFL combine training and gets out in front of it.

I'm pretty sure Bill hasn't investigated this in detail. If you just roll 100% with the "I was duped, silly me" spew, then, sure, Te'o is still a fine young man who is purely a random victim of fickle fate here. On the other hand, if you were a manager in any business, not just the NFL, then you'd definitely want to dig deeper before investing millions on this guy and putting him on your team. Is he a con man and a pathological liar? Was he in on it? If so, why do it? Was it to generate hype? Get some pub for Notre Dame and collect lots of trophies? Or was it done to him? Why would anyone play such a head game on this guy? Then there is the TO effect. What sort of distractions does this bring into your own house? How many NFL teams were interested in adding amped up drama to their teams in recent seasons with TO, Chad, and Randy Moss? One of the major selling points on Te'o was that he was team captain, a great guy, and a real leader. Sorry, but who follows a "leader" that is exposed as either a duplicitous fraud, an unworldly sucker, or possibly both?

Stock dropping.

To paraphrase Skeletor: It's hard to catch up to the curve in the NFL.

Getting a guy that can actually impact an NFL game would be a change of pace from adding another name to the scroll of busts.

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WTF? You forgot Kevin Bacon.

I figured they'd lose that game when they took a knee with Peyton Manning at QB. You take a knee with Trent Edwards for obvious reasons. With Peyton Manning? That's overly passive for a playoff game.

Do you think Buddy has the same level of authority as he did before the torch was passed? I am thinking specifically of the Marrone press conference where Buddy was obviously bewildered and couldn't recall who they interviewed, which order they were interviewed, or even what day it was.

Just how slow do you figure the police dispatch in Kansas City to be? Maybe he took a trip to China in the meantime as well.

Maybe it is not meaningful to some, but it is most definitely meaningful. Brandon is running things, and he is not the owner. In other words, his performance will be evaluated at some time and it is a real possibility that he could be fired. When Ralph was the President, there was no one to be accountable to other than himself. If he !@#$ed something up, he laughed and slid a few deck chairs around. People have long been mooning over, crying about, and demanding that Mr. Wilson sell the team. That was never going to happen, but the move to pass the torch is the next best thing. A young, energetic sports executive has taken the reigns and he has a lot to prove and the clock has not stopped ticking. It is encouraging. Absolutely. Of course, we'll see how Marrone does. The pace of the process and the A-list that they worked was a night-and-day departure from the process Nix ran 3 years ago.

Agreed that there is no need to apologize for wanting a better product. As far as Brandon, assuming he was being forthright in his statement that being President of the Buffalo Bills is his dream job (and I don't see any reason to suggest he wasn't), then his best (and perhaps only) hope of maintaining that position for the long term is to get things turned around and quickly with new ownership being on the horizon.

Actually of the top 7 players on the PFF list, most of them were not drafted by Nix, five of them being here when he took the GM job. On the other hand, most of the names on the bottom 7 list were in fact brought in by Nix, Fitzpatrick being the lone exception. PS: The one draft pick on the best 7 list, Spiller, can further be dismissed as treading water as he replaced Marshawn Lynch who had a dynamic season carrying the Seahawks to the playoffs. More treading water: the signing of free agent Mario Williams, who had a season not unlike former DE Aaron Schobel, who retired when Nix was hired. What the PFF piece actually shows is in direct opposition to the claim made of large upgrades in talent.

Always trust the guys that get paid to make the decisions.

Really, the Bills haven't recovered from that yet. "Time and patience" could be a real understatement.

Yeah, Lee was going to make Fitz a top 10 QB. Lee had connections to Sporano and now Sporano is gone, so Lee is interviewing again with a Jets team with a disappearing coaching staff.

Buddy did look pretty winded at the presser.

Set a world record in the sprint to the podium.

Didn't the mayor of Keota, IA say the same thing?