BillsPhan

You make a good case for Fitzy. However, when you have an entire rebuilding job to do like Nix does, you simply cannot pass up drafting a franchise QB when he has the chance. Obviously, it appears that Nix will have the chance to draft one of the top 5 QB's in April '11, and of course he has to do that to have any kind of chance at building the Bills brand new. Not in a draft with so many QB's rated as high as the '11 draft will have.

Obviously you don't own a dog, and have no compassion for the millions of us who do. But his crime aside, Vick is still a convicted felon. I think the NFL should draw the line and tell these guys that if you do something bad enough that your lawyers cannot even get it plea bargained down to a misdemeanor, and you need to serve time in a federal prison as a convicted felon, you will be banned from playing again in the NFL. Period. But that's just my opinion. Obviously, the NFL doesn't agree, and you "dog-killing convicted felon lovers" are happy to see Vick doing so well in Philly. I would not have ever wanted him in Buffalo, so no need to "apologize" to me.

Ellis was our 3rd round pick in the '08 draft. Here's a notable player taken 19 picks after Modrak/Brandon drafted Ellis - Jermichael Finley #91 taken by the Packers. Yes sir, this 11 year era of crap certainly looks to continue indefinitely with these kind of constant misses in the freakin' draft. Nice job by this years' second rounder Troup playing more to "stop the run" yesterday, eh??

Oh really?? So if Jim Haslet would have come to Buffalo to help Gailey as his DC, like he did for Shanahan in Washington, you think his defense would look this bad?? Sorry, I don't buy your opinion that coaching has nothing to do with it. Haslet would take these same players and give them some blitz packages and schemes to help their lack of talent - not try to fit them into a 3-4 system that just about none of them knew how to play. If coaching has nothing to do with how bad the Bills are playing this season, how on earth did they finish 2nd against the pass last year, with the exact same players covering?

Of course he is. He is an obscure linebackers coach that Chan Gailey and only Chan Gailey thought had all the tools to be a fine DC coming from his linebackers coaching history. Nothing against Edwards himself, but other then Gailey coaching with him in KC and Miami, what other criteria did he meet? I have no idea, but based on these first 5 games, in which I heard John Murphy mention that the Bills allowed 30 or more points in 4 consecutive games for the first time in their 50-plus year history, George Edwards seems to be in way over his head. He has managed to make the number 2 defense against the pass last year look like they've never lined up in an NFL game, along with somehow managing to make one of the very worst defenses against the run into the very worst defense against the run heading into their bye week.

Of course there are no other Lynch type talented players any of the other 31 teams would be willing to give away for 4th and 5th round draft picks. After all, there is only one Buffalo Bills franchise. Takeo Spikes still with good years left to the Eagles for a player who never played a practice for the Bills, and a 4th or 5th round pick. A young, 2 time Pro Bowl LT - Jason Peters, to the Eagles for their second 1st round draft pick, a late 1st rounder. Did the Bills use that late 1st round pick to directly replace Peters' all important LT position? Of course not, these are the Bills, remember? Instead, they inserted their 7th round draft pick at LT the past two seasons to replace Peters! And today, their 1st round pick from just 3 years ago, a very productive RB with (2) 1,000 yard seasons and (1) Pro Bowl already on his resume' despite being an immature idiot off the field, goes to Seattle for 4th and 5th round picks - not even for the same draft! (The conditional pick is a 2012 pick!)

If Lynch has a good year the rest of the season for the Seahawks, and the 2012 conditional pick is as good as it could be, I heard that would be a 5th rounder. Wow, what a great deal, a 4th in 2011 and a 5th in 2012, for the 10th best running back (stats wise) in Buffalo Bills history, and he is only 24 or 25 years old to boot. If he keeps his stupid head on straight and decides he likes it in Seattle, he could be their premier RB the next 6 - 7 years or so. What kind of careers to you and Tim Graham predict that 4th round pick next year and that "extra" 5th round pick the year after that will have for the Bills, based on the recent drafting record of the Bills? Now, if Lynch is going into a free agent year next season, then I suppose it was smart to get whatever they could for him. But the whole situation sucks for the Bills, just like the Peters situation sucked for the Bills. corrected.

Great points. Here's a question moving forward: what will the '10 draft - the first by the Nix/Modrak/Gailey era, define the horrible Buffalo Bills of this season, as? C.J. has the look of a super star in waiting, so barring serious injury, he should be a huge part of the 2013-2014 Buffalo Bills (or whatever name they may be playing under by then). But what can we expect from Troup, Carrington, Easley, Wang and Moats 3 - 4 years down the line?? None of them inspire much optimism for even being regular starters, much less Pro Bowlers or even good players, although we have no way of knowing this early on. I would get all of them on the field starting this week against the Jags as much as possible! (although Easley is on IR, too bad-he had a great chance of starting this season.)

Excellent observation Marv Levy/Russ Brandon/Tom Modrak really set this franchise back in their two drafts! (And why is Modrak still here, by the way???) There is a young man also drafted in 2007. He was drafted after Marv took Trent Edwards, and after Marv took Dwayne Wright. In fact, he was the 122nd player taken by Dallas in the '07 draft, an OL by the name of Doug Free. Today, I noticed he is listed first on the depth chart at LT of the Cowboys. Now I understand Alex Baron was signed to start ahead of him, and has since been benched. But my point is, the Cowboys drafted him late in the 4th round 3 years ago, and has now worked his way up to starting LT. He may not be the long term answer there for Dallas, but he's the '07 4th round pick of Dallas and he's made the team and remained on the team and is available to start in this pinch the Cowboys now find themselves in with Baron sucking so badly early in this year. Compare that one fact, to the pathetic fact that Poz is the one and only player from the Bill's entire '07 draft still on the Bills' team. That's almost as bad as Mike Ditka trading his entire '99 draft to Washington for the rights to draft Ricky Williams ....not that that trade did very much for the Redskins either.

No, it is the scheme, the coaching and yes, the lack of talent, but they are all intertwined equally on an NFL team. Come on now. You don't think that Bill Cowher and the assistant coaches he would have hired, would not be getting more out of these guys?? In another thread, I complain about the coaches "old boys" network of hiring assistant coaches. Well, that is not quite altogether accurate, as some posters pointed out to me. Every head coach wants to hire assistants he worked with in the past. However, I'm quite sure that when Cowher comes back to an NFL team, (if he does), the coaches he worked with in the past, especially the men he hires as his OC and DC, will be people he's worked with before in some capacity. But I would be that his OC and DC he brings in, will have been coordinators in the NFL before. And that makes a huge difference, especially on a young team like the Bills, who also lack pro bowl level talent. If Gailey would have looked around the NFL and chosen a real OC and a DC with experience, I am sure this team would not be as miserably bad as they are right now. They were nowhere near this bad this time last year, and I think those coaches sucked pretty bad themselves! So of course these new schemes and coaching is having an effect on this team. Unfortunately, it has effectively helped to make them worse then last year.

You make a great point - and yes, I am being a tad hypocritical there. However, I did use the term "Coaches Old Boys Network", and I meant it. Scott Pioli worked with Weiss and Cronnell, and of course you can refer to both of them as being his "old boys." However, Pioli is not the head coach, he is the GM. Plus, he went right past his head coach and hired those two and how often do you see that today? Sometimes you see it, when the head coach has struggled for a couple to three straight seasons. But not after just one season, and not both the OC and DC at once! I think that while Pioli had a huge advantage of sharing SB success with both those men at New England, it was still a bold move for him to bring them both in to help his young head coach succeed better and/or faster. Besides, after watching Gregg Williams bring in his hand picked coordinators that had never coordinated in the NFL before, then after watching Mularkey do it again, and then watching Jauron do it yet again, I simply had seen enough of this crap. The NFL made huge strides in the head coaching hiring process. But the teams' GMs are failing miserably in the OC / DC coaching hiring process, because they allow the new head coaches to choose them based on two mostly stupid factors: (1) They have to have worked with them in the past. (2) They have to have never been coordinators in the NFL yet. And why? Well, because the new head coach is too insecure to bring in proven OC / DC coaches that they don't "know."

Oops. Todd Haley, not "Handley"...thanks for the correction - I should have known his last name, or at least taken the time to get it right!

The Kansas City Chiefs enjoyed their bye week with their surprising 3-0 record in hand. I'm not shocked that they have started out so well. During the off-season, Scott Pioli made a very bold and I'm sure unpopular move as far as head coach Todd Handley was concerened. He fired both the OC and DC - (well, Handley fired his own OC before the '09 season began, as we all know here in Buffalo!), anyway, Pioli hired a couple of high profile and I'm sure expensive men to serve as the OC and DC of his Chiefs. Charlie Weiss and Romeo Cromell were brought in and I'm sure Pioli could care less what Handley thought. What's that old motivational saying; "Success leaves clues"!? - Pioli certainly shared "some" success with those two guys in New England, so he hired them both to help Handley "speed up" the rebuidling process in Kansas City. So far so good, but of course it's a long season and the Chiefs still are lacking in overall talent. But if I'm a Chiefs fan, I feel pretty damn good about those two veteran coaches roaming the sidelines for me every week. When Gailey was hired, I was as un-impressed as everyone else. But I really got pissed off when he started bringing in his old buddies as his assistant coaches. On top of them all being people he "worked with in the past", the two coordinators were of course never coordinators before in the NFL. Who cares, said some of my detractors out here. That's what all the head coaches do. Yeah, and it has worked so freakin' well so far for Chan right? Start with Curtis Modkins. He's not even a real OC! In fact, he may have the least amount of responsibility in the history of the OC position in the NFL. Basically, he's no more then an offensive "quality control" coach for ego-manicac Gailey. Gailey certainly read all the stories of what an offensive "genius" he is, because he decided to design the entire offense and call all the plays. And Modkins does what, exactly, to fill up his 110 hours of work each week? And let's now take a look at George Edwards, the 3-4 master. Yes sir, this former linebackers coach has really done a fine job so far, hasn't he? He took a defense that was great against the pass and bad against the run last year, and turned it into a defense that is equally as bad against the pass as it is against the run after 4 games. Nice job, there George. Now, as you hit your reply button to tell me how any coaches would suck with this lack of talent, please see the Kansas City Chiefs first. Nobody was predicting them to do any better then the Bills this season. They were going to be one of the teams to compete for that coveted number one pick, right? Well I thought Gailey should have hired OC and DC men who had done it before in the NFL, because of how talent-less and young the Bills were! I'm not "bragging" about being right, I'm complaining that the men Gailey chose, those men he "had worked with before", are obviously not up to the job. Edwards looks clueless on the sidelines, and Modkins is not even mentioned as being a coach at all.

And who gets to be truly disgusted with Chan's offense? Buddy "I'm not the smartest guy in the room" Nix??

"Come on guys, I know Gailey deferred the opening kick-off to the Jets, but the game hasn't even started yet....come back!"

Sure, Fitz looked exactly like Flutie, except for him not being as fast as Flutie was, as shifty as Flutie was, and his arm being half as strong as Flutie's was. Other then those "minor" facts, yeah..Fitz is Flutie. I said this during preseason, there is really no difference between Fitzy and Edwards. Edwards has the height and the arm, and zero football sense. Fitzy has good football sense, but is just barely tall enough to be a good starting QB, but he has the arm of a second string journeyman. I got caught up myself in Fitzy's game against the Pats last week, and thought maybe he has improved over this past off -season. Alas, the Pats defense is in fact as bad as posters out here tried to say they are, and the Jets top 5 defense brought me back down to earth fast. I was right months ago, Fitzy cannot make it as the starter.

"I'm not the smartest guy in the room!"...Buddy Nix.

You are missing the point. This is all about being a Buffalo fan. I can't speak for Boston fans whose Pats are called "New England", or Oakland fans whose Warriors are called "Golden State", but I would have a hard time accepting that compromise brought up a few months ago, where the Bills would move to Niagara Falls and be re-named the Niagara Bills. Maybe the Nets and Devils fans don't need thier city recognized, but for me, the Bills and Sabres will always represent Buffalo. So if they moved all the way to Toronto, I would never root for them again.

After the Braves left Buffalo, I never rooted for another NBA team, and despite the fact it is over 30 years later, it would be no different if the Bills left. However, after Carmello Anthony led the 'Cuse to their first NCAA Championship in 2003, I became a Denver Nuggets fan. Syracuse is outside the "Buffalo - Western New York" area a bit, but they have always been my favorite college to root for. And since the Braves, Sabres and Bills have never won a championship, (sorry, but I don't count those two AFL Championships as if they were SB wins), the Orange's championship in '03 was something I really enjoyed watching!

I would draft the best OT available, and I wouldn't care if I was "reaching" over 20 picks according to the draft "experts and gurus". Take a look at every franchise LT and/or good starting RT on the best OL's in the NFL today. Find out where they were drafted. Without researching, I would be willing to guess that the majority of them were drafted below the top 5 picks of their respective drafts. OK, so Donahoe missed with big Mike Williams in Hall of Shame fashion back in 2002. Perhaps the biggest bust in Bills history of the draft. But for every one Mike Williams, there are 3 Mike Ohers' proving NFL GM's correct, when it comes to first round OL's. They don't bust like first round QB's, that's for sure!! So if Nix doesn't think one of the QB's is his man, fine. It's time he comitted to a first round OL for this franchise, once and for all!!

Gottlieb was pathetic. How could Mora Jr. have possibly gotten anything "more" out of Vick, then Vick gave him? Mora Jr. should have said something like; "Yeah, man your're right Doug. If only Michael would have been reading his freakin' playbook and "buying into my system" instead of instructing his employees to torture and kill those dogs down in Virginia, we could have won 5 straight SB's!"

20 years, not counting this season, would be 1990 thru 2009. 1990: 13-3-0 1991: 13-3-0 1992: 11-5-0 1993: 12-4-0 1995: 10-6-0 1996: 10-6-0 1998: 10-6-0 1999: 11-5-0 2004: 9-7-0 If my math is correct, that makes 9 winning seasons over 20 years, not 5. Not that 9 winning seasons in 20 years is anything to puff our chests out over, but those 8 winning seasons in 10 years in the 90's sure were!! Of course 1 winning season in the 10 years of the '00's is pure crap, and after the 2000 season, when John Butler and A.J. Smith left for San Diego, Wilson has been "lost in space" ever since.

Sure there has. I became aware of the Bills as a young kid, but I was too young to remember the AFL Championship years of '64 and '65. My Dad took me to my first Bills game in 1968 against the Jets and Joe Namouth at the old War Memorial Stadium (The REAL "Rock Pile") when I was 9. So that season was the first Bills season I was a real fan. How "lucky" for me to start that year! From 1967 thru 1979, (13 seasons) the Bills had only 3 winning seasons and made the playoffs just once, as the Wild Card in 1974 getting blown out by the Steelers. Later from 1982 thru 1987, (6 seasons) the Bills had no winning seasons and put together two consecutive 2-14 seasons in 1984 & 1985. In my opinion, strictly speaking for my own Bills fan experience of over 40 years now, the lowest point to be a Bills fan would absolutely have been from 1984 thru 1986, before that '86 season started, until the day Bill Polian signed Jim Kelly after the USFL folded up. Following a decent 8-8-0 season in 1983 under first year coach Kay Stephenson, 1984 and 1985 were major paper bag years to be out at Rich Stadium. Imagine having season tickets for an NFL team that lost 7 or it's 8 home games, more often getting blown out then not, for two straight seasons! Now I'll admit, these current Bills have set the all time record for consecutive seasons without making the playoffs, so these past 10 plus seasons are right up there with being the lowest point, but nothing compares to '84 and '85 in my book.

It's been 30 years since I used to pump the dead weights, but if memory serves, he had one 45 on each side, and the bar weighs 45 so yes....he was struggling to do 8 freakin' lousy reps of squats of 135 pounds. I could still do that today at an out of shape 51 years old if I had the ambition to. Too bad Maybin's head wasn't inside that tire Orakpo was slamming with that sledge hammmer. Or better yet, Modrak's head, for passing on that beast for that skinny high jumper!

Outstanding post! Maybin is a typical "punk" pro athlete of today. He tweets and he blogs and he sets up a web site as if the pay check makes him a star without the WORK and DEDICATION. I'll never forget how pissed off young Bruce Smith got after his second season when he felt he got snubbed by not making the Pro Bowl despite double digit sacks. Even if there were web sites and blogs and twitter back then, he would not have cared less. He got together with Rusty Jones and developed his now famous off season training program he used successfully for the next 15 years! Maybin can now learn more about this former number one pick of the entire 1985 draft - defensive end by visiting the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Where on earth is the Bills team of strength and conditioning coaches when it comes to this skinny kid anyway?? Gailey hired about 15 of 'em, didn't he? How damn hard can it be to get an athlete to GAIN weight today? Um, let's see, Maybin should EAT more and make sure that food is high in protein and the right carbs so he can then turn that extra weight into muscle and MASS. There, I just came up with Maybin's new training goal, and I'm not even working 92 hours as one of the many strength and conditioning coaches probably do. There is something very strange about Maybin. It seems like he is a speed junkie or something. He looks like he is the very skinniest OLB in the entire NFL, and of course he plays for the Buffalo Bills, right? Until he gains about 40 pounds of body mass, he will absolutely be a major bust.