BillsPhan

Promo, Promo, Promo. "The kind of players you can just buy with crazy money are not winners." You site Haynesworth as your prime example. Please tell that to the Jets right about now, as the best CB in football, certainly everyone's opinion as a winner player who helped his Jets become major winners last season, holds out for "crazy money."

It's not all Wilsons' fault. When the first lease to Rich Stadium came due in 1998, Ralph was way ahead of his time, telling all of WNY a new stadium was absolutely mandatory to remain competitive in the new world of unrestricted free agency and the salary cap. (And back in '98, that world was only about 4 years old.) He refused to buy it himself so he basically laid it all on us and our politicians to get it done. We got it done alright, as inexpensively as we possibly could, refurbishing the Ralph for around $165 Million instead of building a brand new sparkling downtown stadium. But Wilson accepted his "old-new" Ralph Wilson Stadium and his Bills Field House, and kept the team here. A few years later, the owners lost their minds with new stadium demands. Green Bay pumped in over $350 Million to refurbish Lambeau Field. Chicago spent over $600 Million to do the same with Soldier Field. Cincinnati came up with over $500 Million and built a new football and a new baseball stadium. A brand new stadium for New England, paid entirely by Bob Kraft the Pats owner. New digs out in Arizona, Baltimore, Cleveland, the huge $600 Million dollar palace in downtown Indy that could fit about 3 Hoosier Domes inside it went up. Even Kansas City is spending around $500 Million to refurbish Arrowhead. Pittsburgh has their new stadium. Oh and lest we forget, the two BILLION Dollar palaces, in Dallas and in the Meadowlands, are now up and running. So Ralph was almost the "pioneer" of the new stadium surge way back in 1998. Unfortunately, as ALWAYS, we in WNY were too damn short sighted to find the resources and build a new stadium right on the waterfront downtown - maybe even with a retractable roof. 1995 or '96 was the time to do it, just in time for the lease being up in '98. Wilson sat back and watched what we came up with, and we came up with "The Ralph", perfectly befitting our "red headed step child" of this new stadiumed NFL!

Yeah, sure that's exactly what Gailey will do. He'll bench all the vets and let all the rookies and young vets with no experience play every snap. Listen, Wilson tried to hire Shanahan, and rumors were abound that he spoke with Cowher. Maybe, if one of them would have accpeted his offer, they would have been much more proactive in free agency and more daring in the draft, and the team could be better already today. But instead Wilson hired Nix who brought Gailey in, and they all have decided to take the "long path" back towards winning. Mostly through the draft with a selective FA signing here and there. I suppose that's better then Levy/Brandon who had no plan, and the perfect coach to carry that non-plan out in DJ. Maybe you'll get your wish even with those lousy vets playing instead of the young guys. It appears this team could suck even if all the injuries heal and our "starters" play all 16 games. 2-14-0 is a real possibility even if Levi Brown doesn't play a game this year. But chances are just as good that this team could actually improve a little up to 7-9-0 or even 8-8-0, and get that damn middle of the pack first round pick anyway. Nix thinks he can make the Bills a winner even without a top 5 draft pick, so we have to just sit back and watch him do it or not do it.

Just like with Lost-man, who the hell knows how bad Edwards really is playing behind that line? And who knows how bad that line really is if they had Peyton Manning playing behind them? It's the perfect storm with the Bills, same as it has been for all but about 4 years out of the 14 years Jimbo has been retired. Lousy quarterbacking playing behind a lousy OL. Hey, Buddy Nix admitted he's not the smartest guy in the room right?? Certainly the smartest guy in the room would have figured out a way to improve either the QB or the OL from last Januaury through today, if not both, don't you think?

+1 While they are deciding how to go back to a more traditional look, couldn't they at least stop wearing the blue jerseys with the wide red stripe on the side, with the blue pants and the narrow red and white stripes on the side, that doesn't match, and absolutely looks like they were not made to be worn that way?!?.......oh wait, they were not made to be worn that way, were they? No, when I think back to Drew Bledsoe and London Fletcher modeling them when they came out, the home uni's had the blue jerseys matched up perfectly with the white pants, and the away uni's had the white jersey's matched up perfectly with the blue pants. Not that wearing them the correct way makes them look good enough to keep, but at least they would look more traditional and the stupid wide and narrow stripes would match up from jerseys to pants!

Fred Gwynn delivered a top 10 performance in a top 10 movie of all I've ever watched, in my humble opinion! "Yutes?...Did you say yutes?..What's a yute?" "Sorry, as I was saying, the two youththththths, your honor!"

Sorry, it won't happen. It doesn't appear that Nix is ready to pull the trigger on any trades this first year at the helm, Miami would not want to trade Thigpen to Buffalo being in the same division, and sure Gailey got some good stats out of Thigpen (but not wins, of course), in KC as his OC, but now that Chan is head coach, he seems committed to sticking with his own 3 stooges this season........in my humble opinion. That said, I would love to see Thigpen come to Buffalo before the season opener. Hell, I would love to see Chad Pennington, David Carr, Rex Grossman or even Byran Leftwich after Rapelesburger gets back a month into the season in Pittsburgh!!

Carolina drafted Clausen....and Tony Pike, before Nix finally drafted Levi in the 7th round. This season reminds me so much of the 2001 season under Donahoe and Williams in their first year. They had the excuse of being hand-cuffed by the salary cap mess left over from big John Butler...(God rest his soul). Nix and Gailey seem to be using the excuse that it has to take multiple drafts to become good. In both cases, lousy QB's, young players and rookies were then and are now being over-used, and it appears that 2010 might just end up as bad as 3-13-0 2001 was. Especially if this injury bug continues to eat away at the Buffalo Bills as it has the past two seasons.

As one of the most negative, sarcastic and realistic posters out here, even I will admit that preseason football games are meaningless, and blowout wins and blowout losses mean nothing. Did any of you watch the HOF game last week? Do you think Marvin Lewis is worried that his offense will be as horrible as his starters looked? Of course not. They don't game plan during the summer, so all bets are off (literally) and each coach gleans his own value based mostly on individual player performances on tape, so he can cut 30 guys off his team in 4 weeks or less. I think it will be fun to watch how Gailey reacts to this loss. It seems that Mike Shannahan runs at least as tough a training camp as Chan does, if not even tougher, based on how the Redskins were able to push the Bills around last night. It should be a good eye opener for Chan - and I'm looking forward to seeing how his young Bills respond against a much better football team in Toronto next week against Indy.

2008: Preseason - Detroit Lions 4-0-0 2008: Regular season - Detroit Lions 0-16-0 After that 16th straight loss, any football fan with half a brain stem officially stopped thinking ANYTHING about teams in the preseason.

....and who are these starters playing at a high level, to be exact??

News flash for you Mr. Statistics: I just checked the Saints draft from 2002, and compared it to their current roster. Guess what, not a single guy from that draft "only 8 years ago" is still on their team either. I wonder, would winning the Super Bowl be considered "SUCCESSFUL" in your expert opinion?? The NFL draft is NOTHING more then one huge crap shoot, for every single team - not just the Buffalo Bills, who have had no success for 10 seasons. You are 100% correct to blame the Bills FO for this painful stretch. But drafting players who remain on the same team for 8 - 10 seasons obviously means next to nothing these days, and signing the right free agents and making smart trades obviously means much more, in my humble opinion.

With the name "PromoTheRobot", you have got to be around my age. How on earth can you have watched so many years of Buffalo Bills football, and make that statement?? 1988: The young Bills come of age, finish 12-4-0 and go to the AFC Championship game losing to the Bengals in a close game at Cinti. Did any of us think that team could possibly be worse in 1989? 1989: "Bickering Bills" lead to a drop to 9-7-0 record, and then they lost in the Divisional playoffs at Cleveland. I could go on all day with examples of teams actually going backwards when all evidence points to them improving from season to season. Especially these days, when teams annually go from first to worst and vice versa due to free agency and the salary cap. Sure I like what Gailey and his staff are doing this summer. It is refreshing from the "Club Dick" training camps of the past 4 years. But I am not about to make bold predictions on how the Bills "can't possibly finish worse then 6-10-0" when the bullets start flying in September. I am hoping they get at least 8 or even 9 wins this year. Other then that, who knows how they will do??

So that's all that has to happen in order for "this" to succeed? Edwards and Evans only need to start playing like Montana and Rice, huh? So what's your formula for the defense to succeed? Perhaps Stroud and Kelsay need to start playing like Bruce Smith and Darryl Talley? Why stop there? In order for George Edwards' defense to succeed, Stroud and Kelsay have to start performing like LT and and Bruce Smith would have played if they were on the same team.....that's all. You guys are really laying it on thick this preseason. Gailey is great, Edwards looks great, the schemes are great. When reality bites on opening day against Miami, I will be extremely happy if the genius Gailey and his genius quick passing game and power running game actually combine to keep the Bills in the game, and perhaps help them score 14 to 17 points....total? That would be an improvement over most of last season, anyway! Oh, and if the Bills play a great game here and there like they did on opening Sunday Night last season, I hope that Gailey's increased demands of toughness and discipline, help them to hold onto their 4th quarter leads this season, allowing them to win closer to 8 or even 9 wins for the first time in 6 years!!

How about something more like: "I hired Joe because I believe he will do a good job with our young inexperienced OL." Then walk away from said reporter without bragging about how great a coach he believes him to be. What motivated me to start this thread was that Gregg Williams had a press conference telling the media how awesome every one of his assistant coaches were after he hired them. 17-31-0 later, Williams and what was left of his awesome coaching staff were sent packing. If anything, Gailey's comments about his new OL coach adds even more pressure on him to perform miracles with this group of un-drafted rookies, young promising vets, and completely average older vets he has to work with.

Thank you. I'm proud to have started the most pointless thread. Please remember this most pointless thread of the preseason if and when our inexperienced OL struggles mightily this year. I'm sure you will still be impressed with how tough and how great a technician and teacher of fundamentals their coach is!

In a recent Buff News article, Coach Gailey had this to say about his hand picked O-Line Coach, Joe D'Alessandris: "He's a tough man, and he's a tough football coach," Bills head coach Chan Gailey said. "He's going to bring toughness and execution to the offensive line. He and I have been working with a lot of these same schemes for a long time. He knows exactly what we're trying to get done. He's an excellent technician and fundamentals teacher." Linky: http://www.buffalonews.com/sports/article98360.ece Anyone else thinking "Gregg Wiliams - speak" here? At least Chan didn't waste a presser like "Double G" did shortly after he finished hiring all of his assistants, standing up there bragging about each choice he made and how tremendous they would each be coaching those all - important "fundamentals." That presser was the one that convinced me that Williams was extremely cocky and arrogant considering he himself was a first time head coach of an NFL team. Gailey obviously is more experienced then Williams was, having two years under the intense microscope of being America's Team's HC back in the late 90's. And up till now, I've been extremely impressed with almost everything Chan has done with his young team in training camp. But I don't understand why brand new Head Coaches brag about how good their assistant coaches are. After all, the head coaches butts are on the line, since they hired them in the first place. And to choose the very worst position on the entire team's position coach to brag about, is either extremely arrogant, or extremely dumb, on Gailey's part. I won't be thinking how "tough and how excellent a technician and fundamentals teacher" D'Alessandris is if his young O-Line sucks coming out of the gate.... And don't most of us expect them to suck at least the first half of the season, being realistic, and seeing that the dreaded injury bug has already attacked them two weeks into camp?? Gailey would have been much better off saying nothing about his new O-Line coach, in my humble opinion. D'Alessandris already has the toughest job of all the Bills' assistant coaches to begin with anyway!!

I'm not worried about Maybin at all. In fact, I'm glad Torbor has come in with a SB ring to add some desperately needed leadership to this team of toddlers Nix and Gailey has surrounded himself with. And of course he was picked up because Edwards coached him in Miami. That is the way it always works in the NFL. But I hope Reggie stays healthy, and I hope he starts the entire season, with Maybin coming on on either side in passing situations to do nothing but use that natural talent of his to chase the QB all over the place.

There. That sums it up. But as far as this "business" of playing at or above where you are drafted, that crap all starts with the "pre-draft rankings", and all of the idiotic talk about teams "reaching." If the Bills would have drafted Mike Oher with the #11 pick instead of Maybin last year, would anyone still be whining about how much of a "reach" that picked would have been considered? For that matter, they could have drafted Ebon Britton, the starting RT as a rookie for the Jags all of last season, who wasn't drafted until the second round, at #11, instead of Maybin last season, and looking at the starting RT situation out at St. John Fisher today, none of us would still be considering him a reach either!! Even young Maybin himself, if he comes in on passing downs this season and runs down 8 or 9 sacks this year, will no longer be considered a "reach" going into the 2011 season (if there is a 2011 season), another year older with some success under his belt. It's not that Bills players need to start playing at or above where they are drafted. They just need to start playing GOOD. Chiefs coach Marv Levy and his GM in KC passed up drafting Joe Montana at QB in favor of some taller "stronger armed" QB coming out of college "rated" higher then Joe was in the '78 or '79 draft, whenever Montana came out of Notre Dame. That QB's name was Steve Fuller. Walsh "settled" on Montana in the 3rd round of the draft that year. Everyone knows about every team in the NFL passing on Tom Brady 5 times until the Pats finally snagged him on a lark to compete for Bledsoe's back up job in the 6th round in 2000. Joe Montana and Tom Brady. Any more questions about how stupid pre-draft ratings are on college players?? The draft is nothing more then a huge crap shoot. The owners need to rein in the stupid guaranteed money they are shelling out to first round picks, but despite how warpred that system became, it is still nothing more then a huge crap shoot.

I wasn't too concerned with the Bills drafting him this year. I was screaming for the tackle at number 11 in last years' draft. Now that Maybin is having trouble beating out a journeyman OLB recently cut from the Dolphins to start this training camp, I'm really pissed the Bills didn't "reach" for Michael Oher, who seems to be settling in rather nicely for the next 10 years or so in Baltimore these days. Let's see, Oher at LT and Wood at LG or even Center would look really nice right about now, wouldn't it?

For your goal to be accomplished, I'm afraid the Bills will have to have a quarterback who throws more TD passes then Interceptions, and completes over 60% of his passes. And....the Bills will have to be at least a top 15 defense in yards allowed. And....Lee Evans will have to get at least 1,000 yards receiving and score at least 8 TD's. And....the OL will have to keep the sacks total down and the running average way up per game. And....the defense will need to get at least 20 more sacks then last season. And.... Oh forget this! Why keep dreaming? I'll settle for them winning 8 games for the first time in 6 years!

No kidding. No way would I rate the Bills higher then the Bears, Broncos and Redskins this early in preseason. Gosselin must have liked Chan when he coached there in the late 90's or something.

Which makes it even more of a mystery as to why the Bills drafted him so high last year. DJ and Brandon were in need of immediate help everywhere. Anyone out here think Mike Oher may have been a better choice right around now?? Or Orapko, or etc...etc...etc. Sure young Maybin may end up being a force from OLB someday. But he sure the hell didn't do DJ and Perry any favors last year, did he??

What am I missing here? Ralph Wilson could not have made the future of the Bills any simpler. As long as he's alive (and I imagine...coherent and able to understand what he's doing), the Bills are staying in Orchard Park. When he dies, the Bills will be sold to the highest bidder that garners the necessary votes from the other owners. Period. End of story. I don't remember reading one word from Wilson about the "lease", or about Toronto, or the team going anywhere else while he is alive. And yet, people still post threads about Los Angeles getting Wilson to move out there when their new stadium is built, or about the Bills moving to Toronto while Wilson is still alive and the functioning owner. Or Wilson worrying about the lease again. Now, the guy is over 90 years old. I am just as concerned as the next life long Bills fan regarding the sale of the Bills when he does pass away. But unless Jim Kelly really does have this "mystery ownership group" ready to step up to the plate and win the bid to keep the Bills here, we will certainly lose the Bills anyway, right?? So why make things up and worry more then you have to?? If Wilson is still alive and kicking when L.A. is ready to field it's new team, it won't be the Bills. Toronto won't be "buying the Bills from Ralph Wilson and moving them into the Can Opener Dome. Either of these two things may very well happen, but it will be after Wilson is gone, and it will be part of the "Wilson Heirs Sale" of our beloved Buffalo Bills. I refuse to think and write any more about that, until Ralph is gone. Let's face it, it will be the biggest sports story in Buffalo history, short of the Bills winning a SB or Sabres winning a Cup before he passes. We will have plenty to post about during that "process."

Why would you wish this jerk well under any circumstances? Schoebel QUIT the Buffalo Bills. As far as I'm concerned, unless he stays home and drives his kids to school and picks them up every day from now until they graduate from high school, he is a pathetic hypocritical diva. Even if he signs with Houston, he still has to "be away from his family" half the feakin' time when the Texans go on the road. I suppose the Bills save cash cutting him, but who knows how much of a cap hit he is still costing Buffalo, based on how that stupid salary cap works? If Wilson-Brandon-Nix don't use the extra savings to bring in a vet even if it's just to cover injuries some time during the season, then they should not have cut him at all. They should have just fined him for every day he refused to report while he "wrestled" with the horrible decision of whether to continue playing football for the only team he ever played for that has already paid him over 33 Million dollars. What does a contract mean in pro sports anymore?