hondo in seattle

Arguably the four most important people in the Bills organization - outside the owners - are the President, GM, HC and QB. And we want to get rid of all of them. Ah, the blessed life of a Bills fan.

Rueben Brown's resume ought to get him considered for the Hall of Fame. And, yet, I always thought he was overrated. Too many flags and just not as dominant as his resume suggests. Good post. Valid points.

I'm not sure any of 'em truly deserve it. I voted for Freddy and Eric Moulds. I think both could have been Pro Bowl (more often), maybe even HOF type, players if (1) they stayed healthy, (2) played on playoff teams with national attention, and (3) had supporting casts that helped them produce better numbers. Maybe I should have also voted for Kyle Williams and Aaron Schoebel for similar reasons. Kyle and Fred both played with a lot of heart - and talent - on bad teams. They deserved better.

Speaking of old-timers, remember when some people inexplicably wanted Brian Brohm to start at QB? His brother, Jeff Brohm, just became the Head Coach of my alma mater, Purdue. Brian will the "Co-Offensive Coordinator." and QB Coach.

I'm too lazy to look up the exact number, but our all time win record is something like .470. It may not be the lowest, but it's clearly below the average of .500. I guess that's we're so thankful for the Levy-Kelly years. Take those out, and we probably drop to .450.

It's clear that much/most of the fan base has lost faith in Rex and Russ Brandon. DW doesn't enjoy a ton of support either. Terry and Kim like to talk to people. I wonder what they're hearing. 1. Have the players lost faith in the coaches? In the FO? 2. Has the FO lost faith in the coaches? 3. Have the coaches lost faith in the FO? 4. While the Pegulas do not have a football czar, I'm pretty sure they talk to football people outside OBD from time to time. I wonder what kind of confidence those folks are expressing in the Bills leadership team? I know the owners have talked about continuity. But if there's a consensus among these varying constituencies that Rex and/or Russ and/or Doug need to go, they need to go. When most/all of your unofficial and official advisers recommend the same things, it's wise to heed their counsel.

Thurman is payed to execute Rex's scheme, run practices the way Rex wants, and call plays the way Rex wants. I can't say he's actually good at any of that. But if he's doing a poor job of play-calling: (1) Rex should have trained him better on what he wants, and (2) Rex can always call the plays himself. There's simply no question that Rex deserves all the blame for this D. How badly Thurman is failing at his job? It's hard to know without being an insider. He might be doing exactly what Rex is asking him to do.

I can't ever root against the Bills.

Well said.

Rex is the de jure Head Coach, the de facto Defensive Coordinator, and the Chief Architect of this defense. He deserves all the blame he gets. It's hard to quantify how much blame Thurman does because he's paid to execute someone else's ideas.

Fred Jackson, Eric Molds, Shady McCoy, Kyle Williams are top-of-mind for me. I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention Takeo Spikes, Aaron Shoebel and Mario's two good years. Sammy might have more potential than Moulds but hasn't done enough yet for me to put him on my list.

I used to pound the continuity drum. I just can't do it anymore. I don't believe this is a great roster. But it's an average one. And with an average-ish head coach, we're getting average-ish results. Give him a better roster, Rex will win more games. But he's not getting us to the Super Bowl. And that's the goal.

We've collectively endured some low points this year. Can you imagine, though, losing to the Browns?

It's a different story because he switched clubs, but Belichick wasn't an instant success as a HC. I bet Browns fans - in retrospect - wished they had believed in continuity when the team fired Bill. I think head coaches need time to (1) learn how to be a good HC, (2) get the right coaches onboard, and (3) perfect and implement their systems.

I really don't get why anyone is surprised that Russ attends these meetings. First of all, Terry and Kim almost certainly decide who attends (owners generally select attendees). Second, Russ is the President of the organization. Shame on him if he didn't want to attend. The leaders of good organizations meet regularly to share information and stay aligned. If Russ started telling Rex who to start or how to game-plan, I'd be worried. But there's no evidence of that. In fact, Rex just said today, "I have the final say on who's out there or whatever."

I've kind of been a 'continuity' guy for a while now. We'll never become a playoff team if we keep blowing the thing up and starting over again every 2 or 3 years. But I've seen nothing from DW or Rex that tells me they can perform their jobs at the playoff level. Both strike me as frustratingly average. Not Cleveland Browns bad, certainly. But not guys who will get the Bills into the playoffs.

I still have some hope that TT will develop into a franchise QB. But it's not a lot of hope. Then there's the pragmatic issue: who else is available? I say sign him to a renegotiated contract and do our best to find a good QB (FA or draft) in the offseason. TT will be our insurance policy in case we can't find an improvement.

Brandon is the "President" of the Bills franchise. So of course he's involved. The open question is how involved is he in football decisions? Or, to say it differently, how much blame does he bear? Without more information than TG presented, I'd hesitate to share an opinion. But we can see from the product on the field that something's going wrong. The Bills aren't terrible, they just aren't good. And those two observations worry me because average, middle-of-the-pack performances usually don't cost a guy his job or bring about dramatic change. Looking at the roster, Whaley hasn't done a terrible job. But he's clearly not a top echelon GM. Looking at the team's W-L record, Rex isn't doing a terrible job. But he's no Bill Belichick. Looking at his on field performance and passer rating, TT isn't terrible. But he's no Tom Brady. Are any of these guys so bad they should be replaced? Well, if the Super Bowl is our goal, then maybe all of them need to go because none of them are producing at the Super Bowl level.

Sometimes I think the Bills biggest problem is that we're not bad enough. * Doug Whaley has not acquired talent on pace with the very best GMs in the league. But he's not bad enough to replace. * Rex isn't coaching as well as the best coaches in the league. But he's not bad enough to get fired. * Taylor isn't quarterbacking at the level of the best QBs in the league. But he's not bad enough to get benched or cut. While I often find myself agreeing with the continuity crowd, I also worry about not being bad enough. In winning organizations, being average in a key position is unacceptable. Being average is failure. The goal isn't to be average. The goal is to win Super Bowls.

I hear you Bill. I certainly wouldn't want the Bills to hire the guy. But the job of a coach is to win games. The exactly average coach wins half and loses half. Fisher (.515) is ever-so-slightly above .500. That makes him an ever-so-slightly above-average coach. Though I wouldn't disagree if you said those five 8-8 seasons pretty much defined the man. He does, though, get to the playoffs once every 3 or 4 years. That's better than Bills coaches have done collectively over the past 16 years.

Didn't notice that live. Knocks two defenders away from Tyrod. Impressive.

The coaches and players who have publicly talked about Cardale all seem to agree that he's just not ready yet. Why open the bottle of wine before it's been properly aged?

He's not a great NFL coach. But he's won more than he's lost. That makes him a better-than-average coach. 173-162-1.

Funny topic title. First game with all our starters - but not really. Yeah, it's been that kind of year: We're excited when we line up 10 of 11 starters.

This is all negotiation. My guess is that the Bills actually want Tyrod back, but for less than the $27.5 mil stipulated in the contract right now. So they want him to think that the Bills think he's expendable - force him to look at his options which probably aren't great.