GRHater69

Was it his crew that botched the call Sunday night in the Eagles game....ruled an obvious forward pass was a backward pass........c'mon man! You'd have to ba an idiot to blow that call. Anyone who saw the game knows what I'm talking about.

Murph sounds like guy from "Goodfellas".....'gotta read the papers, read the papers'.....this game had Van written all over it.

I did some players slip on it a few times, but it didn't seem to be as big an issue as the old field when that was put in 10 years ago.

Since it was the Raiders I half thought they were reviewing the "Tuck Rule" again.

Not a very good article.. I agree, enough with the Buffalo hate already......the downtown ballpark is not "flaking", in fact it's one of the better minor league stadiums in the country. And the slap at Orchard Park? Obviously this guy has never been anywhere other than the stadium (and never heard of Chestnut Ridge...that's a park last time I checked). Oh well, he was going with a "theme" and tried to bend things around to support it, but IMHO it didn't quite work.

Honestly for me the greatest play....and I HATE admitting this (plus it was more than 25 years ago...my apologies) was the hook & ladder and/or hitch & trailer play that Miami ran against San Diego in the playoffs in the early 80s. Never seen anything like it before and I've been watching football since 1970 or so. I mean I HATE Miami, but that play was hella cool.

Don't overlook the fact that the Patsies have finished at the top, or near the top of the standings. That means a lot of lower slotting for the draft. That being said, I agree with RJ, the draft is an inexact science that breeds more misses than hits.

It all evens out. The roughing the passer call on Fitz kept a drive going and that was questionable at best. If you want to talk about calls, how about play calls, namely Gailey getting a bit pass happy, granted it's preseason, but a few more runs would have been nice in the first half.

Today is the last one?? You mean I won't be able to get my Lee Evans and Aaron Maybin jerseys autographed???? Oh yeah that's right................

Perhaps the funniest comment to come out of Saturday's telecast thanks to Ray Bentley: "CJ Spiller is hoping to avoid a sophomore slump".....did a double take with that one. If he has a slump this year then he'll be right up there with Maybin!

Some of this probably stems from the Cowboys seeing a news report before the last SB where the Bills were working on a shovel pass in the background at their practice.

I love the fact that we're back to something resembling the original colors, and I know it's 2011 and all....BUT DID THEY REALLY HAVE TO HAVE ALL THOSE GUYS IN FRONT WITH #11???? That number has horrible karma here (Norwood, Johnson, Bledsoe)....ugh!

Be careful blaming the FO for the departure of Joe Cribbs. Remember that his agent Dr Jerry Argovitz had a minority interest in the Houston Gamblers of the USFL. It was very important for the USFL that a player of Cribbs stature wound up in the league to help give it credibility. If you look at the negotiations back then nothing the Bills did could have kept Cribbs with Argovitz as his agent. BTW Tom Ruud, Phil Dokes, Perry Tuttle, Erik Flowers are in a tie for me if you're talking 1st round busts.

I remember all too well how the Bills fell apart as a team during the '82 season. You could argue that the strike shortened season, plus the USFL offering outrageous contracts to players set the team back several years. Still someone needs to fact-check Larry a little better. The Bills had a winning record in '75 (not by much) and it was '77 & '78 where they won 5 games in 2 years.

what I remember about '85 through at least '87 was what Polian did for us in the draft. He got us 2 number 1s in '85 (Bruce, Derrick Burroughs) 2 number 1s in '86 (Will Wolford, Ronnie Harmon), and even though we had only 1 choice in the first round of the '87 draft (Conlan), through the Bennet trade we got another 1st rounder in here. Granted Harmon didn't play that long for us and Burroughs' career was cut short by injury, but 6 top picks in three years is a good start...just thank god Bill didn't have Modrak on that staff!

While I agree it's time for a change, the first link up top has already been proven to be a hoax several weeks back.

Fitz doesn't exactly look Irish Catholic with the beard.....more Amish than anything else. Actually now that I think of it, he looks like the guy from "The Hangover"...maybe Fitz is just a loan wolfpack.

I wasn't at the game, but from what I've read hopefully they're on to something with Wood at center, that would help the O Line. I'm pleased this year that we've seen that Bell can actually play, and hopefully get better. Also as many have said, the receivers have really emerged, loving David Nelson as undrafted FA pick up.

Too bad they didn't include the regulation series where Freddie Smerlas blocked the kick. I jumped out of my seat for that, even though Smerlas hasn't been too kind to the team in recent years, I always felt that play gave him some vindication for being a poster child for the 2-14 years. It's also strange seeing Bennett wearing 55, got so used to him in 97 during the Superbowl years and after. Glad also the Don Criqui was doing the game, who better to have than a WNY guy in the booth. Thanks for posting!

They weren't number ones, but in '75 the Bills drafted two linebackers who both held out of training camp and the preseason. Tom Ruud and Bob Nelson. Neither saw much of the field and their failure to become players set the team back defensively for several seasons. As to Walt Patulski, I wouldn't rate him a bust, but he didn't really do much after his rookie year.

I liked what little I saw of Johnson toward the end of '08, and quite frankly wished he would have played more last year as a #3 with Lee and TO, but we all know how things turned out with the offense in '09.

Sadly they seem to get the same lifespan

You want to really get depressed and talk about history repeating itself? After the Bears trounced the Bills in the final preseason game of '85, Wilson in an interview said "We have to be patient". Thankfully he didn't use the word "pain" as well, or I would have thought someone was paraphrasing John Warwow's interview from earlier this week. This constant cycle of the team bottoming out has repeated itself far to often since the late 60s and it's very frustrating to watch, especially since I've been following them since '72. There is no good reason to keep running competent football managers and coaches out of here every 5-6 years, letting the whole thing fall apart only to start over again.

Polian was not promoted to GM after Bledsoe's heart attack. He acted in the role of GM along with Norm Pollom until Bledsoe's health allowed him to return. He was promoted to GM after Bledsoe was fired at the conclusion of the '85 season. One of the things that sealed the deal for Bledsoe was the god awful trade for Vince Feragamo.

2) What did he do with Chuck Knox? Again, nothing. Knox left when his contract expired (after a 4-5 season) to run the Seahawks, who were offering a bundle of $$$$. New opportunity, bigger challenge, more money. It happens in every profession There's some more history to Chuck Knox than was alluded to up thread. He basically soured on the organization over its failure to sign Tom Cousineau, not the first time, but the 2nd time after his stint in Montreal. He really wanted him, Wilson didn't want to pay that type of $$ to a linebacker (Wilson was actually right for once). Cousineau never really became a big time player and the Bills got a lot of nice draft picks for him. But at the time Knox felt betrayed. It didn't help that Stew Barber was running the front office and every year after '80 Knox had to deal with holdouts, Smerlas, Butler, Cribbs, etc.