Dan

I think his comments were extremely appropriate, heartfelt, honest, and expressed quite succintly the prevailing mindset of a great many of us Bills' fans. There has been a cloud over this franchise since the 70's regarding a potential move. With Ralph's passing, it seems the end to all that speculation is near. We'll finally get some resolution. The Bills will get a new owner and, relatively soon, either the new owner(s) will stay in Buffalo or they won't. But, at this point in time, rain or shine on us. I don't really care, not today. For the time being, I want to remember all my fond memories of the Bills and my family. I'll forever love my Buffalo Bills for all they represent to me, my family, my heritage. This talk of staying or going can just go away; I'm tired of it too. So, to your point, I think Scott has done, and continues, to speak very well for Bills Nation and see little need to entertain the notion of creating sterile talking points in a vain attempt to sway some millionaire that gives little care to what the true fans of this team think.

....

I truly hoped this day would never come. Not only because of the uncertainty it creates for our beloved Bills, but more so because the world and the NFL need more honorable people like Ralph in it. I pray for his family. He touched all our lives, gave us something to cheer for, something to dream about, something to pass on to our children and grand children... and that may be the least of his accomplishments. I will forever be grateful to be a Buffalo Bills fan and a Ralph Wilson fan.

In all fairness, it's been so long I can understand how someone might lose county. ;-) Personally, I'm less concerned with making the playoffs and would be excited just to see a winning season. It's been 9yrs (I believe) since we've even had that! ....Yes, I'll settle for baby steps after the last 2 decades of rebuilding.

And that is the most important point. We're a better team with Chandler and a draft pick, then say... Gragg and a draft pick next year. It's simple, if you want to build you have to keep your better players and add to them. We all get pissed, and rightfully so, when good players like Byrd walk away. But, this isn't one of those situations. The best TE on our roster, by far, was just extended. That's a good thing. Maybe Gragg develops, maybe they draft some stud. I don't know. But, the first step to solidifying the TE position is re-signing the best one on your team. So I say good move. Now, hopefully they follow it up with another good move.

Thanks.

I haven't read every post or article lately... but where are the numbers on the Bills' offer to Byrd? $7.5/yr takes quite a bit of incentives to get to "about" $30 over 3yrs.

As I see it, none of it really matters. Over the last decade, we've signed some of the best FAs, no body FAs, mid-tier FAs. We've drafted good players; we've drafted bad. We've let guys walk. We've also re-signed guys. But, nothing has given us a winning record... let alone a play off birth. So, there's lly no senseto get too bent out of shape over it all. Ya know why? This is a QB diven league. If EJ pans out to be an above average QB, then everything else starts to look better. If he's a bust, we'll be getting a new coaching staff in a couple of years and starting again. It's that simple. Every team that consistently maks the playoffs has one thing in common - an above average QB. All the bottom feeders... fill in one scrub after the next lookin.. hopin.

Did they not do this with Stevie, Fred, Wood, Pears, A. Williams, McKelvin, K. Williams? Quite honestly, the notion that the Bills' FO does not negotiate early or re-sign their own players is completely falling apart. There are plenty of examples where they do. I'm not saying they get everything right, not by any means. But, they do plenty to bring in new players and re-sign current players that they think will help the team. Problem is... you just disagree on which players they're keeping and letting go or so it seems.

If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say the roughly $30m in 3yrs was highly incentive with a base much much lower. I think the way the negotiations went last year followed by his sitting out, waiting to be 100%, likely left more than a few people in the FO not wanting to guarantee him anything unless he guaranteed a certain amount of playing time, off season time, etc.

Exactly. No team is perfect at doing this; however, the Bills have sucked more than most. Hopefully, they're improving.

I completely agree, but I think a lot of people neglect that it takes two to negotiate. (not saying you are, just speaking generally) Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't recall reports of AW's agent and the Bills talking even a few weeks ago. So let's say the Bills' FO approached him a few weeks ago wanting to extend AW. But, AW and his agent decide... no, let's wait a year and see what kind of year he had. Then next year, reports come out that AW, after having a great year, wants to test the FA market. People here are screaming we should have extended him in 2014. And we get more... the Bills are a wreck, Ralph is cheap, they never sign their own, etc. When the reality is they tried, but the player/agent didn't want an extension. Perhaps, maybe that could partly explain why the FO was so cheap and incompetent in the Byrd negotiations yet so awesomely good with AW. Just a thought for perspective... We can't keep every player. We can't sign any FA we want. That's just the way it goes. Yes, sometimes it may be due to the FO's incompetence. But it may, at times, it may be due to an agent/player just wanting to test the market. Without being privy to the negotiations, it's pure specualtion as to which is more prevalent.

What's worse.... a player with chronic PF or a player that fakes chronic PF to get out of a contract? At this point, I think its time to move on from Byrd. He just didn't want to play for the Bills, for whatever his reasons. The Bills have shown that they're more than willing to negotiate with and extend their own players with very fair market value contracts. The AW deal is just further proof of that. We don't know all the details of their offer to Byrd but if, as reported, it was about $10 mill/yr then what more should the FO have offered? I'm sure there was plenty of small print that could have been the deal breaker. But it seems to me that dollar amount is prettty much right where it should have been. Perhaps its just time to admit that Byrd didn't want to play in Buffalo, regardess of their offer. And was willing to sit out, fake injury, do whatever... to get out.

Like I said, it's going to be interesting to see how much more another team pays him. Because if he just wanted out of Buffalo, regardless, then I wouldn't tag him either. If you're trying to change the culture and build a team of guys fighting for each other, you don't keep guys around that aren't buying into your plans, even if you can get another 10 good games out of him.

I agree, completely. But I don't know the full situation. Maybe they tried all season to trade Byrd? Maybe Parker said tag him and we'll walk from ANY offer you put on the table? Maybe Doug just doesn't like Byrd? My point being that it's hard to know all the efforts that our front office has put in to this; therefore, its hard to draw any concrete conclusions about what they should or shouldn't have done. With that said, we were in this exact same situation last year. And the Bills couldn't (but maybe they didn't try?) trade him, so the one thing I feel most comfortable concluding is that there most likely aren't any teams willing to trade for him based on what he thinks he's worth and what the Bills want in return.

What you're saying makes sense; however, it's quite possible that Whaley has been in touch with teams about trading him as far back as last August and he knows the trade market just isn't there for him. If that's the case, then why play that out again? I think it's going to be interesting to see where Byrd ends up and what his salary is, because I suspect he's over estimating his value just a bit.

I've always thoughts uniforms should allow your team to be readily recognized, usually by displaying the team's color scheme in such a way as to differeniate you from every one else. What's TBs colors? Black and Red? Black and White? Also I thought the numbers sould be big and stand out in a way so that you could easily identify the player and his position even from a distance. I guess I just don't get the purpose of a uniform.

Assuming the APs sources are accurate, there's only a couple of reasons a safety turns that offer down... its heavily incentive laden and the player isn't confident he'll hit those incentives or the player just wants out (for whatever his reasons). But about $10 million/yr for a safety is in no way being cheap or not wanting to re-sign your own. Is it?

Very good and fair points. But, IMO, the discussion should be about how much to re-sign him for, not whether he should be re-signed. I would agree, he's not the best TE in the league by any means. But, he is the best TE currently on the Bills' roster. So, it seems only logical that he be re-signed but at what price?

This type of thread is perhaps why I hate the off season so much. We get thread after thread, comment after comment, ragging on our best players wanting to cut them because they're not the best player in the league at their position. And then the typical repsonse of, we need someone like Vernon Davis, not Chandler. Well... duh. Sure if we cut all our starters and replaced them with all pros at their position, we'd be better. But, you can't do that. This isn't a video game where you can just pick and choose the best players in the league and then get upset when our front office doesn't do that. Yes, we need an upgrade at TE. But, do you build a winning team by cutting your best TE, keeping the 3rd and 4th stringers? No. You keep Chandler, cut the scrubs behind him, and bring in someone that can develop behind him to be better. Same with Stevie, CJ, Pears, and so on and so forth. Build a team, don't dismantle and reassemble.

Its way overdue. I can't wait to see it officially announced, but Andre earned this honor with some of the best WR play I've ever seen. Congratulations to Reed, indeed!

am I the only one that thinks none of these guys, outside of ray guy and andre belong in the HOF?

I'm pretty sure I've stated several times that the Bills should draft another QB (or 2... or 3). So, I have zero problem with the initial TG question. Its a topic of discussion in Buffalo, and nationally, for anyone that follows the Bills. Is EJ really the answer? His inconsistent play and 3 knee injuries have led to all the doubt and speculation. With all that said, the problem with the interview is that TG showed a fundamenal lack of professionalism and ...tact. Ask the initial question .. "What would be your reaction if they draft a quarterback in the first round?" no problem EJ gives a fairly expected answer... "I don’t know. We’ll have to see if that happens. You guys think they should?" At that point, you don't interject your personal opinion into the inerview and respond... "I do." That's just unprofessional and disrespectful. He should have responded with something more like... "Well, its been a topic of discussion in Buffalo because or your injuries. Does that motivate you to get back on the field?"...Work harder? Prove yourself again? anything? Instead he interjected his personal opinion into an interview, making his agenda apparent, and ended the interview prematurely. All of which led to less talking to EJ and a subsequent article with more opinion than information. That's the problem.. him answering EJs question, not him asking EJ a question.

To be fair...Jim Kelly was quite good at winning in the playoffs. It was the Super Bowl that seemed to give him problems.

Without knowing your server settings, etc., its hard to say what the problem is. However, my guess is the surge mail has a "configuration issue" perhaps with the out going server setup. I say this because I've had similar problems with my iphone 4s and our work email. We use MS Exchange server and occasionally it stops sending on my iDevices. In each instance the tech company that manages our email server resets some file and it all works fine. I imagine some setting file gets reset with auto updates.