JohnNord

I remember that play. A huge missed opportunity.

We should start using the phrase The Corey Bojorquez Experience because he’s wildly inconsistent. He’ll absolutely crush a punt for 70 yards then will punt one for 12 yards inside a dome. He also seems to be really bad at pinning teams inside the 10. It seems like all of his punts go into the endzone - and not because the coverage doesn’t get there. It’s week 11, not a lot you can do now but his time has to be running out

I’d easily swap Desir for Worley but not sure if he’d sign to the PS. Based on what we’ve seen from Norman, do you cut bait and bring Desir on board?

Dont share with Matt Fairburn...he’ll try digging out more facts to prove that McDermott is a bad coach

I like McDermott and am a lot higher on him as a HC than most. I think he’s done a fantastic job turning the Bills around who were an absolute dumpster fire when he took over. But this situation is just bizarre. I’m hoping there’s more to the story and that Morse was available on an emergency basis to be extra careful of his concussion situation. There’s can’t be any way that they benched him based on his play. He’s been easily their first or second best lineman

I saw on Twitter that many Cardinals fans were being super cool

Yeah, you know....it’s not like he’s had any success as Bills head coach or anything

Bummer.... I see this game as a loss

DK and Lockett are easily the 2 best starting WR’s, but is the rest of the crew anything exceptional?

Damn I was really hoping they’d wheel out 70 year dinosaurs like Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne or AC/DC.

Not surprisingly he ended up being an important part of the first Patriots Super Bowl team

Signing Bryce Paup and Teddy Washington completely transformed an old and tired defense. Paup was the Defensive Player of the year in 1995 and got a lot of credit, but I feel having Washington in the middle was a huge boost

If memory serves me correct, here’s how Ralph hired his last GM. He scanned a list of names prepared for him by Russ Brandon and didn’t recognize anyone until he came across the name “Buddy Nix” who was a scout for the Bills under John Butler. They hired Buddy. Ralph did not want to hire anyone he didn’t know to make decisions, which is why you saw Marv Levy and Russ Brandon as GM’s This sounds like a joke, but it’s actually the truth. Then you wonder why the Bills didn’t make the playoffs for 17 years Ralph would never hire coaches. He’d allow his GM’s to make recommendations and he would approve. Based on the hires, it would seem that they preferred to not give out big contracts to head coaches: John Butler - Wade Phillips Tom Donahoe - Gregg Williams/Mularkey Marv Levy - Duck Jauron Buddy Nix - Doug Whaley Russ Brandon (by Proxy) - Doug Marrone

Don’t think he could do without coaching. He seems to be obsessed with coaching and I can’t see him taking a step back. As long as he’ll winning, he’ll coach NE as long as he wants

One thing that concerns me is Arizona’s ability to attack the edges with Edmonds and possibly Drake. The Bills have been pretty weak in this area. Also there’s a threat of Arizona running the ball up the middle of our defense too. I’m actually more concerned about the RB’s doing damage than Murray. I remember the Bills doing a pretty solid job containing Lamar Jackson who was at that point, just as dangerous of a runner as Murray. Failure to handle the run, then creates opportunities in the passing game which tired the defense. I’m taking AZ but man I hope I’m wrong. 34-24

This is actually a very interesting I’ve thought about before. I don’t think there’s one answer but several factors that have contributed to what seems to be a less antagonistic relationship with the press: #1 Team Success - The Bills have reached the playoffs in what likely should be 3 out of 4 years. 4 years ago, they have a 17 year drought. Reporters were wisely doing their job by hammering team leadership. There simply isn’t enough to criticism when you’ve had a degree of success as opposed to nearly two decades of pathetic play. Of course, this should change as the bar should be set higher. # 2 Bucky and Sully - Say what you will but these 2 always were the most vocal among critics in the press room. While others certainly took people like Marrone, Rex, or Whaley to task, Bucky and Sully were the most direct. When you remove the two strongest voice you get a much less critical room overall. Their absence has resulted in less confrontation. #3 Better Team Relations - McDermott was smart to get rid of Berchtold and bring on Derek Boyko to run PR. He’s developed good working relationships with the media, as have Beane and McDermott. I think that overall the Bills operate like an NFL team should and not the mess that happened under the Russ Brandon/Berchtold mess. McDermott and Beane seem to have good relationships with the press and don’t allow themselves to be combative when they don’t like a question. They also don’t blatantly BS reporters by saying “I wasn’t privy.” I think reporters respect that. IMO this gives this helped give them some street cred There are some members of the media who do ask tough questions - Matthew Fairburn comes to mind the most. He can often be critical of McDermott but at the same time he’s usually pretty fair. Like I said earlier though, if the Bills lose in the 1st round of the playoffs again, I think you’ll start to see the questions get a little tougher I also do find Zoom to be a little awkward and it results in a different type of press conference

Perhaps... but he didn’t have to be. Ralph never should’ve empowered him and could have left him in sales/marketing. But Russ made Ralph money and he trusted him. Again, Ralph’s poor decisions led to the drought History and a lot of evidence is on my side

No for building the playoff drought Ralph would ever give McDermott the level of control or autonomy that the Pegulas did. NEVER. Especially not in the decade of his ownership. There’s no way he lets McDermott get rid of longtime employees or make major chances to the facilities The closest he came was Donahoe which was a disaster. From that moment, Ralph only hired people he knew.

I’m not sure if the part about Brandon is 100% accurate. On paper, I think the Bills tried moving Brandon out of football operations around the time Rex was hired in 2015, but he still was rumored to be making decisions. IMO I don’t think Russ was truly moved out until McDermott took over in 2017 and started gaining some power. If anything, McDermott seemed to understand where the problems in the organization were. He got rid of many long-time Bills employees like Scott Berchtold, the training staff (forget their names) and several others. I also think he used the autonomy with The Pegulas to ensure that Russ didn’t interfere with any football decision. This is where you stopped seeing Russ Brandon in the draft room. He also was inept as a football owner by 2000, and his poor decisions led to a nearly 2 decade long drought. You can recognize his philanthropy and also recognize the very poor product he put on the field for a long time.

Depending on the price, I’d strongly consider bringing him back

Not officially but many believed he still had some input and presence around football decisions. I don’t think he actually was moved out of football ops until McDermott came on board

This is hardly confirmation of what you wrote, though not trading for Brown dodging a huge bullet

In my opinion, part of what McDermott successful is that he was given the autonomy to make some major decisions within the organization. This likely included minimizing Russ Brandon’s role with football, removing Whaley and some long-time employees, upgrading team facilities and changing procedures and policies. None of this happens if Ralph is in charge. He was very much about keeping things consistent. He could have hired McDermott for sure, but there’s no way he could accomplish what he did the last 4 years in that organization. To that point, you can question the Pegula’s decision to give a first-time HC that much power to begin with. Fortunately...it worked

He’d make Jim Kelly GM and hire Frank Reich as OC He had nearly 2 decades to turn things around and failed miserably

New ownership had a huge effect. Not just on the on-field product but also with how much money they spent upgrading facilities and on front office personnel. I will die on this hill...Ralph Wilson WAS the reason for the Bills drought. Not because he wasn’t generous the WNY region because his philanthropic efforts were tremendous. But as an NFL owner he was terrible. After firing Tom Donahoe, every major hire was made out of cronyism...EVERY single one. This included the hiring people Marv Levy, Russ Brandon, and Buddy Nix in leadership positions. He also refused to fire some of the longtime Bills employees who were clearly bad for business. You can argue that the Pegulas lucked out on hiring Sean McDermott. He was disciplined, organized, and thought long-term. The exact opposite from the arrogance and bluster of Doug Whaley and Rex Ryan, who swindled them. McDermott likely recruited Beane who had similar traits.