Bob in STL

You are correct. The Bills have to augment good drafting with free agents. We do nbot ven need many top tier free agents, just a few key acquisitions to briung in experience and toughness. There are way too many holes and by the time we ever get two good draft classes to develop we start losing the veteran players and creating more holes all over again. Our inability to sign our own players has been a problem, although not as pronounced as the horrible draft record of the past 10 years.

Yes. Ralph has Brandon reading TSW threads and taking "thread metrics". That is exactly how is gauges customer satisfaction.

Wang, Wrotto and Howard all back up at tackle. Urbick and Levitre in a pinch as needed. Is this better than last years with stellar cast of Chambers, Scott and Meredith? All of the tackles on this team are either cast offs (Green, Wrotto) or projects (Bell, Wang, Howard). A collection of junk, but they are versatile junk.

Wow. Your going all out on that prediction. You will also see Fitz play hard for the entire game.

I heard about the Mueller incident. First I heard of Wilson's daughter and the "C" word. It just gets better all the time.

Polian can find them? Please stop it. Manning was a consensus #1 pick. My dead grandmolther would have made that pick correctly. What Polian did was talk up Leaf, just to make it interesting. Leaf was never a threat to get picked by manning.

We needed a pass rusher and to DJ that meant a DE and not a LB. Drafting for "need" can be dangerous. Orakpo vs. Maybin. Watch the college film and you pick Orakpo, he actually had more than one year of work to review. Line them up next to each other and look at them, it is man versus boy. Finally talk to them. Orakpo has the work ethic of those that want to be the best and when he talks you hear that. Maybin talks like my son and his high school buddies. Spends his time on twitter and other nonsense.

Great post Die Hard, I agree that we need tougher players and we have to draft them. Something to think about is todays players in general. Other than Lewis in Baltimore, how many real throw backs are there? It seesm harder to find characters like you see in the film. The league used to be loaded with them. Look at today's players and consider their upbringing, the way they are courted by the colleges, the culture of today, tweeting, rapping, etc. Most of these guys communicate with each other off of the field and become friends. After every game they have a lovefest on the field. Due to free agency, many of them will play for 3 or 4 teams in their career. I am just saying it will be harder to find the mentality you are looking for that is combined with top notch talent. It is there, and Nix needs to bring it to Buffalo. In recent draft players like Orakpo and Mangold have been available and Buffalo has passed on them for the likes of Maybin (said to fill a need) and McCargo (said to fit the scheme). At some point we have to stop missing on picks.

So ... Trade the # 1 overall in 2011 and get more picks. We have so many needs this is not a bad option. In 2012 they will still be drafting in the top 10, maybe even top 5. Problem is, why would any team want that pick if a rookie pay scale is coming in 2012?

Sad to see that someone is happy that our offens is "middle of the road" because the defense is so much worse by comparision. So we draft 5 LBs in 2011 like you prescribe. Odds are one of the them will he a legitimate starter. Then what? This team needs to use all possible resources including Free Agency to improve the talent. If not, we will alwys be in a three year rebuild. We loose players faster than we can find them. The number of holes we have now is greater than when Nix was hired.

God I hate Twitter.

The Texas Twister was a fantastic player. We could sure use players with his skill and his football mentality on our team.

Last Paragraph - What makes you think these things?

I have moved on long ago. That is probably why I thought he quit rather than got fired. Seems like ages ago to me.

That is true. When we had great teams it was fun listening to people trying to knock us off. No one follows the Bills or cares about them. Last week in Florida I ran into an old friend and all he said about the Bills was "what is going on up there?".

I guess I have seen enough, the Carucci article has the most crediiblity with me. I was not trying to defend anyone. Read my original post. Just looking for some facts. Sure. Continue to blast away.

They say fired. Thanks for the nice reference. With no one talking I am not sure we know. I recall at the time he said he quit.

Make sense to me. Stay in school. I think they should all stay in school for that matter.

I just read two more post that said that "Ralph fired Polain". That makes it the 1,789,357th time I have read this on TSW. My recollection is that Polian quit. Ralph did not fire him and Ralph did not want ask him to quit. I seem to recall this sequence of events: 1. While working as GM for Buffalo, Polian was a member of a committee put together by then commissioner Paul Tagliabue to help establish rules for the free agency/ salary cap situation that was coming into place. Polian was trying to lock up all the important Bills players to long term deals to prevent losing his team to free agency. He signed Cornelius Bennett to a lucrative deal even though he still had years on his contract. He was preparing to do the same with Will Wolford when Littman intervened. 2. Littman and Polian did not get along very well. Polian used to delight in blowing him off. The two feuded often and put Wilson in the middle of it. In this case Wilson sided with Littman and Wilford was not re-signed during the season. Littman was a long time friend. Ralph blew it. 3. Polian was upset about the interference and he announced he would be leaving after the season. He stayed with the team until after the Super Bowl. He was not fired. 4. Linda Bogdans (Wilsons daughter) role with the club had nothing to do with it. Whether Polian liked her or not was not material. There is a myth on TSW that she was part of the reason that Wilson fired her. I say this is not true. 5. Wilford, now a free agent, signed a monster deal (for the times) with the Colts in the off-season. New Bills GM John Butler matched the offer but the NFL ruled against Buffalo due to the famous escalator clause the Colts put into the offer that the Bills would not match. The clause stated that Wilford would be the highest paid player on the Colts for so many years. That clause was eliminated immediately after the Wilford ruling, partly due to Polian, who took a job working for Tagliabue after he left the Bills. So, I submit that Wilson did not fire Polian. If I am wrong then flame away and tell me what really happened. If I am right then please stop saying that he did. I think it is important that we get this right. Thanks!

Best Defense the Bills EVER had. Better than the Super Bowl defenses. Any funny Sestak stories? I always pictured him as an introvert and a quiet guy that led by example. Many of the 60's players lived on Buffalo and stayed there for many years. Several started business’s in the area.

Bad analogy and tough crap for the players. i have little sympathy for the Bills. This team has such little character, no wonder the guys from the 90's are calling them out. The game is played in a public venue with media scrunity. Ralph is not the first owner, or coach for that matter, to discuss things like this publicly. Did you see what Singletary did to his QB last week in the middle of a game in the home stadium? The players get paid extremely well. Even the marginal bench warmers do. Cornell Green is making millions to jump offsides in the red zone. In a real company the first thing that would happen would be benefits cuts, then pay cuts, then lay-offs. Do you see any players or front office people taking a pay cut?

Funny story. Was that the game that Jim Dunaway scored on a blocked FG attempt?

1 - You won't know if an LT or a Reggie White is there for 4-5 years after the draft, maybe more. You are talking Hall of Fame players. 2 - Please don't use Ngata in the same example. He has a long way to go to get to the level of Reggie White or LT. 3 - Nix has already proved he will not reach for a QB in any round.

You did say all those things. You have been doubting all of it from the end of last season.

I was thinking the same thing and yes, I find it strange that he can go from starter, to after thought, to cut in five weeks. He played well in the Miami game and then he vanished. Then again, this is the Bills we are talking about.