jahbonas

And lets add Sam Aiken now the special teams captain for the Patriots

I could not agree more....how do they sign a street free agent and play him over nic harris??? This same staff said bye bye to mario Boggans and Coy Wire...both starters on good defenses....

They decided to move Nic harris to safety...an alternative ofcourse would have been to sign a free agent at safety and leave Harris where he was training at safety...

I'd understand not playing this rookie if our LB crew was doing the job....but we are giving up 200 & 300 yard games on the ground all the time.... By many reporting accounts he was the MVP of training camp and he often showed well in the preseason games displaying speed and physicalness... WR Stevie Johnson, CB Lankster and Arron Maybin may wonder similar....

A stretch??? Kelly WON 4 AFC Championship games Fouts had ZERO. Fouts was surrounded with multiple high #1 draft pick talents on his offense Fout head coach was considered an offensive PASSING coach guru Fouts threw the ball in sunny sandiego Compare this to Kelly No #1's at the talent positions His offensive coordinator most often was Tom Bresnahan..an elevated offensive line coach,,,he also had Jim Ringo His head coach was a former special teams guy Kelly threw in windy buffalo Are you a Bills fan? Kelly under Air Coryell's system with the talent they provided Fouts would have put up incredible numbers and would have made it to superbowls

Why did he last until the 6th round? No scouts at Michigan?

Coreys defense was not the culprit in that game? Our defense allowed a superbowl record for time of posession (against inferior talent and backup QB and backup RB) and our offense scored at the rate of almost a point a minute. Also - thats not my view alone - that was Bill Polians view on his tueday night talk show following the Superbowl loss..the game was totally lost on our defensive side of the ball allowing back to back 10 minute drives

You really think Brady is more significant than Belicheck in those victories? Where was Belicheck and the Patriots before Brady.....we saw last year the Patriots win 11 games without Brady...and you try to argue he has no supporting cast? Brady plays for perhaps the greatest coach in the history of pro football - period. Take a peak at the assistant coaches that have gone from that staff - the new head coach at Denver being the latest. Why did Brady last until the 7th round while playing for Michigan? Weak arm? pretty important item to be missing when discussing top qb's of alltime...

Two items which should have kept Marv out of the HOF: 1- in 1990 he rode secretariat and came in 2nd place by a nose. He lost as an 8pt favorite. At that time I think it was the 1st time in 15+ yrs that the favorite had lost) 2- He allowed his defensive coordinator to play a bend but dont break defense while he had the most explosive scoring offense of that era. The 2 totally dont mix. This is the equivalent of having a far superior scoring basketball team (like UNLV running rebels of 90s) and then playing a sit back zone defense against teams that always wished to shorten the game and keep our offense off the field. And to top it all - our defense was built on speed and pass rush/attack not a sit back team The true Hall of Famers of our Superbowl era were the players and the front office/scouts/GMs who acquired those players.....ownership got lucky...and coaching just sucked (as evidenced by none of the staff going anywhere after they were fired by the Bills - except one Ted Marchibroda)

Fouts was very good...but that entire team was dedicated to a passing offense and the top tools. -in their prime Look what Fouts had: Coach - Don "Air" Coryell JJ Jefferson 1st round pick in '78 draft (14th overall) Wes Chandler 1st round pick in '78 draft (3rd overall) Kellen Winslow 1st round pick '79 draft as TE (13th overall) Chuck Muncie 1st rd pick '76 draft (3rd overall) Joe Washington 1st rd pick RB '76 draft (4th overall) Charlie Joiner - veteran trade from Bengals Kelly had: Coach Marv Levy Thurman Thomas 2nd rd pick 1988 Andre Reed 4th rd pick 1985 James Lofton - top 5 pick in 1978 but picked up as street free agent from Raiders in 1989 Don Beebe = 3rd rd pick Keith Mckeller - 7th rd pick The Chargers (unlike the Bills) invested all their #1 picks in offense.....kelly never got any of that All the toys went to Walt Corey who had no clue how to use them.... And a coach in Don Coryell who was considered cutting edge passing game coach

That is such BS....Tom Brady won MVP of their 1st superbowl without having thrown a single TD pass in the entire playoffs......I think guys like kelly and Marino would have loved such a luxury.... The Bills faced the #1 defense in the NFL each year they made the Superbowl....by contrast The Bills set an NFL record by going to the superbowl with the 27th rated defense....the following year they did it again.... You really think Kelly or Marino could not do what Aikman did? Hand it off to the top ground game in the NFL and also have the #1 defense on the other side of the ball ?????? We also wont compare coaching staffs of each....

You have to be kidding me...Dallas had the #1 defense in the NFL (allowing Aikman's offense more at bats) and the biggest concern of anyone facing Dallas was their incredible offensive line...easily the best in that era.... Both Aikman and Emmit Smith benefitted from that great line....both are very good,,,but when spoken of as top 5 all time in their positions...wayy wayy over rated....I'd take Kelly any day over Aikman

Following that logic its impossible for a fan to point out erros made by any GM...like Matt Millen in Detroit for example.. There is a major reason why Marv stayed around and Polian did not. One is very good at understanding where his bread is buttered and will never argue with Mr Wilson whether Wilson is wrong or not...Polian at least had the integrity to state objections when the ownership made poor decisions that he felt hurt the team. Marv was always content to say yes sir its your team and cash his paycheck

The real problem many have also with the home Navy blue jerseys is THAT NEVER WAS OUR COLOR BLUE !! We have been a brighter Royal blue forever....this navy blue is essentially black.... Its as if we fans have 1000% times more respect for the tradition (teams colors is major part of that) than the franchise itself has... Its not too far from the blunder the sabres made in changing their blue n gold uniforms to black n red.....its not a debate which color scheme is better....its just that the red n black are not our f--- colors...whether they look better or not.... Dark Navy Blue is not our color...we never had any success with the color.... You want to see a halftime show worth watching? Go back to the throwbacks and have a halftime burning of these god awful uniforms at the 50 yard line and bury them and this entire Tom Donoho BS era....

But the players love our home jerseys...and they also love our coach...... Time to stop letting the inmates run the asylum !!!!

Marty lost 2 home playoff games as a favorite...and it was argued the Chargers had the most talented roster top to bottom....yes it was felt by AJ Smith that they provided Marty enough and he blew it...

Cant argue with that....as for requiring a GM with experience....neither butler nor Polian had any GM experience prior to taking the head GM job and survived just fine.....the key ingredient is NFL scouting/personnel experience....its all about bringing in the jimmys and the joes

Could be Buddy Nix differed with AJ Smith then..or AJ Smith was just being kind....obviously AJ Smith had no respect for Marty Schotts and fired him because of it...

I agree 100% that the GM and the coach (and the organization as a whole) have to be on the same page...Polian made that blueprint and Butler followed it so Buddy Nix is very well aware of that way of doing things. Buddy Nix is 'in house' but really is an 'outsider' when considering the failure of the Bills the last 10 years. Modrak was only promoted up to the 'braintrust' this past year indicating in the prior years he was only allowed to gather information and suggest rather than make final decision. This past draft showed there were new fingerprints on it in both the quality of players we selected and the 'meat n potatoes' positions we addressed. John Guy....different story...has had much say in the pro personnell decision for all the past 7 years and very easy to see poor decisions made by him....he would be an insider who could go..... Also..with Nix having 30 yrs experience you would hope he would have an eye on other top scouts to acquire and replace.....that was Polians big advantage when he took control in 1986...he knew who all the top scouts were and allocated all Ralphs limited resources to getting them....putting on the shelf a new scoreboard etccc That said...anyone replacing the 91 yr old guy calling the shots is an improvement thanks for the links

I can agree with your wish list....I mostly offer up Buddy Nix because given Ralphs track record of keeping it cheaper and inhouse he could fir the bill....and fits it well (like Polian yrs ago) in that he comes from the scouting ranks Ralph has only stepped outside the organization 1 time to hire well known top coach and that was Chuck Knox in 1978...if I remember correctly at the time the fallback selection was Bill Walsh of Stanford. Ofcourse Ralph commits to Knox in 1978 and screws him in 1979 by not signing #1 overall Tom Cousineau - Knox knew right there his Buffalo days would be short and took his roadshow to Seattle where he delived them their 1st Division titles... So in essence that old man has chased away Chuck Knox, Bill Polian and John Butler/AJ Smith....its no coincidence us and the Raiders are where we are...we have 2 old owners who feel they must involve themselves too much pushing away all the top NFL front office talent

Could our changing of the guard for GM be right in house? Buddy Nix has tremendous football scouting experience and it was believed he resigned from San Diego with the intent of landing a GM psoition somewhere. He was a finalist for the Atlanta GM job. Would it make sense that this was a partial motivator for him returning to Buffalo ?? He could even work a split of GM duties with Brandon where he only had to focus on the football side of the house while Brandon worked the business side. The NFL is an old boys network and it is difficult for a 'non-football' guy to gather the key information a GM needs to have when he has few contacts and scouts and people in the league will 'freeze' him out from offering the key info needed. Buddy Nix on the other hand...is that key insider with 30 yrs of contacts we need. Let Brandon run the business and the cap... Dealing with reality...Ralph is cheap...Nix would not be expensive...and Nix is now inhouse where Ralph would have a better comfort level than with an outsider. Then you move on to a new head coach - I would not expect a Schottenheimer selection since it was felt strongly by the Sandiego personnell department they provided Marty plenty of bullets for his gun out there and he wasted them. And ofcourse the unforgiveable was the playing of Drew Brees in a meaningless (27-9 loss) time with minutes to go and have that result in a major Brees injury robbing the sandiego personnell department from being able to trade Brees for top draft picks...

Well right now your GM is a 91 yr old guy wearing diapers....yes Holmgren or anyone like him would be a huge improvement over the current captain running the ship. Also Holmgren or anyone like him could certainly use Russ Brandon to handle the business duties of a GM and its likely Holmgren would welcome veteran scouts like Modrak and Buddy Nix..... or Does Ralph hand the GM duties over to Budday Nix? He was in the final running in Atlanta for the GM spot there but they went in another direction......is this why Nix agreed to return to Buffalo for this possibility?

I like trent but I'd like to see the backup play a few games...we need to identify is the problem the QB or the scheme. For example...what f**& scheme calls for Lee Evans running a 2 yard drag pattern with 25 seconds left?

At the moment were are 28th in the league defensively giving up 3rd down conversions at 44%....thats from NFL.COM stats...no idea where you get the 9th figure http://www.nfl.com/stats/categorystats?off...mp;d-447263-p=1

We are 14th in allowed passing%...but I did not see allowed passing% on 3rd downs specifically...