RJ (not THAT RJ)

Amen Coach. Where did you get that great quote?

Whoo hoo! Killed another thread! *Self high five* Carry on!

No, Joe, you do not have to be "realistic," whatever that means. It's a game, a fantasy, a form of entertainment that we find especially heart rending because we choose to. Hope, enjoy, celebrate, those are the things people should do. Keerist, save realism for the world's real problems. Why go looking for reasons to be unhappy?

But your very comment shows that no one could have known that until after the first four games of the season....

Heck, I think your batting average already beats Kiper! After all, he publishes about 700 mocks before the draft, hoping to cover his over-coiffed heinie and keep his reputation.

\ Exactly! I understand why people can be disappointed, but do not understand why folks want to think that TD was somehow capriciously overlooking legitimate picks. There had to be a draft board at OBD, not to mention extensive research on both players available and players already on the team, all of which helped determine the picks.

Joe, Why not Teague? I know he is no Donnie Greene, but he has played LT for a playoff team. I think that looking at the draft, that is why the Bills went with 2 interior guys. Of course, that does not mean that a trade or later June 1 cut might not be the answer either... Go Bills! RJ

On another subject.. with no disrespect to my Bills brethren, I have gotten a kick out of looking at the mock drafts some posters have on their identities.... Not a one has a single person that the Bills actually selected. I find this a hilarious way of proving the uselessness of mock drafts....

Nice point. I wonder why more teams aren't also that well prepared.

Man, can someone 'splain me why teams get more than 3 minutes to make a selection in the SEVENTH ROUND? Let's move it along, people!

Amen!

Oh my God.. you're right! We suck! We're doomed! Cancel the season! Run TD out of town on a rail! Did that about cover it, fellas?

Thanks eball. I don't share the negativity either, though I understand it. My old man was the king of negativity. And heck, since life is basically lousy, being negative often allows one to be proven right, especially in WNY. My feeling, though, is that sports are the toy department of life, and this is the one place where realism is irrational. Save "realism" (itself a term that we can debate) for real problems, and enjoy following the game.... The sad thing for me is that the Bills (and, by extension, TSW) are one of my only non-familial links to WNY, and most of the time the only feeling I get reading most posts is gloom. I suppose the fact that I keep coming back shows that, as a WNY native, I am addicted to gloom.... Here's to hope!

Thanks for your response. To be honest, I think you are right about the line not being better, but I'm not sure that is proof of a lack of commitment by TD. The more I follow football, the more I am reminded of what a crap shoot putting a team together is. Sure, it helps to be knowledgable, etc., but in the end, one can never predict the future perfectly. (That's the History prof in me.) An example from the Dark Side: Don Shula knew perfectly well that teams win championships running the ball: he did it himself, twice. He also knew that Dan Marino needed a good RB. He went after many RBs through the draft, free agency, ouija boards, and never did come up with the right player, even when some of them (Bobby Humphrey comes to mind) were considered can't miss prospects. When it comes to building a winning team, lack of success does not always mean lack of ability, or of organization, or of effort or concern. Fate plays a major role. All Bills fans know that, right? There are many irons in the fire, though I'm sure you will roll your eyes at some: what about Jason Peters, Justin Bannan, Mike Gandy? What about June 1 cuts? No one knows. Sure it is fun to try to guess the future, but why spoil your own fun by choosing to be negative? Negativity shortens one's life, and I, along with your other friends and fellow Bills fans, want you to stay healthy and alive so you can join in the super bowl victory celebration that will come sometime this century (he said, hopefully). Go Bills!

Joe, I respect all long-time posters, but need some help here. What exactly is the problem? That TD did not draft an OL in the 2nd round tells me nothing about the plans for other rounds. It is false to say that he has done "nothing" for the OL, this year or any other year. You do not like what he has done, that is your prerogative, but that does not make it objective truth. Look around the league and tell me how teams build OL strength. They do it with a combination of draft, Free agency, trades, and luck that guys live up to their billing. There is no team with five drafted OL starters, and few teams have more than one or two first day draftees. Can we wait to see what else happens this draft, let alone this offseason, before running up the white flag, or giving ourselves agida? Go Bills! RJ

College History professor.... I lurk on TSW for intellectual escape. Whether I mean to escape into a different intellectual plane or to escape from any serious intellectual discussion at all depends on how many posts I see on a given day fantasizing about trading Nate Clements...

No.

Todd, Thanks for your response. I appreciate the information, and did not want to slam contemporary Roch (I have family that lives there now). I was being consciously hyperbolic to describe the prejudices against Roch that were current when I was a kid. As I hinted, since so few people in Buff/NF went to Rochester, it was quite likely they were based on false info. Still, based on what I have heard from friends and family who have lived there, there is some truth to the old light bulb joke: How many Rochesterians does it take to screw in a light bulb? 300,001; One to screw it in and 300,000 to say it is better than any light bulb in Buffalo.... As far as the other comments go, I agree there are plenty of excellent reasons why a new stadium in Bflo will not happen and should not happen. I simply find it interesting that Matthews and Roth didn't simply let the lead balloon fall, but insisted on stomping it when it was on the ground. If I may offer one more provocative comment, it is that this reaction reflects a rochesterian horror that, despite all the gratifying references to regionalism (which makes Rochester central to the future of the Bills), the Bills are still a team based in greater Buffalo. Which suggests that there are still old cultural/geographic divides out there. Go Bills! RJ

At the risk of tearing open a slowly healing (?) division between two cities that used to be bitter rivals, has anyone else noticed the alacrity with which Bob Matthews and Leo Roth at the D and C have been pouring cold water on the idea of a Bills stadium in downtown Buffalo? Not content to say, as Ed Kilgore and most sensible observers have said, that the idea from the Common Council is DOA, and a transparent ploy to score political points, they have actively tried to paint it as a bad idea. Matthews especially had to trot out his plan for a stadium in Batavia. In so doing, he had to say that building Rich/the Ralph was always a bad idea, because it was too far from Rachacha, a bit of revisionist history that he softens marginally by noting that back in the late 60s no one thought of the Bills as a regional franchise. Which is a nice way of saying that back then folks in Rochester, clutching the corporate logos of Kodak and Xerox to their WASPy chests, were too busy telling everyone how much better they were than the grubby folks in Buffalo with vowels at the end of their names to worry much about wanting a piece of the Bills action... Whoops, maybe those divisions are still there after all. Actually, this is the question I wanted to ask the folks at TSW, which after all has Rochester roots. When I was growing up in Niagara Falls, Rochester was awfully far away in every sense. (actually, for many folks in NF, there was still a sense of rivalry/division with Buffalo, which says even more about the old-fashioned tribalism of WNY...) Even when my sister went off to the U of R in the early 1980s, I do not remember anyone feeling that Rochester and the Niagara Frontier (one of my favorite terms from Commander Tom... the original, that is) enjoyed anything but the most tenuous connection to each other. The last couple of decades of economic crisis and population flight have made regionalism both inevitable and necessary. But have those forces also encouraged people to put aside old senses of identity and rivalry? As an exile from WNY, I am not close enough to really be able to tell anymore. Any thoughts on this? Go Bills!

Nanker, I am not a blind follower of TD, but I honestly have to say that I do not understand your point at all. The original comment, that JB did not do well in the draft, is frankly much easier to prove, since there has been more time to see how drafts turn out. The fact that so few former JB draft choices have panned out here or anywhere is a sad commentary. By all means, count the extenuating circumstances; I believe he was giving it a try, but the truth is the 1996-200 drafts were all designed to be holding pattersn while JB and the rest of the Bills hoped that somehow the vet nucleus would produce one SB. Thus he did not take any chances, but kept looking for special pieces, hoping for that big break to come, while extending veterans like Fina... It did not come (thanks among other things to HRTF), and then it all came crashing down with cap hell in 2001. TD was brought in to clean up that mess, and he has done a creditable job. Some in the NFL (outside of TSW) actually think he has done a very good job. Prophets and their native lands come to mind... With that being said, your decision to jump on TD looks premature to me. It is really much much too early to claim that the players you cite (outside of Pucillo, a late round choice who has been cut) are busts. Sure we are unhappy that the Bills have not made the playoffs, but am I the only person who remembers we were over .500 last year? Look at the history of the Bills (especially outside of the magical years 1988-1993) and suddenly that does not look so insignificant. I am hopeful for the future, and am in no hurry to run TD off. Is he a genius? He's a football general manager. There are no geniuses in sports. Ask Bill Parcells how easy it is to win while rebuilding. The genius argument is a straw man. A better standard is, do you think that the Bills would be appreciably better with a different GM? I think not. Go Bills!

Not to spoil a good ol' fashioned Whitey-hatin'.... but Pucillo is not with the team anymore.

Well, only by people who have spent too much time visiting the Jack Daniel distillery in nearby Lynchburg....

I guess that's my cue. BA Harvard 1989 (the Harvard of Cambridge, MA) MA and PhD, University of Chicago (1991 and 1996) Fight fiercely, Harvard, Fight Fight Fight! Demonstrate to them our will! Albeit they possess the might, Nonetheless, we have the will! How shall we celebrate our victory? We shall invite the whole team out for tea (how jolly!) Throw that spheroid down the field And fight, fight, fight! (Courtesy of Harvard alum and comedian Tom Lehrer)

Excellent point... Vince was so bad, he makes Drew at his worst look like Jim Kelly... As the greybeards say, another reason not to be upset with 9-7....

Someone may have already posted this.... but it was Sam Wyche.