Mark Long Beach

Yeah, I agree the ones are the most important. Although I do want to see how the backups play and I'm a little concerned there. Little good O-Line depth. Hairston showed promise, Hangartner I only give a pass from decent play from years past, and Reinguy because the coaches like him. The rest really looked bad. I wasn't too displeased with the starting O in this game. We were open and we blocked reasonably well, we were just a little out of sync. The starters weren't doing anything fancy in this game and they all knew it. Their only goal was get dressed, run around a little, hit a little and to not get hurt. Mission accomplished. True performance wasn't being measured in this game for them.

of course he's #4 out of 8... so not really the 'D' team, but funny. not peter pan link title? even funnier!

No one will pick up Levi Brown when he gets cut. He won't make the practice squad this year for the same reason he didn't make the PS last year. Too many QB's not enough reps in practice. He's gone through training camp, played in preseason games so he's a fine replacement should one of our QB's get injured during the season. Just like last year. To be fair, he looks better than he did last year. Thigpen is a vet and the head coach is very familiar with him so he'll be the backup. I doubt he lasts longer than this year.

OP original post on the GBU: Bad: I agree with much of what you said, with the notable exception of Easley. Couldn't see much with Hang, I was watching most of the 2nd+ team OL get blown all over. For certain the LG was terrible as was the entire right side. Noticed only one bad play by Hang but could well have been more. Some of the OL were horrific. Wang is a goner for certain. Several times Wrotto got blamed on the telecast but at least one of those was Wang who still needs his wallet back. Really most of the reserve line needed to be called out here, not just Wrotto. I think Pigpen got 20 pounds knocked off of him he because was sacked so often. Good: yes: Coleman, Hairston, Sheppard, Heard not bad: Batten, JWhite although he's hard to really examine as the reserve line play was double dog dreadful. unsure: Corto had some good ST play and at least one good D play. But in previous preseason games he's looked out of place an awful lot in my eyes. He'll only make the squad on ST play. Cuts: yep, save Easley & maybe Hang. (Torbor's already on IR)

This is the list that I keep coming up with. Moats & White don't make it.

I've seen a couple nice things that Aiken has done, but none of the backup receivers looked good today. Davis had the most plays... good AND bad ones. Too much of the bad ones IMO. He has some really nice physical skills, but not enough good production to outweigh his poor play. All those WR screens to him and he could never make anything happen against backups. He was able to get open, but dropped too many. If Aiken could have picked up one or a couple of those low throws of Thigpens he would have given himself a better shot. But I distinctly unimpressed with his efforts on those. A low throw is a safer throw, and KA didn't help his QB out. To be a quality NFL WR he has to catch those. 3> Shepard looked very promising to my eyes. 4b> Super impressed with Hairston. We really may have drafted a quality tackle with him. 6> JWhite looked a bit lost. Willing to hit but not necessarily the right guy. 7a> couldn't get too much of a look on him, but seemed to have good position pretty regularly. Does need a pro workout to pack on a little muscle, but could be a keeper. 7b> Good story, very raw, unproductive. Saw occasional flashes of nice stuff but was dramatically outplayed by Heard (Who I think really earned a 53 spot) Hope MJ makes the PS to see if he can improve his football skills.

Hairston impressed me quite a bit. He way exceeded my expectations in this game. I watched many plays over and over again trying to follow the OL play & his in particular. Hairston generally played his part very well. I was especially surprised to see him do well in space. The word of him being a bit of a heavy foot (and thus a RT prospect not an LT) did not look to be true to me. He also did some nice blocks on the second level on LB/S/DBs (couldn't always see the number of the D player) He did botch one play & gave up a sack by blocking the wrong guy once (It was a weird, weird mental error). But still, color me impressed.

Gailey likes explosive players. Roscoe has that, and Gailey has shown that he can make Roscoe a productive slot receiver. Something the previous coaching staff could not do. Yes he's an injury risk as is the WR position in general. That's why teams carry a lot of WRs (5-8 wr's for nominally 2 starting jobs). IMO, Roscoe is a very good slot receiver who even if he only lasts 8 games, is worth having on our team. I'll take the mis-matches he gives us during his time on the field.

IMO they will attempt to do his deal at about the 1/3 mark of the season. Enough to see if he's shown he's a decent starter at the NFL level or that he can't be. I think the amount of the contract will depend on how well he's produced. If it looks like he can take us to the playoffs the pay will be higher. If all he looks like is a caretaker until we develop a future draft pick his pay will correspondingly be less. Nix said something like that they pay the guys that produce. I suspect this will be the case for Fitz.

My new sig. I'm optimistic for the future, but we got to start here.

Excellent reply to an excellent post.

Fair. I'm most frustrated by the many who post that do think that he is. Yup, and by this measure he's a below average owner. By this same measure, for the first 40 years he was an average owner with well above average championship appearances. So was he incompetent then? Hold him accountable, yes. For (especially) the last 10 years he's failed consistently. I don't mind criticism because the Bills have failed to get it together, so he's earned it. But I guess I can't stand the degree to which I generally see posted. I also don't understand how it's impossible to see that things have changed. For the better, I cannot say. My Crystal Ball is seriously cloudy. (I should get a new one) I think that I'm basing some of my opinions on having been in charge of hiring for my company. I've witnessed some spectacular employees who went far above what I expected of them (and their position) and similarly some flame-out despite how good they seemed or "interviewed well" if you remember Greg Williams. Using the example of coaches, GW is a fabulous Defensive Coordinator, but a tragically bad head coach. (Maybe he learned something... Bill Bellichek did) Similarly, look what happened with George Seifert. He had one of the best all-time NFL coaching records at 98-30 before moving to Carolina and crashing spectacularly with 16-32. Hiring isn't easy and doesn't always pan out the way you want it to. In our last Craptastic decade we started with the last legs of GM John Butler who I think wasn't a bad GM, followed by 3 failed hires/promotions, followed by Nix & Co. It is my opinion the hire of ole Whitey (Donahoe) did massive damage to Bills. Much more than is apparent to the eye. Not just for his GM-ship which was basically bad, but because it caused a deep sense of distrust in Ralph of the GM position and it having too much power. This set the stage for a bad hire and a bad promotion. The Buffalo Bills have a strong and loyal following but the fans were in big time revolt against Donahoe and his poor fan relations. He hired Modrak to run scouting for the decade and we've seen just how bad that was. But even worse was poisoning the well with the relationship of GM to the Owner. Marv Levy is a great coach, motivator, delegator, and even PR guy. Most importantly he was hired because he was trusted by Ralph. He is not a good front office personnel guy. Nor were the people left over from Donahoe any good at personnel either (Modrak & his staff). Sadly a big time failure. I think that Marv could have been a good GM figure because of his delegation abilities/leadership but he failed at Recruitment because the staff he delegated to stunk and his coaching selection was a major disaster. ugh. Promoting Russ Brandon (his best & brightest employee) is like hiring Greg Williams. A wizard at lower levels but way outclassed when promoted. He is not a good football personnel manager and the same personnel evaluation staff (Modrak) remained. Disaster. After two poor internal hires (promotion) he went outside to the San Diego organization with Nix and gave him some real power. (Yes he was hired for a year here first before he assumed the GM role, but that's still an outside hire. Nix IS a good football personnel guy. We'll see if he can translate from Assistant GM of 7 years for very good San Diego team to a full-time GM of the Bills successfully. I think the odds are quite good. Why can't people be optimistic about that?

Nice! That brought tears to my eyes!

First off, Thanks, I have enjoyed the conversation, even though we don't agree on the overall view of Ralph & the Bills. It's been so much better than the constant Ralph is cheap/the world sucks/massive negativity that is far too often the posts around here. As for Gleason's article that ownership matters? Duh. That premise is true. Look at what Mark Cuban has done for the Dallas Mavericks (a previously garbage team). As for Terrance Pegula? I know nothing of hockey. But hasn't he owned the team for less than a year? To paraphrase Dennis Green: if you want to crown him then crown his a! It takes more than a year to prove he's worth anything, but hey hopefully he will be. But even according to the article, Peluga lost a bundle on that one year, will he be willing to keep doing that? That's not a sustainable business model. As for the Bills: I'm not claiming Ralph is a saint. I am also not lavishing praise on him. I think he's made some very poor decisions that has cost his team dearly. I think the single biggest failure was in not finding a way to keep Polian who has shown to be the best GM in the NFL and while he was here he did great things. His number of missteps over time has resulted in a overall 40% win/loss percentage. We've been to the playoffs 17 out of 51 seasons, also below average, but been to championship games 6 out of 51 which is above average. Overall this puts him squarely as a below average owner. But this doesn't make him a villain in my eyes. It seems to for many people. But note this last decade has brought our record down from a 49% w/l record before 2000 to the depths that it is now. So before this lost decade, for 40 years, we essentially had a 50/50 w/l record. Hardly the nightmare owner he's being portrayed as. Ralph is an old guy. At 92 years old he can't run a football team and hasn't been able to for a long time. He's been looking for a GM since he lost John Butler back in 2001 and this decade has been a disaster of GM hires (and subsequent coaching hires). Donahoe had a good reputation but couldn't live up to it. His attempt to restore faith in the fans with the return of Marv Levy was a short term pr success but was an absolute GM failure. His best staff member in Russ Brandon (who is great at his day job) inherited the mess and was also not up to the task. Now we have Nix and Whaley who are widely respected throughout the NFL. Will they succeed or fail like Donahoe? I don't know. But I like them significantly better than the previous choices, including Butler. I don't blame Ralph for trying to find a solution. Mainly because if it fails he tries again. This is different from the true disasters in professional sports ownerships like Detroit where they stuck with a failure for 10 years, or Cincinnati where success is not an option, or the raiders which would be mind-numbingly bad for longer than the Bills if it wasn't for "chucky" Gruden (quickly fired). In this decade we've gone through 5 different GM's trying to find one that can do the job. (Butler, Donahoe, Levy, Brandon, Nix) I just don't understand how this can be interpreted as not caring. It's an example of poor hiring for sure. But the mistakes have been replaced quickly by GM standards and hopefully (knock on wood) we've got a good team in our law firm of Nix, Whaley & Gailey. I hope they prove to be even better than Polian. I'm pretty sure they'll be better than the last decade.

We've had a winning season about 40% of the time. Which is about our overall w/l record. Over time we're below average. We've also won 2 championships and lost 4. so out of those 51 years we reach the championship game on average every 9 years. This average is actually HIGHER than expected given the number of teams in the league, especially given our below .500 overall record. The last 10 years have stunk, no doubt. But the league is cyclical and I like our GM, Asst. GM and some of our new players. I'm hoping for a team on the rise again. If all you care about is winning go jump on the latest bandwagon team. To say the Bills players, coaches, owner or GM don't care is lunacy.

I'm sure there's a bridge around here for you. Or maybe the Pats need another fan, they're likely to win a bunch this season for you.

It's all a matter of perspective. Littman helped spend and spend to get us to the Superbowls. Since it's his job to keep spending within a limit I have no doubt of battles with Polian. That's the nature of the two jobs of Polian to build a team and Littman to keep it within spending limits. But we were a big spending team back then. That's hardly in spite of Littman's obstruction. The real reasons of Polian's departure have been kept under wraps, but I've always been of the opinion that it really started getting personal. Not just job conflict. He is and I admit and agree with this. But why does he not get credit for when things go well? We had several great runs and a handful of other good ones. We've stunk lately agreed. So he fired them and brought in new people. Almost a complete new football staff, new coaches and new players. But why not the credit for bringing in Nix and rearranging the scouting staff (& firing Modrak), bringing in a well respected Asst GM in Whaley, bringing in an experienced coach with a winning record??? Ralphyboy isn't out there catching passes and he's not out there coaching them, he's not out there scouting the youth and he's not running the day to day organization. We've changed practically all of those things and it looks to the better. Why not any credit?

Not a better cover guy, not as good of a tackler. Was replaced BY THE JAGUARS with Poz. There's a reason he was unsigned until today.

Hey man, the Detroit Lions, Washington Redskins & St Louis Rams are 2-0 in preseason! They MUST be good!

Our record has been crappy to average for 10 years+, I can't argue ineptitude of the past, it's recorded. Now we've also had high turnover because of it. A parade of GMs, Coaches & Players over that same span. Only a few people have remained for a significant period of time. Do we blame Moorman because our record has sucked? Maybe it's Fred Jackson's or Terrance McGee's fault? Of course it's not their fault and we don't blame them, even though they and other players performance is what's truly being evaluated each year. So Coaches get blamed. GM's get blamed. But we've replaced them and restructured our football org and our scouting staff. So Littman & Overdorf get blamed. Really? So they're the problem... Well then it must be their fault when we were going to Superbowl after Superbowl four years running. (Littman had same job, Overdorf had Director title now has VP title) So then it's Ralph's fault. Well I agree. But only so far as he's the owner and thus ultimately responsible for everything. Now in his time he's had good GM's and bad ones. I believe that he's got a good one now and has a good management team and is working on a good team of players. My fingers are crossed that he does. A good GM (& their orgs) field better teams over the long haul as individual years can vary considerably. They need to be stable to get there. Stability is important but only to a degree, as we all know the example of Matt Millen's stability of suckitude. Wishing for Ralph to leave doesn't fix things. Art Modell moved the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore. He won a Superbowl as Raven (ick) and have been a good team since. Good thing they ran Modell out of town huh.

One not-so-good preseason game and the sky isn't just falling it's made it to the ground and is apparently suffocating most of the posters.

The only signs of turmoil is an indirect claim of one by an article written by JW. An article that is for the most part reporting on the teams failures for the last decade (of which there are many). The implication that a disagreement exists in the front office has people scurrying for their tin-hats. The Bills ARE a business and of course 'business side' people ARE involved in decisions. This is true for all teams in the NFL. Nix is the guy in charge, not the guy doing the heavy lifting. That's true for all people in leadership positions of large organizations. Having Overdorf doing the negotiations does not mean that Nix has been usurped. The GM's job is to make the final decisions. Some GM's are good horse traders and so take an active role in trading. Our GM is a good scout, i bet he takes a more active role in scouting than most GMs.

By the end, I hated watching him play as well. Of course I hated the _entire_ offense, it was dreadful. No imagination, no execution and little skill. DickyJ's teams were brutal to watch. I hated not ever having the ability to win a game, just to hope that the opponent would lose the game. Ugh.

During the preseason it's fairly common for all the number to be handed out to the camp bodies. Sometimes there's such a logjam that more than one player has the same number. It's wildly different for the regular season. If the scrub makes the team, his number would be re-assigned.

It's too bad there isn't a bridge nearby. It'd be nice to have a good football conversation instead of the same junk parroted over and over again. Wow, I've never heard that Ralph is cheap before. The world is a better place now that someone else has said it. Oh, or maybe it's the same people saying it again. and again. It's a tired rant. So JW's article reminds us that we've not been a good team in a decade. Yup. JW tells us that we've burned through executives and coaches who've been unsuccessful. Yup JW tells us that we're cycling through our players at a relatively quick pace. Yup. Where's the surprise here? I'm an optimist but I can't deny these things. We haven't done well because we haven't had a good combination of coaching, administration and recruiting. If the people hired to run the job can't do it you move on and try to find someone who can. Therefore we fire GM's, Coaches and or Players who can't do the job. We SHOULD be cycling through players looking for ones that are better. Who can argue with this?? In the past 10 years we've drafted ONE star player, Kyle Williams in the 5th round. I'm hoping that some of our new players will add to that total (such as Darius, Stevie, etc). The rest have been a combination of some good players and a bunch of okay players and a number of turkeys. I put Lee Evans as one of those pretty good players and he has been for 7 years. JW has insinuated that there was a disagreement in our front office over the trade of Lee Evans. Whoop-de-Dmn-doo. Even if it's true. No executive committee should be unanimous on everything. If they are they're nothing but a bunch of yes men. This was not a trade of one of our building blocks. Therefore he's expendable just like most of the players on our team. The move is justifiable. We have a lot of promising looking youth that _could_ be building blocks. Finding one of those is more important right now than keeping one who definitely isn't. Because we have so many possibilities, Lee becomes more expendable. Look, I like Lee Evans and wish him well. But he's on the downside of his career and hasn't been especially productive for us lately. He only had 600 yards last year as a #1 WR. Our current Head Coach complained that he's not versatile enough for his offense. Since he's not a building block, not especially productive, not a good fit for our offense and only has two years left on contract and maybe prime career, I have no problem with moving on (and rumored that he wanted to traded to a contender). It's my opinion that we can find someone to replace that performance out of our youth, even if it's a little bit less this year (the heart of the disagreement IMO).