Mark Long Beach

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).

Nonsense. Of course they were doing those things to some degree or another. All teams do some of these things. However, what I'm saying is that they were concentrating more on victory than evaluation. That is to say, concentrating more on putting on a confident show for their fans than to on practice. I'm not knocking them for it, but I'm recognizing that the game has less meaning than if they were approaching it the same way we were. They have a new coach and they desperately need to remove the stink of Rod Marinelli who was 6-20 over his last 26 games. (and also botched MANY personnel moves such as getting rid of Cutler & probowl Brandon Marshall while drafted Tim Tebow) Look, there's a reason that the Detroit Lions have are 2-0 preseason right now and have gone 3-1, 3-1 & 4-0 their last 4. Oh and don't forget that 4-0 preseason? that's when they went 0-16. If you're really playing to win a preseason game you're going to win it. Look, here's an example from this game: Our left tackle D Bell was clearly getting outperformed by Dummerville & Von Miller, by Chan Gailey's own words he refused to shift protections over and refused to allow TE or RB chipping to slow them down. Thus whenever Bell was beaten that current play was in serious jeopardy of being ruined and the entire possession(!) could be ruined. And in fact both of these things happened more than once. That is NOT playing to win the game, that is playing to evaluate how players are playing. This is not what the Denver Broncos were doing in this game.

And FAR and away their best record since 2002 (next closest was 5-11). So what did they do? They fired their coach naturally.

I disagree completely. This was all about the fans. They blitzed, and blitzed and blitzed in the SECOND pre-season game in a year with a shortened off-season. This was their first home game of pre-season as they opened in Dallas. They were 32nd in the league in points allowed and yards allowed per game. They had a HORRIBLE record and defensive stats last year and were trying to get the fans excited about their team's defense again. This was a show for the folks at home.

I remember one nice stretch of games that he looked really nice... and then got injured. Has got some talent, willing to sacrifice his body a little too willingly.

Yup. San Diego liked Drew Brees so much that they picked a new QB with the #4 pick in the draft. Well to be completely accurate they drafted Eli Manning NUMBER ONE in the draft. Since NYG desperately wanted him they ransomed him off for a boatload of picks and money. Included in their haul was the #4 pick in which they drafted ANOTHER QB in Phillip Rivers. They sure liked Drew Brees didn't they. They then let Brees go in free agency. I think he's done just fine in New Orleans.

Yep, it doesn't matter where they came from, just as long as they can play. Drafting a lot of players at a single position doesn't mean it's a good thing. In fact it can mean just the opposite in that guys keep getting drafted but can't play that position. So they're wasting draft picks trying to make up for earlier mistakes. The simplest example is Detroit drafting a WR three years running with their first round pick. Lots of picks (or free agency signings) at a single area does not mean strength at that area.

Sometimes the internet sucks. Of course it's perfect for the chicken-littles of the world

That was the topic du jour back then. Everyone had a favorite big receiver that we HAD to draft (with our first round pick no less)! So many were shocked that many dropped to the second round, AND now how many of them are busts even for 2nd rounders. Bummer that we fell for it too. At least it wasn't our first rounder. We only got 1 good catch out of him.

This makes logical sense to me. It gives more first team reps to Urbik who needs it and some good first team reps to Rinehart who (according to Gailey) has earned them by playing well in practice. Short term cohesiveness can be overcome. As other posters have said, if everyone believes that there is a ceiling and they can't displace the starters what's the incentive to work as hard as possible. We've traded out Lee, dumped Maybin, and promoted Rinehart. All moves that show confidence in the younger players to move up the pecking order. That's a good thing.

Sweet! I always moved the window off the bottom of the screen to try and hide it. Was imperfect.

Sounds like pretty decent dreams to me.

He's done well enough and has progressed every year to reduce the amount of screams for a new LT. Right now everyone is hollering about a RT. He's worked hard and gotten better. Has the backing of the coaching staff (multiple coaching staffs no less). Still needs to improve and be a little more consistent for most people to be happy with him. Not an all pro, but potentially a solid player. Most of the debate has revolved around him as a player and his skills therein. Others on our team have been discussed more for their off field antics than on field play. That's a good sign. I'm rooting for the kid.

And less physical. A tight end needs to block and catch. I doubt he can do either.

100% Coaching staff is looking at our OL (and the rest for that matter) and evaluating who can play. At the end of the day the best 5 they believe will do the job will be the starting 5. I have little doubt Levitre will be in our starting 5. WAAAAAAY to much is being read into this and other similar moves.

While I agree that he had less to work with, the ST have consistently looked very poor to my eyes. I've got all of one preseason game to look at this year, but the coverage teams have again looked disorganized and poorly coached/schemed. Truthfully special teams are the only part of the Bills that I'm not cautiously optimistic about (well and our OL depth). I actually expect DeHaven to be fired at the end of this season.

Yeah, except that it means that they also like him. We did it with George Wilson and he's developed into great depth and now our starting SS. He may only make the PS, I suspect that has mostly to do with special teams performance. That's often the tipping point on the bottom of the roster guys. I'm guessing PS this year.

Ah. That's the biggest key. I think he'd be a tremendous upgrade as our 3rd swing tackle (or starting RT) IF he's healthy. If he's not or likely a high risk of not being so, I agree we should pass.

Maybin, McCargo & even Whitner were prime examples of reaching to fill a need rather than drafting for NFL talent. I do believe that the Bills had a big need for a new Safety when DJ came into town and made us a Tampa-2 team. Obviously we've needed good DLinemen for quite a while. By drafting for a position means we missed out on so many higher quality players and it's a little sickening. I liked the IDEA of drafting a pass rusher, I think we were all in favor of that. It was just the guy they chose. I think that it was made even worse by their higher opinion of smaller quicker guys. Whitner had a fine size for a safety, but Maybin & McCargo were smaller. Their speed edge negated by the higher quality of competition at the pro level. Both of them also had GIANT red flags that should have warned about drafting them as high as they ended up being drafted. Third best DL on a non-dominant college team? One year wonder whose sacks came only against weaker competition? Sigh. Unfortunately it was not just the first round picks that trended towards smaller "faster" guys and our defense has suffered accordingly. So far, I'm much happier with Nix's drafts. I'm often surprised a little by the direction he chooses, but I really feel that he's much more consistent with going for the best player available (even if it's not always who WE feel is the BPA). We're also so much bigger in player size. I'm always a little suprised watching Merriman getting interviewed at how big and thick he looks. Reminds me of Takeo from many years ago. It's such a far cry from our undersized LB corp of recent days (maybin, Ellison, digorgio, Wire, etc.) May his strategy pay off better than what gave us Mr. Maybin.

Nice resurrection. But Greece nailed (half of) it cold. Even though I'm less impressed with Roscoe than Gailey is, he REALLY seems to like him and can get good production out of him. If Roscoe is healthy he's in our top 5. I agree with the comment that one of our 5 wide will often be Spiller/Freddie/(+Smith) since we can flex out a RB to a WR forcing them to keep more LBs in and helping us get mismatches.