Kultarr

Who's that #2 in your avatar? Can she block?

Anybody else hear about this? See it?

Speaking of which, Marv would apparently never draft Ben Roethlisberger, since he wears his baseball hat backwards.

It was kind of strange to see a DE pick up the ball and run away from a WR, and not even look like he was really in top gear ...

I'd take either of them over JPL or KH. Brady's ability to make plays is just plain other-worldly. Even on the most low percentage plays in the playbook, he seems to drop the ball right down the stovepipe every time. Manning hasn't had the success in the playoffs of Brady, but it is a team game and the Colts don't seem to "click" in all 3 phases of the game in the playoffs. Tony Dungy coached teams seem to have that problem consistently, strangely enough.

And the Steelers D is the fly in the ointment ... again.

Attitude, and the perceptions that stem from it, should not be underestimated. Blaming the fans and the local media for the failure of the team, even if it is implicit and by rumor and innuendo, is just plain ridiculous, and absolutely positively not a trait that one wants in the Prez. of their entertainment-based organization. That is why Ralph showed not a hint of hesitation in pulling the trigger on TD, IMO.

It is possible, of course. But somehow, deep down, I have to believe that Ralph would do what it took to land a great coach. If the scenario was "the next Bill Parcells" wanting to come to Buffalo and win and a few million jr. bacon cheeseburgers was the only roadblock... Agreed. It's not clear that MM wasn't just a big hand puppet, but he certainly got emasculated over and over -- hard to be taken seriously as a leader when that keeps happening.

Exactly. Some people are not good at hiring. In TD's case, the Cowher thing may or may not have shaped his judgement as honcho of the Bills. Indeed, it is quite possible that TD, himself, isn't even conscious of it. The other pet excuse for the coaching decisions is "RW is a tightwad". I'm not sure this makes any sense though. In the glory years, Ralph was a free spender with one of the highest payrolls in the entire NFL. Besides, TD was the Prez and making all the daily decisions. Even if he was given a budget, are we to believe he couldn't pick up a phone and talk to Ralph and the beancounters and get special dispensation to land the coach that would deliver a Super Bowl to the Buffalo Bills? (I know I read that when the Patriots cut Lawyer Milloy, TD called RW to ask him about it and Ralph replied, "What are you asking me for? Lawyer is a great player; sign him!") Also, although I don't follow the Steelers closely, I seem to recall that when TD was working there, the Steelers were considered a very tight and cheap organization with the Rooneys taking the punches. They seemingly never bothered to even try to re-sign their own free agents, even ones that had some more tread on their tires. (Hmm, Pat Williams?)

Seriously though, 5 years is more than enough time for a regime to establish itself, set a direction, and make serious strides. Mort is unlikely to say it, but his buddy Tom never set a football direction and the Bills flailed around in ineptitude on the field under his leadership.

Of course, I'm sure there were many variables involved in the head coac hiring process. TD did admit once that the fans didn't know everything, didn't know who wanted the job, etc. On TD having nothing to fear, other than failure, because he had the title of president: the thing is that I don't think it was the failure that lead to his ouster but rather his demeanor and overall approach. He projected an attitude of being arrogant, stuck-up, condescending, secretive, untruthful, more concerned about his personal image than his company's image, etc. With respect to the coaching decisions, TD would have been far better off to have hired one of the better known candidates no matter what the outcome. Hiring a Marvin Lewis or a Charlie Weis and having them fail would have been the lesser risk -- people would give TD a free pass because they were the "can't miss" choices at the time. Still, TD went with the "unexpected" choice 2 out of 2 times. Why? We'll never know for sure. Was it because all the "big name" guys had bad interviews? (What's a bad interview anyway?) Because Ralph is cheap? Because Buffalo schools are bad? Because they couldn't see themselves working with TD? Because TD insisted on various preconditions of the job? Whatever the reasons, I find it disturbing that the Bills did not have a Prez/GM in charge that could have assuaged those issues and really sold his organization forcely enough to be able to pick the cream of the crop. You're right that TD did not hire head coaches that he knew were going to fail a priori. That much is obvious. Still, it is curious.

Thanks. I wouldn't call that support. Support would have been realizing that GW was a rookie head coach and giving him the aid and advice he needed. Being a good upper level manager is not equivalent to turning a blind eye to things and letting your middle managers hang in the slack.

Given Mularkey's actions this past week, would you seriously call him a strong, tough head coach?

Do you mean Donahoe showing up someplace else, being given rule of the roost, and creating a championship winning organization? It might happen, but Tommy will have to hire better people all the way down the line than he did in Buffalo. It says something that when he was ousted the entire organization became "a disaster, a total shambles, one of the worst organizations that I've ever seen." The same people saying these things were the ones that praised Tommy up and down for putting together a great organization in Buffalo -- indeed, they still praise him as a great football executive. Seriously, I don't think the definition of a great organization architect is that the whole steaming enchilada hits the fan a week after the guy leaves the building. (Heaven forbid the guy caught a cold or something in that case; the whole franchise folds because he's home with a sniffle?) Everything does not rot instantly like that -- the rot was already there and it showed by the way the team played on Sundays.

Maybe cause he's not a good head coach?

Need to chose a cracker that has Xs and Os, not just Os.

Sean Payton reminds me of Marc Trestman.

Depends on whether or not you think Marvin Lewis will sit around eating bon-bons all off-season and do zero to improve his team or not.

As far as Williams, I'm not so sure he is not a good coach. Donahoe didn't do him many favors as I recall. (Most notably gutting the team of talent and experience, and the initial coaching staff hiring disaster.) GW has shown he is an extremely capable defensive coordinator. He just was not prepared to be a head coach (good interview or not) and, in retrospect, got frighteningly little support from his boss to minimize his chances of success.

Is Leeman Bennett still alive? Ah, who cares. Even if they had to dig him up, he'd be better than Martz. Martz.

Martz? As in Mike Martz? The guy with the sludge critters in his pump? The guy that told the Rams coaching staff that none of them should show up for the last game of the season? I'd rather have Wayne Fontes, thank you very much.

The #1 rip on the last two head coaches was that they had no experience. Now, we're talking about Payton?

Good conspiracy theory, very Machiavellian... Of course, blaming "the fans" does have a sort of "ring of Donahoe" about it. (The fans are guilty, by the way. The fans expected a winner, but instead they got Donahoed.)

Still, at the same time I give Ralph credit for realizing he needed to shake things up, one really has to wonder about the way things have unfolded once that decision was made. Was hiring Marv a good move? Retaining TD's right hand man TM? Not sure, but we'll see. The move that seemed strange and ended up exploding in his face was the idea of keeping MM around. To get rid of TD and half the coaching staff and keep the middle management in place seemed, at best, goofy -- but who knew just how strange it would really become? The Bills need to bring in a strong, self-confident head coach that can come in and lead, taking control of the situation. Mike Sherman ran his own show in Green Bay and was quite successful; someone like that would be a very good fit.

True. Ralph was a very old man 5 years ago. He tried to turn the ship over to someone else for a while -- someone that everyone said was a great businessman and football person, the perfect fit. Unfortunately, Donahoe turned out to be a bust in many ways. It's OK to blame Ralph for hiring Donahoe, because that is exactly what he did. He did it for all the right reasons (IMO), it just did not work out. (Largely, because Donahoe was supremely overrated in the first place.) Still, at the same time, one also must give Ralph credit for seeing that the bow of the ship had dug under the waves this season and big changes were necessary. The lifeblood of a sports franchise is its fan base, and Ralph knows the best way to keep that fan base is to put a good product on the field. Not to cowardly scan the stadium for "mean" signs to confiscate and have security toss the fans out. (Donahoe would've been far better served to keep his eyes and focus on the playing field; maybe then it might have slowly sunk in that nobody wins football games with barrel scrapings in the trenches.)