Albany,n.y.

The Spiller pick was a clear signal that the team is being built for 2-3 years down the line & not this season. It had nothing to do with selling tickets this season & everything to do with selling tickets in 2012. What sells the most tickets?-Winning. Nix wants to build a Super Bowl team & knows that he has too many holes to fill. So, think about it this way. He looks at the RB spot with the best player, by far on his board, available. He thinks, can any of my current group of running backs be a major contributor on a championship team in 3 years? Jackson may be too old to be counted on in 2012, and Lynch could be in jail or suspended by the 2012 season; or leave as a free agent to a warmer climate. So it's a no brainer, he takes the player he thinks can be the featured back on a champion. The time it took to put the card in is irrelevant. When Ernie Accorsi was building a Giants Super Bowl winning team the Giants were sending their picks in almost as quickly as the previous team's selection was being announced. Few if anybody in the NY media got on his case for sending the picks in too quickly and not fielding trade offers. Accorsi knew who he wanted and Nix felt the same way as Accorsi when Spiller was available. The theory is why drag it out when you have your guy.

8 games, including the exhibition game is no bargain. If they want to make it worthwhile, they should realize many of us, especially the ones who live far away, blow off the exhibition game & give the tickets away. Make it $140 for the 7 regular season games, quit gouging on the exhibition and they might sell more.

Lynch's groomsman's gift is the Seahawks playbook so that when he gets traded Marshawn will already know Pete Carroll's offense.

Not always, you get a 2nd year bust who gets cut on & put the practice squad & he's definitely not a rookie. He's just a never will be bust, and I'm sure you know who I'm talking about.

No, he was inactive the first 15 games and dressed but did not play in the season finale per the Bills 2009 Media Guide. If you combine all the LTs & all the QBs on the roster, you can't find 1 guy who could start for any of the 31 other NFL teams.

I have to totally disagree with your premise. The way the Bills have conducted their personnel decisions are quite clear that they are willing to wait until 2012 as long as they feel they've built the team to have multiple winning seasons starting 2-3 seasons from now. They didn't fill all the holes with a bunch of veterans who might get them 1 or 2 more wins in 2010 & they're willing to build a winner their way rather than hit the Donahoe mode & sign flashy names to satisfy the fan base. For the 1st time in years, the GM is looking long range & does not appear to want to jump the gun just to make the playoffs without any chance at going for a real championship. These guys know they have garbage at QB, but also didn't like Clausen, McCoy or any other 1st, 2nd or 3rd round projected QB, so because they couldn't get McNabb, they're looking at the right way to build. We're fortunate that Nix & Gailey do not have this fan mentality, because if they do it right we'll have 12+ win seasons by 2012 or 2013 instead of treading water between 6 & 10 wins with no shot of ever going to the Super Bowl. Unless Trent Edwards picks up his play & proves to be durable, the chance of both happening being slim, there will definitely be a 1st round QB on the 2011 roster.

Brohm will be the starting QB.................. ............................................of the Hartford Colonials

Marv knew that Mangold would cause trouble, so he drafted McCargo instead. I wish we had the Jets problem of having players think they should be paid more because they are the best at their position while they're still on their 1st round rookie contracts. Instead we have former 1st rounders like Lynch, McCargo, & Whitner. There's also Maybin looking for his 1st sack. Add in Flowers, M. Williams, McGahee, Losman & the 1st rounder for Bledsoe and it's easy to see why playoffs and the Bills are only mentioned in the same sentence when it is: The Bills have not made the playoffs in over a decade.

Here's a different way to look at things: 1) Say you know the man well enough to know the man's wife is bringing him down. Instead of getting punched in the eye, when he does split with her and everyone else is telling him how sorry they feel for him, and you say how happy you are that he's finally free, he'll say to you "You're the only one who understands how happy I am that she's gone." By the way-that's a true story, although I didn't need to point out her imperfections because he would every day when she called him 10 times a day while we were trying to get our work done. It's basically the same thing with our sorry group of QBs, until we get a football divorce from Trent, Ryan & Brian the team is just going to continue to give us a lot more misery than happiness. 2) I think when we see outrageous posts that have us being contenders, it's ok to slap the poster into some reality. 3) I choose to believe the Bills will win a Super Bowl in the next 5 years, but that doesn't necessarily mean this year is not a total rebuilding year. I can be oblivious to the fact that new coaches & systems take time & think that Gailey is such a huge upgrade that they won't need the typical transition time, or I can be realistic about this year while still maintaining my long term optimism by thinking back to Joe Gibbs' 1st season as the Redskins head coach. His team started off 0-5, yet won the Super Bowl the next season. Herm Edwards had it wrong, you don't play to win the game, you play to win the Super Bowl. In the long run, whether the Bills are better this year than last year is irrelevant. It's whether the Bills are building a team that will win the Super Bowl in this decade that's more important.

I'll probably switch from cable before the season starts, but the biggest problem I've had going to watch the Bills at sportsbars is that none of the ones near me paid the extra money, so even though they had hi def tvs, the game would be in low def. Watching a low def signal on a high def tv is one of the worst tv viewing experiences.

The Giants tied for the 3rd best record in the conference in 2007 with Seattle who won the West the year they went on to win the Super Bowl. They were one game ahead of the other wild card and at least 2 games ahead of the NFC teams that didn't make the playoffs. How is that barely sneaking into the playoffs?

JP is in Seattle not Oakland & he's 3rd or 4th on the depth chart.

He's also a lot more in Syracuse & Rochester than he is in the entire USA, since 32 teams all passed on him in the draft

What they see with the Rams & Bucs are 1st round QBs with the potential to lift their teams higher than the Bills QBs. I think the media sees the rookie & sophomore QBs as having a lot more upside than our bunch. The irony here is there are a lot of posters calling for Ryan Fitzpatrick to get cut, yet the Bills only won 1 game of those 6 wins where Fitzpatrick wasn't the main guy at QB. If the Bills start Fitzpatrick or if Edwards returns to being the guy who was 5-0 at the start of the 2008 season (JP was the main QB for the 1 in 5-1) this team won't be the worst team. The big problem is that all the moves Nix & Gailey made in the offseason scream 2-3 year rebuild, and you usually take a step back in rebuild mode before taking 2 steps forward. I view this season as very similar to 2001, where the team was torn apart to rebuild by Donahoe & Gregg Williams and went from 8-8 to 3-13. Like 2001, the new coach & GM know this year is basically a free ride. Realistically, it's tough to find too many teams that, with our LT & QB situation, are going to have as tough a time as we will, especially at the start of the season with a totally new defense.

Brohm!

We already have "The Legacy" Jon Corto on the roster & signed Roosevelt. This isn't the 1st year of the AFL when the Bills might have wanted to bring in guys the local fans "have heard of".

My guess is that maybe that scout wanted Leaf & was twisting things a little bit to justify his position. Here's what I remember on how it went. SD had traded for the 2nd pick on March 12th, knowing they'd get 1 of the 2 QBs. Leaf wanted SD, not Indy & was blowing Indy off when they wanted to bring him up to Indianapolis to further check him out before the draft. Manning was much more cooperative. Leading up to the final days of the draft, and definitely the morning of the draft, all the insiders like Mort and whoever else was out there were reporting that Manning was Indy's pick, not Leaf & Leaf was glad to be going to SD. Now if the scout is your brother or someone close to you, maybe the insiders were wrong, but if he's just another guy you talked with, I'd doubt he told you the real story.

As previously stated Manning went 1st. Also, his 1st game was in SD, not RWS, I know because I watched it on TV & in those years I never missed a home game. That draft was not the crapshoot everyone with revisionist leanings makes it out to be. Manning was a senior, staying an extra year at Tennessee when he would have been #1 the prior draft. He was rock solid on & off the field & was one of the surest picks to come along. Leaf was a 1 year wonder, with size & arm strength that dazzled some scouts, but a guy who came to the combine overweight & with an attitude. Anyone who truly remembers that year knows that red flags were waiving on Leaf the moment he pulled that combine nonsense. On top of that, Leaf came out early, which back then non-senior QBs entering the draft mostly busted or greatly underachieved. SD got taken, just like Oakland did 3 years ago with Russell. The funniest story I heard about Leaf was in an interview on the radio that ESPN did one morning this April. One of the guys who was with SD told the story of when SD started to question Leaf's commitment to the organization. After the draft, SD asked Leaf to come to SD to meet with them & the media. Leaf told them he had a buddy's bachelor party in Las Vegas & they would have to wait for him to finish up in Las Vegas 1st. So looking at busts & hits without examining the stories behind each case does not accurately reflect who to avoid & who to draft-something we all hope Nix has enough experience in doing to avoid taking the Leafs & Russells. Based on the high premium Nix places on character & talent combined, I'm not worried about him choosing a Leaf or Russell like SD & Oak foolishly did in spite of work ethic problems that both clearly displayed before the draft.

I just downloaded the latest On-line edition of PFW & couldn't find a link to this on thir site. The biggest surprise is they rank the Super Bowl champs #10 & Green Bay #1. Here are the rankings GB Ind SD Min Balt NYJ NE Dal Atl NO Hou NYG Mia Chi SF Wash Phil Pit Cin Ten Ariz Car Den Jacks Sea Det KC Oak Cle Stl TB Bills

Now I know KC had a horrible defense in 2008, but for all the praise of Thigpen & Gailey for 2008, they only won 2 games the whole year. It's still about winning & not about acceptable statistics.

I think the reason is what some fans view as opportunity cost. Denver picked Eddie Royal with the next pick after the Bills took Hardy & Philadelphia took DeSean Jackson later in that round. Both players are a lot higher profile than Hardy at this point in their careers. Now the irony is that it looks like the Bills blew it in the 7th round as well. A few picks after the Bills picked Johnson, the Oakland Raiders picked Chaz Schilens, who outside of a preseason injury that caused him to miss the 1st half of the 2010 season, has been starting for the Raiders since the middle of his rookie year and has totally outplayed Johnson. By the way, he's 6-4 & has totally outplayed Hardy too.

Based on Marshawn's latest antics-staying away from the Bills this past week, I think his trade value has been reduced to a conditional pick based on performance. His market is most likely a conditional 4th, topping off at a 3rd, and if he's a total waste, it could become a 5th. Just remember, he's already been suspended once, Goodell will come down on him pretty hard the next time, and right now, it looks like he still doesn't get it & is still living day to day without thinking about his career down the road. If he truly had an interest he'd be in Buffalo learning the playbook. Instead, all he's doing is trying to force his way out of here, showing the league minimum of cooperation. That alone shows how little he cares. Of course, the team is moving on without him, but his trade value decreased this week because other teams realize his worth to the Bills is diminished.

Wanting to see my team win a Super Bowl is the best reason I can come up with. If you give me a choice of 2-14 this year, 6-10 next year and a Super Bowl championship in the 2012 season versus 8-8 this year, then 10-6 the next 2 years with an early exit in the playoffs each time, I'll gladly suffer 2-14 this year and miss the playoffs next year. The difference is I'd rather have the big reward later than a handful of small rewards now. This is not the same group as last year. We are missing key veteran contributors such as Owens & Reed in the receiving corps, Schobel (if he retires), our best ST player in Wendling, Denney gone & Kelsay changing positions. Yes we have virtually the same offensive line & dreadful group of QBs, but that is hardly something to form an optimistic view of.

We weren't that much different when we traded a 3rd for Billy Joe Hobert & had to release him after week 7.

Go back to 2001 & there were tons of posts similar to your's saying how bad things were under Wade & that Gregg was instilling discipline. This team is strikingly similar to that 2001 team: New GM , new coach. There's a new D system which will take time to develop, a lot of the team has been gutted in the move to youth & rebuilding, the QB position is the same as 2001: Edwards is the same as Johnson-an injury prone guy who has shown flashes, but loses more often than he wins and is odds on to finish the season & his Bills career on IR; Fitzpatrick is the same as Van Pelt-at best a career back up with some smarts who has survived, but hardly thrived when thrust into the starting job; Brohm is the same as Brown-a guy rejected by another team who the Bills picked up because they think he can be developed. The slight differences between Brohm & Brown are that Brown went to a different practice squad than the team that cut him and was picked up in August after signing with his own team's 53 man roster the prior November, and Brohm was originally picked higher. Tim Hasselbeck & David Dinkins filled the Levi Brown spot in 2001, with Hasselbeck cut before camp & Dinkins ending up on the practice squad, resulting in the signing of Travis Brown. The following year the Bills made the big splash for Bledsoe, knowing they had nothing at QB, next year the Bills will draft a QB in the 1st round, knowing they have nothing at QB.