Dr. K

Whaley never had the degree of control over the team that a lot of GMs have. In particular, he had to go with other people's first choices of coaches. I would have liked to see how the team would have done under Hue Jackson & Jim Schwartz instead of the Pegulas' disastrous choice Rex. It's fashionable to beat on Whaley here right now the way people beat up John Butler and Wade Phillips, seventeen years ago, and jumped on the Gregg Williams bandwagon. We saw how that worked out. I hope the new regime does better this time.

Pegulas Pegulas Pegulas Pegulas Pegulas. NO APOSTROPHE!

I for one have thought from I first heard they did it that firing the scouting staff was both a very arrogant and a very dumb move.

Now all they have to do is build a complete scouting staff from scratch.

Glad to see Rex fired. Thought Whaley got hosed by the fans and media--I think he will end up doing well somewhere else if given some real authority but if I were him I'd be happy to see Buffalo in my rear view mirror. Not terribly impressed with the Pegulas' judgment as owners so far. I've got nothing really against McDermott and think he might work out. Who knows if the new GM will work out? It's possible--whoever it is, I hope that there is a clear chain of command, unlike the mess the Pegulas have concocted so far. Firing all the scouting staff seems like an idiot move to me. I am not investing much emotional energy in the Bills anymore. It's been too frustrating, and frankly, the mess the country is in under president Ignorant Narcissist Horror-Clown is much more worth worrying about.

This is my view. Some of the things he tried did not work out. He was saddled with coaches, notably Rex, that he did not want, but he kept his mouth shut for the most part and did his job. He made some smart trades, such as the one that brought Hughes here, and consistently picked up undrafted gems for the roster. I hope McDermott will work out, but this move in and of itself does not inspire confidence in the Pegulas and the organization. And the Pegulas have already done a number of things, such as fall in love with Rex, that seriously call their judgment into question. Firing the scouts also strikes me as iffy. We'll see.

I agree 100% The amount of unwarranted crap that Whaley takes on this board is depressing. I used to read the discussions all the time but can only take it in small doses anymore.

How can you pick Spiller when you have winners like Eric Flowers, who never did ANYTHING in any game, ever? Or Maybin. Those who include Losman or Whitner or Spiller are letting their disappointment over those players not being up to the hopes for them overcome the fact that, actually, they could play well at times, and had some (few) accomplishments, Whereas guys like Flowers were a complete waste.

I never liked him. He was always a buffoon and blowhard to me.

Great post. I feel exactly the same way, though I am older than you are; I've followed this team closely since the AFL title days.

Maybe we should just declare the apostrophe a decoration rather than a punctuation mark. People can just put them in or leave them out of words for aesthetic reasons, depending on how they feel that day. But wait—we already do that.

My daughter graduated from William & Mary last May. Maybe the Bills have a place for her on the coaching staff?

Good one.

I agree that obviously you can never win it all if you never even make the playoffs. I was mostly just commenting on how this 17-year drought had raised the degree of emotional weight we have come to place on making the playoffs. Making the playoffs for all but one team still means ending the season with a loss. I was around for all four Super Bowls and I was as charged up as anyone about the Bills being there, and would not have wanted it otherwise. I took it hard when they lost them all, and for the most part in humiliating fashion--Thurman can't find his helmet, getting pounded into jelly by the Cowboys in the third one, losing the fourth badly after leading at the half. Looking back on it, I wish I had spent a little less emotional energy on that, and spent more time enjoying my wife and kid.

Eli should not have had an incompletion so far. Four drops.

Having a look at the Detroit-Seattle and the Miami-Pittsburgh games, it comes to me how odd it is for us all to suffer and moan about the Bills not making the playoffs for so long, as if their making it would really make any sort of difference. For half the teams all you get is another humiliating loss like the ones suffered by the Lions and the Fins (not that I would ever shed a tear for Miami). Not to mention the lame ending of Oakland's season. And the winners this week are likely to go down badly next week. To put so much emotional weight on making the playoffs is a prescription for misery. And if they don't get wiped out, then you lose the way the Bills did to Tennessee, and suffer for the next twenty years from that.

Unfortunately, this is all pretty plausible. I'm not counting on some sudden improvement in the team no matter who they hire at Head Coach. The fatal moment for the Bills was when the Pegulas fell in love with Sexy Rexy at his interview and hired him. Two years and a strong defense wasted, 2016 draft wasted, Kyle Williams' last years wasted, etc. I'm afraid a rebuild will be necessary and it won't be easy given the cap situation.

This The biggest dysfunction was the result of having Rex and Whaley separately report to the Pegulas instead of having the GM over the coach. But I understand that when you hire a big name coach who can throw his weight around in formulating his hiring contract, that coach is going to prefer not to answer to the GM. Everything Whaley said in the press conference that all the press is so hysterical about criticizing him for arises from that, and from his desire to not criticize Rex or the Pegulas or Tyrod in public.

You guys drive me nuts, putting an apostrophe in a simple plural. PEGULAS, not PEGULA'S. Would you write the plural of dog as "dog's?" Maybe you would. There is no education in America.

I agree about EJ, and I was one of his supporters. He really has some basic incapacity despite his physical skills. I'm glad that they played him in this game so people like us could move on with no regrets. I'm not too optimistic about TT, but I could understand if they are reluctant to axe him considering his occasional superior play and the lack of alternatives.

You're in luck! I got an advanced copy of the statement Whaley is going to make today: "I hereby resign. I am responsible for everything that has gone wrong with this team. Rex Ryan was a saint. We should have called him Saint Rex. All my draft picks were failures. I did it on purpose, and because I am an idiot, and because I hate you. Oh, yes, I'm a coward, too. The trade up for Watkins was a deliberate ploy to ruin the team. So was my trading all of our 2013 draft picks in order to move up and draft EJ Manuel with the #1 pick in the entire draft, as you all remember, when we could easily have had Geno Smith in the second round, or Andrew Luck in the fifth, or Aaron Rodgers in the seventh, or any of the other franchise QBs who came out of that draft. We should have drafted a QB every other year like the Jets have done--look how well that has worked out. Jerry Sullivan is a saint. We should call him Saint Jerry. I screwed up in that trade for Hughes, too. And the Kouandjio draft pick--what a bust he has turned out to be. And the trade for Shady--what was I thinking? And hiring Schwartz--big mistake. And letting the Pegulas lose their minds over Rex when I could have forced them to hire someone else. Oops--I mean Saint Rex. It was my idea, not Saint Rex's, to draft that guy with the bad shoulder. And I knew Ragland's knee was going to blow out, ha ha! Tricked you, you losers! The new GM will be some really old guy who had success in 1993. The new coach will be some other really old guy whose name you recognize. We will call him Saint New Old Guy Coach and he will walk on water and you will be very happy with him because he is a Saint except he won't have to be a Saint because he won't have to deal with me, Doug Whaley, the reason for our 17-year playoff drought. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."

He should absolutely retire, no question. You only get one life, and one body. He should save himself.

If the shoe don't fit, don't wear it. You're the guy whose sign-off is "Blow it sky high!" Let me guess who you voted for in the presidential election.

What exactly do you people want him to say? I expect you want, "I hereby resign. I am responsible for everything that has gone wrong with this team. Rex Ryan was a saint. We should have called him Saint Rex. All my draft picks were failures. I did it on purpose, and because I am an idiot, and because I hate you. Oh, yes, I'm a coward, too. The trade up for Watkins was a deliberate ploy to ruin the team. So was my trading all of our 2013 draft picks in order to move up and draft EJ Manuel with the #1 pick in the entire draft, as you all remember, when we could easily have had Geno Smith in the second round, or Andrew Luck in the fifth, or Aaron Rodgers in the seventh, or any of the other franchise QBs who came out of that draft. We should have drafted a QB every other year like the Jets have done--look how well that has worked out. Jerry Sullivan is a saint. We should call him Saint Jerry. I screwed up in that trade for Hughes, too. And the Kouandjio draft pick--what a bust he has turned out to be. And the trade for Shady--what was I thinking? And hiring Schwartz--big mistake. And letting the Pegulas lose their minds over Rex when I could have forced them to hire someone else. Oops--I mean Saint Rex. It was my idea, not Saint Rex's, to draft that guy with the bad shoulder. And I knew Ragland's knee was going to blow out, ha ha! Tricked you, you losers! The new GM will be some really old guy who had success in 1993. The new coach will be some other really old guy whose name you recognize. We will call him Saint New Old Guy Coach and he will walk on water and you will be very happy with him because he is a Saint except he won't have to be a Saint because he won't have to deal with me, Doug Whaley, the reason for our 17-year playoff drought. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."

This