BillsVet

Absolutely. It worked back then, so why wouldn't it work now? The Bills have frequently tried to solve their "problem" players by dealing them, or at best with short term solutions. Franchising Clements for a season, trading McGahee (post-Buffalo comments), trading Peters, it's their M.O. In the end it leaves them with one fewer proven player.

How did they end up 6-10 last season then?

Yep. Doesn't make sense that in 2010 the Bills couldn't get interviews, with numerous guys turning them down, and them having to hire their emergency guy. 3 years later after winning 1/3 of their games and with a bare cupboard of talent the team all of sudden is a great landing spot? There can be no other conclusion.

I remember during the Marv rebuild the stock response was you can't build it all in 1 year We're in the second rebuild after that one, but all have featured at one first round DB and RB. Donahoe had Clements and McGahee. Levy/Brandon/Jauron had Whitner, McKelvin, and Lynch. Gailey had Gilmore and Spiller. Multiple rebuilds with multiple GM's all allocating significant resources toward the DB and RB positions. Either it's very coincidental or something else is going on.

Hard to take tight ends when you are rebuilding every 3-4 years with runnin' backs and CB's. OP is correct and quibbling about it is pointless. Having a good offense means having a good or better receiving TE.

Where is Dick Jauron and his affinity for taking CB's in every round? Oh how the Bills have fallen.

Russ Brandon in January on Buddy NIx: "When you look at where we are today compared to where we were three years ago, it is unquestioned that our personnel and our roster is in a much better position than it was three years ago" So why should it take more than a year after the team president himself assured us the team is much better?

Nothing like being a win-later team after 13 seasons without winning double digits and through 4 separate rebuilds. Was Whaley allowed to make decisions from February 2010-April 2013 when he was Nix's understudy? It's hard to tell.

Or perhaps the people supervising the personnel department are not giving them the tools to build a roster. Several coaches and GM's before Whaley and Marrone have not succeeded in Buffalo. Some were clearly not good or worse, but failure does not happen in a vacuum. There needs to be more focus on the people at the top, many of whom have been around for much or all of this decade plus of no playoffs.

We're talking about 2 different things. I'm referring to how management equips their personnel department for success. You're a step lower in the food chain discussing decisions that the personnel group makes. This off-season has demonstrated that financially the team is making the same types of decisions. Letting Levitre go, not coming to terms with Byrd on a long term deal, and to my knowledge not initiating talks with another offensive lineman leading to his walk year. How is that different than previous years when they franchised Clements and got nothing for him? Letting Fletcher go. Letting Jabari Greer walk for nothing. Trading Peters for a late first. The team didn't have a decent replacement on the roster for them, and it's happening again. That tells me that regardless of who the GM or HC is, it doesn't matter. Other people are immersing themselves in the decision making process and those decisions aren't all that much different than they were years ago. What's changed? When talent walks and the team uses the draft to replace it, you're not building. You're hopefully maintaining, which is what the Bills have done by keeping themselves in the bad to mediocre category.

So you believe that Russ Brandon's management of the organization will be different than a Ralph Wilson led franchise? If so, well, you're entitled to your opinion. I have a hard time believing that it will differ much and Brandon would not have risen to his current position if he didn't learn how the boss wanted things. Problem with the Bills over the lost decade is they've never built a roster. Now, they add a QB, but then let their best OL go and haven't opened negotiations with another former high draft pick. And they're unable to come to terms with one of the best safeties in football. So yeah, they took A QB. But have they ever built a team from top to bottom? It's always add a piece, lose a piece, stir interest with a big name UFA signing now and then, wash, rinse, repeat. That, IMO, is how you remain a 4-7 win team for 8 seasons. And there's nothing like resorting to insults to back your point up.

Nice straw man argument there. For the record, I wasn't enthused about the Kolb signing given his doing almost nothing in the NFL and injury history. But true fan-hood apparently now means you don't criticize the team, we're not supposed to come down hard on the franchise. There's apparently new management in charge and we should give them time before offering an opinion. Kolb was the latest in a long line of cast-offs brought in by this franchise who somehow were going to resurrect their careers. Holcomb, Fitz, VY, Tarvaris, and Kolb. At what point do people start questioning the QB decisions the franchise makes at the most important position? Based on the evidence, it appears the Bills don't know what they're doing at QB, despite having a new GM and HC. EJ had better be good and healthy because there's nothing behind him but UDFA talent and Matt Leinart.

"New" regime. Same old bad decision making,

Tarvaris wasn't available?

At some point the personnel on the DL need to be questioned. With all the supposed talent there, I would think they could stop the run, which no Bills defense has done in almost forever. And regardless of it being pre-season, the Pat White/Rex Grossman trio should not be beating you through the air like that. This will be a season of growing pains and that's precisely what happens when you have so many rookie or 2nd year players starting like Buffalo has. But what's more concerning is the DL should be a strength and yesterday it wasn't. I guess I should apologize in advance for my negativity.

We'll see how much different, spending-wise, the franchise is with President Russ versus the previous regime. Something tells me it'll be more similar that many expect or want.

Just really busy this time of year. Following the team, but from a marked distance for the first time in a while.

"The 2010 Draft: Results of a Top 5 Talent Evaluator" When does the book come out?

Nix made mention of the size of some of the OL guys he's acquired, particularly PS pickup Urbik who goes about 330. I don't recall him saying this, but if his OL picks in the draft are any evidence, he subscribed to the bigger is always better mentality of OL. Glenn is 345, which most NFL tackles aren't even close to while guys like Asper, Colin Brown, Pears, and Sam Young and others are not what I would call nimble and mobile. Besides, teams move college tackles to guard because they can't handle the speed of the NFL. Or they move them to guard as a last resort because a player they thought could play OT actually couldn't. It's looking like Glenn fits into the latter category despite what the team is saying now.

Neither do I. As we saw in this years draft, teams are going with the athletic guards early and often. Who'd have thought Kyle Long would go where he did anyway? There's a shift toward more mobile guys playing a position where dinosaurs like Nix thought he could insert plodding types who don't move well but win in the phone booth. One of the common denominators over multiple GM tenures has been an unwillingness to draft and retain their offensive linemen. Not doing so means that the shiny parts like their high picks at QB, RB, and WR don't function as well. Did all of these GM's and HC's have the same philosophy about building an OL or is someone else making decisions?

Well isn't that just special.

Let's not conflate the argument. The team has won no less than 4 games and no more than 7 since 2006. Both times the team showed any level of success in the past 8 seasons it quickly petered out after week 8. It's skepticism at this point to express some concern about this franchise given the track record, not the widely used negativity explanation. Is it negativity to think the team will struggle with: a rookie HC, a rookie OC, a likely rookie QB, 1-2 rookie WR's, the loss of their best OLineman, a new defense being implemented, a rookie ILB, and at least one new starter in the secondary? Does that lend itself to success? And is it reasonable to predict they're will be growing pains given these facts? And you forgot to walk back your unsubstantiated allegations about my presence on this board.

The old "throw it against the wall and see if it sticks" method. Why don't you try proving that I wasn't around early in the 2011 season before alleging it? Then again, this isn't the first time you've conducted yourself this way. I recall you saying I said the Bills 2010 UFA signings were bad, which I hadn't. I then asked you for evidence and you couldn't/didn't respond. It's the skeptical people who've been justified more often than not on this board. Of course, that skepticism angle is magically changed by some here to seem as though we take pleasure in saying that. I've been here for going on 7 years, but I'll be sure to bow to your omniscience and unsubstantiated allegations.

What does the decision to fire Cameron have to do with hiring a young inexperienced OC? Cameron was bad and experienced. Hackett is an unknown entity at the NFL level and has no experience coaching positions. Terrell Suggs was a former DPOY winner who suffered a serious injury, returned, and was only partially effective. Byrd is healthy, not quite a DPOY winner, and is not at camp due to a contract issue. The Ravens invested resources into their OL as someone else has pointed out in another thread. Glenn has 1 season and is still very much a work in progress. Wood an above average center, and Urbik is a RG that can win in a phone booth but offers little mobility, hence his playing RG not LG. What is the correlation? Anquan Boldin and Torrey Smith are proven NFL receivers. T.J. Graham is not, nor is rookie Marquise Goodwin, although they may be with game experience. Johnson remains the only proven NFL receiver on the roster. Spiller and Ray Rice are different types of backs. The former is a more outside the tackle runner, the latter being a more all-around talent. JaMarcus Russell had a big arm as well, and arm strength is often overrated. It's not a comparison of Russell to EJ either. Chandler is a short to medium range type. Smith is strictly a blocker, with Caussin, Gragg, and Provo complete unknowns who've taken few to zero NFL snaps. I'm speechless on this one. One is a future HOF'er with multiple All-Pro appearances and the other hasn't taken an NFL snap yet. Perhaps.

One of the hallmarks of our 21st century society, as demonstrated on this message board (and specifically in this thread), remains a complete intolerance of contrarian opinion. Those fans who aren't excited about the "new" Bills are deemed negative, told to get another team, and roundly criticized for questioning the happy training camp talk we typically see this time of year. We're left with ad hominem attacks precipitated by those who won't deign to understand why people don't think like them. Brandon can say what he wants, but talk is cheap. Didn't someone once say to show us the baby first?