BillsVet

The Bills are 8th in operating income? Guess the pleas of poverty aren't as legitimate as OBD wants us to believe.

He's not an obnoxious homer cheerleader for the team, ergo he's not worth reading. But yeah, I agree with JW and laugh at how threads discussing so-called negative media personalities generate so many pages of talk. In the battle of homers versus objective fans, the latter has won a heck of a lot more the past decade. Too bad there's no score kept.

All GM's make fun of other team's publicly. Right. That's how we know they care when they run down other franchises. And I'm not talking about RW's strategy in this thread. We're talking about the credibility of a man who throws out whoppers and expects people to keep on believing them. Playing Jasper as a DT to keep other team from seeing him as an OL? You've got to be kidding. Go ahead and drop the misery factor, whatever. Very predictable. When you've successfully averaged about 6 wins a season for more than a decade, well, some people aren't happy. Check the ST sales lately? 55k in 08-09 and now probably beneath 40k just 2 years later? Yeah, there are quite a few fans not buying into the talk anymore because the play on the field doesn't live up to it.

I've got some respect for Gailey because he is pretty open and honest about the status of the team. He just coaches for a bad franchise that doesn't get him the tools. But to give kudos to NIx for another happy talk interview reeks of absurdity. This is the same guy who, at his introductory PC, made fun of the Raiders coaching job and said the team wasn't that far away heading into the 2010 off-season. He followed that up at Gailey's intro PC by claiming they got 35 calls a day for the HC job and said 80% of the reports on the HC search were wrong. On Sunday all the talk ends. It's time to put up or shut-up, which BN did quite well last season when things hit the skids by Week 3.

Pears was a member of 4 organizations in 3 years: Denver, Jacksonville, Oakland, and now Buffalo. It doesn't matter if he started 4 seasons ago, regardless of what Nix says about the player. The starting OL is a major cause for concern.

You said "it is pretty clear that we have a EDIT: better pass rush and can stop the run." If that's not a conclusion I don't know what it is. And it's being made from basically 3 pre-season games where the starters played about 3 quarters of football.

I thought no one is allowed to draw conclusions from pre-season contests, right?

Upon further review, the Patriots have won 10 games each of the past 8 seasons, 101 in total. During that same span, Buffalo has a little more than half that, 51. You gotta love it when folks try to take the Pats down a notch and completely ignore how bad the Bills have been. But yes, one draft illustrates how much closer the Bills are to the Patriots level. Doesn't mean I don't hate them, but man is this a stretch.

Not surprised about Hangartner getting let go. His injury last season finally gave them an excuse to play Wood at center and get some return from a former first round pick who had been playing the least important OL position, RG. Time will tell if this is the right decision, but I'm not a big fan of the backup center being their starting LG. The Vikings game last year demonstrated a team should have a versatile veteran who can man all three interior spots. The Bills don't have that with GH's release, but the move saves some money so it will provide a benefit to the powers that be.

Len Pasquarelli seemed to defend Donahoe an awful lot. Don't think that was a coincidence. You've practically answered your own question. Brandon went underground to find a GM in late November/December 2009 and Nix admitted he wasn't contacted about the job until about a week before he was hired (circa 12/23/09). What was Mr. Smithers doing all that time aside from getting to talk to Shanahan? I suspect asking for other interviews and getting turned down at every corner. This happened again when Nix started to look for a HC. He was turned down by no less than 4 candidates, Jim Harbaugh, Ron Rivera, Russ Grimm, Brian Schottenheimer, and then Leslie Frazier pulled his name from consideration. The GM and HC search, IMO, illustrates how the rest of the NFL thinks about the Bills. Some can't fathom that a HC or GM job isn't attractive beyond less than in-demand candidates, but how else can these hires be explained?

I suspect there'll be more cuts when they survey the scene tonight. Guess Wrotto and Howard's GT connections weren't enough.

Going back a few years, the Bills have typically failed when trying to replace veterans. They allowed UFA's to walk and subsequently replaced them with rookies. At least this season they replaced Posluszny with what appears to be quality ILB's in Barnett and perhaps Morrison. For the most part though, they've used the draft to replace rather than build, especially since 2006. Draft Whitner to replace Milloy. Draft Lynch to replace McGahee. Draft Posluszny to replace Fletcher. Draft McKelvin to replace Clements. And when they drafted high to rebuild their team, it resulted in busts like McCargo and Maybin.

Especially ones that he probably campaigned for who's commanding 3M+ per season. I highly doubt this franchise gives up on TT so quickly and takes that kind of hit. Brown may wind up on the PS, but Thigpen's contract keeps him on this team.

In keeping with the lowered expectations mindset, 8 wins in 2011 to prove the rebuild is working. Winning 6 or less does reveal that Buddy's 4 year plan is still on track to get them into playoff contention by 2013. Of course, the stadium lease has expired by then, but pain and patience is necessary.

2010 draft class going into their second season features 0 starters. Can't call it a complete waste, but Spiller is a role player, Troup struggles, Carrington is being used as a super hybrid LB in sub-packages, Easley will get the nod because they have nothing but bodies at WR, and Batten and Moats are depth at this point. For a still rebuilding team, I'd expect them to have some of their 2nd year players starting. Well, Buddy has a much higher rate of success drafting in the top 5.

Better to have a big fat unproven guy plucked from someone's PS than a reasonably priced veteran who wasn't acquired by the current regime. Hangartner is getting the Gurode treatment and doesn't fit Nix' mantra of bigger equals better. It doesn't help that he'll earn about 1.75M more than the prospective starter at RG. They're 25M beneath the cap and will be paring it down in short order.

Merriman will be doing modified lights out dances for the training staff lots this season.

Hairston's prowess as a NFL OT can be deduced after 1 pre-season game against what appears to be an average defense?

Hard to tell an outlier versus a norm, especially with trades so infrequent in the NFL. After the Troy Vincent release in 2006, I find it hard to believe Overdorf doesn't have enough gravitas at OBD to get fired. He may not be part of the inner circle, but is well aware he carries weight. Ultimately, as has been said thousands of times previously, it's an ownership problem. And in the interim the Bills will continue wandering in the proverbial desert.

Overdorf's job puts him in the middle of the personnel and business sides of the house and moves like the Evans trade make it appear that he bleeds a little too much into both. While the Williams contract extension on the surface appears very team friendly, I can't imagine morale was raised knowing the GM isn't as involved in trades. Players have to know the functions of a GM versus the capologist and the latter isn't determining compensation or even who can be dealt. Jim Overdorf is still not part of the solution in Buffalo. He is one of the problems that anyone who works for the Bills has to face, regardless of negotiating one seemingly team friendly contract.

That's where he learned to cut players mid-season without telling the GM or HC. No one said they could anticipate the future. This is a team that paid Dockery and Walker, then got ticked when Peters wanted more money for playing the hardest OL position. Or when they decided to keep Losman in '08 after Edwards won the starting job. Or cut Crowell when he decided to have surgery in 2009 before the season. The blunders never end with this franchise.

ST sales dropped 20% last year off 2009 numbers and I wouldn't be surprised to see another 10-15% drop in 2011. If memory serves, they didn't announce final ST sales until late into the regular season last year, as opposed to 2008 and 2009 when they quickly announced sales were in the 55k area.

Nix had better be right, or those big balls of his are going into the vice grip. So far, his decision making on the OL and at WR aren't looking good. Still, any time the Bills drop or trade a high priced player once could think that it's engineered by someone above the GM level for a financial reason. True or not, the reputation of the organization makes it a possibility.

I've always felt the franchise was just buying time with most of their moves. And I too believe that this mantra of building through the draft is nothing more than a means of getting time on their side. Whether it was the intention or not, hiring Marv bought the team a few years. Signing Owens bought them another year re: ticket sales. And last season they brought on a new GM, AGM, and HC who will need time. At what point are they out of time? As bad as TD was, his record from 01-05 was the same as the Levy/Brandon years with Nix's first season: 31-49. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

Apparently almost anyone can play LT as long as they can move their feet. Arm length and anchor strength aren't important. Cue the circus music. The changes to the offensive line remind me of the offense leading up to the 2009 season opener. Wild changes borne of sheer desperation which ultimately resulted in another lost season. Guess Buddy's going to be MIA for about the first 8 weeks of the season again. EDIT: And now they've PO'd the best RB on the roster in favor of their 3rd down back who has poor instincts and can't run between the tackles. Are they rebuilding or tearing down?