BillsVet

Everyone is a jokester lately. Or someone's drinking heavily.

What's he got to lose? Simply achieve mediocrity and it'll allow you to keep the 3M per year gig embarrassing your team each week.

Management is the origin of all this team's problems. The owner's handpicked people are nowhere near being average NFL talent or coaching evaluators. Ironic amid all of this remains their reliance on people selected by Donahoe to manage personnel for a GM untrained to build or maintain a football team. It comes as little surprise that marketing man Brandon is unable to craft a winner, let alone have the power to fire the HC I suspect he wanted gone after last year.

So that money spent on Hangartner was merely a bridge to Wood? Wonderful plan, especially given this franchise's track record in building a great OL. Another 10M wasted on an underachieving UFA, only to be replaced by a recent draft pick according to you. And who's asking about comparing players that start at very different positions? Finding quality guards is much easier than finding All Pro LT's who can hold their own on an island. This is demonstrated by the multitude of OT's taken in the top half of the first round versus centers.

Whichever source states that Peters has given up the most sacks is what they'll use. And it's because they eat up the PR from OBD regarding a player who went from UDFA ST'er to 2nd team All-Pro. The way some talk around here, it's their money that Peters was earning.

There's no guarantee that Bell will be half the player Peters was. Levitre and Wood aren't winning at the point of attack. Hangartner is an upgrade over Fowler/Preston, but nothing special. Meanwhile, the RT spot is manned by journeymen more likely to be UFL players next season than anything else. So go ahead and give them an out for cutting or trading their veterans and replacing them with rookies or guys changing positions. Their management decided to enter the season with less experienced/talented players. That's a recipe for failure, but evidently enough Bills fans are already chalking this season up to self-imposed youthful mistakes. Marketing will have an easy time with you.

I cannot wait to see what happens on 1/4 when the season is over. But you know that there's an outside chance the PR folks get together and find a way to explain this season away. The saddest thing is, I can see them keeping DJ and passing off their failure by talking up injuries, youth, and the tough AFCE. DJ helps to ruin Marv's legacy with every game coached and line of rhetoric he utters.

DJ is a disease, and I'm not sure he realizes the decisions he makes on gameday are kill morale. Being at the NO game, I can't help but remember punting down 10 with about 7 minutes to go. That gutless move has to have an affect on players and I just don't buy that they love him as much as the Bills say.

DJ didn't get hired after his interim stint in Detroit back in 2005. He came to Buffalo and has proven that he's capable of being nothing more than a secondary coach. I don't see him being retained beyond 09, but even if he is, he'll collect a few million before he's through with Buffalo. That is, if RW doesn't sue to prevent having to pay him.

April's ST's were good in 08 despite losing Aiken, Stamer, and Haggan who was suspended and not re-signed. In came a guy like Wendling and they were, IIRC, up at the top of the league. Still, as nice as it is to have good ST's, they're not getting it done all over the field. They could have the best ST's and still be 3-5.

Replying to your own post...that's the epitome of greatness. And by greatness I mean not great.

Remember when Josh Reed would move in motion a few years ago and we all knew it'd be a running play? I didn't think it could get worse, but it has. Unfortunately, there are still mouth-breather fans who believe players are at fault. It's not that simple when the people managing those players cannot figure out how to use them. That said, if TO drops a pass and is wide open, it's his fault. But TO was used a lot in motion last year in Dallas to mitigate his issue getting off the LOS. Apparently, DJ doesn't know that and insists on avoiding any type of motion. DJ is the worst coach of the past 25 years. And I remember Rich Kotite.

Playing at 219 is a wee bit small for being a NFL LB (cue the Coy Wire mention) and won't help make the run defense better. This is an indictment of the team's inability to properly build depth these past few seasons. I've never seen anything like this, and haven't noticed any other team moving guys from S to LB and back. First it was Nic Harris, a fifth round rookie and now Scott. When you've gotta convert SS's into OLB's when a starter goes down it's not a solution, it's desperation.

With all these injuries, the propaganda is writing itself to keep this coach: youth and injuries.

For RW to ask forgiveness of BP is impossible and we all know it. RW is a man who won't put Lou Saban on the Wall of Fame, the same man who fired Wade Phillips and sued to not pay him. RW may have mellowed in his age, but in his mind, the money man is more important than the guy who builds the team which makes the money. Littman and Brandon's job status is tied to RW's longevity, because they ain't going anywhere. At least we're not Raiders fans. Because that's all I've got right now.

Most of us, myself included, want to see top to bottom change in this organization. Someone like Chris Polian or another proven scouting mind is absolutely essential to getting this team off the NFL scrap heap. At the same time, I'll contend there is no one within the NFL personnel community of pro and amateur scouting directors who would work for RW given his penchant for meddling. Enough men have been run out of this town by the likes of RW and Littman that it'd be hard to find a good one. I'll also speculate that few coaches want to work in this environment either, which isn't much better than Oakland and Washington. These teams are toxic workplaces, and no coach wants to start here because HC's generally have one shot at success.

Maybe Marv is available as well. As bad as his tenure was as GM, no one would dare criticize him for being HC during the glory years. For the record, George Wilson was the only player before the game to visit the fans in in sections 122-123. Solid guy.

Randy Lerner is another clueless owner who made a dumb move in hiring his HC before the GM. Mangini wasn't in demand, but RL felt the need to hire the guy. Mangenius decided to hire Kokinis away from Baltimore, but he wasn't the true GM. It was more of a Belichick type scenario. Reminds me of Dan Snyder hiring a guy for OC without having a HC, and then promoting the OC to HC despite never being a coordinator. Any owner that think they can run the personnel side of the house is too arrogant to be successful. Al Davis comes to mind, but at least 25-30 years ago he had a clue.

And yet fans who came here to question the direction of the team were criticized as being pessimistic, negative, and stuck in the past. Many of those fans said an OL with essentially 3 rookies would not be able protect their QB and open up running lanes. Many of those fans said DJ would not get any better in his 9th full NFL season as a HC. Many of those fans asked how a marketing man masquerading as a GM with close oversight from the 91 year old owner would turn this team around. All the while having Tom Donahoe era personnel men working for him. These fans don't need apologies because they knew before the season began that this team was in serious trouble. What's pathetic is that some fans who criticized them now are nowhere to be found. And that is what it is.

A caller questioned the reaction players have when front office moves are made. Transactions like firing a GM, trading players, et al. The idea was, what does a QB think about players such as Peters being traded when their fate depends on guys like the LT. Or when a well-respected executive is fired seemingly out of the blue I can't directly quote TT, but he said there were lots of players teed off in 93 when it happened. They loved and feared Polian, who he added, still maintains a house in the area. I don't want to get hopes up, especially on TBD, but he said BP loves WNY. Now, I don't expect, nor should anyone look for Polian to arrive anytime soon. I just found it interesting that the players loved the man and could not understand why he was let go. It shouldn't surprise anyone really.

Jauron needs to get up at his weekly "it's my fault" speech to the media tomorrow and resign. Jerry Sullivan's article in the Buffalo News make a point of DJ not knowing much about offense, despite having been around the game for years. The scariest thing is, he had a big hand in building the team from at least 06-08.

He's hiring more PR staff?

Jauron has no vision for building a team, particularly on offense. There are no slants, no PA Pass, no draw plays, no passes between the hash marks unless it's to a point target, and certainly the most predictable offenses. Most of it is related to the 4 rookies on the OL and physically deficient QB. Still, that's not an excuse to run a vanilla offense in Week 8 of the NFL season. What were they doing in all those weeks of minicamps and training camp? Jauron's had 5 OC's in 9 NFL seasons and not coincidentally all of them were unable to craft an offense for their HC.

When a HC goes 2-8 in his final ten to finish 7-9 after a 5-1 start, how does he get fired? Jauron could go 4-12 and this team's propagandists would find a reason to keep him.

That worked so well for Polian. The best personnel man in the past 25 years was fired by the owner who got his HOF ring today. This will be RW's team until the end. We'll never know all that happens behind closed doors at OBD, but it's noteworthy that the Bills went from having perhaps the best front office in the early nineties to having the worst one 15 years later. Yet through it all, RW still runs the show.