When the Wheels Came off in 2009

[Hossage]

I lost faith in Jauron in 2007 when the Giants ran the ball 13 times in a row against us in the fourth quarter.

[DrDawkinstein]

UH WRONG!

 

People need to quit their anti Peters campaign. Ya his lazy, joke cracking, tv watching attitude got him to THREE STRAIGHT PROBOWLS!!!! If you think a lazy, no talent half stepper makes it to 3 probowls you are a freaking moron. Some people hate him so much they actually try to say the probowl doesn't mean anything. "Sour grapes" from the haters. They don't send bums to the probowl. YOU CAN'T QUESTION THE RULER BECAUSE YOU DON'T LIKE THE MEASUREMENT!!!

 

WE screwed the pooch and let a 3 time probowl LT get away because the front office are cheap bastards and wanted Peters to continue to play on his RT salary. For those who have conveniently forgotten, the contract Peters signed that he was trying to get out of was signed when he was a RT before becoming a multiple probowl LT.

 

im not arguing with a 10 year old on this. my post was about WAY more than just Jason Peters. as a matter of fact, I was referring to Jason Peters the LEAST out of the group. the original discussion was about the release of DOCKERY.

 

where did i ever say that i hated Peters in that post? i just mentioned his joking attitude and why some coaches who expect players to act professional at the important times wouldnt like it.

 

he WAS a lazy, half stepper his last year in Buffalo. the tape and his DIRECT QUOTES back that up.

 

also, if you think the pro bowl is any indication of actual skill, you havent been paying attention for the last decade or so. especially when it comes to linemen. its a POPULARITY VOTE.

 

ok, continue on with your ridiculous rant and your baseless assumptions...

[Cynical]

GE produces some of the worlds top managment talent. That's not a bad idea...

 

That might be great if the Bills were building "widgets", but given how NBC has handled the Tonight Show debacle, do we really want somebody from their entertainment division running the Bills?

 

I would like to think the Bills are at least trying to get beyond "stupid".

[DrDawkinstein]

That might be great if the Bills were building "widgets", but given how NBC has handled the Tonight Show debacle, do we really want somebody from their entertainment division running the Bills?

 

I would like to think the Bills are at least trying to get beyond "stupid".

 

I'd take GE Exec Jack Donaghy running this team, anyday

[Cynical]

I lost faith in Jauron in 2007 when the Giants ran the ball 13 times in a row against us in the fourth quarter.

 

I lost faith in Jauron AND red flagged Trent Edwards when Revis blitzed Edwards 29 consecutive times back in 2007.

 

The only reason Revis stopped was Edwards got hurt, and Losman came in.

[Hplarrm]

No...I thought the Levy hiring, from day one, was a bad mistake. I am one of the few who think that the Bills would be in much better shape, right now, had they kept Tom Donohoe. But, that is something we will never know...I just think they were much closer to being a perennial playoff contender, than they have been since. TD made his mistakes, but he wasn't afraid to make moves, and knew how the league worked.

 

There have been a ton of mistakes made in the history of this franchise (in all franchises), but previous mistakes (Ralph's relationships with Butler, Polian, Chuck Knox...hiring Tom Donohoe if you must) were all done with some degree of sound football logic... the Levy hiring was the first true sign, to me, that all the good will, and respect that the franchise had gained in the late 80's and 90's, had officially been pissed away. Even under TD, the franchise still had an air of legitimacy around it.The Bills had officially come full circle, and were, once again, going to be perennial doormats.

 

Believe me when I say it, Marv Levy is one of the best things to happen to the Buffalo Bills...the right man, in the right place at the right time as a head coach. As a "GM", not so much.

I certainly have no argument with the fact statement that the Marv as pseudo GM actions did not work. The most correct judgment he made in the end was to put a short time limit on the time he would act as a placeholder.

 

The thing I would disagree with though is an assertion that this mistake was some grand new sign that the wheels had come off the Bills bandwagon and if only they made some other decision after the initially clearly toxic in retrospect and actually fairly observable at the time series of bad moves which rest clearly on the doorstep of the team owner.

 

If you want to identify clear first signs it was the toxic relationship which only the owner and the GM have clear responsibility for between Mr. Ralph and John Butler when the wheels started to come off. TD was not a bad save to address this horrible situation (I mean your GM who has stalled you publicly on even discussing signing up jumps ship relatively quickly when the public negotiation period is now legal and leaves you with an immediate need to rebuild with you also HC less and armed with a suspiciously bad last draft).

 

TD was actually one of the few guys with a credible resume who had used his previous free year of Pitts pay to travel and meet/see players contacts and it made great sense to have him hit the ground running.

 

TD was a great football employee in my view. However, like any employee he needed management and like any human being he was not perfect.

 

Mr. Ralph deserves great praise for keeping the Bills here when if he was an Art Modell or Georgia Frontierre he could have taken a big bid and won and SB to boot. However, Mr. Ralph deserves praise for the reality he stuck it out here.

 

However, reality also demands we acknowledge that the football wheels began to detectably fall off when he fired the football guy Polian that substantially built the winning Bills.

 

Any fool then (like me) actually could see the wheels off when Butler screwed the Bills by playing Mr. Ralph and jumping ship. I think while one might forgive Mr. Ralph for getting fooled once, unfortunately reality points to his firing of Polian, his exercising poor football judgment in ignoring the cap in regard to Jimbo, leading the fruitless vesting in finding a new alleged QB savior, and a host of other bad judgments which he either drove or should have been a part of and any indictment really needs to start (and can pretty much stop giving TD, Marn, JP or whomever a dispensation because it all comes back to Mr. Ralph.

 

I think TD and Marv have a lot more in common as failed attempts by Mr. Ralph than trying to point to either as the cause of the problem.

[PDaDdy]

im not arguing with a 10 year old on this. my post was about WAY more than just Jason Peters. as a matter of fact, I was referring to Jason Peters the LEAST out of the group. the original discussion was about the release of DOCKERY.

 

where did i ever say that i hated Peters in that post? i just mentioned his joking attitude and why some coaches who expect players to act professional at the important times wouldnt like it.

 

he WAS a lazy, half stepper his last year in Buffalo. the tape and his DIRECT QUOTES back that up.

 

also, if you think the pro bowl is any indication of actual skill, you havent been paying attention for the last decade or so. especially when it comes to linemen. its a POPULARITY VOTE.

 

ok, continue on with your ridiculous rant and your baseless assumptions...

 

Sorry if I used your post as a vehicle to rant but please provide a link to the lazy half stepping quotes!!!! That would be news to apparently everyone but you. Since you did go there I'm not arguing with a deaf dumb and blind 3 year old. Wahhhhh waaaahhhhh. Jason Peters wanted more money so I will call him names and question his accomplishments in life.

 

He went from undrafted tight end to 3 time pro bowl LT inside 5 years. Lazy no talent guys do that all the time right? You are a reh -tard. How do you even have a drivers license?

[thewildrabbit]

The logic behind this is astoundingly retarded, and it completely ignores the facts and events that happened prior to Marv's hiring.

 

But hey, let's go with Ralph's cheap, because that's about the only level of logic you seem to grasp, despite it being wrong.

 

Yea well, I'm entitled to my opinion. I read all about Ralph Wilson's reasoning for the Marv Levy as GM hire, Somehow I feel Marv only took the job because he wanted to coach again, not be the GM. That still doesn't alter the fact that Marv was not a top NFL GM hire and did in fact come cheaper then a top NFL GM would have.

Dunno why I would point out that Ralph's cheap, he has never shown any history of being so...

 

 

Can't wait for the new Bills GM to come from the depths of GM or GE.

 

Your the one who seems to be having trouble grasping logic...

 

If you read my post completely then you read the part about 32 NFL teams and only a handful of them winning consistently, my reference was to hire a GM from one of those teams, like the Atlanta Falcons did in Thomas Dimitroff from the Patriots, like the Miami Dolphins did in Bill Parcell's, like the Cleveland Browns did with Mike Holmgren.

 

 

The Colts have Bills Polian as their president, the Ravens have Ozzie Newsome as their president. Both of those men are the best at what they do and the teams they run are consistently winning year after year. Who is the Buffalo Bills president?

[San Jose Bills Fan]

So, what are you getting at?

So, what are you not getting at?

 

What are you trying to say?

What are you not trying to say?

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it make a sound?

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it not make a sound?

 

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

What is the sound of one hand not clapping?

 

It's hard to win in the NFL.

It's not hard to win in the NFL.

[Conch]

In a discussion with Tim Graham, Lee Evans said the debacle of 2009 "started with the Peters thing," but called Walker's release the biggest stunner of them all.

 

I actually think it started with the release of Derrick Dockery.

 

He WAY underperformed his contract. No doubt his signing was one of the reasons John Guy was relieved of his duties. But did he deserve to be cut? Only if you're looking to save money and don't care about roster quality. They owed him less than $5 million in 2009.

 

In 2008 Dockery had 2 miserable games everyone remembers (Miami and NE to end of the season). But the rest of the time, he was an average LG, who typically provided a nice push in the run game. If he simply repeated his 2008 season, he would have been our best lineman for last year at least until Levitre's play picked up at the end. Back in DC, he had another solid season.

 

I regret the signing as I'm sure all of you do. But did you don't get a do-over. The choice was between keeping him or going with Kirk Chambers and Seth McKinney as your interior depth. Some liked the move because of the "message it sent," but what was the message? After refusing to pay Peters and cutting Walker rather than paying $3 M to a back up, the message seemed to be we think we can plug rookies and veteran minimum scrubs in at any position. And that was proven false by the O-line's performance.

 

Cutting Dockery actually compounded the initial mistake of signing him to a $49 million deal in the first place and was the first step down the path towards disaster that was the 2009 season.

The downfall started when Dick was retained after the previous season.

[Cynical]

Yea well, I'm entitled to my opinion. I read all about Ralph Wilson's reasoning for the Marv Levy as GM hire, Somehow I feel Marv only took the job because he wanted to coach again, not be the GM. That still doesn't alter the fact that Marv was not a top NFL GM hire and did in fact come cheaper then a top NFL GM would have.

 

1. So even though you admit to seeing and reading all the evidence and information regarding why Levy was hired, let's throw it out the window go with "Levy was hired because he was cheap."

 

I stand by my position. "Ralph is cheap" is about the only level of logic you grasp.

 

Dunno why I would point out that Ralph's cheap, he has never shown any history of being so...

 

Ten years ago the Bills were battling salary cap issues.

Three years ago, the Bills made Dockery one of the highest paid OG in the history of the NFL

Do I need to bring up Kelsay and Schobel?

 

But you are right.

 

"Ralph is cheap".

 

Your the one who seems to be having trouble grasping logic...

 

If you read my post completely then you read the part about 32 NFL teams and only a handful of them winning consistently, my reference was to hire a GM from one of those teams, like the Atlanta Falcons did in Thomas Dimitroff from the Patriots, like the Miami Dolphins did in Bill Parcell's, like the Cleveland Browns did with Mike Holmgren.

 

Let me guess. You were pissed off beyond belief the day the Falcons announced the hiring of Dimitroff.

You just knew the Falcons scored big time with his signing. And when Dimitroff signed Mike Smith to be his new HC ...

 

During the 2009 off-season, Dimitroff declared the Falcons were not going to be major players in FA.

 

If Dimitroff made that statement as the Bills GM, you would have declared Wilson was meddling and the number of "Ralph is cheap" posts by you would have shot up.

 

The Colts have Bills Polian as their president, the Ravens have Ozzie Newsome as their president. Both of those men are the best at what they do and the teams they run are consistently winning year after year. Who is the Buffalo Bills president?

 

The fact you mention Polian is classic. How many times did you run around screaming "Ralph is cheap" when you heard of that promotion/hire?

 

Who was team president prior to the one now?

[thewildrabbit]

1. So even though you admit to seeing and reading all the evidence and information regarding why Levy was hired, let's throw it out the window go with "Levy was hired because he was cheap."

 

I stand by my position. "Ralph is cheap" is about the only level of logic you grasp.

 

Ten years ago the Bills were battling salary cap issues.

Three years ago, the Bills made Dockery one of the highest paid OG in the history of the NFL

Do I need to bring up Kelsay and Schobel?

 

But you are right.

 

"Ralph is cheap".

 

 

 

Let me guess. You were pissed off beyond belief the day the Falcons announced the hiring of Dimitroff.

You just knew the Falcons scored big time with his signing. And when Dimitroff signed Mike Smith to be his new HC ...

 

During the 2009 off-season, Dimitroff declared the Falcons were not going to be major players in FA.

 

If Dimitroff made that statement as the Bills GM, you would have declared Wilson was meddling and the number of "Ralph is cheap" posts by you would have shot up.

 

 

The fact you mention Polian is classic. How many times did you run around screaming "Ralph is cheap" when you heard of that promotion/hire?

 

Who was team president prior to the one now?

 

BTW, did I mention... RALPH IS CHEAP!