Tim Graham:Whaley wasted everyone's time.

[JohnC]

 

The point about Belichick is that the goal and thus the focus should be success on the scoreboard. Having large ROI for the owner, the really nice flat-screen in every office, or the best free office lattes are nice, but not the mission. Belichick focuses on winning football games and those other things stem directly out of that, not the other way around.

 

And success is absolutely crucial, and it has to come quickly. We've seen the tiny brightly painted car circle the ring and the clowns pour out often enough to understand distractions. If the brain-trust can't plan and can't deliver wins, it's noise and smoke that amounts to historic ineptitude.

Do you seriously believe that I am critical of BB and the Pat organization? They are the model to follow. On personnel issues, cap management, coaching etc. they are ahead of the curve. Belichick certainly does focus on winning games, as do most other organizations and staffers. The difference is he is smarter and established an organization where he everyone on the staff from top to bottom are imbued with the same ethos and approach to their jobs. Compare that to the Bills who have a history of ill-fitting misfits working in cross purposes throughout the organization?

 

Let me say what I have said in prior posts that has drawn scathing responses: There is no quick fix to the mess that the new regime inherited. At the minimum it is going to take at least three years before getting to the point of being taken seriously. That's what happens when you go a quarter of a century without a franchise qb. When the spendthrift Pegula hired Rex he lost a lot of credibility and allowed the buffoon coach to set this franchise back a number of years. On that malignant hire the onus is on the owners.

 

I don't believe you and I differ in our assessment of the organization and how it has functioned over the past generation or so. This backwater organization desperately needed to be restaffed and modernized. Only time will tell but I think the earnest but confused owner has learned from some of his glaring mistakes. So far I'm encouraged by the reorganization and new staff. There seems to be more of a vision and less of an incremental and patchwork approach to running the operation. I'm cautiously optimistic but realize that it is going to take more time than most others do.

Edited May 29, 2017 by JohnC

[3rdand12]

Do you seriously believe that I am critical of BB and the Pat organization? They are the model to follow. On personnel issues, cap management, coaching etc. they are ahead of the curve. Belichick certainly does focus on winning games, as do most other organizations and staffers. The difference is he is smarter and established an organization where he everyone on the staff from top to bottom are imbued with the same ethos and approach to their jobs. Compare that to the Bills who have a history of ill-fitting misfits working in cross purposes throughout the organization?

 

Let me say what I have said in prior posts that has drawn scathing responses: There is no quick fix to the mess that the new regime inherited. At the minimum it is going to take at least three years before getting to the point of being taken seriously. That's what happens when you go a quarter of a century without a franchise qb. When the spendthrift Pegula hired Rex he lost a lot of credibility and allowed the buffoon coach to set this franchise back a number of years. On that malignant hire the onus is on the owners.

 

I don't believe you and I differ in our assessment of the organization and how it has functioned over the past generation or so. This backwater organization desperately needed to be restaffed and modernized. Only time will tell but I think the earnest but confused owner has learned from some of his glaring mistakes. So far I'm encouraged by the reorganization and new staff. There seems to be more of a vision and less of an incremental and patchwork approach to running the operation. I'm cautiously optimistic but realize that it is going to take more time than most others do.

Slow and steady from herein could win the race.

Buffalo Fans are not known for their patience.

But this is now the time for it.

[vorpma]

Do you seriously believe that I am critical of BB and the Pat organization? They are the model to follow. On personnel issues, cap management, coaching etc. they are ahead of the curve. Belichick certainly does focus on winning games, as do most other organizations and staffers. The difference is he is smarter and established an organization where he everyone on the staff from top to bottom are imbued with the same ethos and approach to their jobs. Compare that to the Bills who have a history of ill-fitting misfits working in cross purposes throughout the organization?

 

Let me say what I have said in prior posts that has drawn scathing responses: There is no quick fix to the mess that the new regime inherited. At the minimum it is going to take at least three years before getting to the point of being taken seriously. That's what happens when you go a quarter of a century without a franchise qb. When the spendthrift Pegula hired Rex he lost a lot of credibility and allowed the buffoon coach to set this franchise back a number of years. On that malignant hire the onus is on the owners.

 

I don't believe you and I differ in our assessment of the organization and how it has functioned over the past generation or so. This backwater organization desperately needed to be restaffed and modernized. Only time will tell but I think the earnest but confused owner has learned from some of his glaring mistakes. So far I'm encouraged by the reorganization and new staff. There seems to be more of a vision and less of an incremental and patchwork approach to running the operation. I'm cautiously optimistic but realize that it is going to take more time than most others do.

[thewildrabbit]

Yep. Total POS of an NFL owner (great humanitarian though).

Ralph Wilson was a really great NFL owner at times.

 

Over time there have been much, much worse NFL owners by far. Wilson loved his fans and dearly wanted the team to remain in Buffalo. Gotta love him for that. He realized Buffalo was a small market, blue collar city and kept the seat prices lowest in the league so all fans could attend games.

 

For the first super bowl Wilson took every employee he could from ball boys, cheerleaders, office workers. The thing is... he learned that winning can be very expensive after those SB's as all the players think they are now worth more money as did the coaches, FO people. Besides that every NFL team wants a piece of the thunder so they steal players, coaches, scouts, doctors and trainers.

 

Ralph Wilson had several serious faults at times. The biggest thing was he became very controlling again in wanting to micromanage most everything to do with the team, draft included. His other big fault was that he needed the team to make money to support himself and his hobbies. Like racing horses and collecting fine art. Another flaw was his frugality and cantankerous nature in firing GM's Polian, Butler and HC Wade Phillips. He didn't mind playing the players top money at times. But it seems he really disliked paying top dollar to coaches and FO people like Chuck Knox and John Butler.

 

My take is from 2000 to 2005 Mr Wilson did attempt to step away from the team in hiring Tom Donahoe and then after felt there was nobody he could trust to run his team. Which is a big reason as to why he asked Marv Levy to be his GM and poor Marv just wanted to coach again.

 

 

Bills fans should be very happy in the future. We now have a billionaire owner who doesn't need the team to make money to support himself, his family or hobbies. This owner can afford to hire the very best and brightest in all aspects of the franchise. All we fans can do is hope he learns who that is very quickly.

[JohnC]

Slow and steady from herein could win the race.

Buffalo Fans are not known for their patience.

But this is now the time for it.

I think that you would be surprised at the fact that the majority of people do believe patience is required to get this franchise back on track to accomplishing something that is meaningful. This battered fan base has historically been exposed to short term deals that at best could get us to the margins of being a wild-card contender. This franchise has lived by the motto of : Striving to be mediocre. And the fans know it and are tired of it.

 

What I have witnessed is a complete overhaul of the front office and scouting department. All the selected front office staffers are credible selections who although are mostly youthful still have much experience. Is McDermott's selection to be the HC a tremendous hire? No. It is simply a good hire. And to his credit the young HC started off well by wisely assembling a veteran coaching staff to work with.

 

Success is predicated on long term competency. Making gimmicky moves to manufacture interest to get by on a year to year basis in not good enough. The product on the field and not the annual marketing theme is going to be the focus of the organization. I'm as much of a skeptic as anyone. But I do get the sense that this new regime is more purposeful with their individual decisions to act within the outline of their vision. There are no guarantees. But if you consistently do things well there will be a good payoff.

[3rdand12]

I think that you would be surprised at the fact that the majority of people do believe patience is required to get this franchise back on track to accomplishing something that is meaningful. This battered fan base has historically been exposed to short term deals that at best could get us to the margins of being a wild-card contender. This franchise has lived by the motto of : Striving to be mediocre. And the fans know it and are tired of it.

 

What I have witnessed is a complete overhaul of the front office and scouting department. All the selected front office staffers are credible selections who although are mostly youthful still have much experience. Is McDermott's selection to be the HC a tremendous hire? No. It is simply a good hire. And to his credit the young HC started off well by wisely assembling a veteran coaching staff to work with.

 

Success is predicated on long term competency. Making gimmicky moves to manufacture interest to get by on a year to year basis in not good enough. The product on the field and not the annual marketing theme is going to be the focus of the organization. I'm as much of a skeptic as anyone. But I do get the sense that this new regime is more purposeful with their individual decisions to act within the outline of their vision. There are no guarantees. But if you consistently do things well there will be a good payoff.

Perhaps the key word is Consistency? I do agree with the premise.

[BADOLBILZ]

 

 

You were eager to post the above take down on me, but too lazy to spend a moment to find out how unbelievably wrong you were?

 

To recap: It's not difficult for you to make false accusations about me, but it's too difficult to find Tim in the members section, look at his content and find the Tim Graham thread right here.

 

Guess who never posted in it? Guess who never did anything you suggested above? C'mon. Take a guess. You can do it.

 

But yeah...I'm the one who hurts this forum.

 

Where did I say you were in a specific thread?

 

You are a boring troll.............just keep obsessing and listing a bunch of half cocked reasons to trash a guy you've never met and his profession whose work costs you not a dime to read online.

 

The thing about trolls is that you tend to attract a crowd of follower trolls......which is why I've called you out for attacking fans here.

 

You were inherently wrong. If you can't see the issue at it's core then you're a dope.

[BADOLBILZ]

Ralph Wilson was a really great NFL owner at times.

 

Over time there have been much, much worse NFL owners by far. Wilson loved his fans and dearly wanted the team to remain in Buffalo. Gotta love him for that. He realized Buffalo was a small market, blue collar city and kept the seat prices lowest in the league so all fans could attend games.

 

For the first super bowl Wilson took every employee he could from ball boys, cheerleaders, office workers. The thing is... he learned that winning can be very expensive after those SB's as all the players think they are now worth more money as did the coaches, FO people. Besides that every NFL team wants a piece of the thunder so they steal players, coaches, scouts, doctors and trainers.

 

Ralph Wilson had several serious faults at times. The biggest thing was he became very controlling again in wanting to micromanage most everything to do with the team, draft included. His other big fault was that he needed the team to make money to support himself and his hobbies. Like racing horses and collecting fine art. Another flaw was his frugality and cantankerous nature in firing GM's Polian, Butler and HC Wade Phillips. He didn't mind playing the players top money at times. But it seems he really disliked paying top dollar to coaches and FO people like Chuck Knox and John Butler.

 

My take is from 2000 to 2005 Mr Wilson did attempt to step away from the team in hiring Tom Donahoe and then after felt there was nobody he could trust to run his team. Which is a big reason as to why he asked Marv Levy to be his GM and poor Marv just wanted to coach again.

 

 

Bills fans should be very happy in the future. We now have a billionaire owner who doesn't need the team to make money to support himself, his family or hobbies. This owner can afford to hire the very best and brightest in all aspects of the franchise. All we fans can do is hope he learns who that is very quickly.

 

 

Ralph was never a great owner. Did about as many bad things as good as an owner. He's in the HOF because he was an AFL founder who owned the team for over half a century.

 

He was mercurial in nature and really never understood the game which made his meddlesome nature very destructive.

 

There were worse owners for sure.......fortunately for Ralph, some were right in his division.........but eventually those type of owners died off or had to sell their teams and unfortunately for Ralph they were replaced by smarter men than their predecessors.

[oldmanfan]

 

 

Ralph was never a great owner. Did about as many bad things as good as an owner. He's in the HOF because he was an AFL founder who owned the team for over half a century.

 

He was mercurial in nature and really never understood the game which made his meddlesome nature very destructive.

 

There were worse owners for sure.......fortunately for Ralph, some were right in his division.........but eventually those type of owners died off or had to sell their teams and unfortunately for Ralph they were replaced by smarter men than their predecessors.

Ralph is in the HOF because of the seminal contributions he made to the league. The AFL and its teams would have collapsed if not for Ralph. The TV contracts that started the league on to the prosperity it has today were started by Ralph.

[PromoTheRobot]

Slow and steady from herein could win the race.

Buffalo Fans are not known for their patience.

But this is now the time for it.

Another 7-9 season and there will be calls for McDermott's and Beane's heads.

[3rdand12]

Another 7-9 season and there will be calls for McDermott's and Beane's heads.

Of course there will. Nature of the beast. As long as Pegulas can be thick skinned about I am fine

If Sean /Beaner are building a strong foundation from the heaping pile that Rex left

[IDBillzFan]

 

Disagree and dislike, but when your biggest complaint within the Bills Universe is Tim Graham there is obviously something more at play.

 

LA was one of a group that attacked Graham when he was posting here......and LA was dead wrong for doing so.

 

Chasing Graham off denied the forum of potential input from him..........so LA hurt the forum.

 

Rather than own up to his mistake he has made it a vendetta to run the guy down here..............even as Graham earns accolades for his work, making it even more clear it was our loss.

 

That's the deal with LA.......he has done things to hurt the forum and rather than own up to them he pretends it's not so.

 

That's why I called him out for his fan shaming and attempts to shout down discussion on the developing issues within the organization at the beginning of the drought.

 

You wrote the above.

 

Let me put it in crayola one last time so even you can understand it: I never attacked Tim Graham when he was posting here. I had no role in his departure.

 

Not once. Not ever.

 

Please stop lying.

[vincec]

Another 7-9 season and there will be calls for McDermott's and Beane's heads.

Yeah, patience.

 

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

Yeah, patience.

 

....and 14 season tix holders cancelling in mass protest....that wlll fix 'em...........

[Rico]

 

You wrote the above.

 

Let me put it in crayola one last time so even you can understand it: I never attacked Tim Graham when he was posting here. I had no role in his departure.

 

Not once. Not ever.

 

Please stop lying.

What about ICE? NJ Sue? BF?

 

Now those posters, I miss.

[teef]

Another 7-9 season and there will be calls for McDermott's and Beane's heads.

i kind of expect these results. not because mcdermott won't be an effective coach, but this team certainly needs some tweeking. i'd love to see the playoffs in year one, but i don't think it's too likely. we just have to see this one through.

Of course there will. Nature of the beast. As long as Pegulas can be thick skinned about I am fine

If Sean /Beaner are building a strong foundation from the heaping pile that Rex left

agreed.

[IDBillzFan]

What about ICE? NJ Sue? BF?

Now those posters, I miss.

What about them?

[Thurman#1]

...who the hell is knocking Buffalo?.....a journalist of his enviable prowess should be able to go anywhere to write about winners......

 

 

No, you really are knocking Buffalo.

 

Assuming that a successful person would want to be elsewhere just because he's successful, you may not have been thinking that way, but it is absolutely what you're implying.

 

Journalists don't have any particular reason to care whether the team they're writing about wins or loses. It's fans who care about that. If Graham stays here it's probably because he likes Buffalo. And that in fact is what he's written several times.

Another 7-9 season and there will be calls for McDermott's and Beane's heads.

 

 

Agreed, but it won't be smart people making those calls.

 

I see a season of around 6 or 7 wins. It's the most common guess league-wide on us. We're a team climbing out of major cap problems, a team that is switching schemes on both sides of the ball, a team apparently without a franchise QB, and not a wildly talented roster right now.

 

So yeah, there'll be calls for their heads, but the Pegulas will have understood that some time is likely to be necessary

Edited May 31, 2017 by Thurman#1

[Thurman#1]

 

The Pulitzer stuff I admitted, straight up, to being subjective. People giving their peers awards means less to me than it does to those who need to receive them. It does say a lot about me, which is what opinions tend to do. Fortunately, I don't care what people think of me. If I did, I'd probably be butt-hurt about what Badol just wrote to you about me, then I'd cry and run away from this forum.

 

 

 

Anyone ignoring awards given in any field for excellence because it doesn't mean much to them is only saying that they don't care about either that field or about excellence.

 

What you precisely said was that you felt that those awards "carry little water but for two groups: the people who give them, and the people who receive them." That's more than saying that you don't care, it's disparaging the awards, and more, it's just not true. Plenty of people who care about journalism care about excellence in it.

 

The Pulitzers carry plenty of water.

 

 

 

But, y'know, you'd have to be pretty thin-skinned to leave a sports team message board because someone hurt your feelings.

 

 

Just not true. If there's one thing we know about Graham from his twitter, it's that he's not thin-skinned. He keeps a lot of guys who consistently attack him and leaves a lot of unpleasant posts to be seen.

The alternative to being thin-skinned is to look at the experience and make a business decision that the positives of being here are no longer outweighing the negatives, that it's an effort rather than a pleasure. It wasn't a part of his job, and the people who were annoying him really were being consistent jerks, and in a really non-entertaining way. I wouldn't have stuck around if I were him.

 

Again, I'm amazed that Wawrow has done so despite all the crap he's taken for it through the years.

 

 

 

 

I'm fairly certain the Graham thread happened after the crash. He can find it in the archives. We'll wait.

 

I'm off to be with my family for the day, but will try to keep an eye open for when he posts everything I put in that thread to run him off and ruin this board.

 

Hah, I'm on that thread you posted from 2010. You're right, the crash must've come before.

Edited May 31, 2017 by Thurman#1

[Rico]

What about them?

Three other people that got run off the board.