RIP Daryle Lamonica

[BobbyC81]

13 hours ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

If anyone believed Allen would be this good he'd have went #1 overall......right?   Bills should have sold the farm to get to #1.......what were they thinking? 

 

And the fact is that NONE of the picks acquired in the Patrick Mahomes deal were used to get Josh Allen.

 

A team that has never won a SB got Tre White and fan favorite Tremaine Edmunds in exchange for a lock future HOF SB winning QB.

 

What's revisionist is overselling the Lamonica trade.

 

Lamonica was awful in Buffalo..........almost bad enough to be released outright.........and there were rumors about things he did that fractured the locker room.

 

It turned out to be a GREAT trade for Oakland but I've seen people say it changed the trajectory of the two organizations for a decade and that is INSANE.    

 

Lamonica had 3 great seasons and then 3 good ones in Oakland and he was DONE............and Oakland was a rising power and making TONS of good, shrewd decisions because at the time,  their owner Al Davis was a football man on top of his game and all he cared about was WINNING.

 

Contrast that with......ahem.......Ralph.

 

The Bills organization was circling the drain..........Lamonica wasn't going to carry that team thru the years of incompetence that were to come...........it simply wasn't a QB driven league where you could expect that then.

Just win, baby!

 

[longtimebillsfan]

17 hours ago, Sierra Foothills said:

A few nuggets from the Buffalo News article on Lamonica's passing:

• Lamonica was a fan favorite in Buffalo, even though he started only four games in his four Bills’ seasons, winning all of them. However, he had a knack for bailing the team out. In 1964, Lamonica rallied the Bills to win in Weeks 4, 7, 8 and 9, and the Bills were 9-0.
• “I talked to Ralph Wilson the night before,” Lamonica told The Buffalo News in 2020. “And he told me, ‘You’re going to come back and be our starting quarterback.’ And eight hours later I was traded. I was absolutely devastated.”
• The day of the trade, then Buffalo Evening News sports editor Charley Young wrote: "One nagging question remains, however. Whoever has wound up winning in any deal with Al Davis, the Mr. Smart of the American League operators?"
• In a little over six seasons as the Oakland QB, he compiled a regular-season record of 66-16-6, the best winning percentage of any starting QB in the Super Bowl era with at least 75 starts.
• Lamonica led the Raiders to a 13-1 record in ’67 and the won the AFL Player of the Year Award. Oakland lost Super Bowl II to the Green Bay Packers. Lamonica helped the Raiders to the AFL championship game in 1968 and 1969 and the AFC championship game in 1970.
• Lamonica led pro football with 145 touchdown passes from ’67 through ’72 – 24 more than the next best quarterback, Fran Tarkenton. He still holds the Raiders record with 34 touchdown passes in a single season (1969).
• The 6-foot-3, 215-pound Lamonica had some huge playoff performances. He threw five TD passes in a 41-6 win over Kansas City in 1968 and a record six the following season against Houston. Only Steve Young and Tom Brady have matched Lamonica's six TD passes in a playoff game, and only Patrick Mahomes and Kurt Warner have multiple games with at least five.
• Lamonica also played a starring role in one of the AFL’s most famous games in 1968. He threw four TD passes, including the go-ahead score to Charlie Smith, in a 43-32 win over the Jets in what is known as the "Heidi Game" because NBC cut away from the finish on the East Coast before the Raiders comeback to show the children's movie.
• “When I heard the nickname The Mad Bomber, I didn’t like it much,” Lamonica told The News. “I thought, ‘What a dumb name; it sounds like I don’t know where I’m throwing the ball.’ The next week, I get under center and I make eye contact with the cornerback – and he backs up three steps. And I thought, ‘Well, OK, I like that.’ ”
• In his first game back in Buffalo against the Bills, the 1968 season-opener, Lamonica led the Raiders to a 48-6 victory. The Bills fired head coach Joel Collier after the game.

I always wondered why the Bills didn't resign Lamonica after his stint with the Raiders.

Edited April 23, 2022 by longtimebillsfan

[Cantankeous]

20 hours ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

If anyone believed Allen would be this good he'd have went #1 overall......right?   Bills should have sold the farm to get to #1.......what were they thinking? 

 

And the fact is that NONE of the picks acquired in the Patrick Mahomes deal were used to get Josh Allen.

 

A team that has never won a SB got Tre White and fan favorite Tremaine Edmunds in exchange for a lock future HOF SB winning QB.

 

What's revisionist is overselling the Lamonica trade.

 

Lamonica was awful in Buffalo..........almost bad enough to be released outright.........and there were rumors about things he did that fractured the locker room.

 

It turned out to be a GREAT trade for Oakland but I've seen people say it changed the trajectory of the two organizations for a decade and that is INSANE.    

 

Lamonica had 3 great seasons and then 3 good ones in Oakland and he was DONE............and Oakland was a rising power and making TONS of good, shrewd decisions because at the time,  their owner Al Davis was a football man on top of his game and all he cared about was WINNING.

 

Contrast that with......ahem.......Ralph.

 

The Bills organization was circling the drain..........Lamonica wasn't going to carry that team thru the years of incompetence that were to come...........it simply wasn't a QB driven league where you could expect that then.

Wow! I gotta hand it to you. When you’re wrong, you go off the charts wrong! Lamonica was so good with the Bills, fans were calling him EVERY game, despite winning the Eastern Division 3 straight years and back to back League titles with Kemp as the starter, before being traded. Hell, you’re even more wrong about his time in Oakland. The Raiders were floundering and on the brink of folding before they traded their starting QB and Allstar WR for Daryl. 2 years later, the Raiders were League champs and in the Super Bowl, with Daryl named League MVP. Oakland quickly became the winningest team in pro football. Yes, he eventually lost his starting job to his long time backup. A QB from Alabama who went on to be a HOFer. Give it a rest, Bill
 

[Rico]

11 hours ago, Sierra Foothills said:

A few nuggets from the Buffalo News article on Lamonica's passing:

 

• “I talked to Ralph Wilson the night before,” Lamonica told The Buffalo News in 2020. “And he told me, ‘You’re going to come back and be our starting quarterback.’ And eight hours later I was traded. I was absolutely devastated.”
• In his first game back in Buffalo against the Bills, the 1968 season-opener, Lamonica led the Raiders to a 48-6 victory. The Bills fired head coach Joel Collier after the game.

Thanks, Ralph.

[BADOLBILZ]

4 hours ago, Cantankeous said:

Wow! I gotta hand it to you. When you’re wrong, you go off the charts wrong! Lamonica was so good with the Bills, fans were calling him EVERY game, despite winning the Eastern Division 3 straight years and back to back League titles with Kemp as the starter, before being traded. Hell, you’re even more wrong about his time in Oakland. The Raiders were floundering and on the brink of folding before they traded their starting QB and Allstar WR for Daryl. 2 years later, the Raiders were League champs and in the Super Bowl, with Daryl named League MVP. Oakland quickly became the winningest team in pro football. Yes, he eventually lost his starting job to his long time backup. A QB from Alabama who went on to be a HOFer. Give it a rest, Bill
 

 

 

The backup QB was always the most popular guy in town back when it was a run and stop the run game.   If fan popularity mattered Frank Reich would have been the starting QB on opening day of 1990.  And 1991.   And 1993.  Only his prolonged exposure in 1994 reminded people that he lacked the talent for the job.

 

As you may have noted I pointed out the JP Losman comp for Lamonica...........they both had second seasons with exciting plays and finishes that gave fans hope...........but then they sucked in subsequent seasons.    Lamonica was a 40% passer in his last two season in Buffalo.

 

I'm not saying the trade didn't work out terribly.......it's the second most lopsided exchange in Bills history.........but they had him for 4 years and he didn't play well enough......or they didn't get him to play well enough.   Either way.

 

Add in the rumors about him having an affair with a teammate's wife and it was understandable that both sides needed a change of scenery and his trade value was not going to be good after what he did in 1965 and 1966.

 

The Raiders weren't floundering on the field they were a rising second place team....8-5 in 1965 and 8-5 in 1966........and the 1966 Bills were two years removed from their peak of 1964 and were aging out and finished 9-4 and weren't making good personnel decisions.   

 

The financial issues you are talking about are irrelevant to the discussion.  Davis was workhorse of the AFL partnership.   Were you not aware that he also served as commissioner?   The league NEEDED Al Davis.   Ralph did what was in his best interest.

[BADOLBILZ]

12 hours ago, BobbyC81 said:

Just win, baby!

 

 

 

Yep.

 

Davis needed to win.

 

Ralph liked to win.........but he was satisfied with simply making a buck.

 

The next 6 years of Bills football was probably the worst such stretch in franchise history.........-135 point differential average per season.

 

Meanwhile,  with the burden of being commissioner removed,  Davis was able to focus his energy on his team and they dominated.

 

I have a hard time getting behind the notion that the Lamonica trade entirely flipped the fortunes of the two teams............it was more just an example of a better football organization getting one over on a lesser one.

[Cantankeous]

RIP #3 (& #12)

 

[Chandler#81]

32:30 mark. The Mad Bomber 

Edited April 25, 2022 by Chandler#81