Tom Donahoe and his impact.

[ROSCOE P. COE TRAIN]

His first season, he created a staff and organization that was supposed to be innovative, fresh and the anti-Butler. The contract mess and cap issues were hard to negotiate. THe demons of the Tenn. "throw-back" haunted the club in many ways (we had that game won and Wade Phillips might have taken that club to the conf. finals with the way A. Smith was running behind that rugged line). He hired a GREAT defensive coach in Williams -- the coach of a S Bowl almost champ the season before. TD then started to build the team with young players and used his past experience as a scout to draft who he thought would be star and gems, ala as he did in Pitt, where he built some great teams with roll players and young over achievers. His first two drafts were average if not poor. THe guys just did not pan out for whatever reason. TD missed on the FA -- by signing, at first his old players and then guys that Williams wanted (i.e., Eddie Robinson). Everyone at 1 Bills Drive used the mantra "3 yrs."

After dismal seasons and poor plays by bad players and bad drafts, the pressure was clearly on from Wilson to "make it happen." And what that meant was that TD was to excellerate the process and buy has been Milloys, Adams, Teague, etc and attempt to steal a playoff game. That plan failed when injuries crept up, Coach Williams showed to be a poor decision maker, the vets he brought were over-the-hill, his draft picks were flops and his support dwindled.

 

IMO, teams are great for two reasons. Both of which the Bills have NOT since their playoff game in Tenn:

 

1) they have a qb who lead them. sure, Dilfer sucked with Baltimore, and the Redskins QBS who have been system QBS. But ever since Kelly has left, this club has been bruttal. OL free agent don't want to protect a 3rd round scrub or Alex Van Pelt back there. And a good Qb makes a poor OL look as good as a good OL makes a poor QB look good. But great QBs rise to occasion, and the scaring of missing on Rob Johnson scared Wilson tothe point where he passed up Leinart, Big Ben, etc, etc.

2) having good sound players at EVERY position. TD talentwise was bruttal. His players were injury prone, soft, slow, overpaid, & dumb on the field. He never saw added the layers of talent and depth and had that keen eye for wha the old regime of Polian, Fergusson, Adams, Smith and Butler called: "football sense." But the great teams who make it with average QBS have all of those things. JOe Gibbs has that talent. To see that a TE make a difference out there. That LB depth makes a difference. And etc.

 

Marv will build up the talent pool. The guys he will draft will be all of the things TD never saw. They will be like the 06 draft -- guys who are tough and smart before anything else. He will find where the fiber is needed and give Jauron the tools to to smash the ball at an team for 4 quarters and paly well late in the 4th. He will find the little gems who will make those "big plays" that CArlton Bailey or Kelso or RAy BEntly or Metzelars could make. In addition, the guy knows talent and who can make dynamic big time all pro moves. He has a keen eye for knowing when a guy has balance, vison and game spreed and lockeroom presence (mark pike, tasker, etc)

 

This team will make the playoffs in 2 seasons. There will be fight in the 06 club. No giving up, no sulking, and an honest effort. And leaders and all pro will come from this and FAs will flock to play here and make this a great football city again.

 

The biggest problem with the team is something they can't control. And that is the fact that Miami is going to be TERRRIFIC and the pats are still talented.

[Bob in STL]

His first season, he created a staff and organization that was supposed to be innovative, fresh and the anti-Butler.  The contract mess and cap issues were hard to negotiate.  THe demons of the Tenn. "throw-back" haunted the club in many ways (we had that game won and Wade Phillips might have taken that club to the conf. finals with the way A. Smith was running behind that rugged line).  He hired a GREAT defensive coach in Williams -- the coach of a S Bowl almost champ the season before.  TD then started to build the team with young players and used his past experience as a scout to draft who he thought would be star and gems, ala as he did in Pitt, where he built some great teams with roll players and young over achievers.  His first two drafts were average if not poor.  THe guys just did not pan out for whatever reason.  TD missed on the FA -- by signing, at first his old players and then guys that Williams wanted (i.e., Eddie Robinson).  Everyone at 1 Bills Drive used the mantra "3 yrs." 

After dismal seasons and poor plays by bad players and bad drafts, the pressure was clearly on from Wilson to "make it happen."  And what that meant was that TD was to excellerate the process and buy has been Milloys, Adams, Teague, etc and attempt to steal a playoff game.  That plan failed when injuries crept up, Coach Williams showed to be a poor decision maker, the vets he brought were over-the-hill, his draft picks were flops and his support dwindled. 

 

IMO, teams are great for two reasons.  Both of which the Bills have NOT since their playoff game in Tenn:

 

1) they have a qb who lead them.  sure, Dilfer sucked with Baltimore, and the Redskins QBS who have been system QBS.  But ever since Kelly has left, this club has been bruttal.  OL free agent don't want to protect a 3rd round scrub or Alex Van Pelt back there.    And a good Qb makes a poor OL look as good as a good OL makes a poor QB look good.  But great QBs rise to occasion, and the scaring of missing on Rob Johnson scared Wilson tothe point where he passed up Leinart, Big Ben, etc, etc.

2) having good sound players at EVERY position.  TD talentwise was bruttal.  His players were injury prone, soft, slow, overpaid, & dumb on the field.  He never saw added the layers of talent and depth and had that keen eye for wha the old regime of Polian, Fergusson, Adams, Smith and Butler called: "football sense."  But the great teams who make it with average QBS have all of those things.  JOe Gibbs has that talent.  To see that a TE make a difference out there.  That LB depth makes a difference.  And etc. 

 

Marv will build up the talent pool.  The guys he will draft will be all of the things TD never saw.  They will be like the 06 draft -- guys who are tough and smart before anything else.  He will find where the fiber is needed and give Jauron the tools to to smash the ball at an team for 4 quarters and paly well late in the 4th.  He will find the little gems who will make those "big plays" that CArlton Bailey or Kelso or RAy BEntly or Metzelars could make.  In addition, the guy knows talent and who can make dynamic big time all pro moves.  He has a keen eye for knowing when a guy has balance, vison and game spreed and lockeroom presence (mark pike, tasker, etc)

 

This team will make the playoffs in 2 seasons.  There will be fight in the 06 club.  No giving up, no sulking, and an honest effort.  And leaders and all pro will come from this and FAs will flock to play here and make this a great football city again. 

 

The biggest problem with the team is something they can't control.  And that is the fact that Miami is  going to be TERRRIFIC and the pats are still talented.

729695[/snapback]

 

I'm not sure I follow all of your logic but I think TD failed because he tends to be a one man show, he does not build a cohesive organization, he does not empower his people. This flaw is why he lost the power struggle with Bill Cowher in Pittsburgh. TD's biggest error in Buffalo have to be his choices in head coaches. Both of them were bright coordinators that lacked the experience and would not challenge him.

 

In total hid drafts were so-so. He seemed to struggle on day 2. His use of free agency was good and he brought in some good solid vets while managing the cap. He deserves kudo's for cap managememnt and for keeping things exciting. On the flip side he did not find a QB (unless Losman develops) and he really misjudged the talent level of his offensive line acquisitions.

 

I am happy to see TD go. I doubt he will get another chance as a GM.

[Pyrite Gal]

My sense was that the major drive behind TD decisions and issue you do not mention at all was that he was badly bruised by being run out of town in Pitts by Cowher and essentially fired by a guy he hired.

 

It's hard for me to imagine any human being not be somehow effected by this trauma and for it not to effect his future activities in some way.

 

I think TD pledging NEVER AGAIN to himself had a significant effect on his actions either conciously or unconciously do. Do you agree and if so how do you factor this factor I think drives many things into your analysis.

 

I see the effect of this on many of his decision:

 

1. TDs first and pre-eminent mistake in my assessment was hiring GW over John Fox and/or not working very hard to get Marvin Lewus here instead of GW. I think the facts simply are that GW, defensive genius that he is was not productive with the Bills both Fox and Lewis proved to be extremely effective in the two HC jobs they took, A lot of this can simply be blamed on Fox/Lewis not interviewing as well as GW, Could be and TD simply screwed up in his HC assessment. However, I think additional actions by TD show fairly clear evidence of his defensiveness and I think the base of the problems was like many human beings he stunk because he reacted poorly to getting fired and beat.

 

2. A big piece of evidence of TD GMing not to get blamed and to be sure of beating his HC if again it came down to a fight is to see how TD managed the team early on. He seemed to take the tact of putting resources in place to compensate for what in hindsight to us outsiders were obvious examples of GW failings. Yet, even though TD took action to allow a GW to fix problems if he were aggressive or good, TD would noy pull the trigger many times to force changes. Even worse, he would "suggest" alternative approacges, but then would allow GW to make his own bed and then take the blame when it turned out the bed was made poorly. Examples of this were:

 

A. GW was allowed (encouraged?) to hire a staff which had no one on it with past HC experience or could even remotely be a successor/challenger to GW. It is reasonable to let your guy do things he wants to do without a lot of meddling. However, the first GW staff was so young, inexperienced and full of first timers it is shocking his boss TD even let him get away with hiring this type of crew. Worst of all GW was allowed to hire his buddy Vinky as the OL coach even though Vinky had zero experience as an OL position coach.

 

Methinks TD had to see this too, but seemed quite content to let GW fail because it guaranteed he would not be in a position to run TD out of town.

 

2. TD and circumstances did force HW to fire Sheppard (with time left on his contract) and TD's guy as a replacement was apparently Clements. However, TD aceeded to the wishes of GW and hired Kevin Killdrive a guy whom TD had to no his weakenesses well. TD seemed almost gleeful when he let GW go and hired MM as he noted that TC was his choice and Killdrive was GW's. Again even worse, TD seemed to see prior to the 2003 season that the O was going to get into trouble at the OC soit and an old buddy of his who was a former OC was hired as the RB coach. Yet, in 2003 when Killdrive clearly needed to be reined in and forced to diversify the playcalling after numerous passeds on third and short, GW never forced Killdrive to change or strip him of the playcalling duty even though TD had hired a guy at RB coach who was already on the staff and had done the job before.

 

3. One of the worst and clear episodes of TD's defensiveness came when GW had the temerity to step into the GM's contract signing area and announce publicly that Larry Centers would be a Bill as long as he wanted to be. It took a bout a week but it was soon announced that Sam Gash had been signed to be our FB and much to Centers surprise as expressed in an Empire TC interview, he was cut. Either GW was a lying sack of whatever or he was totally out of the loop on fundamental roster issues.

 

In the end, i think that the Bills problems under TD was not in many of the particulars you describe but actually even the true items you mention were simply symptoms of a larger and very human disease TD had which in hindsight doomed him to being ieffective as a team leader and GM from the start.

 

As with many people TDs big failing was probably fear. TD was too busy trying to make sure he could win a battle with someone he hired that he never really took the risks necessary to hire someone who might prove to be so successful that he could challenge TD.

 

I think that was the big problem and a real assessment of his impact.