3 years with the Bills and done...

[Arkady Renko]

The article from 12/31/2000 said absolutely nothing about specific cap problems. It was a general complaint about the constraints the cap placed on the Bills by a Buffalo New columnist. Without looking, probably Jerry Sullivan ...

 

Re 2001, please provide me with some specifics to convince me. No offense (seriously), but the debate over this issue on this board has been going on for just over a half decade now, and no one has ever proven to me that the Bills were in cap hell on June 1, 2001.

 

I just remember players questioning Gregg Williams' switch to the 46, but they were "convinced" by his pointing out that while they had been #3 the year before, his Titans had been #1... now what was the ranking in 2001? 17th.

[Thurman#1]

He's the opposite of Joe Torre, who constantly wins.. maybe we should hire Torre to coach the Bills, eh J.E.?

 

 

 

Funny how Torre's coaching ability improved so much after Ramirez arrived in L.A.

 

Even great coaches can't win without good players. Throughout his career, Jauron hasn't had good players. If anything, the last two years, the Bills overachieved. Not this year, obviously. But how many coaches have looked really good without solid stable QBing, which we simply haven't had.

 

Jauron may be partially at fault. It is absolutely certain that he does not deserve all the blame.

[2020 Our Year For Sure]

Funny how Torre's coaching ability improved so much after Ramirez arrived in L.A.

 

Even great coaches can't win without good players. Throughout his career, Jauron hasn't had good players. If anything, the last two years, the Bills overachieved. Not this year, obviously. But how many coaches have looked really good without solid stable QBing, which we simply haven't had.

 

Jauron may be partially at fault. It is absolutely certain that he does not deserve all the blame.

Quarterbacking yes, but additionally, defensive line play has become absolutely pivotal in today's game, and ours just doesn't make the grade. The fact that Chris Kelsay and Ryan Denney are occupying the two ideal pass rush spots on the defense tells the story.

[Thurman#1]

No, that's not what I said. What I was referring to was the decision by Donohoe and Williams to "blow up" the team by letting Jones, Holocek, etc. go after June 1 and then letting their amortized bonuses accelerate into both the 2001 and 2002 seasons. He then cried cap poverty whilst replacing those players with people who were no better than they were. By the time Donohoe arrived, most of the cap cutting had already occurred. The only outstanding issue was the Flutie/Johnson situation because Flutie outperformed all expectations.

 

 

 

Um, cutting players and letting their amortized bonuses accelerate is exactly what you have to do to get out of cap jail. It creates horrible havoc that first year, but then you're free to move into the future. So, of course that's what he did. It's what he had to do. It's what everybody who is irredeemably deep into cap hell does.

 

He handled that situation well. Unfortunately, he didn't handle the draft well. And that is pretty important in a GM.

[Thurman#1]

Quarterbacking yes, but additionally, defensive line play has become absolutely pivotal in today's game, and ours just doesn't make the grade. The fact that Chris Kelsay and Ryan Denney are occupying the two ideal pass rush spots on the defense tells the story.

 

 

You get no argument from me that d-line play is even more pivotal than ever, and yet more so in a Cover 2 defense like ours. Nor that Kelsay and Denney simply don't bring a lot of pass rush potential. I'd disagree that those are the two ideal pass rush spots. DEs on that side are more often required to do run defense, as that's the strong side most times. However, I would absolutely love to see more pass rush capability from the Bills and it would most likely have to come from that side.

 

Before the season, lots of people on these boards seemed to think that getting Stroud would somehow power up the pass rush incredibly. It didn't make sense then, and we can see how well it has worked out. They often said this in arguments that we didn't need to draft Derrick Harvey. Harvey didn't fall to us, unfortunately. But when you have a chance to get a real premium pass rusher, you need to do it. And our pass rush this year goes a long way towards proving it.

 

Look at how well getting a pass rusher in the third (Ellis) has worked out for us.

[Thurman#1]

The article from 12/31/2000 said absolutely nothing about specific cap problems. It was a general complaint about the constraints the cap placed on the Bills by a Buffalo New columnist. Without looking, probably Jerry Sullivan ...

 

Re 2001, please provide me with some specifics to convince me. No offense (seriously), but the debate over this issue on this board has been going on for just over a half decade now, and no one has ever proven to me that the Bills were in cap hell on June 1, 2001.

 

 

 

 

Which goes more to illuminate your inability to accept it than anything else. Virtually nobody else agrees with you.

[spartacus]

Funny how Torre's coaching ability improved so much after Ramirez arrived in L.A.

 

Even great coaches can't win without good players. Throughout his career, Jauron hasn't had good players. If anything, the last two years, the Bills overachieved. Not this year, obviously. But how many coaches have looked really good without solid stable QBing, which we simply haven't had.

 

Jauron may be partially at fault. It is absolutely certain that he does not deserve all the blame.

 

For the last 3 years, Jauron has had a big say in player moves, who stay, who goes and who was drafted and signed.

 

He picked the schemes and then got the players to play that scheme.

 

He can't hide behind the argument that he did not have enough talent.

[dave mcbride]

Which goes more to illuminate your inability to accept it than anything else. Virtually nobody else agrees with you.

First of all, this isn't a substantive response. Second of all, your post above neglects to mention that by cutting veterans after June 1 in 2001, cap problems were created in 2002 as well as 2001. Just because many people don't agree doesn't mean I'm wrong (and there are some who do agree with me). Again, please provide specifics about the Bills cap problems that would have occurred had the Bills decided to keep the basic roster intact rather than overhaul it. I'm not saying that from a personnel standpoint that this was necessarily the right decision, but given the abysmal 2001 season (and 3-13 is never acceptable), I personally think they made the wrong decision.

[BLZFAN4LIFE]

This is a big part of the problem.

[Ramius]

First of all, this isn't a substantive response. Second of all, your post above neglects to mention that by cutting veterans after June 1 in 2001, cap problems were created in 2002 as well as 2001. Just because many people don't agree doesn't mean I'm wrong (and there are some who do agree with me). Again, please provide specifics about the Bills cap problems that would have occurred had the Bills decided to keep the basic roster intact rather than overhaul it. I'm not saying that from a personnel standpoint that this was necessarily the right decision, but given the abysmal 2001 season (and 3-13 is never acceptable), I personally think they made the wrong decision.

 

I know its from Billszone, but here's an article about how the team was in a salary cap mess during 12/2000 and 1/2001.

http://www.billszone.com/mtlog/archives/20...ary_cap_odyssey.

 

The new GM would have his hands full, taking the reigns of a salary cap nightmare, as the Bills were $16 million over the cap.

 

And there's this...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/.../preview/bills/

 

Williams faced a daunting problem when he took over in Buffalo: The Bills were $19 million over the salary cap.

 

And there's this artice...

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/nfl/bills/2...-washington.htm

 

Washington, Panos and Mohr were scheduled to eat up $12.412 million in cap room in 2001. Instead, the Bills trimmed approximately $5.05 million from the more than $18 million they must cut by next Friday.

 

I'm not sure where you're getting your info about TD "not having to make all the cuts" from. I thought it was widely known and agreed upon that the Bills were 15-20 million OVER the salary cap when TD took over prior to the 2001 season. He made the cuts he did so we'd only have 1 bad year instead of 2. We had no choice but to cut a ton of players when he first got here. Smartly, TD took most/all of the cap hit in 2001 so we could start fresh in 2002. I don't know where you are getting your info from, but plain and simply put, its wrong. There's NO POSSIBLE WAY we could have kept the roster intact going into 2001. Plus, in 2002, we were able to be competitive by signing players such as fletcher, etc.