It all starts at the top...

[GG]

that's one for the old Marvel Comics "What If?" series.

given the rate of pro sports expansion in the late 60s and 70s and, the flurry in the 1990s, you're more than likely correct.

and who knows about Buffalo?

what i find intriguing, and maybe i'm a sentimentalist or merely an underdog rooter, is how this group of businessmen (and they were rich, no doubt) proudly took on the mantle of The Foolish Club and gave the NFL a run for its money. few upstart leagues -- the World Hockey League and the ABA, are the few that come to mind -- that managed to make a dent.

 

that earns them something. and considering that Mr. Wilson is the only owner still around with the same team in the same market, well there's something more to it than longevity, and that's where the debate begins depending your point of view.

 

jw

 

This is where the free markets come in. The expansion era for all leagues came at the point where there was a realization that there was much more demand from fans/TV than supply of the original franchises. So expansion would have occurred naturally - ie baseball, first hockey wave or with mergers with start-up competitive leagues - football, basketball & hockey's second wave.

 

The market also worked at limiting the overexpansion, as we seem to have settled on the natural level to 30-36 teams per league. It's been proven by subsequent failures of other competitive leagues and NHL's and NBA's troubles with too many franchises.

[JohnC]

Might want to check that timeline ...

 

Lori, You are correct about the timeline. I apologize for the error. I should have said that it was Donahoe and not Levy who replaced Butler. It was Levy who replaced Donahoe who then was replaced by the Russ Brandon, the marketing guru. And the beat goes on.

[Lori]

Lori, The timeline is accurate. What happened was that Butler and his assistant, A.J. Smith's contracts were coming up for renewal. The owner's contract offer was so low compared to the market rate for GMs that Butler avoided negotiating a new contract. In hindsight, it was apparent that Butler wanted out of the Wilson organization. Wilson recognized that Butler was not going to sign another contract with him. So he fired him on the spot. Wilson then went to A.J. Smith and told him to take over as the GM. A.J. Smith, out of loyalty to his friend Butler, declined the GM positon. Wilson then fired Smith on the spot.

 

There were two issues from Butler's perspective which made it untenable to remain with the organization. The first was obviously money. As a GM he was grossly underpaid compared to the market rate. When Wilson was asked why he offered such a low salary, his response was that he was "merely" a personnel person. The other issue was that he was tired having to deal with the ceaseless meddling of the owner.

 

Soon after they left they were hired by the Charger organization. The owner and many people who followed the situation believed that the employees had a deal in the works before it was officially consummated. Butler, shortly after, developed cancer and died. A.J. Smith took over the reigns at San Diego. Compare his playoff and SB caliber team he built to the Bills which have muddled on?????

The timeline I'm talking about was the one which omitted the Donahoe Era between Butler and Levy.

[GG]

Lori, The timeline is accurate.

 

I believe she was referring to the timeline where Levy replaced Butler as GM... When did that happen?

[DarthICE]

Lori, The timeline is accurate. What happened was that Butler and his assistant, A.J. Smith's contracts were coming up for renewal. The owner's contract offer was so low compared to the market rate for GMs that Butler avoided negotiating a new contract. In hindsight, it was apparent that Butler wanted out of the Wilson organization. Wilson recognized that Butler was not going to sign another contract with him. So he fired him on the spot. Wilson then went to A.J. Smith and told him to take over as the GM. A.J. Smith, out of loyalty to his friend Butler, declined the GM positon. Wilson then fired Smith on the spot.

 

There were two issues from Butler's perspective which made it untenable to remain with the organization. The first was obviously money. As a GM he was grossly underpaid compared to the market rate. When Wilson was asked why he offered such a low salary, his response was that he was "merely" a personnel person. The other issue was that he was tired having to deal with the ceaseless meddling of the owner.

 

Soon after they left they were hired by the Charger organization. The owner and many people who followed the situation believed that the employees had a deal in the works before it was officially consummated. Butler, shortly after, developed cancer and died. A.J. Smith took over the reigns at San Diego. Compare his playoff and SB caliber team he built to the Bills which have muddled on?????

 

You know right here on this board I made a HUGE Mistake. I really ripped Butler and even made a foolish comment something like 'he can burn in hell for what he did to the Bills' and I was wrong.

 

I got to talk with some in the know and they passed on to me all Butler went through just to try and keep this team going while going through his last two years here. Yes the cap was messed up and would need to be fixed badly ( I believe when he left we were 13 million over) but that happens esp when trying to keep a winner going.

 

Butler and AJ Smith went through hell here with Wilson the last couple of years and I for one can't blame them for leaving and YES you are right...the meddling was one thing, but the pathetic 1 million per year offer for a GM of Butlers talent was just insulting. You are also right, look at what JB and AJ have done in San Diego, they are at least a competitive team.

 

Side note: I wish to apologize to all I offended when I made my John Butler remark(s). It wasn't till later did I hear and understand the entire story.

[Adam]

I sincerely hope that this is also the last season for Tom Modrak and John Guy along w/Jauron if this season also produces mediocrity (or worse).

There is a hole in that theory- if the personnel people do a bad job, it may or may not conceal a good coaching job. If the coaches are terrible, it may or may not conceal a good job by the personnel people.

[Delete This Account]

can someone explain to me where all this meddling has happened.

-- in dismissing Wade, Mr. Wilson asked Phillips to fire Ronnie Jones ... i guess the Bills fanbase was all in favor of having Ronnie back.

 

-- not sure if anyone really knows how much Mr. Wilson was offering John Butler, but it's a moot point because according to Ralph, Butler refused to enter into negotiations. "i never got anything definitive from him," Wilson said at the time.

Butler, in response, acknowledged that by saying, "Mr. Wilson, I guess, wanted an answer a lot faster than I was prepared to give one at the time."

and there were reports that Mr. Wilson was offering to double Butler's salary, which was in the $600,000-700,000 range.

 

-- in relinquishing his duties as president by hiring Tom Donahoe, Mr. Wilson allowed Tom to essentially run the show, land Drew Bledsoe in a trade, lure Takeo Spikes in, allow Pat Williams to be let go, draft Mike Williams and J.P. Losman, hire Greg Williams and Mike Mularkey ... it wasn't until the Mularkey-Moulds feud and after Moulds called Mr. Wilson directly, did Mr. Wilson become involved in settling that.

 

-- when Marv hired Dick Jauron, Wilson had his reservations but went with the recommendation of the person he hired to find a coach.

 

-- Mr. Wilson was so meddling that he suggested the Bills might bring back J.P. Losman for one last season even though Mr. Wilson was on the record as not being a big fan.

 

-- Mr. Wilson did meddle in landing T.O., because it was his decision to have Russ go after him. based on all the No. 81 jerseys i saw at training camp, that was a horrible move.

 

it's his team. he's allowed to "meddle," and yet i've encountered little evidence of this.

 

jw

[Endzone Animal]

I think people only care about meddling when it involves being cheap, incompetent, putting a terrible product on the field, playing home games in Toronto, and publicly bad mouthing the city.

 

Meddling is just fine when it results in winning and offering good will towards the loyal fans and the city in which the team plays.

[GG]

The meddling owner tone gained traction in the past ten years, as the ten years prior to that were whitewashed by the great teams, and the beef before that was Wilson's cheapness.

 

Very few here obviously have first person accounts, unless Donahoe & Mularkey take time out of their days to post. So we have to rely on nuggets tossed out by beat reporters and columnists, as ostensibly, they get as close to a first person account as can be. Then, we have to filter the sources to discern the true story. You may disagree, but for many of us here, there's a definite difference in how the Tom Donahoe era is presented by local media vs national media. Call it what you want, TD had an apparent preference for the national spotlight, and big news always came from Lenny P or Mort. Don't know if that flavored the reporting, but the postmortem tone about the regime is dramatically different between the two sources.

 

So having said that, the stories about the meddling owner rose after Butler was deposed and there were less than flattering accounts of Wilson's treatment of JB. I can't find the story online, but I recall that Wilson reveled in throwing a dig at Butler's working class background and his previous work as a janitor or something like that, after military service. Again, don't recall the exact story details, but the the underlying theme was that Wilson never gave Butler credit and did not feel that he was worthy of a top GM rank. To me, offering to double a $600K salary, when the going rate for a top GM is $2-$3 million is insulting, especially when I'm the one who built the best team you ever had.

 

Other folks here gave examples of the reported meddling. Yes it is his team, but very few competent people can work with a micromanager, especially when the micromanager's decisions are bad. You may dispute Mularkey's stories on Wilson sending down notes during the games, or stories that Wilson was behind high profile player moves, especially at the QB position. But when we have a 50 year history of mostly futility, competent football people running out of town, and a revolving door of top jobs going to the nice guy who happens to be standing next to Wilson at the right time, it's not a stretch to call the problem at the top.

[GrudginglyOptimistic]

Wilson is the owner and under our system has every right to "meddle". The problem is he has meddled poorly.

 

Like it or not he ultimately signs the checks and he is responsible for both the successes and the failures. Thus he bears a huge amount of the blame for the O for the decade run.

 

He has a pretty clear record it seems to me of him personally doing stupid things. He completely misread how long Jimbo's career would last and it was only him who made the "handshake" deal with Kelly causing the Bills to pay him a million in walk away money (flat out violating the salary cap in doing so and my GUESS is that this is part of the reason it took him so long to win the popularity contest of getting into the HOF).

 

Ralph's stupid handshake deal triggered a decade of Bills screwing up trying to find a new Jimbo (some of which Ralph had to have played a key role in making the decisions such as trading assets for Hobert and the dumb deals with two starting QBs with the cap collision of RJ/Flutie- if Ralph actually did not participate heavily in these decision that in itself is owner malpractice).

 

Ralph deserves credit for keeping the Bills here when he could have left for more bucks. However, along with this recognition of reality needs to be a recognition that Ralph has led a total screw-up of actions the last decade from his horrible management of employee relationships with Polian, Butler, Wade, MM, TD eventually etc.

 

Fish rots from the head down and so does an organization as well.

 

can someone explain to me where all this meddling has happened.

-- in dismissing Wade, Mr. Wilson asked Phillips to fire Ronnie Jones ... i guess the Bills fanbase was all in favor of having Ronnie back.

 

-- not sure if anyone really knows how much Mr. Wilson was offering John Butler, but it's a moot point because according to Ralph, Butler refused to enter into negotiations. "i never got anything definitive from him," Wilson said at the time.

Butler, in response, acknowledged that by saying, "Mr. Wilson, I guess, wanted an answer a lot faster than I was prepared to give one at the time."

and there were reports that Mr. Wilson was offering to double Butler's salary, which was in the $600,000-700,000 range.

 

-- in relinquishing his duties as president by hiring Tom Donahoe, Mr. Wilson allowed Tom to essentially run the show, land Drew Bledsoe in a trade, lure Takeo Spikes in, allow Pat Williams to be let go, draft Mike Williams and J.P. Losman, hire Greg Williams and Mike Mularkey ... it wasn't until the Mularkey-Moulds feud and after Moulds called Mr. Wilson directly, did Mr. Wilson become involved in settling that.

 

-- when Marv hired Dick Jauron, Wilson had his reservations but went with the recommendation of the person he hired to find a coach.

 

-- Mr. Wilson was so meddling that he suggested the Bills might bring back J.P. Losman for one last season even though Mr. Wilson was on the record as not being a big fan.

 

-- Mr. Wilson did meddle in landing T.O., because it was his decision to have Russ go after him. based on all the No. 81 jerseys i saw at training camp, that was a horrible move.

 

it's his team. he's allowed to "meddle," and yet i've encountered little evidence of this.

 

jw

[ThereIsNoDog]

You know right here on this board I made a HUGE Mistake. I really ripped Butler and even made a foolish comment something like 'he can burn in hell for what he did to the Bills' and I was wrong.

 

I got to talk with some in the know and they passed on to me all Butler went through just to try and keep this team going while going through his last two years here. Yes the cap was messed up and would need to be fixed badly ( I believe when he left we were 13 million over) but that happens esp when trying to keep a winner going.

 

Butler and AJ Smith went through hell here with Wilson the last couple of years and I for one can't blame them for leaving and YES you are right...the meddling was one thing, but the pathetic 1 million per year offer for a GM of Butlers talent was just insulting. You are also right, look at what JB and AJ have done in San Diego, they are at least a competitive team.

 

Side note: I wish to apologize to all I offended when I made my John Butler remark(s). It wasn't till later did I hear and understand the entire story.

Wilson became "meddlesome" in the latter years of Butler's tenure because of suspect moves like overpaying to keep guys and mortgaging the future, trading a 1st and 4th for Rob Johnson only to watch him become a failure while Flutie had to be paid almost commensurate with RJ, hurting the cap further, and then that horrible, dismal, embarrassing 2000 draft.

 

As for what Butler did for SD, with all due respect to the late GM, it was mostly AJ Smith. Butler was diagnosed with cancer before the 2002 season. And twice during Butler's/Smith's tenure, the Chargers had the 1st overall pick in the draft and willing partners to trade down (which doesn't happen anymore).

[Delete This Account]

i love this.

when the move turns out wrong, it's Ralph Wilson's fault, not John Butler's or Bill Polian's or anyone else's.

i guess it was Mr. Wilson who told Tom Donahoe to not re-sign Pat Williams.

i guess it was Mr. Wilson who told Wade Phillips that the team was out of the playoffs in 2000, or to not cover the kickoff properly against Tennessee a year earlier.

right, meddling: this is an owner who was fined for speaking up for his team after the blown called in New England in the late 90s.

this was the owner who had the forsight to see the 2006 CBA as being wrong.

 

c'mon. all i'm seeing is people cherry-picking negatives and pinning them all on Ralph Wilson.

guess he should've meddled when Donahoe hired Gregg Williams or Mike Mularkey. ...

 

sonofa ...

 

jw

[GrudginglyOptimistic]

This is where the free markets come in. The expansion era for all leagues came at the point where there was a realization that there was much more demand from fans/TV than supply of the original franchises. So expansion would have occurred naturally - ie baseball, first hockey wave or with mergers with start-up competitive leagues - football, basketball & hockey's second wave.

 

The market also worked at limiting the overexpansion, as we seem to have settled on the natural level to 30-36 teams per league. It's been proven by subsequent failures of other competitive leagues and NHL's and NBA's troubles with too many franchises.

 

One needs to recognize however, that the facts simply are that the NFL is a long way away from what folks think of as a classic free market.

 

In a classic free market, there is actually open access to capital which does not exist in our society where capital is concentrated among a narrow stratus of the population. it is no where near as bad as what you have in communist systems where the entire state and its wealth are really controlled by relatively small elite that using a claim of power for the masses this small group exercises totalitarianism, but the US based system of an alleged free market begins to look alot like its communist rivals or even the old royalty models as folks named Bush or folks named Clinton seem to be passing power back and forth.

 

The NFL had a pretend free market up until the mid-80s when a small group of owners used their power to simply kick the snot out of the NFLPA led by Ed Garvey.

 

However, a smart bunch of NY lawyers joined together with a college educated group of workers and threatened the owners with simply dissolving the NFLPA as a fellow conspirator with the owners to restrain trade with the NFL draft and rules such as one which banned adults from signing contracts until their age group would graduate from college.

 

The NFL owners were confronted with the potential that they would have to operate in a truer free-market and negotiate individual personal services contracts with each player.

 

In the face of a more true free market, the owners ran to sign a new CBA which restrained and organized trade. The irony is that the individual owner makes more money than they could image under the new CBA which arguably makes the players a majority partner in the deal. Tagliabue and the other owners beat down Ralph and the other old guard owners that wanted a system where they could at least pretend to be a free market. Instead the NFL opted for a more collective (shall I say socialistic or even communistic) system where the players cut of the tal gross receipts is 60.5%.

 

Sure the market defined the NFL because the market is what is. However, the concept that the NFL is anything like what people think of when they use the phrase "free" market is an illusion.

 

The real money is produced when one has the stable product a controlled, collective, or more socially interactive market is created.

[DrFishfinder]

Well said. would only add that I believe ralph has done a cost benefit analysis on attempting to produce a team competitive enough to have a run at a championship and decided long ago that the costs are too high. Unfortunately, the equation still hasn't shifted in our favor as he approaches his inevitable demise.

His coaching selections tend to support your statement.

[Delete This Account]

His coaching selections tend to support your statement.

right, Ralph Wilson is to blame for Donahoe hiring Gregg Williams and Mike Mularkey ... uh, boy.

i'm done.

 

jw

[birdog1960]

i love this.

when the move turns out wrong, it's Ralph Wilson's fault, not John Butler's or Bill Polian's or anyone else's.

i guess it was Mr. Wilson who told Tom Donahoe to not re-sign Pat Williams.

i guess it was Mr. Wilson who told Wade Phillips that the team was out of the playoffs in 2000, or to not cover the kickoff properly against Tennessee a year earlier.

right, meddling: this is an owner who was fined for speaking up for his team after the blown called in New England in the late 90s.

this was the owner who had the forsight to see the 2006 CBA as being wrong.

 

c'mon. all i'm seeing is people cherry-picking negatives and pinning them all on Ralph Wilson.

guess he should've meddled when Donahoe hired Gregg Williams or Mike Mularkey. ...

 

sonofa ...

 

jw

No but it had been rumored that he was instrumental in RJ starting over hot handed

Flutie in that game. anybody know if that's true? Maybe the game doesn't come down to the final kickoff if Flutie starts.

[JohnC]

Wilson became "meddlesome" in the latter years of Butler's tenure because of suspect moves like overpaying to keep guys and mortgaging the future, trading a 1st and 4th for Rob Johnson only to watch him become a failure while Flutie had to be paid almost commensurate with RJ, hurting the cap further, and then that horrible, dismal, embarrassing 2000 draft.

 

As for what Butler did for SD, with all due respect to the late GM, it was mostly AJ Smith. Butler was diagnosed with cancer before the 2002 season. And twice during Butler's/Smith's tenure, the Chargers had the 1st overall pick in the draft and willing partners to trade down (which doesn't happen anymore).

 

You are correct that Butler got sick and that AJ Smith was the main actor in the rebuilding of the Chargers. No matter how you categorize the advantage the Chargers had with possessing high draft picks, the front office was smart in parlaying those picks into additional picks which bolstered the roster. Trading Eli Manning to the Giants after the Chargers made the pick and then getting Rivers and additional picks was masterful.

 

AJ. Smith has been gone from Buffalo for a decade. By anyone's fair assessment he has done a substantially better job than the front office of Buffalo has done for the Bills. While you mentioned that the Chargers were fortunate for having high picks, you were very remiss in not mentioning that the Bills have also had a number of high picks during the past decade. The Chargers, overall, have done been much better than the Bills over a very extended period of time in their personnel decisions. The best measure is to look at the respective records.

 

A sidenote: It was A.J. Smith who was most responsible for signing Flutie. He scouted Flutie when he was in Canada. His comments about Flutie were very perceptive. He said something to the effect that he didn't care if Flutie was a midget because he just makes plays.

[DrFishfinder]

Salary cap estimates for 2009:

 

Buffalo: $31m

NE: $25m

 

Does anyone think that NE is only $6m better than Buffalo?

[Sisyphean Bills]

The meddling owner tone gained traction in the past ten years, as the ten years prior to that were whitewashed by the great teams, and the beef before that was Wilson's cheapness.

 

Very few here obviously have first person accounts, unless Donahoe & Mularkey take time out of their days to post. So we have to rely on nuggets tossed out by beat reporters and columnists, as ostensibly, they get as close to a first person account as can be. Then, we have to filter the sources to discern the true story. You may disagree, but for many of us here, there's a definite difference in how the Tom Donahoe era is presented by local media vs national media. Call it what you want, TD had an apparent preference for the national spotlight, and big news always came from Lenny P or Mort. Don't know if that flavored the reporting, but the postmortem tone about the regime is dramatically different between the two sources.

 

So having said that, the stories about the meddling owner rose after Butler was deposed and there were less than flattering accounts of Wilson's treatment of JB. I can't find the story online, but I recall that Wilson reveled in throwing a dig at Butler's working class background and his previous work as a janitor or something like that, after military service. Again, don't recall the exact story details, but the the underlying theme was that Wilson never gave Butler credit and did not feel that he was worthy of a top GM rank. To me, offering to double a $600K salary, when the going rate for a top GM is $2-$3 million is insulting, especially when I'm the one who built the best team you ever had.

 

Other folks here gave examples of the reported meddling. Yes it is his team, but very few competent people can work with a micromanager, especially when the micromanager's decisions are bad. You may dispute Mularkey's stories on Wilson sending down notes during the games, or stories that Wilson was behind high profile player moves, especially at the QB position. But when we have a 50 year history of mostly futility, competent football people running out of town, and a revolving door of top jobs going to the nice guy who happens to be standing next to Wilson at the right time, it's not a stretch to call the problem at the top.

I can vouch for the Butler comments. I remember Mr. Wilson being quoted quite candidly that he felt John Butler was not qualified to be a GM, was disorganized and dishonest, got far too much credit, and (in Wilson's opinion) the Bills would be much better off without him.

 

The record speaks for itself and tells a rather different story. Butler was central to turning around two floundering small market NFL teams as far as their play on the football field, which certainly doesn't hurt the bottom line if costs can be kept in line.

[ThereIsNoDog]

You are correct that Butler got sick and that AJ Smith was the main actor in the rebuilding of the Chargers. No matter how you categorize the advantage the Chargers had with possessing high draft picks, the front office was smart in parlaying those picks into additional picks which bolstered the roster. Trading Eli Manning to the Giants after the Chargers made the pick and then getting Rivers and additional picks was masterful.

"Masterful?" The reason it happened is because the Chargers picked Eli, but he and dad (and maybe Peyton) wanted nothing to do with SD, since they were a laughingstock at the time. Fortunately they were able to find a willing trade partner in the Giants, which again as I said, doesn't happen anymore with top-5 picks, let alone the top overall pick. And they selected a QB, when they already had a burgeoning talent in Drew Brees, who they let get away for nothing and who it a much better QB than Rivers. There was nothing "masterful" about it.

AJ. Smith has been gone from Buffalo for a decade. By anyone's fair assessment he has done a substantially better job than the front office of Buffalo has done for the Bills. While you mentioned that the Chargers were fortunate for having high picks, you were very remiss in not mentioning that the Bills have also had a number of high picks during the past decade. The Chargers, overall, have done been much better than the Bills over a very extended period of time in their personnel decisions. The best measure is to look at the respective records.

The Bills had the 4th overall pick, in 2002, and the 8th overall pick in 2006, but otherwise haven't picked in the top-10 in the past 10 years. Do you think the Colts would be where they are today without having the first overall pick and getting Manning?

A sidenote: It was A.J. Smith who was most responsible for signing Flutie. He scouted Flutie when he was in Canada. His comments about Flutie were very perceptive. He said something to the effect that he didn't care if Flutie was a midget because he just makes plays.

I know it was Smith who signed Flutie. But it was Butler who traded away a high first rounder and a large contract for a guy who 1 career start, that he couldn't even finish. Perhaps keeping Smith would have been the better move, but he wasn't going to stay without Butler.