BillsfaninFl

Wow! I'm so excited about the possibility of getting up to Jauron's won/lost record. Seriously, I would love to see the Bills beat the Patriots again, but it wouldn't make me feel this was a good year. I refuse to lower my expectations to a point where I can feel good about a losing season.

Interesting. I wanted to see if there were still Ralph Wilson apologists out there (in spite of the sinking franchise). Well, some of the Kool Aid drinkers identified themselves, but not as many as I thought would. So I guess the bottom line is there will always be fans who get sucked in by the feeble spin the Bills put out, always be guys optimistic about next year no matter how many years the team sucks, and always be those that think the Bills are improving in spite of won/lost records that spend a few years at 8-8, then 7-9, then 5-11. Actually, it's great that there is always a percentage of people who eternally have hope no matter what occurs. Sadly, the weight of evidence is that there will be no joy in mudville when mighty Wilson strikes out. (see Casey at the Bat)

If you are interested, IcansleepwhenI'mdead listed some of Wilson's other businesses in his post of June or July, 2011.

No. I believe that the owners are rich men who want to get richer. However, I also believe that some of them are passionate about winning in the NFL. I'm sure you could think of a few.

Guess again. If the Bills sell for a billion, which I doubt, the Wilson family does not walk away with anything close to that figure. Regarding the list of billionaires, it is based on public records and is often distorted toward lesser figures. There are a lot more billionaires in the U.S. than is publicly known. My point was that Wilson is an absentee owner who does not consider the Bills his passion (see horses) and doesn't care about the folks in western New York. Do you disagree?

Wilson took over the successful insurance business of his father and invested in Michigan area mines and factories. He eventually purchased several manufacturing outlets, construction firms, and radio stations, and founded Ralph Wilson Industries. His passion is in being a horse breeder and owner with facilities in France and the U.S. A minority owner of the Detroit Lions, Wilson got wind of Lamar Hunt's plans for a new league, the American Football League, to challenge the NFL. He tried to put together a team in Miami, but was turned down. So he put a team in Buffalo. The Bills never were a high priority for Ralph and are a small piece of his financial portfolio even today. Anyone who thinks he dwells on winning a Super Bowl, the future of the Bills, or appreciating the Bills fans is delusional. I confess to being delusional many times about the Bills, but no longer. I still feel a connection to the Buffalo Bills football team because of my Buffalo roots (and my fondness for the people of western New York, but not the ownership or organizational staff of the Bills. Wilson is simply a business man who made lots of money bringing mediocre entertainment to Buffalo as a sidebar to his main business ventures.

You are wasting your time. Wilson doesn't care.

Several posters here think that if Fitz or Gailey or anyone is sent packing, that they get their full pay. That's not true. Many players get cut each year and their contracts don't continue to be paid. That's why when contract numbers are publicized, they include the amount guaranteed. That's the amount that a player will definitely get, minus what they have already received on their current contract. The rest is gone if they get cut. Every year you hear about good players cut by their team not because they aren't playing well, but because if the team kept them past a certain date, they would have to pay them a hefty bonus, as stated in their contract. So obviously, when they are cut they do not receive that money. Thirdly, some players are cut while injured. We often hear about them agreeing to a settlement. So they get a sum of money to be cut while injured, but not their full pay. Very few coaches or players actually get the publicized amount of their contracts.

Not really. Either he said "some of the hairs in your beard have turned white," or he said "you have that arm band with the plays on it upside down."

I used to go into depression when the Bills lost. So I would roll drunks in alleys to feel better. But then I realized that it is not just the final score that creates this tension. It's every time the Bills fail to execute a play or make a bad call. So I record the game, then afterward, I watch the recording and for every screwup they make, I go out in the yard and step on an ant. It works! I feel better when I do this. Unfortunately, after I wiped out all the ant colonies in my yard, and all my neighbors' yards, and all the colonies in our town, I began to feel depressed again. So now I order those kids' ant farms, just so I can release the little suckers, then step on them. I may need some counseling about this.

Good logic. Hey, let's really fool them and never win another game. Then again, what good is it to acquire a few decent players if we keep losing. But maybe that strategy works. Let's see. we have been getting high draft picks for more than a dozen years because of losing a lot more games than we have won. So how has that worked out? I seem to remember being unhappy when they only won 8 or 9 games. Then more recently I was unhappy when they were winning 7 games each season. Now they are winning 4 or 5 games. I think you're right: we've got them right where we want them. And the fools don't suspect a thing.

Hey! You're on to something. Mohrman is statistically the best quarterback we have had since Jim Kelly. He throws a decent ball, is in excellent shape (for a kicker) and is always a threat to do a quick kick.

Email to Mr. Wilson: Game receipts were okay today, but the declining attendance will probably require some BS from you saying were are going to turn this thing around. I suggest the 2001 speech (They won't remember that already you said that ten years ago). Hope you and the family are doing well and will have a merry Christmas. Ebeneezer, I mean Ralph, per your request we let go a few more of the office staff, to make our personnel costs look more attractive to a new buyer. It'll mean that fewer customers will be able to contact us by phone, but we'll just say that there have been lots of calls for next year's season tickets. Maintenance has been complaining that they have no way to clean the artificial turf in the stadium between games, so we bought them a carpet sweeper and a long extension cord. That means no bonus for them this year. That was a great idea by you of avoiding the purchase of extra uniforms by having them double-sided. Now when we have a throwback day, we just turn their regular uniforms inside out. Littman p.s. The Bills lost.

To answer your question after the prophesy came true: There will still be people who will swear that the Bills are improving. There will be more fans who think that the resultant rise in potential draft sequence is a plus. The team will be compelled to make another token move like when they extended Jauron, Kelsay, Fitz.

I am not a fan of Chan and his staff, but there is little he can do with the talent he has on the field. Also, Fitz is terrible because he lost his best blockers, runningback and receivers. Any coach or quarterback in this situation looks bad. I wonder if things would have been different for the careers of some of our "busts" if they had a quality organization operating this franchise, as committed to winning as some of the others. Do we honestly think that the elite GMs, coaches and players stay away from Buffalo because of the demographics? They couldn't care less if it is a small market with a struggling economy. If you were one of the best GMs, coaches or players out there, you would want to go to an organizaton that will pay for quality at all levels (not just your salary), because you want the team's performance (and yours) to have the best chance to succeed. Therefore, joining the Bills organization is a high risk career move for anyone. So we get mediocre talent at all levels, at bargain basement prices. An occasional acquisition gets a lucrative contract to suck in the more gullible fans. The spin is "we will build through the draft," which really means no top free agents would come here. We never have an abundance of talent because the franchise only commits to having a few. Ask yourself, "when was the last time a proven top staff member or player (at the peak of their career) joined the group at One Bills Drive?" The best ones we acquired (Polian, Levy, Kelly, etc.) were not considered elite or not even in the NFL before we got them, so we were lucky. Dropping down to the "good" category, there are some, but it's a short list. Certainly not a glowing report card over 51 years.

I just called Ralph Wilson with your suggestion. He said that he would be glad to do it, but he has several family members that have financial woes. I apologized for asking him to spend more money on the Bills. Then he added, "Since I won't help my family members financially, why would I consider spending more to please the Buffalo fans?" (I didn't really call him. I wrote a note and sent it to him with my Merry Grinchmas card.)

Let's face it guys, this is one of those situations where "you get what you paid for." The Bills organization will not pay for top dollar for General Managers or Head Coaches. Therefore, the assistant coaches end up being second eschelon also. They will not bring in high-priced free agents, justifying that by saying they will build through the draft. They do not pay for excellent talent evaluators (including scouts), so there is no one to help them draft the right people. Therefore, how can we tell if coaches or players are any good? The deck is stacked against them.

Ralph Wilson has never cared about winning a Super Bowl. When you make statements about hiring a GM from the two candidates he "knew," that tells you he doesn't really actively participate in the NFL culture. He never invested time making contacts among the best management talent around the league, because he never planned to make an all out commitment to win a Super Bowl. The Bills franchise has always been just a lucrative investment to Wilson. That doesn't make him the devil, but he doessn't share the yearning of the fans to win a championship, so he has never got very involved with the movers and shakers in the league. Instead, he surrounded himself with executives that maximize his profits and are loyal to him. In spite of the spin we hear, Wilson doesn't want to hire elite GMs or coaches. They are always trying to spend the money it takes to build a winner. He selects from the bargain basement, then has his watchdogs suppress any dramatic actions toward making a run for the championship. In the last dozen years, how many Bills Head Coaches have been hired in that position by other teams? Zero. I rest my case.

They may suck, but they spotted the Bills five losses in a row and are now getting ready to pass them for third place in the AFC East. Regarding "lucky," the Bills have been lucky and/or competitive for a few games in a row during the last dozen years, but never a whole season. So don't knock a Cinderella season until we have one this century.

Gailey, like all recent Head Coaches and General Managers were doomed to fail when they took the Bills jobs. The organization continues to ready itself for sale when Ralph passes on. They are maximizing profits by keeping expenses low, they are clueless about what it would take to build a winner, but that is not their goal, so they don't care. In spite of the criticisms leveled here over the years, it is questionable whether the team's GMs and HCs did a poor job, or whether they didn't get enough executive support and money to succeed, or both. Therefore, Gaily and Nix will be gone in the near future and it may or may not be their fault. Top staff talent avoids the Bills just like top free agents do. In my opinion, it's not Buffalo that turns them off. They see an organization badly managed, where they will not do well. So coming to the Bills can shorten your career. Only one of the seven players you listed had any other NFL coaches: Fitz.

True. And there is really nothing the fans can do about it. Failing to support the team financially only hastens their departure. Continuing to support the team (as the Cleveland fans did) doesn't accomplish anything. When there was an impass between the Cleveland football team and local politicians over building a new stadium, the team moved to Baltimore, which had lost its team to Indianapolis. The outcome in Buffalo will be a little different because Wilson will not spend the money to move the team, but the odds are that whomever buys the Bills will take them to some other city. We fans can only hope for a semi-miracle: local ownership who wants the team in Buffalo.

Levy got a bad rap for his time as a Bills GM. He (reluctantly) accepted the job of bringing order and consensus back to the organization (in a two-year deal) that smelled of back room bargaining to appease the fans. He accomplished what he was asked to do and moved on. Don't you get the feeling that Ralph Wilson just lets things slide as much as possible until Overdorf or Littman says "we have to do some token move because the peasants are getting restless again?" Then they bring in T.O. or extend Kelsay or take some other small step to create a smokescreen.

So you're saying that after he gutted the team, there wasn't much left. That sounds like Buddy made a mistake to me. And now after they fell into a 4 - 12 hole, you are pleased that the team may get back to the type of won-lost record that Jauron had each year. You are right, Buddy is not the problem. But he is also not the solution. He is just another cheap hire that is part of the overall problem.

What collapse? Look at the records of the past dozen years. No matter how bad a team is, they put it together occasionally and get a few wins in a row. There have been several times that Bills fans have thought the team was improving and it is just a matter of time before they will be competitive every week of the season. Sorry to say it for the umpteenth time, but the reason this team cannot get to that level is because of the way it is managed at the top. Same old facts: poor drafting, poor at signing good free agents, unable to keep good players in Buffalo, unwilling to hire elite GMs and coaches, etc., etc., etc.