Jump to content

rcatty

Community Member
  • Posts

    147
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by rcatty

  1. Raush got Jack Kemp at the end of his career. Dan Darragh and James Harris weren't the answer. Only Harris under former Chuck Knox did anything.

     

    He also got OJ, who would become the premier running back in the league. Don't forgot the league was dominated by running the ball. Rauch's approach was to split him wide, and throw him passes. "hey, I've got potentially the best running back in the league....I think i'll split him out and throw passes to him"....that will really show how smart I am".....NOT !!!! Today's modern version of that thinking is..."hey, I just traded away my first round pick for Sammy Watkins...I think I'll throw the ball to Fred Jackson for 2 yards"

     

    It took Lou Saban returning here for his second stint as head coach to realize how misused OJ was. Saban announced upon his signing, that we would be running the ball. Period. The rest is history. OJ went on to dominate the league in rushing, and was a force that was at times, unstoppable.Saban, while conservative, perhaps to a fault, understood fundamental football, and how to get the best out of players.

  2. rcatty - believe me, I saw first hand the effects of the Lamonica trade in 1968 when I attended my first ever Bills game at WMS against the Raiders. Lamonica and company blew the Bills right out onto Best Street with a 48-6 whupping. I still have memories of the fans singing "Good-bye Collier" in unison. Of course, that brought about the first round of the cheap replacement coach blunder bringing up Harvey Johnson , who was well suited as a personnel man, but in no way a head coach. Essentially, he, Gallagher and Saban were the architects of the AFL Champions. One thing I always admired about Saban was his ability to put a raw college player at the right position he was suited for in the pros. He switched many players from offense to defense and vice versa and made them stars (George Saimes was one).

     

    Agreed, Glad you see the light ! Merry Xmas, and Happy New Year !

  3. I think you are missing the point, at the time of the trade in 1967, many thought we got a great deal. After Lamonica went on the lead the Raiders to the playoffs for the next decade and both players the Bills obtained burned out we quickly realized we were taken. The bottom line is Tom Flores was a top QB and Art Powell a top receiver in 1966, the Bills had a great defense and not so great offense. Glen Bass and Lamonica were 2nd Team players, so many got kind of excited; by the fourth game reality set in.

     

    Joel Collier was one of the greatest Defensive coaches in NFL history but a lousy HC. John Rauch won at Oakland and bombed in Buffalo.

     

    Nobody was jumping for joy with the trade. Although Flores and Powell were well known players and some would say that Powell was top shelf, I think the general feeling was more perplexed than anything. Don't forget many of us thought that Lamonica should have been starting. Lamonica rarely failed as a frequent, relief backup QB. Apparently, Al Davis saw it clear as day, while Collier...who knows what he saw.....

     

    rcatty - regarding Joel Collier, he was the architect of the Bills AFL Championship years' defense and later went on to be DC in Denver for many years and several HC's. His signature there was the "Orange Crush" defense that brought Denver its first playoff years. He was always regarded as an outstanding DC. His HC stint in Buffalo only further showed the Bills front office/ownership's propensity for taking the easy way out on replacing coaches and putting good people in wrong positions. Collier was never HC material and enjoyed many years as a successful DC. Judging Collier by is years as HC isn't near his whole story.

     

    I have no problem with Collier as a defensive coach...he was no Lou Saban, and oversaw the dismantling of a championship team. There are those of us who will never forgive the Lamonica trade. We had it fed to us for several years as Oakland became a cutting edge team. with Lamonica at the helm. Dam two Lamonica MVP years for the Raiders, and we had him here !! Talk about stupidity. Oh yes, that was the start of years and decades of historic failure, ineptitude and general incompetency.I might note, by the way, that Dick Gallagher our first general manager who put together our Championship teams left in 1967, the year of the trade, and after Collier's first year, which ended in defeat in the AFL Championship game.

  4. I was just going to leave this thread alone, given how inaccurate rcatty and others memory is. Thankfully, you and Utah John showed up with facts. Powell was an All-Star. At the time of the trade, it seemed to most that the Bills fleeced the Raiders. Ya just never know how things will turn out. Bass caught a TD pass in SBII and injuries kept Flores from seeing the field in Buffalo. Collier, the acknowledged architect of the Safety Blitz, lead the Bills to the AFL Championship game -at home, only to lose to KC for entry into 'SBI'. Rauch was a good coach for Oakland, but Al wanted to promote Madden. Rauch was more 'reknown' for gutting a still talented roster than the folly of decoying Juice.

     

    Inaccurate. Really? The trade, which will go down as one of the all time worst in professional sports, was made in 1967. That trade was so good for Buffalo that it propelled the us to a 1-12-1 record in 1968, and a 4-10 record in 1969 ! Don't tell me that a player we got in the trade had a good game or two after the trade, or that someone got injured and he was finished. That's ridiculous thinking, the bottom line is that the "proof is in the pudding". It's like saying the Drew Bledsoe trade was a great trade for Buffalo. Yes, Bledsoe had a good year, and some good games after the trade, but he was finished shortly thereafter. No one would say it was a good trade for the Bills. Bellichek fleeced the Bills, dumping a soon to be washed up QB to the Bills for a first round pick. That was no different than Al Davis acquiring Lamonica from us. The last I remember, Lamonica went onto MVP status!

     

    Collier a good coach? An innovator? His record shows his level of innovation, and he was the guy coaching the team that gave Lamonica away. You trade away an MVP, and go 4-10, and 1-12-1, and you want to anoint the guy as some innovator? Lotsa luck ! Get your facts straight. I was there watching the games!

     

    As for the great coach Johnny Rauch. Apparently, another Al Davis reject. Rauch had OJ, and used him so effectively that Juice averaged 622 yards per season. I personally sat in the stands and I would like to have a dollar for each time he flipped OJ out of the backfield and split him out. In 1969 OJ had 30 receptions! Rauch's teams with the Bills were awful, going 4-10, and 3-10-1. However, in fairness to him, the Bills were in the early stages of what would become a decades long history of failure, and ineptitude. Yes, Rauch was part of it and added his own twist to it, but he was just a cog in the wheel of misfortune.

  5. One of my first memories of the Bills was hearing the "We want Lamonica!" chant whenever Jack Kemp would falter.

     

    If I had to pick a favorite year in my life, it would be 1964. It was my first full year of rooting for the Bills, and they win a championship. The Beatles arrive in the U.S. And being Catholic, Vatican II was in full swing.

     

    That's right....Kemp had many an off day, and the fans wanted Lamonica. Saban, many a time, would pull Kemp for Lamonica, and he, Lamonica, would pull the game out! Lamonica could never beat Kemp out for the starting job but was a heck of a "relief pitcher" !

     

    If you look at his stats in 14 games in his last season in Buffalo he threw for 549 yards and the next season in Oakland he threw for 3,228 yards in 14 games. Clearly he could not throw in the Buffalo wind.

     

     

    I don't know if you are joking or not, but there was nothing wrong with Lamonica's arm. He did have a slow release but was fairly accurate with the ball. He seemed to have good command and leadership qualities, and never had much of a problem moving the team. Jack Kemp was a born leader and way ahead of his time with respect to race relations. Everybody loved Jack. His personality carried him very far, and likely exceeded his arm strength. He was perfect for our power running team, leading us to two AFL championships. But Lamonica saved many games !

     

    Lamonica had slow eyes - at least in WNY.

     

    There was nothing wrong with Lamonica's eyes or arm. He did the job here. He was stuck behind Jack Kemp, and the budding geniuses in the front office thought they were smarter than everyone else, and made one of the worse trades in football history. Just look at our record after the trade, and then look at what Oakland did.

     

    Great idea. Make a trade with two of the smartest minds in football, Al Davis and Bill Belichek.You have to be sharp enough to know that Davis and Belichek are light years ahead of you., and would never give you a QB if he was worth anything. Hence, Flores was ok, sort of like faded vanilla pudding, but Bledsoe was exhausted when he got here and had hardly anything left in the tank.

     

    Davis and Bellichek can smell talent a mile away. Joel Collier and the Bills crew of the late 60's would not know it if it hit them in the face. Here's a great example. Remember Johhny Rauch, the "great" coach of the Oakland Raiders that Davis let slip away to the Bills in the late 60's? His great idea was to use OJ as a decoy.....need I say more !!!!

  6. The trade was the start of the demise of the franchise. Heretofore we were a cutting edge team, with great drafting, top-notch coaching, and even some innovation (yes, we had the first ever soccer style kicker in Pete Gogolak). Once Lou Saban left we were finished. Joel Collier took over, and that began the slide to more than a decade of awful coaches, and drafting.

     

    I was a teenager in those days, and didn't quite realize that we just had our pockets picked by a coach from Oakland named Al Davis. Davis would go on to distinguish himself as cutting edge, and we would be left on the cutting room floor.

     

    I still get sick when I see highlights of Lamonica throwing 70 yard bombs that connected. Worse yet, I get doubled up in agony when I hear the term "mad bomber". Ouch.. all of this still hurts, and its only been almost half a century. "Honey, where did you put the Pepto Bismol" !!!!

  7. Note that just about every player's performance on the offensive side of the ball has regressed under Marrone-Hackett. Watkins, Goodwin, EJ Manual, Orton, Spiller, Glenn, Wood, Urbik, Pears, Henderson, Jackson(age), Chandler (about the same) all have regressed. The only guys who look like they have improved are Robert Woods, and Chris Hogan. Remember under Chan and line coach Joe D our line (virtually unchanged from today's personnel with the exception of Henderson at right tackle) played lights out or at least close to it. Today they look awful? I'm talking about Wood, and the two guards? Throw in Cordy Glenn with that mix, as well. Either the blocking scheme and/or coaching must be to blame.

  8. He built three winning and competitive teams. I'll take him any day over what we have now. Read his book, and tell me how washed up he is. Furthermore, he loves Buffalo, he is on the wall, and if you listen to him speak, you can grasp that he is very, very bright. They guy likely has more knowledge in his fingertip than Whaley has throughout.

     

    The NFL has passed Polian by. Look at his success in Indy. Ill give you a hint it starts and ends with Peyton Manning.

     

    He built three winning and competitive teams. I'll take him any day over what we have now. Read his book, and tell me how washed up he is. Furthermore, he loves Buffalo, he is on the wall, and if you listen to him speak, you can grasp that he is very, very bright. They guy likely has more knowledge in his fingertip than Whaley has throughout.

  9. how about you stop spamming the board with these posts about old has been coaches/GMs and go spend your time learning about the game of football - seems like it would be time better spent

     

    Whaley is a very good GM - he is not even remotely part of the problem (theres a reason hes highly regarding around the league)

     

    Cowher coaches 90s football, it doesnt work in todays NFL, and Dungy is laughable......we need a coach, not an analyst

     

    Do we need to fire The Moron, yes...but please, no retreads, get the next best thing, not the last best thing

     

    The last time I looked they have Super Bowl ring(s) on their fingers. That tends to indicate they understand how to get things done. That's good enough for me.

  10. Whaley made a huge, huge mistake in trading for Sammy. As good as Sammy is, he gave up a first and fourth rounder, and put him on a dysfunctional team. Whaley may have an eye for talent, but his managerial judgement is lousy. Every experienced commentator stated that the Bills were too far away from contending when the deal was made. Now we are left with no first round pick, no franchise QB, and an offensive coaching staff that has no clue.

     

    Brandon is in the middle of all of this, and he should be banished. He went after a Syracuse guy as coach, yet "obviously"(pun intended) the guy (coach) is not only inept, but has no gonads.

     

    There is one and only one solution to this mess. Bring in an accomplished football mind that has demonstrated football building skills. Polian, Accorsi, Ron Wolf, Casserly etc etc. Then get a real well rounded coach, someone who has demonstrated success and who has the brains to be innovative and cutting edge; if necessary, pay a king's ransom for Tony Dungy, or Bill Cowher

  11. Whaley made a huge, huge mistake in trading for Sammy. As good as Sammy is, he gave up a first and fourth rounder, and put him on a dysfunctional team. Whaley may have an eye for talent, but his managerial judgement is lousy. Every experienced commentator stated that the Bills were too far away from contending when the deal was made. Now we are left with no first round pick, no franchise QB, and an offensive coaching staff that has no clue.

     

    Brandon is in the middle of all of this, and he should be banished. He went after a Syracuse guy as coach, yet "obviously"(pun intended) the guy (coach) is not only inept, but has no gonads.

     

    There is one and only one solution to this mess. Bring in an accomplished football mind that has demonstrated football building skills. Polian, Accorsi, Ron Wolf, Casserly etc etc. Then get a real well rounded coach, someone who has demonstrated success and who has the brains to be innovative and cutting edge; if necessary, pay a king's ransom for Tony Dungy, or Bill Cowher.

  12. Funny how things don't seem to change. That was Jimmy Johnson discussing the Bills in one of their Super Bowl appearances. How embarrassing to be called out in a critique of a fundamental aspect of your organization. The sad thing is, we have seen this all too often with Marrone's teams. Last year it was Stevie Johnson and Scott Chandler. Now it's McKelvin and Brown. At some point in time you, as coach, have to wake up and teach and practice ball security. I shudder to think what a real coach; i.e Lombardi, Paul Brown, Lou Saban, would say about Marrone and his clueless understanding of fundamentals. I guess they don't have those issues with .500 teams at Syracuse?

  13. Once again Marrone showed us that he can't get his team ready to play when it counts. Although they only had one or maybe two roughing penalties this week, they lost concentration when it mattered most; i.e. motion penalty, failure to pick up a fumble, offensive pass interference etc. This game was winnable, the defense was awesome, yet they can't put the ball in the end zone when it matters. It's obvious that he lacks insight into these matters.

  14. Ever wonder why certain businesses fail, and others prosper? Why is K-mart crumbling, while Wal-Mart tops the charts? Why do the Bills consistently fall on their a___s, while teams like the Patriots flourish?

     

    Hmmm, gets me thinking. Why not try and copy or emulate a successful model? Wal-mart wins because they do some things (pricing, merchandising) much better than K-mart. The Pats know how to use Edelman, and Gronkowski in ways that we don't even dream about. Take yesterday, while Edelman was running criss-crossing patterns and delays over the middle of the field, and getting wide open, we ignored Sammy. Why? Did we run Sammy over the middle? Did we utilize pics and delays like the Pats (I saw one time, when we got called for it). It is virtually impossible to cover a speed guy over the middle for 5-8 yd passes. The Pats make a meal out of it. When you close in to tighten up your coverage they burn you deep. They clearly are a Wal-Mart. Yet instead of doing what they do, we try to come up with our own inferior form of competition, if you will, the K-mart way.

     

    All you have to do is copy their model, use it, and make improvements to it. The Japanese did this about 50-60 years ago with automobiles, and consumer electronics. They have been world leaders ever since.

     

    The Pats use a top notch tight end, sometimes two. They have utilized that approach for years, very successfully. They rely upon the slot receiver to get open over the middle etc. Just look at Wes Welker's stats against the Bills. I remember one game not too long ago when he caught 17 passes.

     

    You have two speed burners in Sammy, and Goodwin. They can easily out-do Edelman, . All you have to do is copy the Pats playbook, and improve upon it. It ain't rocket science.

×
×
  • Create New...