NewHampshireBillsFan

The sad part about any of this is that most people (myself included) assume that the Bills FO could have screwed this up. It would be par for the course. You get the feeling that Brandon (smart as he might be) is learning on the job and Modrak basically said that about Brandon when it came to Brandon's understanding of football talent. And then Perry and Turk are both learning on the job and we can only hope Jauron is learning on the job after all these years as a HC. It was not always like this. Look at the 3 way deal that sent Cornelius Bennett to the Bills and really put them on the road to the SB. On the positive side the TO deal was a big step in the right direction. I think the Bills will be proven to have scored big on that deal and thus far TO has been everything we could have hoped for attitude wise and on the field.

Ralph is 90. The thing about this season is that it is a bit of an unknown. Everything from about 11-5 down to about 5-11 is possible depending on how the whole thing shakes out, especially the OL. The good news is we either make the playoffs or get very close or the coaches are replaced at the end of the season.

The point is not whether AJ had an ax to grind. The point is that if AJ didn't like RW so much he didn't want to stay with the Bills he must have had some real reasons why he was willing to leave a team and move to a new city and team, etc. If he was also the kind of person who wanted to leave with a parting shot couldn't he have found one true thing to say about RW that would leave a bad impression of RW instead of making up a total lie about RW? If it is not true that RW pushed for RJ to start and AJ lied and said it was the case wouldn't there also be a risk that everyone else associated with the Bills could come out and convincingly show that AJ was lying? That would only make AJ look like a jerk and low-life to the whole world. So it makes more sense to think that what AJ said was true since if it wasn't true he could have found something else or (several other things) embarrassing to say about RW that was true. Most people in my observation who leave an organization and want to spill dirt on the organization do say something true about the organization because they know enough true bad things and don't have to make up something bad to say about the organization.

Anyone gets beat on some plays. The knock on Whitner is that he doesn't make big plays but most think he does a decent job of tackling. Anyway the coaches didn't feel obligated to start McCargo even though he was drafted in the first round and they DID try to trade him last year. Also McKelvin didn't start last year and is not certain to start this year. And although I don't think DJ is the best HC and Perry is still learning as a DC, Jauron is a former DB and DB coach and Perry was a DB coach before he got this gig with the Bills. I may not always agree with the defenses they run but I think they know how to evaluate a DB and decide who should play, esp. with the systems they want to employ.

Four reasons not to trade Whitner: 1.) He is one of the very few true leaders on this team and leadership is very important in football. 2.) You don't trade a player just because he may have been drafted too high. 3.) At this point he is good enough to start for this team so a trade would leave us with a less qualified replacement on the field. 4.) He doesn't even have a high salary that would be erased if he left.

If you think he deserves another year with an 11-5 non-playoff season, don't worry about it. He will definitely get another year even with a 10-6 non-playoff season and may get another year with a 9-7 season. The reason will be why mess with the continuity of the team when we are so close. Of course if the team goes 10-2 and then loses the last four to barely miss the playoffs he might get fired. Anyway, even though the Bills are improved this year, hopefully, making the playoffs will be tough. Its hard to imagine the Bills vaulting to the number one spot in the tough AFCE and getting one of only 2 WC's is also a challenge. But if we beat NE* week one we might be on our way. Big if though.

I think it was pretty well discussed at the time that Ralph pushed for RJ to start in the Titans playoff game. A big part of the reason AJ Smith didn't want to stay in Buffalo was because of RW's meddling. I would have to accept AJ Smith's version over other opinions since he was a key insider in the Bills FO during that time. In any case it was a crazy thing to replace the starter for a key game like that and I think Flutie would likely have led us to a win the way the Bills defense played. I miss the intensity of Flutie and the national interest in the Bills during the Flutie days and we were routinely going to the playoffs in those days also. Perhaps TO will bring some of the intensity and national interest back to the Bills.

When the Bills went from the charging blue buffalo on the white helmet to the charging blue on the red helmet I think the Bills reached the height of great uniforms. Supposedly they did that because at the time four of the teams in the AFCE (Bills, Pats*, Colts, and Fish) had white helmets (Jets were green already) and they wanted to make it easier for the QB to see his receivers down the field. And we had all those great SB years with that great uniform. But I don't think you can go back permanently to an old design. We should probably keep the current unis until we start to win and then maybe unveil something totally new.

Still, back in the day Kelly did a nice job throwing the ball in November, December, and even January. In this day and age, with the rules favoring the passing game, you can't just run the ball play after play and expect the other team not to stack up their defense and force you to pass. Of course with the Bills, we definitely need a stronger running game in 09.

A more useful stat might be wins per $ paid for the HC or wins per $ paid to the whole coaching staff. But I guess that would prove the wrong point. Say a coach makes $6 million per year and gets 12 wins. That is $500,000 per win while Jauron makes $2 million and gets 7 wins so that is only $286K per win. Jauron is cheaper for each win. I think the stat should be playoff wins per $ paid to the coach.

Face it, even when money was not a major issue (60's to 80's), the Bills have struggled to win. Part of it is that good coaches and GM's were either forced out or wanted out including Saban twice (who admittedly had issues of his own), Knox, Levy, Polian, and Butler. Wilson has always been somewhat irascible and some of his financial people and family members were also considered annoying by the quality football people we have been fortunate to have in our history.

Definitely an upgrade on DL coaching. And it couldn't have come at a better time, perhaps in time to salvage McCargo's career with the Bills. The problem last year was the DL coach's attitude was all about intensity and that is important but technique is crucial also. But in general we don't have the premium assistant coaches we used to routinely have from the 60's to the 90's. That may be one of the biggest reasons for our decade of futility. Hate to sound like a broken record with my negativity with the current regime, but the Bills used to have some top assistants, even in the years when the HC wasn't the greatest. On a more positive note Turk and Perry both seem like sharp guys and they have had a chance to get some learning in and I expect things will be better this year. For Turk the extra talent should help.

Being from WNY didn't help us when it came to the Belicheat* scandal. Goodell is a totally company man and he will do what is best for his company, the company being the NFL. And by the way why should any Bills fan care about whether he is tough on players who get in trouble with the law, etc. We may not even have a team in a few years and we can't compete now in this league the way things are going and we care about how tough a disciplinarian Goodell is with players? Its not our concern since we have much bigger issues to worry about.

Positives on DJ Continuity of systems, players play hard for him, experienced as a HC (though a losing one). Negatives on DJ Continuity of losing, not innovative, not feared by players or opponents, thinks its hard to win in the NFL, not quick on the uptake on gamedays. Overall, a net negative. But I have decided to give him one more chance to prove me and the whole world wrong about him. It helps make the upcoming season more palatable. Plus the Bills have had 3 good coaches in 50 years (Saban, Knox, and Levy) and the rest had problems or were horrible. The Bills batting percentage on HC's is in the low .200's. OK maybe for a great fielding SS but not for an NFL franchise. This doesn't bode well as a basis for hope the next coach will be better than DJ. Remember, we are not selecting the next HC, the FO is.

1.) The NFL is not set up in this day and age for a small market team like Buffalo to easily compete with more wealthy teams. In the 70's and 80's this was not an issue. 2.) We don't have a first rate organization from the the FO down through coaching. For coaching when was the last time other teams copied something the Bills introduced. Contrast that to 1980 when Chuck Knox showed the value of the shotgun (60% 3rd down conversions) and everyone in the league started to copy that and it became a staple in the league. Dallas had run the shotgun before Buffalo but no one copied them. When Buffalo demonstrated the value of it in 1980 everyone copied the Bills.

Goodell should be enshrined in the HOF for saving the NFL's butt after the Belicheat* scandal. I mean Tim Graham echos the sentiment of most of the media that covers the NFL by saying that NE* is THE model franchise of not only the NFL but of all the four major sports. And this was said AFTER the cheating scandal. So Goodell clearly did his job regarding the Cheatriots*. I can't think of any other commissioner that could have buried that decade of cheating by NE* as well as Goodell. So he is doing a sensational job for the interests of the NFL. The labor issue is secondary to the integrity of the league itself.

All I can say is I wish Conrad Dobler had still been with the Bills last year. Conrad would have taken time out from slugging an opposing DL in the face (which he did quite often) to slug JP's face after a ridiculous sack. Conrad set up the system the Bills had then (late 70's to early 80's during the successful Knox era) of having OL's on the Bills pay a fine into a kitty every time they allowed a sack. The money was used for a big party at the end of the year. With Peters they could have had a great party last year. OL realize that sacks are the most important key. Usually sacks end a drive, even cause fumbles or QB injuries. And instead of thinking Peter's sack totals may be inflated, how may QB hurries or hits on the QB's after a hurry up pass were caused by Peters as well as outright sacks. The point is you can't have someone with Peter's attitude on the line, and you can't reward him after his attitude with the biggest contract ever for the Bills. One sad thing about all this is that the whole situation is the hallmark of a dysfunctional, not respected team from the FO through the coaching staff. NE* and other successful, non-cheating teams have holdouts also of key players. But I just can't see Belicheat* or Parcells allowing Peters to just be a jerk once he comes back and risk his QB's neck. They would have called him out and benched him at least. DJ seemed to be worried of further offending JP and constantly praised him, even when he clearly wasn't in the best shape at the beginning of the year.

1.) Keep in mind the franchises are worth close to a billion dollars each in the NFL. The reputation of the league is everything. The fact that some fans would be outraged by the light penalty could not be avoided. But even most of us are still following the league. Goodell in an interview by Fortune or Business Week magazine made it very clear that he considered the league one single franchise and it was his goal to enhance that franchise as much as possible. 2.) MLB would have liked to cover up the steroids scandal, but it was not possible because so much evidence came out about it. Law enforcement got involved in some cases (Barry Bonds) and the thing broke wide open. The press is torn by two conflicting sentiments. If they can break a negative story they may do it, but they also want access to the big coaches and glamorous teams in the league. Once it looked like the NFL was going to let off Belicheat* easy and the teams and players started to clam up about their experiences dealing with NE*, then almost all the media dropped covering the story because they did not want to damage their access to Belicheat* and NE* in what looked like a potentially perfect season. 3.) I'll drop the politics example because that is off topic except to say in politics the parties do insult each other like crazy and also try to win races against each other. But when push comes to shove they close ranks a lot to protect the image of America, etc. That is the analogy.

Two things about Peters: 1.) Giving up sacks has to be factored as a significantly bigger issue than point of attack blocking, etc. Even allowing a clean hit after a pass can get your QB injured. Look at Edward's concussion last year and the effect it had on his season both mentally and physically after that. Nothing will give a QB happy feet or mess up his mental rhythm like worrying about blind side hits when the LT gives up a lot of sacks. 2.) JP made the statement that after allowing a sack last year he thought about how underpaid he was and then he didn't feel so bad about the sack. JP understands better than we can about point 1 and therefore he is a total jerk to have that kind of attitude about his QB's physical health and mental state of mind. Edwards also must have sensed that JP would not go all out and that had to affect him as well. Based on these two points I don't look at it as if JP stinks, I just hope things don't go that great for him in Philly. He doesn't deserve it based on his extremely damaging attitude last year. Personally, I expect him to have problems on and off with injuries this year. Just a hunch.

Red Sox fans used to be kind of noble, continuing to root for a team that hadn't won a championship since 1918. Now that they have won a couple, they are getting a lot more obnoxious, especially those under about 35. Red Sox fans are getting more like Patsie* fans who are totally insufferable, the kind of people you'd like to see smacked in the face a couple of times, even if you are not normally prone to violence. Face it the same people in NE are both Patsie* and Sox fans. So I've really started to root against the Sox big time, even though I used to like them.

But again, look at it from Goodell's point of view. The worst thing in the world is that only Belicheat* cheated, if the cheating was significant enough to help them win even a few of their games. That would make people think maybe NE* should forfeit a championship or two. That at ALL costs Goodell couldn't allow to avoid harming the image of the NFL. The whole thing had to be minimized and these were the steps taken: 1.) Goodell made a very quick ruling and made the penalty mostly a matter of money and a draft choice. The draft was a long way off and by then a lot of people wouldn't even notice that NE* was missing a pick, esp. since they had 2 #1 draft choices. The thing Goodell could not allow was that Belicheat* would be suspended for even one game, because that would draw a lot more attention to the situation. 2.) Rumors quickly surfaced of other allegations against NE* such as shutting off opponents mikes during games, and using mikes on def. players to hear off. signals, taping the Rams practice at the SB, etc. Also, it was stated in the media that the Jets, Bills, and Fish were all unhappy with the small penalty against the Patsies*. Goodell was forced to at least make it seem like he was looking for more possible violations. He told NE* to surrender all the tapes it had and sign an affidavit saying it handed over all evidence (as if Kraft and Belicheat care anything about ethics or the NFL laws). Goodell announced that more penalties may be forthcoming based on this. 3.) But Goodell quickly announced that all the evidence had now been safely destroyed and no further penalties were needed based on this. Case closed for the NFL. All the other items like shutting off mikes were ignored. Mike Millen, then still Lions GM, but also a member of the powerful NFL rules committee, who had previously brought up allegations now was backpedaling and saying that all that was in the past and if there had been a big enough issue (shutting off the mikes) it should have been addressed in the past and now it was too late, time to move on. Also the AFCE teams all said in concert that it was time to move on and they didn't have any more interest in the case. More damage control by Goodell. 4.) The the major media like ESPN and others kicked in with damage control. Peope like Jimmy Johnson stated he had done the same thing, etc. and it was no big deal. The NFL promoted this unofficially to allow the fans to feel like it was no big deal and that NE* hadn't won unfairly. 5.) The thing to remember is that the NFL, ESPN, former coaches and players, all have an incentive to make the NFL look legitimate kind of like both political parties, major corporations and institutions all work to make the USA seem legitimate in what it does. Things get swept under the carpet so that we don't stop believing in the system, NFL or USA as the case may be. So Belicheat* had no need to play a card to play with Goodell to intimidate him by saying he would reveal cheating by others. Goodell was happy that people like JJ said he had also cheated, because it made it seem like this whole thing was no big deal. Also Belicheat had nothing to fear from Goodell because Goodell wanted this thing swept under a carpet a lot more than Belicheat* and Kraft* could hope for. No way Belicheat* could even be forced to resign because that would fix a cloud over the NFL forever anytime the name Belicheat* came up. Living in NE, I remember how calm Belicheat* was discussing his meeting with Goodell--the cheat* was never nervous because he* understood all this better than you and I could.

That's it, we have to start somewhere. The line last year was basically a dysfunctional group even though they played OK at times due to natural talent in some cases and experience. This year we have a chance to start to build some real chemistry on the line from players that really want to play for the Bills. The LT thing is overrated and besides Walker wasn't bad when he played LT early last year.

If a white knight group came in and bought the Bills they probably could make a go of it in WNY. The first thing they probably would do would be to bring in a first class GM (no offense to Brandon who has done decently under the circumstances) and probably a new high profile HC. That would energize the fans and would probably be followed by a 20% increase of ticket prices right away. But with the new hope for the future the fans would probably still buy the tickets and also corp. sponsorships would skyrocket across the region including Ontario. There would be a feeling that this franchise was a winning proposition for the future. May even lead to fairer officiating against NE* because the refs would be influenced by the new energy of the franchise. The problem we have now is that other than ticket paying fans no one wants to make a big commitment to the Bills because they don't even know if the team will be here for long or what the new ownership will be like to deal with.

The only logical reason Goodell swept this issue under the carpet and destroyed all the evidence is that if there arose a feeling among NFL fans that NE* won three super bowls during an era when they* cheated in such a way that it gave them at times a winning advantage, then the whole integrity of the NFL would come into question. If Belicheat* had fingered say 8 other teams that he knew also videotaped then that would not have been nearly as big a deal for the league as fans thinking the most successful team won with the help of cheating. In some ways it would have helped the league's image if a number of teams would have been guilty since then the whole thing would have seemed to even out and no one team would really have benefited. Then the league could say they were not going to allow this anymore and the whole thing is settled. The damage control Goodell had to do involved NE* and NE* alone. The whole thing is Goodell had to make it seem like it hadn't really helped the 3 time super bowl champs* that much. And I think he succeeded pretty much except with intelligent fans who realize that this has tainted NE*'s past record and to some degree this whole decade of the NFL's history.

Thanks. I will be patient living here in NE* that the Patsies* demise will come eventually. And then how much fun will it be to listen to sports radio. These are the most whiny fans in the nation and when even with all the cheating they* do they finally start to slump it will be a great experience to listen to the fans and all the excuses they always make for all their teams when they don't win.