NewHampshireBillsFan

Marty is 5-14 in the playoffs and many of those losses were with better teams. He is 66 years old. I think Chan Gailey is a much better choice. He has a much better offensive mind.

Living in NE I agree that Trent is something like Brady early in his career. But I think the concussion may have ruined Trent permanently. You can't blame his regression all on the OL. Jim Kelly, who knows something about QBing, has personally moved on from Trent and feels the Bills need to have someone else at QB instead of Trent.

They could probably replace Guy anytime at this point. No way they are going to replace Modrak until after the draft. What is the use of him scouting games all fall and then canning him before the draft? Nix doesn't have to pick the players Modrak suggests in all cases and he can fire him after the draft if he wants to bring in his own guy.

Gailey is not that bad of a choice and better than some of the people that turned us down. Frazier is a defensive guy who likes to run the Tampa 2 type. I'd much rather have Gailey. Russ Grimm is not an innovative offensive guy. It would have been great to get Shanahan but even he struggled at times in Denver, and his defenses were often horrible. Chan Gailey went to the playoffs 11 of the 15 years he was an NFL coach, mostly as an offensive coordinator and two years as a HC. This is not another Jauron. The firing by a young punk HC in KC speaks in favor of Gailey, not against him. It shows he was willing to stand up to his boss.

If Chan brings in a solid DC and we don't have all the injuries and Buddy oversees a good draft this team could be much better in 2010.

From what was reported at the time, Levy had to talk RW into the DJ hire. Levy didn't want Sherman and apparently RW preferred him to DJ.

People in New England did not like him much when he coached here. He was widely considered to not be a great NFL head coach. I'm surprised anyone is giving him another chance. I predict he won't succeed.

April is either your next HC or special teams coach some place else. I don't think many would be happy with him as HC here so bye bye. That is the way it works in the NFL and that is the way it works in most companies. For one thing a new HC would not want someone on his staff who thinks he should be HC instead. We'll survive without him and we may have less stupid, season killing plays like Leodis's fumble. Sometimes the desire to make top yardage on all return situations overrules simple football common sense.

I would be excited to have Cowher as HC, if only because the officiating versus NE* would not be as one sided with a respected coach on the Bills sideline. But if he didn't want to come here that is fine also, and I don't want him if his heart isn't totally into this opportunity. In some ways Cowher reminds me of Mike Ditka who had a nice run in Chicago with one big SB win, but helped very much by top assistants like Buddy Ryan, an effective FO, some superstar players, and an established tough team mindset all around. Once Ditka went to the Saints after being out of football for a bit he was a disaster. He tried to make clever personnel moves and didn't focus on the fundamentals that had made the Bears what they were. His heart really didn't seem to be in it. In some ways I'd rather have someone like Russ Grimm as HC, eager to prove himself for the first time. Anyway, Buffalo isn't such a bad place to be. We had no trouble inking Buddy Nix to the GM spot, right?

Much more important for the players, especially the young players, to end the season on a high note with a win at home. You can't turn winning and losing off. You need to try to work on a winning culture with each and every game. This team has now had a losing culture for so long that even fans are affected by hoping for a loss. Sad, really.

Cowher's wife may not like cold weather, but most football coaches don't consider the weather in Buffalo to be a major issue and who cares about the economy and entertainment. Football coaches want to win and in their free time they want to have some friends and relax and go to a nice restaurant or see a movie. Buffalo is great for that; the people are really great in Buffalo as all of us know that have left and live somewhere else. Coaches don't want to go to some Broadway show and fashionable nightclub. When Wade Phillips was fired under unpleasant circumstances he still lived in Buffalo for quite some time after that. He had no big desire to move and he grew up in Texas. Many ex-Bills players live in Buffalo.

I think most agree that we either bring in a good GM and let him pick the HC and rest of the FO or we bring in an elite coach who would be in charge of everything and bring in his own FO to support him. The latter options are quickly dwindling so the Bills will probably go with the GM first. I don't think they can just bring in a hot young coordinator as HC and keep the current FO. I think even RW realizes that.

Totally agree. The Marv Levy hire (81 years old at the time) proved that RW didn't have any connections to rely upon to hire a GM of sorts, whatever Marv's official role was. Of course when RW said he didn't know Shanahan he meant that he didn't know him personally. He does know that he coached the Broncos until recently. I hope Brandon has more influence than RW on the hiring of a GM or coach at this point in time.

I at one time thought this way but I think Mike Brown has started to turn things around the last few years. He seems to be showing how a small market team can at least be competitive.

I wonder how high Maybin would have gone if the Bills hadn't taken him?

I don't think we have had a good OL this entire decade. I would feel worse if JP was say Pat Williams who wanted to play for the Bills and when he left it really hurt our defensive line middle. When JP was here no one was happy with the OL and he didn't play that great for the Bills the last year after the hold out. As far as JP in Philly, who cares, but I predict he won't play out his whole contract in Philly. He will eventually be released to save cap money. I also predict in the playoffs this year he won't be any overwhelming force.

As far as turning over the franchise that is not RW's style, unless it is to someone like Shanahan. He considers the Donahoe era a big mistake as do we all. If RW is feeling a little tired or whatever that is what Brandan is here for, to do the grunt work and then report back to RW so that Wilson can make the final decisions.

1965 was out last great year. Losing a SB is not a great year. 1964, 1965 we won the AFL title and may well have won a SB if they had started one or two years earlier.

Yes the Matt Millen philosophy, which he stated, was only one team wins the SB, the rest play for draft picks. The Lions certainly did play for draft picks and still seem to even w/o Millen. The thing is the Bills are not going to get a top 5 pick because they are not a bottom 5 team in the NFL. You can't out lose losing teams. They will find a way to out bottom you. Anyway, if you wanted to finish 4-12 or something like that the only hope you ever had was to keep Jauron the whole year. Once he was let go you knew there was going to be at least a little bounce in the positive direction. With Fewell the team probably won't finish worse than 6-10.

There tends to be a depressing theme with long time losing teams like the Bills and somewhat talented but underachieving players. Losing teams like the Bills tend to a have a string of 2nd class coaches that the players don't really respect or fear and the overall attitude on the team is not up to snuff (Kelly saying that he couldn't tell on a Monday in the locker room for the current team if they lost or won based on the mood in the locker room). The theme is players that don't feel like working hard don't, sometimes are cut, and then come back with other teams where they are willing to work. Or they stay on the team but never play up to their potential. Stuff like this doesn't seem to happen on elite teams. Players are afraid to goof off.

Just think like Jauron does: "its hard to win in the NFL" and hope this sentiment spreads throughout the whole team and organization and you may get your wish that we lose the rest of our games. And look at the bright side, once that losing attitude is in place we may get another high pick after next year and the year after that. Detroit set the example of how to build long term success by getting high picks several years in a row.

Playing to lose is not a good idea. If the players see that the management is no longer concerned about winning their respect for management goes out the window. The thing is the Bills lose a lot when they are playing to win. Most of these players will be back next year; no team replaces over 50% of its players in one year. We have to start to learn to win now and hopefully add some better talent as well for next year. This team has had losing seasons about 2/3 of its history and it hasn't gotten us some great players in the draft that really turned things around. It just begets more losing. The only times having a terrible team really helped us in the draft were OJ and Bruce Smith. But in both of those cases we were the worst team in the league and got the number one choice. We are far from being the worst team in the league at 4-8 and we aren't going to get an OJ or Bruce Smith by losing out, just more losses to add to our already highly negative lifetime record.

It doesn't affect the Bills at all once RW dies. RW has already said that the team will be sold on his death, auctioned off. Once that sale is completed RW's heirs will get 55% and the govt. 45%. If RW's heirs had wanted to keep the team then this would be a big deal, but RW has already said that won't happen. Basically a law like this makes it necessary for one rich guy, upon death, to sell his team to another rich guy so the taxes can be paid.

I think what all this shows is that TO's heart was not in the game with Edwards/Jauron and now he is more gung-ho because he sees possibilities with Fitz/Fewell. To think of him purposely dropping balls is an impossible idea. First of all it would hurt him big time for his next contract and second it hurts his rep with all his teammates, friends around the league, and fans that root for him personally. Third, there was no guarantee that DJ would have gotten fired and even TE benched for long. Another whole way of looking at this season (which TO was certainly aware of) was that it made no real sense to fire DJ in mid-season, just wait until the end of the year. Also, that TE should be given this whole year to see if he has it or not, since Fitz clearly (at least it was thought) would never be seriously considered as a long term number one. So TO must be feeling pretty great that things did work out both for DJ and TE being put out of the picture and maybe his situation had some motivating effect on the whole thing.

You have the right attitude as a Bills fan. I mean who cares who wins if the Bills don't win. We are following a team that has not ever won a SB and SB has been around since January 1967. What, some of you enjoy seeing other players and fans happy. You enjoy seeing good plays and bad officiating in other games. Its meaningless unless your team is playing the game or the game you are watching can impact your team's chances.