GrudginglyPessimistic

Jauron was blindsided because he believed Mr. Ralph who amazingly is about a season removed from agreeing to extend Jauron's contract. Its a testimony not only to Jauron's football blindness in not seeing he deserved to be canned given his results and Mr. Ralph's blindness for judging two straight 7-9 seasons as meriting extension.

This team is not one player away from even making the playoffs. Does anyone claim that we are one blue-chipper away?

Firing jauron is an OK step one but without taking a real step and getting a real GM in here, I suspect that the next HC will have the same success as MM and GW before him. The buck stops with the HC for a particular game and even for a particular season. However, the simple fact is that our 0 for about a decade record is one that Jauron is not the guilty party for the vast majority of this failure. If we are talking about a true road to rebuilding and some real change we need to get a GM in here with the smarts of a Polian and the authority of a Polian (Mr. Ralph gave TD this authority but did not manage this employee well enough to check and balance the negatives he had from being run out of Pitts). Mr. Ralph needs to man up and admit the Polian error and give Shanahan, Holmgren, Cpwher or some one who has done this before the authority that they need to get it done. He also needs to analyze things as we go to provide the appropriate check he never managed TD to do.

Yeah if you find Dan Marino. We do not even have the won the SB in the last ten years defense that the Ravens have to augment their rookie QB. A first round QB pick is almost certainly the recipe for a Joey Harrington experience (which is a worse version of the Mike Williams experience we just suffered through). Methinks a first round QB choice is more likely the JP Losman experience rather than the Ben RoboQB episode. We simply do not have enough quality leadership at other positions and the strength in the trenches to make a 1st round QB choice payoff as an approach to team building.

Yeah it would have fit and should go onto every rant that calls for the rearranging of the deck chairs that canning Jauron or cutting TO immediately would be. However, this type of sentiment ALSO deserves its own thread as it is really the key to understanding the 0 for the decade record and how to actually rebuild this team. If the owner will not man up and change his ways (a difficult thing to do at any time but particularly at 90+ when you have proven the ability to make big bucks in other industries). You cannot fire the owner in this economic system, and many of us appreciate Mr. Ralph for the outstanding thing he did in keeping the team here when he could have made bigger bucks elsewhere. Many of us not only feel some good about the old guy but also live in fear of the day he leaves this life. But assuming (and hoping the Bills remain- a not likely but only logical assumption for this fan) the Bills remain we need the owner to make a change in his style and bring a Polian type here and not fire him.

I als o would pretty much go with this as the list. McCargo is likely a goner rather than borderline for this fan but in the spirit of focusing on who we keep rather than who we cut I would take this list and build from it with FA (first priority as this team must be competitive quick in this reality. The draft is also essential for performing excellent on because it is the way you win an SB. However, you are not gonna win an SB next year and your draft is gonna give you players to develop not to star in this league immediately. Trade whatever parts of the flotsam you can to get immediate value in players who can surprise by not necessarily winning in the first year of rebuilding but show the character to never say die and to teach younger players. Use FA to get a few players who will star but mostly want a chance to learn and show their teaching skills in preparation for possible future careers as HCs/GMs. Finally, and essentially the team drafts to build an SB winner in the future. I think pursuit of this model building upon the list you provide can rebuild this team into a winner.

Obviously Jauron is not going to lead the team where we want to go so he is gone for the future, Its impossible to fire the owner and I think ultimately he bears the blame for the team's losing ways (Jauron does deserve to go but anyway you cut he is simply not responsible for the majority of the 0 for a decade record and calls for his dismissal are little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic). However, who do you keep to build around. Jackson is pretty obvious. Lynch has shown little this year, but contractually and age wise you keep him. The Birdman and in fact its too early to declare any of the rookies or second year players a bust so likely you build around all the first day choices from the last two years. Lindell and Moorman you keep. However, I think it gets pretty thin pretty quick after that.

I agree with you that Dan's view of the Bills is too rosy, but right along with this is that your indictment of the Bills (and the rants of many of my fellow Bills fans is too harsh. Like it or not while the last ten years under Mr. Ralph's ownership has been extremely hard for those of us who love the Bills. One of the problems has been the results have not been disastrous as you cite to justify throwing it all out. Almost every year is certainly really really awfully bad. However, even DJ's harshest critics should admit if they want to be credible that 3 straight 7-9 years are a measure of incredibly consistent mediocrity which is acceptable at all to this fan (purely based on his W/L record he deserves to be canned). However this incredibly consistent mediocrity which some fans harp on as they demand DJs head (agin no argument against that here) is actually proof positive that like it or not Jauron cannot be blamed for the majority of the decade of failure. A true assessment of the Bills MIGHT call the assemblage of the 10 year record disastrous, but a fair and balanced view (not that us fans are required to be fair at all) of the Bills really needs to judge almost every individual year as putrid but not disastrous. TD. certainly Jauron, and even MM and GW (on some planet) had some positive aspects to their work. Claims that they are the worst ever simply undercut the arguments of the ranter. If you want to declare this disastrous as a whole then the blame needs to fall on Mr. Ralph and folks should be clear about that if they want to be credible. Shuffling around lower level functionaries like Modrak and Guy might be fun to do for a while but ultimately it is quite doubtful that a shift in these folks will make the difference.

Sorry for the delay in responding to your reply to me. Unfortunately, I have heard nothing beyond the flat statement that it would not be Marty. In the various times we have been shopping for an HC either Marty S. was not available or I thought there were better candidates so I did not worry about Mr. Ralph putting a kibosh on this idea. My GUESS is that Schottzy actually gave some slight to Mr. Ralph (either real or perceived) and this is why he was on the outs. Certainly when one sees how seemingly personal piques led to: a. apparently this was why the chief architect of the great winner of the 90s, Polian got the axe, b. Butler certainly went out of his way personally to screw Mr. Ralph and unfortunately Bills fans with the way he departed c. Mr. Ralph clearly tilted at windmills in his ill-fated attempt to screw Wade out of a year's salary d. Many signs point to Mr. Ralph being unwilling to pay Mularkey to go elsewhere and the result was that MM simply seemed to have walked away. e. Mr. Ralph clearly gave the car keys to TD and then apparently did little to check TD's worst tendencies and booted him early. Some personal problem with Marty sounds like the issue here for a candidate who should have been an obvious choice to at least contend for the job when it was open and he was free.

Mr. Ralph simply cannot sell the team to the highest bidder. Under his purchase agreement when bought the team from the AFL (which then transferred all agreements to the NFL upon merger) he can ONLY SELL THE TEAM TO A QUALIFIED BIDDER (if you do not understand this then search for any of the articles which state that new owners must win the approval of roughly 70% of the current owners. It does not matter if Mr. Ralph's estate receives a ginormous bid from someone making them the highest bidder if that bidder cannot win the the approval of a vast majority of the current teams Even those who want to fall back on some belief it is Mr. Ralph's property to do with what he wants needs to understand yes in our society it is contractually his property but he has to observe any contracts he signed to acquire this property. Thus Mr. Ralph is perfectly free to think something like the new CBA is a bad deal, but since he and the Bengals owner were voted down by the rest of the NFL Mr. Ralph and the Bills MUST operate based on the agreed upon framework of the new CBA without regard to what he thinks or wants to do individually. So also with selling of the team. Mr. Ralph cannot simply sell to the highest bidder because he wants to and his will says so. He can only sell to the highest qualified bidder and the NFL a a whole will say who is qualified or not. Thus just as with the Deadskins where the highest bidder was someone named Millstein or something, the NFL did not judge him as qualified due to a habit he had of being a litigious partner. Just as in the case where the arguably majority partner of the NFL the players (who under the current CBA command 60.5% of the total NFL revenue) got Rush Limbaugh thrown out of the St. Louis ownership team simply by sending a harsh worded letter this vast majority of the support of owners is subject to a number of outside factors (such as Congressional threats to the NFL's limited antitrust exemption which allowed a poorer city than Buffalo, Cleveland (it and Detroit outpace even Buffalo in fiscal implosion), to beat the NFL and keep its franchise despite an owner going to get a high bid. As pointed out in several posts in this thread, one would have to be a financial fool not to be able to avoid the estate tax from a number of methods ranging from taking out loans to get cash to avoid a massive estate tax hit to leaving the team to a IRS 501c3 controlled by whomever the dead owner designates. I am not arguing that he is going to do a particular thing or another, I am arguing that the idea his estate is going to simply auction this asset off to the highest bidder only happens if Mr. Ralph is stupid and the NFL is asleep. Neither is the case. As far as the NFL, its a pretty good bet that it will go where the money is. However, it is simply a misread of the situation to believe that the best money for an individual team is in their 1/32nd of fees from a new owner or transfer fee. The real money is and has been since the lockout in the mid-80s with the networks who ship billions of $ to the NFL for them to pass around, In fact, the bucks from the TV networks is so large that the owners virtually unanimously voted down Mr. Ralph and accepted the current CBA which "only" gives them a minority stake from the total revenues of 39.5% of the total gross revenues. 39.5% of billions is a lot more than 70% of the millions NFL teams used to rake in under a system which led to labor unrest and threatened making the sport an unstable product to sale ads around. A bidder might well end up being the highest bidder, but if his ownership threatens labor peace, threatens the limited antitrust exemption, or the new owner strikes the current owners as an idiot then the highest bidder will not be judged qualified and will not get the team. The claim that Felser, logic or whomever makes that the team will simply go to the highest bidder is almost certainly simply wrong.

A lot of this depends on how team leaders react and what tone DJ has set if he really has built a TEAM or just has a team. If there are recognized O leaders and they set the tone that the Whitner analysis (though misplaced somewhat in has never broken through to be recognized as more than a player with potential) is simply true. If the O leaders among the players (and I am not even sure who they are) set a tone of taking on this challenge (whether it be sloughing it off as that is just Donte but it is true or simply saying the words are true) then the O can internalize this challenge and be better. If however, in the absence of O leadership the prevailing reaction is one of defensiveness or anger at or calling out Whitner as a failed player then the Whitner rant will only divide the team further. One of the Bills mistakes IMHO is that they seemed to make choice to get rid of team leaders like Fletcher for being to old to play (an incorrect assessment it looks like). This left the team without the little vet leadership it had. The Bills seemed to have a theory than coached could fill that role, To some extent thet can, but the mediocre record of Jauron does not demand respect and I doubt there is much they can effectively do.

The main reasons to do it this way would be for: 1. Control- If you are going to do something like this you want the receiving not-for-profit to meet the legal standard for being a 501c3 but to be a 501c3 you control by making the board of directors be set up and composed of the people you designate. These can easily be family members and the board members be allocated a reasonable salary (hence unreasonable to us normal folk) 2. Cash Advantage- Particularly when one is talking a about estate taxes and capital gains taxes we are talking at a level many feel is confiscatory but that is the reality. By "giving" this property to a 501c3 you are giving away 100s of millions but you are also escaping taxation of 100s of millions. If you set up your not-for-profit in a manner that allows your designees to retain control the cash advantage for the corpus of the entity is huge. 3. Legacy- You are dead. Legacy is all you have left. By anchoring the Bills to this area your legacy is assured. These I think are among the reasons one might take this approach,

My guess (less informed than Carucci's guess but the important thing here is that what Carucci has is a guess many hope is true but in the end is just a more informed than the average fan GUESS) is that it all comes down to the curmudgeon that owns the Bills hitting it off and having a spark with another person. If this person is Shananhan, Cowher, or maybe Holmgren we have a shot at capturing lightening in a bottle. If that spark is with a fellow Golden Boy like Marv or with a flawed football guy like TD then its gonna be a difficult trip. In the big picture my guess is that among the key questions a candidate like Shananhan, Cowher or whomever would want answered is what Mr. Ralph has in mind for the future with the Bills once he leaves this life. If he says he is going to essentially let the team go to highest qualified bidder, i would not take the job without a significant financial golden parachute. The chances of Mr. Ralph dying sooner rather than later are too large to not make the future plan a big factor. Ultimately a lot comes down to whether Mr. Ralph decides to leave a will which makes it easier for the status quo of the Bills remaining here to prevail (for example if he decided to avoid taxes by leaving the team to not-for-profit based in WNY) or made it more uncertain for keeping the team here (for example leaving the fate of the team to an auction of the highest qualified bidder). We will see.

You are right on target that the problem is not likely to be fixed by the mere firing of Jauron or even the mere firing of Guy and Modrak. The common denominator in all of this Mr. Ralph. Rather than him being burnt by Polian, Butler, TD, T think there is an equally good case that he also burnt them or at least burnt the Bills by mismanaqing most of these hiring and retention choices and using the Golden Rule (he who has the gold rules) to overide professional football minds and exercise his owners right to meddle with disastrous results. Its impossible to fire the owner in our system, so a realistic change would be TD getting a real GM in here and letting this person manage the team.

After we purportedly expressed interest in Vick my sense is all bets are off.

Exactly. Behind this OL McNabb would be facing a choice between voluntary or forced retirement when he got concussed like Edwards. The youth and play of th OL is the rate limiting factor here.

If you are asking the general question of whether to go OL or QB first, my sense is that in general a good QB will get sacked or be pressured into being a bad QB behind a bad OL. However, a bad QB will get a chance to do the feeble best he can do behind a good OL (even if this is simply this bad QB handing off and letting the good OL and reasonable RBs pick-up yards. The problem is one player can make your QB situation good but one player cannot make your OL good if the other side of the line is fodder. In general it is impossible to answer your apples and oranges question of comparing one player to multiple players. The answer needs to be specific to the Bills to have any reality and not just be general. Specific to us, the OL is so young and inexperienced that it would make Peyton Manning look bad. As much as some fans hate Peters, the experience and quality drop-off to Bell was so steep as to make things hard for Edwards and quite frankly impossible with two talented rookies at G and the injury to Butler forcing us to go with journeymen (and even worse future journeymen) at RT. This team needs to improve in the trenches first or it simply matters little who the QB is.

Interesting mock in that like the draft which saw the Bills take Whitner at #8 this draft has two safeties going in the first ten picks. Though a loud conventional wisdom expressed on TSW was that you never spend a top 10 on a safety, this draft has the first LT dropping to the Bills at #6 because two safties go in the top 5 (since they state DB Berry is am Ed Reed type I assume they have him pegged at safety. Even a fan like me who realizes this ain't your Grandma's NFL anymore after safeties Sanders and Polamalu played a central role in leading their teams to SB victories I think that the NFL has clearly demonstrated that a top 10 safety pick is actually the norm these days. However, 1 safety picks in the top 5 is a bit rich for my blood and I doubt the Bills get a shot at the first LT off the board.

I think this question shows pretty much why you do not sign Vick if your interest is seeing this team, its fans, and the media concentrating on winning football games and making the playoffs rather than sideshows. Vick has paid the debt that society asks him to pay through the penal system for breaking the law. However, his history is his history and cannot be eradicated (and likely not even ignored by the media which will happily fill up column inches in rags like the Buff Snooze and air at places like WGR so they can make nickels selling ads around this drivel. The drivel I find entertaining and interesting is pro football. Unless someone out there has control over PETA, animal lovers or even conservatives who think that we treat criminals too easy and Vick deserves more time then simply forget about this team, its fans and the media concentrating on football. Between this distraction, Vick being an imperfect player who has missed several years in his prime, and this team needing to hunker down and get the fundamentals of offense under control and not really devote time to the free-lancing and gadget plays which make Vick a singular talent this would simply almost certainly be a bad football move for the Bills.

Definitely. Jauron as inadequate as an HC his three straight 7-9 records (and an amazing 4 in a row losing records even if he gets lucky and we play well in the second half of the season) is simply not responsible for the majority of the Bills current 0 for a decade streak with out the playoffs. Even flat out firing DJ and replacing him with another HC would merely be rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, It would be even more foolish shuffling in place if the Bills simply demoted DJ and moved up someone hired by the failed DJ to HC merely to save money. Its tough to fire the owner so need to even go there. However, if the first step was actually to demote Brandon to the logistical role this non-GM would be appropriate and then have the new GM actually hire a new HC to fit the broader vision would be the minimally effective thing to do. If ALL we do is can DJ (and particularly if we just shuffle around the already on contract coaches) it will simply be disappointing to this fan.

It would be like that season of the TV show Dallas which ended with one of the characters awakening and thinking she had left the shower on all night while she was sleeping. She opened the shower to find her thought dead husband Bobby rinsing off the soap. Everything which had happened since that moment she went to sleep was simply a dream. I wish the Bills were a scripted TV show.

As is demonstrated by some of the analysis above this is simply a bogus claim. I think Fletcher has demonstrated one flaw consistently. He now languishes with the DeadSkins (who are bad for numerous other reasons than MLB play) after signing as an FA. He chose them after choosing the Bills where though he led the team in tackles to his credit year and year out (notable in that he broke the one year total tackle record of Chris Spielman), where essentially he languishes in the midst of our 0 for a decade playoff performance. Before that he got drafted by the Rams. He is not the perfect player (no wrap on him as few are) but he is very good. His big problem is that he is lousy at picking good teams.

It is a bit odd that folks seem to want to blame folks like Guy or Modrak when ultimately the paychecks spring forth from Mr. Ralph. Even if one tries to insulate the boss from football decisions made by his GMs who hired Guy, Modrak or whomever, it still comes back to Mr. Ralph as he not only hired the incompetents who hired these incompetents, but somehow sat through several revampings and overall assessments which saw these incompetents survive the housecleaning. When your record is 0 for a decade in making the playoffs, then you gotta look for the common denominator for these cases. Clue it ain't Dick Jauron.

Jauron clearly deserves to be fired as anyway you cut it the Bills have not achieved even adequate results in his first 3 7-9 seasons and it appears that even with good breaks he will not achieve adequate results in his 4th season (it will take things going better for us in the second half of the season for him to achieve only another inadequate 7-9 finish and this would be the best we will do on a good day). The problem to me though is that whether Jauron stays or deservedly goes, this outcome still falls well short of addressing the REAL problem that under Mr. Ralph's guidance and leadership the team is roughly 0 for a decade in making the playoffs. The Jauron fix needs to be change moment in us bringing in a new GM who at least has a record of getting his team to and winning the SB. The likely need for getting Shanahan, or Holmgren, or Cowher here would be that this new GM would also be the HC. It seems relatively clear to me this is what needs to happen.

Hardy has shown problems since he was a rookie with being able to get the separation which would simply make him a monster with the advantages a tall body gets him. However, these problems have been badly exacerbated by a primitive Bills offensive system and failings in key parts of it (a learning QB and a flawed OL primary among them) which have made this lack if separation a bigtime problem. Add to this the critical factor of bad injury history and you simply have a failed career to this point. The key question is what are the Bills to do: 1. We need to get an experienced hand in here to take control of the offense. AVP is a great guy and MIGHT turn out to be a great one one day. However, today is not that day yet, and the Bills need a better OC (more later). Without some solid guidance and supervision on O this unit and this player will be just adequate with flashes of brilliance at best. 2. Hardy needs to step up his game and prove first that he can simply stay on the field and be healthy. IF (and it is an essential IF which he has not conquered yet) he can do this, then we can worry about him getting better. Its gonna be tough for him this year as the overall O just ain't there yet, AND his simple raw number of touches are gonna be limited since at best he is the 5th WR on this team (Evans is #1, TO is #2, Reed is #3, Stevie Johnson in #4, and then Hardy is #5. Even the frantic bleatings of some that TO should be cut to give Hardy some practice are simply bleatings since as even the #4 WR Hardy is going to be a sideshow on this team (and if Parrish has half a career I would have advocated simply IRing Hardy. Due to his individual needs to make a showing and to improve I would judge wait until next year to give him a real shot at demanding a critical spot on this team. 3. The more on this late about getting an OC able to develop and implement a vision is that this is hard to do when you do not have an overarching vision for this team. To get an adequate OC before that you need and adequate HC. Before that you need an adequate GM. Before that you need an adequate owner. The Bills have none of these things. Its really hard to fire the owner in this pseudo capitalist society (where benefits acrue to the individual but problems are socialized such as with the Wall Street bailouts). Its also an impossibility here since when the owner is ultimately retired by the hand of the supreme being (or force of your choice) the chances of the Bills leaving are not a given (perhaps not even likely as change is hard to manufacture in our life) but is a real possibility when Mr. Ralph gets his ultimate promotion. The more reasonable (but still not likely given the incompetent ownership shown by Mr. Ralph the last decade) choice would be that we hire a new GM who may or may not require that he is also the HC (Shanahan, Holmgren, and Cowher are guys who have been there before who MIGHT be able to do this job). This new GM MIGHT be the HC himself, but my sense is more likely he would hire an HC to implement his vision. Hardy needs this context or any development on his part is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. With him as our 5th priority WR (and at best 4th priority with a galactic move with TO that ain't gonna happen and even if it does probably still is not adequate to see a lot of Hardy this year means wait until next year likely to see much of him.