GRHater69

What I remember was they drafted him in '77 and the he held out through all of training camp and almost the entire preseason......yes you read that right....a kicker actually held out over a contract. Once he finally signed he was terrible and got cut partway through the season. Ironically he was replaced by a kicker named Carson Long who couldn't really kick all that long.

That was a good game. They didn't have Joe Cribbs who was still holding out so the offense relied on the passing game a lot. The Bills had to rally as the Vikings got out to an early lead and looked like they were going to run away with it.

The first game I ever went to in what was then Rich Stadium was in '73 against the Eagles. The Bills held a one point lead and Philly was driving for an easy FG. I was so nervous that I couldn't watch the kick, but the crowd reaction told me the outcome. Dempsey was the kicker for the Eagles and he missed a chip shot, allowing the Bills to escape with a win (27-26). Back then 1973 was the last season before the goalposts were moved to the back of the endzone. The kick Dempsey missed was barely longer than a PAT. RIP Tom, you overcame physical disabilities to excel in the NFL.

They started wearing white at home in '80 for the first 6 games of the season. They would wear the blue jerseys for the last 2 games. This lasted until Marv took over in '86.

I remember that the Cowboys game was blacked out that day. I also remember watching whatever game Ch 4 had on in its place and when they said the score midway through the 4th, one of the CBS guys said "somebody get a weather report for Buffalo" obviously thinking it must have been a blizzard up here. That really p**d me off.

Miller had a bad sophomore season and ended up splitting time with Roland Hooks. If he was really that good, they wouldn't have needed to draft Cribbs.

It should also be noted that as good as the team drafted in '79 and '80, the other drafts under Knox fell short. 3 of his number 1s in 5 years busted, Terry Miller '78, Booker Moore '81, Perry Tuttle '82. Booker Moore I'll give a pass to since developed an illness and missed his rookie year, but he never fully recovered to play worthy of his draft status. Plus some of the needed offensive line help never developed. You could argue that regime change and bad coaching probably hurt some the draftees as well. Bad drafting, too many contract disputes and the USFL really drove that team down. In '83 Fergy had Joe Cribbs, Jerry Butler and Frank Lewis. In '84 those players were either injured, gone to the USFL, or retired. It's no wonder they went 2-14.

Kay at the time was a surprise choice, even among the players. It was rumored that Ralph thought Knox was too conservative on offense and wanted to open things up. It was also rumored that Knox went into the '82 season upset with Ralph for trading away Cousineau. Then the strike happened and the team fell apart. I was dealing with some life issues a lot around that time, so my memories are foggy at best.

Maybe we go all the way in '80 if Fergy stays healthy. He played that Chargers' playoff game on a bad ankle. We needed home field to do it in '81 but we had some bad losses during the season. The Monday night game against Dallas was brutal. we had control of it until halftime and then the wheels came off. That loss spilled over the following week to the Cardinals' game. Those two losses were the difference between 10-6 and 12-4.

I remember that Last second hail Mary against the Pats for the simple reason I gave up on the game, wen for a walk and saw all these cars driving home from the stadium and people going nuts. In short, I missed a great moment because I lost faith.....silly me!

Next time you here these athletes compare football to "war" remember to thank a soldier and all the gratitude I have now goes to your wife for what she's dealing with on a day to day basis right now. she's a soldier as well on a different front line.

Cousineau allowed them to draft Kelly. They traded his negotiating rights and got an extra #1 for their efforts. Now at the time, I was livid that they couldn't sign him on draft day and let him get away to Montreal and rumor has it that their not being able to meet his demands when he came back from the CFL a few years later was one of the reasons why Knox walked away after the strike year. Getting back on topic, Saban was the guy who made OJ a star. He came in in '72 and basically made the WRs into extra blockers. They built an excellent offensive line for him in '73. Think about it; rookie QB in Fergy who threw for only 6 TDs that year, the NFL knew they were going to run all the time yet couldn't stop them. That team should have made the playoffs, a bad road loss to the Saints hurt them (as did a bad last second loss to the Bengals). That era peaked in '74 with the playoff game in Pittsburgh, but '75 should have been their year. The offense was still good, Fergy was in his 3rd year and was developing nicely, OJ still had something left. But they had no defense. Tony Greene was coming back from a torn ACL, in the preseason (which was 6 games back then) they lost their starting CB (Robert James) their starting safety (Doug Jones) to ACL injuries so the secondary was a mess. Their top two picks, Nebraska LBs Tom Ruud and Bob Nelson held out through all of training camp and the preseason. Ruud went on to be one of the biggest busts the team has had until maybe Aaron Mabin. The D line was solid with guys like Mike Kadish and Pat Toomey, but once you got past them, they couldn't stop anybody. In '76 OJ held out for big contract, but as clearly on the downside of his career. Saban was not comfortable with Ralph over issues from the previous season. The OJ holdout seemed to be the last straw as he quit 2 games into the season. Making matters worse, Fergy got hurt and Gary Marangi took over and was horrible which was a surprise to a lot of people including myself who thought he could be a decent starter if given the chance. Perhaps the biggest blunder of that "era" was Ralph Wilson promoting Jim Ringo to HC after the season. He was a good OL coach, but not a HC. Wilson seemed to do that a lot, first with Joe Collier, then Ringo, then Hank Bullough.

Shaw had the makings of a good QB and had a solid rookie season. But the following year Rauch quit before the season and Wilson put Harvey Johnson back in charge. The team fell apart, had a woefully bad offensive line and Shaw got the crap kicked out of him and was never really the same. They played an early season game against the Vikings in '71 and Shaw got sacked 9 times. It was a disaster. Saban came back in '72, but problems surfaced in the '75 season that lead to him quitting two games into the following season.

I use a streaming service Fubo because it gets MSG and then I run it with a VPN. If I want to watch a game or two in another market I just change the VPN to server in or near that market and Fubo switches to their local CBS and FOX channels. It worked well for me last year and at $55 a month was way cheaper than the full DirecTV package.

Still love the catch and run vs. Cincy. That even got angry run of the week on GMF.

That was a good team that survived some key injuries on defense. Unfortunately OJ twisted an ankle early in the year and wasn't quite right all season. But it was good to see Fergy start to develop.

Best part of the videos is seeing Kyle Williams with his kids.....awesome!

Here's how I remember that Vikings' loss. The Bills were driving to essentially deliver the knockout punch and Kelly threw a pick over the middle to then Vikings' MLB Jack DelRio. From there, our defense couldn't stop Warren Moon from driving to a go ahead TD and when we got the ball back, Frank couldn't do anything with it. The reason I remember this so well is that 5 years later I actually met Tony Dungy and we talked about that particular game. He remembered it in greater detail than I did because it was a big win for them to come in here and beat the Bills. Had the Bills won that game, odds are they would have won the division and held off a pesky Patriots team in doing so that year. But then they may not have spent the $$ to upgrade the D and kept Walt Corey.

The offensive line was a mess in '94. In two successive years they lost Will Wolford and Howard Ballard. They really didn't recover from that. Teams had caught up to the no-huddle attack and they were missing some speed on the outside with Lofton long gone. Also the defense was struggling in '94. Jeff Wright was a good player but was not meant to be a nose tackle and teams out muscled the Bills in the middle all season. Wright had shoulder issues that year an retired after the season. They also needed help in the secondary. They were starting Mickey Washington at corner and he was a backup at best. Add all that in with Walt Corey's bend but don't break philosophy and the D really hurt them in '94.

When you're Aaron Rogers, Drew Brees, Brady, Phillip Rivers etc. and you miss a throw the first thing you hear from the announcers is "That's a throw he wishes he could have back." When you're a young QB like Josh, they analyze every aspect of the play and tie it into a technique flaw that he had in college.

I did have an issue with this as well and it's been that way going back to the Cleveland game. The play that bugged me the most was the designed QB run on first and goal on the last drive. We wasted a down with that. Granted the playcall to Knox was good and Allen overthrew him, but we seem to waste a play or two down in the redzone every game and it bothers me.

Their owner seems to be greasing the skids to get them out of Jacksonville when the stadium lease is up in 2020....to quote the Clash "London Calling" And for the record I hope Marrone crashes and burns.....quitter.

Bucky was the lone guy on NFL Network that had the Bills taking Allen as well. And to think at the time I wanted Rosen......glad to be wrong do far.

The '75 game is burned into my memory because we just destroyed the Cardinals. Saban ran a tight ship during his time here, but that day because of the flight delay the team was loose and so was he as they barely made it in time for warmups. Yes '77 was a bad year, but I would argue '84 and '85 were worse.

Look back to this time last year and everyone was saying the same thing. Then look what happened.