st. pete gogolak

I was in my condo in Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Times reported that the Bills had parted ways with Bill Polian after Super Bowl XXVII (the incredibly embarrassing blow-out loss to the Cowboys). Yeah, John Butler kept the thing going after that for a few more years but if you are looking for a single defining moment in Bills history that explains the present 12 playoff drought and the last 12 years of total misery, that was it. It was the bean counters v. the guy who wanted to bring a Super Bowl trophy to Buffalo. The bean counters won. End of story.

I thought last year's Bills defense was worse. This year's Tampa Bay defense may be worse. I thought one of Dick Jauron's defenses was worse. (The year that they finished 30th in both offense and defense yet miraculously finished 7-9. Thank you Bobby April for ruining our draft position!)

Did anyone see Gronkowski's 50 yard catch and run along the sidelines yesterday? It wasn't one of his TD catches. It looked super-human. I've posted this before but what really cracks me up is that the Pats knew how stoopid the Bills front office is and didn't even bother to trade up to make sure that the Bills didn't pick Gronkowski before their turn came. Of course not. Why would the Bills take a home-town kid at a position of desparate need?

I don't think many Bills' fans dispute that Fitz is an average to above-average NFL QB. Sixteenth is average. I think that's a little low and would put him around 12. You look at that list and "elite" should be reserved for the top 3, maybe 4. Some of the list is a total joke. Tebow 5? Alex Smith 6? Sanchez 11? Matt Moore 14? I understand that it is based on play for just this year, but come on. For those four guys its like a list of QB plus team defense combined.

That's right. Keep the 36 year old QB coming off multiple neck surgeries and pass on the once-a-generation QB prospect who you can sign for reasonable money thanks to the rookie salary cap. Do you really think Polian is going to go that route? My guess is that he will let Manning walk (the amount and timing of his bonus will make it difficult to trade him) or Manning will retire. He'll clean house by trading Wayne, Clark, Freeney and Mathis for draft picks. He'll still have decent skill position players (Collie, Garcon, Gonzalez). First priority will be offensive line to make sure Luck doesn't get David Carr'ed. One or two more down years. Year three back to competing for a Super Bowl.

Let's see. The Texans lose their 1st string quarterback, second string quarterback - both out for the season - their All-Pro defensive end for the season and their All-World receiver for half the season. Oh yeah, their Pro Bowl runner missed the first couple of games. They are 9-3. The point being that when they say that "everybody has injuries", they're not kidding. EVERYBODY HAS INJURIES!!! San Diego basically had their O-line wiped out and are starting guys on Sunday who came in on a Wednesday.

I'm guessing you're being sarcastic. Pretty funny. We had LeBeau for a year (2004 - last winning season) and low and behold we finished first or second in Team Defense. We were to stupid to fire Jerry Gray and make LeBeau Assistant Head Coach/Defensive Coordinator. Capers was a great hire by Green Bay but how do you expect us to compete with those big market teams? Phillips wouldn't coach here if we were holding his children ransom under threat of death. I like the idea of Mike Nolan if Miami cleans house. That would be a nice hire.

Luck will be over-analyzed and "experts" will point out flaws in his game - just like Peyton Manning a dozen years ago. And just like Peyton Manning, Bill Polian will ignore the "experts" and pull the trigger on Luck, whether Manning is on the team at that point or not.

Agreed. Dareus has shown that he can play DE or NT in a 3-4 but it looks like DT in a 4-3 is probably going to be his best position. Why not team him with Kyle Williams, move Kelsey back to hand on the ground DE in a 4-3 and go from there? Troup can be a back-up DT. Either Barnett or Sheppard can play MLB (neither is ideal 4-3 MLB) and the other can try to take one of the OLB spots. If that doesn't work, the loser of the competition is the back-up MLB. Merriman, if he is still on the roster, can be a third-down pass rushing specialist, which seems about what his body can take at this stage of his career anyway.

The goal - every year - should be to win the Super Bowl. The way the modern NFL is structured, you need an elite quarterback to win the Super Bowl (last ten Super Bowl champion QB's - Rogers, Brees, Rothlisberger, E. Manning, P. Manning, Rothlisberger, Brady, Brady, B. Johnson and Brady; all elite QB's except for B. Johnson). Is Fitzpatrick elite? Clearly not. Is he a better than average NFL quarterback? Yes. Given the above, it doesn't matter what other needs you have. If you have identified a potential elite QB in the draft and he is available when your turn comes up, you take him. It's that simple. One more thought. Say what you will about the Bills' front office, in last year's draft, they got it right, at least as far as the QB question is concerned. They identified a potential franchise QB (Newton) and would have drafted him if he was available. When he wasn't, they stuck to their draft board and didn't reach to pick Gabbert, Locker, Ponder, etc. That's the right way to go about it and that's how they should approach the 2012 draft.

Great avatar/ Sweet Smell of Success!

No problem with that but when in hell do we get an OLB who can play?

Not going to use hindsight on this and I'm interested in reaction. 2010 draft. We pick Dareus and our turn is coming up in Round 2. Is the argument in the draft room cornerback v. outside linebacker? At corner, we have a couple of vets (Florence and an oft-injured McGee), a former first round potential bust or maybe breakout player (McKelvin) and Reggie Corner. A rookie cornerback is going to be what? 4th on the depth chart? At OLB we had Kelsey (an absolute joke the year before when playing in space), an oft injured Merriman, former first round bust Maybin, and second year guys Moats (who showed some skill at pass rushing) and Batten. So we pick Aaron Williams (who certainly has shown some skills and may turn out to be a terrific pick) and pass on Brooks Reed (six sacks for Houston), Akeem Ayers (12 game starter for Tennessee) and Justin Houston (showing flashes for KC and who we could have picked in Round 3). So my question is: what was the thinking during the draft? Had they given up on McKelvin? Did they think Maybin was going to be answer at OLB? Merriman? It just seems to me that the braintrust is clueless as to what makes a 3-4 D effective. Above all else, you need a run-stuffing NT and two really good OLB's. I presume that they thought Troup would take over at the nose but what exactly did they think was going to happen at OLB? Two years into the 3-4 or whatever hybrid that they are running and the current OLB's are Spencer Johnson and Chris Kelsey. I'm in favor of giving up on the experiment. Your best two defensive players (Dareus and K. Williams) are natural DT's. Move Kelsey back to DE for one or two more seasons and draft some 4-3 linebackers who can play.

As indicated in my earlier post, Donahue was bad, very bad. But I'll give him credit for signing Takeo Spikes. That was a great signing, maybe the last true marquee free agent to sign with the Bills. He was an absolute beast in 2004. Of course, it is part of the Buffalo curse to have two Pro Bowl linebackers (Cowart and Spikes) rupture Achilles tendons, just about the one injury you don't come back from (although give Spikes credit, he is still out there doing yeoman's work for the Chargers).

It's definitely worth revisiting this topic. The hiring of Tom Donahue was the Bills' last shot at greatness. Remember, the team was coming off a pretty remarkable 12 year run. The prior two GM's were Bill Polian and John Butler. Ralph was "only" 80 and still apparently interested in fielding a winning team. Donahue was a hot candidate - the supposeded architect of that model franchise the Pittsburgh Steelers. The only reason he was even available was that he had lost a power struggle with Bill Cowher. I was really excited when I heard the news. Donahue came into a miserable cap situation. Butler had made a ton of mistakes with the cap (tying up big money in two quarterbacks, signing mediocrities like Jerry Ostroski and Ken Irvin to big contracts, etc.). It was clear that the team was going to go through some lean years before it came back to prominence. So what was the state of the team when Donahue took over? Clearly, there were going to be some cap casualties. Ted Washington, John Holecek, Henry Jones. Still, there was definitely some talent on the team. On defense, Pat Williams, Sam Cowert and Antoine Winfield, for starters. On offense, not so much. Eric Moulds, Peerless Price. The offensive line had been a problem for at least six years and was in shambles. How different things would have been if Donahue had said right from the beginning that it will take a couple of years but this team will be based on a rock solid offensive line and a rock solid defense. He didn't. For some reason, he looked to make a quick turnaround without addressing the fundamental problems facing the team. First was the selection of the head coach. Donahue came from Pittsburgh, famous for running a great, agressive 3-4 ("Blitzburgh"). The Bills had been running a 3-4 since the late 1970's. The Bills certainly had the makings of an effective 3-4, even with Ted Washington gone. Pat Williams at NT, move Erik Flowers to OLB and see if can salvage his career as an OLB. Instead, he hires bombastic Gregg Williams, tries to run a 4-3 (not just a 4-3 but an aggressive "Buddy Ryan" 4-3) without the right personnel and it's been downhill ever since. Donahue's first draft was his best (great move to lay off Kenyatta Walker and trade down). Nate Clements was a very good pick but if we stayed put in Round #1, we could have picked Steve Hutchinson and in Round #2 Matt Light. Those guys still might be the left side of our line today. Did Donahue even watch any tape of Rob Johnson? If he had, he would have seen a QB with some obvious skills but one who needed a lot of time in the pocket. By neglecting the OL in that first draft, it doomed any chance of Johnson being a viable QB for the team. It was in year two that it really feel apart. I'm sorry but you just don't trade a #1 for anyone when you are coming off a 3-13 year. Williams of course was a huge bust (I didn't see a single scouting report that didn't have Bryant McKinnie rated higher). The 8-8 in year two was total mirage, built by beating up on weak teams. In addition to Bledsoe, he started to bring in old vetrans as if the team needed one or two vets to contend for a playoff spot (Sam Adams, Lawyer Milloy, Troy Vincent). It was simply a refusal to acknoweldge fundamental problems with the team and acknowedge that it would take some time to fix the problems. What was the cause of this rush? Were the fan impatient? It seems silly now, but the fanbase at the time was used to nothing but winning and probably was impatient? An 80 year old owner who wanted to win now? Donahue himself? Who knows, but it never seemed like a three year or four year plan was in place to put the team on a solid footing to contend for the playoffs on a year in-year out basis. Running out of time here so can't get into Losman fiasco, etc. but to me the real problem with Donahue was that he really wasn't a very good football guy and at the very heart of the matter, didn't know how to put a fundamentally sound, winning football team on the field.

It's not original. It's from a twenty five year old movie and is used to illustrate the fact that your post is, at best, double hearsay and not worth jack, especially, as many have pointed out, given the implausibility of a doctor violating physician-patient privacy by disclosing this information.

Do you realize that the 31st an 32nd ranked defense in the NFL belong to none other than the Green Bay Packers and the New England Patriots? I've come around on this way of thinking but the days when a dominant defense and an offense led by Trent Dilfer will win a Super Bowl appear long gone. If there is a franchise QB available (or rather, if there is a QB who you consider a potential franchise QB), take him.

The fact that they are all MLB teams shows you how seriously messed up Major League Baseball is. When was the last time the Pirates had a winning season? 1992?

You didn't define what you mean by "worst position". If you mean what franchise is likely to move in the near future you're talking Chargers, Raiders, Vikings, Jags and Bills. LA's going to get a team and they aren't going to wait until Ralph Wilson passes away to get one, so I think San Diego and Oakland are further out on the tree limb than we are. If Ralph passes away in the next year all bets are off. If you're talking about which franchise,among all the currenty crummy franchises, is furthest away from a Super Bowl appearance, you either need to look stability/quality of the front office or presence of a franchise QB. In regard to the latter, I'd take Carolina, Detroit, Indianapolis (either Manning and/or Luck), maybe Philadelphia off the list. If you don't have either, does it make any difference where you rank among crummy teams? If it's a combination of both, I'd put the Bills behind both the Chargers (assuming Rivers' year is an aberation) and the Raiders but equal to the Vikings and Jags. Does that make us franchise in worst position? Not necessarily but it puts us in the running.

My best friend's sister's boyfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with this girl who saw Fitzpatrick pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.

So when a new GM comes on board, the MO is to get rid of the team's good players and keep the garbage? I would have thought it was the other way around.

Don't have a clue who Green Bay's DC was before Capers. Who was it?

Last winning season - 2004 Last playoff appearance - 1999 Last home playoff appearance - 1996 Last playoff win - 1995 Last AFC East Title - 1995 (Good Lord!) Last Super Bowl appearance - 1993 Last Super Bowl victory - never Last League Championship - 1965 (AFL) 377-427-8 record 19 winning seasons out of 51 (52 after this season) Owner gives 5 home games away to another city for $$$ And yet, the fans are ridiculously loyal to this team and for the most part, fill the building year after year after year. I can't think of another fan base enduring what Bills' fans have endured and remaining this rabid and this loyal to the team with the possible exception of the Cubs (and Cubs' fans seem to have bought into a "lovable loser" persona for their team - don't think Bills' fans have ever done that with this team). Ownership and senior management, infinitely more committed to squeezing money out of the franchis than bringing it a championship, need to pay some tribute to their fanbase. They deserve it.

Compare this to Green Bay. A couple of years ago, they are having tremendous problems on D and they go out and hire Dom Capers, an acknowledged master of the 3-4. Two years later, they win a Super Bowl. Of course, we don't have the resources of a big city market like Green Bay . . .

Can eveyone please stop saying that we should "sign Bell for depth". He's a free agent. Just off the first five games of this year, someone will offer him starting LT money. I hope he resigns with the Bills and that Hairston is moved to RT. But, please, they are not going to sign Bell to have him sit on the bench.