2003Contenders

The problem with Sullivan is that he has no credibility. He reminds me of a message board poster on a crusade that ultimately gets banned. He simply hates the front office and always has -- so almost every article is slanted that way. Even when he does make a valid point it is hard to give him much credit for it -- kinda like the boy who cried wolf.

Jim Kelly never threw 24 picks in a season. Heck, he never threw as many as 20. Not beating up on ol number 4, because I really do like him. In fact, I've always seen him and Kelly as very similar QBs. Tough, great in the cold weather. But for as many games as Favre has single-handedly won -- he's also single-handedly lost his share of games too.

Nah, that knee injury was pretty bad. It's actually career threatening. Even if he comes back next year, it won't be until midway through the season. I find it funny that he claims that he'll be "faster".

Recall that Ralph does not like paying top dollar for head coaches, and MM still has a number of years to go on his existing contract. Even GW was not fired as has been often misquoted in the press. He completed his 3-year contract and was not asked to return. Even in Wade's case, remember that RW claimed that he essentially "quit" by being "insubordinate". We can only hope that TD's contract extension was only for one year and that RW is willing eat that final year.

I always thought that Ralph's firing Wade for refusing to fire Ronnie Jones was a bit of a cop-out. I think Ralph just wanted to clear the way for the new GM (TD) to name his own coach.

I too had been a defender of Big Mike's until this year. In fact, at the end of last season, I thought that he had managed to get over the hump en route to becomming something approximating what the team thought they were getting when they selected him #4 overall. Part of me really does think that it goes back to coaching. There are coaches like Parcells that thrive on motivating players. Then there are coaches like Marv that thrive on managing an assortment of egos and allowing these guys to motivate themselves. MM falls into the latter category -- although the recent problems with Big Sam and Moulds would indicate that he may not have that magic delegation touch. I think this team is also sadly lacking in the kind of self-motivated players, which makes the matter even worse. All of that is to say that maybe we can still see something good out of Big Mike if we get the right kind of coach in here to put the fear of God into him. I'm not talking about a poindexter with a loud horn like GW. I'm talking about a strong, tough coach that you know means business.

I'm telling you, if TD is still around, Capers comes here after he's fired. That's the guy that TD originally wanted.

Note: What do all 3 of Polian's head coaches have in common? They all had head coaching experience, even it their prior job was not filled with success. Note: What do all of TD's head coaches have in common? No head coaching experience.

Hmmm. Isn't that what MM tried to do last week with Moulds and was ridiculed for it?

From what I've heard, he loves what he's doing and doesn't want to be a HC.

You may laugh -- but take a look at Dave Wannstedt's record during his years with Miami... I think they only had one losing season, last year when everything went south for them. I'm not advocating that we try to get him, but I'd take him over MM or GW.

Willis strikes me as being the laid back type. Some people misread that to mean that he has no passion or doesn't care. I think all of the points that Fake-Fat points out pretty well dispute this. What it does point out is that Willis is content to take care of what he has in his power to take care of -- and shrugs his shoulders at the things that he has no control over. Simply put, we all know that the the root cause of practically everything that ails the offense is the inferior OL. Willis can't do anything about that... All that he can do is work to keep himself in shape and make the most of his opportunities when given the ball. The only negative to draw from this is that laid back players like Willis are usually not the source for leadership in the locker room. The hope is that the OL gets a major overhaul in the off-season and Willis becomes a leader ON THE FIELD.

Since when is a Day 2 draft pick labeled a "bust"? Indeed, there are far more players taken in the 4th and 5th round of the NFL draft that never become much more than reserves than there are players that become starters. Preston could turn out to be a diamond in the rough, so I mean no disrepect toward him. But the very fact that we are talking about this guy, a rookie drafted on Day 2, with the possibility that he could be a starter as the year winds down, actually tells us more about the lack of quality with our existing lineup -- and the serious lack of depth as well.

My personal opinion -- TD is banking on Capers getting fired so that he can bring him in to replace MM. Remember that Capers is the guy TD wanted from the get-go. The question is whether he's been able to sell Ralph on this insanity...

Poor Ralph was placed in an almost impossible position here, which is why he'd have been better off not getting involved -- and just backing whatever decison that MM and TD made, which is what it sounds like he wound up doing anyway. If he really felt that EM was in the right, he didn't have to fine him a game's check. Of course, we don't know what parameters he was working with. Was MM asking for a 4-game suspension -- and the 1-game net-out was actually a compromise? Pardon me, if I am still confused by all of this. Moulds claims that he took himself out of the game on Sunday because of an Achilles problem. He also said that he DID meet with MM. If all of that is true then he certainly has grounds for appeal. And, since MM and TD aren't talking, we have no way of knowing for sure. Maybe the Achilles thing was a spin after the fact that EM and his agent came up with -- and maybe the Monday meeting took place only AFTER MM hunted EM down when he was a no-show. This is all becomming very silly and embarrassing -- and something tells me that we haven't heard the last of this.

I could be wrong... but remind me of an instance when TO took himself out of a game -- and then refused to go back in, when no injury was involved?

Funny thing is I just added a comment on one of the endless Moulds posts saying this exact thing. If what we are hearing is true that Moulds took himself out of the game on Sunday (assuming no injury), refused to go back in, and then missed a mandatory meeting with MM Monday, then de DESERVES to be suspended, regardless of what mistakes MM may or not have made himself.

Giving MM the benefit of the doubt for just a minute, let's analyze the following scenario: 1. What if Moulds did indeed take himself out of the game because he was not being used to his satisfaction? 2. What if Moulds REFUSED to go back into the game when asked to do so? 3. What if Moulds did fail to show up to a mandatory meeting with Mularkey to hash all of this out? I'm not saying that any or all of these things did happen, since I don't know. But it is a possibility. And if it is true, then I have no problem whatsoever with Moulds being suspended. In fact, this behavior may even trump anything that TO ever did. TO's biggest sin was running his mouth and bad-mouthing his teammates, but I can't recall him ever becomming a problem on gameday and refusing to step on the field.

Is there any coincidence to the timing of this suspension request? That is, the maximum number of games the team can suspend Moulds is 4 games -- and there are just 4 games left.

This all smells of yet another hatchet job coming from TD and his cronies. We all know that Moulds won't be back next year due to his cap liability. Rather than trying to get the most we can out of him in this final year, in true Travelgate fashion, TD and co. are doing their best to villify him before kicking him to the curb. It's similar to what happened last year with Big Pat and Jonas. TD made them out be be greedy bastards -- so that we wouldn't complain too much when they signed elsewhere. In JJ's case, I don't think it mattered because we were not going to be able to pay near what SF offerred up. However, in Big Pat's case, I really do think that we could have come to terms with him if we had wanted to, as he didn't necessarily get much more from Minny than our front office reportedly offered. Maybe EM is being a bit of a prima donna, but good coaches and managers know how to motivate these guys. Clearly that isn't happening here.

At roughly this time last year, I seem to recall Mularkey's Bills traveling to Cinci and handing it to Lewis and the Bengals. I mean REALLY handing it to them. At that point, Lewis' tenure with the Bengals was roughly at the same point that Mularkey's is with the Bills now. I can't believe that there were many Bills fans wishing to trade places with the Bengals then. It's funny what can happen just a short season later. Maybe MM has made some bad decisions, but I also think as far as our decline this year goes, the PLAYERS have something to do with that. We are essentially a year behind the Bengals on the curve. Recall that in Lewis' first season, he was hailed a savior because he got the Bengals all the way to .500 in his first season. He didn't look so smart when he elected to take his lumps in year 2 with Carson Palmer. Now Palmer is being hailed as one of the top 5 QBs in the NFL -- and the Bengals are a hot commodity. Maybe we'll be saying the same thing about JP and the Bills next year if the axiom holds true.

Yea, I think Nate is taking SOME unnecessary heat for the loss. It is true that he got burned on some of those pass plays, but certainly not all of them and definitely not the game deciding plays at the end of the game. And, in Greer's defense, he had pretty good coverage on Chambers. It's just that Chambers outleaped him and managed to come down with a very tough catch. As someone said, the real death-blow was the 57-yard reception on 3rd down that set the Dolphins up inside the 20. That one (to me) was on Lawyer Milloy for even allowing Chambers to get behind him. With all the outrage I see aimed at Nate, who has been admittedly inconsistent, I'd be more inclined to bring him back (if the price is right) than either the over-priced and over-aged Milloy or Troy Vincent. Did Vincent make a single play Sunday? He should have been out there playing centerfield in the 4th quarter.

Well, thanks to the Bills he will have at least this one game on which he can hang his hat, tell his grandkids about, etc. We have seen it happen several time this season already where a backup QB comes in and leads the team to victory. Ryan Fitzpatrick did it last week, and our own JP did it a number of weeks ago as well. What happens is these guys come in off the bench with no pressure on them whatsoever -- and face a defense that hasn't prepared for them. The more I look back at it, it really is insane that Rosenfels passed for nearly 300 yards in just a little over a quarter. Clearly he was locked in... but our defense basically sat back and let him do whatever he wanted to do. There was so little pressure applied that you or I probably could have sat back there and at least completed a pass or two.

Maybe I should re-word my post. Instead of saying "No lead is ever safe", I think my point was more that you NEVER take your foot off your opponents' throat.

I remember us losing to the Chiefs in KC a couple of years ago -- a game in which a punt was blocked through the endzone. I also remember losing to the Rams (another horrible melt-down) back in 1998 after Big Ted destroyed their RB for a safety.