Grant

I can't see Ralph relenting from any of his coupons!

This joke has never appeared on TSW!

A friend asked me the other day, "Jeez, man. Why do you like the Bills?" Ordinarily, such a comment would not affect me in the slightest. There are hundreds of thousands of reasons I like the Bills. What do I care what he thinks? But I got thinking. Aside from the fact that the Buffalo Bills still play in Buffalo and the fact that I have a strong reverence for past incarnations of this team, I can't really remember why I like these Bills. -Aside from a small handful, I don't care for many of the "me first!" players on the roster. -I'm unenthused with the head coach, who has yet to really succeed anywhere. It would be nice if he started here though. -Marv Levy as GM only worries me and so far hasn't made a decision to ease that. -The current uniforms look ridiculous. I'm looking for good reasons to support THIS VERSION of the Buffalo Bills. We all loved the teams of the past. What are these Bills doing to earn my support and money? Am I just rooting for the "Buffalo" in Buffalo Bills or is there something on this team worth cheering for? PS. If you're thinking of replying with something to the effect of "If you don't like 'em, GIT OUT!", you can save it. And bonus points go to replies that avoid schmaltzy sentiment like "back in my day, being a Bills fan MEANT something"

I tend do doubt there was tampering. Am I mistaken or wasn't Mularkey interviewed by a few other teams besides Miami? I remember hearing he was a "hot commodity."

And Jauron is the "hiring the coach with a losing background and hope he's magically turned it around just now" hire, which rarely works out.

Not necessairly. This wasn't hindsight. Lewis was the popular fan consenus at the time. Similarly, Weis was the most popular choice two years ago when we chose Mularkey.

Ol' Greggy's looking pretty good now, eh?

That's weird. Most fans hated the hiring of Gregg Williams and Mike Mularkey, when the preferred fan choices were Marvin Lewis and Charlie Weis, respectively. Seems to me the fans have been more accurate and it's management who's been lacking.

I like the way you think! Hopefully you're right.

Yeah... I was being sarcastic.

I have a feeling you're going to be disappointed this fall.

Well, I'm glad to hear that! Since we here in Buffalo have the best QB in the game, he's all set! I'm sure Jauron can help us get to maybe even 8-8!

ALREADY making excuses! Great!

Compared to Jauron, almost any other coach is worth getting that excited about, though.

A coach with a history of losing doesn't have a probability of failure? What? You can be optimistic about Jauron, fine, but you can't deny that the odds are against him. Given what we know - he has a history of failure, our players have a history of failure and we have a general manager with no experience - the probability is the Bills will fail. Well, he is, actually. He'll be learning how to win, hopefully. Jauron does not have a history of winning. Therefore, he needs to learn how to win. Frankly, I think most people would prefer a rookie HC with a history of success then an experienced HC with a history of failure.

Players buy into the system much easier if the coach is credible. Having a winning background provides instant credibility. So he hired a yes-man and his buddy instead of a proven winner. Maybe. Maybe not.

Nobody thought Sherman was the next Parcells. But he had a consistent winning record. Was consistently in the playoffs. Maybe he never went deep, but neither has Tony Dungy. Both men are head-and-shoulders above Jauron, who has been consistently mediocre-to-bad. Yeah, Jauron walked into a dump of a team, but it was also a dump of a team when he left. So what good did he do?

I'm sure everyone at One Bills Drive wants to win. I extremely doubtful that everyone at OBD wants to win at the possible expense of themselves.

I believe that the problem is about the organization of power within the organization. A head coach needs to have power in order to command respect. Lately, our general managers have been hoarding the power and have not been allowing the head coaches as much power as other HCs in terms of hiring/firing and player selection. Take a look at the coaches in this year's Super Bowl. Or any Super Bowl. How many Super Bowl coaches were as powerless as Williams and Mularkey? None that I can immediately think of. Why is a head coach with power important? It's a single, unified vision. The head coach is in control over how the team plays on the field and who is brought in and shipped out. If you don't play well or land in the coach's dog house, you may not be on the team for long. Overall, I think the Bills have been avoiding hiring strong, powerful coaches who virtually guarantee success (Lewis and Weis especially) in favor of cronies who they are certain won't oust them from their position as general manager.

Whether or not Dick Jauron is somehow able to achieve success in Buffalo is irrelevent to me at this point. What the hire means to me is that, even without Tom Donahoe, this organization is still far too concerned with cronyism. Once again, our general manager has hired a head coach who clearly will not challenge the GM for power, is a personal friend of the GM and has (at best) a questionable resume. From my perspective, the Bills have been more interested in hiring their friends rather than hiring the best person for the job. Marv Levy once said something to the effect of, "If you do what the fans want, you end up sitting next to them." While I believe that to be mostly true, I think the fans have been more accurate with the past three coaching selections than our GMs. In 2001, we wanted Marvin Lewis but got Gregg Williams. In 2004, we wanted Charlie Weis but got Mike Mularkey. In 2006, we wanted Mike Sherman but got Dick Jauron. Somehow I suspect the fans will have been right with this one again.

1999 seems so long ago.

Not exactly a glowing review. Considering NFL lashouts are pretty rare, I would say this qualifies as unhappy.

taterhill

It was a fantastic game. But I can't believe it's already been 15 years...