BillsFan4

I really hope they don't limit the GM search to candidates with experience as a GM. That takes a LOT of good candidates out of the picture immediately IMO. I really hope he meant someone with experience in a president type role or that someone who's been an asst. GM for quite a while under a great GM or something like that. There's a number of really really good asst. GMs waiting for their first shot IMO. I just don't think it's good to limit your search so much right off the bat like that. I also hope it's not Dean Lombardi. I think he's a bit out of touch with where the current NHL game is/has been headed. And yeah, those Character comments were a bit damning of Tim Murray, and Dan Bylsma (but I definitely took it as more of a shot at a Tim Murray). I also said yesterday that Terry Pegula didn't hire Tim Murray, and now we know that he definitely didn't hire Dan Bylsma either (as was speculated by some), and that was a factor. Pegula hired LaFontaine. He never planned on having Tim Murray run the whole organization. Now we will get a better idea of Pegula's vision for the Sabres... I was also very glad to see him address that "Eichel, coach killer" narrative right off the bat. I was really hoping he'd do that. I hate seeing Eichel taking so much blame for this.

I think something that has to be taken into account - The Pegula's did not hire Tim Murray. They hired Pat LaFontaine to run the team, and Lafontaine hired Tim Murray. Murray was never technically hired to run the whole team. He was hired because he was considered a very good scout, which is why Lafontaine supposedly picked him. He was supposed to help lafontaine scout and evaluate talent. Pegula never originally planned on having Murray run everything.

Maybe. If he does decide to leave school this year, a new GM will have no time to even try to get him signed. But maybe he will also see some opportunity here now. The new GM won't be tied to Lehner like Murray was. ,an I sure hope we get him signed though. I still think he could be our future franchise goaltender.

One thing that o wonder about - what does this do to the expansion draft possibilities? George McPhee was said to owe Tim Murray a favor (for that Klesla contract/trade deal). Murray said McPhee remembered this and Murray has told him the player(s) he didn't want to lose. Now that is probably out the window. I could see Linus Ullmark gone (hope not!) now. Hopefully the new GM can swing a deal though. Also, I wonder what it does to our chances of landing a good defenseman from a team with too many to protect for expansion. I'm sure Murray was putting in ground work all season, maybe longer. Deals take quite a while to make in the NHL, and a new GM won't really have any time to set things up like that before the expansion draft in June. And I wonder if the Sabres will still be able to sign that Antikpin from the KHL. He was said to have a deal in place with Buffalo. I hope it still goes through...

Agreed. He did it to himself trying to speed up the rebuild too much. I think he would have had more time had he not traded away so many assets to speed up the timeline. He even said "give me 2 drafts" and "I don't think a rebuild needs to take 5 years". Had he just been patient and stock piled assets instead of burning through them like a drunken sailor, he might still have a job right now. The Sabres weren't ready to take the next step yet. The Sabres were on track to have the almost the most draft picks in history. We could have been something very special (we still can). We could have been a dynasty. Just that 2015 draft alone could have set the Sabres up for a decade. When you look at the players we could have had with those 1st and 2nd round picks traded away... I mean, you have to obviously hit on the draft picks, but Regier had us set up so well for that 2015 draft. That was one of the deepest drafts in a LONG time. 2016 is looking fantastic too. Oh well, no point in all the "coulda, shoulda, woulda"...

I hear you and that was one of my first thoughts as well - I wonder what this does for the draft. But when you look back at that 2014 draft, it was as weak as everyone said it was leading up to the draft. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_NHL_Entry_Draft It's not like Murray really missed out on some great players or something. I guess you can debate if he picked the right guy at #2, but that's still TBD anyway.

Well, I guess the rumors were right... I heard (from a guy who has a family member that works for the Sabres) that Bylsma was less than 50/50 to come back and that Murray was already on the hot seat (as I posted a couple pages back, but I didn't actually fully believe it about Murray). Bylsma is no shock at all. He was toast when all that stuff came out about the players (and especially Eichel) not wanting to play for him. But Murray was a bit of a shocker. He also did it to himself IMO. He tried to speed up the rebuild too much, and his trades were not very good. Way too many assets given up. That 2015 draft alone could have set the Sabres up for a decade. Sucks that Murray didn't get to finish the job though and now we're going to change visions in the middle of the rebuild (for the 2nd time!), after burning through all those assets. But at least he won't get to waste anymore of our assets. Pegula HAS TO get this next hire right. He has to. Honestly, IMO he screwed up when he fired Regier. Not that I think Regier was a good GM and should still be here, but I just think he should have let Regier finish the tear down and tank, let him stockpile a ton of assets (as he was great at getting big trade returns) and then get rid of him when it was time to take the next step. I just feel like the Sabres really could have been a dynasty, been something very special. Maybe I'm putting too much stock into draft picks, I don't know, but the Sabrs were on pace to have more draft picks than almost any team in history.

Did you listen to any player interviews is year? Especially after they were eliminated form the playoffs and on locker clean out day? I have heard many/most of the Sabres players say "we have a lot of talent on this team" or some variant of that phrase, and after they were eliminated from the playoffs and on locker clean out day I heard so many guys say "....that's what's so disappointing, we have so much talent in this room" or "...we have the talent in this room to be a playoff team" or "the talent's here" or other similar phrases. That doesn't sound like a team blaming their GM... And as I've already said, I have heard multiple players compliment Tim Murray - from Evander Kane to Ryan O'Reilly to Kyle Okposo to yes, Jack Eichel (and more). I haven't seen anything, not even as much as a rumor hinting at players blaming Murray or not liking/wanting to play for him... Bylsma, on the other hand... It's been a shitstorm of stuff coming out about players hating his system and feeling like they can't have success in it, and how there's a big disconnect between coaches and players and lots of stuff like that. I agree Tim Murray needs to make improvements to this team. But you seem to put all the blame on him all the time, and he doesn't deserve it. He has added a LOT of talent to is team in a short amount of time.

I have no idea what type of money he has left or what will be done with it upon his death, but a thought I had upon reading your post was "maybe part of his thought process in doing this was so his daughter gets the money he made during his NFL career and is set up for life, instead of losing it all in a civil suit". Like I said, juat a thought.

Since there was a lot of talk of trading up for a QB a few pages back in this thread, I figured this would be a good place to post this article. I thought this was a great read on trading up into the top 10 to draft QBs . Buffalo rumblings did a good job putting this article together IMO. http://www.buffalorumblings.com/2017/4/18/15340020/buffalo-bills-nfl-draft-mitchell-trubisky-nfl-history-trading-up-franchise-quarterback

Thanks for posting this. It was a good read. I really liked a lot of what Eichel said, especially this part (hopefully it'll put some of the BS rumors to rest...) - "Eichel: ..... Like I said, it’s frustrating more than anything that I think the wrong message is being put out about me and about our organization and team. That’s why I think my agent did a good job of calling you and putting the right message forward about what my real opinions are because I want to be a Sabre and I want to be a Sabre for a long time and I want to be a part of Buffalo when we win. I know it’s an organization that is capable of doing that, and I want to be a part of it and I want to be a centerpiece of it. "I want to be here for a long time. That’s the way I look at it. I don’t want to go anywhere else. I don’t want anybody to think that I want to be somewhere else. I want to be here, and I want to help this team win in any way that I can do that. I just want all the people there to know that". Love hearing this! (even if it was said to please fans...lol).

'Former first-round pick Joe Haden said he's been confronted and challenged by Williams early in offseason workouts. "His energy's crazy," Haden said Tuesday, via Cleveland.com. "He definitely brings a different attitude. He's very, very vocal, in your face and I feel like we definitely need that." Maybe I'm just misinterpreting things, but this almost makes it sound like Williams has been on the field during workouts. I thought that wasn't allowed at this time in the offseason programs? I know McDermott and his coaches weren't allowed on the field or in the gym with our players. Only the trainers were.

A pro personnel director's job is to find pro players, not college ones. But I think he was only pro personnel director for his first year or two here, then he was player personnel director. Still though, he wasn't GM and the GM usually has final say. It's a collaborative effort though. Everyone from GM to head of scouting to the local scouts have input, and like I said in my first post, we can argue who had the most influence but none of us know. It very well could have been Whaley, or it could have been Nix, but none of us know. Also, I have some issues with that article. They are measuring Whaley by how many draft picks are on the roster. But there's no set timeline to it. There are drafted players on some rosters that go back 10+ years, and the Bills have drafted horribly over the last 15 years... They also don't take into account the quality of those drafted players. Just because a drafted player is on the roster doesn't mean he's an impact player. He could be a 3rd string guy who sees 10 plays a game or less. We don't know. Also, they use Cleveland as an example of a team with more draft picks. Well of course they do. They've had a record number of picks (which also isn't taken into account in this article), and they released a bunch of very good NFL players to make room for these newly acquired draft picks. They also kept every single draft pick they made IIRC. The article also doesn't seem to factor in players that were drafted by the Bills and left in free agency to start elsewhere (due to Bills multiple scheme changes every season or two). It would have been a more fair comparison to compare draft picks on the roster from 2013/14 to now, since that's how long Whaley has been GM. Or at the least 2010 to now since that's how long he's been here. And the one part of the article that I seen that did this, looked at 2010 to now, had 24 drafted players that played 10 or more games, which was right in line with the other teams they listed (Seattle had 25 in the same time, Green Bay had 23, Ravens had 21, Saints had 19, Steelers had 20, Pats had 24). I am not trying to argue that Whaley is some great GM, because I don't think that. But I don't think he's been horrible either, and definitely not worst in the NFL IMO. Bottom half? Sure. I'd just like to see a fair comparison is all. This article looks exactly the same as the one posted in the Buffalo News, and I just felt like that article had a clear agenda to make Whaley look bad, and it escluded a number of factors to do so.

Ive always wondered if Bylsma was a Pegula hire and I've seen lots of fans speculating that it was (because of Pegula's ties to the Pens/hiring Ted Black etc and the rumors that Murray wanted Luke Richardson (although LR said Tim Murray never even contacted him about the Sabres job)), but I've never actually seen anything credible stating that Bylsma was indeed a Pegula hire (if you know of anyone who did, please share). Murray's comments at his most recent end of the season presser make me think that it was him who hired Bylsma. When asked if it was up to him if Bylsma stays or goes, he said that Pegula has never once interfered in any of Murray's decisions or told him he had to hire/fire anyone - that he's always been able to make all those types of decisions himself.

This is becoming a trend - Hogan, Gilmore, Gillislee... I guess we should take it as a compliment that Belichick thinks so highly of Bills players? friggin dick head. This is starting to get aggravating though. I feel like Belichick is almost trolling us at this point... Maybe he's still pissed off about Rex Ryan talking all that smack? Or Bills fans taking out that billboard mocking Brady? Or shutting them out last year? lol j/k

Technically, Whaley wasn't GM for any of those drafts you listed. His first draft as actual GM was 2014. We can argue how much say he had in those drafts, but none of us know for sure. They very well could have been all Whaley, but we don't really know. Also, are you sure about him having the lowest number of starters in his tenure? When is that measured from, 2010-2016/17? Or 2014-2017? Just curious. Do you have a link? Not saying I don't believe you. I'd just like to see the info for myself. I hadn't heard that about Whaley. I'd be interested to read it. I recently came across an article that ranked the starters from the first 3 rounds from 2010-2015 and it had the Bills 6th in the NFL. It has probably changed since then because the Bills lost some starters to FA, but they were still drafted by Buffalo... http://www.bloggingtheboys.com/2016/3/2/11145156/2010-2015-nfl-drafts-team-by-team-draft-success-in-first-three-rounds

So I assume that you'd be fine if it goes the other way then? If Dennison and the Bills staff feel there is Not a QB worth a top 10 pick, let alone trading up for, and pass on a QB in the 1st, you'll be ok with it, right? Because, like you said, who are we to argue... Edit - I found the answer to my own question a couple pages later. I guess the above opinion only applies when it fits his own point of view... lol

Where did you see this? Everything I've seen has said Whaley was fully on board with McDermott. He was even the very first person Whaley brought in for an interview (and Whaley said there was a good reason for that). I have not seen anything that indicates Whaley didn't want McDermott. If you have links to credible sources that say otherwise, I'd definitely be interested to read them.

Both Borgen and Fitzgerald have been pleasant surprises this season. I didn't expect much from either of them, considering where they were drafted. But they've definitely exceeded expectations. Hopefully they can continue on this development path.

Pretty sure they did away with that 10 article thing a while ago. I just went and clicked on 15+ different Buffalo News sports articles just to double check and I had no issues. So yeah, I would say clicks most likely do matter to them...

Man, some really good games so far tonight! That Montreal game was so exciting. Habs tie it with 17 seconds left and then win it in OT. What a game by Radulov! Huge assist on the tying goal and then scores a great OT game winner. He has been a HUGE pickup for Montreal, and he was a totally free asset. Now St. Louis just took the lead 2-1 against Minnesota with 2 mins left...

I thought that was a great article (maybe because I agree with much of it? lol). Thanks for sharing. I see a lot of the same problems in Deshaun Watson that he does - the issues with his accuracy, decision making, footwork, ability to play in the pocket (among other things). I'm not going to lie, I'd be pretty terrified if Whaley drafted him in the 1st, let alone the top 10. There are some things I like about Watson, but I just feel like the chances are high that he might be one of those successful college QBs who's games don't translate to success in the NFL.

Agree. Physical tools and "Measurables" are nice and all, and it's great if somehow you can find that QB with all the right measurables/physical tools that's also a fantastic QB, but... I'll take a little bit shorter, less athletic QB with smaller hands who is smart, accurate and shows some ability to diagnose defensive coverages, go through his progressions + find his open receivers (or throw them open) over a tall, freakishly athletic, physically gifted, inaccurate, 1 read (and then run) QB any day! It seems like maybe sometimes scouts/GMs/coaches get too caught up in some stupid "QB draft rules" guideline and overlook some good QB prospects because he doesn't check certain boxes. But maybe they had the wrong boxes on the checklist in the first place...? lol.

If you were referring to the Bills, I definitely agree (and it's been longer than 10 years). But the Sabres won the President's Cup in '07 as the team with the best record in the entire NHL, and made it to the conference finals that year. They were one of the best teams in the NHL 2 years in a row.They were also 1st in the northeast in 09'/'10 and made the quarterfinals, then finished 3rd in the northeast in '10/'11 and made it to the playoff quarterfinals again. I'd hardly call that irrelevant and inept (IMO anyway). If you want to say the Sabres have been irrelevant the past 5 years or so, I'd agree...

I absolutely refuse to even click on any article written by Jerry Sullivan or Bucky Gleason. It's my way of protesting the them. I refuse to give them the hits. I can not stand their attitude, writing styles and constant negativity. No matter what it is, you can count on one of them to find a way to look at it in the worst possible way.