yungmack

Note that the last entry on the timeline was in 2008. Roski is a big time developer who put together the Staples Center deal which is in the Coliseum corridor, a burgeoning area in the heart of the city. While I don't know this for a fact, I have to assume he owned a lot of the land around there and profited greatly. His proposed location in the City of Industry is on the fringe of the county. Not a bad spot but far from the ideal. My guess is that Roski who, naturally for a developer, uses Other People's Money, owns a lot of land around the proposed site and is hoping to replicate the Staples experience. Building a stadium and bringing in an NFL team is in one sense a "gimmick" upon which to build out the area. I don't believe he's doing this because he's passionate about the NFL. If Grand Opera suddenly became popular enough to draw 80,000 fans every Sunday, we might just as easily see a gigantic version of La Scala rising in the rat lands to the east of LA. For what it's worth, this isn't the first stadium proposed for that area. Nor is Roski the first bigtime guy to come forward with a privately funded package - stadium included - to induce an NFL team to relocate here. Every single one has crashed and burned. Do not underestimate the political clout of LA county and city to frustrate the heaviest hitters.

"Assclown." Great word. I love it! And intend to use it often.

I've lived in Los Angeles since the 1960s so let me give you my observations on the NFL putting a team here. First of all, LA is constantly referred to as "the second largest media market in the US," so the NFL needs a team there. What goes unexamined is that a huge percentage of that market is made up of immigrants from Korea, Iran, Hong Kong, China, Armenia, Russia, Israel and just about anywhere else you can think of. There is even a community of Inuits. And the largest group of immigrants are Latinos from Mexico to the tip of South America. And among these people, there is almost zero interest in American football. The native born in LA who do love pro football include a very large percentage of "immigrants" from other parts of the country who continue to support their hometown teams. No respectable sports bar here can survive without enough TVs to carry all the Sunday games. They really aren't interested in "the LA Bills." Or any other team for that matter. The final segment of the potential fan base for an NFL team are the locals, and most of them are die-hard Rams or Raiders fans who continue to follow them. Raider fans especially continue to congregate in large numbers at sports bars. Southwest flights are packed on gameday with fans flying into Oakland for the game. So they're not interested in another franchise moving here either. My estimation is that only the Rams, Raiders and Chargers have a reasonable chance of stirring up enough fan excitement to make the move viable (and the Rams are supposedly in serious talks with Ed Roski to do just that). Of course, none of that means someone won't move a team here, though it probably means that team won't be successful over time. Heck, even the Raiders couldn't sell out the Coliseum and had to run back to Oakland. I should also add that the opposition to spending even a nickel of public money is hugely powerful here (and enshrined in law) so whoever brings a team would have to self-finance everything unless they make the Coliseum home. See, the Coliseum, a big financial drain, is owned by the state, the city and the county, and about the only thing those three political entities can agree on is that it needs the revenue stream a pro football team can bring into the coffers. Competitors need not apply. So any NFL team locating within the county of Los Angeles is damn well going to play its games in the Coliseum. This, in fact, is the heart of the battle between LA and the NFL that's been going on for years now. The NFL continues to insist on a new stadium and the politicians insist on the Coliseum.

Stop making sense!

Could you please post the links to a verified account of Harbaugh turning down the Bills "offer?" According to Nix, the job was offered to one guy and one guy only, Chan Gailey. So either Buddy Nix, who spoke on the record, is liar, or the off-the-record "informed sources report Harbaugh turned down the Bills" is complete media nonsense. Until you know which is which, it might be better to not continue passing along what appears to be false news. Leave that to FOX.

Excellent!

I find your Pike idea intriguing. But your dismissal of LeFevour as a gimmick system QB is puzzling. Yeah, Central Michigan runs the option. But they also run the pro style sets as well, with the QB under center and dropping back into the pocket. He excels in both. As to Bradford, the biggest knock on him now is the condition of his shoulder. My guess is the Bills aren't going to risk another high pick on a questionable QB.

What in the name of the lord do you see in this guy? To me, he's another "can't get 'er done" QB who's in decline. Maybe Bledsoe can be enticed to come out of retirement. Makes about as much sense as trading for McNabb.

Arguably the dumbest thing Donohoe did was to gut all three phases of the team at once. The Bills still haven't recovered from that. To convert the Bills defense to the 34 or even 43 would mean gutting the defensive roster as this team is built for the Tampa Two. So I wouldn't expect to see more than minor changes on the defensive side this year while Nix and Gailey focus heavily on the offense. If Edwards is salvageable (and he might be), if Brohm is as good as Mike McCarthy privately claims, then Gailey's background suggests he will get the most out of them. If they truly are no good, he will bring in a good-enough veteran for a year or two while grooming the QB(s) the Bills will draft to replace Edwards and Brohm. Next year will be the soonest the defense gets its "home improvement makeover."

I finally got around to watching the actual news conference announcing Chan Gailey as the head coach. And in it he made it perfectly clear that he will run the offense. He did modify that somewhat, saying he could back away from it a little bit, "years from now" So now two positions are filled. Next up I suppose is the DC. And for the record, Buddy Nix opened the news conference by saying that news reports about who he interviewed got it right in two cases: Frazier and Fewell, and that at best, 80% of the news reports were wrong.

What??? The kid has played his whole lifetime out of doors in Illinois and freakin' Michigan. Not only does he has a very strong arm, he's highly accurate. And if that's not enough, he can run it, and run it hard. Reminds me a bit of Jim Kelly with that tough attitude. An ideal choice for the WNY-based Bills. Mike Mayock loves this guy which is high praise. But he won't be on the board by the second round.

How do you know that ANYBODY turned down the Bills job? All I ever read was "informed sources" or "a knowledgeable source says," that sort of crap. Even with Brian Schottenheimer there was no confirmed request for the interview he supposedly turned down. In his case, a rumor was started that he was high on the Bills list, so reporters asked him if he was going to interview. He said he was happy with the Jets. At no time did the Bills say a word about inviting him in. And neither did he say he was invited. Buddy Nix said in his press conference that Gailey was the ONLY candidate he offered the job to. If he's lying, well then, I guess we can expect all those people who supposedly turned down the job to come forward and say so.

Nope. Serious shoulder questions + the Bills have much larger problems to solve than QB. Brohm may be the answer there. If not, there will always be several decent QBs available, from trades, free agency or even further in the draft.

ESPN is indicating that Gailey will announce his staff at his press conference an hour from now.

You know, it's only been a few weeks since Nix was hired so how is it everybody seems to have forgotten what he publicly said he was looking for in a HC? Were not two of his criteria that the candidate have head coaching experience AND be offensive minded? Frazier was neither. Which raises the question: did Nix ever really meet with Frazier or is that just more of that "sources report" stuff? And if he did meet with him, was it just pro forma (for the Rooney Rule, to satisfy maybe RW, or some other secondary reason)? I don't know if Gailey will be the greatest coach in Bills history or fired by week 6. But Jerry Jones says firing him was the biggest mistake he made. And Bill Cowher tried like hell to make him his successor in Pittsburgh.

Anyone notice that all this talk about who the Bills want for the job, who they have interviewed, who's turned them down has ALL come from the outside? The Bills have been unusually mum about each and every one of these supposed "interviews." And when you hear about a Harbaugh or a B. Schottenheimer not being interested in the job, have you also noted that nowhere in those stories does it say they were offered the job? My guess is that they've got their guy lined up and we'll hear about it all in due time. And the reason we haven't heard anything yet is that that person is quietly lining up his staff, or waiting for them to come free after the playoffs. I don't know if this is true, but it makes as much sense as some of the crazy things being said on these forums.

If you "call them like I see them," instead of just having a kneejerk racial reaction, you'd have remembered that the Bills filled the "Rooney Rule" with the Fewell interview. And BTW, maybe the Bills screwed up by letting Perry get away.

And Harbaugh has the next great QB on his Stanford squad if the kid bounces back from his injury.

What happened to Ron Rivera? My understanding was that he was the top guy on Nix's list.

Thanks for the unexpected laugh.

I don't understand Kelly's bias. Two of the better QBs the Bills ever had were from California: Kemp & LaMonica. And, um, Tom Brady's from California. Ditto Mark Sanchez. And, love him or hate him, Bret Favre is from about as far south in the US as you can go without having Mexican citizenship. And if I'm not mistaken, didn't Kelly himself make his rep playing in freakin' Miami, then Houston? More important than where a kid comes from is putting him in the right situation and having both good players and good coaches around him.

Are you serious? Clausen and Bradford are both reaches. The rumor is that Bradford's shoulder is ruined. Here's an outside-the-box "maybe:" The QB from Alabama. And on January 6, we can all watch Dan Lefevour, one of Mike Mayock's favorite QBs, play in a bowl game. He's got the best stats, and he plays outdoors for freakin' Central Michigan, a prime consideration for a Bills QB in me 'umble opinion.

Don't know if Brohm will become a top QB in the NFL (really, who does?) but one thing for sure, it won't happen in Buffalo, not based on recent history. Remember the excitement about Bledsoe coming to the Bills? Started off great, then began declining. But, hey, we said, with an improved team around him, he'll be solid next season. Only he wasn't. In fact, he seemed to get worse as the season went on. But why worry? The Bills had their franchise QB of the future in Losman. So in he came in and did alright. You could see the promise...with just a little bit of work and an improved team around him, he'll be solid next season. Only he wasn't. In fact, he seemed to get worse as the season went on. Maybe next year it'll turn around for him. But it didn't. Hard to believe, but he was even worse. By the end of the year, he was a mess. But why worry? The Bills had their latest franchise QB of the future in Edwards. So he came in and did alright. You could see the promise...with just a little bit of work and an improved team around, he'll be solid next season. Only he wasn't. In fact, he seemed to get worse as the season went on. Maybe next year it'll turn around for him. But it didn't. Hard to believe, but he was even worse. At the end, he was a mess. So what's the common thread besides perhaps overrating all three QBs (which, if true, is a damning comment on the Brain Trust)? That not only don't they get better and better season by season, or at least remain the same limited player, they actually get worse. How is such a thing possible? Okay, maybe once that happens, like with Bledsoe who was in physical decline. But three times in a row your QB visibly declines as time goes on? That ain't coincidence, that's incompetence in the coaching on a monumental scale. On a thread elsewhere, someone mentioned that Jim Fassel straightened out Losman's screwed-up mechanics. If true, where did his mechanics get screwed up? And if they were already screwed up when he got to Buffalo, how come no one cleaned them up? So my bet is that QB success in Buffalo, "Graveyard of Quarterbacks," will elude Brohm and any other QB who plays there unless and until some fundamental changes are made in the organization.