Bob in STL

I know that I could not do the job. I do want to clarify that I appreciate Ralph Wilson for bringing the Bills to Buffalo and for keeping him there. I appreciate his loyalty and his committment. I think he tries to do the right things and is a throwback to better days in business. I refrain from the sour jokes about him and his age. However, he is the owner and he once again has the title of President. He is responsible for the disfunction of the past decade and he admits that. The organization has been meandering without clear direction for a very long time. Ralph did not have the energy to do a thorough job search for a new GM. During the GM search he not have top notch football people advising him on today's talent, He has Brandon and Overdorf. That opened the door for Buddy Nix, someone he knows and trusts. Buddy brought in Whaley, a young gun that may be the answer for us down the road. We shall see.

Buroughs was really coming on as a solid corner when he got injured but I don't recall our CBs hurting us in Super Bowl XXV? I would have like to have Don Bebee in the game. I think the Bills we just way too slow to adjust. For most of the game we ran the offense that they schemed for. We played it like they expected. All we had to do was hand the ball to Therman and that would have forced them to go back to their standard 3-4. Then we could throw. We could have racked up big points had we played the second quarter like we played the 4th. Once we established a two TD lead their 3 yards and a cloud of dust slow ball offense becomes a liability to them.

My response to the bold print above is that, according to Ralph, Modrak never had the power to make the draft selections in the first place. He is apparently not accountable for the drafts. What a great gig! Thank you Ralph. You have a VP of Scouting that over a ten year period is not held accountable for the players we draft. How about that? I find that incredible. I want to work for Ralph Wilson. WOW!!!

Whitner, Ngata, Sims and Cutler we all pretty much even according to the scores you provided. Why the Bills thought Whitner filled a bigger need than Ngata and Cutler is the issue? Our 2005 roster on DL featured DTs Sam Adams, Tim Anderson, Jason Jefferson, Ron Edwards, and Justin Bannan. Our DE's were Denney, Kelsey and Schobel. Our QB was JP Losman with 1 year experience. I can see why we did not take another QB at that time (Losman was a first rounder), even though Cutler was a better prospect. Our Safeties were - Milloy, Wire, Rashad Baker, and Jim Leonard. Milloy and Adams were on their way out when we drafted in 2006, this was their final year. If you have Whitner and Ngata rated as even in your scouting report, and for some reason Ngata does not fit your system, and you think Whitner is the best safety in the draft you could rationalize why they took Whitner. Also recalled that they addressed DL in free agency when they signed Larry Tripplett from Indy as their big free agent DT to play Jauron's new scheme. They also drafted Ko "the millionaire" Simpson and Kyle Williams in that same year. Sure is easy to look back five years and "get it right".

I cannot believe that people think of things like this. Who should we have drafted in 1965 that would have helped us win the championship in 1966 -- that way we could have beat the Packers in SB I and all of our fortunes would have changed after that.

Draft to fit our philosophy? What is our Philosophy? What philosophy did Ralph Wilson develop and pass on to his troops. What attributes do his top leaders have in common and pass on to others? I would like to know that. At my company we have a clear mission statement and leadership attributes that are taught and passed down to all employees. We have a spirit and a culture and everyone (including our suppliers and customers and competitors) knows what we do and what we stand for. It is in our culture. This is a hard thing to do. It takes years and dedication and hard work and requires continuous improvement at the top. It has to start at the top and flow down to all. The leaders have to live the philosophy otherwise all you are doing is making up slogans. Employees will see that and ignore it. So starting with the owner - If you decide to hire someone (Donahoe) to run your team and your business then you may be deferring to his philosophy. That might be fine, however, if you decide that it isnt working and make a change after 4-5 years then you personally need to step in and lead and fill that void until things are back on track. Instead Ralph turned the ball over to an old friend from the past (Levy) and expected him to turn back the clock. When the old friend had enough, Ralph turned to "people that he knows". That would be Brandon, Jauron, and now Nix. It is high time for someone in the Font Office to do the heavy lifting (hard work). What is the Buffalo Bills philosophy? I don't know. I think that Nix is a great scout who brought in some other top scouts. Not sure if he has it to be a GM. I think that added some good coaches (Chan and Wannstedt). I think they added a future GM (Whaley). I do know that when you change GMs and Head Coaches 3 or 4 times in a decade then you probably do not have philosophy at all.

Too funny. Ralph even called him a "hard worker". Modrak could be home all day reading the same College Football Magazines that we can get at the local drug store.

Still need to fix the defense. - Your front 3 lacks depth and size and a consistent pass rusher. - Moats still has a lot to prove as an every down player - Poz and a rookie in the middle ? - Merriman even playing again is a leap of faith. The OL is still marginal with a rookie RT that could take a few years. Urbik is an unknown as a starter. Wood should be a good center, we shall see Bell does not run block very well no TE as usual.

I would love to see. it. It would be funny if Modrak got all his picks from reading TSW. We would have Ngata, Mangold, Bulaga and many other favorites.

We are ok at the skill positions for now. We really need better tackles if we want to run the ball consistently. For as long I have been wathcing football there has been one constant. Good teams run the ball, even when the other team knows they are going to.

So can Spiller. Well ... that is what they thought when they drafted him.

From what we have seen so far the answer is YES to all of the above. He does have speed .... but without size, strength, moves, heart, brains, and football instinct he has a big hill to climb. He has played for two different coaching staffs in two years and neither one felt comfortable putting him on the field. That says a lot. Given his age and lack of college experience he will be given another summer to improve.

He said he wants to draft an impact player regardless of the position. That is not tipping their hat. That is normal rhetoric that GMs tells reporters. He also said he improved the OL by bringing in Urbik, Rhinehardt, Wrotto and Pears. Those moves did not translate into good line play. Our OL looked really bad the last two games with Rhinehardt, Wrotto and Pears seeing a lot of playing time. Does that mean they not draft OL? I sure hope not.

The Colt fans in Indiana now?

LOL. For the job she has she is probably very good and represents the Bills well. Wonder how much Uncle Ralph pays his Execs for a position like that?

For all the Jason Peters fans and haters, he made 2nd team.

yeah, that bad Cowher.

I tend to agree with all your points. The past Bills regime was even dumber than you suggest, they replaced Peters with Langston Walker and expected him to play LT in a "no huddle" offense.

We should take a space heater whenever there is a draft.

what'is a tight end?

It is pretty safe to assume that most teams in the NFL have a former player or coach that is on a Super Bowl teams roster. That thing call free agency is a large cause for it. Do we need to hear about every former Bill that plays in the Super Bowl?

If I were a GM I would focus on these things: 1 - Defense - a mean, swarming, ball hawking defense. 2 - A strong running game -yes most team pass but you have to run to close out a game and to win in the post season you must impose your will on your opponent. 3 - Build from within by drafting players that are leaders and absolutely hate to lose; then do everything you can to keep them.

This is what happens when you have four GMs (Donahoe, Levy, Brandon/Jauron, Nix) and four coaches (Greggo, Mularkey, Jauron, and Chan) in ten years. Bad drafting + constant turnover = Losing Football

True that Ralph bailed out Oakland. Not sure what year or who the owner was when that happened. if Oakland folded back trhen Davis may have been hired by someone, maybe even Ralphy also bailed out the Sullivan Family --- original owners of the Pats*.

Davis gets a lot of crap on this board but he is an amazing man in a lot of ways. He started in the AFL as an assistant coach of the Chargers under the great Sid Gillman. At 33 he bacame the youngest HC ever when he went to Oakland in 1962. He also became their GM. No one, to my knowledge, has held both positions since Davis did it. He built the Raiders into a powerhouse on the field and a marketing machine off of it. He then became the owner (majority owner in a partnership). He was also commissioner of the entire AFL for a time and in that role he went to war with the NFL over free agency (started when the Giants signed Pete Gogalak from the Bills). He lead the AFL in the signing of several high profile NFL players (Mike Ditka, Roman Gabriel, and others) and he brought the NFL (lead by Pete Rozelle) to their knees and straight to the negotiation table. That is when the two leagues agreed on a merger plan and that decision actually pissed Al Davisoff. He really preferred to battle them and destroy them. Years later he moved the Raiders to LA and won another Super Bowl. Pete Rozelle had to hand his old nemisis the Lombardi trophy. Davis made be past his prime, and he does some stupid things today, but you guys should know there is good reason why he is the HoF. One of the great characters from the AFL that helped make the NFL what it is today.