jahnyc

Agreed about accountability. Nix should be talking to the fans. I feel like no one is in charge.

The Bills were a poor team last year, and the front office has created so many new holes in the roster that it will be impossible to improve this team without stellar drafts and significant free agent acquisitions, both of which seem highly unlikely given the track record of this franchise. Assuming we build primarily through the draft (and even assuming some strong drafts), this team is years away from being competitive. Why were none of the needs addressed in the past offseason? How can we improve if needs are not addressed and new holes are created? Players that seemed to have promise last year are regressing (i.e., Byrd, Levitre and Wood) and our rookies are not contributing in a meaningful way. High picks in the draft (Whitner, Lynch (traded), Maybin, McCargo, McKelvin and Hardy) did not or have not developed into strong players, particularly considering where they were drafted. Why does anyone think that this front office can rebuild this mess? I know that many posters think that we need to hit rock bottom before we can really improve, but we hit rock bottom last year and now we are worse. I am starting to believe that we have reached a tipping point. The talent on this team is so poor and the plan to reconstitute the team so undeveloped and underfunded that we will not be able to recover (kind of like a death spiral).

Seems like a crummy deal to me. Lynch can be a pro bowl caliber player. I understand that he has had off field problems, but Seattle got him really cheap. The Bills probably thought that Lynch would holdout in the offseason to force a trade since next year is the last year of his original contract.

Has RW been attending the home games?

The front office know what they had this past offseason and did nothing to fix it. Nix is not new to the Bills. Why do you think this offseason will be any different? The other problem is that we don't have any young talent with promise that would benefit from more playing time. Our starting talent is poor and our back-ups are worse.

RW should have cleaned house. i thought he promised this last year after firing Jauron. I have lost all confidence in this front office and I have no hope that they will turn things around. The same people who have been evaluating talent over the last 10 years are still around, and drafting as poorly as in years past. McKelvin, Whitner, McCargo, and Maybin are either busts or borderline busts. Maybe part of the problem is coaching, and our defensive coordinator seems overmatched, but we clearly do not have the players to compete. Sadly, we all new the weaknesses after last season and none of them were addressed in the offseason. That is on the front office. To hit rock bottom after 10 years of poor play is unacceptable.

Nix should be out there speaking to the fans at this time (or Ralph Wilson).

Building through the draft is great if you have competent people in scouting and making the decisions on the players to draft. Our drafting has been horrible, and I have no confidence that it will get better. Meanwhile, the team is either releasing or not re-signing players who are better than the players replacing them. If anything, on a net basis, this team is losing talent and not improving. While it is way too early to make a judgment about this year's draft, PFT has an article about all of the first round (and other) players making contributions this year. I know that KC is getting good production from most of their draft class. For a team that has so many holes, I find it very surprising that our draft picks are not making more of an impact to this point. I do not agree with the posters who point to the free agent rookies who made the team this year. I think that is a sign of our poor overall talent and nothing more.

You can't look at this situation in a vacuum. Yes, the Bills released an underperforming player at a key position, but is there an adequate replacement for him? He also was a captain, and I can assure you that players on other teams are not going to respect the Bills for making this move at this time. We all want better players. In fact, we all wanted a top front office. Instead, the Bills cut players and the replacements are worse. It is the cumulative effect of all these actions that is troubling.

This team needs new and better talent. Buddy deserves time, but going into the season with no upgrades through the draft or with free agents at QB, offensive tackle, WR and outside linebacker make me wonder.

How is this decisive or quick moving? After last season, I never thought that the Bills would go into this season with Trent as the starter. I was shocked that the Bills did not bring in a QB for more competition, either with a high round pick or a veteran free agent pick up. Moving quickly and decisively would have been realizing after last season that TE was not the answer and moving on at that time. Instead, TE gets most of the first team reps in the offseason and the preseason and starts the first two games. How does this make any sense?

I understand that TE was benched for this play, but cutting him in this manner will have ramifications. The way this was handled reflects poorly on the front office, and these type of things do impact the perceptions that players have of a team (in this case the Bills). Yes, the media and the experts are already negative about the Bills, including our front office, but there are many reasons that college players and free agents will not be attracted to the Bills, and creating new reasons is not helpful. Overall, the impression is that this team and organization are a mess. Maybe cutting TE was the right move, but it sure makes the team look bad on a number of levels and feeds the impression that our front office and coaching staff are clueless. I have no problems disagreeing with the so called experts, but they seem to be right about the Bills a lot lately. After 10 years of futility, it is becoming increasingly difficult to disagree with the negative perceptions of this team and I am becoming concerned with the ability of the current front office to make good decisions and build a winning team.

What young guys are there to play? Maybe Maybin and Ellis, but who else? I think the Bills have a lot of marginal back-ups who happen to be young, but this is not a reason in itself to play them.

Edwards was replaced by Fitz last year, and neither had any real success. No upgrades at QB during the offseason, and now it is Edwards/Fitz again, with the same results likely. I don't understand why there was no effort made by the front office to at least bring in a veteran QB to compete. Bulger would have been a big improvement, even with our poor o-line, wrs and tight ends. Going with Edwards and Fitz was the worst possible plan, particularly after last season. Now we need to draft a franchise qb and hope that he will develop. Meanwhile, we are wasting this year instead of trying to be competitive with a veteran QB or giving a QB of the future valuable playing time. There is really no excuse for the failure to upgrade the talent on offense this past offseason. The lack of talent at key positions was obvious.

The toughest part of all of this is hitting rock bottom after 10 plus years of futility. It is not as if we have had some good seasons sprinkled in with the bad, and I see nothing to suggest that we are about to improve significantly. It is not the coaching. We do not have the players.

I think it is more than the QB, but drafting a franchise QB would certainly help. But few, if any, franchise QBs are great in their first couple of years. With our lack of talent and this reality, I think it is going to be some time before we can win consistently. The PFT compensation numbers concern me as well. Seems like there will be an even more significant disparity among teams in the coming years in terms of spending on players, coaches and front office.

Our drafting and free agent acquisitions over the recent years have been terrible, and now we are paying the price. I thought there was going to be an organizational housecleaning. What happened? Modrak and our scouts need to go. I feel badly writing this, but it is time for a fresh start. I have no confidence that this will be turned around quickly or at all. There are too many holes at too many key positions. Nothing at offensive tackle, qb, outside lb, tight end or wr. If they intend to rely on the draft only, this team will never improve, particularly with our player evaluators.

There is a big difference between playing competitively and having a team that is playoff caliber. We are a long way off from the latter. We have huge holes at too many positions, including QB, offensive tackle, wide receiver, tight end, linebacker and defensive end. Even if we draft a top QB next year, it may take two or three years after that (assuming he develops and we draft better than we have) before we are challenging for the playoffs.

The offense seemed at least as bad today as last year's version. It is very demoralizing to see this kind of performance from the offense at home in the season opener, in good weather, against a hated AFC East rival.

I was kind of surprised that we did not draft David Harris (now with the Jets) with that pick. Harris has been a very good player so far.

New coaching staff, same result. The offense is terrible. Edwards had a poor game, the offensive line could not run or pass block and we have no starting caliber tight ends or wide receivers after Evans. In particular, our offensive tackles are horrible. We have a huge deficit of talent and overcoming this situation with good coaching will have its limits. The only real talent on offense is at running back, which will be wasted with our o-line and our QB. Our defense played well under the circumstances, but it seems obvious that Kelsay will be picked on all season. I was not one of the critics of Kelsay's play at DE for the last number of seasons, but he does not have the speed or agility to cover on passing plays or contain the corner on running plays as an outside linebacker.

Bills must be looking at o-line and TE for possible waiver pick-ups. I would assume at least one safety will be cut if they can find players at other positions. I am also guessing that the Bills are trying to trade McCargo. Keeping five undrafted free agents suggests to me that this is not a talented roster. After Evans, our current group of wrs is probably the worst in the NFL.

Whatever the intentions were, the reality is that the Bills ended up with a low cost GM, head coach and coaching staff. The real test as to whether RW is cheap would be if the Bills had four young, excellent players that wanted new contracts (like the Jets). Unfortunately, none of our recent top draft picks are deserving of new deals at this point of their careers.

The Bills are an odd mix. Talent and depth at running back and in the secondary, but poor talent at QB, offensive tackle, TE and WR (after Evans). I do not think this makes for a good team, particularly with our lack of depth on the o-line and our injury situation.

Unfortunately, pure conjecture.