Cotton Fitzsimmons

Awwww yeahhh boyeeee, New England Patriots in the HOUSE!

Poojer, any chance of getting into the USPS these days? I know there's the hiring freeze in place, but just curious if you knew anything as an "insider" As we all know, YE OLE works for BOA, but would greatly appreciate a different career.

Ouch... CodeMonkey is going to be on the "business end" of that transaction.

Agreed... yet I keep coming back for more! What an awful thread and an awful hat.

What an awful thread this has turned in to

zazie, you hit the nail on the head my friend. This goes all the way back to when Butler left and Donahoe came in. Just off the top of my head look at these moves: 1. We pass on Marvin Lewis and John Fox, and we went off the radar and hired Gregg Williams. 2. We drafted Willis McGahee 3. We hire Dick Jauron over Mike Sherman. 4. Donte Whitner 8th overall + Trade up to get John McCargo 5. Not retaining Jason Peters 6. Not retaining Pat Williams Now the team has made other blunders, such as Mike Williams, but we were for the most part happy with the pick at the time. Some may have prefered McKinnie, but it certainly wasn't a "WTF are we doing???" kind of moment. My point is, these were just a few of the key moments over the past decade where you can't cop out with the excuse of hindsight being 20/20. These are moments where the fans on this board overwhelmingly could and would have made the right call and the team just left you scratching your head. Now for a little line item commentary, as only YE OLE can break it down: - Everyone felt like we were going to get Marvin Lewis. The media noted his connection with Donahoe, and that was THE choice. And I guarantee you, had you done a poll of fans, that's the guy they would've hired. - The McGahee pick, I confess, I liked at the time. I thought it was exciting and gave us a chance to get a potential superstar at a bargain position in the draft. That said, I think I was in the minority, and most of Bills Nation knew we needed help in many other areas and this simply was not a "luxury" pick that we had the means of making... yet we did. Conventional wisdom at this pick would've been to bolster the line, and both Eric Steinbach and Jon Stinchcomb were there at this pick, and both have been very good lineman. Dallas Clark was also available at this pick and could've given us a legitimate target at TE. Had we made any of these picks, it would've jived with conventional wisdom and filled a legitimate need. - Dick Jauron over Mike Sherman was gut wrenching for me. It just made no sense. You had a guy in Sherman who took the Packers to playoffs 4 straight seasons, had a winning record in 5 of his 6 seasons as HC, and was an offensive guy who had produced really good offenses on the field. His offense finished in the top 6 in the league 4 of his 6 seasons with the Packers. Jauron had 4 losing seasons out of 5 with the Bears. And aside from his 1 winning season with the Bears, his offense finished 23rd or worse every single season. Mind you... we've had an anemic offense for a decade, save for a couple short stretches in '02 and '04. Was this just not common sense? I wanted to put my fist through the wall when this went down. - Fast forward to 2006 draft... wanted to put my fist through the wall again. Did anyone in their right mind think that we were NOT taking Haloti Ngata at that pick? I mean seriously... hindsight aside, that was THE pick there. Again, if we took a poll on this board to determine who we would take the 15 minutes leading up to our pick, Haloti Ngata is a Bill today. Instead we took a safety that was projected to go mid first rd... then a couple of hours later, we move up to pick again in rd. 1 and I thought "ok, this is good, Mangold and Lutui are on the board..." and then... we take John McCargo. I had seen McCargo projected to go anywhere from the late 2nd to early 4th rd. leading up to that draft. Maybe someone else would've taken him sooner, but it was still a reach and I'm positive once again had even the fans been polled on this we would've said lets go get Mangold or Lutui here... they project to be studs on the O-line. - In regard to Jason Peters' situation... I really like Eric Wood and if he can come back healthy, we have a good player. That being said, the one time our F.O. made a good move of late and turned an undrafted free agent into an all pro left tackle, we traded him for a low first rd. pick! I'm sorry... but that's once again finding new ways to lose. Was Peters asking for too much? Probably. But, the right thing to do for the product on the field was to make it work and retain him, and never had him hold out in the first place. This hardline B.S. does not work. I know people get annoyed with player salary demands, and we frequently overpaid guys during Butler's tenure... but the bottom line is, that puts a winner on the field. Maybe guys like Holecek, Rogers, Fina, etc. were overpaid at times, but we had a pretty good team here until we started hardballing everybody and sending them packing. - Same thing for Pat Williams... WHY??? We just let him walk away as if he had no value! Again... this team hasn't been bad for so long, because we've had bad breaks along the way. While we have had the occassional Mike Williams debacle... those botches have been much fewer and futher between than the absolute head scratchers we've endured. In an alternate universe somewhere... Pat Williams and Haloti Ngata are DT's right now, and NOBODY can run against us. And guys like Jason Peters, Deuce Lutui, Nick Mangold, and Eric Steinbach are opening holes all over the place for Fred Jackson. AND... we may even have a decent coach like a Mike Sherman who continues to get us to the playoffs... maybe even a few division titles. For all of those who claim the negativity level to be too much around here, this is why. Some unfotunate breaks and bad luck leading to a losing season here or there, we could understand. But, time and time again sabotaging ourselves is just getting unbearable. It's a simple fix... start drafting the guys that make sense to draft at that position. Just follow conventional wisdom once and a while and don't outsmart ourselves. Start hiring coaches that actually come with a decent resume. Stop making it seem like we're blatantly going in the wrong direction at every turn.

Blount's issues were started by the Boise State Broncos. After which, the Broncos continued their dominance all the way to yet another BCS Bowl victory. Next year, Boise State, returns 21 of 22 starters on both sides of the ball. In light of this, many writers have them starting the season in the top 3 in both polls. They also believe they will be playing for a National Championship next year should they run the table again. Good thing LaGarrette is leaving college football or he might get good and mad should his Ducks get run over them in the title game next year. Boise St. is the real deal, and they forced LaGarrette to absolutely implode on national television.

Marty tweeted Drayton... it was all like @Drayton: Spread the word, I'm fin' to lay that pipe then Drayton was all like: @Thurman: Martayyyy fin to lay that pipe!

Are you trying to say that Marty is attempting to "lay that pipe"

The fact that this franchise could not get on the same page and put it together, however, it needed to be done to land Cowher is a slap in the face to the fans. I hope Gailey puts in place a good staff and can win here, but the fact remains that at this point in franchise history, this team needed a Bill Cowher. We desperately needed that statement from Ralph and the front office that this team was serious about winning and will do whatever it takes to win. I believe that they made a strong attempt to get Cowher and he turned it down, but the fact of the matter is they should have made a stronger offer and got it done... whatever it took.

Shrubb'raaaaay... or perhaps a delectable fruit chutnaaaaay

No problem Nevergiveup. I just appreciate your response. My gut feeling is that with the wake of disappointment in the Gailey hiring, the F.O. may be able to gain some goodwill by hiring some big name assistants. I know that I, for one, do not like the Gailey hiring at all, but if he could bring in a Herm Edwards and Dan Reeves types as coordinators I would start to change my mind. Do you have any inkling at all if they may be targeting bigger name coordinators, or are we likely to see more of the same mid tier names as with the Gailey hiring? It's hard to argue Catavolos staying... the secondary has been phenomenal IMHO, especially in light of the lack of a real pass rush. Any feeling if he is being considered for a promotion or staying in his current capacity? Sanders I'm lukewarm on. The D-line has lacked real bonafide talent for a very long time.

SCORE!

Someone quick... get this man a delectable fruit chutney!

nevergiveup, Just wanted to give you another measure of thanks from all of us here. You haven't always brought us the best news this offseason, but you've been 100% accurate despite some of the flack you've taken for bringing your information here. And we as fans and members of this board are very appreciative that you've taken the time to post here and share it with us. Now, 2 questions I have: - We're hearing rumors of Bates interviewing for DC. I've also heard rumor of Herm Edwards. Do you have any idea who might be the frontrunner to get this position? - Is Reeves being considered at all to join the staff? If so, in what capacity? Thanks in advance, if you can provide any insight!

I agree Thurman. What is this guy's deal? He all came in here like "What up now all you Brohm fans??? AWWW YEAHHH BOYEEEE, you just got JOLTED" and all this and such kinda jargon that only Albany can produce. I don't think anyone around here anointed Brohm as the chosen one or anything. The guy has potential and deserves a serious look, no doubt about that. How anyone could argue that and be so ruthless as the gentleman from Albany toward his fellow Bills brethren is not only beyond me, but truly absurd. Anyone who would do such a thing is clearly a MAROON!

This thread is AWESOME!

Is this thread some sort of a joke? Why so much venom toward Brohm supporters? I didn't realize people were erecting shrines for the guy, and touting his skills to the point that we had to be "jolted" back to reality. Personally, I like Brohm. No idea if he's the savior of the franchise or not, but at this point he clearly is the only QB on the roster with the potential to be a top tier QB. So here's a "jolt" back at ya: He's worth a look, and he'll get it.

Pants on the ground! Hats to the side! Pants on the ground! WHO-AHHHH Even THE GOLDEN BRETT (Favre not Hull)... serenades his troops in victory with PANTS ON THE GROUND!

"Me schlongggg is about yay longgggg"

And the lovely ladies of Hooters will be on hand to sit on your lap during the game (optional... of course, sometimes you may want to focus on the game) Also, another entry added to the list: 20. At the Home Opener Ralph dressed in a bath robe, sporting "fuddy duddy" hair, raises his arms and asks "What have done to deserve this?"

Open air stadium, right? That would be LARGE my friend... LARGE. Ye Ole would pony up "big ups" to anyone who can pull this off. Perhaps we should get a billboard going!

Excellent choice, Joe in NC! Let the record show... this option has been added to the ballot!

So far, the best thing we could do to salvage this chaos is: Officially announce a transition plan to Kelly led ownership group. That is followed up by signing Herm Edwards as DC (we really like this guy as a potential DC) Tie for third between Getting McNabb and giving Ralph a dosage of flaming dog poo!

Sounded like something we might pull off. Move up... get maybe the 2nd/3rd best Safety int the draft.