Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

Agree totally, if Nix can get CG the players, he'll win.

A couple years back I was down in Jax for a job interview, didn't work out, but I did very much like the city. I've said for awhile, Jax is the only city in Florida I'd move to. Having said that, I'm not sure that Jax isn't too much of a college tow nto support an NFL team very well.

Three lines above what you bolded I also stated 9-7 or 10-6, so read the whole thing. And yes, to finish at .500 OR HIGHER lets say for three years in a row, would be a good first step. In football one or two wins better than prior is alot when you only play 16 games. We also have been a somewhat lucky 709 too, I mean if Indy needed that last game for home field, would we have won it? In the past ten years we've hit .500 one time I believe? Then when you get to that step, you then set the bar higher. Maybe it can be turned around faster, depends on the job Nix does. But first you need to make the team relavent again.

The only reason Frazier has any upside is becasue he has no downside as he hasn't doen anything as a HC. Agreed, he likely will become a HC soon, and five years later he could look like Bill Cowler or DJ. Until then no one knows, that's my point, upside is worthless if it doesn't work out. As far as my estimate goes, making the playoffs certainly would be a huge improvment for the Bills. But first lets see how many of these 9 make the playoffs the next two years again or so. Many of these new coaches look great one year, then two years later they were fired. Why? How many first year coaches made it last year; one Miami, whom didn't make it this year, 2007 Washington made it was the first or second year for that Zorn? We see how that worked out. The fact that 9 of 12 teams in playoff are first year coaches further indicates that many of these new guys from prior years had no continual success. Not saying these new guys won't be good, but I am pretty certain within three years. of the 12 , a third will be fired, and within five years half.

I'll grant you a new hire like a may more energize a team, though from what I've read about Frazier, I doubt he would have done that anyway. He sounds somewhat like a young DJ. Maybe Brian Shott could have been that person. He was the only coordinator type that I felt would have been a rather intriguing hire. Him I would have liked more than most of the other names. Just like Mary Levy who was fired by KC turned around the Bills when surrounded by top notch players CG could do the same IF nix comes through in the player department. Do I think this will likely happen, maybe, would I bet on it no. Though I will bet on Nix will draft and sign much better players so CG's job will be much easier. And CG is a good enough coach to get to 9-7, maybe 10-6. Good enough to win a Super Bowl, probably not. That makes them respectable so then if they want to hire a different coach, they won't be turned down as the roster isn't bare. As Marv has often been quoted, when he first came to Buffalo who wouldn't have been excited to coach a team with a young Kelly, Smith, and Thomas. So if Nix can improve the roster enough to go .500, the mteam again becomes relevant.

Nix is old school. He belives in building from the lines. I'd be very surprised to se him bring in a gimicky type QB. Gimicks only work so long.

I don't care whom the coach is, if the player doesn't have IT and have more of IT than 80% of the other players around, he'll never see the probowl. The good GM's find the players that have the "IT" factor. I firmly believe coaching is over rated. Look at teams like the Giants through 70's, lousy every year, then they hire George Young as GM, team turns around. Bill Parsells now thinks he should be a GM, so leaves the Giants. He's done OK as a GM, but never as good as he did as coach of Giants. The Mets were terrible for over 10 years until Frank Cashan was brought in. Detroit Red Wings once Gordy Howe and company left were terrible from mid 60 to mid 80's finally they got a good GM and the past 15 years or so have been near the top every year. Closer to home, Marv Levy is in the HOF, the same guy who got fired in KC, now had Bill Polien picking players and he's a great coach! Actually though weren't Smith, Kelly, and Reed all picked by the guy before BP? In the mid 70's the Canadians won 4 cups, but Scotty Bowman wanted to be coach and GM, so he left Montreal and came to Buffalo. The team did OK, but never great. He turned the roster over twice trying to find his kind of players, but never did. Can't recall the guys name who was the GM in Montreal, but he got all those players whom Scotty won with up there. Even the Yankees, they've won alot over the past 30 years, but for all the money they spent, didn't get a very good return on it. The past 15 years now have had Brian Cashman and they've won alot more than prior. For the first ime since JB, the Bills have a gm who has a scouting background and based on what he did in SD and his prior stint with the Bills, I feel confident he can select high quality players. What worrys me some about Nix isn't whether he'll find top players, but more how he'll handle the business side of the job. Actually I don't think JB did very well there either as he never met a player he didn't fall in love with and over pay for them. Get CG top level players and he'll win. Even if CG doesn't work out, if Nix gets the players, the team will become respected again finish 8-8 or so which then would allow Buffalo to more go after a Bill Cowler type.

Really how is he a step down from Frazier? The only reason people state that is because he's the next hot coordinator that everyone says is going to be a great HC. But its strictly an opinion based on nothing but at best a gut feel. Secondly how many coaches, front office people, media people ever rip a coordinator in that position. To all the coaches and ex coaches around every coord is the next coming of Chuck Noll or Bill Walsh. No one is ever bad, they are all incredible according to what they say. So then everyone picks up the hysteria and says Frazier would be a great HC based on him having done nothing. I kind of compare picking Frazier to John McCain selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate. There was alot written at the time that he selected her because no on knew ANYTHING much about her, so would take awhile to really dig into things. He was hoping by then the election would be over. That's the way Frazier is an unknown with little negative to say about him, so he must be great. I can understand people ripping the selection as not wanting someone like that. We all wanted a Cowler type hire. But to state the Bill's made a huge mistake hiring him when they could have had Frazier or Marty is a joke. I'll give you Marty may be a small step up from CG, but certainly not that much of a step up to go crazy over it. Year in and year out, Marty may have had better talent too but still never won much in playoffs. Looking at all the names out there, outside the big names like Cowler, they all had warts, in many cases with a guy like Frazier, you just hadn't had a chance to see them yet. The only name out there that to me had some intrigue to it was Brian Shott. The rest wouldn't get all excited about whomever they hired.

So because the league feels they should have hired Frazier, then that means the Bills are wrong?? Maybe DJ didn't want to hire CG. It was up to DJ at that point. Why would it be preferable to hire Frazier as HC and CG as OC? I can understand the CG as OC part, but what evidence does anyone have to say Frazier would ever be a good coach? I'd estimate foe every 4 to 5 coordinators hired, one pans out, and maybe another one pans out the second time around. I can understand people being upset with the hire as he's not a big name. But for people to beripping the Bill's because they could have hirered Marty Scott, or Frazier instead is amazing. Over the years Marty worked with some pretty talented teams, would always win in the regular season, but fail in the playoffs. CG has done about the same, but with alot less experience. If he'd been kept longer in Dallas maybe he would have won. Marty even when with teams along time never won in playoffs. Regular season, I think with equal talent, they are equal coaches. Frazier may become the next Bill Cowler or the next Dick J, no one knows so why would you want him instead. Complain for not hiring a big name who's won alot in the past like a Cowler, fine, but to rip them for not hiring Marty, assuming his comments are even true, or Frazier is crazy!

Whe ndid the Bills ever state they wanted Fraizer? Everyone in the media was stating that. The Bills didn't say they didn't want him, so then was just assumed they did.

So tell me exactly why Chan Gaileys resume looks much worse right now than Marv Levy's did in 1986? Both had marginal prior success as an NFL head coach. Marv had success in Canada and had successas a ST coach under George Allen. What put Marv in the HOF? Having a good GM who brought in great talent. Probably for the first time since JB we have a football person with a scouting background calling the shots. (Not that I was all that thrilled wiht JB either) Even TD didn't rise up through the scouting side. That may have been his problem as to why he'd make sone wild picks like Willis. Nix drafted most of the SD players and was involved with signing/scouting of many of the Bill's players from back i nthe 90's. He is a scout and I believe will improve the talent on the Bill's My biggest concern for Nix is how he'll handle the business side of the GM role. Will it take some time to re-build respect around the league, yes. I'm not sure if we can as long as RW is alive either, not becasue of him making bad choices, but just becasue of the uncertainty as to what will happen to the team once he's gone.

Yes Buffalo is shrinking, but the combined western NY southern Ontario is 2 mil. As was asked how many cities have that many people in the area? Not saying it won't happen, but you have to look at more than just the population of Buffalo alone. South really isn't doing all that good of a job supporting teams. Weather is niice too long of the year to bother sitting in a stadium watchign a game, and for years there was little if any pro sports, so they followed college sports. Long time habits are hard to break. Sports have become saturated, hard to find cities to go to anymore. Cities have woken up, not paying for new stadiums like they were 10 years ago. Things are changing in the sports world. I'm waiting for the day a team folds. I'll put my money on hockey first a city like Phoenix or maybe Nashville? Or maybe baseball, Florida, Tampa??

The problem with that idea is if it works and Nix convinces Jax we're truely interested, then Jax may want to make a trade with the team ahead of us in the draft. We need to hope whomever is right behind us wants Tebow. And that's assuming these Jax wants Tebow rumors are even true. Maybe in the 2nd round??

The real person responsiple for the Cowboys winning the Super Bowls were the Vikes who gave Dallas all those draft picks. With that many picks, it made it alot easier to have a good draft. Can't recall, who was the team the Ditka traded all of New Orleans picks for Ricky Williams? Did they have as much luck with those picks as Dallas did in the Walker trade?

And what makes you think Dungy would be a good president? He's had no front office experience that I know of.

No, Apirl had a clause that allowed HIM to Opt out. The Bills had no say. The rest of them, yes the Bill's allowed to look elsewhere. Actually they also allowed Apirl to look elsewhere, till three days later he elected to opt out.

I know people don't like facts getting in the way of a good rant, but.... Yes you are correct RW did fire him five days before the end of the seaosn when his contract ran out and from RW's view JB didn't want to re-sign. My oopinion; JB knew the Bills were in salary cap trouble, players like Smith, etc were nearing the end, so he bailed. Was the marraige between him and RW growing stale, probably, but JB was a players GM, loved all the players and over paid for them. Now the Bills are in salary cap trouble, so he figures at year he takes off, likely already knowing SD was ready to sign him. Smith was JB's flunky, so he followed him out the door. Plus he tended to be a bit more hot headed and it seemed RW bothered him more. Everyone around was praising the signing of TD, so don't try to blame RW on that one, at the time it appeared ot be a great move. Did he screw up with Levy, absolutely. Could he and BP have better worked things out, in hindsight sure, but even from somethings I've read BP has taken some of the blame there too. Not saying RW has been great by any means but can't blame him for Butler or TD leaving.

My thoughts exactly. It may be that doesn't want to be interviewed while he's still working on putting together a game plan and planning for a game. If he just stated call me next week, he'd still have the media bugging him every hour. So by stating he's not interested, may be away to be left alone until next week, assuming they lose.

For starters pretty much all the names you mentioned suck. Could you get lucky and go far with one of those guys, yeah if you have a great team around him, not good, but great. And if you do go with one of these guys, then you're developing a QB, maybe not this year, but you want to start now. Whomever the Bills or any team hires, they'd like to think their HC worries are solved for the next ten years. Therefore you want this guy to be able to develop whatever players and positions you need. You're not going to hire a coach knowing he may not work out more than a couple of years. Would that be an improvement over the current situation, yes, but it's still not a direction a team is goign to go in.

Couldn't agree more. He should totally ignore preparing for Arizona's game and give sole attention to the Bill's. Show them the respect they deserve! PS why does it seem that there's a inverse proportion between the number of posts a person makes and the stupidity of the posts?

And you know this how?? It could happen exactly as you state, however Cowler and every successful HC started out as a rookie HC with no experience at some point in time. How the next guy will be who knows?

What did he really do this year to show other teams he can play? I'd say very little. If the problems were all off the field, but his game performance was still very high, I'd agree he has value. But based on both on and off field things, he has low value. If it were some other position, I'd agree tta other tema smight be more willing to take a chance, but running backs are a dime a dozen, and easy for a rookie to come in a get 1000 yards. If real teammates would keep him in line, hoe come no one was able ot keep TO in line in other places?? McNabb couldn't keep TO inline?? Maybe if Lynch was a rookie, it would work, but next years is his 4th year in the league. The only person who can keep ML in line is ML IF he wants too. We still would need to replace ML and for what you're going to get for him, you'd be lucky to replace him. While I agree we have starting positions to fill, you still need a decent #2 running back. For what you'd get in retrun you likely wouldn't get much of a quality starter for another position, plus would still need to replace him. What did StL just get for Incognito, nothing and I think he has more upside than ML does.

Certainly you're correct. I read the article a couple months back, don't recall the specifics enough, likely there was a second criteria assoicated with that narrowed the list way down. Actually Ewbank was the one name on the list now that you mention it. Why these others didn't qualify, can't recall, or the writer also did a poor job of research. Maybe the age was older than 50. The overall point was older coaches even those with a legacy didn't do very well their second time around.

Comeone be fair, the latest other thread was titled "Modrak and Guy". This one is "Guy and Modrak", so total different thing.

There are alot of rules regarding free agency in uncapped years, it's not the great thing it sounds for the players, I believe they need six years i nthe league instead of four to become an un-restricted FA. Will be interesting how this all plays out.