Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

I have less problem with the coaching moves than the overall talent. Or lack there of. As far a strong candidates, who's to say that Fox or Lewis would have done any better with the talent they had here. Most likely if they had been hired five years back, they would have been fired a year ago.

I thought it was OK t oown teams in different sports if in the same city. So Golisano would be OK, Jacobs NG!

I don't totally blame TD for most of the situations you listed below. I also don't blame him for not signing PhatPat last year either as I think it would have been a risk at his age. Yeah, he's having a good year in Minn, but lets see where he is in two years when they're still paying for him. I also agreed with his decision to sign Bledsoe at the time, and still think overall more good came from it than bad. I've defended TD for the most part up until about a month ago. The overall problems with the lines related to talent, makes me agree he needs to go. TD's problem may be he truely isn't a football guy. He's from the business side which not surprisedly just happens to be an area where the Bills are doing well. But ultimately you need to also be superior on the football side of things too. Maybe because he doesn't have that deep football background makes him want to more pick up the glamour players, WR RB, etc and ignore the lines. I don't know what the problem is but after 5 years we're almost back to square one There are many teams in many sports who just kind of wallow around in the middle to lower end of the pack for years. They start to get better, get peoples hopes up only to falter again. The GM fires the coach, brings in new players, and the cycle starts all over again. Right now the Lions are a great example. Finally someone figures out the problem all along was the GM and if they get lucky and get a good one, the problems go away. The NY Giants in the early 80s were there until they hired George Young. The Mets were terrible till they hired Frank Cashen in the early 80's. From the 50's till the 90's the Detroit Red Wings did nothing. The Baltimore O's were a great team till Angelos came in and screwed things up. It happened right here in Buffalo when the Sabres brought in Bowman. He was a great coach in Montreal, but didn't do much here in Buffalo except cycle the roster over a couple times. So fire TD, and who ever comes in can decide what to do with MM I have very mixed feeling if they fire TD whether to turn to TM as he was the guy who scouted most of the players we signed. If as you suggested the problem isn't TD, but who is giving him advice, as the GM he needs to know that and get rid of the problem. But again he's failed there too. The job of the GM in most cases is way under rated. He will make or break things. Who knows with a good roster in front of him, MM maye be looking like the coach of the year. But right now, we'll never know!

Interesting things you find out in the Boston papers! Now why didn't any of our local reporters now about his injury?? They must be too busy calling in to TD's radio shows. Losman started the season, then got hurt, and had trouble getting his job back until Kelly Holcomb was also injured

I can't help but wonder how Lewis or Fox would have done here in Buffalo with our personal. It may have been as someone suggested, they would have clashed with TD over this issue. But neither of them were the established coaches that BC was in Pitt to get away with that. By the time their power struggle took place BC had been coach for a good 5 or 6 years. Lewis had a bit of a reputation behind him that might have allowed him to get away with it. But Fox was just like MM or GW in that he's a head coach in his first job without a big reputation. It's very likely by now Fox would have been fired after four years of not winning.

Sprinkling in a few guys over 30 is OK. Provided you're strong every where else. If the Bills had a good offense that could move the ball and score, your defense looks much better in a hurry. But a weak offense with an aging defense spells disaster. I don't think you can afford 22 players in their prime, so you have to mix in the old with the young to get a good return on value. But again that only works for a short term when rest of team is solid.

I think even if Williams had come back, our defense was in trouble as it aged big time over one year. We needed more than Williams!

So then how come we have such poor lines? Is TD just over-riding TM's recommendations? I doubt it as if that were true, why would TM still be here? He's had chances to go elsewhere lately but supposedly turned them down to continue working for TD. I'm, a bit skeptical of TM right now considering the personal issues we have. Modrak is regarded in NFL circles as one of the most astute evaluators of football talent. He has served as Donahoe’s right-hand man when it comes to college talent, stacking the team’s draft board (one of the most important roles for any GM), while traveling the country to evaluate talent.

I think the past few years, there was hope. Plus for every poster here bashing TD, someone would defend him. I was one of the defenders. There are very few posters left defending him, and even the ones not calling for his ouster are basically suggesting he return only cause we may not get any better choices. there are very few left defending him. So I think if he is somehow rertained, there WILL be a large drop off in season tickets next year. And I think RW has also figured that out too.

I think the offensive line is more than one player away from being good. I think you need to make more changes there. You're also making a big assumption that Spikes comes back close to 100% from his injury. On the other hand his situation is different from Cowart in that he's already under contract. Unless he's due a big signing bonus, I'd be willing to stick with him for one more year anyway and see how much speed he gets back.

AJ also was part of the reason we were in salary cap trouble. Maybe it was more JB's doing and Alex tried to steer JB away from over paying, but you don't know. They were connected at the hip.

God, I hope not! Nothing agaisnt Modrek, but I have to believe many of the suspect personal moves were made at Modrek's recommendations. TM seems to like working for TD, so I highly doubt that TD is over-riding TM's recommendations. If anything maybe that's TD's problem? Maybe that's why TM likes him so much as he goes along with every move TM wants. Who knows if that's true, but I doubt TD is over-riding TM's choices mnay times.

If you bring 10 out of 11 players back on a unit that was rated #2, it's totally reasonable that you'd expect good things the following year. In todays age of free agency only losing one starter is almost unheard of. While it would have been nice to have Williams back on the D line, I can't hold that move responsiple for the Bill's D going in the toilet. I think TD made the right move in letting him go. Whats killed the D this year I think were a couple of injuries, though even before the players got hurt, they got real old real fast in 3 or 4 spots on D. Adams, Milloy, Vincent, Posey, and a little bit of Fletcher. Should TD have anticipated that? Maybe, but when you look around there doesn't seem to be many teams good at predicting when that will happen until it's too late. I think it was reasonble to think you could squeeze another year out of them, and with some improvment on offense, be in the playoffs. Where TD should have known better was on the O-line

Well then you're also saying TD stays as there is no one who'd take the GM job without being able to hire the head coach ot thier choosing. The one exception would be if they gave the job to Modrek, but I'm hoping they don't as no one here knows how many of the bad personal moves made were at TM's request. If you'ge going to dump TD, then don't give it to TM either. Start fresh, or don't bother!

I agree!! The fact that he said very little about TD and singled out MM for support tells me he's not happy about things from a GM perspective. Supposedly from what I've heard in the past. Leo Roth has an inside track to Ralph, I guess for some reason Ralph likes Leo and talks with him "off the record" Since there was only a passing reference to TD, maybe this interview was done on the understanding of " No TD questions" as he didn't want to have to answer them. Regarding the quote ....."with the material we have"..... tells me Ralph feels the Bills don't have as much talent as other teams. Well he knows who signed the players on the roster, so again that comment to me is a shot at TD for not signing better talent. I have no problem with TD being moved to position of President in charge of business decisions, provided we don't make Modrek the GM as he's likely the guy making many of the recommedndations to TD as to who to sign or not sign. Bring in someone from the outside. As mentioned, if TD's supposed ego won't allow it, then he's totally done. If it's true that he's only signed through 06, dumping him now would mean Ralph would only have to eat one year of salary for him which isn't too bad. Likely if you dump TD and bring in a new GM, you're also dumping the coaching staff too. Are some of coaches contracts up this year? They often aren't signed as long long term as the head coach. Again may not cost him too much $$ to dump TD and the rest of coaches. Plus new staff may retain some of coaches, and/or they get new jobs which lets Ralph of the hook for remaining $$ If you dump TD, you're likely looking at eating one year of TD's salary, plus maybe 70% of MM as he likely would have to settle for a coordinators job at a lower salary. Therefore Ralph would have to pay the difference. In the grand scheme of things, how many empty seats would pay for that amount of eating lost salaries? Probably less than 10000 empty seats per game, over the course of the season would take about $2.5 mil away from Ralphs share of the home team receipts?? Thats assuming each seat costs $40 on average which is likely a low number when you figure in food spent and concessions, plus parking. ($40 X 10000 seats X 10 games X 60% home team share) $2.5 mil would probably pay for most of the salaries. I think if TD comes back another year, the Bills will be hard pressed to sell as many tickets as lat year, as people are at he point of saying: "I've had enough!!"

Seems I recall three years back or so when Marcus Sullivan got demoted as a starter, one of the criticisms was that he accepted being demoted to easily. Seems the pattern has repeated itself with Mike Williams as he also didn’t seem to upset. Maybe that’s the problem with who TD drafts. He goes after good “corporate citizens” types, the ones who won’t likely hold out, which isn’t a bad thing. But maybe those same players are just too soft. For the most part, with the exception of Travis Henry not being able to count to 18, the Bill’s have stayed off the police blotter for the most part. Not ripping TD for this, BUT, maybe that does impact their play.

There was one big difference between the two. Willaims was a FA so letting him leave didn't cost anything. If you kept Williams you would have been paying big bucks to someone who only played 58% of snaps. And then you would have taken a salary cap hit to let Adams go as you suggested. If Williams were here, would we be better? Yes, but I think the biggest problem we have on D is we got old real fast, plus some injuries on top of that. But the biggest problem was age. (Which with Williams was also an issue too)

The bargin Basement idea has worked for New England. But the difference there is, they seemed to again have built from the interior as opposed to TD building with the well known players. Maybe it's based on TD's grandsons football card collection?? I really doubt at this point Pat Williams would have made much difference as I think the rest of the D has got old real fast around him.

But how does that prove that these guys would have done any better in Buffalo? With the Bills O-line, can you honestly say that Lewis or Fox would have been any better. I don't see how anyone can know the answer to that other than trying to assume that all players are equal. A common theme I see in all sports are lousey teams that fire the coach, bring in all new players, three years goes by and they fire the new coach and get another and bring in more new players and they are still bad What's the comon thread? The GM! The Bill's were the same way till they brought in BP in the mid 80's. Then we became winners. Mary Levy got canned in KC, then went to Buffalo and goes to four Super Bowls. Did he really get smarter, or did he just have alot better talent? Scotty Bowman was a great coach in Montreal. He comes to Buffalo, becomes coach and GM, and pretty much does nothing. He remakes the team over two or three times with new players, and still does nothing. One difference was in Montreal, he was just the coach. The Giants were terrible for close to 20 years. The early 80's they bring in George Young and they become winners. Same way with the Mets of the mid 80's. They get a good GM and they win the Series While TD may not have picked the coach of the year in GW or MM, I think with good talent around them, they'd be doing alot better. Not to say either that all his player moves were bad. He's made many good ones, but he seems to have a little bit of Dan Snyder in him in that he goes for the glamor players and not enough of the guys in the trenches. And what players sell more seats, the glamor boys! Again TD's moves tend to look better from a marketing point, than a talent point. Does anyone know if TD was critisized for same thing in Pitt? Not getting good interior players??

Norwood missed casue Kelly kept passing when they were giving him the run. TT should have had 200 yards, plus that would have given the Bills and extra 5 minutes TOP

Well thats true, but it's hard to get someone to take over for a month without giving an extension. I'd prefer firing TD with about two weeks to go and just wing it for two weeks

Phat Pat is the least of our problems. If 10 out of 11 returning players isn't enough, we got problems. Pluse he only played less than 60% of the snaps. Our problem on the D, appears to be that we've got real old real quick, like Adams and Milloy, and to a lesser degree Vincent. Losing Spikes just compounded things. But I'm glad Williams is gone as it looks like D will need ot be rebuilt and having him here would take up more $$ that can be spent elsewhere.

I can't seem to figure out why a number of people seem to think Modrak would be better. He's the guy doing most of the scouting around here, particually for college players which seems to be a big part of outr problem. Unless someone has inside info that can bring to light many occasions where Donohoe has clearly gone against Modraks recommendations, why would anyone think he's an improvment? If we're going to make a change, then lets clean house and don't bring in his assistant to take over.

I believe it's the Ale House, right out in front of the mall in Altimonte. I was there the night of the Green Bay scrimmage in August

I think he may replace TKO when TKO comes back. Coming back from an achillies is no easy thing. If TKO loses even 5% of his speed, sad to say, but at the NFL level he's nothing. Personally speaking after tearing mine, I never went to the pro bowl again. Prior to that I was able to get tickets one year!