dave mcbride
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Posts posted by dave mcbride
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Marv was great with leadership when he was here. But he had a lot of power. He was the head coach. He has very little power here. That is the thesis of my post and main complaint. Everyone has a little bit of power here now. The successful teams it seems to me have one guy that is the undisputed leader, like Belichick or Parcells or Vermeil or Gruden in the recent past. Or at the very least, two guys like Polian and Dungy in Indy. Right now, everyone has a little power, and I don't really believe that Marv can be a leader with no real power.
again, how you can possibly say this without knowing the least thing about how the structure will actually work? this is really just wild guesswork.
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based on what evidence other than your strong feeling that he wasn't much of a head coach?
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No one knows what will happen but to me this series of moves stinks, for several reasons. The biggest of which is that the biggest problem with the Bills, besides their lines, is no team identity and no team direction. Right now, although the numbers may fluctuate on an hourly basis, you're going to have four disparate headstrong guys all having 25% of the power and input. Ralph, Marv, Modrak, Mularkey, and maybe five depending on who actually will now negotiate contracts and be responsible for the cap, like Overdorf or whatever his name is. There is nobody really in charge. There is no vision. There is no leadership. There is no one the team can get behind and say we're going to war for this guy. Modrak and Mularkey are lame ducks.
The only way this will work, IMO, is if Ralph really put Marv as GM only in title, with Modrak in charge of the draft and the player personel, working with Marv. Marv is the public face of the team and handles the press and fans and sweettalks free agents and is lovable Uncle Mo. But Modrak is making most of the football decisions behind the scenes and without the responsibility of being the marketing guy and public face and capologist, etc. That way, he could give Mularkey one chance to get the team on the right track.
marv headstrong??? he's famous for working collaboratively with others. dog, i really disagree with this post. i think there's a lot to be very optimistic about. we have an orchestrator, a guy in charge of scouting/drafting who knows how to actually do it (modrak), and a coach who i like (although i'm admittedly in the minority) and who seems a bit like a marv guy. mularkey also seems like the type -- based on a good deal of evidence -- that likes to work collaboratively and isn't a my way or the highway kind of guy.
as for no identity, how can you possibly say that??? marv hasn't even been hired yet and you have *no* idea as to what his plans are.
cheer up - it'll be better than what we had, i think.
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This is just a hypothesis, but hey.
I know that TD was and is respected by ralph, mularkey, modrak, et. al. I also think that there must be some truth behind ralph's comment that TD suggested that he resign. TD became an intensely hated man in Buffalo. Right or wrong, he was reviled for annual underachievement of the team. On average I'd say that the more awake side of the fanbase was happy with about half his moves. E.G., drafting Lee Evans was a great move but not keeping Pat Williams might very well have been his undoing. He built a team predicated on continuing to have a top 5 defense. Oops. We couldn't stop the run anymore. But I digress.
I think Ralph is tired. After listening to his desultory press conference, I *know* he's tired. The prozac comment...Oy...Simon here put it best when he described him as "addled". The perfect word there.
But it's *Ralph*, right? And I think he just wants to feel comfortable. I was FUGGIN RELIEVED to hear that Modrak was retained. Folks, the guy knows football, and he's very well respected, and built that Eagles team that now seems on the downward slide without him. (He did NOT draft Freddie Mitchell, mind you).
So I think what happened was, TD figured that it's best for the team to move on and Ralph was going to let him go anyway and they both knew it. With Marv overseeing the operations (at 81 or whatever) the Bills will again have a face that most fans and the community won't - CAN'T - hate. And that's what the Bills need right now as fans lick their wounds.
Bringing in Marv gives the fall of the Bills a softer landing for many fans. And that's what Ralph wants now...because...and this should be obvious....
The Next GM is not currently available. There are too many vacancies and too few candidates right now. It's a BAAAD year to start from scratch. We're obviously not going to have Marv as a GM for years....This is clearly a stop gap effort to keep the sales base high, the fans happier, and the community placated.
This is a temporary solution. I'm not unhappy with it, cuz you know, it's Marv and all. But he's 81 and hasn't played this role before, so I'm skeptical...but not significantly so because it's obvious that this is just a band aid.
So, the 2006 Buffalo Bills: The Band Aid Season.
Here's to getting back to .500!
good post. one thing i'd add is that i have a weird feeling about marv. i've seen him talk and read his stuff -- he's genuinely spry. he's one of those old jewish guys like the sociologist daniel bell at harvard or the historian bernard lewis at princeton -- really, really intelligent (in terms of book smarts) who continue to have a razor sharp intelligence into their mid-80s. i know i don't have a whole lot to base this on; it's just a hunch. i really do think he's a young 81 -- kinda like 55 in ralph c. years.
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The Bills were 16 million over the 2001 cap before free agency started thanks to overpaying and restructuring stalwarts like Jerry Ostroski and John Fina. It was a very real problem, not something Donaho created. It might be argued that he cut to much but cuts had to be made. I think the Bills had $14 million tied up in the QB situation alone.
to be clear, i don't think butler walked on water. the qb # was a real problem. the fina restructure in 2000 looks bad in retrospect, but at the time he was a decent lt (not great, mind you) in a league full of bad ones. he got hurt after that and deteriorated, but it's not like you can predict those things. he probably did get too much, but the alternative was pretty grim.
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Well if you don't give a rat's ass about the salary cap, you're ignorant.
Washington gets under the cap each year the same way the Bills, 49ers and Cowboys did during the 1990s. They convert salary to bonus and lengthen contracts. That simply pushes the cap hit out to future years. Its almost like living high on the hog off of credit card debt. That will work for a period of time, but eventually you will have to take a huge cap hit on a player that you've restructured time after time. It happened to Buffalo, San Francisco and Dallas, it will happen to Washington to. If you bothered to learn about the cap you would know that, but ignorance in bliss.
Butler knew that hit was coming.
spare me the lecture, scraps. i know as much about the cap as you, trust me. to me, it's usually a macguffin, which in hitchcock movies were things that seemed important but were ultimately marginal to the main plot.
the so-called cap mess of 2001 was nothing of the sort, and was created by the jettisoning of many players that donohoe didn't want. their cap bonuses therefore accelerated into 01. after the bills went 3-13, donohoe conveniently blamed it on the cap. he neglected to mention that many of the main contracts had been cleared out in february 2000 (reed, smith, thomas) and had no bearing on the 01 number.
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maybe you don't judge a gm that way, but i do. i couldn't give a rat's ass about the salary cap, because i think it's usually (not always) just an excuse to get rid of players you don't want anymore. how is that washington year after year pays a fortune for its players yet is always under the cap with ease? how did oakland go from being way over the cap before the season started this year to getting under it with ease without cutting one important player.
this is not directed at you, but i really think the cap is something that fans latch onto to make themselves feel smart.
to quote a friend of ralph, just win baby.
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you know it doesn't surprise me one bit. jeez ...
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As for my cheap shot...well, read my tagline. Besides, I'm fat and I know a fat slob when I see one.
There's a guy where I work who's a GREAT employee...one of the best in the company, IMO. But, I don't see us taking away his toilet brush and broom and making him GM.
It's pretty clear, Butler was an unmitigated disaster as Bills GM.
gotcha about the cheap shot moniker.
my response is simply:
12-4 (and he didn't just inherit the team - he scouted it)
7-9
10-6
10-6
6-10
10-6
11-5
8-8
74-54. a little better than 31-49, wouldn't you say?
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i think simon's point is that the cure may be worse than the disease.
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making fun of his weight = not cool. butler was one of the best employees the bills ever had, by the way.
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he was fired because he wouldn't negotiate with wilson over the course of the 2000 preseason and season. wilson wondered why publicly. when it was clear that he didn't want to come back (there were rumors that he was fed up with the meddling), wilson fired him.
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it's long been that way with ralph. players get paid, and management doesn't. even donohoe was making a pittance compared to other gms (much less gms/team presidents). why do you think butler left? he was making $1 million for the bills and ended up getting something like $5 million from SD. there was no way in hell wilson was going to match that. it's just the way he is, like it or not.
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no, my understanding is that they get along, although ralph surely must get irritated at the lawsuits and turmoil generated by the raiders. i really think that aside from jerry jones, wilson is one of the only owners that davis considers a friend (such as it is with him).
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Fox would have cost the same amount as Gregg Williams, as would Lewis (whether he wanted the job or not is another question).
And if Donahoe's coaching choices were truly limited by salary restrictions, why was he allowed to sign an unproven commodity to a guranteed contract 5 years in length?
To me, the salary restriction portion of it is a poor excuse.
take it for what it's worth, but the rumor is that wilson was opposed to fox because fox quit on al davis (and justifiably did so). davis is a longstanding buddy of ralph.
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not that i have a dog in this fight because i agree that polian was the architect overall, but tasker's first season was 1986, and levy didn't come on board as coach until midway through it. however, he did announce bills preseason games that year and was working for them in some capacity. so since he wasn't doing much else at the time, he may have indeed been scouring the waiver wires.
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but is being a "good soldier" for the team as changes are made
- Losman is NOT a cancer in the locker room, players just recognize he isn't ready.
- Donahoe's coaching choices were limited more by salary restrictions than other factors
- Losman's early season benching have Ralph's fingerprints on it
- Losman is more hurt than the team is saying
- Donahoe is stunned at some of the things people are saying about him. He actually worries about his family with the highly charged atmosphere.
thanks. sounds grim, all told. i feel bad for donohoe.
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Don't See This on the TBD Front Page
Outstanding work, could not agree more.
ETA: oops, it's there... missed it.
did donohoe really order stuff from the box??
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i know many bills fans who are not on this board. all of them bought into the notion that they needed to season the kid. do i know all bills fans? no. but my sample is pretty good.
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i realize we are not really a measuring stick of the entire bills fan base, but go back to last Feb-Sept and tell me that a lot of fans here were not calling this a playoff team, heck I predicted 19-0, but then again I do that every year. We as fans are a fickle bunch, but that is our right and it is what makes us fans, we want it both ways, and when it doesn't work we B word about everything.
but who was thinking that after game 2 or 3? not many. most would have been happy to finish with a "strong" 8-8 record in which the offense improved over what it done when led by bledsoe.
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Sure he is. Fans always want it both ways. They want to win, but when the young QB struggles a little bit and the team is on the ropes they want to see Holcomb on the field. Even though that means that not only do the Bills not make the playoffs this year, but they miss an opportunity to develop a young QB.
no, he's wrong. the overwhelming consensus among bills fans was that losman needed to take his lumps and play (i know, because i was one of the few people who wasn't part of this consensus). also, most fans didn't consider the bills a playoff team - they aren't that dumb. the only people lobbying for the benching of losman for holcomb and arguing that the bills were an elite team were the actual players on the team. except for a small minority of fans, that's it.
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New structure has disaster written all over it
in The Stadium Wall Archives
Posted
walt corey? you mean the guy whose defense improved greatly between 1991 and 1992 and whose defense came close to setting a league record for turnovers in 1993? the guy who marv fired without a problem after the 1994 season?
i'm not saying corey was great, but my god, the retrospective trashing of the assistants is just ridiculously wrong. the problem with the bills defense had a great deal to do with the lack of good defensive tackles than walt corey's strategic acumen.