Enemarty

can't you as moderator simply .... grind up those threads and put them in the freezer?

ground up, in the freezer ...

waiting for Chad Kelly to arrive...

thank you thank you thank you. expresses my thoughts exactly.

Spot on! People don't come to Buffalo because our personnel people don't go after the right talent. In the past, when we wanted talent, we got it. As mentioned, TKO, possibly the best talent in free agency that year came here. Bryce Paup, Sam Adams and don't forget, Bledsoe was a commodity at the time he came. The folks that badmouth the city aren't from the city, or left the city because it wasn't for them or, with some of the local press, feel they have a duty to raise some dust. Bias much. Remember, the windbag reporter who lives in NYC or LA and takes a shot at Buffalo likely was raised in NYC or left a town like Buffalo because they failed to appreciate what a city like Buffalo has to offer. In contrast, your average football talent is not raised in Manhatten or has a desire to live there. Rather, they grew up in a midwest farming community or small southern city or small Pennsylvania town. Sure, there will always be a few prima donna types like McGahee that want to live in NYC like the windbag reporter, but for most, a city like Buffalo is ideal. I mean really, even the guys we've lost to free agency and early retirement didn't leave Buffalo for the lights of Times Square. Shoebel retires to his small town in Texas, Wolford goes to Indiana to raise horses, Pat and Antoine go to the even colder environment in Minnesota. More recently, Whitner is happy staying here or going to Cincy and only ends up in SF because of the money. Poz goes to Jacksonville.

Love Polian, but have to agree with this. His last several drafts were poor, but masked by Peyton's play; this year those decisions were exposed.

Excellent observation.

This ^^^

I agree with several posters' comments that had TBD picked instead of the Bills GM, the team would be a lot better. But Troup over Cody was one that, at the time, I agreed with Buddy. Call it the "Mike Williams disease" but selecting Troup over Cody, given the latter's issues with weight, endurance and speed at the time, set off alarm bells for me of another big Mike situation. It looks like Cody has his act together now, and perhaps he would have had be come here, but again, we don't have a Ray Lewis in the house who has a habit of getting the best out of people around him.

I live in Northern VA outside of DC and you did feel an earthquake. 5.9 according to USGS. Centered outside of Richmond.

the team should have gone to DHgate...

Um, Lee Evans.

oh no, Bills involved in "defense is coming together in training camp quicker than offense" shocker.

This is a reasonable request, but really impossible to comply with. However, how about this alternative, which attempts to reflect your noble points that much of this, excepting the hold-out, is not Maybin's fault. Instead, when tempted to bash Maybin, we just substitute Jauron. I'll start: Dick Jauron only weights 228lbs.

Agree about Cowherd. Here in DC I listen to Steve Czaban, with whom I disagree from time to time, but overall find his snarky wit and refusal to cow tow to anyone, whether it be the owner of the local football team or the network-sponser of the station upon which he appears in the afternoon (ESPN) refreshing. He has a morning show on a different station and this morning was taking shots at what he calls the "Same and Samer Show" on the four-letter essentially calling them out for not being critical of any professional athlete, attributing this failing to your observation above, that it can be restrictive to a sports talk host to comment about athletes when your format depends upon guest appearances.

Yep, just like the last RB we took in the 5th round. Although our division rivals ended up using him a lot more then we ever did, I always liked that pick.

Referring to the Browns.

Some list. Although, according to the article, the loss to Carolina a few years ago doesn't count as much, but for the fact that pretty much every defenseman on the team went down to injury that postseason, I think that team wins the cup.

MNF has been looking for the next Don Meredith since Dandy Don left the show. The problem with the Dennis and Tony's of the world is that while both know a fair amount about football, their primary focus will always be comedy and it became a distraction, especially when the games started to improve. Not that I'm a big fan of the Mike and Mike show, but someone like Golic might do a decent job as the third wheel, offering football talk when appropriate, and just being goofy when the game gets boring.

Playing with a bunch of PBers cuts both ways. Sure he benefits because other teams have to cover other quality players, arguably giving him better quality opportunities to catch the ball, but at the same time, his numbers suffer given that Kelly spread the ball around. I've seen plenty of pundits rating Carter and Brown over Reed because of numbers and the fact that Reed had the advantage of working with the same HOF QB over most of his career. But none of these analyses appear to take into account the Thurman factor, which is to say if we didn't have a HOF tailback, taking a lot of the touches during most of Andre's career, what would Reed's numbers have been. Sure, Carter played with Moss for a few years, Brown played with ... oh nevermind, but during the peak years of Andre's career, 89-96, he was second fiddle to Thurman IMO.

ditto

this. the real focus shouldn't be on the Bills FO, but on the Saints. No one has said Buddy turned down a third and instead accepted a 4th and 6th from Seattle. If the Saints were that interested in ML, they would have made sure the Bills knew it. Everyone in the league knew MS was being shopped. Seattle called repeatedly. The Saints didn't. Too bad for them.

I would add the same guy who allegedly offered Harbaugh the HC position a year ago, the same Harbaugh that has had the entire league in a titter the last few days. Can you say prescient?

given your choice of avatar, sarcasm must always be the first consideration before moving on to more insidious motives....

This is an absolutely true statement were Modrak currently looking for a job with another employer and trying to sell himself. However, Modrak presently is not looking for a job. He is employed by the one person who would know whether ten years of first round drafting futility was Modrak's fault or the fault of someone else. So you're left with two possibilities, Ralph is so loyal to Tom that he ignores his incompetence, in which case, calls for his termination are wasted. Or perhaps Tom sets a pretty nice draft board but is only allowed more say in the decision-making process in the later rounds. As a result, the decision-makers, including now Mr. Nix, realize that Tom provides a valuable service. I dont know the answer, but the almost immediate dismissal of John Guy along with the various leaks concerning who Modrak might have drafted had it been his decision suggest there may be something to the second option. So, to play a little devil's advocate (apologize for the length): 2002 - Williams - consensus top ten pick. We were all asking for OT; McKinnie had attitude issues. Good pick - bad player. Although he turned out a real bust, can't fault Modrak or Donahoe. 2003 - McGahee - this has Donahoe written all over it. A risk that might have been worth it, but should have focused on need. 2004 - Evans - solid pick. Had a strong defense and an aging Moulds and Bledsoe needed more weapons. - Losman - no way does Modrak make the call to move back into the first. Donahoe panic - but it could have been Ralph worrying about Bledsoe's contract and wanting someone in place. Too bad, as we might have gotten A. Rogers in 2005. 2006 - Whitner - Jauron prints all over this. Frankly, had there not been so many terrible picks both before and after Whitner, we might not be so harsh on this one. - McCargo - again, I don't see Modrak making the decision to move up to get this guy. In fact, this pick is a direct result of picking Whitner over Ngata. We should have gone DT then S, but picking Whitner leads to this wasted pick. Modrak may have graded McCargo too high, but moving up to get him comes from higher authority. However, Modrak certainly has to take his share of blame for this, as a more realistic grade might have dissuaded the decision-makers from making this move. 2007 - Lynch - the McGahee pick directly leads to this. I actually like Lynch and have no problem with the pick given the circumstances at the time. Certainly not a Modrak issue. 2008 - McKelvin - Jauron and we'll see. Like Whitner, had other picks worked out better, we could live with this. I will say that McKelvin over Cromartie at the time can't be viewed as foolish. And taking Jackson (who the Eagles took at 49) over Hardy when we already had Parrish and needed a big man against strong AFC East CBs would have caused a major meltdown on this board in 2008. Hindsight is 20/20. 2009 - Maybin - Modrak on record about this. Frankly, his going on record at all speaks volumes about what he thought at the time and suggests his influence in the early rounds was not as great as we might think. - Wood - likely one of Jauron's better decisions. At least Modrak had him graded properly. 2010 - Spiller - Nix pick and may yet be a good one. May not have been the wisest pick, but if Modrak graded him high, so did everyong else. As for the later rounds, those are always going to be more challenging, but imagine how Modrak would be viewed if picks like Byrd, Williams, Parrish, Levitre, Brad Butler, even Poz were filling in around first round blue chippers instead of trying to fill in for them.