leh-nerd skin-erd

that wendling kid has some promise.

the original question posed was "what gm says thing like that"? i didn't suggest that Nix = Polian at all. I just answered the question with the most obvious example I could think of. and, incidentally, the most painful to me as a bills fan. i understand your apprehension 100% and do not remotely suggest you hop on board. that said, in fairness, Nix has had virtually 0% responsibilty for the actions of management that lead the team to this point. Gailey has had even less to do with it. i'm hardly myopic and have kicked more than my share of furniture before, during and after bills games. i just don't feel the need to get ready to kick more until it's time.

good stuff. i was telling my son similar things the other day. trent has worked in a largely inefficient system for a long time. if chan gailey is truly a developer of qb's, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out. if he kicks him to the curb, so be it. if he decides he might the guy, let's get it on.

I've been looking at a variety of NFL info sites to find an exceptional GM who was a GM before he became a GM. I've found a few who were GM's for other teams before they got a job for another team, but haven't been able to find one who was always a GM before he was a GM. I haven't wiki'd yet. and, um, it seems Bill Polian says those kinds of things (or worse). I understand the hesitation to jump on the Buddy bandwagon, but knocking him for being a role player seems a bit harsh. he was an assistant GM for a successful team, and while assistant does not guarantee success at the next stop, he likely would have gained some valuable insight into what happens at that level. I'm not a guy who assumes that things automatically work just because a change has made, but as a fan my options are pretty limited. support the team and hope for the best, or just be miserable. i've done both. Buddy Nix is who he is. Chan is who he is. I could personally care less how they says what they say. WIN SOME FOOTBALL GAMES. end of story.

yup. the buddy nix/chan gailey combo has yet to break my heart.

it's also interesting to note that while he took over aikman and co in dallas, he's taking over a sloppy, mistake prone, injury riddled offense in buffalo. i loved the part about discipline in article one, our players need that adjustment. i realize having a revolving door of players at key positions makes that difficult and to a certain extent understandable, but it's a fact nonetheless. the quotes attributed to jerry jones in the first article were hysterical, almost jauron-like. let's use 200 words strung together awkwardly to make a point.

you speak the truth as i understand it. i think it's fair to look at Haiti and ask "Where was their hero??" anywhere along the last couple hundred years. the fact that things played out the way they did is tragic, but why would that make me feel any less for an orphaned child living in squalid conditions? and Lordy, that deal with the French was pretty bad.

hogwash my (now i'm assuming) liberal friend! the problem with your thesis is that we both live by the same set of rules, electorally speaking, and while I may be voting for the same cast of characters as outlined---my choices, like yours, are fairly limited. as disdainful as you find the thought processes of those mentioned, i find equally disdainful the likes of far left talking heads (let's go with Al Franken, Reverend Wright, Rosie O'Donnell, Barrack Obama, and Ed Schultz. I can't think of a comedian off the top of my head to compare to Larry the Cable Guy because I don't spend much time in that arena any more). Do they represent mainstream liberal points of view? Yet, if you voted for BO, one can only assume you aligned with their leadership. So, we all deal with that issue on one level or another. I'd think if we sat and had a beer summit, we would likey both agree that JC is painted as aligned with the republican party because it suits the needs of both parties. The old "family values" issue resonates with conservatives because many decent, hard-working people think of their only family situation with pride(as do i), even in spite of the lofty standard one must aspire to to be the candidate that represents family values. speaking only for myself, a campaign slogan is wonderful, but i try to look beyond that. so, larry craig can run all day long on family values, but his personal actions lead me to believe that he's a dangerous person to have in a position of power. and, i don't think a democrat candidate is necessarily bad, but is it fair to suggest that poor candidates on either side should be tossed out on their ears? i'll agree to toss out larry craig, will you agree to toss out charile rangle? the machine of the democrats also works to paint republican candidates as the party of JC as well, if for no other reason than when they fall---as some invariably will, it's easy to suggest 'republican = hypocrite'. plus, they get to appeal to all those people who see someone like George W. Bush as a craaaaaazy right wing religious wacko. that's fine, that's politics, i can make up my own mind---but it's true and has as much to do with the democrat machine as the republican, just for different reasons. i found it very interesting that during the jm/bo election cycle, the demo machine allowed bo to cast himself as a church going man, a man of faith, but somehow not a religious nut job. in fact, the machine did a pretty good job of telling folk that bo's affiliation with a not-so-mainstream church was no big deal. so, Jesus cycle's in and out of favor, politically-speaking. Speaking of machines, if for a moment you saw Barrack Obama as anything other than an inexperienced candidate who fit the suit at the right point in time----I'd be surprised myself. A short term senator who became famous for being famous, and his success was largely based on the entrenched machine. I was careful to choose my words carefully when I replied initially because quite honestly, I wasn't looking for a fight or to offend you. I am who I am, I'm good with that, and I respect your right to follow your own course. I have friends that are quite liberal, and I can't quite figure out how such otherwise intelligent people are so naive. They think the same of me, I'm sure. In closing, 2 things----your bet is impossible to win, and I'm not a betting man. I work hard for my $$ and like to keep what the man isn't already pilfering in taxation. Besides, I just don't see the benefit. That aside, conservative republican types are traditionally quite generous. Interestingly, when I last compared notable public figures like the hated George W. Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, John and Theresa Kerry, and our very own Barrack Obama---old W gave a much higher percentage to charity than any of the others by a wide margin. As I recall, Bill and Hill earned something like $110m in a ten or 11 year period and found a way to part with only 4 or 5% of that vast wealth, while Old W clicked along pretty well at 10% of a much smaller number. My question is--if the working people are being victimized by evil corporations---why not take $60 or $70 million of that money and do something with it? Bill and Hill would still have $20mill or so after taxes---you can't live on that when ____________ is being victimized by ________???? Is it just that the cost of living is higher in Chappaqua??? And finally, my friend, let's speak of the great liberal lion! The now deceased Ted Kennedy, he of drunken rowdiness, he of "i hope there's 12 hours of air in that car!", he of "alternative energy is a great thing so long as my view isn't obstructed!"----i believe his public disclosure placed his net worth between $50 and $80 million. I'm never quite sure how a sitting 50 year senator amasses a fortune like that, but I do know that in death---the moral conscious of the federal government, well, it would have been a very notable event had he decided to give each of his kids $500k to get 'em started, left a few mill for his wives, and given the rest of that fortune built on bootlegging and the backs of the American working man to health care or to help battered women! But again....everyone else has to figure that out, he's just the voice of reason.

A moderate Republican? A far right Republican? A Conservative? What? It's funny you'd think that. If I was a betting man, I'd read into it that he was a liberal. Not a democrat per se, just a liberal. He has a lots of thoughts but isn't willing to be part of the solution financially. Everyone else can do it, he's just the idea man. It's hard to find people as self-absorbed as this guy is, but they're out there. Crazy liberal hoops player. I'm a conservative republican, and I feel nothing but empathy for the people of Haiti. I've been invovled in the clean-up phase of many natural disasters in this country, by the way. The huge difference between "us" and "them" is the infrastrucute we have at our disposal. Left to their own devices, many, many people in this country would live the after-effects of a hurricane and have no place to live, no money to rebuild, no plan to get on with their lives, and sit and wait for the government (aka our infrastructure) to take care of everything. they would probably have some cool body piercings, a couple cell phones, and a pack of smokes though. interestingly, i'd still feel empathy for them and try and help them out. crazy republicans.

i can never remember if it's redundant that a fat guy "doesn't like fat guys", or if it's ironic? either way, haven't seen many billboards suggesting ralph bring back the walrus (koo koo kachoo).

with due respect---we all seem to know it but it never seems to get done. dick jauron made millions per year and chose to take a chance on an unproven line in year 4 of his stay here. i realize the derrick dockery, langston walker etc experiement failed, but AT LEAST they were trying to build a big and effective line. other than that debacle, it's been ten years of disaster on the o-line.

i think the totality of the vikes play offensively was the story. crazy, odds-defying turnovers and near-turnovers were the rule of the day and favre's miscue was only one. i watched hoping that favre would lose. my opinion has been that he turned a bit mercenary toward the end, his maybe retire-maybe not thought process got very irritating, and i personally felt he slapped the collective face of packer fans and left their like a cur dog in the night. thaaaaaaaaaaat aside, i found myself almost rooting for the geezer yesterday. he got hit, smacked, cracked, and jacked all game long and continued to deliver key third down completions. his play kept them in the game (offensively, i mean, i thought their defense was great last night all things considered)after the fumbles, and inexplicably they were in it to the end. this in spite of the fact that at times, he looked 65 getting off the turf. last thought--i struggle with anyone suggestings he had room to scamper for 5 or 6 yards based on the rollout. he was pretty clearly in a lot of pain, and i'm sure that factored into his decision to throw the pass. and, yeah, he's favre and has a penchant for forcing throws at odd times. so, understanding i'm not a vikes fan, i had respected favre, lost respect for him, lost more respect for him when he went to the rival vikes, wanted to see him lose (yeah, i'm petty) but left the game with renewed respect for the man's ability. anyway, bad pick, sure, but it really was just an awful extension of being snake-bitten yesterday.

all while holding one of the most potent offenses in recent memory to 74 yards in the half. i spent most of the game pondering how snake-bitten both these franchises are----they are right up there with the Bills. NO couldn't score, Minnesota kept wanting to turn it over. the 12 man on the field was just absolutely brutal to a fan. i could almost, almost udnerstand favre not scrambling for yardage on the int play. he was beaten up quite badly and looked like he couldn't bear much weight, and he reverted to form and tossed a bad throw with great upside and horrible downside. but giving up 5 yards for too many men on the field was an absolute killer. defense accomplished what they needed to an more, offense sucked just abdly enoughly to lose.

Lv-Bills was angry that day, like an old man waiting for his soup...

cotton, buddy just disagrees and it's his rodeo. let's see how he does, he meant no harm. besides...'whatever it takes' implies desperation, and desperation is rarely an attractive trait. i tried it with many a lady at cassidy's back in the day and rarely had success. my chances improved after a round of freddy's special though. i would have loved to see cower here, but there's never a guarantee of success. carpe diem.

The Recycled Coach Song Sung to the music of "Row row row your boat" Words by Timmo1805 Chan chan chan is one, But so was Billy B Heck even Bill Parcells was one But he won a Super B! Norv norv norv is one, Kicked a time or three Won a lot, 11 straight! Still went home in Jan-u-ree. Wade wade wade is one, Head coach of the big D, Fans call zone! Fans call man! Extended almost 3. Mangini's one, mangini's one, The leader of Cleveland B, Snitched on Bill, gave us a thrill, He'll still see yee--ar three.

there is precious little original thought out there. i'd think once someone else wrote that "Buffalo = Oakland", pretty much all other writers would figure out a different angle. when i first read soon yi's "the art of war" , i thought it an excellent piece of literature. when i read "war as an art form" by jim dickers, i learned nothing new.

this guy is a dickwad. i realize when you're writing an opinion piece about something as largely real-world irrelevant as sports, you have to have some poetic license. how about some stats or facts to back things up? how about a look at how bad Gailey's offense was the year he was there, how about a piece on how much sense it made for Haley to fire Gailey in KC because he sucked? How about a piece about RW hiring Nix being a bad move not because of his age or his funny first name, but how about how he sucked something awful in his work in prior locations? in other words, instead of being some nerdy dickwad taking the easy way out and writing some piece of trash just because you can, how about getting off your a** and doing something different?

Other than the fact that I'm a Bills fan conditioned to expect disappointment, I thought the press conference was excellent. At the risk of sounding like a cliche, I would think a football team benefits from tough men leading other tough men. I absolutely loved Buddy's comment when he talked about media reports of what may have transpired, his exact words, with emphasis on the right syllables to convey just a bit of arrogance "I don't care.". Good for him. He shouldn't care what the media thinks, he needs to focus on his vision for this team. I find it hard to believe that a job paying in excess of $1 m a year with a handful available every year would NOT be an attractive opportunity for a guy who believes in his ability to lead a club. Don't get me wrong--I can fully understand why Cowher or Shanny or the like might be concerned about ownership issues and Toronto etc, but not everyone is at the level they are at. Maybe Harbaugh didn't want to leave the college ranks, maybe he didn't want to go to Buffalo. In the end, it didn't work out, he's not here, life goes on. Frazier as HC? Well, Buddy said up front he wanted an offensive mind-set brought to the team. I liked Gailey's comments and how they seemed to mesh with Nix's. I see success as more of an issue of (good and effective) management working together with a plan. Various plans can and do work in the NFL. We need Nix and Gailey to develop a vision, implement a plan and get the players to work the plan. It seems to me that both guys have experience, both guys understand what they want, and with luck their plan will work. I think Gailey is a guy who knows what he wants to do offensively. That's a breath of fresh air to me. We just went through a most improbable season where a coach opted to go rookies on the line and to fire his OC just prior to the first game. Guess what--to no one's surprise, it reflected in the play of the offense. I loved Nix's response to Jerry Sullivan. Old Jerry wants to make the "process" into the story, wants to go down the "what if" scenarios, that's understandable but as a business owner myself, what does it matter? Nix's job is to build a winning team, not worry about the feelings of a sports writer. Even if he's lying though his teeth about the number of inquiries he received, so what? The Bills went in a direction they wanted to go, the rest is a distraction from the job at hand. here's where I'm at. I feel better having Nix at the helm of football operations than I did with Brandon. There is a body of work that suggests he has the capacity to be successful. So, a lot of cliche-type stuff at the press conference, understandable to be concerned that we're back where we started. At the same time, there's hope for the future with these two guys working together. I'll withhold complaining about the ineffectiveness of the system until I see it fail.

I find it interesting that you have decided to read into this beyond what the man himself apparently said. Another school of thought if he was snubbed would be for him to decline to comment at all. as opposed to weaving a tapestry of commentary for everyone to read between the lines so that he wouldn't be embarrassed. he's a guy on record as having said he wasn't interested in coaching again, those comments apparently pre-date the jauron firing, and now this. if he wants to coach again, why the wishy-washy response that he's not maybe not sure that he wanted to coach again? Is Buffalo the only job he is interested in? Why wouldn't he just say "I'd sure like tog et back on the sidelines, this just wasn't the opportunity for me.".

exactly.

bill cowher said this:“He’s very passionate and he’s an unbelievable competitor,” Cowher said. “He’ll leave no stone unturned. He will not accept mediocrity. Being around him I always thought I was a competitive guy, but he might be more competitive than I am. He’s a very driven coach and very thorough and a great fit for the organization.” screw the rest. marvin lewis was a hot prospect and it has taken him a long time to get to the playoffs...spags was the 'it' guy and how'd that go? josh mcdaniel was practically jauron worthy shooting hot out of the box and ending up on the far end of the couch watching the playoffs with marshawn and the boys. tony sparano rode a porpoise to respectability in the blink of an eye and second year took two steps back. rex ryan, the poster boy for new coaches, took plenty of lumps along the way this year. come on. it's like a big bowl of soup. you put in the right ingredients and cook up some gumbo. the real question isn't what can gailey do? it's what kind of gumbo gailey and nix (and the rest) can cook up. give 'em a chance, don't worry about what some d-bag from the courier express of charlotte has to say. besides, why would you be embarrassed about a football team?

i've travelled extensively throughout the country and have been to places cities as diverse as Monroe, La and Dallas. I've been to 25 or so of the 50 states and let me tell you this, sonny. The type of conversation that you're mentioning goes on everywhere. It's not specific to WNY, or the South, or anywhere else. It's no different if a fellow from Georgia calls someone a "yankee" or if a WNY riffs on a guy for being a good old boy. The fine people of WNY have every bit the right to stand on their ground just like everyone else does. Most of it isn't personal, so why personalize it? That dog don't hunt. Oh, and don't mess with Texas. (I called you sonny cause this management team in Buffalo has some old dogs on it. just trying to keep with the times..)

we agree there. 2010 seems to be a rebuilding year. No one rebuilds like the Buffalo Bills.

yo dave...one of the issues in your post relates to Marv as a GM. Marv as a coach is a HOF'er, Marv as GM not so much. I think you have to look deeper into the structure. Will Nix be a good to above-average-great GM? If so, talent improves. The question isn't whether or not Gailey is a good head coach, the question is whether or not Nix & Gailey can be an effective combination and lead the team back to respectability and beyond. I honestly don't have an opinion on the front office being "more dysfunctional" than before. Nix-Gailey could turn out to be an exceptional front office combination. Or, not. The hard part as a Bills fan is to recognize that whatever else happened over the past 50 years, Nix and Gailey had absolutely nothing to do with it. Give them a chance.