BillsPride12

C'mon if you want this to be credible its gotta be a Bills Super Bowl win or a $Million dollars......no true Bills fan would take $10,000 over a Bills Super Bowl win

The amazing thing about Thurman to me was how great his hands were as a receiver but at the same time how great of a blocker he was, you just don't see Rb's that versatile these days...see example: Willis McGahee.

Yeah same here I would love to get my hands on some copies of those games, I'd be gladly willing to pay. A PM would be appreciated!

"What's a playmaker?" Bruce Smith, Cornelius Bennett, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed...those were our playmakers in the glory days. Part of being a playmaker is not just making a big play, but making it at a pivotal point of the football game...something the Bills of recent years have had trouble doing

Safety has always been a vital position on Defense, I just think alot of people were shocked because Whitner was projected to be a 2nd round pick on alot of boards, when played properly watching a dominant safety can be a thing of football beauty. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pHavSsG0gI

Scott Pioli Bill Polian Ron Wolfe(yeah I know he's retired but the man knows how to build a football team!)

Hands down the New England Patriots. Especially considering they always have a low draft pick because of their success, but they just now how to evaluate talent. when to draft players, how to find character players that also have talent, its amazing when you think about it.

Yeah I would love to see this kid in Buffalo, I can see it now Willis and Whitner cracking some heads. I love the fact this kid can hit and fly to the ball.

I was checking out the Hall of Fame website today and was looking at some videos check out this link and go under the Hall of Famers archive and click on the Dan Hampton highlights http://www.profootballhof.com/multimedia/index.html I could only dream of Kyle Williams being that type of impact player or any of our DT's for that matter...what a stud

Well put and thats the truth. The only former Bill who I could see being a successful consultant and maybe someday a coach would be Jim Kelly or even a Frank Reich. Thurman was a gamer and he understood what it took to get the job done on sundays but I honestly couldn't see him making the slightest difference on Willis McGahee's career.

I agree with that

Yeah I definately think Thurman's leadership was underrated, here was a guy who would get in the face of Jim Kelly or Bruce Smith if he had to. I miss having guys on our team that actually cared about winning(im not talking about JP or Lee and I think we are heading into the right direction, I'm just talking about the TD era)

I'm not defending all the stupid stuff those great Bills did off the field, in fact thats a whole different topic for another day But back to the original post, people don't want Willis out of here because he has bad qualities in his personal life, people just want him out of here because he is not a great running back and he is going to want too much money. Why is that so hard to understand? As far as trying to compare him to those other guys, here's the major difference...those guys wanted to win at all cost and always left everything on the field(except when they were too hungover in the Super Bowls), they loved to play football and played with passion. Willis on the other hand comes off as being very disinterested.

I def agree, I always thought it was a special thing to have your name called out as you came running out the tunnel on Super Bowl sunday. Especially if your team is in the big game it gets you extremely fired up, I still remember Bruce Smith coming out of the tunnel in SB 25 to thousands of BRRUUUUUCCCCCEEEEEE chants. I miss the player intros, another reason to hate those damn Patriots

It would be nice to see Polian, Manning, or Ruben Brown win it so I am not sure who I'm rooting for yet.

Chicago has some Buffalo connections as well...Big Rube and Rusty Jones!

Thats why I'm kinda torn on the Super Bowl, on one hand I would like to see Polian finally win the big one and I do think Peyton deserves it, but I know a Lombardi trophy would mean so much more to the city of Chicago(even though they already have won it before). Chicago is a great sports town and Bears fans are passionate and the team has a great football history and tradition. If it wasn't for the fact Polian was with the Colts I would be looking forward to rooting for a Bears superbowl victory, but I guess on the positive side at least I won't be disappointed with whoever ends up victorious.

Aww c'mon man, your not giving old Teddy enough credit, I'm sure he was in on like 45 hits

Patrick Willis is our guy

The Minnesota Miracle himself, Gordon Bombay

Hey as soon as we have a REAL team again I'm all for it. The red endzones remind me of the glory days and I wouldn't want to disrespect the great players who always found their way into the endzone like Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed led by Kelly by having this team playing with the Red Endzones, but yeah I really do miss them too!

Well right now he is certainly not who you would want as your starting qb if you want to be a serious contender but with that said it's still fun to watch the guy because you know he is always going to try to do something and you just know he loves to play football, how could you not love that? He's not a primadonna and you've never hear the guy complain about his contract. As far as his talent, I'll admit his better days are behind him but you also have to keep in mind his team is very weak...in his prime he was untouchable. Hall of Famer for sure

Joe D...now that was a FOOTBALL PLAYER as opposed to some guy who plays football for a career which we have quite alot of now.

Yeah I'm sorry I thought you were someone at the beginning who was backing up Willis in this debate and like I said I think Willis is a good running back and I hope he can step it up but I just get really mad when people make comparisons like this because it slights Thurman Thomas

Here's some more on Thurman Thomas from the new Steve Tasker book. Until I see some guys who have played with Willis talk about him in these regards I refuse to put them in the same category, "The guy was an absolute warrior, and for a long period, the most productive running back and perhaps the most productive offensive player in the game. The thing about Thurman was that, like Walter Payton before him, he was able to do it all, and do it all very well. He was a superb runner, rushing for more yards than O.J. Simpson. And he was an excellent receiever ranking 3rd all-time along Bills receivers with 456 receptions, 22 of them for touchdowns. But his blocking skills were the thing that impressed me the most and spoke legions about what a team player he was. Thurman was one of the best backs in NFL history at picking up blitzers. I don't know how many times he waylaid a linebacker or a cornerback to give Jim the additional time to complete a big pass. That was no small thing because most marquee backs want nothing to do with blocking, But Ted Marchibroda told me that Thurman would spend extra time during the week studying the blitz tendencies of upcoming opponents. Four times, Thurman led the league in combined yards from scrimmage. He and the immortal Jim Brown are the only backs in league history to accomplish that feat that many times. Thurman clearly was a dominating player over a long period." This is all coming from a guy who actually played in the NFL, not just one of us fans. Willis has to earn it if he wants to have this kind of respect. I don't like how some Bills fans just want to throw it out there like candy on Halloween night just because he is the current running back. I'm rooting for Willis but right now he's not on Thurman's level.