Billy Zabka
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Posts posted by Billy Zabka
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1st, 1st, 2nd, 4th, 4th, and 4th Round picks
Result: EJ Gaines, Reggie Ragland, 2nd Rounder.
Yikes...
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I miss hearing about EJ Manuel taking off running in 7-on-7 passing drills...
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I think the Buffalo News is/was biased against Whaley, not because the color of his skin, but because he just didn't give them anything. The Buffalo News, particularly under the new ownership, and the the loss of people like Larry Felser, just has no real foot in the door with the Bills (or the Sabres for that matter), and they kind of took it out on Whaely, in my opinion. I used to stick up and defend the BN sports staff all the time here...but I thought the way they treated Whaley during and after the infamous January press conference was disgraceful. Even Vic Carruci, sad to say, has lowered himself. Funny too, the young guy they had there for a season or two (Tyler Dunne?) seemed far more connected to the NFL than the BN hacks.
Whaley's press conference was embarrassing. Yeah he took some heat, but he deserved it with his ridiculous answers. Whaley wasn't a good General manager and i am glad that he is finally gone.
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Good solid signing for the Bills at a position of great need.
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He couldn't do anything in the modern NFL, dealing with salary caps, etc. The game passed Bill by. But they do let him yap on TV.
The NFL salary cap was instituted in 1994.
In that time Bill Polian went 160-96 with 11 playoff appearances and made 2 Super Bowls.
You are a poster who defends just about every move and player made by the Bills despite a 17 year playoff drought, yet you rip Bill Polian with that legacy and record saying he "couldn't do "anything" in the modern NFL." Man you have a warped view of reality.
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When you combine having the knee of a 72 year old arthritic, are coming off major hip surgery, and then go cuckoo bananas...the move is a no brainer. Another great pick by Dougie Fresh, but all he does is find talent...right?
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Travis Henry: "Hold my beer..."
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http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news/2017/05/08/ex-bills-gm-whaley-selling-waterfront-condo.html
"Selling real estate is about two things: property and selling"--Doug Whaley
I told you guys he was moving out of his residence before the draft, but took some crap on here for it. He knew he was a goner for awhile.
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Lombardi echoes what I have been saying for years, that Whaley is good at finding individual talent but lacked in most of the other areas it takes to be a good GM.
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you quote one fact from the article and get it wrong. He was 30-34 as GM, which isn't all that bad.
When you trade up in drafts and spend the team into cap issues in a win now mentality and the best you can do is 30-34 with no playoff berths then it is not that good either.
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Some of the best Bills articles come from the Toronto Sun by this guy and this is no exception.
http://www.torontosun.com/2017/04/30/bills-owner-fires-gm-doug-whaley-day-after-completing-nfl-draft
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I'm not criticizing the firing of Whaley---I'm applauding the owner. The firing of Whaley isn't an act of desperation, far from it. It is a decisive act to bring order and coherency to an amorphous and stagnating organization. The Whaley approach was a patchwork approach to building a roster. There was no long term coherent strategy. Decisions were made on a day to day survival mode mentality.
I'm far from declaring McDermott as the answer to this flagging franchise. What I can say about him is that he has a blueprint and a vision for the direction he wants to go. You can agree with it or not but there is at least a thought process to what he is doing.
The past generation, this organization has been a dismal failure. It had no identity other than being mediocre and boring. The goal was simply to be respectable with no belief that it could be a serious challenging team. Personnel decisions were made on an ad hoc basis with the mind-set to fill holes as they popped up. While teams such as the Pats plan years in advance for replacing players when their expiring contracts were imminent the Bills would scramble to respond as if it was a surprise.
The Pegulas have made some big mistakes and it is fair to criticize them. On the other hand they are learning as they gain experience as owners and are not afraid to act when it is called for.
Great synopsis.
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Funny that once again all the reports were true.
These organizations all deny them, but at the end of the day Rex gets fired, Whaley gets fired, the Sabres FO is being flipped on they are going on their 4th Coach already of the Pegula era.
All the talk of disfuction has been 100% spot on.
The people that rip any negative reporting and believe that the Head Coach, GM', and Owners are always telling you the complete and total truth live in a land of unicorns and rainbows.
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Long overdue, but firing means nothing unless they hire a good replacement.
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I'd love to get Robinson in the 2nd and WR Carlos Henderson in the 3rd. Doubtful Robinson is there, but Bama players are dropping this year.
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Contrary to you over the top requirements, the only thing the new GM has to do is: don't overeach on a qb, if you draft a qb and hes a bust cut ties early, dont spend early picks on known injured players that every other team has removed from the board and act as if you are smarter than the other 31 teams GMs, retain good players that produce for you, be able to communicate clearly in the most basic of settings without contradicting yourself and making the organization appear to be ran by s bunch of amatuers, and produce a playoff team in a reasonable period 2-4 years.
Great post. I would also add not target guys in the draft and trade up for them burning valuable draft picks.
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Doug, we're gonna need to go ahead and move you downstairs into storage B. We have some new people coming in, and we need all the space we can get. So if you could just go ahead and pack up your stuff and move it down there, that would be terrific, OK? In the meantime, don't talk to the media, and we are going to give Sean final say on all personnel and draft choices...mmmkay great.
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I wonder if there is a chapter on Ronnie Jones. If you follow Ronnie Jones career it is amazingly, astonishingly bad as he basically ruined any unit or team he coached.
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Whaley has said a lot of stuff to hide the dysfunction that was going on behind the scenes. Pushed him so hard that he signed two other QBs that started.
I'm not here to start a fight, just repeating what was said.
Whaley has said a lot of stuff to hide the dysfunction that was going on behind the scenes. Pushed him so hard that he signed two other QBs that started.
I'm not here to start a fight, just repeating what was said.
Well, a journeyman QB (Orton) after his coach went ape **** and a career 6th round backup (Taylor) who rex pushed for, so it's not like Whaley was pursuing high end guys. Other than that Whaley went to camp for two consecutive years with Thad Lewis and Jeff Tuel as EJ's only competition. It's obvious that to anyone paying attention that EJ was Whaley's guy and he wasn't pretending to hide dysfunction, that is ridiculous.
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I also give a lot of credit to Whaley for the Hughes trade, even though Nix was the GM.
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Sal was pretty adamant that the Ej pick was not Whaley. He said it was pretty common knowledge that Buddy was taking him no matter what.
I do feel bad for Whaley, but he needs to get more of a backbone with the position he is in. He gets walked over too much. I think he is a real good talent evaluator, but lacks the ability to stand up for himself. I think he was just too young for the job. He really had no power and was not in the position to hold his ground.
Even if Nix made final call on EJ, it's pretty clear from Whaley's comments following draft and subsequent actions that he was 100% on board with Manuel.
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Heard that moving trucks were spotted at Whaley residence past few days.
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Sal Paolantonio was supposed to be a cut until the ESPN president woke up with a horse head in his bed.
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He doesn't defend every single move. Exaggerating doesn't make your point any more valid, it just makes you look like you have to make stuff up in order to get your point across. Do you think we had good enough talent across the board to make the playoffs the last 3 years? We didn't make the playoffs because our roster sucked. We didn't make the playoffs because our HC sucks and our QB wasn't good enough. He put together a very solid roster. He just didn't get us a qb or a HC. Two MAJOR pieces to the puzzle and he deserves all the criticism he receives for that.
I agree on the QB situation, he put together the worst trio of QB's I have ever seen in not one, but two consecutive training camps (Manuel, Lewis, Tuel) If not for Orton luckily being available late and Rex pushing for Tyrod the QB play from the Bills would be horrifically bad. Other than that Whaley has burned a lot of draft picks targeting players and putting together top heavy rosters with limited depth and gaping holes at certain positions. This has been done despite getting the Bills into cap issues despite no playoff success or big expenditure at QB.
His record speaks for itself the last 7 years, and he just isn't a good enough GM. He is a good scout, but as I said there is plenty more to the job that he struggles with. Being better than Russ Brandon or Marv Levy doesn't mean jack squat.
This is how epically bad we are.
in The Stadium Wall Archives
Posted
A 1,1,2,4,4,4 used for Watkins and Ragland
Current result of those picks: 2,4, and EJ Gaines (in final yr of contract)
Yikes...