vorpma
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Posts posted by vorpma
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Then find a new board!I'm surprised you haven't found the return key yet considering your long posts.
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What are you talking about? Seriously. I said they are going into this season with the SAME QB ROSTER ARE LAST YEAR. Stop me when I'm wrong.
The PRO TALENT evaluators have failed again and again and again.
Until I see some decent QB play out of this team, they are going nowhere. IMO.
I don't know more than anybody the Bills employ and less than many on this board, however I do know losing football when I see it.
And a question for you, what genius hired Crossman as ST coach? And WHY? Marrone: because he's his pal.
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We will see!That is not s rebuild. They made changes but never tried to rebuild. Not to keep going round and round on this but Bledsoe was done by the time he got to Buffalo. He had 1 good season (really a half of a good season) and cost the team a 1st to acquire. I was in college in Boston at that point and the handful of people that actually cared about the Pats couldn't have cared less that he was gone.
Lawyer Milloy, Sam Adams, etc... were never meant to be a part of a rebuild. The Bills were taking a shot. That is what Denver did when they acquired Manning. You don't worry about the long term to try to win one now. It didn't work.
That is not the case now at all. They are doing the rebuild the right way. There are only 3 players on the roster over 30. The team was devoid of talent when Buddy got here and he began the rebuild from the bottom up. It is the same philosophy that the Sabres finally adopted this year. Instead of trying to be an 8 seed by constantly plugging holes you start over and take your lumps. If you ever want to be really good you have to go through periods of being really bad. The Bills were always lingering in that 7-9 range and thought that they were close. They made a bunch of moves with that in mind.
What does being bad previously have to do with 2014? It's a different team with different coaches, players, scouts, GM and opponents.
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Trading for Bledsoe and signing Dockery to the then largest UFA contract to that point wouldn't be what I'd call plugging holes. They were serious attempts at getting the team over the hump.
I'm miffed how anyone who expresses some skepticism about the Bills given their track record is somehow negative.
You're also not investing upwards of 1B in the team.
:thumbsup: March through September you are villified for not drinking the Kool Aid and discussing the Bills from a realistic standpoint and being honest. As stated in a previous post, come late November through January this borad will be speculating on needed off season moves to get the Bills into the playoffs. My family owned multiple season tickets from 1960 well into thr 1990's and I have driven cross country to watch the team play. From my standpoint, my loyalty is not in question, but from an honesty perspective, the organization is bad, really bad, and has been for 14 years. Facts not emotion - wishing is fine but you have to come down to earth eventually. 
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It might be better/smart for the new owner to keep this staff for one more year so that they can recoup and get a good, high draft pick for the one they lost next year.
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Rebuilds take time - 14 years?? Thaty's funny, been hearing about rebuilds since 2000 and every off season the same hopeless optimism. Talk to me in November or better yet January.Mario Williams is an above average player? Really?!? Rebuilds take time, they are getting there. You don't just play a bunch of young guys and expect 13 wins. They are at the point this year where they are ready to compete for a playoff spot. I think that by next year with the $ that they have they can compete for the conference.
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I am aware of the rebuild efforts, but bottom line - they failed!! Where's the beef! My point is they have at best slightly above average players - Mario Williams, CJ Spiller, where are the game changers? By January of 2015 this board will be buzzing with speculation on who the next HC/GM will be!I am pretty sure that the last few years you are looking at the rebuild. They stopped trying to plug holes with vets like Dockery, Barnett, etc... and tore it down. They drafted their the guy that the believe to be their franchise QB. They also traded up for a guy that is the highest rated skill player in 4 years. They rebuilt their OL & pass rush over the last 3 years as well. I know some people will choose to be negative no matter what but I think that it's pretty clear that the rebuild is almost complete. Hopefully, the results will follow but to act like they haven't been rebuilding is just wrong.
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This is an organization with a losing culture so thoroughly lodged in its heart and soul changes have to be made. I honestly do not think they have the talent to play as contenders, still lots of questions at QB. This team has been poorly coached, horrible drafts. lousy scouting, poor FA aquisitions, and overall FO incompetence since 2000. I am sure someone will correct me regarding recent drafts but the bottom line is no playoff appearance since 1999 and when they got close in 2004 got beat in a must win game by the Steelers second team at home. If I'm the new owner I follow the 1989 Dallas model - clean house and start over.
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I can't blame someone for questioning the people who have presided over this team since 1999. I am just amazed that enthusiasm rides as high as it does without a winning season or 2 to prop us up.
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Excellent Post - weak coaching, horrible scouting/drafting, poor FA aquisitions and the Toronto Boondoggle. While many are enthusiastic and hopeful regarding the coming 2014 season - I see another 7 - 9 finish. Once new ownership arrives, clean house completely and start over.I thought it time to reassess our self-proclaimed "marketing genius" and GRADE his performance as a key executive with the Buffalo Bills and what we think will happen to him once there is a new owner ?
My first issue with Brandon is this, he joined the Bills in 1997, approximately 17 years ago and has been with the franchise for the entire 15 year playoff drought. He has been a high level executive the past 8+ years (since 2006), yet, in the last couple of press conferences he seems hell bent on pointing out to people that he has been in charge since January 2013, implying no culpability for the franchise's poor performance for the decade prior, it's an old marketing trick to try and rebrand a failing product, in this case, the failing product is Russ himself. Nice try Russ, but I'm not buying it, grade: D.
2- The Toronto series was his idea and it has failed miserably and the games themselves have been an embarrassment. I don't buy the notion that the series enabled the Bills to expand into the Southern Ontario market, they could have done that with effective marketing and promotion without sending a game north of the border, grade: D.
3- Cap management. This might be the worst area of performance. First, under spending the cap over the past few years and signing contracts that have been colossal failures. Second, how can a team that hasn't made the playoffs in 15 years have the MOST DEAD MONEY of any NFL team in 2014 ? Bad financial management, grade: F.
4- Stadium. While I love the fact that the lease prevents the team from moving for 10 years, why wasn't there any foresight 5 years ago that this franchise needed a new stadium ? We should be in the process of building a new stadium as we search for a new owner instead of scrambling to get our ducks in a row to prove that we'll be able to do it to ensure a new owner keeps the team, an A for short term an F for long term.
5- Performance on the field, grade: D-.
6- PR (Jills lawsuit, website leak and text message lawsuit), I know they are all trivial, but all blemishes nonetheless, grade: D.
Right on!since 2008 he has been the GM/CEO, CEO, and then Super-CEO or whatever. The team has finished nowhere but last place since.
He was the one interviewing coaching candidates the past 2 rounds. he sits front and center with the GM in the war room. He is comfortable fielding questions about the makeup of the team, personnel decisions, etc (as opposed to deferring them to the personnel guys). I think people are delusioned to think he isnt welding some degree of say
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Intelligent, adult response!! Now we have the national soap opera known as the NFL.No it's because he is openly gay...you are lying to yourself
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Ditto!!Dumbest thread ever, by an incredibly wide margin.
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We'll see said the zen master!
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Where's the beef! BFD!!! The last playff appearance in 1999.I would really like to understand how you can lump the Draft of 2004 into the Drafts over the last few years??
Miserable Drafting....really?
Kyle Williams in the 5th round
SJ in the 7th
Whitner (Drafted way toooooooooo high, but still Pro Bowl selection and was the highest paid Safety once he left Buffalo...not a bad decision, but also a great talent)
Lynch (who was traded but the BILLS still Drafted him)
Poz (again, BILLS let him walk, but is having a solid career in Jax of all places, and he was let go due to scheme change more than anything)
Demetrius Bell 7th round, has been a Pro Bowl LT for years, and yes they traded him to Philly but again, the BILLS Drafted him in the 7th round
Eric Wood
Jairus Byrd
Andy Levitre
Dareus - current issues notwithstanding, he just made the Pro Bowl
Cordy Glenn
Kiko Alonso - runner up for DROY
Honorable Mention: Robert Woods and Aaron Williams
Still TBD: EJ Manuel
Role Players: Arthur Moats, CJ Spiller (bad value, but great talent), and Leodis McKelvin (had a good year last year...finally).
And by the way, Fred Jackson was scouted by the BILLS and invited to Camp in 2006 and made the active Roster a year later....so yeah, they saw talent and took him. Also keep in mind, the BILLS Drafted Brad Butler in the middle rounds and was doing well on the right side of the Offensive line when he retired early and young...
So, while two of the Drafts during those years was ABYSMAL, there was also a transition in GM and football responsibilities. The last few years have been anywhere form good to very good....personally, I think you're talking out of your arse....but whatever.
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Right on, great post. They also lack a competent FO and scouting department. Miserable drafts for over ten years.Winning football teams have competent coaching.
The Buffalo Bills does not have competent coaching. 6-10.
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This says it all!because I got 15 years of history that says they Will.
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Poor front office, poor scouting department, coaching - yet to be determined, horrible drafts for ten years, and average players at best.
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Good post!He's been the Asst. GM for four seasons prior to now and supposedly brought on for his personnel prowess next to a braindead and numbskull GM that everyone from the media on down was applauding just a few years ago when he came on.
Where's been this big splash so far? What, Mario a few seasons ago for stupid money?
This offseason in free agency's been a wash at best.
It's good to hope, but as usual, many fans are overrating Whaley and downplaying his supposed role for four prior seasons here for reasons of polemical expedience.
We'll see what the draft holds, but last year's draft was one of the best in years simply for Alonso and Woods, and in theory at least, Nix was in charge. But if we want to give Whaley credit, then he should also get "credit" for the three prior drafts too.
I'll believe that Whaley's as good as many seem to think when he puts us in the playoffs. I don't see that on the radar now though. I've love to see it, but I just don't right now. The drafting of Manuel will in hindsight be the move that sent Marrone to the showers and the team's continued insistence on sticking with him will see to that.
Not a clue what this means.It is unfortunate that tap talk shows you posts from posters that are on your ignore list.
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I'm with you on this one - why Bruce Smith or Doug Flutie. Not sure of the point of this!
Sorry, I don't get the point of this thread. So is being a jackass bad or good? You have Bruce the greatest Bills defensive player ever in the same company with BJ Hobert???
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I am strongly confident that corporate headquarters, businesses with decent paying jobs, yuppies looking for decent paying jobs or investors have Buffalo or New York on short lists. This is a great post and spot on. The point I am trying to make is the environment for business in New York is horrible, from New York City to Buffalo. Buffalo Bills Bars are paying college students $8 an hour to serve yuppies on Sundays to watch the Bills play at bars throughout the research triangle in North Carolina.The problem with the ill-equipped visual analysts is that they foolishly equate building and aesthetics to a strong economy. The reality is quite the opposite because all this new construction and the aesthetic fetishism downtown and a few city neighborhoods is entirely supported by government subsidy in a desperate attempt to reverse a still declining regional economy. Every development project is on the backs of taxpayers via ECIDA, NYS, federal or local tax breaks. EVERYTHING... from historic tax breaks for things like the Lafayette Hotel to massive influx of state dollars at canalside, none of it is the result of structural improvements in our economy or the result of any visionary leadership. You can't build out of a failure. The city still bleeds populations, has one of the highest poverty rates of any city over 250,000, is among the most segregated, has one of the worst public urban school districts, and has more vacancy and abandonment in more of the city than areas of strong housing markets. The suburbs aren't any better, the first ring suburbs are increasingly losing population, increasing in poverty, seeing increased vacancy and decreased housing values, and an aging population on limited, fixed incomes.
If anything, the only thing these tax breaks in the city have done is limited development in the suburbs, which is good. But it hasn't had any statistically significant impact on this region's future... Not to say it won't, but the data other than the number of construction permits doesn't support that. This is a region in a global economy and a minor improvements are only minor if they rest of the region continues to decline.
Get out of North Bflo and the Elmwood Village and visit the whole of the east side, much of the west side, black rock, riverside, parts of South Buffalo. The city looks great if you view it through a straw while standing in front of the Blue Monk after paying $9 for a crappy beer. But that's the myopic Buffalo mentality, so desperate for any improvement that they equate bricks and mortar with actual transformational change. But even in the city, the leadership cuts off its nose to spite its face. Giving Uniland millions to build a building for Delaware North so they can move 2 blocks and vacate another entire building is a self-inflicted wound. But hey, let's not consider the chain of vacancy created by stepping into the marketplace and giving one owner an advantage over another that results in a massive loss of property tax on one building that is barely balanced by new taxes on the new building, if even pays taxes at all in the short term.
We're just in the same era are parents and grandparents were when politicians and the developer class promise that is we just give out and receive tax breaks, it'll change. Yeah those $8 an hour jobs selling concession in Canalside, tending bar at the plethora of consumptive class bars and restaurants, and hotel jobs are booming this economy.
Read the book Power Failure and tell me how different today is than yesterday.
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Honesty in debate is a great thing, appreciate the comments. I too love western New York and want the Bills to stay. More importantly I want NY to come back.I am gonna catch flak for this, watch. I am not trying to be mean, just living in reality. To answer your question. Part of the problem is because it is such a crap shoot weatherwise. You speak of "the Lake." It is already April 21st, you wanna be next to this? What can be done? These days of the year, you can't do anything with "The Lake."
It is the same reason why business and investment isn't too terribly attracted to remote places like this:
http://wavesatseacav...04-21_12_30.jpg
I am sorry, it is what it is. I love Buffalo and Western New York, but it is handcuffed in so many ways! Business and investment doesn't like chance. Taking a chance on: "Maybe next year will be a mild winter." Is downright scary for business that do not like uncertainty.
Again, I will get flak for this seeing how Buffalo is trying to bust out of the natural mode it was cast in. It is what it is as much as it pains me to say it. Human engineering isn't helping... The only business and investment they are worried about is getting that power from The Falls and sending it a zillion miles somewhere else. (Toronto and NYC). They are saying eff BFLO/Niagara Falls and "Their Lake" while places like Toronto and NYC get cheap power.
OK!It's coming back in WNY. I don't know about the rest of NY. Of course, you're not here to see what's been going on.
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Ya, tell me the economy is coming back in NY? Keep dreaming my friend.This was a great post. In 2007.
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The bottom line is New York State and Western New York have a "lousy" business climate that is not conducive for a professional sports franchise and its long term prospects. Outrages taxes, income, sales, and property not only discourage investment in New York, they have drove thousands of educated young professionals out of state along with a lot of discretionary spending cash.
If there were any indications that the economy was turning around and an economic boom was in the works, Bon Jovi would not be relevant to anything.
How can a city like Buffalo, located on the Lake - a great area to live - not be turning things around and attracting business and investment?
I was born and raised in Buffalo and my family held season tickets from 1960 until 1986 and love the state, but truth is, it is not a magnet for business nor investment!
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Great post!This board has thinner skin that I ever imagined, and I've been here for years, AND I thought it was really thin skinned.
Can't say I love every column, but most to me have been decent and forced me to revaluate my illogical optimism. The team hasn't been to the playoffs in 13 years. You'd have to be a hack to find positivity in that. That isn't bad luck; there are reasons for this and like him or not or agree with him or not, there is something deeply wrong with a franchise that can't once make the postseason in so many years.
Would love examples of his alleged dishonesty, etc. Is he at times overly negative. Yep. Journalism is 75 percent negativity. Always has.
To Why So Serious?, what good does a cheerleader do to a fanbase of a failing enterprise?
What was greatest decade of nfl football?
in The Stadium Wall Archives
Posted
The 1960's and the AFL, I still look back in awe at the football played and the slow but steady growth of the upstart league.
The old Buffalo - Boston rivalry, Curt Gowdy doing the games on NBC and the wide open offensive game.
Watching mud bowls and snow games at War Memorial.
In August 1967 the Lions came to the old Rockpile (first NFL Team to come to Buffalo) for a pre - season game and both teams play like it was a playoff game. I was at my home in NT listening to Van Miller and you could hear his voice echoing throughout the neighborhood. The Bills traded Lamonica in the off season and Tom Flores was having a great night until he got hurt. The home crowd boo'ed Jack Kemp as he came on the field, Kemp merely threw a 69 yard bomb to Elbert Dubenion changing the catcalls into cheers. Iron Mike Ditka dragged and clawed his way to the end zone for an 89 yard TD after catching a slant pattern.
Back then the players were normal guys who worked off season jobs and were just good guys.
I was at the 1969 home opener against the SB Champ Jets; Buffalo crowd gave them a huge standing O.
Golden era of Football! Even the hated NFL was fun to watch - Jimmy Brown, Packers, Cowboys - never dull.