Dr. K

I think it's funny that all five of these players--Watkins, Kuandjio, Darby, Miller, and Williams--played better than the guys they are currently being replaced by. Whaley never got to pick the head coach he wanted. He did his best to supply the players that Rex--the disastrous HC the Pegulas salivated over--wanted. But according to you guys Whaley was the problem.

I agree with this. They saved the team for Buffalo, but their personnel and management decisions have been terrible.

Rex forced Schwartz out the door. Rex was insisting they use his system and he would call the shots. It was impossible for Schwartz to work under him in that situation--Rex wanted to change the defense.

Repost from another thread: Last night was the first time I saw them play at length. This team will be lucky to win five games. The defense looks better (it could not look worse than Rex's) but the offense will score 8-10 points less per game than last year. Their scheme change on offense has turned a great running team into a trash fire. I lay it at the feet of the Pegulas. Hiring Rex Ryan was just about the worst thing they could possibly have done when they took over. I don't have any faith in their hand-chosen coach and GM. This team was on the brink of making a leap forward when Marone quit. If they had let Whaley keep Schwartz and his scheme, hire Hue Jackson or one of the other offense-minded head coaching candidates who were willing to work with Schwartz and his crew, this team would have been in the playoffs the last two seasons. Instead they are trading away or otherwise losing their best players and headed for a top-ten draft pick.

Last night was the first time I saw them play at length. This team will be lucky to win five games. The defense looks better (it could not look worse than Rex's) but the offense will score 8-10 points less per game than last year. Their scheme change on offense has turned a great running team into a trash fire. I lay it at the feet of the Pegulas. Hiring Rex Ryan was just about the worst thing they could possibly have done when they took over. I don't have any faith in their hand-chosen coach and GM. This team was on the brink of making a leap forward when Marone quit. If they had let Whaley keep Schwartz and his scheme, hire Hue Jackson or one of the other offense-minded head coaching candidates who were willing to work with Schwartz and his crew, this team would have been in the playoffs the last two seasons. Instead they are trading away or otherwise losing their best players and headed for a top-ten draft pick. You expect a turnaround? We'll see. Whaley wanted to hire Lynn as Head Coach and then pick a new D.C. It would have been a better way to go.

You are all going to regret trashing Whaley at every opportunity. From the admittedly small evidence so far, he had a much better eye for talent than Beane and McDermott.

My simple position is that you don't make a team better by getting rid of players like Watkins and Darby. You make them better by keeping guys like that. I agree with King that the Bills need stability and for better or worse the Pegulas have to stick with the current GM and coach for a while. But they got themselves into this position by not trusting Whaley--for better or worse--to select the coach and control the roster. Hiring Rex was a disaster, and having a division of authority between him and Whaley was a prescription for trouble. Unlike so many others on this board, I think Whaley did a lot of things right and failed more because of lack of support from the owners than from mistakes he made (and he made several). That's water under the bridge. I hope that, having blown up the team, McDermott and Beane will be able to put a good team together with the resources they have. I am not convinced that they will but will give them the benefit of the doubt. But if Watkins goes on to have a Hall of Fame career, which I think it possible, I will not hesitate to say I told you so.

Exactly. Everybody is assuming the Bills are going to draft Peyton Manning or Aaron Rodgers when they much more likely to get Tannehill or Dalton or Alex Smith, or even more likely Tim Couch or JaMarcus Russell. I am one of the few who wishes that they had let Whaley run the team and pick the head coach. I think the outcome would have been much better for this team. Maybe this will all work out but I am skeptical.

Love it.

I agree. It really bothers me that Whaley never got to pick his head coach, yet he was judged for the lousy job that Rex, in particular, did with the talent he assembled.

I also hate these trades. Seems like terrible judgment to me, but obviously B & M think they are the smartest guys in the room. Like my sign-off quote says, "The human mind is not a dignified organ."

I have no trust in these guys. It's all on them, whatever happens this year. I guess this is what you mean when you all for "blowing things up."

After these moves today, I absolutely do not trust these guys. All you guys who bitched and moaned about how bad a GM Whaley was? I think we are going to look back fondly on the personnel decisions in the Whaley era.

This is my experience as well. I've lived in the South for thirty five years.

I expect Brown to look much better now that he won't have to play in Rex's defense, for which he was not suited. Look at the player he was in his rookie year.

Anderson deliberately missed every field goal he attempted in pre-season in order to force the Bills to cut him. It was a pleasure to see him miss his only field goal of the season in the 1998 NFC title game against Atlanta, which cost Minnesota the game and a trip to the Super Bowl. That was Karma, baby! http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-videos/0ap3000000497721/Gary-Anderson-misses-field-goal

Terrible, terrible idea. Would convince me that the new regime is brain dead.

My feelings precisely

You obviously were not around here back then. Wade was treated like a punching bag over a lot of trivial BS (and a few serious issues). They used to scream at him (I'm not kidding) for not wearing headphones on the sidelines. Losing to Miami and Tennessee in the playoffs was inexcusable to a lot of fans then. Butler was run out of town for standing up to Ralph (and for his terrible 2000 draft). Bills fans did not realize how good they had it.

Whaley never had the degree of control over the team that a lot of GMs have. In particular, he had to go with other people's first choices of coaches. I would have liked to see how the team would have done under Hue Jackson & Jim Schwartz instead of the Pegulas' disastrous choice Rex. It's fashionable to beat on Whaley here right now the way people beat up John Butler and Wade Phillips, seventeen years ago, and jumped on the Gregg Williams bandwagon. We saw how that worked out. I hope the new regime does better this time.

Pegulas Pegulas Pegulas Pegulas Pegulas. NO APOSTROPHE!

I for one have thought from I first heard they did it that firing the scouting staff was both a very arrogant and a very dumb move.

Now all they have to do is build a complete scouting staff from scratch.

Glad to see Rex fired. Thought Whaley got hosed by the fans and media--I think he will end up doing well somewhere else if given some real authority but if I were him I'd be happy to see Buffalo in my rear view mirror. Not terribly impressed with the Pegulas' judgment as owners so far. I've got nothing really against McDermott and think he might work out. Who knows if the new GM will work out? It's possible--whoever it is, I hope that there is a clear chain of command, unlike the mess the Pegulas have concocted so far. Firing all the scouting staff seems like an idiot move to me. I am not investing much emotional energy in the Bills anymore. It's been too frustrating, and frankly, the mess the country is in under president Ignorant Narcissist Horror-Clown is much more worth worrying about.

This is my view. Some of the things he tried did not work out. He was saddled with coaches, notably Rex, that he did not want, but he kept his mouth shut for the most part and did his job. He made some smart trades, such as the one that brought Hughes here, and consistently picked up undrafted gems for the roster. I hope McDermott will work out, but this move in and of itself does not inspire confidence in the Pegulas and the organization. And the Pegulas have already done a number of things, such as fall in love with Rex, that seriously call their judgment into question. Firing the scouts also strikes me as iffy. We'll see.