Dr. K

I'm generally one who gives the management the benefit of the doubt on personnel decisions, but let's just say the moves so far this off-season are not inspiring much confidence in me. I can't see how cutting Campbell, getting rid of Josh Reed and probably losing Moulds, replacing them with a stone-hands tight end who caught what, 19 passes last season? and a receiver who was "at the bottom of the Cleveland Browns depth chart" are going to turn this team around. The Triplett signing I have nothing to say about. It at least makes some sense. Maybe they'll have a great draft, but even then, it sure feels like a 4-12 season is coming up this year.

Waste of cash and a roster spot. We cut Campbell to bring in this guy for $10 million? Sheesh.

The "Whipping Boy" poll is SARCASTIC. It's meant to MAKE FUN OF those fans who cannot follow the team without beating up on the players, the management, and other fans. It's supposed to MAKE US THINK TWICE about unloading all our personal frustrations on a team of people who have no relation to us and who are not to blame for whatever plagues our lives. I did not realize that so much of the world was irony-impaired.

Brilliant idea. Lonnie was, after all, the prototypical tight end whipping boy. The guy had it all.

Uh, Pyrite...that was exactly the point of my poll. A whipping boy IS someone who is unfairly ragged on. That's what we do here. Sometimes it seems that's ALL we do here.

With the loss or potential loss of Josh Reed, Eric Moulds, Mike Williams, Sam Adams (not to mention Mike Mularkey and Tom Donohoe) the current Bills roster lacks a certified Whipping Boy. Reading the posts over the last few weeks reveals that we are not lacking in candidates, but I figure we ought to get this thing settled as soon as possible so the fans can start lobbying for this player to be cut or drawn and quartered or otherwise eviscerated. I've suggested a few names above, though I can't say that this is an exhaustive list, as the search for scapegoats brings out the most creative impulses in us as fan. Who can say who might turn up as the man to hate in '06? One suggested predictor: whoever's image was posted at the top of the board last year is a prime candidate for this year's whipping boy. It worked for Bledsoe three years ago, and for Travis Henry the year after that. By this indicator, the smart persecutor will select Willis McGahee. I realize that Coy Wire has already fulfilled this function so that he is not technically "new" (see criterion 2 below) but since he's been on the whipping boy bench for some time he now has a chance to rise up the depth chart. Criteria: 1.) Must be a starter, more or less. 2.) Must not have been a major whipping boy (i.e. the focus of at least as much scapegoating as Mike Williams or Josh Reed) in the past 3.) Must be capable of bearing the heat of all the frustration in the lives of every Bills fan on this board. 4.) Quarterback scores should be reduced by 1/3 because of the natural whipping boy advantage conferred by anyone playing that position. I suppose I could have included adminisrators (certainly T.D. took the heat off a lot of players in the last couple of seasons) so there is always a space available (and by early indications, some inclination) to name Marv or Dick Jauron to the scapegoat role. But in my humble opinion, a proper scapegoat needs to be a player. Have at it!

I would not be surprised.

Listening to him and Paul Christman do the AFL games in the 60s were my intro to pro football. RIP

Why didn't he simply go back to Yvel Vram?

Let me see if I get the substance of your brilliant post. I believe it goes something like this: Some quarterbacks who are great in college do not succeed in the pros. Phillip Rivers was great in college. Therefore, he will not succeed in the pros. I think this is what passes for airtight reasoning around here.

Rivers wasn't the first pick in the draft. Eli Manning was. I'm not saying that he's a guaranteed success in the pros. But how many games has he played? As far as I know, ONE start. We'll see what happens with him.

All show? How do you know that? Rivers was one of the best college QB's I have ever seen. And he ripped up the Senior Bowl while our boy JP was throwing balls into the turf.

Plus the phantom holding call that neagted a first and goal from the two on the Steeler two.

Seattle getting jobbed in this game.

I think Seattle wins, and it won't be close. Then again, I am a Bills fan, and am often wrong.

YOu guys are making a career out of dissing Mularkey. Be careful what you wish for. I think he is a much better coach than you are giving him credit for. Besides, it's getting beyond tiresome.

Last time I checked, the Buffalo Bills did not care what I thought. Given my extensive experience sitting in bars trying to figure out whether the running back made it past that imaginary yellow line on the field, I can't imagine why not.

I guess we ought to reserve judgment until we know more. At least I will back off on this.

...to produce any better results than Mularkey did? It's a mystery to me. His big winning season with the Bears was a result of horseshoes falling out of their butts in half the games. The rest of his record offers nothing over what we've seen in the last five years.

This would work for me. As if I know anything about NFL coaching.

You said it. The unrealistic expectations here are monumental. The scapegoating never ends--the minute the team gets rid of one scapegoat the search for a new one begins. It's very hard to take.

The non-playoff stretch may be true, but I'll bet you a dollar the won-lost record under Donohoe is by no means the worst won-lost percentage over an equal period in the Bills' history. Between (rare) playoff appearances before 1990, the Bills REALLY STANK. In the Donohoe era, the Bills had three seasons of .500 or better ball. I'm not satisfied with this, of course, buy you guys who say he was the worst in Bills history need to have lived through that history.

Your headline implies the national media didn't like them before they were fired, but now are hypocritically changing their tune. That's not true. YOU didn't like them before the firing. The national media were never down on TD and MM the way the desperate local fans and guys like Jerry Sullivan were. We'll see who was right. I'm not optimistic.

I agree fundamentally. When I said that Mularkey was being set up to fail, I did not mean that it was done deliberately. I meant that the situation was such that his likelihood of failing was very high, no matter how good a job he did. Modrak living in Florida, Ralph intervening in team operations, wholesale dismissal of the coaching staff, divided responsibilities, etc. I agree that Wilson and Levy want the Bills to win. But the organizational mess left in the wake of Donohoe's firing and the underminind of Mularkey is not conducive for building a winning team. I overstated in referring to "the good old days" of Donohoe. Of course these have not been good days. I was frustrated by his arrogance, by his dumping Steve Christie as if he could pick up a first rate kicker just anywhere, by his thinking Bledsoe was going to solve the QB problems, by his hiring Gregg Williams (whom I was ready to hope would work out better). But he also was a strong football man, who had a vision. You knew who was in charge. Maybe all this will work out, but I think the decks are stacked against this team pretty highly right now. I feel more this is 1983 than it is 1989. I fear we are in for a spell of absolute bottom-of-the-league performance; I fully expect several 3-13, 2-14 seasons in the next few years. I used to think that, despite the fact that Bills fans on this board were all hysterical, the team management was under control. Now I feel like the management is an accurate reflection of the desperation and bad judgment of the fans.

If you think this season was "rock bottom" then you were not a Bills fan before 1987. I predict you are going to see real "rock bottom" in the next three years.