List of whipping boys we should have kept

[Bill from NYC]

Didn't Wade Phillips leave because he basically hired his college roommate to coach Special Teams then when it was a huge disaster he refused to fire him? He dug his own grave.

 

Maybe. Or maybe he knows a bit more about football than Ralph Wilson. The more Mr. Wilson (who I DO respect as a person) gets involved in running the team, the more the team will suck.

I cannot see a valid argument againt this.

[Pondslider]

Well EVERYONE knew Ronnie Jones was a terrible Special Teams coach. EVERYONE knew Wade scapegoated Dehaven for the Music City Miracle and hired his friend who had NO experience. EVERYONE knew that this was a mistake and when he got called out on it he got indignant and fell on his sword for a guy who is now an Assistant Coach on a HIGH SCHOOL team. But I guess that's reasonable, right? He also completely mismanaged the QB controversy and refused to make up his mind which helped cause the split in the lockerroom.

[Doc]

It's moot WRT WP. He would have been fired after the 2001 season. The Bills cut players left and right after 2000 and the team really had little in the way of talent, and it got worse when Cowart went down.

[JPS]

He is better than Whitner who was taken with the 8th overall selection. He makes more plays.

I like Jim Leonhard, but really??

 

One plays behind 2 dominant front sevens and the other plays behind the likes of John McCargo. Leonhard is VERY well protected in those defenses. I have to believe Whitner would be a pro-bowler.

[JPS]

Good teams keep ALL of the good ones and get rid of dead weight. We have been managed so poorly for a decade and nobody knew the difference.

 

I take particular offense with investing resources in the same position within 2-3 years. Flutie/Johnson. Blesdsoe/Losman. Schobel/Kelsay/Denney. Henry/McGahee. Lynch/Spiller. It's all really just evidence of bad management. All of it.

 

All that being said, I wish we kept Winfield. He was a football player. Had weaknesses, but I loved watching him tackle.

[bills44]

Maybe. Or maybe he knows a bit more about football than Ralph Wilson. The more Mr. Wilson (who I DO respect as a person) gets involved in running the team, the more the team will suck.

I cannot see a valid argument againt this.

 

 

what is Ronnie Jones up to these days?

[youngjebrey]

ERIC MOULDS!

[thewildrabbit]

Gary Anderson.......drafted by the Bills and cut before the season began....

 

I honestly think he purposely tanked and missed FG's in training camp so he could join the Steelers

[silvermike]

what is Ronnie Jones up to these days?

 

According to wikipedia, he's the defensive coordinator for a high school team in Texas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronnie_Jones

 

Hiring him was a disaster, refusing to fire him was inexcusable (although I think the whole thing was just an excuse).

[CardinalScotts]

players who were whipping boys that we should have kept

 

 

QB-Doug Flutie

RB-Joe Cribbs

WR-Chris Burkett

C-Ziegler is a good one

G-Rueben Brown for sure the dude was good

 

LB-Sam Rogers guy had to stay at home to flack for it but was a good player

DT-Sam Adams

CB-Nate Odomes

[Meathead]

Leonhard is better than Whitner who was taken with the 8th overall selection. He makes more plays.

hahahahaha

 

oh wait you were serious

 

leonhard is a nice story cuz he had managed to bounce around just in time to make playoff runs with different teams. but thats cuz hes a good capable backup not good enough to be a starter

 

whitner might be disappointing relative to his draft position but hes still a starting caliber nfl safety

[Georgia Bill]

Easy. Ted Washington. And then Pat Williams. Honorable mention to Jabari Greer, although the book is still out on him until he strings together some more good, healthy seasons.

Ill second Ted and Pat. With them we had some awesome run stuffers, and pretty highly ranked defenses. Plus they went on to have many more productive years. Ah, the good old days, when our defense could actually come up with the needed stops late in the game...

[Spiderweb]

Didn't Wade Phillips leave because he basically hired his college roommate to coach Special Teams then when it was a huge disaster he refused to fire him? He dug his own grave.

Ronnie Jones?

 

He also hired some bum from UB (Bowman) to coach the TE's who was (I'm told) a neighbor of his at the time.

 

Wade wasn't thinking to brightly, and that surely didn;t surprise me. He was a good DC who never should have been a HC. The Cowboys can have old humpty dumpty....Jones runs the show anyway.

[talbert240]

 

Surprising to note that no one has mentioned Peters, given our struggles at LT. And I'm not suggesting that he should be on this list either.

[Jerry Jabber]

If two parties try to work together, fights don't happen (that's simple common sense)...considering that it's a well-known fact that Polian was the instigator (and he's the possessor of a strong temper), I think it stands to reason that Polian didn't try all that hard to work with Littman.

Of course, you wouldn't think that if you worship Bill Polian as if he were God. Like I said before, I'd be willing to bet that Bill Polian feels he handled the situation with Littman badly

 

Sounds like you're either a relative of Littman or Wilson.

 

I don't worship Polian or think he's God, I just know he was the best GM in Bills history and one of the best GM's in the NFL. I blame Ralph for being cheap and too stubborn. None of us exactly know what went on between Littman & Polian, so I'm not gonna guess. But, I'd rather have the guy on my team that built a superbowl caliber team (which ultimately brought in a lot of money to team) versus the guy who counts the money.

 

What's your excuse for John Butler's & A.J Smith's exodus to San Diego?

 

While we can all be thankful to Ralph for bringing the Bills to Buffalo and keeping them here for 50 years, but he's also a meddling owner and has screwed up time and time again. That's the reason why no big name coach would want to come here and no big name free agent (like McNabb) would want to come here. It has nothing to do with cold weather either, New England & Pittsburgh both play in cold weather cities, but both have great owners.

[Thurman#1]

Winfield--great tackler in run coverage. Mediocre pass coverage-at best. Easily replaced.

 

London Fletcher, but he wasn't really a scapegoat. Everyone said he was too old. How long ago was that? He was not easily replaced---look at the crew we're looking forward to now........

 

 

Totally disagree on Winfield. He was a terrific all around player, certainly including pass coverage. Stone hands, he dropped a lot of interceptions, but broke up an awful lot of passes. Teams didn't throw much to his side if they could help it. A small guy, he even stopped fade routes like crazy by getting there first, getting position and slowing down so the reciever never reached the spot.

 

7th out of 107 CBs last year here: http://profootballfocus.com/by_position.ph...&numgames=1

 

They had him as the #1 in the league in 2008, though I wouldn't have put him that high, and #2 in 2007. Winfield is a great all-round CB.

 

Having said that, he was never a whipping boy. People here loved him. Getting rid of him was strictly a (stupid) salary cap move.

 

Now, London Fletcher fits. We heard all this crap about how he was allowing five yards before he made tackles, so even though he got a lot of tackles, he wasn't good. It was statistically shown to be crap, and our defense has sucked since we got rid of him. But he was a whipping boy.

[mike oxhurtz]

If two parties try to work together, fights don't happen (that's simple common sense)...considering that it's a well-known fact that Polian was the instigator (and he's the possessor of a strong temper), I think it stands to reason that Polian didn't try all that hard to work with Littman.

Of course, you wouldn't think that if you worship Bill Polian as if he were God. Like I said before, I'd be willing to bet that Bill Polian feels he handled the situation with Littman badly

 

You are the only person I've ever heard of defending Littman and Wilson on this issue.

[Thurman#1]

In the spirit of the thread, Fat Pat, Winfield etc were all players we wanted the Bills to keep. To players we wanted gone

 

Fletcher Now, the common thought on Fletcher was that he was to small and was great at making tackles 6 yards down field. We wanted him gone..and he still is a tackling machine.

 

 

Reuben Brown. We all talked about how he only made Pro Bowl on rep, that he was good for at least one flase start every game, and that we could get younger and cheaper at that position.

 

Glenn Parker Enough said already

 

 

Gotta agree about Ruben. He did false start, but the man was a road-grader, one of the top two or three run blockers in the league for a decade. Looks like finally, after, what?, seven years of unsuccessfully trying to replace him, we may finally have gotten a decent replacement for him in Levitre.

[theranter]

hey! I wuz just readin another post about andra davis and it mentioned a guy I thought never got a fair shake in buffalo. he was big and mean, so he didn't fit our defense...the article implied he played well last year...LB mario Haggan

[Rico]

List of whipping boys we should have kept

Not a single one in the last decade. Most of them should have been gone a whole lot earlier than when they finally left (eg. Brain Dead Drew ).