Are we really rebuilding?

[Virgil]

I still remember a few years back where we went 3-13 because we had absolutely no expectations of that team. Each of the 3 wins were considered a bonus while we got to watch our young players develope and kept thinking positively about the leap we made next year.

 

But as I'm hearing all the recent talks about the teams who made the jump last year from worst to first and who would do it next year, I started to really think about the Bills season. And as I think about each game, especially the last 3 games, I have to ask myself: Are we really getting better?

 

Besides Steve Johnson and Bell, who is also showing the ability to get injured consistently, is there a player that we are seeing any form of improvement to the next level? The 3-4 defense, which we drafted and acquired FA's for, are now being switched back and forth with the 4-3.

 

I don't really know what the answer I'm looking to tell myself is. I just don't know why I have any reason to be more optimistic about next year than I do now. I mean yeah, if we can bring in a QB, RT, and LB's in the offseason, that would be a difference maker. But the difference from 0-16 to the playoffs?

[buffalo_bills]

The whole offense as a unit is looking better. This is the best offense we've had in a looong time.

[LGB]

The Bills have some dead weight that there need to get rid of (McCarbust and Maybust come to mind) and at 0-8, it would be helpful to try and find some contributors that can fill those spots now - on the road to re-building. There should be players available that are better than McCarbust and Maybust out there on someone's practice squad.

[Bill from NYC]

I still remember a few years back where we went 3-13 because we had absolutely no expectations of that team. Each of the 3 wins were considered a bonus while we got to watch our young players develope and kept thinking positively about the leap we made next year.

 

But as I'm hearing all the recent talks about the teams who made the jump last year from worst to first and who would do it next year, I started to really think about the Bills season. And as I think about each game, especially the last 3 games, I have to ask myself: Are we really getting better?

 

Besides Steve Johnson and Bell, who is also showing the ability to get injured consistently, is there a player that we are seeing any form of improvement to the next level? The 3-4 defense, which we drafted and acquired FA's for, are now being switched back and forth with the 4-3.

 

I don't really know what the answer I'm looking to tell myself is. I just don't know why I have any reason to be more optimistic about next year than I do now. I mean yeah, if we can bring in a QB, RT, and LB's in the offseason, that would be a difference maker. But the difference from 0-16 to the playoffs?

 

We won't know until we see who they draft in 2011. Every single fan knows what the team needs, so it should be obvious to those who run the team, including Ralph. Still, it was similar circumstances in 2006 and look at just how much that draft crippled this franchise.

 

My guess is that Nix/Gailey are much better football people than Dick Levy. They, imo, will have a firm handle on how to draft the right players. I think it comes down to whether or not Ralph will let them do their jobs, and with a top 5 pick, look for him to meddle that much more.

 

In summary, if you think that Ralph will stay out of the draft and free agency, be confident that the team will improve, especially if they keep losing and pick 1-5.

[mattsox]

It's a Bad football team. You're a bad football team when you can't find ways to win. They have become more competitive in recent weeks. But you gotta look from the top to bottom of the organization and see where the weak spots are.

 

1. The ownership. Ralph is... oh god. I'm not gonna go there.

 

2. General Manager. - Rookie GM. Good scout, built the SD Chargers. Had an entire year to be with the Bills again. Rather be sleeping at the beginning of FA rather than sending big contracts to Peppers and Dansby to make this team better. Alot of blame I put on him for not standing up and telling Ralph the way it is. He saw how bad this team was and should have already known what are weak spots are. Not sure if this is a marriage of convience because Ralph knows him, or he really wants to build a winner. Re-signing Chris Kelsay really put a black mark on this guys image. The 2010 draft appears to be joke. Not one impact player has come out of it yet. The jury is out...

 

 

3. Head Coach. - Seems to be getting the best out of the offense with the talent he has. Still haven't seen any 2010 draft pick make any impact on this team. Should have known Edwards was a bust. I like that he switched the Defense to 3-4, but I blame both Buddy and him for not bringing in the personel needed to make this change and purging the personel that didn't fit that mold. Had a whole training camp. Not really sure if he made the right cuts on this team.

 

4. Defensive Coordinator. - The Jury is out. Our Front 7 is basically a joke. He doesn't really have the front 7 to make this work. Give him 5 new starters in the front 7 and then will be able to know if George Edwards belongs coaching in the NFL.

 

So there you have it. We need alot of work folks, believe it. This team isn't going nowhere until they make a big splash in FA and the draft. We gotta hit on every player in next years draft and they need to sign impact FA players ala Peppers and Dansby. Not doing so will keep us in the bottom 5 for years to come. But it is the NFL and we can turn the boat around. You just gotta make changes and keep the talent you acquire in order to do so.

[BillsVet]

It's Year -1 for rebuilding, although ideally it would be Year 0 and simply too many changes implemented than absolutely necessary. While Chan has the offense looking better that DJ, it's completely mitigated by the failure of the defense to stop anyone particularly on the ground.

 

I would expect a rebuilding team to feature their rookies (1st-3rd rounders) more than Buffalo is doing. Spiller has exactly 57 touches from the LOS this season, Troup is a rotational guy, and Carrington barely dresses. To blindly chalk that up to being rookies is idiotic and not a good sign.

 

When RW comes out and says it's going to be a 3 year thing, he's living in the past. He could provide the financial resources to be active and smart in FA, and that doesn't include signing the Robert Royal's of the world, to make this team better and faster. If they go light in UFA next season assuming a new CBA, they have no intention of putting a winning team on the field.

[JohnC]

It's Year -1 for rebuilding, although ideally it would be Year 0 and simply too many changes implemented than absolutely necessary. While Chan has the offense looking better that DJ, it's completely mitigated by the failure of the defense to stop anyone particularly on the ground.

 

I would expect a rebuilding team to feature their rookies (1st-3rd rounders) more than Buffalo is doing. Spiller has exactly 57 touches from the LOS this season, Troup is a rotational guy, and Carrington barely dresses. To blindly chalk that up to being rookies is idiotic and not a good sign.

 

When RW comes out and says it's going to be a 3 year thing, he's living in the past. He could provide the financial resources to be active and smart in FA, and that doesn't include signing the Robert Royal's of the world, to make this team better and faster. If they go light in UFA next season assuming a new CBA, they have no intention of putting a winning team on the field.

 

Let' stop with the hoping and wishing what this franchise is going to do and how it is going to be run. The owner and GM (Nix) are not going to be involved with "SPLASH" free agent acquisitions. The owner made it clear that it is more of a long term process than a quick process. It is not too difficult to discern what the owner's not so oblique message is. Nix has stated right from the start that he intends to draft his own players and then keep them. He is not going to pursue the star players on the market.

 

The 92 yr old owner has his way of running the franchise. He has for the most part done it his way for half a century. The owner is 92 yrs old and doesn't have a sense of urgency that his own clock is running out of time. For him it is a business.

 

As much as I criticize the owner he is technically right that the best approach and most sustaining approach is to take a longer term view and don't fall into the trap of the quick fix syndrome. But where he loses me is that the Bills have been bad for at least a decade. I would have hoped that there would have been a greater sense of urgency to accelerate the development process. What is there to say. Ralph is simply Ralph.

Edited November 10, 2010 by JohnC

[Beebe's Kid]

It's a Bad football team. You're a bad football team when you can't find ways to win. They have become more competitive in recent weeks. But you gotta look from the top to bottom of the organization and see where the weak spots are.

 

1. The ownership. Ralph is... oh god. I'm not gonna go there.

 

2. General Manager. - Rookie GM. Good scout, built the SD Chargers. Had an entire year to be with the Bills again. Rather be sleeping at the beginning of FA rather than sending big contracts to Peppers and Dansby to make this team better. Alot of blame I put on him for not standing up and telling Ralph the way it is. He saw how bad this team was and should have already known what are weak spots are. Not sure if this is a marriage of convience because Ralph knows him, or he really wants to build a winner. Re-signing Chris Kelsay really put a black mark on this guys image. The 2010 draft appears to be joke. Not one impact player has come out of it yet. The jury is out...

 

 

3. Head Coach. - Seems to be getting the best out of the offense with the talent he has. Still haven't seen any 2010 draft pick make any impact on this team. Should have known Edwards was a bust. I like that he switched the Defense to 3-4, but I blame both Buddy and him for not bringing in the personel needed to make this change and purging the personel that didn't fit that mold. Had a whole training camp. Not really sure if he made the right cuts on this team.

 

4. Defensive Coordinator. - The Jury is out. Our Front 7 is basically a joke. He doesn't really have the front 7 to make this work. Give him 5 new starters in the front 7 and then will be able to know if George Edwards belongs coaching in the NFL.

 

So there you have it. We need alot of work folks, believe it. This team isn't going nowhere until they make a big splash in FA and the draft. We gotta hit on every player in next years draft and they need to sign impact FA players ala Peppers and Dansby. Not doing so will keep us in the bottom 5 for years to come. But it is the NFL and we can turn the boat around. You just gotta make changes and keep the talent you acquire in order to do so.

Oh no...don't even go there!!!!

 

Whatever...this would be an ideal location for a Mydol commercial.

 

You poor, poor little things. If only the rest of the world knew as much as you...sigh..

[Sisyphean Bills]

Let' stop with the hoping and wishing what this franchise is going to do and how it is going to be run. The owner and GM (Nix) are not going to be involved with "SPLASH" free agent acquisitions. The owner made it clear that it is more of a long term process than a quick process. It is not too difficult to discern what the owner's not so oblique message is. Nix has stated right from the start that he intends to draft his own players and then keep them. He is not going to pursue the star players on the market.

 

The 92 yr old owner has his way of running the franchise. He has for the most part done it his way for half a century. The owner is 92 yrs old and doesn't have a sense of urgency that his own clock is running out of time. For him it is a business.

 

As much as I criticize the owner he is technically right that the best approach and most sustaining approach is to take a longer term view and don't fall into the trap of the quick fix syndrome. But where he loses me is that the Bills have been bad for at least a decade. I would have hoped that there would have been a greater sense of urgency to accelerate the development process. What is there to say. Ralph is simply Ralph.

Reading Ralph's own comments, he knows he may not live long enough to see this mess cleaned up. He's put people he thinks he can trust (that's more important than competence) in their positions and no doubt set the financial constraints under which they must operate. You're right, it is just a business. It's a business that the owner is clearly positioning for sale upon his demise. Wilson has surrendered.

[All_Pro_Bills]

I would expect a rebuilding team to feature their rookies (1st-3rd rounders) more than Buffalo is doing. Spiller has exactly 57 touches from the LOS this season, Troup is a rotational guy, and Carrington barely dresses. To blindly chalk that up to being rookies is idiotic and not a good sign.

 

This is the thing I find most troubling about the Bills current situation. As a fan I can tolerate a season or two of ineptitude if it's building for future success. The premise of rebuilding through the draft (which I support) is the players you draft are better football players than the players you have on the roster. But if your 2010 draft picks can't make it onto the field and you acknowledge your veteran players aren't good enough to produce then you're not rebuilding. All you're doing is creating the illusion of rebuilding and you're really just running in place. Going nowhere season after season.

 

IMO, the only great draft the Bills have had this century is the 2001 class and maybe 2009 (jury out on Maybin but that's not looking good). This team hasn't made the playoffs in 10 years, 11 now building through the draft. The way the league is structured it’s almost statistically impossible to pull that off unless you're doing something so fundamentally wrong. I do have faith in Nix/Gailey because I think they're 'real' football guys but the 2010 class has me concerned.

 

In retrospect, you could probably have done better than the Bills this decade by using more or less a ranked random probability system by taking Kiper's top 3 best available at the time of their pick, put their names in a hat, and pulled one out then choose that guy.

[Bill from NYC]

You're right, it is just a business. It's a business that the owner is clearly positioning for sale upon his demise. Wilson has surrendered.

 

If the above is true, how do you think this would effect the Bills wrt the draft? Do you think he would trade away the top pick to save money?

 

I have the strong sense that he will draft a QB to make more money. Btw, we need one.

[Sisyphean Bills]

If the above is true, how do you think this would effect the Bills wrt the draft? Do you think he would trade away the top pick to save money?

 

I have the strong sense that he will draft a QB to make more money. Btw, we need one.

Drafting a QB is the sexy and most marketable move he can make. Wilson has said point blank that a QB is his intention. The genius of it is that if the QB picks works out, he wins. And, on the converse, if the QB he picks is another Tim Couch or JaMarcus Russell, it will take at least 2 or 3 years for fans (and some much longer) to realize they were duped. Furthermore, it's a built in excuse for next year. They can just come out and say that fans have to be patient with a rookie QB and have to give him time to develop. What do they expect? Everybody to be Ben Roethlisberger? Ralph is a businessman and knows how to turn a profit with his franchise.

 

Like Eric Moulds said, without any investment in the OL and DL, this team is going to continue to be a bottom feeder. We have a poor running game and our defensive front seven sucks the tall cool one. That's why we're 0-8. That's the reality of football.

[H2o]

The true house-cleaning and rebuilding begins this offseason. This is a season of evaluation for the people that have been here for a while. There will be widespread moves with with the "big names" on the roster. Trades where trades can get done and then outright releases. The offseason will be very interesting to watch this year.

[Dan]

We won't know until we see who they draft in 2011. Every single fan knows what the team needs, so it should be obvious to those who run the team, including Ralph. Still, it was similar circumstances in 2006 and look at just how much that draft crippled this franchise.

 

My guess is that Nix/Gailey are much better football people than Dick Levy. They, imo, will have a firm handle on how to draft the right players. I think it comes down to whether or not Ralph will let them do their jobs, and with a top 5 pick, look for him to meddle that much more.

 

In summary, if you think that Ralph will stay out of the draft and free agency, be confident that the team will improve, especially if they keep losing and pick 1-5.

And that, right there, is why I still have little to no optimism for this team. The exact same people that will be in the draft room in 2011 were in the draft room in 2010. Did they address any of the team's obvious needs then? We got a rotational RB, a few situational guys, and a couple of guys that aren't on the game day roster. I just can't get excited thinking that all of a sudden these same guys are (1) going to draft for the team's needs or (2) draft players that are actually ready to play.

 

Unless someone can explain the rationale for turning 2010 into a tryout season, I have to assume Nix and Gailey thought they were making good moves to improve the team. Well, here we are at 0-8, and I'm not sure we can say that ANY of their moves during the off season improved the team. IMO, the only solid move they did to improve the team was cut Trent; and that even took them 2 weeks into the regular season to do.

 

If they: fire Edwards and hire a proven DC, address the O and D line and LB position with early draft picks and/or quality FAs - maybe. My guess is they do one of those things and the big move is drafting a QB that will take 2 years to see the field. Then they'll spend the rest of the off season telling us how much progress we made this year.

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

Hard part about rebuilding is your don't know if you are doing it right until you get there. It's going to take time. Gailey and Nix hit the reset button so now there is nothign to do but wait and hope good things start to happen, the talent on the roster bubbles to the top and the dead wood is cast off along the way. No idea why Kelsay is the guy they extended but i hope it is part of the PLAN.

 

 

Blowing the wad on top free agents looking to add a superbowl to their resume wouldn't have worked for a bunch of reasons. Once the Bills are a few peices away from contenders TOP FA's will be more interested.

 

 

[LGB]

And that, right there, is why I still have little to no optimism for this team. The exact same people that will be in the draft room in 2011 were in the draft room in 2010. Did they address any of the team's obvious needs then? We got a rotational RB, a few situational guys, and a couple of guys that aren't on the game day roster. I just can't get excited thinking that all of a sudden these same guys are (1) going to draft for the team's needs or (2) draft players that are actually ready to play.

 

Unless someone can explain the rationale for turning 2010 into a tryout season, I have to assume Nix and Gailey thought they were making good moves to improve the team. Well, here we are at 0-8, and I'm not sure we can say that ANY of their moves during the off season improved the team. IMO, the only solid move they did to improve the team was cut Trent; and that even took them 2 weeks into the regular season to do.

 

If they: fire Edwards and hire a proven DC, address the O and D line and LB position with early draft picks and/or quality FAs - maybe. My guess is they do one of those things and the big move is drafting a QB that will take 2 years to see the field. Then they'll spend the rest of the off season telling us how much progress we made this year.

Are the Bills are only a couple of players away from being a .500 team or will it take much more than that? What the current staff has done to the defense has not helped. Jauron was better than this with his perennial 7-9 teams because the Bills had a defense. The team as a whole has not improved much, if at all - given what has been lost on defense. No pass rushers, playing Kelsey as a LB, still hanging on to McCargo and Maybin. This is probably just as bad as not drafting a start-able OT. Maybe drafting Spiller was a marketing decision or maybe they already knew they were going to try and trade Lynch for a draft, but at 0-8, fans continue to be let down.

[Bill from NYC]

Drafting a QB is the sexy and most marketable move he can make. Wilson has said point blank that a QB is his intention. The genius of it is that if the QB picks works out, he wins. And, on the converse, if the QB he picks is another Tim Couch or JaMarcus Russell, it will take at least 2 or 3 years for fans (and some much longer) to realize they were duped. Furthermore, it's a built in excuse for next year. They can just come out and say that fans have to be patient with a rookie QB and have to give him time to develop. What do they expect? Everybody to be Ben Roethlisberger? Ralph is a businessman and knows how to turn a profit with his franchise.

 

Like Eric Moulds said, without any investment in the OL and DL, this team is going to continue to be a bottom feeder. We have a poor running game and our defensive front seven sucks the tall cool one. That's why we're 0-8. That's the reality of football.

 

The above is a superb post. I fully agree with your take on the gamble of taking a qb, as well as needing to strengthen the weak OL and front 7 that Levy/Jauron left us. With very early picks, it would seem quite possible to make good progress on both.

 

And that, right there, is why I still have little to no optimism for this team. The exact same people that will be in the draft room in 2011 were in the draft room in 2010. Did they address any of the team's obvious needs then? We got a rotational RB, a few situational guys, and a couple of guys that aren't on the game day roster. I just can't get excited thinking that all of a sudden these same guys are (1) going to draft for the team's needs or (2) draft players that are actually ready to play.

 

I know how you feel, but at least Troup and Carrington were taken at positions of need. Spiller? My feeling are well known on that selection.

 

This time around, even if Ralph butts in again, it will almost certainly be for a QB. LAST season Gailey/Nix said that we needed OL help. Certainly they will go in this direction too, and LBs are traditionally not so hard to find.

 

 

Maybe I am just trying to hold onto hope.

[Virgil]

I agree with what everyone is saying for the most part.

 

Again though, my concern is that I don't really see our talent developing on the field from week to week. Yes, our offense has gotten better with Fitz in there. But from his first game on, have we seen growth from him? I personally don't think so.

 

I think to develope into a legit playoff contender, you need to see glimpses of greatness in seasons like this, and I can't really pick out a player who shows that. I see players show glimpses of holding their own, but nothing more.

 

I don't know...