seq004 Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 (edited) I remember reading an article around 1988 and I can't remember which print media it was so for obvious reasons I'm paraphrasing but it was about a friend of Ralph's that had asked him back in the mid 80's if he cared about turning his team into a winner and Ralph said something like "someday" and his friend replied why not now? He went on to open his pocket book to players that demanded the highest of salaries in the NFL. Players like Kelly, Smith, Bennett. I sent Ralph a long letter in 2002 thanking him for all he had done for the Bills and keeping them in Buffalo. The Bills had just signed Bledsoe. He or someone in his office actually wrote me back telling me what an honor it had been to own a team in western NY and it was signed by Ralph. I still have the letter, but what changed? What turned him back into the owner I watched and read about in the 1970's? I know some of you will argue he still spends money, but he doesn't want to pay top coaches or top players any longer. He has gone back to treating the Bills as a business only. The front office is poorly run again. What changed I wonder. Free agency didn't help but the fact remains if Ralph wanted a winner we would have one. Edited January 18, 2011 by seq004 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Fong Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 I think investing so much in the Donahoe years and still coming up short. Losing that game to Pittsburgh's scrubs to miss the playoffs was the knife in the back of this franchise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seq004 Posted January 18, 2011 Author Share Posted January 18, 2011 I think investing so much in the Donahoe years and still coming up short. Losing that game to Pittsburgh's scrubs to miss the playoffs was the knife in the back of this franchise. I totally agree on the Donahoe thing but doesn't every team have a Donahoe at some point? There's going to be hits and misses on players, coaches, and FO on every team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_Formerly_of_Roch Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 RW never really paid fo coaches and front office. He got luky though with Polian and Levy. Though I'm more inclined to think Levy was just at the right place at the right time due to the players Polian brught in. The only somewhat high paid coach he ever signed was Chuck Knox. I don't think even Levy made top $$ I don't think even TD was paid top $$ The problem seems to have been over past ten years, the decisions as to whom to sign have failed terribly. But he's paid pretty well doing it. Maybe now he's getting to the point f being gun shy, don't know. But figures he can lose just as well with cheap players as he's lost with expensive players too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jumbalaya Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 (edited) Ralph was 94 when he did that in the 80's now at 120 he doesn't have a lot left in the tank. Edited January 18, 2011 by jumbalaya Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Jokeman Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 I remember reading an article around 1988 and I can't remember which print media it was so for obvious reasons I'm paraphrasing but it was about a friend of Ralph's that had asked him back in the mid 80's if he cared about turning his team into a winner and Ralph said something like "someday" and his friend replied why not now? He went on to open his pocket book to players that demanded the highest of salaries in the NFL. Players like Kelly, Smith, Bennett. I sent Ralph a long letter in 2002 thanking him for all he had done for the Bills and keeping them in Buffalo. The Bills had just signed Bledsoe. He or someone in his office actually wrote me back telling me what an honor it had been to own a team in western NY and it was signed by Ralph. I still have the letter, but what changed? What turned him back into the owner I watched and read about in the 1970's? I know some of you will argue he still spends money, but he doesn't want to pay top coaches or top players any longer. He has gone back to treating the Bills as a business only. The front office is poorly run again. What changed I wonder. Free agency didn't help but the fact remains if Ralph wanted a winner we would have one. He let go of Bill Polian, John Butler and AJ Smith. Also Tom Donahoe got fooled into thinking Willis McGahee could return to his preinjury college form. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offsides#76FredSmerlas Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 I remember reading an article around 1988 and I can't remember which print media it was so for obvious reasons I'm paraphrasing but it was about a friend of Ralph's that had asked him back in the mid 80's if he cared about turning his team into a winner and Ralph said something like "someday" and his friend replied why not now? He went on to open his pocket book to players that demanded the highest of salaries in the NFL. Players like Kelly, Smith, Bennett. I sent Ralph a long letter in 2002 thanking him for all he had done for the Bills and keeping them in Buffalo. The Bills had just signed Bledsoe. He or someone in his office actually wrote me back telling me what an honor it had been to own a team in western NY and it was signed by Ralph. I still have the letter, but what changed? What turned him back into the owner I watched and read about in the 1970's? I know some of you will argue he still spends money, but he doesn't want to pay top coaches or top players any longer. He has gone back to treating the Bills as a business only. The front office is poorly run again. What changed I wonder. Free agency didn't help but the fact remains if Ralph wanted a winner we would have one. I'm so tired of people like yourself saying Ralph is cheap. Jim Kelly and Bruce Smith were drafted and he paid them because they performed. The reason it looks like he doesn't pay free agents is because no free agent wants to come here. Free agents want to join winners or teams that are in warm weathered cities and not worn down pit holes like Buffalo. I spent 27 years in Buffalo and it doesn't have much to offer other than great people. The bottom line is the Bills drafted well in the 80's and because we had a good nucleus of players "thank you Polian/Butler" other players who were free agents wanted to play here. Bryce Paup, James Loften, and guys like Sam Adams wanted to come to Buffalo because they knew we had a team that could compete. Ralph Wilson will pay guys to come here but you can't force them to come when you are not winning. Also, as far as coaching goes: there were many years when Ralph went after the top coordinator such as Mike Mularkey and Greg williams. Is it his fault they couldn't get the job done? He also had guys like Wade Phillips and Chuck Knox who were coaches who had previous success. By the way this year he tried and went after all the big names, Gruden, Cowher, Shanahan, etc... Insiders were saying RW would have spent the bank to get one of them but guess what "they didn't want to come to a team with no talent". THE CURE------>start drafting better and Ralph will pay for all the missing pieces. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wonderbread Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 Ralph was 94 when he did that in the 80's now at 120 he doesn't have a lot left in the tank. zing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whateverdude Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 I'm so tired of people like yourself saying Ralph is cheap. Jim Kelly and Bruce Smith were drafted and he paid them because they performed. The reason it looks like he doesn't pay free agents is because no free agent wants to come here. Free agents want to join winners or teams that are in warm weathered cities and not worn down pit holes like Buffalo. I spent 27 years in Buffalo and it doesn't have much to offer other than great people. The bottom line is the Bills drafted well in the 80's and because we had a good nucleus of players "thank you Polian/Butler" other players who were free agents wanted to play here. Bryce Paup, James Loften, and guys like Sam Adams wanted to come to Buffalo because they knew we had a team that could compete. Ralph Wilson will pay guys to come here but you can't force them to come when you are not winning. Also, as far as coaching goes: there were many years when Ralph went after the top coordinator such as Mike Mularkey and Greg williams. Is it his fault they couldn't get the job done? He also had guys like Wade Phillips and Chuck Knox who were coaches who had previous success. By the way this year he tried and went after all the big names, Gruden, Cowher, Shanahan, etc... Insiders were saying RW would have spent the bank to get one of them but guess what "they didn't want to come to a team with no talent". THE CURE------>start drafting better and Ralph will pay for all the missing pieces. Have you visited PITTSburgh lately. I think they filmed the TV series "The Walking Dead" there and no one noticed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seq004 Posted January 19, 2011 Author Share Posted January 19, 2011 (edited) I'm so tired of people like yourself saying Ralph is cheap. Jim Kelly and Bruce Smith were drafted and he paid them because they performed. The reason it looks like he doesn't pay free agents is because no free agent wants to come here. Free agents want to join winners or teams that are in warm weathered cities and not worn down pit holes like Buffalo. I spent 27 years in Buffalo and it doesn't have much to offer other than great people. The bottom line is the Bills drafted well in the 80's and because we had a good nucleus of players "thank you Polian/Butler" other players who were free agents wanted to play here. Bryce Paup, James Loften, and guys like Sam Adams wanted to come to Buffalo because they knew we had a team that could compete. Ralph Wilson will pay guys to come here but you can't force them to come when you are not winning. Also, as far as coaching goes: there were many years when Ralph went after the top coordinator such as Mike Mularkey and Greg williams. Is it his fault they couldn't get the job done? He also had guys like Wade Phillips and Chuck Knox who were coaches who had previous success. By the way this year he tried and went after all the big names, Gruden, Cowher, Shanahan, etc... Insiders were saying RW would have spent the bank to get one of them but guess what "they didn't want to come to a team with no talent". THE CURE------>start drafting better and Ralph will pay for all the missing pieces. I'm so tired of people like you not getting your facts straight. First of all I respect Mr Wilson for keeping the Bills in Buffalo but he has plenty of faults. He didn't "pay Jim Kelly and Bruce Smith because they performed' not at first. He gave Jim Kelly the highest contract of any NFL player at that time in 1986 to come to Buffalo from Houston from the defunct USFL. He paid Bruce Smith BEFORE the Bills even drafted him. Buffalo is NOT a shithole and I'm tired of idiots like you using that as an excuse. Players want to play for a WINNER. The Bills are not WINNERS! They want to play for great organizations. Go to Pittsburgh. Its not South beach. Its NOT a great city. Go to Green Bay. Bad. These teams play in very small markets yet they win because of the organization. Solid front office. Solid coaches. Ralph DOESN'T pay for that, rarely. Big names don't want to come because Ralph will not open his wallet to pay for asst and free agents. Thats why Shanny and Cower said no.Yeah you have to draft well, so what did he do with the one guy who drafted extremely well for Bills? Go ask the Colts who are in the playoffs every year. Edited January 19, 2011 by seq004 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jr1 Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 The Bills have only been good about 25 percent of the time since they were founded Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bzee Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 The Bills have only been good about 25 percent of the time since they were founded That's the best statistic I've read here on this board... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RunOJRun Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 I'm so tired of people like yourself saying Ralph is cheap. Jim Kelly and Bruce Smith were drafted and he paid them because they performed. The reason it looks like he doesn't pay free agents is because no free agent wants to come here. Free agents want to join winners or teams that are in warm weathered cities and not worn down pit holes like Buffalo. I spent 27 years in Buffalo and it doesn't have much to offer other than great people. The bottom line is the Bills drafted well in the 80's and because we had a good nucleus of players "thank you Polian/Butler" other players who were free agents wanted to play here. Bryce Paup, James Loften, and guys like Sam Adams wanted to come to Buffalo because they knew we had a team that could compete. Ralph Wilson will pay guys to come here but you can't force them to come when you are not winning. Also, as far as coaching goes: there were many years when Ralph went after the top coordinator such as Mike Mularkey and Greg williams. Is it his fault they couldn't get the job done? He also had guys like Wade Phillips and Chuck Knox who were coaches who had previous success. By the way this year he tried and went after all the big names, Gruden, Cowher, Shanahan, etc... Insiders were saying RW would have spent the bank to get one of them but guess what "they didn't want to come to a team with no talent". THE CURE------>start drafting better and Ralph will pay for all the missing pieces. Agreed. USA Today ran a chart right after last season listing 2009 player payroll for all of the NFL teams. The Bills placed 12th on the list, higher than two-thirds of that season's playoff teams (including the Pats). The Bills haven't always gotten the best coaches and free agents because of the perception that the front office doesn't always make the best business decisions. Whether you're a CFO for a Fortune 500 company, a dishwasher, or a pro football player, you want to work for the best organization possible. You want bosses who make decisions which result in success, whether you define success as turning a healthy profit or winning championships. For free agents, receiving top dollar isn't the only consideration. Most players want to get a ring and many are willing to take a bit less to play for a winner. LeBron James would have made more money had he signed with the Cavs, but wanted to join two other top players in a bid for championship gold. Put a salary cap in MLB and the Yankees, Red Sox, and Phillies will still be top choices for many players because those organizations have developed a culture of winning. From losing Bill Polian to putting Russ Brandon in charge of football operations to bringing in Marv Levy as GM to seemingly countless wrongheaded draft picks, the perception is that RW doesn't make business decisions which result in fielding a winning team. If we can figure this out, it's got to be much clearer to players throughout the league. Cheapness isn't Ralph Wilson's problem. His problem is that his hiring and employee retention practices run completely counter to the best practices used by most other NFL teams. He often values promoting from within over seeking the best available candidate for a job. He values loyalty over results. He seems to have developed a strong preference for hiring key personnel over the age of 60 (I get that, to a degree. I'm in my early 50's and most teens and twentysomethings I meet seem to be speaking a different language. Then again, I'm not trying to run a successful business.) I'm not saying that every front office or coaching hire has been a mistake, only that the Bills seem to cast a far smaller net when looking for job candidates than most other teams. I do believe that RW wants to see the team win and he'd probably relish a Bills Super Bowl victory more than anyone else. I also believe that he honestly believes that his business practices will work and honestly doesn't understand why they're not working. It's not the payroll, it's not the weather, it's not city itself...after all, similar teams/cities like Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Green Bay don't have problems attracting top playing and coaching talent. It's the front office. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BiggieScooby Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 What happened? Teams have dominant era's. The Fins had their run with Shula from the 70s to mid 80s. We took the reigns from the late 80s to 90s, then Y2K happened and we've been crap ever since. Honestly the competition caught up. Could you imagine if Payton Manning was still in our division? That's 6 guaranteed losses every season! When we lost Polian, then AJ Smith we lost the brains of our operation. No front office since has proven up to the task. From a coaching perspective they haven't been good enough, and the drafts haven't been either. It's tough to attract difference making FA's who have a choice where they're going to play when you're not a proven winner. The key to our rebuilding is that we actually follow through on the task and address the areas of weakness from the Front Office to the locker room, to the head janitor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffalo Barbarian Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 We have to give Nix a few years to see if he can turn this franchise around then the free agents will come. The only way we will get FAs in here now is to overpay them and Ralph wont do that. He should do it for the right Free agent to show the rest of the league we aren't cheap , which would show a commit to winning and then good players and coaches would come here. He should have signed Vince Wilfork or Casey Hampton and other FAs would have come plus it really would have shored up a major whole on the line and maybe we wouldn't have looked like the running of the bulls in Spain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griswold Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 I'm so tired of people like yourself saying Ralph is cheap. Jim Kelly and Bruce Smith were drafted and he paid them because they performed. The reason it looks like he doesn't pay free agents is because no free agent wants to come here. Free agents want to join winners or teams that are in warm weathered cities and not worn down pit holes like Buffalo. I spent 27 years in Buffalo and it doesn't have much to offer other than great people. The bottom line is the Bills drafted well in the 80's and because we had a good nucleus of players "thank you Polian/Butler" other players who were free agents wanted to play here. Bryce Paup, James Loften, and guys like Sam Adams wanted to come to Buffalo because they knew we had a team that could compete. Ralph Wilson will pay guys to come here but you can't force them to come when you are not winning. Also, as far as coaching goes: there were many years when Ralph went after the top coordinator such as Mike Mularkey and Greg williams. Is it his fault they couldn't get the job done? He also had guys like Wade Phillips and Chuck Knox who were coaches who had previous success. By the way this year he tried and went after all the big names, Gruden, Cowher, Shanahan, etc... Insiders were saying RW would have spent the bank to get one of them but guess what "they didn't want to come to a team with no talent". THE CURE------>start drafting better and Ralph will pay for all the missing pieces. Well said. I'll emphasize for ya THE CURE------>start drafting better and Ralph will pay for all the missing pieces. I'm tired of the Ralph is cheap parade. No one of quality will sign here today regardless of money offered.. that's the end story. Fix the draft.. the team improves.. then maybe people will sign here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coldstorage5 Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 Its all about the draft,Poor drafts = Poor teams. Losman= Bust Mccargo= Bust Whitner= Bust Maybin= Bust Spiller= Bust ( little early) Bust, Bust, Bust, not the good kind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bills_fan_in_raleigh Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 That's the best statistic I've read here on this board... And unfortunately only close to great 10% of the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob in STL Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 (edited) I remember reading an article around 1988 and I can't remember which print media it was so for obvious reasons I'm paraphrasing but it was about a friend of Ralph's that had asked him back in the mid 80's if he cared about turning his team into a winner and Ralph said something like "someday" and his friend replied why not now? He went on to open his pocket book to players that demanded the highest of salaries in the NFL. Players like Kelly, Smith, Bennett. I sent Ralph a long letter in 2002 thanking him for all he had done for the Bills and keeping them in Buffalo. The Bills had just signed Bledsoe. He or someone in his office actually wrote me back telling me what an honor it had been to own a team in western NY and it was signed by Ralph. I still have the letter, but what changed? What turned him back into the owner I watched and read about in the 1970's? I know some of you will argue he still spends money, but he doesn't want to pay top coaches or top players any longer. He has gone back to treating the Bills as a business only. The front office is poorly run again. What changed I wonder. Free agency didn't help but the fact remains if Ralph wanted a winner we would have one. I think that Ralph tries to win. He tends to hire from within. He puts a high value on loyalty, or his perception of it. No matter what decade you look at, when his current regime (or inner circle) fails he looks from within first, then he looks out if he has too. He does not take a lot of chances with top names. The problem with that is that he has not hired enough good football people (as in managers) over the years, and then let them strenghten the organization from within. The front office is responsible for bringing in the players and coaches, it all starts there. Looking at the "modern era", Polian had a front office that contained top football people that went out and succeeded - Bob Ferguson, John Butler, AJ Smith, Buddy Nix ... all well respected and succesful in other places, came off of that family tree. Bring in Donohoe and who was left to succeed him? Modrak? Guy? Brandon? Levy was brought in from retirement to do a job he did not want and did not know how to do. His move to hire Donohoe was a big leap of faith for him. He turned the keys to the car over to an "unknown" and the guy did not get it done and worse than that --- Ralph thought the spirit of OBD was broken. He should have cleaned house and started over but instead Modrak, Guy, and Brandon remained and eventually Levy was summoned. Levy had no ties to this group and he did not have any better people to work with to replace them. You all know the rest. More stagnation. Even now with Nix as GM, Ralph is counting on an old relationship to run the ship. Personally I am not sold on Nix as a GM. He may be a great Scout but there is much more to the GM position and Nix has a lot to prove. Edited January 19, 2011 by Bob in STL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattsox Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 Ralph was 94 when he did that in the 80's now at 120 he doesn't have a lot left in the tank. LOL... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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