MODRAK FIRED!

[Billsfan4ever14580]

While the decision probably could have been made last year after the draft based on past record, the fact is that Nix was new to his role and probably wanted to give it time to make his own evaluation. It seems to me at least that Modrak had less influence in this year's decisions than in the past, perhaps indicative of Nix's lack of confidence. The timing after the draft is correct - this starts the new year and does not disrupt the organization in the middle of draft preparations. Bravo Buddy - well done.

 

Exactly! While this firing is long over due, this shows that Buddy has a plan and Modrak is not a part of it. Mediocrity will not be accepted any longer and it's time to get people in important roles who actually care what the outcome of their work is. A+ Buddy!!

[San Jose Bills Fan]

Agreed. The pre-draft preparation and grading were all on TM and his scouts. So the old addage about "garbage in yielding garbage out" comes to mind.

 

Could this be Tom's replacement?

Wow. Darrell Moody. Maybe he'd rather work with the likable Buddy Nix than the infamous autocrat, A.J. Smith?

 

And Matt Hand who discovered Michael Jasper was promoted!

 

Also the Bills announced a player signing? Did they sign him during that one-day period when the lockout was lifted?

Edited May 5, 2011 by San Jose Bills Fan

[ColdBlueNorth]

Wow. Darrell Moody. Maybe he'd rather work with the likable Buddy Nix than the infamous autocrat, A.J. Smith?

 

And Matt Hand who discovered Michael Jasper was promoted!

 

Also the Bills announced a player signing? Did they sign him during that one-day period when the lockout was lifted?

they really already have his replacement in Doug Whaley who was in charge of the Steelers scouting of pro personnel for 10 years and was brought on February 2010.

 

The official announcement said,

"Whaley will oversee the pro personnel department and assist general manager Buddy Nix in all football-related administrative duties, along with college talent evaluation."

 

With both Nix and Whaley already having years of experience directing successful scouting departments was there a need for Modrak, or anyone else for that matter to run college scouting for the Bills? They don't need a replacement for Modrak, and the time they gave him was most likely just to transition the duties to Doug.

[Pilsner]

What a relief! Where is Red? Red, this is what you've been waiting for for so long and you're not here? This is your big day.

 

Wow what a solid 7 days it's been. We have a great draft, osama bites the dust, modrak gets canned. What's next? We find out Jasper has an identical twin brother who's even more of a secret than he was and wants to join us as an UDFA?

 

Seems like Nix definitely has Ralph's trust now. Way to go Buddy and Whaley. Keep on cleaning house. There's much more to do.

 

Go Bills!!

[Captain Hindsight]

What a relief! Where is Red? Red, this is what you've been waiting for for so long and you're not here? This is your big day.

 

Wow what a solid 7 days it's been. We have a great draft, osama bites the dust, modrak gets canned. What's next? We find out Jasper has an identical twin brother who's even more of a secret than he was and wants to join us as an UDFA?

 

Seems like Nix definitely has Ralph's trust now. Way to go Buddy and Whaley. Keep on cleaning house. There's much more to do.

 

Go Bills!!

Im buying a lotto ticket tomorrow

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Also the Bills announced a player signing? Did they sign him during that one-day period when the lockout was lifted?

 

This blew my mind - how'd they manage that?

 

An undrafted free agent who played for California 2006-2009. Are there different rules for last year's draft class who have never played with another team? But still..no CBA?

[Lurker]

they really already have his replacement in Doug Whaley who was in charge of the Steelers scouting of pro personnel for 10 years and was brought on February 2010.

I look at Whaley as GM-in-training, rather than head college scout. Most of his player personnel experience was on the pro rather than college side.

 

The head college guy needs a ton of experience, plus big time networking relationships with college HCs, which is what made Nix (and John Butler) so effective. I think Whaley has bigger ambitions than that.

 

Also the Bills announced a player signing? Did they sign him during that one-day period when the lockout was lifted? [/size][/color]

That BN article was from August 2010...

[Cynical]

This blew my mind - how'd they manage that?

 

An undrafted free agent who played for California 2006-2009. Are there different rules for last year's draft class who have never played with another team? But still..no CBA?

 

Can't say for sure, but I am willing to bet this has something to do with it:

 

Published:May 5, 2010, 10:51 PM

 

Just a hunch.

[Chas56]

I'm just glad that the era is over now. It is time to move forward with new FO personnel. This present group seems to be much better than the ones in charge for the last ten years, but we shall see. It will be interesting to see Whaley's role over the next few years. Nix is no spring chicken. And seeing who they hire as a PPD will be telling.

[Malazan]

Do people really not understand that Nix took over and had about three months to prepare for the draft last season and firing the guy would have been the knee jerk reaction? All time low for TBD. Congrats!

[4BillsintheBurgh]

they really already have his replacement in Doug Whaley who was in charge of the Steelers scouting of pro personnel for 10 years and was brought on February 2010.

 

The official announcement said,

"Whaley will oversee the pro personnel department and assist general manager Buddy Nix in all football-related administrative duties, along with college talent evaluation."

 

With both Nix and Whaley already having years of experience directing successful scouting departments was there a need for Modrak, or anyone else for that matter to run college scouting for the Bills? They don't need a replacement for Modrak, and the time they gave him was most likely just to transition the duties to Doug.

Maybe Whaley can pull a someone from the Steelers organization.

[ColdBlueNorth]

I look at Whaley as GM-in-training, rather than head college scout. Most of his player personnel experience was on the pro rather than college side.

 

The head college guy needs a ton of experience, plus big time networking relationships with college HCs, which is what made Nix (and John Butler) so effective. I think Whaley has bigger ambitions than that.

 

 

That BN article was from August 2010...

Right you are, and good catch.

 

Moody will take on the college scouting role whereas Modrak had a VP title - not sure if the VP title actually entailed more responsibilities than "National Scout", or just sounds better. I do like that we have raided the Chargers and Steeler organizations, two organizations that have had a lot of drafting success.

 

I agree that Doug is being groomed for the GM role - no stretch there seeing as they gave him the assistant GM title. I like Nix, but if he retires I'm not sure Doug could fill those shoes. Most of us remember how the Bills fell from greatness...Ralph fired Polian and he left to build a successful franchise in Indy while we were stuck with a string of incompetent GMs and a meddling owner that forced Butler and a very talented scouting department to make the exidus to San Diego where they built a successful franchise there. I don't blame Ralph for everything bad that has befallen the Bills, but he certainly is not blameless in driving this franchise into the turf.

 

On a more positive note, folks clamoring for a QB should remember that Nix and Moody have a history with San Diego of finding franchise calibre quarterbacks with Brees and with Rivers. Hitting once on a franchise QB is hard enough, but nailing it twice speaks volumes about their ability to judge QB talent. There are no guarantees, but I believe that when they do invest a high draft pick on a QB he will be someone who has "the right stuff" that can eventually fill that franchise role.

[Bob in STL]

Maybe Whaley can pull a someone from the Steelers organization.

 

 

Yes, Like Ralph did with Donahoe and Modrak.

[Lurker]

Yes, Like Ralph did with Donahoe and Modrak.

I think he was referring to people the Steelers actually regretted losing...

[Bob in STL]

Modrak may have just run his course as all people do in the NFL but does anyone think it odd that the majority of the players drafted were scouted by Nix and coached by Gaily at the Senior Bowl?

 

Ok, on average the best players come from the South and Gailey coached the South but still Modrak and his cronies had 12 months to scout the entire country and Nix selected a large number of players that he and Chan looked at first hand.

 

Makes me think they did not like Modrak's work in comparision to what they did in a few short weeks at Senior Bowl.

 

BTW - now is the best time to make the change as they new year starts for scouting next years draft.

[Scraps]

I remember after the draft that hardly any of these picks had a "Modrak" feel to them and more of a Buddy Nix feel

 

- Big and physical (with the exception of one late round pick)

- Addressing needs

- Can play now and not drafted on the "potential to play"

 

What was last year? A Buddy Nix draft or a Modrak draft?

[Wing Man]

There is a God!

[San Jose Bills Fan]

they really already have his replacement in Doug Whaley who was in charge of the Steelers scouting of pro personnel for 10 years and was brought on February 2010.

 

The official announcement said,

"Whaley will oversee the pro personnel department and assist general manager Buddy Nix in all football-related administrative duties, along with college talent evaluation."

 

With both Nix and Whaley already having years of experience directing successful scouting departments was there a need for Modrak, or anyone else for that matter to run college scouting for the Bills? They don't need a replacement for Modrak, and the time they gave him was most likely just to transition the duties to Doug.

I was guessing that Whaley was going to fill the position but I hadn't seen the official announcement.

 

I look at Whaley as GM-in-training, rather than head college scout. Most of his player personnel experience was on the pro rather than college side.

 

The head college guy needs a ton of experience, plus big time networking relationships with college HCs, which is what made Nix (and John Butler) so effective. I think Whaley has bigger ambitions than that.

 

 

That BN article was from August 2010...

Aha! Didn't notice the dateline.

[benbillsfan]

FINALLY!!!!

 

This dude has blown chunks for years and its great to have him outta here. He was prob clamoring for terrible prospects all draft weekend and Buddy was tired of his crappy evaluating “skill”. Whitner/McCargo/Maybin/etal... thanks for nothing Modrak - I hope the door hits you on your way out!!!!

 

 

 

couldnt of said it better myself...in the "war room" i bet nix and gailey clashed with modrak...he brought in maybin, mccargo, losman...and williams...absolutley horrible...and nix and gailey seen it first hand...then went to the chopping block....good news here..

 

LOL, if you google "Tom Modrak", this is the 2nd photo in the results, I think it perfectly sums up his time here...

 

http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images_root/slides/photos/000/113/389/56304810.jpg.14499.0_display_image.jpg?1257473911

 

 

great stuff

 

This thread was created within a minute of the other 2. Do you think they were already posted when I presses "start new topic" or do you think we all got the text from the Bills at about the same time? This thread woll obviously die out or the MODs will marry all three into one. Why do you feel the need to be an obnoxious a-hole about it?

 

this poster is always a a-hole...get used to it

[Phil Hansen Forever]

Bills Update

 

The Buffalo Bills today announced that Tom Modrak has been relieved of his duties as Vice President of College Scouting.

from bb.com

When employer's say a person has been "relieved of his/her duties", you can read that something else is going on. Normally, they just come out and say that person doesn't fit our organizational structure. Being relieved of duty is quite a different scenario...sounds like he screwed the pooch.

[Hplarrm]

Maybe he talked to Darcy Regier and decided video scouting is the wave of the future!

The main similarity between Regier and Modrak is that Regeir was following first Rigas' and then Golisano and Quinn's orders to primarily emphasize not losing money and if he could win while doing this great but not the top priority was not to risk losing $.

 

Likewise with Modrak, his key was to do what Mr Ralph wanted which was not to lose money and if one could also win while doing this great.

 

I think the jury is still out on Regeir as we now will see what he can do with Pegula setting the tone and saying winning is the priority and spend what you have to in order to win.

 

Modrak is gone and that's a good thing, but I doubt it will make much difference unless Mr. Ralph goes through the same personality transplant he went through beginning with drafting of Bruce and signing of Kelly.

[hondo in seattle]

Mr. Ralph certainly does not do his own scouting. However, he does do his own decision-making and there is simply no way one can reasonably give him a pass as having THE primary responsibility for the pathetic record of the team this past decade plus.

 

The buck stops with the owner.

 

Even beyond this Mr. Ralph was clearly intrinsically involved in some of the most demonstrably poor decisions made during the past decade plus. These include:

 

1. ONLY Mr. Ralph could make a handshake deal with Jimbo to reward him in his next FA contract when Jimbo demanded he be extended in the year before his contract expired. I am an outsider with no where near the level of knowledge the team and its owner had, but even I could see Jimbo was done a season before he retired. Mr. Ralph did do his own scouting when he promised to pay Jimbo in his next contract and Mr. Ralph proved to be WRONG WRONG WRONG in this football assessment because there was no next contract,

 

2. Mr. Ralph does reasonably escape direct blame for a plethora of QB miscues (maybe Butler first identified and was high on Billy Joe Hobert), however, in the end it is Mr. Ralph who makes the hiring and firing decisions and if anyone has major complaints about Modrak, Guy, Marv or whomever, its a major complaint about Mr. Ralph. In addition, like it or not its tough to blame Jauron for a majority of the decade+ playoff less streak, it is unreasonable to blame Marv for the vast majority of this failure etc. This was all on Mr. Ralph's watch. In addition to the buck stopping with him even if he did not make the decision because he hired the decision-maker, there is also the fact that if he was handsoff on stupid decisions like giving RJ a guarantee in the form of the bonus he should have been and it was malfeasance if he was completely hands off on a lot of these financial decisions.

 

3. Mr. Ralph clearly had a toxic relationship with his GM Bill Polian whom by all reports he personally fired (for what are alleged to be non-football reasons) and he and only he gets direct blame/credit for employee management of any if his GMs.

 

4. John Butler screwed us with how he left and played Mr. Ralph to string him along (who knows if he chose Eric Flowers to tank the draft so this is not my accusation, but clearly Mr. Ralph gets at least his half of the blame for this toxic relationship.

 

5. The war with Wade Phillips where Wade kicked his butt completely as Mr. Ralph attempted to welch on his contractual obligation is all on Mr. Ralph personally.

 

6. He had the right to fire TD if he screwed the pooch but the fact he fired him after he hired him in an under duress effort to deal with the fall out of his toxic relationship with Butler again points to Mr. Ralph. Add to that having a toxic relationship with one GM (Polian) is an incident. However, then having another toxic relationship with a GM )Butler) may simply be a coincident. However, he then followed this up by having a toxic relationship with his next GM (he fired TD).

 

Third time is a trend and the fact the Bills had to operate the next season with no GM really says it all.

 

I agree that Mr. Ralph deserves tons of credits for keeping the Bills here. No one should ignore nor can they take away the winning glory of the team Mr. Ralph hired Polian to build. He deserves props for this, it was real.

 

However the last decade plus was real too.

 

The man who deserve the blame for ALL of this?

 

Mr. Ralph.

 

 

Clearly the owner owns the results of any franchise. And Ralph does seem to have a pattern, for whatever reason, of driving good personnel people out while letting poor personnel people linger. This helps explain why the Bills have won less than half their games since their inception. So I really don't disagree much with anything you say. I just think Modrak deserves a lion's share of blame for our woeful drafts during his tenure. RW is not the reason Modrak failed. RW failed by keeping Modrak around so long. I'm hoping Nix proves as adept as Polian but sticks around longer.

[Hplarrm]

Clearly the owner owns the results of any franchise. And Ralph does seem to have a pattern, for whatever reason, of driving good personnel people out while letting poor personnel people linger. This helps explain why the Bills have won less than half their games since their inception. So I really don't disagree much with anything you say. I just think Modrak deserves a lion's share of blame for our woeful drafts during his tenure. RW is not the reason Modrak failed. RW failed by keeping Modrak around so long. I'm hoping Nix proves as adept as Polian but sticks around longer.

Agreed. However, while I do not disagree with the general lambasting of Modrak, the complaints about him get reduced to mere whines if they are not accompanied by a recognition that the real issue here is the big boss. If he wants to leave this world renowned as a sportsman rather than simply as a mere businessman he needs to change his act. I am grateful to him for investing in the Bill back in the day and keeping them here when there was easy money to be made elsewhere.

 

However, this honest gratitude I feel does not make me blind to realizing that a change must start at the top. I just hope that it is a change in attitude which allows us to win an SB soon rather than a change in ownership which brings uncertainty with it.

[thewildrabbit]

My only question is why did it take ten years...I would have fired the guy right along with Tom Donahoe for that Mike Williams pick

[Superb Owl]

Modrak may have just run his course as all people do in the NFL but does anyone think it odd that the majority of the players drafted were scouted by Nix and coached by Gaily at the Senior Bowl?

 

Ok, on average the best players come from the South and Gailey coached the South but still Modrak and his cronies had 12 months to scout the entire country and Nix selected a large number of players that he and Chan looked at first hand.

 

Makes me think they did not like Modrak's work in comparision to what they did in a few short weeks at Senior Bowl.

 

BTW - now is the best time to make the change as they new year starts for scouting next years draft.

 

Yes, a little odd about the Senior Bowl. Made me worry about falsely up-rating players because of a warm fuzzy. I read the Bengals did the same though, maybe it happens more than we think. If I had time I would go back and see if it's the norm, and see how it turns out for the teams that coach there.

[4BillsintheBurgh]

Yes, Like Ralph did with Donahoe and Modrak.

What Lurker said. I'm interested in who's "guy" is brought in, assuming there is a position to fill. If Buddy brings his guy in, maybe Buddy will be around for a while. If Whaley brings someone in, Buddy may be starting to turn the keys over. I'd guess that Buddy will be around for a while and we will get someone he's comfortable with.

[RealityCheck]

What Lurker said. I'm interested in who's "guy" is brought in, assuming there is a position to fill. If Buddy brings his guy in, maybe Buddy will be around for a while. If Whaley brings someone in, Buddy may be starting to turn the keys over. I'd guess that Buddy will be around for a while and we will get someone he's comfortable with.

I think that Modrak's replacement has been here already since Nix took over, and that is Doug Whaley. When Donahoe was here, Modrak was assist. GM, the same title that Whaley has now. Perhaps Whaley keeps his title while performing Modrak's former duties.

[Homey D. Clown]

FINALLY!!!!

 

This dude has blown chunks for years and its great to have him outta here. He was prob clamoring for terrible prospects all draft weekend and Buddy was tired of his crappy evaluating “skill”. Whitner/McCargo/Maybin/etal... thanks for nothing Modrak - I hope the door hits you on your way out!!!!

 

I would love to hear from all the Modrak sympathizers about how he never had final say and blah blah blah.

 

 

Modrak never had final say in anything he was Ralph's Meat Muppet, but no sympathy from me. Grow a spine and tell the old dust bag to go play tennis. He did'nt do that, so here we are, one less "yes man" at 1 Bills Drive

[Kingfish]

When NFL network cut to the Bills war room, there was one table front and center. That table always had Nix and Gailey. Then the surrounding tables has some other coaches and scouts (i assume). But Modrak was not at the head table, and i don't remember seeing him in shots.

 

Last night on NFL Network they played a piece on Marcell Dareus where they briefly showed the Bills war room and Modrak was definitely at the head table next to Gailey (for the first pick at least).

[cjatcreek07]

Modrak? NIXed.

[NoSaint]

I think that Modrak's replacement has been here already since Nix took over, and that is Doug Whaley. When Donahoe was here, Modrak was assist. GM, the same title that Whaley has now. Perhaps Whaley keeps his title while performing Modrak's former duties.

 

Then who runs the pro side?

[Captain Hindsight]

Then who runs the pro side?

Don't worry they just read TBD for that... slave labor over here

[DaveinElma]

My guess-Last year Modrak was pushing hard for Clausen over Troupe, this year he was pushing hard for Dalton/Kaepernick over A. Williams.

[Sisyphean Bills]

Then who runs the pro side?

Nix said the Bills weren't going to be players in free agency when he was introduced as the new GM. He also mentioned sleeping through the free agency period last year.

[Ramius]

Nix said the Bills weren't going to be players in free agency when he was introduced as the new GM. He also mentioned sleeping through the free agency period last year.

 

Nix slept for 3-4 months in a row? Impressive.

[Sisyphean Bills]

Nix slept for 3-4 months in a row? Impressive.

Nah. He woke up just in time to get the Cornell Green multi-year deal put together.

[Captain Hindsight]

Nah. He woke up just in time to get the Cornell Green multi-year deal put together.

And then cut bait quickly when it was apparent it was wrong. Not to metion picking up Urbik off the waiver wire which is going to solidify the interior line for 10 years