thebandit27 Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 He was the defacto GM after the Donahoe firing. That's correct; it was for a very short time though. I concur with PTR. We have no knowledge he had any input in personnel decisions. He did Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
May Day 10 Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 (edited) Brandon's ascent through the ranks is correlated with the franchise becoming more and more irrelevant. The same people give him "credit" for selling a lot of tickets as poop on the fans for "only" "legitimately" selling out "2" games this season. If I won Mega Millions 3-5 times, and bought the team, you bet Brandon would be out on his ass. I would also be willing to wager he wouldn't sniff anything close to his current position. His tenure here is a joke. This franchise is a joke. If you think he is sitting on the sidelines when it comes to football decisions, you are kidding yourself. Listen to him speak on interviews. He fields questions on personnel without deferring anything to Whaley. Put yourself in his position? Wouldnt you want to work on that side of it? Is this team really marketed well? I have lived in other markets and the Bills' "marketing" is a joke. Unless you count his weekly radio spots where he constantly kicks sand in the faces of the fans in order to justify his Toronto debacle as marketing... Under Brandon, the team fails. Continues to fail, and will fail next year and the year after that. Edited December 18, 2013 by May Day 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PromoTheRobot Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 (edited) He was the defacto GM after the Donahoe firing. So even though Ralph hired Levy and Nix your saying Russ made all the draft picks and hired all the coaches? Does de facto in this case mean "in my imagination?" Edited December 18, 2013 by PromoTheRobot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffaloBillsForever Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 So even though Ralph hired Levy and Nix your saying Russ made all the draft picks and hired all the coaches? Does de facto in this case mean "in my imagination?" He was involved in the process. I thought this was common knowledge? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cvanvol Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 If we had to rate everyone who gets a paycheck from the Buffalo Bills. I bet Russ Brandon would be near #1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nitro Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Dohahoe was replaced by Marv Levy, not Russ Brandon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
May Day 10 Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 He was involved in the process. I thought this was common knowledge? Yeah, wasnt he travelling around, meeting with Shanahan and whatnot? Its obvious that Brandon has been the functioning arm of this team for a long period of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PromoTheRobot Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 He was involved in the process. I thought this was common knowledge? Common knowledge? Hardly. More like common delusion. This raging hard on for Brandon emerged in the last few years from people looking for a new efigy to burn. PTR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebandit27 Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Dohahoe was replaced by Marv Levy, not Russ Brandon. Levy retired as GM in 2008, leaving Brandon to the post. It's right there on the Bills' official website: http://www.buffalobills.com/news/article-1/A-History-of-Bills-General-Managers/c02dd4bf-2ed5-46dc-8565-eafa773fe5a0 Russ Brandon was appointed Chief Operating Officer of the Buffalo Bills on January 8, 2008 with the responsibility of overseeing the day-to-day operations of the organization, which includes Football and Business Operations. Common knowledge? Hardly. More like common delusion. This raging hard on for Brandon emerged in the last few years from people looking for a new efigy to burn. PTR You know I think you're a good poster; you're mistaken on this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffaloBillsForever Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Yeah, wasnt he travelling around, meeting with Shanahan and whatnot? Its obvious that Brandon has been the functioning arm of this team for a long period of time. Absolutely. Brandon was on the radio several times talking about this. How do people call themselves Bills fans around here when then don't even know this. Like I said, Brandon in one way or another has been around the personnel side of things since the Donahoe firing. Common knowledge? Hardly. More like common delusion. This raging hard on for Brandon emerged in the last few years from people looking for a new efigy to burn. PTR Doh! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebandit27 Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Absolutely. Brandon was on the radio several times talking about this. How do people call themselves Bills fans around here when then don't even know this. Like I said, Brandon in one way or another has been around the personnel side of things since the Donahoe firing. Not exactly...it was a very short stint; he's made zero personnel decisions since Nix was hired. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Campy Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 How Much is Russ Brandon to Blame for Bills' Current Plight? Who cares? Why is it that we need to run around an point fingers about who's to blame all the time? Who's to blame for the government shutdown? Who's to blame for Miley Cyrus twerking on TV? Who's to blame for this and for that? Who cares? What difference will assigning blame make other than make those doing it feel superior and self righteous? I'm a lot more concerned with that he's done since he's been calling the shots. And for the most part, I like what he's done since January 3rd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PromoTheRobot Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Levy retired as GM in 2008, leaving Brandon to the post. It's right there on the Bills' official website: http://www.buffalobills.com/news/article-1/A-History-of-Bills-General-Managers/c02dd4bf-2ed5-46dc-8565-eafa773fe5a0 Russ Brandon was appointed Chief Operating Officer of the Buffalo Bills on January 8, 2008 with the responsibility of overseeing the day-to-day operations of the organization, which includes Football and Business Operations. You know I think you're a good poster; you're mistaken on this one. Well it's funny to me that people like Nix did all the talking at draft time if Brandon was actually calling the shots. I'm sure Russ has some authority as a boss over Nix but I doubt he was making picks. Ralph meddling? That I buy. Not Russ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BADOLBILZ Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 I have to be honest, I don't see what in your post contradicts anything I've said. Brandon's job was to market the team; efforts that have resulted in building the fan base in Rochester and Southern Ontario, from which as much as 30% of the season ticket base sources. I get what you're saying about taking responsibility; I don't, however, see how you can tie the team's on-field performance to Brandon in any significant way. He didn't really do any football operations hiring, as Ralph was the person that hired both Marv Levy and Buddy Nix to run the team. Brandon's influence has been minimal from that side. I suppose, if you want to assess whether or not Brandon has hired people with winning backgrounds, you first need to determine who he's hired. I guess you could attribute only the hirings that occurred post-Donahoe, which would include: Levy - winning background, although not in the GM role he was hired to occupy Jauron - definitely not a winning background Nix - winning background with both Buffalo and San Diego Gailey - 0.500 coach in the NFL; won some in college Whaley - part of one of the best long-term front offices in the game Marrone - winning background as a position coach in New Orleans; 6 games above 0.500 as a college head coach So while it's not a knock-you-over resume of hirings; it's not a litany of losers either...and again, I'm not sure who we can and cannot give Brandon credit/blame for hiring in the equation. All of those people have been on winning teams at some point. NONE of them have won previously in the NFL capacity they were hired in by Russ. That contradicts what you just said. Also, who is to say what kind of business acumen Russ has? I explained it......they have simply done what the rest of the league is doing. The shield is their steward wrt marketing. I think it bears consideration that perhaps Russ rose to his level because he was working for a very old man who didn't know who else to turn to. Even Ralph has alluded to this problem. Not everybody wants to take their directive from a 90 year old boss. It reduces options considerably, IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris heff Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Ralph Wilson is responsible for the state of the Bills. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebandit27 Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Well it's funny to me that people like Nix did all the talking at draft time if Brandon was actually calling the shots. I'm sure Russ has some authority as a boss over Nix but I doubt he was making picks. Ralph meddling? That I buy. Not Russ. PTR, there was, very clearly, a draft between the time Levy retired as GM (subsequent to the final game of the 2007 season) and Nix was hired as the personnel guy in January of 2009. That draft was run by Brandon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
May Day 10 Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Here is the draft room. Brandon was trying to figure out how many pom poms to get for the opener. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miyagi-Do Karate Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Brandon's ascent through the ranks is correlated with the franchise becoming more and more irrelevant. The same people give him "credit" for selling a lot of tickets as poop on the fans for "only" "legitimately" selling out "2" games this season. If I won Mega Millions 3-5 times, and bought the team, you bet Brandon would be out on his ass. I would also be willing to wager he wouldn't sniff anything close to his current position. His tenure here is a joke. This franchise is a joke. If you think he is sitting on the sidelines when it comes to football decisions, you are kidding yourself. Listen to him speak on interviews. He fields questions on personnel without deferring anything to Whaley. Put yourself in his position? Wouldnt you want to work on that side of it? Is this team really marketed well? I have lived in other markets and the Bills' "marketing" is a joke. Unless you count his weekly radio spots where he constantly kicks sand in the faces of the fans in order to justify his Toronto debacle as marketing... Under Brandon, the team fails. Continues to fail, and will fail next year and the year after that. Can you really link Brandon as the cause of the failure? There are so many other variables-- poor coaching hires, poor QB decisions, poor drafts, poor free agent decisions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
May Day 10 Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 (edited) common denominator. and is the "marketing" side of things really that stellar? The in game "production" is 3rd world compared to other NFL teams. The material played on the Jumbotron is awful and amateurish. People died at a game last season (and you can partially blame the new stadium lot rules for them). The Toronto thing was/is a disaster as far as marketing and spreading the brand. Commercials, shows, general coverage is not very good. In Philadelphia, they would have promos in the newspaper multiple times a week. Player posters, cheerleader posters, etc... very well produced network TV shows at times people watch TV, commercials that get your heart racing, etc. Here its like a wasteland. You can give him credit for training camp in Rochester, but that was bound to happen with any up and coming kid who gets brought on in sports marketing. The rationalization, I would argue, would have happened naturally anyways. Canucks love to come here, shop, and party. Edited December 18, 2013 by May Day 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Campy Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 PTR, there was, very clearly, a draft between the time Levy retired as GM (subsequent to the final game of the 2007 season) and Nix was hired as the personnel guy in January of 2009. That draft was run by Brandon. So we're talking about 2008. The Bills selected Reggie Corner, Demetruss Bell, James Hardy, Leodis, and Stevie. I recall liking that draft at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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