The Biggest Whiffs In Buffalo Bills History

[BuffaloRush]

35 minutes ago, bourbonboy said:

Maybe not the biggest whiff, but Erik Flowers deserves mention here too.....

 

Context though.  He certainly was a whiff but he was a low round 1st rounder.  There have been much worse examples

[DrDawkinstein]

2 minutes ago, BuffaloRush said:

 

This is my list, and it doesn’t have to be since 2000.  My choices are only from 2000 since I do think it makes things more relevant.  

 

I think Jeremy’s defense of Williams was that he was the top LT coming out of college.  Most teams would have taken him high and he was considered as “solid” of a draft choice as any that year.  

 

To argue Jeremy, Williams never played LT in college, he was a RT. And McKinnie was the top LT coming out but teams were worried about his attitude. Which was a valid concern, but McKinnie had a much better career and should have been the pick at #4 overall if Donahoe wasnt such a wuss.

[BuffaloRush]

16 minutes ago, Like A Mofo said:

Sabres signing Ville Leino.

 

Drops Mic.

 

Buffalo BILLS history... not Sabres

[PromoTheRobot]

Drafting Mike Williams.

[Jerry Jabber]

42 minutes ago, HeHateMe said:

Rex 

Maybin

Losman

Manuel & Watkins

Marv

+1

 

Drafting an injured McGahee when we had Travis Henry.

Whitner over Ngata.

All the DB's and RB's drafted in the first round (minus Tre White).

Mike Williams over Bryant McKinnie.

McCargo.

Jauron.

[Canadian Bills Fan]

Drafting Torell Troup one spot ahead of Gronk

[Wayne Arnold]

Signing Langston Walker and Derrick Dockery to ridiculous contracts.

 

Whaley and Marrone tried to repeat history years later by signing some bum lineman named Chris Williams to a bloated contract.

[Scorp83]

1 hour ago, chef4131 said:

over drafting of JP Losman, giving up the next years first rounder cost us a chance to draft Aaron Rodgers 

 

 

Drafting Josh Allen....JP 2.0

 

Oh & taking Spiller when you had Lynch & Jackson on the roster. Yea BeastMode was a knucklehead... but what great NFL player doesn't have problems in their personal life?

 

Ray Lewis, TO, Chad Johnson, Dez, Brady, Farve, Big Ben, Antonio Brown, KeyShawn Johnson, Randy Moss... i can go on & on...the bad boys are what make the league great & entertaining. Can't when chips with goodie good guy's. You have to have some kind of controversy. Yea sometimes you'll get a Robert Woods & a Fred Jackson, Chris Carter... but you have to surround them with Superstars like Randy Moss to go another level... & they come with huge egos...

 

My point is... you need a guy that demand the ball, race a car... cheat the rules, goes to court... the biggest fail the Bills have made is not "wanting" those type of players or even committing to them.  

 

I knew they wouldn't want Rosen....he scares them. & it's a shame. Cause everything points to him possibly being really good...you can't say the same for Allen

Edited May 18, 2018 by Scorp83

[cage]

-- Rex Ryan hire messing up a very good defense

-- Drafting Maybin was questionable right out of the chute

-- Hiring Marv as GM with the sub-bullet of the "cash-to-the-cap" policy basically communicating that we weren't going do what it takes to win

-- To be determine yet... passing on both Mahomes and Watson last year, while trading up for Allen this year... we'll have to evaluate in a few years whether that progression was a monumental whiff or not?!?

Edited May 18, 2018 by cage

[DrDawkinstein]

26 minutes ago, Wayne Arnold said:

Signing Langston Walker and Derrick Dockery to ridiculous contracts.

 

Whaley and Marrone tried to repeat history years later by signing some bum lineman named Chris Williams to a bloated contract.

 

Most OL Free Agents are going to be overpaid. Most Free Agents are overpaid.

[prissythecat]

1 hour ago, Mopreme said:

Not resigning Jason Peters.  

 

 

Do elite LTs really help teams?      Don't we find that teams that go far in playoffs often have just serviceable LT players ?    Joe Thomas certainly didnt do anything for poor Cleveland.   Philly didn't accomplish much those years when Peters was starting all the games. and ended up winning the Superbowl with him out of the lineup since October 2017.

 

 

[BillsfaninChicago]

When you think about what we gave up and what we could have had in Rodgers if we had just waited a year. The biggest whiff to me was Losman.

[CajunBillsBacker]

Mike Williams and Erik Flowers come to mind.

[JOSH HUFF]

2000 - BUFFALO BILLS
Draft  RD	2000 SEL #	PLAYER	POSITION	SCHOOL
1	26	Erik Flowers	DE	Arizona State
2	58	Travares Tillman	FS	Georgia Tech
3	89	Corey Moore	OLB	Virginia Tech
4	121	Avion Black	WR	Tennessee State
5	156	Sammy Morris	RB	Texas Tech
6	194	Leif Larsen	DT	Texas-El Paso
7	233	Drew Haddad	WR	Buffalo
7	251	DaShon Polk	LB	Arizona

[JAMIEBUF12]

AARON MAYBIN

[Overdue Bill]

1 hour ago, bourbonboy said:

Maybe not the biggest whiff, but Erik Flowers deserves mention here too.....

Yes...thank you...I was going to add him and you beat me to it. Not quite in league with Albert Haynesworth, but up there...

[Gray Beard]

1 hour ago, Jerry Jabber said:

+1

 

Drafting an injured McGahee when we had Travis Henry.

Whitner over Ngata.

All the DB's and RB's drafted in the first round (minus Tre White).

Mike Williams over Bryant McKinnie.

McCargo.

Jauron.

 

1 hour ago, Canadian Bills Fan said:

Drafting Torell Troup one spot ahead of Gronk

McCargo and Troup were my immediate thoughts. 

[Irv]

Frankly, they could have done a lot more with Gibran Hamdan.   I think they whiffed on that one.  

[Jerry Jabber]

14 minutes ago, JOSH HUFF said:

2000 - BUFFALO BILLS
Draft  RD	2000 SEL #	PLAYER	POSITION	SCHOOL
1	26	Erik Flowers	DE	Arizona State
2	58	Travares Tillman	FS	Georgia Tech
3	89	Corey Moore	OLB	Virginia Tech
4	121	Avion Black	WR	Tennessee State
5	156	Sammy Morris	RB	Texas Tech
6	194	Leif Larsen	DT	Texas-El Paso
7	233	Drew Haddad	WR	Buffalo
7	251	DaShon Polk	LB	Arizona

Was that John Butler's last draft as Bills GM or Tom Donahoe? That looks as bad a Buddy Nix draft class. 

[row_33]

bringing Marv back wasn't less than  3 trillion % of the worst cynical garbage thought possible.

25 minutes ago, JAMIEBUF12 said:

AARON MAYBIN

 

still too soon 

 

2 hours ago, Dave in Bluffton said:

I'll add a few more:

 

Picking Rob Johnson over Flutie.  As much as you hate Flutie, he found ways to win games that were beyond Buffalo's offense without him.

 

Letting Pat Williams go in free agency.  Defense went downhill after that move.

 

Choosing JP Losman in draft instead of moving up a couple spots to get Roethlisburger.

 

Drafting EJ.

 

I'll stop there as the list goes on and on.

 

let Flutie's clown show era die already? this was total trash compared to Jim Kelly's best year, worse than total trash

 

The best part was for the 2000 season they treated the Doug/Rob thing as a do-over and expected them to sit for 3 hours and outline their plans for going forward, as if the coaching staff had never met them before.  Of course Flutie refused to go through with this and made a fun media fuss over the disrespect. 

Edited May 18, 2018 by row_33

[Paulus]

Russ Brandon. He is behind so many of the whiffs he deserves to be in a category all his own. 

[dwight in philly]

Drafting Aaron Maybin and letting Chuck Knox walk. 

[Irv]

Toronto and not playing Joe Dufek enough. 

[CommonCents]

Trading up for Rags was bad.

Trading up for Sammy was bad.

Drafting EJ was bad.

Overpaying and enabling Dareus was bad.

 

In short most everything Whaley and scouting department  did could and should have been done by a group of zoo animals. 

[RyanC883]

Drafting Maybin at 11.  

 

Passing on drafting Russel Wilson and instead taking a WR, whose name currently escapes me.  

[That_Guy]

Dick Jauron came to mind 1st.

[CBD]

2 hours ago, RoyBatty is alive said:

What made it worse was our OC, was it Alex Van Pelt, that decided we were going to use the hurry up offense, since it worked so well 20 years ago with Jim Kelly...poor Walker, it almost killed him, total mismatch of players to scheme. That decision to try the hurry up since Edwards was supposedly so smart and could run it was a total joke.

It was Jauron who decided on the no huddle and Schonert who implemented. Schonert was fired and AVP promoted the day after the final preseason game.

 

As for whiffs I think Rex is a huge one. Jauron's contract extension.

Edited May 18, 2018 by CBend

[Rad Likes The Bills]

41 minutes ago, JOSH HUFF said:

2000 - BUFFALO BILLS
Draft  RD	2000 SEL #	PLAYER	POSITION	SCHOOL
1	26	Erik Flowers	DE	Arizona State
2	58	Travares Tillman	FS	Georgia Tech
3	89	Corey Moore	OLB	Virginia Tech
4	121	Avion Black	WR	Tennessee State
5	156	Sammy Morris	RB	Texas Tech
6	194	Leif Larsen	DT	Texas-El Paso
7	233	Drew Haddad	WR	Buffalo
7	251	DaShon Polk	LB	Arizona

ew what a horrible horrible draft

[ganesh]

Hiring Tom Donahoe as the GM/President.  He literally put this team behind for 20 years with his arrogance.

1 hour ago, Leonhart2017 said:

When you think about what we gave up and what we could have had in Rodgers if we had just waited a year. The biggest whiff to me was Losman.

There were lots of question marks on Rodgers..He was helped with the fact that he could sit and learn behind one of the game's greatest for a couple of years; something he may not have had a chance at in Buffalo especially with the revolving door on coaches

****ty GMs starting from Donahoe to Whaley

[Big Turk]

3 hours ago, BuffaloRush said:

Interesting topic from WGR this morning.  Jeremy White was talking abou the biggest whiffs in Buffalo sports history since 2000.  He used both the Bills and Sabres but for the sake of this discussion we’ll focus on just the Bills.

 

Remember a whiff doesn’t necessarily have to be all draft busts.  It more about getting some of the really big and important decisions completely wrong.  Also it’s important to consider the negative impact on the organization.  For example, signing Shawn Merriman was a whiff, but it didn’t really impact the team that much.

 

Here are my choices and I keep everything current so this is only since 2000.  

 

Hiring Rex Ryan - this was JW’s top choice and mine as well.  Rex did some major damage in Buffalo.  Terrible hire.

 

Trading for Sammy Watkins - this was an agressive move by a bad GM that backfired.  Whaley basically pushed all his chip to the table and gambled with this move on both Sammy and EJ.  He’s now out of a job.  This move was so reckless it drives me nuts

 

Re-signing Ryan Fitzpatrick to a long-term deal 

Prospector Buddy Nix thought he found gold...except it was fool’s gold.  The quick decision to extend Fitz, committed the team to a QB that was a fringe starter and resulted in them passing on other choices like drafting Russell Wilson.  This was the start of QB purgatory.

 

Drafting CJ Spiller

This was a foolish move when the team had 2 good RB’s in Fred and Marshawn Lynch.  CJ also never turned out to be much as a starting RB.  

 

Marv Levy as GM

A terrible and selfish choice by Ralph Wilson.  This move would ramp the drought into high gear.  

 

Lets hear some of your choices!

 

 

The start of QB purgatory happened after the Flutie/Johnson saga, minus one good year from Bledsoe.

[Rico]

Extending Drew Bledsoe after 2003.

[John from Riverside]

1 hour ago, JOSH HUFF said:

2000 - BUFFALO BILLS
Draft  RD	2000 SEL #	PLAYER	POSITION	SCHOOL
1	26	Erik Flowers	DE	Arizona State
2	58	Travares Tillman	FS	Georgia Tech
3	89	Corey Moore	OLB	Virginia Tech
4	121	Avion Black	WR	Tennessee State
5	156	Sammy Morris	RB	Texas Tech
6	194	Leif Larsen	DT	Texas-El Paso
7	233	Drew Haddad	WR	Buffalo
7	251	DaShon Polk	LB	Arizona

That draft killed the bills for some years

[Jobot]

1 hour ago, Leonhart2017 said:

When you think about what we gave up and what we could have had in Rodgers if we had just waited a year. The biggest whiff to me was Losman.

 

Rogers and Brady in the same division would of been something

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

43 minutes ago, Paulus said:

Russ Brandon. He is behind so many of the whiffs he deserves to be in a category all his own. 

Remember...it's not the steak, it's the sizzle.

 

Now why does that adage pop into my mind anytime anyone says 'Russ Brandon'?

[prissythecat]

24 minutes ago, ganesh said:

Hiring Tom Donahoe as the GM/President.  He literally put this team behind for 20 years with his arrogance.

There were lots of question marks on Rodgers..He was helped with the fact that he could sit and learn behind one of the game's greatest for a couple of years; something he may not have had a chance at in Buffalo especially with the revolving door on coaches

****ty GMs starting from Donahoe to Whaley

 

Rodgers never learned anything from Favre though....  

[Perry Turtle]

Everything the Bills did between 2000 and 2017 was a whiff. Trying to rank the unending bad decisions made during that time is an impossible task.

 

Hopefully the franchise has turned the corner.

[Cash]

2 hours ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

To be fair, Peters and Parker were done with the Bills and were leaving no matter what. The Bills had been good to Peters, bringing him in as a UDFA and developing him from a Special Teams TE, to a RT, to a premier LT. They had already re-done his deal when he started pouting and slacking barely 2 years into it.

 

As much as I hate how that all played out, there wasnt much more the Bills could do. Nor should have done given Peters's handling of the situation.

 

I disagree.  The Bills had recently re-done Aaron Schobel's contract even though he had multiple years left.  This happened after Schobel skipped OTAs for "personal reasons".  We were assured it wasn't a holdout, but then by amazing coincidence, the Bills happened to give Schobel a new contract with better terms.  So there was a precedent that the team would play ball with an upset player who had multiple years left on his deal.

 

Then consider Peters himself.  Yes, he was an undrafted free agent.  Does that behold him to the Bills in perpetuity?  When he signed that contract, he was the starting RT, and it was reasonable money for a starting RT.  But then he was promoted to starting LT, and was excellent in that role.  Once that happened, he became severely underpaid compared to his performance at his position.  Compounding things, the Bills went out and grossly overpaid Dockery and Walker in free agency, making Peters the 3rd-highest paid o-lineman.  You can't have your line set up so that the All-Pro best player plays the most important and highest-paid position, but makes less than two other guys. 

 

Peters probably could've handled it better, and the Bills may have been more amenable if he had been more willing to "play ball", but the team was crazy if they thought he was going to be happy with the salary structure they put in place on the offensive line.

 

All of this is from memory off the top of my head, so my apologies for any facts I butchered.  

[Irv]

Shutting down BBMB.

 

  

I was looking up names of past Bills in an attempt at humor and saw that Matt Kofler died way back in 2008.  What did he die of? 

 

 

Edited May 18, 2018 by Irv

[Mark Vader]

3 hours ago, Mopreme said:

Not resigning Jason Peters.  

Jason Peters was signed.

 

He just threw a hissy fit about wanting more money than the Bills had already given him.

[John from Riverside]

2 minutes ago, Mark Vader said:

Jason Peters was signed.

 

He just threw a hissy fit about wanting more money than the Bills had already given him.

Some people forget that

 

Still it would have been nice to find some common ground with him.....he did end up being a foundation for the eagles for years.