If we still had DonaHO....

[ndirish1978]

Results talk and BS walks. He didn't re-sign the guys he needed to re-sign and he ignored the OL for too long. I really don't fault the signings he did make, but in the day to day operations he failed. We jad back to back coaches that couldn't coach their way out of a paper bag and no oline. 'Nough said. Take a breath and relax Zeff, it's the internet.

[Typical TBD Guy]

Based on his track record, he would have an off-season that would make the fans excited, raise the season ticket base and then completely fall flat when they actually played the games. He would miss the playoffs for five years in a row, go through three starting QBs and two HCs. Then he would get fired and get the media to blame Ralph Wilson.

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It's amazing to me how some can still look back and reminisce about the TD Era. The Son of Satan truly had this message board fan base under his spell...

 

Yes, TD may have been an excellent micromanager who could have squeezed that Moulds 5th for a 4th or even 3rd out of Texas, but on the macro level he would have squandered that pick on a talented skill player with zero character and who is afraid of the Buffalo cold weather.

 

History will judge TD harshly, probably a notch below Stew Barber. We were the fourth worst NFL franchise during the past 5 seasons, despite playing in the salary cap era at a time when Ralph was more than willing to spend money on players. A big reason for this failure to win is because TD never had a coherent, consistent vision for success beyond the simple goal of "winning." One year we were a West Coast offense with a 46-Defense, in another we were a Power Running offense with a Zone Blitz D...

 

I don't know how history will judge Marv Levy as a GM, but so far at least he's consistently stuck to his guns about the type of players he wants: young, speedy, hard-working, high-character, guys with a major chip on their shoulder.

[Pyrite Gal]

Your analysis simply does not fit the reality of the situation in the following ways:

 

1. Under the CBA NC's contract with the Bills has not expired it has been unilaterally extended for a year by the Bills tender of a franchise tag. Even better, under the CBA, the Bills can even extend it another year if they choose next year by tagging him again.

 

NC's choices are to:

A. Play under the tag- The best deal for the Bills given the significant reduction in 06 of the CB franchise tag while at the same time the overall cap has gone up under the extended CBA. Under the tag, NC would be in FA next year and thus will need to produce for the Bills this year if he wants the #1 CB contract he says he deserves.

 

Throwing a hissy fit and not producing merely hurts his value and even being a cancer and a bad teammate hurts his value as well. Outside of him reaching the Pro Bowl level but failing to do that twice in a row (if this makes one a failed player much of the NFL is failed) this acquistion is all positive for TD.

 

2. Correct on Schobel it worked well.

 

3. The few good years if faint praise actually for a player so central to the Bills in his brief heyday that he was the featured picture on TSW. Do not forget that TD actually led the Bills toward creating an extra first day pick out of nothing by trading down our 1st rounder and still getting the first CB (NC) taken that year with the new pick.

 

The suggestion that he should have taken an OL player instead of Henry ignores several real occurences that year:

 

A. We needed a strting RB badly that year so what are your options if you do not take Henry.

B. Ol is crucial to the running game, but claims that TD ignored this in this draft is invalidated by him choosing two eventual Bills starters JJ and Sullivan in this draft. Who is this fantasy OL player you are refferring to, how does this new OL work with these three rookies you have drafted and how well does it do opening holes for Sean bryson.

C. The primary contribution of Henry to the Bills was probably being such a bad financial manager that he had to sell us an additional year of ownership for chump change. This additional year paid the benefits of one giving us the freedom to draft and sit WM for a year to rehab him and also to trade Henry for a 3rd rounder.

 

By far this pick manufactured out of nothing has brought production from Henry in his brief time here which justified the pick and the gift keeps on giving with being able to draft and rehab the fastest Bills RB to rush for 2000 yards in our history and we get a first day player this year. We need more failures like this one.

 

4. Itis a far more legitimate rap on TD to claim he drafte an injury prone player than to complain that he did not horribly overpay this injury prone player to keep him from SF. We were fortunate that his middlin choice by TD at best gave us 4 seasons where he appeared in about 3/4 pf the games (the 2 or 3 he missed his start each year plus the couple of games he got knocked out early due to a nick). Letting this miscreant go was a smart move by TD and is one he also should have done instead of resigning Bledsoe after his horrendous 2003.

 

TD did not capitalize on the 2001 talent, but this was not due to bad player acquisition and resigning decision IMHO is was because he hired a not ready for primetime HC who had non position coach Vinky managing the OL and is a defensive coach who had to can his first OC hire and then he replaced him Kevin Killdrive (TD foolishly allowed GW his choice when TD publicly said he was advocating the Bills get Tom Clements. TC did a very good job as OC in 2004 but even with his poor production in 2005 I think he was better than Kevin Killdrive (do you disagree?)

 

IMHO TD did a pretty good job drafting and a phenomenal job negotiating and acquiring players. However, he deserved to be canned because he seemed to manage the braintrust hiring mostly to make sure that he was never again canned by a guy he hired as happened to him with Cowher.

 

I'll grant that from a sheer talent evaluation standpoint, the 2001 draft was strong.  The first four picks all have gone on to have reasonable to good NFL careers.

 

But a lot of this success was wasted because TD didn't fit this draft into a bigger picture:

 

- Clements' contract has expired.  Will he remain with the Bills?  Would TD have franchised him, or would he have let him walk as Antoine Winfield did?

 

- Schobel is a success story.

 

- Henry did provide a few good years, but that 2nd round pick could have been used on the OL instead.

 

- Whatever success Jennings may find after year 4 of his career will help the 49ers, not the Bills.

 

When you get something right from a talent evaluation standpoint--as TD did in 2001--it's important to capitalize on this success.  TD didn't.

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[Orton's Arm]

Your analysis simply does not fit the reality of the situation in the following ways:

 

1. Under the CBA NC's contract with the Bills has not expired it has been unilaterally extended for a year by the Bills tender of a franchise tag. Even better, under the CBA, the Bills can even extend it another year if they choose next year by tagging him again.

Marv Levy is the one who slapped the franchise tag on Nate. Nonetheless, it's not clear whether Nate will be here for much longer, and this is largely due to TD's failure to extend his contract. I've generally seen an unwillingness on TD's part to give extensions to the players who have the most market value (Antoine Winfield, Clements, Jennings, etc.) You can't build a team unless you're willing to retain your own high-level, young players. TD wouldn't pay the price.

 

3. The few good years if faint praise actually for a player so central to the Bills in his brief heyday that he was the featured picture on TSW.

Nothing against Henry, but a 2nd round OL + Antowain Smith > Travis Henry. As for the 3rd round pick we got out of him at the end, the only reason we have that pick is luck. Who was to know that Travis would beg for a one-year extension based on poor financial management? I'll take the 3rd round pick, but I won't put it down to any brilliance on TD's part. Instead, TD seemed perfectly happy to go four and out with Henry, just as he did with Jennings.

 

4. Itis a far more legitimate rap on TD to claim he drafte an injury prone player than to complain that he did not horribly overpay this injury prone player to keep him from SF. 

Maybe TD's mistake was drafting an injury-prone guy like Jennings. Maybe his mistake was not giving Jennings an extension after year 2 or year 3. Either way, TD went four and out with Jennings.

TD did not capitalize on the 2001 talent, but this was not due to bad player acquisition and resigning decision IMHO is was because he hired a not ready for primetime HC who had non position coach Vinky managing the OL and is a defensive coach who had to can his first OC hire and then he replaced him Kevin Killdrive (TD foolishly allowed GW his choice when TD publicly said he was advocating the Bills get Tom Clements.

What a long sentence! I agree that the switch to a new offensive system may have had something to do with why TD quickly lost interest in Henry. But I don't see the coaching changes as being responsible for the failure to give extensions to Jennings or Clements.

[Orton's Arm]

Yes, TD may have been an excellent micromanager who could have squeezed that Moulds 5th for a 4th or even 3rd out of Texas, but on the macro level he would have squandered that pick on a talented skill player with zero character and who is afraid of the Buffalo cold weather.

You hit the nail on the head.

[BuffaloBilliever]

Marvcus Vick, or Surge Machine, with TD saying "Although Pepsi Machine was taken first, we couldn't pass up the potential of Surge"

 

Wait... they don't make Surge anymore cause it sucked...

[Guest dog14787]

He would trade our 1st to Green Bay for Brett Farve !

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And then trade Favre to Dallas for Bledsoe because dog-on-it we screwed that one up.

 

 

Jerry Jones accepts the deal as long as we Swap TO straight up for Lee Evans.

 

Say's TO"s alright but Favre and TO might get into fist fights everyday!!!!

[Dawgg]

Wonderful post.

 

It's nice to see some common sense from time to time.

 

 

It's amazing to me how some can still look back and reminisce about the TD Era. The Son of Satan truly had this message board fan base under his spell...

 

Yes, TD may have been an excellent micromanager who could have squeezed that Moulds 5th for a 4th or even 3rd out of Texas, but on the macro level he would have squandered that pick on a talented skill player with zero character and who is afraid of the Buffalo cold weather.

 

History will judge TD harshly, probably a notch below Stew Barber. We were the fourth worst NFL franchise during the past 5 seasons, despite playing in the salary cap era at a time when Ralph was more than willing to spend money on players. A big reason for this failure to win is because TD never had a coherent, consistent vision for success beyond the simple goal of "winning." One year we were a West Coast offense with a 46-Defense, in another we were a Power Running offense with a Zone Blitz D...

 

I don't know how history will judge Marv Levy as a GM, but so far at least he's consistently stuck to his guns about the type of players he wants: young, speedy, hard-working, high-character, guys with a major chip on their shoulder.

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[Guest dog14787]

Wonderful post.

 

It's nice to see some common sense from time to time.

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I would have to say some of TD's picks in all honesty. Levy may thank him for one day. Mcgahee , Evans, Losman all come to mind.

 

I'm sure Mcgahee (who is one of my favorite players) reminds Levy of Thurman Thomas.

 

 

The Buffalo Bill's may be young but are not lacking in the talent department thanks to TD.

 

He just forgot about the dog-on O-line!!!!

[Dibs]

I would have to say some of TD's picks in all honesty. Levy may thank him for one day. Mcgahee , Evans, Losman all come to mind.

 

I'm sure Mcgahee (who is one of my favorite players) reminds Levy of  Thurman Thomas.

The Buffalo Bill's may be young but are not lacking in the talent department thanks to TD.

 

He just forgot about the dog-on O-line!!!!

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I don't even think he forgot about the O-line.

He unwisely invested a #4 pick into MW.

He brought in Villarrial & Teague who have given good play.

He drafted Jennings who played at a high level.

He drafted Preston who shows some promise.

Gandy & Anderson were rated at 70 & 72 respectively last year(by Scouts. Inc) when we got them in which put both into the 'Good Starter' category.

He gave Peters a chance when no other would.

 

His biggest errors are noted previously in this thread....consistency of plan, coach selection, letting go of the wrong players...etc, etc.

Edited April 22, 2006 by Dibs

[Guest dog14787]

I don't even think he forgot about the O-line.

He unwisely invested a #4 pick into MW.

He brought in Villarrial & Teague who have given good play.

He drafted Preston who shows some promise.

Gandy & Anderson were rated at 70 & 72 respectively last year(by Scouts. Inc) when we got them in which put both into the 'Good Starter' category.

He gave Peters a chance when no other would.

 

His biggest errors are noted previously in this thread....consistency of plan, coach selection, letting go of the wrong players...etc, etc.

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Yes, you can't forget about big Mike Williams!!! So I guess TD didn't forget the O-line, he did fatten it up a bit.

 

Mercy!!!!!!!!

[Pyrite Gal]

Marv Levy is the one who slapped the franchise tag on Nate.  Nonetheless, it's not clear whether Nate will be here for much longer, and this is largely due to TD's failure to extend his contract.  I've generally seen an unwillingness on TD's part to give extensions to the players who have the most market value (Antoine Winfield, Clements, Jennings, etc.)  You can't build a team unless you're willing to retain your own high-level, young players.  TD wouldn't pay the price.

Nothing against Henry, but a 2nd round OL + Antowain Smith > Travis Henry.  As for the 3rd round pick we got out of him at the end, the only reason we have that pick is luck.  Who was to know that Travis would beg for a one-year extension based on poor financial management?  I'll take the 3rd round pick, but I won't put it down to any brilliance on TD's part.  Instead, TD seemed perfectly happy to go four and out with Henry, just as he did with Jennings.

Maybe TD's mistake was drafting an injury-prone guy like Jennings.  Maybe his mistake was not giving Jennings an extension after year 2 or year 3.  Either way, TD went four and out with Jennings.

 

What a long sentence!  I agree that the switch to a new offensive system may have had something to do with why TD quickly lost interest in Henry.  But I don't see the coaching changes as being responsible for the failure to give extensions to Jennings or Clements.

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Sorry, but I still do not think your take corresponds with the simple reality.

 

1. True, Marv tagged NC, but is there virtually anyone in the Bill's fan world who did not think that tagging him was the obvious thing to do given the fall in the CB franchise tag amount and the rise in the overall cap amount we were working with. I and everyone else would have called for TDs head if he had somehow escaped his deserved firing and not tagged NC. Clearly, TD had not extended NC and was using the threat of tagging him (as Marv is doing now) to NC demands for a long term extension down or simply will pay him the franchise amount and force Nate to produce in 06 or go into the next FA round coming off two disappointing seasons in a row. I think we are in better shape and will likely get more out of NC if we do not resign him and actually have him play 06 under the pressure of being in a contract year.

 

If NC plays like the best CB in the league in 06 I have no problem paying top dollar to extend a player who has made the Pro Bowl two of the last three years (I assume if he plays so great he will get the Pro Bowl accolade). If he makes such outrageous demands its impossible to sign him I say fine and tag him again next year.

 

Its the height of technocratic exaggeration to some how fault TD for not extending NC. He was under contract when TD was canned, under contract when we tagged him and he is under contract this season unless he decides to leave the game. To claim that TD let him go because he was not resigned but the Bills never lost the sole right to him under TD's watch is simply an incorrect description of this if one insists on trying to look at the definitions in some hypertechnical way actually. More importantly it simply does not correspond to the reality of the situation under the rules of the CBA.

 

2. As far as an unwillingness on TDs part to keep his own, if you want to make this point you need to do better than the examples you provide.

 

A. Winfield- The situation was that TD had actually set aside some cap room to resign Winfield prior to the 04 season and was negotiating with AW's agents on a deal. However, the Pats unexpectedly had Milloy decide not to re-sign with them because all the cap room BB had left for him was a few hundred thousand less than he was asking.

 

TD used most of the cap room which was what AW and the Bills were negotiating over to instead sign Milloy. He overpaid Milloy what he was worth as a player, but made a bid consistent with what the market was offering him as Chicago also needed a safety and had cap room.

 

When the '04 season ended, AW hit the FA market and having had a solid season in 04 and the Bills having loss the leverage of the previous FA period of signing AW to a lower amount and thus relieving him of any risk for playing 04 his asking price skyrocketed.

 

The good news for the Bills though was that 4th round selection at CB under TD McGee was coming into his own and in fact made the 04 Pro Bowl due to his kick return magic. The Bills were easily in a position to let AW walk because we had our starting CBs on the roster with both of them having made the Pro Bowl for their 04 work. Add to that the Bills had Thomas before he got hurt, Greer coming along as a youngster and had even signed former Pro Bowl CB try Vincent to play safety for us.

 

Would you advocate that we should have extended AW prior to 04 even though doing this would mean we did not sign Milloy and Coy Wire starts at SS because the two mean we reached agreement with to play SS ahead of Wire, Chad Cota and Ainsley Battle both agreed to sign with us but then up and retired.

 

Extending AW at the cost of having Wire start again at SS would have been a huge error. Resigning AW when we had two CBs coming off of Pro Bowl seasons and had signed a former Pro Bowl CB to play safety for us for even the contract the Jets offered him (that he agreed tp amd remeged on) and then for the amount the market gave him in the Vikes contract would have simply been nuts.

 

B. Clements- As I said above he was still a Bill when TD was deservedly canned (he was not free of a Bills contract officially until FA began) and not only had TD obviously used the threat of tagging him in negotiations over an extension, but even though Marv did tag him TD would have been a fool and shot if he did not follow through with his threat to tag NC.

 

C. Jennings- As I said, if you want to accuse TD of an error it was in drafting this talented but injury prone LT. It would have been the height of stupidity for TD to extend this oft injured in different parts of his body (his ankle sprains, shoulder injury, concussion and other nicks is what defines injury prone to me) player to a long-term deal. Fortunately, it was SF who did the foolish thing and gave him a big contract and they paid for this immediately with him ending up on the IR early this season.

 

I agree that TD did not resign several players at the end of their contracts. However, for the three examples you give, good thing he did not do this in two cases and in the third case the player is still a Bill so you are wrong for blaming TD for losing him.

 

When you add into this that TD did in fact extend the contracts of Schobel and McGee (and I believe Crowell though I am not sure of the timing of this and whether TD was gone and Marv did the right thing here) on his watch.

 

The idea that TD is incapable of extending his own or made bad choices regarding AW and Jennings is simply incorrect.

 

TD deserved to get canned for not producing results like playoff appearances in his five years here. However, you gotta admit that Vinky was not a great OL coach, that hiring Ruel to replace him was no real upgrade and that Kevin Gilbride sucked and that it was a real problem because his hire GW has no offensive football skills.

 

The FA that I think he probably legitimately can be faulted for not resigning when it would have likely been better for the Bills if they had was Pat Williams last year. However, as I sense the D really gave up when they saw that the Bills had decided to use last season as pre-season for Losman rather than put their best (though pathetic offense on the field with Bledsoe at QB, even returning all 11 of the #2 D in the league would not have produced the same result last year as the year before.

 

It does take 2 to make a deal and Phat Pat's whining really mask him sharing the blame with TD for not just getting it done. Yet even this mistake really is just an exception to generally good player negotiating and signing he did with TKO, Adams, Vincent. Milloy, Schobel, WM. taking advantage of Henry and then trading him, trading rather than resigning PP, etc.

 

His fatal problem we suffered from has generally been with coaches and not with players. He was not perfect with players (he should have gone after some stud FA OL players in my book), but he was pretty good, but in the revisionist history of folks piling on some posters seem to want to overlook the really good reasons for firing him to actually blame this on an area where he had assessment miscues like MW but these were not outlandish moves at the time and these no more than normal amount of mistakes should not obscure the facts about the things he did well.

[ajzepp]

 

His fatal problem we suffered from has generally been with coaches and not with players.  He was not perfect with players (he should have gone after some stud FA OL players in my book), but he was pretty good, but in the revisionist history of folks piling on some posters seem to want to overlook the really good reasons for firing him to actually blame this on an area where he had assessment miscues like MW but these were not outlandish moves at the time and these no more than normal amount of mistakes should not obscure the facts about the things he did well.

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Your last paragraph is exactly how I feel. I do wish TD would have had one more year, but I cant' defend his firing anymore. But some people on here - some of the more fickle on TBD - want to make him out to be some horrible failure. TD was anything but that.

[Dibs]

Your last paragraph is exactly how I feel. I do wish TD would have had one more year, but I cant' defend his firing anymore. But some people on here - some of the more fickle on TBD - want to make him out to be some horrible failure. TD was anything but that.

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I disagree....in the end, after 5 years, he failed to build a playoff team.

He failed.

He was a failure(though not horrible).

However, he certainly does not deserve to be demonized as he has been on TBD.

 

Just because he ultimately failed in the overall goal, does not mean he failed in all areas.

 

Strangely, I feel he succeeded in a majority of areas but the negatives obviously outweighed the positives.

[ajzepp]

I disagree....in the end, after 5 years, he failed to build a playoff team. 

He failed.

He was a failure(though not horrible).

However, he certainly does not deserve to be demonized as he has been on TBD.

 

Just because he ultimately failed in the overall goal, does not mean he failed in all areas.

 

Strangely, I feel he succeeded in a majority of areas but the negatives obviously outweighed the positives.

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I think we're arguing semantics here......He failed to build a playoff team, yes. There were aspects of his job where he failed. But there were also a lot of areas where he did a great job. My point is that some people on here want to make him out to be some guy that came in here and just screwed everything up. That's not what happened at all. TD didn't get the job done, plain and simple.

[Dibs]

I think we're arguing semantics here......He failed to build a playoff team, yes. There were aspects of his job where he failed. But there were also a lot of areas where he did a great job. My point is that some people on here want to make him out to be some guy that came in here and just screwed everything up. That's not what happened at all. TD didn't get the job done, plain and simple.

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I'm with you now....totally agree

[ajzepp]

I'm with you now....totally agree 

667387[/snapback]

 

lol

[Nanker]

LenDale White would be the Bettis-type back he needed to complete his dream offense.

[Sisyphean Bills]

Sorry, but I still do not think your take corresponds with the simple reality.

 

1. True, Marv tagged NC, but is there virtually anyone in the Bill's fan world who did not think that tagging him was the obvious thing to do given the fall in the CB franchise tag amount and the rise in the overall cap  amount we were working with.  I and everyone else would have called for TDs head if he had somehow escaped his deserved firing and not tagged NC. blah, blah ...

667361[/snapback]

 

I don't think you should use phrases such as "simple reality" and then proceed to argue with someone about what Donahoe may or may not have done in some hypothetical alternate realities.

 

Back in this reality: the facts are pretty clear. Most of the draft picks Donahoe made in his first few years in Buffalo are already long gone as well as every last one of the veterans. Given that, it's hard to see what his building process was accomplishing.

[Sisyphean Bills]

Your last paragraph is exactly how I feel. I do wish TD would have had one more year, but I cant' defend his firing anymore. But some people on here - some of the more fickle on TBD - want to make him out to be some horrible failure. TD was anything but that.

667380[/snapback]

 

Just curious, but what is your definition of horrible failure? I mean, as far as on-field performance, there are not many teams worse than the Donahoe Bills during his run. Would the team have had to go 0-80 during his reign for him to be considered a failure?

 

BTW, I don't see anyone saying Donahoe didn't do a few things right. But, he is still a failure and was deservedly fired.

[Pyrite Gal]

I don't think you should use phrases such as "simple reality" and then proceed to argue with someone about what Donahoe may or may not have done in some hypothetical alternate realities. 

 

Back in this reality: the facts are pretty clear.  Most of the draft picks Donahoe made in his first few years in Buffalo are already long gone as well as every last one of the veterans.  Given that, it's hard to see what his building process was accomplishing.

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What are the current facts?

 

The average NFL career runs less than 5 years from what I heard a while ago, and thus by this definitionmost of th draft picks that any GM made 5 years agp would be gone (a majority of all player last about 5 years and you add in the UDFAs to that total so the a aignificant majority of drafted players would be gone from the league entirely not to mention the team that drafted them. I'm sure that this number has changed but there should be a statistical comparison done by some stat hound somewhere of the % of drafted players who remain with their original team.

[Orton's Arm]

1. True, Marv tagged NC, but is there virtually anyone in the Bill's fan world who did not think that tagging him was the obvious thing to do

I and virtually everyone else in the Bills' fan world felt that tagging and trading Antoine Winfield was the obvious thing to do. Nonetheless, TD let him walk. With a track record like that, maybe he would have let Nate Clements walk too.

 

But let's say you're right, and TD would have tagged him. That tag can only get you two years out of a guy. After that, under the new collective bargaining agreement, a player becomes very expensive to keep. While a tagged Nate is better than a free agent Nate, it's not as good as a Nate locked up to a long-term deal.

2. As far as an unwillingness on TDs part to keep his own, if you want to make this point you need to do better than the examples you provide.

 

A. Winfield-

Both the Jets and the Vikings were absolutely in love with Antoine Winfield. By simply tagging and trading him, we easily--easily!--could have extracted a second round pick. Without Winfield on the roster, the Bills would have had the salary cap space with which to overpay for the aging (and now departed) Lawyer Milloy.

When you add into this that TD did in fact extend the contracts of Schobel and McGee (and I believe Crowell though I am not sure of the timing of this and whether TD was gone and Marv did the right thing here) on his watch.

TD was rarely willing to pay top dollar to any young player not named Mike Williams. From time to time, he did give extensions to quality players who were a step down: Schobel, McGee, maybe Crowell. But he didn't give extensions to the three players who would have had the top market value: Clements, Winfield, and Jennings. While I'll admit San Fran wildly overpaid for Jennings, I still think TD could have extended him in year 2 or 3.

His fatal problem we suffered from has generally been with coaches and not with players.

He's had his share of problems with both. After five years of TD's work, let's take a look at the roster he's built:

 

OL: Gandy would be a good backup, Anderson wouldn't even be that, Teague's tank is empty, Villarrial's is empty enough, and Peters is unproven. Levy was given very little to work with in this area.

 

QB: After five years of TD, the Bills' starting QB will be decided by the outcome of a three man competition.

 

RB: McGahee is a solid player, but there's little depth at the position.

 

WR: It's not clear whether Lee Evans can be the go-to guy, nor whether Parrish can step in and be the #2.

 

TE: Question marks.

 

FB: Average to below average

 

DL: Schobel is the only starter-caliber player on the line Levy was given.

 

LB: London Fletcher is getting on in years. Posey needs to be upgraded. Spikes, with his injury, is a question mark. Crowell could start. This unit could provide good play for a year or two, but it needs attention soon to start replacing guys like Fletcher.

 

Secondary: Two starting caliber players in Clements and McGee, with Clements maybe not here for much longer. Nobody at safety.

 

How many of TD's players can Marv confidently count on over the next 2 - 3 years? McGee, Crowell, Schobel, Evans, McGahee. Everyone else is either too old, too unsigned, too unproven, or too lousy. So those five guys are TD's core! That's pathetic.

[In space no one can hear]

My guess is he would pick Devin Hester from the U.

[Dawgg]

I diagree here. Tagging Winfield, at the time, would have been an extremely expensive proposition. The average salary for the top 5 cornerbacks in the NFL was something on the order of $8+ Million, meaning the Bills would have to budget that money in the cap and risk not making a trade. If they did that, they would have been hostage to this trade and unable to make any moves to improve their team.

 

Both the Jets and the Vikings were absolutely in love with Antoine Winfield.  By simply tagging and trading him, we easily--easily!--could have extracted a second round pick. 

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[Pyrite Gal]

I diagree here.  Tagging Winfield, at the time, would have been an extremely expensive proposition.  The average salary for the top 5 cornerbacks in the NFL was something on the order of $8+ Million, meaning the Bills would have to budget that money in the cap and risk not making a trade.  If they did that, they would have been hostage to this trade and unable to make any moves to improve their team.

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Exactly. Perhaps Holcomb's Arm and I should simply just agree to disagree, but the point we disagree on is that I think that the decision of the manner in which we handled NC, AW and Jennings were generally the correct way to go. If he is saying that TD clearly would not sign folks he drafted when it would be stupid to do so, I agree completely.

 

The bottomline is this:

 

AW- As you point out tagging Winfield at the time would not have been a smart thing for the Bills to do. Extending him at an earliet point when it would be a year before FA would have been a good thing to do, however, when Milloy hit the market, as backside of his career as he was, he was a far better starting SS than Coy Wire and essentially it was money TD had set aside for AW that was used.

 

I maintain that Holcomb claiming that TD was flat out wrong for not extending AW simply does not correspond with the fact the outcome of doing this when it would have been relatively inexspensive was Coy Wire would be our starting SS (say as many bad things as one wants about Milloy, he was far better than the inadequate Wire) or the fact that you point out that later on the market simply did not make extending AW a good deal for us.

 

If one wants to assess TD's handling of the CB situation, actually the key point is not simply that he let AW walk but that we have NC and McGee as our starters and Greer and King as nickel and back-up this year (and next year if we want.

 

I loved AW, but CB is actually one of our stronger positions on the team and just as TD deserves to be faulted for failure to manage the QB position, a reasonable person would acknowledge we are in very good shape at CB.

 

JJ- If you want to rakeTD over the coals then one can clearly fault him for spenind a 4th on an OL plater who turned out to be injury prone. However, at most I think that one can rationally agree to disagree on whether he will ever develop beyond being an injury prone player one cannot realistically count on. However, when one also introduces the reality of the market, JJ was not worth resigning at a rate he demanded or the market paid him.

 

NC- The main fault with someone complaining that the Bills were put into a position by TD where NC walked on the Bills is that NC has always been owned by the Bills even though his original contract expired. I am here to let HA know that he can actually relax and breath a sigh of relief regarding his concern that TD mismanged the NC situation so he can walk because the reality is that under the CBA NC did not have the right or ability to walk.

 

Complaints that he should have been extended years ago are at best woulda, coulda, shoulda complaints about reality as the latest on the Bills Daily website is that NC and the Bills are still negotiating albeit slowly to extend NC. As a Bill fan I think the team actually will get max value if we actually simply allow him to play under the tag this year (we have ample cap room to do this) and if he is good and survives again simply tag him again and then sign him to the big contract he will be entitled to IF he produces this year.

[Typical TBD Guy]

I think we're arguing semantics here......He failed to build a playoff team, yes. There were aspects of his job where he failed. But there were also a lot of areas where he did a great job. My point is that some people on here want to make him out to be some guy that came in here and just screwed everything up. That's not what happened at all. TD didn't get the job done, plain and simple.

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Count me in as among the people who think TD screwed up practically everything. I refuse to give TD credit for keeping the team under the salary cap and consistently selling out RWS.

 

Any monkey with an abbacus could add up contracts and make sure that we don't go over a limit. By now, almost every team understands the nuances of the cap.

 

As far as generating fan interest, provide the region with a winning team and consider this problem solved. Eventually, the well of draft day gimmicks and Snyder-esque free agent moves run dry. There reaches a point where the fans expect results if the team wants more of their money. Judging by the sign confiscations in the waning home games of last season, that point was TD's 5-year mark.

 

An NFL GM's primary task - by far - is to develop a winning football team, so my apologies if I choose to focus too heavily on this aspect of TD's job description . He inherited a team in the rebuilding process, and 5 full years later we're still in the rebuilding process. How can that be interpreted as anything but an unmitigated disaster?

 

The core of the team that Marv now inherits is minimal:

 

Moorman

Losman

McGahee

Evans

Peters

Schobel

Spikes

Fletcher

Clements

McGee

 

I'm defining "core" here as players with current or potential ability that cannot normally be replaced with mid-round draft picks or free agent castoffs.

 

That's 10 guys over 5 years . But Losman and Peters could still become busts, McGahee and Clements are money-grubbing ego cases who may force their way out of here by next offseason, and Spikes may be damaged goods from that !@#$ing Achilles accident. Under this worst-case scenario, one can filter this list down to 5 guys in 5 years .

 

And you TD Apologists don't want to talk disaster? Damn, your cup is always half-full. If the TD Era wasn't all that bad, the 70's must have been the Golden Years of Bills football. And the 90's must have been like a decade-long hit of Ecstacy.

 

Not for me, man. The TD Era brought me nothing but let-downs. One can only watch a group of talented pussies for so long, constantly folding under the pressure vs. winning teams, before one must scream, "enough!" We've become the Patriots' bitches and the Arizona Cardinals' equals, and this all happened under Teflon's watch.

[Orton's Arm]

Perhaps Holcomb's Arm and I should simply just agree to disagree, but the point we disagree on is that I think that the decision of the manner in which we handled NC, AW and Jennings were generally the correct way to go. 

While I'll file most of your post in the "agree to disagree" category, I'd like to talk about one or two things you mentioned.

 

First is Jennings, a third round pick who provided four injury-plagued years of service to the Bills. That isn't a successful draft choice. Examining the reasons for this lack of success--injuries, San Francisco, etc.--isn't important. The bottom line is that that particular draft choice is contributing nothing to the Buffalo Bills of today.

 

You say it made sense for the Bills to not franchise Winfield so as to clear up salary cap space for Lawyer Milloy. That represents the kind of short-term thinking that got TD into trouble so often to begin with. First off, NE didn't release Milloy until a week before the season started. Winfield could have been traded away long before then.

 

But even if it did come down to a choice between Winfield and Milloy, you really have to go with Winfield. A young, proven player like him is the core of any successful football team. You can't just let guys like that walk out the door for nothing when you have so few of them. If you were to make a list of the players on the Bills' roster, and rank them according to trade value, Antoine Winfield would have been in the top 3, and probably #1.

 

What about the hole at SS? You could address it in the draft, or by signing an inexpensive free agent who would still have been an upgrade over Wire. What about the embarrassment of riches at CB? You hold onto those riches, until the right opportunity comes along to sell some of them at a high price. Based on the interest the Vikings and the Jets had in Winfield, that opportunity would have come quickly.

 

Suppose the Bills had franchised and traded Winfield. They could have used the resulting high draft choice on a SS. Had TD taken that road, then right now, the Bills could have a better SS on their roster than Wire. The roster Levy was handed included neither Antoine Winfield, nor any long-term answers at SS. So he got the worst of both worlds.

[Pyrite Gal]

While I'll file most of your post in the "agree to disagree" category, I'd like to talk about one or two things you mentioned. 

 

First is Jennings, a third round pick who provided four injury-plagued years of service to the Bills.  That isn't a successful draft choice.  Examining the reasons for this lack of success--injuries, San Francisco, etc.--isn't important.  The bottom line is that that particular draft choice is contributing nothing to the Buffalo Bills of today.

 

You say it made sense for the Bills to not franchise Winfield so as to clear up salary cap space for Lawyer Milloy.  That represents the kind of short-term thinking that got TD into trouble so often to begin with.  First off, NE didn't release Milloy until a week before the season started.  Winfield could have been traded away long before then. 

 

But even if it did come down to a choice between Winfield and Milloy, you really have to go with Winfield.  A young, proven player like him is the core of any successful football team.  You can't just let guys like that walk out the door for nothing when you have so few of them.  If you were to make a list of the players on the Bills' roster, and rank them according to trade value, Antoine Winfield would have been in the top 3, and probably #1.

 

What about the hole at SS?  You could address it in the draft, or by signing an inexpensive free agent who would still have been an upgrade over Wire.  What about the embarrassment of riches at CB?  You hold onto those riches, until the right opportunity comes along to sell some of them at a high price.  Based on the interest the Vikings and the Jets had in Winfield, that opportunity would have come quickly.

 

Suppose the Bills had franchised and traded Winfield.  They could have used the resulting high draft choice on a SS.  Had TD taken that road, then right now, the Bills could have a better SS on their roster than Wire.  The roster Levy was handed included neither Antoine Winfield, nor any long-term answers at SS.  So he got the worst of both worlds.

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Trying to focus on those couple of points you raise (and thanks for the banter BTW)

 

The focus of this thread and your own posts taking that point to the extemes of unreality was to find fault with TD for not extending his own such as JJ, AW, and NC. I raised the point regarding JJ that if one is gonna complain about anything it would be the question of picking him the first place because he has been subject every single year he was a Bills to one of an increasing long list of nicks which cost him PT.

 

Personally, I think the draft is really a crapshoot and is merely one tool (rsther than the central focus) of good team building, so I would not fault for making a mediocre choice with JJ. However, an observer has to choose one whine or the other. Either he as a mediocre choice and therefore TD was totally correct not to extend him, or alternately someone (this means you) is actually advocating extending and relying upon an injury prone player.

 

Having taken a crapshoot shot at picking JJ, TD handled this situation correctly in offering JJ an FA contract which was far enough below the market for LTs that he refused to sign. SF is now immediately in the sorry throes of realizing the foolishness and worthlisness or signing JJ to a big contract as he quickly went on IR and is laughing his way to the bank in SF.

 

Having taken the crapshoot chance of picking JJ (actually this crapshoot paid off for us in his first four years because thank gosh we had Price to back-up this too oft injured player and MW failed to make the junp to LT). However, it simply would have been a mistake of Bledsoe like proportions to extend a player whom I am glad we picked up, but happily said goodbye too when his useful time here was done.

 

Do you think JJ was a great choice you are sorry we did not resign or are you happy we are not in the same boat SF is in if we had signed him to a big deal or for some reason extended him for a couple of years before we even had to do this.

 

As far as AW, there are two episodes of decision-making here to consider.

 

First, the Bills could not even give AW a franchise tag as an alternative to signing Milloy as when the Bills used $ and cap room which had been set aside for Winfield negotiations he was not in his FA year yet and thus not subject to being tagged,

 

Instead, what the situation was is that the Bills had in fact already turned to FAs and it was well beyond the draft when they had to make a decision about whether to go after Milloy or not.

 

They has already gone to FA land and signed Chad Cota and also Ainsley Battle to compete with Coy Wire (who had been repeatedly burned as a starting SS the year before as a rookie who started at SS after GW/Gray screwed uo their assessment of former Titan Jenkins who they signed to start at SS but he had little left, TD had set aside several million bucks in $ and cap room with the intent of signing AW long term, but the negotiations were not concluded and in the interim FAs Cota and Battle retired.

 

BB totally misread and screwed up renegotiations with Milloy and he hit the market 8 days prior to the first game.

 

TD had as an alternative to extend AW as planned and have our secondary savaged just like it was in our previous 3-13 season (it actually would likely have been worse as we even were without Jenkins who was so bad he got cut). Alternately he could sign Milloy for more than this player was worth based on his talents because with supply of sarting SSs low and demand high enough (th Bears also had SS need and ample cap room.

 

TD chose to sign Milloy though this meant fuggaboutit for extending AW (AW hinself articulated this calculus and said that's business). Folks can trash Milloy if they want and I have no desire to defend him (though this quite easily done actually). The facts are these though and since they are simply what occured it is a big part of the reason I have stated this as the simple facts.

 

1. Milloy is reported to made an immediate difference in how the Bils approached the game. In one his first film sessions, the Bills broke out in laughter and catcalls when one of our players was steamrolled by an opponent on the film. Milloy stood up and said that the Pats has won an SB the year before because they always backed each other up and would never laugh at an onfied failure by a teammate. They did not ignore reality because the teammate was simply expected to get better and never let this happen again or he was gone from the team.

 

Right from the start Milloy added an attitude to this struggling team that I think was key to them improving the D to be 5th statistically in the NFL that year.

 

2. Milloy paid immediate benefits to team in that they embarassed NE with a 31-0 season opening loss. Milloy sacked Brady as part of this triumph and folks were impressed he was such a positive force so quickly. the intelligence of the Bills having gone beyond Wire at SS was demonstrated when NE almost broke the shutout because Wire got best when we put the scrubs in and he ended getting a pass interference call in the endsone (fortunately the Bills goaline stand held), but its an example of what a disaster things would have been if we had used the availavle dollars to merely extend AW.

 

3. Overall, Milloy proved to be one of the leading tacklers on the team that year and pulled off several tuernovers like his fumble recovery in a game (against the Deadskins) which was critical to us winning that game.

 

Milloy needed to be cut by the Bills this past offseason because the huge takeout contract he had (to avoid a bidding war with CHI) gave us a lot more cap relief than cutting fellow safety Vincent. In addition, the switch to a cover-2 shifts the safety role from the run support Milloy was central to with the zone blitz to more of a centerfielder who must cover a lot of ground which Vincent is much more suited to do than Milloy.

 

However, these are simply the facts of what happened and if you judge they add up to this team being better with AW/Wire than AW/Milloy and then NcGee/Milloy I will not try to convince you otherwise.

 

The second episode is when AW in fact entered FA, but as was pointed out above the level of the franchise cost of tagging AW was simply prohibitive at $8 million at that point. $8 million works easily for a player or CB now because the total cap is much higher but that amount was prohibitive given large investments in TKO, Fletcher, et al.

 

Letting both JJ and AW walk is by far the best way to build a winner given the reality of the caps IMHO and NC never ever never ever walked on the Bills as he always was our exclusive property undwet TD and now under Marv that we tagged him.

[ajzepp]

Just curious, but what is your definition of horrible failure?  I mean, as far as on-field performance, there are not many teams worse than the Donahoe Bills during his run.  Would the team have had to go 0-80 during his reign for him to be considered a failure?

 

BTW, I don't see anyone saying Donahoe didn't do a few things right.  But, he is still a failure and was deservedly fired.

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Like I said, I can't defend him anymore as far as his firing. He had five years to build us a winner and it didn't work out.

 

You know, I won't go as far as saying some of you are hypocritical, cause we're only talking football here.....it's not the end of the world. But at the same time, I think there are quite a few people on this board who are so damn fickle that you don't seem to really stand behind much of anything. The thing with TD, as has been pointed out many times, is that most of his moves looked very solid at the time he made them. Unfortunately not enough of them worked out as we'd hoped, and that's why he's not here anymore. But anyway, the point is that people like yourself seem to be the sort that likes to wait to form your opinion using retrospection. To me, that's nothing but a cop out - big time. How hard is it to just wait until the dust settles on everything and THEN decide how you feel about it?

 

But actually, with you it's even worse.....I was going back over some older posts today for the fun of it, and when I saw that you had responded to me in this thread, I added you to the list. What I found is that you're the perfect example of 'fickle' that I found. Here are two statements of yours that I came across regarding JP Losman:

 

Quote #1 "Losman will start when he is ready. Folks, I'm gonna tell you what: it took the best QB in the game today, Brett Favre, a couple years before he got on the field as a starter and a couple more before he knew which way was up. There is no shame in that. Losman is another gunslinger coming out of college, like Favre was. He's going to have to learn how to play QB."

 

Quote #2 "JP looked like crap. Sure, there are plenty of excuses. He wasn't ready, blah, blah, blah. He looked like CRAP. He was only in there a handful of plays and fumbled and threw a horrible interception. He was totally unprepared. He was the anti-Tom Brady coming in for Bledsoe. Look, I don't want Losman to suck. I wish I saw Jim Kelly and not Rob Johnson out there. But I'm intellectually honest with myself. What I saw was a clueless kid playing atrocious football. Maybe not completely his fault. But he has a long, long way to go. Playing Matthews seems like the only real option if the Bills want to be competitive."

 

Do you want to guess how far apart in time you made those two comments? Most people would think maybe the first was from 2004 and the second was from last year. Most people would be wrong. You made those comments on the SAME FUGGIN DAY, BRO!!!! HOURS APART!!

 

Like I said above....it's football....I realize this. But some of you guys are TOO damn fickle for my taste.

[Pyrite Gal]

Hey Holcomb's Arm, I just noticed your attached subscript summarizing TDs choices and was amazed/amused at how negative your cut interpretations of events. I considered myself to be somewhat harsh in judging many performances by these men who are paid to play a boys game, but your cut makes me feel downright pollyannish about thexe Bills in some of my harshest moments.

 

Specifically interpretations which seem at least equally legit:

 

TD's first round picks

 

2001: Nate Clements. Result: contract expired after five years.

 

Fortunately the expiration of his contract makes zero difference for the Bills over the next two seasons and likely makes no difference overall as the CBA rules actually give us huge leverage in concluding a favorable deal for the Bills with NC. Any cut on this which seeks to indict the expiration of his contract as some failing by TD simply ignores the reality the contractual agreement between NC and the Bills.

 

2002: Mike Williams. Result: cut after four years.

 

Clearly the big failure by the Bills draft team under TDs guidance. Trading down would clearly in retrospect have been the thing to do as the actual best LT in this draft was Levi Jones who was taken at least 7 or so picks later. TD deserves clear blame for drafting this bust for the Bills. He is not let off the hook by several mitigating circumstances which though real IMHO such as: Other pundits had evaluated MW as the real deal and best OL player in the draft such as Joel Bushbaum and most draft guides, a chunk of other top ten drafted players such as Harrington were also bust or also disappointments such McKinnie (some claim he is playing well know thoudg usally these claims are made less credible as they ignore the rocky start of a holdout his first year and incosistent development second year, In addition, it is a legit question to the extent improvement in his sack totals lends itself more to Brad Johnson having a quicker release than Culpepper rather than good play by McKinnie.

 

At any rate, the significant failings of other 1st rounders taken that year or pundit hype and good combine numbers from MW do not excuse the huge Bills error made in picking MW.

 

 

2003a: traded for Drew Bledsoe. Result: Bledsoe released after three years.

 

Bledsoe was pretty much a wash for the Bills in exchange for the 1st rounder on its face. Again a credible assessment would need to note both that he simply sucked in 2003 and could credibly have been cut at that point with no hit on our cap (such as the one caused by Mike Williams being a bust) as NE already had his accelerated cap hit, but also that he QB'ed the Bills to the second biggest improvement in Ws gained in NFL history after our dismal 3-13 record the year before he came. After the YJ/DF debacl we badly needed a QB and it looked like folks such Chris Chandler or Jeff Blake were all that we available. Bledsoe deserved his selection to the Pro Bowl as a reserve that year based on his play vut coupled with the 2003 horror we shoul have quit with the wash and moved on. The big mistake with Bledsoe was extending his contract rather than trading for him as his prescence truly rejuvenated the fan base in 2002 as shown by the 10+ thousand who showed up for the welcome Drew party and the spike in Nledsoe jersey and season ticket sales tha accompanied his arrival. These accomplishments were not on field production but in the reality of a team which may move was very important and worth noting for those interested in reality.

 

2003b: Willis McGahee. Result: McGahee failed to provide enough of an upgrade over Henry to be worth a first round pick.

 

You must be kidding with this view. He not only forced TF himself to the bench, but his arrival as a starting RB coincided with a huge win streak which fell just short of getting us into the playoffs. As far as what he was worth, mu sense is that an RB who simply is the fastest Bill ever to rush for 2000 yards (the fact is he got there faster than OJ or Thurman) is probably worth a first round pick.

 

Your cut on this is simply rediculous.

 

2004a: Lee Evans. Result: chosen 13th overall, there is considerable doubt whether Evans can ever be the go-to guy.

 

My sense is that it is quite likely that Evans will fulfill the duty of being the go-to guy. Is this certain? No not at all. However, Evans easily led the team in TDs for a WR last year and still has freakish speed, If he showed the ability to make circus catches like Moulds it would be great, but if you consider the other hands extreme of Josh Reed droppsies, Evans is far closer to Moulds level than he is to Reed levels which would actually justify considerable doubt. In terms of looking at the facts one need only compare the output of Evans his first two years to the output of Moulds his first two years and strong hopes of success rather than considerable doubt is clearly justified.

 

2004b: Losman. Result: Losman is in serious jeopardy of losing his starting spot to Craig Nall, Green Bay's 3rd string QB in 2005.

 

If Nall produces like we hope the jeopardy here may be faced by Holcomb losing the #2 slot if Nall performs (though he really is a who knows as he has little real record to show backing up a warrior like Favre. Losman may well fail, but his contract while it provides no gurantees of success does gurantee him every chance to succeed.

 

As Holcomb has had some very good passing episodes, he simply has never been a consistent starting QN in 10 years of Pro ball. If Nall plays well Holcomb is first in line to be in danger.

 

This of course is too long to fit in saved lines but strikes me as a far more rational and honest assessment of TD's record leading the Bills draft team. If there is any lesson to be learned here its that the draft is a real crapshoot and trading down for more resources as most of these players will merit a cut is the best approach. Even being a #3 like Detroit who took bust Harrington or the #4 Bills who took bust MW were hit hard with their slotted contracts. Trade down.

[Dibs]

2003a: traded for Drew Bledsoe. Result: Bledsoe released after three years.

 

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The trade for Bledsoe also directly obtained us the 2003b pick in WM.

Bledsoes pro bowl performance that year (if you remember the first half he was on record breaking pace) inflated P. Prices numbers to #1 WR status.

 

Who can honestly say we could have gotten the trade to ATL for PP if we had not traded for Bledsoe?

[Sisyphean Bills]

saying some of you are hypocritical

 

there are quite a few people on this board who are so damn fickle that you don't seem to really stand behind much of anything.

 

the point is that people like yourself seem to be the sort that likes to wait to form your opinion using retrospection.

 

But actually, with you it's even worse

 

you're the perfect example of 'fickle' that I found.

 

you guys are TOO damn fickle for my taste.

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You've probably added me to your ignore list already, but since you called me out, I thought I'd offer a response.

 

You went back to Nov. 15, 2004 to find those posts. Nice work. Especially nice is that you didn't provide links or context. (Here is a link if anybody gives a %$#^ http://www.stadiumwall.com/index.php?showt...ndpost&p=118004 ) The context was that Drew Bledsoe was playing poorly and Losman was clearly in way over his head. My feelings after the game was disgust at Bledsoe's play and disgust at rushing a newbie Losman out on the field to be fed to the wolves. Quote 1 was posted after quote 2 and was a clarification that I thought Losman would be a good QB someday down the road. That follow-up also contained a bit of exaggeration. Notice that I used Paul Maguire's favorite catch phrase "Folks, I'm going to tell you what..", which he often uses to preface an outlandish claim about a player. (With that ESPN crew, every turnip that fell off a truck on the road was "great" and "simply fantastic".)

 

So, really, I don't think your attempt to paint me as fickle, a revisionist, and a hypocrite has worked out. Basically the posts you found said: Bledsoe and Losman were putrid that day, but there was (and is) still hope that Losman may become a good QB.

 

Anyway, it was a very solid attempt at the old "attack the messenger" tactic to derail a debate off topic.

 

Oh, and, TD is still a failure.

[ajzepp]

You've probably added me to your ignore list already, but since you called me out, I thought I'd offer a response.

 

You went back to Nov. 15, 2004 to find those posts.  Nice work.  Especially nice is that you didn't provide links or context.  (Here is a link if anybody gives a %$#^ http://www.stadiumwall.com/index.php?showt...ndpost&p=118004 )  The context was that Drew Bledsoe was playing poorly and Losman was clearly in way over his head.  My feelings after the game was disgust at Bledsoe's play and disgust at rushing a newbie Losman out on the field to be fed to the wolves.  Quote 1 was posted after quote 2 and was a clarification that I thought Losman would be a good QB someday down the road.  That follow-up also contained a bit of exaggeration.  Notice that I used Paul Maguire's favorite catch phrase "Folks, I'm going to tell you what..", which he often uses to preface an outlandish claim about a player.  (With that ESPN crew, every turnip that fell off a truck on the road was "great" and "simply fantastic".)

 

So, really, I don't think your attempt to paint me as fickle, a revisionist, and a hypocrite has worked out.  Basically the posts you found said: Bledsoe and Losman were putrid that day, but there was (and is) still hope that Losman may become a good QB.

 

Anyway, it was a very solid attempt at the old "attack the messenger" tactic to derail a debate off topic.

 

Oh, and, TD is still a failure. 

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I wasn't trying to derail anything....and I wasn't trying to attack you, either. I just think some peoples opinions and viewpoints change with the wind on here, and I think that's pretty bogus.

 

I found several people who are on record as saying that Pat Williams and Jonas Jenngings should only be re-signed if they aren't demanding top dollar, and now those same people use that as two examples of TD's 'failures'

 

PS. I don't have anyone on my ingore list

[Nanker]

Count me in as among the people who think TD screwed up practically everything. I refuse to give TD credit for keeping the team under the salary cap and consistently selling out RWS.

 

Any monkey with an abbacus could add up contracts and make sure that we don't go over a limit. By now, almost every team understands the nuances of the cap.

 

As far as generating fan interest, provide the region with a winning team and consider this problem solved. Eventually, the well of draft day gimmicks and Snyder-esque free agent moves run dry. There reaches a point where the fans expect results if the team wants more of their money. Judging by the sign confiscations in the waning home games of last season, that point was TD's 5-year mark.

 

An NFL GM's primary task - by far - is to develop a winning football team, so my apologies if I choose to focus too heavily on this aspect of TD's job description  . He inherited a team in the rebuilding process, and 5 full years later we're still in the rebuilding process. How can that be interpreted as anything but an unmitigated disaster?

 

The core of the team that Marv now inherits is minimal:

 

Moorman

Losman

McGahee

Evans

Peters

Schobel

Spikes

Fletcher

Clements

McGee

 

I'm defining "core" here as players with current or potential ability that cannot normally be replaced with mid-round draft picks or free agent castoffs.

 

That's 10 guys over 5 years  . But Losman and Peters could still become busts, McGahee and Clements are money-grubbing ego cases who may force their way out of here by next offseason, and Spikes may be damaged goods from that !@#$ing Achilles accident. Under this worst-case scenario, one can filter this list down to 5 guys in 5 years    .

 

And you TD Apologists don't want to talk disaster? Damn, your cup is always half-full. If the TD Era wasn't all that bad, the 70's must have been the Golden Years of Bills football. And the 90's must have been like a decade-long hit of Ecstacy.

 

Not for me, man. The TD Era brought me nothing but let-downs. One can only watch a group of talented pussies for so long, constantly folding under the pressure vs. winning teams, before one must scream, "enough!" We've become the Patriots' bitches and the Arizona Cardinals' equals, and this all happened under Teflon's watch.

667573[/snapback]

 

Bravo! Bravo!

 

However unlike some, I think he's a decent man and I wish him no ill. I'm just glad he's out. He'll end up on his feet somewhere though. Maybe he can get a job in Detroit and help Ford or GM rebuild. Nah, I'll bet the Auto media are even tougher than the Western NY media which he had such a bad time of. Who woulda known they would treat him with less reverence than Mort, Sean and Clayton?

 

Four More Downs anybody? No. Not here, thank you.

[drg2021]

In a move that baffled everyone today, the Buffalo Bills selected Marcus Vick with the 8th pick in the 2006 draft.

 

"Hey, I'm just smarter than everyone," commented DonaHO "We felt like we knew who we wanted and we went out and got him, the draft was so deep ,we knew this move would turn some heads considering he was predicted to go in the 6th but that's just how deep the draft. The talet pool is so even we don't really pay attention to rounds, we just go out there and get our guy. We didn't want to let someone else get him."

 

In another DonHO story, the risk-taking GM pitched a proposal to save the team money by paying them in Canadian Dollars. When asked about it DonHO replied: "There's nowhere in their contracts that says the dollars have to be American, I spotted that loophole because I'm a genius."

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You forgot to mention that anyone that scored a 15 or above on the Wonderlic test would not be drafted by the Bills,during the Donahoe regime

[Sisyphean Bills]

What are the current facts?

 

The average NFL career runs less than 5 years from what I heard a while ago, and thus by this definitionmost of th draft picks that any GM made 5 years agp would be gone (a majority of all player last about 5 years and you add in the UDFAs to that total so the a aignificant majority of drafted players would be gone from the league entirely not to mention the team that drafted them.  I'm sure that this number has changed but there should be a statistical comparison done by some stat hound somewhere of the % of drafted players who remain with their original team.

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Here's the thing about averages: If we take a guy that is a 5th WR on a team and plays for 1 year and a guy that plays 9 years anchoring the line at LT and goes to 7 straight Pro Bowls, the average for these 2 players is 5 years. In other words, just because the average shelf life of a player is less than 5 years, it does not mean your GM should strive to turn over the entire roster periodically in less than 5 years. And while any GM, even a guy that stayed at a Holiday Inn last night, can sign a guy for a year or two, a truly exceptional GM is capable of finding a few of those 9-10 year core, great players to build a team around. In Donahoe's case, this amounts to a single player: Nate Clements. And he wants out of Buffalo -- not that I can really blame him.

 

Others have made a strong case in this thread already. For a team that hasn't seen the playoffs and has drafted in the top half of the order, Marv Levy isn't exactly walking into an easy situation.

 

On offense, it is all question marks. Will Losman ever be any good? Will McGahee become a dominant back? Can Lee Evans become a dominant WR overnight? The OL is a wreck, who plays TE?

 

On the defensive side, there are more question marks. Can Takeo recover and play effectively? How will London do in the new system and behind a line that needs to be rebuilt? Will Clements force a trade or will he sign? Can we lock up McGee or will he want to skip town too? I don't really think Schobel is the sort of talent one builds a defense around.

 

Well, at least Marv doesn't have to go out and find a punter or long snapper.

[Orton's Arm]

The trade for Bledsoe also directly obtained us the 2003b pick in WM.

Bledsoes pro bowl performance that year (if you remember the first half he was on record breaking pace) inflated P. Prices numbers to #1 WR status.

 

Who can honestly say we could have gotten the trade to ATL for PP if we had not traded for Bledsoe? 

I'll grant the Peerless trade worked out well, and that Bledsoe's performance was a big part of it. The reasons for this were the following:

 

1. At least for a short time, Bledsoe put up far better numbers in Buffalo than he had in his last few years in New England.

 

2. One of the beneficiaries of this was Peerless. Merely increasing Peerless's market value a little would have been counterproductive, as he would just have gotten that much harder to re-sign.

 

3. Atlanta responded to Peerless's great year by falling for him almost as hard as Mike Ditka fell for Ricky Williams. As a result, Atlanta grossly overpaid for him in terms of salary and draft choices.

 

4. Peerless subsequently developed eye problems, all but ending his career. Because of this, giving Peerless a long-term deal shortly before Bledsoe came wouldn't have been a good idea, at least not in retrospect.

 

5. The McGahee pick worked out well.

 

Many factors went into making the Peerless deal as one-sided as it was. TD couldn't possibly have predicted many of these things. In other words, he got lucky. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

 

I feel TD's thought process going into 2002 was the following:

1. I need better QB than Van Pelt, so I'll trade for Bledsoe.

2. Cleaning up the salary cap mess is a higher priority than retaining young talent, so I won't extend Peerless.

 

Then once the 2002 season was over, TD probably realized that because of Peerless's outstanding year, he could actually extract trade value from the man. This value was significantly increased due to Atlanta's determination to blame Vick's problems on his WRs.

[BuffaloBilliever]

A little off topic:

 

How is ajzepp still alive with a Flyers avatar?

[Orton's Arm]

1. The problem with Jennings was that he was hurt too often, not that he wasn't re-signed.

 

2. Winfield still had a year left on his contract when the Bills picked up Milloy.

 

3. The Bills used the Winfield cap space on Milloy.  Milloy came in and provided an immediate, massive impact.

 

4. The Bills were better off with Milloy + McGee than with Wire + Winfield.

Hopefully I haven't missed anything in condensing your post. I'll respond to your points individually:

 

1. As was so often the case with TD's decisions, the Jennings pick didn't help the Bills for more than a few years. The bottom line is that the Bills had too few players who could help over the long term, and the Jennings pick is part of that.

 

2 & 3. I don't doubt Milloy's immediate, massive impact. But this was another of TD's shooting star decisions: actions that provided a quick, brilliant flash, then nothing.

 

4. I wasn't actually advocating the Bills keep Winfield for his career. He had too much trade value, and there were too many other good players at CB, for that to have been the best possible outcome. If the goal was to get rid of Winfield to obtain better play at SS, the Bills could have achieved this by trading Winfield away for a 1st round pick, then using that pick to take an outstanding SS. Had TD done so, that player would almost certainly have been a massive upgrade over Wire--the current starting SS for the Bills.

[Orton's Arm]

Hey Holcomb's Arm, I just noticed your attached subscript summarizing TDs choices and was amazed/amused at how negative your cut interpretations of events.

 

Fair enough. We've been over the Nate Clements ground already, and it's obvious to both of us Mike Williams was a bust. So I'll address the other players on the list:

 

Drew Bledsoe: You contend that Bledsoe was a wash, because of his stellar performance in 2002, and because there were no other options available. You go on to say that the Bills would have been justified by cutting him after his poor performance in 2003.

 

But bear in mind the Bills had gone 3-13 the year before they acquired Bledsoe. Does it make sense for a 3-13 team to trade away a first round pick to obtain a single year of spectacular play from someone? If the Bills were a QB away from the Super Bowl, you could make a case for this kind of decision.

 

Willis McGahee: Do I feel McGahee is a better back than Henry? Yes. But I feel the McGahee pick should have been used on a good offensive lineman instead. I feel Henry + the offensive lineman > McGahee. One of the reasons for the offense's collapse in 2003 was that it was too easy for teams to send pressure up the middle. Also, a decent back behind a good line will produce more than a good back behind a putrid line.

 

Lee Evans and J.P. Losman: both guys are relatively new, and we don't know what their futures hold. I tend to be more pessimistic about Losman than most.