shelby
01-14-2009, 01:36 PM
Edwards Era takes a look at what needs to change in order for the Bills to be successful in today's NFL. Enjoy....
What can any fan say at this point? Again, we are left with another stanza in the poem that seems to drone on and on for the Bills. They leave you feeling like you're rooting for the team that manages to show up on highlight reels for the opposing team. Or the team that fills a small spot under the scores section in your local paper. Is this why we root for teams? So that we can simply find their losses listed among the classifieds somewhere, right after the weather section, or what's happening locally?
The Bills lack what it takes. It’s just that simple, yet just that difficult for them to figure out. Great coaching is sometimes what it takes; ask the perpetually competitive Titans. Great talent can be what it takes; ask the Patriots… until this year. Great front offices can make it happen; ask the Colts and some guy named Bill Polian. Yet, we end up with lots of Gregg’s, Wade-ing through mediocrity, or just being full of Mularkey. And now, we have a guy named… well, lets just say that he isn’t compensating for anything with his coaching skills. But all is right with the world; we have a proven head manager, or whatever title he has, who has shown over and over that he picks the right coaches and grabs the right talent... ohh..... wait. Fine, at least we have an owner who knows how to win, insists on winning, and is willing to do whatever it takes to add the right people to get the job done; oops. I digress; what we do actually have is people who are nice, and appear to care. But there is a significant difference between appearing to care and doing what’s necessary to win in this competitive league.
Are the Bills major players in the off-season? They surely can’t argue that they don’t need significant upgrades to the talent, or coaching, or both… can they?
The answer is: everything. It’s everything at this point. It's not one area of the organization, it's everything. It will take major, and significant upgrades at many areas of the organization, and probably far beyond the sidelines of the field, to head in the right direction now. An object in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted upon by and outside force. I think the team pushed a boulder up the hill in the early 90’s, didn’t quite reach the peak, and then let the boulder roll back down the hill. It's now stuck in the mud in the valley. Anyone who has ever tried to get a 1979 International Scout out of the mud (OK...that’s just me) knows that you need huge amounts of force to get it out. And that’s probably what this team needs at this point.
Every year, the Bills get a real chance to get better. Players like Terrell Suggs, Julius Peppers, even Matt Birk look like they could make us better. But every year, they skip those chances. Instead, they sign second tier free agents, which is a nice way of saying that they won't be stars anytime soon. Instead, they rely heavily on the draft, and even are willing to move up for areas that they didn’t choose to fill by any other means. They bank heavily and solely on the draft, and then mostly on the play of these youngsters during their first contract. They throw chance to the wind, considering the success and failure rate of the NFL draft. And they end up making mistakes such as Erik Flowers, John McCargo, and JP Losman. It is inevitable that when you gamble, you eventually lose. They have had success stories, but choose to let the bulk of them leave after their rookie contracts are up. Players like Antoine Winfield, Nate Clements, and Jonas Jennings are just a few. The Bills actually have some success developing their own players, but again, can’t manage to keep them. Guys like Jason Peters and Pat Williams were built into good NFL players from obscurity on this team. Yet they leave, or likely will leave, because the Bills refuse to pay them what they are worth after they have made them what they are.
When the Bills choose to get serious, the fans will be waiting anxiously. Don’t get me wrong, we will still root for them. And yes, they will still manage to fill the stands. But it could be that the stands start to fill more and more with the type of crowd looking for something better to do on a Sunday than go and watch the latest Shyamalan snoozer, rather than the kind that would stay up late, drinking heavily, posting endlessly on the fan board. But it’s not the heart of the fans that’s in question here. The truth is, we won’t quit; we never have, and never will. It's not our lack of heart that put this team into mediocrity; we simply never had an organization that found a way to finish what it started in the early 90’s, or even in the 60’s, for that matter.
more.... (http://www.billszone.com/mtlog/archives/2009/01/14/the_state_of_the_bills.php)
What can any fan say at this point? Again, we are left with another stanza in the poem that seems to drone on and on for the Bills. They leave you feeling like you're rooting for the team that manages to show up on highlight reels for the opposing team. Or the team that fills a small spot under the scores section in your local paper. Is this why we root for teams? So that we can simply find their losses listed among the classifieds somewhere, right after the weather section, or what's happening locally?
The Bills lack what it takes. It’s just that simple, yet just that difficult for them to figure out. Great coaching is sometimes what it takes; ask the perpetually competitive Titans. Great talent can be what it takes; ask the Patriots… until this year. Great front offices can make it happen; ask the Colts and some guy named Bill Polian. Yet, we end up with lots of Gregg’s, Wade-ing through mediocrity, or just being full of Mularkey. And now, we have a guy named… well, lets just say that he isn’t compensating for anything with his coaching skills. But all is right with the world; we have a proven head manager, or whatever title he has, who has shown over and over that he picks the right coaches and grabs the right talent... ohh..... wait. Fine, at least we have an owner who knows how to win, insists on winning, and is willing to do whatever it takes to add the right people to get the job done; oops. I digress; what we do actually have is people who are nice, and appear to care. But there is a significant difference between appearing to care and doing what’s necessary to win in this competitive league.
Are the Bills major players in the off-season? They surely can’t argue that they don’t need significant upgrades to the talent, or coaching, or both… can they?
The answer is: everything. It’s everything at this point. It's not one area of the organization, it's everything. It will take major, and significant upgrades at many areas of the organization, and probably far beyond the sidelines of the field, to head in the right direction now. An object in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted upon by and outside force. I think the team pushed a boulder up the hill in the early 90’s, didn’t quite reach the peak, and then let the boulder roll back down the hill. It's now stuck in the mud in the valley. Anyone who has ever tried to get a 1979 International Scout out of the mud (OK...that’s just me) knows that you need huge amounts of force to get it out. And that’s probably what this team needs at this point.
Every year, the Bills get a real chance to get better. Players like Terrell Suggs, Julius Peppers, even Matt Birk look like they could make us better. But every year, they skip those chances. Instead, they sign second tier free agents, which is a nice way of saying that they won't be stars anytime soon. Instead, they rely heavily on the draft, and even are willing to move up for areas that they didn’t choose to fill by any other means. They bank heavily and solely on the draft, and then mostly on the play of these youngsters during their first contract. They throw chance to the wind, considering the success and failure rate of the NFL draft. And they end up making mistakes such as Erik Flowers, John McCargo, and JP Losman. It is inevitable that when you gamble, you eventually lose. They have had success stories, but choose to let the bulk of them leave after their rookie contracts are up. Players like Antoine Winfield, Nate Clements, and Jonas Jennings are just a few. The Bills actually have some success developing their own players, but again, can’t manage to keep them. Guys like Jason Peters and Pat Williams were built into good NFL players from obscurity on this team. Yet they leave, or likely will leave, because the Bills refuse to pay them what they are worth after they have made them what they are.
When the Bills choose to get serious, the fans will be waiting anxiously. Don’t get me wrong, we will still root for them. And yes, they will still manage to fill the stands. But it could be that the stands start to fill more and more with the type of crowd looking for something better to do on a Sunday than go and watch the latest Shyamalan snoozer, rather than the kind that would stay up late, drinking heavily, posting endlessly on the fan board. But it’s not the heart of the fans that’s in question here. The truth is, we won’t quit; we never have, and never will. It's not our lack of heart that put this team into mediocrity; we simply never had an organization that found a way to finish what it started in the early 90’s, or even in the 60’s, for that matter.
more.... (http://www.billszone.com/mtlog/archives/2009/01/14/the_state_of_the_bills.php)