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Feel free to disregard this... I know stories on the internet that originate from "a friend of a friend" aren't necessarily viewed in the best of light. Some of you may regard this as more gossip than insight, but I thought I would share it with you.
A friend of mine is friends with a guy who coached in Oakland under Tom Cable. He was a positional coach out there, and got to see first hand the inner workings of an NFL club.
For starters: Al Davis was certifiably crazy in his final years. Medically, we would say he had "dementia", but to a man, you would say he was off his *****ing rocker and in no condition to be running a football team. I'll leave the anecdotes about Davis's personal eccentricities out of this (let's just say there were many, and they were all weird), but when it came to football he would:
*watch tapes from the 60s, confuse them with tapes from his current Raiders teams, and demand that personnel decisions be made to accomodate his "vision" of what the franchise was. Releasing players that he had "seen on tape" make mistakes, when in reality he was watching receivers from 40 years ago.
*if coaches disagreed with him, his temper was short, and he would want them out of town asap
*no one in the organization was safe, except for a select group of "yes-men" at the top who fed into these "fantasies" (alternate realities) to protect their job and their salaries.
*maybe the most interesting piece--NFL coaches are like a fraternity, and they all talk. Before and after games, of course, but during the week, all offseason, etc. Oakland was (is?) KNOWN as a place that you absolutely, 100%, do/did not want to go coach for, under any capacity. It was known that it was a place for either unproven coaches, or guys so desperate for work in the league that they would take the job, no questions asked.
"Sounds like Buffalo," is a line that was said to this gentleman, to which he replied "very similar situation there."
That's it. That's all the information I have as it pertains to the Bills, so you're going to have to read into that as much (or as little) as you please.
For what it's worth, though, knowing this guy, I now 100% believe that our 14 years of failures has nothing to do with the players we have put on the field. I believe (not that this is some sort of revelation), that our front office is absolutely, 100% *****ed.
And the most important part, to me: it's not like a consultant will come in and NOT see this. I'm sure any person coming in here knows this already, just from being around the league.
I am willing to predict that after this season:
a) Marrone is fired
b) Whaley is fired, unless he manages to 100% distance himself from this front office
c) there will be a mass firing of top level guys (Brandon) that won't make the news, but will change the "culture" of the Bills forever
Making the playoffs is not rocket science. Teams usually do at least once every few years. The only way you DONT make the playoffs for 14 years is by being a completely rotten organization--which we most certainly are. The only way to fix that is to slash and burn. It WILL be recommended by a consultant, and it WILL happen.
A friend of mine is friends with a guy who coached in Oakland under Tom Cable. He was a positional coach out there, and got to see first hand the inner workings of an NFL club.
For starters: Al Davis was certifiably crazy in his final years. Medically, we would say he had "dementia", but to a man, you would say he was off his *****ing rocker and in no condition to be running a football team. I'll leave the anecdotes about Davis's personal eccentricities out of this (let's just say there were many, and they were all weird), but when it came to football he would:
*watch tapes from the 60s, confuse them with tapes from his current Raiders teams, and demand that personnel decisions be made to accomodate his "vision" of what the franchise was. Releasing players that he had "seen on tape" make mistakes, when in reality he was watching receivers from 40 years ago.
*if coaches disagreed with him, his temper was short, and he would want them out of town asap
*no one in the organization was safe, except for a select group of "yes-men" at the top who fed into these "fantasies" (alternate realities) to protect their job and their salaries.
*maybe the most interesting piece--NFL coaches are like a fraternity, and they all talk. Before and after games, of course, but during the week, all offseason, etc. Oakland was (is?) KNOWN as a place that you absolutely, 100%, do/did not want to go coach for, under any capacity. It was known that it was a place for either unproven coaches, or guys so desperate for work in the league that they would take the job, no questions asked.
"Sounds like Buffalo," is a line that was said to this gentleman, to which he replied "very similar situation there."
That's it. That's all the information I have as it pertains to the Bills, so you're going to have to read into that as much (or as little) as you please.
For what it's worth, though, knowing this guy, I now 100% believe that our 14 years of failures has nothing to do with the players we have put on the field. I believe (not that this is some sort of revelation), that our front office is absolutely, 100% *****ed.
And the most important part, to me: it's not like a consultant will come in and NOT see this. I'm sure any person coming in here knows this already, just from being around the league.
I am willing to predict that after this season:
a) Marrone is fired
b) Whaley is fired, unless he manages to 100% distance himself from this front office
c) there will be a mass firing of top level guys (Brandon) that won't make the news, but will change the "culture" of the Bills forever
Making the playoffs is not rocket science. Teams usually do at least once every few years. The only way you DONT make the playoffs for 14 years is by being a completely rotten organization--which we most certainly are. The only way to fix that is to slash and burn. It WILL be recommended by a consultant, and it WILL happen.
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