How Important Were The Wins?, Looking back, how important were they?

[Mitchy moo]

Im sitting here, a bit bored because there is little action going on. So thinking back to last year, when our Coach, Mike Mularkey, and genral manager, Tom Donohoe, stated, believed, and acted on the idea that even though the Bills were out of the playoffs, it was still vitally important to go with "The Best Chance to Win".

Lots of people endorsed their approach, mainly I think because they wanted to see entertaining football from their team for the last few games.

The conventional wisdom has been however, that when a team is out of the running they use that time to look at their depth, and give them playing time. Maybe that is outdated, but I was in that camp.

So sitting here now, I'm mired in thoughts like, we have Lionel Gates on our roster, but we have no idea how he would perform in a game. The same can be said for a great many of our players. Freddie Smith, Goerge Wilson, etc. Or, did Coy Wire progress enough last year that he will be able to fill in at safety for us? We don't know. We have close to no idea at all, except that he wasn't so hot the last time he had a chance.

Or of course I think about us having JP Losman who no matter how you feel about him, plainly could desperately use a few extra games of experience, if only for us to have a better handle on where he stands.

But we didn't do any of those things. Now I enjoyed the win over the Bengals as much as anybody. And it was at Christmas time too. But sitting here now, I can't think of anything else we got out of the "Win Now" idea. And it doesn't seem worth it for the Bengals game because that is gone and it was fun but it left us I think with more big questions for this year than we should have. I feel like we mortgaged our future for a cotton candy cone of a win against the Bengals.

So, I'm not looking for people to bash or insult either way. But I would appreciate a level discussion about the topic. Looking back, should we have looked to the future and played our depth last year? I think so. But also I wouldn't mind hearing some valid reasons why we got something out of "Win Now" in the meaningless games (with respect to the playoffs). Because sitting hear right now I can't see a thing. I wouldn't mind knowing we got something, anything, out of it. So if folks have some good reasons why that helped us, and they don't have to do with how players "feel", but instead are about how it helped us have abtter team this year, I would appreciate them also.

[ICE74129]

The biggest ***** of all? Had Holcomb not had a career game against the Bungles....We are drafting 3rd.

[patmoran2006]

Im sitting here, a bit bored because there is little action going on. So thinking back to last year, when our Coach, Mike Mularkey, and genral manager, Tom Donohoe, stated, believed, and acted on the idea that even though the Bills were out of the playoffs, it was still vitally important to go with "The Best Chance to Win".

Lots of people endorsed their approach, mainly I think because they wanted to see entertaining football from their team for the last few games.

The conventional wisdom has been however, that when a team is out of the running they use that time to look at their depth, and give them playing time. Maybe that is outdated, but I was in that camp.

So sitting here now, I'm mired in thoughts like, we have Lionel Gates on our roster, but we have no idea how he would perform in a game. The same can be said for a great many of our players. Freddie Smith, Goerge Wilson, etc. Or, did Coy Wire progress enough last year that he will be able to fill in at safety for us? We don't know. We have close to no idea at all, except that he wasn't so hot the last time he had a chance.

Or of course I think about us having JP Losman who no matter how you feel about him, plainly could desperately use a few extra games of experience, if only for us to have a better handle on where he stands.

But we didn't do any of those things. Now I enjoyed the win over the Bengals as much as anybody. And it was at Christmas time too. But sitting here now, I can't think of anything else we got out of the "Win Now" idea. And it doesn't seem worth it for the Bengals game because that is gone and it was fun but it left us I think with more big questions for this year than we should have. I feel like we mortgaged our future for a cotton candy cone of a win against the Bengals.

So, I'm not looking for people to bash or insult either way. But I would appreciate a level discussion about the topic. Looking back, should we have looked to the future and played our depth last year? I think so. But also I wouldn't mind hearing some valid reasons why we got something out of "Win Now" in the meaningless games (with respect to the playoffs). Because sitting hear right now I can't see a thing. I wouldn't mind knowing we got something, anything, out of it. So if folks have some good reasons why that helped us, and they don't have to do with how players "feel", but instead are about how it helped us have abtter team this year, I would appreciate them also.

Do you pay $40-80 for a ticket, not too mention parking, beers, food and everything else associated with going to a Bills game?

If the answer is yes, then to even suggest that we should try to lose games is idiotic.

[Mski]

Do you pay $40-80 for a ticket, not too mention parking, beers, food and everything else associated with going to a Bills game?

If the answer is yes, then to even suggest that we should try to lose games is idiotic.

i've been a season ticket holder for 6 years and even i was rooting for the team to win the reggie bush sweepstakes. however i never thought the team should "throw" the remaining games, just that it was pointless to keep holcomb in after that point an jp should have gotten the experience no matter the outcome

[ICE74129]

Skoob a ton of us bills fans wondered why after elimination that guys like Baker at Safety, Preston at Center and of course, JP at QB didn't play. That was exactly the time you play your guys.

'Until mathmatically eliminated' is the term always used. Well with 3 games left we were out of it. MM and TD again tried to do it both ways. Win now, but develop a QB, you can't do that. Try to save thier jobs but were already eliminated and the fanbase turned against them.

that is behind us now and we gotta move on.

[Mski]

Skoob a ton of us bills fans wondered why after elimination that guys like Baker at Safety, Preston at Center and of course, JP at QB didn't play. That was exactly the time you play your guys.

'Until mathmatically eliminated' is the term always used. Well with 3 games left we were out of it. MM and TD again tried to do it both ways. Win now, but develop a QB, you can't do that. Try to save thier jobs but were already eliminated and the fanbase turned against them.

that is behind us now and we gotta move on.

the fan base turned on td when he called us all idiots, and he was shamed to be a part of the community. the fans turned on MM when he coached his way out of a 21 pt lead in miami and started double talking his way out of press confrences

[Mitchy moo]

Skoob a ton of us bills fans wondered why after elimination that guys like Baker at Safety, Preston at Center and of course, JP at QB didn't play. That was exactly the time you play your guys.

'Until mathmatically eliminated' is the term always used. Well with 3 games left we were out of it. MM and TD again tried to do it both ways. Win now, but develop a QB, you can't do that. Try to save thier jobs but were already eliminated and the fanbase turned against them.

that is behind us now and we gotta move on.

I did but I was wondering what people thought.

[Albany,n.y.]

The Cincy game would have meant a lot more if JP had played & the Bills still won the game. Then if JP had played in & won the Jets game, we'd all have had something to look forward to & JP could have approached the 2006 season on the upswing.
Instead we had a guy who in spite of such predessors such as Gregg Williams, Hank Bullough, Jim Ringo, and Harvey Johnson may go down in Bills' history as the worst head coach we ever had-forget the record & look at what he did that was counterproductive to both the present team he was coaching and the future of the team. His horrible decisions have contributed to the total chaos that is currently the Bills QB situation. Instead of having any guts to see what JP had, he chickened out & went with the guy who could beat a playoff team one week & cost us a game against one of the worst teams in the league the following week.
As you can see, I blame Mularkey for a lot of the Bills current problems. He contributed nothing as head coach in 2005 and damaged the team for the immediate future. This idiot took away one of his QB's biggest weapons for the NE game, wanted him gone for the rest of the season, then got that QB banged up & used it as an excuse to bench said QB for the rest of a totally meaningless season.
I really hope Nick Saban & Miami's owner get into a huge fight, Saban quits & Huizenga promotes Mularkey to Dolphins HC-that would be justice after the screwing Mularkey did to our franchise.