Commentary
Jerry Sullivan: Dear Ralph: No more football on the cheap
Published: November 18, 2009, 1:02 am
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A couple of weeks ago, during his belated Hall of Fame ring ceremony in the stadium that bears his name, Ralph Wilson told Bills fans that he was still committed to bringing a Super Bowl winner to Buffalo.
It's about time the owner put his money where his mouth is.
Firing Dick Jauron was but a first step, and a long overdue one at that. What exactly did Wilson discover over the first nine weeks of the season that wasn't plainly evident last January? And why now? It would have made more sense to get rid of the head coach during the recent bye week, when the team would have had an extra week to gather itself.
But that's typical of the current Bills, who have been a dysfunctional mess for a decade. On and off the field, there's rarely any rhyme or reason to what they do. The only thing you can count on is that they'll lose — and that the owner will function on the cheap.
That must come to an end now. The Bills are at a crossroads, whether Wilson admits it or not. He has a bad team, an inferior front office, an increasingly disaffected fan base, and no franchise quarterback. And now, at last, a vacant head-coaching position.
Whatever it takes, Wilson has to loosen the purse strings and pay the going rate for good football people. It's time. No more hiding behind the small-market excuse. No more pretending that good coaches and personnel people aren't worth the big bucks in a rich, thriving National Football League.
Essentially, we're back where we were when Wilson fired Tom Donahoe, and coach Mike Mularkey walked out the door early in 2006. Wilson called it a "fresh start." He had given Donahoe unprecedented control as president and general manager, and it didn't work out. That doesn't mean it was the wrong idea, only that he hired the wrong man.
But Wilson has been running scared ever since. Rather than bring in another football man he didn't know, he hired Marv Levy as a figurehead GM. Levy hired Jauron. It was a colossal mistake, and it set them back four years. When Levy left, Wilson turned to another familiar face, his marketing guru Russ Brandon.
Wilson has to get his head out of the sand and hire an experienced football man, a real GM with a fresh vision and the ability to move the team forward. He also needs a proven coach who recognizes talent, inspires players and fans, and can think on his feet on game days.
People are tired of accepting a lower standard. Why should Bills fans be resigned to having coaches who are compensated near the bottom of the league pay scale? They support their team at an elite level. They've demonstrated far more loyalty to Wilson over the last decade than he deserves. Why can't he shoot for the moon for once?
Mike Shanahan is available. So are Bill Cowher, Mike Holmgren and Brian Billick, among others. All have won Super Bowls. They would all come at a steep price. The going rate for a top NFL coach is about $7 million, and it'll keep climbing. Wilson, who never paid a coach more than $1 million until Jauron came along, is unlikely to pay that kind of money.
Of course, those big-name coaches won't be eager to come to Buffalo, either. And they almost surely would want control of personnel matters. Wilson has always been wary of the dual GM-coach figure, and with good reason. It rarely works out well in the NFL. There's a healthy balance of power between a strong GM and a head coach.
Still, I'd be willing to give one of those big names total power. Times are desperate. What do they have to lose? The Bills are an NFL laughingstock. If someone like Cowher or Shanahan actually came here, it would give the franchise an instant dose of credibility. Wilson should at least try.
However he decides to work it, Wilson needs someone to rule the football department. Brandon has been invaluable to the organization, a marketing and sales whiz. But he's not a conventional football guy. Wilson could elevate Brandon to the president's role and hire an actual GM.
There are a lot of good candidates out there. Greg Gabriel, a Buffalo native, is head of college scouting for the Bears and has been in NFL personnel for years. Rick Mueller, currently the GM for all four United Football League franchises, is a former director of football operations for the Saints. Wilson has high regard for Mueller's work.
Mueller might come with Jim Haslett as coach. Haslett has been an NFL head coach. He's a popular former Bill. He's fiery, emotional and outspoken. After 3½ years of listening to Jauron's lifeless monotone, that alone is appealing to me.
Somehow, Wilson needs to breathe real life into his team. The Bills play a regular-season game in Toronto two weeks from Thursday. It's conceivable that Wilson didn't want his team to play another nationally televised night game with Jauron's job in the balance.
Fans are supposed to be excited about the Toronto venture. Regionalizing the franchise is a good idea. But they've been regionalizing a joke. The game against the Dolphins last year was a dreadful bore. Canadian sports fans aren't stupid. They're not going to spend their money on an inferior product.
Wilson wants people to treat Toronto as a big-time venture. But he has gone about it in a typically small-minded way. The Toronto series will add an estimated $78 million to his bottom line over five years. When the deal was struck, Wilson said the extra revenue wouldn't help him sign more players. He made it seem like a drop in the bucket.
That revenue could pay for a new general manager and a big-time coach. Ralph, stop insulting your customers, and show you're serious. Just this once.
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