Buffalo Bills 2009: Which Way You Goin' Bill(y)?

Just what will the Buffalo Bills be in 2009?  To paraphrase, like the goalposts in the stadium last December against the Patriots, the answer my friend, is twisting in the wind.

Let's review the events of the offseason for the Bills thus far:

They've chosen, for whatever reason, to retain Dick Jauron.  Jauron may be intelligent and a nice guy, but he appears to have no motivational power over his team whatsoever.  His term can only be described as ineffective, and he is said to be on the hot seat going into the season.

They go in again with Trent Edwards, who, if you want to be optimistic, is at best a 60/40 shot to ever become a top NFL quarterback.  I prefer realistic, and given his demonstrated lack of self-confidence, I put his odds at more like 10/90. 

Plus, he now has two more problems.

Terrell Owens, noted locker room cancer and prodigious thrower of quarterbacks under the bus, is now a Buffalo Bill.  Throw his bad hands and declining skills into the mix (seriously, when has he ever been single covered before as he was the second half of last year?) and you've got a behavioral red alert. 

Historically, the quarterbacks Owens has thrown under the bus have at least been decent ones.  This one will actually deserve it when it happens.

To top it off, if you didn't like Edwards' odds of success before, how much worse have they just gotten with the trade of Jason Peters to Philadelphia?

Now who will protect Edwards' blind side, or open up holes for the running game? 

This trade means that the Bills are rebuilding the entire left side of their offensive line.  "Offensive" will probably accurately describe their performance in 2009, too.

Let's not forget that in his second NFL offseason, Marshawn Lynch now is two-for-two in police blotter appearances.  Any bets on three-for-three next year?

The signing of Owens was thought by some to represent a mindset in Buffalo that the Bills were going to try to make a push this year.  The mindless trading of Jason Peters completely negates that. 

So are we now to presume the direction of the team this year is to be sideways?

All kidding aside, there are two messages to take from this offseason. 

One is that the Bills have a marketing buffoon playing GM who doesn't know what he's doing.  Seriously, what is a marketing guy doing walking around the league meetings pretending he knows something about personnel?

Brandon is not a talent evaluator, or even a cap guy.  He's just a marketing guy. That's a disaster in the making. 

But the one that really hits home for me, makes me feel that only dire things are in the future, is that there's utterly no attempt being made to make this team at all attractive to a local buyer when Mr. Wilson passes on.

They are virtually making the team's continued existence in Western New York an impossibility and alienating one of the more rabid fanbases in the NFL in the process.

I know Buffalo has a bad rep. 

For some things, it is deserved. 

But to say that Bills fans have not been loyal to this team would be totally false.  To see this team more than likely headed to Toronto, Los Angeles, or whatever city it will be they are destined for, will mark the end of an era for me. 

And on the day that it passes, I can guarantee you, wherever I am, whatever I am doing, I will stop and shed tears that the era of NFL football in Buffalo is over. 

And I will not be ashamed to do so.