|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Video Plus Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities 
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Buffalo battles Bills' epic QB feud will be resolved soon
INDIANAPOLIS -- Inside of a week, Buffalo's Rob versus Doug blood feud will be no more. I, for one, am going to miss it. I realized just how much for the first time Thursday, when new Bills general manager Tom Donahoe and new head coach Gregg Williams showed up at the opening day of the NFL Scouting Combine and kept the media enthralled for more than an hour assessing every possible angle of their upcoming decision whether to keep Rob Johnson or Doug Flutie as their starting quarterback. By now we all know that Buffalo clearly isn't a big enough town for both of these gunslingers. One of them has to move on, and yes, it's probably for the best. But unintentionally or not, Donahoe and Williams injected new life into the waning days of this tired subplot, candidly assessing both players at length following their unique day-long "job interviews" earlier this week. Their findings? "They do not like each other," said Donahoe, not exactly breaking that story. "Both of them were committed to being the guy. As long as the other guy wasn't there. ... Even if we didn't have a [salary] cap issue, these two guys can't be on the same team. This has almost gone beyond not liking each other." Countered Williams: "I'm not going to let a decisive thing with the quarterbacks' attitudes divide the team the way they did last year, you can rest assured of that. That won't happen." How refreshing is that? Rather than paper over the differences between these two rivals, who are as close as Cain and Abel, Donahoe and Williams stood up and admitted their dysfunctional duo cannot be salvaged. True, the official cause of death will be the old salary-cap squeeze, but former head coach Wade Phillips and everyone else knows the real story. Anyone ever remember Tom Landry taking that straightforward of an approach with Craig Morton and Roger Staubach? Donahoe admitted that as a member of the media last year, he assumed there was plenty of truth to the reports that the saga inspired turmoil in the Bills locker room. "It looked like it was bad, but until you get in and get the details you're not sure," Donahoe said. Now he's sure. "All the players I've talked to since I've been in Buffalo felt that it divided the team." Kudos to Donahoe and Williams on how they've handled their firing squad duties. They announced last week that either Flutie or Johnson would have to go, and then they flew both quarterbacks to Buffalo on consecutive days to meet the new administration and make the best case they could for their own candidacy. "It's probably the first time in their lives that they've ever had to interview for a job," Williams said. "They were both very bluntly honest and I enjoyed the process." Both players got almost six-hour sessions with Donahoe, Williams and other new coaches, and the Bills have been methodical in their research. They charted and dissected every game Flutie and Johnson have played the past three years in Buffalo uniforms, combed their medical histories, talked to coaches throughout the league who have had both players in their charge, and interviewed key players on the roster about their views. "The biggest consensus there is they're relieved that I'm going to make a decision and that it's not going to be a distraction," Williams said. "[They like] knowing that there's going to be one guy who's the man." One thing became quickly clear Thursday. Williams won't lack for authority. Whoever winds up the winner of the quarterback derby, "the man" in Buffalo will be the former Tennessee Titans defensive coordinator. Williams does not lack for a certainess of purpose.
"I think when they first came in they didn't know what to expect," he said of his two quarterbacks. "I would enjoy the opportunity to coach them both, but I can't. I've got to make a decision. ... And this is going to be the Buffalo Bills' team. It's not going to be one of the quarterback's team. "I think lots of people have opinions on this, but it'll come down to what Tom Donahoe and my opinion is." Williams said meeting with both Flutie and Johnson "seemed like it was common sense." But how many NFL front offices might have handled it differently? How many have? "So many times today it becomes so informal and so cold and it doesn't have to be that way," Williams said. "I think it would be hard for me to make a decision if I've never seen a guy eye to eye, never talked to him, never got a feel for him. So if I'm going to be involved in the decision, which I am, I needed to see them and so did Tom." For the record, both Williams and Donahoe repeatedly shot down a Buffalo-area radio report Wednesday that said Johnson was the odd man out by virtue of him telling that to unnamed sources. Both men deny that any decision has been reached, or that an indication was given to either quarterback. Donahoe said next Wednesday remains the team's target date for announcing the decision. "Maybe somebody got a feeling," Donahoe said. "But if they did, it was strictly a feeling." Williams was even more direct. "A decision has not been made one way or another," he said. Williams and Donahoe were peppered with questions regarding the factors that go into making their decision. Will it be based on age? Flutie is 38 and Johnson is almost 28. A no-brainer, right? "I don't know that age has a whole lot to play into it," Williams said. "And potential doesn't have a whole lot to play into it. What we're saying right now is age is not a factor. Doug Flutie is a freak of nature. He still looks like he's got the body of a 25- or 26-year-old man. Then the next day, I'm thinking, well Rob can't look any better. He's a fitness phenom." Will it be based on salary-cap concerns? Johnson will count $8.29 million under the cap this year, and Flutie $7.75 million, but both have agreed to restructure their deals if they are tabbed. "It's deeper than that," Donahoe said. "That's not going to be the determining factor. That's part of it, but they've both said they'd work with us." Will it be a question of which quarterback is better suited to handle the installation and execution of the Bills' new West Coast offense? Opinions are somewhat divided on that point. "Our coaches have told me that they feel both quarterbacks could do what we want to do, with the timing aspect of it, getting rid of the football quickly, throwing the ball to the backs and to the tight ends," Donahoe said. "We want to make the decision to keep the best quarterback, and the other factors we'll deal with. Time will tell if we did it successfully or not." Time also will teach us whether we should have trusted Donahoe's first public comments on the Flutie-Johnson battle. Just before he was contacted by Buffalo and asked to interview for the Bills' general manager job, Donahoe had this to say about the Buffalo quarterback decision during an online chat: "Flutie is 21-9 [as a starter with the Bills]. What's the decision?" "I loved his response, that that was his Internet personna," quipped Williams, side-stepping for one of the few times Thursday. "But from the point of the winning, that obviously is a factor. We've looked at it very hard." And next Wednesday, we'll find out who the real winner is. Don Banks covers pro football for CNNSI.com.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
