Bills GM Buddy Nix indicated that their choices in those two rounds were based on board value more than anything else.

“They were the two best guys up there at the time we were picking,” said Nix. ”Obviously we want to be prepared for whatever happens.”

To this point Byrd has not signed his franchise tender. Bills President and CEO Russ Brandon is hoping Byrd and the club can reach an agreement on a long term agreement.

“He has the opportunity to wait until he’s comfortable,” said Brandon of Byrd signing his one-year franchise tender. ”We’ll continue that dialogue. You always want to always have all your guys here, but we understand the situation and we’ll just keep working through it.”

Brandon also confirmed that the club would like to have Byrd back in the fold.

“Organizationally of course we’d love to have him back,” said of Byrd. ”We utilized the asset that was available to us with the franchise tag as you all know. It’s a priority for the organization and we hope to continue to work through the process with him and more importantly his agent, and we’ll keep conversations in a fluid process.”

Brandon indicated that when the Bills coaching search committee had reached a decision he called Mr. Wilson to fill him in.

“We had a long, open dialogue and conversation,” Brandon told Buffalobills.com. ”I told him exactly why we’re moving in this direction. He was excited and very aware of Coach Marrone’s background. He talked to Doug today and had a great conversation with him and said he’s looking forward to him leading us.”

For more on how the Bills landed Doug Marrone check the home page of Buffalobills.com Tuesday morning.

He began by talking about his day long visit with Bills owner Ralph Wilson in Detroit on Monday. 

“It was a rather emotional visit,” said Brandon. ”He told me he was passing the torch to me to run this franchise with zero restrictions and zero limitations.

“We understand and appreciate the frustration of our great fans. We acknowledge and own it and we will never run from it. This is an organization with a proud tradition, but I will tell you that this brand has been tarnished. It’s relevancy has been tarnished and it’s unacceptable because we just haven’t won enough games. It’s a production business and we’re in this to win games. It’s time to lead this franchise into the future with a new legacy.”

2012 SALUTE TO SERVICE TEAM NOMINEES

Mr. Wilson served in the Navy in World War II and has supported numerous Veteran causes.

Teams from around the league nominated NFL players, alumni, and personnel who demonstrate an exemplary commitment to honoring and supporting the military community. USAA is a leading provider of insurance and other services to members of the U.S. military and their families.

Fans can visit www.millionfansalute.com to view videos of NFL team’s supporting their local military units, download and share photos, and offer a salute to the military on behalf of their favorite team.  NFL cities with the most salutes will earn rewards for their local military community from USAA.

To read each team’s Salute to Service nomination, visit www.nfl.com/salute.

“He’s upset we’re losing,” said Gailey. ”Would you expect anything less? He’s upset we’re losing. That’s made very clear, which I understand. I am too. We’ve got to win and our weekly conversations will go better.”

“I am deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Art Modell.  Art and I were good friends and while we remained competitive in respect to our teams, we shared many laughs over the years. He was an influential figure in our league and was respected tremendously within the NFL ownership group. Art was a loving family man and he and Pat made a great team. I want to extend my deepest sympathies to his sons David and John and the entire Modell family and all of his friends.”

Modell passed of natural causes at age 87 with his family at his bed side.

The team reports that Mr. Wilson is home from the hospital and doing well. He got home from the hospital Tuesday according to head coach Chan Gailey.

“We talked before he went in the hospital and I haven’t talked to him since he got home yesterday,” said Gailey Wednesday. “I’m sure we’ll talk some time soon though.”

The 10,000-square-foot Center is named in honor of Wilson, a member of the Hall of Fame and founder of the Buffalo Bills, whose gift of $2.5 million dollars made the state-of-the-art facility possible.

 The Ralph Wilson, Jr. Pro Football Research and Preservation Center will house and preserve the more than 20 million document pages and 3 million photographic images in the Hall of Fame’s collection. 

 The addition of the new Center also allows the Hall of Fame to renovate the space that previously housed the document collection and the three-dimensional artifact collection. The retrofitted space will then exclusively accommodate the ever-growing artifact collection.

 “Ralph Wilson’s outstanding contributions to pro football over many decades are legendary,” stated Steve Perry, president/executive director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “His generous gift has greatly enhanced our ability to preserve the Hall of Fame’s rapidly growing collection of historic documents and artifacts.”

Stay tuned to Buffalobills.com for more on this story including video footage of the dedication.

The painting was of the Oct. 29, 1973 home game for the Bills against the Chiefs. O.J. Simpson is depicted in the piece as the ball carrier (see below). Also making an appearance in the painting is Mr. Wilson himself along the far sideline on the left side of the piece (see 2nd photo). The Bills won the game 23-14.

Vincent even attempted an impression of Mr. Wilson in passing along some of the thoughts of the Bills owner.

“He’s very excited about the season,” said Vincent of Mr. Wilson. ”He said, ‘I think we have a chance to win. We’ve got some players up front that remind me of the Kelly era. We’ve got a chance.’”

Vincent currently serves in the NFL office as Vice President of Player Engagement.

Nix and Bills CEO Russ Brandon met with Mr. Wilson in Detroit late last week for their assessment of the 2011 season and plans for the 2012 offseason.

“Chan was giving this game ball to Mr. Wilson,” said Ryan Fitzpatrick. ”It was the first time he’s missed an opener in a long time. We’re sorry that he couldn’t be here, but hopefully he’s proud of what we did on the field today.”

Mr. Wilson broke his hip this past June and is still recovering at his Michigan home.

“Any move that we make we take the information that we have at the time and we try to do things that will make our team better,” said Nix. ”It is never about money.  It’s never about when a guy was drafted.  The business I am in, the only way I will stay in this job with the Bills and our coaching staff will survive is if we win games.  It has nothing to do with what the budget is. 

“This business of playing our guys or playing high draft choices, it is really kind of amusing when you think about it.  The only way we are going to survive and be successful is to win games.  So, every move we make is for that reason.  Money has never been mentioned since I have been here.  I know what the cap is and we can spend it all.”

When asked if owner Ralph Wilson has told him specifically to save money, again Nix refuted the notion.

“I am not going to get into this, but I will try to clear that up,” he said. ”It’s the other way around; I talk him out of going after high-dollar guys that you see on TV and ESPN.  That has happened more than once. It’s me talking him out of it.”

“I hope the sides come to an agreement,” Wilson told the Daily News. “I hope they can. I miss football like millions of other people.”

Mr. Wilson was also asked about being one of the two votes against the previous CBA extension in 2006, and how he and Bengals owner Mike Brown look now.

Mr. Wilson was honored along with Saints owner Tom Benson, Titans owner Bud Adams, Lions owner William Clay Ford and Chargers owner Alex Spanos, who are all WWII veterans. Mr. Wilson served in the Navy.

According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune the museum is kicking off an initiative to tell the story of the role that football and the NFL played in the war effort. According to the museum, the NFL sold millions in war bonds, donated revenues from exhibition games to service charities and in some cases merged teams so that the game would go on, boosting the country’s morale

“Well, he’s very athletic,” Wilson said. ”But it’s the intangibles. We’ve had a number of quarterbacks that could throw the ball 100 yards and right into your stomach. But then they got into games and threw it 100 yards into the other team’s stomach. There’s time. We’ll learn more about him. Just like with this labor agreement, you just can’t predict.”

It’s clear that Wilson and the Bills need to be convinced that Newton has the mental makeup to not only diagnose the NFL game, but make the split-second decisions consistently enough to be an NFL success.

Mr. Wilson believes a new accord will be reached, but feels it will “take a lot of work.” He also outlined why he was one of two owners against the 2006 CBA extension, which the rest of the NFL ownership chose to opt out of two years later.

“They passed out a sheet that contained financial information,” Wilson told Fanhouse of the owners meeting in March 2006. “It was not what I thought we were supposed to get. I thought there would be more discussion. I voted against it because I didn’t understand the financial figures put out. And what I did understand, I didn’t like.”

Wilson maintains that all he wants is a “fair agreement” for everyone involved.

As for his team Wilson points only to himself for the club’s shortcomings on the field over the past decade.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes with my team in the last 10 years,” Wilson told Fanhouse. “I think I’m rectifying that. We’ll see. We almost won some games last year against teams that were certainly more talented than us. Buddy, the scouts, the coaches, they are working. I know it’s not going to be an instant turnaround. I think it will take two or three years to have a playoff team — and that’s if we get a quarterback.”

That prompted the question on whether the Bills would take Cam Newton third overall.

Appearing on WHTK radio in Rochester last week, Gailey confirmed that he had spoken to Mr. Wilson.

“We talk every week,” Gailey said. ”He and I visit every week. We talk about the game. I tell him what was good and what was bad. This last one we did the same thing and we talked about having a season-ending overall evaluation about where we are and where we’re headed.”

Gailey went on to say that the year one team evaluation meeting will happen in the next few weeks.

“This team amazes me,” said Wilson. ”I guess it’s because they play so hard. A lot of them were overlooked in the draft and a lot of them were cut by other teams because they didn’t have enough patience with them and all those things play into it.

“We pick a guy up in the middle of the week and he starts for us on Sunday. We were in three games with three great teams (Baltimore, Kansas City, Pittsburgh). Buddy and Chan have done a wonderful job and the players have played hard. We should be much, much better next year.”

For the first time that I can remember, Mr. Wilson also made an appearance in the post game interview room to listen to Chan Gailey address the media, and that ear to ear smile was still there. Looks like Mr. Wilson got one of the things he wanted for Christmas, a win over Miami.