"At 12:01 a.m. on the opening day of free agency, the Miami Dolphins were arranging to meet with linebacker Karlos Dansby, the New York Jets were burning the phone lines and the New England Patriots were finalizing a deal to bring back a franchise nose tackle.


I asked Buffalo Bills general manager Buddy Nix what he was doing at that moment.

"Sleep," he said Monday while taking a break from the NFL owners meetings at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando Grande Lakes. "They asked me if I was going to be there, I said 'Hell, no. I ain't going to be there. I'm going to bed," Tim Graham, ESPN, March 22.

I saw J.P. Losman last night. Seriously, I was out meeting with some soccer pals at an Elmwood watering hole when the former Bills quarterback walked in and grabbed some grub with the bar's owner, a mutual friend.

A few hours later, I find myself making a connection between the random sighting of a failed Buffalo Bills experiment and the aforementioned quote from the team's current general manager.

We have a love/hate relationship with honesty in sports, but the truth of the matter is that it's whether you're good or bad that makes a legend or a laughingstock. When Mark Messier guaranteed a win and delivered with a hat trick, he was "gutsy." When Matt Hasselbeck said, "We want the ball and we're going to score," and was subsequently picked off, he was a punch line.

Right now, the jury's out on Nix. He's already got a couple refreshing and borderline hilarious quotes. "I've never been accused of being the smartest guy in the room" and "Hell, no. I'm going to bed." They are down-to-Earth and don't reek of football-speak, which is great.

But all it will take is a poor draft decision or even a Gailey coaching misfire, and Nix turns into the bumbling hick that can't do anything right.

That's where Losman comes in. If No. 7 was a difference maker, his " 'There is no try, only do,' by the famous Yoda," comments would put him into that "quirky, but likeable" category with Joe Namath, or Manny Ramirez. Instead, he wasn't very good at all, and became the "drum-playing, Yoda-quoting surfer dude" run out-of-town. If Marv Levy was a horrible coach, he'd be the "weird old man who always talks about American history."

That's all I can think about right now. If you're good, you can darn near do whatever you want. Look at Ben Roethlisberger. Marshawn Lynch was villified for avoiding the police after an alleged hit and run. Roethlisberger isn't catching nearly as much flak for an alleged assault against a 20-year-old girl. Some will say it's racial, and maybe it is, but the truth is Roethlisberger's wins aren't hurting him.

Boring guys have failed here, too. The book's not closed on Trent Edwards, but both he and boss DIck Jauron did a fine job of helping paint dry during press conferences. Both were also criticized for that lack of emotion and fire. To be honest, if someone's going to fail, I prefer them to be more entertaining and vocal, but if the Bills had gone 11-5 last year, I would've had no complaints about any fire in anybody's proverbial bellies.

For now, I'm going to love the up-front nature of our two front office folks, and I'll probably continue to long after they've worn out their welcome, if in fact they do.

ESPN's Tim Graham: "Is your opening-day quarterback on the roster?"

Nix: "I have no idea. I really don't know. I know that's what we got now, and it's open. [Bills head coach Chan Gailey has] made that clear. We're going to see who comes out. The fact that those are the three guys we got, we like all three of them, all of them got redeeming qualities, but if something else comes available, we might add a fourth to the mix. I don't know."

He doesn't claim to have all the answers. Let's just hope he does.

Email: nick@wgr550.com