Archives for October 4, 2013

‘The free agent market for quarterbacks is headlined by the recently released Josh Freeman, who was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers starter through the first three weeks of the season. There has been no indication of either an interest or lack of interest in his services to this point in time.’

‘"We’ll put him out there, we’ll work him out and go, and we’ll work him into those packages and put him in the starting lineup," the head coach started. "Starting lineup for me is always difficult because of what the packages are. But yeah, we’re looking forward to getting him in the starting lineup."’

‘”This week we get a couple of guys back on the (practice) field,” said Marrone. “Jairus Byrd will be back. He was ready to go Thursday night. (Ron) Brooks comes back, (Stephon) Gilmore comes back.”‘

‘”I’m going to continue to get better off of that more than anything, just by experience,” Tuel said. “There’s obviously some plays I want back and some things I want to do better. I’m going to meet with Coach (Nathaniel) Hackett, watch the film and just get better. Any little thing I can do to get better I’m going to do it.”‘

‘”I believe in that situation that EJ thought he was going to score,” said Marrone. “There is something that you see a flash coming from the side and you see him trying to work his way out (of bounds). Our philosophy with the quarterback has always been to tell him to be smart. We tell him to slide. We tell him to get the first down and get out of bounds. We tell him to do all those things. So I don’t want it to sound like we’re never telling him to slide or go down and not put himself at risk. We tell him all that."’

‘”The offensive line did a great job blocking those guys up,” said Spiller. “The biggest thing was that I just tried to press the line of scrimmage as much as I could. I was able to get a jump cut to the left and seeing TJ Graham did a great job blocking the corner. From then on, I just looked up into the Jumbotron because I knew my ankle wasn’t 100-percent. I just wanted to see if I could outrun guys with a bum ankle.”‘

‘This injury problem is nothing new either. All the way back to the Dick Jauron Era – remember him? – the Bills put a dozen or more players on injured reserve every year.’

‘With Manuel on the field for the seven previous possessions, the Bills offense had put 17 points up on the board in about 31 minutes of game time against a Cleveland Browns defense that held Joe Flacco/Baltimore to 14 points and Andy Dalton/Cincinnati to six points.’

‘The second-year punter struggled in each of his past two games as kicking with consistency proved to be an issue for him. In the last two games Powell was a bit erratic. Against Baltimore and Cleveland he punted 16 times, but had a subpar net average of just 30 yards.’

‘There they were, up 10-0 barely nine minutes into their prime-time meeting with the Cleveland Browns, when the Bills reminded us why they have a live streak of 13 straight seasons without a playoff berth … worst in the NFL.’

‘But Tuel, the undrafted rookie out of Washington State, could not mount any offense the rest of the game. The next four drives with Tuel at the helm produced just one first down.’

‘The Bills’ offense sputtered badly from that point on. In Tuel’s first three full series, Buffalo went three and out. On the next, he led them to one first down before they had to punt.’

‘Sure, there’s plenty to criticize. The punting and punt coverage were terrible, and the pass coverage wasn’t much better. They lost to Brandon Weeden, who was more unpopular than LeBron James in this town two days ago, and Willis McGahee, a broken-down runner who was on the street two weeks ago.’

‘”I think it’s my responsibility to make sure that we put a player out there that goes full speed for a full week,” Marrone said after the Bills’ 37-24 loss at FirstEnergy Stadium. “If it was a Sunday game, I think it could have been different for us, but on a short week right before …”‘

‘The punt from Shawn Powell was a good one, covering 52 yards and coming down just 2 yards from the left sideline. But Benjamin bolted across the width of the field, made great cuts, and broke a couple of tackles before running down the opposite sideline to the end zone.’