Archives for November 2014

‘It usually takes three days to clear a 1-foot snowfall, Major said. The snow removal has begun, and Major hopes to round up 500 people working three shifts around the clock to clear the facility.’

‘”We are working with the Bills to determine the status of the stadium. If a change to the schedule needs to be made, the league will make the decision, working closely with the club and local authorities.”‘

‘The Bills did not provide a timetable on when the NFL would decide whether it will be necessary to postpone the game or move it to another location.’

‘The NFL, not the Bills, will make the final determination on what to do, but the game could be pushed back to Monday, or perhaps contested at a neutral site Sunday or Monday, perhaps Toronto’s Rogers Centre where the Bills played one regular-season game every year between 2008 and 2013.’

‘The team has offered $10 per hour and game tickets to help with the readying process for the stadium, and will continue the efforts 24 hours a day until game day. The Bills said that the amount of snow inside Ralph Wilson Stadium is “four times or more” the amount they have ever had to remove ahead of a game.’

‘”I don’t think we’re doing a good enough job up front of running the football,” Marrone said. “At the end of the day, when you’re 25-percent efficient running the football, that’s a major issue.”‘

‘”It affects the normal week and we’re here trying to work on getting our information out to our players,” said Marrone via conference call Wednesday. “First and foremost we’re focused on our players’ safety. Making sure everybody stays safe and making sure they abide by the rules with the driving ban.’

‘I later found out that Mr. Wilson wasn’t told a whole lot about my being hired. Kay and others in the organization advised me to “kind of stay below the radar.” That was pretty easy, given that my office in the Bills’ administrative building in Orchard Park, New York, was the roughly the size of a storage closet. Besides, Mr. Wilson was based in Detroit, where he spent most of his time, and I was going to be out of town virtually every weekend during the season, doing advance scouting of upcoming opponents.’

‘Marrone continued to score points by signing a few autographs before resuming his quest to make it to the Orchard Park stadium.’

‘Noble said Carpenter shoved himself a path as he headed over. “He had to cut through the snow from his driveway just to get to our front door … and he only had a small snow shovel.’

‘After the expensive acquisition of rookie wide receiver Sammy Watkins, Whaley indicated that he felt it was worth giving up first- and fourth-round draft choices to get a player who would lift Buffalo into playoff mix. He acknowledged it was a gamble … but one worth taking. Unspoken was the fact that it was Marrone, not Whaley, who would be in the crucible if the Bills weren’t a playoff team.’

‘”We thought it was a calculated risk and a risk we were willing to take,” Whaley said in May. “The high costs not making the playoffs is something we weighed in and we thought this guy was going to get us to the playoffs.”‘

‘”We were all on board with the pick,” Whaley said. “It’s one of those things where everybody was obviously… when it was Buddy, it’s going to be attached to Buddy. When it’s me, Sammy’s going to be attached to my name. But when you’re going through a scouting process, especially with the guys in the top four to five rounds, you’re going to have five to six opinions. And what we do is we collectively come up with a Buffalo Bills opinion. So, EJ Manuel was a Buffalo Bills pick, and all of us were on board with it.”‘

‘Unlike Dixon, I have seen snow before, but not like this. I experienced plenty of snow storms growing up in Massachusetts and braved the 20 inches Missouri got unexpectedly while I was at college, but I was told it would be different in Western New York. I can now confirm it is, in fact, different. I could hardly walk down the street, let alone drive.’