Archives for January 2015

‘”They did an excellent job,” Thurman said of the Bills’ defenders in 2014. “There is talent on this defense up front, at linebacker and in the secondary. Our job is to put that talent in the best position to give them an opportunity to be successful. That’s all we’ve ever tried to do.”‘

‘”We’ve been evaluating the entire roster and EJ and Jeff, we’ve got some film on both of them and we’re going through it,” said Roman. “Both of them possess skills to play the position, and I think we’re just going to focus on rolling the balls on the field, working with them, and going from there. Everything else at this point is water cooler talk.”‘

‘”Whatever we end up being, whatever we end up looking like, is going to be a reflection of what our players can do,” Roman said. “It might look a lot of different ways. Maybe our tight end position gets a little beefed up, we like our receiver position, where does a fullback fit in to all this? It might look a lot of different ways, but ultimately, we’re going to try to do what our players do well, try to minimize what your players don’t do well.”‘

‘Dixon later tweeted that he expects to come back stronger from the surgery. He better hope so given the current state of the Bills’ backfield. With Fred Jackson entering the final season of his contract and getting up there in age and C.J. Spiller getting set to hit free agency, the Bills could be relying on the depth of Bryce Brown and Dixon. Buffalo will likely add another running back through free agency or the draft to provide some competition as well.’

‘”I think we want to build a team that kind of reflects the city of Buffalo,” Roman said. “I think part of that is being smart, tough and making Buffalo a place that nobody wants to come in December, January, etc. I think if you can exert your will at the line of scrimmage, it’s going to open up a lot of other things in the offense. To simply say we’re just going to run the football, well nobody simply runs the football. We want to run the football to a level where people respect and fear us and our ability to do so. That will help everything else in the offense open up. It will help us control the game, which is ultimately what we want to do.”‘

‘General manager Doug Whaley previously said he intends to add one and potentially two quarterbacks this offseason. Until that happens, Roman can only focus on the players he has.’

‘”We want to run the football to a level where people respect and fear us in our ability to do so,” the new Bills OC said. “That will help everything else in the offense open up and help us control the game which is ultimately what we want to do.”‘

‘”I’m not going to get into specifics. but I definitely think he’s done some very good things and displayed some good traits. We just have to get his level of consistency a little bit greater. Really, he and everybody else, once we get thru this evaluation process, we’re going to have a very clean slate, once we get going because what they might have been asked to do or done in the past is really not relevant to what we may or may not ask them to do. So to sit here and pontificate about this that and the other, is a little premature.”‘

‘”We want to be aggressive because we don’t want to sit back and let the offense dictate to us. We want to dictate play to them,” said Thurman.’

‘Palmer is the most interesting of the hires. He has 22 years of NFL coaching experience and last worked as offensive coordinator for the Tennessee Titans in 2011 and 2012. Over his career, Palmer spent two seasons as the head coach for the Cleveland Browns and seven seasons as an offensive coordinator with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans.’

‘”He’ll be, I believe, at the top of the list of candidates next year,” Schefter continued. “If he doesn’t get a head coaching job ever again, he made a colossal mistake. Colossal. If he doesn’t get a head coaching job in the next year or two? Huge mistake. But let’s see how it plays out. People are ripping on him. Hey, he’s got $4 million in his pocket, he’s got whatever Jacksonville is paying him. He walks into a situation where there was no quarterback, was no one, and now he starts over. He rolled the dice a little bit and we’ll see how it plays out. It’s too early to say he made a mistake.”‘

‘However, fans aren’t quite as sold on the Bills’ ability to crack the postseason in 2015: Only 49 percent of those polled think the Bills will end their playoff drought next season.’

‘”Physically, I’m back to 100 percent, back to doing normal activities,” Spiller told The Post and Courier on Friday. “As far as football, free agency will start in March, and I’ll get with my people next week and get a game plan together.”‘

‘”He knows what he is doing,” said Buffalo’s Donnie Henderson, one of the NFL’s top secondary coaches. “From the first time he walked into the room, you knew he knew the game and how to play it. He won’t be out there long, somebody is going to hire him as a coordinator or head coach again.”‘

‘The Bills announced Monday they also hired Michael Hamlin as a special teams quality control coach, Sanjay Lal as wide receivers coach, Anthony Lynn as a running backs coach, D’Anton Lynn as a defensive assistant and Chris Palmer as a senior offensive assistant.’