thewildrabbit

Lets look, shall we. Buffalo 480 attempts. TB 454 attempts. Carolina 458 attempts. NY Giants 488 attempts. Coaching, yea could be. You don't see those teams coaches using their star rookie WR's as decoys.

I keep reading this on how Sammy is being held back by his QB. Then what about the scrubs throwing to Beckham, Evans, Benjamin. Both Eli Manning, and Cam Newton are having very bad seasons Josh McCown is the 28 ranked QB, and yet Mike Evans is the leading yardage receiver, and ranked 15th of all receivers.

Hey man, I agree 1000%. The Bills were in desperate need of a top run blocking OG, and Martin would have been a terrific choice and again! I also think this board is going to explode over this subject next April. Whaley stating that Ebron would have been the coach at #9 just reinforces to me that he doesn't know offensive talent that well, and went with Watkins because he is a can't miss player.

All that proves is that with drafting Ebron it would have been a not so great choice. "The !@#$ told me their board listed North Carolina tight end Eric Ebron, Notre Dame tackle Zack Martin and Louisiana State receiver Odell Beckham. All three still were available at No. 9. The insider said Ebron likely would've been the choice. OTOH, either of the other two would have been great choices, and the Bills would still have that 2015 #1 & #4. While it isn't that big a deal right now. I suspect that around draft time in April next year it will be a huge deal. I still don't like the deal simply because the Bills are still in desperate need of a franchise QB, and next years #1 & #4 could have gotten one.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. I can recall the team being so high on Beckham, and no idea why they soured on him. As I've stated many times I would have been more then happy to draft OG Zack Martin, and the Bills would have finally had a solid run game. I can only wonder if this year is the precursor for many years of injuries. Then I look at both Mike Evans, Kelvin Benjamin as beasts 6'5 230 lbs & 6'5 240 lbs

What makes anyone think that EJ is going to be more successful then Orton throwing 40+ times a game is beyond me. The offense lacks a good scheme to win games, and its the defense that is carrying the team

With three games to go whichever WR steps up could be offensive rookie of the year. Currently ranked by yards #15 Tampa Bay Mike Evans 57 rec, 935 yards, 10 TD's #23 Carolina Kelvin Benjamin 59 rec, 848 yards, 9 TD's #24 NY Giants Odell Beckham Jr 59 rec, 829 yards, 6 TD's #25 Buffalo Sammy Watkins 58 rec, 822 yards, 5 TD's #36 Philly Jordan Matthews 56 rec, 709 yards, 7 TD's #61 Miami Jarvis Landry 63 rec, 573 yards, 5 TD's #62 Arizona John Brown 39 rec, 569 yards, 5 TD's #64 Jacksonville Allen Hurns 40 rec, 566 yards 6 TD's #67 New Orleans Brandin Cooks 53 rec, 550 yards, 3 TD's- this player has been on IR after week 10 #84 Pittsburgh Martavis Bryant 21 rec 453 yards 7 Td's The best rookie WR seasons of all time are Randy Moss (1,313 yards + 17 TDs),Anquan Boldin (1,377 yards + 8 TDs), and John Jefferson (1,001 yards + 13 TDs). With only three games to go it doesn't look likely that anyone will break Moss or Boldin's yards. Mike Evans has actually slide from a top 10 spot.

This~ Then look at what Denver did to avoid letting Manning get killed the sack leading defense, and they have arguably the most elite QB in the NFL, He took a step back to only throw it 20 times, and let the run game take over. The Bills did this the first two games of the season by rushing 33 times in each of those wins, and for whatever reason went pass happy ever since. That with non elite QB's, a 2nd year QB, and an average QB. Even if you gave Buffalo Manning, Brady or Brees the Bills still wouldn't win games with 57 passes vs 16 rushes. Look at what happened in St Louis when Manning threw 54 times for 389 yards only to lose. Throwing that much, and that often is not the formula for success. It makes no difference who the QB is for Buffalo as every single one has regressed under Hackett. Lastly, I seriously don't get the love for Marrone. Why? because he hired Jim Schwartz who is fielding a championship defense? You guys should be as pissed as I am that probably the best defense since the 90's is being wasted this season with a junior college offense. You all heard Marrone that he didn't even know Hughes was benched, and so he has no input into the defense. Its all Schwartz, and his assistants. yea, maybe for a college team...maybe. I think OC's under Jauron Alex Van pelt, Turk Schonert did better with lesser talent, and where are those two now?

I only hope the Bills fire the current person responsible for O line scouting and hire someone that actually knows O line talent. This crap has been going on for a long time, remember in 2010 Buddy signing FA RT Cornell Green. Gone after six weeks just like next season with Colin Brown. Then I only hope any new adviser recommends signing, drafting the very best OG's the team can afford as the line has been devoid of a top run blocker for the longest time. The Bills seriously need a top run game. I notice that Dallas's first round pick in OG Zack Martin, and Cleveland's 2nd round pick in OG Joel Bitonio are currently being considered for rookie of the year. The OG being a position as about as un-sexy as you can get the actual ORotY will probably be NY Giants WR Odell Beckham Jr, or Tampa bay WR Mike Evans, or Carolina WR Kelvin Benjamin.

It was actually with three rookie QB's, and I agree it was pretty asinine. The Browns have fired everybody every year for the last three years, and now finally have a team with a winning record. What right QB? The Bills have had four QB's over the last two years, and each and every one regressed under this offensive coaching staff. In particular under Hackett. Whaley will stay, and so might Marrone. Jim Schwartz will probably stay unless he gets an offer to be a head coach again. Its Can't Hackett that is most likely the goner, and good riddance to bad garbage.

Yea I agree. Those first two games the Bills rushed 33 times, and passed only 20, and had a clear formula for success. Even at Chicago against a team they weren't supposed to beat or even be in the game against. Cutler throwing 49 times while Forte only getting 17 attempts. Sound like a familiar way to lose? You would think that after all these games that the offensive coaches would find a clue that going pass happy every game with an average QB isn't the way to win. The Broncos have an elite QB, and they got it after one loss to St Louis, and started running the ball like crazy. Whats interesting is they have almost the same problem as the Bills in terms of a weak interior line. They managed to correct the problem by having the interior players double up on defenders to open up lanes up the middle. Simple better coaching is all it took. I yearn for some better coaching on the offensive side of the ball for Buffalo. They may in fact find that Orton is good enough with a strong run game, and defense.

I see the Bills and Browns as perennial bottom of the division teams for different reasons. The Browns have struggled with many different owners, and many different coaching staffs along with many different QB's. The current Cleveland browns as we know them started as an expansion team in 1999 after losing their franchise to Baltimore in 1995. In those 16 years they have had only two winning seasons, and one playoff appearance. The Lerner family owned them from 1999 to 2012, and in all that time really never hired the right men to run the team at the top. Now under the Haslam family at least they appear to be headed in the right direction in terms of a good GM in Ray Farmer. But before him they went thru several GM's, HC's. Looks like this owner isn't going to sit by and watch his team lose even for one year, and do nothing about it! In 2012 HC Pat Shurmer, & GM Tom Heckart were both fired. In 2013 new GM Michael Lombardi & new HC Rob Chudzinski were fired. Now Ray Farmer, and Mike Pettine seem to finally know what they are doing. Although Brian Hoyer seems to be regressing badly under Kyle Shanahan 1 TD 7 ints the last few games. So Johnny Football gets his shot to start this week, and we don't really know if he is a winner or not. The Bills have the much better defense, and worse offensive coaches. It really remains to be seen what happens the next few games with both the Browns and Bills to see what the future could hold for both teams.

The difference now is that the new owners won't be scraping the bottom of the barrel of the least expensive out there. Nor will anyone worth a darn not want to work in Buffalo. Buddy Nix was forced to settle for Gailey because nobody wanted to work for a 90 year old owner who was notorious for micromanaging his coaches. It got so bad that even not so good assistants were turning down interviews for the job. New ownership perhaps the richest in the NFL have already stated they want to win above all else, and don't care if the team makes money or not. To quote Terry Pegula "if i wanted to make money I'd drill another well" If there is another Chip Kelly type out there we Bills fans can now expect him to be considered instead of ignored because he commands such a high salary. I think we can perhaps expect an offer to go to Jon Gruden, Bill Cowher or Jim Harbaugh should the Pegula's decide they are tired of an offensive coach who fields a near last ranked offense.

Mike Iupati

Its what a lot of what Bills fans do, defend the inept coaching and crucify the QB. Yet, If asked 99.9 of the fans would tell you Orton is not elite, and just average. So why does this coaching staff have this QB carrying the entire offensive workload every single game? Almost always 40 passes vs 20 rushes, and if you know the guy is not elite why not build a decent ground game and utilize it. More times then not this year the run game has been gaining over 4.0 yards per carry, and against the Broncos they were getting 4.6 while rushing only 16 times. Denver was also getting 4.6 YPC and managed to win the game by limiting Manning's passes to only 20, and their run game with 29 rushes. They managed to make some big plays in the run game, and their RB scored 3 TD's. The Denver coaching staff was smart enough to realize after that St Louis loss when Manning threw for 54 times for 369 yards 1TD, 2 INT's while the team only rushing it only 10 times wasn't the formula to win games. Since that St Louis loss the Broncos coaching staff devised a very solid ground game in which they ran the ball with CJ Anderson gaining 167, 168 yards in the next two games. Denver coaches = smart. Buffalo coaches = inept

Hackett didn't even know what defensive scheme the Texans secondary were playing until last into the third quarter, and Mike Williams then went invisible for voicing that to the Buffalo Bills post game show. He stated 'we adjusted too late". Then he said things tend not to work when you are playing against a different scheme then the one you game planned for. Most Bills fans just don't really just how bad this offensive coaching is, and has been all year. Kyle Orton is an average QB, and not elite. So why ask the guy to throw 57 times against the #4 ranked defense in the league. Just insane!

The sad thing is Marrone has an extensive offensive background. A three year Letterman as an O linemen at Syracuse. A 6th round pick by the Raiders in 86 as an ex NFL O lineman, a year with the Dolphins, a year with the Saints, a year with London Monarchs. He only played a total of five games as an NFL lineman. Then his coaching experience is rather extensive, as an assistant offensive coach from 1992 to 2001 in College. Then in 2002 he was hired as the O line coach by the Jets for four years, then spent three years as the OC for the Saints. Then four years at Syracuse as head coach before coming to Buffalo. I really question his NFL knowledge in allowing Nathaniel Hackett to run his offense the last two years. In letting three rookie QB's on the roster with no QB coach, or veteran QB. Then having a average QB like Orton throw 40 times a game while running only half that is just plain stupid. Much less 57 times a game is simply beyond ridiculous. Doug Marrone may eventually be a good NFL head coach, who knows. All I do know Is i don't care to wait another 3-5 years to see if he will eventually develop into one. Plus, at this point I'm not so certain that simply firing Hackett, and replacing him with a known NFL talent at OC will make much difference. I look at the Denver Broncos this week who have an elite QB in Peyton Manning, and only threw it 20 times vs 29 rushes. Manning didn't even throw for a TD which stopped his steak at 51 games. He also had his lowest QB rating the last six years. I suppose for them its far more important to devise an offensive scheme to actually win games. In all honesty I don't know who the Bills could hire that would allow them to keep Schwartz as DC, and it certainly wouldn't be Jim Harbaugh. Perhaps Bill Cowher can be lured away from TV with an 8 mill per deal, as I see he might be the only man on the planet to build a team that can knock the Patriots off their lofty perch.

What really gets me is if you asked any Bills fan to rank, grade Kyle Orton vs the rest of the NFL QB's he would probably come in around 20th or so. Justifiably, rightfully so. Orton is far, far from an elite QB. So why on gods green earth does this coaching staff insist he keep carrying the entire offense game, after game. Yet, this regime thinks they have Tom Brady, Drew Brees at QB, and keep asking him to throw it 40 times a game while rushing only half that. Then this last game it became really ridiculous this last game with asking him to throw 57 times with only 16 rushes. Adam Schein is a complete buffoon if he thinks Doug Maroon has done a fabulous job of keeping Buffalo afloat this season. If anything its been Jim Schwartz, and his 5th ranked defense that leads the NFL in sacks vs the 28th to 24th ranked offense run by Marrone / Hackett. No QB on earth is going to succeed with the morons currently running the offensive side of things.

and sad at the same time. I agree, and the O line has done nothing but regress since Marrone took over. It wasn't all that great under Gailey either simply because he used a real spread out offense to run out of, and ran a short, quick, passing game in which Fitz found Stevie in around 2.0 seconds. That ability to get rid of the ball so quickly mostly negated any pass rush against him. For some unknown reason the brain trust of this Org has had it in their heads that quality players are not needed at the OG positions. Otherwise they would have drafted for the position earlier, and brought in top players in free agency then the lowest graded player in the league. Lets hope all this changes with new ownership, and smarter people at the top. ----------------------------------------------------------- The thing is, in my view any normal individual with a reasonable IQ should comprehend that Kyle Orton is not an elite QB, and shouldn't be throwing 40 times in a game, much less 57. How ridiculous, Its amazing that he didn't have more then 2 INT's or more then 4 sacks. This week the offensive game plan was working very well to some degree in the first quarter with some rarely seen plays, fake reverses, an end around with Goodwin. Its almost as if Marrone might have started making the play calls instead of Hackett. Then once the team got behind in the score the run game went out the window completely. Abandoning the offensive game is always the worst thing you can do in this situation given that three quarters of game were still left to play. Yet the Bills went pass happy yet again against a very strong defense that ranked higher then the bills, with almost as many sacks. Kyle Orton played much better then I expected given that the game was on the road, at mile high stadium, and the Bills OC forced him to shoulder the entire offense on his own. Really the game came down to poor special teams play, and poor field position for Buffalo all day. Out of 11 offensive series only once did the team start past the 26 yard line. Thus forcing the Bills to go 80 yards to score. Also, Denver did the smart thing by taking the ball out of Manning's hands and giving it to their RB CJ Anderson. Hopefully at some point in the future someone in the Bills Org will realize that building a potent run game is what really helps win games in so many ways. The 90's Bills usually ran more then they threw it, and Thurman was 75% of that supposed "K gun" offense.

Orton would be a better QB with a better team around him. Better coaching, better O line, better run game. We honestly don't know what Orton / EJ are fully capable of with a sub par surrounding cast. I don't think I've ever seen any NFL QB win any game throwing 57 passes with only 16 rushes, and were rushing the ball with a 4.6 YPC average. The offense was bad before Orton, and he is hamstrung by scrubs and bums. JMO

after having two years to make any changes he wants. Then the 2015 first round & fourth round picks are gone on the 4th ranked rookie WR. #14 Evans, #23 Beckham, #24 Benjamin all have more yards, TD's then Watkins. 5 years later, and still no baby... thanks for nothing Buddy.

I don't think Whaley will make any moves on his own. I feel he will wait to see what the new owners think about the team, and take it from there. Then the Pegula's are reported to be interested in hiring a senior adviser as a consultant. I would think that any NFL consultant with a reasonable NFL IQ would suggest making changes to the offensive coaching staff. Quite possibly Marrone along with his entire offensive staff, and most definitely Hackett will be gone. A wasted season with a championship defense, and a JV offense Lets get real here. I just don't see the Bills keeping pace scoring wise with either the Packers or the Patriots. Then the Raiders just managed to beat the 49ers in Oakland with Derek Carr throwing 22 of 28 for 258 yards, 3 TD's. Their opponent in the 49ers currently have the #3 defense in the NFL. 7-9 could easily be all she wrote this year.

The best way to help Orton is to get him some quality OG's, and a stout run game. Then give him a better coaching staff with an OC who actually knows how to build a balanced offense. Running a hurry up with a crap supporting cast will only get him killed, or it would simply resemble last years hurry up and punt offense.

Same here or JJ Watt would have saved the Bills one hundred million, or given them the best outside pass rush ever. I look at DT's as space eaters, run stuffers in the Pat Williams mold rather then penetrating rushers like Williams, Dareus. The Bills have a top 5 championship defense this year, and lead the league in sacks. Yet its not winning games without a viable offense.

This whole situation with Williams has been weird this year. Having a known red zone threat inactive when the team is last in red zone TD's. Then giving his spot to a special teams coverage player when the team has an extra kick on the roster to kick balls out of the end zone.