Sisyphean Bills

Peyton Manning is tall, not a scrambling machine, and he's not so bad.

Actually, the Bills have selected three 1st round QBs in their entire 51 years of drafting history. Riverboat Richie Lucas in 1960 (he played 2 seasons), Jim Kelly in 1983, and JP "The Bust" Losman in 2004 (he played 5). Both Kelly and Losman were the teams second 1st round pick in those drafts. Perhaps the fact that the Bills so rarely go after top QB talent in the draft, and have only hit once, is related to the franchise's long history of failure.

With $1M, the guy is set for life. He can spend the next 50 years at least having hot tub parties with hot chicks, smoking real cubans, and drinking top shelf tequila straight from the bottle.

I don't think Mularkey was ready to be a head coach at the time; he was just a hot young coach that Donahoe knew from Pittsburgh. MM wasn't sure which way he wanted to take the organization (Sam Wyche even mentioned once that MM asked him what he should be doing at times) and as a result MM was seemingly talked into going along with stupid decisions such as discarding Bledsoe to force Losman into the lineup before he was ready, firing some of the coaches on his staff when he was himself a lame duck and the front office was being blown up, etc. I give him credit for realizing quickly that his situation was being stacked for failure, though his walking away and allowing Ralph off the hook was unusual. Perhaps if he had called a spade a spade in that meeting, he would have delivered a wake up call as well as probably gotten his wish to leave.

Cameron Heyward had a dominating performance. Nice job by the big guy.

Wow.

If Luck declares, the Panthers will be trying to work out a contract with him probably within 5 minutes.

I don't care about the contract numbers, but if said player could actually seal an edge or make a tackle or ... well ... make football plays then hell yes.

Was his father also 18?

That's interesting because they were drafted in the same year. Bishop gets a new deal and Posluszny is told he has to wait until the CBA is signed before the Bills will come to the table. That sort of tells you something.

Well, it says it on Wikipedia... so mea culpa. Tedford was OC in Oregon from 1998 to 2001. David Carr was at Fresno St. from 1997 to 2001 (forgot he redshirted a year). So, while technically there was 1 year of overlap, saying he was a Tedford product based on 11 attempts as a freshman is ridiculous. Carr really blossomed in 2000 and 2001 under Andy Ludwig.

I have to disagree with your take on Bell. "He did OK," is not a high endorsement at all. Gailey confirmed what some of us have said all along, Bell is weak and really needs to improve his conditioning and functional strength. CG is correct to commend Bell for gutting it through a whole season, but that's a long ways from a ringing endorsement. In fact, from the direction of his thoughts, I'd say Chan's primary concerns at present are the offensive line and linebackers. I'd be thinking the same thing in his shoes.

Pretty clear that he's not a high priority. The Bills are apparently not even going to talk with him until after the new CBA is signed, sealed, and delivered.

I don't think so. I think coach just meant the guy got tossed into the deep end with cinder blocks tied to each arm and he didn't instantly drown.

Gailey said he'll evaluate it, but he anticipates zero changes in the staff.

It was actually stronger than that. Gailey said that Maybin is on the outside looking in and implied that unless Aaron makes dramatic strides in his development, he's finished. Looks like the notion that he could hang out for 4 or 5 years as a project isn't getting a lot of air play with CG.

Perhaps treating the last game as a walk-through wasn't what Gailey was looking for?

You/they must mean 2009. Of course there were only 5 QBs drafted in the first round since 2009. Bradford, Tebow, Stafford, Sanchez, and Freeman.

On merit, sure, you'd think he'd get fired. On the other hand, this is the front office that gave Kelsay, who was playing absolutely terrible football, an extension because he was "improving". If they follow that mode of thinking, Edwards will be promoted to Asst. Head Coach.

No.

He seems to be doing what he can to burn his bridges. Really looked like he mailed it in yesterday.

There was a thread a while back defending Poz that asserted a linebacker, who is usually smaller than an OL, cannot be expected to play off blocks by such players. In watching some highlights of games yesterday, there were a couple of plays by other defenses where defensive backs, coming on a blitz, were able to use their hands and feet, defeat an offensive lineman and make a tackle for a loss in the offensive backfield.

Of the 3 teams that had coaching/regime changes this year, 2 of them improved record wise. Seattle was very aggressive in turning over their roster and made the most roster moves of any team in the NFL. Washington was less aggressive, but did make a big move to try and secure a "franchise QB" (albeit heading into the twilight of his career). Buffalo was the team that regressed in terms of record and they made no big moves at all to their roster during the off-season. 2010 in Buffalo was not a rebuilding year. It was a year of demolition and re-evaluation of the scraps and crumbs left over from the previous failed regime. If there is not a lockout in 2011, hopefully the season will be one where the new Bills regime brings in and plays their own players that fit their systems, especially on defense. The defense was bad in 2010, and there is a ton of work to do on that side on the ball. Jobs are going to be lost and an overhaul is coming. On the offensive side, there are still issues at OT. The RT position was a disaster throughout 2010. The consistency in the running game simply wasn't there and Gailey mentioned this often in his PCs. The Bills still need to find an NFL TE who can produce in the passing game, otherwise their passing game will continue to sputter at times. Gailey will be looking to have a bigger more physical passing game than the previous coach. As Gailey said: Stevie Johnson did some very good things, but he'll never be considered a real #1 if he can't hang onto the ball. Then there is the question at QB: Fitzpatrick surpassed all expectations and played very well in 2010, but he can still be erratic and may not be the long-term solution at QB. Ralph Wilson's public statement that he wanted a new QB after Trent Edwards failed may or may not still be his mindset. Bottom line, though, the Bills have got to do a U-turn with respect to their abysmal drafting. With the third pick in the 2011 draft, now would be a terrific time to start.

I agree with Gailey. Brohm struggled with the speed of the game a bit. The majority of his career to date, he has done little more than run the scout team. Gailey also said that Brohm knew what he was doing, which is a very good thing. That means he was operating in the offense as designed, and has the football IQ to be capable of doing the job. It may be a wee bit premature to give up on him after 1 game.

That's a real indictment against The Plan going into this year. The Bills loaded up on 3-4 guys in the draft and free-agency and ended up giving up on the switch to run a hybrid scheme with the Jauron hold overs and even that unraveled badly. Where do they go from here? Shawne Merriman is a 3-4 OLB, so maybe they are going to stick with the plan? If so, I would expect a serious house cleaning -- the defense wasn't mediocre; it was bad.