Sisyphean Bills

To the OP, Whaley said that he wasn't going to be a player in free agency this year. Last year, they splurged, but now they are going back to their strength, building through the draft.

He talked some about QB. The synopsis was he thinks they have two QBs now. TT and EJM are both "NFL starting caliber". EJM is a "competitor" and Whaley figures he will want to move on to compete for a starting job elsewhere. Both QBs' contracts are going into their last year. Upshot: he's interested in the QBs at the Senior Bowl and there is a certain "logic" to drafting one and developing him in-house as a precaution against losing either TT or EJM. Mentioned TT getting picked for the Pro Bowl. Proves TT is legit.

The odd thing is that roughly half the teams in the NFL win each week during the season. Go figure.

I meant that in the hypothetical. (Notice I didn't use the name Gordon.) Fans love to use the "I've heard of him!" approach and talk about "zero risk" and such. But it's fair to point out that there is no such thing as zero risk. Every team in the NFL starts out with the same cap resources. The best teams manage their resources (cap, coaches, players) in such a way to put the best team on the field and not on paper. If it doesn't get you more points than the opponent on the scoreboard week in and week out, it's not a good move.

I'm not sure playing games with Tinkerbell was the main point, but ...

Someone should ask though if it makes sense to hire Stupid for the job Stupid will have to do. I mean, even if the job is changing light bulbs in an office building, if Stupid does $4 million dollars in facility damages on his way to changing 6 bulbs, it might not have been a good hire.

The 49ers? Really?

Well, do you believe the talk that the Bills defensive players couldn't figure out the scheme? Even though Pettine ran a similar scheme just two years earlier? And didn't Hughes say they didn't bother putting the work in during the off-season? I don't know, but when I see plays where guys are simply standing around and watching the offense execute that tells me the players share some of the blame. Like they say, a bad plan executed perfectly is way better than a perfect plan executed badly. Edit: The corollary is bad execution trumps all. The plan may have been perfect or pure crap, but if people don't do their jobs and hold up their end, the whole thing falls apart regardless.

Don't forget the new windbag effect, with some new face selling the snake oil that a flat line is "trending up".

Did you miss the posts that said everything was constant except for Schwartz being replaced by Ryan?

Before the game they were saying this was Hoyer's chance to prove himself. Whoops.

"Except the fans"? It seems like a contradiction to say the same person is still managing the cap/economics of the team and then say the only thing that is the same is the fans. The GM's role is to construct, maintain, and manage a franchise that can compete for championships. It's coaches, scouts, players, trainers, cap nerds, etc. It means finding the right coaches and players who fit a strategic system, has the flexibility to dynamically adapt to a constantly changing environment, and will play all 3 phases of the game at a high enough level to win. It means managing costs and looking far enough ahead to maintain and sustain the system. A GM's job is not really about selling a list of 53 names based on their Madden numbers as "the best" to the fans.

Hammer meets nail. The GM should take responsibility for being the football side of the decision to hire coaches who can't work with the roster he's built and building.

When was Palmer a backup though?

I suspect we'd find a lot of departments suffer "herd think". If the consensus running into the draft appears to be that the group looks favorably on Cook (since he's the point of topic), then it really takes someone with brass cajones to bang the table for some guy the group is overlooking. And, even if the outlier scout ends up being right in the long run and the player he touts turns out to be Tom Brady, if he can't sway the herd thinking then it simply never happens.

There is a huge middle ground here. Why argue whether it is 100% ownership or 100% absolution? What is inarguable is that Whaley was a part of the decision to draft EJM. Whaley set the draft board that year and was a part of the decision.

To build a championship caliber team, one doesn't want 1.3 guys per draft who can be serviceable and occupy a spot in your lineup. One needs to be hitting home-runs. Guys who will have Hall-of-Fame (or close) caliber careers. The "he's a 'good pick' because he played >50% of the snaps" grading system is too low of a bar.

1. Whaley and Ryan worked together one off-season. One. A single data point isn't a "trend". 2. Nobody has to "allow" anyone to form an opinion. Just go for it. 3. I don't know. The defense was "really good" for 1 year in a row. Is that a mark of greatness? This unit played the same basic scheme under Pettine, so why is the scheme suddenly "impossible to understand"? I find it strange to see some individuals going all out on this defense, while others stand around and watch. I agree that it doesn't make the coaching look very good. On the other hand, WTF is wrong with the "loafers"? Players play for each other and it looks like some of them are happy to let others do the heavy lifting by themselves. 4. Agreed that this team has been grossly mismanaged. Scoreboard. 5. I hardly am here to defend Rex Ryan's work. He didn't deliver. Shame on him. On the other hand, he's just the latest in a very long string of coaches and players who've failed and delivered wasted seasons that have made Bills fans bitter, jaded, and apathetic. In some ways, firing coach-du-jour immediately is like standing in a public restroom that hasn't been cleaned in years and repeatedly flushing the toilet in hopes that the mirrors will unbreak, the light bulbs will fix themselves, and all the stink and sewage will vanish. The cesspool will be as clean and fresh as a field of daisies with one more yank on the handle. Yeah, it may be necessary to fire Ryan. I understand the frustration and disappointment. The defense he and his brother run has looked like a big pile of processed chicken feed this year, with Rob getting canned. Rex's bombastic personality doesn't help things when the performance on the field leaves skid marks. Still, this is year 1 of Ryan+Whaley. Comparing it apples to apples with Marrone+Whaley means what? Isn't one of the Whaley general CYAs that he isn't responsible for and had nothing to do with anything until Nix retired? I dunno, man. It sucks.

We all know what came out of the mouths of the Pegula, Brandon, and Whaley at the press conference. Whaley was "the football guy" and his input was "as the football guy". Not throwing you under the bus, but the degrees of hair-splitting is the exact opposite direction my original post went.

I agree. RR does not come off as a genius. But he has apparently designed a defense that is so complicated that only the brightest minds in physics can begin to grasp its subtle nuances. Heck, it must be crafted in 10-dimensional space-time.

The narrative that Rex Ryan is a flaming moron but his defensive scheme requires players who are geniuses or better to line up, execute, and tackle seems curious. FWIW, I agree that there was something really deficient with the offense and defense this year. At times, these were both true: The defense was blown away against up tempo. The offensive pace could barely get out of an old-man shuffle to a simple walk.

About as shocking as Chip Kelly getting tossed overboard...

Gleason is paid to write an opinion piece. Big !@#$ing deal. I happen to agree with Gleason that it appears on the outside that there are lifers whose main objective is to preserve their jobs. The fact that they defy the odds and can't even manage to back into a playoff berth is indisputable. It should be alarming.

South Carolina should throw their hat in the ring.

Well, all the fans that jumped off the bridge wouldn't be around to see it one way or the other.