Sisyphean Bills

Typically, coaches call practice "reps" and what you do in games "snaps", so your terminology threw me. You unfortunately seemed to be saying that the only thing he lacks in playing time in games. Obviously, game situations are the fastest moving and the absolute hardest, least controlled teaching situations. If you had said he needs to work on his mechanics over the off-season and get coaching to improve that area of his game instead of saying that all he needs is more snaps, your point would've been a lot clearer.

I guess I misunderstood SJ. I didn't realize he was equating the term "snaps" with throwing a football around in unorganized off-season activities.

Will that also help his mechanics? You could be onto something... too bad that without a regenerative mutation the injections will kill the subject. But, Russ did promise to bring every resource to bear...

I touched on this in another thread, but they are already in an awkward situation. Manuel didn't show enough in my opinion to make me confident of his impending predestined raging success. Far from it. So, while the Bills aren't exactly in the same situation as last year (they couldn't have gone into this season with Fitzpatrick the only NFL QB on the roster again), the QB position is once again unsettled. Manuel, Lewis, and Tuel are a collection of inexperience and projections. Obviously, another boom-or-megabust Aaron Maybinesque pick could be out there... That would be awful.

Russ likes to talk tough, but he said he is expecting playoffs next year. And, improvement. He said he wasn't happy with the 6-10 result. A backslide could cost Marrone his job even before 3 years are up. Continued 6-10 flat-lining would put him in the hot-seat for sure. 7-9 and 8-8 and another miss of the playoffs could make his seat very warm. It's in their best interests to do more to increase competition at the position. Critically, their moves this past season weren't all that great. If their plan was to keep a veteran and develop a rookie, then that was executed poorly in releasing Fitzpatrick and scraping the rime off the bottom of the FA barrel. It backfired badly. Manuel's own struggles both on the field and in staying healthy have put them in another bind: it's entirely unclear if he is the guy at this point. (The fact that some liked the talent of Tuel better in pre-season and Lewis better in the regular season is not a comforting thing.)

I wasn't saying that Manuel was a failure at this point. I agree that it is too early to know that for certain. By the same token, I am not sold that Manuel is the answer. He might improve, sure, but his improvement over this season was not what I'd like to have seen. (In the PC, Whaley talked about how he was expecting big improvement from his 1st to 2nd year; implicit to that is that Manuel may not have truly and firmly established himself as the long-term solution. Add Russ Brandon: "expecting marked improvement.") But my response was really more to how long a "regime" has. Manuel is a potential survival decision for the Marrone middle management group. If they get it wrong, they stand very long odds against surviving to fix that mistake. Buddy and Chan didn't survive their lack of urgency at the QB position, and I doubt Doug Marrone is teflon in that regards. Can he stick with anyone for 6 years of losing seasons? I'd say, no.

Yes, there is such a thing. It's unclear that even Pittsburgh, which is one of the few islands of stability in a sea frothy from churn, would give a QB 6 years these days to show he could play the position. The truth is that there are good QBs coming out of college that have thrown thousands of reps and studied nuances of the passing game before they get to the NFL. They can be and are successful immediately. On the other hand, a coach has to keep his eye on the ball -- it's all about winning. How many really care these days if you could maybe have molded a lump of clay into a serviceable QB with huge amounts of pain and patience? How many people would've been on board with Gailey tinkering with Fitzpatrick this past season and maybe a couple more as well? Even Buddy Nix saw that wasn't going to be the path.

It's sort of built into the OP's premise, I'd guess. But, say the Bills pass on another rookie QB that lights it up, go all-in with EJ next year and he not only doesn't make the quantum leap forward but regresses badly. With the coaching carousel seemingly getting even faster now, then there may be an argument that Marrone and Hackett would be undone by a major EJ egg laying season (say a 2-14 season). The Bills will need to be more than status-quo and business-as-usual to break out of their funk. Who knows if the above meltdown is likely or not. Do they let their best players go because the market price is "too high" and backfill with more Aaron Maybinesque draft picks? Or do they finally make decisions that add depth and increase the collective talent of the team?

Serious question: how does more snaps improve his mechanics? FWIW, I do see how having his WRs on the same page of the play book wouldn't exactly hurt him. PS: How do you propose to solve the cycle of knee injuries that lead directly to fewer snaps issue?

I was generalizing from my own personal knowledge -- but to a limited degree. It seems rather obvious that no one can know all Bills fans minds and summarize them in a sentence. Still, I seriously do believe that the Bills flat-out-sucking has a lot more to do with many people waving good-bye than the fact that some people express negative opinions about a negative situation which has yielded negative results for almost a decade and a half. I don't believe that the cause-and-effect relationship that some apparently subscribe to is in any way sound: there is no logical reason I can see to think that criticism of failure causes the failure to happen.

Never claimed to know every single posters reason for leaving. Lori left because she didn't enjoy the personal attacks on people she considered friends, if I recall. I'm not sure how you can "disagree" with my post though, since you don't know me nor who my friends are and have zero knowledge of our personal communications. And the fact that the Bills have given so little to cheer about for 14 years running is not a positive thing, drives negative perceptions and feelings, and does cause people to lose interest. Sorry, that's reality in some cases and has even been the topic of several threads in this forum.

Moderation comment: Please keep this thread on topic and use courtesy towards other members of the forum.

One could trot out the "they needed an evaluation year" excuse for this.

I think this is blaming a symptom -- this fever is really what is making me feel bad -- instead of the disease -- dude, you have the flu. Fans (personal friends) have left because they simply don't care about the Bills that much anymore. The false hope doesn't play well universally and they have other things to do that they enjoy.

True, but disputes are rarely simply one-sided. It was patently obvious that the WRs weren't on the same page as the rest of the offense at times well into the season. Ho-hum. Kudos for the firing, I guess.

No idea. But, if he is, he really should keep his stuff in the cardboard boxes.

Good hire for someone wanting out.

Interesting take. Guess you either selectively forgot Colin Brown or just saw the move as a mistake "anybody" could have made. (It wasn't.)

Might be simple. Maybe he was a critical of the OC.

Well, good news for Marrone. He wasn't the first of his class to get fired.

We're seriously comparing CJ Spiller to Jim Brown?

He had a good year for the Bucs a few years back.

Maybe it is hard to breathe and run at the same time?

We traded up for this guy.