Utah John

Great article. Welcome to New York State, Mr Ryan.

I'd have been happy with Gailey as OC also, but it looks like a Roman holiday is on its way. I know nothing about Roman so I have no opinion on whether he's a good hire. But I sure hope they keep Schwartz and stay in the 4-3. The personnel have been assembled for a 4-3, not a 3-4, and starting over to fit Ryan's preference for a 3-4 would be downright criminal.

I'm not a fan of the Cowboys (as far from a fan as can be) nor of the Lions (less hatred there), but I think both Johnson and Bryant did enough to have their catches count. Bryant caught the ball and took at least two, maybe three, steps with the ball firmly in control. That should be that. He was contacted by the defender so when he fell he should have been considered tackled. The fact that the ball came loose after shouldn't matter there, any more than if a RB is moving down the field and is tackled, and as he falls the ball hits the ground and comes loose. For the RB the play is dead -- it's not a fumble since he was contacted by the defender and when the ball hits, the play is over. Should be the same thinking for catches.

If the Browns fire Pettine after one year, during which they played pretty well for long stretches, they will surpass even the Bills for FO foolishness. Unless the ghost of Vince Lombardi is looking for work, they won't find anyone better than Pettine.

I have always figured Ryan is a good coach with a lousy front office. He'll fit right in. My biggest concern with this is that Ryan loves a 3-4 defense, and the Bills personnel is geared to a 4-3. Will Ryan keep Schwartz in place and let Schwartz continue to run a 4-3? Well just supposing they go with a 3-4. Does Kyle Williams play right DE? Does Jerry Hughes play right DE? Or do they let Hughes leave (or heaven forbid, let Kyle Williams leave), and plug in Kiko alongside this year's three LBs? Or do they just toss out everything and start over like usually happens when they switch defensive concepts. Rex Ryan is probably an upgrade over Marrone. Any of the OC options they're talking about is a HUGE upgrade over Hackett. But there's still no solid QB option, and the O line still stinks. If the Bills handle this wrong, they'll blow up that great defense and not fix the offense. Probably trade Carpenter too so they'll suck on STs as well.

It's not cheating, but the officials should have realized that it gave the Pats an unfair advantage. Running a play out of that unusual formation is legal, no question, but having the referee simply announce that the RB lined up outside the main linemen group was ineligible just before the ball is snapped, is not sufficient notice to the defense to allow them to understand whom to cover. The whole point of having eligible and ineligible receivers is so that everyone understands who is eligible and who isn't. So the FIRST time this happened, the Ravens were at an unfair disadvantage. Any times after that, these professional athletes and their professional coaches should have had some kind of plan. Even if they had to draw it up on paper on the sidelines, they should have been able to pull something together to counter the formation. For starters, with one of the ineligible linemen deployed off the main group, that left four actual blockers. Blitz away and see what happens.

I never hated Shula. I hated the Bills losing to the Dolphins all those years, but I always thought Shula was a classy person and a great coach. My biggest gripe against Jimmy Johnson is that he got two teams, the Cowboys and Dolphins, to boot out great coaches, Landry and Shula, to make room for him. And he did no better than the guys he replaced.

His name should remain on the Wall. IMHO he was the greatest Bill of all time, comparing his impact to the game at the time he played to anyone else's. He was far and away the best RB of his era, and there were a lot of great RBs around. Kelly was great too but probably not the best QB playing when he was playing. To me, it's not embarrassing to see his name up there, it's sad to think how such a talented person screwed up so badly. He was always an arrogant jerk, just a great athlete.

Daddy Shanny as HC. Kid Shanny as OC. Schwartz as DC. git er done

The first point is if the Bills kept their 9 pick they would have taken Ebron, not Beckham. Typical Bills, they would have passed on the area of strength and depth in the draft and picked some other position, dreaming they found Gronk v.2. Chandler knows the offense better and Lee Smith is a better blocker, so Ebron wouldn't have played much. Like Ebron hasn't played much in Detroit. Second, drafting a QB this spring is not the only priority. Yes, I acknowledge there aren't any obvious franchise QBs, let alone one at 19. However there will be a lot of good offensive linemen. THAT'S the loss that will hurt us next year. Third, we wouldn't be at 19 if we didn't have Sammy, and had Ebron instead. We'd have four wins, not nine, and we'd be drafting much sooner. We would also be likely to lose Hughes and Dareus who would be fed up with being on a crappy team again. Fourth, even with drafting sooner this spring if they still had their pick, the Bills have a pretty bad track record drafting for value. Even when they have a fairly high pick, they end up with a player who turns out to be as good as most second rounders. The likeliest outcome this spring is they would take a guard who turns out to be pretty good but not dominant. The upgrade for the offense would be marginal. Fifth, I think the way out of the Bills' offensive mess is to spend heavily in free agency, and bring in a new HC and OC who have a clue about running an offense. Overall, I support the Watkins trade. I think he will always be better than the players around him, and will accelerate his development with good QB play.

I am pretty sure he dated a porn star named Bibi Jones for a while. Later on she appeared with another athlete, so poor Gronk got dumped. The only erotic language that comes to mind with Gronkowski is yelling F*** at the television as some Bills defender fails to tackle him for the fourth time that game. It isn't good for me and it startles the dog.

Betcha a nickel that Jerry Hughes follows Doug Marrone to the Jets. For a TON of money. Alongside Richardson and Wilkerson, he'll thrive on single blocking like he's been getting alongside Wiliams, Dareus, and Williams. He'll be loving life in beautiful downtown New Jersey. Bradham OTOH is like Darryl Talley, a great Bill who doesn't seem to get any recognition elsewhere.

I think the receiver was trying to fight his way back to the ball to make the catch, which is not interference. What the defender did was clearly interference. It was also face-guarding. Face-guarding is not a foul, so the ref decided not to have a penalty called, but it was ALSO PI so there was plenty of justification for the original flag. The TV announcers made a big deal of the fact the crew hadn't worked together before. Why on earth do they do that? Are they just trying to reward individuals who grade out individually as the best? I care a lot more about the TEAM of officials getting the call right. As it was, Morelli had nothing to base his decision on, as to which other referee's opinion to rely on. So he made a call based on which one he thought probably had the better view of the play. I do not blame Morelli for this -- I actually think he's one of the best refs in the league -- and I do not think the fix is in. I think the second ref just didn't get the call right, and Morelli believed him, and it was so clear watching the game that that play was a turning point, taking the momentum away from the Lions.

I'm of the generation that watched OJ come into the league in 1968 and just take over for a few years in the early 70s. When Rich Stadium opened in 1973, the company that had the concession contract hired a lot of us teenagers to sell pop and beer in the stands. I got a job as a pop vendor, then when I turned 18 I switched to beer, which earned a lot more in tips (the drinking age then was 18 and not 21). Some of my happiest days were fall Sundays in the stands, part of a happy crowd watching OJ dazzle. It didn't hurt that the Bills hired very attractive young women in special outfits as ushers -- does anyone else remember them? I think they were there just for the first year or two after Rich opened. I digress. OJ was part of this experience. There used to be a television show called the Superstars competition or something, and they'd have athletes and actors and celebrities competing in various events. OJ would always just dominate the competition. For about 3 years, no one could touch him on that show or in THE show. He was just in a class by himself. 2003 yards in 14 games, are you kidding. After the championship years in the mid-60s, the Bills fell apart when their core got old, and after Lou Saban and Ralph Wilson decided to part ways the first time. (Lou should be on the Wall too, along with Cookie Gilchrist, but that's another story). When the Bills got Simpson, they became relevant again. Getting Saban back didn't hurt either, of course. Possibly it was Simpson's success that led to Wilson keeping the team in Buffalo, did you even think of that? Those were the years when Wilson was making trips to Seattle to see about moving the team there, and when the Erie County legislature voted to build a domed stadium to keep the Bills in town. The Wall recognizes contributions to the team, and Simpson made huge contributions. His name should remain on the Wall.

You hired two good defensive coordinators and had a very strong defense. Would you want to bring any of your defensive coaching staff or players with you? Jerry Hughes is a free agent, and would do well as part of our defensive line with Wilkerson and Richardson, just as he did in Buffalo. Would you want to make a strong pitch to bring him here? You had a very inexperienced offensive coordinator, and your offense was so bad it kept your team out of the playoffs. Would you want to bring any of your offensive coaching staff or players with you? You had an above average special teams group. Would you want to bring any of your special teams players or coaching staff with you?

In their last few games, the Bills played four quarters against Peyton Manning, four quarters against Aaron Rodgers, and two quarters against Tom Brady. No TD passes allowed. Whether the NE game was important for the standings or the playoffs, it was a real game and had real impacts on player careers. Sammy Watkins fell just a few yards short of a 1000 yard season. Jerry Hughes had two stone-cold chances to get to double-digit sacks, and let them get away. If the Bills just cancelled the game because it had no impact on anything, those players and others would never have even had the chance to get to those milestones.

I asked my wife for her opinion on the choice and just before she left she recommended I take the game.

Seems like about a year ago he told Dallas he was retiring too. He got himself released from a contract and then graciously submitted to being paid $5,000,000 for one year's services by someone else. Orton is a smarter, more intellectual guy than most football players are. He has a background as a liberal and progressive who respects worker's rights. He was able to work in / manipulate the system to have more personal choice than most players are able to have. For those reasons, I respect him as a man who makes reasonable choices. I don't think much of him as a football player. If think if he wasn't planning to retire, and do so with all his body parts working properly, he would have put himself more at risk to try to help his team win. I posted recently that he's been playing like a wuss lately, and I think the retirement explains things perfectly. More than most players, you have to think that Orton's view of things is he's an employee and is in constant negotiation with his employer. If he can get a better deal from some other employer, he wants to be able to get that deal. The league is built on multi-year contracts but Orton has been making things work out his way for years.

All you can really say now is they're both very good players. Neither of their teams are in the playoffs so neither one is Superman. Any comparison now doesn't mean much. Let's talk in 4 or 5 years and see how they both develop. My prediction is they'll both be very good but Watkins will be at the 98th percentile while Beckham is at the 95th. Beckham doesn't just have a legitimate QB, he has a legitimate OC.

This is what getting better looks like. Sometimes teams get to this point and slip back, and sometimes they keep getting better. A winning record is nice, like shaking hands with your sister.

Chan Gailey for OC. I think the bigger question is, who will be the DC next year? Schwartz will be a HC somewhere. Possibly Buffalo depending on how Doug v Doug works out.

The trade never made sense from a football perspective. Yes we got a QB and WR, but we gave up a QB and WR (Glenn Bass). Lamonica and Kemp were two different QBs forcing defenses to be ready for either one. Flores was more like Kemp, and both Flores and Kemp were nearing the ends of their careers, so we quickly went into the abyss that didn't end till Joe Ferguson showed up. We liked the abyss so much we went back in until Jim Kelly showed up. Apparently we're convinced the abyss has our name on it because we've been there ever since. I don't know whether the stories about Lamonica's chasing women were true. I grew up in West Seneca, and used to drive past some apartments on South Fisher Road, and my Dad always said that's where Lamonica lived. Those apartments never looked like much (they're still there) so from a bachelor pad perspective I think he could have done better.

As productive as Watkins has been -- and setting franchise records under these circumstance certainly qualifies -- I think he's not playing to his potential. Instead of running his routes full out and expecting the ball to be where it's supposed to be, he's at 90% of full speed because he knows he will usually have to make an adjustment to complete the catch. Most of the key big catches this year have been balls higher than they should have been where the receiver stopped running and leaped up to make a great acrobatic catch. Well that's exciting and all, but usually that means not many YAC, and in time it will get our WRs killed. EJ and Orton are just about equally guilty of this.

There aren't enough people in the world good enough to be starting pitchers to fill all the rotations on all the major league baseball teams, and there aren't enough people in the world good enough to be franchise QBs in the NFL. The teams that have those franchise QBs are the ones in the playoffs -- just look at the standings. Half the league is moaning about their deficient QBs, Until we fix this, and beat out all the other wannabees in the same situation we're in, we'll be scratching at the door. It's great to have a strong defense for a change, but we need one of those good QBs. If you want to talk about panicking, look what Washington gave up to get RGIII. Granted that poor guy was seriously screwed by his coach, ruining his career to play in a playoff game instead of protecting his body and going for long-term success. But RGIII has shown he doesn't really have the vision or judgement to make it as a top-notch QB. The Skins gave up the store and now the cupboard is bare. Maybe it didn't make sense to give up so much for Watkins without already having the answer in hand at QB. Sure it would be nice if we could wait for Beckham and keep the first next year. But odds are the Bills would have screwed that up, and next year's as well. At least now they've got the really good #1 WR they've needed since Eric Moulds left. Or Andre Reed left, take your pick.

Orton wasn't superior. EJ was inferior. There's a difference.