Ronin

We know that Whaley has blundered a lot of things. And when you have to go dig for random chance things to make him look good, like 7th round picks and arbitrary trades, then that's always a red flag. It's human nature that different people pick up on things at different rates however.

Ryan's probably a better DC anyway. He's clearly a better head coach. He's had a fraction of the talent that Schwartz has had in Detroit and is 46-50 contrasted with 29-51 for Schwartz. Ryan's also 28-20 the last three seasons too with two winning seasons despite having had Sanchez and Geno. Schwartz has had Stafford which is head and shoulders above what Ryan had. Ryan's defenses have been much better too. I'm curious why no one has noticed how vastly improved Detroit's defense has been since Schwartz's departure as head coach. Leaps and bounds over there, at least ranking wise.

The really sad part about all that is that the Pats really aren't that good anymore. Brady and the offense, really only when Gronk is in, carry that entire team. Their D is only ranked that high because they get to play four games, formerly 6 games, against some of the inept offenses in the entire league every season. Their an average D at best and one that other offenses fairly easily take apart. Games with them, at least during the regular season, are track meets. In the playoffs they don't have the D to compete to win another SB. Their RB has traditionally been one of the worst in the AFCE too. The last time that they had a RB that was capable of perennially putting up 1,000+ yards was Dillon 9 seasons ago. If the Pats were in most other divisions they'd be a 9-7 to 11-5 team every season.

Gamble's available and the Bills could do worse than to fire Whaley and bring Gamble in.

Come on now, it's just Blue. Obviously you aren't from Buffalo. LOL No kidding

Bad news for us. The whole Reich thing is predicated on nostalgia. Not saying that Reich won't be good, but he wasn't great with SD as an OC, he led the Chargers to one of their worst offenses in over a decade, the only worse one was under Hal Hunter (right, who's he) two years ago. This sounds good on paper but practically speaking is a roll-of-the-dice at best. I don't like the idea of Whaley being able to do more long-term damage to this organization. He'll hire someone that he can control more given how things ended up with Marrone. That's not good for us.

Why is it that no one here wants to recognize that our rushing defense cost us four games and nearly lost us another two? I don't think that this can be stressed enough, over our last 10 games we allowed an average of about 130 rushing yards per game. That's abysmal, and we have a DC that supposedly specializes in stopping the run. I don't get why everyone thinks that our D is really top-shelf. The passing component of it is obviously good, but not all that much better than last season. Fewer sacks, same INTs. We lost to Miami, KC, Oakland, and Denver all because of their rushing games. Both Minnesota and GB, teams that Schwartz should know very well, nearly beat us with 158 yards rushing apiece. This defense has issues with stopping the run, which is remarkable given the talent up front, at least on paper.

Listen, I'm not at all unhappy that Marrone is gone, although just wish that Whaley and Brandon and a few others (Overdorf, Majeski) would have gone too. But honestly, if there is something missing it's that this team overachieved this season and it's not likely that they'll repeat. I think that many fans are missing that this team just as easily could have been 6-10 again but ended up with a winning season primarily only because the Pats didn't care about that last game. Otherwise, we won three games, two that we should have had no trouble winning, by 3 points or less. This season we came out on top of that one for a change. But there were no other games that we came close to winning. We did lose a bunch because we couldn't stop the run though. Denver, Oakland, KC, Miami. GB and the Vikes were only in those games because of their running games. (158 yards apiece) All this by a DC that supposedly specializes in stopping the run? This is making no sense. We have the worst RB situation I can ever remember having, a QB situation that's also the same, both perhaps the worst ever for this franchise. OL issues. A D that can't seem to stop the run when it matters most with everyone raving about the D. No 1st-round pick while our divisional opponents do. Hughes likely to leave the team unless we overpay him if his "hometown discount" statements are correct. This team just happened to max out this year, it's not all that different from last season's team. The looming changes, besides the change of change itself, don't spell that things are moving forward here. Looking at this from Marrone's perspective, an offensive guy, this looks like a prime time to head up and bolt outta here. Not that his stock is all that great, but I don't ever think that it's going to be higher. Imagine if we go back to 6-10 next year and he'd have stayed. He'll be worthless then and cement his fate as never getting another HC job. At least now there's enough doubt to warrant that some team might take a chance. If not, he rests a year and goes back to college. I can easily see why he left. Seems like the most sensible decision to me from his angle.

The stigma of being a team that can't make the playoffs isn't anywhere close to off our backs. Anyone thinking that just because we posted a winning season by playing a team that didn't care about the game, obviously, means that we're closer to making the playoffs than regressing back to 6-10 isn't seeing the big picture clearly at all. And who is going to be making this coaching decision? If it's Whaley, and right now that's who's in position to do it, then don't you think that he'll hire a yes-man after this last experience? Do you think that's good or bad?

Here's the thing though, it wasn't dominant. Look at our rushing defense over the last 10 games. We lost to Denver, KC, Miami, and Oakland of all teams, allowing an average of 131 rushing yards to those teams. Over our last 10 games we allowed an average of 130 ypg which sucks. You can't say that you're dominant when you lose four games by having teams run the ball on you like that, especially when those teams are Denver and Oakland, the latter of which is ranked dead last in rushing. For anyone to overlook this is a critical error in judgement in assessing how good this D really is. Other than that, yeah, it is more of the same unfortunately. A running joke. Wow, Whaley wasted a 9th overall on Spiller, who drafted Manuel in the mid-1st when most draftniks had him in the 3rd or 4th, 2nd tops by only a few, and then who traded away our future for Watkins who isn't even #2 or #3 best WR in that draft class. Maybe not even 4th or 5th. Between those things and the current RB situation, which is having absolutely nothing notable in our offensive backfield, on that alone he should be fired. Yeah, shrewd GM Whaley is. Funny though, he's even admitted publicly that his future would and should hinge on the Manuel pick, so you actually disagree with him there. I'm sure he's sitting there thinking to himself, "Wow, only in Buffalo would I still have a job." Marrone was a dunderheaded choice too mostly of Brandon's creation, but Whaley was also involved in that process. Unfortunately this should become more clear to you after the hole that he's begun digging for this team becomes a little larger. That's how it works in the Bills forums.

Well, we'll see, but so far anyone thinking that Pegula has an obvious plan clearly isn't thinking clearly. I suppose there's a chance that he's maneuvering out of the public (media's) eye for something, which is almost impossible to do these days, but otherwise this is ridiculous. So much for that dumbfounded rumor that he was going to hire someone to assess the situation, which should have been done months ago after he got the nod as owner. Nothin' but the best for us Bills fans, huh. LOL Of course. Let's make sure that this reeling ship flips over completely before taking steps to upright her. That's the Bills way, he's keeping Wilson's legacy alive and well. And naturally let's not flush out the key problems immediately, let's wait for them to infect the new tenure too. Yeah, brilliant. From a business perspective perhaps Pegula should stick to land and oil. I mean seriously, asking Kraft (as the rumors go) for advice? This isn't exactly rocket science here. Any average long-time Bills fan, which Pegula claims to be, should clearly see what the problem has been for over 40 years and then be champing at the bit to make the appropriate changes. This shouldn't take a season to figure it out, it shouldn't have taken past Monday.

Say what you want, but on trading Sammy, what sense would that make unless we get back the picks that we lost. He's a good player, but obviously is you conduct every draft like that, or every other since you cannot conduct everyone like that, then you'll never become good. It was a horrible use of draft picks. I mean who in their right mind wouldn't want Kelvin Benjamin or Beckum and our 1st and 4th back? Both of those WRs are better and we'd have more picks. No GM is fool enough to trade us anything besides maybe a 1st straight up for Watkins. Why would we do that? On the other hand, if the Panthers offered us Benjamin and their 1st and say 2nd or 3rd (since they're in the playoffs and will have a low 1st) this year for Watkins we'd have to be stupid not to make that deal. Not that they would, they wouldn't, just sayin.

Seriously, you reall think we would have had a winning season if the Pats game had meant anything to them? That's a naive opinion.

I don't agree with you on Cowher at all, he had so much talent, especially on D, and IMO actually underachieved with it despite winning a Super Bowl, if he's as good as everyone here thinks then he should have won two or maybe even three in 15 years. Like Elway as a player, he won in his last season. Tomlin's took the same team and won one two seasons later and had better Ds with essentially the same talent. Hiring Cowher, especially after being out of the league for 9 years now, would be a grave mistake. Where I do agree with you, in no small matter or way, is this notion that all you need is a QB and D to win the SB and be a great and competitive team. It seems to have gone unnoticed that Seattle's had Lynch, SF has had Gore, Baltimore when they've been good enough to upset playoff teams has had Rice and a good running game otherwise. GB has Lacy. Dallas has Murray. NE's RBs haven't been more than average for years, but BB seems to be able to get enough from them in RBBC. A great rushing game is just as important today for balance. What has seemingly gone entirely unnoticed by Bills fans is that our rushing defense has sucked over the last 10 games, as in near bottom-dwelling status sucked. I have no idea why Schwartz is getting all this credit. Once again we overemphasized our pass D, which while leading the league in sacks had fewer sacks than last season's 6-10 campaign. The difference between last season and this one is three wins by 3 points or less (Chicago, Detroit, Minn) rather than 3 losses by 3 points or less. Chicago put up more yardage than any other team against us this season, we were lucky to have beaten them. Detroit was missing almost their entire skill position lineup. Who doesn't think that was a factor alongside 3 MFGs by them? Minny at home? We hit on a 4th-and-long with astronimical odds to pull that one out of our ass. That's the thin veil between 6-10 and 9-7. This notion that we're improving by leaps and bounds is overstated. Getting back to your point, we lost games to the following teams that ran on us and won because of that: Denver (133), Oakland (140), KC (127), and Miami (125). All of the RBs that faced us averaged over their per-game averages in those games for yards and ypc except for CJ Anderson who had 3 rushing TDs. Miller and Charles had no trouble running against us for 5.7 and 6.6 yards-per-carry, McFadden averaged 7 ypc, and rookie Jwan Thompson and 2nd-year Latavius Murray did the rest of the damage by posting average or better rushing numbers. This isn't good but everyone's overlooking it. So again, to your point, we lost those games not because of their passing games (207, 205, 173, 151) but because of their rushing games. But isn't Schwartz supposed to be a great run-oriented DC? Well, we allow about 130 rushing ypg over our last 10 games. That's piss poor. On our offensive side, have we ever had a worse RB situation? Fans thinking that Spiller's anymore than a waste of time seem to prefer living in a delusional state. He's beyond worthless because he'll give you absolutely nothing in three or four games while stringing you out thinking that if he has all the space he needs he can score a TD. Which player can't when they have all the space that they need. We've rarely seen CJ outrun anyone, watch his replays. Jackson's finished. Brown's a poor-man's Spiller, and Dixon is and always has been a short-yardage specialist. Sure, keep him around for goal-line stuff but he's no 3-down RB. Love Jackson, don't get me wrong, but he's done. Keep him around for as long as he can play out of respect, but he cannot be counted on. So we need a top-shelf RB, a QB that can play at all, some OL help, can't seem to stop the run on D with ALL that talent up front, which is mind boggling. We didn't even play very many of the best and top running teams OR RBs in the league and we still struggled to stop the run in weeks 7-17. It's unbelievable. Meanwhile everyone's talking about how great this D is. We're going to be taking a drastic drop back to earth next season I think. RBs don't seem to be taken very high so maybe Duke Johnson will be available. Who knows. Not that if he is I'd expect dunderhead Whaley to select him. No, I expect another WR or some QB slated for round 3 or 4 instead leaving us to discuss why three players drafted within the 10 picks after that are all making the Pro Bowl two years later.

ROFLMAO Yeah, isn't it apparent. Looks to me like he's really being shrewd, keeping everyone in the dark until all the top candidates are gone, and then, with the element of surprise, he's going to make changes by hiring the best of what's left. So see, we'll end up with the best and no doubt that's how half of the forums here and elsewhere will portray it. It's absolute genius. LOL We've been hearing about this janitor type consultant now for months, wtf hasn't that person already been working for the last month or two if there's really going to be one?!?! Honestly, and some of us actually thought that things could only get better.

Really? Sure seems like whatever's going on is definitely very Brandon-like regardless of who's running things. All we need now is Gil Turner to coach here. If it's clear it damn sure isn't crystal clear.

Isn't there a coach out there that's been out of football even longer that we can get? Maybe Parcell's is available.

it is a crazy idea. You complain about us looking like the NFL clowns that we are and than want to keep the one person that's the most directly responsible for us being that way on the football side? Manuel and the trade for Watkins have been unmitigated disasters. You might come back and talk about Hughes or some other lower level trades or FAs, but honestly, Hughes for Shepherd was a no-brainer. If Whaley were really that smart he'd have signed Hughes to a much more affordable contract after last season. Or for all the geniuses here and elsewhere, if he really knew that Hughes would even be more than a marginal starter or backup, to an even more managable long-term contract when they signed him. The bottom line is that Whaley didn't know, either that or he was a fool for not giving him a long-term contract when they signed him or after last season at the least. Now, as a direct result of Whaley's inaction, it sounds as if Hughes is either going to be grossly overpaid or leave. Yeah, great, what wonderful GM-manship. Can't wait for more of that. What's next, trading our entire draft this year to move into the late 1st-round in yet another "bold" move. Please. Whaley's a fool.

Funny, the first batch of responses don't even address your well-stated post. They just whine because they don't like the factual content of it. I agree with you. What's more is that our QB situation is worse than it was prior to last season, easily. We have no one, and who we have haven't played this season. Brains Whaley as you say has hamstrung us in terms of ability to make top-level changes. Why he's still here is a mystery to me. Well, I think we know why. At the beginning of the season some dumb analyst on a major site said that our RBs were elite. Just goes to show how little these guys actually know about every team. That couldn't have been further from the truth. Jackson's finished, which should have been obvious, Spiller's an overpriced role-player that does something for you every 5th game, one thing, Dixon's a short-yardage specialist, and Brown's a poor-man's Spiller. \ This is quite possibly the worst offense that the franchise has ever seen and it's nowhere near improving significantly. The defense, for all the talk of Schwartz being a run-D DC, was average against the run but we didn't really face many top rushing teams or RBs and when we did they almost all averaged significantly better than their per-game averages. Over our last 10 games we averaged nearly 130 yards against us rushing, which would have been good for just a few spots off of last, and actually played worse than last season's rushing D over those last 10 games. So how good this D is has somewhat of a smokescreen element to it also. We lead the league in sacks but had fewer than last season. Presumably what happened is that opposing coaches just ran on us since our pass-D is the strength of our D, and it won them games. There's a lot more work to be done than most people think and this team is closer to 6-10 next year than it is on improving on our 2004-like 9-7 this year. Don't expect Pegula to figure that out though, he's too busy pretending not to understand this team well enough, as if that's possible for a true fan of this team. He hasn't fired any of the people that blatantly most need to go. I suspect that this team moves more in the direction of the perpetual laughing stock that it's become than in the positive direction, and it's ironic that the ones seemingly still going to be making key changes might be the ones that f'd it up the most over the year. Meanwhile Pegula, who claims not to know much about the team [but he knows about coaches elsewhere?] is trying to brush Cowher off after pulling him off the shelf for nearly a decade, hello Gailey, and probably overpay him to send this team into its next era where we can't get rid of an underachieving coach. Many of us thought that once we had a different owner that really sound decisions would begin to be made. Well, the veil's starting to come off of Pegula and the face under it isn't as pretty as we were sold. It should be very interesting to see how soon this honeymoon ends if he doesn't start making some top-notch great decisions here soon. It would be so typical Wilson to make the changes in February after the best candidates are gone and others no longer want to switch teams. We'll see what happens, but the early returns don't look promising. LOL And you know this how? So are Beckum, Benjamin, Evans, Matthews and one or two others that have outperformed Watkins on a per-game basis also going to the HoF or or a competent QB away from doing so? Agreed

It's at face value. It's someone simply putting it out there knowing that it exists, maybe a frustrated source like many of that apparently unlike the Pegulas easily see what the issues and problems of this team are and are hoping to push things towards real positive change instead of mere news headline change. I don't see the honeymoon between the media and fans and the Pegulas lasting very long.

Well let's wait as long as possible to assess the situation so that the odds of finding the most competent people out there diminishes to every extent possible. I'd love to see Tom Gamble here as GM to start. His track record blows this organizations record away much less that of Whaley, Brandon, or anyone else here. This team never ceases to amaze me. Most people can't even recognize that our illustrious 9-7 season isn't a lot closer to our usual 6-10 ones than it is to 10-6 or better and playoffs. When the FO can't see that we're in trouble. But hey, trouble is the Bills' middle name now.

Sheeeet! We can't even put up air fresheners. These piles of stench are apparently going to become office fixtures now, like coffee tables.

It won't happen. If he hasn't been fired by now then he has a lifetime job with a cush retirement ahead of him at our expense. Then again, we don't have to go to games and support that. If you ask me, and this has been a concern for months for me, Pegula is more interested in becoming Buffalo's downtown rennaissance hero and less interested in ever making the Sabres much less Bills any good. He claims to be a long-time fan but also claims to not know the issues of the team. Well then he's really not that bright or he's lying through his teeth, and I'll guess the latter. Any fool that watches football even casually knows damn well what the problems on this team are. Seems like the new boss is no different than the old boss. If that ends up being true, might be better that the team left town.

For all of the criticism of Orton here, his numbers here exceeded his career numbers for TDs/game, ypa, and compl. %., and rating. Statistically he had his best season ever here. If you ask me, it's our rushing game, with no improvement in sight once again due to mismanagement and negligence in the personnel dept., was just as resonsible for the malaise of the offense. We can sit here and talk about a washed up Jackson, an overrated role player, a short-yardage specialist, and a cast-off role-player from another team as an elite group of RBs like one prominent media member on one of the big sports sites claimed this year, but the reality is that it's just that, overrated role players and a well past prime former standout that is equally if not more responsible. Good thing we have these visionaries in our front office so that we don't waste a good D for two or three seasons until Mario's in his back-0 and Williams retires, before the offense is ever good. Maybe we can trade all of our picks this year Whaley to go "be bold" and get one good player, a G or something. Fools! I'm not defending Orton, he was mediocre at best, but the lack of being able to correctly assess the running game is pathetic.

Would be a great move for us.