hondo in seattle

Kelly: more fiery competitor, better leader. Marino: quicker release, more accurate. Hard to say who's "better" but both clearly belong in the Hall.

C.Biscuit97, this is a really good post. For a moment you sounded like a ranting sky-is-falling type but you bring up some really good points here. Maybe because I'm an ever-hopeful Bills fan, I'm not convinced we'll see Dennison run exactly the same kind of offense that he's run in the past. If I'm not mistaken, every time Rico was an OC it was for an offensive minded HC. In other words, he's never been in charge of the scheme and playbook before. It was always his job to implement someone's else scheme. Obviously he must have subscribed to a similar philosophy. But you wonder if all these years, he's been pondering, "When I run my own show, I'm going to do things a little different..." On top of that, the guy has studied hours and hours of Tyrod tape. He's got to have a pretty good sense of what kind of plays Tyrod can execute and what kind of plays he can't. He's got to building his playbook with those observations in mind... Unless he thinks he can successfully correct some of Tyrod's flaws. And hopefully he's not thinking that. Or, if he is, that he's right. In any case, despite your valid concerns, I simply choose to reserve judgment.

It could be 'standard new wr talk.' It could be a shot at Tyrod. I'm not sure and I don't care. We all know who Tyrod is as a QB and a maybe/maybe-not veiled criticism from Sammy doesn't change anything. I'm just hoping Rico has developed an offensive scheme and playbook that effectively utilizes TT's strengths and avoids his weaknesses.

This perfectly sums out my own thoughts and feelings. Can only wish the best for him - and his sister.

For the most part, I believe in the pc culture. I don't think it's okay for people to make racist, sexist, or other hateful remarks. Certainly they're allowable under law and should be. But that doesn't mean they need to be allowed by society's unspoken rules of decency. But sometimes I think we're too pc as a society. Shady offered a balanced, reasonable criticism of a fellow player. But I guess Kap is off-limits because of his political stance. It's nonsense.

C. Biscuit97 - I know you to be a rational, intelligent poster. So I have to ask, where are you getting this from? How do you know what kind of offense we're forcing him into? Dennison might not turn out to be the best OC in the game, but he's no fool. He's running his own show with a new team and new (to him) QB. No one - including enemy DCs - can be sure what we're up to. And Rico's not going to tip his hand in preseason. At this point, I don't think any of us can say with any kind of precision what kind of offense Rico will put on the field. He might be masterminding an offensive scheme perfectly suited for our flawed QB. We just don't know.

I don't entirely agree but this is an interesting post from WIDE LEFT. Our 2017 Bills team does look a bit like a poor man's Panthers. And cap allocation is an interesting subject. NFL teams tend to allocate a certain percentage of their payrolls to different position groups. It varies from team to team, depending how each team values a particular position group. It just may be that Beane values WRs less than some of his GM peers. Given that Sammy was oft-injured and would nonetheless receive some generous offers at season's end, Beane decided to move on. Is Beane following the Panther model? I don't know - but it is a plausible theory.

Military folks, firemen and law enforcement officers all take much bigger risks for much smaller paychecks. The difference is that football is a game. What's the acceptable level of risk for a game? Where do you live? In some parts of the U.S., soccer is really big. Where I live in the Seattle area, more of my friends' children play soccer than football. And their games draw large crowds.

I think this deserves it's own thread. http://www.theonion.com/article/diehard-8-year-old-buffalo-bills-fan-showing-early-56727

Awesome news. I'm probably more worried about injuries (especially Cordy's) than I am about the personnel losses (Watkins, Boldin, etc).

I don't mean to be hard on the rookie... But do we really need a new thread on the advantage of tanking in order to draft a franchise QB? This subject has been discussed ad nauseam in other threads.

It's not gawd awful horrible. Our starters are legit starters, more or less. Our backups are legit backups, more or less. This silver lining in all this is that we're a running team.

I suspect a couple things happened. First Boldin realized that on the field he was just a jag. And, second, I think some other opportunity outside football presented itself. Put the two together and you get an abrupt retirement.

He was unhappy but patient then. He's happy now. Hopefully our unhappiness with Castillo follows the same pattern.

Better coaching. Worst roster. 9-7.

I'm sure glad my boss didn't fire me a few months into the job when our results were still awful and I had only just started my overhaul.

It's preseason. The SB Bills used to lose preseason games all the time. We've seen EJ look awesome in preseason performances. Preseason doesn't mean squat. I'm not defending Taylor. I just don't think you can judge him on a partial preseason performance. I expect TT to play the regular season this season a lot like last regular season. Maybe a bit better because he has an OC who understands the passing game a little better. Maybe a little worse if the pass protection doesn't gel.

I think in this case talent is a bigger issue. Talent does matter. I don't think anyone is saying it doesn't. Culture, though, brings out the best in people both individually and collectively. I think there really is something to the "Patriot Way" beyond Tom Brady.

I can say in my work world (which has included civilian businesses and combat military units), often changing the culture dramatically improves the results - without changing the talent level. I can't imagine that wouldn't be true in football though there have probably been cases where success was attributed to a change in culture or leadership when really it was more a change in talent.

The military is a good example. As a former army officer, I can say we talked about this stuff a lot. The military take regular guys & gals off the street and creates high-performing organizations characterized by "hard work, attention to detail, and a drive to do what it takes to win above all else."

Agreed. Wholeheartedly. I've had the privilege of leading winning work teams and the chore of taking over losing work teams. Usually the difference is more about culture and mindset than talent. In a winning culture, people set hire standards, sacrifice more, commit more, help their teammates more but at the same time hold them more accountable.

What if the Bills go 9-7 this season with better coaching? And then has 6 picks in the first three rounds next year? That's what I'm expecting.

This is certainly accurate on the surface of things. But I wonder what other factors may have come into play. I wonder, for example, what the medical staff has been telling Beane and McD. Many posters here think Sammy's just fragile. Maybe the medical staff agrees. I wonder, too, how McD and Frazier saw Darby fitting into their D. While most consider Darby the better CB, maybe Frazier and McD think Gaines will perform just as well in the D they're implementing. Given what we now know, the trade sucks short-term but is good long-term. But maybe we don't know everything. And just maybe, all things considered, the Bills brain trust doesn't think the Bills got worse in 2017 and will get better with the extra draft picks in 2018.

#BADOL, I enjoy you because you are a thoughtful, intelligent poster. But there are some unsupported assumptions in here that I can't go along with. For example, I see no evidence Levy was trying to emulate the Pats nor evidence that he misunderstood their success. I think Levy believed that the collaborative approach he used in the 90s were work again. The problem was that the people he was collaborating with when he was a GM were not as good as the folks he collaborated with when he was a HC. Polian and Butler were gone and DJ was no Marv Levy. Levy's approach as GM might have worked if he was surrounded by talented people. He wasn't. Beane doesn't remind me of Levy-as-GM nor does McD remind me of DJ in any way. And I have no real idea if Beane/McD will be a winning duo. There's just not enough data yet to decide. So I'll watch and hope.

I agree with the final sentiment. I think we'll be in the playoff conversation this year but will ultimately fall short. But we should have a hell of a draft next year. Beane seems to have hired an excellent scouting team. I'm not convinced, though, that the running game will improve this year. It was awfully damn good last season. It's really hard to improve something that's already the best.