hondo in seattle

Geno is fun to watch. He throws these beautiful tight spirals with lots of zip that often seemed directed at the other team. And clownish Rex has a winning NFL record while serious Marrone has a losing record thus far. But his antics seem to be wearing thin in New York. I'll keep EJ and Dougie.

Nix was his own man and made his own decisions. And Whaley isn't simply carrying on Nix's plan and vision. As soon as Whaley took over, he shook the personnel department up. He hired an outsider - Jim Monos - to be the Director of Player Personnel. He brought in another outsider - Kelvin Fisher - to run college scouting. He also, I believe, replaced one of the regional scouts. It should be clear Whaley isn't just a Nix clone. So I'm not judging Whaley on Nix's tenure - only his own. And that tenure has only lasted 1.3 years so far. There's not a lot of evidence on which to base an opinion. Yeah, that was questionable!

I personally voted for EJ but I think the Orton and Vick supporters can make strong arguments for their choice. It's curious that 2nd strings are outpolling some starters.

Didn't Nix cut Fitz? In any case, you can't put every transaction - every decision - under a microscope. Not one single GM in the NFL would survive that kind of analysis. Personnel is an inexact science. Even winning GMs miss on draft picks, miss on FAs, and sometimes cut players who go on to star on other clubs. If you get close enough to an artistic masterpiece in a museum, you might see flaws in the execution. Not every brush stroke is perfect. But when you step back and look at the overall painting, it's beautiful. What's Whaley's overall body of work? I can't say because he hasn't finished the painting yet. But my sense is that the roster is stronger now than it was when Whaley took over. If he keeps making it stronger, we might get to cheer a playoff game someday. If we change our FO every couple years, personnel guys will want to work here, coaches won't want to coach here, and players won't want to play here. I don't want Pegula to turn us into the Raiders.

This is an interesting thought. After the dismal offensive effort last week, I hope Hackett's gone back to the drawing board.

Just take the eyeball test. ~ In short yardage situations, is the OL getting a good forward push? ~ On other running plays, are they creating running lanes for our backs? ~ On passing plays, is EJ being pressured? I'd answer negatively for the first two questions and my answer to the third would be ambivalent. We might not have the worst OL in the league, but it's far from the best. Their play will hinder our ability to score. I'm really hoping the three rookies get better because what we have right now today just isn't good enough.

Exactly.

I agree that the "Dougs are not off the hook." I just don't think they're on the hook yet. Obviously, they will be held accountable for the performance of the team. If the personnel isn't there, Whaley needs to go. If the players are capable but Marrone still can't produce wins, he needs to go. I'm just not willing to make either of those pronouncements yet. My guess is that the Pegulas aren't ready to make that assessment yet either. As has been pointed out, we're 2-1 right now - and tied for 1st place in the AFCE. Let's see how this plays out before calling for anyone's head.

I looked it up... Silver's Elo formula gives the Bills a 62 point better rating than the Texans. Each Elo point represents 1 point of scoring in a game. That makes the Bills 2.5 point favorites. But it's a home game for Houston and Silver calculates that home teams have a 2.6 point advantage. Thus: pick'em.

Good hunch, I think. It will be something to watch for this weekend. But I thought there were at least 2 illegal picks used by SD that should have drawn flags.

Nate Silver is a good statistician. He's the guy who correctly picked the winner in all 50 states in the 2012 presidential election (after Romney's folks had some disparaging remarks about his methodology). Silver had previously gone 49 for 50 in 2008. I'm not sure how successful he's been in his football work. But if he's picking the Bills over the Texans, I'm with him. According to Silver's Elo ratings, we have a 34% chance of making the playoffs.

Kemp? Didn't we win mostly with defense in those days? Mike Stratton's hit-heard-'round-the-world and all that?

It was a little more complicated than that! Sometimes on 3rd and long it was OJ draw!

Bill Walsh was wrong about Trent Edwards. Ron Jaworski has been wrong about lots of QBs. So has Mel Kiper. Even the people who know pro football far better than us are often wrong about the future success of young QBs. I think the problem is no college QB is NFL ready. They all need to learn and improve. And it's hard to say who will improve and who won't. Or how fast they'll improve. Jim Plunkett didn't become a good NFL QB until his 30s. And, yes, some QBs do improve their accuracy, their decision making, their poise, etc. EJ has no flaw that some other QB didn't once also possess - and then fix. I'm not predicting success for EJ. I'm not predicting failure. But I do hope for success, and hope that success comes faster than Plunkett's.

Joe Ferguson. In 1975, the Bills scored 30 points per game. They led the league that year in both yards and points scored. In fact, I believe it was the most points scored by any NFL team in the 1970s. OJ and Braxton racked up nearly 3000 yards rushing in a 14 game season. Fergy was efficient throwing the ball - tying Fran Tarkenton for the NFL lead with 25 TD tosses. The Bills were an unstoppable offensive powerhouse that year. Too bad the defensive secondary was as porous as colander. I believe Fergy called the plays that year but couldn't guarantee it. Maybe a Bills old-timer or NFL historian can correct me. If it wasn't Fergy then probably Head Coach Lou Saban was calling plays or OL Coach Jim Ringo.

This might be contagious. I suffer from the same malady.

It's cool to receive some good press. But this is hilarious. With GM changes, coaching changes, free agency, trades, career-ending injuries, and drafts, it's impossible to look five years out with any accuracy. But let's hope five years from now this author looks prophetic - at least regarding the Bills.

Since their inception, I think the Bills have won something like 46% of their games. So, personally, while acknowledging it's a long season, I'm happy to celebrate a 67% winning percentage.

+1 However we may want to dissect different plays, I think FireChan is on target (though I'm not sure how you perform surgery on rockets). EJ isn't good yet. I hope he becomes good. I think he may. But he wasn't good in the winds of the Ralph against SD. Kelly was challenged in those same winds and tended to put up good numbers anyway. Not always, but often. EJ needs to learn. Eventually, some posters here on TBD will say they were right about EJ and some will have to admit they were wrong. I think it's all random luck. None of us know with any certainty how much EJ will improve over time. I'm not sure the coaches who work with him every day can answer that question yet. I think we all need to watch, wait and see. The only reasonable argument is how long we wait before handing the offense over to Orton or someone else. But anyone arguing that EJ is going to be great is suffering from Wishful Thinking. Anyone arguing that EJ will never be great is suffering from Eternal Pessimism. As fans, we always have opinions but certainly no one yet knows.

The first time I heard of "Buffalo Wings" is when I went away to college. My college friends were giving me crap about Buffalo, saying the city had nothing to offer. Then one kid said there was ONE thing good from Buffalo: Buffalo Wings. At that time (1977), no one knew what he was talking about - including me.

We don't need stats to see that Hackett is bringing EJ along slowly. It's obvious watching the games. The questions is: is it the right strategy? When you don't throw down the field, it allows the defense to load the box. Obviously, it becomes harder to run the ball. But because opponents don't worry so much about defending the whole field, it becomes harder to pass the ball, too. I wonder if EJ would be more successful if he threw down field more often. Clearly there are advantages to attacking the entire field of play. Then again, we're 2-1 and tied with the Pats for 1st place in the AFCE. Maybe Marrone's and Hackett's conservatism has some merit.

Bills rebound. Bills 27, Texans 10.

Would we feel differently if the season unfolded differently? How would we feel if we lost against SD in the first game in the season? But we won the next two games - against the Fins and Bears? Would we all be more optimistic right now? I know it's the most recent game, but is the SD loss really more representative and predictive than the two wins?

Because: (1) Hackett has no idea how to draw up plays for a scatback like CJ. In his last year with Chan, CJ ran for over 1,000 yards at 6.0 yards per carry. He'll never equal those numbers with Hackett as OC. This year's he's only averaging 4.0 ypc - a drop of 2.0 yards per carry. (2) Our O Line doesn't create holes. They're not bad in pass protection but they suck in run blocking.

It would have been nice if the refs through a flag for this at least once.