hondo in seattle

I agree with the Big Cat. Given the talent on the team, the Bills produced. Maybe over-produced. With Bobby April handling Special Teams and Fewell helping DJ on Defense, we had a good coaching staff. What DJ was lacking was (1) an OC, and (2) players. While his it's-hard-to-win-in-the-NFL public persona seemed uninspiring, the players seemed to lay it on the field for him.

Aren't the Eagles 3-4, same as the Bills?

I got on this bus after the Browns game. He should have never been hired in the first place. Just looked up the stats... We're 28th best in kick return average. 12th best in punt return average. 7th best in kick return coverage. 28th best in punt return coverage. Our average ranking for these ST units is about 19 of 32. We're a bit below league average but not as much as I had guessed. http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/team/_/stat/returning/sort/yardsPerPuntReturn/position/defense/order/false

Azucho, you keep referencing this. Obviously, no one is persuaded by this observation. I think it's time to let it go. Anyone can cherry pick stats to make virtually any player look good or bad. Here's the most important stat of all: 10 sacks in the first 7 games. Bruce never did that. I don't think anyone is saying Mario is the 2nd coming of Bruce but arguing that Mario hasn't been impressive so far this year is lunacy. And he's getting these sacks despite frequent double-teams. On a side note, he beat Tyson Clabo twice in the 4th quarter for his sacks. Didn't we all want to sign Clabo a couple years ago?

Tuel is the only fully healthy QB on the team and you think it's stupid the Bills are bringing in an experienced backup?

Levitre is good; certainly much better than his replacement. But, at the price, I don't mind the FO letting him. I just wish they found somebody better than Brown to replace him with.

I had disc fusion surgery in my lower back yet never had hammy problems, despite running a lot on mountain trails. Not sure about any connection between backs and hammies.

Hackett says Lewis learned a lot by helping him out in the booth during games. I wonder if EJ will be up with Hackett, picking his brain, watching defenses from a different perspective. Hanging out with Hackett could be instructional for EJ.

Too quick? They've had 5 weeks to evaluate Lewis. More to evaluate Tuel. That's plenty of time. Marrone explained that the only reason Lewis was on the practice squad is that they felt it was less of a gamble to PS him than Tuel. And at that time, they still didn't know what they had in Lewis. Since then, however, Marrone hinted that the coaches started to develop more confidence in Lewis. They couldn't use him in the last game because they had left him on the PS. Listening to Marrone talk about this, I'm left with the feeling that in the minds of the coaches, Lewis had already passed Tuel on the unofficial depth chart before last week's game. Tuel's performance backing up EJ did nothing to change their minds. Since, in limited action, Lewis has better NFL regular season stats than Tuel, I'm assuming you're basing your opinion on your extensive study of their respective preseason games and other off-season experience. And since you apparently know more about these two QBs than even Coach Marrone (how else could you so decisively identify Marrone's error?), please share with us your evaluations on our two QB options.

Starting for an injured Mark Brunell in 1997, Rob Johnson led the Jags to a win, going 20-24 for 294 yards and 2 TDs. So we traded a 1st and 4th round draft pick for him. I wouldn't evaluate a guy based on one game. On the other hand, I'm optimistic about the Cinci game. We've been banged up this season but getting a lot of people back. Outside the QB position, this is the healthiest we've been all year. And, as the OP opines, Thad might do as well as EJ - who was playing like the rookie that he is. I'm not sure how big the drop off is right now from Manuel to Lewis but hopefully it's not much if anything.

A couple thoughts... (1) PF sucks. I was running 40-50 miles per week training for an ultramarathon when I got PF. Didn't seem like a huge deal at first. But I limped when I walked and couldn't run. My doc said I needed to rest. Not content with that I started looking for treatments online. I started wearing a Strassburg sock when I slept and doing special stretching exercise when awake. The date of the ultra came and went and I was still limping around. I couldn't run for 7 or 8 months. Another runner told me they missed an entire year because of PF. It can linger for long periods, sometimes years. (2) PF can easily be faked. There aren't any visible symptoms as far as I know. I guess your opinion of Byrd's injury depends a lot on your opinion of Byrd's character and human nature. Having no way of knowing if he's faking or not, I'm inclined to give Byrd the benefit of the doubt. Especially when he wanted to play last week. It was Marrone - under the advice of doctors and trainers - that kept Byrd off the field.

Freddy looked better in 2011 than he does now. But that I mean, numbers aside, he had more impressive runs in 2011. In fact, he looked freaking amazing two years ago - one of the very best backs in the league. I'm not sure he hasn't lost a step but - obviously - he's still a good back today.

At least half of 1st round QBs don't become franchise QBs. I like EJ. I like his attitude. I like his potential. But he hasn't proven yet that he will be our franchise QB for the next 8+ years. So if a hot QB prospect is available when we're picking, I say take him. But, like others, I don't think Doug will.

We should have kept TJax. I was hoping for a .500 season but with EJ out up to 8 weeks, I'm not feeling very confident about our chances when our QB options are so unspectacular. The shame of it is, our defense will finally be healthy next week. In fact, other than EJ and Kolb, the team will be mostly healthy against Cinci.

The Bills played tough despite all the injuries. The secondary was populated with 2nd stringers (okay, A. Williams is a starter - but not at CB). Both our star running backs were dinged up. Our star WR was out and we had 2nd and 3rd string WRs in the game. Our undrafted FA 3rd string QB (Kolb was our 2nd stringer) was in there at the end. And yet the game was still undecided at the 2 minute warning. Under the circumstances, it's hard to complain about our OC or DC. Our STC, however, lost the game for us - and injuries didn't factor there.

This is the one coaching hire I really didn't like.

Sadly, CJ and Freddy are the only two RBs in the NFL who have already fumbled three times. Fortunately, we've lost only one of those. Freddy is my favorite player on the Bills but at this point concerns about ball security are valid. Since CJ and Freddy are both having problems, I wonder if there's something lacking in the coaching and drills done by the Bills. Wheatley needs to be addressing this. http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/stats/byposition?pos=RB&conference=NFL&year=season_2013&sort=47&timeframe=September

Bill Nelson was the starting QB for the Browns in the late 60s, early 70s. Made the Pro Bowl one year. He's a bit old to replace Geno.

After four games, there's a couple familiar names atop the QB passer rating list. TJax is the highest rated QB in the NFL so far this year. He's completed 7 of the 8 passes he's attempted so far this season for a rating of 158.3. Fitz is the 4th highest QB despite completing only 3 of his 8 attempts. One of his completions yesterday went for 77 yards and a TD. Amongst this year's rookies, EJ comes in at 31, Geno is 37th and Glennon is 41st. At least we have the highest rated rookie signal caller. http://www.nfl.com/stats/categorystats?tabSeq=1&season=2013&seasonType=REG&d-447263-n=1&d-447263-o=2&d-447263-p=1&statisticPositionCategory=QUARTERBACK&d-447263-s=PASSING_PASSER_RATING&qualified=true

The Bills could easily be 4-0 right now. But they could also easily be 0-4. And I find myself worrying about the direction of the Bills offense… Nathaniel Hackett is a young offensive coordinator with limited NFL experience. So I've been counting on the more worldly Doug Marrone to mentor the juvenile Hackett. After all, Marrone had a successful stint as offensive coordinator for the Saints. But with Drew Brees as his QB there and Sean Payton as his own mentor and Head Coach, it was virtually guaranteed that Marrone's Saints offense would put points on the board. It's hard to know yet if Marrone is the right teacher or Hackett the right student. So far, the uptempo offense the two of them created at Syracuse and brought to Buffalo has seemingly created more problems for our defense than opportunities for our offense. Because the Bills offense doesn't run a lot of time off the clock, Bills opponents are running about 75 plays per game – tied with another uptempo team (Philadelphia) for the league’s most. And despite running more offensive plays than any team in the league (except Houston), the Bills are in the bottom half of the NFL in points scored. An uptempo offensive attack only makes sense when you have more play-makers than the other team and the Bills do have a couple of standouts in CJ Spiller and Stevie Johnson. The problem is that Hackett doesn’t seem to know how to utilize them. CJ famously averaged 6.0 yards per carry last year. This year he’s averaging 3.5. Stevie has gone over 1,000 receiving yards each of the past three seasons but at his current pace, Stevie’s thousand-yard streak won’t extend to four. While Hackett’s ability to run a NFL offense is perhaps our biggest offensive question mark, our QB is another. EJ Manuel is a good kid who looks poised in the pocket and engaged on the sidelines. But his arm has been wildly inconsistent. At times, he looks like a future All-Pro. Other times, he looks painfully like the rookie that he is. Neither Hackett nor EJ have been helped by our offensive line. There just isn't a lot of push in short-yardage situations and the holes for CJ have been limited. Is Colin Brown that much worse than Andy Levitre? Or is Hackett that much worse than Chan Gailey at designing and calling effective running plays? I suspect it’s a combination of both. One of my bigger disappointments has been at WR. We brought three rookies – Brooks, Goodwin, Rogers – into camp that seemed to instantly upgrade our weak corps of receivers. Better yet, during the preseason both TJ Graham and Marcus Easley appeared ready to up their games. The good news is that four games into the regular season, Brooks is precisely who we thought he was: a polished route-runner with NFL talent. But outside of Stevie and Brooks, Bills wideouts have been remarkably unproductive, accounting for a mere five receptions for 45 yards. This again begs the question: are the players under-performing or is the OC running the wrong plays? While Pettine is doing some exciting things with this Bills defense, I’m still waiting for Nate Hackett to make me confident in his offensive scheme and preparations. He's still green and still learning - as is EJ - so I'm hoping to see a more productive offense during the remainder of the schedule. But this is only the hope of a diehard fan, not a dispassionate expectation. P.S. Can a mod please change the title. Thanks!

A little harsh, Zonabb. I think Zac was merely pointing out that Flacco's performance was adversely influenced by Gradkowski's poor play. "Correlation" isn't just a technical mathematical term. In fact, it was a word in regular English long before the math geeks took it over. Zac used it to point out that poor protection by an offensive lineman often goes hand-in-hand with poor QB productivity. It's a fair, if obvious, observation and a correct use of the word.

I personally didn't have any problems with the final series. But the series before that bugged me. I think we burned up only about a minute of the clock without making a real attempt to get the first down. Good teams play to win. If we get a drive going that possession, we win the game - even if we don't score. Instead we call predictable, conservative plays that go nowhere and then give the ball back to the Ravens with something like 2:40 left.

There have been a lot of comments over the years here at TBD that FAs will not choose Buffalo because it's a cold-weather, small-market town without much to offer a young millionaire. With those criticisms in mind, I think it's interesting that the former Bill, Dwan Edwards, chooses to keep his family and home in Buffalo: Edwards rented a house in Charlotte for his family last season but decided in the offseason that with two school-age children and a third about to start school, Buffalo made more sense this year. He's renting a townhouse in Charlotte formerly occupied by former Panthers and Bills guard Geoff Hangartner and seeing the family when he can. "I signed a four-year deal up there, so I assumed I was going to be there a little longer than two years," Edwards said. "We had a house in Baltimore that we sold, and we really like upstate New York. People are nice, and the kids love their school. They also love to snowboard. It's a great place for me and my family." http://www.panthers.com/news/article-2/Edwards-seeks-success-in-return-home/63a642ea-a51f-4e56-95e5-923b09b11a1e?two-bills-drive

The inside hand-off out of a shotgun, which doesn't create the space CJ thrives in.

More than Left Guard?