Mickey

I think Matt Schaub would be an upgrade over Orton and very affordable. He made the pro bowl as recently as 2012. He took his team to the play offs twice. He would actually satisfy both the second and third choices you present. He is far more of a veteran than Orton, Anderson or Hoyer as he has 90 starts under his belt and an 89.8 career passer rating. He has serious flaws but he is the very definition of a hungry veteran and has had a whole year to rest. He could hold the fort down for a year or two while we find a better option.

He is one of the few players out there whose long term future in this league has as little promise as Orton's has. The upgrade will have to be to the offensive line in front of him. There just isn't anyone out there that is a clear upgrade over Orton. Not that they won't find somebody somewhere to at least give it a shot.

It doesn't get much uglier than this

It's because people are desperate.

I disagree, I think the line, especially the interior three, and the play of the QB are the lion's share of the problem with this offense. The tackles are no spectacular mind you, just average. Those holding penalties are not by accident. The receivers are consistently unable to get to make their breaks before the protection breaks down. Orton is not going to buy any time at all back there so he often has to go with the only receiver whose back isn't still to him which usually means a dump off to Fred or the TE in the flat for next to no gain. On the rare occasions where the line holds up, Orton too often either misses his target or misses a guy wide open. Add in a few drops here and there by the WR's and there you have it, an offense that can't get out of its own way. Watch the all 22 and stop the tape at the point where the first down field receiver has started to turn his head to look for the ball. Then look at the pocket and you will see that by then, Orton's pocket is consistently collapsing. Then there are the misses like two of the three passes we tried during that last series when we were trying to run out the clock against GB. He missed an open Woods down the hashmarks. He hit Chandler down the middle for a first down when he was uncovered due to a blitz. Then on 3rd and 6 or 7, he badly missed a double covered Sammy down the left sideline when he had Freddy on the inside, wide open for what would have been an easy first down. The run blocking is almost as bad. I am especially disappointed by Eric Wood. We can't run a screen to save our souls because our pulling guards either can't get out in front in time or when they do, are too clumsy to make an open field block on an agile DB. The lone successful screen we ran against GB was the result of the DE on that side taking an inside gap giving Cordy Glenn position on him when he tried to get back outside to cover the screen. Two other GB lineman were trying to take the same route to Freddy and as a result, Glenn ended up blocking/getting in the way of three defenders and almost single handedly cleared the entire left side of the field. On top of that Woods was the WR on that side and he put the outside linebacker, Matthews, on his back. Freddie needed one more block but the Guard didn't get there in time or it would have been a TD. I'm not saying that our OC is a genius by any means but with a QB as sharply limited as Orton and an interior offensive line that is so consistently weak, slow and clumsy, I don't know how you can really evaluate Hackett. He has to call a game that is within the abilities of a sharply limited offense. The one good thing about Orton is that he is careful. He gets rid of it as soon as he sees the pocket falling apart which limits his turnovers. There has been a lot of carping about why we don't go for it more on 4th down and it being the result of Marrone being too conservative. I think its more likely because he has, deservedly, no faith in the offensive line. The metrics people so often talk about regarding 4th down are not based on the players we have but on league-wide performance. If we had an average line, I would expect to be able to achieve the same percentages as those metrics indicate would result. But not from this bunch. They are simply not even close to average.

Cutler reminds me of Jeff George, a guy with so much arm talent that team after QB desperate team convinced themselves that he was the answer, much to their later regret.

The offensive line is neither serviceable nor excellent. We have two guys who are barely average in Wood and Glenn, the rest are significantly below average. I watched the all 22 today and was struck and how consistently the pocket was collapsing on Orton before the WR's could get far enough in to their routes to turn and look for the ball. As a rookie, Henderson may get better but the guards are awful.

Even if they don't need the game, the Pats would play for the win. I don't recall them taking the last game off otherthan sitting Brady and a few others in the second half after building a big lead. It's just not how they do things.

I looked at the play today and Hughes' hit was entirely legal. Rambo was still running the return back and Bulaga was trying to get to him when Hughes leveled him. That hit is why Mario was going against a back up from Akron on the strip sack that sealed the win.

Hell = that place where football fans argue over who is less bad, Ryan Fitzpatrick or Kyle Orton.

It may be blasphemy but I think the NFL should ban alcohol from being sold in stadiums and should legalize weed. Concession sales for junk food would go through the roof and even the losing fans would get happier and happier as the game clock ticks.

I agree, the calls were consistent but at the same time, it seemed to me that they were letting guys get away with a bit more than they have been this year. It was a great game to watch if you are a football fan and shows that you don't have to have rules which result in defensive holding calls every other pass to produce a successful product.

No amount of preparation in the world is going to make Orton more accurate than he has been throughout his career or improve his arm strength. If preparation alone were all that is needed to get a QB to play well then there would be a lot more "franchise" quarterbacks around the league. Playing QB in the NFL is very, very difficult and that is why there are so few good ones out there. No doubt we have a good defensive coach, but we also have lots and lots of talent on that side of the ball. Dareus, Mario and Hughes are all first round picks and Kyle Williams should have been. All four were good players before Schwartz showed up. Hughes is a freak who, at 6'2" and 255 runs a 4.5. Mario is even more of a freak at 6'7", 295 who runs a 4.6, that is unreal. Having a good coach is huge but you gotta have talent.

Languid adjective 1. lacking bodily energy or motivation; displaying or having a disinclination for physical exertion or effort; lacking in vigor or vitality. 2. weak or faint as from illness or disease; lacking in spirit or interest; listless; indifferent. 3. moving or proceeding at less than the normal, desirable, or required speed. Synonyms: torpid, feeble, spiritless, inert and, my personal favorite: cadaverous, meaning "of or like a corpse".

It is easy to name another starter. Finding one who can actually play is not so easy. Nothing an owner has to say is going to change that. What wonderful QB is out there that we can get if only Pegula says he wants him? Jay Cutler? Andy Dalton?

Shakespeare on Buffalo's Quarterback problems: "Who would these losses bear, To B word and moan under a weary QB, But that the dread of something after Orton, The perils of free agency, from whose bourn No Traveler returns, Puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear the losers we have, Than fly to others that we know not of. Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all, And thus the Native hue of Resolution Is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of Thought, And enterprises of great pitch and moment, With this regard their Currents turn awry, And lose the name of Action."

Picture a young Kyle Orton with half the arm strength and as much accuracy as a Fox News Poll. I saw all of Nassib's college games, especially his mighty struggles throwing in to the teeth of the swirling winds of the carrier dome. Not impressed.

How about onside kicks in the first half? When the receiving team is expecting them the recovery rate for the kick team is 60%. It goes down to 20% or worse when its done at the end of a game and the receiving team is expecting it. Marrone, On onside kicks: "So obviously, we do an onside kick about half the time, obviously when we think they aren't expecting it. Obviously, we will try to recover them but thats a matter of execution and I am the first guy to say we need to execute better, we can't execute poorly, obviously, we have to improve there. And thats up to players and the coaches and it starts with me, you guys know, obviously, I'm the head coach, so it starts with me. As a team we have to work our butts off and, obviously, we need to make plays and we feel that this is a way we can make plays by doing onsides kicks, obviously they don't always work because its hard to recover onside kicks in this league, obviously, and we know that, we know we have to do better so we tell the players all the time, "hey, if you see a loose ball on an onsides kick, you should, obviously, recover it" so they know that, the players know that obviously, so thats what we as an organization have to focus on, working hard and doing our jobs. I'm sorry but that I think that is all the time we have.....

Simple, yes but brilliant!

I think there is a very good chance Marrone is coming back but honestly, I think that depends more on whether the new owner wants to put his stamp on the team right away or whether he wants to get his feet wet as an owner. It would be easy if the team was not a contender but it is, especially the defense. This isn't a team that needs a top to bottom rebuild, it needs a few guards and a good QB, not a hall of fame guy mind you, just a guy worth his paycheck, no more, no less. This team is close and firing Marrone would be a huge step back. That would lead to a whole new coaching staff, new schemes, new strategies, everything and everybody going back to square one. If that is what Pegula wants, then he might as well start the rebuild early but I think that the wiser course for him, with a team this close, is to see what Marrone can come up with next year and maybe even one more year after. Pegula can use the time to learn how to be an owner in the NFL rather than just jumping in with a house cleaning and at the same time he can see if this team really is as close as it looks to being not just "in the hunt" but a solid pick for the play offs from the get go.

The problem with a pop fly type of kick is that no matter how you do it, the other team is closer to the ball as it decends than you are. Going over the heads of the hands team is not so easy since the hands team are not anchored to their positions, they can simply run back instead of running forward to get the ball and they have a 10 yard head start over the kicking team. And if all that wasn't an issue, you would still the problem of trying to kick a football like that. As someone who coached soccer teams for years and played organized football, I can tell you that a pop fly football off of a kicking tee is ridiculously hard to do. Its actually called a mortar kick by some coaches and has a chance of working when the receiving team isn't expecting one. When it does work, it is usually because the guy trying to catch it is on special teams as a blocker, not for his hands, and he muffs the catch which the kicking team then recovers. I have a hard time imagining a mortar kick working against an all hands return team. I hate the jump ball onside, the other teams gets to it first 99% of the time and you only get a recovery if they screw up the catch which, because they are the hands team, they rarely do. A wicked line drive bouncer is, inmho, the best option. I am not sure what the Bills tried works anymore as I think they modified the rules so that you can't have a cluster of players behind and around the kicker any more. At one point they changed the rule so that you had to have at least four players on each side of the ball. Bobby April came up with the idea of clustering right at the ball with half your team on one side and the other half on the other side but they enacted a rule to stop that too.

Orton said that he slid because he was sure he couldn't pick up the first down. Given his mobility and the proximity of Denver defenders, I am not prepared to state that I know he was wrong because it looked that way on TV. I am sure that the coaches are going to look at the tape and see if he had any chance to make it but even if they conclude that he did wimp out, what do you expect the coaches to say, in public? Do you really think a head coach with a team that still has a chance at the play offs and who has no better QB on the roster or even on the horizon to publicly proclaim that "Our QB is a coward"? Why is it so hard to understand that what a head coach says in public has little or nothing to do with his actual opinions and thoughts on a given issue?

The numbers I think you are referring to are based on league averages. How often would an average offensive team against an average defensive team pick up the needed yardage in average weather conditions with an average OC calling plays against an average DC, etc., etc? In the case of an actual, real live football game you have a coach who knows his team's capabilities and has studied his opponents capabilities and is aware of the impact of any relative variables extant at the time such as wind, rain, home, away, injuries, one on one match ups etc. It is not such an easy analysis to just say that 25% of the time this or that happens on this or that down given this or that yardage. I don't think we have an average offense and since the OL is heavily relied on in 4th and short situations, the quality of that line is critical. Is there anyone out there who thinks we have even an average offensive line? We have, at best, two average starters in Wood and Glenn. Henderson is a rookie and neither guard would likely start for any other team in the league save the few lines that are worse than ours. So whatever the average numbers are, they aren't relevant if your players are below average. As for going for it on 4th and 2 on our own 16 yard line, recall that we had all three timeouts and the 2 minute warning so any decision you make has to be with the idea of having 4 time stoppages at your disposal. We punted with 5:33 left and the Defense held them to three and out and we used our timeouts to stop the clock. We got the ball back at 4:20 so at most, not going for it lost us 1:10 seconds whereas, had we gone for it and missed, the game was over of course. The ensuing drive resulted in a TD and took 3:25 off the clock leaving 55 seconds for the onside and, if we had recovered, a few shots at the end zone. Under those circumstances, in all cases less than ideal, I don't see how it was moronic or an act of cowardice or sheer idiocy for Marrone to think we had a better shot punting than going for it. Regardless of whether we are kicking off with 2 minutes left or 55 seconds or maybe even 2:30 left in the game, we would still have had to do an onside kick. Even without a first down and one time stoppage at 2 minutes, all Denver had to do was run a few running plays and punt leaving us with an 80 yard field and maybe 10 seconds or so left on the clock. You can certainly make a legit argument that all things considered, go for it but I can't agree that it was a slam dunk decision that only a cowardly, crappy, clueless coach would fail to make. We got beat. And it wasn't because of coaching or play calling or a conspiracy by the officials. Turning the ball over three times on the road including one in the red zone were far bigger factors. Stupid penalties didn't help either. We all know we have a subpar offense and they played that way yesterday. That is why we lost. If you want to complain about the coaches, focus on their inability to put together an offense that can compete with playoff caliber teams.

oh, at least its not a hold, I feel soooo much better

have we ever not got caught for holding on an int return this year?