Mickey

ugh

So....you think that there was a secret cabal formed in the moments after the play occurred involving high placed NFL executives and the referees on the field to nullify a play that made JF look bad? Sure, that seems way more likely than a referee simply making a mistake. The nagging question though is why didn't that all powerful secret cabal manipulate the game so that JF could lead a 4th quarter comeback resulting in a Brown's victory?

It looked to me like Gilmore jumped the route looking for an easy pick on a meaningless drive before half time. I don't know if it was cover two or not so it might be that the safety was supposed to pick him up deep.

True. But you don't improve your situation by adding guys to the roster who can't play. You just dig your hole deeper.

For good or ill, Orton is as good now as he is ever going to be. Having said that, he is the best QB we have on our roster and these aren't practice games. They matter. So he should start. Maybe, in time, EJ will dramatically improve but it won't happen this year, at least not soon enough to rescue us from another season of irrelevancy. Until that happens or a better guy is signed, Orton is our QB.

I want an amusing coach who spits out pearls of wisdom like: "Men, I want you just thinking of one word all season. One word and one word only: Super Bowl." "I'm really happy for ... the guys who've been around here for six or seven years, especially our seniors."

It is all about accuracy. Orton is more accurate than EJ but the bad news is that he is less accurate than a lawn jart.

There's the Tanehill we know and love💝

Somebody tell the defense that the game has started

I think the training staff needs to hire a team of cracker-jack groin experts to stand watch over Sammy's golden groin 24-7. We can't leave anything to chance, pound for pound, that is the most valuable groin in the NFL. I assume that the team has already outfitted his shower with non-slip bath mats, safety bars and toilet seat air-bags. Can't be too careful.

Focusing on the highlighted series in the third quarter, what was so bad about the 9th possession (pass, run, pass)? I don't see how that was predictable or conservative. They passed on first which is apparently what people calling for his head want him to do and it resulted in a sack for a 6 yard loss setting up 2nd and 16 at their own 14 yard line. The "predictable" thing to do would be to pass the ball again on second down but instead he ran the ball for a 1 yard gain. They threw on third down for 14 yards and came up a yard short. I don't see why that was a series to include as an argument against the OC. In the next series they ran on first but gained four yards. They ran again on second which didn't work but lots of teams wouldn't hesitate to run after picking up 4 on first down, its how you keep your third downs manageable but more to the point, it was only the third time in the entire game that they ran on first and second down. The next series they ran on first and picked up 5 yards. Running again when you have two downs to pick up 5 yards is not exactly crazy. They gained 3 more on second setting up a third and two. the conservative and predictable thing to do would have been to run on 3rd and 2 but instead, to be creative and unpredictable, they passed and Orton was sacked. The next series was another run, run, pass sequence but it ended in a touchdown so I am not sure why that would be a subject of complaint. We ran on first for only a yard. What would be more conservative and predictable on 2nd and 9, to run or pass? I think most teams would pass facing 2nd and 10. Hacket ran which, in my view, is more creative than passing on 2nd and long. Our O-line was playing poorly, the defense was playing lights out. We were playing against a team whose best card is their pass rush and our QB had already taken a number of solid sacks. By the middle of the third quarter, it was clear our defense had figured out how to defend Vick. Oh and by the way, our quarterback is Kyle Orton. Not Tom Brady, not Peyton Manning but Kyle freaking Orton. There were lots of sound reasons why an OC would have wanted to try to get the run going in the second half. Afterall, lots of the same people complaining now have in the past complained that the OC wasn't giving the run a chance and that we should run more. I can't say I am thrilled with Hacket as our OC but at this point, I have to say to those who would like to can him that I can't think of many or even any situations where firing an OC half way through the season dramatically improved a teams ability to make the playoffs that same year. Has that ever happened? And to do it after a road win against a team you haven't beaten on the road in years and after your team scored over 40 points seems, well, a tiny bit whacko.

Yeah, because tagging works wonders when your goal is to keep a good player. Tagging Dareus will do nothing but turn a productive player who wants to play his entire career in Buffalo into an angry, disaffected holdout working with his agent to do everything everything possible to get out of here. There will be plenty of teams willing to pay the man. The result for us would be to have wasted the highest draft pick the franchise has had since 1985. Shrewd.

Can't get off the field to save our souls. Third 16, third and 10, no matter.

I think at this point we are the bad team, not Minnesota

I am not sure what all the fuss is about. EJ was playing terribly. Orton is a mediocre player with more experience than talent. I don't really see how either of those points could be credibly denied. But so what? It's not as if we have another option here. We either start EJ or we start Orton, neither of them are very good and though there is still some slim hope that EJ can be a quality starter in the future, he is certainly not anywhere near there yet. Orton probably gives you a better chance at winning games this season but he is no long term answer. Face it, we have two quarterbacks and neither of them are quality starters in this league and there is no white knight hiding on the roster or some other teams' practice squad who can rescue us from this situation. Arguing over who should start is like arguing over which is best, Burger King or McDonalds. They both suck.

It is not as if Kyle Orton dropped out of the sky, a complete unknown with talents as yet unexplored. He has been around long enough and had enough opportunities to earn a starting job in this league and he hasn't been able to do so. You can't ignore his entire career leading up to last Sunday in evaluating his abilities. It was one game and it was hardly a perfect performance. He is the best QB on our roster right now and none of the rest matters. As for the future, we are still are in the market for a long term QB good enough to win consistently in this league. That doesn't rule out KO as our starter for the immediate future but it does mean that if we have an opportunity to get a QB, we should take it.

I understand why they made the change but what I don't get is why anyone thinks that Kyle Orton is likely to be much better. There is a reason why he was in the league as long as he was without being able to win a starting position in the long term. The Bills are now officially searching for a long term starting QB and they don't have a first round pick to use to find one until May of 2016. Who will the peanut gallery be calling for when, inevitably, Orton shows his age and lack of top end talent?

On the pylon play, touching the pylon with the ball is not the only way to score people. The ball broke the plane before it hit the pylon. If you look at the replays, you will see that the side of the ball, the fattest part of it, initially made contact with the inside of the pylon while the nose of the ball had already broken the plane. The play was over at that instant which was before he hit the pylon and and lost the ball. Sammie still had both hands on the ball at the point in time when he broke the plane.

What exactly did the team not know about Lewis, Dixon and Tuel that it finally realized last week, prompting this mad search for a back up? I don't see why it took an eleventh hour epiphany to figure out that we needed a better option. This smells like...panic.

I like this plan mainly for all the changes it makes regarding transportation. Being able to take a train from Syracuse or Rochester straight to the stadium would be absolutely awesome for us Bills fans living several hours away from Buffalo. We had 4 season tickets for years and years but eventually we had to give them up as the trip was just too much, especially for older members of the family. I have made this point in every conversation I have participated in regarding a new stadium for years. At present, you can take a train to buffalo but then you have to get a bus from the station to the stadium. Getting on a train on Sunday morning and relaxing while someone else does the driving and then arriving at the stadium would be incredible. They would instantly regionalize their season ticket sales. It even makes it viable for Bills fans in Albany and Utica to go to a game.

Why does it seem to you that they want the best bid from a group committed to Buffalo? Has any trustee said that was the case? Do we know if the trust documents require that? Even if they did, how would they even decide that? What does "committed to Buffalo" mean exactly? Given the stadium lease, no owner can leave Buffalo for quite sometime. How would an owner be "committed to Buffalo" if he is forced to keep the team here for awhile? Wouldn't being "committed to Buffalo" mean more than simply fulfilling the terms of what is a binding agreement? How would that commitment be demonstrated? Pinky swearing? An exchange of hostages? I certainly hope that the trustees are under some obligation to factor in keeping the team in Buffalo but I have zero actual facts that they are so obligated. Typically, the fiduciary duty of a trustee would obligate the trustee to maximize the value of the estate assets and that unfortunately means selling to the highest bidder.

Wow, one more miracle grab for Andre Reed, caught all of our hearts and never dropped a one.

There is no clause that lets them move the team within the first 7 years of the lease at the cost of $400M. The lease requires them to stay in Buffalo for those first 7 years, the first year of which already passed. The new owners would have to go to court to get out of that lease provision and if they were successful, the lease calls for liquidated damages of $400M. The notion that they could leave for the cost of $400M is not true, they would have to win in court first and they won't unless there is a suicidal judge sitting on the bench in the US District Court for the Western District of New York.

The trustees have a fiduciary duty to the trust beneficiaries so much depends on who the beneficiaries are. Presumably Ralph's wife and his children are but it is also likely that there are others such as grandchildren. The permutations of heirs who have an interest in the trustees maximizing the value of the trust are endless. A home town discount would lessen the value of the trust's best asset to the detriment of trust beneficiaries. In a world where money rules, I wouldn't bank on the goodwill of trustees to keep the team in Buffalo. As big as that penalty is for relocating the team within the next 5 years or so, what happens if an owner surfaces who is willing to pay that penalty and is the highest bidder for the franchise by far?

All he said was that he is going to do right thing as he best sees fit, even if it means losing games. To me, this is no different than if a coach said "even if it meant losing games, I wouldn't put an injured player out on the field." I don't think it is likely that Marrone's choice would ever be that black and white. But if somehow he did face such a choice, I would want him to do the right thing. Winning is not the only thing. The league has shifted its view of player health and no longer considers it valid to win even if it means sacrificing a players health. They haven't figured out yet how to turn that moral choice into practical policies that will work in the locker room and on the field but those are just questions of logistics. I have no clue what is going on with Marcel Dareus but if it turns out that for him to recover from whatever is causing this self destructive behavior he needs to not play football for awhile, then that is what is going to have to happen even though losing a player with his abilities will surely be costly to the team.