PlayoffsPlease

Simple Question? Are the Bills a well managed football team?

It appears that Doug Whaley should have pushed the Pegula's to extend Marrone last year. Continuity from last years defense would be better than continuing what we have seen this season.

He was the GM for the 2013 season.

The key are that we have had continous Russ Brandon for almost 2 decades and Doug Whaley in a leadership role for 6 years. As long as we don' t mess that up, we should be able to keep having all of our recent success.

It is a fan fantasy that the talent is above average, let alone elite. One player, one, made the pro bowl.

Doug Whaley used the phrase "QB purgatory" to describe the Bills situation at QB before the season started. Now that the season is almost over, its fair to say the entire team is "mediocre" territory. Whether fans want to accept it or not, Rex Ryan is an average NFL head coach. Like franchise QBs there are a handful of coaches in the NFL that are generally considered outstanding. (and they tend to have outstanding QBs). A coaching change is not likely to make a big difference. Tyrod Taylor performed at an overall average level this season. He was actually above average on executing what he was asked to do, but below average in the sense that he was asked to do less than the better NFL QBs. Special teams is below average. Function of coaching and personnel. Offensive line is below average talent wise Linebackers are below average talent wise When healthy the secondary is above average. Unfortunately they don't seem to be stay healthy. Defensive line is above average talent wise, when properly motivated. Running backs are above average. Wide receivers are average as a group. Tight End play produced at a very pedestrian level this year. There truly aren't glaring holes. But its hard to see how the team rises above the average level.

not really. you should assume a split on the games, not that the Bills would sweep every team not the patriots.

In my opinion the team with the worst season is the first team eliminated from the playoffs. Not the team that finishes with the worst overall record. Winning games after being eliminated is kind of like garbage time stats, meaningless. But from the fans perspective wins after elimination hurt draft position and that taints the wins. Under my system, I would be able to root for the Bills to win unequivocally the last two games, knowing that they have no impact on draft position.

Headline: "Bills overcome Manuel mistakes to topple Jaguars"

They get coached and participate in practice. Definitely not the same as rookie. The point is that younger guys and true rookies surpass him in this metric. Fact is he is he has those deficiencies

That is what I am proposing.

I think it is mathematically impossible for the team with the worst record to be eliminated 20th. But since every team plays a different schedule, you can't assume that the team with the worst record is the worst team. My definition of the worst team is the first one eliminated from the playoffs. Might as well let them start working on their draft plans for the #1 over all pick.

Did any Bills Players earn a pro bowl spot this season? I don't think any did.

Another benefit of the rules change would be that teams know fairly precisely where they are in the draft as soon as they are eliminated (still would need some tiebreaker for teams eliminated the same week). Since the longest part of the Bills fans season is the time between elimination and the draft, I would like to know as soon as possible our draft position.

Tyrod has been the best QB the Bills have had in a long time. But that is an incredibly low bar to grade a QB on. He has some serious deficiencies for a guy finishing his fifth year in the league. He has the slowest release time in the league, slower than the true rookies starting this year. It appears that the coaches only trust him with half-field read plays. These things can improve. But it is foolish to assume they will. Bills need to treat the draft as if they have no PROVEN commodity at QB.

The problems all began with the Nix and Whaley hires before the 2010 season. They didn't pick any of these guys in the drafts. Andy Dalton, Russell Wilson, Colin Kaepernick, Teddy Bridgewater, Derek Carr, Kirk Cousins, Brock Osweiller. They didn't trade for Carson Palmer or Alex Smith. They hired Chan Gailey, and then added Doug Marrone and Rex Ryan. They haven't drafted a single high caliber offensive line player. They overpaid to keep a marginally motivated defensive tackle. From 2010 to 2015, they have 3 starters from the the first round in those 6 drafts. The now overpaid Dareus, Gilmore and Watkins. This appears to be a formula for an 6-10 to 8-8 team.

Currently, the draft works in reverse order of record, which is fair in a sense. But a fairer order would be to have the draft work in reverse order of eliminated from the playoffs. This would help with two issues. First it would minimize the "suck for Luck" tanking advantage. Teams like the Bills would be able to play the rest of the season without feeling like any victory is tainted because its hurts draft order. Secondly it would help teams like the Bills/Jets/Dolphins who are in a division with a dominant team "catch up" to that team. This is a serious suggestion, I think it would actually be a fairer system.

Pegs spent 1,4 billion on the team. 0.02 billion more isn't going to factor in.

He inherited an 8-7 plus gift win from the Pats team. Might end up 8-8. The constant is Brandon/Whaley. They can't put together a winning team.

He's all growed up. His age really doesn't factor in. He has been an integral part of team management for 6 off seasons. We have seen the results. If the Bills let him go, its doubtful any other NFL team will be looking to hire him in order to replicate his Buffalo Bills success story.

Pegula spent 1.4 Billion to buy the team. Rex's entire remaining contract takes that to 1.42 Billion. If Pegs thinks the team is better without him, I don't think the contract matters.

Well he is much worse than the other first year starters like winston and mariotta, who are actual rookies not 4 year vets

accurate observation

Neither team likely has a long term solution at QB. The bills maybe have the slighter better flavor of mediocre at that position. The Bills don't have a cap problem per se. What they have is a problem of having way too much money tied up in Mario/Dareus/Hughes/McCoy/Clay. None of them are close to producing at a level to justify their pay. if all of those guys returned to 2014 form, then the Bills are better than the jets. If they play like this year then they are not better.

Even if its the schemes fault, it is still a terrible place to be. They ought to change the scheme.