Nihilarian

My reasoning in that Whaley needed help from an actual experienced NFL above him is because he was being taught by not so bright people. Just look at his tenure with the Buffalo Bills and in that time who was teaching him the right moves in building an NFL winning team? Marv Levy who was a good NFL HC but never meant to be an NFL team GM. Buddy Nix who might have been a decent chief scout but if the man reaches 70 years old and retires while not ever being offered an NFL GM job you have to think why? Ralph Wilson hired Nix out of retirement and I can only think it's because the man was easily manipulated by the owner in doing his bidding without much debate. Simply looking Buddy Nix's idea of how to build an offensive line leads me to believe he wasn't very bright. Any OT can play OG and how did that work with Erik Pears at RG? OG's are a dime a dozen and bigger is better so how did that work with Colin Brown, Sam Young, and Cornell Green? How did finding the franchise that elite NFL starting QB work out? How many games did the team win with Nix as GM? That baby was stillborn at 6-10! Then looking at the last two head coaching hires and while we know that Whaley was involved we also know that neither was his actual choice for head coach. If the team wouldn't allow the GM to make the choice on the HC it makes me wonder what other choices he wasn't allowed to make as GM? To me, it's rather unsettling to see the team's president / managing partner and ex-CEO sitting in the teams cut room meetings and on the phone to UDFA's. Isn't that the GM's job or perhaps even the assistant GM's job? So, at this point, us fans really don't know exactly how much of the GM's choices were actually the GM's choices. I would like to see the man get another season with just him making the all the GM decisions and keep the owners, the HC and the marketing / finance president out of those football decisions. Mostly because I would really not like it to see him fired in Buffalo and go on to be successful with another team because he was being held back here.

I agree with the OP that this team used to draft players with a questionable injury history and came out with hall of Famers. Jim kelly drafted with shoulder with pins inserted in his senior year. Thurman Thomas with a reconstructed knee. Just look at the history of players acquired recently that can't stay healthy. The team's first two draft choices this year-Sammy, Clay and even Shady who played in only 12 games last year. OG Chris Williams who played in three games given a 5.5 mill guaranteed 13.5 million per contract among others Seems like whomever is giving the team the okay to obtain questionable players is a Patriots fan. Far, far too many players on IR every year since Jauron.

Complete failure...No! Not so great GM...Yes! While some fans here credit Whaley with letting CJ Spiller go that just isn't the case as Spiller was offered a good contract by Buffalo and he turned it down to go to NO... thank the lord! Some fans want to credit Whaley for the Jerry Hughes trade for Kelvin Shepard and it was the Colts GM who foolishly initiated that trade a for a former 1st for a 3rd and Buffalo stole a great pass rusher for a bum! Richie Incognito was Rex Ryan's move as he vouched for Richie. Whaley could have signed Incognito during the entire 2014 season in which Buffalo fielded the very worst offensive line in the league with Pears at RG! Tyrod Taylor was also a Rex move that Whaley takes credit for. What is the one biggest area of team need that helps define the face of the franchise and helps the team win games! Yeah, is the team still looking for that ever elusive franchise QB? Derek Carr- Teddy Bridgewater-Jimmy Garoppolo- Dak Prescott - Trevor Siemain?? the QB position still remains a question of great concern in Buffalo. Not paying Andy Levitre and letting him walk was the right move! However, attempting to replace Levitre with complete scrubs in Colin Brown, Sam Young was a rather heinous move considering the team was attempting to get by with basically three rookie QB's on the roster!! The GM also allowed the coaching staff to go forward with no QB coach or veteran QB on the roster to help teach these inexperienced QB's. How long did it take to Whaley build a viable offensive line? Three offseasons now and the right side has played better so far this season but with 13 games remaining the starters and backup depth are still very questionable. While grading out pretty decently so far the season there still is a long way to go and many really good teams to face this year. Doug Whaley took over as GM after the 2013 draft and has made some very questionable moves since then. Trading for Bryce Brown who was a complete waste. Trading for WR Mike Williams was a complete waste. Signing OG Chris Williams for four years 13.5 million with 5.5 guaranteed only to see the guy play three games was not only a serious waste of a roster spot, money, and this GM has shown a penchant for acquiring players with injury issues. Trading away Stevie Johnson when the team could have really used that WR who is always open was let go because he didn't run precise routes for EJ only to EJ benched and Orton having to take over after a few games and he could have really used Stevie. The coaches stupidly would use Watkins as a decoy most of the season. The trading three draft picks, two first rounders for Sammy Watkins was a bad idea for many reasons. 1) the team wasn't 100% positive that they already have it's franchise QB on the roster. 2) The team had more holes on the roster at that time than one elite WR and still does! 3) While the young man played most of the games his first two seasons, he was also injured so much of the time that he was never 100%. Now to be placed on IR for perhaps half a season or an entire season along with this season's first two draft picks starting out injured just reinforces the bad penchant for acquiring players with injury issues. 4) the team started out under Doug Marrone as a run-first offense to help the young QB's develop properly and then switched to a pass first offense to help make the Watkins choice look good. Watkins was never a great fit for a run first offense that needed so many others positions upgraded and probably the reason the HC walked out of the draft room after trading away three picks to obtain him. 5) the most blatant reason is the team didn't already have that elite franchise QB on the roster that was throwing for 4000k yards a season to take advantage of a talent like Watkins. So, this move looks like desperation to help make the failing young QB look better and the GM didn't take the big picture of the team in view. 6) Hindsight, IDGAF! In probably the greatest draft for WR's in the entire history of the league filled with so much receiver talent that this team uses three draft picks, two first rounders on a WR!! Mike Evans-Odell Beckham Jr-Brandin Cooks-Kelvin Benjamin-Marquise Lee-Jordan Matthews-Allen Robinson- Jarvis Landry- John Brown-Martivas Bryant- Donte Moncrief-Quincy Enunwa. 7) After that 2014 NFL draft, I can recall the team stating that they still needed that big, tall, WR red zone threat...doh! This team spending great resources on what was perceived to be great talent on a past his prime RB going into his 7th season who only played in 12 games last year. Great resources on a TE to fill a team need. Great resources on a WR. The point here is that if the team had been able to identify great talent in the draft on offense it wouldn't need to use up so much cap space, draft picks in the draft or free agency. (The NY Jets have two quality free agent WR's in Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker along with RB Matt Forte as an example.) Anyway, back to the point here. Had the team not been able to make the trade up for Sammy Watkins in the 2014 NFL draft it is well known that the team would have chosen TE Eric Ebron as another example of a bad choice who is also injury prone. EJ Manuel. As so many different ideas surround this draft pick. It was in fact, Doug Whaley who went down to Florida and scouted the young QB for the team and basically stated he was all in for this choice at QB. Let's also not forget that it was a rumor that Eagles HC Chip Kelly was also interested in EJ so the team traded up to acquire him. While current GM Doug Whaley has made some very questionable moves in his tenure as the Buffalo Bills GM. I have to have to ask questions as to who was helping guide this young GM in his football decisions? Buddy Nix a retired chief scout who was never qualified to be a GM in the first place and certainly made his share of stupid decisions as GM. Whaley's direct boss above Nix for the first few years who controlled the entire team was a finance / marketing man with no real winning football experience behind him. I'm not advocating firing Doug Whaley! Just getting this young, talented GM some help in the form of an older, experienced winning NFL football man at the top of the football side of the org chart who's brain he can pick that isn't a loser. Just my 2 cents.

Tallywhacker= BB's main man

It really is amazing that jackass called Whaley and wanted him out of Indy as Bill Polian's last failed #1 pick. How that man still has a job as an NFL GM is beyond me.

Yep! you can bet the house that Belichick is very concerned about which QB of his is going to face Rex Ryan's defense. I fully expect Ryan to go all out to get pressure on whichever QB is back there. It wouldn't surprise me to see Edelman at QB and see him throw for 300 yards against the Bills with Hogan seeing 12 targets for 110 yards and two TD's just because Bill wants to rub Ryan's nose in it.

More to it then that as Peyton has an offensive mind and background and should allow his defensive coaches to do their jobs and according to Rob Ryan he had his hands all over the defense the last few years. Payton hired Dennis Allen to assist Rob Ryan last year and then fired Ryan and promoted Allen to DC. Allen got a lot of credit for fielding a top secondary on Gregg Williams 2009 Saints defense and I don't know why as the pass defense wasn't really all that good. 26th in yards allowed but #5 in TD's allowed. My take is that Saints defense was #3 in QB pressures that year and that helps the secondary so much. Bottom line is that Dennis Allen doesn't look like a very good DC and with Peyton in there meddling it makes things even worse. It will be difficult to bring in an already talented NFL DC with the knowledge that the HC could interfere. Still, i don't see the HC or GM getting fired unless the team really tanks like below 6 wins.

Rumor has it that Payton is sticking his nose into the defensive side of the ball and it's not helping. NO is currently 31st in total defense and #3 in total offense. If that team could ever field a decent defense again they would be tough to beat. You must be thinking of the 2013 Saints as #4 overall defense and the 2014 Saints defense 28th in pts, 31st in yards. The 2015 Saints defense was 32nd in pts and 31st in yards and a big reason why Rob Ryan was fired mid-season last year. People were saying that the 2015 Saints had the worst ever defense in the history of the team. If anything the GM should be on thin ice in NO!

Arizona was a good team last year! Each year in the NFL mostly all teams change with the addition of different players, coaches. Each year is a new year and teams need to earn their respective rankings so basically what they did last season really doesn't reflect the outcome of the new season in many cases. The last three games of 2015 for Arizona saw Carson Palmer throw nine picks and the Cardinals get beaten badly by both the Seahawks and Panthers. Against the Panthers he had a passer rating of 43.2, against the Bills he had a passer rating of 36.0! We don't know how good the Cardinals will be this season and so far the only team they have beaten are the Bucs at Arizona who had to make that cross-country flight like the Cards. Like others, I'll reserve judgement on the 2016 Buffalo Bills until they win more games and the same goes for Ryan. The rest of the Bills schedule doesn't look like a cake walk either. @ Patriots, @ Rams, 49ers, @ Miami, Patriots with Brady, @ Seattle. We will know more in about six weeks.

Rex did manage to get pressure on Brady in that 2nd Patriots game, all game. And to the tune of around 50% of Brady's pass dropbacks so much so that Tommy boy was literally screaming at his O-linemen on the sidelines! So, the pass rush worked when the coaches wanted it to work. Anyway, after this post, I'm done attempting to convince you of anything as you just seem to want to refute what I say rather than acknowledge what an actual ex-NFL player is saying or what's actually happening on the field. Peace out.

Some Bills fans just refuse to see the truth in the issue for the lack of pass rush of last season and want blame it on everything but the scheme and coaches. I don't know why either.

You obviously didn't click the link I provided that has an article written by an ex-NFL player who reviewed the Bengals game film and stated Ryan ran that two-gap slightly more than any other scheme. I have no idea who Erik Turner is or if he ever played in the NFL or was an NFL coach. However, Stephen White was an NFL player who watched the actual game film to break down the Bengals game and that is where I garnered some of my info. I also just refuted Turner's idea of claiming that the lack of sacks was mainly because of the Kyle Williams injury as the lack of sacks and QB pressure was happening in games long before Williams was injured. Couldn't adjust? Ryan then managed great pressure on Brady in that second game in week 11 without either Mario Williams or Kyle Williams and did the same against Fitzpatrick in weeks 10 and 17. I had read in the BN that Marcell Dareus, Mario Williams, and even Kyle Williams were all talking about what they were being asked to do in Ryan's scheme and weren't happy about it. However, they all did what was asked of them and some better than others. Clearly, this is was something different from just rushing the passer and different from what they were asked to do in Schwartz's defense which...was....rush...the....passer! I don't attempt to belittle you for your beliefs as I all will try to do is refute them with what I believe is the truth. The plain and simple truth is that Rex Ryan does have a 3-4 two-gap scheme in his playbook and does run that scheme in games all the time. He just ran it from the start of the Arizona game and once the Bills got the lead the defense started going to the one-gap and rushing the passer more. Ryan's defense isn't always the same and he is always switching things up with different fronts, looks, sets to confuse the opponent. Click the link and read it http://www.sbnation.com/2015/10/21/9581575/mario-williams-marcell-dareus-rex-ryan-buffalo-bills-defense

I haven't twisted a single thing. I've been complaining about Rex Ryan's defense since week two and that crapfest of a defense Ryan fielded in that Patriots debacle. Plus, I've been saying the same thing from week six last year after the Bengals game and still believe the two-gap scheme is one of the biggest reasons for that lack of sacks and QB pressures in 2015. You don't have to believe me. http://www.sbnation.com/2015/10/21/9581575/mario-williams-marcell-dareus-rex-ryan-buffalo-bills-defense Yes, losing Kyle Williams hurt the defensive pass rush to a degree. What it didn't do all by itself was kill the pass rush into going from first in the NFL to 31st. Let's look at the games in which Kyle Williams played in last year, okay? Indy, 3 sacks. Patriots 2 sacks. Dolphins 2 sacks. Giants 1 sack. Tenn 2 sacks. Cincy 0 sacks All with Kyle Williams playing. Six games, 10 sacks. Now extrapolate that out to 12 games = 20 sacks, 18 games = 30 sacks. What is it with you guys? I can also post a BN article in which the Bills coaches talk about Manny Lawson getting a single lone hurry on Dallas QB Kellen Moore all game and they were happy about it because he was able to do that while Mario was dropped into pass coverage. The Bills coaches created that mess of a defense we all saw last year and not the players.

yep! 14 of 25 for 119 isn't going to win many games in a passing league. Fortunately, TT also ran for 74 yards and had a rushing TD The Bills had so many things go their way. The Run game worked which helped the helped the offense control the clock, line of scrimmage and score. The defense was able to shut down the Cards run game in the first half and get a lead which helped the defense because now they could pin ears back and pass rush which helped the defensive secondary. Things need to go just right for this team to win because they still make way too many mistakes in game management, penalties, bad plays. The Cardinals weren't a very good team yesterday so it's kinda tough to gauge what teams the Bills can actually beat this year. Rex is 9-10 in Buffalo so far. On the brighter side Marcell Dareus, Sammy, and others should be back soon.

This is nothing new for Rex Ryan! Things went his way for this game and now the Bills are unstoppable as is his ego! It would be nice if he would just keep things low-keyed like he did before the Cards game. Now he is gonna fire up the Patriots players and fans.

It certainly was for most of the year last season First, the players themselves were complaining that they weren't allowed to rush the passer like the previous seasons. So, if the players were being asked to occasionally, or rarely 2-gap then I kinda doubt that they would have gone public to complain! The best player on that line was the one doing most of the complaining in Dareus and from the start of training camp. Kyle stated he wasn't happy about it either but he would do what was asked. Second, the stats don't lie when going from #1 in the league to 31st in the league and 3rd in QB pressures to last in the league. Kyle is a superb athlete but he is only 6'1 300lbs and in that 2-gap he needs to wrestle players that are so much bigger in height and weight that it's a mismatch for him to attempt to control those gaps over simply rushing the passer. Especially if he is asked to do it the majority of time in a game. As I look over the current Bills roster nobody is really built for that 2-gap scheme on a majority of the time basis. The Bills did a good job this past game shutting down the Cardinals run game in the first half and until they got a big lead so they could rush the passer. That's how it's supposed to work. So Ryan used both techniques and it worked well this game. Like a gnat huh...a baby gnat!

If this team beats the Seahawks in Seattle then I shouldn't worry about any other game the rest of the season because it will be a sweep.

Lower bowl nobody sits, it's a way of life.

At this point in time just getting a win was a huge uplift for the fan base and players. Who knows how many more games this team will win this season. So can we just savor the win and worry about the Patriots next weekend for now?

Kyle Williams is a poor fit in a two-gap scheme as those players are usually bigger and stronger who need to wrestle the tackles to control the gaps rather than rush the passer through one gap. It was clear yesterday that Kyle is more of a fit in a one-gap scheme and utilized in that scheme he can return to his pro bowl form. So when the defense runs mostly a two-gap scheme all last year there was a real reason for the drop off from all those pro bowl pass rushers. I still don't get the half right thing.

I'll say Rex Ryan for firing Greg Roman at the right time and getting his defense on track for this game. When the run game works it helps the defense so much and those two good corners can do their jobs better when there is a good rush on the QB. Yea, Kyle looked like his old self and Shady was outstanding! If Hughes could ever end his penchant for penalties he would be a true superstar. Good win that the team and fans really needed!

We saw this last year too. Best not to get delerious over one win, at home and against an NFC team that flew in from the west coast. Should the Bills beat the Bradyless Patriots then some delerium can start I agree as the only team they have beaten so far were the 49ers who were getting smoked by the Seahawks 37-3 for most of yesterday.

No, it's 100% right. Williams is a pro bowler and he is a better fit in a one-gap scheme without a doubt! Ryan ran his two-gap scheme the majority of the time last year and it was the biggest reason for the drop off in sacks, no question! Not to mention both Mario and Dareus complaining about how they were being utilized in Ryan's scheme since around training camp. Probably ran that two-gap more than he should have because he didn't want to look like Pettine with being #2 in sacks but 25th against the run. Ryan mixed it up far too much last year with so many looks, fronts and not much really worked. It was easy to see which games he ran that one-gap more often and it was in the second game against the Patriots and the last game against the Jets among others. This game he started out using a two-gap and stuffed the run, got the lead and was able to use his one-gap 3-4 for which he was so well known for and it worked so well because the Bills had the lead. When the Bills run game works and the team gets the lead it helps the Bills defense work too.

The only team the Cards beat so far was the 49ers who were getting destroyed by the Seahawks most of yesterday by 37-3 and the hawks allowed points in garbage time late in the game. The Cardinals kept attempting to emulate the Jets by going for the deep ball and it kept biting them in the azz. They looked nothing like the team that won the NFC West last year, save the late season games against the Seahawks and Panthers when Carson Palmer threw a combined 7 picks in those two games. Arians had his head up his posterior most of that Bills game by constantly going deep instead of just trying to move the chains. The Bills got the lead and Ryan started calling a one-gap rush and it worked. The thing is i kinda doubt TT is going to win many other games by throwing 14 of 25 for 119 yards and one INT. He did have 9 rushes for 76 yards and a TD with his wheels. It just goes to show what Ryan's defense can do when the run game works and the team gets the lead in a game.

He is a pro bowler when used in a one-gap 3-4 like he was yesterday and he is a bad fit in a 3-4 two-gap like he was mostly used in last year. There was a real reason why the team fell on it's face in sacks last year and it had nothing to do with the players.