Georgia Bill

I don't know about what is legal, but the norm seems to be for no announcements on staff departures until after a team has been eliminated. I'm sure it is meant to keep distractions to a minimum. It seems this bye week period allows a window for interviews with candidates that are currently part of the teams that earned a bye.

There's a big difference here. You or I probably would not opt to take a severance with no job lined up. The longer term job security is more important than the short term financial boost. But in Marrone's case, he had the option to get a $4 million "severance". If you or I had that option, we'd jump on it in a heartbeat, because $4 million is a truckload of cash. Frankly, he has probably been eyeing this windfall for some time. He may never get another chance like this again where he gets the big payout, AND had a good enough year where he will likely be able to secure another good paying job.

It simply doesn't matter who said what to who or if there was any influence. Marrone is gone (and don't let the door hit you on the way out). Polian is not coming, and if he either: a) listened to Marrone and decided not to come - for whatever reason - or b) decided not to come because Orton and/or Marrone was gone and he was only interested in light consulting, not heavy lifting then he was not a good fit anyway. So who cares how it happened? The only thing I care about is who is coming in, and we won't know that for some time.

I don't think the question was how likely it is that he will leave voluntarily. It was: how likely is it that the new HC keeps him? I hope they do!

Plus he knows how to drag a team down from playoff caliber into the muck in just a few years. But gosh, if we go 4-12 beating the Jets and Patriots it woud be so awesome! Jets record w Rex (just say no): NYJ 2009 9 7 0 .563 2nd in AFC East 2 1 .667 Lost to the Indianapolis Colts in AFC Championship Game NYJ 2010 11 5 0 .688 2nd in AFC East 2 1 .667 Lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers in AFC Championship Game NYJ 2011 8 8 0 .500 2nd in AFC East – – – – NYJ 2012 6 10 0 .375 3rd in AFC East – – – – NYJ 2013 8 8 0 .500 2nd in AFC East – – – – NYJ 2014 4 12 0 .250 4th in AFC East

Punt?

No. I love Schwartz as DC, but fear him as head coach. Detroit was getting worse with him.

Exactly:Jets at 4-12 with uncertainty at QB Bears at 5-11 with Cutler controversy that may have dragged down prior mgmt/coach Falcons at 6-10 with no defense Then there's that Bills at 9-7, with a great D, with the downside a QB need. I'd say we ought to look best!

Or maybe that was due to the Schwartz I see BuffTex beat me to that thought +1 then...

I appreciated having a 9-7 season and having a real late December shot at the playoffs for a change. Kyle was part of that and so I'll thank him (and the rest of the Bills). To all the Orton haters who are whooping it up, you've got to admit there's no guarantee we're going to be any better off with whomever is our starter next year. Of course we would all like a "franchise" top 10 QB, but the fact is the Bills are not in position to land one any time soon. We can speculate all day about EJ, or Cutler, or Bradford, or (fill in the blank), but there's no way to know any would pan out better behind this line. I'll hope for the best, but don't think this is a day to celebrate.

It feels a hell of a lot better than it would have to lose against their backups (cough cough Pittsburgh). But it just doesn't feel great to me. Still it's a W, I'll take it.

I tend to think the major theaters declined to show it not because of fear of terrorist attacks (and lawsuits if such happened), but rather because Christmas season is when they fill the theaters, and they were worried that if this movie was showing lot's of nervous moms and dads would simply say we're not going to see ANY movies at a theater that's showing The Interview. The almighty dollar speaks loudly. Don't believe the drivel that they had the safety of their employees and the American public in mind when they decided not to show it. I commend Sony for getting it out on line today, and to those independent theaters brave enough to show it. Here in Atlanta the one theater showing it sold out all show times within minutes of becoming available on line yesterday. I just wanted to add I just posted my 500th post, and noticed that I advanced from Rookie to RFA. Cool, only took me 11 years - I'm moving up fast!

If we win, we may not be learning much because they really have no reason to try too hard, and we'll never know if that's why we won or not. If we lose, we can learn that we're still not good enough to beat the Pats, even when they have no real reason to win.

No

I think if they win the Super Bowl this year he will retire on a high note. But if they don't he'll come back as he seems driven to want to win another one.

Do we know if those 4th down calls were Marrone's, or was it Hackett? If they were Marrone's, bad decisions - lack of guts. If instead he let Hackett make the call, the coach still gets some of the blame, as those kind of huge game changing decisions need to be made by him.

At 56, I'm conflicted. After 45 years cheering for this team, I too want a championship in my lifetime. I keep getting optimistic about us getting better, but then keep getting disappointed. Part of me says I've been foolish investing so much of my time and emotion in this. The other part can't stop watching, and hoping. Even during games I'm schizophrenic - euphoric with each great play, but spending much of my time braced for the next improbable disappointment. As Springsteen said in The River: "Is a dream a lie, that don't come true, or is it something worse?".

Rivers in the game last night just seemed to will the Chargers to a win, like no way he was going to stand for a loss. And that was after getting down by 21. He delivered with gutsy play (bulging disk to boot). I get the feeling with Orton it's just "oh well, we tried, and a few things didn't go our way".

Would it have felt better if we were instead knocked out by a blowout loss at NE? It sucks that it was Oakland, but the result is the same.

This team does not deserve the playoffs. If you can't play hard and beat Oakland, no need to even think about it. On to next year (sigh).

It's just what I was worried about. Seems we thought we'd win by showing up.

I was just about to say the same thing

Just got in from some Christmas shopping. 21-0, I'm loving me some San Fran

If we make it to the playoffs and make some noise, I could potentially see some offers. But just because we had a decent defense and beat Green Bay does not mean the guy is going to be a hot HC prospect. I simply don't see him leaving until end of next year at the earliest. It would take a desperate team willing to take a chance that a good DC who inherited a very good defense would also make a good HC. For a team to be that desperate, they are probably not talent loaded, and thus would be more of a risk for his long term future. He cannot afford to be considered a failure at head coach again.

If we got to the game in NE at 9-6 with a need to win and chance to be in (with a bit of help), I think that would be awesome. I don't care how "unlikely" it is for us to win, it would effectively be a playoff game. It was also unlikely that we'd beat Green Bay. I think this particular team, with this defense, could show up in NE hungry and on fire. It's been freaking forever since the last game in the season meant anything!