Luxy312

Aldon Smith should be out of the NFL. There's no reason that these guys can't stay on the right side of the law.

I think it depends a lot on where the salary cap goes this year. It's been growing thus far at a pace of about $10 million a year. So maybe the space will be there. Even if you assume the space isn't there and there's just no capacity for the contract he might demand, it might explain why the Bills are rotating the LT position right now between Glenn and Henderson in TC. While I like continuity on teams, you can't keep everyone. It's harder to keep guys as well that significantly outplay their contracts.

Tannehill has looked more accurate and more comfortable in the pocket each year in the league, and now has more touchdowns in total than turnovers. That said, the rest of the offense isn't all that great. Wallace and obviously Clay are gone offensively. Kenny Stills and Greg Jennings are now the main weapons and Jordan replaces Clay. Sorry, but the team just doesn't elicit fear for me. In the 3 years with Tannehill under center, they're 23-25. Will the defense be better with Suh? I don't doubt that at all. The question is whether it makes them a playoff team.

Excellent work and good use of more than just singular observations!

Focusing on just one year is myopic at best. It's like looking at one incomplete pass and saying a QB has accuracy issues. Try looking at the collective data over the last 20 years and you'll prove yourself wrong and myself right. I'm not going to focus on limited information, just because you want to put the blinders on and ignore everything else that's out there that supports the contrary.

Fantastic breakdown here. Look, I would love to see the Bills have the likes of a Jim Kelly again. But when it comes right down to it, they have a team that can win it all without one. There's quite a few recent Superbowl winning quarterbacks that almost anyone wouldn't even put in the top ten. I'm not suggesting that that's ideal. I don't care who's around him, if I have Peyton Manning or Tom Brady, my expectation is a deep playoff run every year. I hate to beat a dead horse here, but I think the analogy to Joe Flacco is the most accurate. They've made the playoffs 7 out of 8 years with him as the starter and won a Superbowl. Over those 8 years collectively, the Ravens have collectively been at the top of the league defensively. How many people would say that notwithstanding anything else that Joe Flacco makes their team a playoff contender regardless of the rest of the roster? Nobody with two brain cells to rub together.

Perhaps these combined.

OK, how about this? Bills will be in the top-8 in rushing attempts this year and in the bottom-8 in pass attempts. That's my prediction and I would be happy to have a friendly wager with you personally on it. I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth, but that's just how your posts read.

Now I'm going to add Greg Roman to the commentary here. 4, 3, 4, 8. Those were the rushing attempts for Greg Roman's offenses in San Francisco. 29, 32, 31, 31. Those were the passing attempts. The Greg Roman hire is consistent with what Ryan has done historically. If anyone is truly trying to read the tea leaves and what's going to happen this year, you simply need to look at history.

Braylon Edwards, Santonio Holmes, Plaxico Burress, and Keller have been staples for years. It's closer than you think it is, considering that the Bills will be putting a QB out there that very much resembles the likes of Sanchez and Geno Smith that Rex had to deal with. There's absolutely NO WAY that the Bills become a pass first team with any of the QB's on the roster right now. I'll say it again, ZERO chance. You can save this if you want to, but right now I'll say that the Bills will have in excess of 500 rushing attempts this season and only about the same or even less passing.

I haven't seen a better article that really "dumbs down" the concepts of the 46 and what Ryan has been doing. Well posted!

I don't think the facts back your opinion. From a rushing attempts perspective, Rex's years with the Jets ranked 4, 5, 6, 16, 2, 1. That's just one year at average and the rest in the very upper echelon of NFL teams. A definitive focus on the running game. Conversely, the pass attempts ranked 27, 29, 25, 17, 18, 32. In terms of distribution, it's argumentative as to whether McCoy will be the 300 touches workhorse or whether others will vulture carries and catches. Rex's history points to a consistent focus on the running game.

I would conservatively say he's top ten in production at his position if he stays healthy. With an ADP of 16, he would be a steal late in the first round or early in the second round of standard drafts. Given Rex's propensity to run the ball, McCoy could legitimately finish in the top-3 in total production at his position. That would be pretty crazy value.

The idea would be a good one if Fred Jackson were in his mid to late 20's. The problem here is that he's not. Why would any team give a player of value for a 34 year old running back? The offensive line of Dallas was so good last year because they had depth. So the suggestion that they would just part ways with that depth is a bit preposterous. To boot, Dallas already has youth on their roster at the position. McFadden (when healthy) has shown he's more than capable. Lance Dunbar has only been in the league for 4 years. Randle is 23 and averaged almost 7 YPC last year. In summary, I won't go all the way to calling the "idea" idiotic, but I'll simply say it's very much Madden-esque. Might work in the video game, but has no application in reality.

None of the above. They're not better and more importantly, none of them would be ready for the start of the season. Right now, the best case scenario is that we start to see improvement and a clear starter emerges from the guys they have already. Worst case scenario is that that doesn't happen and we're looking to the draft next year. I'm so tired of the Bills taking other teams loser/cast offs and thinking that they have a guy that will put them in the playoffs. Complete waste of time.

This is really non-news. The Bills are going to keep a full roster and they're going to keep adding guys as needed at positions where they feel they're the weakest. Before this signing, they had only 4 tackles on their roster. That's pretty light for the 90 man training camp roster limit.

You have to love the pessimism on these threads. Our QB situation is dire because no one is lighting it up in camp, right? Would the negative Nancy's be happier if our QB (whomever it is) is dominating? That would essentially mean that our defense is garbage, which we know 100% is not the case. During the regular season, I expect that in only a couple of games that our opponents QB will look better than average to good. Given that, I would expect that all of our potential starting QB's will get a shot playing with the first team offense against the first team defense. Looking even just average is a good thing here. At this stage in the game, we just don't need another teams castoff/reject to essentially start over learning the playbook.

Idiotic article. You're only an avid fan if you're "willing to shell out thousands of dollars for tickets". About the most asinine statement I've ever read. Come to Lincoln Station in Chicago for the first game of the season and tell me that there aren't avid Bills fans there. It will be wall to wall Bills jerseys!

I always argue respectfully so back at you!

But you're qualifying it with two things that are not equivalent. You can't say look at the Patriots situation based on everything they have around them and at the same time look at the Bills and say their "QB situation" is better because of dozens of other better players. You might as well instead be saying which team is better across the board, because that's really what you mean. Or which team is in a better position, should they lose their starting signal caller to injury? Putting everything else equal, there's not a person on the planet that would take the Bills QB's over the Patriots QB's and put them on any roster. For that matter, I would probably take Matt Flynn over any of the QB's on Buffalo's roster. He's had some really good games when he's been on good teams with a lot of talent around him. I think he would suck if he had to start for New England right now, but maybe that's just me.

Peyton Manning's football acumen. The guy is ridiculous. Aaron Rodgers throws one of the best balls I've ever seen and is more athletic than a lot of people give him credit. Call me a homer, but give me Jim Kelly's toughness. I don't know anyone that would stand in the pocket on one leg and take the beatings he took. Oh, and you have to add in Tom Brady's bitchy whiny nature after every play where he's begging for a flag. Nobody cries on the field for calls more than that guy.

I think what FireChan is saying here is valid as well as there's another way to look at it. Would you rather have the Patriots quarterbacks on the Bills roster or the Bills quarterbacks? I don't think there's anyone in their right mind that would rather have Cassel, Manuel and Taylor over Brady and whomever else is on that roster. That would be an insane statement. Whether he believes that the Patriots would be OK without Brady is a whole different question. Although it's very limited in terms of data points, the Patriots were awful without Tom Terrific last season. I can't see them going 12-4 with Garoppolo or Flynn at the helm. That though is debatable.

This is an easy question to qualify. If Tom Brady stays healthy for the season, the Patriots are miles ahead of the Bills. If he doesn't, they're not. The best way I would characterize the distinction between the two teams is that the Bills are more "durable". Any quarterback that would start for Buffalo simply needs to be average for the team to win games. That's not the case for the Patriots.

He has to rank the quarterbacks somewhere, but here's some simple logical fallacies that aren't really addressed anywhere. The Bills offense as it stood last season was roughly middle of the pack, ranked 18th out of 32 teams with Kyle Orton at the helm. If you assume that Cassel is the guy this year, his career numbers are virtually identical to Orton's. Would anyone jump to a conclusion that the Bills offense is suddenly going to be 14 spots WORSE than the prior year with upgrades to the offensive line, running back, wide receiver, tight end, fullback and offensive coordinator? Did those 14 teams below them improve so much to warrant moving them above the Bills? The Jets had the worst passing offense in the NFL last year and will be starting the same terrible Geno Smith. Overall they were in the bottom 5 in total offense with the likes of Jacksonville, Oakland, Tampa Bay, and Tennessee. Last year, Orton was protected to a degree by one of the best defenses in the NFL no doubt. Did that defense get worse, such that Cassel would be asked to do more? I think that even most non-Bills fans expects the defense to be one of the best, if not the top unit in the NFL this season. Unfortunately, we're plagued by writers like this. The Bills haven't had a franchise QB since Jim Kelly, so "INSERT NAME HERE" will be the worst quarterback in the NFL. It's just a senseless rant with nothing of substance behind it. Here's an easy way to qualify his statements. Matt Cassel will put up average to above average stats for a quarterback, but only because of the team around him. That certainly plays out based on history. With a good team around him, he's appeared to play well enough to not lose. On bad teams, he looks like a hot steaming pile of garbage. But, good/bad team set aside, I don't think he has the worst skills of any of the starting 32 quarterbacks.

The single biggest problem that I have with his "analysis" if you even want to call it that, comes down to his conclusion that it will come down to whether the Bills can get consistent QB play. He almost completely ignores the fact that the Jets are going to be rolling out there with Geno Smith every week. Is he assuming the because they drafted Bryce Petty in the 4th round that he's actually going to win the job and be better than Geno? If not, Geno's a guy that's started almost 2 full seasons and has 25 TD passes to his 34 Interceptions. Plenty of fumbles lost as well. Is he talking about Ryan Fitzpatrick being the guy? Is he really any better? Besides possibly Brandon Marshall, who's getting up there in age, who's the big threat for the Jets offensively? Even if you assume they're both pretty good defenses (I actually expect both to be top-5 in the NFL), the Jets have far less weapons on the other side of the ball. Chris Ivory and Steven Ridley running the ball? Really?? What about the Dolphins offense? Do they really look all that great? Barring injury to a significant player, I cannot see this team any worse than 2nd.