Dibs

No.....they really didn't. The 49ers scored 31 points and racked up 468 yards......and neither were good defenses. Surely you aren't saying that just because a team beats an opponent that has a good QB that said team has a good defense?

Hehehe.....you just reminded me about the entirely vomit inducing "Battle of the Bays"....when TB would play GB. Those were the days.

They each have their areas of control and would obviously have final say in their own areas. Whaley has final say on which FAs to get and who to draft, Rex has final say on game strategy and who suits up and Brandon has final say in all other areas. How do you imaging other teams functioning.....and why do you imagine it working for most other teams but not the Bills?

I totally agree. I remember being head scratchingly stunned by the trade at that time.

1, 3, 5, 8, 11, 6 They are the Jets defensive rankings for Rex's six years, and the talent on this Bills defense is better than any of those Jets teams. There is good reason that Rex was salivating when he spoke about the talent on his new team.

To moreproblemsthanOrton(quote wouldn't work), I was careful in my wording by saying "great QB play" not great QBs. I personally rate both Eli and Flacco as being streaky elite. They both have had periods(multiple for Eli) where they have produced the best QBing in the league. Luckily for the Giants and Ravens that coincided with the SB. I fully agree with your final paragraph.

Yes, but that wasn't the point I refuted.

Ravens had a mediocre defense that year.....ranked 17th overall (17th pass, 20th rush, 12th scoring)Giants were worse.....ranked 27th overall (29th pass, 19th rush, 25th scoring) Ravens and Giants both had fantastic QB play through their respective post seasons and very much support the "need a great QB to win" crowd. Don't confuse having a good day with being consistantly good.......and even then the Ravens let through 468 yards and 31 points.

No, just one.

To me it breaks down as follows..... One can win the SB with stellar QB play or an elite defense(or both). Stellar QB play comes from truly great QBs.....and occasionally 2nd tier QBs who have a great year(Flacco, E.Manning). Elite defenses are those that are truly great, not simply top 5 for the year(2000 Ravens, 2002 Bucs, 2013 Seahawks etc). That's it. Since 2000(and most of the previous 15+ years) the above has been the rule for winning a SB. Mind you, an elite defense still needs an efficient offense, while a star QB can win it with a deficient defense on occassion. Luckily for the Bills we have a chance(with Rex) to achieve an elite defense. If we do that.....and manage to get efficient QB play from the offense, then we have a decent shot at the SB IMO. Unfortunately elite defenses only seem to maintain their elite level for a few years before regressing. As I see it, unless we find a star QB, or Whaley keeps finding great talent for the defense, we have a 2-3 year window where we actually could have a fighting chance at winning the SB. Our time is NOW fellow Bills fans!

2006 Colts.

But the unity is that they all agree to a concensus. There is no actual lie unless they state something akin to "We all believe that player X is the best choice". That theoretically won't be the statement.....instead it being one like "It was a concensus decision, we are all on board with this pick". More pertinent perhaps is.....what should they be saying? If not up front about the process, at some point the media will ask about individual thoughts on certain issues.....which would have to prompt the same response(unless you think it wise they air their dirty laudry to the public).

Very unimpressed with that sites research. There are several trades in the realm of what they list, such as.......Welker to Pats for a 2nd & 7th......Faulk to Rams for a 2nd & 5th. They totally forgot the massive trade in 1974....Packers gave up 1975 1st, 2nd & 3rd round picks plus 1976 1st & 2nd round picks to get John Hadl. Young to 49ers.....Elway to Broncos......the Ricky Williams trade. Is it too soon to include the RG3 trade? Lists are great for interest sake (clicks) but I've noticed that very few put in any reasonable research.

You've made an assumption here which seems to be causing the disunity in this thread. You assume that it is inevitable that there would be internal debate that ends in disent. This would only be inevitable depending on the personalities involved. With someone like Marrone.....the statement is likely true. Most intelligent individuals realize however that deciscions need to be made....and they won't always coiincide with their specific views. A person who causes disent in an organization needs to be removed. The real problem occurs when it is the boss who does not understand this concept(fingers crossed that Pegula can listen to the wisdom of his advisors).

This concept at least gives hope for dramatic improvement next year.

I would have though all loud-mouths would stick together. I guess I was wrong.

To what end? We have ample cap room at the moment.......with young budding stars who will need that money in a few years. One only does that if one is making a run at the SB. Until we obtain a good QB, loading up on extra costly players now at the expense of tomorrow's roster is the last thing we want to be doing IMO.

I'm not too sure about your C2C thoughts. Pegula certainly has deep pockets so the cash flow aspect of C2C won't be as much of an issue.....but C2C doesn't really influence much nowadays. Most teams use it as a rough guide. Some years going over (a la the Mario year for the Bills), and some years under. With the new type contract structures where there is less up front signing bonus monies(offset by guaranteed monies in the first few years), all teams seem to be able to sign who they want without fear of being outbid by the big franchises via signing bonus money. I've never understood why C2C got a bad name. It has always been a rough helper for cash flow purposes that most teams (the non big franchises) adopted. Somewhere, somebody labeled it as "being cheap"....which it certainly isn't.

No, it really isn't. Every prospective HC has a preferred team that they would like to coach.......and every team has a preferred HC that they would like to hire. It is a rare situation where the HC gets his preferred team and the team gets their preffered HC. Everybody knows this to be the case. Since a HC (&/or team) rarely gets their first option, one has to ask what the purpose is for asking the question directly to the involved parties. As the situation is the norm, and no realistic negagive connotations can be drawn from it........the only logical reason for directly asking it would be to try to manufacture an emotive situation. It is a bit like asking somebody if they would prefer the chicken or the beef.......and then attacking them, asking them why they have a problem with the one that they didn't pick. Forcing people to defend things which do not need to be defended seems to be the cornerstone of modern day bad journalism.

Like a mofo?

Backloaded contracts are not much in vogue anymore. With a large amount of players never seeing the higher back end years of the deal, there is little incentive for players to sign contracts that appear larger than they are. Most contracts wisely are front guaranteed deals these days. This works for both team and player as the player gets his guaranteed money......and the team is not up for large dead cap hits if they chose to cut said player down the road.

I am showing my age here but I recall the exact same thing was said years ago about Kelly, Montana, Elway, Marino, Young, Moon etc. There was indeed a couple of years where the NFL was light on star QBs, but low and behold new stars arose to fill the void.

So what you're saying is that if Rex learns from his past mistakes and doesn't lose his vision again.....we will be in good shape.

You are likely right......but I just can't help but wonder what came first(chicken or egg argument). Did we play so conservatively(like kitties who didn't want to make mistakes) because we were playing so poorly.......or did we play so poorly because we had the mantra of not making a mistake?

It looks like the error is that it isn't for "less than 3 WR sets"......it should have been stated as "2 WR sets". Single(and zero) WR sets were not mentioned. Perhaps it is better to look at number of TEs. 2013: 0 TEs: 8-38, 4.8 1 TE: 105-584, 5.6 2 TE: 86-304, 3.5 3+ TEs: 3-7, 2.7