Rubes

Lots of rumors that Marrone and Whaley aren't getting along. I haven't seen any confirmation, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me if Marrone is pissed at Whaley. Think about it: Marrone is hired to coach a team that had been lousy for many years, with not a huge amount of talent on either side of the ball. There are questions about ownership hanging over everything like a black cloud. And, above all else, the team has no franchise player at the game's most important position. He knows he has three years, at best, to turn the ship around, and this is his one big shot to be an NFL head coach. If he flames out here, he won't likely get another shot. So what happens? Whaley reaches and gets him a questionable QB in the first round, which means there will be pressure to have him play. They need a veteran QB for security, but Whaley gets him a dud in Kolb, who can't make it past preseason. So now Marrone goes into the first season of his one big chance at NFL head coach with a questionable rookie QB, a barely serviceable backup QB who has no time to learn the offense because he was signed so late, and another rookie QB who really shouldn't be playing against professionals. They enter the season with huge questions at the game's most important position. That's a recipe for failure, and I'm sure Marrone puts most of the blame for that on Whaley. So they go into the second season of his one big chance at NFL head coach with the same three guys, and guess what? They still aren't very good. The questionable first-round QB still doesn't excel, and the barely serviceable backup QB regresses and is dumped late in the preseason. Whaley sifts through the garbage heap and comes up empty. Then, right before the season begins, he desperately signs a historically mediocre veteran out of "retirement" as a safety measure, who has no time to learn the offense because he was signed so late. There are signs of tension and shouting between Marrone and management, but who could blame him? They enter the season with huge questions at the game's most important position. Things are so bad, the safety measure who barely knows the offense is starting at QB a quarter of the way through the season. Now the historically mediocre veteran QB is retired, and Marrone is looking at the third season of his one big chance at NFL head coach with only two QBs on the roster -- the questionable first-rounder, who he doesn't have a lot of confidence in, and the third stringer who still shouldn't be playing against professionals. He's looking at yet another season with huge questions at the game's most important position. His three years will be up soon, and in that time Whaley has done him no favors at the QB position. In fact, the only favor he did was to get him a backup-quality QB who wouldn't even stick around more than one season. Twice now, Marrone has had to field QB's who had little experience in the offensive system because they weren't around for minicamp or training camp. Sure, finding a franchise QB is tough. But yeah, if I was Marrone I wouldn't be too happy with Whaley.

Seems like a pretty reasonable road schedule next year. We can compete with any of those teams. Well, as long as we have a QB.

What is it telling you, exactly?

:lol:

Are there stats to back up your claim that he's not?

It could still be joking around, but when they showed Chandler on the sideline he still looked pissed. Funny thing is, that's happened to Chandler at least one or two other times -- he goes to spike the ball, and somebody accidentally knocks it out of his hand. Maybe he's just sick of that happening.

Well, we *are* the experts at throwing the ball to our receivers less than 3 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, so you'd think this play would be right up there on the list.

Didn't see that, but did anyone catch the exchange between Chandler and Sammy after Chandler's 4th Q TD? Sammy accidentally knocked the ball out of Chandler's hand as he went to spike it, and it seemed like Chandler was pissed about it. I wasn't sure if he was just joking around, but later they showed Chandler on the sidelines and he made another aggressive gesture at Sammy sitting on the bench.

Time to put this thread out to pasture?

The Avril deal is actually much less than I was thinking we'd have to shell out for Hughes. If he would take that contract, I'd do it in a heartbeat. We have huge cap space going into next year, so we can do that and still sign Dareus next year.

Believe me, if I had thought of it...

I'll tell you right now that we have nothing to worry about. The Bills are a lock for the playoffs. In fact, I'd almost guarantee a win in the Wild Card round as well. Why? I'll tell you why. A long time ago my wife and I started planning an international vacation trip, and because of her schedule, the best time for her to go was the beginning of January. So I'll be out of the country for the first two weekends in January. Big deal, I thought, it's not like we'll be actually playing any games in January.

Cutler isn't going anywhere. That contract is just too much, it would kill them to cut him. Plus, they're not likely to get anybody better next year. My brother-in-law is a Bears season-ticket holder, and he told me if they don't fire Trestman he'll become a Bills fan until they do.

Awesome writeup. It sure seemed loud as hell on TV, but I guess not. I did get the sense that the refs were allowing more aggressive play by the DBs compared with previous games, but it should have gone both ways.

The end zone crowd at Soldier Field during the opener was quite tame.

Here's a little story for you. Many years back, during the glory days, probably around 1991 or so, I was living in Chicago. The Bills were playing a preseason game against the Packers in Madison, WI (if I remember correctly). Place was jam packed, and a friend and I had seats in the upper deck. Early in the game, Kelly scrambled on a play and was hit as he was going out of bounds, and ended up being injured on the play. Can't remember what happened to him, but he was down for a while. As soon as the Packer faithful realized he was injured, they started cheering. Loudly. I made the comment out loud, to no one in particular, that I couldn't believe people were cheering an injury, and on top of that in a preseason game. Guy in front of me turned around and said, "If he can't take it, he shouldn't be playing the game!" I shed no tears for any Packer yesterday.

Thanks, Ice Bowl. All class.

The question is, would Spikes want to stay? His playing time is already very limited, and it's unlikely they'd be able to offer him a starting spot next year with Bradham, Brown, and Kiko.

Sorry if this was mentioned elsewhere, but... If the Bills win next week at OAK, is there any way they can still be eliminated from the playoffs? Just wondering if a win next week ensures that the finale in NE will carry some meaning.

Nope, Baltimore is already a game up on us, so we can't overtake them if they win out.

Dareus still has another year before we need to do anything.

Needs more cowbell.

This is actually how I'm looking at it as well. I think it's a good way to view it -- especially since the LBs are young and cheap for a couple more years. They have to be smart about how they structure the next few contracts, since we could be looking at trouble 3-4-5 years down the line, but I agree it can be done. I just hope that we're still looking at $10-12 million per year at this point for Hughes, and not a crazy amount more.

I am with the group that says we need to target Hughes as our #1 FA signing. I would love to keep this defense together for a few more years, but with Mario's huge contract and Dareus to become a FA in 2016, that could potentially be a ridiculous amount of money tied up in the D-line. This coming off season, we have a large number of pending FAs but aside from CJ Spiller, nobody who would demand huge money. For the record, we're looking at: Hughes Spiller Searcy Hogan Pears Wynn Spikes Bryant Lee Smith Summers (he's still on the team?) Dean Easley Gay Hairston ...and there may be others I'm not aware of. On the defensive side, I'd like to see us keep Searcy, Wynn, and Bryant, but I believe Spikes will be gone. I don't think any of those three will be too expensive. As for Hughes, it sounds like the franchise tag will be north of $13 million, so we're looking at big numbers. Mario will have three years left on his deal and is slated to get $14.4, $15.3, and $14.9 million in those last three years (Linky to numbers). Dareus is going to command numbers in that range as well, certainly given that average salaries escalate year-over-year, the cap is going to be going up up up, and there's still another off season before he starts negotiating. I think the need to keep Dareus is greater than the need to keep Hughes -- if it comes down to a decision between the two. But I'm hoping we can still keep both, and plan to go all in over the next three years (when Mario's contract is up). Hughes is an interesting case. He's a bit undersized, and underperformed during the first part of his career, but he's really blossomed in Buffalo, and he's done a good job working on all parts of his game. By all accounts, his performance against the run is improving, and he's considered a real big-play game-changer. Those are the kind of guys you want on your side, not the other side. Of course, he's a penalty machine, leading the team right now, and he hasn't exactly been a great influence on Dareus, at least in the off season. I doubt $10 million per season gets it done with him, as other teams will almost certainly offer more. But how much is too much knowing that Mario is getting big $$ and Dareus is going to need big $$ soon?

"The Bills are slated to have among the most cap space of any team in the league for the 2015 season." I like the sound of that.