2020 Our Year For Sure

He did struggle playing injured early on.

Just to nitpick a great post, I'm not sure how big a deal it is. The Colts used to get their week off and then drop a home game to an inferior team in the divisional round. The same thing sometimes happens in the NBA when teams get time off, they come out looking sluggish their first game. It depends on the team, the rhythm and precision that can be lost from time off was more important to the Colts than other teams. Because the sword cuts both ways I see this as a pretty small discrepancy.

I think all Bills fans know what that's like.

No team should ever use this kink in the schedule as an excuse for losing. The Bills have sucked for a long time and the schedule is no excuse. If they continue to suck, this kink in the schedule will continue to be no excuse for it. That point is not lost on me- there is no excuse for the Bills continuing to lose. It is of course impossible to create a schedule that puts everyone on perfectly even ground, and the NFL wouldn't want that anyway. The current system puts more good teams against each other ($$) while also giving weaker teams a softer schedule (creating parity). That is an example of a regulated system of inequality, with a purpose in mind. On the other hand what we're talking about is a random occurrence that serves no purpose, while putting random teams at a (very) slight competitive disadvantage. I understand 'just shut up and beat whoever's in front of you.' It would be laughable if someone tried to use the schedule as an excuse for a losing season. But if this very small discrepancy in the schedule can be fixed, I'd like to know why that'd be a bad thing.

I agree. It's way down on the priority list. So what it comes down to is whether it's possible for the NFL to regulate this slight competitive disadvantage without messing anything else up. Would you agree?

Why should the Falcons play 4 games against opponents with 10+ days rest while other teams play 0 such games? Why not make an effort to balance this out moving forward, rather than having it regularly occur that some teams are at a competitive disadvantage. The Bills have sucked and we all know it but I don't see how that's relevant.

Oh I agree with you-- no doubt the Toronto deal made Goodell and company happy. The same goes for the December home games- I very much doubt the league is grumbling, "those crazy Bills and their ridiculous desire to make me as much money as possible."

She was hilarious in her arc on 30Rock I do agree with the point you were making, whenever our opponent has players on the injury report I always hope they miss our game, without a second thought.

No doubt, Shane Falco is a nightmare for DCs everywhere.

I don't see how the Toronto Series or the December home games have any bearing on the rested opponents issue. Forget the Bills for a second. This isn't a Bills issue, it's an NFL issue. Is it fair that the Falcons play 4 opponents coming off at least 10 days rest, while other NFL teams play 0? I might've missed it but I don't remember Atlanta selling off any home games to Mexico.

And without knowing whether the Bills are good, bad or average...what would you say are the chances we win the game if neither TE can suit up for the Pats*? I'd have to say without those guys, we're approaching EJ3's 50/50 mark. If Gilmore can lock down Amendola, there aren't any real matchup problems for them to exploit. It levels the playing field to an extent.

Unforgettable! I wish I could've been at the Ralph that day because the crowd looked insane on the broadcast, especially as Sam was bumblin and stumblin down the sideline. Chris Berman had me cracking up with the highlight, he liked to call him "The Keg."

Gotta respectfully disagree with Astro's view that Byrd isn't a scheme fit. K-9 has done a great job recently of establishing Byrd's limitations in coverage- he is a good cover safety who lacks the physical tools to be an elite cover safety. He is not the pure centerfielder type the Bills have forced him to try to be, and ideally he wouldn't be doing that on virtually every single play. We have needed him to constantly handle deep coverage responsibility because he played opposite Donte Whitner, Bryan Scott and George Wilson. Byrd played CB at Oregon. It is presumable that he has the ability to play man coverage once in awhile. This is something we have had him do very little of (if at all), and justifiably so. In a cover-1 for example why put Byrd in man coverage and leave your back seven on an island with only George Wilson over the top? Even so, because he presumably can man up on occasion and with how he played the run last year, plus his lack of high end speed, Byrd belongs in a sort of FS/SS hybrid role in my opinion. Sometimes play center field, sometimes come into the box and play the run, sometimes play man, blitz, get INTs, force fumbles, the whole shebang. In order to move him around like this however, you need a SS who can hack it in coverage. Enter Duke Williams- the big SS who can hit, but also can run and cover. I don't see his selection as trying to replace Byrd, but rather allowing us to use Byrd better than we've been able to before. Like John Malkovich, I say "pay that man...pay that man his money." Pay him based on what he did in a pure centerfielder role that didn't take full advantage of his versatility, and it's possible Byrd makes even more impact moving forward, and makes this decision look easy in hindsight. We don't know how much each side is offering but this is why I'd be willing to make him the highest paid safety. There's still potential to get more out of him.

That first play! Gotta give credit to Werewolves of London Fletcher too...hell of a football player.

I'd love to get others' perspectives on this because I thought Byrd was excellent against the run last year after it was a problem for him early in his career. It seemed he was consistent with his tackling while also flashing the ability to fly up to the line and make a stop. He forced 4 fumbles. He's become more than a good-but-not-great coverage safety with a knack for INTs. The Bills in my humble opinion were unable to take full advantage of Byrd's skillset. A safety who forces fumbles who's as good against the run as he would ideally be used aggressively on a good percentage of snaps, even at the sacrifice of his ballhawking ability. It's true the Bills did cheat their safeties up at times but Byrd was still hamstrung by deep coverage responsibility most of the time. George Wilson had 28 more tackles than Byrd despite being the inferior run defender, because he was incompetent in coverage. Because we couldn't allow a good run defender to be aggressive vs. the run often, I think there's still upside for him to be an even better, more valuable player than he was in his strong 2012 season. He'll never be an elite coverage safety due to his physical limitations, so we gotta take full advantage of his versatility or we're not getting the most out of him. I think if Byrd plays 2013 in our new scheme we'll look back on it as the best season of his career so far. I'm thinking 8.3M-8.5M per year would be in the neighborhood of my upward limit.

He came out and stated he enjoys saying that in order to get a rise out of people. Fans expecting genuine conversation, be wary of that particular poster.

Wanny certainly gets a lot of the blame, but I also think if you have three good players (Mario, Byrd, Gilmore) and everyone else who steps on the field is below average to awful, you're unlikely to have success. We didn't get much out of Kyle/Dareus/Mr. Anderson last year and the LB play was atrocious. With poor coaching on top of it. Two or three players aren't going to make up for all that.

If Marrone/Hackett are as incompetent as Jauron/Schonert, we're screwed regardless. Manuel will be in a better position than Edwards was, and if not, it means our coaches are awful and none of this matters anyway. Again, Manuel doesn't seem like the kind of kid to allow a few early mistakes to derail his career, rather than utilizing his mistakes as learning experience.

Really? I think going out there and making mistakes would only help Manuel. He doesn't seem like a mentally fragile Trent Edwards type of kid.

It's annoying and unfair that we've been screwed twice in a row, but it is what it is. I can see CodeMonkey's point, the NFL just has more important things to worry about when making the schedule. It doesn't bother them all that much that one team gets shafted in back to back years because they assume that in the long run, over a decade, things like that will come out in the wash. Flip a coin twice and you might get heads twice in a row. Flip that sucker enough times and the ratio will even out. Looking at it over a small sample size like two years, it seems unfair. At some point you gotta accept that that's just how stats/odds work, and win games anyway. Which I'm sure is Marrone and Brandon's attitude (I highly doubt this is something they told Frightened Lemur to write, much like his EJ Manuel mock draft in April). Hopefully the deck deals us better cards moving forward.

It'll be Manuel. A run\pass dual threat who excels when throwing outside of the pocket, like him, will make the read option far more dangerous. Play to his strengths, simplify things a bit if necessary and run the ball a lot, and unless Manuel is a total bust I can't see him failing to match the mediocrity of Kevin Kolb.

Buffalo Rumblings did a three part tape review on Pettine's D in 2012 awhile back and they mentioned this, that his actual blitz percentage isn't awfully high. The way I remember the Giants disrupting what Brady was trying to do wasn't with a ton of blitzes, the key was that they were able to generate pressure from their front four, so they could pressure and cover at the same time. If you can generate pressure without blitzing, to me that's inherently better than being forced to bring extra defenders consistently. The Giants did it with a host of athletic pass rushing DLmen that could win one on one matchups. Pettine seemingly was able to generate a sufficient pass rush without the benefit of that kind of personnel, and without resorting to blitzing constantly and taking people out of coverage. I don't think aggressiveness has to mean blitzing all the time, it can mean bringing people into the box so the defense doesn't know who's coming and who isn't. Pettine at times would line up with all 11 defenders within 8 yards of the line of scrimmage. I think if you show blitz just enough that they have to be worried about it, and show you're willing to blitz any player, bringing people up to the line can cause panic and confusion even if the actual blitz percentage isn't off the charts. The offense just doesn't know what to expect. Maybe I've got my homer glasses on but I think we're gonna be happy with this hire. We'll see.

I find it very encouraging that the pass rush is dominating the OL at this stage-- they should be. Something would seem wrong if they weren't getting pressure on an offense that was installed within the last month.

I'll tell you this, I would never, ever take Tom Brady off the field for Tim Tebow. Since Tebow will be working primarily as a quarterback, I think that eliminates a lot of the scenarios people throw around. Does he really have time to split his focus between improving as a quarterback, and learning how to block, catch and run routes? I wouldn't think so. That would eliminate any contribution as a TE, WR, h-back, fullback. The only position I can see him playing simultaneously with his work as a quarterback is a short yardage back, because it builds on his current skillset and doesn't require him to learn any brand new football skills. IMO if he makes the roster it'll most likely be as simply a backup or third QB.

For accuracy's sake, I didn't have my facts straight regarding the bolded. Brandon actually went to St. John Fisher, but he did some work at Syracuse in the sports department.