2020 Our Year For Sure

You've all sold me on Manuel long-term, but for discussion here's another viewpoint from Buffalo Rumblings on the pro-style offense part. "For as smart as Manuel is, Florida State did not run a complex offense for him. Fisher designed a predicated read offense where Manuel could make decisions pre-snap with only one or two reads after the ball is snapped. Most of Florida State's route combinations were high-low reads that developed in front of Manuel's field of vision to one side. After his initial reads were covered, he either held onto the ball too long looking for something to come open, or he took off running. He didn't work through many progressions past the second receiver, he didn't call audibles, and has a lot to learn about running an NFL offense at tempo and making fast reads against disguised NFL coverages." http://www.buffalorumblings.com/2013/4/21/4234106/ej-manuel-2013-nfl-draft-scouting-report

Well played, you had me going.

My most clear impression of Marrone so far is that like Belichick, he's absolutely mastered the art of talking yet saying nothing.

I feel like you have this backwards. Nassib can't throw a deep ball. He's a prime example of a scheme quarterback. Marrone understood this and designed an offense that would capitalize on his strengths and to some extent removed the deep ball from the playbook, kinda like Gailey correctly did for Fitzpatrick. Barkley and Nassib are the scheme passers who need to be in a WCO type of system and get the ball out quickly. Manuel is the high upside guy with all the physical tools you could ask for.

The Jets are in a similar situation to us. Roster with a lot of holes, signifcant money owed to QBs (Fitz and Kolb will count about $10m against us in 2014), and a quarterback who probably isn't the answer. I think both teams should think hard about taking a QB.

Poor writing? He was sending a text to a friend, I don't think he expected us to be writing reviews of his work. If his friend understood it then it did the job, no? He was asked about the coaches and he didn't have much more to say than 'yeah, I like them.'

Who cares what we thought at the time? At the time I thought it was a good idea to draft Mike Williams 3rd overall. When that became a failure I wanted people held accountable, not because I knew all along, but because it's their job to get it right regardless of what I think. It's a results-based business.

Must be a bunch of old fogies in here A lot of smart people my age text like that, it's not an indication of intelligence unless he writes his papers that way.

My best guess is Manuel. http://blogs.buffalobills.com/2013/04/12/bills-check-qb-e-j-manuels-footwork/

Paradox is the right word. It's easy to think of arm strength and nine routes as directly correlated because the ball travels further on the bomb than it does on any other route. But it takes another brand of mustard to put it on a line at 25 yards than it does to rainbow the ball over the top. In the end he does a lot of things well, but unless his arm strength improves I don't think he has a chance to be an elite quarterback. He could be a good starter, but with his arm as it is now he won't be the next Brady, Manning, Rodgers. And I think in the 1st round you want your guy to at least have a chance to be the best. He makes sense on day 2 for a team with the right system, but in round 1 there are options with more upside.

Throwing a good deep ball doesn't require a lot of arm strength. Barkley can throw the ball 55+ yards in the air and is accurate deep. He still has comparatively poor arm strength.

What comment?

The whole Barkley question is very interesting. This isn't a Fitz situation where his lack of arm strength effects his accuracy, Barkley is a guy who can throw it deep with pretty consistent accuracy. I'd bet money he can accurately throw an out to the outer hash like K-9 talks about, and make any other throw. But when you watch Barkley throw in the mid range it's clear there's a certain lack of velocity that every top QB in the league right now has. The big questions to me are 1) without that zip on the ball, how many of those accurate intermediate passes he fit into windows in college will be INTs and passes defensed against the more athletic NFL defenders, and 2) will his arm get stronger and by how much.

Kiper and Ron Jaworski were on First Take today talking about Barkley. Kiper compared Barkley to Rodgers again. Here's the end of Kiper's monologue: "Matt Barkley's arm, and it's been proven guys, Matt Barkley's arm could possibly get stronger. Jaws you buy into that, right?" And Jaws' response: "Mel we've had this discussion, and he brings up Aaron Rodgers, and I think that's the best real-life example I can think of. And I did have those concerns about Aaron Rodgers coming out, I thought where he was taken was about right. He was a bubble screen guy, we all thought he was a Jeff Tedford production. But here's the advantage he had: he played behind Brett Favre for 4 years. Every offseason he was in the weight room, he was working in what they call their college over there in Green Bay, their quarterback school with Mike McCarthy. He payed the price to get bigger, to get stronger, more accurate, and became a better quarterback. Didn't waste those 4 years and sulk. He worked at his trade and became a great quarterback. And I'm not saying that can't happen with Barkley, I think that would be a good situation. Go behind a veteran guy, learn the NFL game. Of course that'd be good for everybody. But Aaron Rodgers [is] truly a prime example of that." Keep in mind if Kiper were that good at this, he'd probably work for a team. And Jaws thought JP Losman would be the best QB in his draft class. And despite those words Jaws ranks Barkley as his 6th QB in this draft. They both want to see Barkley end up with a team that will let him sit on the bench a couple years, and that's probably not us. But on the other hand they both give Barkley a fighting chance to develop his arm strength.

I saw Kiper comparing Barkley to Aaron Rodgers. He said arm strength was the reason Rodgers fell in the draft. He of course sat on the bench for 4 years behind Favre before becoming the guy. How likely is it that Barkley will have a stronger arm when he reaches his physical prime, said to be around age 27, than he does now? I really have no idea.

I think you're right about that. I was referring to the 30 players we brought to Orchard Park for official visits. If memory serves, our last three 1st round picks and our last two 2nd round picks were brought in for visits before their drafts. It wouldn't be shocking if we took Woods but I wonder if it's an indication they're leaning a different way. Here are the WRs we had in this year. Russell Shepard- LSU Ryan Swope- Texas A&M Justin Hunter- Tennessee Zach Rogers- Tennessee Da'Rick Rogers- Tennessee Tech Cordarrelle Patterson- Tennessee http://blogs.buffalonews.com/press-coverage/2013/04/for-the-record-buffalo-bills-conclude-their-30-pre-draft-visits.html

A well thought out OP. I like a lot of what you say, but I wonder if the fact we didn't bring Woods in for a visit is an indication we're higher on Ryan Swope and Justin Hunter. I hope that you're misinformed about Moats playing ILB. We need to just let the guy do what does best, rushing the QB off the edge. ILB is something we should be looking to draft at some point. Just my opinion

Oh **** it's BACK. Go Bills

I've been counting the days. Can not wait!

Byrd has refused to sign his franchise tender. Most franchise players sign their tender and then continue negotiating. This is significant IMO no matter how people spin it. Clearly there's some trouble in paradise.

I like it. The J-Gun.

This is worth looking at, he has at least some skills catching the ball. With his athleticism maybe he can be like Reese in Oakland who creates all kinds of problems for defenses. We'll see.

Thank you. I was getting tired of typing out this very obvious point.

IF Kolb is the backup, the deal is a coup for us. His base salary is peanuts, even for a backup. My worry after watching our drafting the last few years is a scenario where we don't take a quarterback in the early rounds and we waste another season or two. Meanwhile Kolb starts, and gets overpaid at something like 6.5m. Kolb has performed a lot like Fitz so far in his career-- mostly mediocre play with a couple short spurts of strong play. When Fitz hit the open market, the league set his value around $3.5m. It's the thought of Kolb taking us nowhere and making 6.5m I'm not in love with. If we take a QB at #8 that isn't Nassib, I'll be ecstatic. Until that happens though I just don't know what to expect from this front office.

While I thank Dibs for posting those numbers, I don't see how it proves anything until we know the incentives. Maybe if he starts 16 games, he gets $8M year one. Until we know the incentives maybe we should keep the champagne on ice.