BillsVet

Lions offensive rankings 2011-2015: 4th, 17th, 13th, 22nd, 24th. Sure, not all on Stafford, but.....as long as Rex is the HC this is a run first team. Do you invest (if he becomes available) 20M per on a guy who's going to hand-off 55% of the offensive snaps? Not to mention, where is the money coming from? An increase in the cap isn't covering this even with a release of Mario and Kyle. Besides, this OL isn't built to pass block in support of a passing team even if Rex suddenly changed his offensive tune.

It was positive, but when 2014 ended and the ante was upped in the first quarter of 2015 it didn't become the baseline for this season. Playoffs became the goal and remains so today. Thus, why I take issue with advancing the narrative that it's anything less. As for what ails this team, I see the narrative pushed now that it's all coaching. Well, this being a team game, it can't all be one thing. Personnel acquisition, coaching, and players all share in wins and losses. There's clearly fault among those three aspects that go into putting a team on the field. This is a nuanced subject, so it'll be distorted to

Even with that "win" let's review the win count for the past 6 seasons: 4, 6, 6, 6, 9, _. This year they'll probably finish with 7-9 wins, yet, players are aging and contracts expiring / nearing their end. You cannot continue being mediocre and think there is no price for doing so. It's not good enough to ride the rails of mediocrity and 7, 8, or 9 wins is just that.

The narrative to explain away the lack of wins in 2014 and I guess now in 2015 has been that Doug Whaley added so much talent to the roster. Well, if that were the case, wouldn't these injuries not hurt the team as much? Or could it be roster depth isn't so good? And I might give them some room if it were losing Taylor for the season or an extended period. But this is a team that hasn't lost their QB long term.

Quantity does not equal quality. And Fitzpatrick was signed in 2009 before Buddy and Whaley got there. Back then, Russ Brandon emphatically declared he would not challenge Trent Edwards. I still maintain there isn't a team which has done less at the position since Buddy Nix started the current rebuild which is now into its 6th season. Since that time the Bills have drafted all of 1 QB in the top 2 rounds and he didn't work out. Of the names you've listed, they were acquired UDFAs/Street FAs: Brian Brohm, Jeff Tuel, Dennis Dixon, Josh Johnson, Matt Flynn UFAs: Tyler Thigpen, Kevin Kolb, Kyle Orton, Tyrod Taylor (only Orton was paid more than 4M more per season) Trade: Tarvaris Jackson, Thad Lewis, Matt Cassel Draft: EJ Manuel (1st), Levi Brown (7th) That's 14 QBs Nix and/or Whaley brought in, not including camp auditions like Matt (Max) Leinart, Vince Young, and Jordan Palmer And who is "Vaughan?"

Teams have 9 games worth of film on Taylor, and so if you want to use passing metrics he's declined: Games 1-3: 58-78 / 74.4 completion % / 9.2 yards per attempt / 714 yards passing / 7 TDs 3 INTs Games 4-9: 107-172 62.2 completion % / 7.2 yards per attempt / 1246 yards passing / 7 TDs 1 INT Some of that is on the OC to game-plan, some may be due to injury and there are several factors. But the level of play isn't like it was early when Buffalo scored points in bunches. (NOTE: Originally posted, now deleted in another thread. Thought more appropriate here)

Stay Classy.

Buffalo has won exactly 40% of their games since the 2001 season after Sunday's loss. Now that's consistency.

Philip Rivers has a strange throwing motion and he gets the job done.

You are entitled to your take as am I, but let me take this in another direction. If you're the new owner of the Buffalo Bills who just paid 1.4 billion for a franchise with an uncertain QB situation and the GM was using the term "QB purgatory" to describe why it's hard getting a QB, wouldn't it bother you? It would bother me knowing that guys like Andy Dalton, Derek Carr, Teddy Bridgewater, Joe Flacco, Russell Wilson, and Kirk Cousins were drafted beyond the top 5 picks of the draft and have played well or are playing well. And the other issue here is Doug Whaley is at least bright enough to know his job is on the line. So making that statement is a pre-emptive attempt to shield himself from criticism if things went wrong.

You post an awful lot. And once again I'm not seeing much substance behind those posts. Do you want the lead personnel guy for your favorite NFL team saying it's hard to find a QB in the NFL Draft? How much different is that than Dick Jauron saying it's hard to win in the NFL? This was Whaley espousing an essentially defeatist mentality here. Separate the emotion out of the issue that is being a fan. Whaley gets kudos here for drafting defensive players and that's nice. Except, this is an offensive driven league and he has precious little to show for on that side of the ball unless he trades up for the player or spends on established players in UFA/the trade market.

It's all Rex Ryan's fault. After all, Rex messed up this season for Whaley and just hasn't used players correctly. In all seriousness, Whaley doubled down on Manuel far too much for him to ever have much credibility for building a NFL team. This is this guy who told us about "QB purgatory?" What kind of GM says that? I'd say one that knows his tenure (unlike the homer/non-hater crowd) is over unless they make the playoffs and do it with his draft picks. Because everyone at OBD knows who the players advocated for by Rex and those by Whaley.

Cleveland's been abysmal for years, but from 2011-2014 the Bills haven't drafted too well either: 2011 2nd Aaron Williams: Everyone but Nix knew couldn't play CB. Now may have major neck issues and didn't make many impact plays. 2011 3rd Kelvin Sheppard: Nix and Gailey liked him at the Senior Game. Later traded for Hughes, so cue the Whaley fanboys. 2012 3rd TJ Graham: Bust 2013 1st EJ Manuel: Ditto 2013 3rd Marquise Goodwin: Can long jump but can't stay healthy. 2014 2nd Cyrus Kouandjio: Now not dressing late into his 2nd season. That's 6 guys who aren't on the field regularly contributing. Of course the standard isn't 100%, but out of 13 picks from rounds 1 through 3, 6 are ineffective. Their 3 best picks were predominantly top 10 guys: Dareus, Gilmore, and Watkins. The exception has been Glenn. Alonso was traded, Woods is not a part of the game-plan, and Preston Brown has regressed. Cleveland is worse. But the Nix/Whaley GM tenure isn't much better. It's why they're 36-55 since 2010 when Nix's rebuild (which is on-going) started.

The Bills also have 3 non-offense TD's scored as well. At this point QB rating isn't something I take solace in becauseTaylor is limited when his first option is removed and the offense struggles. In fact, when he is asked to pass more than 25 times per game the Bills are 2-4. I expect more from a guy who's apprenticed for 4 years and has a half season of starts under his belt.

Another guy deemed not good enough by Buddy Nix. And people wonder why this franchise doesn't ever get better. Bad front office management that cannot prioritize the game's clearly most important position. Osweiler may nose-dive with more tape becoming available, but he's been on the bench for 3.5 seasons and seems to have some command. Tyrod Taylor had 4+ seasons and struggles to go through progressions when Sammy isn't there. If only the Bills could identify a QB who grows beyond being a one-read QB?

Rex comes off as a more boisterous Wade Phillips. He can coordinate a defense, but as a HC he's had periods of success and then loses games with that lack of attention to detail at crucial moments. I work with a Jets fan who told me that while Rex has a good idea of what he wants to do, but left unsupervised he will mess things up in personnel and on game day. And he's holding true to that.

This is straight-up delusional speak here. An owner pays 1.4B for a NFL team, keeps the GM and hires a HC with the GM's support. Then, he makes both of them report to him independent of each other. Naturally, there are issues. I'm not sure if you know this, but consultants are hired to make changes. It's how the corporate world works. Because if the guy came in and said all is well, Whaley is great and Rex is good, then what was the point? He ain't there to say they need a new right guard or inside linebacker. He's there to make big sweeping organizational changes, because the owner is paying him big dollars. Whaley isn't a TPegs/KPegs guy. He'd be the first one gone if a czar is fired, primarily because no one owes Whaley crap right now.

The W-L column hasn't improved noticeably despite all the money spent on that offense. We expected the team to improve offensively in 2015 because they acquired McCoy, Clay, and added people on the OL. The defense, as Tim Graham pointed out weeks ago, is hard to maintain for 2-3 years at a top level. Guys get old, players are hurt, and suddenly they're not elite, though I'm not sure they ever were outside of sack numbers.

We are at the fork in the road. And it's time to take it!

To the bolded: And not someone who risked the team's future on a first round QB that many at OBD knew was not working by the end of 2013. Whaley may not have been able to hire his own HC in 2013 and again this year. But the GM played political games at QB in 2014 and 2015 which have been more about him saving his job/reputation than the team. But it's not surprising this happened when a career minded guy like a GM has a new boss he's not sure approves of him.

You wonder if it's alcohol, delusion, or the ability to sit at a keyboard and post an average of 30+ times a day that drives these fans to such wacky conclusions.

Hate is a strong term to be used proportionally. But I digress. Pegula made mistakes with the Sabres' management that I had hoped he learned from. I can tell the guy is loyal to people he hires and clearly didn't want to upset the organization much when he bought the team. But right now it's time to make modifications to the hierarchy at OBD and he needs someone who will make those moves for him. If he doesn't find an adviser who is not at OBD now then we're going to see more of the same. It's dysfunctional to think the previous owner's GM would work well with the HC TPegs/KPegs hired. And that they would report independent of each other. This needs to be changed in early January with someone overseeing them both and reporting only to the owners.

Whaley's done a great job if you don't count finding a good QB and spending boatloads of cash on defensive players in a league where offense rules. It's that kind of thinking against the grain that produces consistent 6-8 win seasons, which is where the Bills have been for most of the past decade.

Maybe Dick Jauron knew what he was doing years ago trying to eek out wins with a bend but don't break defense and pedestrian offense. But maybe not.

It's time for a new GM who doesn't try to build a winner through defense. No one's winning that way unless they've got a competent QB. And at the game's most important the GM chose to stick with his draft pick until it was too late. And why haven't the Pegula's hired someone from outside the organization to assess this franchise yet? After Polian turned them down nothing transpired on that front.