BillsVet

Usually trust is built after a record of success. Saint Doug is now a 11-14 HC in the NFL. He has a very small sample that proves he's a winning HC, and not being able to win at home after a bye is not helping his case either.

A) It took them the 2013 preseason, 2013 regular season, and almost the entire 2014 off-season to get a durable and experienced NFL QB on this roster. Prior to this they had glass-Kolb, a journeyman in Lewis, UDFA Jeff Tuel, and a myriad of others now out of the league. The exception was Tarvaris Jackson who they inexplicably cut. B) You would pull EJ too if your HC and GM job was on the line. The expectations were playoffs in 2014 and it was clear after week 4 EJ wasn't taking this team there. C) EJ presses because he's afraid of failing. He does exactly what the staff tells him to do and showed little ability to adapt to opposing defenses. He is headed toward bust status real quick.

The third round is where Buffalo has drafted very poorly. Going back to 2006, they've got almost nothing to show from that round. Ashton Youboty, Trent Edwards, Chris Ellis, no pick in '09, Alex Carrington, Kelvin Sheppard, TJ Graham, and now Goodwin. A good personnel department finds starters regularly in the third. The Bills draft gadget players or straight up busts. Perhaps that's changed with Preston Brown, but it's too early to tell.

Buffalo is 2-3 against teams this season with winning records through week 10. They're 3-1 against sub-.500 teams. I recall reading on this very message board how much talent the Bills had, and yet, they're not threatening for the division lead, and are behind in the chase for 2 wild cards. As a matter of fact, there are 10 AFC teams with 5 or more wins, and if 4 win their division, that means Buffalo is competing with 6 other franchises for 2 wild cards. Is that pessimistic? Their climb just got a lot more harder with today's loss. I cited 2008 and 2011 because the same things are happening. The players and coaches did change, but the result doesn't and I've been around long enough to see there are too many similarities from those seasons to 2014.

"Remain calm! All is well!" 2014 is beginning to look like 2008 and 2011. Sure, there are different players and coaches. Problem is, those coaches have a tendency to get out-coached when it matters most.

It's one thing to beat solid teams like Detroit in the final minutes. But having to come from behind or playing close games at Chicago and home versus Detroit aren't what I'd cite when they can't beat a decent team like KC.

Who calls for that on 4th down with all the success teams have running a QB sneak? Don't let your 7th round rookie RT botch things.

I would have him sacked. Preferably by people dressed as Huns or Visigoths.

You have to love that players get 100% of the blame when the team doesn't win. It's a nuanced discussion, but right now more than 50% of the problem does their work from the sideline. The offense is anemic, unimaginative, and boring to be brutally honest. I thought Marrone was going to be an innovative coach, and he's a really more of the same: annoyingly conservative when there's a calculated risk to take. They're wasting good players and I hope the Pegulas are watching. Time to clean out everyone. This is more of the same.

Which is what NE's OL usually are. I don't even know their interior 3 OL right now, but Buffalo got very little pressure up the middle in the 2nd half a few weeks ago against NE. Brady's only been sacked 14 times this year, which while not all either QB or OL, is not much. And pretty good considering the Pats have had multiple OL injuries this year. I don't think the personnel group is aligned with the coaching staff. It happened with Nix and Gailey when the former wanted the biggest OL and then they drafted a waterbug back. And I sense it happening again. A guy like Urbik has been benched in favor of a RT who's among the worst RG's in the game. Judging OL talent and using it appropriately is something just about every personnel/coaching tandem has been wrong about since the mid nineties.

The 2004 Steelers come to mind when people bank on a team being in the playoffs and resting their top guys. Opponents have 8 games of film on Buffalo, just like the Bills have on their opponents. It's the most innovative teams that keep winning from now until the end of the season. If you're predictable and keep trying to do the same thing and/or don't have the horses, you get exposed quickly. And that's what happened in 2008 and 2011. How well the Bills do in adapting is what will decide whether they finish with a mediocre record or go to the playoffs.

For the record, Donahoe was bad. His teams in 5 seasons went 31-49, or winning about 39% of their games. His successors I split into two eras; Levy/Brandon, who went 27-37 from 2006-09, or about 42% of their games, followed by Nix, who was 16-32 (33%) and arguably is more responsible (from a team building perspective) for the 2013 season, which puts him at 22-42 or 34%. Hard to believe the high-water mark for the franchise post Donahoe was the DJ seasons from 2006-08.

Fair enough. Whaley had few options and there's no two ways about it in 2013. I just wish he'd have added (or kept T. Jackson) a better veteran than an injury prone Kevin Kolb. At least then they'd have had a better insurance policy if the rookie got hurt or was inconsistent. One bad decision made it harder to make a good one to address the QB position. We don't know much about Manziel and Bortles is playing on a bad Jacksonville team. The latter wasn't available and the I don't think former wasn't on their radar given the offensive scheme they want to run.

There's a clear cause and effect here. The departed GM created a situation which required his successor to take a QB. I fault Nix for prioritizing positions other than QB in 2011-12 and Whaley for thinking Manuel was the guy. In the latter point, I slightly understand the initiative but ultimately bad judgement: Whaley had few options. If they were that enamored of Manuel, why add a brittle Kevin Kolb when you knew the former wasn't ready to play? As others have pointed out, that strategy backfiring was a reasonable possibility. And lo and behold it did.

The waters have been muddied about which GM was running the 2013 draft. What we know is that the then-current guy and heir were in the room. I would think they knew Nix would be eased out after that draft, so was the decision to take Manuel mutual or one-sided? I suspect that Whaley made the call, seeing as how he'd be running the team with that QB starting for him despite not being a de-facto GM. No way would the outgoing guy get to make a decision that would so influence the future GM's job. And I do fault Nix, who left Whaley with little in terms of talent after 3 years. His approach, to go with the previous regime's backup QB to start in 2011-12 is what set the stage for them to have to take a QB early in 2013 and hope he could play right away. Not surprisingly it didn't work. The bottom line is you don't go 4-12, 6-10, 6-10, and 6-10 from 2010-2013 unless your front office stinks. Which is what's happened. It's not as though it's 4 straight years of bad luck, but rather a case of too many bad decisions. One of which was having to take a QB in 2013.

One example of a successful QB someone traded down for still doesn't illustrate that it's a trend. The trend is, teams identify their guy and don't wait to take him. No one's arguing that hitting on 2nd round picks obtained in trades isn't a good thing. But hitting on that pick is not a sufficient consolation for missing on the first round pick. I know deflecting away from the first round pick has become a common narrative here as people see EJ isn't going to cut it in the pros. But if you prioritize the position, as you noted Buddy didn't do, then you're not backed into a corner having to take a raw rookie. No team makes good decisions when they're desperate, which Buffalo was in the 2013 draft for a QB.

Who trades down to get their franchise QB? But didn't Russ say that 2014 was Whaley's first draft?

Or maybe this report, with Foles probably wanting a new contract, is all about the Eagles trying to obtain some sort of leverage in negotiations? Foles is entering the final year of his rookie contract next year. But if this is reality, then yeah I blame the few rookies who are relatively successful out of the gate for amping up expectations for your signal callers.

Donahoe had major faults and made several poor decisions. But at least the organization had a legitimate sense as if they were competing. Hiring Marv, promoting a guy with no personnel experience in Brandon, and promoting Nix from within came off as amateur hour at OBD. None of those guys were worthy of being NFL GM's.

Completely new job? He was made COO in 2006 of non-football ops. Two years later he added the GM title and in 2010 when Nix was hired, he became CEO. His most recent promotion was to team president in 2013. I'd say the last 3 positions placed him as overseeing football ops, either as GM or overseeing that individual with that title. The fact that the Pegula's removed Brandon from overseeing football ops tells me they know that relationship wasn't good for the team from an on-field perspective. One would think if RB was thought to be good at that function they'd delay that move until after the consultant made their report. But they didn't.

To say the organizational structure is the same today under TPegs as it was under RB is like saying red apples are the same as red peppers because they're both red. You've conflated the situation into being the same when in fact it's not. Brandon less likely to make changes incumbent on his GM? If the organizational structure was so efficient, wouldn't the new owners have ensured it remained in place? Yet, they didn't wait for a consultant to tell them that a GM under Russ Brandon wasn't a solid move. Russ is still president, but he's not overseeing football, so someone advised them to take football operations away from him. That speaks volumes.

I wonder how Whaley feels now that the Pegulas have made him report to them alone. I doubt you'd get a straight answer, but the reality is that move needed to happen for years. That move illustrates to me that the new owners acknowledge the previous organizational structure was dysfunctional.

Buddy Nix: the gift that keeps on giving.

After 8 games Buffalo's outscoring opponents by a cumulative 13 points. And that's after the thumping they put on NYJ yesterday.

Not seeing how beating teams with a combined 4-12 record the last two weeks makes them mentally tough now.