BillsVet

How is the current (i.e. after 2013 draft-present) regime "new" as opposed to the "old" (2010-13 drafts) one? Because unless Buddy Nix was making all the decisions without input from anyone else, there are plenty of people still standing who were contributing, especially in the 2010-13 drafts. Guys like Whaley (Asst. GM) Chuck Cook (college scouting director), Tom Gibbons (pro personnel director) Doug Majewski (National Scout) and several scouts were present from 2010-2013. Cook was demoted after the 2013 draft IIRC to National Scout. The point is, nothing really changed. It was symbolism over substance. Whaley added some guys, but OBD remained intact after Nix was put out to pasture. This is a massive conflation of the argument to say there was an old and new management from 2010-present. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Results have, BTW, remained the same.

Dean- When they ignored the QB position in 2011 and 2012 it forced them into taking a guy in 2013. It just so happened the QB crop wasn't very good that year, and only 1 was selected in the first round. Some will chime in here that this is hindsight, but any good manager knows you don't make your best decisions out of desperation. And Buffalo was desperate for a QB enterinig the 2013 draft. I think at that point they had only the oft-injured Kevin Kolb and Tyler Thigpen on the roster. There should have been enough tape on Fitz from 2008-2011 to know he wasn't the guy and they needed a better option via the draft in 2011 or 2012. This is a prime example how sins of the past directly impact the team of today. And I fully recognize that not all of the 15 QB's selected in rounds 1-4 in 2011-2012 are superstars. They're not, so it wasn't as simple as just taking a guy to say you had one. Again, it's why personnel guys get paid the big dollars: to get that position right.

Not Jeff George? Huh? This list is crap!

I sincerely hope there are major changes, but that's not going to help the team in 2014. Those sins of the past are haunting the present, like eschewing the QB position from 2011-12 when several good ones came out. Or spending money on players and then not paying home grown guys. It may be the past, but those decisions are hurting the team. The LG position in 2013 is a fine example. And while all 14 years of futility aren't the fault of Whaley/Marrone or EJ, there's an entire season once again not getting off to the best start. I can only hope new ownership clears the proverbial deck.

It isn't 2015 yet. Decisions made in previous years have a direct impact on current and future state of the team. It's maddening to hear people say not to dwell on the past when it's still affecting this club. If the dead cap money was 35M, would that be the same situation? How much is too much to demonstrate things are not good? Your arguments are consistently built on sophistry and straw men. So, go ahead and deflect away from the point that 23.6M is a lot of dead money, even for a team with a 150M cap figure for 2014. Dead cap money is a metric that defines the personnel people aren't getting enough decisions right. And while every team makes bad personnel decisions from time to time, some clubs make them more often than not. Unfortunately, Buffalo is one of those clubs.

This. It seems to me that If EJ was so knowledgeable about the offensive game plan, he's the one in someone's ear telling them to get it right. As in running the right route or the OL breaking down. I'd also expect if the OL is not holding their blocks and getting that QB hit, that the QB would be ripping into them, not the veteran RB going ape at the whole unit. EJ may not be a 10 year veteran, but he's the QB and it's his responsibility to lead and I don't see it right now. The other thing I disagree with is blaming a five man unit first before the QB. Dividing blame among 5 is so much more convenient in the apology game than focusing on one guy. And that one player more than anyone else has more to do with success on a football team than any other. It should be natural that when things don't go well, the first person identified as the root cause of that failure is the QB. Except among defenders of all things Bills.

It's 23.6M in dead money. Deflecting from that point still doesn't remove the fact they've got nearly 1/6th of their total cap space for 2014 tied up in players not with the team anymore. Combined with the unused cap space for 2014, it's more than 1/5 of their cap dollars not paying going toward players on the 2014 roster. http://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space/ If you look at the other teams situated around Buffalo, it's not exactly a who's who of NFL GM talent either.

Quibbling. There have been some bad decisions in pro personnel and I think it's why Whaley replaced the guy who Nix had hired. Nevertheless, 23.6M is a lot of dead cap space.

Whaley, Marrone, and Hackett don't have another year to hope EJ becomes a good NFL QB. For that matter, neither do EJ's teammates, who play in a league where career brevity is the norm.

You do realize EJ was 9-18 for 67 yards against the first team TB defense, correct? He was 10-10 for 131 yards and 1 TD against second stringers and guys who'll be cut. After 5 off-seasons of rebuilding (since Nix took over) they're still only a 6-7 win team? How long should a fan wait to see this team actually win those 9 or 10 games that "3/4 of the league" is trying to win?

The first team offense going 0-18 scoring TD's against 4 separate first team defenses means they've done a great job not showing anything to the Bears for week 1.

In fairness Hackett grew up around a father who coached NFL offenses for something like 25 seasons. He didn't just have Schonert as a mentor on how to coordinate a WCO.

Agreed. I always wondered why Marrone chose as OC, a guy who hadn't been a position coach in the NFL. I knew he was the son of an offensive guy, but getting a HC gig sometimes is a one-time opportunity and trusting a NFL offense to a rookie NFL OC without major pro experience is a huge gamble. And to make matters worse, they make Hackett the QB coach for a raw rookie. This season, as you say, they hired a "Senior Offensive Assistant" in Hostler (who didn't have good reviews in SF) and a QB coach to "assist" Hackett. Sounds like a day late and a dollar short. The common denominator I've seen over the years is their approach in building a team for a specific scheme to achieve an identity is completely uncoordinated. The same lack of synergy occurred during the Jauron and Gailey years. DJ was offensively challenged, but even Nix/Gailey didn't get it right. Nix wanted a big OL, then drafted a smaller back who excels at running outside the tackles. They went with a short passing game depending on timing but had a QB who was inaccurate. Personnel decisions and strategy have not been coordinated well to create a scheme and acquire offensive identity. That's the mark of poor football management and it's happening all over again. You'd be upset too if the last time the Bills were good was 10 years ago when you were in Iraq. Homers.

Wouldn't be unprecedented and let's face it, that's how this organization rolls sometimes. Sacrifice a coach (Hackett) to the wolves to save upper management. This helps avoid having to answer uncomfortable questions when there's a pre-season cluster of a performance. Whatever happened to Turk Schonert? Is he available?

DM might have to. There's probably no other team with less talent at the most important position in the game.

Love the 50s movie reference. If Doug Marrone turns into Captain Queeg (played wonderfully by Humphrey Bogart) they're in trouble. Now, where are my ball bearings?

I'd take a playoff victory at this point, even if the offense can't score and it takes 3 Dan Carpenter FG's and a INT returned for a TD by Brandon Spikes to do it.

You never change CB97.

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. If there wasn't an internet this wouldn't be news? Huh? The NFL is more wildly popular than ever before. Off-season, preseason, regular season, repeat. There's stuff going on practically 365 days a year and the demand for NFL news and content is only growing. But it's sophistry to simply say fights happen "at like 75% of camps" so there's ostensibly no issue here. In reality, there's a coach who's telling the team something and some have openly criticized him. That's news whether there's an internet or not.

Wonderful attempt at argument suppression. No one's entitled to have an opinion (on a message board no less) if they aren't right there with the team. The players aren't responding to Marrone and he's frustrated. If you can't tell that from his statements to the media I don't know what to tell you. Remember the brief answers after the HOF game? What precipitated that, losing the most meaningless game of the year? Doubtful. It also doesn't help his future is murky at best considering the pending ownership change. There's nothing more frustrating as a leader when the people you supervise aren't responding to what you're trying to communicate. And this most certainly isn't a case of tearing the team down to build them up. This is a guy who's stressed out that his message ain't hitting home.

Understood. And while it's Marrone's job to win games, the balance of power has shifted from management to players over the years. That's an undeniable fact, considering the recent CBA which gained concessions in terms of how many practices could be conducted, with and without pads. And let's not compare apples to oranges because Urban Meyer's situation is completely different. First, he's coaching college guys who don't have the luxury of a guaranteed paycheck to fall back on (and which upper management has to consider). And second, he's got an excellent track record. Marrone isn't in the college ranks anymore and, as I've pointed out, doesn't have the credibility to bank on. And while we're talking about hard a** coaches, look no further than Tom Coughlin. He's at the top of the list, and even guys like Michael Strahan have said he changed a little during his early years with NYG. This isn't a black and white issue, but clearly there's an issue here, and as someone asked, how much of that is Schwartz's effect on the defense?

It's preseason, where the emphasis on winning is low. At least that's what I'm told on TBD. I'd be more interested in their discipline when the games actually count and if they go down to an opponent early. Still, it's amazing that a player like Jerry Hughes, with all of 1 decent NFL season, has no qualms criticizing the head coach in front of the whole team. Reading between the lines, if one guy feels that way it's likely there are others. That's not good. Point is, it's one thing for a Tom Coughlin to run his guys. Even as the new HC for NYG he at least had been deep in the playoffs. But Marrone doesn't have that kind of track record and his act is not going over well. It's not just the Bills who need to eliminate the losing culture, it's the HC who needs to earn his reputation as well. And that remains to be seen.

And someone was ridiculed for calling Marrone, "Greggo." That person deserves an apology.

It's a unique year seeing as how the team is being sold. In the past players who lost their starting job seemed to be cut rather than be paid to backup another player.

Urbik is paid way too much to play RG and not start. He's a holdover from the Nix years and isn't terribly athletic, which is why he's a RG. I don't think Marrone's as high on him and is looking for an excuse to find someone else.