BillsVet

And if you're the Bills, given KK's injury history, you put all the escalators in that contract you can. Cause he wasn't going to meet any of them with that kind of injury history.

Marrone: Russ, I could use Whaley to beat you. Russ: I'm the CEO Whaley: Guys, can't we just get along? You're scaring me!

The kind of contract Kolb received (2 yrs 6.1M) indicates to me they considered him a backup, but I digress. Agree on the bad planning part, which makes me wonder if it's more important they protect their reputation as new ownership enters the situation or if they're invested in winning games. That said, it's far too late to be looking for a backup QB. There aren't any left and the time to be charting a course was in January, not August.

If they considered signing Kolb in 2013 to presumably backup a rookie, doesn't it make sense to seek a veteran after a season in which that now-2nd year man started 10 times? it does, unless you're terrified that the 1st round pick may not be as good as advertised and the veteran shows something in TC. If anything, OBD has avoided anything resembling a QB controversy like the plague going back about 10 years.

No one ever said getting a good QB was easy or that one would fall in your lap. Aside from the Colts drafting first overall in 2012, it's been a struggle for most teams in the last 10 years. The Bills haven't gotten it done at the QB position since Polian signed Kelly in 1986 aside from brief interludes with Flutie and Bledsoe. There's no "easy button" when it comes to acquiring and developing QB's.

Ernie Accorsi said Reese should be GM. And his recommendation was taken by ownership (Well Mara and Bob Tisch) above Mara's son Chris. Kudos to the Giants ownership who would make that move.

Con: History of below average email forwarding skills.

It's ironic that some players think it's a fan problem.

Amen. There's gotta be better perspective than just comparing stats to indicate the greatness of a player. While we're at it, how about comparing Johnny U in the late 50s/early 60s to Montana in the early to mid 80s?

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?