Does the front office have a clue?

[Fadingpain]

I'm not a very religious sort, but God is Great.

 

I feel like I know what you mean.

[BillsVet]

dude seems to either have a 40 or a bottle of jack in his hands on every off-the-field photo made public. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that..

 

If he channels his inner Sonny Jurgensen as much on the field as he does off, it, well, we're gonna be OK.

[MDH]

All we can do is look at history. 14 years of history. Evidently they do not know what they are doing.

 

There's a difference in not knowing what they are doing and not being the absolute best in the world at what they do. Any one of you can only dream about being as successful in your chosen field as the coaches and management that run any NFL team, even the losing ones.

[3rdand12]

But you're basing this on what, exactly?

 

What makes a good front office? I'll tell you what I think ... smart decisions and a couple lucky breaks. The Bills just haven't had lucky breaks. You can't fault Whaley and co. for not picking up HOF players from Kutztown, or backups from Michigan. Sometimes you strike gold; usually you don't. The Bills have sucked for the last 5 years, primarily, due to defense. Whaley has addressed it and addressed it well. He took a shot on Manuel and the fanbase should give him more than half a season to determine whether or not it was a good move.

 

But he took a shot. He has my respect for that.

This is my thinking . Which is many degrees different then years past.

It may not succeed or even get the time to bear fruit , But the Bills FO sure has a different feel to it .

[Hardcore Bills Fan]

I'm not a very religious sort, but God is Great.

 

lol

[3rdand12]

Chandler? Glenn?

Already on the team. Glenn was a pick i cheered for loudly when NIX got him.

Chandler was decent FA pickup when Nix got him and was better then what we had .

Cordy was mostly luck to get in that draft. Damned good and fine luck mind you !

[3rdand12]

I have a theory. It's total conjecture but it makes sense, at least to me. Ha.

 

Whaley and Marrone are mostly on the same page. Whaley, as GM, has final say on the roster, but like every GM and HC, they have to work very closely with one another on the roster. The best pairings will usually agree the most. It's inevitable that they will sometimes disagree though, and sometimes violently disagree.

 

Marrone made decent chicken salad out of Ryan Nassib in college. He has an ego, like he should and must, and believes in his teaching power, especially offensively. They both agreed on EJ as having all kinds of physical tools and that Marrone can make chicken cordon bleu out of it. They may or may not still believe that.

 

But Jeff Tuel is different. He doesn't have those physical tools. And here is where the theory comes in. Whaley waited and waited, and trusted his HC, which GMs must do all the time, but finally said, ok, enough is enough, not only are you not getting chicken cordon bleu out of Tuel, you're not even getting a chicken sandwich from AM/PM, you're getting the chickenschitt you started with, and I'm pulling the plug.

 

That could even explain the Rodak argument tweet.

 

Whaley has been patient with trusting his coach but it just hasnt worked so he pulled rank, made the Orton deal, cut Tuel, etc.

 

This doesn't completely let Whaley off the hook. He made the Thad deal, and he decided, with his HC, not to pursue veterans like Orton in the off season. But he realized that Thad was not cutting it this year and Tuel wasn't either. But the reason that they have been as slow as they have been making the necessary QB changes is Whaley giving his HC the benefit of the doubt.

 

That's the only thing that makes sense to me. Because otherwise Whaley looks clueless about the most important position in football, when he looks very astute in most other areas, as evidenced by his team building.

And this is a proper synergy if true.

One thing about the QB position is the inherited legacy. Thats been brutal to overcome . And has not yet imho .

The Whaley Marrone relationship is a developing one , not based on hope or pure fancy. I find these guys interesting .

 

Kelly if this theory is true ,

 

make note . The offense sputters Whaley will be pressuring Marrone to yank Little Nate .

I hope we dont see that but . Whaley must already be looking at options because its his responsibility in the end .

 

At what point does Whaley start to become concerned that none of the offensive personnel are developing under DM?

probably already concerned. I think everyone is .

 

dude seems to either have a 40 or a bottle of jack in his hands on every off-the-field photo made public. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that..

I have a new hero !

[Mr. WEO]

He absolutely did come in for an injured #1, that is how he got the job. Flynn hurt his shoulder or elbow, and Wilson played game #3 in preseason, and that's when they realized his height wasn't going to affect him. In fact, it was an amazing call by Carroll to just start him in the regular season opener. I bet 90% of the coaches would have gone back to their 25m FA starter.

 

Wrong. It's not how he got the job. He outplayed Flynn in the eyes of the coaching staff (and named the game 3 starter).

 

Flynn had a "sore" elbow per Carroll, but he wasn't going to start against the Chiefs in that preseason #3 game anyway. He was scheduled to play with the 2's.

 

 

 

After nearly 27,000 posts, surely you realize that facts, statistics, examples and logic have no place here whilst proving one's point.

 

False statements aren't facts.

[Captain Caveman]

I'm not a very religious sort, but God is Great.

 

I don't think those are God's work.

[GunnerBill]

That's the word out there. And since you're in Texas you likely know about the "contemplating retirement" job he pulled to get out of Dallas.

 

Put yourself in his shoes. You play that card and get your release. Now you're a free agent, and a few teams come calling. You know you're probably one of the best available at your position. Why on God's green Earth would you even consider making a decision to sign with a team until after camps broke if the teams are basically begging you to sign?

 

Training camps are for guys fighting for roster spots. Orton played it smart by going the "Thanks but no thanks" route until right now.

 

Do I wish he signed earlier so he knew the playbook going into Week 1? Absolutely. But he's an 8 or 9 year NFL vet so I can understand why he would want to skip training camp as well.

 

Yep. Orton didn't want to go to camp and he didn't want to play in pre-season. He waited until it made sense for HIM. The fact that the Bills were persistent and called him until he said yes is a good thing. I suspect that "why have you not got Orton in here yet" might have been the source of the supposed row between the two Dougs last week.

 

Wrong. It's not how he got the job. He outplayed Flynn in the eyes of the coaching staff (and named the game 3 starter).

 

He did - but he didn't play lights out. It was that Flynn looked awful. I watched the Sehawks v Broncos game that pre-season and I saw a Quarterback in Flynn who was a sitting duck in the pocket, couldn't complete a pass over 10 yards distance and struggled under any kind of pressure.

[Kelly the Dog]

 

 

Wrong. It's not how he got the job. He outplayed Flynn in the eyes of the coaching staff (and named the game 3 starter).

 

Flynn had a "sore" elbow per Carroll, but he wasn't going to start against the Chiefs in that preseason #3 game anyway. He was scheduled to play with the 2's.

 

 

False statements aren't facts.

You are right. My bad. I thought it was the small injury that made Carroll make the decision. But he had already showed Carroll that his height didn't matter. And then won the job in that game. The funny thing is that the original plan was to start Flynn game one and Wilson game two, but he changed that and had Flynn start both. Then decided on Wilson. I hate Carroll but he's a great coach.

 

And fwiw, Russell Wilson is my favorite non Bill in the league.

[BuffOrange]

Seems more desperation than a clue towards making a better team. Most of us here bemoaned the shortcomings of Thad/Tuel/Graham/Legurski/Manuel throughout the off-season. Nothing was done except to dump them all but EJ yesterday. And, it must be said, we had an extra week of practice and an extra game in preseason to sort out what we already knew..

 

Not bad, but not good.

 

Then again, what do we know..

 

Yah. I like the Orton signing but did they wake up two days ago and know what they were doing, I sorta doubt it.

 

The whole Lewis/Palmer transaction is all just very bizarre to me. I mean lets be clear, Thad Lewis is not good. But when was the last time a QB led us from 14pts down in the 4th Qtr in a game that counted (this is actually a great trivia question - Kelly '91 in Los Angeles? I really don't know)...Against a good defense no less? For all the practice fails he did do that like 3 starts ago. We thought Jordan Palmer would be an upgrade? Oh well it's a moot point now but it really makes me wonder what goes thru this FO's head.

[San-O]

Let's please not make this an EJ thread. We all know the pressure and expectations riding on his play. I'm talking about overall strategy and direction.

 

What is the overall direction and strategy?

 

They've traded away much (1 and 4) of next years draft, and are still rebuilding if you ask me.

 

See article, which is pretty accurate I think.

 

 

http://www.bradfordera.com/sports/article_fca94c80-3166-11e4-aa99-001a4bcf887a.html

[BADOLBILZ]

Any one of you can only dream about being as successful in your chosen field as the coaches and management that run any NFL team, even the losing ones.

 

Misconception on your part. The NFL is an impressive business but it pales in comparison to so many other fields. The $9B valued NFL wouldn't even buy a good startup social media app nowadays. There are multiple donut chains in north america alone that are worth more than the entire NFL......a business who draws all of it's talent from a pool of a few million people who have an interest to play football. Most professionals should wish that the pool of competition was that minute. And that is how guys like Buddy Nix and Wayne Fontes get top jobs in the NFL. Patience and availability tend to be rewarded a bit more in the NFL than in more competitive industries. Of course, that's why they make a few million and a top CEO makes $10M+ but I digress.

[John from Riverside]

Seems more desperation than a clue towards making a better team. Most of us here bemoaned the shortcomings of Thad/Tuel/Graham/Legurski/Manuel throughout the off-season. Nothing was done except to dump them all but EJ yesterday. And, it must be said, we had an extra week of practice and an extra game in preseason to sort out what we already knew..

 

Not bad, but not good.

 

Then again, what do we know..

 

What we dont know if the chain of events that lead of to Orton being on this team....he might have been weighing his options....we were in on Mallett.....probably other QBs as well.

 

It takes two to tango