Sources: Chasm between Bills coaches, front office on Tyrod

[FireChan]

You don't think Marrone didn't have a big say on EJ? Marrone was looking for his way out and just tried to win as many games rather than try to develop a qb.

He had a horrific QB and wanted to get a better one to win games with a great D. The horror.

[BADOLBILZ]

EJ was a Nix selection with Whaley ranking the qbs that year. As I said in the prior post it didn't take long for Marrone to make an accurate judgment on EJ which turned out to be true. And again, as I previously stated EJ should have had a third or fourth round grade placed on him. The Bills took him in the first round. A poor decision that still hurts this troubled franchise. A fiasco is a fiasco.

 

I think you FAR overrate the injury to the franchise of taking a bad gamble on a QB.

 

First of all......early round picks at all positions sometimes bust.

 

I'd argue that Bob Woods was just as harmful........he by no means approached that #1 WR type quality that they expected when they took him as a "great value" early in round 2.

 

Never exceeded the level of role player.

 

You need higher ceilings from your early round picks.........they should be the types of talent you CAN'T get or can't afford to get in FA.

 

Also.......if they had taken a player at another position they would have been forced to make a 5th year option decision on that player for this season or see him walk this year.....like EJ.

 

That one season 5th year option on Gilmore was VERY expensive and the Bills still had a very bad defense.

 

So by whiffing on EJ their consolation prize is that they have cap space to utilize that they didn't have before.

 

It's not a huge upside.......but there is a sliver lining.......in a three year period they will have only one such 5th year option to pick up......Sammy Watkins.

 

They have a lot of cap space in the next couple offseasons and not a lot of in-house talent that they will need to spend it on.........so that space is legit.

 

The thing Whaley is best at is finding value in pro personnel in FA..........so perhaps they can make good use of that space.

 

In the end........you miss 100% of the shots you don't take on QB's..........as I said then, the only way the EJ pick was wrong was if they weren't willing to go right back to that well.

 

You gotta' keep taking shots.

Edited March 4, 2017 by #BADOL

[hondo in seattle]

It is written by LaCanfora, so I doubt it is true

 

Maybe we should ban posts based on LaCan articles and tweets.

[vincec]

wIthout a really good Plan B in the works, how is it possible Tyrod is not coming back?

 

even to those of us who aren't all that thrilled with it.

Because there's a school of thinking that says that even if you don't know if Jones or Watson or whomever can get it done, you definitely know that Taylor cant. So if you believe that you can't win a championship with Taylor at QB then what are you waiting for? Move on.

[jeffismagic]

Because there's a school of thinking that says that even if you don't know if Jones or Watson or whomever can get it done, you definitely know that Taylor cant. So if you believe that you can't win a championship with Taylor at QB then what are you waiting for? Move on.

 

Exactly. Bills don't have a plan B for Gilmore but most people are fine with moving on from him and Gilmore is better at CB than Tyrod is at QB.

[FireChan]

 

I think you FAR overrate the injury to the franchise of taking a bad gamble on a QB.

 

First of all......early round picks at all positions sometimes bust.

 

I'd argue that Bob Woods was just as harmful........he by no means approached that #1 WR type quality that they expected when they took him as a "great value" early in round 2.

 

Never exceeded the level of role player.

 

You need higher ceilings from your early round picks.........they should be the types of talent you CAN'T get or can't afford to get in FA.

 

Also.......if they had taken a player at another position they would have been forced to make a 5th year option decision on that player for this season or see him walk this year.....like EJ.

 

That one season 5th year option on Gilmore was VERY expensive and the Bills still had a very bad defense.

 

So by whiffing on EJ their consolation prize is that they have cap space to utilize that they didn't have before.

 

It's not a huge upside.......but there is a sliver lining.......in a three year period they will have only one such 5th year option to pick up......Sammy Watkins.

 

They have a lot of cap space in the next couple offseasons and not a lot of in-house talent that they will need to spend it on.........so that space is legit.

 

The thing Whaley is best at is finding value in pro personnel in FA..........so perhaps they can make good use of that space.

 

In the end........you miss 100% of the shots you don't take on QB's..........as I said then, the only way the EJ pick was wrong was if they weren't willing to go right back to that well.

 

You gotta' keep taking shots.

I don't think that's an "if" any longer.

[That's No Moon]

Overdorf and Brandon want him gone? Then I could not be more all in for him to stay. Those two boobs shouldn't be given ANY input into football decisions. Overdorf counts beans and Brandon is a marketing guy. OF COURSE the bean counter wants to shed the salary and OF COURSE the marketing guy wants to draft a QB in round 1.

 

I cannot believe we are still talking about these people. We've been complaining about Overdorf's shadow hand for more than 20 yeas now.

[hondo in seattle]

So Whaley has had a difficult time with the last two coaches and possibly this one about direction of team and Brandon is in this somehow. I don't care who wrote this piece, it's believable

 

I think LaCan does what he does: packages speculation as something more.

 

Fans, ex-players, ex-coaches, and talking heads in the media are all divided on TT. Some say the Bills should keep him, others say let him go.

 

LaCan sees this and makes the reasonable assumption that the folks at OBD are divided too. But then he simplifies it as FO versus coaching staff.

 

I suspect the situation is more complicated. I think there are folks in the FO that want to keep TT and probably some coaches who aren't confident in TT.

 

I'm guessing that some guys at OBD are divided in their own minds and aren't entirely sure which course of action is best.

 

But a FO-versus-coaching-staff story is more compelling and so that's the story LaCan invents.

[jeffismagic]

 

I think LaCan does what he does: packages speculation as something more.

 

Fans, ex-players, ex-coaches, and talking heads in the media are all divided on TT. Some say the Bills should keep him, others say let him go.

 

LaCan sees this and makes the reasonable assumption that the folks at OBD are divided too. But then he simplifies it as FO versus coaching staff.

 

I suspect the situation is more complicated. I think there are folks in the FO that want to keep TT and probably some coaches who aren't confident in TT.

 

I'm guessing that some guys at OBD are divided in their own minds and aren't entirely sure which course of action is best.

 

But a FO-versus-coaching-staff story is more compelling and so that's the story LaCan invents.

 

That's all possible. But if you let your coaches help make the call they will almost always want to keep the veteran QB. That's how coaches think, they don't think of next year. Pegula's structure could be an issue if they are letting coaches have too much say in player personnel.

 

Almost every NFL coach other than Belichick has been bad at making those calls.

[BADOLBILZ]

I don't think that's an "if" any longer.

 

yeah, they didn't go back to the well so it was a mistake.

 

But the damage was hardly crippling.........the drama over missing on QB picks is laughable.

 

Somebody will be blaming the EJ pick for the Bills failures 3 years from now..........Aaron Maybin pick? Forgotten purdy quick.

[Drunken Pygmy Goat]

One more week at the most, and this will be put to rest.

 

Until then, expect more crap to be thrown at the (stadium) wall.

Edited March 4, 2017 by Drunken Pygmy Goat

[BillyBilliams]

This is why I've been so damn confused with what was said by the Front Office, saying Russ Brandon would not get power to decide on personnel. He clearly does, considering the GM is not negotiating the contracts. They have Jim Overdorf and his boss, Russ Brandon doing that. Therefor, in my mind, Jim Overdorf and Russ Brandon has just as much say to the roster than Doug Whaley does. Whaley wants the player, while these bums hash out the deals and manage the cap. If it doesn't fit the cap, then the GM doesn't get the player. The GM should be doing all of that stuff.

[Wayne Arnold]

 

The scenarios that occur when you retain a HC and dump the GM always raise the concerns that they will want to chose their own HC and they usually do. I think everyone knows/feels that Doug is on thin ice; when Doug is eventually canned now you are limiting yourself to GM who will want to have McD as his HC as opposed to a GM who can hire who wants.I am inclined to say that isn't necessarily a good thing since you are limiting your pool of candidates...

 

 

I don't see why it's a problem. If the head coach is good then it's an advantage in finding a GM. If the head coach is bad then that gives the new GM an excuse for his own job security. "He's not my head coach. I need my own head coach."

 

In the end, a GM's most important job is building a quality roster of players anyway.

[iinii]

Answer me this: If this is plausible narrative, who's the leaker and better yet, what's his motivation for leaking?

I don't need to connect those dots. If walks like a duck and quacks like one it must be a duck. We will know soon enough how much this story has teeth. If Tyrod stays, Whaley is a dead man walking. If Tyrod goes we will know Whaley is in charge and McD is just the next coach stuck in spin cycle.

[Wayne Arnold]

If the Bills had a legit qb, they would be a playoff team. Tyrod is in a great situation for a qb and he's not good enough. Whaley gave Rex the #4 defense and he ruined it.

 

Whaley sucks at press conferences but he has gotten plenty of talent here. But when you don't have a qb, every mistake gets magnified. The Pats have had just as many misses as the Bills but they have Brady. It's really that simple.

 

What do you mean by "legit qb"? Top 5? Not realistic.

 

No matter how poor you think Tyrod is, he was the quarterback of the 10th most efficient offense in the NFL in 2016. One year after leading the 9th most efficient offense. The defense finished 26th in DVOA in 2016, one year after finishing 24th. The defense is the problem. And aside from having an elite quarterback like Rodgers or Brady, the team isn't going to be very good with such a poor defense.

 

So either the GM isn't doing his job and the players aren't good OR the coaching staff was to blame for the poor defense. If you think it's the latter, then McDermott and his staff should be able to greatly improve the D. So why would you not want to keep the offense the same?

 

It makes no logical sense to want to replace Taylor if you think the team around Taylor is good enough to realistically compete for a Wild Card right now.

Edited March 4, 2017 by Wayne Arnold

[34-78-83]

The other option is that Pegula hired a HC that disagrees with his GM regarding Taylor. Again, that makes no sense.

The thought that they disagree at all is completely fabricated. Again no evidence of that anywhere. They use a committee approach. Fans everywhere are building stories and theories off of false assumptions that these guys disagree with each other in some sort of problem manner.

[JM2009]

Tyrods not Aaron Rogers and he takes up some cap space so some want to run him out of town. I agree, it's stupid especially when the alternative is a complete shot in the dark with a rookie that will more then likely be worse then Tyrod in his first year(and probably second).

 

The logical thing to do is to keep Tyrod AND draft one high if a potential good one is there when we pick.

I agree. This is just common sense.

[The Frankish Reich]

For the sake of discussion let's assume the article paints an accurate picture. The picture is disturbing on many fronts. The organization negotiated a contract with TT that puts the player in a strong position and the team in a bind when the option decision comes up. Either the organization agrees to the deal or the player goes out to the market and gets a comparable or higher deal because of the tight market for qbs. What it boils down to is that Whaley doesn't want to sign the option at the price he negotiated at. He is the one dealing the cards and he is the one receiving the unappealing cards.

 

The most disturbing issue I find in the story (if true) is it appears that the new coach has more authority than the GM. That is not a healthy situation for any franchise, and it is not a smart way to run a football franchise. What the power arrangement vis a vis GM to HC that was structured by the owner did is take away authority from the GM that most, if not all, GMs have. That diminution of authority clearly is a sign of a lack of confidence by the owner towards the GM.

 

What is the cause of this non-conventional/traditional organizational structure for a NFL frachise? It all goes back to Whaley's inability to put together a competitive team. And that issue goes back mostly to his inability over a reasonable period of time to adequately address the qb situation, the essential ingredient to field a competitive team.

 

In the Watkins deal Whaley was bold and willing to give up a lot to secure a talented receiver in a rich receiver draft class. The mistake he made was that he should have used his willingness to gamble for a qb instead of a receiver.

 

This organization hasn't had a franchise qb since the retirement of Jim Kelly, over twenty years ago. In a system designed for parity this franchise hasn't been in the playoffs for 18 years. The two situations are inextricably linked. That is a disgrace and an embarrassment.

I disagree. Time is on the Bills side in this. Tyrod is not free to negotiate with anyone else (the Bills having essentially a right of first refusal), so other teams that need a QB are going to have to make alternative plans. I'll also give Bills management a pass on the old "Brandon shouldn't be involved in player personnel decisions" complaint here because this is basically a financial decision, and the Pegulas and Brandon are as involved in that as Whaley and his salary cap team. If Bills management was all on board with bringing Tyrod back at his current contract, it would have been done by now. Likewise, if they were all in accord that Tyrod is not the answer at any price, it would be all but done by now (just the waiting for the NFL contract year to end). I imagine they want Tyrod to renegotiate, which seems to me to be the best solution for both sides. If he won't they'll probably move on. That, to me, actually makes sense ...

[SectionC3]

The thought that they disagree at all is completely fabricated. Again no evidence of that anywhere. They use a committee approach. Fans everywhere are building stories and theories off of false assumptions that these guys disagree with each other in some sort of problem manner.

And it's also an assumption that they agree. I doubt anybody outside of the building knows the real story.

 

For what it's worth, assuming that the franchise uses the committee approach, its easy to see how there would be friction with respect to this decision. This admittedly is speculation, but I can see how mcd might think that Tyrod is average, but also a better option than anything Whaley has suggested so far for next year. If Whaley is pushing cardale, if crossman (mcd's link to last year) tells mcd jones is lazy, and if Crossman tells McDermott that Tyrod is both a hard worker and respected by the players, then I can see how mcd would not be keen to stake his hc career on jones and would prefer to retain Taylor.

 

Again, though, the point remains that all of this is speculation.

[cd1]

I too think that this "considering all of our options" is an answer you give when you have no answer.

 

If Coach McD would like TT and the Bills would like TT, why the hell not do EVERYTHING possible to get the TT camp to restructure? The Bills camp may indeed WANT TT but do not want to tip their hand in the negotiations.

 

If each side is waiting to see "who blinks first" of course this will likely go down to the deadline.

Edited March 4, 2017 by cd1