Archives for October 2013

‘Regarding the Bills, if you watched the fourth quarter of Thursday’s game, you saw Manuel’s backup — undrafted rookie Jeff Tuel — epically fail. He’s not the answer.’

Buffalo Bills center calls Cleveland Browns’ reaction to quarterback injury, ‘classless’ (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Safety T.J. Ward denies allegations of being ‘classless’ after Bills quarterback EJ Manuel is injured (Akron Beacon Journal)

‘Specifically, Leonhard was fined for striking a defenseless receiver in the head and neck area.’

”’What we need right now is for it to calm down, see where we’re at,” Marrone said, ”see where he’s at in probably a week to see how it’s progressing, where he is, then get it down in to a little bit more of a window.”’

‘Powell struggled in angling punts away from Cleveland’s Travis Benjamin, who returned seven punts for a franchise-record 179 yards, including a 79-yard touchdown return.’

‘Marrone expects Manuel to return in a few weeks. In the meantime, the Bills will look “outside the organization” for another QB.’

‘Powell was most likely let go due to his inconsistent play over the last two games. Against Baltimore and Cleveland he punted 16 times, but only had a net average of 30 yards.’

‘”We will be looking to bring in another quarterback,” said Marrone. “We’re in the process of that right now, you know, going through the names, going through the tape.”‘

‘The free agent market for quarterbacks is headlined by the recently released Josh Freeman, who was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers starter through the first three weeks of the season. There has been no indication of either an interest or lack of interest in his services to this point in time.’

‘"We’ll put him out there, we’ll work him out and go, and we’ll work him into those packages and put him in the starting lineup," the head coach started. "Starting lineup for me is always difficult because of what the packages are. But yeah, we’re looking forward to getting him in the starting lineup."’

‘”This week we get a couple of guys back on the (practice) field,” said Marrone. “Jairus Byrd will be back. He was ready to go Thursday night. (Ron) Brooks comes back, (Stephon) Gilmore comes back.”‘

‘”I’m going to continue to get better off of that more than anything, just by experience,” Tuel said. “There’s obviously some plays I want back and some things I want to do better. I’m going to meet with Coach (Nathaniel) Hackett, watch the film and just get better. Any little thing I can do to get better I’m going to do it.”‘

‘”I believe in that situation that EJ thought he was going to score,” said Marrone. “There is something that you see a flash coming from the side and you see him trying to work his way out (of bounds). Our philosophy with the quarterback has always been to tell him to be smart. We tell him to slide. We tell him to get the first down and get out of bounds. We tell him to do all those things. So I don’t want it to sound like we’re never telling him to slide or go down and not put himself at risk. We tell him all that."’

‘”The offensive line did a great job blocking those guys up,” said Spiller. “The biggest thing was that I just tried to press the line of scrimmage as much as I could. I was able to get a jump cut to the left and seeing TJ Graham did a great job blocking the corner. From then on, I just looked up into the Jumbotron because I knew my ankle wasn’t 100-percent. I just wanted to see if I could outrun guys with a bum ankle.”‘

‘This injury problem is nothing new either. All the way back to the Dick Jauron Era – remember him? – the Bills put a dozen or more players on injured reserve every year.’