Two Bills Drive

'What has become a bi-yearly tradition. The search for a new head caoch, the building of a new coaching staff, and the likely flip flopping from between a 3-4 and a 4-3 defense. Groundhog Day continues in Buffalo. Bills Daily will be doing our year end player grades, launching our 2017 front office page, and tallying up all the gameballs, goats, and player of the week winners in near the future. Our main focus of course for the immediate future will be tracking the coaching search.'

'Dennis Thurman had some confusion on a 4th down play forcing the Bills to burn a timeout. Didn't have his team ready for when the Jets went into hurry up mode near the end of the first half.'

'EJ Manuel, in his first start in more than a year, struggled to make plays in the passing game. Buffalo soon found itself behind on the scoreboard and two third quarter turnovers led to 10 points for the Jets in a 30-10 win for New York.'

'The Bills’ 2017 opponents are set. We already knew that Buffalo would be facing the AFC West and NFC South in terms of out of division opponents next fall. Aside from the six AFC East games the Bills other two games are against AFC opponents who also finished in third place in their division like Buffalo.'

'Interim coach Anthony Lynn confirmed on Friday that rookie QB Cardale Jones would serve as the backup to EJ Manuel in the season finale against New York, raising the likelihood of Taylor being inactive for the game.'

'“I really haven’t had time to think about it,” Lynn told Buffalobills.com. “It’s been a unique season and I’ve learned to be careful what you ask for because I got it all at one time.”'

'And while fans have become wary of most anything general manager Doug Whaley says or does, in this case he has 27.5 million reasons to bench Taylor. That is to say, the Bills can opt out of the final five years of his six-year contract after this season. But if he were to be hurt in today’s game and couldn’t pass a physical in March, Buffalo would owe him the entire $27.5 million he’d be owed if they had picked up his option … even if they had chosen to opt out.'

'“(With) him being my head coach and friend, I wanted him to get more time,” he said of Ryan, whose Buffalo tenure lasted only 31 games … one less than two full seasons. “But, this is a business. As much as I like to think football is a relationship business, there’s a business side of it. Ownership made that decision, and there’s nothing we can do about that now but move forward.”'

'EJ Manuel. Seriously. The former first-round draft pick will get the start in what interim coach Anthony Lynn called a “business decision” to sit quarterback Tyrod Taylor. Manuel, who will be an unrestricted free agent after the season, hasn’t played any meaningful football since his memorable meltdown in London last season. It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which he’s back next year, but who would have thought Whaley would get a chance to hire a third head coach, too? The point being, you never know what you’re going to get with these Bills.'

'Wins and losses don’t fall solely on the quarterback, but the Bills were 3-10 in games when Taylor was in these spots. It’s fair to say that some of these situations, such as trailing the Patriots by eight with 1:15 to go, were extremely difficult, but it’s also interesting to note that the only teams the Bills actually came back to beat when trailing in the fourth quarter the last two years were the 2015 Titans, which finished the year 3-13, and the 2016 Jaguars, which enter Sunday’s game against the Colts with a 3-12 record.'

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'It's the Failed Franchise QB Bowl, a dark comedy to conclude a miserable season and one of the more regrettable weeks in recent Bills history. This could possibly be the final NFL start for both Manuel and Fitzpatrick.'

'Zack Brown: Brown and Brown, with fellow linebacker Preston Brown, could come to an end after one season in Western New York. Brown was signed with the notion of starting. Then the team drafted Reggie Ragland. Then Ragland injured his knee in training camp. Back to Brown, and it paid off. Brown’s 138 tackles leads the AFC. Buffalo signed Brown for $1.25 million this past summer for one year. After such production, Brown will garner offers from other teams that the Bills won’t be able to match. A changing defensive system could hurt Brown’s chances of staying in Buffalo too.'

'Age is not irrelevant to these decisions, but neither should it automatically disqualify a candidate from consideration. Much as the Buffalo Bills desire new direction, the old one worked pretty well.'

'QB E.J. Manuel passed for 245 yards & 2 TDs for 121.9 rating in last start vs. NYJ (11/17/13).'