All_Pro_Bills

But nobody here that I am aware of is getting paid $5.5M per season to coach a professional football team. For that chunk of change there are some expectations and qualifications. One of them might be your team is prepared. And on the most important defensive series of the season after a change of possession with several minutes to prepare for the next 1st down play you can't get a full 11 player set out on the field? Wouldn't you agree that in planning and executing a combat mission that type of lack of detail could get somebody killed? Prior to the end of the game I was on the fence but willing to give Rex & Co. one more season. But this was the last straw so to speak. I don't feel sorry for him. He'll pocket a cool $16.5M as he rides out of town.

The Bills tackling on defense is an embarrassment. Since it's Saturday they're playing like a college team. Cant' blame Rex for this. Simply pathetic.

This is a good point. Until they 'fix' the structure of the organization I'm not sure there's any value in replacing the people every 2 or 3 years. I don't care if its Whaley and Ryan or Polian and Lambardi. The GM needs to have total control of the football side of the team. Deciding on the coach, managing the scouts and the draft, deciding what free agents to target, determining the identity of the team and the long-term approach to offensive and defensive scheme. Everything needs to fit and work together. When he looks for a coach its got to be one that fits and embraces his overall approach. We have a basic approach we take to offense and defense. Can you make it work? I don't want to put a plan in place to build a team around a passing offense and a 4-3 defense and then hire a coach who emphasizes the run on offense and a 3-4 defense. This organization is a mess and ownership's job #1 is to fix it before moving more people in and out of jobs where they are set up for failure when they walk in the door.

When it comes to the Bills I go back and forth with my wife on the topic of negativity. It gets pretty intense at times and I suspect its entertainment value would be much better than a lot of reality shows. She's always positive. Every week she says they're going to win. If she was right they'd be 14-0 and would have won every regular season and playoff game and Super Bowl for about the past 10 years. She seems to think negativity expressed in our family room during the game transmits through the TV and onto the field of play adversely impacting the team's play. My counter argument is that there's a difference between being negative and being realistic. And a difference between being optimistic and delusional. If its one thing Bills fans are good at it is recognizing failure when they see it. And Rex's version of the Bills have that look and feel. He over-sold and under-delivered proclaiming the Bills will be the top defense in the league. Right there he left himself no out where no excuses are acceptable. If some fans want to believe this team is ready to turn the corner with one more year of the same maybe they're right. Who really knows the future. Ultimately I don't blame Rex but rather the blame falls to ownership. They signed off on a head coach that was going to 'fix' something that wasn't broken at the time.

Rex promotes himself as some kind of defensive genius. But I'm still waiting to see it and it looks like we're never going to see that in action on the field in Buffalo. Whether its the scheme/player fit excuse, or the players aren't 'smart' enough, or the defense is too complex its up to the coaches to figure it out and put the best possible group of players out on the field with a scheme and game plan that will maximize their abilities vs. the specific opponents offense week-to-week. Not to put a system in place that exposes their flaws and weaknesses. Not being able to do that in almost 2 seasons here just means to me the coaches aren't doing their job.

And they have no comprehensive plan to identify and acquire a QB or deal with NE. Gronkowski has been dragging their secondary up and down the field for how many seasons? What's been the plan to defend him? Put a 5 foot 7 inch 175 lb. slot CB on him and then be surprised when he's walking into the end zone. The Bills problem is they have no overall plan or identity. The absence of competent QB is just part of that.

I think the Bills problem with the draft and free agency is they lack a strategic approach to player acquisition. They're always making short-term, tactical, moves to pick up a player or two to fill a need but don't seem to have a long-term plan to build a team out along with deciding early who to keep and who to let go via free agency. What's the plan with Gilmore? Spend more cap big chunk of cap space on another player so that 5 or 6 guys account for a lot of spending. Does this make sense? The problem is there's always 3 or 4 glaring holes in the line up every off-season highlights this problem. Whaley does a good job on an individual basis, making some good picks, finding a guy on another team's practice squad but all these moves seem like individual moves and not part of some grand scheme. Like the Watkins trade. Great move if you a one receiver away from it all and have a QB in place but the Bills had no QB in place to deliver the ball. How could he have ever thought EJ was that guy from his college performances and work to date in the pro's? The problem the Bills have is they have no big picture approach to building the team year in year out as there's no successful continuity of any kind.

I get this at work a lot. Look at what other competitors and organizations are doing and adopt their business processes. The problem is it rarely works. There's a big difference between becoming an organization that lives and breathes by some set of business processes and principles and one that get along by imitating them. Most businesses imitate them or follow them to demonstrate they are doing things a certain way rather than believing in them. They pretty much fake it. The only way to make it work is get real commitment from the top to bottom of the organization. Develop commitment and trust. I don't see that with what I can understand of the Bills organization. Trust seems like a dirty word there with infighting and diverse agendas. Until TP commits to changing the culture at OBD this futility will continue. Getting rid of Rex and admitting a mistake here would be a good first step but just the first of many needed. Whether or not he does it is up to him. Its his team he can pretty much do whatever he wants. But even lifelong fans like me have a limit. I have other things I can do with my entertainment dollars and Sunday afternoons that watch a substandard product. Would my doing so hurt the team? Not likely but I wouldn't do it in an attempt to make a statement just for my own mental health and well-being.

I understand that Pegula had meet with Coughlin before the season. I suspect and hope TP has seen enough at this point and will make some changes. One scenario would be to hire Coughlin as team president and have the business (Brandon now) and GM (Whaley now) report to him. The only guy that reports to Pegula would be the president. Both business and football operations answer to the team President. Let Rex go now and get it over with at this point. As for Whaley I would let the new president decide his fate. In my view he should be let go for the apparent in-fighting. I don't want any 'non-team' players here regardless of how bad things are going. Its one team and he appears to be part of the problem. Bring in a new GM. Some names have been thrown around on the board already. like the Ravens Asst. GM. I know nothing about him except the team has a stellar record in the draft and always seem to be competitive. That's all I ask. Put a competitive, hard playing team on the field week-after-week not a team that lays down and plays dead when the season is on the line. As for Brandon, I don't care if he stays or goes as long as he's 1,000 miles away from any football decisions. As for yesterday's game this is the 2nd time the Steelers have come into the stadium for a late season game and pushed the Bills up and down the field in a contest that meant something to the Bills who once again came out flat and unprepared. Enough already!

A prime example is Tyrod's interception early in the 4th. He zeros in on Goodwin who looks to be tripled up on the sideline while Hunter is running free down the middle for what could have been a TD. This was a simple read with two-deep safety where both went to the outside receivers leaving the slot receiver down the middle uncovered. Taylor had ample time to read the field, set, and pass without a lot of pressure. An NFL starter has just got to make that read and make that throw.

Asked why in two years his defense has not come anywhere close to playing at an elite level, Ryan said: "I'm not sure. At times we play pretty good, and then there are other times, mistake here or whatever, that's kind of what yesterday (was)". I've come to the conclusions that Rex Ryan is over-hyped and over-rated and he is not the great defensive genius that many believe. Much of his previous success has been the result of work done and groundwork layed down by his predecessors, Marvin Lewis with the Ravens defense and Mike Tannenbaum and Eric Mangini with the Jets setting up the run of consecutive AFC Championship games. At this point Rex is employing the strategy of doing more of what isn't working until it starts to work with the Bills defense. He brought in his brother Rob who I understood was some sort of Red Zone specialist. But the Bills Red Zone defense has gotten worse. He brought in Ed Reed to coach/mentor the DBs and either Ed is not imparting his wisdom to them or the DBs are incapable of understanding and assimilating his advice into their performance on the field. These are just two examples. They can't generate pressure and turnovers against the better teams and what I find most incredible is how wide-open opposition receivers are when watching the games. When they catch the ball I wonder when a Bills defender is going to show up on the TV screen. He took over the NFL's 4th rated defense and ran it down to 19th and 12th over two seasons. I entered the season with an open mind about Ryan but at this point i think its an exercise in futility to believe things are going to turn around. Pegula needs to cut his losses now when the framework of a good group of players is still in place. We need a professional franchise Head Coach not some pretender showman.

As a home underdog (Steelers -2), win or lose, this game is going to tell us a lot about this Bills team. Are they going to come out prepared and fighting or flat and unmotivated? Is Rex, the self-proclaimed defensive genius, going to finally show us a great defensive game plan against a good offense or are the Steelers going to march the ball up and down the field at will? Can Tyrod overcome accuracy and 'read' problems to the point needed to carry the offense against a defense that will likely try to take away the run and dare him to beat them through the air? It all comes down to a single elimination Thunder Dome type 2 teams enter, 1 team leaves, game on Sunday. Win and a plausible chance of making the playoffs is still alive. Lose and they're out absent some remote mathematical possibility.

I think the Bills biggest issue during the playoff drought, outside of having sub-standard QB play for forever, is being stuck in the AFC East during the Tom Brady era. In the last 10 seasons they're 2-18 with an * alongside both wins. One was a meaningless last game of the season and the end of the Marrone era and the other was this season against a nicked up 3rd string QB. It means fighting for a wildcard berth with 11 other teams every season and as close to 2 guaranteed loses as it gets every year which translates to a 2 game lead in the wildcard chase for every team outside the division. That means going 10-4 in the remainder of the schedule just to get a shot at a playoff berth. As far as getting the organization turned around I'd like to know first what Terry Pegula's plan is here. Does anyone here know what he really thinks? Does he believe the team is moving in the right direction, that he has the right people in place? Because if he does maybe that's step one? The owner has got to realize his organization as staffed and strategized is not going to get the job done.

To me the fact that there are women willing to attend such a "party" that will agree to the terms and conditions of a contract for doing so is the amazing thing and the overlooked topic here. Is it a lack of self-respect, the pursuit of $$$$, desire for some level of 'fame', or all?

I think Coughlin would be an interesting possibility and someone Pegula has spoken to already. Like Lombardi said, winning isn't everything, its the only thing. Look at the disparity between the Patriots approach and the Bills regime here what sticks out to me is action speaks louder than words. We have a bunch of big-mouth buffoons who consistently come up short with all kinds of excuses vs. the guys that keep the talk to a minimum and come to work and get the job done. Excuses and explanations are for losers. The killer instinct to me is pulling through when the games on the line, at the moment of truth. Jordan hitting a jump shot as the clock winds down, the Blackhawks getting a power play chance late and winning the game, Brady leading a scoring drive when they need it. The best all-time match-ups in sports are those when two opponents with this instinct tangle like Frazier vs. Ali. When I watch the Bills I don't get the 'feel' that any of these things will happen. And they usually don't unless the other team is an inferior opponent or a team that suffers from the same mistakes and shortcomings. Its so sad this team has gone absolutely nowhere for so long making bad choice after bad choice season after season when the solution seems so obvious except to the people that can make it happen.

I agree and apologize since this isn't a Sabres board but the jury is still out on the benefits of tanking. Last I checked this team was still in last place with a lot of trouble putting the puck in the net. The Eichel and Reinhardt picks were easy. His trades outside of netting O'Reilly not so great. He's given up roster players, some prospects and a lot of draft choices. He had 3 1st rounders and pissed away two of them this past draft. The trade for Lehner, a 3rd string goalie that Ottawa did not want to retain, for a 1st rounder just terrible. Psyck for Kolikov, a likely expensive free agent this off-season a poor exchange in my view. Bogosian I like but he is only good for maybe 50 games a season. And Kane? What can I say? That said, hope they get the injured 'D' back soon and make a run. And the Bills... if they lose to Cleveland then Rex is gone..

The Bills Safeties have been dreadful both physically and mentally in their play. But if your corners are playing one-on-one on the outside most of the time I'm not clear what the scheme has to do with it. Either you beat your man or he beats you. That's not scheme. That's either you have the ability to cover a receiver one-on-one or you don't.

The most plausible scenario would be the Bills winning 4 straight to go 10-6 while Denver loses 3 of 4 (Oak, KC, NE) and the teams in-between lose a couple each. I too doubt the Bills will beat the Steelers absent some unexpected circumstances. And I can't see everything going our way all of a sudden. But one week at a time here, right?

The Raiders have a Thursday night matchup against KC 12/8. Maybe they look past the Bills here and come out flat? Looking for any edge we can get in a game I expect them to lose.

And here it's here. The annual Thanksgiving tradition of turkey, family and friends, and ever optimistic Bills watching the scoreboard for help. History suggests you're wasting your time week after week going through all the combinations and which team needs to win and which team needs to lose.

You asked the right questions for sure. Who? it's easy for us to identify positions of weakness and I do it too. But that means all I am is a critic. I comment on problems without providing specific solutions. So when we say the Bills need a franchise QB who do people have in mind? Do we believe Tony Romo might be expendable in Dallas this off-season and for a reasonable price the Bills should make a play for him? Maybe, I don't know how much Tony has left in the tank, if he would be open to coming to the Bills, or how good fit he would be with the team. What about other QB free agents. None of the QB's that might hit the market look like upgrades to me. And the draft? I haven't seen much consistency out of the 'top' rated QB's I've watched. Maybe somebody emerges out of the combine? So yeah, who do we have in mind for a QB upgrade?

Safety, Right Tackle, NT, WR

Darby played well last year but something is wrong there. Undisclosed nagging injury? Trouble at home maybe? But from what I see the Bills problem is simply that most of their DB's lack good coverage skills. Can you teach a guy to turn and look for the ball when its coming? Watch the receivers eyes for a clue. Or fall for an out or in fake then get burned deep? Or leave such big holes in the zone that receivers are standing alone with no defender within 10 yards? Learn and apply what the ref's will call for holding and illegal contract and what they won't call? Sorry, but you don't need some super-duper coach to figure this stuff out.

in retrospect maybe trading away two very good players in Chandler Jones and Jamie Collins weren't good decisions?

Yard clean up of leaves that have fallen off the trees and blown onto my lawn from down the street. Take the deck furniture down to the basement for winter.