All_Pro_Bills

Yes. I saw somewhere, and I cannot recall where, that one of the terms on the trade was the Bills and McCoy were to 're-work' his current contract. That would relieve some of the cap hit in 2015 and in return give McCoy some guaranteed money in 2016. Something his current deal doesn't provide. This is expected before the 3/10 official date for trades. If this condition is not met then I would think the trade agreement would be voided. Doubt it would come to this. But after letting his emotions cool off I can't imagine why McCoy would reject the trade. Absent any other alternative, why would he want to stay someplace where he is obviously no longer wanted?

What Marrone could have said was "I tried to leverage a 9-7 season with the Bills into an extension for myself and some of the coaching staff along with increased say over personnel but the new ownership refused. So from my perspective I was left with no choice other than to opt out of my contract with the Bills and pocket $4M while pursuing other head coaching openings. I thought the Jets job was going to be mine but a lot of negative reports came out in the press and owner Woody Johnson got cold feet and rejected the advice of his advisors and went in another direction. Things starting to go south at that point with the other openings. I cancelled an interview with Denver because I knew they were going another direction and I didn't want to waste my time. I could have got a 'consulting' gig down in Houston but I took the offensive line position here in Jacksonville because by my estimation Gus has a good chance of being fired during the course of next season because the Jaguars should be bad again and that might leave me an opportunity to promote to the head coaching job here".

If I was calling the plays in that situation with 2nd and goal at the 1 I would have run Lynch 3 straight times if necessary. I didn't see the game clock as inhibiting doing this. And if the Patriots stopped me then I'd be able to say we gave it our best shot and they stopped us and they deserved the victory. I could live with the outcome without any reservations or doubt whatsoever. And I'd feel absolutely no need to gave the second guessers any type of explanation. But there's no way around it, the way they lost leaves you feeling they gave the game away.

I haven't read the entire thread because of the lengthy topic so I appologize if this has been discussed but the Seahawks also wasted 2 timeouts on their final drive. The first on a 2nd and 10 from the Patriots 49 and the second after the Kearse catch down to the 6. In both instances the game clock was stopped but the 40 second play clock was about to expire. The first on an incomplete pass and the second on a tackle out of bounds. Whether or not the playcall was delayed or the offense didn't line up fast enough this is simply unacceptable given the context of the Super Bowl and the situation. You have 40 seconds to get the play called and the offense set in the biggest game of the season and there's no sense of urgency so you need to waste 2 timeouts. If they had all 3 or even 2 of their timeouts rather than 1 it might have impacted the 2nd and goal from the 1 call which resulted in the interception. That said, there was plenty of time on the playclock to run 3 plays from the 1 even if they chose to run Lynch 3 times. They blew it.

No problem, I can take it. It might be your opinion of Mr. Brand's talent and accomplishments are quite a bit higher than mine. I think the guys a second-teir comedic talent. When I see Katy Perry and consider her to be potential 'A' list it appears to me she traded down. And I haven't done too bad with the ladies either having been with a decent number of chicks that were way hotter than her at that age, so on that I wouldn't concede any runaway victory to the guy.

Really dude?

What I don't get is why she was ever married to Russell Brand?

The idea that a locker room attendant acted independently without the consent or knowledge of a control freak coach is total absurdity. If this is actualy something the league and the Patriots are going to suggest happened then we've gone past the point of comedy. When hearing this rolling on the ground uncontrolled laughter is the appropriate response. If I was league spokesman I would be unable to make this statement to any press conference because I would just burst out laughing like Jimmy Fallon used to do on a Saturday Night Live skit. All crimes have one thing in common, motive. I've yet to see any official explanation of why a ball boy/locker room attendent would on his own deflate footballs to a specific pressure without a clear motive. Because he heard Brady liked 'soft balls' in his hands (a source of jokes itself). What was in it for him? There would be no compensation, no public recognition, no reward whatsoever. How did he know what the lower pressure value should be? Where did he get that information? Who told him? This excuse sounds like something a 5 year old would make up. My apologies to all 5 year olds to have in any way compared you to that slimeball Belichek and the doucebag Patriots organization..

What else should we epect to hear from a self-absorbed narcissist who is now playing the victim rather than the perp.

Topic should read 'NJ Super Bowl'.

The problem is absolutely nobody is going to believe the equipment manager acted on his own with a control freak like Belichek running the show. The motive is simply too weak to be plausible. On the morning WFAN radio show today out of NYC I heard a discussion with a TSA 'profiler' who said he and his peers watched and analyzed the press conference interviews with Belichek and Brady and all of them came to the same conclusion. Both were lying and most likely were completely aware of what was going on with the deflated balls..

My gut says given all the bad press about what some are calling DeflateGate the league would probably be happy if NE lost SB49. That would end the story right then and there. And if by some miracle we see the Patriots get called for offensive holding, Brady gets hit and there's no roughing call, or if Gronk actually gets a PI call for pushing off arms fully extended against the defender for the first time ever then I'll be really suspicious.

In New Jersey in Jets/Giants territory. In general nobody knew the details and rationale behind Marrone leaving. They just knew the guy opted out and assumed it was a bad situation. Nothing much out of Giants fans, they've got their own problems this season. Only one Giant fan said anything. 'Great hire (laugh, laugh) to which I said you won't be laughing when the Bills kick the Giants asses up and down the field next season. Jets fans... I know some that have season tickets and actually follow the league and know whats going on with other teams. They haven't said much of anything, non-commital, they seemed stunned. They know the contention between Izick and Ryan was a major contributor to the teams dysfunction. Many blame owner Woody Johnson for putting that in place. And over time I've found that Jets fans carry a sense of impending doom which is much greater than any thoughts of negative expectations Bills fans might carry. Which to some might appear to be impossible. Most are afraid to express a view one way or another out of fear that if they say its a good hire the Bills might be better and if they say Ryan sucked then the Bills might play better. Karma tells them.. keep their mouth shut and pray.

Revis is scheduled to be paid $25M in 2015. So either NE pays the $25M, renegotiates the deal, or voids the contract, thereby sending Revis to free agency. And rumor has it that both Rex and Revis are open to entertain a reunion. So while I don't expect Revis to be on the Bills opening day defense I also wouldn't say there's no chance of it.

Whoever is calling the defense I just never want to see the 3-man rush on 3rd and long against Brady ever again. 9 times out of 10 he gets all day to find an open guy for 10+ yards to get the 1st..

Exactly. In those situations you have to weigh the benefits of playing for field position vs. the cost of losing time on the game clock by surrendering the ball to the opponent by punting. Sure your defense might pull off a 3 and out but the cost might be using all your timeouts or around 3 minutes on the game clock. And when you get the ball back, unless you get a great return or a blocked punt, your offense will be starting at no better field position then you faced on the 4th and 1. Net being you're faced with the exact same problem with less time to solve it. In the Thursday night Miami game when Marrone decided to punt given the score, time remaining, the situation, after the punt I turned off the game and went to bed. I figured if the HC wasn't interested in trying to win the game then why stay up any later than I had to at that point. I wonder how many of the players felt the same way?

Trading Lamonica to the Raiders was the worst. Trading Lynch to the Seahawks is looking worse and worse. The Watkins trade up? Not even close. First Watkins is not a bust, far from it. He'll be a #1 WR in this league for years. The Bills swapped 1st rounders last year and give up a 1 and a 4 this year. The moaning and groaning here about surrendering the 2015 1st rounder is based on the premise that the team somehow gave up a pick that could have been a 'franchise QB'. Fact is there's no slam dunk franchise QB is available in this coming draft at the 19th spot. There's two top prospects and after that the talent level drops to 3rd/4th round territory. Then there's the hypothetical debate about how things would have turned out if they kept the 9th slot and drafted somebody else (i.e. Beckham). Anybody can back-test the draft, second guess any teams picks, and select top performers with the help of hindsight. In total, I think Whaley's done more to add solid players to this roster through the draft, trades, free agency, and waiver pick ups, than any front office guy since things started rolling downhill after the 1999 season. Look at those drafts and the only one I see that had more hits than strikeouts was the 2001 draft. Is he perfect? No, but nobody is in this business. I expect Whaley and the front office will have another productive off season and that along with upgrades in the coaching ranks is going to propell this team forward.

We can all speculate but time will tell which way things go, up, down, or nowhere. My expectation is things continue to improve as long as the front office proceeds with making improvements to the roster with a coach that is aligned with and knows how to use the players to their best. And maybe Ryan attracts some players that would otherwise not consider Buffalo. Rumor has it Revis might want to reunite with Ryan and if the Bills could pull that off the CB tandem of Gilmore and Revis supported by Graham and McKelvin would be deadly. One thing for certain the Bills with Ryan will develop a brash and in-your-face identity. Other than a team with no good QB (which is all I hear in the national media when discussing the hire) an identity is something I found lacking for a long time. Whether you like this new identity or not is a matter of personal preference. One benefit is this attitude infects and engages the home crowd 8 times a year and makes RWS a miserable place to play for the visitors.

I more or less agree and the jury is still out here regardless of how many 'expert' opinions there are out there. There seemed to be something fundamentally wrong with the Marrone/Hackett offense. So how can we be certain that EJ can or cannot be a productive NFL QB with the right coaching and system? Bringing that is my expectation of Ryan/Roman here. How many players regressed under the Marrone/Hackett offense? The offensive line was awful across the board with even Wood and Glenn falling off. What happened to Hairston? He was a competent starter at one time and couldn't even sniff the field most of the season. Even Orton, who I thought started out well, seemed to have the life sucked out of him by the end of the season. The fact is we don't need the offense to light it up here. Just protect the football a little better and score 7 points a game more would get us close to 12 wins with the current defense which we can expect to be even more lethal next season.

I see the QB issue two ways at this point. Guys moaning and groaning about the QB situation see it as some kind of static situation that can't change. Its going to be dynamic and one of the big focuses of the organization in the off season now that the coaching decision has been made. There are options out there. We don't need a superstar but rather someone that is going to be marginally better than Orton/EJ. 1) We're going to get what I expect to be an unbiased set of new coaches, Ryan and Roman along with whoever they bring in to fill out the offensive staff, coming in with a blank slate to evaluate EJ and determine if he can become what Whaley invisioned when he was drafted two seasons ago. I expect them to evaluate then create and execute some kind of plan. 2) Whatever Ryan comes off as he's not stupid. He knows the QB was the major source of failure with the Jets. So there had to be dicussions during the interview process about the Bills QB situation. Word is Whaley talked up EJ as Plan '1A'. That's fine but if I'm going to take the HC job then I want to know we're going to have a plan '1B' to acquire either through free agency or trade another option under center. And we should see this unfold when the free agency period begins along with before and during the draft.

I'm less concerned about who is in charge of what than I am about everyone being aligned with the same system, philosophy, and approach to acquiring and identifying the necessary players to build the team and play a system everybody supports with their actions. There's a time for debate but once a course of action is set everybody has to get behind it. With Marrone it sounded like he refused to accept that time had passed and he was always rowing against the other guys in the boat.

Professional football is a physically demanding sport and those demands can cut a person's lifespan significantly. Watching Peyton Manning over the last 5 or 6 weeks you can see a huge drop in his play. Sometimes it happens gradually and sometimes all at once. This is a case of the latter. 39 is not old but it is for football and usually the players still active at that age are punters and placekickers that don't get hit very often. Can he come back next year and recover his abilities? Maybe, but he'd be wise to call it a career and not expose himself to the potential for any signifcant injury beyond what he already has suffered. As for Denver they went 'all in' with the defense this year and that group didn't show up yesterday. And Manning didn't play well. All of which spells an exit from the playoffs. My bet is New England vs. Seattle SB which would make a pretty good game..

The question is, all other things equal, would the Bills be better than 9-7 with Beckham instead of Watkins?

The Giants offense was designed to push the ball downfield to the wide receivers while Marrone's Bills offense this season was designed to create 4th and 1 situations in order to play a field position strategy, play good defense, and put special teams into a position to kick as many FG's as possible.

The media didn't force Marrone out. He left because he saw a chance to pocket $4M and leverage his 'resurrecting' the Bills myth into another lucrative deal with another NFL team for more money and more control. From what has transpired so far that appears to be the Jets. And even if the media did run him out of town that only shows he's an emotional weakling that isn't suiting for a HC job where interacting with the press and dealing with potential criticism is a certainty. My theory is most of what he did and didn't do during the course of the season was aligned with his objective of putting himself in a position to make his next move. Defense and FG's won 9 games, not the genuis and superior coaching skills of Doug Marrone.