Sisyphean Bills

Dink and dunk. No turnovers — sounds like the Trentative Edwards era.

Bring that hat over here ... sticks hand in hat, rummages around, pulls out a slip of paper ... I got, "He didn't see injuries happening." In the small font underneath: "They never do."

Blonde? Is that really an attribute one can differentiate upon?

Hmm. Has anybody that was actually present at this tailgate corroborated Klemko's version of the story?

Nicely hedged compliment. Indeed, Rex's system does deserve credit and can get plays out of players, like Aaron Maybin, who aren't going to make other teams' rosters.

Does this mean that to fix the defense more coaches were hired to teach the Rex scheme and on offense the Bills got rid of the coach and made things simpler? Makes perfect sense.

This is only partly true. Whaley has gone for "the bomb" on a couple of occasions in the draft. Many NFL GMs took Shaq off their draft boards because of his medical e v a l. Whaley and the Bills went for it. Williams wasn't on everyone's draft board because of his issues at FSU. Whaley and the Bills went for it. I'm not even laying this purely on Whaley, as the Bills have a history of doing this. The circus that led up to the EJ Manuel "panic buy" could be blamed on the old clown rather than the guys that did the leg work, I guess. But the system of high-risk picks didn't start there. The Willis McGahee pick. The Aaron Maybin pick. Trading up for the bust McCargo, hoping he'd be as good as Haloti Ngata. Spiller when they had Lynch. The trade for JP Losman because the Aaron Rodgers class was no good. His job is to wed the roster with the coaching staff's philosophies and do it all while managing the cap and contracts. Mario Williams quitting last year was a bad sign in that regard. The free fall of the defense was deeply troubling. EJ Manuel's struggles haven't shown the Bills have improved in QB evaluation. It's not all Doug Whaley's fault, obviously. But I disagree with the summary. Doug Whaley's job as GM is to put together all of the parts of a winning organization. Anybody with a copy of Ourlads can "find" talent.

Well, they painted themselves into a corner. Buddy spouted off to anyone that would listen that Fitz was no longer an option going forward, and they ended up dumping him on the scrap heap before the draft. Some might shift blame or call that leadership, but it left them with no alternative other than having to roll the dice in the draft on a QB. But what's even more surprising is that these professional talent evaluators went through all this prior to a draft with the weakest QB class since the one where the Bills drafted Trent Edwards. Of course, we could just shrug and mutter "bad luck" under our breath...

Clearly, he doesn't have time to install a whole new verbiage or draft/trade/sign all new players. But guess what? There is more to football plays and how a coach goes about calling those plays given his players strengths and the opponents weaknesses than the verbiage. The point is that Lynn needs to get it in gear as soon as the green flag comes out. It sounds like he fully gets that and has already started making tweaks. It's not a perfect situation, obviously. But that's life. It's not about moaning about the timing of when you get handed the steaming bucket of poo, it's about what you do with it.

Fixed. Why wouldn't someone expect Rex Ryan to be outcoached by Bill Belichick? Seems like it's a given. Like the Sun rising in the morning.

What I heard is that they wanted him back, but only at a particular cap number, precisely because they weren't willing to gamble and face scuttling their ship on a guy who may or may not pan out in the long game. Osweiler looked massively mediocre in that game.

The bigger question is whether the 4th string QB will call "Rex Ryan" as part of his signals before lobbing a TD pass.

They made some calls that went so far beyond dumb, dumb was lost under the horizon. <shakes head>

It's September. I checked.

Making Elway look like a genius. Again.

Is this a serious question? Tom Brady almost certainly would've, like other unfinished QBs with talent but without any support (see Drew Henson), passed through the NFL unnoticed ages ago if not for Mo Lewis' hit on Bledsoe and The Evil One setting him like a lump of silly putty on his potter's wheel and molding him into a legend.

He's from the Buddy Ryan coaching tree ...

How can you not give Brandon some of the blame? He is the owner whisperer. He was Ralph Wilson's right arm man for many years. In fact, with each spin of the revolving door with respect to coaches and middle managers, Ralph bestowed upon Russ a promotion. Let that sink in for a second. At the end, Russ was acting as the owner of the team and calling all the shots. How is it then that one can say he has had nothing at all to do with any decision making? Because the buck veers left and bypasses him? How does one try to neat it up with a mental exacto knife that none of the decisions (or indecisions) ever made even partially by Russ Brandon have had any effect on the product of a franchise with the longest playoff drought in professional sports? It's impressive, actually. I've never heard of a top executive being so lily-white when his company is, in his own words, "tarnished." And sure, the GMs and HCs haven't done a great job. But Brandon has had a hand in spinning that revolving door. We can say Marv Levy or Buddy Nix or Rex Ryan or whoever we want was a crap hire. But who was in the room on all of those? It wasn't the guy selling the beer in the stands.

The irony is that while we are celebrating the Bills staying in Buffalo, they stayed in Buffalo by keeping costs low, selling home games to a foreign city to pad their profit numbers, and, football-wise, being run like a farm team for the rest of the NFL.

What about flowers? Flowers are nice.

C'mon, man. The Sabres have gone from terrible to mediocre.

So what you are saying is: we should tap the Clemson well every year.

Opening a roster spot for Spiller?

It turned the Seahawks around anyway. As far as Spiller, everything looks easier in football when you run against air.

True. Jared is busy golfing? Is that why he's a no-show as the Rams QB? (Sounds a bit too much like one Trent Edwards. Egads. )