CodeMonkey

Nothing. It's not you, its them. For some reason they think that dumping a HC after not only his first year as the Bills HC, but his first year as a NFL HC in favor of a DC who has never been a HC and in his first year as a DC out of Rex Ryans shadow did no more than a good job. He had a bunch of talent to work with and still the Bills defense was pretty bad against the run. Idiotic in my opinion. I very much want him to stay on as DC and see what he can do. But the concept of firing Marrone and promoting Pettine out of fear is pure overreaction in my opinion.

Those who can do. Those who can't pretend they can on ESPN.

I don't know. Why do they have to sell it to fans? But even if they feel they need to, I strongly suspect Cleveland fans are a lot like Buffalo fans. A great many support the team no matter what. Case in point, Gailey. The Bills had sucked for quite a while when Gailey was hired. There was no credible reason to think he would make a good head coach based on his past performance. Yet many Bills fans, even in here, were very excited that the Bills managed to pull off some sort of a coup and land him. Citing Jerrah's "worst mistake" firing him etc. Many Browns fans would be excited to get Pettine much like Bills fans were with Gailey. And with Pettine there is at least SOME reason for excitement.

That is a mistake (in my opinion) that many make. You can just as easily say they were a few plays away from a 3 win season as well. It's the ability to make those few plays in a lot of cases that determines the season.

For me anyway local media over reacting to every mistake or loss and immediately calling for drastic action from upper management or the season is over would be "playoffs or bust".

No worries. I can see where it could have been misinterpreted.

The question I was responding to, I believe, was if fans, media, and upper management would treat this season as "playoffs or bust". My response regarding local media was they would not be any harder on Marrone than they were this year. Nothing more, nothing less. Maybe I needed to be more specific so ... I do not think the local media will treat this season as "playoffs or bust".

As always, some of the fans will hold the team accountable. But the hard core will continue to buy seasons and merchandise just as they have the last 14 years. They don't ever treat it as playoffs or bust. The local media seems similar to me. They won't go any harder at Marrone than this year, even if there is a slow start. The national media will have Marrone on a "death watch" if there is no improvement this season, but playoffs or bust mentality from them I doubt. Upper management, who knows. Their job, in my opinion, is to do what all good managers do. That is, create an environment where the people under them can thrive. Certainly they will be busy trying to boost ticket sales. As to anything else, we will see.

Pay the man, but with minimal guarantee. Let him compete with Hopkins in camp and preseason. If Carpenter wins out, he gets paid. If not, no harm to the Bills.

assign depth charts - Maybe call plays and formations situationally - Probably not This is what I believe he is talking about as well. And include who to draft (determine BPA for example) as well.

Slam dunk. The Bills alone have proven that for years.

Spell checkers seem to get the it's one wrong a lot too Didn't even notice except ... ha!

How about spelling?

Interesting take. By that reasoning the Bills should have kept Gailey, Jauron etc.

How about the Lynch haters who would have to choose between Lynch and Brady

Marrone is covering for his friend, and/or somehow still believes he is a good ST coach (which is a scary thought). I believe this is clear for reasons stated earlier in this thread. "much more" is subjective. But I do believe the Bills were more talented this year than in years past. But the Bills had sucked for the previous 13 seasons. That is a very long time. Being more talented in that case simply means they still sucked, but they sucked less than they had previously. Couple that with a rookie QB who is a project, rookie coaches that the jury is very much still out on, so anyone that thought the Bills were going to be challenging for the playoffs this year were viewing the Bills through red and blue colored glasses in my opinion. My opinion from the beginning of the season was that 8-8 would have been a very successful season. I will state now though that next season should end above .500 with Marrone and Manuel both showing substantial improvement or I will be one of the people looking to make changes ... again.

I believe they are all of these factored in.

Seattle is the perfect environment for him. Not to mention a better team in general than the Bills in every way. That trade was far and away the best thing that ever could have happened to him. No reason to hate on Lynch. Even if he had stayed in Buffalo he would not have performed like he has for Seattle anyway, People just need to let it go.

He is a student whose major is football, that's how. But he could not possibly qualify as a student in the general sense at even a high school, much less a university.

I'm sure he was the Bills BPA because Gailey really wanted a skatback for whatever reason. But I have doubts that he was the BPA on most teams boards at #9.

I believe this to be the cause of a lot of the angst in general. Many thought, and still think, the 2013 Bills had enough talent to make the playoffs, or at the very least achieve the elusive 8-8 mark.

II have always been of the opinion that having football, or any major sports program, tied to a university made no sense. A lot of future pro football players for example would not have the intelligence to pull their weight academically at a school like Ohio State, USC, Harvard, etc. The may have the grades required to get into these schools, but they could be based on special treatment at the high school level as well. I would like to see sports divorced from colleges and have the teams part of a junior system like they have for hockey in Canada or soccer in a lot of European countries. Why pretend that some of these athletes are more than what they are. They are fooling no one.

This is very logical and I could see that happening. Few can make a good argument against BPA.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2013/12/30/the-nfl-on-xbox-one-and-surface-your-own-personal-gridiron.aspx

I don't follow tackle football at all except for the Bills.