OldTimer1960

Well this would truly suck. No good candidates on the current staff. No top candidates that are currently "on the street" AND any outsider is going to set the D back by changing schemes and coaches again. What a nightmare.

Will he bring Tom Brady? Brady, not the defense, is why NE has been competitive in the last 5 years.

What has Pepper Johnson ever done to deserve to be considered as a candidate to come in and be DC? He was a good player, yes. However, NE passed him over when they had an opening at DC - I think that the Pats know coaches... Besides, anyone coming in from the outside would likely change the scheme and shake up the other assistant coaches - the LAST thing the team needs is more turnover in coaching and schemes. I acknowledge that there isn't a viable DC on the current staff, but bringing someone in from the outside is another step back for this beleaguered franchise.

Jones is pretty old - he will be 30 in March. Veldheer has starting experience at OT, but given that, likely will command a good bit of $.

The Broncos' OC just removed himself from consideration. This isn't setting up nicely for the Bills at all. I would hate to see them lose Pettine. Not sure there are competent replacements available at this time, let alone anyone that could do as well as he did last year.

I don't disagree with you. I did say that in many organizations the coaches have input. That they don't have final say in every organization is true. FWIW, i understand and agree with your points about "what kind of player" are the scouts looking for?

This is a truly shameful thread. I am as envious and hateful of Brady's success as any Bills fan, but he is great - perhaps the best of all time. Also, did folks notice that without Gronk, Hernandez and many experienced WRs (heck, a receiving crew similar to what the Bills had this year), that he struggled more than usual? In my opinion, this suggests that the quality of receivers a QB has at least affects the QB's productivity. Many here don't seem to want to acknowledge that EJ Manuel was young, inexperienced, had lots of missed practice time and had a very young (and currently) pedestrian receiving corp. Give EJ a full season and Colin Kaepernick's receiving options, OL and RB and maybe, just maybe, his stats would be better.

This might be the ultimate TwoBillsDrive/StadiumWall BS. First, too many here don't understand how much of a crap-shoot the draft is - even in the top 10. Whitner wasn't a great pick, but by no means was he anything close to a bust. The first round, and top 10 specifically, are where you HOPE to find a very good to excellent player. That doesn't mean that a Pro-Bowl player is a given. I think Whitner is good to very good. He has holes in his game and thinks he is better than he is, but that describes 95% of the players in the NFL. Is it a shame that the Bills selected him above Haloti Ngata? Yes, for sure. However, you can play that game with every team in every round of most every draft. There are always picks that, in hindsight, would have been better than the guy that team A picked. The draft is an inexact art/science. There are far more variables involved than going to website X and looking at their ranking of players then declaring that they are right. I am 100% confident that with 32 teams there are also 32 unique top 32 player lists.

In many organizations scouting and player personnel decisions are made by the GM and scouts. The coaches have input, but nothing close to final say.

And so could every other team. Pete Carroll recently said that he was "talked into" drafting Wilson in the 3rd. Yes, it looks like Kaepernick and Wilson are going to be good NFL QBs, but yet every team passed on Kaepernick once and on Wilson twice. It was NOT a no-brainer.

Losing Pettine would be a BIG problem for the Bills. They were much improved on D and, unless there is a candidate already on staff to take over (and I don't see one), they would be forced likely into yet another scheme and likely another fully new defensive staff to be hired - after all the coaching candidates have been picked over by all the new staffs. Can this franchise ever catch a break?

Can we not escape this in any thread? How is it possible to know that Manuel is NOT the answer after 10 starts as a rookie, after having missed valuable preseason experience and in season practice time - and yet he still threw more TDs than INTS to a predominantly very young receiving crew?

Agreed - perception of coaches does move up and down - and maybe not for good reason. Henderson has at least had some success in the NFL. I agree with you. I thought that Marrone took steps in the right direction with regard to team unity/culture and discipline. This team fought hard and never quit in any games - something that previous Bills teams didn't always do. I also like that he disciplined marcel Dareus, but didn't drag it into the media. He kept that as in-house as he could and Dareus didn't seem to complain about the benching.

Agreed that it was better in certain categories and not in others, but there was a "just you can tell" overall improvement that was big. WRT to "how do I know there isn't anyone able to be promoted?", I didn't say that I knew that. I said it doesn't appear as though there is anyone. As to Donnie Henderson, he has kind of fallen off the map since he was DC of the Jets years ago. Maybe he could do it, his recent jobs out of the NFL don't suggest that many think he can.

While the defense was far from perfect, Mike Pettine made a real positive contribution and the D was SIGNIFICANTLY better this year than the year before. I hope that the Bills can retain him because there doesn't appear to be anyone on the staff capable/ready to be promoted to DC and I am not aware of any obvious candidates available on the street. Pettine did a very good job.

Why do people think that player quality on offense and defense matter, but think that Special Teams is 100% coaching? Now, I am not saying that Danny Crossman shouldn't be scrutinized for the poor "teams" last year, but maybe there is some truth to him not having a good "core' of players dedicated to Special Teams. Also, I think he had to deal with a LOT of turnover and new players on special teams, especially early in the year when it seemed that every DB on the roster was out injured. Early, the Bills were starting backup-backups at CB and S and filling in special teams with guys from the practice squad or guys just signed off the street. One more time, Crossman should be scrutinized. I am just saying that players also have a big hand in special teams success.

Agreed. I think that there are an elite few coaches who might be able to win with lesser talented players, but for the majority of coaches the results depend largely on the talent level they have to work with.

I think you can say that is a question about his game, but he was able to beat coverage cleanly in college - was he supposed to let college CBs cover him so that he could show that he can fight for the ball?

Maybe it means that the quality of players that a coach has to work with makes a difference (contrary to what some believe about special teams)

I was about to post almost the same thing, but you beat me to it. The Seahawks are essentially what (I think) Buddy Nix was trying to build. He drafted a lot of defense and he/Whaley drafted a good/not great QB prospect. If they want to continue in the Seahawk mold, they need to shore up the LB corp a bit, keep Byrd and fill in the OL a bit to improve the run game. I still think a great WR or TE would help open up the offense a lot. I just heard a stat that Colin Kaepernick was almost 5 percentage points better in completion percentage when he has all three of Michael Crabtree, Bolden and Vernon Davis - any of those 3 would have been the best/most experienced receiver on the Bills this year. Now, I think Robert Woods is going to be very good, but another good threat (preferably bigger, but not necessarily) would help a great deal.

Are you saying that Marcel Dareus is undersized? If so, I disagree. I am not sure that it takes much bigger players, but it definitely requires not leaving gaping holes for RBs to run through. Those holes aren't always caused by DL being man-handled by OL. Sometimes it is defenders not being in the right places

River's throwing motion is unorthodoxed, but is the OP really willing to call a 6'5"230lb+ pro football player a girl? Early nominee for dumbest/most disrespectful post of the year - and only 8 days into the new year!!!

I am serious and don't call me Shirley 😄

I admit that I am no scout and that I've seen only a few of his games, but even with immaturity issues aside, I don't know how well his game will translate to the NFL. Again only from what I've seen, many of his big plays are broken play runs and I think he'll find NFL defenders are faster. I think that his arm is OK, but he doesn't seem to throw a tight spiral and ducks die in strong winds. I also think that he lobbed a lot of passes up high that hung in the air and were complete because he had a big 6'5" receiver to bail him out. Now, to his credit, he knew that he could throw those passes and get away with it, but I wonder what he'd look like without that advantage.

I think the OP was arguing that Bobby April is considered to be a very good ST coach who has had good success in the league (including his stint in Buffalo), but his recent teams were not very good. So the conclusion is that either April suddenly got a lot worse as a coach (unlikely) or that the players that he had to work with matter more than many wish to acknowledge. BTW, I think the OP has made a good point.