hondo in seattle

I used to pound the continuity drum. I just can't do it anymore. I don't believe this is a great roster. But it's an average one. And with an average-ish head coach, we're getting average-ish results. Give him a better roster, Rex will win more games. But he's not getting us to the Super Bowl. And that's the goal.

We've collectively endured some low points this year. Can you imagine, though, losing to the Browns?

It's a different story because he switched clubs, but Belichick wasn't an instant success as a HC. I bet Browns fans - in retrospect - wished they had believed in continuity when the team fired Bill. I think head coaches need time to (1) learn how to be a good HC, (2) get the right coaches onboard, and (3) perfect and implement their systems.

I really don't get why anyone is surprised that Russ attends these meetings. First of all, Terry and Kim almost certainly decide who attends (owners generally select attendees). Second, Russ is the President of the organization. Shame on him if he didn't want to attend. The leaders of good organizations meet regularly to share information and stay aligned. If Russ started telling Rex who to start or how to game-plan, I'd be worried. But there's no evidence of that. In fact, Rex just said today, "I have the final say on who's out there or whatever."

I've kind of been a 'continuity' guy for a while now. We'll never become a playoff team if we keep blowing the thing up and starting over again every 2 or 3 years. But I've seen nothing from DW or Rex that tells me they can perform their jobs at the playoff level. Both strike me as frustratingly average. Not Cleveland Browns bad, certainly. But not guys who will get the Bills into the playoffs.

I still have some hope that TT will develop into a franchise QB. But it's not a lot of hope. Then there's the pragmatic issue: who else is available? I say sign him to a renegotiated contract and do our best to find a good QB (FA or draft) in the offseason. TT will be our insurance policy in case we can't find an improvement.

Brandon is the "President" of the Bills franchise. So of course he's involved. The open question is how involved is he in football decisions? Or, to say it differently, how much blame does he bear? Without more information than TG presented, I'd hesitate to share an opinion. But we can see from the product on the field that something's going wrong. The Bills aren't terrible, they just aren't good. And those two observations worry me because average, middle-of-the-pack performances usually don't cost a guy his job or bring about dramatic change. Looking at the roster, Whaley hasn't done a terrible job. But he's clearly not a top echelon GM. Looking at the team's W-L record, Rex isn't doing a terrible job. But he's no Bill Belichick. Looking at his on field performance and passer rating, TT isn't terrible. But he's no Tom Brady. Are any of these guys so bad they should be replaced? Well, if the Super Bowl is our goal, then maybe all of them need to go because none of them are producing at the Super Bowl level.

Sometimes I think the Bills biggest problem is that we're not bad enough. * Doug Whaley has not acquired talent on pace with the very best GMs in the league. But he's not bad enough to replace. * Rex isn't coaching as well as the best coaches in the league. But he's not bad enough to get fired. * Taylor isn't quarterbacking at the level of the best QBs in the league. But he's not bad enough to get benched or cut. While I often find myself agreeing with the continuity crowd, I also worry about not being bad enough. In winning organizations, being average in a key position is unacceptable. Being average is failure. The goal isn't to be average. The goal is to win Super Bowls.

I hear you Bill. I certainly wouldn't want the Bills to hire the guy. But the job of a coach is to win games. The exactly average coach wins half and loses half. Fisher (.515) is ever-so-slightly above .500. That makes him an ever-so-slightly above-average coach. Though I wouldn't disagree if you said those five 8-8 seasons pretty much defined the man. He does, though, get to the playoffs once every 3 or 4 years. That's better than Bills coaches have done collectively over the past 16 years.

Didn't notice that live. Knocks two defenders away from Tyrod. Impressive.

The coaches and players who have publicly talked about Cardale all seem to agree that he's just not ready yet. Why open the bottle of wine before it's been properly aged?

He's not a great NFL coach. But he's won more than he's lost. That makes him a better-than-average coach. 173-162-1.

Funny topic title. First game with all our starters - but not really. Yeah, it's been that kind of year: We're excited when we line up 10 of 11 starters.

This is all negotiation. My guess is that the Bills actually want Tyrod back, but for less than the $27.5 mil stipulated in the contract right now. So they want him to think that the Bills think he's expendable - force him to look at his options which probably aren't great.

Didn't Marcus return a punt for a TD for us once??? Can't remember much else about him. Cool, though, he still sports Bills logos.

Whaley - we have to play 60 minutes. Whatever happened in Oakland shows that cliche is out there for a reason. #Bills Whaley - The loss against Oakland was a good learning experience for this team. It taught us that we need to finish games #Bills Whaley - I believe it's been the lack of focus and consistency is why we're 6-6. #Bills Whaley - We have shown we can play against some of the best in the NFL, but we have to play a full 60 minutes. #Bills I tend to like Doug but some of his comments here disappoint me. He thinks the players need to learn to finish games. How do you learn that? Is he going to give a class? He says they have to play for 60 minutes. What's going on now? They play football for 40 minutes and video games for the other 20? It's like he's saying the players he's acquired are capable of so much more but they haven't been coached and energized by the coaches sufficiently. In other words, the mediocrity is Rex's fault, not Doug's. I'm not defending Rex but I think the reason we don't finish games - and play inconsistently - is because we're just not that good. Injuries are part of this, too. The players we're lining up aren't as good as the players the better teams line up against us. So eventually there's a breakdown. We didn't lose to Oakland because of some psychological weakness. We lost because they have better players (especially at the QB position). Doug has got to take some accountability. He hasn't yet acquired enough talent for this team to make the playoffs.

I hadn't seen this before. Surprisingly accurate/prescient. You got to keep reading the con section to put those positives in their right perspective. The guy nails TT.

Based on what I've seen, EJ might be a more accurate thrower. Tyrod is a far better runner. If we plan to run against the Steelers, TT probably gives us the best chance of winning. But if we have to play catchup, EJ might be a better choice. I've only seen Cardale in some meaningless preseason games. I'm not sure how I'd evaluate him. Yep

I don't see how TT doesn't renegotiate. If he's cut by the Bills, what would he get on the open market? The Bills just need to offer him more than that.

Unless you have insider knowledge, I don't know how you can blame Brandon - or Kim, or Terry, or whoever. Nor do I understand why we need to look that hard. It's clear that our roster is not as talented as some others. Blame Whaley. And it's clear that we're not coached as well as some other teams. Blame Rex. I don't see why we need to look farther than the obvious. While neither guy is horrible, Whaley is no Bill Polian and Rex is no Bill Belichick. They're both pretty average at their jobs and they're giving us average teams. The question is, I guess, is this their ceiling? Will they learn from their mistakes? Will they make changes to their staffs to better the results? If not, let's move on. If we don't move on in an appropriate time frame, it becomes time to blame Terry and Kim. I'm not there yet.

It was a good O versus a mediocre (not bad), banged up D. I imagine things would have been different if Darby, A. Williams, and some others were playing. But, yeah, I get the idea that Rex is supposed to be a defensive guru and he's not performing guru things.

I agree with much of this but I don't agree with the thought that the playoffs are unattainable with Tyrod. Since ALynn took over as OC, the Bills offense has been scoring an above-average number of points and grinding out an average amount of yardage. If you combined that offense with a first rate defense, the Bills would get into the playoffs. In fact, if we had just stayed healthy this year, we might have made the playoffs. But I agree with the gist of the post - Tyrod is not performing like a franchise QB. But before we ditch the guy, let's find someone better. Let's not enter 2017 like we entered 2015.

True enough. But good coaches with bad players don't win very much. Marv Levy was a loser in KC but a winner in Buffalo. Bill Belichick was a loser in Cleveland but a winner in New England. I wish the Kraft family thought like you, evaluated Belichick on his losing record, and never hired him.

You're right. Our talent issue is often a consistency issue. TT, our secondary, our RT, etc. - and our coaching staff - have all been terribly inconsistent. Both our coaching and our QB play have been putrid at times. There's some talent on the roster and in the coaching ranks. The gaps in important spots, though, are killing us.

I disagree. I mean you can't really disagree with "Team just aren't afraid of this" or "No excuse for this collapse." But I think the real issue is simply the obvious issue: the players they're lining up are better than the players we're lining up. Then there's the other issue: the other team's coaches are sometimes better than our coaches. I don't think our losses come down to character, effort, swagger or anything like that. I think it's all about talent.