hondo in seattle

Good find, NoSaint. This isn't news but makes you wonder how this year might be different... "Supporting the claim that establishing the run doesn’t necessarily mean play-action success are last year’s Bills (minus-.18 EPA). Buffalo led the league in rushing attempts but ranked last in EPA/play on play-action. For a team like the Bills, those numbers tend to have a significant relationship. Head coach Doug Marrone’s tendency to lean on his ground game was a way to protect his group of young quarterbacks, a group that isn’t set up to make the quick reads necessary on play-action throws."

Yep. Good points.

"The circus that has been masquerading as the sale of the Buffalo Bills has received three non-binding bids to date, each below $900 million, according to two sources familiar with the sale of the National Football League team. Both of these sources are not directly involved in the sale as of yet." Are these sources any better than the other sources reporting different numbers? And, more to the point, do we care - as long as a Buffalo loyalist wins the bidding?

Long successful coaching careers don't always have auspicious beginnings. In his one year as a NFL OC, BIll Walsh's Chargers scored below the league average. In his first two years as a HC with the 49ers, he finished 2-14. BB went 36-44 as HC of the Browns before finding success with the Pats. Marv Levy went 4-12 his first year as a NFL HC, 2-5 his first partial season with the Bills. Marrone is a young HC. Hackett is a young OC. Both need to grow and improve and they probably will.

I mostly agree. But I think W/L record is way overrated. Flutie (or, Tebow, more recently) didn't win on the strength of their quarterbacking. They got wins from the play of their defenses.

We don't know who the new owner will be. We don't know his football philosophy. We don't know if he'll keep Whaley or Brandon. We don't know how well Marrone will do this season. But we do know Marrone will be fired when the season is over. Does this make sense?

Certainly seems like what they're shooting for. But it's awfully late in the game. And who - besides JBJ - really needs Kelly? And who - besides the TO Group - really needs JBJ? Pegula and Golisano can both do the deal on their own. Maybe Trump could use Kelly for PR reasons.

While I am concerned about Hackett, I'm not concerned about his preseason red zone play calling. I'm decidedly in the camp that says preseason is for practicing plays and evaluating talent. It's not a time for creative play-calling.

He's proven that good defense can still win games in the NFL.

Thanks eball. I missed the game due to living in the ever-overcast, far-away-from-Buffalo Pacific Northwest. While it's nice to know the Bills can move the ball offensively, the inability to find the endzone is concerning. Hopefully it's just a preseason, statistical aberration based on a limited unrandom sample.

Yeah, it was OL coach Pat Morris who called Kujo "Venus de Millo." But no matter the source, it's not a compliment to be likened to an immobile statue by your position coach. Not an auspicious beginning to Kujo's NFL career.

Um, who listens to Rodak?

If Tuel is indeed #2 on the Bills squad, it's because he's moved past Thad who would be better than #31 on this list. So to see Tuel at #31 doesn't seem to make sense. It's hard to judge Tuel for the some of the same reasons it's hard to judge EJ: rookie with limited reps, no QB coach, first time OC.

Interesting find. Thanks.

"Per Chris Brown, Bills unlikely to sign Hughes if he has another good..." So we'll only resign him if he has a bad year?

I do get the impression that a lot of players would probably prefer not to play in Buffalo. However, when the Bills express interest in a FA, he starts doing his due diligence and talking to players, coaches, agents and others about Buffalo. And while some will say the night life and weather sucks, others will say the fans are awesome. A lot of ex-Bills have great things to say about their time in Buffalo. And then the FA starts reconsidering his low opinion of the Bills. But, as others have already said, the biggest thing (next to money) is winning. When the Bills start winning again, FAs will start looking differently at Buffalo.

It's great Henderson is exceeding expectations but I'm still worried that Kujo is being called Venus De Milo by his own coach: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000377602/article/bills-coach-cyrus-kouandjio-could-be-venus-de-milo I really want all 3 rooks to shine because our O Line needs to improve upon 2013. I hope the link shared by FeartheLosing is a better indicator of where Kujo is heading.

This has been discussed in other threads but, yeah, as business investments go this is a bad one. Your EBITDA (or any other measure of profit) will never justify the purchase price. What might justify the purchase price is the sale price when you sell the club years later. You have to bet that the NFL remains insanely popular and the market for NFL franchises stays overheated. Of course, there are a lot of perks to being an NFL owner. These can justify the price.

It would have been nice to hear Whaley say Spiller will not be traded. His equivocal remark reminds me of Bon Jovi's statement about the Bills in Buffalo. Though I suppose if Spiller was on the market, at least one club would have inquired about him. So my guess is Spiller is not on the market. And I think that is very good. When you have a young, unproven QB it's very useful to have a stable of productive RBs.

Tim Graham says the Bills are Pegula's to lose and that seems more and more true as this process unfolds. http://www.wgr550.com/pages/9034669.php?pid=421136

Huh? I thought we stopped worrying about the length of men's hair back in the 60s! As the Yardbirds once sung: Can you judge a man By the way he wears his hair? Can you read his mind By the clothes that he wears? Can you see a bad man By the pattern on his tie? Chorus: Then Mister you're a better man than I Yeah Mister You're a better man than I Oh Mister You're a better man than I Yeah Mister You're a better man than I http://us.yhs4.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=mister+you%27re+a+better+man+than+i+Yardbirds+lyrics&ei=UTF-8&hspart=w3i&hsimp=yhs-synd1&type=W3i_DS,221,0_0,Search,20140105,19669,0,GC32,7743

When you consider that EJ was a rookie who missed most of preseason and was working for a rookie OC without a QB Coach, you have to say his stats were reasonably good. Regardless of the reasonably good rookie stats, the EJ haters see flaws in his game that will prevent him from reaching a higher level. EJ lovers see his rookie shortcomings as correctable and anticipate big things. Both sides make cogent arguments. Neither side is convincing the other. We might as well just let the season unfold and all see for ourselves who is right. (vp, thanks for the link - good article).

Heartbreaking.

There may be identifiable statistical patterns but there are no absolute rules in the projection of QB maturation. Jim Plunkett had five forgettable years in New England. He was equally mediocre in San Francisco for a couple years. Then he labored on as a backup for the Raiders for a couple more. Surely this guy was destined to be a career journeyman. Then in his 30s, Plunkett finally blossomed, putting up the best stats of his career and leading the Raiders to two Super Bowl wins. No statistician or football analytics guy could have looked at Plunkett in his 20s and predicted Plunkett's performance in his 30s. Football science will always be inexact. Players improve at different rates. And some players just need the right coach to get the best out of them.

Flutie didn't win games. Not with the Bills. Our defense won games. The Flutie-led offense was anemic (except, oddly, sometimes at the end of the 4th quarter).