Oberyn

I am sad that this was posted only because it is resulting in Prisco getting additional page views. He is far and away the dumbest writer I have seen on any website covering football. I would take any poster on TBD's list over what he put out.

Vote now! Two excellent choices...

Trust me bro, i've been against him since day one. Not that I have anything against Orton but after being discarded by 4 teams, you know he probably isn't a long term answer. It seemed obvious to me that the better long term solution for this team was to find out what they had in EJ so they know how to approach the 2015 draft rather than finish 8-8. But unfortunately the coaching staff decided that at 8-8 they might be able to save their jobs. If you doubt it you can check out my tweets to bills media figures complaining to them about how their analysis pinned blame on everyone but Orton whereas even when EJ was 2-0 at the beginning of the season they would kill him with every review they wrote.

I don't know about you guys, but I base all my football knowledge on what Deion Sanders says.

Never seen such blind devotion in my life to a mediocre journeyman qb who won 3 games by the skin of his teeth as bills fans to King Orton. I hope you are all FINALLY ready to admit that he was put in by a coaching staff desperate to save their own jobs at the expense of the future growth of this franchise.

Pft, I was all over Pettine becoming a head coach: http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/164838-worst-thing-that-could-happen-this-offseason/ However, after seeing Schwartz do what he has done against some pretty formidable offenses, I now think losing Pettine was a blessing in disguise.

Lol this was just what I was going to say. Their chicken little routine has nothing on what I see on this bills message board (and even worse in the local press!!!) after even the slightest hiccup in the Bills' performance.

This. Freeman would have been brought in if they wanted someone who could potentially replace EJ. What they want is someone who knows their week 1 opponent's playbook and has excelled in a mentor role. Palmer is the perfect choice for what they needed. A very savvy pickup by Whaley/Marrone.

Kudjo can never be in with Maybin merely due to the fact he was taken 30 picks later. And even if they were taken in the same spot of the draft, Kudjo's attitude alone puts him above Maybinot.

Another factor is the differences between each team and their playbooks/schemes/verbiage that make taking a player anytime after training camp very difficult. In baseball, there is essentially no difference between what a player does on one team and what they would do on another; if you are an outfielder, you cover the same ground, throw to the same cutoff man, and, of course, bat the same way. In football, for, say, a wide receiver, there are completely different route trees, hot reads, playcalling/line of scrimmage verbiage to pick up and understand, and, as is always discussed, the "chemistry" that has to develop between you and the QB so that you are on the same page. As an example, look at 2 years ago when Buffalo picked up Traveris Jackson - it was the week before the season, and he sat on the bench inactive all year despite the Bills having dreadful QB play because he never had the time/reps necessary to learn the playbook and the players and everything else that is necessary to be successful.

1. Johnny Manziel - Texans 2. Jadeveon Clowney - Rams 3. Blake Bortles - Jax 4. Khalil Mack - Raiders 5. Mike Evans - Jets

Interesting to me that people are attacking him for this. Honestly, his writing and cognitive ability seem far beyond that of his peers (Richard Sherman anyone?), so just let that go write off the bat. Further, his stated belief that he was not able to be as fully successful as a football player as he could have been due to the entertainment aspect is still a fairly new point. I mean sure, it's not like its NEVER been mentioned before, but to expect people who espouse a viewpoint to be offering one never before stated in the history of humanity is a little unrealistic. More importantly, he is absolutely correct. The NFL, despite all their outward anger towards New Jersey for daring to allow sportsbetting, knows that gambling through fantasy football is what is driving their popularity, and they go out of their way in every broadcast every day to give us fantasy footballers out information. Not only that, but they are altering the rules to allow us gamblers to get our precious offense that drives those fantasy football scores; refs are told to call even marginal pass interference, defensive holding ,espite only being a 5 yr penalty, gives a first down (and can basically be called every pass play), and QBs can not be touched as soon as they release the ball (and never below the knees or above the neck). Of course, the players (the ones who aren't benefiting through the current system anyway) tell themselves that the increase in popularity will increase their paycheck and that makes it ok that the sport they grew up in love with has been destroyed by the all mighty dollar. But, when you got a guy who doesn't care about the money, you can see why this would frustrate him, and he'd do something like retire at age 26. I have a lot of respect for people like Mendenhall, who actually have the gall to believe that they can make a living and be happy without the NFL trading them millions for their bodies.

I really do believe that SD is team most likely to follow in the mold of the Ravens last year, the Giants in 2011, and all the other teams over the past 6 years who end up making it to the Superbowl after having to win 4 or 5 games in a row just to make it into the playoffs. For whatever reason, it seems like the most important thing to winning playoff games these days is attitude and motivation, and being able to coast into the playoffs after a hot start and get a bye seems to destroy it whereas having 4 must win games leading up to the playoffs has the opposite effect. SD comes in as the hottest team in the NFL, and their stats, especially on D, have gone up over the course of the process. For example, with regards to SDs D, yes its 29th over the year, but it is at the league average DVOA since week 13. There is no reason to suspect it will revert this week. Also, the Chargers were the best team in the league at third down conversions...which is exactly whey they can play keepaway from Manning. If SD has blown out the Chiefs in week 17 I think there is a very different perception of them. But since they napped through there game (and come on, be honest - it's tough to get up to play a team with all of their backups in), people focus on that game instead of the Week 14, 15, 16 and Playoff Round 1 wins. When you add to this that Denver's D was horrible even with all its playmakers, and now has to play without several starters, and that Peyton, statistically speaking, is average to bad in cold-weather pressure situations, a 9.5 pt spread is a joke and I think SD is more likely to win than lose.

Don't sleep on the Chargers. Straight up Picks: Seattle Carolina Patriots Chargers Not for nothing, but I also think this is how they look ATS as well. I do feel somewhat bad for Denver and New Orleans. I feel like both are facing the worst possible team they could face of all the teams in the playoffs. Rivers has a sterling record while playing in Denver, and is an excellent cold weather QB. Also, their offensive philosophy of control the clock is a real problem for Denver. New Orleans has to go play in a cold, windy, rainy stadium against a D they have no shot of being able to run against.

You know, it's funny - I remember when Marrone was putting together his staff, the only hire I could not understand was Crossman. I mean Hackett was questionable, but I read a lot of pundits talking about how he had buzz from a lot of other teams/HCs and not just Marrone for his offensive gameplanning ability. Crossman just straight made no sense and looked like a terrible hire, as he was awful in Detroit and was just about to be fired before Marrone gave him the chance to "be released so he could join the Bills staff" instead. Sadly, he has exactly lived up to expectations as the Bills have the worst special teams in the country, and, unlike offense or defense, there is no "learning curve" excuse to justify the pitiful perfromance of that unit, just horrendous coaching. So Hondo, I can see your point. If Crossman is not let go, not only will it mean that the Bills are destined to have another year of awful special teams but it will tell us that Marrone, instead of really caring about winning, actually cares most about being a nice guy to his friends.

Well, just so you know, it's not like this was something I came up with on my own. Was watching NFL network yesterday morning before the games and someone mentioned Pettine as a HC candidate. Plus, even though we in the Buffalo market are hyper-critical of everything this team doesn, nationally our Defense is getting a lot of respect. The game yesterday is a great example. The Bills allowed about 375 yards to one of the top offenses in the NFL (ranked 7th in yrds/gm according to NFL.com) while forcing 3 fumbles and a muffed punt. Bills get even one of those balls on the ground, we allow even less yards to said top ranking offense and the score would have been quite a bit closer. But here on this forum no one cares that we held Brady to only 122 passing yards and all we are focusing on is Blount rumbling for 189. Anyway, BringBackFergie does make a good point, and hopefully someone else can step in and continue what Pettine does should he leave. I'm just afraid that contination of a defensive system and getting buy-in from defensive players is the type of thing that is easier said than done, esp if the geniuses in the Bills FO decide to bring in a DC from another organization.

It's just so funny to me that people can believe that guard play is the reason for missing playoffs. If you want to see how much influence guards really have, just take a gander at the Tennessee Titans record/stats this year. They drafted a guard with a top 15 pick and paid our own Andy Levitre tackle money, and what did it get them? The same record and CJ2K basically stayed at the same level as he was before. Now letting an all-pro tackle walk because he rightly wanted the money that he was worth is a different story. If we do it again with Byrd that will be something that can be pointed to as to the type of behavior that leads to missing the playoffs 14 str yrs...

Seriously started hearing this week that Pettine is getting some buzz as a head coaching candidate. Don't know about you all, but losing Pettine is the worst thing I could imagine happening this offseason. I know that via some statistics the Bills D was average this year, but this is the first time in a long time the Bills looked like a modern defense, and I only expect them to get better from here. Where the team ranked in Sacks and turnovers, as well as the league wide recogniztion shown by getting three defensive players into the pro-bowl, shows me just how far this defense has come. Who's got something worse that could happen than losing Pettine??

I can only assume that anyone who says Thad is better than EJ is simply a troll who loves to drum up responses to their posts (and the view count of this thread certainly supports that it works!). Thad was quite simply awful yesterday against NE. Probably less than 10% of his throws are on target, with them often being horribly behind the receiver or too high/low even though he is staring down the receiver. I don't think he has made a throw into a tight window on the year, and yet people celebrate his deep throws to wide open receivers like it is the best thing of all time (here's a hint, any high school qb can make that throw too). I would be interested to see what people view as Thad's good game; last week against Miami with an average yards per attempt of 7.7 and yards per rush of 1.6 to go along with a pick and no TDs and going 1 for 4 in red zone opportunites? Thad is a fine backup QB, but this talk that he is better than EJ right now or ever in is life is ludacris. I can tell you that this offseason, the BIlls will be cutting Tuel and bringing in an older backup to serve in the mentor roll to EJ (or they will just keep Kolb around who they thought was going to fullfill that role this yr). So the depth chart next yr will be EJ/Kolb or another Vet/Thad.

I can only assume you mean bionic knees because seriously, if you blame anything other than his preseason/regular season injuries for his issues than you are a dope.

Spearheaded that win against the Dolphins with his mind a la Professor X!

I know it is irrational, but seriously I am so mad that Geno won before EJ. I do believe EJ will be by far the better pro, but Geno was simply lucky and now I have to listen to the national "experts" slurp him for his average performance and EJ gets a pat on the head for "good effort." Manuel QBR - 70.8 (Passer rating 105.5), Geno QBR - 48.5 (Passer rating 80.6). http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/84762/nfl-week-1-quarterback-report

Shocking that Jason LaCanfora has an uniformed piece. Only joker on CBSSports.com with less sense is Prisco. That being said, Clark Judge and Will Brinson are much better.

I've never heard any announcer crew as in love witht their punter as those guys. Every time he trotted out, the hyperbole started.

Whelp, when you're right, you're right. Really like the flywire though...hope the away uni's still have them. Also, how great would it look if the home uni's had a red collar.