PlayoffsPlease

Has any player in Bills history inspired more fan excuses for failure than EJ Manuel?

The methodology applied is not mostly based on ticket prices. Actually they attempt to control for ticket prices. For example if the Bills doubled ticket prices and sales dropped as a result, they would not count those fans dropping out from the price increase as "bandwagon" fans. After controlling for the other variables, they then try to measure attendance vs. win loss records. If you count the Toronto games as home games and actually look at attendance in the 4-12 seasons vs the 8-8 or 9-7 seasons, there actually is a pretty big swing in fan attendance for Bills games. Its all relative. If Jacksonville goes 4-12 and sells 10,000 tickets that season and then goes 12-4 and sells 10,000 tickets that season. They have zero bandwagon fans. If the Bills sell go 4-12 and sell 60k tickets that year , and then goes 12-4 and sells 70k tickets that year, they have 10,000 bandwagon fans. Clearly the Bills have better fans in that example, but mathematically they have more bandwagon fans. Its nothing to get bent out of shape over. Teams like the Giants, Packers and Steelers who have long waiting lists for season tickets don't really have the room for any bandwagon fans. I don't know if they did the work correctly, but the methodology they laid out makes some sense.

What special information do you think the Pegula's will receive? Will the state attorney give them non-public information? Will the Pegula's interview Kromer's accusers themselves in order to form their own judgements? I am guessing Kromer's lawyer is advising him not to discuss the case with anyone including his employers, so I doubt that he is providing any real information. So far they have put Kromer on paid leave. That is a bit of a bow to public pressure. Nice for Kromer to get paid, but once camp starts puts the team at a slight disadvantage vs. teams that have their entire coaching staff available. That is the crux of the problem, are the Pegula's more committed to Kromer and other personnel or are they more committed to winning if the situation becomes a choice between those two options. As a famous Bills coach once said, winning is hard in the NFL. It seems as though teams that make winning the highest priority win more often.

I used to get criticized for saying the Bills should have taken Bryant instead of Spiller.

Kiko plus Murray is greater than Shady. The eagles improved their team. So did the Bills.

Kromer is a big guy — six feet, four inches and 215 pounds

OBD made the decision that Cyril Richardson is more likely to help the team win a championship in the long run than a late round QB like Mettenberger. I tend to disagree with this assessment. Here is why. I think taking a 6th round draft pick like Mettenberger has about a 2% chance of resulting in a QB than can take a team to a championship, maybe 1%. On the other hand, I think there is zero chance that Cyril Richardson makes the difference in winning a championship.

Seemed like a flake in Chicago. Hope this turns out to be nothing.

Much more than most Bills fans thought. He was actually pretty viable as a possible owner. Still like Terry. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/exclusive-trump-will-declare-9-billion-net-worth-as-he-reveals-2016-plans/2015/06/15/a00e74c0-137c-11e5-9ddc-e3353542100c_story.html?wpisrc=al_alert-politics

A great season isn't a great QB. It just isn't. Jim Kelly was an HOF caliber QB whether or not Ted was around during his career. As I said before Ted was a great coach. I don't think there is any evidence he fundamentally offered the career trajectory of any of the QBs you mentioned.

Back in the days before free agency, I got excited to root for individual players even some that weren't really very talented. But for the last 25 years I am strictly a fan of the uniform. I really don't care who is wearing them. When they win I am happy. When they lose I am sad. I don't care two poops for great individual performances that happen during losses or losing seasons. I will root for McCoy on Sundays as much as I will root for any other Bill. But at the same time I can acknowledge the obvious fact that he acts like a jerk in the press.

Ted was a great coach (and a Bonnie grad). But Gabriel, Jurgensen, Harbaugh and Kilmer were never great QBs. And Bert Jones and Jim Kelly were good before and after Ted. Its clear some coaches are better at getting more out of a QB than others, but coaches rarely fundamentally alter a QBs status as bad/good/great

They are probably going to change the suspension to two games, and let the Patriots chose which two. That way they can optimize Brady getting a rest.

You are dead on on the importance of coaching to the development of a QB. If the coaching mattered much, you would expect to see certain coaches developing multiple excellent QBs. But there is almost no evidence of that. It is much more often that an excellent QB and a coach who knows how to utilize an excellent QB end up in the same place at the same time.

Most starting NFL teams would look good against the Bills second unit. By all accounts from OTA's none of our set of four has.

Would be mad if the Bills traded Cordy Glenn this year for xyz player, went on to win the Division and Super Bowl in 2015, and then cut xyz player next year. Or would you be happier if the Bills kept Cordy and missed the playoffs?

I am disappointed. I though the headline was real.

Buddy Nix was a failure as a GM. But the best part of Doug Whaley's tenure as GM is inheriting those four guys from Buddy,

If you win the Super Bowl, that means you made enough of the right moves. People assume that even if you don't understand them, they make sense. In the Pats case, they dumped salary of an older player, and then went on to win the Super Bowl. Wright helped them get there. So its hard to criticize the move. On the other hand If you have been part of the Bills GM structure for 5 seasons and haven't made the playoffs even once, every move you make is subject to fan review for better or worse. But if the thin skinned Bills fans were honest, they would realize the posts praising Whaley's moves outnumber the criticisms by about 10 to 1, not withstanding the fact that so far he has accomplished little to nothing as a GM or Assistant GM, in terms of actual football results.

My best estimate is that people are really over rating the rest of the Bills team, and under rating the set of QBs. The Bills defense was very good last year. But the offense didn't really put a lot of pressure on the other teams last year either, which does relate to the defense's performance. Kansas City and Detroit had comparable defensive stats as the Bills last year and Smith and Stafford are respectable QBs. And they didn't accomplish much. My guess is the Bills QB will end up being ranked about 20th by stats at the end of the season. And that won't prove to be good enough to win a playoff game.

I like to watch the Bills play. Watching them 17 times is better than 16 times. Easy choice for me.

Seems as though PFF decided that YPRR (Yards per route run) was the best measure for success here. Sammy didn't fare that well with that stat.

Who is more important to their respective teams in 2015, Jimmy Garapolla or Cyrus Kouandjio?

Jeff Tuel never even got 14 starts in the NFL. I don't see how it is possible for the coaches to determine that he will never be a top tier starting QB in the NFL. But what magic to they exercise such judgement?