PlayoffsPlease

That would be painful

I wonder if Vegas will post a bills fumble over/under, with Orton and Brown, the line would probably be set at 2.5

We need to heap some more praise on Whaley. He used to work for the Steeler you know, which means he one of the brightest mind in the NFL.

Most likely a run or pass of some sort.

Kyle Orton to the Rams.

I thought we used 2 first round picks on one player to "win now". Not to get him three targets against our most hated divisional foe (can't call them a rival since we can't beat them more than once a decade). Lets face Whaley has been with the team in a senior personnel role for five years. He had any idea how to make this into a playoff team, it would have happened by now. Time to clean house.

I am glad the Bills are so good, that we can make moves for 2015. How much better it would have been to just use a conditional second third or fourth to add Harvin to the roster, like the Jets did.

Better deal Second rounder for Harvin or Two Firsts for Watkins? Wow, not sure I get what is going on, but i am not 100% sure I wouldn't trade watkins even up for Harvin (not withstanding the contract). Sucks for him to end up at a divisional rival.

This is an example of missing the point completely. 13/15 games last week were won by the team with QB with the higher passer rating. I have no idea if that holds up over the course of a season, but if its an indicator its hugely meaningful. Will it cover a 100% of cases, no. But 13/15 is pretty compelling.

You realize the Marrone refers to himself as St. Doug, because he said it will take a miracle to turn the Bills into a playoff team. I can't speak for the other poster, but among other things, it seems as though CJ Spiller is misused, Sammy Watkins appears to be misused. Mike Williams seems to be not used, which is a version of misused. The flip side of misuing Spiller, is not using Dixon of jackson on the interior runs. Playing a tacke at guard (pears) who seems much worse than a guard (urbik) who is on the roster is wierd too. That is just some of the things that appear at odds with logic.

That can't be right. I know I have read right here on this board that Seantrel plays like an elite first round talent (further evidence of Whaley's brilliance), that Cordy Glenn is an elite left tackle, top 10 in the league and Eric Wood is one of the best centers. I am sure that Bills fans couldn't be possibly be guilty of overestimating the talent on the team. Its clearly coaching, and if we stick with coaches (the brandon continuity plan) the coaches are certain to just get better and better.

Do yourself a favor, don't watch anymore games, don't visit any more message boards. Check in February to see if the Bills won the Super Bowl or not. Don't be a twit. Its perfectly reasonable to assess where a team is at more than a third of the way through a season.

People have gone astray from the original point. The original point is that in any given game, the QB that has the better passer rating that day, usually leads his team to victory 13/15 times in the most recent week. It is not attempting to correlate a number to winning over a career or even a season.

Well, at least the jets suck.

I didn't say the Bills are the worst team in the league. I said they are not in the top 6 in the AFC. I specifically called the Dolphins a "crap team" , so you don't have to imagine my opinion of them. In terms of sheer talent and coaching, the Bears are better than the Bills on offense, and similar on defense. At this point, have to chalk up that win to the "any given Sunday". The point the original post is trying to make, is that their isn't a silver bullet solution to making this team a championship contender. It has multiple problems throughout the lineup, and a weak coaching staff, and an "interim QB" solution at best. Its top players, fred jackson, Kyle Williams and Mario Williams have hit or passed their peaks, based on age. The only young player playing right now that is unequivocally well above average at his position is Marcell Dareus,

Whether Woods is physical or not, is more about style points than anything else. I am one of those people that think the players that out produce other players are actually the most talented. Being the most "athletic", "tallest", "fastest", "biggest" or some other non-football measurement is not football talent. This season 73 NFL players have more yards receiving than Robert Woods. 11 of those are second year players or rookies. Wood is not a special talent. He was not a draft steal. Keenan Allen in the third round in the same draft was a steal. Watkins/Woods/Goodwin/Hogan is a fairly middle of the rood NFL group of receivers when measured against the other 2014 NFL teams. People really need to get it out of their heads that because this Bills group is better than the 2009 Bills group of wide receivers that somehow that means the Bills have one of the most talented groups in the league.

Six Teams in the AFC make the playoffs, the Bills do not have top 6 talent and the do not have top 6 coaching, The have the advantage of two crappy conference foes, but barring a Patriots collapse the playoff berths are unlikely. Bills fans look like idiots for continuing to post how talented the roster is. These Bills and no one else in the NFL will be playing the 2008 Bills this year. It is completing meaningless too talk about how much the roster is "improved". The majority of other NFL teams have better players. Its not complicated. For example in the delusions world of Bills fans we grabbed a "top end WR" for a 6th round draft pick. The reality is he isn't a good enough football player to make the Bills 46 man roster every week. He is a marginal WR3/4 on most teams. This is why he went for a 6th round draft pick. The Bills probably couldn't get that for him now. Example 2. Robert Woods 74 players have more yards receiving this year than Woods. including 11 players who are second year players or rookies. Players from his draft class playing better than woods this year include Keenan Allen and Markus Wheaton. No one is projecting super bowl for the Steelers because of the uber talented Markus Wheaton. Woods is a decent player. One of the top 74 receivers in the league, but its not like we stole him, using a second round pick. We are getting at best average production from that position. Example 3. Sammy Watkins - fine player. No actual evidence that he is going to have more impact on the league than Kelvin Benjamin or Brandin Cooks or Odell Beckham or Marqis Lee. Definitely not out producing his draft position. All in all, this not a highly talented group of receivers. About average for the NFL at best. Oline is truly horrible. Eric Woods and Cordy Glenn are mid-tier among NFL teams. EVeryone else is below average. Spiller is just not the talent we imagine him to be. Jackson is great "for his age" together there are probably 10-12 running back tandems in the league who are more talented. San Diego wouldn't trade UB's Branden Oliver even up for either one of them, and he is third on their depth chart. Same analysis holds on the defensive side of the Ball. Kyle, Mario and Marcell are the only three above average players for their position on defense. All in all, what you are watching each week is average talent led by a below average QB and coached by below average coaches. This is NOT an extremely talented team being held back by coaching or QB play. /rant

Actually, in the NFL, success breeds continuity. You get a rare situation like Gary Kubiak bumbling around for six seasons. But you have to go pretty far back to find an NFL coach who got a fourth season after missing the playoffs for three seasons, and then went on to be successful. I don't think there is a single 21st century example of that.

Excellent well written article. This was my favorite part: Oh. Let me make sure I'm keeping up here. So you spent your first first-round draft choice on a quarterback, then the next two on a receiver to help him out. But we've already ditched the quarterback for somebody that four other teams told to hit the bricks and we don't throw to the receiver when other teams think we're going to do that. Have I got this straight? --- But you do have a plan, you say?

You to remember that from 2010 through May of 2013, Whaley was a simple observer with no responsibility for any draft selections. Russ Brandon realize immediately after the 2013 draft that Nix needed to be forced to resign and Whaley promoted from his observers job to GM.

Hopefully by Sunday they will have traded Mike Williams for a rotational defensive end so that Mario can get some more fourth quarter respites on the bench too. Woods will be able to take Williams spot on the inactive list.

I will B word and moan, a lot.

Does this also mean the Jerry Jones is a better GM than Doug Whaley?

Good QBs have off weeks, and mediocre QBs can have really good weeks, The bar has really been raised this year with the new rules enforcement on pass interference. Last year only 11 QBs had a 90+ rating, this year 18 do so far. 90 has gone from substantially above average to below average. I sincerely believe any analysis would show that well over 75% of games are won by the team whose QB had a better day that day.

Passer rating is often derided as a "misleading statistic". And this information is a very small one week sample size. But 13 of the 15 games were won by the team with the QB with the higher passer rating in week 6. Kyle Orton was pretty good, with a 94 rating, 14'th best out of 30 QBs this weekend. Problem was that Mr. Brady had a 139 rating, second best of the week. At the other extreme Nick Foles was pretty weak with a 79 rating, but his counter part Eli Manning had a 76 rating. The two outliers are wierd, some Ryan Fitzpatrick ended up ahead of Andrew Luck. 109, to 97. That was a weird game over all. And Charlie Whitehurst (87) finished ahead of Blake Bortles (88) m and that was a close rating in a 2 point game. A one week sample is very small, I get that. But 87% is a pretty decent correlation (and I do know the difference between correlation and causation)