Nihilarian

It's just a darn shame that this team is always changing course in the middle of a journey. Now the defense needs to be retooled and not just because the team lost some players. Just think of what this free agency and draft could do to help the offense this season. The team still needs upgrades at RG, RT, a real #2 WR, a #2 TE and depth at several positions. Instead, the team will draft mostly for the defense because the HDAIC got an F in linear theory.

Kaepernick might have better physical traits but NFL defenses caught up to him with a vengeance. Once opposing teams shut down his threat to run while forcing him to make plays with his arm and he abruptly fell on his face. Then, while Greg Roman's offensive scheme is a very complex run-first attack that works very well with a running QB. When opposing teams find ways to stop that QB run option and force the QB to throw then Roman's passing offense doesn't look to be as sophisticated as his run game. Jim Harbaugh was heavily involved in the passing game and actually took over the play calling half way through Roman's final season in San Fran. My take on the situation is that the 49ers were pushing the guy way to fast to become an elite QB, and their GM made some questionable player moves prior to 2014. They lost their starting offensive center and went on to start a rookie at center. Then the signing of OT Jonathan Martin from Miami (yes, the same guy Cogs got into it with), QB Blane Gabbert. While the team still ran the ball quite a bit with Frank Gore they just weren't the same offense as Kaepernick struggled to make plays. Just to show you how lame their GM is he brought in Erik Pears to play RT in 2015 to replace Martin. I mean WTH! to go from a #1 pick in OT Anthony Davis to utter scrubs in Martin and Pears? The Niners also lost their starting LG Mike Iupati to Arizona who btw was another first round pick. The 49ers should have fired their GM Trent Baalke instead of Jim Harbaugh. Anyway, Colin Kaepernick looks to be a broken QB at this point and Tyrod Taylor isn't!

I would agree with this. The one area that really needed an upgrade for the Dolphins is the offense and Gase is somewhat renowned in the NFL for greatly improving QB play wherever he has landed. I like Gase and think he will work some magic with Tallywhacker as long as the Dolphins build a better line. Their receiver corps looks pretty decent but the RB situation looks weak after losing Miller to Houston and failing to sign CJ Anderson.

That guy would be better than Brandon as to who to hire as the next Buffalo Bills HC.

From ESPN http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/14974906/buffalo-bills-reportedly-eyeing-controversial-coach-john-blake

I also agree and from what I've read here is that he is the one who told the Pegula's to not let Rex Ryan leave the room after his interview. Meaning he is the one that thought that Rex Ryan should be the Buffalo Bills next head coach. The Pegula's are newbies to the NFL world and sitting home or at games watching is a far cry from actually being in the business for years, and years. Brandon is also the one who flew to NYC with Whaley to interview and to hire Mike Pettine. Pretty sure his hand was in the Doug Marrone hiring and probably the Jim Schwartz hiring. What's interesting is that before he hired Marrone he was talking about hiring Ken Whisenhunt. We watched for 50 plus years as the last owner had his hands heavily involved in every aspect of the team and there have only been a few times in the history of the franchise when the owner took a step back and let someone else run the team. Those times are when he hired Tom Donahoe as team president and when he asked the current CEO to take over running the team the last few years of his life. Russ Brandon should have more than enough on his plate in running both the Bills and Sabres that he doesn't need to be in the football operations loop and because he is still in that loop he is blocking the owners from hiring someone who actually knows how to build a winning football team. This franchise needs an experienced NFL football man as team president as the last word to take the owners and CEO out of the football operations loop. JMO

How about resigning him before he becomes a free agent was the point? I've never said the guy is worth what the Patriots offered him. All the Bills have now is Watkins #1, Woods #2, Hogan who was the #3 and at times better than the #2 for a bunch of games. And the other point missed is that any scrub can take up a roster spot and the Bills have had their fill of scrubs at WR over the years. Hogan stepped up when the team needed him to be the leading WR in three games and caught a ton of first downs. That latter is exactly why the Patriots wanted him. His leaving Buffalo helps their team and hurts the Bills despite what the sour fans think. It's this delightful Bills fans mentality that once a player is no longer a Bill it's the thing to do to hate on the guy. I can only wonder what will be said this season when Tyrod Taylor has nobody open to get those first downs. Bottom line here for me is If I thought the Bills had the quality talent on the roster to replace him for those first downs then I could shiv a git he is a Patriot.

He would need to fire himself...

The point is the Bills lost a valued player who is not easily replaced IMO and why they let this happen is the real question. The Bills have 10 WR's on the roster and only one is better and one other is comparable who was a 2nd round pick. As much as Tyrod needed the Bills to keep Cogs and Glenn and to upgrade the right side of that line. He needs a viable receiving corps with some real talent to have a successful season. It's like Gailey running his 5 WR sets with only one viable wideout and he can't figure out why his smokescreen passing plays aren't working.

This is simply wrong and in particular, about Ryan needing more than one year simply because he was hired by the NY Jets in 2009 and he took a defense that was around 18th in total defense and #29 against the pass. Then brought in a few players and transformed that pretty bad defense into #1 in the league. #1 against the pass and #8 against the run...IN ONE YEAR! Now granted, as others have mentioned that Jim Schwartz stepped into a situation in 2014 that fitted the type of defense he was successful with in the past. The Bills lost some players that year and added some, as they lost Byrd, Carrington, Leonhard, Moats and brought in Spikes, Graham, Rivers. Then in 2015, the Bills signed Carrington and lost Searcy, Dean, Spikes, Kiko. The additions this offseason were mostly for the offense. Taylor, Cogs, Felton, Harvin, Clay, Harvin, Simms and of course, Mr Meh and Shady in a trade. The 2015 Buffalo Bills went into the 2015 season stating that they were built to win now and after that first game against the predicted SB winning Colts in which they destroyed vaunted QB Andrew Luck. It looked like Rex Ryan's prediction about his defense was coming true and Bills fans were delirious with the 27-14 beat down. Sacking Luck twice while putting endless pressure on him so that he threw two INT's. The Colts only attempted 17 rushes while asking Luck to throw 49 times into a very tough Bills defense. Then for the very next game, the Bills defense played the exact opposite of what we all saw against the Colts. From the start of the game, the Buffalo secondary was playing 10-15 yards off the line of scrimmage in a soft coverage scheme and the Bills dominant pass rushing front four were tasked to play a two-gap scheme to stop the run against Pats RB Dion Lewis, Brandon Bolden. The problem was that the Patriots had no intention of running the ball and instead Tom Brady set a historic Bills worst (in the 50 plus year history of the Buffalo Bills franchise) for allowing 466 yards passing from ole Tom while going 38 of 59 attempts. Damn, almost 60 pass attempts and the Bills looked so unprepared to face that up-tempo Patriots offense all game long. So, the question is, what in thee hell happened to that defense from the week earlier and why didn't Rex Ryan blitz more often? 14 penalties on Buffalo for 140 yards. In a huge reversal, the Patriots sacked Tyrod Taylor 8 times while only allowing the Bills to get only two sacks and very little pressure on Brady. So many mistakes in this game by Buffalo and the Bills defense looking so unprepared as if it looked like Ryan didn't even watch film of the previous Patriots game. All the Bills defense had to do was show up and once they stepped on the field they would magically be dominant enough to stomp Brady into submission...right? Anyway, this is from a recap of the second game in which the Bills only had 5 penalties for 61 yards and they looked well prepared to play in this game. http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/rex-ryan-bills-same-mistakes-as-jets/

Division rival has got nothing to do with the fans disliking the guy now. It had to do with taking a pro bowl front four and making them look average to below average. This, after every Buffalo Bills fan was expecting to see the defense that played so well in the opener play that well for the other 15 games. If the man had the Bills in the playoffs or even had built a solid defense most fans would be singing his praises. Instead, he basically destroyed one of the best defenses in the league from the previous season and fielded an undisciplined, unprepared mess for a lot of the 2015 season. Now we get to endure the rebuilding of a defense that was already #4 in total defense and #1 in sacks because the man keeps attempting to put square pegs into round holes.

The players loved Jauron too. It's winning games and the playoffs that count. On another note, something tells me Mario wasn't entirely pleased and either was Marcell.

Oh, I dunno. I'd say #1 in the entire NFL in sacks, and hurries is pretty dominate.

I can recall guys like Kirby saying he wasn't worth a roster spot and yet...I remember the guy making first downs and stepping up in some games. Hogan played in 83% of the snap counts in that last game against the Jets. He was the leading Bills WR in that 2nd game against the Patriots and against the Titans, Giants. Looks to me like he was the #3 WR on the team for a lot of the season and was the #2 WR in that last game against the Jets. Losing him hurts the team IMO. Wonder what Bills fans will say after Brady turns him into another Welker-Edelman type. Who knew about Welker when he was playing for the Dolphins? I can hear the hype now for his nickname.

It goes more like have to haves and all look to be on the defensive side due to scheme changes. Starters NT DE LB LB WR Backups WR OG OC CB To the fans that think losing Hogan to the Patriots is nothing. I remember the guy making first downs and stepping up in some games. Losing him hurts the team. Hogan played in 83% of the snap counts in that last game against the Jets. He was the leading Bills WR in that 2nd game against the Patriots and against the Titans, Giants. Looks to me like he was the #3 WR on the team and was the #2 WR in that last game against the Jets. Also talking about that last Jets game and some notes McKelvin made 5 tackles and 1 INT in that last game against the Jets. He was also in 95% of the defensive snap counts and 4% of ST snaps. Starting CB against the Jets Rambo played in 82% of the snaps, 2 tackles, one assist. One of my favorite players. starting S against the Jets Mario played in 100% of the defensive snaps 1 sacks, 2 tackles. Only one other Bills player was in on 100% of the defensive snaps and that was Lawson. The Bills will need to find at least two starters in this years draft and hopefully more.

Hey, it could happen. But for some reason, this reminds me of 2010 all over again with the team switching from Jauron's 4-3 to Edwards and his 3-4 then realizing the talent didn't fit the player talent and then try and go back to the 4-3 again. What's Mike Pettine doing these days and will he be brought in for the 2017 season?

What's even more disturbing is that even after a dreadfull year on defense the FO wants to keep Ryan, hire his brother and allow a complete revamping of the defense with an all pro front four. So, after this plan fails the team will decide to change course again next year or the year after and start rebuilding the defense again.

When the team actually spends a top pick on an offensive line player they have generally panned out. Eric Wood was a second #1 pick and Levitre was a second #2 pick. Cordy Glenn was a #2 pick and so far Cujo with a 2nd pick is a bust. What does it say about Henderson and Kounandjio when a guy like Jordan Mills comes in off the street and plays as well as the starter and backup. The Bills were incredibly lucky to find an all pro OG (Incognito) just sitting there off the street to fill in and it's good that they signed him for another three years. The thing is if they really want a high chance of a decent player for the line at RT-RG they will need to take them in the first or second round. Alas, it looks like this year those first few picks will be spent on the defense for Rex.

For sure Rex Ryan will have revamped the entire defensive line by the time he is done in Buffalo and neither Kyle or Marcell are NT's or DE's. Then Hughes is too small to fit his 3-4 5 technique but should do alright as an OLBer in his 3-4 under. The Bills will need to find some bigger DE's and a full array of linebackers to fit his 3-4 two gap scheme. That is... if he continues to run that scheme. However, we all saw some games in which Ryan ran his one-gap scheme like Wade Phillips does and managed to put some serious heat on the opposing QB. The opening game against the Colts in which the Bills brought substantial pressure on Andrew Luck by actually blitzing on 25 of his 55 of Luck's pass dropbacks. We all saw this again in the second Patriot game in week 11 in which the Bills defense managed to get so much pressure on Brady that he was literally screaming at his O-linemen. (50% of Brady's dropbacks) The Bills brought more pressure than ole Tom had seen in the past seven years and that was without Aaron Williams, Kyle Williams and Mario Williams. We saw some similar games against Miami 2x and the Jets 2x and the best and brightest of those was in knocking the 10-5 Jets out of the playoffs in week 17. The Bills brought a lot of pressure on Fitz that entire game and managed 3 INT's without Gilmore. It looked like when Rex Ryan really wanted to win he actually had his team well prepared, well disciplined and actually got some pressure on the opposing QB's. What was most unusual about the 2015 Buffalo Bills season under Rex Ryan is that he is noted for running a blitz-heavy scheme to the tune of 50%-55% in 2009-2010, to around 35% to 40% 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 seasons. Then he comes to Buffalo to sometimes blitz less than 10% some games last year. Ryan has even stated that "he will bring everyone known to man at you" and yet for the most of 2015 he didn't. Now Ryan could have been attempting to copy Jim Schwartz in his 4-3 front in which he blitzed very little but managed to lead the NFL in sacks. I saw that Ryan actually had his players in a "wide-nine" formation now and again but who knows what the assignments were and if they were still playing in a two-gap because clearly they managed almost no pressure on the QB aside from those few games I mentioned earlier. Stating that, should Ryan throw all those bizarre multiple fronts (like that lame wide-nine we saw) in the garbage can and simply run his blitz heavy 4-3 under one-gap scheme like he has in the past then the 2016 defense should be a whole lot better at pressuring the opposing QB. Far, far better than 31st in sacks, 31st in QB pressures. Then again. we could see that same lack of team discipline, lack of preparedness in another mess of a defense like we all saw for most 2015.

Probably because they look at him as a replacement to Edelman. The guy was good for quite a few first downs when needed and isn't that exactly what the Patriots used Welker, Edelman for?

Yep, she is bat loon crazy as hell. Texting other players and their wives with all sorts of craziness. Her latest is she made death threats to the team for getting rid of her husband. No NFL team is going to touch him now.

HA! He will fit right in with Buffalo because they were already doing that most of 2015. The late play calls, the late player substitutions, lack of team discipline with defensive players not ready when the ball is snapped. But the players love him because they aren't held accountable and the fans will love to have a beer with him. The 2015 NO Saints were 32nd in points allowed and 31st in yards...The Saints set a new league record for the most passing touchdowns allowed with 45 and were considered by some to be the worst defensive team in NFL history.

Question: You know what's great about hiring a top head coach that knows talent when he sees it and knows how to build a winning team? Answer: That the team can scrap just about every star player on the team and build a winner out of a bunch of nobody free agents and nobody draft picks. All he needs is a few rah-rah type older vets to lead the young players and show them the ropes. Then this new HC will coach up those young players and even coach up the players that weren't so good previously on the team. End product you have a playoff team with no problem with cap space just yet and a bunch of young players who believe they can win! The bottom line is the Buffalo Bills haven't hired him yet.

C'mon man, don't go bursting bubbles around here. It's that Buffalo Bills eternal optimism that says the Bills will be fine no matter what! Meanwhile Miami and the NY Jets will suck and maybe Brady breaks a leg sometime between now and the season starting.

Buddy, is that you?