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I recall that Levitre made his statement about free agency right before he was about to become a free agent (after there were little or no negotiations with the Bills). Before that, he seemed very interested in remaining with the Bills. Byrd may be a different story, who really know. But the overall point is still valid. The Bills are worse off without Levitre and Byrd, and once again find themselves trying to replace good players (usually unsuccessfully, as our situation at LG last year shows) when the overall team needs to be improved.

It would be incredibly poor management if both Levitre and Byrd end up leaving in consecutive years without any compensation (other than the possibility of a late round compensatory pick). Drafted and developed by Bills, both players potentially could have been re-signed well before getting close to free agency. The Bills do not have enough talent to have these types of situations to occur on a regular basis. Combined with enough money available under the salary cap to have signed both players, it is one of the reasons we have not made the playoffs in more than a decade.

i would be happy if the Bills drafted one of the top three offensive tackles (Robinson, Mathews or Lewan). Should be ready to start at RT from day one and could slide over to LT if Glenn leaves the Bills in free agency in a couple of years.

Awesome!!! One of my all-time favorites. Really happy for Andre. Very much deserved, even if later than it should have been.

That would be crummy. The only unit that showed improvement last year was the defense. We need a strong defense if we are going to be competitive next year because EJ will still be an inexperienced QB in year two after missing much of his rookie year with injuries.

Please no. We do not need a guy who has never been a DC. Why haven't we hired a WR coach?

So if Pettine leaves, who will be the DC?

I have zero confidence in Marrone to find a strong replacement for Pettine if he really is leaving. His coaching staff is poor other than Pettine.

I agree that someone from the Ryan/Pettine tree makes sense for continuity, but Henderson has not been effective as a DC in the past. I would be very concerned if it was Henderson, the Syracuse DC (which I hope is a joke), or Pepper Johnson (no experience as a DC).

This really would be a disaster. No way Henderson should be the DC. I hope that Marrone and the front office are smart enough to bring in a DC from outside of the current coaching group.

If Pettine leaves, why do you all want Pepper Johnson as our DC? He has never been a DC and we do not need a rookie coordinator. It would be great if we brought him in as a coach for the linebackers.

There were no good choices at QB, but it is harder to explain away the penalties, poor clock management, poor game calls, and lousy special teams. All of these are indicia of good coaching, and for all of these measurables, I believe we were lacking.

I have no idea whether the players like playing for Marrone, or whether they are playing hard for him, but I have been disappointed with Marrone in his first season as our head coach. Other first year head coaches had significant impacts on their new teams, including Arians and Kelly, but Marrone was only able to match our poor record from last year. The defense improved significantly from last year, but I am not sure how much input Marrone has on the defense. Hackett seemed in over his head, and the special teams regressed this year. The team played poorly away from home. Our QB play was well below average. Overall, I need to see more from Marrone. Nothing stood out about him this year (or, for that matter, in his game planning or preparation). I really do not want to go through the next couple of years hoping EJ and our head coach can develop over time.

QB is the key. We need better play at that position to be competitive. Who knows what we have with EJ. I guess we will find out next year.

I absolutely agree that this could have been a good year for us in terms of schedule and opponents. We have faced very few strong teams this year. I also forgot to mention the inexperienced group of WRs other than Stevie. It is unusual for rookie WRs to have much of an impact in their rookie year.

I think that many predicted that this is the way our season would play out. I know that we hoped EJ would step in and play well, but he is a rookie and a project. It seems that the draft experts had him pegged correctly, and his current deficiencies were noted well before the draft. I do not recall anyone suggesting that he was first round talent before the draft. Clearly, the offense misses Levitre and Chan Gailey. I think we all knew that LG would be a problem, particularly when it was not addressed in the offseason, which I still do not understand. The play calling on offense has been uncreative and I do not like the hurry up when the offense cannot sustain drives. The defense has improved, and I expected more, but people were correct in thinking that Wanny was in over his head as our defensive coordinator. Overall, the new coaching staff has seemed overmatched at times this year and I do not have any confidence in Marrone or Hackett at this point. A surprise this season has been the play of Alonso. His overall play has been superb. A negative has been the regression of Spiller. I expected him to have a very strong season. The front office made a nice move in acquiring Hughes, but not filling the LG position after the departure of Levitre and failing to get immediately get a back-up QB after Kolb was injured were inexplicable, as is the failure to get some additional CB help in free agency last offseason (this really hurt us early in the season because we had to play Rogers). I hope we re-sign Byrd. It will be extremely unfortunate to lose both Levitre and Byrd. Overall, I was hoping for better, but with a rookie QB as our starter, new offensive and defensive systems, a rookie head coach and offensive coordinator, and some holes, is this about what we should have expected?

I was disappointed in the Marrone hire. He does not seem particularly sharp to me. Maybe he relates well to players or can motivate them, but I have not really seen that at this point. Regarding EJ, it is hard to believe that the Bills knew something that scouts and draft experts did not. Most seem to think that EJ would be a project. That is where we are.

EJ is a project. I hope he improves next year, but who knows. There is a reason that most people thought he was a third or fourth round prospect in the draft. I hate the fact that we always seem to try to show that we are smarter or know more than the other teams in evaluating talent. This is not the case, and picking EJ in the first round proves it.

The Bills could use a true #1 wide receiver with some height and a pass catching TE. On defense, another CB or two would be helpful. But the real need is an above average QB. I hope EJ is the guy, but if we draft high enough this year, I would still take a QB in the first round. Below average to poor QB play has plagued this team for years. It needs to end.

After 14 years of not making the playoffs, the sky fell. At best, EJ is a project, and it is hard to be patient after not making the playoffs for such a long stretch and seeing other QBs play well in their first year. I strongly believe the Bills need to honestly assess EJ at the end of the season and figure out if they need to draft another QB in the first round in April. I don't think we can go through another season or two of this kind of QB play. The front office needs to be convinced that his play will improve or else we need to address the QB situation as our first priority. This team will go nowhere without a decent starting QB, as we have seen over the last 14 years.

We need to see how EJ plays for the rest of the season, but if his play is similar to his play today, the Bills would be foolish to not take a QB in the first round in April. Do I think the Bills would do this? No, not under any circumstances, which is unfortunate since we will likely draft early in the first round and the class of QBs coming out this year is potentially very strong (unlike last year). This year's team is not particularly strong, but if they had good to excellent QB play, the team would be at least at .500.

EJ has shown poor accuracy on his throws, including short throws. This is very worrisome. I would feel better about his play if he at least showed something, like excellent running abilities or good pocket awareness. I have not seen much at this point, even if he supposedly has excellent physical abilities.

EJ was awful today. His short passing was terrible (he did not throw any long passes, so who knows if he would have been terrible throwing long as well). His pocket awareness and accuracy were poor. When he did complete passes, he was late, almost getting his receivers killed. I understand the rookie thing and coming back from injury, but I am just not seeing enough flashes to make me think that he will be successful. I hate the Jets, but Geno Smith has shown much more ability with his passing so far compared to EJ. Same thing with Glennon.

Why were we down to this guy as our 4th string qb? He is not NFL ready at this point. This year is more frustrating in some ways than past years. We have a bit more talent, but the record is about the same as it has been to start many of the previous seasons. This is one year where we really can say that with above average qb play (or maybe even average qb play), we would have a winning record.

I am not sure any teams have three good qbs, but the third qbs on every team is probably better than Tuel. He belongs on the practice squad at best.