Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

Henderson was a 7th round DP, so to say they didn't get the performance they hoped for is hard to believe. I thought Henderson played well early as a rookie, seem to recall him being the rookie of the month in Sept? This year he regressed before being sat down. What hasn't been stated when did this illness start affecting him and what is the long term prognosis of being cured? If it turns out he was already having trouble maintaining weight and eating properly since say training camp, but no one knew why, I'm more likely to feel better about him still being an adequate answer there, assuming he is OK next year. But likely won't know for certain the long term situation with him so probably need to draft another RT. If Henderson can come back, even if it means sitting out a full year or so could stil lgive you good depth there and cheap depth between Henderson and another rookie.

There were posts here about how Dennis Thurman shouldn't be allowed to speak. Same thing hold here and in this case, he's a HC. Maybe he's a great coach, but hard to gain confidence listening to him.

Was listening to the Bills pre-game, during the "round table" think it was Howard Simon whom brought up, after the 2104 final game their QB announced he's retiring, and two days later the HC quit. Neither of these events the Bills were prepared for nor expected, particularly Marrone leaving. Went on to say that replacing the HC and QB and not expecting the team to have a drop off was very unrealistic and just doesn't happen in the NFL. WRT #6 Dennis Thurman. I agree, not happy with what he brings. Only problem is what is his real job? Yes he's called the DC, but Rex is truely the DC here. If it's because he doesn't trust Thurman to do more, then agree replacing him would be good IF you can bring in someone who can add value. But if all he's really going to do is yell at officials after games, not much difference who is in that position.

One of the reasons TT signed here was that he was given a shot to start. All he needed to do was beat out EJ, don't even think Cassell was signed yet. So TT must have figured he could beat out EJ so he signed. It was written he was oiffered more money from Denver, but turned it down as knew he wasn't about to beat out Peyton Manning. With Fitz here for would have been five years now, pretty much would make him the well established starter for good or bad, much tougher for TT to have beaten him out. So yes if the Bills liked TT he could also have been here except a much higher chance he would not have been interested in signing as he wanted to be a starter. Maybe the Bills still would have offered the best chance with Fitz, but maybe not

Post was classic last week, now we all see why!

Actually I do think all this talk (not that I'm in disagreement mind you) about we need to draft a QB of the future and also bring in an experienced vet backup likely could mean the end of Carpenter. If you draft anyone higher than the 3rd round, (maybe even the 4th) if you were to cut him at the end of Training camp with plans to move him to the PS, would be a very good chance someone else claims him. So you'd need to keep him active which means 3 roster spots for QB. In doing that can't see anyway we could afford the extra spot for Gay. So would need to find a new picker whom can also kickoff. Even without carrying theee QB's a good chance Carp is gone, but the QB moves could seal it for him.

Anyone elses picture kind of "pixulating" Have DTV, trying to figure out is it the download to my house or the upload to CBS? Pre-game was fine so assuming the issues is coming out of Orchard Park?

Can you show me an article where he stated that? Seems I recall Johnson stating he hated to fire him. I'm sure there was a part of Johnson that did agree with you, but he was far from dumped. So of those dozen candidates who truly had a better resume than Rex? Listening to the pre-game "Round Table" A rather interesting comment was just made. At the end of last season, no one expected within about a week for the QB to retire and the HC to quit. Historically any team that has to make changes of that magnitude rarely doesn't take a step backwards. So Rex is a good PR machine and promised improvements that never happened. While most coaches wouldn't be yapping as much, that doesn't mean he can or can't coach.

I'm not a huge Rex fan, but am objective! Rex was fired because he wore out his welcome and everyone knew something had to change and it made the most sense that it was the coach. I seem to recall the owner stating, he really hated to fire him but basically knew in his heart it was the move that had to be done. He was a coach that took a team as recently as 5 years ago to two league championship games. How many other coaches who were available at the time and definitely indicated an interest they want to be a coach could you say that about besides Rex. Since you used the word "articulate" in your post, I'd say it was rather in-articulate to describe him as being pulled from a dumpster. Laughable may be a better choice.

He's an average coach. Looking at that most teams either have a guy like a Tomlin, Belechick, Peyton, I'll even throw Lewis in there, coaches who have real good records. So that means most of the remainder must have real bad records as when you add the numbers all up, the total number of wins and losses must equal .500 The Bills and many other teams who keep switching coaches have had many of these, Jauron, Gailey, Williams etc. so actually having a coach with a .500 record is better than probably 25% to 30% of the league.

Thinking about it, this may have been a rather unique situation Buffalo had. How often is a new coach brought into a team that was a league leader one one side of the ball. Usually they are teams bad on one side and maybe just OK on the other side, so in that situation easy for a coach to come in and say this is the system we're going to use and get the players to buy into it as what they were doing wasn't working very well already. Usually when the new coach is brought in, the team will hire the new guy who's strength is on whatever side was weaker to begin with. In the case of the Bill's you'd normally hire a guy who's strength is offensively. The other thing you'll often see teams do if they need to replace the HC is promote the coordinator from whichever side of the ball was doing well so you can keep continuity there. The Bill's did interview Schwartz, but the problem was his prior HC resume was rather sketchy at best. There probably would have been a better chance of the Bill's hiring Schwartz as the HC if he had never coached before as then no bad record to think about. On top of that then Rex pops into the picture, guy who's labeled a defensive genius, can only imagine what he can do to improve this group. Players love the guy, had some success in NY and much of his failure was blamed on a bad situation with the relationship with the GM and not getting very good players than him. So Rex is hired, everyone from the players, coaches, front office expected all the players to get on board with this and things will go great. Have to wonder did Mario create the mutiny once he saw things weren't going well or did he create issues right from the first day of mini-camp, planting seeds with others, once things started to go south was easy for him to get a full scale mutiny going. And Rex to a fault being a players coach was against his principles to stop it. It was the Perfect Storm created! On a related topic, when was the "Vic" article about the Bickering Bills? Curious as I must have missed reading it.

Here's what I see is the problem with picking the coach first: Coaches get fired much faster than GM's typically do. 3 to 4 years of losing you're gone, where usually you'll give the GM at least one more shot with another coach. Now you have a GM who was hired by the last coach picking the new coach. GM needs to see the bigger picture, what helps the team down the road next season or the season after that. All the coach cares about is next Sunday for the most part. A GM hired by the coach may tend to do to much of what the coach wants and not think about the long term good of the team. A coach can pick the GM, but may turn out the GM now doesn't ask "how high" when the coach tells him to jump. If the GM hired the coach, the coach wouldn't expect him too, when the hire was in the other order he will and can see the relationship going down the tubes quickly when he doesn't do exactly as asked. The only way I could see it working is if the GM is told specifically he works for the coach, but again the long term good of the team may suffer unless the coach is really good. NE kind of unofficially has that relationship, but even there it took some years of Belichick proving himself before he was given that kind of power.

Letting the coach pick the GM is often the case, but only when you bring in an established name like a Shanahan or someone at that level. At this point a guy like a sean Peyton has earned that right. Can't believe you're going to let Marrone pick the GM??

Hope you're happy with this thread as I'm sure it makes you feel like you're actually smart! Keep posting as there's always a few that will agree with you, so that's another sign as to how smart you really are. Agree with you about Seantrel. Any good GM would have known he was going to get Crohns disease in year two. That one is all on Whaley, you're correct again, wow, you should be so proud of yourself!!

Fred became a legend here because he was the only thing of any consistency over close to the past ten years. But the main reason for his consistency was the rest of the team was so bad so long. If guys like A Smith, and Lynch had stuck around, and Spiller had played like the level he was drafted at; it's highly likely there never would have been much of a Fred Jackson career in Buffalo. Fred kind of became the martyr of the cause, the cause being the lousy years.

I don't know I can't buy the "CEO/owner" of any type of company making a statement like that. Smart people don't talk like that, not about what they might do in another year. Yes I'm sure TP isn't happy and did think about making changes, but can't believe he'd talk about it to anyone unless the source is Russ Brandon. Others may have heard that TP is unhappy and would make changes, but "blow up" leaves much to interpretation.

Thing I wonder about RT is was Henderson suffering the affects of his illness all season? Finally it got to be too much and he was sat down. But was he playing in a weakened state all season? Assuming it's something he can get under control and gets his weight and strength back, then maybe not such a glaring need. He was rookie of the month in Sept 14 if I recall correctly, how bad was he? I expected him to continue to improve, but he didn't, if it was due to the illness, not so worried, or could be he just reached his abilities. He was a 7th round draft pick, but only because of off-field issues, not based on talent alone. I recall he was the #1 OL prospect coming out of high school.

Yeah, figured that was probably the case, just never noticed it before. The scary part of that is, it might mean I have nothing better to do than examine these maps in that great a level of detail! What will I do next week?

So apparently for the week 17 changes, along with two opposing 4:30 games the rule about no televised game on opposite network when you're playing at home also goes away. The Bills are playing in Buffalo at 1:00, in other weeks Fox could not televise a game into the Buffalo market at 1:00, but this week they are along with every other home market of teams. Never picked up on that in past years.

I also think he'll be re-signed with Denver. If he were to hit FA, to me that sets off a red flag. If the team that sees him every day is willing to let him go, then maybe he's not as magical as he's made out to be. You could also make the argument that if the Bill's were to go after Osweiler, it may be fore the same reason, that they see too many flaws in TT that are not fixable. There may be flaws that once teams see more of Osweiler he'll regress. TT also has played more games so more to look at on him, both good and bad. The question for both of them is can they take the next step. For that reason I'd more likely stick with TT in that he know the offense. Improvements to the O-line and the defense overall, and he could likely pull a few more wins out by next season. Overall there are many things wrong with the Bills that need fixing more than changes and spending money at QB

Polien also got out of Buffalo before the big push in free agency started. Instead he left that mess to John Butler, who never met a player he didn't love and over-paid for many. Granted it kept the team strong through the late 90's, but then the bottom fell out fast.

I'm not against keeping Rex around for another year, but am against re-doing the roster to suit a one-trip pony coach. I suppose maybe that's not a fair statement in that we have no idea what Rex was stating privately. Maybe it's just his style to publicly state how they'll be the #1 D to try and build up their confidence, but behind closed doors talking about what changes they'll need to make. But if he truly told both DW and Terry that he's make this cast of players the #1 ranked defense then hold him too it and lets not make another bunch of changes

Why?? What exactly has HE done as oppsoed to the GM and others in the front office. He may be great, who knows, but how do you know who really were his choices? How do you know this guy didn't say, "You asked me to evaluate players: A, B, C, or D I did and I'd recommend they be picked in order of A, C, B, and wouldn't pick player D at all, and the GM then said well I like player D the best and picked him. That guy became a star and everyone is giving Wolf the credit. I realize it's not anywhere that simple, but really don't know what Wolf really has done himself compared to the rest of the team. And as was mentions having Favre and Rodgers makes anyone look good. He may be great, but who knows so I'd be reluctant to get rid of a guy like DW for an unknown considering IMO DW has done way more good than bad. You can blast him for his QB selections, but you can blast almost all of the teams in the league there too, ironically except for Green Bay

Were there really many injuries to the D in the first 5 or 6 weeks? All I recall was Aaron Williams being injured early in the season, but the defense was bad from the first game on. (at least they were consistent) So really can't completely buy the injury argument. To me the funny part about the Fred Jackson thing was everyone went nuts over; Fred was such an inspiration, belongs on the wall of fame, etc. In reality the only reason Fred was here so long and was the star was that the rest of the team was terrible for so long, so made him look real good.

we wouldn't need the NT or the 3-54 DE if Rex just used the players to their strengths