Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

Yes but we also had a coach who continually would put Fitz in a position to make those terrible passes as opposed to handing the ball off more. I agree that Fitz is in no way a franchise QB, but also agree that the biggest problem with the team was giving up 30 points a game and then asking Fitz to go down the field in the last two minutes. It certainly didn't help that besides SJ, the team had weak WR overall. As to your comment abut QB competition, you list 12 teams, that's the problem in the NFL, there are 32 teams and less than 15 legit franchise QB's, so the teams without will go to greater lengths to try and find that guy. I'm sure the Bill's front office never thought that Fitz would be another Tom Brady or Rogers, but were hoping he'd be serviceable. For the most part he's been on the lower end of that. We can get rid of Fitz, bring in another retread who may look like an improvement for a year or so, or bring a rookie who may be the next Tom Brady, but much better chance he's the next Ryan Leaf. That's not a knock at the Bill's front office either, just a fact that for all teams in the league, they find more Ryan Leafs than Brady's, again goes back to the point of not enough legit QB's to go around. I've said it before and will say it again, the league needs to develop Stepford QB's.

I wonder the same thing, he's a west coast guy, may have told the Bill's over a year ago that he didn't want to re-sign here. Don't know if he's married, is she also from west coast, maybe she also wants to go back out west?? Based on the past few years the Bills likely would have signed him last year to a reasonable contract, unless he wasn't interested. At a min you would have more heard of leaks about contract talks, wasn't much of anything being said. The argument then comes, well if that's true the Bill's should have traded him last year. But unlikely you'd do that as going into the season, many people including I'm sure Bills coaches and front office expected the team had a real good shot at making playoffs. If that's the case you'd take a chance by keeping him, make a run and if you lose him so be it. In hind sight since they played poor, if that was the case that AL was planning on playing out his contract, it didn't work out too well. He also was taking a risk if were to get hurt, he'd likely be out big $$.

I think it means the opposite, Fitz wasn't willing to re-structure much if at all, so I think this says good bye Fitz, we'll go with Jackson, a fairly high round rookie (1 thru 3) and maybe either another low level vet, or maybe this guy that just signed yesterday.

It worked well for Woody Hayes!

I also thought on that 4th down play there should have been a delay of game. I was watching the clock and could swear it hit zero before ball was snapped.

I think one of the motivations for giving it to NY/NJ was becasue they built a new stadium with alot of their own money, same reason Dallas got it two years ago. So if Chicago, Phily build new stadiums, then they will also likely be in line to get one. It's a reward romthe league to help them get some $$ back for building it.

In spite of everything, at the end of the day, if he felt Buffalo gave him the best chance to play, then yes I'm sure he would sign. Unless he's dumb enough to cut his nose off to spite his face??

If by mid April after combines, senior games, etc, Nassib were to be projected as a mid- 1st rounder, would the board then explode, and if so why?? No reason then! If he's still viewed as a 3rd rounder and they draft at #8, then yes, but really doubt that's going to happen. Is he going to jump to 1st rounder, not clue at all, would be a stretch, but considering the extra value put on QB's and wouldn't shock me to see the top rated QB's, Barkley and Smith drop, could see it happening. One problem the Bill's will have is everyone is viewing the Bill's as a team likely to draft him likely at the expected level he's ranked at. If another team is also eying him, could see a number of trades to jump up over the Bill's. So if they do want him, they likely will have to select him earlier than he's viewed to go and "overpay" for him. If he's expected to go 3rd round, they may have to trade up to the bottom of round 2 to make sure they have him.

So what about RW, did he know more about football than RB? And lets assume you think he does,how did he learn it, on the job training. As far as knowledge to hire that right peopl that's the same fault RW had and whe nyou take a good look at things probably 1/2 the league is in that boat, and of the other half, a handful will get lucky once in awhile and hire the right person, kind of the way RW hired Polian. As far as the 12 years of futility, I'd attribute that more to RW than anyone else. For a 15 year period or so, they Bill's were one of the top five most talented teams in the league. Other than that period and the years they were able to live of of that run, RW did little to be happy about. By the late 90's they were going downhill and the biggest problem RB had was walked in the door at the wrong time.

In theory yes, but how would you like to be the GM who convinces his owner to take a shot on this 5'-11" guy, they use a first round pick and he's a flop. More than likely there are a number of people out there right now picked over prior years. Russell has looked great, but I'm still not convinced within a couple of years defense figure this whole read option thing and guys like that will look like a 3rd round pick. There's too many of this style QB playing now that teams can't ignore figuring out a better way to stop it. Could be the answer is you take cheap shots at him until he goes down and doesn't get up if they can't come up with a better way to stop them.

One trend it seems to be is many had a very small amount of NFL experience compared to the years they had in college. Spurrier may have been on some NFL staff years ago I believe, but then was in college for maybe close to 20 years?? Similar path for Holtz and Saban.

Wow, my last job I got a bigger signing bonus than the punter.

I think there may be better younger cheaper options.

An interesting way t ohold the draft owuld be all 32 teams enter a lcked down room with no communication to the outside. When they have completed drafting, white smoke then rises and each team releases their list of players, but no order of who was taken when is ever given. Would be interesting to compare the results of a systme like thta agasint the current method where every team is too much under the microscope and it's totally disected as to what they did. I think teams would be more gutsy.

As the 2nd posted stated we need an impact player. Drafting a tackle to me doesn't do that as we have what looks to be a very good LT in Glenn and RT isn't terrible by no means prior to injury. Assuming the Bills resign AL, you don't need five all-pros on the line. In fact getting five all-pros on O-line likely is at the loss of improving another position line LB. Put that much effort on O-line and other areas will suffer. Here's one question I'd throw out, someone else posted this a couple weeks back, if you could get a 1st and 2nd rounder for CJ Spiller, would you trade him? CJ likely is one of the top five most exciting offense players in the league and I do think with better coaching and usage, will even be better, but seeing the RB from the Redskins, believe he was 5th round pick run for 1500 yards does somewhat prove that RB is one of the easiest positions to find talent in the draft and the one area rookies can quickly adapt to and excel. I'm not sold on it either way, making the trade or not and wouldn't be upset either way either.

I can't believe how thin he looks for a former O-lineman. But that was back with thy tended to all be smaller I suppose.

Not sure if true over wild card weekend, but recall in past year,s the NFL highly frowns on teams making coaching announcements over the weekend while playoff games are going on. They want all the attention on the games and no distractions. Thought the gag order came out more in later rounds, but may be the same this weekend too??

By no means am I a Buddy hater like some, but you're pushing it on many of the things you label as successes: Dareus is a cog?? He may well turn out that way, but based on what we all saw this year, that's a huge stretch. Same can be said for calling Gilmore a stud. I do think he has a better chance of being a stud than flub based on what he's shown as done more good things than bad, but a big stretch at this point calling him a stud. Her certainly looks real good on the Cordy Glenn pick. I will also grant you that Brooks does look like the 2nd best CB on the team, but you conveniently don't mention that BN used a second on Arron Williams who has looked anything but good. Nix has done a decent job, but wouldn't give him glowing marks, maybe slightly below average and I'm probably being a bit generousness there. Of the last three drafts, I can think of four players he's drafted that may become studs, Spiller, Dareus, Gilmore, and Glenn. As for the rest, even the worse GM in the league will hit on some depth picks. Four studs in three years doesn't earn the grade of fine.

I think Williams may be done due to it appears he was the guy naming names in the whole Bountygate thing. Could be wrong but seemed the NFL's whole case was based around him "coming clean" If that is the case, then doubt players would want to play for him or even for him to hire assistants as again appeared he kind of threw them under the bus. Maybe I'm completely off base here, but if I'm not, then hes done.

And Oregon's record the four years prior was 36-15 so essentially Kelly improved the Ducks winning % from .705 to .868, not bad but had a pretty good starting point. Marrone went from .240 (believe it was 10-31 prior) to ,500. To me that's pretty impressive too and did it at a school that football really isn't even the biggest story. What did Kelly do prior to coaching at Oregon, he was OC at powerhouse New Hampshire, wow!! The big thing about Kelly to me isn't his record as much as the style of offense he runs. One which is highly questionable how well it will work in the NFL. Marrone tended to run a pro-style offense in SU. Kelly could be the most controversial college coach to go to the NFL of all time, makes Spurrier look like Vince Lombardi as far as fitting in. He may be the next greatest coach of all time, but I'd give him a better chance of being fired in four years, or an even higher likelihood of pulling a Spurrier/Saban/Holtz was it and quitting to return to college.

Yes but people here are much smarter than anyone who covers the NFL full time for a living. Haven't you figured that out yet??

Actually he's been "The Bull" for a number of years now

She said the same thing about me too, but the link appears to have expired so can't post it. But she did say it!!

Often they will sit out a year, then if next year no HC positions coming their way, they take a coordinator position. Can't see it happening this year. I would like the Hugh Jackson for OC though. He was rumored to come if Lovie was HC, maybe he'd still come?? But likely someone that Marrone has ties too.

Oregon was turned around before Kelly got there. He's got all the attention due to his gimmicky offense. Will that work in the NFL, many doubters. The difference I see between Kelly and Marrone are Kelly had huge success with a style that may not translate well to the NFL. and has got the program elevated higher than when he started to a national ranking. Marrone elevated a program from nothing to decent and has experience in the NFL in a more conventional setting. Yes but Spurrier was never in the NFL prior to that, had no idea what he was getting into. He was more interested in playing golf. Was Saban in the NFL, can't reall??