Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

Wouldn't surprise me at some point to hear that the Bills' gave all of the offensive coaches the approval to interview for other jobs, but NOT the defensive staff. That often happens one side or the other.

Big differ4ence between the two. Bill B was still a new coach and was capable of learning from the early mistakes. For Shanahan this happened after 20 years of coaching. Kind of hard to excuse then.

I was wondering how long it would take someone to start a thread on this, you are the winner!! Russ B was representing Ralph Wilson at the time the contract was signed. What possible downside to RW would there be to put this clause into the contract as it wasn't going to be his money paying for it? If it helped the Bills close the deal why not? Are you going to claim the team would have sold for a higher price without this clause?? I don't know about you, but $4 mil doesn't sound like much of a big deal when spending $1.4 bil If anything having a coach on board who you assumed was going to be an improvement over prior choices would help drive the selling price up. Maybe at the time Russ B did have some concerns that this could come back to bite him, but likely in 2012 when this contract was signed if you asked RB if he thought he'd still be with the Bills after the team was sold, he likely would have said no. He also was representing RW's interests first and foremost. He may have asked RW about this at the time would RW agree to it, or maybe RW by that point wasn't getting into any details anymore and was left completely up to Russ to work out. Either way this clause wouldn't hurt RW since he wouldn't be paying for it and if it would help close the deal, and potentially m=inccreasing the value of the team, why not Without knowing the specific details of Russ's leadership agreement, but effectively he had POA responsibility for RW for the Bill's, typically as such he had a legal responsibility to represent the best interests of RW and if agreeing to this clause increased the sale rice, then he did the right thing. In simple terms in 2012 if RW was still running things and had agreed to this would you be OK with it? If so, then you need to still be OK with it as Russ B was representing RW's interests, and definitely not the fans of the team. As was stated they are called golden parachutes and are completely common at this level. In fact wouldn't surprise me if both Russ B and Doug W don't also have some type of clause in their contracts too.

I'm sure there was tampering involved, likely happens all the time and very difficult if not impossible to prove. Whenever there has been tampering, the penalty has been pretty severe, but just can't see how it would ever be proven.

No I want better QB play but your solution is to trade Sammy to get better at QB, then you suggest Foles Winston, and the 3rd best QB in the draft. I'd take EJ for 2015 over those options, can find someone better next year. Sammy has shown enough in the one season even with poor QB play to have a high degree of confidence that he will become a very good to elite player. You want in return a player who you have no idea if he'll ever be any good and based on past QB play has a low likelihood of success.

Of all the openings seems to me the Jets is the worst spot to land. Maybe Marrone is doing this to up the interest in Atlanta, or Oakland?? Can't believe he'd opt out for that mess in NY

Yeah, but that's not setting the bar very high. I'd be fine with him as OC, but all you're getting is another guy who was fired for losing too much. May not have been his fault, maybe he had poor talent, but didn't impress me as a HC

No because in a year or two Manning and Brady will be retired or very very close. You want to trade Sammy for a pile or potential garbage. Foles, Winston, 3rd best QB in draft You say Minn wouldn't trade Sammy for Brdgewater who has IMO has a much better chance at flame out than Sammy does, so then why do you want to get rid of a proven star for likely someone who may be out of football in a few years or will drift from team to team as a backup.

Nah I vote for the one who wants to trade Sammy!

Ok thanks for clarifying, makes it easier to say no 1) Who's to say we can't get a top 10 QB by 2016 We're not stuck with a Matt Moore type beyond this season at worst. We've now lost a potential superstar forever. 2) So you want to get rid of a player who appears from everything seen to be the real deal for Winston or the 3rd best QB? Wow! QB of all the positions is one of the toughest to draft with the highest risk of flame out. There are no sure things QB's in this years draft and I'd put Foles in that same boat, from what we've seen of him he could just be a one year wonder who was helped last season by an offense teams took awhile to figure out how to stop. Even if one of these QB's does work out, he just lost a huge weapon to throw to. Here's my list of who I'd probably trade Sammy for and I'm guessing many posters here would likely cut my list in half: Arron Rodgers, Andrew Luck Phillip Rivers, Drew Brees, Eli Manning, Matt Ryan Tony Romo, Matt Stafford, Big Ben,, maybe Wilson in Sea. If the team would throw in a 2nd or 3rd rounder, I'd also likely go for: Andy Daulton, Joe Flacco, Alex Smith, Derek Carr, Ryan Tannihill, SF's QB(not going to try to spell it) I'll throw in Peyton Manning and Tom Brady as they are certainly talented enough to make the first list, but don't have enough years left to warrant more. So yes I'd make these trades for Sammy , but highly doubt any other team would agree to it. Baseball is a different sport, much easier to build though trades, easy to give up prospects, and need much less great players to have a good team. Comparing Billy Beane to football is pointless..

I'd think of all the places to go, the Jets are weakest with no QB just like in Buffalo. It could be the agent using the Jets to drive up interest with Atlanta, or Oakland where much better QB situations exist

The one coach who I despised for years and still do was Pat Riley. He left the Knicks because he was due a bonus one year July 1st and they only sent him the money on July 3rd. This was after he had traded like the next three years draft picks away to try and win now at all costs. Once that chance passed, he took the tow days late on the money as his golden parachute to void the contract. I was a Knick's fan and from that day forward hoped Riley never won another game in his life and still do. Brandon granted this clause representing RW's interest. From RW's staind point a great deal to offer as didn't/wouldn't cost RW a dime. Did TP reduce his offer for the team because of this close highly doubtful.

Sorry I don't buy this "commitment thing" Plenty of ex-football guys who go to the ESPN's of the world have the ability to leave anytime to get back into the game. Plus ESPN wouldn't want to tick off a future top executive of a team who could then tend to shut out the network on future big stories. Is ESPN's playoff coverage really going to fall apart without him if they only have 14 ex players/coaches instead of 15 or so? I think the announcing later is he doesn't want it to influence his HOF voting. And yes I know it's been reported that he was nominated as a contributor so won't have any effect. That doesn't mean voters may not change their mind on him and leave him off the ballot if it's reported hes come back to a team again. I think it would have been easy to have stayed hidden in the shadows till after the HOF vote and still give his opinion to the Bill's without anyone knowing it, but now with a new coach coming in, if the reports of him coming to the Bill's are true, can't believe this doesn't force him to come out of the closet now. He could easily cut an off the table deal with ESPN, they let him out of his commitment and he gives ESPN a two hour scoop on announcing the next HC. So will see what happens over the next few days. Maybe he stays through this weekends games, then on Monday it's announced he's leaving. Plus the NFL doesn't like teams making coaching hirings over the weekends whe nplayoff games are going on as they want all eyes and ears on the games themselves. That was a classic line IMO!! Or could it be he's plans to sit out a year and then go back to college. There are some similarities between him and Harbaugh around maybe being a little pig headed and petty. That is easier to deal with a 20 YO than NFL players. Who was that famous college coach who stated he'd only go coach in the pros when he could be higher paid than all the players on his team? These days that may not even work in college!

Well If Jim Harbaugh was announced as the next HC I'd say there's a good chance Schwatz would be gone, but that's not happening. Depends who the next HC is. If that person for whatever reason doesn't get along with Schwatz or has a very different take on defense, then he may be gone. Or the other side if for some reason JS doesn't like the new HC, he'd then likely ask out of his contract.

I'm not really trying to give him credit for the football side of things as he had little if anything to do with making any football related decisions even when he was the GM. But the reverse is I'm not blaming him either. Don't know if he sucks as a football mind because again he's made little if any choices. Was he still leading the football side, did he sign off on things sure. so what would I give him credit for from a football side of things. Well for the last half dozen or so years the team still did well enough to sell out the majority of their games, generated some brief excitement over time and these things helped generate a $1.4bil sale price and keep the team in Buffalo. Are these more business related things, sure, but if every year the team had been 2-14, and had 20,000 people in the stands like in the late 70's I doubt the team would have sold for anything close to what it did and maybe as we speak the moving vans would be packing up for the move to LA by now My overall point is given the limited amount of money he had to work with and all the uncertainty around RW, he did a pretty amazing job over the years, and he has made little football related decisions. Were most of the people he hired to make the football moves bad hires, sure, but again with the money he had to work with what would you expect. For ten years or so he's bee nable to make chicken soup out of chicken s**t which is pretty amazing IMO This is the first season RB is not limited by RW's purse strings, though we really have no idea where TP stands on this either, we're all just assuming he's going to agree to spend more money.

RB did what he was able to do with the money RW and Littman allowed him to work with. That's why Littman left the same day the team was sold, he followed RW's edicts around money to the Tee. Why would RB not want to spend more of RW's money, it makes no sense for him to want to limit the $$. If the team spent more money maybe the team would have won more which would have made RB look even better. I agree completely with your comment about Littman and Overdorf, though even with Overdorf, not sure he wasn't just following the marching orders he was given. But please don't include Brandon in that list as it makes no sense for him to want to spend less money.

Conversely can you show evidence that he was out there scouting players and making involved football decisions? If eballs comments that he fired himself aren't rue, then how and whom removed him from the position? By the time he left the GM position RW unfortunately wasn't doing much more than staring at the walls. That was the problem until two seasons ago when RW realized he couldn't do it anymore, no one was really steering the ship. So likely RW would have been the only person to fire RB and considering his entire lack of involvement with anything team related his last few season, hard to see him doing that. I highly doubt Mary Wilson would have stepped in and did it, so who's left. Further, how often do you see a GM get fired from a position with the team and still stay with the team, and two years later promoted to a position to become the GM's boss. IUt just doesn't happen. If RB really wanted the GM position so bad, he could have easily ran Whaley off by vetoing everything he did over the past two seasons. So does eball have a link, no, he's just connecting the dots in an intelligent manor as opposed to just having complete hatred for the guy and blaming him for everything and never accepting anything that sounds logical that would give him any type of credit.

Doesn't appear to very up to date when still talking about moving to Toronto??

Not only did he work as one of them, but also has experience as a GM, though I do think it was a more symbolic position and completely agree with eballs comment that he resigned and doubt he ever even wanted to be the GM in the first place. He probably also would be the first commissioner with a sports marketing background which when you consider the other owners biggest want it to make more money, what could be better than his background.

Yes when football related, non-football injuries you have no right to know. I will agree that whenever these things are kept secret it does create more speculation and rumor and posts just like this, but too bad, that's just the way it goes.

I think if he leaves Buffalo it's go to the NFL office. I could see as commissioner somewhere down the road.

Really not knocking what Jerry has done, admittedly he has got better too as you stated. While he's done pretty well overall, I still think he's probably the least knowledgeable/experienced current GM out there particularly in the area of scouting and evaluating players. I figured I better add the word current for all the Russ B haters out there. But all things considered, done pretty well for himself. I do question if he's hurting the Cowboys though as being the owner and all the work that goes with it, how much time does he really have to do all the work as the GM too? Add on top of that the time spent in bars chasing around young women is got to take a toll on him.

He attacked someone or did something crazy long after he was out of football from what I recall. I also do recall that catch!

Doesn't matter how long they've been together or not. My point is that all this dribble that Marrone will never fire his buddy based on past history of other coaches is nonsense. They may be the same guy as you say, that's OK, but I think Marrone is smart enough to see that one of them isn't pulling his weight and would part ways. Maybe not, he may also recognize that the problems in his opinion lie elsewhere, i.e. personal, either way he he's not going to keep Hackert around because they are buddy's, not at a high level position.

I agree with most of Tipsters comments. As for Brandon, I think he stays through the upcoming season, or maybe only through May as often front office contracts expire post draft, then mutually agrees to depart. Next stop for RB is the NFL office to learn the inner working of the league, so that somewhere down the road he'll resurface as Commissioner Brandon! He's a good PR guy, great at marketing which is the biggest wants of the other owners. And he's had first hand experience running a team including as GM, though I do believe his role as Bill's GM was more symbolic than anything For years I've commented that Jerry Jones in the probably one of the most X's and O's football knowledgeable owner out there, but he's also one of the least football knowledgeable GM's out there as that's his problem as he's trying to be the GM. Same could be said for Russ, though one difference in RB's case don't think he ever really wanted to be the GM, but Marv's departure kind of forced it on him and he got out of that role quickly. Not sure either Sanchez or particularly Foles have enough experience themselves to be that shoulder to lean on for EJ, think you need someone who's been around longer. Mark80 to your comments: For a 1st year guy the punter has done pretty well. Isn't this Carpenter's 2nd year so Whaley then would have brought him in. Originally Whaley drafter the kid from Fl st who got hurt, then he signed Carpenter. He could have easily dumped Easley when he didn't work out as WR but kept him around for ST. He also brought in guys like Dixon and one of the defensive guys I believe is playing alot of ST too, so think he deserves much more credit for bringing in the players than you are giving him. But also shows that Marrone's choice on ST coach wasn't as bad as many here thought once he had players. Regarding the QB play of EJ, think you're missing Tipsters point, EJ wasn't a big time 1st round rookie so expecting him to be a Manning, or a Big Ben from day 1 and then ripping him for not being that. He needed leadership, Orton gave him that, will it help him next season, who knows we''ll find out. Don't think anyone is saying EJ will be a great QB, but he could be as good as a Flacco you put RG III in that list, how'd that work out? Most of the guys you list; Peyton, Eli, Big Ben, Flacco, Luck, Ryan were QB's on college teams that were good but not great, so they may have been the best player on their college team and became the leader. EJ never really was asked to be the leader at Fl State so expecting him to come in as a rookie and become the leader add to that maybe also doesn't have the greatest skill set, is unrealistic.