Casey D

No question, but every wasted pick on a failed QB has the opportunity cost of not getting a good player that, as you say, are easier to find. If you do that consistently, like the Redskins, you still don't have a QB and the rest of your team sucks too.

No, and the additional problem is Washington totally crapped out taking RG III and Cousins, and it has set them back considerably. Every lottery ticket you buy means you don't buy other necessities like OL DL etc. It is a very big problem in the NFL right now, especially when it appears if you don't have one of the 12 you have no chance at a championship-- playoffs perhaps but not the big prize. If that does not change, if there is not some QB revival, the popularity of the NFL may decline because the same QBs/teams are always the only ones who can win the SB. It gets old.

The problem is there are only about a dozen human beings that can play QB in the NFL at a reasonably high level-- Brady, both Mannings, Rivers, Roethlisberger, Flacco, Luck, Romo, Wilson, Rodgers, Brees and Ryan. And not all these guys are great, just pretty good or better. There are another 5-7 that are servicable, but not very good. That means at least half the teams don't have a guy at all. It's reality. Finding a good QB-- one of the 12 or so, is mostly a matter of pure luck, either lucky in getting a guy with a lower pick or having the #1 pick when P. Manning or Luck come out. No one knows who will be one of the rare 12, if you knew it you could try and get a good QB with some certitude. But it is all largely guesswork, and waiting around for you lottery ticket to hit is not a viable strategy. You should keep buying those lottery tickets, but you need to do the best you can as a team with mediocre QB play, because that is what most teams are forced to do given the lack of men who can effectively play QB at the NFL level.

Love that place! Meg was hot back in the day.

Wow, I never thought of it that way. You don't think it will lead to a Great War, do you?

So you hate the hire, whatever. Do you think everyone is going to read your posts and have a V-8 moment and say FTL is so smart, Ryan does suck. You have a negative view to the hire-- we get it. But his team collapsed at the end of 2013. I think he is a very good DC, I don't think he is an NFL quality head coach based on the entire body of work at Detroit. I think Ryan is a better head coach, not great but better. I suspect most NFL owners agree at this point. What's your view? If they did not notice why then did they hire Ryan and ground and pound Roman?

You have an absolute right to be a pessimist and miserable about things and decisions over which you have absolutely no input or control. But most folks who are in the position where they have absolutely no input or control try to see the good parts of something, and hope for the best. No one is guaranteeing everything is going to work out fine, but this time at least we have a real name coach in his prime who has had some success in the past, not a total unknown or an over the hill guy. There is little sense in debating how this will all turn out, we will have to wait and see won't we. At least your expectations are very low, so you won't be disappointed if things go poorly and you can tell everyone you knew this was a mistake. And if it turns out well, then you will be pleasantly surprised, which is always nice, like when you get that Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas.

Fair enough, I guess I just don't appreciate enough what the point is. Perhaps the playoff teams also should not be based on winning percentage, but style points as determined by a panel of judges...

Sure. The one sure thing at TBD is that players and coaches come and go for the Bills, and someone is unhappy if there are changes and some are unhappy if there are not changes. I like continuity too, but that went out the door with the Pegulas coming in and Marrone checking out. I liked JS, but I think it is hard to believe that his coaching skill had more to do with the success of the defense than the talent. Pettine's defense was good too. So as to defense, I think continuity is overated, and we need the best head coach we could get. On that scale, RR is viewed generally as being a much better head coach than JS. Maybe that's unfair, but it is reality. If we had made JS head coach, some people would have been happy, but lots more would have said we hired a failed retread. It's the way of TBD. Do you really believe this convoluted BS about losing his vision. Pure sophistry.

OK-- but then your implication is that when adjusting for these other factors, JS's record in Detroit was somehow better than RR's in NY, because the OP likes JS but not RR based on RR's performance in NY. If that is your suggestion, I don't agree. I don't think JS's record as a head coach is good even accounting for circumstances as you suggest. And Ryan went to two AFC championship games, and Schwartz had one one and done playoff exeperience. I agree record is not the only thing--but it is the main thing in pro sports--but that seems like a pimple on a dog's as@, not a very meaningful data point in comparing RR and JS.

I don't really understand your point then. If all you are saying is that a team's record is not the only reflection on how well a coach is doing, I think that is obviously true. If you are saying that JS's record in Detroit was not his fault completely, OK, so what. He was there five years and never did much-- the OP's point was that he'd rather have Schwartz than RR because RR did not do much in NY. That makes no sense.

Then how do you measure coaches-- by height? If Schwartz was so good, why not any HC interviews after a great year as DC. I guess there are no facts anymore, just spin. Add to that Ryan got Sanchez as his QB instead of Favre in his first year, and Schwartz went from Orlovsky to Stafford and still went 2-14.

Your logic does not make walking around sense. You don't like RR because he was not that good at NYJ as he was 46-48. But you'd like Schwartz whose record in Detroit was 29-52, a .358 winning percentage. Double standard? I mean it's OK not to like the RR hire, but your thinking is baffling.

That's funny. Jay Cutler is not a great QB, and is a horrible leader. To suggest he is anything close to any of the final four QBs is laughable-- no offense intended.

Spot on!

Doug Marrone's family has found the board...

My take is that they may be leaning towards Schwartz or Reich, but they want to canvass lots of people to make sure there is not something out there substantially better-- kissing the toads and all that. It seems to me they are seeing so many people that they are not truly interested in all-- how could you be-- but if you stay in-house (Schwartz) or go with an old hand (Reich)-- you want to make sure you did not miss anything. And of course if they meet the candidate of their dreams, they can go that route. But I think they are just "sowing their wild oats" until they settle into a long-term committed relationship with the two most likely candidates ( I don't think for a moment Shanahan is coming here, nor do I want him to). Just my opinion.

I agree with you and Bucky that Reich seems like the right guy at the right time. I am hopeful he could be our John Harbaugh.

Exactly. Good coaches like good QBs are hard to find and can come from most anywhere. Few of the very good head coaches were great when they were hired... you take a chance and hope for the best. Reich is the kind of human being that inspires confidence.

I guess it is how far you want to go back. From 2006-2013 his record was 48-64 with only one 10 win season-- the rest single digits. You are correct, he did fairly well from 2000-2005, but that is ten years ago since he had any real success. And I live in DC and he was an absolute disaster here-- a joke.

I generally agree. To equate the Watkins trade with somehow having something to do with lacking a quality QB is just specious. You can criticize the trade as giving up too much and you can complain that the Bills have had not had a quality QB in 20 years, but those are largely mutually exclusive and to conflate them is irrational.

Totally, he was a disaster and to blame everything on Snyder is just wrong. From a 2nd for an over the hill McNabb to ruining RG III, I don't get this idea. He was also mediocre for several years in Denver before being canned, he has been nothing since the century changed. No wonder Sully thinks this is a great idea. This will put the Bills back a decade.

Detroit DC

Amazing. It must be because Detroit hosted our home game. Why not just award the game to the Cowboys.

How about Sid Luckman-- great offensive mind.