Orton's Arm

> I should also mention that comparing rating stats from the 1960s-1970s to the 1980s and after is like comparing dead-ball era baseball to the steroid era. It shouldn't be done. Ever. That limitation is true of quarterback rating. It is not true of yards per attempt. You can meaningfully compare the yards per attempt stats from quarterbacks of different eras. Below is a list of QBs, followed by their career yards per attempt, and the years in which they were active: Sammy Baugh: 7.3 (1937 - 1952) Y. A. Tittle: 7.4 (1948 - 1964) Earl Morrall: 7.7 (1956 - 1976) Bart Starr: 7.8 (1956 - 1971) Johnny Unitas: 7.8 (1956 - 1973) Fran Tarkenton: 7.3 (1961 - 1978) Roger Staubach: 7.7 (1969 - 1979) Joe Montana: 7.5 (1979 - 1994) Steve Young: 8.0 (1985 - 1999) Jim Kelly: 7.4 (1986 - 1996) Tom Brady: 7.4 (2000 - present) Peyton Manning: 7.6 (1998 - present) Drew Brees: 7.5 (2001 - present) Now for some comparison QBs: Ryan Fitzpatrick: 6.5 Trent Edwards: 6.5 J.P. Losman: 6.6 Kelly Holcomb: 6.6 Joe Ferguson: 6.6 Todd Collins: 6.5 Yards per attempt is robust across different eras. Guys like Sammy Baugh and Y.A. Tittle have comparable yards per attempt stats to Drew Brees or Tom Brady. Passer rating is not robust across eras, because it takes completion percentage into account. Any stat that takes completion percentage into account can't let you meaningfully compare a QB who focuses on short passes with one that prefers to throw to intermediate or deep targets. The same flaw which prevents you from using passer rating to meaningfully compare QBs from different eras also prevents you from using that stat to meaningfully compare QBs from the same era, if those two QBs have different playing styles. This is why Kelly Holcomb (preference for short passes) has a nearly identical career passer rating to John Elway (preference for longer passes). The argument for passer rating is that all quarterbacks today gravitate toward short passes to approximately equal degrees. That argument is false. A guy like Trent Edwards gravitates toward dump-off passes far more than a standard-issue NFL starter. The question is whether we should statistically reward him and other QBs like him for bumping up their completion percentages with all those dump-offs. Taking completion percentage into account is an absolutely terrible idea, and will create large statistical distortions unless you know in advance that the two QBs you're comparing are each about equally likely to dump the ball off short.

I read each of the links. The first one was eloquently written, and makes about as good a case for passer rating as could be made. However . . . the New York Times performed a multiple linear regression analysis to determine which statistical variables were most correlated with winning. They came up with six: yards per pass attempt, yards per rush attempt, interception percentage, and the defensive equivalents thereof. Collectively, these six variables predicted 80% of the observed variation in teams' winning percentages. (The other 20% was presumably due to fumbles, penalties, sacks, special teams play, and other factors.) Yards per pass attempt was three times as important as either INT percentage or yards per rush attempt. If passer rating looks good at predicting winning, it's because it relies on some of the same variables used in the New York Times' analysis: yards per attempt and interception percentage. But it also adds in an additional, unnecessary variable: completion percentage. To show why this is a bad idea, consider the following: Trent Edwards career quarterback rating: 75.5 Terry Bradshaw career quarterback rating: 70.9 Or--if you want to compare QBs from the same era--consider this: John Elway career quarterback rating: 79.9 Kelly Holcomb career quarterback rating: 79.2 Suppose you were to use only the raw ingredients found in the New York Times multiple linear regression analysis, while discarding variables which didn't make it in. The single most important stat from their analysis was yards per pass attempt, so let's start there. Trent Edwards career yards per pass attempt: 6.5 Terry Bradshaw career yards per pass attempt: 7.2 John Elway career yards per pass attempt: 7.1 Kelly Holcomb career yards per pass attempt: 6.6 If I was to create an overall rating for QB play--and have the measure be relatively simple--I'd use a combination of yards per attempt, air yards per attempt, and INT percentage. INT percentage would constitute 1/4 of the rating, with the other 3/4 evenly divided between yards per attempt and air yards per attempt. The rationale being that you don't know the extent to which YAC yards are the quarterback's doing, and the extent to which they're the result of the receiver's efforts. As a compromise, you give him full credit for air yards, and 50% credit for YAC yards.

Good post, and I agree. A vague hint of credibility on the offensive line would transform the Bills' offense. > The Bills lost a superb DC when Pettine left for Cleveland. For a while, it seemed as though Schwartz might be at least as good as Pettine. I loved how the Bills' defense played against Detroit. But for Buffalo, the road to the playoffs goes through New England. The two Patriots games are the most important games of the year. We can afford losses in other games. We can't afford to keep playing second fiddle to New England. Until we have a defense that can stand up to that Patriots team, the defense should be considered a work in progress. If some component of the defense isn't capable of holding its own against the Patriots, it should be replaced by a component that can. If that means replacing Schwartz, so be it.

> I could be mistaken and often am - I thought the offense Hackett/Marrone installed was, in fact, supposed to be a West Coast Offense with Run and Shoot elements? I read the links you provided. Certainly, the coaches talked about installing the West Coast offense. Or at least, elements of the West Coast offense, blended with elements of other offenses (such as Run and Shoot). But there were also indications that despite the rhetoric, the coaches had not, in fact, adopted a West Coast philosophy. For example, one of the articles stated that Marrone's offensive philosophy was heavily run-oriented. A West Coast offense isn't supposed to be heavily run oriented. Short passes are supposed to partially replace running plays; on the theory that a 6 yard pass is better than a 3 or 4 yard run. One of the links you provided stated the following: > Yes, at a very basic level the West Coast Offense can be described as quick, horizontal timing routes to stretch a defense horizontally, and passing to set up the run. The above definition is accurate. But it isn't the offense we employ. From throwing the football around, I've learned that there are three levels of difficulty in throwing passes: 1) Hitting a stationary target 2) Hitting a target that's moving vertically 3) Hitting a target that's moving horizontally If you have a guy like Joe Montana or Steve Young under center, you can expect your quarterback to hit even type 3 passes with a high level of consistency. But if your quarterback is EJ Manuel, you simply can't design an offense that lives and dies by type 3 passes, and expect to have any kind of success. From another of your links: > 68.6 percent of [Manuel's] rookie season passes traveled fewer than 10 yards in the air. Very little of that represented passes to targets moving horizontally. Instead, we're talking about dump-offs to RBs, screen passes, things like that. The kinds of passes Trent Edwards would throw. An offensive coordinator isn't going to humiliate his starting quarterback by saying, "Listen. The guy has no accuracy on his deep ball, and can't hit a horizontally moving target on his short to intermediate passes. So I've designed a passing attack based mostly on short throws to stationary targets." Instead, the offensive coordinator is going to say he's installing a "West Coast offense"--thereby sparing his starting QB's dignity--while actually designing an offense designed to hide his quarterback's weaknesses as much as possible. Any team trying to hide its quarterback is not running a West Coast offense.

I tend to agree with your analysis of the offense more so than the defense. I did not like what I saw of the defense in the second half of the Patriots game! Zero stops at all in the second half, unless you want to count holding the Patriots to a FG as a stop. Which the defense did only once in the second half--all other second half Patriots drives resulted in touchdowns. Admittedly, the Patriots had 12 men on the field at all times. (The refs collectively count as an additional Patriots player.) But the defense should have been able to manage a stop or two even despite that. The fact it didn't tells me either that good players had a bad day; or that some of the people we thought were good aren't all they're cracked up to be.

Shoot me now . . . On second thought, maybe I should have found a better way of expressing my disgust. Especially given what I just finished reading about FSU players and high powered BB guns!

The above criticism of Bills' QB play is valid for all of last season and the first four games of this season. But the Bills should expect reasonably solid QB play going forward, assuming Orton stays healthy. The biggest current obstacle to accurately evaluating the WRs isn't the quarterback. It's the offensive line. If, due to a lack of pass protection, Orton has to dump the ball off short most of the time, his WRs won't get the opportunities they should. That will skew their numbers downward, making them look worse than they really are. However you slice it, the benching of Mike Williams has to be a concern. Hopefully it was just for one game. But there are any number of players Marrone could have sat, if the goal was just to get an extra body out there on special teams. I don't think Marrone makes that move unless he doesn't see a huge difference between Williams' play and Hogan's.

I'd quibble with a few things at the margin. But I agree with the overall theme of the OP. During the Patriots game, Brady outplayed Orton. (Which you'd expect, given the fact that Brady looked like his usual self.) But the Patriots' non-quarterbacks as a group outplayed the Bills' non-quarterbacks as a group. If the Bills' roster was supposed to be bursting with talent at the non-quarterback positions, that bursting sure wasn't evident in the Patriots game. The offensive line couldn't pass protect. Neither could it run block. But other than those two things, its play was just fine. The Bills' defense couldn't stop the Patriots at all in the second half; and sometimes not in the first half either. If these problems were just a one-time thing, I'd give the team a mulligan. But no. We knew the offensive line was an issue going into this game. We knew the secondary was an issue. And like the OP pointed out, a number of our supposedly "good" players are overrated.

> You point to Orton as a good QB based on his prior years of experience, and we can't look at his past two games as an indicator. I think that someone who takes an unbiased look at the past two Orton games will have a fairly accurate indicator of what to expect. However, there have been those who have examined those two games as if grimly determined to see only the bad in Orton, and none of the good. Those two games as represented by the anti-Orton crowd are not an accurate indicator of what to expect from him long-term. > Like I said in previous posts, I am all for EJ learning from the bench, but what a waste if they ditch him. If they play Manuel, it should be because he's doing at least as well as Orton in practice. But if that's the standard that's used to allocate playing time, the Bills need to be realistic about the fact that barring injury, Manuel will probably never take another regular season snap for this team. The Bills need to accept the fact that their quarterback of the present is Kyle Orton; and that their quarterback of the future is not yet on the team.

Your post is partially correct. Total quarterback rating is indeed a stat created by ESPN. However, total quarterback rating is normally abbreviated QBR. If you don't believe me, click here. You'll notice that there's a column labeled "rate" which indicates Orton's quarterback rating. Right next to it there's a column labeled QBR which indicates his total quarterback rating. If you want to see those same total quarterback rating (QBR) stats from ESPN itself, you can go here. Notice they use QBR to refer to total quarterback rating. Yes, they should have abbreviated total quarterback rating as TQBR. That would have avoided confusion with the old quarterback rating measure. But for some unfathomable reason, they chose to abbreviate total quarterback rating as QBR. QBR always means total quarterback rating (the ESPN stat), and never refers to the old quarterback rating formula.

> My "evidence" is based on the personal conversations I've had with scouts and some front office personnel who > claimed EJ Manuel blew them away with his ability to diagnose defenses as well as diagram plays to counter what he saw. I'm willing to accept the above at face value. My guess is that your conversations were with Bills scouts and front office personnel. If I'm wrong about that, I invite you to say so. It's one thing to be able to sit down with a coach or scout, look over a diagram of a play in a peaceful, unhurried setting, and dissect what is seen. But a QB typically only has 3 - 4 seconds between when the ball is snapped and when he must make a decision. It's possible for a quarterback to excel in a classroom setting without necessarily being good at quickly processing large amounts of information during those precious few seconds. > I can also find plays of every QB, college or pro, where they only had to make one read on a given play; sometimes that's all it takes. Agreed. If one of Manuel's supporters has video footage of him making multiple reads on several plays, I'll be more than happy to watch the footage. And to revise my opinion if the footage bears out their claims. Given that he didn't make more than one read in the footage I have watched, and given that multiple credible sources describe him as having been a one read QB in college, I will continue to regard him as such until that video footage is provided. > I seriously question the "mental bandwidth" of any coach that designs an offense that takes away half the field; it's just too easy to counter defensively. As a rookie, Ben Roethlisberger didn't know the offense well enough to know what his second and third options were on a play. He could throw only to his primary read. To compensate, he'd pick a WR at random (someone other than his primary read). He'd stare down that WR. After having stared down someone other than his primary read, he'd throw to his primary read. Given that Roethlisberger got away with a year of that at the NFL level--and put up some pretty good stats while doing it--I have to think it's possible for a college QB to do the same. Especially when that quarterback is surrounded with the kind of supporting cast FSU had. > And if Manuel were so severely mentally handicapped as you keep insisting I've read that Drew Bledsoe needed over three seconds to see what Tom Brady could see in less than two. Nearly all the QBs the Bills have had since Kelly have been hampered by less-than-ideal information processing speed. Rob Johnson was a sack waiting to happen because he couldn't process what was going on downfield while simultaneously paying attention to the pass rush. To compensate, he ignored everything remotely related to the pass rush, while paying attention only to what was going on downfield. Trent Edwards was another player who couldn't process information very quickly. If he'd had good information processing speed, he could have known which plays represented good opportunities to stand in the pocket, and which required quick dump-offs to RBs. But because he couldn't process information quickly enough to divide plays into those two categories, he had to treat every play the same way. College quarterbacks who lack Aaron Rodgers-type bandwidth are much more common than those who have it.

> EJ and KO are both .500 in the only stat that any fan on this board should actually care about. I care about winning percentage when evaluating the team as a whole. But I wouldn't use it to evaluate individual players. If (for example) a LT hasn't allowed a sack or pressure all season, and is blowing defenders up in the run game, I don't need to know his team's winning percentage to know he's a good player. You could say the same thing about a player at any other position. That specifically includes quarterback. > 2. EJ, through the first two weeks was completing 60-70% of his passes, and had a QB rating of about 95. Both completion percentage and quarterback rating can be inflated by attempting a lot of short, high percentage passes. Given that Manuel almost never attempts passes more than 5 yards past the line of scrimmage, I think it's safe to say his quarterback rating overstates his play. This season, both his QBR and his air yards per attempt are among the weakest in the league. (31st best IIRC.) > 3. In games that EJ throws fewer than 30 passes in his career, he is 5-1 with a 128.95 QBR If the Bills don't ask Manuel to attempt a lot of passes, it generally means that the running game is successful and the defense is playing well. I'd expect the team to win a lot of games under those circumstances regardless of the quality of quarterback play. As an aside, it's easy to confuse quarterback rating with QBR. Quarterback rating is an old way of measuring a quarterback's performance. Kelly Holcomb and John Elway had nearly identical quarterback ratings. There are better tools available for measuring a QB's performance. QBR is a relatively new stat; which measures a QB's performance on a scale of 0 - 100. Given that a QBR of 128.95 is impossible, I think you meant to write that Manuel had a quarterback rating of 128.95 in the games you mentioned.

I'm not a fan of passer rating. Kelly Holcomb has a career passer rating nearly identical to John Elway's. One way to inflate passer rating is by attempting a lot of short, high percentage passes. The kind of passes that will bump up a QB's completion percentage. The kind of passes Holcomb attempted far more often than Elway. Other tools--such as yards per attempt, air yards per attempt, or QBR--are better at measuring a quarterback's play than passer rating. Passer rating measures two things: the quality of a quarterback's play, and the extent to which a team has adopted a West Coast offense or some other offense predicated on short passes. If a QB has a high passer rating, you don't know how much of that high rating was caused by good performance, and how much was caused by an emphasis on short, high percentage passes. But you could argue that both components to passer rating are correlated with winning games. Good quarterback play is correlated with winning games for obvious reasons. But adopting a West Coast offense may also be correlated with winning games. Let's face it. Most teams don't have great offensive lines. Bill Walsh designed the West Coast offense in the first place because his team didn't have a good offensive line, and he needed to do something creative coaching-wise to compensate. In a West Coast offense, the short passing game partially replaces the running game; thereby lessening the effect of the OL's poor run blocking. Also, the QB gets the ball out in a hurry, mostly negating the effect of the pass rush. If you need to hide the fact you have a bad offensive line, you're not going to do much better than a West Coast offense. Another advantage to the West Coast offense is that you tend to pass the ball a lot more often than you run it. A typical QB might average around 7 yards per pass attempt; whereas a typical RB will average around 4 yards per rush. Getting those extra 3 yards per play helps the team sustain drives. I know the logic is that you want to run the ball early to punish and tire out the defensive line, so that you'll control the line of scrimmage later in the game. But the West Coast offense gives you a different way of tiring out the defensive line--a method that doesn't require you to waste lots and lots of downs running Spiller up the middle into some random DT. In a well executed West Coast offense, you keep the defense on the field for many plays per drive, keep moving the chains, and keep getting the ball out quickly. Over time, this both exhausts and demoralizes the pass rush.

> Add in the change in ownership and everyone in the front office/coaching staff probably went into a panic b/c their jobs may very well be on the line this season. There's that. It's also worth remembering that Whaley used two first round picks to acquire Watkins. If your starting quarterback almost never throws the ball more than 5 yards past the line of scrimmage, and if he's often inaccurate, it can be very difficult to evaluate whether Watkins is or isn't the football player we were hoping for. Putting Orton in at QB allowed the Bills to accurately assess Watkins--something they couldn't do with Manuel under center. If Watkins becomes a star, Whaley will be able to point to him as a success to balance out some of his other failures. I realize the decision to bench Manuel was made by Marrone, not Whaley. But I don't think Whaley exerted any pressure on Marrone to keep Manuel in there. Partly because that's not what a GM is supposed to do, and partly because Whaley needs the Watkins trade to have been a success to retain his own job security.

> All it comes back to is I think EJ might have had the worst OC in the NFL Pegula will have a lot of work to do at the end of the season. He needs to clean house, including Whaley, Marrone, Hackett, and many others. Some players are long-term answers, and some others are stopgaps. Those are about the only people he should retain. That said, plenty of previous Bills' quarterbacks had bad offensive coordinators also. Trent Edwards had bad offensive coordinators. I vaguely recollect Losman having a bad offensive coordinator at some point in his career. It's not like either Losman or Edwards went on to achieve great things after moving to other teams with better coordinators. (Unless you want to count Losman's championship with the Las Vegas Locomotives.) EJ Manuel isn't throwing the ball accurately. He isn't seeing open targets. He throws far too many widowmaker passes. None of which can be blamed on Hackett.

> For the umpteenth time Yes, you've said similar things before. But you didn't (and still haven't) provided evidence to support your assertions. You've simply presented your opinion as though it was fact. In the film I've watched of Manuel's college play, he didn't make more than one read. What you see as "propaganda" I see as an accurate description of what generally happened when Manuel was under center.

Tim Tebow put up great numbers as a college passer. That doesn't mean he was particularly accurate or good at reading defenses. In college, there is often a great mismatch between different teams' talent levels. A quarterback on a very good college team--like FSU--can put up shining numbers, even if he himself doesn't do anything special. A pre-draft scouting report indicated Orton "has the field-reading skills of a 10 year NFL vet." I compare that to the pre-draft scouting reports of Manuel; which indicated that he only had to make one read in his simplified college offense. Orton's scouting report also indicated that "good timing is a huge part of his play." I have not seen anything--either in scouting reports, the college film I've watched, or his play in the NFL--which would indicate Manuel is good at hitting moving targets. So that's another advantage Orton has over Manuel. Not only did the pre-draft scouting reports on Manuel raise questions about his ability to hit moving targets, but his accuracy as a whole was drawn into question. If you watch his college highlight video you'll see what I mean. There are no special throws in that video. No throws that only an NFL quarterback could make. Sometimes what you don't see is just as important as what you do.

A quarterback's upside can be divided into three categories: Physical Mental Accuracy Physical upside: Manuel has Orton beat, hands down. Mental: as college QBs, Orton did far more to demonstrate mental upside than Manuel. Accuracy: Orton was a more accurate college QB than Manuel. If you meant that Manuel has more physical upside than Orton; I agree completely. But there is no reason to think Manuel has more overall upside.

Nix was still the GM for the 2013 draft; so I think he deserves the lion's share of credit for the Kiko and Woods picks, as well as the lion's share of blame for the Manuel bust. However, Whaley was among those who provided input on the Manuel selection. As GM, he chose to go "all in" on Manuel. He passed up the chance to draft Bridgewater and the chance to try to trade up for Bortles. He traded away the Bills' first round pick in next year's draft. Even though he wasn't the one who chose Manuel, he certainly acted convinced Manuel was the right choice! Which is why he shouldn't be the one to choose the Bills' next quarterback. > John Schneider: Charlie Whitehurst/Russel Wilson The Seahawks traded away a third round pick for Whitehurst. It's not like the Seahawks were foolish enough to go "all in" on him or anoint him as "the plan." > Howie Roseman: Michael Vick/ NIck Foles Michael Vick was a free agent signing. Signing a free agent stopgap does not indicate poor QB evaluation skills on the part of the front office. > Rick Speilman: Christian Ponder/ Teddy Bridgewater Christian Ponder was a swing and a miss. But at least they nicked the ball. By that I mean that Ponder represents a category of QB prospect which often finds success at the NFL level. At FSU, he ran a much more sophisticated offense than the one Manuel would later run; and he was also a more accurate passer than Manuel. Even though both QBs appear to be busts, Ponder was a much stronger NFL prospect than Manuel. > Jeff Ireland: Chad Henne/Matt Moore/ Ryan Tannehill. It's not like Tannehill is the next Joe Montana. He may not even be the next Matt Moore. Miami may be a good example of why you need to get rid of GMs who've shown they can't choose good QBs.

Let's say there was an offensive lineman for the Crimson Tide. A guy who didn't play all that well in college. But you liked his physical tools, so you labeled him a "project" and used a second round pick on him. Then let's say this RT plays poorly in practice, and played poorly in preseason. Should you ignore the poor play and give him a starting position anyway, in an effort to help your second round project develop? Now let's say you scouted a quarterback at Florida State. His accuracy was questionable, especially when throwing to moving targets. He didn't make more than one read. He tended to throw only to receivers who were ridiculously wide open. He ran a simplified offense. His own coach said he probably wasn't more than a third or fourth round talent. But you were desperate for a quarterback and liked his physical tools. So you labeled him a "project" and used a first round pick on him. This QB plays poorly in practice and in the preseason. Should you award him a starting spot anyway in an effort to help the project develop?

I have to admit there were some surprises in this thread. Take the strip sack for example. When I watched the play, it was obvious that Glenn blocked the defender for only a brief, brief moment before he lumbered on past. I've seen Hall of Fame quarterbacks take blindside sacks just like the one Orton took. I've seen them get the ball stripped away, just like happened to Orton. We complain when the refs use one set of standards for enforcing the rules against the Patriots, and a completely different set when enforcing rules against the Bills. But many in this thread are guilty of the exact same thing. They blamed the quarterback for the strip sack because it was Kyle Orton, but would have blamed the left tackle had it been a Hall of Fame quarterback getting sacked and stripped. Attributing credit or blame on a play should be about the play itself; not about the reputations players had going into the play. There is the argument that Orton should have gotten the ball out quicker. That would be true if this was a West Coast offense. The 49ers' standard issue play involved Joe Montana taking a three step drop, then throwing a quick slant to Jerry Rice. The bread and butter play of this offense does not involve Kyle Orton taking a three step drop, then throwing a quick slant to Sammy Watkins. That just isn't the offense we have. If Orton chose to get rid of the ball quickly on every play, the result would be a lot of dump-offs to RBs. No different than the offense we would have had with Trent Edwards or EJ Manuel. But if we want to get the wide receivers involved in the game, the quarterback has to hold onto the ball a bit longer. The other anti-Orton argument is that he should have sensed the pressure, and gotten rid of the ball quickly on that particular play. But basic football 101 is that the defense puts its best pass rusher at RDE, because the QB is most vulnerable from his blindside. The offense puts its best, most highly paid offensive lineman at LT to counter this threat. But in the rush to blame Orton for everything wrong with this offense, this basic football knowledge has been completely cast aside. People are acting like Orton is the only NFL quarterback with a blindside. As if all other NFL quarterbacks had eyes mounted on long stalks--like crabs' eyes.

I disagree. If Pegula was to hire Polian tomorrow, he wouldn't be getting the same Polian the Bills had back in the late '80s/early '90s. Under his guidance, the Colts were one Peyton Manning injury away from 2-14. They just weren't a good football team when he was fired. I'll grant that a big reason for his failure was his son Chris. Keeping Chris from coming anywhere near the 716 area code would have to be a precondition for hiring Polian. But even that wouldn't be enough. The Bills need to find an up-and-coming person for the GM spot. Not a guy who'd once been good back in the day.

Good post, and I agree on all points. The people who chose E.J. Manuel shouldn't be the ones who get to choose his replacement. Partly because of that mistake, and also because there haven't been a ton of non-QB drafting successes recently. Orton is a better player than most people want to give him credit for. I can't think of too many post-Kelly Bills' QBs who would have equaled Orton's performance on that final drive. He's a gutsy quarterback who's noticeably more accurate than Fitz. The Bills have had one franchise quarterback in their history: Jim Kelly. If the opportunity arises to draft a QB at or above that level, they should seize it. But they shouldn't delude themselves into thinking that an opportunity like that is there when it really isn't. Which is the mistake they made with EJ Manuel. They need to wait until they can draft the right QB. In the meantime, they need to win with what they have. And what they have right now is Kyle Orton. Orton could be successful on a team like the Giants of the early '90s. A solid defense, solid running game, good pass protection. The Bills didn't achieve any of those things against the Patriots. Orton isn't Aaron Rodgers. It's not like you can make him the whole show--the whole song and dance--and expect him to be consistently successful.

The purpose of this thread was to examine the quality of the officiating crew. People can examine other parts of the game: linebackers, kicking game, running game, etc. Why not have that same kind of discussion about the quality and neutrality of the officiating crew? I started this thread about 12 hours before the game began. I didn't know whether the Bills would win or lose. But either way, I expected biased officiating. But not even I expected it to be this blatant! I think that anyone who's reasonably open to the idea of discussing the quality of officiating in the first place admits that today's calls were extremely biased in favor of one particular team. (As has been the ongoing pattern for years.) But there are also those in this discussion who are unwilling to critique the quality and neutrality of the officiating. People who believe that having such discussions is the hallmark of a loser. If Pegula wants to turn the Bills into a Super Bowl winner, he needs to begin by seeing things as they are. If the officiating is heavily biased, then that's something he needs to be aware of. Maybe the problem is that Kraft is on the rules committee, and Ralph Wilson wasn't. In which case, the solution is for Pegula to figure out what it would take for him to get on the rules committee. if that option isn't available to him, then he'll need to build a team good enough to beat the Patriots and the officials. What he cannot do is to take no constructive action on the officiating front; and expect said officiating to magically become more neutral in the future than it's been in the past.