Cash

I tend to agree. To my eyes, Fitzpatrick regressed significantly after Lee was hired. Not necessarily Lee's fault, but I certainly didn't see any noticeable positives. And the Jets' QB play has been undeniably horrible the last 2 years. Again, not necessarily Lee's fault, but still doesn't inspire me with confidence.

I like all the baffled questions you throw out there, like there's no possible solution to this crazy problem. Except that college has had this in place as long as I've known - if you return the PAT try (whether via blocked kick or fumble/INT return) all the way to the other end zone, you get 2 points. The team that scored the TD still kicks off as normal. The team that scored the TD can also waive the PAT try, which happens when a team scores a TD to go up 1 or 2 with no time on the clock. I would be fine with the NFL adopting this rule, but I'm also fine with them keeping it as-is. And for the record, both teams can score on punts and kickoffs. In the specific instances of muffed punts and onside kick attempts, it's pretty tough for the kicking team to score, but still possible according to the rules. A lot easier on a muffed punt - if the returner muffed it on the 5, and the ball went back into the end zone, the kicking team could score a TD by falling on it. For an onside kick, the kicking team would need the receiving team to clearly possess the ball after it travels more than 10 yards, then fumble, then the kicking team would have to recover the ball and run it in for a TD. Unlikely, but possible. I love the current OT rule, and would hate to see it changed. I was rooting for Green Bay yesterday, but felt no sympathy when they just let Seattle waltz in for a TD like that. I hate the college OT rule and don't even like watching college OTs. It's artificial suspense created by spoon-feeding teams the ball on the 25. Doesn't really look like football to me. It's a lot like PK shootouts in soccer, but with more moving parts. Once the ball travels 10 yards, it's the same rules-wise as any other kickoff - the receiving team can advance and either team can possess the ball. It's true that the kicking team can't directly recover the ball and advance it - they just get the ball at the spot of recovery in that scenario. But like I posted above, once the receiving team possesses the ball, a fumble is then fair game for either team to score off of. I'm not sure on what the rule is if the ball goes >10 yards and is touched (but not possessed) by the receiving team. I could see it going either way as to whether the kicking team could then advance it or not. But ultimately it doesn't matter, because there's already a way for both teams to score on any kickoff, onside or not.

Yeah, almost constantly. Could be very frustrating. Hard to say whether Manuel is bad at making those reads or whether he was being coached to hand it off unless the other side of the field was wide open or something. I would guess mostly the former. That's one thing Russell Wilson doesn't always get credit for - he's GREAT at correctly making the read of whether to keep or hand off on the read option. If your QB makes that read correctly, he can keep it 5 times a game and probably get hit no more than once. Especially if he's ready & willing to slide once he's gotten 5-6 yards.

Those are the kinds of flashes that EJ has shown that leave me with some hope left for him. Those are more than just size/speed/arm strength plays - they're instinctual and skilled.

He must be really smart to be able to pay no taxes on a salary of $4 million.

I'm interested in them.

Eric Decker is pretty good, but it's a bad thing when he's not only your best receiver, but no one on the roster is within 2-3 tiers of him. Re: your sig - technically Ryan's win ratio is indeterminate right now, not .000. Until he's actually coached a game, it's 0/0.

But what about all those reports in late December that Marrone would be a hot commodity if he opted out?

I voted for Bradford, but that's a total wild guess. I will go on record as saying that we won't bring in Sanchez.

Bobby April III, who is a different person than our old special teams coach. Was an offensive assistant for the Jets last year.

I'm overall pretty happy with the hire - not sure we could've done better, honestly. Maybe Trestman? Then again, Trestman's offensive success in the CFL mostly revolved around having the greatest QB in CFL history, and his 2 years in Chicago were a mixed bag, so it's not like Trestman is a sure thing. The thing that gives me maybe the most concern about Roman is this: I've seen a number of comments from Bills fans or reporters looking at SF's offense last year that basically said that most of the problems were due to the QB missing reads and/or missing open receivers. But according to many of the all-22 reviewers for the Bills, that was exactly our problem last year. I still have some hope for Manuel, but not a lot, and he certainly has missed his share of reads/receivers in his young career.

None of the 3 would be in if they got hit by a bus tomorrow, but all 3 I think have some sort of a chance. Dareus' is probably the highest, just because he's the youngest and hasn't missed any time due to injury yet. But the biggest factor for all 3 is team success. Playoff games give guys huge amounts of exposure, and none of the 3 have played in any. If Rex gets us something like 5 playoff games in the next 3 years, and our D-line plays well in the playoffs, you'd see their HOF chances go way up.

Great post. Sammy is legit, and I don't think anyone disagrees with that. He may or may not turn out to be the best WR in his draft class. ODB is very clearly ahead of Sammy after 1 year, though, and it's not even a debate. ODB had the best or second-best rookie WR season in history, depending on how you compare it to Randy Moss' rookie year. Yes, ODB was playing with a better QB and had better offensive coaches. Yes, if they'd switched teams last year ODB's numbers would've been worse and Sammy's would've been better. But on a per-game basis, their number weren't anywhere close: Sammy = 4.1 catches, 61.4 yards, 0.4 touchdowns ODB = 7.6 catches, 108.8 yards, 1.0 touchdowns There's no way to confidently say that Sammy is better based on anything we've actually seen. Not only did ODB put up crazy numbers, but he also looked like the best WR in the league at times. Sorry if saying that makes me a member of the No Homers Club. ("But you let in Homer Glumplich!")

There was a lot of content in 37 minutes. Some of what the OP listed was speculation and some was sourced. It was usually pretty clear which was which during the interview. Graham's initial description matched what he ultimately tweeted about it and the OP wrote, which makes it sound like Whaley is setting up and scheduling the interviews, and maybe gets to sit in on them but not actively participate. Graham later expounded a bit when the topic came up in a different question, and basically said that Whaley was probably asking a lot of specific football questions in the interviews. He also speculated that Pegula probably won't interview anyone that Whaley hasn't pre-approved as qualified for the job. Most of that was speculation on his part, because his source obviously just told him the basics prior to any interview actually being conducted - Terry Pegula is conducting the interviews and will make the hire, with the new HC reporting directly to him, Whaley is "coordinating the search", Kim Pegula is "sitting in" on the interviews mostly to learn, and Brandon has some kind of nebulous "advisor" role, which does seem to involve him sitting in on interviews. Again, whatever Graham's source told him pretty clearly came before the interviews actually started, so he was mostly guessing on how it is actually playing out. The answer to your question is no. They talked about a lot of things, and Graham threw out a few possible scenarios, including the one you listened to. Overall, it was a pretty good listen. Nothing really that new or earth-shattering if you follow Graham on twitter or read this board, but it was nice to hear him go a little more in depth on the stuff that's been going on. Good example being the Whaley coordination stuff above. His tweet and subsequent article about it made it sound like Whaley was pretty much on the outs, and only still involved at all because Polian spurned Pegula. From listening to Graham expound on the matter, I now think it sounds more like Whaley is deeply involved and will have a lot of input (but not final say) on who the next HC is. Of course, if he and that HC don't work well together, one or both of them will go, and Pegula is definitely set up to kick Whaley to the curb while keeping the new HC, but overall I'm a little more optimistic. I didn't want the HC hire being made with a true lame-duck GM, because what new GM wants to come in to a situation where the HC is already in place? Instead, I think Whaley is very much on notice (as is almost everyone in the NFL), but the default position is that he keeps his job for at least 1 more year.

Most of it seems pretty unremarkable, given Ralph's age at the time Marrone was hired. It's the no-offset aspect of where Marrone really made out like a bandit. I still find it kind of hard to believe the Bills agreed to that. But I think ultimately two factors made it happen: 1.) Sexton is a better negotiator than whomever pulled the trigger for the Bills (likely Brandon, Overdorf, or a combo of both), and 2.) Everyone on the Bills' side had Ralph Wilson's best interests in mind, and the clause could never cost him a dime. It's a lot easier to agree to a clause like that when you're only spending the next guy's money. Likewise, you can see why Ralph would sign off on such a thing. Now, obviously agreeing to it won't endear anyone to the new owner, but let's face it: most new owners wind up replacing the whole front office within a few years anyway. Their best bet for sticking around was building a winner in time for the new owner to come in. They thought (hoped?) Marrone gave them the best chance to do that, and so they got bent over a barrel in the negotiations.

Re: the bolded - not to defend the likes of Chris Williams, but why did the 2 good starters - Glenn & Wood - get worse under his coaching? And why did it take him so long to play Urbik, who proved to be better than Williams or Cyril Richardson at LG? I don't think it's as simple as "the players were terrible." Good post! It's tempting to demonize Marrone now that he's gone, but there were always some good aspects of him as a head coach. I'm not very sorry to see him go, and I wasn't very excited about the future with him as HC, but he did get the team to a winning record, which is something. And the team genuinely liked him and played hard for him, even if they didn't always play well for him. He was generally also good about taking responsibility for problems/failures, or at least paying lip service to it. He always deflected all offensive criticism away from Hackett and on to himself, which I liked. (Although I'm told that he more-or-less through the O-line under the bus after the Oakland game, and was basically taking shots at the FO for not getting him good enough players. I don't know; I didn't watch or read his post-game comments. That game was too depressing to wallow in.) Marrone is something of a mixed bag. He strikes me as a decent (but not great) head coach, which sadly was a significant upgrade over Chan. I also tend to believe the abrasive/stubborn/egotistical/etc. accusations against him, because they've come from a variety of sources, including one or two on the record from people who worked for him. The only on-the-record defense of him I've seen was from Greg Gabriel, who (to my knowledge) has never worked directly with Marrone, and whose article IMO was not at all persuasive. But you don't need to be a good person to be a good head coach. And I think he is a good head coach, depending on the definition of "good". Top 10 in the NFL? Doubt it. Top 20? Probably. We've done a lot worse over the last 15 years.

Agreed. Marrone was clearly stubborn and seemed to have a large doghouse. Kraig Urbik is probably the best example. He's been a decent but unremarkable RG for us for a few years. Marrone benched him, and allegedly wanted him off the team. (The Bills reportedly offered him around the league in trade, and were allegedly considering releasing him if he couldn't be dealt. Obviously the latter didn't happen, but I tend to think in hindsight that Marrone wanted him cut, but was overruled by Whaley.) We all understood why newly-signed Chris Williams was starting at LG, even if most of us (correctly) thought that he stunk and it was a terrible signing, but things got confusing once Williams got hurt. Cyril Richardson started for 4 straight games, and was abysmal in each one. Not only was he awful, but he wasn't getting better from game to game. And yet it took 4 horrible starts before Marrone finally put Urbik in. Once he did, Urbik was... not great, but not horrible. Kind of what we were used to when he played RG. I don't see how anyone can argue that Marrone 100% "played the best players" when he very clearly didn't in the case of Urbik. To Marrone's credit, he did eventually get Urbik on the field, although it was seemed to be out of desperation more than anything else. Now, the FO can't be blameless either - for example, Chris Williams was a horrible signing, as was Doug Legursky before him. But I feel like, given what we know about Williams/Richardson/Urbik, there was probably at least a couple other guys who SHOULD'VE been playing, but never got a real chance, because Marrone was as desperate at that position as he was at LG. Maybe Kouandjio was one of those guys? Or maybe he's just a bust or a slow-developer, I don't know. I just find it hard to believe that Urbik was the only guy who found himself in the doghouse, sitting behind an inferior player.

Hmm, 4 verticals didn't work that time? Let's switch it up and run 4 button hooks. If that fails, back to 4 verticals!

Interesting but not very surprising. Hopefully Hackett gets a chance to show his stuff at his next stop. I agree with the consensus that he'll be let go from the Bills. I suppose there would be a slim chance of retaining Hackett if Schwartz was promoted to HC, but I'd still be pretty surprised by that.

Good question, and it's for that reason that I'm hoping for either an offensive-minded HC who keeps the defensive staff intact, or Rex Ryan. In Ryan's case, I don't think there would be many problems either in terms of selling the new coach/scheme to the players or in terms of actual performance. The D was mostly the same personnel in 2013 and 2014, and Ryan's disciple Pettine did quite a good job with it in 2013. I won't exactly be excited if Schwartz winds up as the HC, but I won't totally hate it. He certainly deserves to be a candidate after the year his defense had. He did at least make the playoffs once in Detroit, and unlike Jauron, I think that was a legit playoff team, not just a lucky string of victories.

I really do think that the offense is chiefly Marrone's, and that there's not a lot to be gained by firing Hackett anyway. Maybe a little. I'm VERY interested to see what we do at the QB position next year. (Also what we do to the front office.) I wouldn't be surprised if we jumped into the trade market. Could make the draft extra-skippable for Bills fans.

Yep, I was trying to back you up. Hogan is a definite hat rack. Henderson and Dixon are maybes, although Henderson/Kouandijo kind of evens out. (Henderson has performed about how you might think a high 2nd-round OT might perform at RT, and Kouandijo has performed at about the level of a 7th-rounder.) That's out of 2 QBs, 4 RBs, 1 FB, 4 TEs, 5 WRs, & 6 OL who have gotten significant playing time this year. That doesn't strike me as very good. Guys who seem to me to have regressed or failed to live up to expectations under Marrone/Hackett: EJ, Spiller, Glenn, Wood, Urbik, Pears, Mike Williams, and Goodwin. On the defensive side, I'd say that Bradham, Brown, Jairus Wynn, Graham, Searcy, and Duke Williams have played above expectations. (If I didn't give the O Marquies Gray, I don't think it's far to give the D Baccari Rambo.) That's only counting this year, so guys like Kiko, Hughes, Robey, and McKelvin are excluded. That's out of 8 DL, 5 LBs, 4 CB, and 4 S who have gotten significant playing time this year. And I wouldn't say anyone has really regressed or failed to live up to expectations, except maybe Keith Rivers. My expectations on him were already pretty low to begin with, though.

I used to think Manuel, until a day or two ago. The reason I wanted him to start was just to see if he's gotten any better while on the bench. But a few threads on here with solid rationale ultimately convinced me that anything we see out of Manuel, bad or good, won't ultimately mean much. So Marrone is better off sticking with Orton for the last start. However, I assumed that Orton will be as bad this week as he's been the last couple months, and in that scenario, I would like to see EJ come in off the bench.

Bingo. I will in no way defend our QB play this year; it's been atrocious. But I don't get Big Cat's dogged defense of the coaching staff. I don't think the coaching staff is incompetent on every play, and there are definitely some good plays and good play calls in every game. But I also see a lot of head-scratchers, and I think that we fans have every right to call out where there's room for improvement. And there's lots of room for improvement in the offensive coaching department. I don't necessarily advocate any firings, by the way. Firing Hackett probably won't do much without also firing Marrone, and there is some downside to firing Marrone. (Primarily that it'll be tougher to maintain the excellent defense.) The upside of keeping Marrone is that Marrone/Hackett are both relatively young & inexperienced for their current jobs, and it's reasonable to expect them to get better. How much better, and how fast? I have no idea. But I'm fairly okay with the idea of trying to get internal improvement on the coaching side, and bringing in external sources of talent on the player side. That play was completely heinous, and completely indefensible. Nothing about it worked, and the design itself was crappy. Any play can work if it's well-executed enough. That doesn't mean that they're all good plays. It also doesn't mean that play-calling is irrelevant. And in this case, we had a VERY important 3rd and 1, and the play-caller had to know that we'd be punting if we didn't get the first down. (If Hackett didn't know that, then Marrone should be fired on those grounds alone. That would be an inexcusable lack of game-day communication.) There's not a lot of game left at this point, so it would seem that now is the time to bring out one of your best plays, if not your very best. That play might not be the same against every team, but part of your job is to scout the opposing team's tendencies and figure out what will work best against them. Another part of your job is to know your own team's abilities and figure out how to exploit your strengths. Hopefully there's something in your playbook that takes advantage of both your strengths and your opponents weaknesses. Hopefully a few things, really. And in this situation, you probably want to dial up the one with the highest percentage chance of success. No play will ever have 100% success rate, of course, but some are better than others. If I met Nate Hackett, I would ask him if he thought that play had the best chance of success, and why. Assuming he answered honestly, if he answered "yes", then I'd know he's deeply incompetent, because I've seen MUCH better plays than that piece of junk. Even in the same game, he had a few nice plays. Plus, a number of his short yardage plays work off of each other - like the Frank Summers/Lee Smith TDs in the first Jets game - so it's hard for the D to snuff it out even if they've seen it on film. If Hackett answered "no", then the "why" would become very interesting.

Hogan. Arguably Henderson. Arguably Dixon. Arguably Woods, but I would emphatically reject that argument. Woods has been nothing special considering 1.) He was drafted pretty high in a deep WR draft, and 2.) He was extensively billed as the most "polished", NFL-ready WR in his draft class. Not saying he sucks, just that he hasn't come close to outperforming expectations.