Cash

Interesting. I was never a fan of the signing, but Brown has been bad enough that we might as well see what Legursky has. It's a low bar to clear right now.

Well, Marrone did definitively say that they would be signing a QB "from outside the organization" before they struck out on Freeman. And they immediately brought in White and Dixon for workouts. So I don't think this is really an example of Marrone pushing that mantra so much as trying to sign an outside guy, missing out on the 1 decent option (Freeman), and deciding that the guy on your practice squad is more palatable than the other scrubs out there... ...and make no mistake, Pat White is a scrub. The only thing I can really fault the Bills for here is how the new plan is to sign a QB to the practice squad. We've already established that Tuel is not good enough to start or really to be the backup either. (I think he should be cut and signed to the practice squad if he clears waivers.) But whomever they sign to the PS probably won't be much better than Tuel -- anyone with much meaningful experience isn't PS-eligible. So how much benefit do you get from signing that guy? I'd rather them try to swing a cheap trade for a veteran backup (I know, easier said than done) or sign a veteran scrub like Dixon or even White, any of whom would likely be an upgrade over Tuel. Tebow? Ugh. For the first time ever, I wouldn't hate it if my team signed that guy. Shows how desperate I've become.

Pat White is a media-free version of Tebow -- neither can throw. I think I would rather have Tebow than White, but definitely don't want either. Freeman remains my first choice, but Dixon would be interesting. I thought he had some potential in limited action for the Steelers.

I for one am psyched to have Moorman back in the fold. I never like the way he was treated last year and thought it was BS. Let him have one last hurrah, riding off into the sunset in a blaze of punting during the Jeff Tuel Era. I could be wrong, but I think he'll be a little rejuvenated by this redemption shot, and I think he'll be solid the rest of the way. Hopefully he gets a chance to retire as a Buffalo Bill this time.

I called this, and it wasn't that hard. Marrone is a fairly conservative coach in many ways, including wanting his players to practice fully before playing. One of his quotes regarding this matter said as much: something along the lines of needing Byrd to have a full week of practice before he plays, and "maybe if it was a Sunday game..." I fully expect Byrd to play against Cincy, although I don't know if he'll start.

I'd be shocked if the Bills signed him. Very un-Bills move.

Agreed with the "no Graham" sentiment -- Leonhard is sure-handed and unlikely to muff or fumble, even if it's unlikely he'll get you much more than 10 yards. He actually had a few nice moves to avoid tacklers last week, but unfortunately couldn't quite get going quick enough to make anything out of it. On the one return, he broke 3 tackles but only got an extra 5 yards. If we're looking for a spark, the better option would be Nickell Robey, who actually showed some nice speed and PR instincts in preseason. He also showed a severe tendency to muff punts, so I don't expect to see him on the job when games count, and I'm fine with that.

Great post, as was the OP. I won't defend Josh Freeman, because he's been truly terrible this year and down the stretch last year, and does deserve to be benched based on that alone. (Although it is incredibly puzzling -- how could he have been so good a couple years ago, and even really good during the middle part of last year, then fall off a cliff like this? I don't get it.) But this really seems like a personal vendetta at this point, and all of the leaks coming out are complete bush league. Schiano is a disaster. Everyone who longs for a Parcells-style hardass coach should keep in mind that sometimes you get Tom Coughlin, but more often you get Schiano or Todd Haley -- a tyrant whose whole regime is a house of cards. The real shame is that they've got some talent on that team, and could turn it around with some better coaching (and a new QB at this point -- maybe Freeman can be salvaged somewhere else, but not there). Good D, potentially legendary secondary if Mark Barron plays to his potential, 2 good wideouts, a really good young RB in Doug Martin, some talent on the O-line... if they had the Freeman of a couple years ago, they'd be a playoff team. Do you have anything productive to contribute to this thread, or are you just here to B word at other posters? It's annoying enough trying to ignore their irrelevant posts without trying to ignore yours as well.

I believe he played through the injury last year in the hopes of securing a big-money long-term deal with the Bills (or another team). I also believe that this year he is unwilling to play through the same injury because he sees no incentive to do so. Again, just my supposition, but I believe that he no longer feels that the Bills have any loyalty towards him, and thus doesn't feel any loyalty to them. If it's true that Byrd doesn't want to play for the Bills anymore, then what purpose does franchising him again serve? Unless it's solely to trade his rights to another team, I don't see the point. Why pay >$8 million for a guy who you think dogged it or faked or embellished an injury? There's no reason to expect that a 2nd year on the franchise tag will produce a more loyal or motivated Byrd. There's also no reason to expect his contract demands to come down. And if it's about sending a message, how good a message does it send to the rest of the players on the team? "If you don't play by our rules, we will do everything we can to ruin your career." Sweet.

He was on the scout team during the "open to the media" portion of practice, but according to post-practice quotes, worked "some" with the real defense during practice. Based on Marrone's quotes, I'll be pretty surprised if he plays Thursday. I get the vibe that if it was a Sunday game and Byrd could have a full week of practice, Marrone would be a lot more comfortable playing him.

Williams played the game of his life. Definitely earned a ton of appreciation from me -- dude was a stud all game. Even the one time he got beat bad, he made a great touchdown-saving tackle, which wound up saving 4 points. Loved Dareus in this game as well. Unlike Williams, I've never been willing to give up on Dareus or write him off. I still think he's gonna be a stud.

WAY better game than last week for the coaching staff. Some very, very nice playcalling in the first half. Wish they could have kept up the great play in the 2nd half, but I'll take the win!

Why choose tonight to start this thread? Our crappy backups played pretty well today, I think. Go Bills!

So how do you think Manuel's helmet came off? Ejector seat? I was fine with the kneel-down strategy. I don't think running the ball would've gotten more than a yard or two, and I don't think any "safe" runs would have taken enough time off the clock to avoid a punt on 4th down. If you accept those premises, then kneeling down is the right move, because it greatly lowers the risk of a fumble or injury.

WOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is all.

A dissertation is 4 sentences now? Sign me up for that PhD program. If you'd bother to read beyond the joke portion, you'd have seen that I did address your larger point. At least, I think I did. It's hard to verify whether I addressed it or not when you declare that I didn't get it, but also don't say what it actually was. Just so I'm not guilty of the same, I'll re-state my real point #2: It's not that the people you're arguing with are right, it's that your specific argument against them doesn't hold water. I doubt it as well. Certainly during the Super Bowl years, our fast-paced offense put the D on the field a ton, and that was blamed at the time for a lot of the D's struggles. (Note that that offense executed very well and converted all kinds of 3rd downs, and still brutally lost the TOP battle almost every game.) But once we hired Wade Phillips and signed Ted Washington and Bryce Paup, the D was excellent. Still on the field more than the other defense, which helped inflate the yards allowed stats, but consistently getting stops. Maybe it would've been even better if the offense played slower? I don't know. I do know that the quality of players & coaching was the main reason for the improvement. I'm not going to call for the coaching staff to slow down the offense or scrap the no-huddle or anything, because that's their prerogative, especially in their first year on the job in what looks like a heavy rebuilding year. This year is all about figuring out what works and what we've got that's worth building on. (Still depressing when we lose, though.) I do think it's pretty likely, especially in light of the 2nd-half rushing numbers, that the D is getting worn down from being on the field so much. I don't really think that slowing down the O will have enough impact to change anything, but I'll admit that it's plausible. Mostly around the idea that taking more time at the line of scrimmage would give EJ a better chance to read the D and lead to more offensive success. I don't know if that would really happen, but again, it's plausible. I will say that I like the idea of a no-huddle/hurry-up attack, but I do have some beef with the specific one we seem to have implemented. For example, we never seem to vary our tempo. A good D can adjust to any tempo as long as it's always the same. I'd like to see a little more variation, especially in terms of how long we take between lining up and snapping. But also slow down the pace of getting to the line once in a while -- try to lull the D into making heavy substitutions. If you find a personnel mismatch (they're in the dime against your 2TE set, e.g.), THEN you step back on the gas and run hyper-quick plays to prevent the D from substituting. Of course, the second you commit a penalty, the D has plenty of time to substitute, so you need to play with a lot more discipline than the Bills have shown so far.

Is it too early to give Jeff Tuel a try? Yes. Should Freddy be the starting runningback? No, but he should get about 40% of the workload, which he is currently getting. Have you seen 30 for 30 on earn of Ricky Williams? No. Jerius Byrd carries himself the exact same way as the careless Ricky who walk away from the game! Not a question. Do we re sign Carrington for cheap now during the off season ? I think so. Probably a 1 year deal. Could we move woods to LG and find a center on the market? No. Good centers are usually harder to find than guards. How long has Rus Brandon been serving as president and CEO without the title? Since Ralph's health deteriorated. Is Marrone/Hackett the same as Gaily/Wanstad(spell check that) No. Marrone is much younger than Gailey and Hackett does not have a mustache.

Also a nice gain to Stevie if memory serves. I don't understand the last several Bills' OC's obsession with only throwing short stuff and deep sideline passes. You are allowed to throw between the hashmarks in the NFL, I'm pretty sure.

I think in one of the many Levitre threads during the offseason, a couple of posters made the argument that having a good O-line isn't necessarily about having star players, but about not having any scrubs. (I think it was part of a larger discussion about how best to put resources into the line -- maybe a draft thread discussing 1 of the 1st-round guards?) I think it's generally a pretty good sentiment -- the crux of the idea is that you don't get to decide where the D lines up, and they'll always attack your weakest link, so it doesn't really matter how good your LT is if someone else sucks. I think that's really coming home to roost. Brown has gone up against Vince Wilfork, Star Lotulelei, and a Muhammed Wilkerson/Sheldon Richardson combo in his first 3 weeks, and he'll be going up against Ngata and/or Arthur Jones this week. The opposing D-line really only needs 1 good player and a decent DC to be able to isolate our worst player against a guy he can't come close to handling. The Jets were frequently sending Glenn's man way wide in order to functionally turn Brown into a LT and give Wilkerson space to beat him on the outside. Other teams may follow suit, especially if they don't have a great DT to send at Brown.

Agreed. There are a number of issues exposed here. 1.) This is it, huh? They put 8 in the box and challenge our receivers, and all we've got is a fly pattern down the sidelines. Almost no variation, which would be fine if what we did worked all the time. Not so much when it failed miserably every time. 2.) Whether by design or preference, EJ is consistently ignoring underneath options and throwing the bomb. When this happens on 3rd and medium, this is very Gailey-esque and also Jauron-esque. I like those shots on 1st down, but I prefer lower-risk, lower-reward plays on 3rd down. 3.) Obviously EJ played bad on Sunday; we didn't need a breakdown to know that. But it does reinforce that not only was he inaccurate, he was throwing the ball way too early. That was mostly due to pressure, but we should expect teams to keep bringing pressure. And we should expect Colin Brown to continue to get toasted. So the Bills and EJ need to come up with a better plan, or at least some routes that call for quicker throws. EJ does not have time to wait for a WR to make a double-move before throwing. 4.) Our targeted WRs were not really beating their CB in the first place. Even good throws would've been anyone's ball in most cases. Part of this might be because of the too-early throws, but it's still cause for concern. We don't really have jump-ball type receivers, we have more the shifty guys. If they can't dust a CB with their speed or a move, they probably shouldn't be targeted on a fly route. 5.) Once Rex adjusted by dropping a guy into the short zone, there was NOTHING going on for us. At least on the earlier plays, we could've gotten some nice gains if EJ had gone to the underneath/crossing route. If he tried that on the later plays, it's interception time. (BTW, this is exactly what teams eventually did to Fitz/Gailey to destroy our offense. Many of Fitz's picks came b/c he didn't see the guy dropping into the short zone.) Once Rex made that adjustment, our only winning move was for protection to hold up well enough to give EJ time to throw the deep ball (unlikely), then for EJ to throw a good deep ball (unlikely), then WR to either beat his man or outfight his man for the ball (unlikely). We need some different plays to run against this look, which I guess was the point I made in #1. Since I have now completed the circle, I can end this post.

Umm... that's not how facts work. Until somebody proves otherwise using real numbers, I'm officially saying it's a FACT that I'm the world's greatest lover. Until somebody proves otherwise using real numbers, I'm officially saying it's a FACT that 3D movies are overrated. Until somebody proves otherwise using real numbers, I'm officially saying it's a FACT that the moon landing was faked. My real points are two: 1.) If you want something proved so badly, you do the work. What is this thing where your counterargument is "once you do my homework for me, I'll prove you wrong!"? If we wanted to be bossed around, we'd go back to our day jobs as butlers instead of putzing around on a message board. 2.) Even if someone had the time or inclination to do your homework for you, there's no point. The hypothetical time savings will be more than 30 seconds and less than 30 minutes. Whatever it is, you would probably look at it and think, "not a significant amount." Someone arguing to scrap the no-huddle would probably look at it and think, "very significant." I'm neutral on the whole no-huddle thing (my only stance is that the O & D are both bad and I would like them to improve; it's not my job to come up with how), but it's certainly plausible that the lack of rest is tiring out the D to a point where it affects their play. And so far, the run defense stats support that argument. It's also plausible that even a small amount of additional rest could pay off, because sometimes when your at the extremes, even very small marginal gains can have significant effects. And so far this year, our defense has certainly been at the extreme of lack of rest. Now, maybe with more rest, they'd still be just as bad; that's possible. But it's at least plausible that a little extra rest here and there would keep them fresher in the second half.

Ogden did play G his rookie year, and was quite good!

I guess that's why Northern was moved to defense!

Torry Smith could get 1,000 yards just in this game. Ravens 38-24. Full disclosure: I am starting EJ in fantasy this week. I will either be really happy or really sad.

I like it. Get Goodell on the phone and I'll pitch it to him.