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2021 Buffalo Bills - Same as it ever was*** (3 Viewers)

Since Whaley is saying they have a plan in place, my two thoughts would be that they bump Jim O'Neil up to the DC postion - or he will tap into one of his contacts in Pittsburgh and pull someone from under **** LeBeau.

 
Gregg Williams was mentioned apparently by someone that covers the Bills.

He's another one that would put me over the edge and make me go find a new team. Just no.

 
On The Rocks said:
Since Whaley is saying they have a plan in place, my two thoughts would be that they bump Jim O'Neil up to the DC postion - or he will tap into one of his contacts in Pittsburgh and pull someone from under **** LeBeau.
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I would imagine Pettine will bring someone from the Buffalo staff as his DC.

If your front office has ties to anyone under LeBeau then I would imagine anyone working under him on that defensive staff would be a great hire so the Bills might find another solid DC two years in a row.

Hope you guys get a good one. :thumbup:

 
GroveDiesel said:
Gregg Williams was mentioned apparently by someone that covers the Bills.

He's another one that would put me over the edge and make me go find a new team. Just no.
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Schwartz is a done deal now. Sigh.

But, for the record, our last great defenses came under Gregg Williams.

 
I was going to compliment you on Schwartz as your new DC but the last two posts seem down on him.

Schwartz as a HC? Not good but as a DC yeah, the guy is good. He earned a HC shot due to his defensive coordinator expertise. He comes from the Belichick tree and he got his start with Belichick in Cleveland so I've followed him.

You guys got a good one whether you realize it or not so I don't care if you want it but you are getting congratulated on a solid hire because Schwartz is a very good defensive coordinator.

 
I hate the Wide 9. Schwartz loves it. If he brings it with him, expect the run defense to get even worse than I is now. That's why I don't like the Schwartz hiring.

 
http://www.buffalobills.com/news/article-2/Schwartz-Scheme-will-attack-and-be-flexible/7ee1db65-8a6c-4d22-9649-3cf5aa04fdc5?campaign=fb_buf_article

Link to Schwartz Introductory Presser.

When it comes to running a defense it’s clear that Bills head coach Doug Marrone puts a higher priority on who is calling his defense, than what he’s calling. It’s his belief, and likely the belief of a lot of other sideline bosses in the NFL, that if you’ve got the right coach they’ll capably put the players in the best position to succeed. That was Marrone’s approach in hiring Jim Schwartz, who admitted in his introductory press conference Monday that’s he’s not Mike Pettine.

“Mike and I are different guys and even though I think continuity is important and there’s something to be said for that, we’re going to look very hard over the next few months for ways to keep as much continuity as we can,” Schwartz said. “From a coaching standpoint a lot of times it’s coaches adapting to players.

“We have some outstanding players up front and it’s our job as coaches to put them in good position to make plays. Whether that’s carry over from last year’s scheme, whether that’s new things that we bring, I think that’s what coaching is all about. It’s putting players in position to make plays and that’ll be a pretty easy group to do it.”

Schwartz has been labeled, right or wrong, as a defensive coach that gravitates to a four-man front based on his history running Tennessee’s defense (2001-08) and his defense in Detroit where he served as head coach for five seasons (2009-13). As Schwartz sees it his approach in both of those coaching stops was based largely on the talent he had to work with.

“When people say we relied on the front four that’s because they were really good,” Schwartz told Buffalobills.com. “For a significant portion of my career we didn’t have to blitz to get pressure on the quarterback. With guys like Jevon Kearse and Kevin Carter, Albert Haynesworth, Kyle Vanden Bosch in Tennessee, and even going to Detroit with Ndamukong Suh, Nick Fairley, Cliff Avril, Kyle Vanden Bosch was also up there. We were in a situation where we were doing what our players did best.

“We weren’t trying to force the issue of putting a square peg in a round hole. I think that’s part of coaching is you want to put players in good position and let them do what they do best. We’ve been in other situations where we didn’t have the talent up front and we had to blitz more and be a little more creative in our packages. We’ll be multi-dimensional enough to handle any of those situations (in Buffalo).”

Odds are he won’t have to be all that creative here either. With three Pro Bowl defensive linemen in Marcell Dareus, Kyle Williams and Mario Williams, the talent up front is pretty stacked. Bills fans might understandably shudder at the notion of relying on the front four to get to the quarterback after they had limited success with their pass rush in 2012 under former defensive coordinator Dave Wannstedt. The veteran coordinator had a very predictable pass rush scheme.

Schwartz insists that predictable is one description that won’t be associated with his scheme.

“We’ll be fast, we’ll be physical. We want to attack. We’re not going to be a reading defense. There are going to be a lot of defensive linemen who are going to be pretty happy to play in a system like that,” he said. “I think that over the next few months we will be looking at what is best rather than that is the way it has been done. There is going to be some carryover and there is going to be some things that we’ll wind up changing because we think it is in our best long-term benefit to be able to do that.”

Marrone confirmed that there were already plans in the works to tweak some things on defense to better address some of their deficiencies on that side of the ball from the 2013 season.

“I think what you see in every organization is you are going to see change from year to year,” he said. “That was one of the things that I was getting ready to talk about as some of the things we were going to change in our defense to make us better.”

Now that change figures to come in more than one form with a new man calling the plays on that side of the ball. But Schwartz maintains that the players on this roster will be able to handle the alterations he has in mind, in part because they’ve been through change each of the last three seasons.

“Players are resilient and players are smart and one of the benefits of having a lot of the players being in four different systems is it’s increased their knowledge,” Schwartz said. “Rather than repeating the same class for four years or five years, they’ve been exposed to a lot of different concepts, a lot of different terminology. They’ll pick things up quickly.

“We’ll work hard to try to keep some similarity with some terminology that makes sense. I think that’s important, but that’s not going to be our driving force. Our driving force is what we think serves us best over the long haul.”

Schwartz assures that his scheme has the fullest measure of flexibility necessary. It can adapt to whatever might be necessary for the next opponent on the schedule.

“It’s a scheme built on the guys up front getting after the quarterback,” he said. “As much as you want to be multi-dimensional with personnel groups, this league comes down to one-on-one and I think we have some guys win those.

“At the same time I think in the NFL you need to be able to adapt. You have to adapt to injuries and different situations come up with your opponent every week. Your opponent is going to have strengths that you have to combat and weaknesses that you want to exploit. So you want to be built that way and I think we have the players to do that.”

“Jim said it himself, it’s our responsibility as coaches to put the players in the best situation possible,” said Marrone. “Our goal is to make sure that they can just go out there and play. If we can make something easier for them and make them more productive then that’s what we’re going to do.”
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Bills losing 4 defensive coaches to Pettine and the Browns. Man that's a lot of turnover. I really hope Schwartz is better than I give him credit for. Seems like the "experts" around the league have been pretty positive in their reactions. We shall see.

 
Did we lose the DB's coach to Cleveland as well? I love what he did for McKelvin and Aaron Williams (although Gilmore looked like he regressed).

 
GroveDiesel said:
I hate the Wide 9. Schwartz loves it. If he brings it with him, expect the run defense to get even worse than I is now. That's why I don't like the Schwartz hiring.
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run defense has always been a strength of his I think.

I'm fine with the hire. I think he's a good coordinator/bad head coach type.

 
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Just heard a shocker that pertains to the Bills on Cleveland Browns Daily podcast a few minutes ago.

They post the podcast usually in a day or two and this bomb was dropped in the last segment when co-host Vic Carucci said that last year's Cleveland front office had a 4th round grade on QB E.J. Manuel.

Vic pointed out that grade was from last year's GM Tom Heckertt.

This came up when Vic was saying that he thinks that grades on Johnny Manziel could be all over the board and mentioned the grade that the Browns front office (Heckertt) had on E.J. Manuel last year.

I don't know if this had been leaked out before but I hadn't heard it and thought it was a significant bit of bit of information that Bills fans would want to hear.

Here is a link to yesterday's show. Today's podcast probably won't be posted till tomorrow. When its posted they post each show in segments and the above tidbit is in the fianl segment near the end of the show.

http://www.clevelandbrowns.com/media-center/audio/Cleveland-Browns-Daily---71/f500ca50-aa2e-44e1-a5e8-d73805e42f11#/media-center/audio/Cleveland_Browns_Daily_25_Part_1/3cd4cc1e-0ec9-4abc-bb95-011058d057e1

 
Bracie Smathers said:
Just heard a shocker that pertains to the Bills on Cleveland Browns Daily podcast a few minutes ago.

They post the podcast usually in a day or two and this bomb was dropped in the last segment when co-host Vic Carucci said that last year's Cleveland front office had a 4th round grade on QB E.J. Manuel.

Vic pointed out that grade was from last year's GM Tom Heckertt.

This came up when Vic was saying that he thinks that grades on Johnny Manziel could be all over the board and mentioned the grade that the Browns front office (Heckertt) had on E.J. Manuel last year.

I don't know if this had been leaked out before but I hadn't heard it and thought it was a significant bit of bit of information that Bills fans would want to hear.

Here is a link to yesterday's show. Today's podcast probably won't be posted till tomorrow. When its posted they post each show in segments and the above tidbit is in the fianl segment near the end of the show.

http://www.clevelandbrowns.com/media-center/audio/Cleveland-Browns-Daily---71/f500ca50-aa2e-44e1-a5e8-d73805e42f11#/media-center/audio/Cleveland_Browns_Daily_25_Part_1/3cd4cc1e-0ec9-4abc-bb95-011058d057e1
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Given that this is coming from the Browns, I'm inclined to feel good about this report.

 
I thought it was common knowledge that lots of teams had Manuel rated as a 3rd rounder or later. That's not intended as a crack on him or our front office, just that last year's QBs were rated very differently by different clubs.

 
IvanKaramazov said:
I thought it was common knowledge that lots of teams had Manuel rated as a 3rd rounder or later. That's not intended as a crack on him or our front office, just that last year's QBs were rated very differently by different clubs.
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Yep. Some teams had Ryan Nassib graded as at the later first round, and he went in the fourth.

 
I feel like I should be upset with the Bills or something but I just don't even care anymore. Although I really am curious as to what Buffalo actually offered Byrd.

But seriously, screw Byrd with his nonsense about just wanting to go play for a winner. He'll sign with whoever offers him the most money and everyone knows it.

 
I've read that the offer would have made him the highest paid S for the first 3 years of the contract, specifically 10 million per. The impression I get from what I've read and what I've heard is that he and his agent think that they could get a much better offer in this market.

I'm disappointed that he's probably leaving. OBD better use the money they were going to give him to work on extending Dareus, Spiller, A. Williams now. They need to try keeping their great players, not just their good players.

 
karl722 said:
I've read that the offer would have made him the highest paid S for the first 3 years of the contract, specifically 10 million per. The impression I get from what I've read and what I've heard is that he and his agent think that they could get a much better offer in this market.

I'm disappointed that he's probably leaving. OBD better use the money they were going to give him to work on extending Dareus, Spiller, A. Williams now. They need to try keeping their great players, not just their good players.
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I tend to get frustrated with the way this team doesn't resign quality players, but it sounds like Byrd just wanted to play elsewhere and was never going to resign with Buffalo. Whaley can't help that.

 
At least the Toronto game is going away. That was an incredibly idiotic thing to do in the first place, aside from the obvious money-grab angle.

 
OC Zed said:
Bracie Smathers said:
Just heard a shocker that pertains to the Bills on Cleveland Browns Daily podcast a few minutes ago.

They post the podcast usually in a day or two and this bomb was dropped in the last segment when co-host Vic Carucci said that last year's Cleveland front office had a 4th round grade on QB E.J. Manuel.

Vic pointed out that grade was from last year's GM Tom Heckertt.

This came up when Vic was saying that he thinks that grades on Johnny Manziel could be all over the board and mentioned the grade that the Browns front office (Heckertt) had on E.J. Manuel last year.

I don't know if this had been leaked out before but I hadn't heard it and thought it was a significant bit of bit of information that Bills fans would want to hear.

Here is a link to yesterday's show. Today's podcast probably won't be posted till tomorrow. When its posted they post each show in segments and the above tidbit is in the fianl segment near the end of the show.

http://www.clevelandbrowns.com/media-center/audio/Cleveland-Browns-Daily---71/f500ca50-aa2e-44e1-a5e8-d73805e42f11#/media-center/audio/Cleveland_Browns_Daily_25_Part_1/3cd4cc1e-0ec9-4abc-bb95-011058d057e1
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Given that this is coming from the Browns, I'm inclined to feel good about this report.
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Given that it comes from Vic Carucci, though, I'm inclined to feel worse about it. He's always seemed guarded to me in his Bills comments....when you hear him talk, it's clear he's still a Bills guy through and through.

I guess he's just reporting it, though, and that's his job.

 
humpback said:
They extend A. Williams
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Made him the 8th highest paid safety in the league. Seems like a good indication that they offered Byrd plenty of money IMO. Glad the Bills got Williams locked down. And frankly, at safety, I'd rather the Bills have the 8th highest paid than the #1 highest paid even if Byrd is better.

The only thing in Byrd's favor is that the salary cap went up $10M this year and is expected to go up that much each of the next 2 years as well. That could lead to some much larger contracts for top players. But I'm still ok with keeping Williams and keeping money for guys like Spiller, Glenn, Gilmore, etc. I'd rather spend money on them than on a FS, even one as good as Byrd. Especially when he's done the Bills as dirty as he's done them.

 
My buddy is going to be at some group dinner with Eric Wood on Saturday. He asked me if I wanted to give him anything to get autographed. All good shtick suggestions are welcome...

:popcorn:

 
So Cleveland is out of the Byrd sweepstakes. Reports are Washington is not really interested. Seems to leave Philly, maybe Dolphins and Buffalo still? Would be crazy if he ended up back in Buffalo at this point. Would be kind of hilarious if the Bills have already truly moved on and Byrd has to accept less money to go somewhere else. My guess is Parker would end up fired if that happens.

 
The only team that I have seen linked to Byrd that hasn't addressed FS today is the Dolphins. Byrd has got to be getting VERY nervous.

If I'm Buffalo, I pull my offer from last week (rumored to be worth $8M a year) and offer him something like $7.25M a year. Don't think he's getting more than that from anywhere else.

Best bet for him at this point may even be to have to sign a one year deal somewhere to try to prove he can stay healthy.

 
I keep seeing Mike Evans being mocked to the Bills. I just don't see the Bills spending a pick on a WR this year. They've drafted Robert Woods in the second last year and Goodwin in the 3rd. And T.J. Graham the year before that. Plus they still have Stevie Johnson.

I would be happy with Taylor Lewan or Jake Matthews if he fell that far. I would be thrilled with Kahlil Mack, too. The Bills may not have the best team, but they don't have a bunch of dire needs either.

Anyone in particular you guys would like to see the Bills target at #9?

 
PrinceofDarkness said:
I keep seeing Mike Evans being mocked to the Bills. I just don't see the Bills spending a pick on a WR this year. They've drafted Robert Woods in the second last year and Goodwin in the 3rd. And T.J. Graham the year before that. Plus they still have Stevie Johnson.

I would be happy with Taylor Lewan or Jake Matthews if he fell that far. I would be thrilled with Kahlil Mack, too. The Bills may not have the best team, but they don't have a bunch of dire needs either.

Anyone in particular you guys would like to see the Bills target at #9?
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I'd be pretty happy with Watkins, Evans, Mack, or one of the OTs. As far as the WRs go, I'm ready to part ways with Stevie. Too many games lost due to mistakes by him. I'd draft one of those future stud WRs to pair with Woods and Goodwin in 2015 and possibly several years beyond that.

 
Jairus Byrd to the Saints for 6 years, $54MM with $28MM guaranteed.

it's a bummer to lose him. not sure he's worth it but he is really good and it's tough to imagine the Bills ever getting better when they keep letting their star players leave in the prime of their careers.

 
Aaron Rudnicki said:
Jairus Byrd to the Saints for 6 years, $54MM with $28MM guaranteed.

it's a bummer to lose him. not sure he's worth it but he is really good and it's tough to imagine the Bills ever getting better when they keep letting their star players leave in the prime of their careers.
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The problem is, his is it "letting" them go? If Buffalo were a winning organization, it's a good bet that some of these guys would go ahead and extend their deals earlier and be a bit cheaper for Buffalo. Actually, they've done a pretty good job of that the last few years with guys like Kyle Williams, Stevie, Aaron Williams, Terrance McGee, Fred Jackson, etc.

Honestly, if you look at the last two guys the Bills have developed and lost, they were both Eguys. They need to stop drafting players repped by him. Seriously. He's always going to make sure he gets the biggest contract possible now for his client, even if those numbers turn out to be totally phony. So if you're a team that is interested in developing players and trying to extend them early to create longer term success, staying away from Parker clients is a good first step.

But we all know that the bottom line is that none of it matters in the NGL without a franchise QB. It's impossible to have longterm success without one. Guys like Byrd and Peters and Mario Williams, etc don't mean anything compared to a Brady, Rogers or Manning. There's honestly little use thing up a lot of money longterm with guys if you don't have that QB.

Everyone wants to copy the Super Bowl winner so naturally Safeties are all the rage right now. But both Denver and New England had pretty bad safety play this year and did just fine. I think Richard Sherman and the guys up front that unloaded all day on Manning had more to do with Seattle's overall success than their safeties.

It sucks to lose Byrd, but if NO gave him $9M a year, it would have cost $10-11M to keep him in Buffalo. And that's just not reasonable. Frankly, I'm not so sure that this won't end up weakening New Orleans as they have very little money to fill a lot of rolls filled by pretty decent veterans that left.

 
Echoing the SI write-up of the signing, "$28 million guaranteed for a safety is borderline bonkers."

Exactly.

 
The problem wasn't the Bills not making a competitive offer. Sources say they offered to make him the highest paid safety in the game.

The problem is letting their relationship with Byrd sour so badly prior to his walk year. I don't know whose fault that is: Bryd's or the head office, but it was pretty damn clear that Bryd wasn't walking away from the Bills when he could, he was running. They had zero shot at resigning him.

 
flysack said:
The problem wasn't the Bills not making a competitive offer. Sources say they offered to make him the highest paid safety in the game.

The problem is letting their relationship with Byrd sour so badly prior to his walk year. I don't know whose fault that is: Bryd's or the head office, but it was pretty damn clear that Bryd wasn't walking away from the Bills when he could, he was running. They had zero shot at resigning him.
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I think it's unfair to just assume it was Buffalo's fault. Parker is known to be the most ruthless agent in the NFL. It was pretty clear that Parker and Byrd were furious that Byrd was tagged last year.ETA: Last night Tim Graham tweeted that Buffalo offered Byrd $7.5M per year. Byrd wanted $9. Byrd got $9. He was always going to end up forcing free agency and he was always going to end up with the highest bidder. The fact that he has a chance to win was a nice bonus for him.

What would you have done differently?

 
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Does it make Bills fans feel a bit better about not paying Byrd the 3rd highest guarantee to a defensive player in league history? That seems crazy to me. Talib just got the biggest guarantee to a CB ever and Byrd bested it by $2M. For a safety.

Frankly, if the Bills can keep Dareus and extend Gilmore after this year because they didn't give that money to Byrd, I would take that 100 times out of 100.

 
GroveDiesel said:
Does it make Bills fans feel a bit better about not paying Byrd the 3rd highest guarantee to a defensive player in league history? That seems crazy to me. Talib just got the biggest guarantee to a CB ever and Byrd bested it by $2M. For a safety.

Frankly, if the Bills can keep Dareus and extend Gilmore after this year because they didn't give that money to Byrd, I would take that 100 times out of 100.
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Yes, it's a lot of money, but in a few years this might not be in the top 20 highest guarantees ever given to a defensive player.

I don't think they should have given him that contract (not that they would have), but that doesn't really make me feel better. Seems like SSDD.

 
GroveDiesel said:
Does it make Bills fans feel a bit better about not paying Byrd the 3rd highest guarantee to a defensive player in league history? That seems crazy to me. Talib just got the biggest guarantee to a CB ever and Byrd bested it by $2M. For a safety.

Frankly, if the Bills can keep Dareus and extend Gilmore after this year because they didn't give that money to Byrd, I would take that 100 times out of 100.
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Agree. New Orleans overpaid for Bryd and I'm glad Buffalo didn't match. I'd feel less comfortable with that if Pettine were still coordinator as a rangy FS is key to his defensive schemes.

 
OG Chris Williams? Meh...

It's depth, I guess. And cheap. But by the numbers, the schleps we had at LG last year were better. Maybe they're thinking Williams still has potential to be tapped?

 
flysack said:
OG Chris Williams? Meh...

It's depth, I guess. And cheap. But by the numbers, the schleps we had at LG last year were better. Maybe they're thinking Williams still has potential to be tapped?
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He wasn't that cheap. 4 years $13.5M.

Although who knows what the guaranteed money is or how it's structured. But there's little doubt they brought him in to start at LG.

 
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