I was definitely a bit taken aback by the unusual situation that occurred with the Buffalo Bills recently. Especially when the Bills seemed to to be rising from the depths. The team that was clearly on the verge of becoming a legit team to be dealing with, for years to come. Seemingly just a very few pieces away, a team that had promise on their side. The whole thing, to me, felt weird. Buffalo was on the upswing of turning their organization around, into the right direction, after not having a winning season since 2004. It made me really question, could it be due to the unstable QB situation?
Having no reliable QB makes some sense, I suppose, when you figure you’re in a division with Tom Brady and Ryan Tannehill, yes I am stating him, because he’s a pretty decent QB. And obviously the Jets are not a competitive spot at that position. And the whole time winning with Kyle Orton as his main man, for that matter. Orton put up acceptable numbers this year, with 18 tds and 252 ypg.
What doesn’t make sense though, is that the Bills were very relevant and were absolutely competing again. It just seems so quickly, after their past success, that the Bills could be on their way to becoming a joke in the NFL yet again.
Marrone seemed to have instilled a winning mentality, while coaching with the Bills. In the same aspect, I guess I am not surprised just the same. 32 year old Orton retires, leaving you with no QB. Marrone lands a hefty $4M in 2015 salary for free.
EJ Manuel has sure enough shown he is not going to be anything worth much, in my opinion. He has shown he was a QB that should have went in the 5th round, the Bills, potentially could have drafted Eddie Lacy, Le’Veon Bell or even QB Mike Glennon instead. Makes me wonder what difference that would have made?
He seems to have a strong mindset and knows what he wanted and what he expected, and when the Bills drafted EJ Manuel it didn’t take long for him to realize, this might not be the answer, and benched him. With Coach Marrone and Orton both history, I question how long before Manuel is released from his contract, as well.
A move I think would be the best option for Marrone would be the Atlanta Falcons. He gets a top ended QB in Matt Ryan, a very good offense, that should be consistently dropping 29+ a game. He would have a great core team to work around, and an easy conference to play in, as the other teams are not anything too daunting any longer. Some have complained, saying he was too conservative and he really didn’t do a good job using CJ Spiller. Saying he used a bunch of vanilla play calling. And also didn’t use Sammy Watkins properly either. But certainly having EJ Manuel as his QB didn’t help his situation any, as for any future outlook.
It seems that when they grabbed Sammy Watkins, without having a QB, was kind of putting the cart before the horse. While Watkins was a great grab and will surely have a great career. Drafting a WR without a strong QB to throw the ball to him doesn’t make sense to me.
He ended up giving away a 1st and a 4th round pick for WR who ended up with 128 targets but just 6 tds. I think in hindsight, after giving up next years first round pick, I think that Marrone knew he’d be better to jump ship now before he becomes unemployable in the league.
Constantly changing coaches and systems is always going to play a huge role in keeping a franchise down. It is never a good thing, teams need stability, ask the Raiders how constant changes have worked for them over the last 20 years.
I believe he opted out simply because he had nothing to look forward to in Buffalo over the next several years.
Written by TonyK of VegasTopDogs.com
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