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More reports of front office tensions with Buffalo Bills, Doug Marrone

If you wanted your Buffalo Bills football laced with a juicy front-office scandal, has Jason La Canfora got a story for you.

By Brian Galliford
Michael Adamucci

Remember back in late February, when reports first surfaced of a growing rift between Doug Whaley, Doug Marrone, and the "old guard" that constituted the holdover portion of the Buffalo Bills' front office from previous regimes? And that team President and CEO Russ Brandon had a situation to defuse because of it?

Apparently, there has instead been an explosion. Several, even, if the latest report about the situation is true.

Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports published a lengthy and detailed dive into the continued front office issues the Bills are having. It reads as a smear job on Marrone in particular, who allegedly refers to himself as "Saint Doug" in team headquarters, has a contentious relationship with pro personnel head Jim Monos (a Whaley hire), and has repeatedly quarreled with both personnel men and players - all within sight of the men he's trying to lead.

You are, of course, encouraged to read the entire article. It's all anyone will be talking about all weekend, I assure you. Marrone, by the way, has already laughed off the report:

This is a different level of front office dysfunction than we were clued into back in February. At that point, Whaley and Marrone were postured as the new guard, attempting to procure the required control to return a sad-sack organization to its winning ways. La Canfora, however, paints a picture of Marrone working against pretty much everyone else in the building. Keep in mind that that may have been the goal of whichever team sources La Canfora is speaking with.

We were even privy to some of this a week and a half ago, when Marrone, Whaley, and Brandon got into it before a preseason practice, shortly after the start of the very short-lived Jordan Palmer era.

It is slightly disconcerting that a half-year has passed since initial reports of the rift surfaced - and that the situation has apparently grown worse, if La Canfora's sources are telling even a partial truth. The phrase "winning cures all" exists for a reason, but as the undercurrent to what happens on Sundays grows ever more contentious - spinning, apparently, out of even Brandon's control - the three entities vying for franchise ownership will undoubtedly be watching this situation closely.

The Bills as an organization now have a situation to defuse, and the only remedy they have time for is to win. Starting Sunday.

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