thewildrabbit

Can anyone else imagine if Wilson had stepped up and had given Chuck Knox a new contract instead of letting him walk? Imagine Bill Polian as GM and Knox as head coach. Imagine winning those 4 super bowls and having a dynasty during the entire 80's and early 90's. "What if Chuck Knox didn't leave the Bills? Chuck Knox and Jim Kelly? Yup, the offseason that Knox left for Seattle was the same time that the Bills drafted Jim Kelly. Maybe, with Knox having a coaching resume with 7 playoff appearances, and being viewed as a players coach, he might have been able to convince Kelly to not run for the USFL. You also have to understand that at the time, Knox was an awesome coach. Unlike Saban, who couldn't find success elsewhere, Knox was able to turn around the Rams, Bills and Seahawks. If he, Wilson and the GM were on the same page, he probably would have lasted at least a couple of more years. Maybe, we never hear of the name Marv Levy." http://www.buffalowi...s-v15-1142.html "It's just interesting that the two best coaches for the first 25 years of the franchise's existence, had such a huge falling out with management." And two of the very best GM's the NFL has ever seen In John Butler and Bill Polian.

Chuck Knox was the greatest thing to hit Buffalo....ever! You old timers need to remember what it was like in Buffalo Back in the late 70's. An industrial wasteland, steel plants closing, High jobless rate, businesses closing. The Blizzard of 77. Too much snow, poisonous air and water. A bad bad football team with the stadium half filled during games. How bad you ask? So bad in fact they had only sold 18,000 season tickets, and we could not even get a home preseason game because people would not come out to see it. (back then Rich Stadium had 80,000+ seats) The team and city were a national joke, a top target of nighttime TV host Johnny Carson who was always making jokes about how undesirable it was, as a place to live in the United States. When Chuck Knox was hired he was not only the head coach but also the vice president of football operations (GM). The Buffalo Bills had finished 2-12 / 3-11 the seasons before Knox took over.. 1980--The Bills, who had just five wins in two seasons before Knox took over, post an 11-5 record, win their first AFC East championship in 14 years and Knox is selected NFL Coach of the Year again. 1981--Buffalo's 10-4 record is good enough for a wild card spot and the Bills win their first postseason game since 1965. It wasn't just GM Stew Barber tho (who had no business being a GM) Barber set up a dinner meeting with first round draft choice Tom Cousineau and then never showed up, never telephoned, never did anything "I was waiting at the hotel (for dinner) and they never showed," Cousineau said. "They never called. I'm not kidding. Hearing no or being turned down or snubbed was not a new experience, but it seemed ... first of all very rude. And inhospitable." "(Barber) was sort of the old guard," Cousineau said. "I think he resented the growth in salaries and where the game was going. I would imagine he'd have huge problems today." The Bills at that time were known for their spendthrift ways, and the team was not a good one. In the five seasons between 1975 and 1980, the Bills won 17 games. It was not until Bill Polian took over in 1985 that the Bills started to win consistently. Was the Bills' offer fair? A Sports Illustrated story prior to the draft said Cousineau could expect an offer in the five-year, $1 million range, but Cousineau heard players taken after him made more. http://www.aolnews.com/2010/04/21/tom-cousineau-reflects-on-being-chosen-one-in-1979/ http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19830126&id=ghweAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SWgEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3377,1877716 Joe Ferguson even went as far as to complain to the media about how Ralph Wilson wasn't willing to pay top dollar for talent. http://www.buffalowins.com/features/what-if/27-whaf-if-chuck-knox-didnt-goto-the-seahawks-v15-1142.html Chuck Knox had a 54-15 regular season record with the Rams when he was hired by the Buffalo Bills. Winning 5 straight NFC West Championships Ralph Wilson had his very own Bill Belichick clone. A man who knew exactly what it took to build a winning NFL football team. A man who could evaluate talent properly on all levels. A man who was a supreme motivator, and could get a bunch of nobody's to believe in themselves to overachieve. Took a QB who would hang his head with every bad pass and turned him into a playoff caliber QB. A man who revamped the Bills scouting department and brought in head scout Norm Pollom, and most of his coaching staff from the Rams. Yet Ralph Wilson let Chuck Knox walk away...the Seahawks were very grateful.

or the offense... I'm hoping Morrone keeps using the spread set and simply runs more from it, IDC who the QB is. My highest priority is a LBer, WR, QB in any order as I'm not really sold on this years crop of QB's

About the same for Bills fans not getting Lovie I'd think http://www.panthers.com/team/coaches/rob-chudzinski/4256904b-b890-4f70-b6a3-b745cece0685 Is this the HC that is good enough to compete with the Bengals, Steelers, Ravens who are all fighting for a playoff berth every year.

While I agree that Fitz sucked at times under Gailey. There were other times he didn't play that badly. The Bills defense this year was far worse then Fitz. I also factor in that a lot of that was Chan Gailey himself and the plays he called. For the last 3 years I've watched Chan trying to magically transform Fitz into Drew Brees / Tom Brady game after game by constantly calling pass plays from shotgun spread sets. Always putting the weakest player on the offense under the gun instead of controlling the game with a solid rushing attack. Kinda the reason the Bills went 16-32 under Gailey. I'm not defending Fitz, I'm more condemning Gailey. Lets not forget the the 90's Buffalo Bills with Jim Kelly used the spread set and ran more then they passed most years.

If there's a reasonable chance of getting a franchise QB in the upcoming draft, the Bills have to either avail themselves of that chance, or resign themselves to another few years of mediocrity. Opportunities to obtain franchise QBs are very rare, and it would be the height of foolishness to pass up one such chance in the expectation of soon being granted another. Doing so would be almost as bad as tearing up a winning lottery ticket, with the thought that, "If I won once, I can always win again. So what's the big deal?" Yea,OK. Name that rare opportunity the Bills should draft at QB in 2013.

As much as I like your idea of adding to the O line, the LBer corps needs help more. Or even WR.

Yea well, so many of you missed the points of my post. IDGAF what Fitz did under Gailey as Chan was a moron. Did you miss the part where Fitz and the entire offense were clueless on how to run a 2 min / hurry up offense which is an integral part of any offense. I shudder at the thought of how many others areas of coaching Gailey effed up on I know that when the Bills hired David Lee in 2012 off season and he was tutoring Fitz on his mechanics Fitz mentioned that nobody previously had tried to work with him on his passing mechanics or techniques. So what does that tell you how much of an influence that Gailey had on Fitz 2010 & 2011. It tells me all Gailey did was call plays. Then the BB receivers corps blows chunks. They have ONE player in the top 25 for receiving YARDS, ONE! The next best was ranked 77th! Scott Chandler who was injured quite a bit. Talk about limiting the QB's chances of success. Under Gailey all the offense did was throw throw throw and to WHO? ONE GUY! In 4-5 WR sets. The Bills were 6th in the NFL last season in rushing, and could have easily been #1 if Gailey utilized Jackson and Spiller more in every game. More in passing, more in rushing. Even the moron himself declared that Jackson and Spiller should get 40 touches a game between the two of them. Yet he only did that in one game all season. (which they won btw) Spiller getting 7 touches a game was almost criminal. 17th or 24th, who cares! Way to pull out one stat and try and make everything else in the post irrelevant. Then you have some followers agreeing with you There were reasons that Gailey chose Fitz as his starter and kept him as his starter for 3 years. First, is his escape-ability. In 2010 and under a great deal of pass rush in those first 8 games Fitz survived because he scrambled very much like Michael Vick to the tune of 6.7 YPC. Ranked 63rd in rushing 40 attempts 269 yards The man was literally running for his life for those first 8 games until Nix finally found some O line players off the waiver wire. Second, is his ability to read the opposing defense and set O line protections accordingly. This might seem trivial to most of you, but its externally important in running a decent NFL offense. Again, this was ALL Fitz as Gailey couldn't teach this to any other QB. How many other QB's? Like 6 other QB's! Third, was Fitz's ability to target the open WR and hit him with the ball in usually under 2.5 seconds,and sometimes as quickly as 1.5 seconds. For the most part his ability to get the ball out so quickly would negate any pass rush on the QB. Kinda why the O line stats looked so good with a bunch of nobody's at tackle. So, while some of you more obtuse Bills fans are stoking the fires of your hatred for Fitz, why don't you temper it with the understanding that Fitz just might be the answer until Marrone can build a proper supporting cast around the QB.

so much for Pete Carmichael... sometimes you can't always get what you want

Ryan Fitzpatrick was the 17th ranked QB in 2012. 83.3 rating. http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/player/_/stat/passing/sort/quarterbackRating/seasontype/2 The Bills were 25th in passing last season while #6 in rushing, and yet most feel CJ Spiller at RB was under utilized all season. Bills WR Stevie Johnson was ranked 19 in yards for 2011, and ranked 18th in 2012 79 receptions, 148 targets, 1046 yards, 6 TD's. The next best receiver on the team was Scott Chandler ranked #77th, 43 receptions for 571 yards. 3rd on the team was Ranked #101 CJ Spiller with 43 receptions for 459 yards. Donald Jones ranked#107 at 4th with 41 receptions,443 yards The 5th best Bills receiver Ranked #137 was TJ Graham 31 receptions for 322 yards. Then consider David Nelson was lost for the season after one game, and Chandler was injured often. The Bills had only one decent receiver again this year, ONE! That didn't stop Gailey from calling his famous shotgun spread empty backfield sets. I"d like to see the Buffalo Bills get a solid top #1 or #2 WR. Let Fitz throw less, and have the BIlls RB's run more. Plus a better DC and the players doing their jobs correctly will give the Bills a chance to win more games. I'm not going to judge what Doug Marrone does with Fitz based on what Fitz did playing QB for Chan Gailey. Gailey never taught Fitz how to run a 2 min drill on offense properly, nor did he teach the other Bills players how to run a "hurry up" offense to win the game. Lets see what Marrone can figure out to do with Fitz, and see if he is salvageable. I'm thinking he is at first, while Marrone gets a backup QB or rookie QB ready to take over. Meanwhile teaching Fitz how to do his job properly.

There is talk that David Caldwell, Atlanta Falcons Director of player personnel is top on the Jags list as their next GM after his 3rd interview with the Jags http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/01/07/david-caldwell-has-third-interview-with-jaguars/ http://www.nfl.com/n...find-other-jobs If that change takes place its already rumored that Caldwell doesn't want Mularkey as his HC "I continue to hear that if Atlanta's Dave Caldwell gets the Jaguars GM job that head coach Mike Mularkey would almost certainly be out" http://www.cbssports...b-chances-stall at the bottom

Plus the fact that Russ is apparently "fond" of Wisenhunt There was also a twitter remark made by someone that it was Wisenhunt's job if he wants it (its in the Wisenhunt thread) I also read somewhere that the Bills interviewed Wisenhunt more then once. http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/01/01/report-russ-brandon-fond-of-ken-whisenhunt/ I'd take Doug Marrone any day over another known loser (retread)HC Its also interesting that Mike McCoy declined his interview with Buffalo on Sat and wanted to setup another interview after the playoffs. I guess the Bills didn't care to wait that long. I still have no idea why Lovie Smith didn't garner more attention.

More importantly, and the key to that defense is the Mike Backer IMO Jauron was a moron as he never did find top LBers for his defense. Kiffin had guys like Derrick Brooks 14 seasons, 11 pro bowls. Brooks didn't miss a single game in his career.

“The coordinators will need to have thorough NFL experience, especially on the defensive side of the ball.” http://profootballta...d-coordinators/ The new HC has spoken. But yea, hire the very best you can get at this point. Lovie Smith as DC if he doesn't get hired by San Diego, Philly, Arizona, Cleveland

Ditto here you did your best.

NFN, but I'm reading that Marrone will hire experienced NFL assistants at OC & DC. “The coordinators will need to have thorough NFL experience, especially on the defensive side of the ball.” http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/01/07/doug-marrones-looking-for-an-experienced-coordinators/ Which to me is a very great thing, hopefully he picks the right people as we all know that was both Jauron & Gaileys downfall. P.S. Quoting wiki on anything=

The NFL might be changing to what is currently successful college football. Cam newton, RG3, Russell Wilson. all running versions of their college offense. Mike Sherman the Dolphins OC coached Miami rookie QB Ryan Tennahill in college. I can see this as a way to fast track their respective teams to winning and getting the QB's up to speed quickly. But ya know what, there is a drawback to the read option, and running QB's as NFL defenses are so much faster and hit so much harder. What will the NFL lifespan of RG3 be, considering the Skins gave up the farm for him? Meanwhile QB's like Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Matt Ryan, Aaron Rodgers all on the top edge of vying for this years SB trophy are the "pocket" QB's and will always be better then the running QB's IMO. So, the question is... was Doug Marrone hired so the Bills can draft Syracuse QB Ryan Nassib, and Marrone can run his Orangeman offense in Buffalo?

I feel the same way I really disliked always being negative about Chan Gailey and his staff, but there was very little to be positive about the last 3 years. Lets hope that this hire changes that. Although I'm still very skeptical about this hire. For the life of me I still cannot fathom why after almost 13 straight losing seasons this franchise wouldn't literally jump at the chance to hire a proven winner. But then thinking back they also turned down Marty S who really wanted the Bills HCing job badly in 2010.

Geez, so happy the Bills were able to get the jump on the only team in the NFL with a worse winning history. Next year we will know if we screwed or saved Cleveland

Look guys, at least Brandon didn't hire Ken Wisenhunt. Gotta wait and see what next season brings.

I just don't get it...coulda had Lovie The assistant coaches will be the key, hopefully he can hire some experienced NFL assistants, or its another 3 years of growing pains Being the OC under Sean Peyton for 2 years doesn't mean much. Its like Steve Fairchild was under Mike Martz. Peyton calls his own offensive plays and sets up his own game plans. Pro football reference doesn't even acknowledge Marrone as the OC for those 2 years.

Great point. As Bill Walsh used to say it takes about 4 years for a QB to fully develop. Bills fans giving the kid grief because he has gone to the playoffs each year in his first two years, and didn't win in the playoffs yet. Wouldn't it just be great to see a Buffalo Bills team with a winning record after starting a rookie QB. I can only imagine what the Bills injury list would look like playing against the Ravens & Steelers 2x a year

How do I get thru to you? The GM of a team doesn't go to the HC and get his opinion, and input on players to draft at all? He just chooses whomever he wants and thats it? If you think that you are indeed a total fool. How do we know that Todd Haley, (the teams OC when they went to the SB) didn't have more to do with resurrecting Kurt Warner then Wisenhunt did? Look what happened to the Arizona offense after Haley left to be the HC in KC. You STILL didn't answer the question! Where are all the offensive stars brought in, groomed or coached up by Ken Wisenhunt? Ken Wisenhunt is supposedly an offensive minded HC as he was a OC with the Steelers before becoming HC of the Cards. What does it tell you that the Arizona Cardinals were DEAD LAST in the NFL this season on offense! Would you be amazed if a QB had 18 attempts for 64 yards and his team won a playoff game on the road?

Here,here Then consider the QB's Lovie won with... Cmon 13-3 and a super bowl with Rex Grossman / Brian Griese at QB! So, do we know if the Bears GM's are more responsible for the hirings of those incompetent OC's? Was Lovie Smith allowed to choose his own assistants or was that delegated to him by the GM's above him? 9 years, 81-63, .563 % with mostly scrubs at QB. 2004 5-11 QB Chad Hutchinson, 5 games, Jonathan Quinn, 3 games, Craig Krenzel, 3 games. Rex Grossman, 3 games besides Grossman who are these guys? Geez! 2005 11-5 took the guy one year to go to the playoffs. QB Kyle Orton 15 GS. Man, look at that Bears defense this year, I want some of that in Buffalo!

Talk about cherry picking! Answer the questions! Where are all the offensive stars that Ken Wisenhunt brought in, groomed or coached up? NAME ONE! QB's Matt Leinart, FA Derak Anderson, FA Max Hall, drafted John Skelton, drafted Ryan Lindley, all sucked under Wis. Gailey sucks, and he did a better job because at least he chose RB CJ Spiller! Where are the QB's Ken Wisenhunt, this supposed offensive mind coached up to greatness? Besides Kurt Warner who already had a SB under his belt. Gailey beats Wiz with 6-10 vs 5-11. Losing the last 11 of 12. That Cardinal offense was just downright pathetic this season. Like I said, Wisenhunt was lucky that Werner was already on the team because he wouldn't have gotten anywhere without him. Plus, It could have been OC Todd Haley helped for their offensive success rather then just Wisenhunt. Look at the last 3 years without Haley. Wis called his own plays and setup that offense for 2 years, and that didn't work so he hired OC Mike Miller. Arizona was dead last in the NFL in total offense this year! Oh yea, a great offensive mind. Wisenhunt sucks worse then Gailey!