Hapless Bills Fan
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Posts posted by Hapless Bills Fan
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I wasn't completely sold on the Ryan hire, but I thought at least they were trying to get a big "name" guy and hoped it would work out. It hasn't. After watching the season so far, I'd fire Ryan in a heart beat. I don't like the way they get beat. The penalties, the poor game management, players taking plays off, the play calling on offense and defense, implementing his scheme even though he doesn't have the players to run it (it appears), Rex acknowledging he was outcoached in 3 or 4 games, etc. I don't believe Rex can fix those problems in the next year or two. The Bills can fire Rex now or they will be doing it in 1-2 years. I just don't see Rex turning this around in however much time he has here. I'm less inclined to fire Whaley, but I would bring in a football czar. Someone whose built successful teams in the past hopefully. That doesn't mean they will again, but maybe they're closer than someone who hasn't.
Again, I don't mean to sound snarky, but who is this football czar who has built successful teams in the past but is currently available? Why is he currently available?
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Tyrod has been the best QB the Bills have had in a long time. But that is an incredibly low bar to grade a QB on. He has some serious deficiencies for a guy finishing his fifth year in the league. He has the slowest release time in the league, slower than the true rookies starting this year. It appears that the coaches only trust him with half-field read plays. These things can improve. But it is foolish to assume they will. Bills need to treat the draft as if they have no PROVEN commodity at QB.
I often don't agree with you, but you're spot on here. Tyrod is exciting. He has carried the team to a win sometimes. I love watching him at times. He has also failed to spot the open guy or the easy throw consistently, especially over the middle of the field. I also may be alone here, but while he doesn't often throw INTs, he seems to achieve this at the cost of hanging onto the ball too long, leading to a lot of fumble-inducing hits and sacks. Fumbles concern me big time whether they're recovered or not. At best they change momentum and put us in long down and distance, at worst they change possession.
The Bills need to act as though they don't have a QB until it's obvious to everyone through every game that they do.
So you advocate using draft picks on lottery tickets when you could pick up actual players who can contribute like a Karlos Williams?
Erm, at the position where Karlos Williams was drafted, any player is a lottery ticket. He may contribute (Winning ticket!), he may not.
The Bills have historically taken your view and been very sparing of how often and where they use draft picks on QB. How has that worked for us?
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Like I said, that if the Pegula's hire the right NFL experienced man to run the football operations side of the team then the fans should be very happy in the days to come.
So who, in your view, would be that right guy? (I guess this could read as snark but it's intended as an open question).
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I'm sure more will be written once the door hits Mario's butt, but his mutinous behavior had a huge role in the defensive collapse.
Which came first, the egg or the chicken?
Players know when they're being asked to execute roles that don't suit their skills in ineffective schemes. Think about how Mario played under Wannstache. Would everyone prefer a guy with Mario's physical skills and football talent and Kyle Williams' lunchpail mentality and work ethic, Yes. But most everyone would take a guy with Mario's physical skills and football talent and just put him in a role that suits him in a scheme that works.
Getting rid of talented players then drafting to fill holes used to be looked down upon around here.
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A disappointment? Absolutely! A disaster is taking it too far IMO.
I go that far. On D, taking a top-5 D to what we have now is indeed a "disaster"
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Pettine as DC is the only hope. But then Rex needs to be told he has zero control over the D and it's all Pettine, just like it was several years ago here.
That would be such a terrible move. I wonder who Pegula is allegedly speaking with.
You do recall that the Pettine D, while aggressive with blitzing, couldn't stop the run? Im not sure they could stop a nosebleed.
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My guess is that the Pegulas relied more on Whaley's input than Brandon's for the Rex hire, hence the hot seat for Whaley now.
I don't think that's a good guess.
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Marrone left on his own volition so it is futile to discuss his departure. But what I will say about him and believe it is a fair analysis about his tenure is that he did more with less talent than Rex who did less with more talent.
DM made a very early unfavorable assessment on EJ that proved to be right. He also made an early unfavorable assessment on Kujo that also proved to be right. On those two players both coaches agreed with each other. I bring up these two players because DM was skewered for not giving these players enough opportunity. In the end what he saw in each player materialized.
It's difficult to make a fair judgment on a two year coaching stint. However, Doug Marrone took over a team that was in a rebuild mode. In his first year the team won 4 games. The next year the team won 9 games (some say 8) even though their offense was far from being adequately staffed, especially on the OL and at qb.
Doug Marrone was a tough coach. He strictly held the players accountable. A lot of players didn't like him for his tough stance. But they always played hard for him. Compare that to what is going on now. Especially on defense this is a fractured team, a team that is in a free fall.
My point is simple. Although Doug Marrone was unlikable he was a better coach than the more likable current coach. The bottom line is it is about the bottom line. Without any hesitation I would take the former dour coach over the present loquacious coach.
I've said this before, but I disagree with your final point. I think Marrone and Rex are dopplegangers, mirror images, each with a fatal flaw.
Marrone was an offense-minded coach who was smart enough to hire the best available talent at DC and leave them alone. The offensive unit he had, on the other hand, significantly underperformed. Keep in mind he had a younger FredEx and CJ Spiller, whose production fell off greatly from where it was under Gailey. He also had Watkins, Woods, a TE who was picked up by the Pats**, and Hogan as well as Goodwin who did show himself a deep threat when healthy. He did have some talent on the offensive side. He appeared to hold grudges and bench players whose training room regimen he disapproved after they became healthy.
Rex is a defense-minded coach who was smart enough to hire an OC who had shown he could get good performance out of meh QB and go to championships, give them good talent in McCoy, Karlos Williams, Woods, Watkins, Harvin, Hogan, and Clay . The defensive unit he has, on the other hand, significantly underperformed. He talked the talk about fitting his scheme to the talented players he had, but when it came down to it, he brought out a scheme that appears most ill-suited to the players talent. He didn't walk the walk. He embraces distractions that have to take away from preparation, including TV shows etc. He appears unable to hold players accountable for undiscipline play.
I would like to see a coach who functions as a head coach and brings in competence at both OC and DC.
It was sad to watch Arizona just shredding the same Eagles D that stopped us and macerating the same Eagles offense we couldn't stop last week
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Whaley has problems with Impulse control. When he likes someone he dramatically OVER VALUES them and will dramatically overspend for them.
Where do you get this?
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Points is deceiving. What was average field position? Were they already in field goal range because captain turnover Geno was playing.
Turnovers, sacks, 3rd down completion percentage, and yardage is what I care about.
Interestingly, two of the four things you care about are not particularly correlated with winning (sacks, and yardage given up), while points allowed (no surprise) is.
Teams that are successful at forcing turnovers and at 3rd down conversions (again no surprise) give up fewer points.
3rd down completions don't matter if they don't convert, I'm not sure whether you mean conversions which is the more common stat
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Schwartz as head coach and we would be in the playoffs. A top 5 defense with this halfway decent offense would have been a 10 win team. No reason to blame anything on Roman. The only thing Rex has done has vouched for Tyrod and made a bunch of promises he couldn't live up to. They need to blow up the whole team starting with the scouts and front office. Too many losers that have had a position of power for lots of losing seasons
I agree with your first 4 sentences. The scouts, though - seem to be doing better at talent ID in the draft and at bringing in late-season pro fill-ins than we've seen for years, and we have had pretty much 100% turnover in the positions of power there - who in the pro personnel/scouting department has been in power for "lots of losing seasons"?
I still think it was zero.
Have you watched that video? I have no way of knowing who the prime mover was, but "zero" is a hard sell after watching it.
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I've been saying it for years...I think the main problem with this team during this stretch of futility has been brandon. Until they get rid of this cancer that had infected the whole organization, the bills will continue to spin their wheels.
Unfortunately, given the big vote of confidence from the Pegulas in giving him the Sabers FO as well, I think he's staying.
I still wonder how much influence Brandon had on the Watkins trade-up. For years, the Bills made some kind of a grand "see, we signed a star!" splash each off season (TO, Merriman etc) which had "marketing" all over it. When you watch the video of the Bills War Room during the trade, the FO people including Brandon, are positively giddy. Dealer Doug has his best poker face on, but the rest are jumping around fist pumping and high fiving.
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I mentioned prednisone in an earlier post. You raise an interesting point- that would be insane if they didn't allow him to take and play with prednisone in his system. I have to think there's an exception to be had there. It's a quick fix and the closest thing to a cure all but is the opposite of a long term solution.
Prednisone is a corticosteroid. It reduces inflammation. Short term, people who don't have psychological effects (depression/euphoria) have relatively minimal side effects ("moon face", fluid retention, some muscle loss). Long term, they cause a laundry list of side effects including immune suppression, insulin resistance/ sometimes diabetes, muscle wasting, and osteoporosis - not good drugs to take systemically over the long term, unless the alternatives are worse.
The banned steroid drugs are anabolic steroids, which help to build muscle at a heavy cost to the emotions ('roid rage) as well as potential cardiovascular and neurological damage.
Again, as someone with Crohn's, he's going to be fine. Please stop with the prayers and the hoping he survives, etc. It's something he'll always have to deal with but I would be shocked if it dramatically affected his career at all. He does not have cancer, ok guys? You guys know Matt Light played his whole career with Crohn's, right? Theo Fleury, Kevin Dineen, David Garrard, Shannon Doherty, the list goes on and on.
I wish you very well, and am so glad you are fine! But again, with autoimmune diseases, they are very individual. Some people have a relatively mild case which is readily managed with "lower tier" drugs and some diet changes, I hope you are one and remain one for years. Others have severe disease that must be beaten into submission with the "big guns" of monoclonal antibody drugs (Humira, Remicade) and/or require multiple surgeries and yeah, if it's not caught and beaten into submission in time can develop toxic megacolon, intestinal bleeds, or intestinal perforations and yeah, that's prayer and hope territory. Will it affect his career, that really depends upon the details of his individual disease and what he needs to manage it.
The problem with being an elite athlete is most of them develop a high acceptance for severe pain that would be debilitating to normal people so it is possible Henderson "played through it" until it became so severe he got into a serious case with bad complications.
Hope not.
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Since you raised the point that a lot of people make around here (and your posts are usually pretty well articulated) my questions are pointed to you, but they are not limited to you.
Did you expect Rex to abandon his scheme? That simply wasn't going to happen. No coach the Bills have brought in has ever said "I've been doing things one way for years, but I think I will change it up this year".
Or did you expect Rex to make the players that were already here do different things? This is what historically happens. It rapidly becomes the same problem nearly every time coaches are changed. Maybe the exception is when the protégé takes over for the retiring coach.
Perhaps it is a coaching failure on Rex's part, but shouldn't most of the blame lay at the feet of the people who hired a guy who was most certainly going to drastically alter a very good defense?
My biggest fear with the Rex hire was that he would blow up an elite D and make it a mediocre D.
I expected Rex to walk the walk that he talked in his talk: words to the effect that "people think I'm a scheme guy and talk about my scheme, I'm not a scheme guy, I'm a football guy" and "just give me talented football players and I'll figure out how to use them".
I'm sure that was a big part of his sales pitch to the Pegulas, Brandon, and Whaley.
So yeah, Stupid Me, I kind of expected him to say what he meant and mean what he said, and that would be to devise a scheme that made good use of the players he had on D. The very talented players he had on D. The very talented proven successful players he had on D.
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Sure, unless Taylor has a great 2016 and decides he doesn't want to play in Buffalo. There will be teams lining up for him. Why stay with a team that doesn't believe in him?
This reminds me of the stuff about how we'd only get to keep Roman one year because teams would be lining up to interview him for HC positions. For the folks who worried about this, how's that working out
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One's age and lifestyle contributes a lot to "Crohns is manageable"
best of luck!
Indubitably, but the specifics of the individual disease have probably the most to do. Some people lead quite healthy lifestyles and are quite willing to change their diet, avoid alcohol etc and their Crohns still runs nuts. Life sucks like that sometimes.
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I have Crohn's Disease and can assure you that a) diet is critical to managing Crohn's (although as I stated already, more often than not, if I'm in full on remission, I can eat whatever I want and if I'm mid flare, anything will set it off) and b) everyone's illness is wildly different. Gluten absolutely affects me and makes me bloated. In fact, most people I know with Crohn's are affected by gluten more than anything else. For me, greasy foods are not an issue, for many they are.
And as far as calling the dude out and saying it's time for him to play, you do realize he hasn't even returned to Buffalo yet after being hospitalized in Philly, right?
? he was saying I think, that Kujo (not Henderson) should play. It's Henderson who has Crohns and was hospitalized in Philly, right? Kujo has been a healthy scratch?
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Was there any reason to buy into the hype when the key issues with the team weren't addressed like O line and QB? What was very disappointing to me is the step back the defense took. I am interested to see if, as I've read on this board, Ryan doesn't have the right players to run his style of defense. I just think a good coach takes the players he has and comes up with something that those players can execute.
I felt the Bills did every reasonable thing they could to address the QB issue by trading for a vet, signing a dark-horse FA, and planning on a run-first D. While I wish they'd opened the bank a little more to bring in a top tier FA OLman, they did sign a FA and draft a guy. Maybe it's just me, but I don't feel the offense has been the big issue.
The D has taken a clear step backwards, and while I was worried I was also....Hopeful
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Next, skin cancer is a risk, as are other things, with other autoimmune medications. I've been on strong autoimmune medication for 13 years. No cancer yet. Lucky me, or to put it in words that you understand - I'm not having fun yet.
I used to work in biologics drug development at a major pharma company, so I have a good look "under the hood" at the drug development process. While all side effects, especially serious ones, need to be reported, I can tell you a lot of quite promising drug candidates get killed off in Phase III clinical trials if the incidence of side effects is considered too high - not by the company, but by the FDA. What is "too high", of course, varies depending upon the severity of the illness being treated and the effectiveness/side effects of other available treatments so in the case of rheumatoid arthritis/crohn's disease etc the alternative treatments not being very effective and having ghastly long-term side effects, the very effective TNF inhibitors have a lower bar to jump than if they were treating flu, or high blood pressure, but still, the incidence gets very carefully scrutinized.
Point being, I'm delighted to hear adalimumab works for you and while I'm sure you are, and should be, regularly screened for skin cancer, I wouldn't lose sleep over the side effects list.
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Yes - but it also shuts off your immune system. Enjoy your skin cancer.
You are a dick, you know that, right?
Crohn's disease is essentially an autoimmune disorder, like other inflammatory diseases are now known to be. In addition to being painful and debilitating, it can be life-threatening. So it needs to be treated, and treated effectively.
Any drug that shuts down the runaway part of the immune system is going to partially shut down the rest of the immune system, and they all have side effects. It's a risk/benefit analysis in all cases.
Kind of ironic that you picked a class of drugs that is very effective to counterbalance the rare but serious side effects, and picked on one of the most easily detected and treated side effects to boot
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Bills’ Seantrel Henderson reportedly has Crohn’s Disease. Here’s @MikeReiss story on how affected NE’s Matt Light: http://espn.go.com/boston/nfl/story/_/id/7903017/matt-light-reveals-decade-long-battle-crohns
#Bills OT Seantrel Henderson is battling Crohn's disease & could miss final 3 games of the season. Full story: http://bit.ly/1ZcCBZY
Poor guy, no wonder he's struggled at times.
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Bills fans only. Have you been to the mountaintop as a fan of another team? Or still waiting?
St Louis is a baseball town. I moved to St Louis in 1982. The people in the next apartment named their kitten "Andujar". I got the flick. Live in St Louis, love the Baseball Cardinals. So I became a baseball fan, having no home-town allegiance to lose.
It is possible, possible, I shame to admit it, that I might have converted and become a Rams fan during the "Greatest Show on Turf" years, but I was so pissed off at the way local sports writers covered the Bills during the 4 year Superbowl run and so disgusted at the way they drooled over the Rams as a "dynasty" and "unstoppable, maybe for a decade", that I just couldn't jump. I admit it, I laughed when NE beat them in 2002.
Green Bay is my NFC team.
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Can't say it's not far off base. Based on what I have seen he has been left in the dark, lost on the field and the worst part is that it has seemingly got worse the longer the season goes.
I like Brown, I think he has a lot of tools to play alongside a better run stuffing MLB. He was a perfect compliment to Spikes. Together, Spikes Brown and Alonso would have been a hell of a duo. Right now, Manny Lawson is our best LB, which says a lot - though, he is playing very well currently.
To get all complicated, Brown cannot play close to the LOS by any means. He gets swallowed up and lost in blockers. In comparison, the tenacity of Spikes allowed him to occupy blockers and close down space so other players can assist in the tackle. Alonso was quick and could defeat blockers with speed. Brown is a quick but doesn't have whatever it was that Alonso had to get beyond the blockers to get to the ball. He also doesn't have the nose for the ball that Alonso did but does cover better than Spikes. Spikes' biggest knock in New England was coverage; coverage he had no business going in to, as he did not have the tools to drop. He is a cover the flats and middle without dropping LB.
Brown needs play SLB or WLB. Lawson subbing in or playing opposite. We need a better MLB, especially without crap for an NT.
So, do you think losing Spikes had a bigger impact on the D than is commonly thought?
I thought Brown played well last year.
Ryan's D seems to expect LB to cover a lot of ground, which is not Brown's forte
I thought Alonso sucked in run coverage. Philly seems to think he has all but disappeared?
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How many players from the last years starters are not playing this year on Defense. Other than Searcy whom the front office did not sign, the same line up was back on the field. I don't think Rex changed players...
This team needs a tough coach who will force them to excel on all aspects of the game...Or do we have mediocre talent that no coaching staff can mold them. May be the truth lies somewhere in between.
I agree...Those plays were annoying....In fact Taylor himself could have run for first downs and even if we don't get a few of them, so what....At least that would have put the Eagles to allocate a spy to keep Taylor in check...Which means Woods or Watkins could have been open. Yesterday, this Bills team did not generate any fear within the opponent. They were not afraid of us.
Spikes gone. McKelvin out. Aaron Williams most of the season. Darcy in and looks good. Major changes that come to mind before Kyle Williams injury. Some changes before the "injury bug" bit.
But I'm reminded of how the Bills D seemed to play under Wannstache, when they didn't seem to believe in either themselves, or the D scheme, or maybe both.
Twitter rumors about Bills new structure, fate of Rex/Whaley
in The Stadium Wall Archives
Posted
That's one philosophy. It reportedly drove the trade of Marshawn Lynch to the Seahawks for a bag of used footballs and some popcorn. How did that work out for us?
Tip: the best coaches manage to take malcontent talented players and turn them into performers.
I would agree with any strategy that resulted in winning. I would be willing to tab Mario as a "chief malcontent" if the rest of the team were displaying discipline or drive. BUT THEY AREN'T. We see undisciplined play and stupid penalties all across the D and ST, consistently, game after game. Rex's system appears to rely on undisciplined crap, I'm sorry to say. When the nail sticks out, you hammer it down. When the board is full of nails sticking out every which way, you ask if you've got a functional hammer.
This reeks to me of "scapegoating" a "name" player and it sounds rotten.