Sisyphean Bills

Maybe. Tom Brady was very far from a finished product early on, worked (and works) like crazy, and turned himself into the all-time winningest QB in history. So, yes, it can be done. It is anything but a given though. There are tons of guys that work hard (Tim Tebow had bad mechanics and worked his nads off to correct it) and don't amount to much in the end. And there are, of course, the JaMarcus Russell types as well.

"Brilliant" to do what every other franchise does? Okay.

Hope it is on prime time.

He also saw the Oilers/Titans through their multiple city hopscotch while a stadium was built. He might actually be "the right guy" for an organization undergoing this variety of chaos at this level. It's not like there are a lot of coaches out there that have been through it before.

2 years is sort of a—yawn—modest extension, no? Like maybe ownership wants to see how the team trends post move to LA. And it's not like a coach with a year or two left on his contract has never been fired.

Might not want to dismiss Lorenzo's commitment and work-effort as major components.

On the upside, his wife has a twitter account.

He seems to have settled down. He stopped blowing it up every 2 to 4 years. They aren't trading up and down the draft board like a berserk yo-yo as much. He decided to stick with Romo and build a team around a QB that couldn't really carry the entire team, which has been to Prescott's advantage. But it did take a long time and some fan suffering for JJ to learn on the job.

Not disagreeing. But let's close the loop. Ask yourself who did/does make those decisions. Heh. No, not my point. I happen to think "the beauty contest judge" angle is overplayed by some. It's not "great scouting" to be able to identify 10 "hot chicks" at a beauty pageant, is it? It's even worse when, if there is a slip up, the judge is excused. Well, he did get 5 out of 10! Anyway, my point was about identity. You want a winning football program? Fine. How the !@#$ are you going to win football games? How exactly are you going to beat Belichick, the Fins, and the Jets? What is your strategy? Falling for the first guy to run a 4.3 40 at the combine isn't a plan. Switching defensive schemes more often than your underwear isn't a plan. Drafting every size and style QB out of the freezer case on aisle 10 isn't a plan. Decide what sort of !@#$ing football team you are going to be, and that better address whipping the competition directly, do that first, and execute the **** out of that plan.

I agree that the personnel fit his scheme. It was only one year. It was the definition of an anomaly. There is a tendency for us fans to assume that any upward tick is a harbinger of a meteoric rise to greatest. It happens often enough. Some player has a good season, and it's a lock that the good times will just keep going. Unfortunately, it rarely pans out that way. e.g., Trent Edwards spends the off-season working on his putting, and the wheels come off the bus. Suits get worried and promoted, coaching staffs get fired, and the vicious circle of mediocrity spins like an empty bottle round and round and round.

One might even think that the GM's job is to run the organization. Hiring the coaches, players, et. al. and putting them under the same roof and giving them the tools to be successful together as a, you know, team. Or maybe the job is really nothing more than a beauty pageant judge. "What do we know about her?" "She's hot." "And?" "She's hot in a dress."

I'm going to disagree and say 2014 was a one year in a row, card carrying, anomaly. That is, the defense has been otherwise mediocre to poor under two regimes. In historical context, Rex Ryan's defense has been a statistical improvement over every "sling a bunch of stuff against the wall" attempt made under Buddy Nix's reign. One has to go back to Dick Jauron to find defenses that were as consistently mediocre to drifting above average as the Ryan defense. Between, the D sucked hugely. The Bills really haven't had great defenses in a generation. Gregg Williams rebuilt the defense into a good unit before he walked the plank, and it fell apart under Mularkey and Marv Levy. Steady excellence? Wade Phillips, as he seems to always do, had an excellent unit.

Why think so small?

Shocking.

It's really important to hire a coach who can only operate his own "diametrically opposed to the current roster" system every 2 or 3 years. Adios, Rex!

Seems a little strange in the context of this thread. Dak Prescott wasn't drafted in the top 10 or 12. (For that matter, Russell Wilson, Tom Brady, and Derek Carr weren't either and those are the 4 best teams in the NFL at the moment record-wise.) They both get paychecks from NFL teams.

Straw-man. No one has All Pros at every position, yet every year some defense is ranked #1. It's just reality that if a new kahuna wants to, say, run an ground-and-pound style of offense, then it doesn't really accelerate anything if the last guy running the show drafted a bunch of small WRs that aren't willing to block, OL that are solid pass protectors, etc. And it may not really help if the new head man starts off day one with a statement like, "This entire roster is pure crap. I'm getting rid of all of you." That might demotivate a few people.

Good point. Schwartz did inherit the right pieces, but he was able to turn that unit around as well. He really did benefit from the second rebuild under Chan Gailey when he went all-in with Wannstedt after the disaster of the 3-4 switch Buddy and Edwards failed to deliver. (I still wonder what would've happened if Gailey had went all-in with getting this team a stud QB, but, well, Chan is still tinkering with Fitzpicks ... so that was never in the cards. <sigh>) Rex inherited a defensive squad that didn't really fit his system, and it hasn't been so great. It's virtually a tradition for the Bills to dismantle and rebuild the defense with each new coaching staff. You get numb to it. Tequila helps.

I think one could be a total zealot and say that. Of course, I would also point out that burning a huge chunk of cap on a player that wasn't producing is also screwing the pooch and really indefensible.

The polite thing to do is to ask his wife.

Since the typical post rips on officiating, I'd like to congratulate the officials on that play. They made the right call and didn't just "give it to them."

Great game.

Moneyball and analytics is panning out big time.

BTW, this cop car has California plates. The irony is that calling all Trump protesters rioters is no different than calling all Trump supporters Klansmen.

Of course they would, and Republicans would be protesting and crying, and both sides would still be throwing the epithets around liberally.