hondo in seattle

I wish I could ignore BB's Super Bowls. Wish they never happened. But the point is a good one. Coaches can be awesome but players still need some natural talent. How do you know who Dennison is? Have you worked with him? Spent time picking his brain determining his football IQ? Just what do you actually know? You say not to pretend Dennison is Sam Wyche (not sure anyone was) but then you pretend he's Curtis Modkins with the same lack of evidence. Dennison's resume only tells us so much because he's been under Kubiak's shadow, not running his own show. That doesn't mean he can't run a show. He's been around a long time and has had good mentors. And he's been on 6 Super Bowl teams and learned how SB teams prepare. I won't pretend to know the guy or be in a position to evaluate him. He could be Sam Wyche or Curtis Modkins, I don't know. But McD - who's done far more due diligence on him than I ever could - thinks enough of him to hire him. For now, I have to content myself with that. I'll save my personal evaluations for the regular season when I actually have something substantial to go on.

I'm going to play the grinch today. I don't think most fans really understand what position coaches do for a living. How much time do they spend working on physical technique? (As I recall, Bill Walsh one said they broke down a D-linemen's job into 30 different individual skills which they practiced relentlessly). How much time to position coaches spend reviewing film with their players of upcoming opponents? Or film of their own performance and how to improve it? How much time do they spend reviewing the upcoming game-plan and the plays that will be run? How much - ideally - should they spend on each of these? What's the best way to maximize the impact of these kinds of activities? How much latitude is the position coach given by the OC? Even though we don't know what actual positions coaches actually do, nor what they should do, nor how they can do it more effectively, we have strong opinions about whether they're good or not.

Agreed. McD talks about character and building a winning culture. Character? Culture builder? Are those the things that come to mind when you think about Johnny Football?

He says he's got his head right. Who knows. The guy has (or had) poor mechanics, a selfish attitude, no discipline, no respect for authority figures, an alcohol problem, a drug problem, a violent temper, zero leadership ability... What's there not to like?

You may be right. I don't think Marrone is as egomaniacal, socially inept, and downright evil as some make him out to be. Watching the Bills offense in action, though, I never got the impression that he was an adept student of Sean Payton. Marrone doesn't seem like a bright Xs and Os guy. But some say Hackett is. And now with some extra years in the NFL, Hackett might be ready to attack an NFL caliber defense. Marrone could provide the leadership and discipline while Hackett adds the tactical acumen and cheerleader energy. It might work.

I'd much rather have a .500 Buffalo Bills team to root for than no Buffalo Bills team to root for. The Pegulas bought a franchise that hadn't won much in a long time. As football neophytes, they made some early mistakes. But I believe they're smart enough, committed enough, to learn and grow from their experiences. I expect the organization to get better. At .500, btw, they're doing as well as the average NFL owner. And they're still new at this. It's not an inauspicious beginning.

People do sometimes learn from their mistakes. Apparently a couple years some folks at OBD thought Rex was the man. They've come to the realization that they were wrong. They assessed how they made their mistake. And now they went after a coach who has some key qualities they felt Rex was missing.

Because the other NFL owners are all paragons of virtue who deserve playoff appearances and Super Bowls?

eball, you got what you wanted. Congrats! But I don't think you got what you wanted because you told the Pegs you wanted it. Like you, I've been pretty happy about what's been happening. I'm one of the continuity guys and yet I have to admit I'm more optimistic about 2017 with the new coaches than I would have been if Rex had been given another year. So you did get an acknowledgement. Better than being ignored.

And he was Marrone's puppet here. Hopefully - for his sake - he'll have more autonomy there. He's had time to mature and learn as a leader and coach.

I think a normal fan in a normal NFL city would be open-minded - maybe even optimistic - about the coaching staff we're putting together. There might be some uncertainty about a few of these guys but nothing to lead to doom and gloom expectations. But as a fan of the Buffalo Bills, it seems the logical thing to do is expect failure. We've failed for 17 years and there's no compelling reason to expect that streak will not continue. We didn't - after all - hire Vince Lombardi.

Imagine if we had hired McD and Dennison a year ago, when both were fresh off Super Bowl appearances. The fan reaction would probably be much more positive. As the past year has shown in both cases, coaches, to a large extent, are only as good as their players. Both of these guys seem to be widely respected, well-mentored, and have shown an ability to win when they have the right players. Both are credible hires. Whether or not they'll succeed is another story. They've mostly run other coaches' schemes, executed other coaches' ideas. As a fan without inside info, I have no way of intelligently guessing the outcome.

Anthony Lynn never called plays but then took the reigns and scored a lot of points with a very flawed offensive roster. Every OC has to make that transition: from a coach who doesn't call plays to one who does. Some make it successfully. Some don't. Most of the guys with real OC experience (designed the scheme and called the plays) had flawed resumes with years of poor results.

I suspect you're right on all counts. I'm really expecting Rex to end up in a studio or broadcast booth.

KTD, I get what you're saying. On the one hand, he's never run his own offense. All the stats are meaningless because in the end they were produced by someone else. On the other hand, Dennison had an excellent mentor. He worked with Kubiak long enough to learn everything there was to learn from the man. As folks outside the NFL, we really don't have enough data to have a good idea if Dennison will succeed or fail. His resume says he's ready to finally become a real OC, but he's never actually been one. Neither confidence nor pessimism seem warranted under the circumstances - unless we're so jaded as Bills fans that predicting failure seems the safest bet. Reading the comments here tells us more about the fan than about Dennison. It's kind of football fan Rorschach test. The picture is ambiguous. What you decide to see depends on your personality.

I'm with you, brother! I haven't lived in Buffalo in 30+ years but I still know it's where the Bills belong. And the Pegulas made that happen. I can't find it in my heart to criticize them. Any mistakes they've made since buying the franchise are miniscule compared to the enormity of keeping the Bills in WNY.

Detractors say Tyrod has proven in his two years that he's not a franchise quarterback. If that's a proven case, what about Cutler?

There's been rumors about this for a while now from unnamed sources. I've heard that Rex just didn't work as hard as he once did. And that opened up the door for his brother to gain in influence/power - influence and power that didn't help the defense succeed.

And Dennison is a Kubiak protege. He had a good mentor. Now we're going to find out how well he can coach outside of Kubiak's shadow.

Why? What do you actually know about the guy? Have you worked with him before?

Impossible! The media never reported him as the front-runner. They never even reported an interview. The Bills PR people are clearly wrong.

It's a habeñero sauce. Habeñero is is my least favorite chili in regards to taste and flavor profile. Real men go for ghost chili or one of the "7 pot" chilies. Datil peppers are hard to find on the West Coast. I think they're grown mainly in Florida. Good flavor as I recall.

I don't know if Thurman and Hackett are bad coordinators. At least here, Hackett was stuck running Marrone's offense. Some players said Hackett wanted to open things up but St. Doug wouldn't let him. Furthermore, Hackett wasn't truly ready to be a NFL OC at the time. But he's a smart young guy and probably learned a lot from the experience. Thurman's is a similar situation. He's been running Rex's defense and calling plays (if he actually called plays) the way Rex wanted. To complicated things, some players say Rob Ryan was pretty much running the D. It was a toxic situation with 3 cooks in the kitchen and no one of them truly in charge. It's hard to know what Thurman could do if the was the de facto and de jure DC.

My suspicion as well. McD has been hiring position coaches for the offense. I'm guessing he's doing it with the blessings of our future unnamed OC. And I suspect the offensive position coaches are coming aboard because they know who the OC will be.

But LaCan is wrong so often, it's hard to take him seriously. He's the boy who cried wolf.