hondo in seattle

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.

Yep. You can't judge a RB coach on the statistics of his backs. Too many other variables outside his control: * the natural talent of the backs. * the work ethic of the backs. * the health of the backs. * the natural talent, work ethic and health of the offensive line. * the ability of the offensive line coach * the ability of the offensive coordinator * the ability of the head coach All these things influence the statistics generated by the running backs.

Media: * Anthony Lynn a lock to be next Bills RGM. * Bills situation toxic. HC candidates staying away from Buffalo. * Childress to be new OC. * Childress out. Greg Olsen new favorite to be Bills OC. * Olsen out. Reality: * The media is nearly always wrong.

True enough. But we won our wins by a lot and lost our losses by a little. And that's better than winning our wins by a little and losing our losses by a lot.

My first thought mirrors some others... Maybe Whaley has grounds for saying we're close.

Are we sure about this? Even if true, Belichick requires his coordinators to run the Pats O and the Pats D. They're not required to innovate. They're required to execute a pre-existing plan. Not sure he could do that here with Bill to guide him.