ThurmasThoman

i will grant you that the bills were a far more exciting team in 2011 than in previous memory, but 2 years: 4-12 6-10 Marty finished with 9 wins in three of the years he missed the playoffs; so he had nine or more wins in 16 of his 20 full seasons coaching in the NFL Only one time – once – did a Marty-coached team finish with fewer than seven wins over a 16-game schedule. http://www.midwestsportsfans.com/2012/01/some-smart-nfl-team-should-hire-marty-schottenheimer-the-most-underappreciated-nfl-coach-of-all-time/ as an aside, marty is also a former buffalo bills player. cant wait til hes our coach

post, not thread

this league is cyclical my friend. todays spread offense is tomorrows west coast offense. we are building an absolute MONSTER of a defense. and doing... what... on offense, exactly? building up a versatile oline, and hoarding scat backs. we are ONE, count it, ONE between the tackles running back away from being a marty ball team. a million slot receivers, a smart quarterback, a cold weather city, a monster defense, a big oline, and 2 starting caliber NFL running backs, 1 of whom we used the #9 pick on, 3 months after nix and marty had spent an entire offseason talking and applying for jobs together. the writing is on the wall. dont know why people would even look at this as a bad thing. marty is a great coach. dont fault him because his chargers teams couldnt "get by" the patriots.

makes perfect sense. nix offered him the job, im sure. marty said he "didnt want to coach again." (yet he is currently coaching.) the bills are currently being designed in a manner that is almost perfectly tailor made to run run run, control the clock, and take the chances that our defense will keep the other team off the field. people clamoring for us to draft a qb, trade for a qb, sign a qb, whatever... it would explain why not only does nix seem unmoved by that - which seems counter-intuitive to the way gailey would want the team to be constructed - but why we picked spiller first 2 years ago, why were beefing up the oline and dline, and why fitzy is still here. conjecture-but im sure marty said, im not coming unless you prove to me you have to green light to a)spend money, and b) build a team the way it should be built. 2012: chan gaileys swan song.

Im not going to interject 1 iota of opinion in this post, this is just going to be various quotes from around the internet. "Marty Ball is a philosophy of football associated with and named after former NFL head coach Marty Schottenheimer. In simple terms, it means a focus on the running game, with passing used only to further the running game. Fans (and critics) refer to this scheme as "Run, Run, Pass, Punt" (R2P2). Schottenheimer is considered to be a conservatively-minded coach with a majority of his focus on defense." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_Ball'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_Ball "Buddy got along well with Schottenheimer. They socialized together, went out to dinner, golfed together, sat together on the plane, talked football all the time." http://espn.go.com/blog/afceast/post/_/id/8452/could-nix-sway-schottenheimer-to-bills'>http://espn.go.com/blog/afceast/post/_/id/8452/could-nix-sway-schottenheimer-to-bills "On Nov. 24, Schottenheimer told the audience of "The Red Zone," his show on Sirius NFL Radio, that he wasn't interested in returning to the sidelines. From the coaching standpoint of it, you know, I'll be very candid with you and say it's nice to think that people would consider you," Schottenheimer said, "but the reality of it is is that after 30 great years, I'm really not going to go back down that road again." http://espn.go.com/blog/afceast/post/_/id/8452/could-nix-sway-schottenheimer-to-bills "He's currently coaching the UFL's Virginia Destroyers, leading them to a championship in their first season in Virginia Beach, Virginia and his first title as a head coach." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_Ball

i think people have taken a contextual term... "best player available"... and turned it into an end-all be-all, blanket statement. i've always looked at it as more of a "best-ratio" available. lets use the bills as an example, and assign 2 current players a "pre-draft" rating, if you will. let's give fred jackson a 9 out of 10 and mckelvin a 7 out of 10 now, if we were picking 3rd in THIS draft, and our board showed stephon gilmore as a 9 out of 10 and trent richardson a 10 out of 10 then picking corner would net us a +2, while picking running back (or the "best player available" on our board,) would net us a +1. i would imagine it's a little more complex in our war room, but spending most of my day in microsoft excel computing calculations, i can tell you that a simple spread sheet could be set up to do far... FAR... more complex calculations than the example i just listed (obviously.) im sure nix and whaley, and their scouting department, have a certain drop-off thresh-hold that they look at, compared to their board... or what we might call "an area of need." they might have donald jones, or even easley graded out at a 85%-88% percentile, and floyd may have been 90%, and they couldnt justify the pick. sounds convoluted i know, but this is our hobby, their job: tldr - they know what theyre doing and have the resources to do it full-time, all day, far FAR better than any of us.

heh. how can you say that? as dennis green would say "we are who we PLAY!" we knew who our opponents would be, and where we would have to play them, months and months ago. hell, i could tell you 14 of our 16 games for every season from here til the league expands to 34 teams or introduces an 18 game schedule. but when you look at our schedule, 6 of our 7 most "winnable" games (cleveland being the exception) are weeks 11 through 16, then we close with the jets in OUR building which could very well be primetime and for a playoff spot. essentially, for the first time in... HOW many years... the league BACKLOADED our schedule with the gimmies. lets say were chasing new england and the jets at the end for the division. on the week when we host the rams and the seahawks, the pats are hosting the texans and 9ers, on a short week. the jets end the season pats/cards/@jags/@titans/chargers/@bills they could very well FINISH 1-5!

this. this times a million. me and you brother - we are fighting an uphill battle against the rest of the country. i got some friends in ireland, they missed the world cup cause of a blown call in 09 that would be the equivalent of brady throwing to a 12th man on the field to win the afc championship against us and the refs not having instant replay. but man, theres a human element to the game, thats what makes it a GAME and not a microsoft excel spreadsheet. after coming back this season to stun the raiders and win one of the most exciting bills games i can remember in the last 10 years, im at a bar celebrating, and the announcers say, 10 minutes later, well, buffalo has officially won, the replay is over. the outcome of the game was in limbo as the players were in the lockerrooms showering? its like, the point of instant replay is to make the refs LESS of a part of the game. almost legislate them out, and have their work done by impartial machines. but yet. having instant replay makes their role important on EVERY SINGLE PLAY, which makes them MORE of a factor in the game. now, calls that you never would have questioned, that you never would have had the thought of questioning, are AUTOMATICALLY reviewed. its overkill. its ridiculous. its like, your team makes an amazing play and your first thought is: "will it stand up to review." i mean think about that. we watch sports to see the amazing. we see the amazing, and then, we wait for 5 minutes to make sure some video can confirm that we just saw the amazing. why do all this? for some extra commercial time? soon were going to justify the bills staying in buffalo, by having a standing buffalo on one side of our helmet, and a godaddy.com logo on the other. the game is dying.

this is a great thread.

he almost got the gmen there if i remember correctly. kurt should have beat the patriots that year too, that superbowl was the ORIGINAL spygate, i dont care what anyone says, the patriots cheated, the rams were UNREAL that year. the rams went 14-2 (when there were only 3 divisions, and 14-2 meant FOURTEEN AND TWO!) and had a point differential of 235. the next closest team in point differential was the 13-3 steelers at 140. the rams were defending super bowl champions, and in the playoffs hung 45 on the packers, and 29 on the eagles, and THEN IN THE SUPER BOWL WERE BEAT BY PLUCKY TOM BRADY AND ONLY MANAGED TO SCORE 17 POINTS. GOD. it makes me furious. they should take away that super bowl win from new england, the rams "greatest show on turf" is going to be forgotten by history, warner wont get into the hall, and the patriots are considered a dynasty, and the fact of the matter is - thats just not historically accurate. those rams were 10x better than that joke of an undefeated team new england had in 07. makes me so mad, i cant even type it out coherently.

find it hard to believe if this team is 10-3 or 11-3, the ralph wouldnt sell out and be absolutely crazy. who wants to go watch titans at bills when weve been eliminated from the playoffs? that home stretch at the end is amazing. call me crazy, but i live hundreds of miles away, and i love december home games for the bills when the snow is whipping around. ive said this before in many other threads, but here it is one more time: for the FIRST TIME since kelly/reed/thurman/marv, for a third consecutive season we are returning the same qb/#1 wideout/running back/head coach. first time in 16 years! THATS why the ralph hasnt been "home field" advantage. you know how crazy the wind is there, it takes awhile to learn. most of our other qbs have played 8 games MAYBE 10 in it. now we got fitzy, coming in for a 3rd year. its TRUE homefield advantage. i cant wait. i absolutely am going crazy waiting. were actually going to the playoffs this year. i just cant wait for the season to start, holy hell. all you naysayers go post on billszone.com or something.

wasnt in our conference, i didnt really see enough of him outside of playoff games. sure did lose a lot of conference championship games though. never struck me as "elite." god, i can remember vividly him rifling the ball into the turf at his receivers feet on a number of occasions - like his mechanics were off - he held the ball just a millisecond too long. should kurt warner be in the hall?

lol, goddamnyaman gordio. i would give you positive rep if we had that system on this board. its amazing how statistics can be used to completely refute someones point to such a degree.

some of you guys REALLY need to come back from the ledge here. the way the NFL divisions and playoff seeds are structured, winning your division is everything, and by extension, division games are basically the ONLY games that matter. all of the other games are contextually important, in that they determine wild cards and seeding, but since realignment, from a purely statistical standpoint, the surest statement you can make about the league is: win your divisional games, go to the playoffs. as painful as it is, consider the following: if we had gone 5-1 instead of 1-5 in the division last year, we would have been opening the playoffs at houston. 5-1 instead of 1-5 seems like a stretch but we beat the patriots (1 win) stevie drops the game winning td at the jets (2 wins) we lost to miami at home by a touchdown (3 wins) tied with the jets at halftime at the ralph (4 wins) up 21-0 on the road in new england (5 wins) now before you get your panties in a bunch: OBVIOUSLY we lost those games to better clubs, i get that. but the line between a terrible 6 win buffalo team, and an up and coming 10 win playoff bills team is those 5 games, that, for all intents and purposes, were 50-50 crap shoots. the difference between winning those games and losing those games could be a mario williams, a mark anderson, a micheal floyd, a nyj quarterback controversy, an older tom brady, and on and on. long story short: stop worrying about what hotel were going to be staying at when were between san fran and arizona games - interconference games are about as important as preseason games. lets win our division games (which are set up quite nice if you look at the schedule, aside from new england getting us after a bye,) and we'll make the playoffs!

our offense is predicated on 5 yard slants, 2 running backs, and this year (hopefully) the wild cat. fitzy has been throwing in the ralph for 3 seasons now. lindell knows the wind there. that second half schedule is amazing! dont know how its even possible for people to sit here and b*tch about it in april - watch what happens if you flip the first half with the second: @ pats dolphins (Thursday night game) @colts jags Rams seahawks @ fins jets bye @ jets chiefs @browns pats @9'ers @cards titans @ texans

bills come home from indy on november 25th, and dont have to leave again for A MONTH. three straight home games against cup cake opponents. why wouldnt they like that?

youre never out of the playoffs until youre mathematically eliminated. its a good thing our second half schedule is so easy. if we start 1-6, we could still finish 8-1 and make the playoffs. sounds crazy, i know, but id rather have our easy games at the end when were going over those scenarios like "team a win or tie, team b lose, we have to win."

seriously. why would having home games at the end of the season instead of the beginning be a bad thing?

hes more woman than some of the jills ive seen over the years, so, theres that.

here we go again guys. according to PFT, turns out the schedule has "visits scheduled to other days of the week, and could be getting on a computer to check out friday or saturday as early as today." i knew we would have to overpay just to get the schedule to consider coming out today. have you guys ever even been to friday or saturday? there's so much more to do on those days that a schedule would think as a more appealing release date. plus, how long has it been since we've had a fun tuesday? 12 years? i bet most schedules coming out these days dont even remember the last time tuesday was fun. i know PFT articles should be taken with a grain of salt, but didn't we all secretly feel this way since it was first leaked that the schedule was considering coming out today. fat chance. same old song and dance. go tuesdays!

would be terrible. our stadium has a certain aura that most other NFL teams can't replicate. also, this year is going to be interesting: we haven't had a head coach/#1 receiver/starting quarterback return for a third consecutive season since marv/reed/kelly. i think a big reason our homefield advantage has been mitigated over the past 15 years, is our players havent played enough games there. i may really be thinking outside the box, but i think it takes some time to understand the wind patterns field level at the ralph. i would wager we finish with 6 or more wins at home this year.

elaborate!

i know this schedule is fake, but enlighten me: this year, we will be hosting the seahawks. in 2008, we hosted the seahawks. when do we travel to seattle? i was under the impression interconference matchups alternated home sites every 4 years? seems odd.

yes. 1 throw in 2 years does absolutely absolve him of the criticism that he "CANT throw deep." CANT is a matter of ability. HASNT HAD SUCCESS THROWING DEEP is a matter of any number of contingent factors: offensive line, quality of receiving corps, 11 men understanding the playbook, gameplanning, etc. etc. etc. put another way: Chad Pennington CANT throw deep. Tim Tebow CANT throw deep. those are 2 people who are limited by injury and physical ability/mechanics that CAN NOT make the throw that ryan fitzpatrick made in that video. I know it's rehashing an old video, but it's an important distinction. and i feel my original point still stands: if ryan fitzpatrick leads this MUCH improved bills squad to the playoffs and beyond - is he still the 24th best quarterback in the league?

there's 3 pages in this thread, and i'm sure 25 other pages worth of posts scattered across this board on this topic, so nothing i'm going to say is going to be ground breaking. but. these rankings are meaningless, not for the reasons that so typically spring to mind (which are all true,) but for the simple matter that they can change on a whim. for instance, if the bills make the playoffs, lose in the conference championship game, or even *gasp* win the super bowl, where does fitz rank then? im assuming higher than 24. but clearly for that to happen, so much more needs to fall into place - such as a good to great defense, a good to great offensive line, a favorable schedule, some fortuitous bounces of the ball, and less injuries than the buffalo bills typically accrue - ALL THINGS THAT RYAN FITZPATRICK CAN NOT CONTROL. now, if you were to take the 32 starting qbs in the NFL, throw in a few backups, line them up at a combine, and have a draft, (career statistics and accomplishments aside) would fitzy really go 24th? IDK. i find that hard to believe. i think his smarts, ability to read defense, and qualities as a leader outweigh mitigating factors like.. the "long ball." because, according to my eyes that's ryan fitzpatrick throwing a FREAKING frozen rope of a football FIFTY yards in the air, dead on target into stev13s hands, in a pressure packed instant, against the best team in the conference. so, truthfully, i just shake my head when people say fitz can't throw long. i would be curious if the 23 quarterbacks listed above him could make THAT throw in THAT situation.