Nihilarian

Bills starting to shoot themselves in the foot? WTH!

Cogs!

Like the cards are playing are playing scared for some reason

Cards O stinking it up ..did they secretly hire Roman?

almost picked off!!

Nice game for Buffalo so far, whooda thunk it!

Conservative Rex for 3 pts

the Cards have seen Kaepernick and Russell Wilson a lot so kinda surpising TT got that big run

nice run Shady!

Wow nice run for TT

Cards kinds foolish to try and run on Bills before they get that passing game goin

Good thing they simplified the offense...

Throw a young, inexperienced QB to the wolves and more than likely you destroy his confidence and he starts hearing, seeing phantom sackers coming from everywhere! If the kid does have some actual talent to make the eventual jump to an NFL starting QB. I'd sure hate to see it wasted over nothing. Let Tyrod play and he either sinks or swims this season and if it all goes south put in EJ to see if he can sink or swim as he now has had time to learn under a decent OC. If both those players are injured and can't play is the only reason I'd start Jones. Something tells me the future franchise QB isn't on the roster just yet.

Thanks, Bill. Eric Mangini was a 21-year-old ball boy in Cleveland when he caught the eye of Belichick because of his work ethic. Belichick started him out working on game film and Mangini stated he was amazed at how much game film Belichick watches of his upcoming opponent vs what he had seen other coaches watch. He also stated that nobody prepares as much as Belichick so he is ready for anything on game day. The Patriots coaches go over endless reels of game film in developing a strategy for each upcoming opponent and that is usually why no team ever beats the Patriots twice in a season. Plus for the defense, unlike the vast majority of NFL teams who run a variation of the same scheme week in and week out, the Patriots are game plan specific. This means that their entire defensive approach changes from week to week depending on the strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies of the opponent. Very seldom do you see the Patriots run the same scheme two consecutive weeks or even against the same opponent a second time! Also, unlike other NFL head coaches who preach "Football is a game, so go have fun"! Belichick is all business and if you don't care to work really hard at your job, you won't be a Patriot very long.

Hi, Bill. I know you didn't ask me. If you don't mind I'll throw my 2 cents out there. First allow me to say that the man Rex Ryan replaced in NY was Eric Mangini who was a Bill Belichick disciple built his defense in the 3-4 mode so when Ryan got there the defense was perfectly set up for him and all he needed were a few players from his old team that knew the play calls and could make those calls on the field. Kinda why Jim Leonhard who wasn't super talented became an important cog in that scheme. When Rex got to the Jets in 2009 he was able to use his 3-4 like the Steelers DC Dick LeBeau with confusion and lots of blitzing to the tune of around 50% of the dropbacks Ryan blitzed in 2009-2010. Then from 2011 until 2013 the amount of blitzing was reduced to around 35% of the QB dropbacks. When he came to Buffalo last year Ryan almost never called a blitz and I can only suspect to emulate Jim Schwartz with his "wide nine" scheme that almost never ran a called blitz. The funny thing is when Ryan did call a blitz in 2015 for the Bills that play was generally defeated by an opposing offensive big play and so I tend to think that over the years offenses have learned to defeat the blitz and Lebeau's zone blitz scheme. So, if teams have learned how to defeat the blitz and the result is a big play for the offense. Then I can see why Ryan has stopped blitzing so often. The other thing I find interesting is that Ryan didn't have last season, and still doesn't have the horses on the roster to even pull off a variation of the zone blitz and yet he ran that far too often last year with Mario, Kyle and Dareus dropping back into pass coverage. Now, he could kinda get away with it by having Jerry Hughes drop back as the man is a very speedy linebacker type DE and while the other three could do it and get away with it to a degree. However, Ryan called it far, far too often with the bigger men and as a result, it wasn't nearly as effective. Against the Chiefs QB Alex Smith threw two TD's when Marcell Dareus was dropped back into pass coverage. Asking a 300+lb D-linemen who's elite ability is to rush the passer in a six-yard area to drop into pass coverage over a 20+ yard area is blatantly absurd especially when you consider the linebackers you are then asking to rush the passer in his place are below average pass rushers at best. We all saw a lot of one-gap rushing successfully utilized against the Patriots and Jets last season in the second games against both those two teams and I can only suspect that the reason Ryan didn't run that scheme more often is because he didn't care to repeat the mistakes that Mike Pettine made with his #2 overall pass rush while being 25th against the run. It looks to me like Ryan is currently caught between a rock and a hard place because he doesn't have the super talented linebackers to run a 3-4 zone blitz scheme line he wants nor the big, powerful uglies on the D-line that is needed to make the 3-4 two gap work. While the Bills have really good CB's and some stars on the D-line it's more of a cluster of talent Ryan doesn't quite know how to get the best out of so far. As for the current defense, it just doesn't have a HoF MLB like Ray Lewis or CB like Rod Woodson, a Darrelle Revis in his prime or FS like Ed Reed. Ryan's defensive scheme even with all the Bills players 100% healthy might give the Patriots with Brady at QB a run for their money in the first meeting. Belichick would then have a plan to defeat it the second time around. JMHO. Kinda sad really, an old toothless, clawless lion. Still gotta big roar, though...

First off Cowher inherited a team that was 7-9 the year before he was hired in 1991 and was ranked around 20th in both offense and defense that year. The seven seasons before Knoll retired the Steelers had only made the playoffs once in 1989 and only two of those seven seasons were winning seasons! The year of his hire the Steelers went to 11-5 and the playoffs. Cowher changed the OC & DC to people he wanted and that defense went from 20th to #2 in points allowed and #13 in yards allowed. He also had four players make the pro bowl on offense when none had made it the year before. Bill Cowher retired as the Steelers HC with a .633 winning percentage and he accomplished those wins with mostly scrubs at QB the duration of his coaching career in Pitt. His QB's were Neil O'Donnel, Bubby Brister, Mike Tomczak, Jim Miller, Kordell Stewart, Mike Quinn, Kent Graham, Tommy Maddox, Charlie Batch, and he didn't get Ben Rothlisberger until 2004. In his 15 seasons at Pitt, he had only 5 in that they didn't make the playoffs. When you think of all those scrub QB's that Cowher had to work with over his years in Pitt it amazes me he managed to win so many games. This is a classic example of a head coach building a solid team around the QB which increases his chance to succeed. O'Donnel was 39-22 at Pittsburgh and 16-23 with other teams. Stewart was 46-29 at Pitt and 2-5 with other teams. Mike Tomlin who replaced Cowher at Pittsburgh has had Big Ben his entire ten years he has been there and he missed the playoffs four years so far. Tomlin has won one SB and lost one SB just like just like Cowher. Nothing like having a pro bowl, franchise QB on the roster his entire career. While at Pittsburgh Tom Donahue was the GM and lost an internal power struggle with Cowher at the end of 1999. Donahoe was then fired By the Steelers and the next year Ralph Wilson must have thought it was Donahoe that was the brilliant mind in bringing in all that talent to Pitt so he hired him and promoted him to team president...only to find out it was Cowher who was the brilliant mind behind all that talent. I would like to see Cowher given a chance because I think he is about one of the only men on the planet I can think of that could build a team to compete against the Patriots for the division and actually come out on top. The other is Pete Carroll and I don't see him leaving Seattle or John Elway leaving Denver. On a side note. If Bills fans are waiting for Bill Belichick, Tom Brady to retire. It's my bet that the Kraft family will find another winning coach and QB before the Buffalo Bills do at this point.

Like someone else mentioned out of all Belichick's assistants who have left to become NFL head coaches and how many of those men have succeeded? Exactly, forget the Patriots. The idea would be to find someone who is as smart in all aspects of the game as Belichick and yet is available to hire with no strings and would be loyal to the Buffalo Bills. If I'm Terry Pegula I'd offer Bill Cowher the job as head coach, de facto GM as the man knows NFL football and he knows how to properly evaluate talent. Make the man the highest paid head coach in the NFL and give him carte blanche to run the football side of operations and then stand back and let him do his job. I suspect he would make changes to the scouting dept, the trainers, the doctors and build a winning coaching staff. I'd say in two years or less the team is in the playoffs and within three is in the hunt for a super bowl championship.

There is no doubt that Bill Belichick is almost in a class by himself as a head coach in the NFL. Belichick has such loyalty to Robert Kraft, his family, and the Patriots org that I highly doubt any amount of money would motivate the man to change teams at this point in his life. Unless perhaps he was given a percentage of a team. There are a few other men that are about up to his level and one is Pete Carroll. I also doubt he would be motivated by money to leave Seattle. The team had let it be known that they would pay a top HC 10 million per and it got the attention of both Mike Shanahan and Cowher and both interviewed for the job. Bill Cowher when he was interviewed by the team back in 2010 stated he would have hired Chan Gailey as his OC. How would that have worked out ? Buddy Nix wanted to hire Marty Schottenheimer for the Job and Marty desperately wanted the job. Alas, Ralph Wilson stated he was uncomfortable in hiring Marty. Jim Harbaugh was at Stanford at that time and he was also approached to be the Bills HC and he turned it down. The thing is these new NFL team owners need to think long and hard about meddling in the football side of things for too long or they will end up like Ralph Wilson in the sense that no young bright minds wanted to work for the Bills under Wilson and that is a big reason as to why Buddy Nix was forced to settle for Chan Gailey. Nix wanted to interview many assistant NFL coaches and he was outright turned down by a bunch. Ralph Wilson was so darned lucky to find someone like Chuck Knox to hire back in the day and that hire is somewhat responsible for the Bill's eventual super bowl runs. Then, even if the new owners found another Chuck Knox there is no positive support structure to help the man build a championship team. Not like Belichick has in NE or Carroll has in Seattle. The Buffalo Bills need to find their NFL knowledgeable senior football man to run the football operations side of the team, a man who can direct them as to who to hire as GM, HC.

Chuck Knox left Buffalo because he wanted a raise even though the team went 4-5 in a strike season in 1982. Now, when Knox was hired Wilson made him one of the highest-paid head coaches in the NFL and when you consider that the man saved Wilson from having to move the team out of Buffalo! That was a real concern because stadium attendance and season tickets had dropped to 20k or so after 2-12, 3-11 seasons. Knox got the team to the playoffs in three years and managed to beat Don Shula's Dolphins, a division opponent that the Bills hadn't beaten in the entire decade of the 1970's. What did Wilson care that Knox would leave for more money in Seattle as his stadium was now filled and season tickets sales were at an all-time high! The team was now filled with quality talented players and Wilson expected the team to keep winning. Not only that, Wilson had managed to keep Knox's chief scout that Knox had brought with him from the Rams so he must have figured he could keep bringing in quality talent through the draft. Ralph Wilsons next hire as HC was Kay Stephenson who was Knox's QB coach. The one problem through all this was the current Bills GM was a complete fool and it was Knox who also had a great eye for talent and a superb ability to motivate young players. So, while Knox was with the Bills he took over as de facto GM and made all the personnel decisions. And yes, Knox was also very unhappy with Wilson's bean counters which made it difficult to bring in top dollar free agents that the players strike had just managed to change. In actuality, Wilson was smart enough to allow others who were better at judging NFL player talent to make the personnel decisions and did the same when Polian came along. These men had to fight for what they wanted, though. In regards to Butler. John Butler's contract with the Buffalo Bills was nearly up and he wanted to be paid equal to what his peers were being paid and Wilson was notoriously frugal. Butler had quietly made inquiries to other NFL teams in need of a decent GM and he had found future prospect with the San Diego Chargers so when Wilson lowballed him he declined to sign with Buffalo. Wilson the told Butler, "if I can't hire you then I'll fire you"! In regards to how Bill Polian came to be hired by Buffalo. It was that chief scout that came to Buffalo with Chuck Knox who recommended hiring Polian to the Bills as pro personnel director under then-GM Terry Bledsoe. After Bledsoe suffered a debilitating back injury, Ralph Wilson asked Polian to take the GM job after he had seen how well he did with Bruce Smith's contract. Kay Stephenson who was the Bills head coach at that time was also instrumental in getting Polian hired in Buffalo as he worked closely with that VP of player personnel. Ralph Wilson as an NFL owner was very meddlesome and just not in the same way that others were as Mr. Wilson needed his team to make a profit to help support him and his family. Wilson also lived in Detroit so he wasn't always around the team's facilities like Dallas Cowboys owner / GM Jerry Jones. St Louis Cardinals owner the late Bill Bidwell would sit with each and every player on the team and personally offered them a contract to sign and if you think Wilson was frugal, Bidwell was the real Ebeneezer. The late Jim Irsay who owned the Colts once gave his star QB a house in Baltimore to go along with his contract and when he dumped that QB he took back the house. Bottom line: the fact that the owners made the hire of the head coach and didn't allow the GM to make that choice means that they are far more involved than they should be. Meddling, yes!

The head coaching search was led by Doug Whaley with Russ Brandon as a consultant and those two along with Terry and Kim would be doing the interviewing for the Buffalo Bills next head coach. Whaley amassed quite a few names (At least 10)for the new owners to interview and that consultant (Brandon) told the new owners that "they" would know who to hire after talking with all the candidates. It has been reported that Doug Whaley wanted to hire Hue Jackson as HC and retain Jim Schwartz as DC!!! Whaley wanted to hire an offensive minded head coach that would work with EJ! "The source said that Whaley is making it clear he wants the new coach to make the progress in developing Manuel, the Bills' first-round draft pick in 2013, that former coach Doug Marrone and his staff never made." http://www.buffalorumblings.com/bills-news-notes/2015/1/6/7504485/buffalo-bills-doug-whaley-new-coach-ej-manuel From Hue Jackson, "They wanted to find someone to leave the defense in place because they were very good there and really help on the offensive side of the ball, help with the decision of the quarterback," Jackson said Wednesday at the Super Bowl media center." "That's where I thought they were headed." Then the Bills were bowled over by Rex Ryan's charm."I thought I was a pretty good fit," Jackson said. "I walked out of there feeling good that I had answered what they asked. "They just felt Rex was the best fit for them, which I understand. I thought it was a fair process." Jackson said Terry Pegula ran the interview, but Kim Pegula and Whaley were active participants in the Q&A. http://bills.buffalonews.com/2015/01/28/hue-jackson-gives-insight-bills-interview-process-absolutely-kept-jim-schwartz/ There is no question that the Pegula's hired Rex Ryan after interviewing all the candidates! I feel the new owners along with Brandon and Whaley were conned by a man who could sell ice to an Eskimo. I admit it that Rex Ryan had me fooled into thinking the Bills would make the playoffs in 2015. (So, irrefutably these new owners made the choice of hiring Rex Ryan! So yes, they did meddle) The sad reality is that these new owners were fooled into thinking that they were getting an NFL defensive genius and what they really hired was a man who only knows how to run one outdated scheme that requires a different set of front seven players that were already on the Bills roster. Sure, he thought he could make it work in 2015. Clearly, that didn't happen and Ryan took the best pass rush in the league with three pro bowlers and forced them to play a scheme that didn't suit their abilities. 1st in the NFL to 31st in sacks. 1st in the NFL in QB pressures to last! What's so ironic here is that Russ Brandon has picked the brains of all the Bills head coaches the team has hired since his coming into power the last 10 years so now he has a better understanding of the NFL. The ironic part is that he picked the brains of morons, idiots, and losers so he doesn't know a good head coach from a bad one either. "Don't let him (Rex Ryan) leave the building!

Rex did bring in Tyrod, Roman, and most importantly he vouched for all-pro LG Richie Incognito. The only thing that bugs me is because Marrone didn't stay the team didn't get Bill Polian and he would have made a big difference for the team going forward. Marrone and his crappy OC might be gone for 2016 anyway and the team would probably found a better GM, HC and finally found their franchise QB.

If you read the article it stated that six senior scouts were let go before the draft and now that Wentz has looked really very good after two games. That those men who were perhaps wrongly fired might like others to know what happened. The Buffalo Bills should keep an eye on Wentz this season and if he keeps playing as well as he has in the first two games. Then the Bills should look into hiring those men to help find the Bills better talent. Lord knows this team needs scouts that know offensive talent so the team doesn't need to keep buying high priced free agent RB's, TE's and using two first rounders on WR's.

I dunno that I buy into any HC setting up someone else to take their place. If anything I sorta think that Roman was fired because Rex thought Roman was tanking the offense to take Rex's place. So, what happens if the offense falls on it's face under Lynn? If this story were true it would seem to me that Ryan wouldn't have made a move to replace Roman and just let things go on as they were. The way I see things are that with no run game Ryan's defense was getting hung out to dry by being on the field far too long. The NY Jets with nearly 40 min and the Bills with only 20 min in ToP was killing Ryan's defense.

What's really sad is a senior part of the Browns scouting dept was fired before the 2016 draft because they all thought Carson Wentz would be a great prospect to draft. The HC and other scouts were so adamant that Wentz was a bum the team fired the scouts that like Wentz and most liked Goff instead. So, not only did the team pass on Wentz in the 1st, they also missed on Dak Prescott in the 4th. http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/many-of-the-browns-scouts-fired-before-the-draft-favored-carson-wentz/

The 1991 NE Patriots (6-10) were owned by Victor Kiam who sold the team to James Orthwein. So in 1992 the team went 2-14 and there were many rumors that ownership was very shaky and the team might be moved to St Louis to become the Stallions. Behind the scenes to us Bills fans, Robert Kraft had been a Patriots season ticket holder since 1971 and had wanted to buy the team and wasn't able to get it done. In 1985 in his quest to own the team he bought Foxboro raceway next to the stadium and later on bought the stadium out of bankruptcy. When he bought the stadium he also bought the Patriots lease which lasted until 2001. Victor Kiam also wanted to move the team to Jacksonville at one point. It was in 1993 that Orthwein made sweeping changes to the entire FO in NE and the entire coaching staff was fired. He then hired Bill Parcells as the new HC of the Patriots and also gave him power over all football personnel as de facto GM. Parcells went 5-11 his first year while drafting Drew Bledsoe #1 overall. In 1994 Patriots owner Orthwein made an offer to Robert Kraft to buy the stadium rights and he refused to sell and had Kraft sold those rights the team probably would have moved to St Louis. After this Orthwein decided to make an offer of 175 million to Kraft to buy the team from him and he accepted. That season the team went 10-6 under Parcells and made the playoffs. Parcells was still the head coach and de facto GM when the team went to the super bowl in 1996 with Drew Bledsoe at QB and Curtis Martin at RB. At the end of 1996, Bill Parcells decided to leave the Patriots as Robert Kraft wanted to take away Parcells involvement in the personnel area as Parcells was overruled by Kraft in that draft of their #1 pick. Parcells stayed that season but was done with NE after that year. The NFL wouldn't let Parcells coach in 1997 so he went to the Jets as a consultant and took assistant HC Bill Belichick with him to NY. The Point of all this is, Robert Kraft's first head coach hire was Pete Carroll, who took over the Patriots in 1997 going 10-6 and then 9-7 in 1998 to 8-8 in 1989 and then was fired. Also, the Patriots were a super bowl team before Kraft got there. At the end of 1999 Patriots owner Robert Kraft fired Pete Carroll and wanted to hire Bill Belichick away from the NY Jets who was the teams DC at that time. Jets owner Leon Hess had recently passed away so Belichick was uncertain of the situation in NY and future ownership. Parcells was promoted to GM and stepped down as HC so the Jets could hire Belichick and not liking this at all Belichick took the NFL to court so he could be hired by NE. Now, clearly, Robert Kraft identified who the smartest man in the room was on that NY Jets team and went after him!! The 2000 Patriots went 5-11 in Belichick's first season. But for 2001 Belichick hired Charlie Weis and Romeo Crennel who had been Parcells OC and defensive assistant with the Jets under Parcells. New Jets HC Al Groh wanted to hire his own people so they were let go to Belichick's delight. So, I'd say comparing Robert Kraft to the Pegula's in knowing who to hire is way off base as this was the Pegula's very first year in owning an NFL team and they were basically clueless as who to hire. I'd liken the Patriots hiring of Bill Parcells to Ralph Wilson's hiring of Chuck Knox as both were well-known winners. Parcells brought Belichick with him to NE. Knox also brought a very brilliant, talent evaluator with him to Buffalo and that man went on to help hire Bill Polian and John Butler.