Nihilarian

Please explain to me how you can possibly know any different than what was reported by ESPN? "It was almost a year ago, in early January, when the Buffalo Bills called Rex Ryan back for a second interview for their head-coaching vacancy. Team president Russ Brandon was so impressed that he told owner Terry Pegula not to let Ryan out of the building." http://espn.go.com/blog/buffalo-bills/post/_/id/22828/playoff-promise-among-rex-ryan-statements-that-will-likely-prove-false If it wasn't Russ Brandon who manipulated these new owners into thinking that they had the necessary football acumen to know who to hire as the team's next head coach...then who did? Do you actually have inside the org knowledge of what transpired?

Leading the league in rushing or attempts doesn't mean much if the team isn't winning a bunch more games. Let's look at last year. While the team led the league in big plays which equates to pass players over 25 yards and run plays over 10 yards they were still very much like that 2013 team in that they were 31st in three and out percentage. Now, you would think that a team that runs the ball as much as Buffalo did in 2013 and 2015 that they would be able to maintain possession of the football longer instead of quickly punting the ball away. That stat tells me that the Bills had great difficulty in maintaining a sustained offense!! This is a big reason I was hoping the Bills FO would fix the problems at RT & RG like they attempted to do in the 2014 offseason by making offers to Bryan Bulaga and Jahri Evans. It takes five quality players on the offensive like to make a competent unit and three out of five isn't going to cut it and never will as opposing teams will just load up their pass rushers at the weakest point on the line.

Good stuff, I really like the fact that Ryan is having the players that mess up by going offsides or are involved in pre-snap penalties will now run laps and the coaches actually had IK run some. So it's more than just a threat. Last year the threat was push ups and this year it looks like Ryan really wants to reign in the mistakes the players can control. Fans seemed to be sparse at TC and so were the sponsors which was a little disappointing. What happened to the NFL experience and the big sponsors like Verizon? The Bills news flyers used to be free. I really like TC at St John Fisher. I'm really hoping that this year Ryan lets his actions and players actions speak for the team as i really want to like the guy and am hoping that he can get this team into the playoffs...this year.

Simply writing a name on a chart doesn't equate to actual talent. Look back over the last few years to see what kind players the team attempted to replace Andy Levitre with and then look at some recent draft picks for the line. I come away thinking the Bills scouting dept isn't very good in judging line talent. EVERY team does deal with injuries every year and just looking at the Patriots last season and how beat up their offensive line was at one point and yet those players had enough talent to help the team get to the AFC Championship game. They also lost their starting WR, RB among others and they had like a total of five players who played in all 16 games. The good teams have decent backups at most every position. The 2013 Buffalo Bills under Marrone were also the #2 team in the NFL in rushing and they had some scrubs on that year's line too. RT is still a big question mark for this year's team as is RG and what kind of quality depth can be behind players that wouldn't even be starting for most of the playoff teams? Also, like I mentioned the Bills have two quality starters at WR and some real unknowns for the remaining three positions so what kind of quality talent will we see if a rash of injuries hit the WR corps?

My take is the new Buffalo Bills owners looked at what's involved in running and operating a successful NFL team and must have concluded that it was in their best interest to keep the FO intact until they could get a handle on what it takes to run a franchise. Hence the reason not much was changed and since the team was profitable before they bought it they listened to the man in charge and that was Russ Brandon. There is no question in my view that Brandon swayed the new owners into thinking that they had the football acumen to listen to the head coaching candidates and then make the proper selection themselves. What was it that Brandon told them, you will know who to hire once you listen to the right guy. This and obviously Brandon pushing them to hire Ryan for various reasons Russ probably looked at all the high draft pick talent on the Bills defense with the 100 million dollar pass rusher in Mario and thought here is Mike Pettine's tutor and with Ryan taking his new Jets team the AFC championship 2x, who would be better. This is the very same idea that plagues so many Bills fans in thinking we all should have expected the 2015 Buffalo Bills to morph into 2009 NY Jets and easily get into the playoffs with the #1 defense in the league. After all, Rex Ryan stated that he had never had this much talent on a defense before. Even this year Bills fans keep bringing up that 2009 & 2010 Jets season and keep thinking the Bills will be in the Super bowl soon. With the Sabres I think the thought process was to have the team tank for a few years in order to build a team with some solid young talent and they did just that. Recently they hired a top head coach who should have them contending very soon.

I disagree as the Bills don't even have competent starters at some positions much less depth behind them. Most teams have some competent depth that came come in and the team keeps going all season long. The Patriots come to mind along with most playoff teams as every year they have loads of injuries to starters and yet still make the playoffs and contend for a SB. Buffalo doesn't even have a competent RT much less a backup and should any player on the line Wood, Glenn or Incognito go out with a serious injury then the offense is in serious trouble. Same with the WR's as they have two and the rest are scrubs. The Bills entire team lacks quality depth at almost every position IMO

The fact that it's been reported from people inside the org that both the GM and HC are on a short leash this year leads me to believe that anything said by the owners at this point about what happens next offseason is meaningless. This HC didn't take a bad team and make them better. He took what many believed a playoff caliber team and got them to a very middling record. As Doug Whaley stated he was building the team to win now. Rex Ryan also took a playoff caliber defense and managed to ruin it because the players didn't fit his scheme and this was his supposed area of expertise. The fact that the Pegula's are so successful in every business venture they own tells me that they won't put up with losing or with someone who is bad at their respective job for long. Just my opinion.

Exactly where did she say that "I'm wrong"? By stating that there will be no changes to the HC or GM after the season at this point in time? I can't tell you how many times I've read where an NFL owner pats a HC / GM on the back and states your job is safe... only to fire them later when things go badly. Even Bill Belichick admits that being an NFL head coach is a year by year process and nothing is etched in stone

I look at this as the proverbial pat on the back in saying "your job is safe"...

Really Russ Brandon has been involved as the de facto GM since Marv levy retired as GM at the end of 2007 and as much as I love Marv as the Bills HC...he wasn't a good GM for the football side either. Previous to that the only men who had any real power and say over the Bills player personnel were Tom Donahoe 2001 to 2005 as the owner stepped away from the team. Bill Polian as GM and Chuck Knox as HC during their time in Buffalo. The rest of the time the owner had his hands all over everything to do with his team and is why he named himself team president for all those years. I was so elated when I read that these new owners were in conversations with Bill Polian to hire him as temporary team president to advise them and equally crestfallen when I read he had backed out of that process. These new owners initially wanted to do the right thing and then didn't....

Nobody is hating the man for his business / marketing decisions that I can see (Save Toronto) and all Bills fans want is to see is Brandon removed from the football side of operations which will be a good great thing! Do you really want to see Terry and Kim making the final decisions on the more important football hirings for the team? I know I'd rather see the new team president of football operations or GM hire the next head coach. From Leroi posted Oct 2015, Russ has a big part in scouting and the draft process. He is definetly involved. The guy is a sports genius, we are lucky to have him as the president of Buffalo sports. Remember he was our GM not that long ago. Imo

Due to all the other businesses that they are involved in and didn't want to be overwhelmed by taking on the enormous task of running an NFL team it looks like the new owners kept the entire staff that ran the team under the first owner. At first, it was reported in the media that these new owners were going to hire a "football czar" / senior adviser to help run the football side of things. Clearly, that didn't happen and we can only surmise that CEO Russ Brandon wanted to keep the status quo and lobbied to do so. I can only think that out of respect for what he has done in the past that the new owners did what Brandon wanted as he helped advise them in choosing a new head coach as he did with the first owner for quite a few years. "It was almost a year ago, in early January, when the Buffalo Bills called Rex Ryan back for a second interview for their head-coaching vacancy. Team president Russ Brandon was so impressed that he told owner Terry Pegula not to let Ryan out of the building." http://espn.go.com/blog/buffalo-bills/post/_/id/22828/playoff-promise-among-rex-ryan-statements-that-will-likely-prove-false More than anyone else I think we all have Russ Brandon to thank for these new owners making the decision to take part in the hiring of the next head coach after Doug Marrone walked away. While Brandon might not have made the actual hiring of Rex Ryan, it sure looks like he used his considerable influence to have the Pegula's be involved in the interview process and do the hiring. According to Bill Polian, who had been in contact with Terry Pegula as he was almost hired to be the Buffalo Bills senior adviser / team president of football operations before Marrone walked away. Then after Marrone was no longer the Bills head coach and QB Kyle Orton retired Polian then stated it would be far too much of a daunting task to take on as senior adviser / team president, so he backed out of the job. (I dunno about Whaley wanting anyone other than Rex Ryan as I haven't seen any actual proof in the media of him stating that afaik.) Anyway, what I'm hoping for is that if Rex Ryan fails to get this team to a winning record this season, and shows that all the problems he had last season are not corrected this season. That the Pegula's take themselves and Russ Brandon out of the football decision process by hiring a president of football operations and allow whomever that is to hire the next Buffalo Bills head coach and run the football side of things.

This and the lack of quality depth all over the team. The reality of the situation is that this head coach needs some specific players to run the defensive scheme that he likes to employ the majority of the time. The problem as I see it is that the defensive roster still has a few holes needing to be filled by a few of those specific players. Some Bills fans think that somehow magical unicorns will spray rainbow dust over the defense and it will become a top five unit. It won't unless Rex Ryan starts calling more of a 3-4 one gap scheme with some effective blitzing or otherwise it's the same as we saw for most of the past year and even then the teams best pass rusher now plays for the Dolphins. Ryan has a lot to prove this year with a tougher schedule.

I think so. My take is she is a winner in everything she does and wants the Buffalo Bills to win. If I'm not mistaken Terry told Kim he wouldn't buy the team unless she became heavily involved in the team as he has so many other interests (Sabres & Amerks) Kim wanted to buy the Bills Buffalo Bills to keep them in Buffalo due to her growing up in the Fairport NY area, so she said yes. From what I've read and have seen in interviews with her is that she passes the final yay or nay on any investment opportunities that come the Pegula's way. As smart as she is I'm thinking that there soon should be change at the top of the org if things don't go well this season in terms of wins as the two have a solid track record of business success.

Yet, 50% of his catches were for first downs in Buffalo. What I caught from what I read is that Hogan wasn't going to see as many chances in Buffalo. I can only think that is mostly because the Patriots are a throw first offense with the starters always injured and Buffalo is a run first offense with much less chance with Woods and Watkins in front of him. I didn't read where the guy said anything close to derogatory about the Bills. What offensive player on this earth wouldn't want a chance to play with future hall of fame QB Tom Brady or be part of the winningest org in the league since 2000 and he is getting almost double the $$$ what the Bills offered him. You would think. But Kirby was saying from the start of signing him that he was a waste of a roster spot in Buffalo and he has proven otherwise. Now he has a chance to really shine right behind Amendola as the #2 WR on the right side. The guy has managed to stay in the league six years now and that is better than a lot of players.

In 2014 I watched that week 8 Bills -Jets game with great interest as the Jets were 1-7 and the Bills 4-3 at that point in the season. Rex Ryan had started his yapping to the media on how his Jets team would manhandle the Buffalo Bills only to lose 43-23 and Ryan looked lost on the sidelines. That Jets team had 6 turnovers and Geno Smith went 2 of 8 for 5 yards and 3 INT's ! Then four weeks later the Bills faced the Jets again in Buffalo and Ryan boasting to the NY media that his team would play 1000% better in their second game, no question. The final score of that second game was 38-3 and this game Mike Vick started and as mobile as he is he was sacked 5x and Geno came in after Vick got hurt and was sacked 2x. It was just total domination by Buffalo and I really enjoyed seeing the Bills shut that blowhard up. When Rex Ryan was hired after a 4-12 season with the Jets I asked myself what are the jamokes in the Bills FO thinking? I later found out that the team president (Brandon) persuaded the new owner to make the choice on the hire and he also pushed to hire Ryan for some reason. "It was almost a year ago, in early January, when the Buffalo Bills called Rex Ryan back for a second interview for their head-coaching vacancy. Team president Russ Brandon was so impressed that he told owner Terry Pegula not to let Ryan out of the building." Anyway, after taking a closer look at that 2009-2010 NY Jets team I gotta think that Rex Ryan stepped into an almost perfect situation with those 2009 NY Jets in that he inherited a defense from Eric Mangini and a team that was already loaded with defensive talent that went 9-7 in 2008. Then Mangini being a Bill Belichick disciple who runs a varied schemed 3-4 two-gap D-line system and all Ryan needed to do was bring in a few players familiar with his nomenclature. Hence the reason for that league-leading defense for two seasons and once opponents learned how to play against it then it didn't go so well as time went on. This despite the fact that the Jets spent every first round pick on defense in Ryan's six years there. Look at what happened last year as it wasn't just the complete reversal in sacks from being a league leader 2x years in a row under Schwartz and Pettine to 31st under Ryan and dead last in QB pressures. If I'm not mistaken isn't that getting pressure on the QB the entire reason in giving Mario 100 million dollars and then giving Dareus- Hughes big paydays. There were many issues with the entire team from the #2 team in the league in penalties. Bad clock management in some games and after being asked why he failed to throw a red flag Ryan stated because he didn't see it on the big screen. Massive miss-communications issues with defensive player substitutions coming in late. Defensive play calls coming in late. Defensive players jumping around on the line and not set when the ball was snapped so they were out of position. Then, the defense hardly blitzed at all last year and even when they did blitz it was usually a bad call which resulted in a good play for the offense. If this wasn't enough, the defense kept asking the Bills pro bowl pass rushers to keep dropping into pass coverage and when they asked Dareus to drop 2x times against KC, QB Alex Smith threw two TD's passes on those drop backs. Even Bills HoF QB Jim Kelly was questioning why the Bills defensive linemen were dropping into pass coverage so often. In all my days of watching the Bills, I haven't ever seen a Buffalo Bills coach ruin an aspect of a team like Rex Ryan did to that all pro defensive line last year. And then miss-use those pro bowlers in the wrong scheme so badly that they go to the media to complain about it. http://espn.go.com/blog/buffalo-bills/post/_/id/22828/playoff-promise-among-rex-ryan-statements-that-will-likely-prove-false Buffalo Bills fans have a head coach in the hall of fame named Marv Levy so most of us older fans can see the difference between someone who lets their actions to their talking and a big mouth blowhard who constantly makes promises he can't keep. I choose the former over the latter. I have started to think that Rex Ryan is a below average head coach and a great con man. Good thing the 2016 Buffalo Bills won the offseason because I don't see the team winning many regular season games!

This bolded statement is more accurate than most realize. A 28th ranked O-line. a stinky WR corps and an OC who is also smelly. Foles was decent in Philly with a good OC, behind a good O-line and good WR corps and I doubt he would have much success in Buffalo. I'd rather have Tyrod and EJ.

NVM...signed with the Ravens Then I would somehow find the money for Bolden because if Sammy can't play for any reason the Bills have no other elite talent there.

With Fitz on their roster, the Jets feel they are a playoff team. Fitz in Buffalo wouldn't really work as his OC Chan Gailey is in NY and he has a much better receiving corps in NY with Bradon Marshall who caught 109 passes for 1502 yards and 15 TD's & Eric Decker had 80 catches for 1027 yards and 12 TD's. Besides, the Bills FO thinks Tyrod Taylor needs another year to see if he can step up and win games with his arm when the run game isn't working. Bringing in a different QB wouldn't help the current situation.

What I found even more amazing about the guy is that he took a bunch of nobody's and made them believe in themselves that they could win against anybody. Look at that roster from 1977 and they had two good O-linemen in Mckenzie and DeLamielleure, a good FS in Tony Greene and a CB Mario Clark and that was about it for talent. It was Knox who went on to draft who he wanted and brought in some older players to help show the younger players the ropes. Knox, like Marv Levy, was a supreme motivator who could get the most out of average players and motivate the malcontents. BTW, to the Joe Ferguson lovers I can remember watching him play in 77 and pre-Knox and it wasn't good. The guy went 3-11 that year with 12 TD's and 24 INT's and with every bad pass he would hang his head. The Bills didn't need to punt much because Joe would throw it up for grabs at the end of a series. Knox transformed what looked like a broken QB into a believer who took the team to the playoffs. One of my favorite all-time games was that 1980 home opener win against Miami that broke a 20 game losing streak against the Dolphins. The fans went nuts and the goal posts came down that day. The Bills had just about the best defense in the league that season and finished 3rd in points allowed, 1st in yards allowed.

After the strike year, Knox wanted a raise for what he was able to do for not only the team but also the city and Wilson said no! Mostly because the stadium was filled again and fans were coming to games in droves with Knox as HC. Before hiring Knox Ralph Wilson was getting desperate because fans wouldn't even attend preseason games so the team held them in other cities. Attendance was at an all-time low and season ticket sales were around 20k. Things in Buffalo were pretty bleak at that point in time as the Bills hadn't beaten Don Shula's Dolphins once in the entire decade of the 70's. The city was the butt of night time TV jokes and the that was the time of wicked snow storms and the infamous love canal, foul-smelling air from the steel mills that were now closing down from a depressed economy. Knox was fired by the Rams owner because he didn't get them a super bowl win and so Wilson hired Knox and made him one of the highest-paid head coaches in the NFL at that time. But yea, after his contract was up Knox left for Seattle and Wilson let him leave... In regards to Tom Cousineau, that was all the moron Bills GM in Stew Barber and the final difference between what Buffalo offered him and what the Montreal Alouettes offered was a mere 10k. The bigger deal here was that Cousineau was supposed to have dinner with Barber and Wilson in Buffalo and they never showed up thanks to Barber. This really upset Cousineau who said he felt like a fool sitting there with his agent waiting as nobody showed up to tell him they weren't coming. Kind of amazing in what Knox was able to do in Buffalo despite the complete tool of a GM in Barber and alas Wilson's bean counters eventually got the best of everyone worth a damn over time.

You would think that Rex was right there working with the GM on who to draft and who to acquire in free agency his last four years just like he was his first two years. If you look over those 6 years of drafting the Jets during Rex's time there he missed on just about every defensive position except DT. That second sentence is what gets me because you would think that he would adapt and change with what offenses are currently doing. Yet we all saw last season he couldn't get the most out of four of the very best defensive linemen in the league and put them into a scheme that didn't utilize their best abilities. Square peg, round hole type of thing. Who would have thought that would happen with all those pro bowlers? Now without the teams best pass rusher gone and the other pass rushing DE more suited to play OLBer then DE in his 3-4. I gotta wonder if the defense will indeed be fixed this year. Like someone else said, this defense has far too much talent to be in the last 10.

What if....last years defense was all we can expect to see again this year? I gotta think that Rex Ryan stepped into an almost perfect situation with those 2009 NY Jets in that he inherited a defense from Eric Mangini and a team that was already loaded with defensive talent that went 9-7 in 2008. Then Mangini being a Bill Belichick disciple who runs a varied schemed 3-4 two-gap D-line system and all Ryan needed to do was bring in a few players familiar with his nomenclature. Hence the reason for that league-leading defense for two seasons and once opponents learned how to play against it then it didn't go so well as time went on. This despite the fact that the Jets spent every first round pick on defense in Ryan's six years there. Ryan's Bills team swept the Jets and Dolphins last year but let's face it that Miami had some pretty bad coaching and that improved in hiring Adam Gase to tutor Talleywhacker. As far as the Jets go, Ryan had a lot of motivated revenge on his mind to beat the team 2x that fired him and if you look back at Ryan Fitzpatrick's record against Ryan's Jets he was 1-5. So, it's not inconceivable that Rex Ryan knew how to win against Gailey's offense with Fitz at QB and the same thing against Miami. I know all the Bills fans out there want to see the penalty problems fixed, the various communication problems fixed, the lack of pass rush fixed. We are all hoping for the best this year! But, perhaps all we will get is another year of excuses from a bad head coach. Believe it or not, I've been wanting a team like that 2000 Ravens team that pounds the rock and plays great defense for forever in Buffalo. Ryan looked to be the perfect guy to do that and so while I've complained a lot about him since week two of last season...it's because my expectations were the #1 defense in the league last year! Time will tell.

Taylor played well last year in Greg Roman's run-centric offense no question. But, when forced to carry the game with his arm by throwing more than running the team lost every game, save the Washington game. Let's face it that the Bills defense wasn't very good and got almost no pressure on any QB so when the Bills got behind in the score, it was try and catch up. Tyrod wasn't good enough with his arm to lead the team back from behind and score enough to win the games on his own, and there were games that he and the offense went invisiable for stretches at a time. The NY Giants finished 2015 with their defense 30 in points and 32nd in yards and the Bills offense only managed 3 points until the fourth quarter. The Bills lost that second game to the Patriots because the offense wasn't good enough. The kid still has a lot to prove from what I see and I think it's smart not to pay him before he has actually earned that 20 million dollar payday. Kaepernick started out hot and got paid, and SF got stuck. RG3 started hot, got injured and the Redskins dumped him. The upcoming season should tell us if a 6'0'' 221 running QB not named Russell Wilson will survive in the NFL to get his big pay day.

Well said and looking at this head coaches history of young QB's I sorta have my doubts that Taylor will be better this season only because I think the team will put more pressure on him to win games. It's like last year with the defense never happened and all the issues that could easily be correctable were going to be corrected each week and yet, in the end, were never corrected. Most Bills fans seem to think that Ryan will fix everything and field the defense this year he was supposed to field last year.