Nihilarian

Let's also not forget the "We're going!" spiel, meaning the playoffs. Which was just another in a very long list of broken promises to fans, to Jets fans for years and now in Buffalo. The few good things Rex Ryan brought into Buffalo that has been absent for years and years is a real, genuine, bonafide NFL offensive coordinator who actually knows what he is doing in Greg Roman. The next was Rex who was the one vouching for OG Richie Incognito when nobody else in the NFL would. Whaley had his chance the previous season in which the Bills fielded the very worst O-line in the league. Cogs, while making the pro bowl also made the two guys next to him so much better. The last time an OG made the pro bowl in Buffalo was Ruben Brown in 2003. Ryan also went after OT/OG La'el Collins who went undrafted in 2015 but alas he signed with Dallas and he became a valued starter for the Boys all last year. Finally, it was Ryan who wanted QB Tyrod Taylor to be brought into Buffalo to compete for the starting job. So, Rex Ryan wasn't a complete waste of space for the Buffalo Bills as he just destroyed the best defense the team has had the last 10 years because he had to run his scheme down everyone's throats. Should he go, the Bills will still have Cogs, Roman and Taylor.

If you're talking about Marrone, once Kyle Orton retired, St Doug wasn't going anywhere in 2016 with EJ or Mr Meh as his starter at QB on offense no matter how great the defense was going to be. Doug Marrone was married to Nathaniel Hackett as his OC and that man was on par with AVP, Turk Schonert as both should have stayed as QB coaches. Which is just what Hackett was doing last year and this upcoming year with the Jags. If Mularkey, who also fielded a top 10 defense in 2004, #8 in pts, #2 in yards. DC Jerry Gray fell on his face the next year and Mularkey was pretty much useless on offense without Bledsoe. Mularkey, like Chan Gailey, if the talent wasn't already in the QB then neither of those men would be able to coach up anyone. I kinda feel Rex Ryan is the exact same way with defensive players. If the talent, skill, character isn't already in the player then don't expect Ryan to coach them up to any degree.

Both Mularkey and Marrone chose to walk away rather than stay as the Buffalo Bills head coach and in my view, and that was a good thing. Marrone wasn't going anywhere near another 9-7 year without Orton and with Hackett as his OC even if Schwartz had stayed as DC. Ralph Wilson wanted to retain Mike Mularkey as HC after he fired Tom Donahoe for a 5-11 season. Yet Mularkey stated the guy who hired me is gone and he didn't feel the same support structure was there for him to stay. Besides, he babied out stating that his kids were getting crap at school in Buffalo from other kids. The point is that Mularkey without Drew Bledsoe at QB the offense went into the toilet as did the defense under Jerry Gray. That 5-11 season his offense was 28th in yards and the defense was 29th.

Would the Bills have gone to a super bowl if they had kept Greg Williams as head coach for up to five years or for Fourteen years? Or Mike Mularkey for 11 years? Or Dick Jauron for 9 years? Or Chan Gailey for 6 years? Or Doug Marrone for 3 years? I'm thinking that without question that none of those men take the Buffalo Bills to the playoffs much less a championship. Two of those men outright quit the team and it was the best thing that could happen at that time. Every single one of those choices for head coach got worse at the end of their reign before being fired with the exception of Marrone and without Kyle Orton, (who retired and was a big reason Marrone quit) he would have fallen too. The real problem with the teams process in finding the right head coach is that the same person who helped make the wrong choices the last eight years is still with the team and still has a major influence over what head coach gets hired. I can only hope at some point that this new owner realizes his mortality as a human and puts an end to the team's love affair with being mediocre. Furthermore, I just don't get why some fans are so afraid of change when it's clear as glass that the guy the team hired isn't ever going to get it done. Every season it starts out with far, far too many mistakes to build a great team. It all starts at the top and until the team hires a top "NFL football man" to run the football side of the organization. Then this team will continue to spins it's wheels year after year.

The Steelers have had three coaches since 1969 because all three have been winners who have gotten their teams to the Super Bowl!!! Chuck Knoll 4x SB wins! With a .566 winning percentage! Knoll took a 1-13 and made them better every year until 11-3 in four years. In Bill Cowher's 15 seasons, 8 div titles, 10 playoff berths, 21 playoff games, 6 AFC Championship games, and two super bowl appearances while winning one. a 618 winning percentage! This with mostly scrubs at QB that entire time as Big Ben got there in 2004 and Cowher retired in 2006! Cowher went to the playoffs his first year with Pitt. Mike Tomlin took over in 2007 and been to the SB 2x won one and lost one with a .639 winning percentage. Tomlin went to the playoffs his first year with Pitt. You simply can't compare the ownership between the Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh because the Bills were very, very lucky to find Bill Polian as GM who came in as an offshoot of hiring Chuck Knox back in 1978. Knox brought his director of scouting with him from the Rams and that man suggested hiring Polian. The Bills had their owner Ralph Wilson as team president who was an insurance man who liked to dabble in horse racing and the NFL. He was more "hands on" than he should have been. Now the Bills have Russ Brandon filling that role and he doesn't even own any part of the team. The Steelers, however, have the Rooney family and those people know the NFL inside and out in every aspect. Most are great talent evaluators at every level from the players to coaches they hire to the front office people.The team founder, Art Rooney was an exceptional athlete who applied for an NFL franchise in 1933. The thing is if you find a winning head coach or great GM you keep them which is something the first owner of the Buffalo Bills wouldn't do. Chuck Knox was allowed to leave for Seattle because the owner didn't want to give him a raise. Which is crazy to think about how much that man transformed the team and city. Bill Polian was fired because of some run-in with the owners daughter who worked as a scout for the team. John Butler was fired because he didn't care to re-sign with the Bills right away. If I can't hire you, then I'll fire you! He Fired Wade Phillps because Wade refused to fire his special team coach. The Steelers have had great success the last 47 years because they have had the intelligence and great football acumen to hire the right people in the first place and keep them once they find them! The last 15 years the Buffalo Bills have made all the wrong choices from team president in Tom Donahoe who was fired as GM in Pittsburgh only to be hired by Buffalo and promoted to a job he had never done before. GM Marv Levy was never a GM before being hired as one in Buffalo. Same thing with Buddy Nix who was a retired head scout before being hired out of retirement to be the GM. Then Nix hires a coach who had been fired as an OC on a 2-14 team and was out of the NFL for a year and then promoted him to HC. Current GM Doug Whaley was never a GM before Buffalo and he has a man above him guiding him who is a baseball / marketing man. Now, Buffalo Bills team president Russ Brandon has managed to manipulate these new owners into thinking that they have the football acumen needed to hire the head coaches because of all their expertise from watching the games on TV. Of course, he will interject his wealth of football knowledge because the team has done so as well the last eight years. From Russ To Terry..."don't let Rex Ryan leave the building"! Should the Bills not make the playoffs in 2016 Rex Ryan should be fired, no question. It wasn't just the bad defense for half the year as it was also all the penalties on both sides of the ball. The looked team unprepared to play and mismanaged for some games. Bad special teams. The only part of last season that was enjoyable to watch was the part that the head coach had no involvement in and that was the offense. This team doesn't need a buddy, buddy type players coach like Ryan who won't bench players not giving 100%. These new owners will have no problem hiring anyone as head coach provided they hire that football czar at the top of the flow chart and step away from the involvement of the football side of the operations. I look at the Arizona Cardinals with envious eyes as HC Bruce Arians takes over a 5-11 team in the toughest division in the NFL and takes them to 10-6 in his first year as head coach. 11-5 his second year and then 13-3 last year while taking the division away from Pete Carrolls Seahawks. The Bills need to find their Bruce Arians!

Only two D-line players were bitching and the most vocal one from the start of training camp complaining about how he was being utilized played all year about as hard as I've ever seen him play! http://www.rotoworld.com/recent/nfl/6472/marcell-dareus Marcell Dareus has echoed Mario Williams' complaint about coach Rex Ryan having his defensive linemen drop back into coverage too often. Per Pro Football Focus, Dareus has dropped back only three times this season, but Williams has on 13 different occasions. "It's not been a lot of times where there have been all four of us, full tilt, ears pined back and we're going after it," Dareus said. Despite boasting one of the league's most talented defensive lines, the Bills have only nine sacks through six games. That needs to change, and in a hurry. If they had been asked to rush the passer like under Schwartz or Pettine I highly doubt you would have heard or read anything from the players about what they were being asked to do. It wasn't just the fluke of one season the Bills were great at pass rushing from Schwartz's wide nine in 2014 to Pettine's 3-4 one-gap scheme in 2013. Bills fans can put up color-coded heat flow charts and dissect the stats anyway they want. But the simple fact is the 2015 D-line players were asked to play mostly in a two-gap run-stopping scheme rather than a pass rushing scheme and there were games in which Ryan just didn't call for many blitzes! Hence the reason for being dead last in QB pressures and 31st in QB sacks last year.* Read this article written by an ex-NFL defensive player Stephen White explains it pretty good, http://www.sbnation.com/2015/10/21/9581575/mario-williams-marcell-dareus-rex-ryan-buffalo-bills-defense Some excerpts, "The point is why would you not use your high priced, elite pass rushers (Kyle Willaims don't come cheap either, bro) to do what they do best? Especially when the Bills -- the guys who blitzed Luck 25 times on 55 pass dropbacks in Week 1 -- only blitzed the Bengals 13 times the whole damn game. Yes, that means those guys were dropping sometimes when there wasn't even a blitz coming." Why? Well, it seems like Rex Ryan is suddenly determined to put square pegs into round holes by putting his scheme over talent, at least he was Sunday. We know that the Bills have four dominant defensive linemen who fit best in an attacking 4-3 scheme. "Even having Mario Williams, a human cheat code with his ridiculous combination of size, strength and athletic ability, two-gapping an offensive tackle is a pretty dumb thing to do on a regular basis because it's obvious he doesn't like doing it! I greatly admire Williams' game, but he's just not that guy who wants to be lined up head-up and wrestle with a 300-pounder all game. " Then, if you read this article from the BN by Tyler Dunne he asks the Bills assistant coaches on if they think they players (Mario) were doing what was asked of them and they stated they were happy with the players. http://bills.buffalonews.com/2015/12/31/marios-swan-song-with-bills-is-near/ "Ryan. Defensive coordinator Dennis Thurman. Defensive line coach Karl Dunbar. Coaches have supported Williams all season long – possibly to a fault. Their message has never wavered. Dunbar, all smiles, praised the veteran on Thursday. Asked how one of this generation’s best pass rushers can last 54 snaps without one tackle, one hit, one sack, Dunbar reiterated they’re pleased with Williams’ play. “He’s doing a good job of coming off the edge and the quarterback’s getting rid of the ball,” Dunbar said. “It’s kind of hard because the defense we play is predicated on what they give us and who’s going to be the hot guy. Yeah, you wish you had more tackles, you wish you had more sacks. But I think he’s helping our defense based upon the things he’s doing.” If you don't know the difference between the one-gap and two-gap schemes here is a link, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/football-insider/wp/2014/06/11/the-differences-between-1-gap-and-2-gap-principles-on-the-redskins-defensive-line/

I agree and think it's beyond belief that some fans are still making excuses and are still defending what transpired last season. Only I'd call going from first in the NFL in sacks in 2014 and second in the NFL in sacks in 2013 far, far beyond just terrible! Then to go to 31st in the NFL with basically the same players (and the only guy out was DT Kyle Williams after six games). If you look at the sacks per game the 2015 Bills didn't generate much pass rush pressure all season save for a few select games. Last in the NFL in QB pressures in 2015! Dareus missed that first Colts game and yet the defense was able to generate a better rush on Luck than in most of the rest of the games. Shoot, the Bills got a tremendous amount of pressure on Brady in that second NE game to the tune of around fifty percent of Brady's dropbacks and that was without Mario, Kyle, and Aaron Williams. The Bills got a lot of pressure on Fitz in that last game of the year and intercepted him three times without Stephon Gilmore. Some fans would have you believe that losing Kyle Williams had a major impact with the 2015 pass rush. While he had a good impact in 2014 with 5.5 sacks he was more impressive in Pettine's one-gap 3-4 with 10.5 sacks in 2013. His loss for 10 games wasn't that impactful as teams were still going to double on the manster Marcell every game. This entire thing has more to do with how the players were being utilized in Rex Ryan's scheme over player injuries, any single D-line player not with the team or anyone's attitude. The players themselves were complaining about their role in Ryan's scheme from training camp. Jeez, what in the world is so difficult or complex for the fans to comprehend that the players themselves were publicly vocal about not being allowed to rush the passer? After all, rushing the passer is what got them to the pro bowl in 2014.

In my view, Jim Schwartz had earned another shot as DC in Buffalo because of what he did for the Bills defense! For what he was able to do with a defense that George Edwards, Dave Wannstedt, Mike Pettine and now Rex Ryan weren't able to do with a defense loaded with top talent. Not just good or decent talent but some of the very best talent in the NFL in Mario, Marcell Dareus, Jerry Hughes, Stephon Gilmore and Kyle Williams. It was unbelievable in watching the #1, #2 team in sacks the previous two seasons go to 31st under Ryan. That stat about the lack of sacks wasn't just a number as it meant the Bills got very little pressure on opposing QB's all season long. The Bills were Dead last in defensive hurries in 2015! And that was a line with three pro bowlers who desperately wanted to rush the passer, yet were held back in favor of a run-stopping scheme. Sure, the man could start using a different scheme that would actually enable his players to get pressure on the QB and get sacks. Ryan could actually instill some discipline into his players instead of being their pal. He could actually work hard at a decent game plan every week and for every opponent and not just the AFC EAST teams or teams he wants revenge against. But will he?

Bill Belichick is a defensive genius and always will be and nobody watches as much film as this man does. He may get beaten once in a season by a team but it's rare that he gets beaten twice. But as a great NFL head coach he allows his assistant coaches to do their jobs in which the teams DC sets up the defensive game plan and call the defensive plays on game day. At this point in his career, he is also the teams GM and has absolute control over the teams roster. The Patriots just won the super bowl in 2014 with having the #8 team in points allowed and #13 in yards allowed and were one game away from the SB in 2015. BTW the NE Patriots were the #2 team in sacks last year just behind Denver with 49 sacks. On another note as to the D-linemen dropping into pass coverage, "Even former Bills quarterback Jim Kelly got in on the action, criticizing Ryan's decision to drop his linemen into coverage too often as well. "Dropping Mario Williams into coverage a lot? Didn't we pay him a lot of money to hit the quarterback? And if I'm the opposing quarterback and I see him dropping into coverage, oh, that's a big plus. I'd definitely have a smile on my face," Kelly said, per Yahoo! Sports." http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/bills-defensive-linemen-not-happy-with-how-rex-ryan-is-using-them/

Stating that part of the reason his defense didn't work so well was because he used Schwartz's scheme some of the times last year is nothing but another excuse from the master of excuses. There really is no excuse for a supposed defensive genius to take over a team with one of the best and highest paid pro bowl pass rushing defensive lines in the league and then make them look merely average attempting to run a scheme that doesn't suit what they do best...and that was rush the passer! Then ask his defensive line players to not rush the passer most of the season and thus creating animosity amongst those pro bowl D-line players. Yes, the Bills ran a Schwartz like wide nine scheme at times last year. Yes, the Bills ran multiple looks and fronts going from 3-4 to 4-3. But the one constant that Rex Ryan didn't do last year and something that he was noted for in his past defenses and... that ...was... blitzing... the... QB! In 2015 the Bills ran mostly a run stopping two-gap scheme. Also, the 2015 Buffalo Bills defense was a clusterfluck of problems from the many penalties (the Buffalo Defense gave the NY Giants offense 7 first downs! Yes, that's right 7 first downs!) to the late incoming play calls, late player substitutions. To the wrong play calls at the wrong time (Marcell Dareus was dropped into pass coverage on two of the Chiefs TD passes). When the Bills did decide to call a blitz it was usually ineffective and didn't work well. Last year Rex Ryan only blitzed around 10% or less for most of the games and he ran a scheme that is designed more for stopping the run than it is for getting pressure on the QB. It showed, as the lack of pressure on opposing QB's most of the season was alarming. I can only surmise that either Rex Ryan was either just too darn lazy to work a good defensive game plan against some teams. Patriots 1x, Giants, Chiefs, Eagles, Redskins, Bengals or he just didn't care to walk in Jim Schwartz's- Mike Pettine's shadows. The latter meaning that there was a real reason he didn't even attempt to call many blitzes because he didn't feel the need to compete against those two men for the sack title. Now, this year if he comes out guns blazing by calling blitzes on 50% of the opposing QB dropbacks and runs his 3-4 with mostly a one gap scheme then Ryan will look like the old sack master he was supposed to be in the first place. Bills fans and his players will forget that 2015 debacle and start loving his defense again. The Bills defense will start leading the NFL in sacks again and opposing QB's will start hating to play Buffalo again. We can only hope!

I kinda doubt this simply because this new owner has the money to make any new HC one of the highest paid in the league... and money talks. Once Terry Pegula tires of the three stooges and decides he wants a championship instead of a clown show. He then should make some better choices on who will have control of the football side of his team. I'm hoping anyway.

With each new head coaching hire, I usually wait and see how they do in their first year. My optimism stopped with Dick Jauron and his bonehead moves on who he hired to run his offense. He had sorta the right idea to build the greatest show on snow in Buffalo akin to the Rams greatest show on turf by hiring the OC under Rams HC Mike Martz. But what a lot didn't know was that Steve Fairchild didn't call the offensive plays or set up the game plans for the Rams while he was there as it was all Mike Martz. Then to have 5 to 7 step drop back passing plays with a less than stellar offensive line was all about getting the QB's killed. That Mike Martz deep passing attack kept getting QB's injured. It happened in St Louis and in Detroit then on to San Fran for a bad season and finally in Chicago with Jay Cutler getting his ass handed to him. Martz has been out of the NFL since 2011. So, not only did Jauron not get it right in hiring Fairchild. He then promoted the QB coaches under Fairchild to OC after Failchild left to be a college HC after one season. Just a bad offensive scheme year after year with OC's that had no clue. Chan Gailey screwed it up by proclaiming that Trent Edwards was his starter only to cut him outright after two games. Gailey was so very lucky that Fitzpatrick was even on the team because Chan stated that Fitz, Edwards, and Brian Brohm were all about the same. Fitz came in of relief of Edwards and all he did was run for his life because bonehead Buddy Nix brought in bums for the O-line. Anyone else remember Cornell Green? The 2010 Buffalo Bills started that season 0-8 and finished 4-12. Jauron managed to do better with JP Losman and Trent Edwards at QB. Marrone comes in and had basically three rookie QB's on the roster with no QB coach to help guide them and no senior QB. That year Doug Whaley replaced a decent OG Andy Levitre with Colin Brown who lasted 6 games before being cut from the team. Brown was another one of Buddy's pickups. Marrone's first year at 6-10 because his choice for OC was even worse than Jauron's. I get the impression that Marrone walked away because he had no real input with the roster and Whaley and Brandon are steering the ship. Now Rex Ryan gets fired in NY after a 4-12 season but since he is a defensive genius he gets the benefit of the doubt after being hired by these new owners... and what happens? He destroys an all pro D-line while simultaneously creating strife among those pro bowl players by running a scheme they mostly hate. I couldn't make this crap up if I wanted to. It's like stupidity runs rampant year after year at OBD and now it may not ever end with these new owners calling the shots on who to hire as head coach and the Ryan Bros safe as a tick on a dog with a stiff neck.

You're very welcome Bill. I hope life is treating you well. I was sorta hoping that someone would remember what Bruce Smith said and did against his first head coach in Hank Bullough. Bullough had been known to ride Bruce a bit to try and motivate him and Smith hated him for it. In week 9 of the 1986 season against the Tampa Bay Bucs, it was said that Smith told the other players in the defensive huddle on the field " if anyone makes a tackle ...they answer to me!" Bullough was fired after that game and replaced by Marv Levy. What so many Bills fans forget is before training camp that many Bills players were loving Rex Ryan and gloating about how the 2015 Bills defense could be the best ever. "Asked about the defense’s goal for the season, Marcell Dareus answered, “Best ever. It’s so obtainable. All we have to do is continue to do what we want, and not what we can. If we do what we want, and do everything to head in that direction, why can’t we? Why can’t we?” Dareus has bought into everything that Ryan is selling." http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/06/29/bills-think-they-can-have-the-greatest-defense-ever/ That is until Dareus saw how he would be utilized in Ryan's scheme in training camp and he went very vocal to the public then. I can only imagine that if he had known what Ryan had planned for him he would have never resigned with the Bills. I can tell you he probably still isn't happy about playing the nose or even a DT in Ryan's scheme. Bills fans say Oh, what about the second half of the season in which the defense looked better! I seem to recall how embarrassed I felt watching that Redskin game with Skins QB Kirk Cousins throwing for 319 yards, four TD passes with no INT's and looking like an elite QB. That's what happens when you can't generate a pass rush and can't get pressure on the QB. Those two losses to the 7-9 Eagles and 9-7 Redskins kept the Bills from a winning season and no shot at the playoffs. The 2015 Buffalo Bills roster had enough talent to get into the playoffs. The Bills FO hired a head coach that had just gone 4-12 with his last team and was fired for it. I get the idea that the Bills FO thought they were hiring another defensive mind like Mike Pettine...only better because this man was Pettine's mentor and a defensive genius.

I agree and It's also about the middle of the line being very strong so that the QB can also step up in the pocket if the need occurs. This is where Miller at RG is the weak link in pass blocking and the entire right side of that line can collapse. So far Whaley has learned that he needs talent on the O-line to have a decent offense and eventually he will learn that those five men need to be a solid, cohesive unit that develops strong continuity. Not just three of five good players. http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/sports/football/nfl/bills/2016/05/25/bills-have-gaping-hole-right-tackle/84914864/ Speaking of Aaron Rodgers that poor guy was the very best by far and has taken some serious beatings over the years in terms of sacks and concussions. Holding on to the ball while waiting for the receivers to break open isn't always the smartest move or scheme. Big Ben fits this category too. OTOH, Brady doesn't wait and usually either finds his target or throws it away. This past year was sort of unusual for ole Tom as he took more hits towards the end of the season then I've seen in the past. Kinda surprising that Belichick waited until the 3rd round to draft an OG and they did get another OG in Cooper from the Cards. Will it be enough? I hope not!

It was a waste of around 250 million dollars last season!! Because that entire D-line was forced to play in a scheme that didn't fit their talents. It's kinda why Dareus bitched about it since training camp and then later Mario went public with his dislike of how he was being used in Ryan's scheme. Mario didn't complain as much about the scheme as he disliked dropping into pass coverage so often. Talk about a colossal waste of talent! The Bills could have had four 330lb inept slugs on that D-line instead of such highly skilled pro bowl pass rushers and still done as well. Think about running a version of Dick Lebeau's zone blitz with the players that Buffalo had at linebacker last year. What makes more sense, to rush with the front four or send a D-linemen into pass coverage so a LBer could rush? The 2015 Bills coaches were happy about Mario dropping into pass coverage and his disrupting the pass route so Manny Lawson could get the lone hit on Kellen Moore all game. Talk about a ridiculous waste of player talent. The biggest difference between Mike Pettine in 2013 and Rex Ryan in 2014 that I noticed was that Pettine called a whole lot more blitzes and his blitzes were effective. Then the next biggest area of difference was that Ryan was determined to mostly run a run-stopping two-gap 3-4 scheme and although both men utilized multiple looks, fronts, schemes. Petting ran a lot of a one-gap 3-4 that was very similar to what Wade Phillips ran in Denver last year. The other differences were that Ryan had Jerry Hughes at DE and Pettine had Alan Branch. Pettine also had Kiko Alonso at MLB with Moats and Manny Lawson. Then McKelvin, Gilmore, Williams and Byrd in the secondary. Now think about that 2013 being #2 in sacks with 57 but also actually obtaining more sacks than Schwartz did in 2014 who had 54 sacks. That 2013 Bills defense did give up a bunch of rush yards for the season and were 10th in total defense. They were 28th against the run while being #4 against the pass and the #2 team in INT's. But while being 28th against the run that Bills D was 8th in giving up rushing TD's. Considering the difference in defensive talent on both those teams I'd take that Pettine 2013 defense over last year's Ryan's defense. If nothing else that 2013 defense under Pettine was so darn exciting to watch and created so much havoc for opposing QB's. To me, Pettine did more with less talent and got the most out of the player talent on the roster. Sure, Ryan could change things up for 2016 and start running more of a one-gap 4-3 scheme while calling more blitzes. Dareus could still be used as the nose tackle and still play the O tech while going full bore on one side of the center while the linebacker crashes the other in a one-gap scheme. He might even enjoy that a whole bunch more than playing in Ryan's two-gap in which he is to control the center and a draw double team from an OG. Yes, the latter would be a waste of a 100 million dollar pro bowl pass rusher. If anyone thinks that Mario or Dareus were wrong to complain about last year's scheme. Stop and think about what Bruce Smith would have said or done had he been asked to not rush the passer, but to stay put over the OT, to control both the "B'' and "C" gaps he is responsible for...

I think Marcell Dareus will be the man to play NT for the Bills this year. You gotta look at what happened last season to the league's best sacking team from the year previous. The 2015 Buffalo Bills set a 50+ year franchise low with 21 sacks under Rex Ryan and the only time a Bills team had fewer sacks was in a strike year. So, I'm not wasting my time thinking about how many sacks the 2016 Buffalo Bills might have after witnessing the debacle of the 2015 Bills defense. Then Lawson might not even see the field for Buffalo in 2016 until mid-Oct / mid-Nov according to Schefter. http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/15564183/buffalo-bills-get-bad-news-shaq-lawson-sammy-watkins

Ryan ran his 3-4, two-gap run-stopping scheme the majority of the time last season and was the reason for the lack of sacks / QB pressures. His stating that the team will be switching to mostly a 3-4 and looking at the first two players drafted this year also confirm that. Yes, he will use multiple fronts and schemes but unless he starts calling a whole lot more blitzes this season I kinda doubt anyone on the Buffalo Bills with have more then six sacks.

Waiting for Brady or anyone else to retire is not the answer and never will be! The Seahawks went ahead and built a great team and didn't care what the 49ers were doing. Same thing with the Cardinals who took the division last year in the toughest division in the league. In 2013 in the Cards hire Bruce Arians after a 5-11 season under Whisenhunt and then go 10-6 in his first year and 11-5 the next to 13-3 last year. Putting a top football mind at the top of the Bills org and allowing him to make all the football decisions should be the way to building a great team in Buffalo was my point.

I think Doug Whaley drafted a guy who Ryan wanted to fit his 3-4 scheme. What I see is a guy who will be a strong player in Ryan's two-gap run-stopping scheme but in terms of sacks I just don't even see a 4-6 sack guy unless Ryan changes up his priorities and starts calling a whole lot more blitzes than he did last year. Jerry Hughes was a full-time pass rusher when the QB dropped back to pass in Schwartz's scheme and he only saw 10 sacks in 2014. Then he only saw five last year and that was with Mario on the other side in Ryan's scheme. On another note teams are not gonna want to run at whatever side Lawson is on. JMO.

I said Patriots, simply because they have basically owned the AFC East division for the last 14 years and have only missed the playoffs twice in all that time. They have been to six super bowls and won four of them. I for one don't ever want to see Tom Brady in another super bowl! If you think waiting for Brady to retire is the answer then there really is no hope for this team, ever! The Patriots lost Brady for the entire year in the first game of the season in 2008 and still went 11-5. Last year they lost so many starters that only 3 of 22 starters played in a full 16 games and yet were only one game away from going to the super bowl again. It isn't about waiting for Brady, Belichick or anyone else to retire. It's about building a great team that can contend with the best in the league and right now Buffalo isn't even close, IMO.

The thing is, this is a new owner who is so wealthy he doesn't need the team to make a healthy profit to support himself. He doesn't need to be the team president to get a paycheck. Plus, I'm not advocating replacing or firing anyone in the Bills FO. About the only time this franchise has had winning seasons in it's fifty plus year history under the late owner was when he stepped back and let Chuck Knox take over control of the team and let Knox build up the team his way despite a bad GM. The next time was when Bill Polian was GM making the important football decisions. What I'm against is this team going forward with the old model of running the team under the first owner. The point here is that the current flow chart has both the head coach and GM reporting to an owner who really has no NFL football experience in running an NFL team.Just as that first owner was an insurance man and not a football man. Then, as current team president and managing partner of the Buffalo Bills, Russ Brandon is still in position to influence these new owners on the football side of operations. These new owners have no experience running the football operations of an NFL team and they really shouldn't be choosing the head coach. But that is exactly what happened in the hire of Rex Ryan. Brandon was so impressed by Ryan that he told the Pegula's to not let him leave the building and so they didn't. People at the top of the org chart making football choices that they shouldn't be making. The hiring of a team president of football operations would give Doug Whaley some help in building the team properly while making the right choices in the hiring of a good head coach. Someone to set the idea of what wins in today's league in terms of offense, defense and then stay on course instead of changing schemes every few years. All the team has done over the last sixteen years is keep changing directions because there has been no distinct NFL knowledgeable leader at the top and there still isn't one today! Bottom line is, this team is in desperate, desperate need of hiring a president of football operations to make those intelligent football choices on how to make this franchise competitive against the New England Patriots.

Yet the Patriots were riddled with injuries to so many starters all last year. They had only three starters from their entire team that played a full 16 games last year and still were one game away from the SB. In 2008, the Patriots lost Brady after the first game and still went 11-5. Funny how the Bills still had enough talent on it to beat the 10-5 NY Jets (who had just beaten the Patriots in OT the week before) for the last game of the season to knock them out of the playoffs. The defense seemed to play well in games that mattered most to the head coach.

Not for me! Mostly because It will give the status quo more excuses for this season and it shouldn't be about excuses anymore! Bill Belichick lost Tom Brady for 15 games and still finished that 2008 season 11-5. Last year that Patriots team lost so many starting players to injury, at WR, at RB, on the O-Line, and on defense and that team still almost went to the SB! Brady, Ninkovich, and Butler were the only three Patriots players on the entire team to play in all 16 games! Can we all agree that the current front office has said they were ready to win now and put a big effort into finding players to make that happen for 2015, and last year's team had enough talent on it to get this team into the playoffs! Then the team fell far short due to the hire of a bad head coach who is a supposed defensive genius and yet couldn't figure out how to get a pro bowl D-line to play up to their former performance of a short year ago. It wasn't just the defenses defensive line playing below what they did the previous season. It was a clear lack of team discipline with being #2 in the league in penalties. It was the defensive play calls coming in late and late player substitutions. It was the defensive players not being ready when the ball was snapped. It was bad defensive scheming, bad defensive game planning, bad play calls and the team looking very unprepared for half of the seasons games. We all saw it and it's hard not to notice the elephant in the room who is crapping all over and stinking up the place. I wondered at times if this new HC hire was still stinging from his two humiliating defeats by the Buffalo Bills during the 2014 season and was purposely attempting to submarine his own team to get fired so he could do nothing for the next four seasons and still get paid 5 mill per! Why the 5-year contract for an HC that went 4-12 the year before? Anyway, Is he still a gang green Jet fan at heart or is he really that inept that he refused to run the proper schemes to make that pro bowl D-line work? Then again, Ryan seemed to embrace everything Buffalo, so did he start believing in his own bombastic blathering about fielding the best defense and making the playoffs so he didn't put enough time, energy or effort into winning more games? Who freaking knows. The offense improved with the hire of a good coordinator who helped an offense improve from 26th in total offense and near last in rushing, 27th in rushing TD's in 2014! To last year being the best team in the league in rushing The 2015 offense (13th overall) jumped into the top 15 in points scored (12th) Yards (13th) and number one in the league in big plays (Plays of over 10 yards rushing and over 25 yards passing). The number one team in the league in rushing TD's with 19. The new OC was so good he helped a first year starting QB make the pro bowl by going 7-6 and throwing for 3035 yards with 20 TD's with only 6 INT's. This new owner is one of the richest owners in the league and he can afford to hire the best and brightest coaches, doctors, trainers, GM and a new team president of football operations. He is so rich he could hire an entire staff of football czars if he wanted. Yet here we are with mostly the same schumcks in the front office that the last owner hired. I yearn for the days of Chuck Knox who could take a bunch of nobody's and coach them up enough to believe that they could win against anybody. The days of Marv Levy who graduated college with a degree in English literature and his famous quotes. "Ability, without character, will lose." "Don't be dumb, don't be dirty." " Football doesn't build character, it reveals character." " When it's too hard for them, its just right for us." "Fight on, my men, Sir Andrew said. "A little I'm hurt but not yet slain. " I'll just lie down and bleed a while, And then "I'll rise and Fight again." Levy, like Knox, was a supreme motivator who could handle the big player egos and could also get the most out of his players. Like Dick Jauron said, "its tough to win (to be a Bills fan) in the NFL"

It's not just about looking at the stats and comparing the two defenses. When you consider that the 2014 defense with it's highly paid defensive line players did exactly what was intended in leading the league in sacks with the best defensive line in the league. I'd call being the number #1 team in the league sacks elite! I'd also call the #4 in yards allowed and #4 in points allowed the best darn defense this team has seen in years. Also #3 in passing yards allowed and #1 in passing TD's allowed. You have to go back to 2003 to just about equal it and to 1999 to better it. Then when you think about the fact that Jim Schwartz with his wide-nine defensive scheme didn't even call many blitzes to lead the league in sacks as that front four did most of the work. Three of the four D-line players went to the pro bowl and the fourth (Jerry Hughes) could have gone with his 10 sacks and 33 tackles. How many Bills defensive players went in 2015? That 2014 defense shut down Peyton Manning at Denver and held him to 173 yards passing, no TD's and two INT's! Manning threw for 4737 yards and 39 TD's in 2014 leading his team to a 12-4 season. Then the very next week held the league's MVP in Aaron Rodgers to 185 yards passing, no TD's and two INT's! Rodgers threw for 4381 yards and 38 TD's in 2014 while leading his team to a 12-4 season. It certainly wasn't the defense that let the 2014 team down as the offense stunk it up being 20th in rushing attempts and 25 in rushing yards, 27th in rushing TD's. This with a pass happy offense and the worst offensive line in the league with 579 passing attempts vs 402 rushing attempts after being #1 in rushing attempts and #2 in rushing yards the previous year. That week 16 Raider game with a playoff berth on the line saw the Bills rush 13 times for 13 yards and every time Spiller got the ball he was tackled five yards behind the line and struggled just to get back to the line of scrimmage as he finished the day with 4 attempts for four yards! The point being that even the best defenses in the league can't stay on the field all game and still be successful. That Raider game went like this TD, INT, PUNT, PUNT, PUNT, PUNT, PUNT, FG, PUNT, PUNT, TD, PUNT, INT, TD and this was against the #32 defense in the league in points allowed, #21st in yards allowed and against a 3-12 team. The 2015 defensive team won games mostly against bad QB's all year in the Colts, Luck (2-5) Titan's rookie QB Mariota (3-9) Tallywhacker (6-10) Dallas Kellen Moore (0-2)with only the Texan's Brian Hoyer (5-4) and the Jets and Fitz as the exception at (10-6) with winning records and we all saw what Hoyer looked like in the playoffs under pressure. Ryan managed to beat Fitz with his Jets teams by going 5-1 in his three years against Buffalo. That 2014 defense should be put on a pedestal by fans and have the future Bills defenses hoping to do as well. The simple fact is that Rex Ryan inherited the league's best sacking defense and turned them into nearly the league's worst sacking defense (31st) by attempting to fit square pegs into round holes. It wasn't just the lack of sacks either as a confluence of crap flowed from that 2015 defense that I pointed out in the above post. I also hope he and his coaching staff are on a very short leash as he has a lot to prove in my view.

I agree and to me, it's inconceivable to even criticize the 2014 defense in comparison with the 2015 defense. The 2015 defense actually had a better CB in Darby and yet were 31st against the pass after week two because of the defensive scheme that Ryan Employed. "Ryan's quote: "We play defense based on our personnel, not just the scheme. I don't try to put a square peg in a round hole. I think I've been around enough to adjust based on the players that I have, the talents of the players that I have, and it'll be no different this year." "The reality: Ryan has tried to fit a square peg in a round hole. After Jim Schwartz ran his "wide nine" scheme last season and allowed the Bills' defensive line to focus on pass-rushing, leading to an NFL-high 54 sacks, the story has been dramatically different this season." http://espn.go.com/blog/buffalo-bills/post/_/id/22828/playoff-promise-among-rex-ryan-statements-that-will-likely-prove-false Yea, this is why the 2016 team needs to retool the defense to fit Ryan's lame 3-4 two gap scheme. Because Ryan couldn't figure out how to get sacks out of the best pass rushing D-line in the league. Dropping Dareus and Kyle Williams into pass coverage was simply absurd and in particular against the Chiefs as two of Dareus dropbacks went for TD's. I have a difficult time figuring out why so many fans still want to defend the debacle of the 2015 defense. Want some more pessimism? http://www.rotoworld.com/articles/nfl/62752/472/broken-bills "First-round pick Shaq Lawson will undergo right shoulder surgery on Tuesday. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the operation will require a 5-6 month recovery period. The injury occurred at minicamp when Lawson tried to perform a swim move on a tackling dummy."