JohnC

Have you ever seen an offensive lineman whiff so much against the player he is supposed to block? After tenaciously blocking the air he has a look of total befuddlement. You know Kujo isn't thought too highly of by the staff because he can't even get playing time behind him!

In general I am a strong supporter of Doug Whaley. But missing on this particular second round pick for an OL unit that was very weak at the RT position was a significant set back. Sometimes prospects don't develop at a quick rate. But that isn't the case here. He simply can't play at the pro level. He is too slow footed and isn't athletic enough to uphold his position. Doug Marrone made a quick assessment that Kujo couldn't play at this level. He was right. The new regime under Rex has also come to the same conclusion. Kujo isn't good enough to get playing time in place of Henderson who is mightily struggling at the RT position. This draft mistake hurt us not only at the RT position but it reverberated all along the line.

The boisterous Rex had a six year record. He had some initial success but things started to unravel to the extent that when he left the Jets it was in a state of chaos. Why was he such an appealing candidate for a position at which he floundered at his previous job? Rex certainly was fired for cause. My sense of the Rex hire is that after having a dour HC who lacked much personality and charm the owners were impressed with the more engaging personality who offered more recognition and attention to their newly acquired franchise than the previous joyless HC. I have no doubt that the very glib Rex was very impressive in his interview. He is the epitome of style trumping substance. I don't know how influential Whaley was in the hiring of RR. But if he was an ardent advocate for his selection he undermined his chances to be successful in his own job.

Marcel Dareus just signed an expensive contract commensurate with his talent level. Our boisterous HC put him in a position that doesn't maximize his particular talents. The same can be said in the way he has handled Mario Williams who has played much below his previous level. When you have an obtuse HC who tries to outsmart others the outcome is predictable: You end up outsmarting yourself. As I said in a prior post the Jets are a better team without him and we are a diminished team with him. He was given a five year contract! So much for "due diligence" when making a hire.

What is ironic is that prior to the season if most of us were asked if we got this current level of qbing would we be satisfied? Most of us would not only say yes but say it emphatically. Prior to the season if anyone asked would you be satisfied if you had a starting qb who can throw accurately, not turn the ball over and with regularity complete some long passes would you be satisfied? Most of us with great enthusiasm would say yes. Are there limitations to his game? Of course. He is still learning (and getting better) at working from the pocket. Is he an elite qb? No. But from a qb standpoint he has exceeded most of our expectations. Let's put things in a wider context. If the buffoonish Rex had our defense playing at last year's level or near it the outlook on this team would be dramatically more positive. In addition, if the defense was playing to its talent level the perspective on how the qb has played would be seen in a much more positive light.

I posted this link on another thread. It is an ominous portending of what could happen the longer Rex is involved. Heaven forbid he is given more authority on personnel. Didn't anyone know of the basic concept of doing one's "due diligence" before making an important hire? The reality is that the Jets are a better team without him as a head coach and we are a worse team with him as a head coach. When you hire a huckster you get a huckster! The link is twelve minutes long but all you have to listen to is a couple of minutes before walking away and saying WTF!

Why was Rex Ryan hired? I hope things don't turn out as they did when he was with the Jets. I fear that things will only get worse the longer the blustery HC is involved with the team. What ever happened to the concept of "due diligence"? The below link is from some commentary from WFAN's Mike Francesca regarding Rex Ryan. The date of this radio commentary is 1/2/13. It is 12 minutes long but if you listen for only a few minutes you get the gist of what is being said.

As like you I'm very impressed with Bylsma. He is not inflexible to any particular system or to the way he evaluates players. He is constantly assessing the play of his players and the mixture of players on the lines and defensive pairings. The Sabres are very fortunate to have such a good coach. As time goes on this team is going to get better and much of it will be due to having the right coach in place. Coaching matters!

In this game Alex Smith did what he rarely does i.e. throw deep down the field. Usually his first inclination is too dump the ball off at the first sign of pressure. His usual mind-set is a copy of the Trent Edwards dump off approach to passing. The reason why Smith broke out of his rigid small ball approach to the passing game is that he faced little pressure from our DL and had more time with minimal sack risk to throw it down field, which he did to much success. The bottom line is that KC and the qb adjusted to what our defense did better than how we adjusted to what their offense did. Or another way of looking at this game is that their coaching staff out-coached our coaching staff from a number of standpoints. As I stated in a prior post the better team and the better coached team won this game. It wasn't a fluke. There are times even when a team has an excellent game plan that changes have to be made during the game to reflect how the game is flowing. Rex wasn't up to the task where Reid was.

The longer Rex coached the Jets the more they spiraled downwards. By the time he reached his last season with them the team was in a state of chaos. Rex does engender loyalty by his players. That is all well and good. What he doesn't engender is an environment of accountability and discipline. It is not surprising (at least to me) that this team is one of the most penalized teams in the league and collectively is one of the dumbest teams in the league. The gratuitous bumping of Alex Smith by Hughes was idiotic and damaging. It's obvious that he doesn't respect the HC who constantly preaches not taking foolish/selfish penalties. Rex Ryan took over a defense that was dominant. He rigidly forced his system onto players who didn't fit the scheme he was married to. That isn't an act of a flexible and open-minded coach; it is an act of a dope. Take what works and change it so it doesn't work. He wanted to demonstrate to the world how brilliant he was. He demonstrated how stupid he is. Entering the season the Bills had enough talent to be a solid wildcard playoff team. There wasn't much room for error to accomplish this elusive generational desire. With Rex at the helm the margin of error quickly evaporated. When you hire a huckster you get a huckster. Coaching matters!

The problem isn't Rex getting more authority regarding personnel it is the authority that he already has in that area. His defense has underachieved compared to how it performed last year. It won't be surprising that he will want to bring in players who he believes better fit his scheme preference. Whaley is stuck with Rex for the foreseeable future. Their futures are intertwined by their respective performances. In my view Whaley is being more damaged with Rex on board than Rex is being damaged by Whaley being on board. Rex was a bad hire and the consequences will reverberate throughout the organization. Or another way of looking at it is that Rex is the perpetrator and Whaley is the victim. When you hire a huckster what do you expect? A happy ending? I don't think so!

That play was excruciating to watch. But it is unfair to single out this "what if" play because there are plays involving the opposition in which they can just as easily say "what if" we would have made that particular play. The better team won the game. Their offense couldn't be stopped by this Rex Ryan schemed defense. Most of their running plays were simple inside the tackles straight up ram rod runs. Their injury depleted OL was consistently driving our DL back. Their qb ran out of trouble and made some damaging plays against us with his feet. The better team and the better coached team won. Players play and coaches coach. The result was on display on this rain soaked field.

There are HCs who are offensive oriented and there are HCs who are defensive oriented. Rex Ryan is a defensive inclined HC. What happened to the defense that he inherited? The challenging issue is understandably going to get a lot of attention. But the story of the game was the performance of our defense. He inherited an elite defense that was known for its unrelenting pressure on the qb. In this game there was minimal pressure especially from the inside and the Chiefs were running wild into the inside of the line. This is one of the most penalized teams in the league. It lacks discipline and collective intelligence. Hughes may be a physical talent but he is a mental midget. In a league and system devised for parity don't let anyone tell you that coaching doesn't matter. It is clearly evident when the loquacious Rex is at the helm.

The person who is upstairs watching for challenge situations is the person he assigns to that responsibility. There are replay challenges that are difficult to discern. And then there are replay challenges that are blatantly obvious. What we saw is what the team representative saw. The Hogan call, a critical play, was not a judgment call for Rex's man in the booth; it was a black and white situation that was obvious. The reality is that it was our defense that was most responsible for the outcome in this game. Rex took an elite performing defense and made it an effete unit. Coaching matters!

The manner he utilized the challenges was embarrassingly bad. As infuriating as that was this game was mostly lost on the defensive side of the ball. It couldn't stop the runs. The Chiefs were gauging us all day long. The MVP of the game was their third string back, Ware, who kept driving the pile forward. What did Rex the defensive guru do to our defense? The excuse can't be used that we have injuries because at this time of the year all teams do. The robotic thinking Rex has a defensive scheme that he has been married to. Instead of adjusting his scheme to the players he inherited he in essence stubbornly forced a round peg in a square hole. Under Rex this team is one of the most penalized teams in the league. The moronic late hit on the qb by Hughes was inexcusable. It is the HC's responsibility to create an environment of discipline and accountability. Coaching matters!

Carlo was taken to the hospital where it was diagnosed that he had a dented trachea. The beginning of the below link has Bylsma describing the injury. Fortunately the injury could have been much worse. http://media.wgr550.com/a/111354024/11-28-dan-bylsma-postgame.htm note: Just an observation and not trying to start an argument/discussion on contrasting post game interview styles. Without a doubt Dan Bylsma gives a much more professional, mature, composed and informative post game interview than the more loquacious Rex Ryan does.

Have you done any assessment of Indiana's qb, Nate Sudfeld. He has protoypical pro size, a good arm and is comfortable in making plays from the pocket?

If your standard is merely not being a total bust then what you are saying is that being less than mediocre is an acceptable standard for your starting qb. You don't get anywhere when your franchise qb is consistently inconsistent other than get teased by him. It doesn't matter whether Fitz, Tuel, Orton, Edwards, Losman are your starting qbs. Ultimately your team will continue to be stuck in the mud of mediocrity. You don't have to have an all-pro starting qb to be a serious team. What you have to have to be competitive is a starting qb who is consistently competent and capable of making plays that starting qbs should make. That issue is still open for Taylor. He has given glimpses that indicate that maybe he can be a respectable starter in this league. If you are riding the EJ Manuel bus you are riding on a bus that has four flat tires and is out of gas. The prior coaching staff wanted nothing to do with him. The current coaching staff thought so little of him that they deactivated him for the Jets game. What do you think that demonstrated? Activating a pedestrian vagabond qb who was recently added to the roster over a former first round qb selection who was with the team for three years? EJ is not a total bust (your words). I agree with that. But he is not a starting caliber qb for any team that has aspirations beyond being mediocre.

Florida has even a more tepid fan support. It's a shame that a fervent hockey market such as Quebec doesn't have a team while markets such as Carolina, Phoenix and especially Florida have franchises located in their respective markets. Size of the TV markets and the value of the dollar trump fan interest and support. I'm glad that Winnipeg retrieved its team from Atlanta. The fan base there was so disinterested it probably didn't notice that the team moved.

Do the Canes have much of a following in Carolina? It seems that when the Sabres play them at their place the facility is filled with more Buffalo fans?

When the college season is over the prospects are being ranked keep this qb prospect in mind: Nate Sudfeld from Indiana. He has pro size (6'6", 240 lbs) and played in a pro style offense in college. He'll be moving up the qb ladder as the draft draws near. http://www.iuhoosiers.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=3720

When the Bills drafted EJ in the first round of his draft year they were forced to give him enough time to play in order to get a fair assessment. In the mean time better prospects were passed because they were still in the evaluation period. While the Bills organization considered him a good prospect there were teams that didn't rate EJ very high as a prospect. . The irony is that his own coach in college wasn't touting him as a high end pro prospect. In college EJ completed a high percentage of passes but from a pro perspective he wasn't considered an accurate passer. He also didn't possess great qb instincts by a pro level standard. There is no doubt that EJ is a high character person with a good work ethic but when you watch him it is apparent that he doesn't have the intangibles (feel) that are necessary to play that challenging position.

I disagree with your view on Bridgewater and Carr. Although they are only in their sophomore year they are both the established starters for their respective teams. I'm not suggesting that either one will be an elite qb but they are both legitimate franchise qbs. I would take either one of them as our starting qb. I also disagree on you view on Andrew Luck. He is going to to be an elite qb. He was trying too hard to make plays and he was playing hurt. In my view he is going to be a perennial all-star. He was a worthy top pick in the draft.

Bridgewater and Carr were available to us. This franchise could have traded down and still have acquired each of these qb prospects who are going to be entrenched franchise qbs for a long time. Instead the Bills traded up by giving away the following year's first round pick. Without a doubt they selected a premier receiver talent who they can't seem to get the ball to to make use of his sterling skills. Is Taylor the answer at qb? I don't know. He has some good passing abilities and some questions regarding his ability to read defenses. By the end of the season this organization should have a better grasp on what they have at qb. My central point is that this franchise has had reasonable opportunities to acquire a good qb prospect. They failed to seize the opportunity when it was presented to them. They invested in EJ and it hasn't worked out. They need to keep at it until the qb issue is resolved because little else matters unless you have a credible starting qb.

The organization knows what it is getting with Cousins or thinks it will be getting from him. They are not deluding themselves. RGIII is gone after this season. They believe that in Cousins they are getting a qb who can stabilize a position that has been for a long time unstable. They will re-sign him with a contract that is worth good starter $$$ and will buy them more time to rebuild the roster. That is not an unreasonable approach to take. We did the same thing with the Fitz signing. Their GM knows where his team is at and he knows that they are still a long way to go before they will be a challenging team. I'm sure they will front load the contract so that in the future if there are better options in the draft or free agency they will be in a good cap position to seize the opportunity. Under Nix the Bills who were desperate for a qb and reached for Manuel in the first round. (I'm not criticizing Nix because I understood why he drafted him.) The Skins' organization is well aware that Cousins will never be an elite qb.. Their approach is to make the best of a difficult situation and continue with the rebuilding process. You don't have to agree with it to understand why they are doing what they are doing.