finn

Ah, reasoned discourse: another hallmark of the Ryan supporter. Mouth-breathers unite!

Rex Ryan, the Donald Trump of the NFL. Deeply stupid, reckless and supported by millions of like-minded fans.

This won't be a popular comment, but I find my interest in the Bills way down since Ryan took over. I think he will fail, but even if he succeeds I won't enjoy the success as much as I would if practically any other coach was in charge. It's like Trump winning the presidency. I love the Bills and will follow them regardless, but already I'm far less interested--and far more embarrassed for them than I have ever been. I won't claim he's incompetent, but I dislike his style so much that even my loyalty to the Bills is diminished sensibly by his rank presence. It sickens me that such a clown is associated with the team I've loved for decades.

You sneer, but the NN of N were dead right last year, and they might be right again this year. But don't let that get in the way of your Sunshine. Rex is God, right?

This helps. I think Rex is a true fool, but it helps to be reminded that the 2014 sacks and ranking don't tell the whole story. That defense still needed work. I still would rather have it than the mess Rex created, though.

Typical response to anyone down on (i.e., realistic about) the Bills: attack the poster. Imagine how this board would have responded to an (accurate) forecast in August that the team would take a big step backwards under the Clown. Yet when the optimists predict glory, this board cheers them. Happens all year every year.

This precedent isn't brought up nearly enough. The 2000 Bills had two excellent defensive tackles (Ted Williams and Pat Williams) with an effective pair of ends (Phil Hansen and Marcellus Willey). Gregg Williams, defensive genius a la Rex, walked in and blew it all up, and a team that had been one play away from the conference championship two years before never recovered. It's always the same story: scheme before players, even if the scheme is excellent already for the players. Worst case scenario for next year: mediocrity--"Hey, a few bounces and we would've made the playoffs!"-- meaning Rex gets still another year to bumble on, a la Gregg Williams.

Miller has been one of the worst-rated guards in the entire league. He's a turnstile in the tradition of all the putrid left guards we've seen the last three years. Line play goes up noticeably when Urbik goes in. This franchise just doesn't get it about the O-line. We haven't seen an excellent or even good one since the Super Bowl years. Always it's other priorities. Glenn, Incognito and Wood are very good; the rest (with the exception of the adequate Urbik) should not be playing in this league. Guard and right tackle have to be the top priorities. With a line strong from left to right, we'll see results. Miller should be demoted to the practice squad.

What's inconsistent? I thought the Bills could go somewhere with these two and that dumping both was premature (and I'm for dumping the Clown right now). So, yes, I'm rooting for them to go all the way. I'll never root against the Bills, but I'd love for Fitz and Gailey to stick it to this asinine organization. Plus, I'd love to see the Clown humiliated. Upshot: it's a win-win game for me Sunday.

I agree. So many posters say flatly that Rex simply can't be fired. Others (maybe the same) say just as flatly that Mario is as good as gone. Neither has to be true, and in fact the best course is the reverse. It would mean not that the franchise is "starting over" but acknowledging its mistake and moving on. If Ryan is allowed more time to tear apart the defense, then we really will have to start over with what mess he leaves behind. Yet another coach bringing in yet another scheme. It's not too late to recover last year's defensive prowess and build on the progress the offense made this year.

That's it. I don't think it's the money. $27 million sounds like a lot, but it's not in the context of the mega salaries in the NFL. No, it's the ego. Pegula is a new owner and doesn't want to look like a panicky novice, so he'll be inclined to go forward with the Idiot. But that is a mistake. Next year will be even worse, which makes firing the Idiot easier but doesn't do a lot for the team or its fans. What is truly awful is that Pegula probably knows this perfectly well, and he will likely go forward with the plan anyway. Another poster made a good call: To save face, Pegula needs this team and its fans to completely lose it: open rebellion against the Idiot. Only then can he say, "Hey, it's out of my hands." How do they get to be billionaires?

We wish you well--in another city, another sport and another era. Please take Coach Blowhard with you.

"Learning curve"? Don't you see the problem with that? This team didn't need a learning curve, not on defense anyway. Ryan made the Bills regress from excellent to mediocre. "Learning curve" my b****. The only blame rests with Coach Clown.

Could it simply be probability? Depressing as the thought is, it stands to reason that, putting all the major-league sports together and giving it enough time, there will be at least one franchise that will whiff again and again, despite changes in ownership, management, coaching and personnel. The extremely improbable does happen. Unfortunately, it appears to be happening to our team.

Injuries happen to virtually every team every year. Good teams figure a way to work their way through them. Bad teams use them as an excuse every year.

I was optimistic when Marrone left because of the good defense and then the spending on offense. But the Rex Ryan hire really disappointed me and dampened my expectations, for the reasons that have played out. I was surprised that other Bills fans bought into him so enthusiastically (I wanted Lovie Smith or Jim Schwartz). Hope triumphing over experience? The lack of a top QB and OL have been constants since Kelly retired, but I would argue that a more important element in the Bills persistent mediocrity has been coaching. We've had just one head coach in this era worthy of the title, and that was Chan Gailey, who was given a weak hand, did a lot with it and fired too soon by a skittish front office. The rest have been shite. We might have the worst of all in Ryan, for the reasons posters have been repeating here. He brings nothing valuable to the table and has cost the team dearly. Since "he can't be fired!" we will have lost yet ANOTHER five years waiting for him to get done failing and giving yet another coach enough time to prove himself. And so it goes around and around and around. We'll be having a similar conversation in 2020.

This point keeps coming up, but it overlooks the very good possibility--or probability-that the coach is awful and the team is going nowhere under him, no matter how many years he has. Marrone was junior varsity, and Rex is a clown. Yes, continuity is important, but you want continuity with a good coach, not a bad one. So keep the "Continuity!" argument for when someone competent is in place, ok? I keep hoping Pegula had the sense to put a clause in Ryan's contract that stipulated playoffs in the first year or the contract is void. A blowhard like Ryan would have signed it in a flash, and it would make firing the fool much easier.

Fair question. I'm basing my comment on what Ryan has said in the past about "doing something" about penalties and later revealing that push ups were his solution, and Robie's recent comment. Here's the quote: '“In your mind, you’re like ‘Yo, it has to stop one day. It has to stop one day.’ You see us at practice every day,” Robey said. “The push-ups. The wristbands. We have to wake up one day and it just has to stop. We can’t talk about it anymore. The talking is over, the talking is over. We have to just do it.”'

Let me explain, since you keep asking this question. A player like Dixon is irritated and wants to do something stupid. If Belichick is his coach he checks his impulse because he has learned, down to his socks, that bad things will happen to him if he indulges himself. With a coach like Ryan no such lesson stops his impulse. What has Ryan taught him about penalties? That he will have to do push ups if he commits them? That he will get a good talking to when he gets home, young man? Most penalties are committed unconsciously, and it's on unconscious level the coach has to get through to his players. Disciplined play has to become part of the player's on-field identity. Belicheat demands a professional identity, the Clown tolerates--and essentially encourages, I would argue--self indulgence. By asserting the players are "grown men," you're assuming that grown men are rational and will behave responsibly on their own, or even against the grain of what they're learning from their coach. But I don't think that's the case. So what should a coach do? He should not tolerate stupid penalties. If discipline entails pulling a starter or benching him for a game or even the season, it's worth it. The Clown doesn't know or believe that, which is why the Bills will be the most penalized team in NFL history.

Special teams in general have been abysmal. One of the qualities I admired about Marv Levy was his commitment to special teams, meaning he devoted precious practice time to them and stocked them with first-rate players. Rex? Add this to his many, many deficiencies. What possessed Pegula? The one playoff run by the Jets? His "fun" personality? He's the Trump of the NFL.

It sucks being right, especially with this crowd and with this team in this era, when being right means being skeptical. You're flamed for being disloyal (or worse) when you predict bad outcomes, and it's no fun saying "I told you so" afterwards. Meanwhile, the flamers rarely eat crow or apologize for savaging the posters who didn't jump on the bandwagon. But maybe those folks will surprise me and own up now. I'll go first: I predicted E.J. Manuel would flop, trading three picks for Watkins was stupid and hiring Coach Clown would set the franchise back (another) five years. But I also thought trading Kiko for McCoy was a big mistake, I was meh on Incognito, and I thought Roman would do a good job with the offense. Where have y'all been way right and way wrong?

Welcome to the club, kid. Get out if you can, but we understand if you can't, 'cause we can't either. The Bills suck, and our curse is to be loyal to them. I just hope you get at least a few glory years to compensate for the grief coming your way.

Here I disagree. That was a beautiful throw, beautiful "catch," beautiful breakup. Just good football all around. The loss hurts, but there were some terrific plays from players on both teams. The Watkins catch and the Gilmore breakup are two more that come to mind.

I can see Tuesday's headline, too: "Patriots, lacking two key players, lose to Bills team coming off bye," or something like that. The whine-fest will be insufferable.