I'm sorry, but I think we took a big step back

[NewEra]

I know I'd feel a whole lot better about the future of the team going forward had the owner hired a czar or Polian first, and then they made the decision on Ryan. Right now it looks to me like Brandon, Whaley helped push the new owner into this decision for obvious reasons.

 

I get that Ryan will have the Bills defense playing as well or even better then Schwartz / Pettine had them playing. In my view this doesn't equate to beating the Patriots 2x, winning the division or even a winning record. Look at Ryan's record against Belichick, 3-9 over 6 seasons, and 1-7 over the last 4. This was with his Jets defense being in the top ten every year.

 

Whats mind boggling to me is how many are jumping on the bandwagon for a 4-12 coach. I look at Ryan and see a loud mouthed buffoon who didn't keep his promises to win a super bowl with the Jets. At the end of his time with the Jets he was just a fading soundbite with no credibility.

Go away. Same story with you. We're also jumping on the same bandwagon of the coach that led a terrible offense to the afc championship game 2 years in a row and beat the pats in the playoffs. He's the regarded by many to be the best defensive mind in football. He's hilariously. The players love him. Yeah, that bandwagon.

Jump off, please.

[What a Tuel]

 

I think part of this is because when your pass defense is bad enough everyone gameplans against it, your run defense is not challenged. You saw the Bills had very effective passing offense against the Jets this year, in fact our best two passing days I believe.

 

Hope springs eternal for this Bills fan but Ryan would not have been my choice.

 

The Bills had 414 rushing attempts against them.

 

The Jets had 396 rushing attempts against them.

 

I feel as though our run defense has room to improve even though it was decent. The stats may not back it up, but sometimes during those games, it felt like 3rd string running backs were getting chunk yardage that were keeping teams alive in some games.

 

I know I'd feel a whole lot better about the future of the team going forward had the owner hired a czar or Polian first, and then they made the decision on Ryan. Right now it looks to me like Brandon, Whaley helped push the new owner into this decision for obvious reasons.

 

I get that Ryan will have the Bills defense playing as well or even better then Schwartz / Pettine had them playing. In my view this doesn't equate to beating the Patriots 2x, winning the division or even a winning record. Look at Ryan's record against Belichick, 3-9 over 6 seasons, and 1-7 over the last 4. This was with his Jets defense being in the top ten every year.

 

Whats mind boggling to me is how many are jumping on the bandwagon for a 4-12 coach. I look at Ryan and see a loud mouthed buffoon who didn't keep his promises to win a super bowl with the Jets. At the end of his time with the Jets he was just a fading soundbite with no credibility.

Please name one solid offensive draft pick the jets have made in the last 5 years. The Jets suffered from a poor GM more than anything.

Edited January 13, 2015 by What a Tuel

[thewildrabbit]

Go away. Same story with you. We're also jumping on the same bandwagon of the coach that led a terrible offense to the afc championship game 2 years in a row and beat the pats in the playoffs. He's the regarded by many to be the best defensive mind in football. He's hilariously. The players love him. Yeah, that bandwagon.

Jump off, please.

I'm not on the Rex Ryan bandwagon. Why don't you follow the tail to the unicorns and butterflies to gush about Rexy. This thread is for the fans that don't like the hire, and are commenting on it.

 

The man is a loud mouthed jerk who didn't keep his promises in NY to win a SB. Heck, the guy couldn't even win the division in six years.

[bobobonators]

Hmmm.. Marrone - a cowardly bipolar college coach gone. NH - a clueless college coach gone.

 

Addition by subtraction if you ask me.

 

We're much better off.

[ddaryl]

glad to see not all Bills fans are not drinking the kool-aid, Ryan hire is a PR stunt at best , the biggest name hire isn't always a guarantee of success

 

 

SO instead of "Drinking the Kool-Aid" your going to choose to continue to be negative, spiteful, and un-hopeful

 

I'll take a big glass of Kool-Aid over what your drinking then. Better to be positive then to stew in stupid negativity no matter what our history is.

 

But lets face it, it doesn't matter what the Bills did or do, you and the few like you will always look for the negative or a reason to be pessimistic.

[NewEra]

I'm not on the Rex Ryan bandwagon. Why don't you follow the tail to the unicorns and butterflies to gush about Rexy. This thread is for the fans that don't like the hire, and are commenting on it.

 

The man is a loud mouthed jerk who didn't keep his promises in NY to win a SB. Heck, the guy couldn't even win the division in six years.

This thread is for fans that don't like Rex. Lol. Are you 5?

 

He's your head coach. You hate him. Sucks to be you. Now we can all read your crying and whining for 5+ years. The guy hasn't coached a game for us and the sky is falling already.

 

Jump off the Bills bandwagon, not Rex's. save us from reading your posts

[Dr. K]

Posted in another thread:

 

All this jazz about Rex's great defensive mind is completely beside the point. The Bills ALREADY HAD a top five defense without Rex's great defensive mind. Do you really expect, with another freakin' change of system for next season, that the defense is going to be better than it was in 2014? So what is Rex bringing to the defense that the defense NEEDED?

Even if you don't care about the prospect of players having to change roles to responsibilities they are not suited for. I will be flabbergasted if they play better defense in 2015 than they played in 2014.

So what is Rex Ryan bringing to this team that IMPROVES their situation for 2015? Well, apparently he's bringing Roman as the new OC, a guy who has shepherded the decline of Colin Kaepernick over the last three seasons and whom they can't wait to be rid of in San Francisco. Even if you like Roman, the Bills could have had him ANYWAY--or any number of other OCs who I think would do a better job with the Bills personnel and as mentors for Manuel, while keeping Schwartz as HC. They have thrown away any chance for continuity on either side of the ball by throwing away Schwartz, and any improvement they have at OC they could have had anyway without hiring Rex.

All this optimism that Rex's presence immediately makes this team more competitive is moonshine. The guy is 26-38 over the last four seasons as a head coach. I expect Whaley will give him a good roster to manage, with upgrades on the o-line, for instance. But Whaley would have done the same for anyone--Schwartz with Bevell, for instance, as OC.

I do not see any convincing way that hiring Rex is going to improve this team for 2015 over what we saw in 2014. Except all of you who are so excited that the national press is paying more attention to the Bills. Enjoy Rex's press conferences, brothers and sisters.

Wrong coach for this team at this time. A step backwards.

[NewEra]

 

 

SO instead of "Drinking the Kool-Aid" your going to choose to continue to be negative, spiteful, and un-hopeful

 

I'll take a big glass of Kool-Aid over what your drinking then. Better to be positive then to stew in stupid negativity no matter what our history is.

 

But lets face it, it doesn't matter what the Bills did or do, you and the few like you will always look for the negative or a reason to be pessimistic.

[What a Tuel]

 

 

SO instead of "Drinking the Kool-Aid" your going to choose to continue to be negative, spiteful, and un-hopeful

 

I'll take a big glass of Kool-Aid over what your drinking then. Better to be positive then to stew in stupid negativity no matter what our history is.

 

But lets face it, it doesn't matter what the Bills did or do, you and the few like you will always look for the negative or a reason to be pessimistic.

 

Exactly.

 

Shanahan - Retread that ruined RG3

Little Shanahan - Just following his father's footsteps

Reich - too inexperienced

Gase - only good because of Manning

 

There would have been an excuse for people to complain about no matter who we picked. I hated the Ryan pick at first, but I am coming around and realizing that the only reason I hated him so much was because 1. he is a goofball, and 2. he was a divisional rival on a classless jets team. Neither of those will affect his coaching abilities, and his defenses are always good. It's not a "bad" hire, just a "not what I was expecting" hire.

[bigK14094]

This board will be really lit up when Rex's D isn't top 4 like Schwartz. Almost a must fail expectation, with the third D coordinator in three years. Anyhow, I don't expect good things from the Ryan administration....I give him three years max and then out of town like the last 6 HC's. Frankly, I hated Rex when he was in NY as a blowhard media darling.....and I still feel that way about him. Going to be hard for me to continue to follow Bills after may decades. This is the second worst hire ever for HC.....(Harvey Johnson was the worst) Most on this board don't even remember Harvey, and thats a good thing.

[Billsfan369]

I totaly agree with ya Sad days in buff coming... Jets West!!

 

 

I see all of this excitement and optimism but I just can't join in. And for the most part, I agree with most of the ESPN commentators when they talk about this change. I think we made a poor decision based upon our situation and are essentially throwing away any progress we made last year.

 

When I think about how the season ended and where we were at in terms of progression:

• Best record in over a decade
• Best defense in over a decade
• Year two of consistency
• Declining Offense with no answer at QB

 

Based off of that, what did we improve?

 

• We brought in a defensive minded coach who runs a completely different scheme. A coach that ran a defense that made Kyle Orton look like Aaron Rodgers. I mean, we shredded them TWICE. A defense that was terrible against the run. Also, in making this change, we are going back to playing people out of position and reducing players like Hughes to situational pass rushers
  • This is speculation, but I'm also afraid that we are going to have to waste FA money and draft picks to bring in people to fit this scheme.
• Offensively, we brought in an offensive coordinator who had Kaep regress under his watch. And sorry, but Kaep is better than EJ. They were terrible in the passing game with legit receivers and a Pro-Bowl TE. I get that they played elite defenses, but this is the NFL and no one is a cake walk. He produces a running game, but is based upon an offensive line that probably won't be able to be reproduced here with our talent for a little while.

End of the day, while personnel is a big factor, scheme and coaching is too. When the season ended, would you have wanted the San Fran offense and the Jets defense to replace our team? I would say no 10 times out of 10.

 

I get it. Fresh start, new players to them. But these are big leaps of faith that we can have the running game being promised and that the final 3 years of Rex's coaching career were the anomaly compared to his first 3 years as a head coach.

 

Again, I want to be optimistic but we basically gutted our strength and reinforced our weakness.

 

[BillsFan-4-Ever]

Defensive HC and a heavy Run approach.

 

Seems better than a FAST pace Offense scrapped in 8 games and speedy receivers hardly utilized.

[bobobonators]

This board will be really lit up when Rex's D isn't top 4 like Schwartz. Almost a must fail expectation, with the third D coordinator in three years. Anyhow, I don't expect good things from the Ryan administration....I give him three years max and then out of town like the last 6 HC's. Frankly, I hated Rex when he was in NY as a blowhard media darling.....and I still feel that way about him. Going to be hard for me to continue to follow Bills after may decades. This is the second worst hire ever for HC.....(Harvey Johnson was the worst) Most on this board don't even remember Harvey, and thats a good thing.

 

 

Really?

[BillsFan-4-Ever]

I'm not 100% sold on REX but he can't be worse than Marone and the play and player selections .

[NewEra]

Posted in another thread:

All this jazz about Rex's great defensive mind is completely beside the point. The Bills ALREADY HAD a top five defense without Rex's great defensive mind. Do you really expect, with another freakin' change of system for next season, that the defense is going to be better than it was in 2014? So what is Rex bringing to the defense that the defense NEEDED?

Even if you don't care about the prospect of players having to change roles to responsibilities they are not suited for. I will be flabbergasted if they play better defense in 2015 than they played in 2014.

So what is Rex Ryan bringing to this team that IMPROVES their situation for 2015? Well, apparently he's bringing Roman as the new OC, a guy who has shepherded the decline of Colin Kaepernick over the last three seasons and whom they can't wait to be rid of in San Francisco. Even if you like Roman, the Bills could have had him ANYWAY--or any number of other OCs who I think would do a better job with the Bills personnel and as mentors for Manuel, while keeping Schwartz as HC. They have thrown away any chance for continuity on either side of the ball by throwing away Schwartz, and any improvement they have at OC they could have had anyway without hiring Rex.

All this optimism that Rex's presence immediately makes this team more competitive is moonshine. The guy is 26-38 over the last four seasons as a head coach. I expect Whaley will give him a good roster to manage, with upgrades on the o-line, for instance. But Whaley would have done the same for anyone--Schwartz with Bevell, for instance, as OC.

I do not see any convincing way that hiring Rex is going to improve this team for 2015 over what we saw in 2014. Except all of you who are so excited that the national press is paying more attention to the Bills. Enjoy Rex's press conferences, brothers and sisters.

Wrong coach for this team at this time. A step backwards.

Yeah, a proven head coach is a step back from an offensive coordinator that has never been a HC on any level? Makes sense to me.

 

For those that keep re-hashing this "our defense is good, we don't need a defensive guy, we needed an offensive guy" crap.....we need a good head coach. A guy that knows how to be the HC coach of a team that wins playoff games. Jim Schwartz wasn't going to remain our DC forever. With our talent, he'd have gotten a HC offer in a year or 2 (IMO). Then who runs our D? George Edwards? Dave wannstedt? Rex Ryan will be running our defense for years. That makes me happy. Cry all you want. Toughness and an identity. We've had an identity for 15 years. This year, under Marrone and Schwartz, it continued. Beat the raiders and we'd have made the playoffs. But we choked. Lost. Season over. Losers again. I believe Rex will change that identity. You can sit in the corner and pout all you want. No one is listening.

[Dr. K]

Yeah, a proven head coach is a step back from an offensive coordinator that has never been a HC on any level? Makes sense to me.

 

For those that keep re-hashing this "our defense is good, we don't need a defensive guy, we needed an offensive guy" crap.....we need a good head coach. A guy that knows how to be the HC coach of a team that wins playoff games. Jim Schwartz wasn't going to remain our DC forever. With our talent, he'd have gotten a HC offer in a year or 2 (IMO). Then who runs our D? George Edwards? Dave wannstedt? Rex Ryan will be running our defense for years. That makes me happy. Cry all you want. Toughness and an identity. We've had an identity for 15 years. This year, under Marrone and Schwartz, it continued. Beat the raiders and we'd have made the playoffs. But we choked. Lost. Season over. Losers again. I believe Rex will change that identity. You can sit in the corner and pout all you want. No one is listening.

 

 

Can't you read? I'm saying they should have made Schwartz the HC and brought in a new OC. Then at least you have some continuity, and you're not blowing up the defensive system yet again for the sixth time in the last eight years. You're depending on Rex's new OC to fix the offense. Well, you could have had a new OC anyway, without screwing up the defense, and keeping some continuity on a team that has been dragged in a different direction every other year for a decade or more.

 

You have not made a rational argument. "Rex will change that identity" is your argument. Rex's teams had no identity on offense--they were a complete joke, getting worse every season. Welcome to your new head coach.

Edited January 13, 2015 by Dr. K

[DC Tom]

Also pigeon holding yourself to a offensive or defensive coach based on whichever side you were weaker at that season is pure idocy.

 

Well, you know what they say...a bird in the hand, and all...

 

[Ozymandius]

Yeah, like I asked before. People do know that we have to field defenses after 2015, right? Based on track record, Rex > Schwartz over the next five years.

 

And if next year's defense runs into injury problems along the line and the coaches have to get creative without the benefit of such dominant talent, I'd bet on Rex next year as well.

[Lurker]

The players will thrive; we need to add a DT in FA.

That's what I don't like about this, frankly. And who, exactly, wasn't thriving in last year's D?

 

Dareus' just had his breakout year and we're going back to a scheme that he can play, but will it be at an All-Pro level or merely above average? Same for Kyle Williams. Same for Mario.

 

I thought Schwartz's scheme put each of the four DL in the absolute best position to maximize their individual talents. Rex's D is more OLB-centric, with pressure generated by blitzes and stunts...which is good for a big cheer when the unblocked guy gets penetration but flames out when you guess wrong. I like our LBs, but I love our DL even more (the best collection of talent at that position this team has ever had).

 

Bottom line to me: Why impose a style of play rather than look at the talent you have and structure the scheme around that? The players all said that Schwartz's D was easy to understand, made them comfortable, and allowed them to work as an 11-man unit knowing what each guy was doing. Wow, what a concept.

 

It will take me a while to get on board with this as I've always had the highest regard for Schwartz's scheme--which when you have the D-line horses, like we do--is unique in the NFL.

 

Sigh. Climbing down from the soapbox now...

[What a Tuel]

Can't you read? I'm saying they should have made Schwartz the HC and brought in a new OC. Then at least you have some continuity, and you're not blowing up the defensive system yet again for the sixth time in the last eight years. You're depending on Rex's new OC to fix the offense. Well, you could have had a new OC anyway, without screwing up the defense, and keeping some continuity on a team that has been dragged in a different direction every other year for a decade or more.

 

You have not made a rational argument. "Rex will change that identity" is your argument. Rex's teams had no identity on offense--they were a complete joke, getting worse every season. Welcome to your new head coach.

 

What did Schwartz do as a head coach that was so much better than Rex Ryan?

 

Edited to make it easier to see

 

Schwartz

2-14

6-10

10-6 lost WC

4-12

7-9

 

Rex

4-12

8-8

6-10

8-8

11-5 lost conf

9-7 lost conf

 

Total

29-51 Schwartz

46-50 Rex

 

This isn't to bash Schwartz, I actually like him, but people act like he was a more premier head coach or something. Maybe its because we in Buffalo like Detroit a hell of a lot better then the Jets or something. Ryan was a division rival and all...

 

Also most people agree that defenses are a hybrid these days and the 4-3, 3-4 nonsense isn't a huge deal and we have the talent which is really what matters. We are not "blowing up the defense again"

Edited January 13, 2015 by What a Tuel