1st Ammendment NoMas Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 I can't help but feel profoundly disappointed in the Bills this year. Some years I drink the Kool-Aide knowing we will end up 6-10, 7-9 maybe even 8-8 if things really go well. We watch, we lose and I kind of accept it as typical Bills football. The distant memories of the glory years help me smile a little on Sunday and I would love to relive them with the next great Bills team. And here we charge into 2015 fresh off our first winning season in awhile. We seem to acquire all the right pieces in the off-season and we are primed to challenge the Patriots in the AFC East. I really thought this Bills team would be a bully and I bought Rex's hype and was really excited for this year. I could finally wear my Bills gear with pride and not be the object of pity. But alas, REX RYAN does indeed suck as a coach. He was run out of NY for a reason and a good one. He completely destroyed a well-oiled machine on defense and although the offense got a bit better, I can't help but feel he didn't have much to do with it. Rex's undisciplined, reckless style and chatter were infuriating to watch. Penalties piled up and momentum swung against the Bills everytime we seemed to be getting close. Injuries, mistakes, bad play calling, poor clock management, players out of position, lack of focus, no game time adjustments, it was the same bad Bills football we had seen over and over and over again. What is going to change to make me drink more Kool-Aide in 2016? What can we possibly do to inspire hope into this mess of a franchise? I thought the Pegula's would be a breath of fresh air and not the same, silent but deadly football fart we've been smelling since the '60's minus a few good years. AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! The frustration of growing up in Bills Country.
chaccof Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 Was there any reason to buy into the hype when the key issues with the team weren't addressed like O line and QB? What was very disappointing to me is the step back the defense took. I am interested to see if, as I've read on this board, Ryan doesn't have the right players to run his style of defense. I just think a good coach takes the players he has and comes up with something that those players can execute.
Ed_Formerly_of_Roch Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 While I certainly agree with the comments about the undisciplined style, lets give it another year with players who can play the D he wants to implement. Should he have been happy playing the same style defense as last year rather than what he wants, sure sounds great, but hat's not the way life in the NFL works. And even if he had, with injuries and some players a year older, (i.e. the Williams brothers) really doubt we'd have had the same level of success as last year anyway. The only person in NY who wanted to run him out of town was the ex GM who did a real good job of setting him up to fail, the owner supposedly wanted him to come back So yes as fans most of us will be more disappointed this season as we all had much higher, probably unrealistic expectations, admittedly fueled in large part by Rex himself.
Pete Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 This year was the most painful for me as a Bills fan since the last superbowl loss(we were up 13-6 at the half- then the wheels fell off). I concur with Jauronimo's post about never imagining the drop off at defense this year. The past two Bills teams were two of my favorites. They played hard, got after the passer, and were very physical and fun to watch. The special teams were great. The running game(two years ago I think we led the NFL in rushing)was solid. And the Bills lights out defense. Injuries had a big part of our failures this year. But the penalties and sloppiness is maddening. The talent is there. I am optimistic for next season
Ed_Formerly_of_Roch Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 (edited) Both of those positions were absolutely addressed. A new QB was brought in, granted it wasn't Aaron Rodgers, but if you know where someone like that is available, please let the Bills know. The O-line has 2 new starters, that's 40% change You had a rookie last year who showed promise at RT that you'd expect him to improve more, that didn't happen, maybe the illness has been bothering him all year or maybe he isn't going to get any better at all, but he was just playing through it. Eventually got so bad he had to sit. Is it the front offices fault for not anticipating one of the starters was going to develop Crohn's Disease? Did the changes work out as well as expected, actually most would argue those were two areas that the changes made worked out much better than anticipated, particularly with Richie and TT Was there any reason to buy into the hype when the key issues with the team weren't addressed like O line and QB? Edited December 18, 2015 by Ed_Formerly_of_Roch
K-Apps Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 Honestly last year team hurt more than this year's team, if Whaley had been more aggressive in finding a competent backup QB last season in free agency, no doubt the Bills would've made the playoffs. Despite Marrone's mediocre coaching especially on the offense front, the defense especially down the stretch really played well when everybody as healthy. This year honestly in my view is just validation that Rex Ryan was a terrible hire to begin with, there was a reason the Ravens passed up on him for Harbaugh and there is a reason Jets got worse under his tenure. The undisciplined and unfocused play along with Rex not utilizing his talent properly is stuff all Jets fans and writers complained about with him.
RealityCheck Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 Is this what the next nine months is going to be like?
Gray Beard Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 I believed that the defense was in good shape, Roman would make the offense better than Hackett, and a few new key players at RB, TE, QB, OG would also make things better. So yes, this year the poor W/L record surprised me. Hurt? No. Bills fans get used to waiting. We waited out Donohoe, we waited out Jauron, Greggo, Wannstedt, Hackett. We waited out Orton, Bad Fitz, EJ. Now I think we have to wait out Rex. Not what I was expecting at the beginning of the season, but it may be inevitable.
mead107 Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 It is just a !@#$ing game. They all hurt but, life goes on.
Maddog69 Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 I expected to make the playoffs but expected to get beat in the wild card. They are still not there yet. Showed some life this year. Hopefully next year they can get it right and end the drought.
jahnyc Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 I was optimistic for this year, but why is next year going to be better since we have less cap flexibility and some important free agents?
machine gun kelly Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 I too had a lot of excitement, because of a few reasons. The Bills had the 4th best defense, leading in sacks, and how could a defensive guru make it worse? When in NY, Tannenbaum picked up some nice players for Rex, but he had voerspent and the cap was not healthy. What does woddy do, but bring in a non-football GM who is a number cruncher who decimated the talent for NYJ, and Rex still had a top 10 defense all but one year of six. He went to the AFC Championships twice with Sanchez. TT came on strong in camp, and the Pegulas really opened the wallet truly reaching to the cap with McCoy, Clay, Incognito, and in the pre-season the draft picks looked sharp, but Darby. I believed in Roman what he could do with Kaepernick, so he should be epxerienced enough to get what we needed out of this offense. I was hoping for a top 2-3 defense, a top 5 running game, and a top 15 offense. The obvious things happened with the defense, penalties were absolutely ridiculous, poor game management, and an extensive amount of top talent injured. I don't blame Whaley, and I don't blame the Pegulas in their first year. I'm sick of Rex's bravado, so just shut up and coach, and show improvement. Improvement in performance, more disciplined players, more effective offense, and a team that looks like it can compete with the Steelers, Patriots, Broncos, Jets, and the playoff NFC teams. So yes, the expectations given the talent in years past, idiots like Jauron, G. Williams, and so on were not as high. This year i thought we cna be a 10-6 to 11-5 team. We are competitive in the first couple of rounds of the playoffs and maybe two years away from a SB run. This sucks.
BillsFan130 Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 Was there any reason to buy into the hype when the key issues with the team weren't addressed like O line and QB? What was very disappointing to me is the step back the defense took. I am interested to see if, as I've read on this board, Ryan doesn't have the right players to run his style of defense. I just think a good coach takes the players he has and comes up with something that those players can execute. QB is not the reason the bills are going to miss the playoffs. Bad coaching, defence and penalties are the main reasons
Rico Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 Nope. Nothing is worse IMO than what happened after the 1st 2 games of 2003.
machine gun kelly Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 Thanks for reminding me Rico. Remember how exciting it was when we picked up Malloy, and just whipped Brady and Belicheck.
Buffalo Beeeews Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 They've all stunk. Every damn one of them. I think I could sum up my feeling last week as disbelief, as it still continues to boggle me how a franchise, in the day in age we live in of free agency, parody etc., can miss on as many things for as many years as this team. It's absolutely jaw dropping...
CSBill Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 QB is not the reason the bills are going to miss the playoffs. Bad coaching, defence and penalties are the main reasons Yuuuup! What hurts so bad is that if the Defense was just above average, we would be in the play-off hunt. How could it drop off this far. ANSWER: Poor coaching.
WotAGuy Posted December 18, 2015 Posted December 18, 2015 This year didn't hurt as bad as 2004 when I sat in the Ralph and wanted to ralph - that Steelers game was devastating. I really thought they had a charmed postseason ahead of them. This year hasn't been a big disappointment. I didn't think the defense would be as great as predicted - they had good stats last year but seemed to be unable to close out games and come up big when needed. That only got worse this year. I didn't have high expectations for the offense. It didn't seem like they had put enough emphasis on improving the O-line starters and depth. QB exceeded expectations, and the offense was pretty fun to watch most of the year. Every year it gets easier to take the inevitable fade in November and December. You get a feel for what's going down after all these seasons, and it was pretty clear early on they just didn't have it this year, starting with the face plant against the Patriots in Game 2.
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