Alaska Darin Posted February 18, 2006 Share Posted February 18, 2006 Blaming Jerry Gray's scheme for the Jacksonville debacle is pretty shortsighted. The question you have to ask is this: On that 4th down play, was Nate Clements in a position to make a play that would have sealed the game? The answer is an emphatic yes. The fact that Clements went for the INT is more a reflection of a young, cocky (and stupid) player going for the INT instead of knocking it down. In fact, after the game Clements even admitted that JG explicitly told the D to knock anything down on that play. Feel free to blame that on the coordinator. All valid points if they existed in a vacuum. None of them more valid than why you don't double the only player on the field capable of beating you in that situation with the game on the line. Common sense stuff that was sorely lacking the majority of the time Jerry Gray was calling the shots. Sorry. If you want to maintain a selective memory, that's fine. But the fact remains that not many defensive coordinators could have done better given the circumstances. In the last 2 drafts, the Bills selected 13 times. Want to know how many of those picks were spent on the defense? TWO. (Tim Anderson & Eric King). While good teams like the Pats and Colts were fortifying their defense year after year, the Bills spent their picks on glamor positions like WR and RB. Add to that the fact that they signed no free agent help for the defense and they let go of their best interior linemen, it was a recipe for disaster. Nothing more than apologies/excuses. Buffalo didn't have to spend a ton of draft picks on defense because they brought back virtually every player of note (sans one) on the roster from supposedly "great" defenses. If you can't change your scheme enough that the loss of a couple of players makes you almost completely inept, you ain't a good coordinator. Belichick had weeks of games without Wolfork, Seymour, Harrison, and Bruschi and the Pats never looked as clueless as we did on a regular basis. You can call it an apology for Gray. I call it facts. His defense sucked last year but to trash his entire tenure because of it is just ludicrous. Gregg Williams is a defensive genius... he would not have brought Gray here and made him a coordinator if he didn't think he was solid. 606189[/snapback] There have been signs throughout Gray's tenure of the impending implosion. You feel free to laud GW and give him carte blanche because of his previous and post success, despite his litany of other coaching hires that were absolute disasters. As if Jerry Gray is the shining light of competence among the gaping black hole. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnakeOiler Posted February 18, 2006 Author Share Posted February 18, 2006 That sounds a whole lot better than the original post in this thread -- not saying which is more accurate. 605789[/snapback] haha -- hey now! If u read it, they are both very consistent content wise, just the tones are a bit different. The language i used was much of the same wording nate used, where the billsdaily provided a...well written (!) BRIEF verison in a rather favorable tone, using that highle edumacated 'i'm a writer' type big words. The conversation was pretty long - about 5mins. So a lot more there than anyone could jot down: From BillsDaily: Nate Clements was on Sirius NFL radio today and said he expects the Bills to tag him if they don't work out a long term deal before then. He figures they will tag him and get a long term deal done afterwards. He said he would like to stay in Buffalo and help get things turned around. As I said I didn't get the whole interview, this must have been at the beginning, the part i missed. On compensation, he says he's a fair man but he puts his numbers up against anybody and would like to be compensated for the way he has played over his career in Buffalo. ---CHECK (he did go expand on this quite a bit He has spoken to Marv Levy and the GM made it known that he is a priority but serious negotiations haven't started since the Bills have been preoccupied with getting the organization set up. He has yet to speak to Dick Jauron but expects a conversation soon. CHECK On last season, he said the Eric Moulds situation was minor compared to everything that went on. CHECK He refused to be baited into an answer when Shannon Sharpe suggested Mike Mularkey quit on the team. CHECK, he absolutely did say that he was suprised mularkey quit, but he guessed that he had to do what was best for him, but he didn't expect him to quit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawgg Posted February 18, 2006 Share Posted February 18, 2006 But that's the problem. Donahoe made a huge mistake in classifying this defense as "great." If all starters are healthy and all come back -- absolutely. But in order to maintain a great defense, it must be fortified with young talent on a yearly basis. The Patriots, despite winning the Super Bowl with a dominating defense, made picks like Ty Warren, Willfork, Asante Samuel an annual event. It's pretty clear that the Bills were lacking severely in depth on both sides of the ball. You absolutely can't ignore one side of the ball two years in a row. The one reason I am excited about Marv is that I think he understands that. Sorry.Nothing more than apologies/excuses. Buffalo didn't have to spend a ton of draft picks on defense because they brought back virtually every player of note (sans one) on the roster from supposedly "great" defenses. If you can't change your scheme enough that the loss of a couple of players makes you almost completely inept, you ain't a good coordinator. Belichick had weeks of games without Wolfork, Seymour, Harrison, and Bruschi and the Pats never looked as clueless as we did on a regular basis. 606264[/snapback] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyrite Gal Posted February 18, 2006 Share Posted February 18, 2006 I think the problem here is that any assessment of Gray which tends toward the extreme (as fan posts often do) must take the road of ignoring or discounting actual D production under Gray or the view simply is stupid. A view that Gray is a great (or even veery good) DC has to somehow explain or discount the Bills D performance under his guidance as DC in 2001, 2002, and 2005. A view that gray sucks at DC needs to somehow explain or discount the Bills D performance performance under his guidance as DC in 2003 and 2004. As our spiritual leader Rodney King would say why can't we just get a long. Bothe extreme cuts leave something to be desired and their seems to be a more accurate assessment of Gray somewhere in the middle. 2001- Gray's D did not produce Ws on the field and that is the real name of that tune. However, almost all the Bills staff gets a mulligan for bad performance that year as we were in the midst of cap hell. However, it is instructive that the one person who did not get a mullign even though he was still under contract was OC Sheppard. His O was bad but it was bad in many ways because of him and his QB. He paid the price with his job and the fact no one complained and that the O performance improved drastically in 2002 with a new OC and QB are indicators that placing extraordinary blame on Sheppard was probably correct. What does this mean for Gray/GW and their D? It actually puts the performance of being an even more impressive version of inadequate play than simply giving him a mulligan for bad players. The D performance that year was actually better than I expected (I did not expect much) particularly with the injury to Cowart and mishandling of the HJ/JH cuts (part of the blame for this misassessment lays on Gray's door). I remember the D as generally performing well for 3/4 quarters and then falling apart in crunch time. This to me was a sign of good gameplanning but in the end poor play by the players and/or poor training by the coaches and poor exectution by the team. For that year: Was Gray great? No! Was Gray very good? Probably not. Was Gray good? Probably yes. Was Gray less to blame for this debacle than Sheppard, the QB and the O? Almost certainly. 2002- Again Gray's D did not produce and I think he deserves a good chunk of the blame for this one. The O was productive for much of the year under Bledsoe as Moulds, Henry and Bledsoe all got a Pro Biowl nod and PP did not despite catching 94 passes. The D production did improve as the season went on, but as the O's output also generally dropped as well and then had an upsurge with reasonable weather in our last game against Cincy, I think that the explanation for both occurences is at least in part from games like the bitter cold than even stoned Favre in GB and the monsoon against SD here. The main fault of the D I would point to in this year was poor player assessment of how much guys on their way out like Jenkins who we had inked in at SS or Robinson at OLB had left. They sucked (as the Pennington fake and TD run on Robinson showed and the benching of Jenkins to allow the poor playing Wire to take the SS spot show. The question is only whether these poor assessments were primarily the blame of GW (even in this case Gray cannot escape being at some fault) or primarily the blame of Gray being too much of a player's coach. 2003- LeBeau's first year provided some hint that maybe it was running an inappropriate scheme (again this would be Gray's fault to some extent as it is his D even if he was just following dumb orders from GW) that was part of the lack production. I had pretty much concluded that Gray and GW bigtime sucked after the first two year's of D non-performance and GW's chosen OC deserving getting canned. I assumed that Gray was merely kept because if you fired GW's DC as well it is pretty weird keeping him around. However, Gray simply impressed me by mastering the zone blitz quickly and well enough to do all the playcalling. Gray did actually appear to do this work as if he was merely LeBeau's puppet for playcalling, I don't think LeBeau would have missed doing the playcalling so much that he left. All signs oint to rather than LeBeau deserving all the credit for this D ranking 5th statistically among all Ds, that it in fact was a LeBeau/Gray (or maybe Gray/LeBeau) collaboration. The real stretch of an excuse here seems to be the claim that it was all LeBeau's work rather than the claim Gray did some good work here as part of the team and in fact did the lead work as the game playcaller. 2004- This was the year where gray really showed what he could do. With LeBeau gone, there was no question of the results being to Gray's blame or credit. It was LeBeau's scheme and though Gray honestly must be givn credit for mastering it quickly and well enough to playcalling in 2003, it was reasonable to worry that there would be a significant downturn in D production under Gray without LeBeau's guidance. In 2004 LeBeau would not be there to do gameplanning for individual games, nor would he be there to analyze the first half and design mid-game adjustments, nor would he be there to implement these adjustments quickly. LeBeau would also not be there to design and install D improvements during the bye week. Yet, not only did the team not see a statistical downturn from 5th in the NFL (a top 10 ranking would have been good but almost certainly be a sign that 2004 progress was mostly this was LeBeau's work), but in fact it's output improved statistically from 5th to 2nd in the NFL. Certainly part of this improvement was likely facing weaker teams in 2004 than in 2003 (actually it is not like our '03 opponents were some offensive juggernaut) but overall folks who try to explain or excuse the 04 improvement as being LeBeau's work would have a much better case to make if the result slipped or merely remained the same against weaker opposition. However, the D statistical output improved as it should have against weaker opposition. I think by far the more credible explanation is that under Gray alone, the team performed at least as well under him alone racking up even more impressive results against the weaker opposition rather somehow claiming this was all due to work done by LeBeau before. When one takes into account that LeBeau had zero, nada, zilch, and no role in 2004 individual gameplans for opponents, had no role in designing or installing mid game adjustments and had no role in bye week adjustments, it is simply incredible to give LeBeau all or most of the credit for the 2004 D output. LeBeau is a far better coach (and D coach as shown in us losing the final game of 2004 to Pitts) than Gray, but Gray's work in 2005 was extremely good. 2005- As good as Gray's D production was in 2004, it certainly sucked bigtime this past season. However, again based on reality it seems like little more than fan wailing and bleating to blame all of this failure on Gray. he is simply a mixed bag of good work in some circumstances and bad output in other circumstances. I think 2005 certainly showed gray's lackings. however, they appear to me to be an inability to put his D over the top in a dysfunctional or less than perfect teams as great DCs like Buddy Ryanor marvin Lewis were able to do, and not some overarching indictment that he always fails. The facts seem to be that Gray did well in 2003 and 2004 and folks cam try to excuse these results as not having anything to do with him, but that argument is pretty feeble and does not line up with the events. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawgg Posted February 18, 2006 Share Posted February 18, 2006 Cliff Notes below. ... and I agree. The facts seem to be that Gray did well in 2003 and 2004 and folks cam try to excuse these results as not having anything to do with him, but that argument is pretty feeble and does not line up with the events. 606404[/snapback] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyrite Gal Posted February 19, 2006 Share Posted February 19, 2006 Cliff Notes below. ... and I agree. 606417[/snapback] Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chilly Posted February 19, 2006 Share Posted February 19, 2006 Does Pyrite Gal = FFS? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dean Posted February 19, 2006 Share Posted February 19, 2006 Does Pyrite Gal = FFS? 606635[/snapback] Gal=FFS=Barry Brady=Dik Smub=Yvel Vram Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozymandius Posted February 19, 2006 Share Posted February 19, 2006 I agree 100% with everything Alaska Darin has wrote in this thread. I can't really add anything. I just want to say. Jerry Gray is stupid and a bad coach. I'm glad he's gone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawgg Posted February 19, 2006 Share Posted February 19, 2006 yeah! he's stupid! and he's bad!!! and he's super bad!!! super duper bad!!!!!!!!!!! I agree 100% with everything Alaska Darin has wrote in this thread. I can't really add anything. I just want to say. Jerry Gray is stupid and a bad coach. I'm glad he's gone. 606646[/snapback] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillsWatch Posted February 19, 2006 Share Posted February 19, 2006 they didn't extend him when they had the chance earlier in his career so now he has the right to either collect a fat f-tag one year deal or get a long-term deal.......don't hate on the guy just because he doesn't love the bills as much as you do........ 605708[/snapback] Nate had a chance to extend but turned it down. He said he wanted to be paid as if he was best CB in NFL to extend and he isn't. He is worth tagging because he will need to work hard for 2006 season to get the money he wants but he is NOT worth signing "best CB in NFL" money. And if Nate gets injured he can kiss all of that jack he would have gotten on an extension goodbye! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jarthur31 Posted February 19, 2006 Share Posted February 19, 2006 Nate is a complete punk but he may also be the best corner we've had since Charlie Romes. Tag, you're it! 605704[/snapback] Nate Odomes and Thomas Smith were not? Butch Byrd? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slothrop Posted February 19, 2006 Share Posted February 19, 2006 In my opinion, nate's loyalty is to $$ and he has no loyalty at all to buffalo. It's all about the stats and the jacks. 605694[/snapback] ANd that makes him different than who? including any one of us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TigerJ Posted February 20, 2006 Share Posted February 20, 2006 Franchise his butt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadBuffaloDisease Posted February 20, 2006 Share Posted February 20, 2006 Franchise his butt. 606981[/snapback] They will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
34-78-83 Posted February 20, 2006 Share Posted February 20, 2006 Nate Odomes and Thomas Smith were not? Butch Byrd? 606866[/snapback] He's better than Nate O and T Smith for sure... wasn't butch before Romes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sisyphean Bills Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 He's better than Nate O and T Smith for sure... wasn't butch before Romes? 607257[/snapback] Winfield, man, Winfield! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
34-78-83 Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 Winfield, man, Winfield! 607544[/snapback] Winfield stops the run better. Nate does everything else better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shibuya Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 its nice to see that Shannon Sharp is telling Nate "he has to get paid". Just another reason that Nate thinks he is the one of the top cb's in the league. He has idiot former players filling his head with dumb thoughts. 605701[/snapback] Only a fool wouldn't try to get paid, and at the rate to franchise a CB in 2006 Nate is very much worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dean Posted February 21, 2006 Share Posted February 21, 2006 Winfield stops the run better. Nate does everything else better. 607592[/snapback] Winfield is also an exceptional wingle cover CB. He just can't make the INT...maybe if he covered his hands and body in stickem, a la Lester Hayes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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