How long will Mularkey last?

[Simon]

THAT would get simon to root for the fish, methinks.

872225[/snapback]

Youthinks?

For a gentleman who's so obviously convinced of his own brilliance and spends an inordinate amount of time looking down his nose while he ridicules the rest of us imbecilic mortals, you do tends toward the daft at times, don't ye?

The main crux in all those posts which you nad others continue to erroneously refer to was not to defend Mularkey, but more to lament the Bills and particularly Ralph Wilson's tendency to toss people aside at the very first instance of difficulty.

As long as this trend continues the Bills will never be able to build and maintain the continuity necessary to be a consistently strong franchise and will instead be the type of pathetic also-ran perrenial loser that spends its entire existence in a vicious cycle of tearing down and rebuilding. Meanwhile its weakening fanbase with its MTV attention span will continue to erode until the organization pulls up stakes and moves on to a wealthier and less poisonous atmosphere.

Hoo-ray.....

[dave mcbride]

So in other words, they targeted their alleged #1 WR almost as much in the last fifteen seconds of the game as they did in the first 59:45.

 

(On Mike Mularkey's offensive play-calling) - "Nick Saban has a policy with his coaches where they're not allowed to talk to the media so it's very difficult for us as fans or even insiders to know exactly how much influence Mularkey has on the gameplan. But clearly this is the worst possible scenario for the Dolphins. You go through a season like this, and you hope that through the course of the season you start to find out more about your team. But, I think, what we're all seeing is that every week we know less and less about this team."

Welcome to our world, circa 2005...

872649[/snapback]

well, he did actually drop one 15 yard pass right in his hands in the late 3rd, and he was the target on the pass that clements intercepted.

[Nanker]

Saban isn't going to budge on Mularkey. Once he takes the Alabama position, the Fish will go with Mularkey as the new head coach.

 

Mark it down.

872208[/snapback]

 

From your lips to God's ears LA.

[Ramius]

Youthinks?

For a gentleman who's so obviously convinced of his own brilliance and spends an inordinate amount of time looking down his nose while he ridicules the rest of us imbecilic mortals, you do tends toward the daft at times, don't ye?

The main crux in all those posts which you nad others continue to erroneously refer to was not to defend Mularkey, but more to lament the Bills and particularly Ralph Wilson's tendency to toss people aside at the very first instance of difficulty.

As long as this trend continues the Bills will never be able to build and maintain the continuity necessary to be a consistently strong franchise and will instead be the type of pathetic also-ran perrenial loser that spends its entire existence in a vicious cycle of tearing down and rebuilding. Meanwhile its weakening fanbase with its MTV attention span will continue to erode until the organization pulls up stakes and moves on to a wealthier and less poisonous atmosphere.

Hoo-ray.....

872676[/snapback]

 

You do realize that maybe had you picked someone worth a damn, like wade phillips, then your arguement would a lot hold water.

 

But, mularkey was a meathead and an imbecile. There are mentally retarded 4 year olds who can come up with a more coherent game plan than mularkey can. And lets not even get started on his complete and utter inability to make and mid game changes whatsoever.

 

If gameplanning was like raising kids, Jauron put the diaper on his kid, and after a good whiff of crap, changed the diaper pronto. Mularkey looked at the stinky kid, sprayed some lysol, did nothing else, and wondered why the kid continued to smell like crap.

[Simon]

You do realize that maybe had you picked someone worth a damn, like wade phillips, then your arguement would a lot hold water.

Mularkey was just the most recent of the lot.

 

 

But, mularkey was a meathead and an imbecile. There are mentally retarded 4 year olds who can come up with a more coherent game plan than mularkey can. And lets not even get started on his complete and utter inability to make and mid game changes whatsoever.

Then I'm sure you'll have no difficulty explaining exactly how in the hell he managed to go 9-7 as a rookie head coach in the NFL's toughest division with Drew freaking Bledsoe as his QB. Along with twice co-ordinating top5 offenses that is not something which can typically be found on the resumes of imbeciles.

Or are you going to just continue to histrionically shriek empty rhetoric, the substance of which you have never shown any real understanding of, and tell us how awful he was because you didn't like the look on his face? If you can stop squealing like a little girl long enough to examine the data empirically (like actually taking into consideration that the Bills had the fewest 3rdqrtr pointsagainst in the NFL, instead of mindlessly screaming about halftime adjustments about which you have absolutely NO clue) and stop being a victim of mindless groupthink, you mau actually consider the possibility that Mularkey has shown enough to potentially be a good head coach someday. But it sure as hell won't ever be in Buffalo after you morons harrassed the guys wife and children because of ONE bad year.

He was put in an impossible situation in which no coach on the face of the entire planet could have succeeded and then we ran him out of town after that 1 bad year. That is the sign of a desperate and dying organization being poorly supported by a weak-minded pathetic fan base.

[RuntheDamnBall]

Youthinks?

For a gentleman who's so obviously convinced of his own brilliance and spends an inordinate amount of time looking down his nose while he ridicules the rest of us imbecilic mortals, you do tends toward the daft at times, don't ye?

The main crux in all those posts which you nad others continue to erroneously refer to was not to defend Mularkey, but more to lament the Bills and particularly Ralph Wilson's tendency to toss people aside at the very first instance of difficulty.

872676[/snapback]

Wouldn't you at least agree that this was Donahoe's (and by extension Mularkey's) tendency also? It happened with Bledsoe. It happened with Losman. With Mularkey, it happened with the run at the most inopportune times. We saw the guy abandon the one thing that was working for him when his team was down by just 7 points.

 

I think you're a smart dude -- that's why it's all the more baffling to me that you pop up now and then to defend a guy who has just made some boneheaded football decisions that continue to set back whatever team he works with. I'll admit he had a good rep in Pittsburgh, but he's done not much to define himself since, rookie season record notwithstanding.

[RuntheDamnBall]

Mularkey was just the most recent of the lot.

Then I'm sure you'll have no difficulty explaining exactly how in the hell he managed to go 9-7 as a rookie head coach in the NFL's toughest division with Drew freaking Bledsoe as his QB. Along with twice co-ordinating top5 offenses that is not something which can typically be found on the resumes of imbeciles.

Or are you going to just continue to histrionically shriek empty rhetoric, the substance of which you have never shown any real understanding of, and tell us how awful he was because you didn't like the look on his face? If you can stop squealing like a little girl long enough to examine the data empirically (like actually taking into consideration that the Bills had the fewest 3rdqrtr pointsagainst in the NFL, instead of mindlessly screaming about halftime adjustments about which you have absolutely NO clue) and stop being a victim of mindless groupthink, you mau actually consider the possibility that Mularkey has shown enough to potentially be a good head coach someday. But it sure as hell won't ever be in Buffalo after you morons harrassed the guys wife and children because of ONE bad year.

He was put in an impossible situation in which no coach on the face of the entire planet could have succeeded and then we ran him out of town after that 1 bad year. That is the sign of a desperate and dying organization being poorly supported by a weak-minded pathetic fan base.

872867[/snapback]

On one hand he was successful as you put it (9-7 season). On the other it was impossible for him to succeed. Which is it? Can it not be that he bears some responsibility for some of his bad decisions?

 

I think we're seeing right now that the Losman situation could have been handled better. We're seeing that by trusting and developing good talent with character we can do better than we can by entrusting the line to poor veteran journeymen and underachievers (Greg Jerman, Mike Williams). We're seeing that by sticking with the run and a conservative gameplan while taking a few shots we can actually run with some pretty good teams.

 

To me, it's just the opposite of the way you cast it. Marv and Jauron bring hope, and not the false hope that sells tickets immediately, the kind Donahoe brought with him, but hope that we'll actually try and build something in this rebuilding process instead of shooting for the moon and failing miserably year in, year out. If you are not more hopeful and excited for the Bills team than in years, I don't know what would stir your emotions up.

 

As for him being a good HC someday, maybe. He would have to show me that he can learn something and adjust. He did not show evidence of an ability to do so his first time out, nor does it seem he is doing much or enough of this in Miami.

[Simon]

Wouldn't you at least agree that this was Donahoe's (and by extension Mularkey's) tendency also?

I think it was Donahoe's tendency but not Mularkey's. And I didn't mind it from Donahoe because he was frequently dealing with the kinds of media and fans who had no idea what they were talking about, while he did know what he was talking about. If it's coming from somebody that has a clue it doesn't bother me, but when it's coming from people who are sscreaming about stuff they have no understanding of then it strikes me as kind of pathetic.

 

With Mularkey, it happened with the run at the most inopportune times. We saw the guy abandon the one thing that was working for him when his team was down by just 7 points.

His apparent willingness to abandoned the run was one of the problems I had with him. And I say apparent because I just looked at the numbers and was a bit surprised by what I saw. In his first year when they had soemthing to play for, the Bills were in the Top10 in the NFL in rush attempts. Those numbers went down in his second year (to 19th) but it's not like they abandoned something that was working. In addition to frequently playing from behind the run game was averaging a measly 3.8 yrds/carry, tying the Bills with the likes of Cleveland, Oakland and Tennessee. How many times is a guy expected to bang his head against a wall before we can say he did it long enough? Finishing around the middle of the league in rushing attempts under those circumstances is not what I would remotely consider abandoning a functional rungame.

 

As far as him continuing to set back whatever team he works for, that strikes me as willfully ignoring the facts. We know he was in an impossible situation last year. This year he's saddled with arguably the most pathetic OLine in the entire league, three horrible QB's and is now missing his starting RB. Yet as of last week the phish were sporting the 6th best offense in the AFC. I'd say that's a fairly credible job considering the flotsam and jetsam he's stuck working with and in any fair realistic assessment could hardly be considered setting a team back.

Cya

 

On one hand he was successful as you put it (9-7 season). On the other it was impossible for him to succeed. Which is it? Can it not be that he bears some responsibility for some of his bad decisions?

He was succesful when given an opportunity to succeed. When in his second year he lost his two best defensive players and was breaking in a rookie QB behind an OLine that started suffering injuries before the season even started, he simply had no chance whatsoever to succeed. Then he has an owner meddling in coaching decisions (QB decisions, Moulds suspension, etc) and then the coach gets blamed for those decisions in addition to losing any semblance of authority he once had.

 

We're seeing that by sticking with the run and a conservative gameplan while taking a few shots we can actually run with some pretty good teams.

Mularkey didn't have a more seasoned Losman, Evans and Peters. He also didn't have Fowler, Royal and Parrish. If he had, we may very well have been better than 7-7 at this point. And if Jauron was in the same situation as Mularkey last year I don't believe he would have fared any better.

[East Brady]

But it sure as hell won't ever be in Buffalo after you morons harrassed the guys wife and children because of ONE bad year.

He was put in an impossible situation in which no coach on the face of the entire planet could have succeeded and then we ran him out of town after that 1 bad year. That is the sign of a desperate and dying organization being poorly supported by a weak-minded pathetic fan base.

872867[/snapback]

Hey simon, you really need to stop with this crap. You keep harping on this percieved, poor treatment, of your man Mikey, and the harsh treatment of his wife and kids bla bla bla. Do you in fact, know what actually happened in these cases. Were you there to witness any of this? Is this just some more over hyped crap, spewed by an equally weak minded, and soon to be dead, legacy media, that is doing everything they can to drum up paper sales and evening news viewers?

 

This kinda crap goes on in nearly every NFL city. Just last year the good folks in Pittsburgh went nuts doing these very same type of things after Tommy Gun lost a game or two. They harrassed his kid at school, threw toilet paper all over his house and garbage onto his front lawn. Would you call the Pittsburgh organization desperate and dying, with a pathetic and weak minded fan base? It was this same organization that was about to fire Malarkey before the Bills took him off their hands....Oh and by the way, they are also the very same organization that told Tom Donahoe to pack his ass on down the highway, one of their very own insiders, raised him from a pup......he learned everything he knows from the Rooneys and they said, we've had enough of your crap, beat it!....GO FIGURE!

 

Spare me the TD MM lectures it is over....move on.

 

By the way, give me a call when Big Tommy D. gets the type of full control he had here in Buffalo, it will never happen.

[RuntheDamnBall]

Mularkey didn't have a more seasoned Losman, Evans and Peters. He also didn't have Fowler, Royal and Parrish. If he had, we may very well have been better than 7-7 at this point. And if Jauron was in the same situation as Mularkey last year I don't believe he would have fared any better.

872897[/snapback]

He didn't. But he also set back the seasoning of Losman and never game him a game plan that was going to aid him in his success. He was thrown into the fire. And running into the middle of a pile over and over again does not constitute a real running game plan if you ask me. In fact, it's one of the problems I continue to have with this team.

 

I just see a stubbornness, and not a patience, in Mularkey. I see the opposite in Jauron, and it probably starts from the top-down with an organization that is refusing to promise anything besides hard work and progress, and again, building something.

 

Mularkey and Donahoe just wanted the quick fix, always. If you want to blame that on fans, I think that's a mistake. Any GM making his decisions to simply try and impress fans is a fool and it will backfire. And if you want to blame it on Ralph, well, 1) he pays the bills and 2) I'd love to see some evidence.

[Billsjunkie]

He didn't.  But he also set back the seasoning of Losman and never game him a game plan that was going to aid him in his success.  He was thrown into the fire.  And running into the middle of a pile over and over again does not constitute a real running game plan if you ask me.  In fact, it's one of the problems I continue to have with this team.

 

I just see a stubbornness, and not a patience, in Mularkey.  I see the opposite in Jauron, and it probably starts from the top-down with an organization that is refusing to promise anything besides hard work and progress, and again, building something.

 

Mularkey and Donahoe just wanted the quick fix, always.  If you want to blame that on fans, I think that's a mistake.  Any GM making his decisions to simply try and impress fans is a fool and it will backfire.  And if you want to blame it on Ralph, well, 1) he pays the bills and 2) I'd love to see some evidence.

872937[/snapback]

 

 

Great post.... I agree 100%

Jauron is here to stay as long as Marv is in charge. Patience has really payed off with these guys. They have shown that 90% of the posters on this board are retards when it comes to running the show. I have been really impressed on how they have made adjustments with this team. They are not stubborn at all. They are smart.

[The Senator]

Jauron is here to stay as long as Marv is in charge. Patience has really payed off with these guys. They have shown that 90% of the posters on this board are retards when it comes to running the show. I have been really impressed on how they have made adjustments with this team. They are not stubborn at all. They are smart.

872974[/snapback]

Bingo! You hit the nose on the bird, er, nail on the head, er...you are correct, sir!

 

Anyone on this board who thinks they know better than Marv - regarding coaching a team or building a football organization - should seek help immediately. And Ralph was astute enough to realize that Marv was the right guy - and maybe the only guy - to "right the ship".

 

(Too bad RW didn't read my posts 3 years ago, when I was on a crusade to "Bring back Marv!")

[obie_wan]

His apparent willingness to abandoned the run was one of the problems I had with him. And I say apparent because I just looked at the numbers and was a bit surprised by what I saw. In his first year when they had soemthing to play for, the Bills were in the Top10 in the NFL in rush attempts. Those numbers went down in his second year (to 19th) but it's not like they abandoned something that was working. In addition to frequently playing from behind the run game was averaging a measly 3.8 yrds/carry, tying the Bills with the likes of Cleveland, Oakland and Tennessee. How many times is a guy expected to bang his head against a wall before we can say he did it long enough? Finishing around the middle of the league in rushing attempts under those circumstances is not what I would remotely consider abandoning a functional rungame.

 

As far as him continuing to set back whatever team he works for, that strikes me as willfully ignoring the facts. We know he was in an impossible situation last year. This year he's saddled with arguably the most pathetic OLine in the entire league, three horrible QB's and is now missing his starting RB. Yet as of last week the phish were sporting the 6th best offense in the AFC. I'd say that's a fairly credible job considering the flotsam and jetsam he's stuck working with and in any fair realistic assessment could hardly be considered setting a team back.

Cya

872897[/snapback]

 

it's not about the total carries.

 

It's about when he decides to run.

 

Like the Ronnie Brown hand off spin arouhd option pass on teh 2 pt conversion agasinst Houston that will keep the Dulelons out of the playoffs.

 

or last week with 5 shots inside the 2 - he fails to even think about running the ball or running an option or draw with his mobile QB.

 

or any number of short yardage situations last year with the Bill.

[The Senator]

Mularkey didn't have a more seasoned Losman, Evans and Peters. He also didn't have Fowler, Royal and Parrish. If he had, we may very well have been better than 7-7 at this point. And if Jauron was in the same situation as Mularkey last year I don't believe he would have fared any better.

872897[/snapback]

Some day, maybe you can explain to me how Mularkey's decision to start Holcomb would have resulted in a "more seasoned Losman"?

 

Mularkey's an idiot. His play selection was moronic, his motivational talent non-existant, and he was the most inarticulate buffoon I've ever seen & heard at the press podium. His players turned on him, and he was at odds with his staff.

 

The exact same thing is happening in Miami. I'm surprised you don't see it.

 

(I was a Mularkey supporter when TD hired him too, but hey - when you're wrong, you're just plain wrong. I was wrong.)

[dave mcbride]

I think it was Donahoe's tendency but not Mularkey's. And I didn't mind it from Donahoe because he was frequently dealing with the kinds of media and fans who had no idea what they were talking about, while he did know what he was talking about. If it's coming from somebody that has a clue it doesn't bother me, but when it's coming from people who are sscreaming about stuff they have no understanding of then it strikes me as kind of pathetic.

His apparent willingness to abandoned the run was one of the problems I had with him. And I say apparent because I just looked at the numbers and was a bit surprised by what I saw. In his first year when they had soemthing to play for, the Bills were in the Top10 in the NFL in rush attempts. Those numbers went down in his second year (to 19th) but it's not like they abandoned something that was working. In addition to frequently playing from behind the run game was averaging a measly 3.8 yrds/carry, tying the Bills with the likes of Cleveland, Oakland and Tennessee. How many times is a guy expected to bang his head against a wall before we can say he did it long enough? Finishing around the middle of the league in rushing attempts under those circumstances is not what I would remotely consider abandoning a functional rungame.

 

As far as him continuing to set back whatever team he works for, that strikes me as willfully ignoring the facts. We know he was in an impossible situation last year. This year he's saddled with arguably the most pathetic OLine in the entire league, three horrible QB's and is now missing his starting RB. Yet as of last week the phish were sporting the 6th best offense in the AFC. I'd say that's a fairly credible job considering the flotsam and jetsam he's stuck working with and in any fair realistic assessment could hardly be considered setting a team back.

Cya

He was succesful when given an opportunity to succeed. When in his second year he lost his two best defensive players and was breaking in a rookie QB behind an OLine that started suffering injuries before the season even started, he simply had no chance whatsoever to succeed. Then he has an owner meddling in coaching decisions (QB decisions, Moulds suspension, etc) and then the coach gets blamed for those decisions in addition to losing any semblance of authority he once had.

Mularkey didn't have a more seasoned Losman, Evans and Peters. He also didn't have Fowler, Royal and Parrish. If he had, we may very well have been better than 7-7 at this point. And if Jauron was in the same situation as Mularkey last year I don't believe he would have fared any better.

872897[/snapback]

I think it's a bit more complicated than this, and I think it's not correct to view Mularkey's second season in Buffalo so charitably. I say this believing that he did a pretty solid job in 04.

 

In 05, they were a worse team. Presumably he signed off on letting Pat Williams go, which was a huge mistake (Jerry Gray said in one of the Washington papers that not fighting harder to keep Williams was a big mistake on his part).

 

As for Spikes, injuries happen unfortunately. That said, their run defense was in a shambles *before* he got hurt, so I think their defense would have been lower tier in any case.

 

The big problem, though, was that he horribly -- and I mean horribly -- mismanaged his coaching staff. In showing no faith in his chosen OC (Clements) -- despite saddling him with a rookie qb -- and allowing the defensive coaches to practically come to blows with each other, Mularkey performed inadequately. Sure, they weren't a good team, but the sign of professionalism is not letting that happen.

 

I also blame Donohoe for last year (and last year, they were worse than their 5-11 record: 31st in defense and 30th in offense) in part because he saddled the franchise with aging clock punchers whose best days were past them: Vincent, Milloy, and especially Sam Adams, who was downright cancerous last season.

 

Having said all of this, Donohoe did some good things. Evans was a good pick, and he did a really good job in his first draft. However, he bungled the coaching picks pretty badly (Gregg Williams looks a lot worse to me in hindsight than he did at the time), and screwed the pooch on QBs. Yes, he drafted Losman, but knowing that time was running short, he had to suspect that such a raw talent wouldn't perform adequately until after he had been fired. Bledsoe was a very bad decision, only second to the decision to take Johnson over Flutie (although I blame Gregg Williams for that one). Flutie certainly wasn't the greatest player ever, but he was an *excellent* poor-weather QB and probably would have produced 6 or 7 wins in 01 and perhaps 9 or 10 in 02. Not the long term solution, of course, but certainly more fun to watch and more productive than the stiffs who supplanted him.

[stuckincincy]

Saban ...

Also questioned the "conservative" gameplan and the Dolphins lack of deep passing game.  He likes "continuity" in his staff so MM may get another year to improve his performance but Saban clearly is unhappy with MM's playcalling.

 

872139[/snapback]

 

I've never understood why head coaches don't call OC's down to the field and smash them in the head with a clipboard - repeatedly.

 

If yer the boss, yer the boss...I wouldn't be questioning MM's calls - I'd change them.

[BUFFALOTONE]

Saban isn't going to budge on Mularkey. Once he takes the Alabama position, the Fish will go with Mularkey as the new head coach.

 

Mark it down.

872208[/snapback]

 

Saban is not leaving a proffessional position where he makes more money to take a job rebuilding an NCAA violating team like Alabama. Mark that down.

[apuszczalowski]

Bledsoe was a very bad decision, only second to the decision to take Johnson over Flutie (although I blame Gregg Williams for that one). Flutie certainly wasn't the greatest player ever, but he was an *excellent* poor-weather QB and probably would have produced 6 or 7 wins in 01 and perhaps 9 or 10 in 02. Not the long term solution, of course, but certainly more fun to watch and more productive than the stiffs who supplanted him.

873025[/snapback]

I don't see the signing of Bledsoe as a bad hing from TD. He found a decent starting QB to resolve the QB controversy in Buffalo. The mistake he made was not building the team around this signing. Not providing Bledsoe with a decent o-line hurt his play. He showed in his first year he could get the job done by putting up great numbers. Then he mismanaged the situation by just releasing DB and naming JP the starter with any previous experience. Both should have competed for the job and the better one starting. He traded picks to get him and then let him go for free to dallas, that was a mistake.

[dave mcbride]

I don't see the signing of Bledsoe as a bad hing from TD. He found a decent starting QB to resolve the QB controversy in Buffalo. The mistake he made was not building the team around this signing. Not providing Bledsoe with a decent o-line hurt his play. He showed in his first year he could get the job done by putting up great numbers. Then he mismanaged the situation by just releasing DB and naming JP the starter with any previous experience. Both should have competed for the job and the better one starting. He traded picks to get him and then let him go for free to dallas, that was a mistake.

873123[/snapback]

I dunno. The guy simply has never delivered when it counted. Even in his Super Bowl season with the Pats (96), he played at a very, very mediocre level against both the Steelers and the Jags in the 2 playoff games they won, and he played poorly in the Super Bowl against the Pack. He was wretched in the 97 playoff game against the Steelers, too. Here are his godawful playoff stats:

 

1994 cle L,13-20 | 21 50 235 1 3 | 2 2 0

1996 pit W,28-3 | 14 24 164 1 2 | 1 -1 0

1996 jax W,20-6 | 20 33 178 0 1 | 1 4 0

*1996 gnb L,21-35 | 25 48 253 2 4 | 1 1 0

1997 mia W,17-3 | 16 32 139 1 0 | 2 4 0

1997 pit L,6-7 | 23 44 264 0 2 | 2 -4 0

2001 pit W,24-17 | 10 21 102 1 0 | 4 1 0

---------------------+--------------------------+-----------------

TOTAL | 129 252 1335 6 12 | 13 7 0

 

That's a 54.9 passer rating in the playoffs, folks - 15 points below the proverbial Mendoza line of 70 for QBs ...

[5 Wide]

Mularkey lost the lockerroom. It has been revealed this year that the squad was fragmented. Hell, even the coaching staff was fragmented. Mularkey had in-fighting amongst his coaches. When you have assistant coaches almost coming to blows, then what message does that send to the lockerroom. All the time you hear about players "buying into a system" and how important it is to get everyone on the same page. That wasn't happening, there was no unified front, no leadership from the top. As much as we hated his inability to make adjustments and his ill-timed gadgetry, I believe his failure to lead ultimately led to his downfall.

CYA