vincec

So how are they doing since their vast talent has been unchained from Wannstedt's ineptness?

The obvious answer is that it's due to the quality of the opponent. Arizona's OL was much worse than Tennessee's. I like that Wanny is the new scape goat now, replacing George Edwards. Maybe after the third DC crashes and burns someone will take a long hard look at Nix and the defensive personnel, which are very bad. Probably not though.

If this were true, then there would be no difference between offensive and defensive coordinators except for their preferences or arbitrary assignments. I suspect that if you had Chan Gailey coaching the defense and Mike Nolan coaching the offense you'd get some sketchy results. These guys may understand the basics and have some definite ideas on how to attack the other side but that doesn't make them competent to help develop game plans.

It would be nice. Just picture, you decide one day that you don't your boss at work so you start half-assing it. As a result, your boss is fired and someone that you like better is hired.

At this point in Reid's career, I would say that Gailey is a better version of Reid. If Gailey had Jim Johnson coaching the defense and a young Donovan McNabb at QB the Bills would be just as good as the Eagles were a few years ago.

Gailey has said this numerous times during the press conferences. He doesn't sit in on the defensive meetings and doesn't have much in the defensive game plan. He did imply that if things don't improve he may start asking wtf, but frankly I doubt he knows much about coaching defense at the pro level.

I'm not worried about Dareus long term. He's having some issues this season but I'm confident he will pull out of it. I suspect that some of it is psychological. He's well down the list of problems on defense.

This is also the only way he'd consider taking the position. However, judging from how things went in SF I'm not sure that he's head coaching material.

Idle speculation.

As usual, Vince nails it. This is the "inconsistency" that Gailey is talking about. To bad he appear to have no clue as to how to fix it.

Like Eric Moulds and Aaron Schobel before them.

This board is funny. I wonder if you can put ANY QB out there that won't be bashed by some on this board. "The Bills should trade for Brady." "No we don't want him. He stinks. He's past his prime and won't be any good without Belichick" or whatever. Anyway, it's all fantasy of course as Carolina will absolutely not part with Newton unless he has finally and definitively shown that he can't get it done several seasons from now.

They have gotten much bigger though.

The Bengals went to the playoffs last year because of their defense. That's where the Bills still need the most work since Nix and Gailey seem to be going in reverse on the defensive side. I'd be looking at MLB, S, OLB and DE in some order in the first four picks. As for QB, Gailey would be better off trying to bring in a veteran.

The current Bills defense is unquestionably weaker than the last one Jauron fielded in 2009. All three of their linebackers are weaker and their secondary is weaker. That defense finished 16th in the league. There's not going to be a Wannstedt miracle. The current roster is a bottom half group.

I agree that they definitely improved the offense. They don't seem to have a clue on defense however.

Jauron's last season, the starting secondary was McGee, Florence, Byrd and Whitner. Wilson was a backup seeing little action and Scott was splitting time with Ellison at LB. McKelvin was playing and struggling as usual. I'm just not sure why Jauron's defense needed to be gutted. They came in and in three years switched schemes, replaced 3 of 4 secondary starters, all three LB starters, and 2 of 4 DL starters. That's 8 new starters out of 11 plus a new system for a defense was was solidly in the middle of the pack and probably only needed a couple of players to take the next step. What have they gotten out of all these changes? Certainly not any improvement.

"He's doing this to show that Vince Young was his decision and it's working out". I had never heard that before. If that's true, then how did that work out for him after all?

It's interesting that the only player in the secondary playing well also happens to be the only holdover from the Jauron era. Buddy and Chan have worked their magic at the other positions.

Eli Manning is #8? He get's a lot of press for an "underrated" player. Also, not sure how Ngata, Welker and Whitten could be on this list.

This is my thinking as well. They are reacting too much and anticipating to little.

Perhaps part of the problem is that Williams and McGee are struggling to cover WR while Wilson, Scott and Barnett are struggling to cover TEs, and the front four is struggling to get pressure on the QB. Now you may say that this is all Wannstedt's fault, except that they stunk just as bad under Edwards the previous two seasons. They've pretty much stunk as soon as Nix and Gailey got here and started jettisoning Jauron's defensive personnel, so if you're going to blame someone I'd start there. I may be in the minority but I've got a feeling that Wanny will turn the defense around, but it may take a little time.

I assume that I'm in the minority here but I think the Bills have decent talent at WR. Johnson is clearly good, I think Jones is also solid and Graham has shown good potential. If you throw in that Nelson will be back next season and that you have Spiller and Jackson out of the backfield then I think you have plenty of good receiving talent on this team. Need better QB play.

5-4. In overtime.

I don't see Gailey moving on from Fitz at this point. If they do draft a QB next season (which isn't a given), then it will surely take a couple of years for him to become productive and Gailey will either have started winning with Fitz in the meantime or will be gone by then. So, at this point it's easy to see why Gailey is 100% behind Fitz. The only scenario I see around this is if they pick up a veteran via trade or FA in the off season.