hondo in seattle

I don't hate that he's often been right. I really don't read him enough to know his career track record of being right, though I suspect he's right less than other sportswriters. I just don't like his whiny negativism. Sully is not a guy I'd want as a friend or neighbor. He strikes me as the kind of person who'd complain about the clouds on the sunniest day. That's what makes this thread funny - because there's a core of truth in all this. The quintessential Bills fan is pro-Buffalo and pro-Bills. I'm not sure Sully is either which is why he tends not be favored by us.

Fluke Victory Eases Pain of Prior Losses?

Article about Wade includes this... “I don’t understand the people that say, ‘Hey, this is our scheme, and that guy can’t play in it. The guy can play, he’s a good player, but he can’t play in our scheme,' " Phillips said. “Well, to me. There’s something wrong with your scheme.” http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2016/02/03/wade-phillips-has-fond-memories-buffalo/79786542/

Didn't see this coming. So far, I don't think the Rooney Rule has been anything but good. I don't see how this extension to the front office to include female candidates can hurt football in any way. Seems like a good thing. I wonder if the motivation was more marketing than fairness. Participation in youth and high school football is declining which threatens perhaps future viewership. If the NFL is losing male viewers, they can compensate by attracting more female viewers. The more women in the NFL as refs, coaches and in FO positions, the more woman viewers the league is likely to attract.

Victory Doesn't Excuse Poor Coaching, Sloppy Play

No QB can see over the heads of their offensive linemen. Some can see over their shoulders, though, and this increased visibility is an advantage.

"_________________ (opponent) Self Destruct, Hand Bills First SB Victory"

Jill Overdorf donated (Jim's wife?) Good cause. RIP, Brittany.

"Super Bowl Proves Best Team Doesn't Always Win" (then proceeds to recommend a best of five championship)

Sully seems to think his rude questions are hard, probing inquiries. They're not. Often he doesn't seem to accomplish anything other than antagonizing the athlete or coach. Which probably explains why Sully has so few inside sources.

I believe Hurt won an Oscar and had three more Oscar nominations after Body Heat, not to mention a very active/lucrative career. Maybe that's Utah John's point. Maybe he's suggesting Kaep will do better after SF than before???

On the one hand, TT showed promise. And lots of QBs get better with game experience. I'm hoping TT takes a big step forward in 2016. On the other hand, TE and JP once showed promise too. As has been pointed out in other threads, Green Bay, NE, and other winning franchises continue to draft QBs even when they have an established starter. We should do the same even though Tyrod performed surprisingly well last season. But.... Why do we have yet another TT thread?

This is absolutely correct. But no human being is necessarily doomed to repeat his mistakes. Rex has been successful in the past because he's spent a lifetime learning about defensive schemes and football leadership. Some of those lessons were clearly misapplied last season. While I don't know what next season holds for us, I don't think it's completely unrealistic to think Rex will learn from his 2015 mistakes. There are also the questions of (1) how long does it take to sell a team on a new philosophy?, and (2) how long does it take to teach a team a new philosophy? Bart Scott and Coach Cowher raised these issues in Dunne's article. I'm not a huge Rex fan but I don't think you can label the guy a hopeless failure after just one season.

It seems like this might be the best play for his guy now. He clearly overplayed his hand when he demanded $1 million. With the 50th anniversary come and gone, the tape doesn't have much value. I still don't get why the NFL is horrible for deciding they didn't want to pay $1 million dollars. There's no obligation for them to buy it. They just decided it wasn't worth that much and passed. Am I a bad guy when I decide to drive past McDonalds without stopping to buy something from them?

Hope is what we Bills fans live on. I guess I liked Dunne's article because the Bart Scott quotes gave me a bit more hope than I had before. Scott seems to have faith in Rex and his D. Maybe I should too.

I don't think anyone is debating this. The question is: why? Because Rex is a clueless windbag? Because Rex tried to build a hybrid D he didn't really believe in? Because Rex didn't get buy-in from the players? Because Rex tried to install too much of complicated D too fast? Because __________________________ (you fill in the blank)?

The NFL owns the rights to the game. Why would they surrender those rights? If somebody taped your wedding and wanted to make money selling the tape, wouldn't you object? Curiously, the guy owns the tapes but not the content on the tapes. Funny situation. The market always dictates the value of something. In this case, there's not much of a market. Maybe some rich ex-player or Packer fan might want to own something like this. But the tapes are incomplete, damaged, and can't be broadcast. This guy mistakenly thought he had something worth $1 million. Apparently, he was very wrong. Let's see if he can even find someone willing to pay more than the NFL's offer of $30,000.

I thought it was a good article because I expect a sports writer to piece together quotes into a coherent whole. In this case, I really don't care about Tyler Dunne's opinion of Rex and his D. What does Dunne actually know? But I do care about Bart Scott's opinion - Bart knows Rex and his D very well. Clearly, Rex failed last year on defense. We want to know why. Some here simplistically suggest Rex just isn't very bright or talented - despite a track record that says otherwise and despite the praise he receives from former players and fellow coaches. Thanks to Dunne's article, we have a couple other theories. Scott thinks the problem was with buy-in. Cowher suggests the problem might have been installing too much too fast. Both might be correct. Scott also makes an interesting argument that you beat elite, quick-release QBs wtih coverage, not with sacks. Considering Scott played for Rex, I'm assuming this is Rex's opinion too. Interesting stuff.

I used to be on the every-year-until-you-find-the-right-one bandwagon. But developing a young QB can become problematic if a new QB joins the squad every year. Plus I think there's an advantage to leaving room on the roster for an experienced backup. Some other posters have given great examples about the Pats and Packers. The best organizations draft QBs, even when they have a solid starter. Every 2 or 3 years sounds about right to me.

Rex is networking with a bunch of NFL players, coaches and staff at the Pro Bowl. He's doing this while DW and his team of college talent evaluators are evaluating college players. I'm not sure why Sully finds fault with this, except that he just likes to whine.

Thanks for posting, PTR. I didn't know about this. Interesting experiment. Surprised to see Cottrell is still coaching.

An interesting article but I agree with Mango. You can't compare a short 16 game football season against the much, much longer seasons of basketball, baseball and hockey. I guess you could compare the parity of the NFL versus the parity of the NBA, NHL and MLB after they were 16 games into a season. But the real question is: would a soft cap, higher rookie pay, or any other changes give the NFL more parity. Urschel never successfully makes that point, though he seems to suggest it. Forget about what may or may not work for the other sports. I want to see a reasoned argument that there's a way to make the NFL better. This article doesn't have it.

There's an old saying in India, "When a pickpocket walks down the street, all he sees are pockets."

Coryell won more than 100 games as a college coach and again as a NFL coach. But that's not why he deserves to be enshrined. The guy changed football forever with "Air Coryell" and the "West Coast" offense. It was Coryell, more than anyone else, who made the QB the focal point of modern offenses. His innovations increased scoring and thus made football more exciting & popular. His coaching tree includes Joe Gibbs, Bill Walsh, John Madden (first gen), Norv Turner, and Mike Martz (2nd gen) among others. Every OC today has incorporated at least some Coryell ideas. It's been argued that the nickel and dime defenses so prevalent in modern football were developed to counter Coryell's offensive innovations. So Coryell, in the end, revolutionized both offensive and defensive football. Giving his influence on the game, I'm not sure how Coryell doesn't deserve a spot in Canton.

If Dungy lost a lot of playoff games, it's because he went to the playoffs a lot. And each year all but one playoff run ends in a loss. In other words, the vast majority of good coaches end their seasons with a playoff loss. The bad coaches end up without playoff appearances. Dungy, on the other hand, is the only HC in NFL history to go to the playoffs 10 consecutive years. Think of all the great coaches in NFL history who can't match that feat. It's pretty amazing, especially when you consider Dungy did it with two different teams. He has a 139-69 lifetime record as a HC. IMHO, he's very HOF worthy. One of the most worthy on this year's list. And I'm hoping The Snake gets in as an old-timer.