hondo in seattle

This is how I feel exactly. I guess if two guys were equal in production and skill, maybe I'd give the nod to the taller/bigger guy. Otherwise, show me who can play. Boykin's 4.7 makes you wonder how well he can create separation against NFL DBs.

That seems to be true. He might have been a true master of the wedge - how to run it and how to defeat it. With the wedge illegal, that expertise is now moot. Just speculating.

I live in Seattle so I root for them - in a mild, dispassionate kind of way. And I always hope to see Freddy do something good.

This is a really good analysis. (But I wish I knew more about actual assignments: two-gap versus one-gap: Is Rex really universally two-gap?). I can't agree with the sentiment in the last sentence however. If you blow up the coaching staff every year, you won't ever win many games and you won't be able to attract good coaches or players. Continuity is important for players - they need time to excel in a system. But it's also important for coaches. Coaches want to work some place where they'll be able to keep a job for a few years, settle into the community, allow their kids to enjoy normal friendships and after-school activities. No good coach wants to work for an owner with a one-year leash. Given's Roman's good track record with offenses, and Rex's good track record with defenses (last year's debacle excepted), it makes sense to keep these guys together to see what they can do in Year 2. Every coach has outlier years. No coach can be defined by his first or worst season. Marv Levy went 31-42 with the Chiefs. He went 9-13 his first season and a half with the Bills. Thankfully, Ralph didn't give Marv a short-lease and the following year the Bills went 12-4. Continuity matters.

My wife was rooting for the Pack too for the same reason: she likes Aaron Rodgers. Says he's cute. Sometime in the 3rd quarter, I told her my favorite player in the game was Fitz. "Fitzgerald is getting old, but he's one of the best receivers in the league, and one of the best people too." And Fitz came through - on both counts - impressively. Won the game for them; classy in interviews. Don't remember this.

This is a very good point, Dork. If you can reliably earn 4-6 yards with certain play-calls, who cares if they are running or passing plays? Some teams use the high percentage short passes of the West Coast offense as a substitute for a run game. We don't need that substitute with Roman and our backs. But I still wonder, if our good ground game was stymied by a great run D, could TT lead us to victory? Or if we found ourselves 20 points behind in the 3rd quarter? If the situation demanded it, could TT become Dan Fouts, for example - instead of one of the today's dink-and-dunk QBs - and throw downfield for 300+ yards? TD has done some puff pieces - but good puff pieces that provide us with some new insight about a player. He's also done some more analytical, critical stuff. From my perspective, the best Bills beat reporter today. He'll work to get you information you care about and present it in a way that balances optimism & positivity with hard realism.

By the way, Dunne's article on Tyrod is excellent. http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/184534-vote-for-tyrod-for-tvp/

The Chiefs put up 31 on us but only 10 on the Pack. While we lost to the Chiefs 31-7, they lost to Green Bay 35-10. We were better in '64 and '65 than we were that year. Our D was good in '66 but KC's offense had a lot more weapons. And they still struggled to score on the Pack.

Yep. I really disliked the guy when he came out of college. But then I read a couple articles where he sounded like a good guy who occasionally does really dumb/bad things. He's more of a mental case than a criminal.

Your conclusions are based on a non-random sample of two? Well, I guess that nails it. No room for debate here.

And Dr. Z? I know he quit writing because of a stroke. But haven't heard any updates.

Small sample but nice research. Continuity really matters when you have the right front office and right coaching staff. And that's the challenge. When the wins aren't coming yet, how do you know? The Lions, to give one egregious example, left Matt Millen in charge for 7 years in the name of continuity. They could have given him 20, it would have never gotten better. But I'm all in favor of giving DW and Rex a chance to build something, despite how inauspicious Rex's first season was. One season doesn't define a coach.

Who says Marrone is whining? I doubt if Sexton is working very hard on Marrone's behalf. He's set up a few interviews, answered a few inquiries, probably plugged Marrone a bit when he's been on calls. Marrone was a mediocre HC here in Buffalo but he's still employable in the NFL. As long as he is, it makes sense for Sexton to keep him on as a client. Agents make money on any coach who can land a job, not just head coaches.

With Ed Reed coming in and Dennis Thurman supposedly being pushed down, did Donnie Hendersen become expendable? Tim McDonald is also a DB coach with the Bills. He seems to be the forgotten man though his resume as a player isn't shabby either: 6 Pro Bowls and a Super Bowl ring. If the stories of Dennis working primarily with the secondary this year are true, that gives us three guys working with the defensive backfield. All three are ex-players and all three have made the Pro Bowl. “Being that I was a player and I studied the game the way I studied it, I don't feel like it might take as long as it does for certain coaches." ~ Ed Reed.

I was alive then but too young to form an opinion. My first Bills memory - a couple years later - is of Mini Max Andersen taking a hit and swallowing his tongue. It's too bad the Bills won the AFL Championship the two years before the first SB but not that year. We were very close to playing in the first SB.

None of us know how effective the defensive coaching staff will be in 2016. We're not insiders. We have some vague knowledge of the capability of DCs, OCs and HCs. But very, very few of us can say anything intelligent about position coaches. We know what we read and that's about it. As if what we read on sports websites is actually reliable. What we see on the field is dependent on so many variables (scheme, athletic ability, personal distractions, the HC's and DC's plan for offseason preparation and game week preparation, the kids' 'coachability' and so on), it's hard to evaluate how well coached these kids are by their position coaches. Donnie seemed like a good position coach. Ever now and then you'd hear a player praising him. Then again, virtually all position coaches are praised by some player or another. It will be interesting to hear what the players say about the departing coaches. It will be more interesting to see how they'll perform under new coaches. I won't pretend to know what to expect.

I'm still waiting to see what Rob Ryan's role will be but I'm expecting he will be kind of the de facto DC, running Rex's D, and pushing Thurman to more of a position coach (DBs). Rob's track record as a DC isn't good. But here's what Phil Simms had to say about Rob getting fired from NO... “You know once they fired Rob Ryan, the defense didn’t get any better. When you’ve got a horse that is slow, it ain’t going to win the Kentucky Derby. I don’t know what anybody expected from the New Orleans Saints. I did a game of theirs. I remember looking at their roster and going, ‘ok, it is right where it should be on the defensive side.'” He also said, "Rob makes Rex look like he is introverted so it is going to be interesting. Knowledge, communication with the players and energy, all that is going to help. I think it is a really good hire.” http://talkintv.buffalonews.com/2016/01/12/cbs-simms-rexs-hiring-of-rob-is-a-positive-development-for-bills/

It's true that Rex runs the D but Rex is also the Head Coach. Rex sometimes needs time away from the defense. Sometimes he's going to be in meetings with DW or other OBD folks. Sometimes he's going to spend time with the offense. Sometimes he's going to be busy with admin or PR tasks. So he needs a day-to-day DC to run practices, manage the defensive coaching staff, and so on. That person (Rob or Thurman) will not have as much input as an independent DC working for an offensive HC. But the role is still important.

If nothing else, it's an interesting off-season already. Rex promised big changes. Some thought he'd shake up the roster. But he's shaking up the coaching staff.

Has Rob's hiring have anything to do with Donnie's leaving? Donnie wants authority. But with Rob on the staff, there are now three guys (Ryan, Ryan, Thurman) with more voice in the defense than Donnie. Donnie may want to go somewhere where he has a bigger say in things.

Rex is an eternal optimist. I bet he explained that he builds a D around the players, not vice-versa. I'm guessing he saw himself as the architect of some hybrid system that would get the most out of the players on the roster. It didn't work in the end. But Rex probably had a lot of enthusiasm in the beginning.

Donnie Henderson is leaving. There's a big change. Not a good one.

The good news is that I'm going into 2016 with much lower expectations. It will be much harder for Rex to disappoint me this season. Good luck to Donnie!

So who gets cut? And who gets signed?

Rex says... "We’re going to do things much differently next year, and we’re going to be better because of it. In a way, I tried to merge a couple of things, you know, two systems and things like that. And quite honestly, it didn’t work, so we’re going to be all in, we’re going to play Buffalo Bill defense, and we’re not going to be fun to play." What does Rex exactly mean and what are the ramifications?