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Yes, I have. Have you? He has never even remotely lost control of the room like Whaley did. Just because Bill doesn't have an outwardly glowing relationship with the media, doesn't mean that he loses control with them. He has half the reporters too scared to even ask him a question, for fear that it will be too dumb. A complete reversal from our situation. No idea why people keep bring that comparison up.

Is this in reference to anything specific? Out of context it's kind of difficult to follow what he's insinuating.

Ah, good call. I didn't catch that.

Here's a fun little contest to try and guess the new head coach: buffalohype.com Seems simple enough, and there's a raffle with a $250 prize.

Well said. This is a wonderful recounting.

Sure, it does seem logical. Just like it seems logical for the owners to fire the coach without talking to the GM about it first. Very, normal, logical behavior.

You're saying you're proud the team is letting the GM be in charge of the HC hire. That's how far we've gone. Just doing things the normal way gets us excited. It's a joke.

None. It's been proven time, and time again. It's a mess. I'm starting to think they make it so confusing on purpose. Constantly changing everyone's roles, constantly saying one thing and doing another, it's all part of creating a separation between their lack of success and their individual accountability. It's the reason they've gone with the rinse-repeat HC and QB carousel. It's a mess. They treat their press conference as a marketing piece. They over-think and over-calculate the simplest decisions. Russ Brandon has sat himself next to Whaley or the HC at nearly all of those PC's and today he didn't because there would be accountability and god-forbid someone actually call him out.

I don't hate Whaley, but I finally got around to watching the PC... This whole thing is a mess. Some people are calling the media vultures, and I have to disagree. The Bills do not have an apparent hierarchy and it's maddening to try and figure out who is responsible for what. The GM didn't hire or fire the coach, which is absolutely insane. To me, it's alarming the lack of control the GM has. I can only imagine Brandon brought this organizational workflow with him when the Pegulas assumed their role. A tactic in longevity is removing accountability and I will again assume that's the handy work of Brandon. Even Whaley being quick to correct people that Brandon's lack of involvement in this HC search is only because of his increased duties within the PS&E is a joke. It clearly came from Russ himself that it needs to be stated that way. This whole franchise is a mess organizationally and I expect no difference until the Pegulas bring in someone from the outside and give them real power AND accountability. I wish there was a hidden camera so we could see the reaction on their face when they learned about our current operational structure. Until then, I truly will expect nothing but the same.

Glad to see you're back. No idea where we'd be without your constant negativity.

Tyrod has handled this type of thing with much less class than EJ ever did. Not sure that means anything, but I do think EJ is a better natural leader. Tyrod is more of a lead by example type, which is hard to do when the team is ranked 30 in passing.

Serious question... how come none of our snarky journalists have ever followed up on the "robust analytics department"? They ask a lot of probing, annoying, sometimes rude questions, but I genuinely think the analytics charade is worth commenting on. In all of his infinite marketing shill-ness, Brandon tried to use a buzz word, "analytics" -- and shove it down our throats in a couple interviews, including an end-of-the-year press conference. They even sent out a nice press release when they hired a number cruncher from Xerox. My question is... in such a transparent "marketing only" move, how come he didn't get called out for it. What's his excuse? The Pegulas bought the team and we no longer moved forward with that? What, they didn't want a robust analytics department? Many of the great Russ apologists will defend this as nothing important, or say it has nothing to do with football, but to me it absolutely does. It's not just the lying that bothers me, but it's the fact that actual analytics is something we've been behind the curve on for so many years. It's annoying to trot out a buzz word or a phrase because you think it will sell when that buzz word actually represents something the team dearly needs.

Some of you have just been trolled by a 91-year old. Impressive, really.

How do you have access to the clause? Do you have access to the full contract?

0% chance that we would have contributed less than Reggie Bush thia year. That move has Rex written all over it.

Why is it that everyone always thinks these would-be head coaches, with all their infinite egos, are going to be picky at all? These guys want a head coaching job. They're not going to turn it down because of a schedule, that's ridiculous.

Would Coughlin would have punted on 4th and 2 in OT? I'm not sure that he wouldn't.

What a great, insightful post. You've convinced me he is a legitimate candidate, and I am open to hearing more about Kyle. Aside from the issues in Washington and Cleveland, anyone have a list of cons with his offense?

HAHAHAHAHA

Also - it's so easy for a Pats fan to chime in, they have the longest tenured coach in the league. It's been 17 years since you even had to think about what is needed in a head coaching candidate. Of course in a perfect world you want 3 years for your head coach at a minimum. You also need to make sure that the coach, the players already on the roster, and the GM are all on the same page about what type of team to build. Rex was never the right fit.

If Rex got another full year to fully install "his team" and system we would be much further behind than we are today. All the coaches are his cronies. The drafts were clogged up with picks for his system. You need a coach that doesn't need players to fit a specific role, but rather a coach that can just adjust to the players on the roster.

Maybe in LBRBR (Life Before Reggie Bush Reverse).

I will be shocked and impressed if it somehow comes out that Whaley actually led the search alone. There's no doubt in my mind that Russ Brandon has been all over the last two hires, and I see no reason to think he'll just keep his opinion out of this search. In a perfect world, Whaley completes the search with his top 3 or so candidates (maybe more, not sure how this works), conducts his interviews, and doesn't have to pitch them to Brandon or Pegula until he's fairly certain who is guy is. In this perfect world he gets to conduct all the interviews alone, and only until he's made his decision, do Brandon, Pegula, etc. get to sit in on the final interview. That would be the only real way that Whaley would be able to concretely say that he got his man.

"Yeah but you can't discredit garbage time because then you'd have to discredit everyone's garbage time"... /s

A ringing endorsement if I've ever heard one.