Nihilarian

NO, The guy failed as a pocket passer and was always injured as a running QB. Cue the Bills fans who want ColinKaepernick as the 3rd string QB.

He was all talk and promises with the NY Jets too. Sadly, all I see in the future is him and his brother taking years to build a mediocre defense that will still have discipline, penalty issues even if he starts calling more blitzes. This reminds me so much of the 2010 season with George Edwards as DC, and the shifting from Jauron's 4-3 to a 3-4 and when that didn't work he went back to a 4-3 for 2011 and that didn't work either. This with a defense that had nine of 11 starters as either a 1st or 2nd round draft pick, so it wasn't the players! Then Dave Wannstedt gave it a shot with his simplistic 4-3 with very little blitzing and opposing teams still had their way making that defense look so bad. Mike Pettine took over in 2013 and ran a hybrid 3-4 / 4-3 that worked to an extent in bringing the Bills notoriety in being the #2 defense in the NFL in sacks. Finally, it took a modern 4-3 master in DC Jim Schwartz to bring a real top defense to Buffalo with a 4-3 that didn't blitz very much but was able to lead the NFL in sacks. This year with a defense loaded with as much talent as any team in the NFL on defense the 2015 Buffalo Bills defense regressed so badly in a 3-4 with 4-3 players it was actually worse than any Bills defense in sacks that I can remember. the Bills only had 21 sacks all season. Now the Bills will attempt to retool the defense to fit Ryan's 3-4 and then probably end up firing him after the 2016 season. Will the stupidity ever end with the constant drafting, re-drafting of defensive players to fit the current defensive coordinators scheme? It's not only Kyle Williams as DT Marcell Dareus isn't a fit in Ryan's 3-4 either. I'm sure he won't be happy in 2016 in being used as a space eating gap control player like he was last season. It really is sad that this supposed defensive genius only knows how to run his 3/4 scheme

A great win isn't the discussion at hand. It's whether or not this years team could have beaten one of the playoff teams and its a no in my view. That end of the season game might have been a "great game" with more importance to it had it not been a meanless win for the Bills, as their season ended in Washington two weeks earlier.

It is much worse being a Buffalo Bills fan simply because of 16 years man, 16 years! The last time the Buffalo Bills finished the season with more than 10 wins was 1999! At least, the Bungals getting in the playoffs gives a glimmer of hope that your team will make it to the SB. And the Cleveland Browns, at least, had 10 wins in 2007. Then they went to the playoffs in 2002. The Buffalo Bills currently lead the league in not getting to the playoffs, National Football League 1. Buffalo Bills Jared Wickerham/Getty Images Last Playoff Appearance: 1999 It’s somewhat hard to believe the Bills have fallen on such hard times given their dominance of the 1990s. They recently decided to bench quarterback EJ Manuel in favor of Kyle Orton, which is a move that displays continued uncertainty at the most important position in the game. A solid defense may not be enough to end this drought in 2014. 2015.2016 http://www.cheatsheet.com/sports/3-longest-playoff-droughts-in-each-major-american-sport.html/?a=viewall

HamSandwhich, on 10 Jan 2016 - 06:40 AM, said: "Not sure why you are trying to diminish that last win. The Jets were fresh off a big win over the Pats and were about to enter the playoffs after they beats. No-so-fast, with a depleted injury riddled team, we beat them convincingly (not by the score, but by the fact that I felt we had that game in control the whole way). It was a big win. " First of all the Bills needed a better record than 8-8 and they simply didn't have that. It would have meant at least three more regular season wins to get into the playoffs. I say this mostly because Rex Ryan was facing the team that fired him and he looked to have his team particularly well prepared and disciplined to beat the Jets, unlike most other games this year. Perhaps because he himself stated it like he was getting back at an old flame he loved that dumped him. Revenge can be sweet. Then, the Bills were facing an ex-Buffalo Bills head coach in Chan Gailey who's game planning, play calling MO was not lost on the NY Jets HC. Rex Ryan's Jets swept the Bills in 2010, Rex Ryan's Jets swept the Bills in Gailey's second year in 2011! Then Gailey's Bills went 1-1 in his third year in 2012. So in his three years as Bills HC Chan Gailey was 1-5 against Rex Ryan's NY Jets from 2010-2012. To top that off, In that loss this year to Ryan's Bills, Chan Gailey did exactly what lost him so many games as the Bills HC in that he was the one calling the offensive plays. He would force his QB to carry the game by passing more than throwing the ball and in this case, the Jets ran the ball only 17 times vs having Fitzpasspick throwing it 37 times. Sure enough and true to his past history, Fitz threw three picks with the game on the line. Plus, the Bills were actually able to get pressure on the QB in this game which was unusual compared to the other 13 of 16 games.

Think back to the end of the season and all the injuries. Just because the Bills beat a bad 4-12 Clownboy team. Then a Jets team with Chan Gailey calling mostly pass plays along with Fitzpasspick at QB at the end of the year doesn't mean they could beat an actual playoff team. The Chiefs on a 10 game win streak now.

There was some talk of replacing Marvin Lewis with one of his coordinators previous to this WC game and now it looks like a real possibility. I'm thinking the Bengals fire Lewis tomorrow and hire Hue Jackson as their new HC. They probably stand to lose both coordinators anyway and I've read that the owner is tired of not winning a playoff game. Six out of 14 seasons in the playoffs and now not one single playoff win and they were all wildcard games, save this year...yikes!

If it's any consolation JohnC I feel the same way. There is little doubt in my mind that even if Rex Ryan builds a #1 defense next year it will end badly because of all the ancillary problems with the team because of Ryan. Simply put Rex Ryan is not the type of head coach that will improve the team over time as he has already showed what will happen over time with him in charge. If I'm Terry Pegula I would have a talk with Bill Cowher to see if he has any interest in coaching again and listen to his ideas on building an SB team. Talk with Tom Coughlin and listen to his plan to build an SB team. Then fire Ryan and hire one of those two men. Both are the antithesis of Ryan and run a strict well-disciplined team.

What a turn of events the last 5 min of the game, WOW! There is talk that Bengals HC Marvin Lewis might not survive this season if it ends tonight. The team wants to hire either assistant coach OC Hue Jackson or GuentherGuenthre as their new HC. Perhaps not Guenther now

Yep! Not with this years defense.

UPDATE!

Man, it won't be one of these two teams making it to the SB.

Dick Vermeil & Marv are still alive Yes, Tom Coughlin could help the Bills provided they fire Wrex Ryan. No doubt in my mind that Coughlin would right this ship asap. Keeping Greg Roman and hiring a decent DC to run a proper 4-3. Man 0 Man I'd love to see what this team would do against the Patriots then.

This reminds me of the Detroit lions hiring Steve Mariucci to properly develop #1 pick overall QB Joey Harrington. Then Lions head coach Marty Mornhinweg along with Maurice Carthon as OC got their hands on the rookie first and ruined him. 577 passing attempts vs 358 rushing attempts on a bad Lions team devoid of top talent. That name Mornhinweg sound familiar? He was the guy Rex Ryan brought in to run his offense in NY 2013-2014, and now you know why Geno Smith went from bad to worse. He was also Andy Reid's OC in Philly a lot of years but he had Reid running that Eagle offense. Anyway, I think the Dolphins would have had better success in hiring someone like Tom Coughlin and then let him hire an OC that would help further develop the Talleywhacker. This way a top DC gets hired too.

In 2007, Michael Strahan was leading a players revolt in training camp saying Coughlin's practices were too intense. After the 2006 season, Tom Coughlin was on thin ice with the FO and almost fired. Strahan figured he could verbally push the strict task master out the door. The pair met and Coughlin lightened up a bit on the practices. That year the NY Giants won the SB! If I'm not mistaken afterward Strahan told Coughlin he was right in being so strict.

Yea, pardon me for exaggerating about going from #1 in the league to 31st in sacks. Dropping a defensive linemen into pass coverage on 3rd down was so successful this year.

Pete Carroll inherited a bad 5-11 team and in his first year as HC had his Seahawk team in the playoffs and they actually won that first WC game against the Saints. My point was that some head coaches find a way to work with the GM to acquire better players and to put the players already on the roster in position to make plays. Greg Roman did that this season and Rex Ryan didn't The new owners didn't have to keep Ryan after this year and made the choice to keep him as HC in hopes that the team will improve. I've seen enough of bad coaching over the years to think that he won't improve the team enough to ever take the division title away from NE!

I disagree as the Jets had multiple all pros on their offensive line and with the defense. They still had Antonio Cromartie at CB who played all 16 games as did Calvin Pace, David Harris, Muhammad Wilkerson, and Sheldon Richardson played in 15. S Dawan Landry was from his days in Baltimore. It wasn't like that 2013 Jets team was totally devoid of talent. Marrone was basically handed three rookie QB's to play behind one of the very worst lines in the league and we all know what his choice for OC was like with his "hurry up and punt offense" that season.

The Pack is at Washington and they are one of the hottest team right now, and GB not so hot. Just hope your D can cover Jordan Reed.

Some teams are waiting for the playoffs to end to be thorough in interviewing all candidates. Adam Gase might be hired quickly as he is a very hot prospect as a new HC. The Dolphins have interviewed him twice and are looking for an offensive mind to further develop Talleywhacker. Hue Jackson will get hired after the Bengals are out of the playoffs. San Fran looks to be really wanting him. Although we don't know if that desire is mutual. Chip Kelly-Doug Marrone- Mike Shanahan are some others that teams are giving long hard looks so far. The Raiders were tending upwards with him as HC and it was that near last defense that made that 2011 season so bad. Jackson went all in on Carson Palmer and now we can see why. It wasn't his fault that Palmer only lasted 10 games .Tom Cable was the guy before Jackson and he did well in 2010 with Jason Campbell at QB. Back then Raiders owner Al Davis had little patience for his head coaches and wanted instant success.

What? Are you saying the 2013 roster was better than the 2015 roster? I strongly disagree with that. That 6-10 first season for Marrone in 2013 was the result of no QB coach with basically three rookie QB's attempting to learn their trade while being coached by an absolute fool for an OC in Nate Hackett. This with one of the very worst offensive lines in the game...again, with three rookie QB's Rex Ryan inherited a 9-7 Jets team in 2009 with multiple all pro players on the offensive line and on the defense. Defensive players Derrell Revis, Shaun Ellis, Calvin Pace, David Harris already on the team when he got there. The team drafted a rookie QB and ran the ball far more than they passed it those first two years. Rex Ryan won those first two years by playing ball control offense with a strong run game and playing great defense. The Jets offense in 2009 393 passing attempts vs 607 rushing attempts. wow! RB Thomas Jones 1402 yards rushing, 14 TD's. The Jets offense in 2010 525 passing attempts vs 534 rushing attempts with LaDainian Tomlinson as the RB Then in 2011 the Jets asked QB Mark Sanchez to step up his game and throw a lot more and the result wasn't very good. 2009- 9-7 AFC Championship game as a WC 2010- 11-5 AFC Championship game as a WC Rex Ryan's last four seasons with the NY Jets. 2011- 8-8 2012- 6-10 2013- 8-8 2014-4-12 2015- 8-8 Gee, look familiar? I attribute Ryan's first two seasons with the Jets much the same way Dick Jauron got lucky his one season and went 13-3, only Ryan was able to do it twice. I don't hate Rex Ryan simply because he is Rex Ryan. I can't stand him for what he did to the defense this year. Just the same way I liked Jim Schwartz for what he was able to do with the Bills defense what George Edwards, Dave Wannstedt, and even Mike Pettine were unable to do. The sad fact is Rex Ryan is responsible for what happens on the field as a head coach on both sides of the ball. To cry that his GM tried to get him fired by not getting him the players he needed on defense was ridiculous. The team had three different offensive coordinators in his six years at the helm and a multitude of QB's in which the team failed big time to develop any of them or get any of them to win past the 2010 season. Both the offense regressed and the defense regressed under Ryan. Unlike Pete Carroll who could develop a 5th round pick into an all pro player. Rex Ryan needs the players to already be on the roster and not just any old superstar players either. He needs players that fit his scheme or his scheme won't work. Sadly we Bills fans gotta buy into 2016 Buffalo Bills because we have no choice and the new owner doesn't have the courage of his convictions to realize he made a mistake with his first hire

To add to this simply go back to the Chiefs game in which Ryan had Marcell Dareus drop into pass coverage several times and on two of those occasions the Chiefs QB Alex Smith threw two TD's. Ineptitude is very difficult to hide in the NFL and I have my doubts that even if Ryan had better linebackers, safeties, cornerbacks with no injuries it still would have been difficult for his defense to stop anyone with so little actual blitzing the team did this year. it looked to me like many teams kept six in to block and the Bills mostly only sent four...sometimes three. It was almost like Ryan was determined to show he was a better DC than Schwartz who only blitzed about 20% of the time in 2014 and Ryan blitzed much less than that. To average it out Ryan blitzed only about 10% of the time most of the year in 2015.

I dunno GG I just rewatched that game and though it is difficult to see what is happening from the side view it looked to me like #71 of the Bengals simply stoned #74 most of the game. It looked to me like Mario was giving effort on every play. Joe B grade that game and gave Mario a "C". That article I linked earlier the author wrote about what happened in that Bengals game and gave his opinion. http://www.sbnation.com/2015/10/21/9581575/mario-williams-marcell-dareus-rex-ryan-buffalo-bills-defense. The sad fact of the matter is that the Bills were only able to get one hit on Andy Dalton all game and that was from a blitz. Dalton was getting the ball out quickly and negating the rush. What bugs the heck out of me is to watch the Bills rush with only three players on some plays and the Bengals looked like they always had six in to block.

I agree that Ryan's defensive scheme is complicated and somewhat difficult to learn. However, I just don't think it takes 14 games or a season to fully learn it. The 2009 NY Jets went from around 18th the previous year to #1 in total defense in Ryan's first year mostly because he had the proper personnel on the roster to run it. Those Jets didn't need most of the year to learn his scheme. Jim Schwartz had a simple attack plan to utilize his defensive line to mostly rush the passer. He still had some of them dropping into pass coverage now and again to mix things up, just not to the extent that Ryan did this year. It was like Ryan was running a zone blitz scheme without any blitzing. Schwartz"s scheme for the D-line = attack! Ryan's scheme = could have a multitude of checks which can make the defense slow to react and screw up if they make the wrong read, which happened a bunch. It wasn't just the injuries. It wasn't just the lack of blitzing. It wasn't just utilizing a bad scheme fit for the players on the roster. It wasn't just asking the elite pass rushers to drop into pass coverage more than they should have. It wasn't just the scheme asking the elite pass rushers to play gap control over rushing the passer. It wasn't just the defensive play calls coming in late. It wasn't just switching out defensive players as the offense broke the huddle or players not being set when the ball is snapped. It was a confluence of everything above creating the crapstorm of a defense we all saw on the field and yea it was that bad. From a top five unit to 20th for most of the year was a disaster in my view. What bothers me a bit is that the last two meaningless games it looked like the coaches finally changed up the defense to be more simplified with less dropping into coverage along with more rushing the passer. Doing this moved the stats down a notch from 20th to 19th. What also bothers me is the fact that a new HC ruined a playoff caliber defense because he didn't want to adjust the scheme to fit the players. So, now the team will need to add different players to make Ryan's defense work and how many years will that take?

See, I myself can't really tell when he took a play off. I can recall watching the 2012 Buffalo Bills defense under Dave Wannstedt and it looked to me like the Bills had great difficulty in getting pressure on the QB just rushing the front four and not blitzing. This year in Rex Ryans 3-4 under it is even worse and Ryan blitzed so few times in many games this year. I think Rex Ryan lost some of the players in the Bills locker room just the same way he had with the Jets the last few years. It's one thing for one player to publically state their disdain for something wrong with the team and then yes you could color him a malcontent. This year it's been all four D-linemen saying the very same thing only some not as vocal as others. Marcell Dareus has been complaining about what he is being asked to do since training camp. Jerry Hughes has been vocal about it as was Kyle Williams only not so much as the other two. Some excerpts from an article by Stephen White, a retired NFL player who contributes articles to SB Nation. http://www.sbnation.com/2015/10/21/9581575/mario-williams-marcell-dareus-rex-ryan-buffalo-bills-defense "The point is why would you not use your high priced, elite pass rushers (Kyle Willaims don't come cheap either, bro) to do what they do best? Especially when the Bills -- the guys who blitzed Luck 25 times on 55 pass dropbacks in Week 1 -- only blitzed the Bengals 13 times the whole damn game." "Well, it seems like Rex Ryan is suddenly determined to put square pegs into round holes by putting his scheme over talent, at least he was Sunday. We know that the Bills have four dominant defensive linemen who fit best in an attacking 4-3 scheme. " "Instead of putting his best players in the best positions to not only be successful and productive, Ryan seems to be clinging to his 3-4 roots a bit too fiercely and holding them back. While the Bills lined up 19 times in either an over or under alignment (4-3) against the Bengals, they lined up in a base version of a 3-4 defense 22 times (those numbers do not include third-down plays)." "It's much worse than just Ryan having his best pass rushers dropping into coverage too much rather than actually, yanno, pass rushing." "One edge guy, either Williams or Hughes, generally gets to stand up and either set the edge/pass rush on the edge or drop into coverage when they line up in a base 3-4. The other edge rusher often has to line up on the offensive tackle rather than being on an edge. That's pretty much the opposite of an ideal situation for most highly skilled pass rushers." Even having Mario Williams, a human cheat code with his ridiculous combination of size, strength and athletic ability, two-gapping an offensive tackle is a pretty dumb thing to do on a regular basis because it's obvious he doesn't like doing it! I greatly admire Williams' game, but he's just not that guy who wants to be lined up head-up and wrestle with a 300-pounder all game. That goes double for Hughes, who plays with plenty of heart, but doesn't have nearly the kind of size and strength you generally want in a 3-4 five technique defensive end." "After watching this film, I have no idea who this version of Rex Ryan is. And that is unfortunate. As tacky and inadvisable as it is for players to call out their coaches to the media, I do think Ryan should do himself a favor and actually start listening to what they are saying. The reason is simple, they are not wrong." I honestly don't know what happened in Rex Ryan's head between week one to week eleven to stop calling blitzes like he was so used to doing in past years. While continuing to put his superstar D-line players in a non-optimal position to make plays. All I do know is it was a certifiable disaster to misuse the Buffalo Bills defensive line players like he has this year. All I can think of is he must have given Terry Pegula one hell of an excuse to retain his job as the Buffalo Bills HC.