The Big Cat

As Kyle Williams enters his 10th year, I'd prefer we not overhaul 67% of the remaining best-unit on the team. So, yes, BUT only if can't-miss investments are made elsewhere on the DLine.

I'm also at a loss for how this would be codified. Is it limited to coaches? What if a GM moves on? What if an owner dies? What if a team is sold? What if a HC (like Marrone) opts to quit?

How big of a splash with cap room permit? Will Mario restructure?

Only two teams in the entire NFL have the same HC/OC/DC they did in 2012: Green Bay and New England. Bad for the game? It is the game.

Also, Joe Flacco says 'hey.' So do the New York Giants. But, whatever, who cares how the last three Super Bowls were won, we're trying to win Super Bowls here!

If you haven't already read Talibi's Grantland piece that was posted/gushed over in other threads, do yourself a favor and chow down: Rex's Last Stand Another point of reference here is a great Patriots Roundtable on Dave Dameshek's podcast last week featuring Heath Evans and Willie McGinest. Listen to the episode here. Having listened to the podcast before reading Talibi's article, some things that he wrote about really jumped out at me. Namely, how yin and yang Rex and Bellicheat are, that what makes them so similar is what makes them so different. And yet, they are 100% polar opposites. McGinest and Evans verify a lot of what we've come to suspect about Bellicheat's approach to coaching, namely that he's borderline savant in his preparation, depth of knowledge, attention to details and gamesmanship. We know that Rex is equally qualified to design scheme (particularly on defense), but where Bellicheat leaves nothing to chance and seeks to create his own luck through meticulous order, Rex, on the flip side creates his own luck through sheer chaos. And this is what concerns me most about him being our coach. Bellicheat is one of a kind. I've come to accept this. He's one of, if not the greatest coach in NFL history. I had no expectation that the Bills would hire someone in a similar mold. But, his style, as he's clearly proven is built to manufacture wins, to relentlessly churn them out. Rex, on the other hand, has a style akin to a blindfolded Hulk wildly throwing haymakers. Yes, we are going to knock some teams the !@#$ out. But we'll be playing a high risk high reward style of football, and I'm afraid that, unlike Bellicheat's teams that are built on discipline and focus, we're definitely going to drop some games we have no business losing. Sure, it'll be fun. I guess I'm just afraid of what Talibi refers to as Karmatic nightmares, the likes of which we've already had our fill of, here in Buffalo. Finally, the one point that does couch this concern is the caliber of players we have in our locker room. However, as I've been saying for awhile, the heart and soul of our team--without question--is Kyle Williams and Fred Jackson. I can foresee scenarios wherein they keep the Rexy bravado grounded, but once they're gone, I seriously question who's left that can have that kind of calming presence on our squad.

And yet they were fine with four? Five is the tipping point? I don't think so. These guys are pros. It's not like they're changing coordinators week to week. I'm suddenly reminded of the sweeping Wide-9/oh-my-god-we'll-never-blitz paranoia that swept through Bills Nation following the Schwartz hire. As the guy who wagged his finger at everyone bitching about Hackett by reminding the mob how untalented key parts of our offense were, let me now join others and say: this defense, with even the slightest bit of coaching competency, will be just fine.

It's five actually. One for every year Dareus/AWilliams have been with us: Edwards, Wanny, Pettine, Schwartz, Thruman

Where did you grow up? During the 2008 election I volunteered at Obama headquarters, sorting letters from kids. Kids from blue states got a letter in return. Kids from red states got nothing. Kids from swing states got a whole care package.

I love that a writer from hngn gets fans excited, but a columnist with the San Jose Mercury News, not so much.

Yeah...

According to the column I added, it was no secret that Harbaugh intercepted/altered play calls from booth to Kap. Speculation has it that this relay contributed to difficulties with the play clock.

He's a columnist for a paper with roughly 3 times the daily circulation of the Buffalo News. But whatev. Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh, you're talking about Brandon. I thought you were talking about York.

Correct.

Good businessman???? He had one job after college, held it for less than a year and then got scooped up by daddy to land in a cushy VP role with the Niners.

What do you know about SF's 35 year old Russ Brandon?

Well, for starters he's not a blogger. Not literally and certainly not in the figurative sense you meant to imply.

http://twitter.com/timkawakami/status/554742464506904577 Greg Roman goes to Buffalo, ending his term as the most egregiously scapegoated 49ers assistant in years: ... bit.ly/1C9CTEO Greg Roman goes to Buffalo, ending his term as the most egregiously scapegoated 49ers assistant in years

Play doesn't change if he crosses the goal line. As the fall was deemed part of the "process of the catch," it's not a catch until he lands and the ball--without touching the ground*--stays in his possession. They determined, during the replay, the fall was part of the catch and that the ground jarred it loose. The falling being part of the process trumps all of this because the catch is not completed until the fall is. Therefore, no football move can be made. This makes perfect sense to me, unfortunately.

It certainly (a) pumps the brakes on the whole "our QB's were neutered" theory or (b) fully substantiates it if/when our signal caller plays with noticeably more swagger next year (as I expect he will).

Let's just copy paste this in perpetuity.

Just to play devil's advocate, what's different about Roman's OC designation under Harbaugh compared to Marrone's under Payton?

He's barely below .500. And that's after posting 4-12 this year.

And that was my thought as well: he shouldn't have just tucked it in. There was no reason to extend and go for six. But, I mean...that's pretty easy for me, the guy on the couch, to say.

This is PRECISELY what happened to Megatron. It appears from replays that the release of the ball was entirely voluntary. And again, for every play like that, for every play like yesterday's, there are a dozen other would-be catches that are rightfully overturned with A LOT less grey area.