Fake-Fat Sunny Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 I know a lot of folks live in a world where there are only two choices great and horrible, but the rest of us live in a world known as reality where unfortunately life is a bit more complicated that making an easy judgment based on whether you classify a co-ordinator as being totally bad or totally great. Jerry Gray really has striked me as being a mixed bag in his work for the Bills. I think the results clearly indicate this. The results sucked in his first two years under GW. The product improved alot in performance once LeBeau was brought in to install his system rather than the GW system which was simply not a good one for the player talent we had. The product improved even more in 2004 with LeBeau gone and gray totally in charge under offensive guru HC MM. The results sucked again last year. Overall, I would think and hope the Bills could do better than these mixed results. However, there seem to me to be plenty of other reasons in terms of the huge discontinuity of the firings to find opportunities to retain the things that worked well at various points under TD while much of the failed efforts were swept away in the firing. Particularly because there are some things which are going to be kept like it or not (an HC with 3 year's left on his contract, the players for the most part). The question is not one of whether Gray is totally incompetent or whether none of this was his fault. The question is whether given Gray's pluses and minuses, whether one can galvanize the pluses to make it work and most important WHO is a better alternative at DC. Outside of some former HCs who have simil;ar mixed record of failure and success whom I do not see MM being comfortable with having a former HC like Haslett or Capers standing over his shoulder, i simply have not heard or seen anyone make a good case to hire someone else as DC. To me, this is the +/- on Gray- 1. He did not prove capable in his first two years of running a scheme inappropropriate to the players here. The GW scheme worked in TN because of players like Kearse at DE and Bishop at SS. I'm sorry, it just was not going to work with Chidi Ahanatou and Raion Hill. To the extent Gray advocated or bought off on this he is to blame for the results. 2. However, though i expected the continued el foldo from him when he was retained for 2003, I actually was impressed with him doing the play-calling for the LeBeau D and mastering it so quickly. This was an indicator that it was probably GW primarily at fault for our inappropriate D in 2001-02 or at least that Gray had learned the lessons of failure if it was his mistake that Jenkins had something left to be our SS. 3. Gray's work in 2004 was really impressive in that it is a reasonable thought that the D improvement in 2003 is mostly linked to LeBeau's zone blitz. However, it seems far more likely that Gray beat out LeBeau for the total DC job for good reason. If the D had still been top 10 but lost a step when LeBeau left the theory would conform to the facts that the improvement was LeBeau's work. However, in 2004, the gameplanning was all Gray's and the in game adjustments were all Gray's as LeBeau was long gone. The performance in these two areas plus what appeared to be nice work recalibrating the team in the 2 opportunity of the bye week and this corresponding with the winning streak which occured afterwards and got the Bills to the brink of the playoffs last year are indicators of some good Gray skills and work. 4. The results this year are a big minus, but I think leaves open the question of whether the 2006 Gray could repeat the improvement he showed in 2003 and 004 if the overall Bills ship of state is righted. Maybe or maybe not, but we'll have to see what Marv comes up with and how he dovetails with MM to make intelligent judgments about Gray. In the interim we may have no choice if he goes to an HC job with the texans or a college in Texas. it does make fiscal sense for the Bills to see this well-paid DC decide to leave rather than have us pay him big bucks because we gave him the boot (the most credible events that line up with this theory is that his position coaches got the boot). However, overall, Gray has been a mixed bag and I could see how it would work with him under the correct circumstances. Even worse I have seen no one advocate a working alternative or person for 2006 DC under Marve and MM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ1 Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 I know a lot of folks live in a world where there are only two choices great and horrible, but the rest of us live in a world known as reality where unfortunately life is a bit more complicated that making an easy judgment based on whether you classify a co-ordinator as being totally bad or totally great. Jerry Gray really has striked me as being a mixed bag in his work for the Bills. I think the results clearly indicate this. The results sucked in his first two years under GW. The product improved alot in performance once LeBeau was brought in to install his system rather than the GW system which was simply not a good one for the player talent we had. The product improved even more in 2004 with LeBeau gone and gray totally in charge under offensive guru HC MM. The results sucked again last year. Overall, I would think and hope the Bills could do better than these mixed results. However, there seem to me to be plenty of other reasons in terms of the huge discontinuity of the firings to find opportunities to retain the things that worked well at various points under TD while much of the failed efforts were swept away in the firing. Particularly because there are some things which are going to be kept like it or not (an HC with 3 year's left on his contract, the players for the most part). The question is not one of whether Gray is totally incompetent or whether none of this was his fault. The question is whether given Gray's pluses and minuses, whether one can galvanize the pluses to make it work and most important WHO is a better alternative at DC. Outside of some former HCs who have simil;ar mixed record of failure and success whom I do not see MM being comfortable with having a former HC like Haslett or Capers standing over his shoulder, i simply have not heard or seen anyone make a good case to hire someone else as DC. To me, this is the +/- on Gray- 1. He did not prove capable in his first two years of running a scheme inappropropriate to the players here. The GW scheme worked in TN because of players like Kearse at DE and Bishop at SS. I'm sorry, it just was not going to work with Chidi Ahanatou and Raion Hill. To the extent Gray advocated or bought off on this he is to blame for the results. 2. However, though i expected the continued el foldo from him when he was retained for 2003, I actually was impressed with him doing the play-calling for the LeBeau D and mastering it so quickly. This was an indicator that it was probably GW primarily at fault for our inappropriate D in 2001-02 or at least that Gray had learned the lessons of failure if it was his mistake that Jenkins had something left to be our SS. 3. Gray's work in 2004 was really impressive in that it is a reasonable thought that the D improvement in 2003 is mostly linked to LeBeau's zone blitz. However, it seems far more likely that Gray beat out LeBeau for the total DC job for good reason. If the D had still been top 10 but lost a step when LeBeau left the theory would conform to the facts that the improvement was LeBeau's work. However, in 2004, the gameplanning was all Gray's and the in game adjustments were all Gray's as LeBeau was long gone. The performance in these two areas plus what appeared to be nice work recalibrating the team in the 2 opportunity of the bye week and this corresponding with the winning streak which occured afterwards and got the Bills to the brink of the playoffs last year are indicators of some good Gray skills and work. 4. The results this year are a big minus, but I think leaves open the question of whether the 2006 Gray could repeat the improvement he showed in 2003 and 004 if the overall Bills ship of state is righted. Maybe or maybe not, but we'll have to see what Marv comes up with and how he dovetails with MM to make intelligent judgments about Gray. In the interim we may have no choice if he goes to an HC job with the texans or a college in Texas. it does make fiscal sense for the Bills to see this well-paid DC decide to leave rather than have us pay him big bucks because we gave him the boot (the most credible events that line up with this theory is that his position coaches got the boot). However, overall, Gray has been a mixed bag and I could see how it would work with him under the correct circumstances. Even worse I have seen no one advocate a working alternative or person for 2006 DC under Marve and MM. 559001[/snapback] I'd be willing to take my chances with almost anyone else. Point to one successful halftime adjustment Jerry made in 2005. Case closed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2003Contenders Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 I know a lot of folks live in a world where there are only two choices great and horrible, but the rest of us live in a world known as reality where unfortunately life is a bit more complicated that making an easy judgment based on whether you classify a co-ordinator as being totally bad or totally great. Jerry Gray really has striked me as being a mixed bag in his work for the Bills. I think the results clearly indicate this. The results sucked in his first two years under GW. The product improved alot in performance once LeBeau was brought in to install his system rather than the GW system which was simply not a good one for the player talent we had. The product improved even more in 2004 with LeBeau gone and gray totally in charge under offensive guru HC MM. The results sucked again last year. Overall, I would think and hope the Bills could do better than these mixed results. However, there seem to me to be plenty of other reasons in terms of the huge discontinuity of the firings to find opportunities to retain the things that worked well at various points under TD while much of the failed efforts were swept away in the firing. Particularly because there are some things which are going to be kept like it or not (an HC with 3 year's left on his contract, the players for the most part). The question is not one of whether Gray is totally incompetent or whether none of this was his fault. The question is whether given Gray's pluses and minuses, whether one can galvanize the pluses to make it work and most important WHO is a better alternative at DC. Outside of some former HCs who have simil;ar mixed record of failure and success whom I do not see MM being comfortable with having a former HC like Haslett or Capers standing over his shoulder, i simply have not heard or seen anyone make a good case to hire someone else as DC. To me, this is the +/- on Gray- 1. He did not prove capable in his first two years of running a scheme inappropropriate to the players here. The GW scheme worked in TN because of players like Kearse at DE and Bishop at SS. I'm sorry, it just was not going to work with Chidi Ahanatou and Raion Hill. To the extent Gray advocated or bought off on this he is to blame for the results. 2. However, though i expected the continued el foldo from him when he was retained for 2003, I actually was impressed with him doing the play-calling for the LeBeau D and mastering it so quickly. This was an indicator that it was probably GW primarily at fault for our inappropriate D in 2001-02 or at least that Gray had learned the lessons of failure if it was his mistake that Jenkins had something left to be our SS. 3. Gray's work in 2004 was really impressive in that it is a reasonable thought that the D improvement in 2003 is mostly linked to LeBeau's zone blitz. However, it seems far more likely that Gray beat out LeBeau for the total DC job for good reason. If the D had still been top 10 but lost a step when LeBeau left the theory would conform to the facts that the improvement was LeBeau's work. However, in 2004, the gameplanning was all Gray's and the in game adjustments were all Gray's as LeBeau was long gone. The performance in these two areas plus what appeared to be nice work recalibrating the team in the 2 opportunity of the bye week and this corresponding with the winning streak which occured afterwards and got the Bills to the brink of the playoffs last year are indicators of some good Gray skills and work. 4. The results this year are a big minus, but I think leaves open the question of whether the 2006 Gray could repeat the improvement he showed in 2003 and 004 if the overall Bills ship of state is righted. Maybe or maybe not, but we'll have to see what Marv comes up with and how he dovetails with MM to make intelligent judgments about Gray. In the interim we may have no choice if he goes to an HC job with the texans or a college in Texas. it does make fiscal sense for the Bills to see this well-paid DC decide to leave rather than have us pay him big bucks because we gave him the boot (the most credible events that line up with this theory is that his position coaches got the boot). However, overall, Gray has been a mixed bag and I could see how it would work with him under the correct circumstances. Even worse I have seen no one advocate a working alternative or person for 2006 DC under Marve and MM. 559001[/snapback] Gray didn't beat LeBeau out for the job. In fact, MM REALLY wanted LeBeau. However, when the DC became vacant in Pittsburgh, it was LeBeau that chose Pitt over Buffalo. MM decided to stick with Gray to maintain some sense of stability for the #2 ranked defense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fake-Fat Sunny Posted January 8, 2006 Author Share Posted January 8, 2006 I'd be willing to take my chances with almost anyone else. Point to one successful halftime adjustment Jerry made in 2005. Case closed. 559008[/snapback] Definitely the D and his work sucked in 2005. However, the D and apparently his work sucked in 2001 and 02 and he made a great improvement and produced good performance in 03 and 04. One can certainly take the easy way out and just say case closed (it may well be if both he an the Bills made a tactical/fiscal decision that it will be better for both for him to leave being promoted to HC or Asst. Coach of the Texans rather than get canned in Buffalo meaning his likely next job is as a secondary coach somewhere). However, how do you explain his ability to make to design and install some great adjustments in 04 with the failures of 05? This is really the key to whether keeping him would make any sense for 06 and provide some reasonable hope that we will see improvement in his results in 06 just as there was a drastic improvement of his results achieved in 03 and he did even better in 04. The main argument against the point of view you expressed in your post is that the reality is simply that the case for Bills fans is not closed at all with simply the firing of Gray, the case is closed when you have a better performing DC to replace him. Who do you advocate be hired as the next DC once you can Gray. My guess is that he will not be hired as HC of the Texans because as much as they need D help, they need O help even more. As Gray is the only DC they interviewed, unless the new HC brings a DC with him, I will not be surprised to see Gray end up as the Asst. HC in Houston. This approach helps Gray certainly as he survives the 05 D debacle in Buffalo with a better job. This approach helps the Texans as they get a new D coach whom they were quite impressed with when the Bills demolished the Texans in Game 1. He also is the only DC they interviewed and they and he honestly seemed to be impressed in the interview but it would seem to be a huge stretch to make him HC after his last troubled season. In addition, it looks for now as if Houston remains committed to Carr and thus will pass on taking Texas boy Vince Young and being able to bring in Texas boy Gray back home and demonstrate progress in African-American hiring (given the NFL's dismal rcord of A-A hiring of HC's given the majority of workers being A-A this is a real issue though not one particular to the Texans) makes the bonuses of hiring Gray make sense. Most important for us Bills fans it works out wonderfully for Ralph fiscally if Gray gets taken by the Texans as an Asst HC because we will escape some significant contract owed Gray (money which if his next job is out of the NFL like being HC of some Texas college he gets to double dip the salary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coach Tuesday Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 Gray's defense is designed to bully weak offenses at home. Period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAMIEBUF12 Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 jerry gray may be the best choice for......................jets head coach! god that would be great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daquixers_is_back Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 Hmm ... 1. Pat Williams - let go 2. Takeo Spikes - injured 3. Nate Clements - possibly worst year of his career 4. Troy Vincent - i n j u r y it seems every few weeks find me a d-coordinator who could have a good year after all that and I will personally call Marv Levy and tell him to sign that guy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daquixers_is_back Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 heck ... i would love to find some Bills fans who dont take only one year into consideration ... this and other posts are ridiculous Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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