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Should have paid Bates


jahnyc

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There's always an exception.

 

But it's interesting that it seemed that Buddy Ryan never got along with anybody, isn't it?  Not that I never wanted to take a poke at Kildrive!  :doh:

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Buddy Ryan didnt get along with other coaches. His players loved him. Even when he was coach of the Cardinals and they were pretty terrible, his players mostly loved him. It goes back to that respect thing. He treated them like men, and stood behind them, and developed an us against the world comraderie with them. It goes a long way with these guys.

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where exactly is all this excitement for Bates coming from? I can understand that people thought he might come as a packaged deal with Sherman, but otherwise, why the hoopla?

Green Bay's defense really isn't all that hot...they're ranked what...9th in the league overall, but their rushing defense is atrocious...their rankings probably bumped up by playing a bunch of horrible teams in their division and also from teams running the ball against them non stop to give their pass defense better stats...crap, even completely shite offenses from detroit, cleveland, baltimore and late season philly kicked their asses

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Buddy Ryan didnt get along with other coaches. His players loved him. Even when he was coach of the Cardinals and they were pretty terrible, his players mostly loved him. It goes back to that respect thing. He treated them like men, and stood behind them, and developed an us against the world comraderie with them. It goes a long way with these guys.

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The thing is that it can certainly go a long with the guys in terms of providing a good experience in their lives but clearly in terms of Buddy Ryan's HC records it did not go very far or far enough in terms of producing Ws.

 

What folks don't seem to get in many posts is that how the fans and owners calculate who is the guy to hire or calculate whether someone was a good hire is quite different than how fans make this calculation.

 

The error which is bigger than this one however, is the false assumption that everyone calculates what is good in very different ways.

 

Unfortunately what is the right thing to do for one person and what is the right thing to do for another person can be very different things depending upon their own goals (even worse folks are making decisions based on what they "think" are their goals but really what drives their decision-making may be something unconcious or even stupid that is the REAL reason they did what they did).

 

Should all of us fans simply throw up are hands an stop predicting outcomes since at best we will know in retrospect what was done and really we will never know the whole truth? IMHO, no not all all, The game is entertaining to me in large part because sports are so unpredictable.

 

It's fun and weird for me to watch what happens. My paycheck and the well-being of my family is not dependent at all on what goes on with the Bills (though my wife was pissed when Flutie Flakes went away, Peca Pickles simply did nothing for her). Since my deep affection for the Bills is totally a self-selection on my part, it gives me the ability to root and feel great win they win, to feel like crap briefly when they lose, but to walk away and do important stuff when I want to.

 

Racking up Ws is a lot of what the game is about and it is the foundation which allows a team to become a TEAm. However, though us fans judge the season basically on whether we got enough Ws, when it comes right down to it the players, the coaches, and most importantly the owner's judgment on success and whether an employee is a good man (generally since except for low level front office jobs and a few relatives of owners the NFL is a man's world) is not dependent in the long run on Ws but on other factors.

 

This is a wholely reasonable way for a participant in the game to make judgments in my view.

 

I developed a number of good friends and a few life-long buds from our joint participation on teams which were flat out bad and losers. In the end, it is only a few owners, GM, players etc who are going to judge the value of a year based on how many Ws the team got. Winning a championship is a unique thing which builds relationships and shared memories which can last a life time. However, even the players know better than anyone else that if championships are your measure of success that each year 31 teams will be losers and only 1 will be a winner.

 

One must go into this trying to build a team capable of winning it all, but if one is ultimately satisfied only if you win the championship or even by producing a winning record, through no action or fault of your own (for instance the ref may blow the call on the coin-flip) the year is almost certainly going to be a failure for you.

 

Yes Virginia, to paraphrase Vince Lombardi, winning is not the only thing and actually in the final reel it isn;t much at all in judging whether you had a good season or not.

 

Ironically, despite it not being the real measure of success, it is the one thing which can unite all parties to pull together for the same goal. The real value of success will be found in whether and how that team united and became a TEAM regardless of how many Ws were achieved.

 

Though us fans are for the most all about the Ws and making the playoffs and the SB, most participants in the game seem to realize that if winning is the only thing that in the big picture it simply means that almost all the time (unless you are lucky enough to be Tom Brady) you are going to lose.

 

Folks who say that the decisions are all based on winning are simply wrong.

 

My favorite quote about the NFL came from a player (Hollywood Henderson I think or maybe Duane Thomas) he was asked whether the upcoming SB would be the most important thing in his life. His reply, if it so important then why do they play it every year.

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I agree that we have no idea why Bates turned down the position, if that is the case. But I hope it was not because of money. Bates provided a certain level of comfort to me that the Bills defense really could improve from last year. I have no idea if Jerry Grey was a good or bad DC, but I was looking forward to having an experienced DC with a proven track record of success. The other guys the Bills seem to be considering do not.

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Buffalo is not the sexiest destination in the NFL.

 

...but sexiness may be taken with perspective/ beer goggles. If there are few jobs offered, suddenly the girl at the dance nobody wanted, starts to look a bit better... :doh:

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