A lot has been written this week about the total failure at all levels from the Bills. Joe had to write yet again his “Blow it all up!” column. Tim Graham also had a similar article in the Buffalo News. After reading and digesting both of these, I have a few thoughts I’d like to share.
The elephant in the room of a rebuild is the year 1999. As we all know, this is the last year the Bills made the playoffs, the longest drought in the NFL. While anyone who pays attention can see how far away this Bills team is in several areas, asking fans to wait another 2-3 years (assuming the rebuild goes well) is a tough pill to swallow. Fans are getting sick of it, which is why the biggest highlights from Bills games are no longer on ESPN, but Deadspin. The other problem with a rebuild is this, who exactly do you have confidence in to hire/fire/pick the best people. Even if you fire everybody, it’s not like Pegula’s short history into the world of professional sports gives you a ton of confidence.
Let’s start with Joe’s whipping boy, Russ Brandon. Like everyone, I have no idea his involvement in football operations. If you believe the Bills, his job is purely financial. There are numerous reports to the contrary however, which is why he needs to be the first person fired. The two most interesting facts from the Graham article were about Brandon. The first is that he is on the Monday morning phone call between Whaley, Ryan, and Pegula. It seems to me that this call is likely 99.9% on the field related. Why do we need out business guy involved in making X and O decisions. One COULD argue that as team President, he belongs on that phone call. My response would be the other nugget from Tim. He says Brandon coached Rex on how to win over Pegula (hint, Pegula loves Red Wine for example). This is 100% why we are the joke of the NFL. You want to hire the right guy because they guy is the best for the job, not coach up one candidate over the other. Maybe Rex still wins the job without Brandon in his ear, but it doesn’t pass the smell test. The only logical explanation here is that Brandon (correctly) figured that Rex’s rhetoric would initially play well here, and sell a few more tickets and corporate sponsors. Any plan of fixing the Bills that involves Brandon is flawed from the start.
The next guy that needs to go is Whaley. I know there have been some good trades (Shady, Jerry Hughes for example). The problem is with the draft. The draft is where you build cheap team depth. Too often, Whaley has treated the draft like Buffalo is one player away and traded away way to may picks. The Sammy pick is how he will always be remembered, especially since OBJ is so great, and could’ve been a Bill without all the extra picks. I’m not here to debate Sammy against OBJ however, I’m here to say Buffalo needs lots of good players. Trading away future #1 picks for a WR when you have no QB is not the way to go about it. There is also the issue of Shaq Lawson this year. Pre-draft reports repeatedly said he needed shoulder surgery. Whaley almost laughed these off as if they were ridiculous. Well, guess what he missed half the season after shoulder surgery. Finally, how have we not addressed QB? In the NFL, you can’t win without a good QB. It was apparent early on that EJ wasn’t the answer. Tyrod is at best a stop gap, and Jones is so raw he is years away from being ready. How do you go into a season with that?
Finally Rex must go. The Bills knew Rex would win the press conference and fire up fans longing for someone to say “I chose to come to Buffalo.” It worked for year 1. In year 2, I is becoming apparent that this isn’t going to work. The team was top 5 in D, and brought in what many people believed to be the best D head coach out there. In two years, they have gone from Top 5, to bottom half of the league under Rex. This is enough to get Bills fans worried. However, even in NY, Rex had the reputation for ignoring the O. He is living up to that reputation here, as his run heavy O scheme is not something I believe can be successful in today’s NFL. The rules of today’s NFL favor the offense, and specifically the passing game more so than any other time in NFL history. Unfortunately, Rex either doesn’t care to or can’t figure out how to exploit it.
While I am in no hurry to have to wait another few years, really we are going to have to either way. The current regime is not going to get us there, so I’d rather start fresh. Pegula needs to bring in a solid football guy and let him run the show and stay out of the way. Let him hire who he (or she) wants to hire. It is impossible to lose money in the NFL. If your business guy is making football decisions, you’ve already lost. In my experience, the best way to increase business in the NFL is to win football games, the rest will take care of itself.
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