Children born during football season in 1999, the last year the Bills made the playoffs, have graduated high school.
Bills great Jim Kelly has high hopes that new coach Sean McDermott can provide millennial Bills fans with a chance to watch their team in the playoffs. He seems to think that McDermott’s coaching style is more likely to get the Bills into the playoffs than that of Rex Ryan.
“I’m excited about the 2017 Buffalo Bills. Coach McDermott brings discipline to the table that we haven’t had in a while,” Kelly said via the Bills’ Twitter page.
Kelly threw his support behind Ryan when he was hired in 2015, according to NFL.com, but discipline wasn’t among the traits that he used to describe Ryan. And Kelly’s use of the phrase “in a while” could encompass Ryan’s predecessors.
Not since 2012, Chan Gailey’s last year as head coach, have the Bills been outside the top 12 in committed penalties that were accepted by opponents. Under Dick Jauron, the Bills were ninth in that dubious category in 2013 and fifth in 2014, according to NFLPenalties.com. They were tied for first when Ryan took over in 2015 and improved to 12th last season.
Of course, “discipline” goes beyond just penalties, and even Kelly can be off about observations that are made in June. It’s more important for McDermott to give Kelly a reason to be excited from September through January.
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