This is a contrarian piece.
A piece the Bills PR people will remember verbatim when they trot out Chan Gailey in January after finishing 6-10 and declaring his job is safe. I assure you, if the Bills finish 6-10, Gailey should be given his walking papers. I pretty much rolled my eyes last week when Buddy said he wasn't going to fire Gailey. I started to then gouge my eyes out when he spoke about how a new coach would want his own players, which would mean we'd take 10 steps back.
Um, suuuuure…
Rex Ryan turned a non-playoff team into a team that was one win away from the Super Bowl his rookie year. Mike Tomlin got to the playoffs with the Steelers a year after they missed the playoffs under Bill Cowher. Ken Whisenhunt went to the Super Bowl his 2nd year in Arizona. Wade fricken Phillips took the Bills to the playoffs a year after they finished 6-10 under Marv. Mike Mularkey was a non-choke job away from going to the playoffs his rookie year here. I could probably go on. First year coaches going to the playoffs isn't far fetched, Buddy.
Oh, and the whole "The Bills are always turning over the coaches and GMs" is silly. Sorry, but Tom Modrak and John Guy were here way past their former employer (Tom Donahoe) left. Russ Brandon is still here and he was a carryover from Donahoe as well.
As far as I'm concerned, making major changes has hardly ever happened here and it is probably the main reason we have been out of the playoffs. For crap sakes, Buddy Nix was down the hall working as a scout for the Bills when they promoted him after they only interviewed John Guy as the GM.
To put it metaphorically: When you wanna get rid of a tree, you pull it by the root, not by the branch.
But hey, maybe Buddy was just BSing the public with Chan. I mean, what else is he suppose to say? "Yeah, we are thinking about firing him." However, since Buddy constantly gloats about how Gailey is the greatest offensive mind since Andrew Dice Clay, he probably means it.
So, if you are sitting at a bar and realistic Joey comes along to evoke his pessimistic outlook of Chan Gailey, you can hit him back with these words of wisdom and actually sound competent, albeit, a delusional bastard.
5) Ralph Wilson is old…REAL OLD
Are there examples in NFL history where a first year coach turned their team around the first year? Of course. I just went through them. However, I'm still reminded of this quote from Vic Carucci about the coaching search of 2009:
"This is his (Wilson's) last coach and (he) is going to do everything it takes to get it right," the insider told Carucci.
In Ralph's mind, he's not getting any younger and the thought of bringing in new people to get along with may be something he'll never see the final conclusion. Stick with the devil you already know, right? Ralph is old and old people hardly want change in their lives. They have the same furnature in their living room as they had in the 70s. You'd be lucky to have them actually get an HD TV. Plus, the Bills haven't exactly been itchy with the trigger finger with firing coaches. Wade got the boot because he refused to fire a special teams coach. Rumor has it that Gregg Williams was impossible to deal with. Mularkey quit. If Dick Jauron can last almost four years here because Ralph liked him, so can Chan Gailey. It is all about Ralph being comfortable at the end of the day.
4) Talent sucks on offense
My favorite stat ever that I was able to find was how the Bills are the only team that doesn't have a 1st and 2nd round pick devoted to the TE/WR/QB position. That's a joke. We have seen what Gailey can do with marginal talent. It isn't great, but it isn't bad either. Unfortunately, it just isn't good enough. I guess what I'm trying to say is Gailey has proven he can do more with less, but his more isn't good enough at the NFL level. Maybe, if we gave him someone not from Harvard or a bunch of undrafted Rudy-like WRs, the offense would be better. So, when fans are angry that Chan is still here after week 17, the Bills will declare they are looking for a highly touted college QB, which will make all the draft prognosticators in Buffalo have a hard-on and forget Gailey just lost more games than Jauron.
3) Dave Wannstedt
Meet your scapegoat. Seriously, the fact that Bills.com had an article written about how the run defense rebounded after giving up 100-yards to Arian Foster is the most pathetic excuse for shill journalism I've ever seen. The fact is, we would have killed the Bills' defense in August if they gave up almost 400 yards to any team. Unlike Gailey's offense, Wannstedt has much more talent on the defensive side of the ball. Alas, his schemes have been vanilla ice cream and the team is setting NFL records for defensive futility while making fantasy football owners drool when they come up on the schedule. Fire him. Throw him in Ralph Wilson's volcano of coordinators. Bring in someone who has coached an NFL defense during this decade and maybe the defense will turn the corner.
2) Houston Texans
The Houston Texans were what the Bills were two years ago. Yes, I wrote about how they were in a playoff drought that was almost a decade long, but they had a head coach that was under fire. Kubiak's record from 2006-2010 read like Dick Jauron's and Mike Mularkey's greatest hits: 6-10, 8-8, 8-8, 9-7 and 6-10. The offense was alright, ranking 28th,12th,17th,10th and 9th in scoring. However, like Gailey, Kubiak was an offensive coach who didn't know dick about defense. The Texans' defense ranked 24th, 24th, 27th, 13th and 30th. They went through two defensive coordinators in five years. Fans wanted Kubiak fired. I mean, they gave him five years and he still couldn't get into the playoffs.
What happened?
They got Wade Phillips. He turned around their defense and the team went 10-6 last year and are probably on their way to another division title. They stayed patient and finally fixed the defense. There's your team example Buddy will bring up on January 3rd, 2013 during his announcement that Gailey is returning for 2013. Bank on it!
1) NO ONE WANTS TO COME HERE!!!
Sorry to use caps, but this is the 850lb gorilla in the room. I hate to reopen old wounds, but the 2009 coaching search was probably the most embarrassing time period I ever had as a Bills' fan. Everyday I read a report about either Bill Cowher or Mike Shanahan or some young genius coordinator telling us, "Thanks, but no thanks." Only Leslie Frazier decided to do the token Rooney rule interview. That's the main reason Gailey got this job. As I've said repeatedly, there's no chance in hell he would have gotten a head coaching job again in the NFL. He got the gig because no one else would take it.
What has changed since then for the franchise? Not much. The team still sucks. They don't have a QB. They play a game in Canada. If you don't live in Buffalo, you probably think it sucks. I guess you could say they spent a ton of money on Mario and other guys as being a draw for coaches. But really, what reason would you want to come here? There's not really a young upstart player here to groom. Also, Its Buffalo. A franchise that never gets talked about in a sport that has 24/7 coverage on ESPN.
These guys have heard the rumors about the dysfunction of the franchise. It is no different than working at an office where people talk about not liking to work with this or that guy. "Don't goto that company! I heard bad things, man."
The Bills could go the college ranks and find a coordinator no one has ever heard of, but do you have faith in them making the right hiring call? Eh. I guess they could hire Jim Fassel or see if Marty Schottenheimer is bored.
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