Where would The Bills be had they signed Coughlin in '04?

[bluerosekiller]

Actually, refresh my memory a bit please. Did the team have a real shot at getting him in here to coach or was his name just floating around in the mix before he went to The Giants & The Bills signed Mularkey?
If I recall correctly, he was available to The Bills brass before NY grabbed him though. And, in typical fashion here, there were a whole lot of folks on these very boards & elsewhere who made no bones about being very much NOT interested in him as head coach. Something about him being too hard nosed or some such thing.
Seeing the success that he's had with the Jints though, how do you think he'd have done here?
Could he have saved Tom Donahoe's career here?
Or would he have struggled too, leaving room for the horror of the Marv Levy GM tenure to come to pass anyhow?

[bluerosekiller]

Re: Where would The Bills be had they signed Coughlin in '04?

Now that I've given it a wee bit of thought, I think there's a fairly good chance that the experienced, superior coach in Coughlin would have squeezed at least one more win out of that 2004 team, meaning that they'd have made the playoffs.
Probably not getting too deep into them, but who knows?
If nothing else, it would have certainly forestalled Donahue from getting rid of Bledsoe at the end of the season & put the breaks on the premature "Losman era" of '05. Probably leading to another halfway decent season in '05. Allowing Donahoe to keep his GM duties & preventing the disaster that was the Levy GM years. The two years of incompetency & befuddlement that the organization is still suffering from some half a decade afterwards.

[Oaf]

Re: Where would The Bills be had they signed Coughlin in '04?

I was thinking the same thing.. I noticed him SINCE that Jax-Bills gm in '96.

http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/52395/coughlin-is-becoming-a-coaching-giant

[better days]

Re: Where would The Bills be had they signed Coughlin in '04?

Hiring Mike Mularkey this year like the Jags?

[ThunderGun]

Re: Where would The Bills be had they signed Coughlin in '04?

Probably in the same place, because we wouldn't have given him any decent players to coach.

[Historian]

Re: Where would The Bills be had they signed Coughlin in '04?

Sorry, but I was pimping Coughlin all over these boards, and the general consensus here was that nobody liked Coughlin, because he was "too hard on his players".

All the man has ever done is win. Same for Schottenheimer.

But they're not good enough for Bills fans.

[justasportsfan]

Re: Where would The Bills be had they signed Coughlin in '04?

I too wanted Coughlin back then but Donahoe wanted a "yes" man.