I stated my stance on retaining Mularkay before. The number one reason is stability. Most of the successful teams in the league have stability on top, especially head coach position. There are exceptions of course, but think about - new philosophy, new staff, new schemes, and usually a gradual change of player personnel to fit the new philosophy. It takes time.
All of these guys going from Coordinators to HCs, they have done something great to warrant such considerations. Mularkay is no different. He had many original ideas running the Steelers offense and got a pretty good handle on how Cowher handling things. Now mind you all of these creative guys can go too smart, resulting designing plays that is really stupid in ordinary fan's eyes. People have raved about Marty Martz offensive genius, yet he designed so many stupid offensive passing plays that we routinely dismiss his team as a serious threat. Mularkay's philosophy is hard nosed smart football. I can see the number of run plays he called. The only problem is that the vast majority of run plays this season netted almost nothing. Now you have to rely on the smart part, which never wins you anything by itself. I have seen that when he was at Steelers before. I've always said that my concerns about him was trying to do too much on the smart part.
As far as a first time HC vs a veteran HC, I'd rather shoot for first time HC. All the good ones usually retained by their team because they are good. A few may whore themselves from team to team like Parcells and we all know they are not coming to Buffalo. There are reasons that those veteran HCs are available: they stunk up the joint in their previous ventures. So why not allow a new HC to grow just like a player would? Life was good for Mularkay in his first year here. This is a bad one. The issue here is whether he learned a lesson to improve himself. I gotta give him a chance to learn and grow. Hack even Cowher endured a couple of 5-11 seasons and like in Buffalo, there were many fans calling for his head during those seasons.
The one thing I believe Mularkay have to do is getting his hands dirty into the defensive side of football. Greg Williams has openly said that the biggest lesson he learned is that he'll be heavily involved into offensive side of football if he's HC again. My guess so far, looking at his body language in games, Mularkay has left Bills defense entirely to Gray and his staff. I remember Mularkay mentioned one time that he gave Gray the opponent offensive perspective view of the his defense. I don't think that's enough. Defense and offense should not be treated as separate entities. They should complement each other. A high power high risk offense works well with a bent-but-don't-break defense whereas a smash mouth offense works well with a stout run stopping defense. To that end I was not surprised to see the massive firing of defensive coaches. I believe a change of defensive philosophy is comimg to OBD. I just don't know it is Malarkay or Levy initiated the change.
All of these guys going from Coordinators to HCs, they have done something great to warrant such considerations. Mularkay is no different. He had many original ideas running the Steelers offense and got a pretty good handle on how Cowher handling things. Now mind you all of these creative guys can go too smart, resulting designing plays that is really stupid in ordinary fan's eyes. People have raved about Marty Martz offensive genius, yet he designed so many stupid offensive passing plays that we routinely dismiss his team as a serious threat. Mularkay's philosophy is hard nosed smart football. I can see the number of run plays he called. The only problem is that the vast majority of run plays this season netted almost nothing. Now you have to rely on the smart part, which never wins you anything by itself. I have seen that when he was at Steelers before. I've always said that my concerns about him was trying to do too much on the smart part.
As far as a first time HC vs a veteran HC, I'd rather shoot for first time HC. All the good ones usually retained by their team because they are good. A few may whore themselves from team to team like Parcells and we all know they are not coming to Buffalo. There are reasons that those veteran HCs are available: they stunk up the joint in their previous ventures. So why not allow a new HC to grow just like a player would? Life was good for Mularkay in his first year here. This is a bad one. The issue here is whether he learned a lesson to improve himself. I gotta give him a chance to learn and grow. Hack even Cowher endured a couple of 5-11 seasons and like in Buffalo, there were many fans calling for his head during those seasons.
The one thing I believe Mularkay have to do is getting his hands dirty into the defensive side of football. Greg Williams has openly said that the biggest lesson he learned is that he'll be heavily involved into offensive side of football if he's HC again. My guess so far, looking at his body language in games, Mularkay has left Bills defense entirely to Gray and his staff. I remember Mularkay mentioned one time that he gave Gray the opponent offensive perspective view of the his defense. I don't think that's enough. Defense and offense should not be treated as separate entities. They should complement each other. A high power high risk offense works well with a bent-but-don't-break defense whereas a smash mouth offense works well with a stout run stopping defense. To that end I was not surprised to see the massive firing of defensive coaches. I believe a change of defensive philosophy is comimg to OBD. I just don't know it is Malarkay or Levy initiated the change.
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