LifetimeBillsFan
02-01-2006, 10:16 AM
NOTE: Sorry, posted in the smack section first...didn't mean too....delete from smack if you want...please leave here....thanks
Wow, it's like what Wannstead did to us....all over again for you guys in Buffalo.
Jauron is bringing half of the coaching staff of the NFC Norse to your pad....too bad so many are from Detroit....I feel sorry for you all.
Longtime fin here, not here to talk smack, but to have an ongoing discussion if anyone is up for it. Many great memories of Kelly vs. Marino, Thurmal vs. Wait, we really didn't have much in the way of running backs, Reed vs Duper, Clayton and Nat Moore.....some mad games there, boys.
Anyway....
Not to be harsh, but damn, what happened to the Bills? Was Mularky that bad, or was it a group effort? McGahee doesn't appear to have the heart and soul of a Buffalo runner....Offensive line was bad....QB situation was a mess....who shoulders most of the fault there?
Defensively, you have some players, and a key injury, soft D-line.... but it seems like your offense is your current downfall.....Kinda glad to see Old Marv back in the saddle again...I'm sure the senility rumor is just that....
I'm excited for the Phins this year. Saban is just so much more of a coach than Wanny was....an amazing difference....like I said, I felt and saw firsthand what a weak coaching staff can have on a team....and sorry to say, you look like you may be on your way down that path. As a Dolphin, I'm quite pleased.....but as a fellow NFL fan, you've got my sympathy.
Anyone feeling like shooting the breeze, I'll be around. Have a good working knowledge of the Phins and the NFL (jeez, feel like I"m applying for a job).
Even though you root for Miami, you sound like a reasonable fan interested in having a sensible discussion. Welcome. I'll take a go at addressing some of your questions and comments.
The Bills had a lot of problems this season that contributed to their collapse, starting at the top and going all the way through the lockerroom and beyond.
I believe the seeds of the collapse were planted the season before this one when the front office said that the Bills would have a certain identity--as a power-running team, like the Steelers--that the players and coaching staff were not really suited to implement. Because the offensive line got healthy at the same time that Willis McGahee gave the team a spark at RB and Drew Bledsoe began to play better, the Bills were able to bounce back from a disastrous start to their season by beating a succession of mediocre to poor teams by buying into Mike Mularkey's approach to the game and playing good defense and exceptional special teams. That winning streak gave everyone associated with the Bills a false sense of confidence about the team and its potential, despite the fact that the team blew a chance to make the playoffs by losing at home to the Steeler's back-ups.
Mularkey, his coaches and the players were able to dismiss that defeat as an anomaly and walk away from the season believing that they were on the right track and that the core of the team was good enough to make the playoffs this season and possibly become a serious contender. The problem was that the front office, the coaching staff and many of the players all had different ideas about what would be the best way to achieve that goal.
The front office concluded that, as Dallas found out, while Drew Bledsoe might be good enough to get the team to contend for or even into a spot in the playoffs, he was not good enough to make the team a winner in the playoffs. T.Donahoe concluded that, if the Bills played great defense and special teams and ran the power-rushing offense that he wanted the team to run, the team could make it to the playoffs with JP Losman as a first year starting QB. So, rather than make a big salary committment to Bledsoe, they released him and annointed Losman the starting QB and signed Kelly Holcomb to give Losman a veteran back-up, with the understanding that Losman would probably struggle at times during the season and need an experienced understudy to help him along. It was a plan that the front office and, at least to a certain extent, the coaching staff thought would work (and, as I have pointed out to many irrate Bills fans, did work for the Chicago Bears this season).
Unfortunately for the Bills and their fans, it was a plan that their coaching staff and players couldn't execute and a significant number of their veteran players never really bought into.
While Eric Moulds was the only one who spoke out openly, apparently a number of the veterans on the team did not like the fact that Losman was handed the starting QB job without having to earn it and did not believe that they could make it to the playoffs with Losman as their leader (at least some apparently did not like Losman personally or think he was mature enough to lead them). While Losman had an up-and-down preseason, where he was horrid at times and good at other times, and played quite reasonably well in winning his first career start at home, even before that first game, Moulds began to grumble in the press about having to start over again with a new QB, etc. and there were some other less overt signs that some of the vets were unhappy with Losman.
The Bills second game was at Tampa Bay, not an easy place to play or easy defense to play against for a veteran QB, let alone a first year starter. Predictably, Losman struggled. In a 0-0 game, with the Bills inside their own 5, Losman scrambled in the end zone to get away from a blitzer and stepped on the end line for a safety. With the score 2-0 Tampa, the Bills kicked off and their excellent special teams stopped the Bucs at the Tampa 30 yard line. The Bucs proceeded to march 70 yards in 5 plays against a Buffalo defense that barely put up any resistance and it was suddenly 9-0. That was a deficit that the struggling Losman could not make up and he was benched in the third quarter.
The Bills defense quit and their offense with Holcomb at the helm was hardly any better against the Bucs than it had been with Losman in the game, but, in the press the following week, Moulds, saying that he had the support of other veterans in the lockerroom, complained that he and the others wanted "to win now" and made it clear that they did not feel that they could "win" or make the playoffs with Losman as the starting QB. As you might expect, despite showing occasional flashes of ability, with that kind of support from his teammates, Losman struggled mightily after that and ultimately was benched after starting the fourth game of the season when Mularkey succumbed to the complaints of Moulds and the vets who supported him and replaced Losman with Holcomb as the starting QB.
While a lot of Losman's problems were of his own making, the coaching staff and his teammates were also responsible for a lot of problems as well. While the offensive line played well in the running game at times until Mike Williams and Chris Villarial got hurt, the pass-blocking of the interior of the line was miserable and they got penalties galore. Losman's receivers dropped a number of passes and, when they did, Losman's accuracy would disappear. The defense, which had been ranked # 2 in the NFL in 2004 and returned 10 starters, let Tampa Bay run them into the ground and then, with Takeo Spikes going down for the season against Atlanta the next week, allowed virtually every team that they played to run the ball on them at will. While the offense managed to put up points on its first possession in most of the team's games, the defense allowed the opposition to score on its final possession of the first half in almost all of them. The Bills' special teams continued to be excellent, but were not able to put up points for the team the way they had in 2004 and more often than not the offense and the defense squandered the advantages that they were given in field position.
Playing at home, Holcomb won his first two starts against Miami and the Jets, playing well on offense while the defense generated several key turnovers and the special teams excelled. Still, the Bills defense allowed both teams to rack up big rushing yards and it took a last second forced Ronnie Brown fumble by Nate Clements to preserve the win against Miami. Despite using his accuracy and veteran saavy to spark the Bills' passing game, Holcomb nearly gave both games away with ill-advised throws late (one, ruled a lateral, went out of bounds harmlessly against Miami; another was dropped by the Jets after a Holcomb pass had been intercepted and returned for a TD). As in their first game, when the Bills were able to grab the lead and generate turnovers, they were able to stay up on their opponents, but when faced with adversity both the offense and, more importantly, the defense would collapse.
That's what happened in Holcomb's third start in Oakland. After letting Oakland take the lead at the half, the Bills defense collapsed when the offense struggled in the second half. Then, in a game that would allow them to move into a first place tie, the Bills defense collapsed again after leading for most of the game in New England and penalties and mistakes that were characteristic of the Bills all season long doomed their attempt at a last minute comeback. It was a portent of their even more devastating collapse in Miami later in the season.
Losman returned to the lineup when Holcomb was injured. after playing poorly, against KC and JP led the Bills to a win with TD passes to Lee Evans that showed not only why the Bills used a 1st Round pick on him, but a marked improvement in his play. While the Bills gave up a ton of yardage to Larry Johnson (who didn't?), their defense generated key turnovers and kept KC out of the end zone, while the special teams played brilliantly.
Losman started the next four games and played much better--almost as well as Eli Manning during that same stretch of games. But again he got little help. The Bills' offensive line deteriorated. Mike Williams went out and was nicely replaced by Jason Peters at RT, but, with Chris Villarial hurting and playing poorly, the middle of the offensive line was a disaster. An attempt by Williams to come back and play LG failed dismally and Williams went down for the year. The interior of the offensive line got pushed around on passing plays and couldn't create any holes or get any kind of push for the running game.
While it is true that Willis McGahee started the season dancing too much instead of running hard and finished the season running half-speed half of the time, he wasn't entirely responsible for his poor play. For most of the first half of the season, Willis played well when he got some decent blocking from his offensive line, but, then for some reason, Mularkey went away from the running game, the line play deteriorated and Willis responded to being replaced by Shaud Williams on third downs and not getting the ball in the red zone by running like a man trying to protect himself from getting hurt more often than not as the Bills' season went down the tubes. When a RB who gets better the more he touches the ball gets 10 carries, 9 carries, 8 carries, 20, 21 and 23 carries in six of the team's final 8 games and almost never is given the ball on the goal line after scoring 13 TDs in 11 starts the previous year, its hardly surprising that he might not have much incentive to run with reckless abandon.
As bad as the offensive line was, as much as the QBs struggled, and as unmotivated as McGahee was, in my view, the defense was even more to blame for the Bills' collapse. While it is true that the Bills missed Pat Williams who left in free agency and was not adequately replaced by Ron Edwards, Tim Anderson or Justin Bannan--although Anderson and Bannan came on some towards the end of the season--and losing Takeo Spikes was a big blow to the team, those losses alone cannot explain the pathetic showing of the Bills defense, a squad loaded with veterans who were supposed to be leaders. Now, part of the responsibility falls on the coaching staff which failed to make adequate in-game and halftime adjustments in the vast majority of their games and stubbornly stuck to defensive schemes and play-calling patterns that obviously were not working. But, a large part of it also falls on the players.
Regardless of who the coach is or what defense has been called, how is it possible for three defensive backs who have been to the Pro Bowl--two of them in their early 30s--to allow a wide receiver who has already been targetted 26 times and caught 14 passes for over 230 yards to be single covered by a rookie nickle back on the last play of a game with the outcome of the game on the line when everyone in the stadium knows that the ball is going to be going to that wide receiver? I know that football players aren't noted for being geniuses, but how bright do you have to be to recognize that that WR needs to be double covered on that play and go over and help that poor rookie out? How stupid do you have to be not to and lose the game?
Well, that's the kind of mistake that the veterans on the Bills defense, who bragged about being as good as the '85 Bears before the season, made repeatedly, play after play, game in and game out! Then, after making those kind of mistakes, they would come into the lockerroom and tell the press that they could have won the game except for a couple of plays or that they were in the right defense but didn't make the play because someone was out of position. And, they actually seemed to believe it! BULL!!!
They didn't lose all of those games because they were too old or because they missed a couple of assignments, they lost those games because they were poorly coached, ill-disciplined and thought too much of themselves while not having the character to respond with heart and determination when faced with adversity. They were too busy blaming Losman and the offense and backing up Moulds in his power-play with the front office and coaching staff to do their own jobs properly. Which is not to say that the coaching staff and front office didn't deserve their contempt.
Despite the fact that the front office had told everyone that the Bills would be a Steeler-like power-running team, right from the very beginning, Mike Mularkey and Tom Clements showed a penchant for wanting to out-fox their opponents with trick plays. During the Bills' winning streak in 2004 they increasingly got away from the smash-mouth power game and, in addition to throwing more, began running more and more trick plays. It's great to run trick plays and try to out-fox your opponent when the trick plays are unexpected and you are one step ahead of the opposition, but when you run trick plays when the opposition is knows they're coming and the opposition is always a step ahead of you, it can be disastrous. And, that was the case for the Bills this season.
After the success that the Bills had at the end of 2004, Mike Mularkey didn't even start out the 2005 season by establishing the Bills as a Steeler-like power-running offense. With a first year starting QB making his very first start of his career, the Bills began their season opener against Houston by throwing the ball. Losman completed that first pass and threw 27 more that day. It was a surprise and it worked, but that was at home against Houston. Before being replaced by Holcomb, Losman again threw 28 passes and was sacked twice in his second game against Tampa Bay on the road. It might not have been what the Bucs were expecting, but also wasn't exactly the smartest way to break in an inexperienced QB in just his second pro start. It's certainly not what a power-running team like the Steelers would do in similar circumstances.
But, while the front office was talking about the Bills being a tough, power-running team, that wasn't exactly the kind of offense that Mularkey was trying to run. His offense was a "we'll take what you give us (even if we don't have the personnel to do that) and try to out-fox you" offense. More often than not, though, it was Mularkey who ended up getting out-foxed. And, I say Mularkey, not because Mularkey is now with the Fish, but because Mularkey oversaw the offense and took over the play calling during the fifth game of the season. You saw the numbers of carries that McGahee had in the second half of the season, does that look the like number of carries that the primary back in a power-running offense would get if he wasn't splitting carries with another RB?
Obviously Mularkey wasn't on the same page as the Bills front office. And, neither were the players who resented the front office for getting rid of Bledsoe and appointing JP Losman as the team's starting QB. I think that that encouraged Moulds and a number of the other veteran players to believe that, if the coach didn't buy into the front office's program, they didn't have to either. And, they didn't have to pay attention to their coaches, either. Therein lie the seeds of the team's collapse.
Now, Mularkey could have put a stop to all of that. When Moulds first went to the press before the first game, Mularkey could have called him in and told him not to do that. Or, when Moulds talked to the press about how he and the other vets on the team wanted "to win now" and didn't feel that they could with Losman at QB, Mularkey could have done what Tom Coughlin did with the NY Giants last year when Strahan, Shockey and other vets complained to the press about Eli Manning being handed the starting QB job after Kurt Warner had led the team to a 5-3 record (the Giants were legitimately in the hunt for a playoff berth then!): Coughlin told his team that he had decided that starting Manning was best for the team and that if anyone didn't like it they should shut up and find a seat on the bench--and if anyone didn't want to do that or stay with the team, the team would try to accommodate them with a ticket out of town as soon as the team could arrange to trade him to another team. In response to complaints that the team was still in the hunt for a playoff berth, Coughlin told the press and his team that they were not good enough to be a playoff team and that he wasn't interested in getting into the playoffs but winning a Super Bowl. The Giants' vets grumbled under their breath, but didn't say anything more to the press, even though Eli Manning struggled a lot until the final game of the season--this year they won their division and made the playoffs with Manning at QB.
Mularkey could have done what Coughlin did--but he didn't. He let the veterans continue to complain through Moulds to the press until, with JP Losman struggling, a QB controversy was beginning to brew in the press. And, then, he folded and benched Losman in favor of Holcomb.
Bills fans are still arguing about whether Losman should have been benched, whether Losman should have been allowed to play more, or if Holcomb is better and should be the starting QB for the Bills next season. But, that is less important to understanding why the Bills collapsed this season than the fact that Mularkey caved in to his players and showed himself too weak to control his team's lockerroom--once the inmates begin to believe that they can run the asylum, they are going to try to, and if they are allowed to do so, they will.
And, they certainly tried. Sam Adams butted heads with the coaching staff and was benched. And, of course, you heard about Moulds ultimately being suspended and going over the coach's head to appeal his suspension to the owner. This happened, especially the Moulds Incident, because, after caving in to his players, Mularkey tried to re-establish control over his team because the players had lost respect for him and his staff. How could they respect him after he had let them bully him into abandoning the program that the front office had set forth for the team to follow?
I have no doubt that the way Mularkey handled things damaged JP Losman's confidence and the trust that he might have in certain of his teammates. How could it not? And, that it has ******ed his development as a QB. I also have to believe that, in addition to those players who backed Moulds, there are also players in the Bills' lockerroom who didn't and who either would have prefered to see the team stick with Losman or who didn't like the power-play that was run on their coach. Which means that the seeds of future dissension are still there. That's not good for the Bills, but it also does not speak well of Mularkey's strength or ability to deal with a difficult situation.
While I consider this the worst problem that the Bills had with their coaching staff, it was not the only problem. As I pointed out, the play-calling on both sides of the ball was atrocious! When a team consistently scores on offense on its first possession of the game, you can only conclude that: 1.) the team is coming out of the lockerroom fired up and prepared; 2.) that the offense has the talent and weapons to score on its opponent; 3.) that the coaches and players have, with time, figured out an effective way to attack the opposition. When that same team, then, proceeds to set a team record for futility in scoring in the 3rd and 4th quarters of its games, you can't help but conclude that 1.) since the personnel is still the same, either the players have quit or suddenly become incompetent or 2.) the opposition has adjusted its game-plan and the schemes that they are using and the offense's coaches have not properly responded to those adjustments with ones of their own or the adjustments that they are making, on the fly this time, are not effective.
When you hear Bills fans criticizing Mularkey's play-calling, it is not because he is now Miami's OC. It is because we just went through a very frustrating season when what I just described happened game in and game out. If the Bills' offense had been consistently over-powered and shut down by opposing defenses, I would have to say that the team did not have the talent and skill to compete. But, that's not what happened. The Bills actually had the lead early on in most of their games. But, then, they stopped scoring. A RB who scored 13 TDs in 11 games in 2004, scored only 5 in 16 games for the worst red zone offense in the league. The biggest reason for this was the play-calling and the failure of the coaching staff to make effective in-game adjustments. I could also talk more about all of the trick plays that didn't work, but I'll spare you that--except to say that the fact that it consistently failed and the coaches still insisted on trying to out-fox the opposition was maddening. (Think about this: a "power-running team" that lets its stud feature running back carry the ball less than 30 times over the course of three whole games as it relies on a first year starting QB and a career back-up to win games for them--smart, huh!?!)
But, it wasn't just the play-calling on the offensive side of the ball that was putrid--in fact, it may have been even worse on defense. And, here I point to the fact that the Bills consistently gave up points at the end of the first half and at the beginning of the second half of most of their games. Again there is an obvious pattern here that everyone except, apparently, the coaching staff picked up on. Ask any Bills fan about Jerry Gray and his blitzes and you will hear an anguished tale of Gray calling for one blitz after another as the opposition marches down the field torching the Bills defense along the way. As poorly as the Bills' veteran defenders played, they cannot be blamed for Gray's stubborn refusal to alter his play-calling patterns when they obviously weren't working. While the most eggregious example was Chambers' performance against the Bills in the passing game, there were a dozen games when teams were essentially able to do the same thing to the Bills in the running game. All you need know to understand how badly the Bills' defense was coached this past season is that, without losing increased numbers of players, the defense got worse instead of better in every phase of the game as the season progressed. Either the coaches weren't coaching properly or the players were tuning the coaches out--but, in either case, that's on the coaches, starting with the HC.
Dick Jauron and his new Bills coaching staff may not have a great track record or be high profile names, but one major thing that they have going for them is that they are not the same coaches that the Bills had last season. It would be hard for a coaching staff to do a worse job than Mularkey's crew did. They have a major challenge ahead of them in re-establishing control over the players in the lockerroom and with the underlying dissension that will still potentially be there. They are going to have to give the team an identity and find away to get the whole team on the same page--which won't be easy--before they can even begin to fill some of the many holes that the Bills have in their lineup. There will be changes to the team and one of the biggest and the best will be the coaches and the fact that they are new. Regardless of how competent they are, in comparison to other coaches, they will be an improvement over the coaching staff that the Bills would have had if they hadn't gotten rid of Donahoe, Mularkey and most of Mularkey's staff.
Having recently met and talked to Marv Levy, I can assure you that he is far from being senile. He reminds me of my mother who, at 90, is still sharper mentally than most 60 year olds and could run circles around my wife, who is half her age, until she began to develop arthritis in her knees two years ago. Some people, God Bless 'em, are like that and Marv is. He also knows football and has a lot of experience with building football teams and coaching staffs, etc.
People who haven't read Levy's book may not realize Marv's ability to spot talent--not just on the field: did you know that Levy gave Bill Walsh his first college coaching job--he hired Terry Donahue, too--or that, based on his scouting reports, Marv told his boss at the time, the owner of the Montreal Allouettes, to give a full-time job to an advertising salesman who was scouting for the team part-time--a fellow named Bill Polian? I'll bet a lot of people were shaking their heads or laughing at those hires....
Even if Dick Jauron isn't the next Bill Belichick and none of the assistants that the Bills just hired turns out to be the next Walsh or Polian, Levy brings something to the Bills that the team desperately needs right now: credibility. The man may not have won a Super Bowl, but he's the only coach to take a team there four years in a row and he did put together a team that won the Grey Cup in Canada. And, if Levy and Jauron decide that the Bills should have a certain identity and play the game a certain way, it's going to be pretty hard for anyone in their lockerroom or on their coaching staff to argue with them. It's going to be hard for anyone to undermine Levy or Jauron if they are on the same page with one another. And, they must be because Levy stood up to his owner, who wanted to hire Mike Sherman, because he wanted Jauron more than Sherman. That says something. And, I don't think that will be lost on the people who work for the Bills, including the players.
As you pointed out, a key for the Bills will be bringing in new personnel who can fill the holes that they have in their lineup. I don't expect that to happen overnight. I think it will take a couple of seasons. But, as you have seen with your own team, good, strong leadership at the top can really accelerate the process of turning a team around. Just as Saban turned your team from a crumbling mess into a credible team without a major turnover of personnel because of the credibility and character that he brought to the team, I think that, if they are on the same page as much as I think they are, Levy and Jauron can turn the Bills around, too, because of what Levy brings to the table. The difference is that the Bills, because of the dissension that they had in the lockerroom last season, may require a greater turnover of personnel before they can truly become serious contenders and that will take more time.
I must admit that, to my disappointment, Saban did a much better job of getting your team turned around than I thought he would. The really tough part for him--or any team that is sitting right on the edge of being a playoff team--is going to be getting the players to take that next step to the level of being a serious contender for a title. That doesn't just take skill, it also takes some luck because the players that you get in the first three rounds of the draft are the ones that should get you to the point of being competitive, but its the players that you find as unknown free agents, in lower rounds of the draft, as college free agents after the draft and as street free agents or on other team's practice squads--the guys who have to develop into contributors to your team--that make a team a serious contender for a SB crown (just think about where the Pats would be if that kid that they took a flyer on in the 6th round a couple of years ago named Brady hadn't developed the way he had). Your team has a lot of the pieces in place, but still has to get the right guys to fill the holes in your roster and replace the guys, like Ferrotte, who, like Bledsoe, may get you to the playoffs, but not to a Super Bowl crown. Right now, thanks to Saban, you've got a leg up on the Bills and the Jets in that pursuit, but the task gets tougher from here on out.
It will be interesting to see how well Mularkey does as your OC--not just this year, but down the road. Saban obviously has a clear picture of the identity that he wants his team to have and that's not exactly the kind of identity that Mularkey's Bills teams had (although what Mularkey said their identity was is pretty close). Personally, I like Linehan as an OC than Mularkey even going back to when Linehan was in Minny and Mularkey was with the Steelers, but, to a certain extent, that's a matter of taste. If Saban keeps a tight rein on Mularkey and keeps him from going nuts with the trick plays and from always trying to out-fox the opposition, making him stick with the running game and play to the team's strengths, I think that it is possible that Mularkey could turn out to be a good OC for your club. However, Saban is going to have to keep a close eye on Mularkey--if he doesn't and Mularkey starts to do the kinds of things that he did with the Bills offense, it may work at first, but in the long-run it will be a disaster. Now, I think Saban will keep things under control, but Mularkey can be very stubborn and is a weak personality. That may not matter as much in an OC, but, if you start to hear Miami players making excuses for things that go wrong by saying things like, "Oh, it would have worked if we had just executed better", etc., a whole lot of red flags should start going up for you. Mularkey's BS has come out again in a couple of recent quotes from Bills players who still believe that they were "only a couple of plays away from making the playoffs". So, buyer beware!
Of course, in the meantime, I will be hoping that Saban doesn't have any good luck and doesn't keep Mularkey on a short leash! :roflmao:
It's been nice talking about my team with you. I hope we will have a chance to have further sensible exchanges of thoughts and info about our teams and the NFL in the future.
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