Tweet
Raise your hand if you were pleased the day you found out Chan Gailey would become the 16th head coach of the Buffalo Bills. If you’re hands are high in the air, you’ll have to forgive me for keeping mine pointed firmly towards the ground.
I wasn’t happy, enthused, inspired, encouraged, stimulated or any affirmative adjective you feel like using. I reckoned it was the typical, post-Super Bowl era Ralph Wilson status-quo move. In fact, I loathed the thought of a guy like Gailey coming to right a sinking Buffalo ship so much, I was the guy some (not fondly) remember as the one behind the billboard urging Bill Cowher to take the head coaching gig that Wilson was allegedly interested in offering.
Several months later, I’m genuinely starting to think I was mistaken.
It sure didn’t look that way at the start of the 2010 season though, did it? Buffalo stumbled out the gate with the ineptitude and penchant for losing football games Bills fans hadn’t seen the since the mid 1980s. Nearly every well-known national columnist as well as small-fry like myself branded the Bills as the worst team in the NFL and the trending question wasn’t when Buffalo would win a game, but if they’d taste the sweets of a victory at all.
But a funny thing happened to this squad as they fumbled, frolicked and frustrated themselves to an 0-8 record; they never stopped fighting.
Finally, the rewards for continuous effort and an inability to become the “Lay Down Larry’s” of the league began to surface. They won a football game. Then they won another. They suffered a monumentally broken hearted overtime loss the following week and let it linger in a blowout defeat seven days later, but showed resiliency and fought for another win… and then this past Sunday, another.
In all, the Bills have won four of their past six games. It’s too bad the regular season couldn’t start after week eight because at 4-2, only the New England Patriots and San Diego Chargers, both at 5-1, have better records than Buffalo in the conference over the past six weeks.
The Bills have the same amount of wins as the New York Jets, Pittsburgh Steelers, Baltimore Ravens, Kansas City Chiefs and Jacksonville Jaguars over the last six weeks. All but Jacksonville seem to be postseason locks.
Whether you like the man or not and regardless if you hated the hire, you have to heave a lot of respect Gailey’s way. He inherited a team with a lion’s share of first-round draft busts, over the hill veterans, chronic underachievers and guys not even considered good enough to be drafted—- and has his team ready to fight for every inch on the football field nearly every week.
I kid you not when I claim if Dick Jauron was coaching this roster, Buffalo would be hard pressed to have more than one win.
Even after the surge the Bills find themselves at just 4-10 on the season and have long been eliminated from the playoffs for an 11th straight season, but to a man and to a fan–everyone knows this team continues to play like a Super Bowl trip is on the line every Sunday.
It’s been well documented that four of Buffalo’s last five losses have come by three points, and three of those came in overtime. As crazy as it seems, they’re a hop, skip, jump and a good football play here and there from being at least .500.
Gailey doesn’t crave attention, in fact he detests it. As more praise trickles down towards him, he wastes no time distributing it back to his players.
“I’ve probably overused the word character, but I don’t know if you can because that’s what it’s all about with this group” Gailey told the media Monday. ”They’ve got a great deal of character. They continue to work hard. They continue to go about the business of trying to get better each week. And if you’ve got a group of men that will continue to try to do that you give yourself an opportunity to improve, not only individually, but as a team. I think we have got the wins to show for the improvement rather than just seeing improvement in our eyes as coaches.”
Sure, whether your Gailey, Cowher, Bill Walsh or Vince Lombardi it’s ultimately players and the talent they possess that make the differentiation from being watchable and great, but even the most ardent Bills fans can’t deny this is a rag-tag bunch still learning to grow into their own skin.
Last Sunday in Miami, Gailey’s offense was led by a seventh-round draft pick at quarterback (Ryan Fitzpatrick). His receiving corps consisted of another seventh-rounder (Stevie Johnson) and three guys who went undrafted (David Nelson, Donald Jones, Naaman Roosevelt). Both tight ends who caught a pass from him were undrafted (Jonathan Stupar and Scott Chandler) while the guy who got the most carries the backfield is yet another undrafted gem (Fred Jackson). We could also mention that the offensive line consisted of one first-round draft pick (Eric Wood), a second- rounder (Andy Levitre) as well as a seventh-rounder (Demetrius Bell) and a pair of guys (Mansfield Wrotto and Chad Reinhart) who weren’t even on the team a month into the season.
That’s not exactly Blue Chip City.
Despite a group so absurdly unheralded, Gailey’s boys ventured to Miami against a team needing to win to stay in the postseason race, and ensured them room for on the first tee immediately after the regular season concludes by beating them.
Gailey said winning some games recently has bred a positive mindset.
“I think they have a lot of confidence,” Gailey said. ”Some of them probably don’t know what they don’t know. If we can continue to improve, then every week starts to become a huge game.”
Suddenly, the organization itself isn’t the only ones with faith. Fans are gradually starting to leap on board with Gailey and believe in the direction the team is headed.
“I love the no quit attitude that this Bills team has,” said Ken Dudek, a fan from South Buffalo. ”You have to put that on the head coach. This team would have quit and folded under the previous coaching staff. I have really come to like Chan Gailey. I think this team is finally headed in the right direction.”
Kyle Williams, the one Bills player with a realistic chance to get voted to the Pro Bowl, says it’s been the chemistry of the team that’s allowing good things to happen.
“Nobody is out there just trying to survive practice,” Williams said Monday. ”Everybody is always out there with a purpose, out there to get better and work hard. We really don’t have any big egos here. We don’t have any bad guys. Everybody is a good guy, everybody gets along and I think that goes a long way. When tough times happen, guys with high character get along, they pull together, fight and play with each other – it’s important.”
Chemistry, character, toughness and a true fondness for each teammate is fine and dandy, but it’ll only get you so far in this league. If Gailey wants to find himself on the sideline of a playoff game soon, the organization badly needs to bring in an influx of talent. They have to start hitting on more mid-tier free agents and stop whiffing on early draft picks.
For now if nothing else, at least this team has become unpredictably pleasing to watch on a weekly basis with Gailey serving as the motivating factor.
“We know he can motivate,” Anthony Angrisano, another Bills fan, said of Gailey. “We give 60 minutes and even give 60 minutes plus at times. A few got away early that won’t next year.”
That’s a strong offering of support — and in Gailey nonetheless.
Who would’ve thought?
I wasn’t happy, enthused, inspired, encouraged, stimulated or any affirmative adjective you feel like using. I reckoned it was the typical, post-Super Bowl era Ralph Wilson status-quo move. In fact, I loathed the thought of a guy like Gailey coming to right a sinking Buffalo ship so much, I was the guy some (not fondly) remember as the one behind the billboard urging Bill Cowher to take the head coaching gig that Wilson was allegedly interested in offering.
Several months later, I’m genuinely starting to think I was mistaken.
It sure didn’t look that way at the start of the 2010 season though, did it? Buffalo stumbled out the gate with the ineptitude and penchant for losing football games Bills fans hadn’t seen the since the mid 1980s. Nearly every well-known national columnist as well as small-fry like myself branded the Bills as the worst team in the NFL and the trending question wasn’t when Buffalo would win a game, but if they’d taste the sweets of a victory at all.
But a funny thing happened to this squad as they fumbled, frolicked and frustrated themselves to an 0-8 record; they never stopped fighting.
Finally, the rewards for continuous effort and an inability to become the “Lay Down Larry’s” of the league began to surface. They won a football game. Then they won another. They suffered a monumentally broken hearted overtime loss the following week and let it linger in a blowout defeat seven days later, but showed resiliency and fought for another win… and then this past Sunday, another.
In all, the Bills have won four of their past six games. It’s too bad the regular season couldn’t start after week eight because at 4-2, only the New England Patriots and San Diego Chargers, both at 5-1, have better records than Buffalo in the conference over the past six weeks.
The Bills have the same amount of wins as the New York Jets, Pittsburgh Steelers, Baltimore Ravens, Kansas City Chiefs and Jacksonville Jaguars over the last six weeks. All but Jacksonville seem to be postseason locks.
Whether you like the man or not and regardless if you hated the hire, you have to heave a lot of respect Gailey’s way. He inherited a team with a lion’s share of first-round draft busts, over the hill veterans, chronic underachievers and guys not even considered good enough to be drafted—- and has his team ready to fight for every inch on the football field nearly every week.
I kid you not when I claim if Dick Jauron was coaching this roster, Buffalo would be hard pressed to have more than one win.
Even after the surge the Bills find themselves at just 4-10 on the season and have long been eliminated from the playoffs for an 11th straight season, but to a man and to a fan–everyone knows this team continues to play like a Super Bowl trip is on the line every Sunday.
It’s been well documented that four of Buffalo’s last five losses have come by three points, and three of those came in overtime. As crazy as it seems, they’re a hop, skip, jump and a good football play here and there from being at least .500.
Gailey doesn’t crave attention, in fact he detests it. As more praise trickles down towards him, he wastes no time distributing it back to his players.
“I’ve probably overused the word character, but I don’t know if you can because that’s what it’s all about with this group” Gailey told the media Monday. ”They’ve got a great deal of character. They continue to work hard. They continue to go about the business of trying to get better each week. And if you’ve got a group of men that will continue to try to do that you give yourself an opportunity to improve, not only individually, but as a team. I think we have got the wins to show for the improvement rather than just seeing improvement in our eyes as coaches.”
Sure, whether your Gailey, Cowher, Bill Walsh or Vince Lombardi it’s ultimately players and the talent they possess that make the differentiation from being watchable and great, but even the most ardent Bills fans can’t deny this is a rag-tag bunch still learning to grow into their own skin.
Last Sunday in Miami, Gailey’s offense was led by a seventh-round draft pick at quarterback (Ryan Fitzpatrick). His receiving corps consisted of another seventh-rounder (Stevie Johnson) and three guys who went undrafted (David Nelson, Donald Jones, Naaman Roosevelt). Both tight ends who caught a pass from him were undrafted (Jonathan Stupar and Scott Chandler) while the guy who got the most carries the backfield is yet another undrafted gem (Fred Jackson). We could also mention that the offensive line consisted of one first-round draft pick (Eric Wood), a second- rounder (Andy Levitre) as well as a seventh-rounder (Demetrius Bell) and a pair of guys (Mansfield Wrotto and Chad Reinhart) who weren’t even on the team a month into the season.
That’s not exactly Blue Chip City.
Despite a group so absurdly unheralded, Gailey’s boys ventured to Miami against a team needing to win to stay in the postseason race, and ensured them room for on the first tee immediately after the regular season concludes by beating them.
Gailey said winning some games recently has bred a positive mindset.
“I think they have a lot of confidence,” Gailey said. ”Some of them probably don’t know what they don’t know. If we can continue to improve, then every week starts to become a huge game.”
Suddenly, the organization itself isn’t the only ones with faith. Fans are gradually starting to leap on board with Gailey and believe in the direction the team is headed.
“I love the no quit attitude that this Bills team has,” said Ken Dudek, a fan from South Buffalo. ”You have to put that on the head coach. This team would have quit and folded under the previous coaching staff. I have really come to like Chan Gailey. I think this team is finally headed in the right direction.”
Kyle Williams, the one Bills player with a realistic chance to get voted to the Pro Bowl, says it’s been the chemistry of the team that’s allowing good things to happen.
“Nobody is out there just trying to survive practice,” Williams said Monday. ”Everybody is always out there with a purpose, out there to get better and work hard. We really don’t have any big egos here. We don’t have any bad guys. Everybody is a good guy, everybody gets along and I think that goes a long way. When tough times happen, guys with high character get along, they pull together, fight and play with each other – it’s important.”
Chemistry, character, toughness and a true fondness for each teammate is fine and dandy, but it’ll only get you so far in this league. If Gailey wants to find himself on the sideline of a playoff game soon, the organization badly needs to bring in an influx of talent. They have to start hitting on more mid-tier free agents and stop whiffing on early draft picks.
For now if nothing else, at least this team has become unpredictably pleasing to watch on a weekly basis with Gailey serving as the motivating factor.
“We know he can motivate,” Anthony Angrisano, another Bills fan, said of Gailey. “We give 60 minutes and even give 60 minutes plus at times. A few got away early that won’t next year.”
That’s a strong offering of support — and in Gailey nonetheless.
Who would’ve thought?
GREAT article. Wonderful job Pat.
Comment