http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap300...e-bills-tenure
But there is something different this time around, something Ryan himself believes will make a huge impact.
In 2009, the New York Jets chose him to be their head coach. In 2015, he chose what became important to him.
"I've had six years of experience," he said Wednesday, a few feet away from the field where he held his second OTA session as the newest coach of the Buffalo Bills. "So am I gonna be better now? Of course. You're not gonna be worse by having experience. The other thing is understanding what's important, because the second time, I was lucky -- I got to choose where to go. The thing about that was, go to an organization where you see the direction, and it's the same direction (you believe in)."
......."When I look back on it, I looked at when I should've been more upfront with the owner," Ryan said. "I think that was a big thing: 'Look, we got some issues, this needs to be resolved.' I knew what was gonna happen. We all knew it. But now, there's no way in hell (that happens again). If I'm going down, I'm going down swinging. And if it happens, it's gonna be, 'Here's some issues we need to fix.' And hit them head on."
That way, problems are eradicated rather than managed, which keeps them from festering. If the vision is splintered -- which seemed to happen often in New York, where so many Band-Aid fixes were applied -- that should be recognized before there's a full-blown corruption of the plan.
"You have to roll the exact same way, and we don't need anybody that's gonna be an anchor to this team or have a hidden agenda," Ryan continued. "Once you chop all that off, we're gonna be pretty good. And again, we may not get to where we wanna go -- we wanna paddle to a damn Super Bowl, everyone gets that. We may end up somewhere else, but at least we're gonna go together."
There's still plenty to figure out, of course. First and foremost, Ryan has to settle on a quarterback. And the Bills' offensive line has some issues to sort through.