The Rock Pile (The Official OS Buffalo Bills Thread)

[hush]

From an article by ESPN's Gregg Easterbrook:

Last week, the Bills named yet another bland guy as head coach, this time Chan Gailey. Since Marv Levy and then his assistant Wade Phillips, the Bills have fielded a succession of nondescript coaches who never express any form of emotion, who never appear the slightest bit perturbed by yet another losing season, who barely seem aware when a game is in progress. Gailey needs to shake up the Bills' culture, which once was win-oriented, but in the past decade has been excuse-oriented. At the high school level of football, building character is more important than winning. At the NFL level, winning is nearly everything. If a team doesn't win in one specific season, that could be bad luck. If a team doesn't make the playoffs for a decade, something is wrong with the coaches, management and the team's culture.

While introducing Gailey, new Bills general manager Buddy Nix gave the Buffalo headphones assignment this incredible vote of confidence: "Don't ever think you can't fill coaching jobs, even if they're bad." Nix's opening move was to insult his own team...

Throughout their head-coaching search, the team did nothing to counter rumors that top candidates were turning offers down because they didn't want to be associated with the Bills' inept front office. This generated negative publicity and made it seem Gailey's leading qualification was that he was the sole person willing to take the job. While introducing Gailey to the press, Nix espoused wild claims about the search process -- "We probably got, and I'm trying not to exaggerate, 15 calls a day, begging for an interview and wanting this job" -- then refused to give specifics, causing Nix to seem like a grinning buffoon. (Media advice: Never make a claim you can't back up.) Neither owner Ralph Wilson nor team president Russ Brandon attended Gailey's introduction, which made it seem as if both are already distancing themselves from the hire and lining up their excuses for when Nix and Gailey are fired. Attention Buffalo Bills, it is no longer 1962. Could we bring our public relations practices at least into the 1970s? Time to ditch the mimeograph machine and replace the rotary-dial phones. NFL franchises which excel in the marketplace -- Dallas, Denver, Houston -- are exceptionally image-conscious. The Bills behave as if dismantling the team's image is an organizational goal.

[SPTO]

Yesterday the Bills hired George Cortez as QBs coach. I don't know if you guys are familiar with his work but he's a longtime CFL offensive coordinator who spent 11 of his 18 CFL seasons in Calgary. He's a pretty innovative offensive mind and has a good track record with the QBs he's been in charge with over the years. The only QB at any level he's coached that has been a flame out was Kyle Boller when he was at Berkely. He also coached Aaron Rodgers so there's something positive.

Cortez is a good man who has built up a ton of respect wherever he goes and I think he could be a very good fit for the Bills. The hire does make me think that they might keep one of the QBs they have right now and/or draft a QB pretty high this year. I guess we'll see how it shakes out.