The only possible reason I can see for this hire is that Ralph Wilson wants to piss off as many season ticket holders as possible so he can lobby to move the team to LA or something. Reports are coming out that they had the opportunity to hire Marty Schottenheimer or Brian Billick, both coaches who have had more recent success than the recently-fired offensive coordinator of a 2-14 team.
As a Bills fan, I wish I could say that this is the straw that broke the camel’s back, but until the team is actually out of Buffalo, I can’t give up on them. I am beginning to feel like a battered spouse.
Any possability of playing home games in the Ralph till November and then moving to a domed stadium for the rest of the season? They don’t play hockey at the Rogers Centre do they.
What I hear is that those guys (among others) turned the Bills job down. The team really didn’t have a lot of options; Gailey might be the best they could get.
I know this sounds crazy considering their front office, but could they think Marty’s too old at 66? Maybe need a younger guy to offset all the liver spots they have going on in the organization?
Let’s say I’m perplexed. No, I don’t think Wilson has any kind of scheme to move the team. Most people think he’s the only freaking thing keeping them in Buffalo, so that’s ass backward. What it does show is that a lot of people turned the Bills down because the team and the organization are not in demand at all. It stings a little but it’s not surprising. I didn’t think Cowher and Shanahan were ever coming to town, but they were only the most prominent people to say no. It sucks. I’m not sure how Gailey is supposed to improve it.
If the 1989 documentary, Major League, is accurate, Gailey will subversively (and drunkenly) inspire the Bills players to overperform, thus foiling any plot to move the team.
That was baseball, though. The football documentary, The Replacements, is probably a better comparison heading into a possible 2011 work stoppage.
I’m siding with Wilson on this one, to claim that no one wanted the job is asinine. Yeah, Cowher and Shanahan are holding out for the perfect situation but those guys are just 2 guys and they are the rare coaches who actually have that luxury. I think there were plenty of guys beating down the doors for that job, but the Bills had some bizarre restrictions on the type of guy they wanted.
Marty Schottenheimer would have been perfect, sure he’s old and probably not going to win a damn thing in the post-season and he’ll burn out his players in year 4, but he’s a proven organization builder and the Bills could have brought him in and trusted that he’d leave the team better than he found it.
I think Wilson was infatuated with Cowher and his recommendation of Gailey had everything to do with this. It wasn’t a scarcity of options, it’s that Cowher completely seduced Wilson and the discussions he had with the team turned into consulting sessions instead of pre-interviews.
The weird thing is that the coaching candidates this year seem almost universally defensive minded, which seems uncommon, and Wilson was bound and determined to get a proven offensive guy. Can you name me another candidate that fits that description who’s actually been interviewing who isn’t named Shanahan?
Anyone else wonder what would have happened if Mike Nolan had been canned a day or two earlier?
Buffalo is easily ahead of at least 8 other cities in the NFL as far as appeal. The Bills weren’t blacked out at all this season, which is more than several other teams can say.
Is that not a fact, or is it just not properly sourced?
I’m not saying they had no other options, just that they clearly got turned down a bunch of times (I don’t know if Marty Schottenheimer was an option, but his son said no, and he’s never even been a head coach). I’d prefer they went with a young coach with something to prove rather than an older one.
