Rex Ryan was feeling the heat at his post-game press conference yesterday in Landover, Maryland. He said that changes were coming to his team which was officially eliminated from the NFL playoffs after a disheartening loss to the Washington Redskins. Ryan was asked if some of the changes might come in connection with a report last week that Bills GM Doug Whaley had expressed his displeasure with some of the team's assistant coaches. Ryan dismissed the report but his terse response and body language said (to me at least) that all is not well between the Bills front office and the coaching staff. Whaley has been disappointed, according to the report, with offensive coordinator Greg Roman's heavy emphasis on the run game which leaves star wide receiver Sammy Watkins as a spectator on far too many plays. Whaley has a particular interest in seeing Watkins live up to the price the team paid to get him in the 2014 draft by trading its first round pick this year to grab him at number four overall - a move orchestrated by Whaley himself. Watkins has been very good through his first two seasons but not good enough to justify his price.
The problem is that Whaley was already the GM when Doug Marrone mysteriously resigned at the end of last season and Ryan was hired as head coach by team owners Terry and Kim Pegula. Ryan then brought in Roman, known for his emphasis on the running game, as offensive coordinator. Whaley then traded for running back LeSean McCoy but now apparently wishes that the team had thrown the ball to Watkins more than it has. If I were Whaley, my questions would be directed much more to the coaches on defensive side of the ball. Ryan and his hand-picked defensive coaches have steered the Bills defence to a league ranking of 20th going into yesterday's game. Last year, with an almost identical defensive line-up but different coaches, the Bills defence finished the season ranked number four in the league. I would much rather hear Ryan's explanation about that than about play selection on offense.
Before the NFL schedule was released in April, and knowing that the Dallas Cowboys were scheduled to make their once-every-eight-years trip to Orchard Park in 2015, I was quite certain that the league would schedule the game on a Monday night in the first half of the season in a effort to replicate the thrilling 2007 game, still seen as one of the best games played in Buffalo in the last 20 years. But, no, the game was scheduled for two days after Christmas. So, here it is: Up next, the 4-10 Cowboys, minus Tony Romo who is on injured reserve and out for the season, will take on the 6-8 Bills with the teams relative 2016 draft positions the only matters still to be decided.
OPP Sergeant and communications "officer" Kerry Schmidt was on the radio this morning providing some statistics on this year's RIDE program. Almost 500 drivers have been charged with impaired driving in Ontario so far this holiday season (and we're still 5 days away from Christmas), including 95 this past weekend. It seems like drunk driving is making a comeback but there is another very disturbing trend this year: drivers attempting to flee RIDE check points. In December alone, there have been at least three reported incidents of this in Ontario (Whitby, Guelph and London). A 24 year old female pedestrian was killed by one of these fleeing drivers and the others have ended up crashing their vehicles while being chased. I guess alcohol clouds judgment but I am still fascinated that someone would decide to try to flee from police in any circumstances at all. The ironic and tragic thing about these stories is that, unless the driver is killed in a crash, they always end up getting caught, they are often injured, their vehicles are usually written-off, they are charged with flight from police and charged with other Highway Traffic Act offenses like wreckless driving. To cap it all off, and in the ultimate of ironies, they are also charged (I assume) with impaired driving. Happy Holidays.
No comments:
Post a Comment