Buffalo Bills: Rex Ryan Playing for Much More Than Wins
The Buffalo Bills are heading into the regular season hoping to bounce back from their efforts of last year. On the other hand,head coach Rex Ryan is playing for much more than just wins.
Last year under new head coach Rex Ryan, the Buffalo Bills finished the season at 8-8 and third in the overall division rankings of the AFC East. Ryan inherited a team that was primarily built on having a top-five defense in the NFL but didn’t deliver at all from that side of the football in 2015. They were unable to stop the opposition on a consistent basis as their only real bright spot of the season was sweeping his former team the New York Jets and eliminating their hopes of making the NFL Playoffs in their season finale.
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Even though the Bills ended the season with a victory against their AFC East rival, at the end of the day, it was another season without an appearance in the playoffs. The main problem with Ryan, which dates back to when he was the head coach of the Jets, is that he prefers attention being on bold predictions and his circus-like antics and big announcements rather than focus on the overall picture.
The big picture, just like every team in the NFL is trying to accomplish, is building a roster worthy of chasing a championship. With the Bills however, it’s an entirely bigger situation than that. This is a team that hasn’t seen the postseason since 1999. That’s right, the Bills are the only NFL team that have the longest playoff drought going on 16 years.
Make no mistake about it, as Ryan heads into the regular season, he’s playing for much more than just wins with hopes of ending this playoff drought once and for all. It’s easy to see that the writing is on the wall that if Ryan has another losing season with no appearance in the playoffs, he might be out of the job.
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Even Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly recently chimed in on this very topic.
In an article written by Mike Rodak of ESPN.com, Kelly had this to say about Ryan and expectations for the Bills in 2016:
"“I think Rex will probably be looking for another job,” Kelly told “The Jim Rome Show” on Thursday. “I think everybody knows that, including Rex.”"
Rex however, can be a bit delusional in the grand scheme of things.
He lives in a world of fantasy most of the time instead of living in the moment and accepting reality. In that very same article by Rodak, when Ryan was asked if his job was on the line if the Bills didn’t make the playoffs, Ryan said:
"“The media looks at it [like], ‘Well, we have to win this year,'” Rex Ryan told TheMMQB.com last month. “Or what? Oh, I am going to be fired? I don’t think so. I’m not going to worry about it, because we are going to win anyway. But it’s like, that is an ultimatum. No.”"
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Overall, Ryan needs to stop making such statements and focus on the task at hand. Before the playoff drought is extended another year, Ryan needs to understand that head coaches in the NFL that don’t produce results find themselves out the door. In his second year with the Bills, it’s now or never to silence the critics otherwise, Ryan might not be around for a third one.