So Mike Mularkey, the Buffalo Bills' new head coach, and Tom Clements, his offensive coordinator, are going to install the sort of offense missing around these parts for more than two decades -- a Power Running Game.
Now, BillStuff is strongly in favor of such a transition, given the wild failure of the Acoustic Passing Game during the disturbingly dull season just completed. Don't believe it? Check almost any weekly edition of BS from the autumn of 2003 listed on the Reporter's BillStuff Web page.
Problem is, we've heard this all before.
The recently deposed Gregg Williams and alleged offensive genius Kevin Gilbride vowed to discover the PRG in time for the 2003 season.
So did Williams and Gilbride's predecessor, Mike Sheppard, in 2001.
Same for Wade Phillips and Joe Pendry in 1998, '99 and 2000.
Ditto with Marv Levy and Dan Henning in 1997.
And Levy and two-headed coordinator Tom-Jim Breshnahan-Shofner in 1992 through '96.
You can almost forgive Levy and Breshnahan-Shofner for abandoning the oft-discussed blueprint in favor of the Jim Kelly-run K-Gun about a month into each aforementioned season. After all, they were working with Kelly, Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed in their primes. Thomas was better suited to a wide-open system than slamming into the defensive front again and again, and Kelly was even less patient than eloquent. And considering their postseason haul -- four trips to the playoffs in five years, two of them ending in Roman-numeral games -- opening it up may have been the best available option.
Henning and Pendry, though, refused to give Antowain Smith steady work. New England's willingness to do so helped the Patriots earn one National Football League championship and has them on the verge of another.
As for the misuse of Travis Henry, particularly last season, that ground has been pretty well covered.
The brilliance of the K-Gun, particularly when overseen by creator Ted Marchibroda in 1990 and '91, makes it easy to forget that the Kelly-Thomas era began with a much more conservative approach in 1987 and '88.
Before Levy's arrival, there were the mercifully brief Kay Stephenson and Hank Bullough eras, in which no discernible offensive philosophy ever became apparent.
You have to go all the way back to the halcyon days of Ground Chuck in the early 1980s, when Charles Knox supervised the last functioning example of what you'd think Buffalo football would be all about -- a swarming, opportunistic defense predicated on forcing a bunch of turnovers and an offense designed to wear down the opposition, rather than out-flash it.
Knox's offense featured a durable, versatile running back in Joe Cribbs, an immobile veteran quarterback who experienced a late-career resurrection in Joe Ferguson and a playmaking wide receiver in Jerry Butler to keep defenses from stacking the line.
Mularkey's offense will feature a durable, versatile running back in Travis Henry, an immobile veteran quarterback who's certainly positioned himself for a late-career resurrection in Drew Bledsoe and a playmaking wide receiver in Eric Moulds, who should help keep defenses from stacking the line -- assuming he stays healthy for more than a week at a time.
Knox also had a dominant offensive line to help with the wearing-down-the-opposition part, as well as keeping his immobile veteran quarterback relatively healthy.
That ingredient has been sorely missing for the better part of a decade, but whether that was due to lack of talent, lousy position coaching or lack of a consistent offensive philosophy is wide open to debate.
The array of high draft picks amongst the blockers -- a group sure to get deeper through the draft and free agency -- and the addition of the highly acclaimed Jim McNally to tutor them should take care of two of those problems. It'll be up to Mularkey and Clements to take care of the third.
Deploying the PRG can only help a defense that allowed the second-fewest yards in the NFL, but forced the fewest turnovers. Turnovers come much more easily when a defense is protecting a lead. For most of 2003, the Bills' offensive dormancy forced them to play from behind, enabling opposing offenses to play it safe.
Unlike this point three years ago, when Williams rode into town predicting that a threadbare defense would resemble a combination of the Steel Curtain and '85 Bears, the Bills have almost everything they need to make the vision Mularkey described last week come to life.
But we won't know for sure if they have the will to make it so for another nine months.
Someone explain to me what Wade Phillips has to do to receive serious consideration for another head-coaching job in the NFL.
Talk-radio hosts and devotees transformed Bum's boy into Goober, an inept creation at once overwhelmed, dishonest and evil.
While the caricature made for easy laughs, it had little to do with reality. In five seasons with Denver and Buffalo, Wade's teams won 45 of 80 regular-season games. His three Bills teams produced an aggregate 29-19 mark. He would have averaged more than 10 wins per season and taken his team to the playoffs for a third straight season if not for a disastrous string of injuries that fueled a 1-4 finish to the 2000 season.
Phillips' inability to settle the Johnson-Flutie debate and poorly chosen words before a game in Indy didn't help his cause. But his firing was more a product of John Butler's departure and Tom Donahoe's arrival than his refusal to fire special-teams coach Ronnie Jones (the official excuse) or Buffalo's 8-8 record (which enraged a fan base badly spoiled by 10 playoff journeys in the previous 12 years). BS didn't oppose the move at the time, and still doesn't, given the circumstances.
Given the interim job in Atlanta after Dan Reeves quit in December, Phillips rallied the previously helpless Falcons to win two of their final three games. That's one fewer than they won in 14 weeks under Reeves, a future Hall of Famer.
He got an interview for the permanent Falcons job, but was passed over for another son of a coach, Jim Mora Jr. The other six head-coaching vacancies were filled with nary a mention of Wade, despite his resume, and he wound up taking the defensive coordinator's job in San Diego.
Of course, Phillips had a healthy Michael Vick running his offense last month in Atlanta. But injuries even out over time, and over the past 11 years, Wade compiled a 47-36 record as a head coach, with three trips to the playoffs in five full seasons. Name one other coach, with or without a Southern drawl, to compile that sort of a record and not get another top job.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | January 20 2004 |