With Dick LeBeau aboard as assistant head coach, the Bills apparently added 114 years of coaching experience this season. Now that’s got to be some kind of NFL record. If that experience came in just one coach, he would have been born in 1889. None of the Bills were even living then …
It’s funny, just two years ago I thought Wade Phillips was a bit too lackadaisical as head coach, and that Williams would inject some Jon Gruden-like youthful intensity, which I felt would benefit Buffalo right away. But having observed the last two years, I’m like everyone else: I’m thinking that NFL experience is really a good thing.
Most players are more apt to listen to a coach who has been in the league for a while, than a coach who’s starting fresh in the NFL. The new, inexperienced coach can succeed, but he must be outstanding in communicating his ideas in order to convince his players to follow him.
A coach with experience simply has more credibility with the pro football player.
Kendrick Office and Pat Williams both felt former defensive line coach John Levra’s experience was a big key in helping them become NFL players as undrafted rookie free agents …
You know what I would have done if I were Cincinnati, I would have matched the offer for Spikes and then tried to trade him to Buffalo, seeing that Buffalo and Takeo wanted each other so badly. Wouldn’t that have been a good idea? I bet Tom Donahoe is asking himself why Cincinnati didn’t do that …
I wonder if “Butler’s Bills” – Ruben Brown, Eric Moulds and Pat Williams – feel a bit slighted in terms of team leadership. Those three are working as hard as anyone entertaining free agents who come to town, but they aren’t the official team captains. Drew Bledsoe, London Fletcher and Sammy Morris are …
One reason that Kevin Dyson might like playing for the Bills: wide receivers coach Fred Graves coached him at Utah where he caught a school-record 192 passes for 2,726 yards and 18 touchdown receptions on his way to the Titans drafting him 16th overall in 1998. He’s 6’1”, 208 pounds, has good speed and leaping ability. He’s bigger than Peerless Price, but he’s been hampered by injuries in his five NFL seasons. In 2000, he tore a knee ligament in practice and was lost for the season after two games.