The Kansas City Chiefs, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Buffalo Bills have something in common. They all made the same move of firing the offensive coordinator just before the season began.
OC Chan Gailey
Why did so many offensive coordinators get the axe just days before kickoff weekend? Not weeks or months, but days before the start of the season! Well, in Kansas City, it might be easy to call. It appeared that Haley wanted to continue his play calling duties since he seemed to enjoy doing that while the OC in Arizona.
In Tampa Bay, the young head coach probably did not see eye-to-eye with Jagodzinski and therefore he figured to cut his losses before the start of the season. Jagodzinski came from the college ranks, and Morris felt the organization could do better.
The firing of Schonert in Buffalo is a little harder to follow. The Bills spent the entire off-season with Schonert who installed a no-huddle offense, something that has not been seen in Buffalo since the Jim Kelly days. Then the Buffalo offense looked bad in the preseason and Jauron and the Bills panicked and released Schonert without giving him a chance to run his newly installed offense in a regular season game.
OC Turk Schonert
Well, here is what it looks like after three weeks of the NFL season. The combined records of these three teams is 1-8. With the only win coming in Week 2 when the Bills defeated Tampa Bay, 33-20. At least they provide some scoring in that game.
The Bills at 1-2 are the best team from this trio, averaging 319 yards per game which ranks them at 17th overall. Tampa Bay ranks 25th overall averaging 296 yards per game and Kansas City is ranked 30th averaging 30th overall with 264 yards per game.
These offenses have been anemic thus far into the season, and there is a direct correlation with the offenses lack of productivity to these teams losing their offensive minds days prior to the start of the NFL season. Two weeks ago, the Chiefs managed only 10 points against their division rival Oakland Raiders. The Chiefs did manage 14 points against the Eagles last week, but their offense was nothing special at all. They were held to just 196 total yards and the final touchdown was scored in garbage time with just 1:54 left in the game.
OC Jeff Jagodzinski
Then, there’s the Bucs. Last week, Tampa Bay was shut out at home against the Giants 24-0. The Bucs offense was so inept, it only had 86 total yards and had 22 of their 36 offensive plays go for zero or negative yards.
So maybe, it wasn’t the offensive coordinators that were the problems at all. Maybe it has to do with something else, say like the head coach. Maybe it’s the offensive system in place. Maybe it’s the game day play calling. Or maybe it’s just the simple fact these three teams do not have the level of talent on the field as the rest of the teams in the NFL. And if that’s the case, then it does not matter who the offensive coordinator is at the helm.
Steven:
Decent information, and a fabulous premise–that the demise of these teams may have something to do with the firing of OCs so close to the beginning of the regular season–that you let peter out by concluding that their demise could be anything. Hence, as a reader, I’m asking myself, “Why was this written?” If you’re not going to put forth an argument, even a poor one (which yours is not) then why write? Indeed, why did I read it?
Look, I know you’re somewhat new to this, which is why I’m being direct. I’m telling you, Steven, you had a great premise from which you could have build a great article. That’s what I hope my comments help you do.
In short, don’t get wishy-washy when writing.
The way I see it is that these men who have made it to play in the NFL have a certain level of talent- they are the best. Now there are a few SICK good players but on the whole everyone who has made an NFL team has to be talented. So we now have 32 teams full of very talented players, with the SICK ones spead around. What seprates the teams now is coaching, how each team and individuals are managed. I sail and am good foredeck man(pointy end of the boat). The crew has worked hard TOGETHER to work as one and if the man responsible for our training, a man we have worked with for months is suddenly not there, we are still very talented individuals and may work well for a time together but it has a very negative effect on the boat/crew. Even if we get the best Skipper in the world to steer the coarse, its not the team that trained together for all those months.
Thanks for all your hard work Steven + Jeff (shut up Jeff!!!) the show is so different (better maybe) from the first season- so maybe there is still hope for the Bills, a work in progress
–GO BILLS