Media Day: Nix Rips Stiffs

There is really only one story pertaining to the Buffalo Bills: How could this happen?

(Editor's note: Several creative obscenities have been deleted from the preceding sentence.)

Buddy Nix, the man who assembled the roster and coaching staff responsible for consecutive blowout losses in which his defense set any number of new standards for defensive permissiveness, while the quarterback he granted a contract extension last year continued to perform like a none-too-promising practice squadder, shared his remarkably candid thoughts with the Buffalo News:

To be completely honest with you, what I see is not enough intensity and urgency. ... And that could be on any segment or as far as any part of our group. But to play defense you've gotta play fast and you've got to play reckless and you've got to play aggressive.

For some reason, especially in the second half of both games, we didn't do that. We were a step slow reacting. We missed tackles. We didn't get off blocks. When you miss tackles, usually it's one of two things, it's talent or lack of effort. We've seen these guys do it before so I think they can. We gotta get that urgency back somehow.

Yes, Buddy. Yes, you do.

These Bills do not lack for talent, particularly on defense. High-dollar free-agent defensive ends Mario Williams, the first overall pick in the 2006 draft, and Mark Anderson, as well as middle linebacker Nick Barnett, were integral parts of highly effective defenses with Houston, New England and Green Bay. Marcell Dareus, Stephon Gilmore and Leodis McKelvin were taken third, 10th and 11th overall in their respective drafts. Kyle Williams and Jairus Byrd have been Pro Bowl selections, and the latter tied for the lead league in interceptions as a rookie. (UPDATE: Anderson is out indefinitely with a left knee injury suffered late in Sunday's game, Nix said today.)

And yet, you have to go back 42 years -- less than a month after the Attica Riot -- to find back-to-back Buffalo football performances as pathetic as the last two weeks.

The 1971 Bills -- now there's a team with very little talent. They had O.J. Simpson, whose game-breaking ability was smothered by the ineptitude of his supporting cast. And James Harris, who would lead the league in passer rating and make the Pro Bowl -- five years later, with the Los Angeles Rams. And that was about it.

Their top young defender was Al Cowlings, whose main qualification was being Simpson's best friend and future chauffeur.

They were as inept on offense and these Bills have been defensively the last two weeks.

After jumping out to an 0-2 start, they gained 64 total yards (no, I did not forget a digit in there) in a 19-0 loss at Minnesota on Oct. 3, with 8 (eight) coming through the air. You can enjoy the incompetence for yourself, courtesy of YouTube.

Johnson apparently emphasized the passing game when Buffalo returned home to take on the defending-champion Baltimore Colts at War Memorial Stadium the following Sunday, because Harris and Dennis Shaw combined to throw for 121 yards. However, they were sacked for 76 yards in losses, leaving Buffalo with 45 net passing yards.

The relative improvement came at a cost, however. Buffalo's runners managed all of 4 (four) yards, including seven carries by Simpson that produced a minus-10 on the stat sheet. Add it up, and the Bills gained 49 total yards on the Colts, who rolled 43-0.

At least Buffalo had a built-in excuse that year. Ralph Wilson had fired head coach John Rauch before the season because he said something mean about former punter Paul McGuire and replaced him with poor Harvey Johnson, whose long career in Buffalo's scouting department is overshadowed by his two stints as emergency coach, which produced one win apiece in 1968 and '71.

Nix, however, chose Chan Gailey as his coach of his own free will.

Place all the well-earned blame you want on the aforementioned defensive players, along with Ryan Fitzpatrick and the assorted fumblers surrounding him. If there were just one or two schlemiels per game whose mistakes were costing Buffalo reasonably close ones, that might be sufficient.

But 52-28 followed by 45-3? Scores like that, particularly when they come in sequence, result from abject systemic failure. The singular responsibility of a head coach is to find a way to keep the players he is given playing with both intensity and urgency. In theory, the offensive and defensive coordinators are also vital to the process.

Gailey and Dave Wannstedt, who famously commands Buffalo's defense, somehow came up short the past two weeks to a degree that multiple futility records were set. Yet both remain gainfully employed as the Bills spend the week in Arizona, preparing to face the 4-1 Cardinals on Sunday.

Nix's honesty is refreshing, a rare bit of frankness from an NFL general manager, particularly when it calls into question the effort of the players he acquired.

Candor does not, however, get him off the hook, either.