Rex Ryan Is Living In The Past

When the Buffalo Bills decided to make Rex Ryan their next head coach, they received a great motivator, a guy who players want to play for and someone who always wins the press conference.

“Is this thing on? Because it’s getting ready to be on. And, that’s the truth,” Ryan stated to open his introductory press conference.

What you also get is a guy who believes in what he does; Playing hard-nosed, grind it out football.

Solid play at the quarterback position is something that has eluded Ryan for much of his head coaching career, and it’s also something that the Buffalo Bills are still looking for. Former first-round pick E.J. Manuel has struggled and was benched last season.

Ryan doesn’t believe that the Bills’ quarterback position is a problem.

“This is not just about one man or about one position,” Ryan said on PFT Live. “It’s about your team and more importantly the direction of your team, I think from ownership, to president [Russ Brandon], to Doug [Whaley], our General Manager. To me, it seems like everybody wants the same thing and they all feel like there is a certain way to get there. That’s where we are tied in and we are behind each other 100 percent. I think that’s something really important to me and obviously, I think, with the players we have as well, it is a great mesh.”

Ryan believes that you don’t need a high-functioning quarterback to win a Super Bowl title.

“I’ve been a part of it, unless you want to say that Trent Dilfer was a franchise quarterback,” Ryan said. “You’ve seen some great defenses in this league win that way but again I just think when you look at it as, ‘What’s the whole of your team?’ I think that’s the important thing, and placing all of that pressure on one man, if you have a guy that’s not quite at that level, then why would you put all of the burden on him? I think you place it on the entire 53-man roster and then we’ll see. I don’t think we expect to be better at the quarterback position than the New England Patriots. They have Tom Brady and we don’t have Tom Brady. That’s not a slight on any of our guys but that’s just the way it is.”

Will the Bills enter the season with E.J. Manuel as the starter or will Rex Ryan opt for a free agent quarterback that he has a former working relationship with such as Mark Sanchez?

“I still have the tattoo,” Ryan said on ESPN’s Mike and Mike Show Thursday. “We’ll look at Mark (Sanchez) and we’ll obviously look at everyone else.”

Recent history tells us that Ryan is wrong about his quarterback situation. You need a certain level of playmaker to succeed in the postseason in this current era. There are no Trent Dilfer’s that are winning in the postseason in today’s NFL.

Ray Lewis Lives In A Parallel Universe

Former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis was one of the greatest defensive players in the history of the game.
As an announcer….let’s just say that he was a great linebacker.

Lewis punctured the news cycle this week as he gave his candid thoughts on three-time Super Bowl winning quarterback Tom Brady.

“When we — the first time we created something called a tuck rule, it’s the only reason we know — I’m just being honest —the only reason we know who Tom Brady is, because of a tuck rule,” Lewis said, via CBS Boston. “There’s no such thing as a tuck rule! If the ball is in your hand, and I knock it out your hand, whether it’s going backwards, forwards, lateral, sideways, however it’s coming out, that’s a freaking fumble! But guess what we created? We created a freaking tuck rule!

“They don’t go to that championship game — they don’t go to that championship game if that tuck rule, if that ball is not called a tuck! That’s a fumble!” Lewis said. “Charles Woodson made that man clearly fumble the ball and they named it the tuck rule, something that we’ve never heard in today’s game. So now you’ve got to ask yourself: When did the legacy really start?”

It would only matter when and how the Brady legacy started if he only had that one great playoff run. Including that run he’s gone to five Super Bowls, winning three, setting numerous records and he’s widely regarded as a Top 5 quarterback of all time.

Lewis back-peddled better than Darrelle Revis on his Twitter account.

"To clarify my comments from this week:I was trying to express my frustration about the Tuck Rule itself….

— Ray Lewis (@raylewis) January 15, 2015

I have immense respect for Tom Brady and everything he has achieved in this league. He will go down as one of the all-time greats."

— Ray Lewis (@raylewis) January 15, 2015

Tom Brady took the high road as usual.

“Everyone has an opinion,” Brady said Thursday, according to WEEI.com. “I think Ray is a great player. He’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer. I was fortunate enough to play against him.”

Ray Lewis is a passionate man. He seems to have gotten caught up in the story about the “Tuck Rule” and maybe over-exaggerated his point to give a good soundbite.

Brown, Watt, Murray and Haden Named Pro Bowl Captains

by NFL Media

— Stars will be realigned during Pro Bowl Draft Show live on NFL Network on January 21 —

The active player captains for the 2015 Pro Bowl will be WR ANTONIO BROWN, CB JOE HADEN,
RB DE MARCO MURRAY and DE J.J. WATT, the NFL announced today. Murray and Haden will be paired together, while Watt and Brown will work as a duo.

The 2015 Pro Bowl, presented by McDonald’s, has been announced as a sellout and will be televised live on ESPN at 8:00 PM ET from University of Phoenix Stadium in Arizona, site of Super Bowl XLIX. It will again serve as the signature event to kick off Super Bowl week. NBC will broadcast the Super Bowl a week later on Sunday, February 1.

These four captains will help determine rosters for Team Carter and Team Irvin during the Pro Bowl Draft on January 21.

Pro Football Hall of Famers CRIS CARTER and MICHAEL IRVIN will serve as alumni team captains for the Pro Bowl squads and have final say over draft decisions. Pro Football Hall of Famer JOHN RANDLE (Team Carter) and DARREN WOODSON (Team Irvin) will serve as defensive co-captains. The NFL legends will also each be assisted by two active player captains and the Lenovo Fantasy Coach of the Year during the draft process.

To determine which team owns the first selection in the Pro Bowl Draft and how the alumni captains will be paired with active player captains, there will be a coin toss during the Pro Bowl Kickoff Press Conference on Tuesday morning, January 20.

The 2015 Pro Bowl Draft, presented by McDonald’s, will be nationally televised on January 21 in primetime on NFL Network on Wednesday (8:00 PM ET). For the second consecutive season, the Pro Bowl will be “unconferenced.” Gone is the familiar AFC vs. NFC match-up that had existed since 1971. Instead, players were selected without regard to conference in voting by fans, coaches and players.

The Pro Bowl players were determined by the consensus votes of fans, players and coaches. Each group’s vote counted one-third toward determining the 86 Pro Bowl selections announced today. Two additional “need” players will be chosen by each head coach and must be long snappers. The NFL is the only sports league that combines voting by fans, coaches and players to determine its all-star teams. In 1995, the NFL became the first professional sports league to offer online all-star voting.