Making the Case for Chan Gailey
On Tuesday, Chandler Gailey Jr. became the 15th full-time Head Coach of the Buffalo Bills. The hire caught many people by surprise, though the surprise was really on the Monday, by Tuesday we all knew it was a done deal and they were just waiting to dot the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s.
Many Bills fans have viewed this hire as another typical Bills move, hiring someone who is cheap and a re-tread. Certainly in comparison to some of the names being mentioned as being in the running for the job Gailey will be cheap. He’ll not be getting anything like the contract Shanahan is being given to fail in Washington (and Shanahan will fail, because Snyder will stick his nose in and tinker no matter who the coach is), and he’ll not cost anything near the amount that Bill Cowher or Marty Schottenheimer would have cost the Bills, because he isn’t a “name” coach. The one thing that I disagree with though is that Gailey is a re-tread, or a failed coach who is being given another chance with Buffalo (see Jauron, Dick). Chan Gailey has had a winning record every season but three he has been a head coach, and two of the seasons he didn’t have a winning record he still finished at .500 and took his team to the playoffs, the other season was when he went 5-6 at Samford. At Troy he went 7-4 and then 12-1 as Head Coach, at the Dallas Cowboys he went 10-6 and then 8-8, and at Georgia Tech he had five 7-win seasons and a 9-win season. He also had two Bowl Game victories, with wins in the Humanitarian Bowl in 2003 and the Champ Sports Bowl in 2004. Oh, and in his two seasons coaching in the World League he went 5-5 and 7-2-1 and went to the playoffs. So the guy doesn’t have a stellar record, but he really can’t be considered a failure in any of the Head Coaching jobs he has held to this point.
Beyond Gailey’s previous Head Coaching experience, he has also held almost every positional coaching role available at differing levels within the game. He has been an Offensive Coordinator, a Defensive Coordinator, a Special Teams Coach, and has been a positional coach on both sides of the ball. There are very few coaches out there with this variety of experience, in coaching on both sides of the ball. To run through Gailey’s entire resume would take more room than I intend to devote to it, but he was defensive backs coach at Troy State and Air Force, Defensive coordinator at Air Force, Special Teams, Receivers and Tight Ends coach at the Denver Broncos, Offensive Coordinator at the Denver Broncos, Pittsburgh Steelers, Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs, and of course Head Coach at Troy State, Birmingham Fire, Dallas Cowboys and Georgia Tech.
The Bills’ biggest problems in recent years have come offensively. They haven’t been able to put enough points on the board to win games, even when the defense has played well enough to restrict the opposition to less than 14 points. Gailey’s offenses have always been able to put up points, even in his one year with the Chiefs as OC he was able to take the third string QB (Tyler Thigpen) and make him look like a serviceable NFL starter. If the Chiefs’ defense had been able to match Gailey’s offense they would certainly have finished much better than 2-14.
The biggest problem that Gailey has is that the Bills fans expected a big name. They believed that Buddy Nix’s comments about the type of guy he was looking for to come in and coach meant that they were getting one of the big names out there, yet neither Nix, nor anyone else in the Bills organisation, said that they were shooting for a big name, what they said was that they wanted someone with previous head coaching experience, someone who was offensively minded and someone who was a good teacher. Chan Gailey ticks every single one of those boxes, and in addition to that he brings experience of having coached on the other side of the ball.
Gailey is a solid hire for the Bills, he is a coach who knows how to win and he is a coach who believes in driving players on and delivering a kick to the backside when they need it. He’s also a coach who believes in practicing outdoors and in pads, no matter what the weather is doing. After 3 plus years of “Club Jauron” a lot of the Bills players need exactly this type of coach as far too many seem content to coast through the season and pick up a paycheck.
One further bonus, Chan Gailey’s hire caused Brian Billick to go on the radio and cry like a little girl about not being interviewed for the Bills job. Up until he did that I was annoyed that he hadn’t been interviewed, but after he embarrassed himself by acting like a pompous ass I’m glad he’s not the Bills’ coach and I think he’s probably cost himself any chance of being interviewed for any other HC jobs that come up, with the possible exception of Oakland.
Here’s to Chan Gailey, may he bring the Bills the success that the most loyal fan-base in any sport deserves.
Many Bills fans have viewed this hire as another typical Bills move, hiring someone who is cheap and a re-tread. Certainly in comparison to some of the names being mentioned as being in the running for the job Gailey will be cheap. He’ll not be getting anything like the contract Shanahan is being given to fail in Washington (and Shanahan will fail, because Snyder will stick his nose in and tinker no matter who the coach is), and he’ll not cost anything near the amount that Bill Cowher or Marty Schottenheimer would have cost the Bills, because he isn’t a “name” coach. The one thing that I disagree with though is that Gailey is a re-tread, or a failed coach who is being given another chance with Buffalo (see Jauron, Dick). Chan Gailey has had a winning record every season but three he has been a head coach, and two of the seasons he didn’t have a winning record he still finished at .500 and took his team to the playoffs, the other season was when he went 5-6 at Samford. At Troy he went 7-4 and then 12-1 as Head Coach, at the Dallas Cowboys he went 10-6 and then 8-8, and at Georgia Tech he had five 7-win seasons and a 9-win season. He also had two Bowl Game victories, with wins in the Humanitarian Bowl in 2003 and the Champ Sports Bowl in 2004. Oh, and in his two seasons coaching in the World League he went 5-5 and 7-2-1 and went to the playoffs. So the guy doesn’t have a stellar record, but he really can’t be considered a failure in any of the Head Coaching jobs he has held to this point.
Beyond Gailey’s previous Head Coaching experience, he has also held almost every positional coaching role available at differing levels within the game. He has been an Offensive Coordinator, a Defensive Coordinator, a Special Teams Coach, and has been a positional coach on both sides of the ball. There are very few coaches out there with this variety of experience, in coaching on both sides of the ball. To run through Gailey’s entire resume would take more room than I intend to devote to it, but he was defensive backs coach at Troy State and Air Force, Defensive coordinator at Air Force, Special Teams, Receivers and Tight Ends coach at the Denver Broncos, Offensive Coordinator at the Denver Broncos, Pittsburgh Steelers, Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs, and of course Head Coach at Troy State, Birmingham Fire, Dallas Cowboys and Georgia Tech.
The Bills’ biggest problems in recent years have come offensively. They haven’t been able to put enough points on the board to win games, even when the defense has played well enough to restrict the opposition to less than 14 points. Gailey’s offenses have always been able to put up points, even in his one year with the Chiefs as OC he was able to take the third string QB (Tyler Thigpen) and make him look like a serviceable NFL starter. If the Chiefs’ defense had been able to match Gailey’s offense they would certainly have finished much better than 2-14.
The biggest problem that Gailey has is that the Bills fans expected a big name. They believed that Buddy Nix’s comments about the type of guy he was looking for to come in and coach meant that they were getting one of the big names out there, yet neither Nix, nor anyone else in the Bills organisation, said that they were shooting for a big name, what they said was that they wanted someone with previous head coaching experience, someone who was offensively minded and someone who was a good teacher. Chan Gailey ticks every single one of those boxes, and in addition to that he brings experience of having coached on the other side of the ball.
Gailey is a solid hire for the Bills, he is a coach who knows how to win and he is a coach who believes in driving players on and delivering a kick to the backside when they need it. He’s also a coach who believes in practicing outdoors and in pads, no matter what the weather is doing. After 3 plus years of “Club Jauron” a lot of the Bills players need exactly this type of coach as far too many seem content to coast through the season and pick up a paycheck.
One further bonus, Chan Gailey’s hire caused Brian Billick to go on the radio and cry like a little girl about not being interviewed for the Bills job. Up until he did that I was annoyed that he hadn’t been interviewed, but after he embarrassed himself by acting like a pompous ass I’m glad he’s not the Bills’ coach and I think he’s probably cost himself any chance of being interviewed for any other HC jobs that come up, with the possible exception of Oakland.
Here’s to Chan Gailey, may he bring the Bills the success that the most loyal fan-base in any sport deserves.