There were many perks to moving out of my parents’ house to share a place with several of my buddies back during the summer of 2010. Most of the perks were obvious – I could now drink with my friends in the comfort of home any time I wanted and at least have somewhat of a shot of getting girls to come home with me from the bar without having to explain my living situation. There was also a smaller perk that I wasn’t even thinking of: my new home had HBO, which mom and dad did not.
August 2010 was the right time to have HBO on your home TV every night as it coincided with the start of season six of Hard Knocks, featuring the 2010 New York Jets. The star of that season, of course, was Rex Ryan. Ryan’s memorable sound bites from that season included the famous “Let’s go eat a goddamn snack!” line and yelling at Darrelle Revis’ agent. In my opinion, that’s still the best season of Hard Knocks turned out by HBO.
When the weather turned cold later in the year, I got to enjoy the debut of HBO’s 24/7 Winter Classic documentary series, previewing the upcoming Winter Classic by following the two teams behind the scenes. The first season featured the Washington Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins in the lead up to the Winter Classic where David Steckel scrambled Sidney Crosby’s brain. One of the stars of that season was Penguins’ head coach Dan Bylsma, who came off not as a bombastic personality like Rex Ryan, but rather as an even-keeled leader of the Penguins dressing room and a smart, analytical coach. While Bylsma’s detailed pregame preparations were highlighted in a couple of episodes, he also displayed some vigor with a fiery pregame speech in which he implored his Penguin players to “grind these bitches down.”
Now at the time these two shows aired, the Buffalo sports scene could not have been a bigger wasteland. While the 2010 Jets and Penguins were two of the best teams in their respective leagues at the time, the 2010 Bills started 0-8 and went 4-12 in Chan Gailey’s first year as head coach, while the Sabres followed a disappointing first-round playoff loss to the Bruins with a 15-18-4 record to open the 2010-11 season.
Fast forward five years and the script has completely flipped here in Buffalo. Suddenly it’s the Bills and Sabres who are both incredibly interesting. And guess who’s at the center of it all? Both Ryan and Bylsma, two of the biggest coaching names in their respective sports who now coach Buffalo’s two professional sports franchises.
The winter and spring of 2015 saw Buffalo flirt with the two biggest coaching names available for hire in their respective sports. This would have been unheard of in 2010, when the best Ralph Wilson and Russ Brandon could do was Gailey and Lindy Ruff was entering his 12th straight season as Sabres head man. 2015 saw the Bills land the big fish in Ryan and the Sabres nearly hire a future Hall of Fame head coach in Mike Babcock. When Babcock made like many post grads in the 21st Century and decided to move to the big city instead of Buffalo, the Sabres got the second most-recognizable name on the coaching market in Bylsma.
The Sabres have nothing to feel ashamed about, really. No, they didn’t get Babcock, but they got a damn good coach in Bylsma. The success of the Penguins from 2009 to 2014 can be traced to the presence of Crosby and Evgeni Malkin on the roster, but that doesn’t really tell the whole story. Bylsma’s Penguins played 174 regular season games over that time in which either Crosby or Malkin (or both) was out of the lineup with an injury. Despite that, Pittsburgh still posted better than 50% Corsi for at even strength in games where one of the two stars watched from the press box. Simply put, Bylsma’s teams still controlled play even without 87 and 71. If you know anything about the supporting cast Ray Shero put together for Crosby and Malkin, you realize just how remarkable a job Bylsma did with little depth to work with.
As for Bylsma’s teams flaming out early in the playoffs, well it’s tough to win in a seven-game series when your goaltender turns into a flaming tire fire. Marc-Andre Fleury put up four straight postseasons where he posted a save percentage below .900 (2010-13). When Fleury was benched for Tomas Vokoun in 2013, the Penguins advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals.
Bylsma is still young (he’ll turn 45 in September) and will now be trusted to guide the young Sabres into the future. As we all know, it’s quite a promising future. We all know the names – Eichel, Kane, Girgensons, Reinhart, Ristolainen, Zadorov, Pysyk, etc. The Sabres have built enough skill and depth in their prospect pipeline that they can reasonably expect to content atop the Atlantic Division soon, maybe in a year or two. You can reasonably expect them to have as much talent as any team in the league around the start of the 2017-18 season.
Meanwhile, the Bills under Ryan are probably as talented as any team in the league. If you look up and down their roster, every position is loaded. Except one. The Bills are still a clown college at the league’s most vital position and will probably have to wait one more offseason to get a guy we can all feel good about (so, basically better than Kyle Orton).
With that said, I mean look at this Bills roster. For once, the Bills will be an awesome choice for a Madden tournament. All you have to do is edit Tyrod Taylor to be about a 90 QB and you’re set to go. You can rip off big runs with McCoy or wear the defense down with Jackson and Dixon. You’ll have Watkins, Woods, and Harvin running open downfield and Clay slipping out into the soft spots of the defense for easy completions. Then you have one of the best defenses in the game with a monster pass rush and stout run defense. Invite your little cousin over to the house so you can roast him by 50 with the Bills in Madden.
The real Bills should be good, too, though it remains to be seen how far they can go with Cassel/Manuel/Taylor at quarterback. How far can a Boeing 777 fly with an engine flameout? That will basically be the Bills in 2015. I think they best resemble the Bengals teams of 2011-14. They have an incredibly talented roster, especially on defense, but quarterback play will keep them from winning a playoff game.
So, while there are still questions about both teams, this is such an incredible time to be a Buffalo sports fan. The two big-name coaching additions are just a small part of it. Anything is possible with Terry and Kim Pegula running the show. I feel like the “World is Yours” blimp from Scarface should be circling over their home at all times. Around the time of Rex’s Hard Knocks stint in 2010, the idea of a billionaire tycoon just dropping boatloads of money to buy the Bills and Sabres and bankrolling a meteoric rise of Buffalo sports was just laughable. Now, it’s our accepted reality.
Since Pegula’s name surfaced as the potential new owner of the Sabres in the fall of 2010, we’ve seen the renovation of First Niagara Center, the building of HarborCenter (excuse me, HARBORCenter), the drafting of Reinhart and, soon, Eichel, the trade for Kane, the purchasing of the Bills, steps to actually build a new stadium, the hiring of Ryan, the hiring of Bylsma, the Bills spending spree on offense in March, and, for once, an extension to keep a pending free agent star on the Bills (Jerry Hughes). Is this heaven? No, it’s Buffalo.
While we used to assume the worst and expect we couldn’t acquire the best of the best, now we’re pretty much flummoxed when the Bills or Sabres can’t acquire something we want. How many people just assumed the Sabres were going to get Babcock last week? I know I was one of them. We all reacted like Wayne and Garth listening to the “Noah’s Arcade Presents Wayne’s World” song for the first time after Babcock chose Toronto.
The point is, ownership willing to spend and actually be someone competent has transformed the feeling of Buffalo sports. With competent ownership comes competent people running your teams. For all the expensive acquisitions the Bills and Sabre have made, hiring Doug Whaley and Tim Murray were two of the most important moves they’ve made in the last five years. These two bright, young general managers have put plans in place to make these two teams competitive for the foreseeable future. They’re not always perfect (the Bills might be in trouble soon if they don’t find a long-term quarterback), but they have helped bring excitement to Buffalo sports during a time where neither team has won a playoff round since 2007.
With not a lot to hold onto, Buffalo sports have been able to sell hope that their teams are turning around. As Ralph Wilson Stadium season ticket sales since 2011 will show you, the Bills have been quite good at selling that hope. I think 2015 is the first time in a long time where that hope is actually plausible. It might now happen right away, especially with the Sabres, but it’s going to be good. Let’s sit back and enjoy it.
For a while, the most interesting part of following Buffalo sports has been seeing which mainstream media member will come up with the most ridiculous thing to write or say. We’ve had good ones in the past and this year has been no different (LeSean McCoy shouldn’t talk about race, says the white, middle-aged newspaper writer; Eichel and McDavid didn’t jump off the screen to me, says the out-of-touch hockey writer; people who want the Sabres to finish 30th are losers, says that same out-of-touch writer). I look forward to the day where we can actually talk about these teams being good and playing playoff games.
I feel like we’re not that far away from that day (Gleason’s column where he claims he called for the tank years ago will be great, though).
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