Well, that was fast. The Buffalo Bills—a team best analogized by a man setting himself on fire after jumping through a table in a parking lot—lost an ugly game to the Jets on Thursday night, 37-31, falling to 0-2 on the season. But instead of rolling with the punches and embracing the mediocrity that was always their destiny, Rex Ryan decided to fire Greg Roman, the highest paid offensive coordinator in the NFL.
In a lot of ways, Roman is a sacrificial scapegoat, here—Rex Ryan hasn’t necessarily been crushing it as a coach over the past two years, and the team’s defense was roughly as bad as its offense on Thursday. There’s also the element of pride here: Ryan did lose to the team that fired him in 2014 last night. But the bottom line doesn’t read favorably for Buffalo’s offense: the Bills only generated 160 yards against the Ravens in Week 1, and showed very poorly on Thursday, despite those 31 points. After two games, they’ve looked pretty poor on both sides of the ball, although it’s hard to imagine Ryan firing, say, his fraternal twin brother, the assistant head coach for defense. But while Roman wasn’t given much of a chance, maybe there’s some mercy in his firing: the Bills have Arizona and New England coming up on their schedule, and Roman is now under obligation to watch those games.
