Perhaps the biggest feather in the cap of Chan Gailey is the simple fact that he has some head coaching experience. Granted, most of it is at the college level where he spent 6 years at the helm of Georgia Tech. During his tenure with the Yellow Jackets, Gailey amassed a record of 44-32 and never had a losing season. Despite those numbers, he was let go and had his contract bought out in 2007, due in part to 6 straight losses against main rival Georgia, and perhaps for a subpar record in bowl games. Before that time, Chan spent 2 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, going 18-14 and making the playoffs in both years. Both seasons ended with first round losses however, and owner Jerry Jones had seen enough. Jones now claims it was a mistake to let Gailey go for what it's worth. Gailey has had stints as offensive coordinator in Denver, Pittsburgh, Miami, and most recently Kansas City, but has never spent more than 2 seasons in that position with any team. Reports also claim that Bill Cowher had tapped Gailey as his offensive coordinator, if he were to return to the sidelines. When meeting with the Bills, Cowher seems to have given Gailey his recommendation.

Apparently, since the Bills couldn't convince Cowher to come back and take the job, they figured they might as well get the guy he spoke highly of. Honestly, I see little other reason the Bills would make this hire. In Gailey's most recent job with the Chiefs, he failed to make any impact with the offense, which to be fair, was about the worst in the league when he took them over. He was one of the 3 OC's relieved of their duty in the preseason this past year. It concerns me a great deal that the guy wasn't good enough to be the OC for Kansas City, yet the Bills think he has the ability to turn around a franchise mired in a decade of futility. According to Adam Schefter's story on the hiring, the Bills are supposedly impressed with Gailey's ability to take franchises to the playoffs, despite having a subpar quarterback, citing seasons with Mike Tomczak, Kordell Stewart, and Jay Fiedler. I'm not sure whether to cry or laugh hysterically at that last sentence. Instead of fixing the problem of not having had any stability or outstanding skill at the quarterback position since Jim Kelly left, the Bills choose to hire a guy who has had some luck getting teams to the playoffs with bad QBs!

If the Bills were hiring Gailey as on offensive coordinator, I'd probably be alright with it. He does have a decent enough track record in that position (although the 2 year stints everywhere he's gone concern me) to warrant giving him a chance. Especially when you consider how truly awful the offense has been in Buffalo the past few seasons. It's very clear that somebody with a mind for that side of the ball is a necessity. However, this guy has never impressed as a head coach. When this entire process started for the Bills, I was in the group that desired a proven head coach over any other candidates, with the key word being proven. Gailey has a little experience, but I find him far from proven at the NFL level. Now, I understand that the Bills were being backed into a corner after numerous potential candidates declined the offer to even interview for the job, but that doesn't change the fact that it was still the only current vacancy in the league. Buffalo seemingly had all the leverage in this situation, yet still seem to have found a way to mess things up. Once Shanahan, Cowher, and any other proven NFL winning head coaches were clearly out of the realm of possibility, the next logical step would be to go after a coordinator who had proven themselves at that level, but hadn't yet had the chance to take over the big job. Once again, Gailey doesn't fit that bill.

Leslie Frazier seemed the front runner of those candidates, having interviewed with the Bills and by all accounts being impressive. On top of that, his Viking defense has been outstanding all year and just finished dominating a red hot Dallas Cowboys squad in the playoffs last weekend. No, Frazier isn't one of these 30 something hot shots who could revolutionize the game like Sean Payton or Josh McDaniels, but that would never fit the Bills mold anyways. Sure, Frazier wasn't the ideal candidate to most Bills fans, myself included, but out of those still left standing, he seemed like the best choice. A proven commodity at his current job, looking to get a chance to do more. Instead, we're getting Chan Gailey, a man with moderate success as a coordinator, and a proven "middle of the road" head coach, who has struggled with everything he has done lately. Yup, that sounds like a Buffalo Bills move.

Before I continue to just run this hiring into the ground, let me say that Chan Gailey might not be awful. I don't want to completely write him off before he has even had a chance in Buffalo, because that's not exactly fair. The problem is that his hiring is a complete symbol of what is so wrong with the organization as a whole at this point. 10 years with no playoffs and just one winning season in that time. 5 different head coaches in that time frame and no quarterback that has been able to stick for more than 3 years since Jim Kelly. The problems run very deep and everybody knows it. Hell, even owner Ralph Wilson appears to know it since he recently stated that some serious efforts had to be made in order to turn things around. Folks, Chan Gailey is not a serious effort. He's another guy in the Dick Jauron mold who comes in with mild previous success, and more recent failure. A guy that is just looking for his last chance to make it as a head coach in the NFL. A guy that more than likely isn't going to rock the boat in Buffalo and is just another warm (hell, next to Jauron he probably seems quite lively even) body to fill the job for a few more years. The best I see out of Gailey is some flirtations with .500 for a year or two, but no ability to take us any further because he doesn't have the talent on the team to make it happen. In other words, even more of the same.

Is Chan Gailey the answer? I highly doubt it, but then again, I'm not sure there is an answer right now. So many things have to change for the Buffalo Bills to even be taken seriously by the rest of the league at this point that the list is growing about a mile long. Splashes need to be made, and I don't mean signing one big name free agent with a risk factor in order to sell more tickets like this past season. This team needs a real head coach that knows how to win, a quarterback who isn't frightened by his own shadow and knows how to lead, and perhaps... an owner that actually gives a damn.