NFL Open Thread: Are You Ready For Some EXOTIC SMASHMOUTH?

A couple of commenters unearthed the most awesome quote ever:

“I’m going to do the things that I’ve had success with since 2001, and I will continue to do that until someone stops us,” said Mularkey, who served as the Titans’ interim head coach for part of the 2015 season and is now their full-time boss. Statistics show that NFL teams are passing more than ever, with teams throwing an average of 20 percent more yards in 2015 than they did in 2005. But Mularkey has no intention of adjusting his offense to fit that new reality, or indeed even accepting that there is a new reality: “I know people say this is a passing league,” Mularkey said. “I’ll argue with that.”

Mularkey’s lifetime record is 18-40. Since his first year he’s 9-33. I think we can safely say it’s “stopped working.”

Also, as an addendum to my Rex Ryan post below, it should be noted that the #1 culprit in Buffalo isn’t anyone on the coaching staff but GM Doug Whaley. Dan Lavioe has the grim details here, but as Mike Tanier once put it Whaley’s philosophy seems to be to carefully study what Bill Belichick does and do the exact opposite: paying heavily to trade up in the draft, investing heavily in running backs, overpaying generic free agents. The Watkins trade was a disaster, not because it was unreasonable to think that Watkins was the best wideout in the draft — this was the consensus — but because nobody is good enough at projecting talent to be a first round pick’s worth of confident that Watkins was a substantially better player than Evans or Beckham or Cooks or Benjamin. If the Bills fire the Ryans and keep Whaley it’s hard to see things improving.