Here's the Bills news of note for Feb. 1st.
**1 - Reid: Culley very qualified as Bills QBs coach
**Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said the reason he let his Assistant head coach David Culley join Sean McDermott's staff in Buffalo as quarterbacks coach was to help get him on a faster track for a head coaching position. In addition it's been Culley's desire to coach quarterbacks after coaching receivers for most of his NFL career.
"He played quarterback so he always wanted to get back to doing that," Reid told Buffalobills.com. "He was always involved in our pass game all the time. He'd set it up with me and present it to the players. He's done installs. He's done everything. I looked at him like another coordinator."
Reid believes his former coaching understudy and Bills head coach Sean McDermott has done a masterful job of assembling an experienced staff, and Culley is another important piece to the puzzle on the offensive side of the ball.
"Sean gets a guy who is experienced. For a head coach you can't ask for more than that," Reid said. "David has experience and has been there and knows how to do it and can take off and roll. He was my assistant head coach. That's how much trust I had in him."
Reid thinks the biggest bonus for McDermott in having Culley on his staff is the fact that the quarterbacks coach role is typically filled by a far less experienced person.
"That normally is a younger guy who is behind the coordinator and does this or that," said Reid. "That's not what you're getting with David. You're getting an experienced guy that even though people perceive him not to be experienced at the quarterback position, he's got that taken care of. He understands it. He knows it. Then he's got years under his belt as an NFL coach. That's the most important thing right there. For that position and the way it's in flux in Buffalo right now. I think they've strengthened their offensive staff by adding David."
**2 - Alexander explains dust-up with Jimmy Graham
**By now everyone knows that Bills LB Lorenzo Alexander took home Defensive MVP honors at the Pro Bowl. What some might have missed was Alexander's dust-up with NFC TE Jimmy Graham. Late in the game Graham caught a short pass over the middle and Alexander was the closest in coverage and tried to close on the pass as soon as it was thrown.
Problem was Graham was in position to catch the ball and then turned right into Alexander, who Graham did not see on the play. It led to a hard collision, one that Graham wasn't expecting in a Pro Bowl game.
Graham got up and started jawing at Alexander, who essentially laughed it off. In an appearance on the John Murphy Show, Alexander explained the play.
"Toward the end of the game you've got essentially $30 grand on the line. The winning team gets $60K and the losing team gets $30K and the intensity was picking up," Alexander said. "Two or three plays before that Doug Baldwin made a catch and he was driving and trying to run up out of my tackle and I missed it. Then they went hurry up and we were in cover two on that play and I was just trying to drive to the ball and knock it down and Graham did a little stutter step and he turned right into me and I play fast and hard and that's what you get. You get a big collision.
"He was upset and saying, 'Are you serious?' I was kind of like, 'Whatever dude. Are we playing ball or what?'"
Alexander felt the collision was incidental, and in no way intentional. And if the hit was thought to be too hard, it was no different than some of the other plays made by defensive players through the course of the game.
"He's a hell of a player and I understand where he was coming from," said Alexander of Graham. "But I was just matching the tempo they were giving us. If you watched that game there were some linebackers flying around all day. Ryan Shazier, Thomas Davis on their team. Their defensive linemen were sacking our quarterbacks like it was nothing. So it definitely was an intense game for a Pro Bowl game I felt."
Alexander also mentioned that the AFC team got a fiery pre-game speech from former NFL All-Pro linebacker Ray Lewis, which also ratcheted up the intensity.
"If they want a less competitive atmosphere they shouldn't have Ray Lewis giving pre-game speeches," quipped Alexander.
3 - Kelly ranked 13th on all-time QB listESPN NFL reporter John Clayton put together his top 15 quarterbacks of all time and Bills Hall of Fame QB Jim Kelly made the cut.
Clayton had Kelly ranked 13th in football history. Here's what he wrote.
*13. Jim Kelly
Regular-season record: 101-59
Former Penn State coach Joe Paterno wanted Kelly to play linebacker for the Nittany Lions. It's a good thing Kelly went to Miami (Florida) to play quarterback. Kelly, who never won a regular-season MVP, was one of the league's toughest signal-callers. His brain moved much faster than his legs. He ran the Bills' no-huddle K-Gun offense, which was several years ahead of the rest of the NFL, and went to four consecutive Super Bowls from 1990 to 1993.*
The top three quarterbacks on Clayton's list from three up to number one were Peyton Manning, Joe Montana and Tom Brady.
