LANDOVER, Md. -- It was less than a year ago when Rex Ryan docked his ship in Buffalo, and it's already taking on water.
Ryan might have his pickup truck painted in Buffalo Bills colors and his New York Jets-themed tattoo covered in red and blue ink. And yes, he grabbed beers with Jim Kelly upon arriving in town last winter. But that means nothing now. In his second chance as a head coach -- and one that he said will be his final stop -- Ryan is facing a make-or-break offseason as pressure from ownership, players and fans is likely to mount.
If there was already a trickle of criticism about Ryan in recent months, including from Mario Williams and other players about his defense, then the floodgates began to open following Sunday's 35-25 loss to the Washington Redskins.
First it was a defeated Ryan standing at the podium and declaring that there would be "drastic changes" to his team -- now officially eliminated from the playoffs for a 16th consecutive season -- if its performance did not improve over the final two weeks of the season.
Ryan answered, "Well, no. Well, I guess, yes," when asked if he specifically had anything to prove to ownership. Ryan, in all likelihood, will avoid being fired after one season, but his roster and potentially his coaching staff face the possibility of upheaval.
"This is the NFL," he said. "It happens. Everybody's evaluated in this league. You can read between the lines."
As a dejected Ryan spoke, one of his most talented players, receiver Sammy Watkins, held court in the locker room, passionately declaring that he needed to take the matter of fixing the broken Bills into his own hands.
"I'm going to step up and talk," Watkins said, via Syracuse.com. "I'm going to make sure things get changed."
What's wrong with Ryan's team? Watkins thinks the Bills "are close" but opined that players lack accountability from their teammates and coaches.
"We need to forget about anybody's feelings," he said. "We need to call people out. If I'm doing something wrong, call me out. If the line is doing something wrong, messing up, call them out. If it's the defensive line, the secondary, we need to call that out, because at the end of the day, we're doing it to win, not to get on somebody and make them feel bad. We're grown men and this is our job. We get paid millions and hundreds of thousands of dollars. And forget the money. You've got to go out there each week and play for the guy next to you. I think when we get to that point and realize that you can get fired the next day and make it known, 'Hey, this is your job.'
"If you're not going to do your job, cut him. It needs to be a business. I think once we get to that, we need some nasty coaches. If they ain't doing their job, get them out of here. If I'm not doing my job, step to me and get me out of here. I think once we address those problems, we'll be all right."
Cutting a player is precisely what the Bills could do in the case of Mario Williams, who is due a $19.9 million cap number next season but has griped about his and others' roles in Ryan's defensive scheme. Feared as one of the NFL's best defenses last season, that group has sunk to the bottom half of the league in categories such as yards allowed, points allowed and sacks.
Williams, who brushed off the idea of taking a pay cut to remain a part of the struggling defense next season, continued to lay into Ryan's system after the game.
"My mindset is, if you're an attack defense, you don't let anything else dictate what you do," he said. "We're gonna put who we're gonna put out there, and then we're gonna execute and make plays with the guys out there. I don't care -- I don't need to wait on you to make a decision, and whoever seems to be missing personnel. ... We're trying to switch men. It's not like we're trying to switch plays. We're trying to switch men as they're coming out of the huddle.
"That's happened a few times in 10 years with me. A few times. That's 10 years. But like you said, game in, game out, I don't know how in the world that keeps happening."
It's not quite the "bickering Bills" of 1989, when players had public quarrels with each other, but the shiny promise that Ryan once offered has clearly worn off in Buffalo's locker room.
Ryan is at a crossroads, and he needs to start plugging the holes in his ship's hull -- before it's too late.
