Gailey's hiring by the Bills a surprise, but not necessarily a pleasant one

As this search stumbled on and candidate after candidate after candidate said thanks but no thanks, it became painfully obvious that the Bills would have to settle for an underwhelming choice as their new head coach.

And that’s clearly what’s happened with the naming of NFL retread Chan Gailey as the 15th coach in franchise history Tuesday afternoon.

Because his name hadn’t surfaced on anyone’s radar screen or blog, Gailey’s hiring came as a complete surprise. But not a pleasant one. His coaching resume isn’t much more impressive than the Bills’ previous retread hire – Dick Jauron – and we all know how wonderfully that worked out.

Of course, beggars can’t be choosers.

After Bill Cowher, Mike Shananhan, Brian Schottenheimer, Jim Harbaugh, Russ Grimm, Marty Schottenheimer (am I missing anyone here?) turned them down, they decided to end this embarrassing process and hire a guy who has had moderate coaching success during a much-traveled career that has seen him work as either a head coach or assistant for 11 teams/schools in the past 33 years.

So much for a big splash, or even a fresh face, such as the Minnesota Vikings hot defensive coordinator, Leslie Frazier, who reportedly had been the Bills top remaining candidate.

Owner Ralph Wilson had promised dramatic changes after Buffalo completed the first playoff-less decade in the team’s 50-year history. He was going to shake things up from top to bottom. No job was safe. Money wouldn’t be an object, even if it took $10 mil a year to lure the likes of a Shanahan or Cowher. But, on the surface, it appears as if it’s the same old, same old at One Bills Drive, what I termed back in October as the “status woe.”

Gailey, 58, becomes the fifth Buffalo head coach since Marv Levy retired 13 years ago. You’d be historically accurate in saying that Levy was a coaching retread too when he was hired to replace Hank Bullough midway through the 1986 campaign and went on to earn more than 100 victories and a bust in Canton. Of course, Marv had a lot more going for him than Gailey does – namely a talented roster featuring future superstars such as Jim Kelly, Andre Reed and Bruce Smith and a front office led by Hall of Fame general manager Bill Polian and shrewd talent-assessor John Butler.

So are there any glimmers of hope with this hire? Any reason to believe the Bills won’t continue to be stuck in NFL purgatory? Let me try to offer a few positives from Gailey’s resume:

• He has NFL head coaching experience, having guided two so-so Dallas Cowboys teams to an 18-16 record and two playoff appearances in the late 1990s;
• He is regarded as an innovative thinker whose work as an offensive coordinator with the Steelers, Dolphins, Chiefs and Cowboys was lauded by his players and peers;
• He comes to Buffalo on the recommendation of Cowher, who reportedly was going to bring Gailey along as his assistant head coach/offensive coordinator when he returns to the NFL sidelines;
• He won’t be queasy about having to work with mediocre quarterbacks such as Ryan Fitzpatrick and Brian Brohm (I left Trent Edwards off this list because I believe he’s a goner). After all, Gailey was able to make it to four Super Bowls and 11 playoffs in 15 NFL seasons with the likes of Mike Tomczak, Kordell Stewart and Jay Fiedler.

I want to cut the guy some slack, I really do. Just as I want to cut Bills GM Buddy Nix some slack. But it just seems that we’ve been down this road so many times before and the final destination never winds up being the playoffs.

Mark my words: McGwire still delusional

I'm glad Mark McGwire finally admitted what most of us have known for years - that he used steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs during his baseball career. But I'm disappointed to hear him say the juice had no bearing on him producing other-worldly numbers.

Come on, Mark.

If you are going to come clean, come completely clean.

We're not stupid. You never hit more than 49 home runs before in a season and all of a sudden you dial long distance 70 times and hit balls 30, 40, 50 feet farther than you ever hit them before, and we're supposed to believe that it was just your superior hand-eye coordination, some extra bench presses and your Wheaties.

As far as I'm concerned, your mea culpa only made it to second base. If you want us to forgive you, you're going to have to stop deluding yourself that you would have put up those numbers regardless if you were juicing or not.

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Now that McGwire has sort of confessed, will we hear from the other major frauds of the Steroids Era - Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa? Methinks not.

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Hey, at least temporarily, NBC has created some drama in its 10 p.m. time slot. I normally don't watch Leno, but I flipped it on last night just to listen to him diss his bosses.

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If you connect the dots, Buddy Nix probably is hoping for a Schottenheimer father-son coaching combo.

Nix sided with Marty Schottenheimer when the former San Diego head coach was on the outs with Chargers general manager A.J. Smith a few years ago. Nix would like to have Marty be the Bills head coach for the next year or two, then turn the reins over to Brian Schottenheimer, the Jets offensive coordinator, who will interview for the Buffalo head job in the near future. Interestingly, Brian's three NFL jobs before the Jets were with teams his dad coached.

If the Schottenheimer connection fails, Nix might lean to Ron Rivera, the Chargers defensive coordinator.

And I'm still wondering why Brian Billick hasn't been interviewed. I hope it isn't because the Bills aren't willing to pay for the top-flight staff of assistants Billick wants to bring with him.

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Brian Schottenheimer spent the 1999 season as Syracuse's quarterbacks coach under Paul Pasqualoni. Troy Nunes was the QB that season as the Orangemen went 7-5 with a 20-13 victory over Kentucky in the Music City Bowl in Nashville. Schottenheimer left SU after one year to take a similar position with USC, before returning to the NFL. I don't know what kind of relationship Schottenheimer had with Pasqualoni, but I wonder if he would consider his former boss as his defensive coordinator should he become the Bills head coach.

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Although Syracuse is ranked fifth again in the current college basketball poll, they haven't been playing like a Top-5 team lately. I still believe that when crunch time arrives later this Big East season, Wesley Johnson is going to need to become a little more selfish and take more shots. He's definitely capable of carrying a team.

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I don't have a vote, but if I did Kurt Warner would be a first-ballot selection for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's a two-time league MVP and has a career passer rating of 93.7, which is better than all but a handful of quarterbacks in the Hall.

But the thing that seals it for me is his post-season play. He has a 9-3 record which includes a Super Bowl victory. In those 12 starts, Warner has thrown 31 touchdown passes, been intercepted 13 times and has an astounding 104.5 passer rating.

If that's not worthy of a bust in Canton, I don't know what is.