Interesting Buddy Nix Interview

Buddy Nix was interviewed on 103.3 the Edge and had some very interesting things to say.

On where the team is at:

"We feel good about where we are. We're bigger, faster, stronger. We'll see how many wins that translates to, I don't know. We are better across the board."

On Lee Evans:

"We think in the long run it makes us better. Lee was a deep threat. Not a guy to run a lot of crossing routes. I would never knock Lee Evans, he was one of the nicest guys. A very productive Buffalo Bill." He also talked about Lee's blocking being an issue and going across the middle and taking shots.

On all of the talk about the Bills saving money by cutting players or trading them away:

“Any move that we make we take the information that we have at the time and we try to do things that will make our team better, It is never about money. It’s never about when a guy was drafted. The business I am in, the only way I will stay in this job with the Bills and our coaching staff will survive is if we win games. It has nothing to do with what the budget is.

“This business of playing our guys or playing high draft choices, it is really kind of amusing when you think about it. The only way we are going to survive and be successful is to win games. So, every move we make is for that reason. Money has never been mentioned since I have been here. I know what the cap is and we can spend it all.”

“I am not going to get into this, but I will try to clear that up,” he said. ”It’s the other way around; I talk him out of going after high-dollar guys that you see on TV and ESPN. That has happened more than once. It’s me talking him out of it.”

On Naaman Roosevelt being cut:

"People are sometimes more interested in where he's from than how he plays. We like Naaman, but it came down to numbers."

On the O Line:

"Nobody will believe this, but we're much better in the OL, and better than people think we are." He admitted that their depth is weak and they need to improve that. He said they were good in the middle but not so much on the Tackle side of things, saying Chris Hairston is the guy right now and that's a lot of pressure to put on a rookie.

On Geoff Hangartner's release:

“Geoff’s a great guy, a great community guy,” he said. ”Geoff lacks strength to anchor at the point. If a guy is a back-up center for us, he’s also got to back-up at guard. We have 53 players. When we go into a game 46 of them can play. Seven offensive linemen is what you want. You have one guy that backs up the center and both guards. You have to have a guy who backs up both tackles. In my opinion, Geoff could not do that. So that’s what we did.”

On newly acquired lineman, Sam Young:

“I scouted Sam coming out of college and so did Doug Whaley and Doug Majeski and Tom Gibbons. Most of the guys in our office saw him,” said Nix. ”Joe D’Allesandris, our offensive line coach, was familiar with him from the preseason. He’s a huge man. He’s a very smart guy and he brings an attitude with him and we need more of that. He’s got a little nasty in him. He’s a much better run blocker than a pass blocker. He’s a lot better than he was coming out of college. He played with Hudson Houck down in Dallas and Hudson does a good job teaching technique. He’s not a great foot athlete being at that size. He finishes blocks and he’ll help our running game. We’ll play him at right tackle.”

“That’s the reason you’ve got this guy (Sam Young) and some more,” Nix said. ”We’re good in the middle. We’ve got depth in the middle. We’ve got Andy Levitre that can play center. We’ve got Kraig Urbik that can play center. And actually Colin Brown can work some at center. Joe D works everybody in there ‘cause if you lose a center you know it could shut you down.
“But we’ve only got one backup tackle and he’s a rookie (Chris Hairston). He’s trying to back-up both sides and that’s tough because it’s more learning for him. We think he’s going to be a really good one. But if you put him in one place and leave him he’ll help you quicker.
“So that’s our thinking with this guy. He’ll be at right tackle and he’ll be our backup at right tackle if he does what he did in Dallas.”

On Michael Jasper:

"He's a genetic freak. We first said we're gonna get him down to 350. We can't get him down to 350 because he's lean muscle mass."
"Gonna take him a little time, but he'll be a good player"
"Probably a better offensive player. You don't want him to show up too good in preseason" at which point the hosts said "Gotchya" and laughed and he said he was just trying to be honest.

He also talked about making the team a bigger team saying they needed to be big enough to knock people around.

Said Dareus was fine and he's ready.

MY TAKE: Interesting that he revealed that they basically hid Michael Jasper on D so they could stash him away on the Practice Squad to work on the O line. He was pretty awful at points on D. There's no way a team could use a roster spot on him based off his preseason play but his athletic ability may intrigue some. I sense that many people will question this move by the team. The question they'll ask is, why waste an entire camp and preseason on him working with the defensive tackles when you believe he will be a better offensive lineman? The logic the team will use is he needs time and a year where he gets minicamps and OTAs before they can really put him on the line. And they don't want to waste a roster spot on a project guy that's going to need plenty of time to develop so you try to hide him on the practice squad. The thing is, every other team knows this now but they won't have footage of him playing offensive line. They can only go off what they saw in preseason, which wasn't much. If anything, that would work against Jasper. But this allows him to learn the playbook more, work with the training staff, lose some weight and get acclimated with the NFL life. If nobody attempts to claim him and he remains a Bill by the end of the season, he can get a complete offseason of minicamps and OTAs as an offensive lineman which could really help his development going into camp next year. Nix always raves about Jasper, he seems to really like the kid. Also important to note that Nix gets along well with Shredd and Reagan of the Edge and revealed a hell of a lot more than normal. He's usually bitter sounding when he's on the air with the WGR guys. It's probably best for him and the team if he stays away from WGR. It usually does the team more harm than good. His comments on Lee Evans and Roosevelt were very telling - the teams wants their WRs to block and be versatile route runners. He said Lee runs the deep route but didn't commit to crossing routes. As for Hangartner, Buddy was pretty blunt. I feel like I've said this a million times but I'll say it again - they are getting bigger. They want bigger lineman. They want bigger everything. Hangartner was on the smaller size and is on the decline as a player. It's that simple. And the single most interesting part was the talk revolving around the team and it's philosophy regarding money. Nix tried to debunk a lot of the reports that have been circulating about the team running things on the cheap side. I was definitely surprised when he said money wasn't an issue. I sense that many will be skeptical of that claim. Time will tell. The good news is, we'll find out if this team is getting better in less than 5 days. That was by far one of the more interesting Buddy Nix interviews I've heard.