A Question about Jim Haslett from a Bills fan

That’s a VERY interesting list of questions you have there. I have always liked Haslett even though he had a rough stretch as Saints head coach. I’ll tell you my lasting impression of him as a head coach:

Randy Moss had just made a pretty good reception against the Saints and was tackled on the sideline right in front of Coach Haslett. Moss and Haslett had known each other for years and were actually pretty good friends. Anyway ~ right there on TV I could read Haslett’s lips as he looked at Moss and said, “F… Y.., Randy!” A ref was standing right there so Jim said it with a smile, of course. I know this doesn’t answer your questions but I like telling the story!

By the way, my boss is a staunch Bills fan. Lots of tip-toeing going on around the office. Good luck for the rest of the year. Keep everybody healthy and come back next year for another go. As Saints Fans, we all know where you’re coming from!

He made us suffer through years of having to deal with Aaron Brookes as our QB so that should say everything about his ability to judge talent.
I always liked Jeff Blake i never understood why he lost his job to that clown

Ive tried to block that period from my memory…He seems like a good tough guy, but not head coach material. Wasnt he DC with the Rams last and doing some sort of thing with the “developmental league” lately??

That man is a ticking time bomb and could explode any minute. Glad it’s for ya’ll.

Well… I think Haslett deserves a tiny bit less of the blame than some others. Face it guys, he put a team that actually won some games on the field, as compared to his immediate predecessor. No, he couldn’t sustain his winning ways, but he made some changes and his win percentage was better than the previous two straight up added. (12.5%
+ 31.3% = 43.8% < 46.9%).

We won a lot of those games by pure luck. He didn’t have the greatest players, nor the greatest leadership, nor the best synergy possible. And part of his (and Jauron’s, and Williams’, and other previous Bills — and Saints — head coaches’) problem was he never struck gold on a free agent quarterback nor sucessfully drafted a young stud to groom and turn into a good QB for him later on. And that is not Haslett’s fault. That’s Mueller’s fault. Or at least more so.

Furthermore, it’s very much a truism that you learn more from failure than success. Just because he failed last time is no guarantee he’ll fail this time. Bellichik anyone? He absolutely sucked in Cleveland. The Jets gave him another chance and he was OK, then the Patriots stole him and he started kicking some butt. He had a boat-load of synergistic circumstances to help him out of course, but it’s not like he deserves NO credit for his teams success over the last decade.

And as much as I think PayLoo are really good, they couldn’t have done what they did if there wasn’t SOME sort of basis for future success already here. They just couldn’t have.

So in my opinion, I say give him a top notch GM, or at least top notch talent evaluator to advise him (Kokinis sucked as a GM perhaps but in an advisory and talent-evaluator role he’s been great for years, so maybe he’s a good target), and give him another chance. I mean, seriously, can it really get worse?

I think he could be a pretty good NFL head coach. His tenure with the Saints certainly left a lot to be desired, though. I think his weaknesses are his stubbornness (shown not just through his loyalty to Brooks) and lack of offensive creativity. His strengths are his intensity and defensive knowledge. I’m assuming he’s learned a lot with the Rams and while taking the Tuskers to an undefeated season.

As to your specific questions. If you look at the Saints’ clock management under Haslett, it was pretty bad, but I put more of that on Brooks. Brooks was always slow coming out of the huddle and had a hard time getting off quick snaps. Haslett, like Jauron, is a more defensive minded coach, and does tend to be more conservative. But that might be a good thing for Buffalo for now. The Bills don’t exactly have an explosive or dominant offense that can close out games. Relying on good defense is not always a bad thing anyway (ask Belichick).

Haslett’s tenure was also plagued with mistakes, but again, I’m not sure how much of that is on the coaching staff. Players need to focus, and Haslett’s Saints never seemed to have that single-mindedness that great teams have. I suppose you can put some of that on the coaches though.

Haslett did draft some great talent for the Saints – Darren Howard, Deuce McAllister, Donte Stallworth, Jon Stinchcomb, Charles Grant, etc. Player progression was hit or miss I guess. Stallworth had the talent to be an elite WR but never really lived up to his potential. On the other hand, McAllister and Grant became Pro Bowl players under Haslett.

How much of the Saints current success is due to Haslett being gone? That’s hard to say. Obviously a huge part of the Saints success right now is because of Drew Brees. So, the question is whether Haslett would have made as strong a bid for him as Payton did. Who knows. Assuming the same team players that Payton has, I think the Saints would be doing pretty well regardless, but probably not quite where they are now.

Overall, I think Haslett could be a pretty good coach for the Bills. But I don’t think he would become a long tenured one there. I imagine he would start to rebuild with his own people, see limited success, and get fired with a .500 or slightly better record over 3-4 years. Really, what the Bills need is a new QB, not a new head coach.

You will only get more of the same.

I know he has the ex-Bill thing and all, but he’s better suited as a DC.He had a good draft or two but he lost the team with a lack of disciplin w/Aaron Brooks and then Katrina was the end. I think owners know his Head coaching train has left the station. I’d look younger, like in the situation in Denver. A first time HC. Someone who wants to be in Buffalo/Toronto (no disrespect).

I know! How about Les Miles?

Make him an offer he can’t refuse and we’ll be in your debt forever.

He came into New Orleans and took us straight to the playoffs, it’s hard to fault any coach for that. Aaron Brooks is a big reason the city fell out of love with Haslett, but it’s not really Brooks or Haslett that are to blame. It was the offensive coordinator.

So long as Haslett has an OC that is aggressive, and Haslett sticks to Defense, the Bills will be fine. You have a lot of weapons, you just need an offensive mind that knows how to use them. Haslett being a former Bill could also go a long way in motivating a team.

I hope you do get rid of Les then LSU will be back to being the middle of the pack team, going to the Independence Bowl…maybe a Liberty Bowl…gotta love people who think LSU should be National Champions every year…Please run him out of town, He can go to Michigan and my Rebels will own you for six more years, when we get mad at Nutt and fire him for only winning 9 games a year.

which was an awful situation to go thru with Katrina etc. And, Aaron Brooks was a very good QB early on with a lot of raw talent but he didn’t read defenses well and threw off of his back foot a lot. But Haslett was loyal to him which was good until the last season because I really don’t think any team in the NFL should settle for a Jake Delhomme. He just isn’t a top tier QB. Clearly, though, Haslett stayed with Brooks a little too long. Haslett and Brooks gave us our first playoff win- no small feat in Saints history because some good coaches and QBs never did that prior.

So, overall I think Haslett will do well in his next head coaching job. I would make sure you have a good QB and a good Offenive Coordinator that calls the plays- not Haslett. Perhaps a Buffalo team built on a Pittsburgh model of great defense and an offense that can just barely get the job done. I think Haslett would fit that situation well.

His draft acquisitions were about as good as one would expect. He got the team some franchise players, he immediately got the team out from under Ricky Williams with Deuce. While Ricky is and was a great running back, I don’t think things were ever very smooth with him in New Orleans, and he was downright weird early in his career. Deuce was a perfect fit with the Saints, and while there’s a very good argument that he was a significant downgrade as a talent, at the time it very much felt like the right move, and pretty much worked out for us, as Deuce is one of the most beloved AND productive backs in franchise history. I liked Brooks, and he got us our first ever playoff win, but Haslett should have moved on, or at least benched Brooks, later on in his tenure. His refusal to sit Brooks at the end of the ’03(?) season when he was clearly injured cost the Saints a playoff trip.

I would say, he was a good coach, but things just got progressively worse for him in New Orleans each year. I don’t think many, if any coaching staffs could have survived the 2005 season New Orleans had. Hell, the city is barely surviving 2005. But from a coaching standpoint, he(and then-GM Randy Mueller) put together a very solid franchise for a little while there. His offensive coordinators(like virtually every Saints OC until ‘06) were always bland, predictable playcallers, and his ability to control the locker room eroded over the years, until they seemed like Pacino’s team from Any Given Sunday, except without the great legacy of victories. But he was a huge improvement over the terrible Ditka experiment from before him.

But it seems he has trouble coaching up that talent. The only real bust I can think of that he drafted was Jonathon Sullivan (and pherhaps Dante Stallworth, depending on how you look at it), but a lot of his first round picks just didn’t improve to the point of being worth much until Haslett was gone. He definitely has an eye for picking out players that have raw talent, but I just don’t think he knows how to bring out that talent in the players he has. I don’t think he has the ability to control players (see Joe Horn and Aaron Brooks) so I definitely wouldn’t want to put him in charge of keeping T.O. in line. He is a linebacker at heart, and knows defense, so if you guys do choose him you’ll need a good O.C. to help him out.