Rex Ryan told you so barely three minutes into his opening statement at the Jan. 14 press conference where he was introduced as the new head coach of the Buffalo Bills.
"Are we going to do ground and pound?" Ryan rhetorically asked the massive gathering in front of him, as well as all those watching live on local television. "Yeah. You're darn right we are."
The old-school coach made no bones about it: He wants the Bills to be a strong running team, one that dictates the game to the opposition by imposing its will the old-fashioned way, and now he has some ammunition to follow through on that proclamation.
On Tuesday night, the Bills agreed to trade LB Kiko Alonso to the Philadelphia Eagles for RB LeSean McCoy. 2 On Your Side Sports Director Adam Benigni confirmed the trade, moments after it was first reported by ESPN's Adam Schefter.
McCoy will be entering his seventh NFL season, and while he represents a huge $10.25 million salary cap hit in 2015 that cuts seriously into the Bills cap space - which started the day at $27.1 million - he instantly becomes one of the Bills' most dynamic players.
In his first six years with the Eagles, McCoy enjoyed four 1,000-yard rushing seasons including a career-best 1,607 yards in 2013. Last year his production "dipped" to 1,319 yards and his average yards per carry was a whopping yard less (4.2) than it had been in 2013. However, McCoy by himself had only 163 fewer rushing yards than the entire Bills team.
McCoy has appeared in 90 NFL games, all with the Eagles who picked him in the second round of the 2009 NFL Draft out of Pittsburgh. He led the NFL in touchdowns with 20 in 2011 (including a league-best 17 on the ground), and in 2013 he led the NFL in rushing yards and yards gained from scrimmage (2,146).
For his career, the 5-foot-10, 215-pounder has 6,742 rushing yards (4.6 yards per carry) and 44 touchdowns, plus 300 pass receptions for 2,282 yards and 10 touchdowns.
By comparison, though keeping in mind that he has played one fewer season in the NFL, C.J. Spiller has career totals of 3,321 rushing yards (5.0 per carry) and 12 TDs, plus 158 catches for 1,195 yards and 6 receiving TDs.
Tuesday night during an appearance on NFL Network's NFL Total Access, Spiller confirmed that a member of the Bills' front office called him to thank him for his services to the organization shortly after the McCoy trade broke.
"My guy Willie (McGinest), he walked in and said, 'Did you all hear that Kiko is getting traded to the Eagles for Shady?'" Spiller said. "To me, I thought he was joking, just trying to play a joke on me because he's a Patriot and I was a former Bill. But then he put it on TV and I saw it. Then probably about five minutes later, management called me and told me that they were going in that direction. Pretty much giving me a 'Thank you for your service.'"
Asked whether re-signing with Buffalo was an option in his mind prior to the trade, Spiller said, "It was. I (was) hoping that I could return there. Very few guys get to play their whole career (with) one team. Unfortunately that doesn't happen in this business and I found out today that doesn't happen in this business."
Of course now the Eagles could be a possible landing spot for Spiller because his skill set might fit very nicely into Chip Kelly's innovative Eagles offense.
Also on NFL Total Access, future Hall of Fame running back LaDainian Tomlinson lauded the Bills acquisition of McCoy, whose nickname is Shady.
"(Ryan is) going to get Shady the ball any way that he possibly can," said Tomlinson. "He's going to utilize all of the assets that Shady McCoy brings to a team. That means running screen routes, possibly lining him out on the outside and create mismatches. They're going to try to get this guy the ball as much as possible. We all know that Rex Ryan leans on that run game; that's what he wants to do. He wants to control the pace of the game with the run game. This guy, LeSean McCoy has proven that he can do that. I think it's going to be a perfect marriage with LeSean McCoy and Rex Ryan."
Alonso said in December that he was fully recovered from his knee surgery and was anxious to get back to practicing with the Bills when the 2015 offseason program began.
As a rookie second-round pick in 2013, Alonso produced a superb season when he made 159 tackles and finished second in the voting for the NFL's defensive rookie of the year to one of Ryan's former players with the New York Jets, defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson.
Playing as an inside linebacker in Ryan protégé Mike Pettine's hybrid 3-4 scheme, Alonso took the league by storm when he made four interceptions, all in the first four weeks of the season. His streak of making an interception in three straight games was the first such streak by an NFL rookie linebacker since 1980. He also had two sacks, a forced fumble, and two fumble recoveries.
Alonso's effectiveness waned a bit in the second half of the season and he wasn't as noticeable nearly as often as he was at the start. He then sat out all of 2014 with a knee injury that he suffered during a workout back home in Oregon just weeks before training camp was to begin at St. John Fisher College.
What was believed to be a crucial blow for the Bills proved to be much ado about nothing. In his absence, the Bills put together one of their strongest defensive seasons in recent memory under new defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz as linebackers Nigel Bradham, Preston Brown, and Brandon Spikes rose to the challenge of overcoming the loss of Alonso.
The trade took Bills fans by surprise, and C Eric Wood tweeted this out after he found out about the trade.
