To sort of quote Office Space, Percy Harvin is a Greg Roman fan. Harvin doesn't know if it gets any better than when he calls one of his big jumbo sets with a ton of pre-snap motion.
But seriously, it seemed like it was inevitable that Greg Roman would find some success in Buffalo, and we'd all be left wondering "WTF?", right? The Buffalo News wrote a feature on Roman and a coaching influence of his who recently passed away. In the feature, Percy Harvin is ebullient with praise for Roman.
"Greg is the best coordinator out there, in my opinion," Bills receiver Percy Harvin said. "Just the vision he gives us, the way he's able to motion guys and get the matchups he wants, the different schemes we've got up front blocking wise, anybody can have a big day."
"If he wants Sammy to catch a ball, he can move Sammy in a certain position," Harvin said of Roman. "He can motion him, he can motion a tight end, we're always causing confusion, always causing the defense to react to our motions. .... I mean, he's a beast."
There were stretches of his time in San Francisco where Roman seemed to have that mad genius quality. Unfortunately, there were also plenty of times where the offense was inconsistent, or we found ourselves wondering where some of the play-calling came from. Add in all the issues with the play-clock that never seemed to go away, and it is not surprising people went after Roman. He was the fall-guy for most 49ers fans. Colin Kaepernick got plenty of blame and Jim Harbaugh got some blame, but Roman was the guy a lot of people generally elected to go after.
In reality, it was never that simple. Roman was the guy responsible for the run game, but Harbaugh has always had multiple coaches involved in the play-calling, and so it was hard to nail down one particular coach as the problem in the scheme. There were rumblings that Jed York and/or Trent Baalke wanted Harbaugh to fire Roman, and that was part of the reason for Harbaugh's departure. There were also grumblings from players about the offensive schemes.
Whatever the case, the Buffalo Bills are finding success this season. Tyrod Taylor is on fire. The running game is looking great even with LeSean McCoy missing time with injuries. They are leading the league in "big plays" through three weeks. Things are clicking for them. It will be interesting to see how long that lasts, but for now, everyone in Buffalo seems happy with Roman.
I would say I'm surprised, but given how ugly things have been for 49ers fans, I am not all that surprised.