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Rex Ryan, Buffalo Bills defense still not seeing eye to eye

The Buffalo Bills defense still doesn't like what Rex Ryan is doing and they're saying so in public.

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Matt Warren is Associate Director of NFL coverage for SB Nation and previously covered the Bills for Buffalo Rumblings for more than a decade.

In October, Buffalo Bills players began calling out head coach Rex Ryan for his defensive scheme after the defensive mastermind asked some pass rusher to drop into coverage against the Cincinnati Bengals. It wasn't very often, but the players didn't like in anyway. More than two weeks and another game removed, the public back-and-forth is still continuing.

Ryan is blaming the players, but the Bills players still think (hope?) he's going to change the scheme.

"I think this week we're just going to take a whole bunch (of plays) out and just play fast. That's what we want to do," linebacker Preston Brown said Monday, per the AP. "We don't have to be as complicated as we've been in the past."

Brown wants the defense to play fast instead of thinking, hence his desire for the team to simplify. He is likely referencing last year's playbook without many complicated blitzes and packages under now-departed defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz.

"That's something we're good at," said Brown. "We can go out there and just play one defense the whole game and have success."

Marcell Dareus, one of the defenders who criticized the play calls two weeks ago, was unconvinced on Wednesday.

"We'll know when the game time gets here," Dareus said. "We're still making changes."