hondo in seattle

A couple of thoughts... Do you think we would have beaten the Chiefs in the playoffs this year if Miller, White, Bernard, and Milano were all fully healthy. I do. And yep, our defense doesn't fare as well in the playoffs as in the regular season. But is this due to poor coaching? I mean, does McD suddenly become stupid? Does his preparation suddenly become lackadaisical? Does he idiotically make radical changes to his defensive scheme? Does he go on a drug and alcohol binge during the playoffs? Maybe. Or, more likely, the team over-performs during the regular season because of McD's good coaching but then the lack of talent - exacerbated by injuries - gets exposed in the playoffs against quality competition. The way I look at it, there is no team so good that it enters a season as an unstoppable force with a 100% chance of winning the Super Bowl. There's too much parity in the NFL... too many injuries... too much luck involved. There is a select group of teams that enter a season each with a 10% or so chance to win it all. Thanks to Beane and McD, the Bills are one of those teams. The dice just haven't landed in our favor - yet.

Thanks for posting. Very informational. I learned something. I like James Cook. But I'd like Cookie, too - a brutal Gilchrist-type power back who would run up the gut against these faster but lighter defenses.

Thanks for posting all the excerpts. If this is all true, they're a mess and it doesn't sound like even a Rodgers-led Jets team would threaten the Bills next season.

When you hire from within, I suppose it does reek of "more of the same." But I may be a little more open-minded than you. I would've hated for people to think that I'd be a clone of the guys who promoted me in my career. I never was. I don't expect these guys to be either. I think Brady might energize the offense. And I think he might not. I don't believe he was super impressive in his half-year tryout, but I do recognize that he was thrown into the fire with someone else's playbook and scheme. The players seem to like Brady, but they liked Dabs and Dorsey too. To sum up: who knows? As for Babich, I've heard nothing but good things about him. Of course, he'll be working within McDermott's scheme. And considering how we've ranked defensively and how we've been able to patch together a credible defense despite key injuries, that's not a bad thing. Does Babich have the drive and skills to help get the team over the playoff hump? We have no way of knowing.

I wouldn't read the book. Not my thing. But it sounds like he made a big and positive change in his life. Good for him.

There might indeed be some clues there but that was college and this is the NFL. And that was a few years ago - he may have evolved since then. And Brady has said he's not married to a scheme. He's more interested in developing an offense that fits the talents of his players. I'm not trying to be argumentative. I'm sincerely curious about this question: How will Brady's offensive scheme be different than Dorsey's? I guess we'll all find out next season. I'm sure he'll try to put his individual stamp on the O. I'm just not sure how successful he'll be. I'd like to be confident. As a Bills fan, I'm always hopeful. But I'm also firmly in the I-just-don't-know camp when it comes to how excited we should feel with him in the OC role.

I agree. But considering the world is billions of years old and that war, famine, disease, and hate plague the world, are regular season games meaningful? I mean, you know, in the big scheme of things?

Interesting. As I understand things, the West Coast offense that's so common today is Bill Walsh's modification of Air Coryell but prioritizing shorter, higher-percentage throws. As I recall, Coryell taught his QBs to look deep first and then underneath. Walsh wanted to methodically drive down the field with precise execution. Coryell preferred chunk plays: lower percentage but bigger gains. A modernized version of Air Coryell would be a good fit, I think, for Josh's arm talent.

That was his dad who coached our LBs before handing the role off to junior. I'm guessing he felt he needed more time for his HC duties. And he may have also felt it was the right thing to do for Babich's career development.

You might be right but let me make some observations before asking you something. There are two basic offensive systems in the NFL: Erhardt-Perkins and West Coast. I've heard coaches and players say all NFL teams run, more-or-less, the same plays. So there are two basic playbooks: E-P and West Coast. And there's a lot of overlap between the two. Coordinators tweak and combine ideas as they feel appropriate to create their own syncretic scheme. But no coordinator is filling a playbook with plays no one has seen before based on an offensive strategy no one has considered before. When Kurt Warner, for example, diagnoses Bills film, he knows & understands the play he's reviewing because he ran the same play (or one very similar) when he played. He knows what it's designed to do and how it's supposed to be executed. So what is Brady's real offense? What is he going to do schematically different next year that he couldn't do this year? What plays will he use that weren't in this year's playbook?

I have no idea if this is good news or not. His resume is a little thin. But he did an impressive job with the LBs this year. He may be an up-and-coming coaching superstar. Or he might be a bum. I'll trust 'the process' and hope for the best. In any case, we'll still see Sean McDermott's defense on the field next year and that's mostly a good thing. Because he likes McDermott and thinks this is a great opportunity to learn how to be a successful DC?

I have no idea what that means but it sounds musically intelligent.

I disagree. Josh has bad games sometimes when the receivers just aren't getting open. The opposing DC might have something to do with that. And he has bad games sometimes when he's under duress. Again, the DC is part of that. Of course, there are other games when the DC seems to have a competent game plan, but Josh succeeds anyway because of his ability to make unlikely plays.

If I was a coach, I'd want Von, too. But signing players to sensible contracts is the GM's responsibility and I hold Beane accountable for both the good & bad that's come out of Von's signing. I was iffy about Von's signing when it happened. It wasn't that I didn't like Von as a player. I do. But I worried about the opportunity cost. Who else could we have signed with that $120 million? We have so many needs and if we hadn't sent an armored car full of cash to Von, we could have signed some real contributors. Since the signing, the deal has only looked worse with Von's injury. Injuries to players Von's age are hardly unusual and should have been expected.

I didn't see a lot from Brady to overwhelm me with confidence either. But I'm hoping he makes some meaningful additions to the coaching staff. We need a good QB coach. And hopefully somebody who has some genius for scheming up a passing game. I also hope that Brady rewrites/modifies the playbook and finds ways to get the team to execute at a higher level. The one thing I've heard multiple times about Brady that I like is that he's very collaborative. He asks his subordinate coaches and players for input. It seems obvious but from what I've heard and read, not all OCs do this. I'm hoping that the offensive coaches working together can come up with a better offense that maximizes Josh's potential and puts bucketloads of points on the board.

Spending a lot of cap money on two players - White and Miller - that aren't contributing is a serious problem. This isn't McD's fault. You could say it's Beane's fault, especially with Von. Paying that much money for a guy in his 30s was risky. Tre is just bad luck.

I get this. But Bass, the kid, is hurting. He just cost his teammates, and the Bills mafia, a chance to go to the AFCCG. It's gotta suck. By supporting his charity, we're supporting a young man who tried his best but came up short. And we're showing the team that they have our support even when things go bad. We're proving to the NFL that Bills fans are special. Thousands cheered Scott Norwood when he returned from the first SB. Now we're supporting Tyler Bass. Normal fan bases don't behave this way. We're not normal. We're the Bills mafia. We're more rabid than other fans but we're classier, too, and more loyal.

I agree with much of this. I'm thankful for Beane. Our roster had been pretty dang mediocre for nearly two decades. Beane drafted a star QB and acquired some other good players. Our depth is better than it's been in forever. We owe a lot to Beane. But this is not a Super Bowl roster. We don't have the best 22 starters in the league. By and large, I think McD has done an imperfect but commendable job with the roster - and injuries - that he had. There's never been a season when I looked at the SB champs and said, "Damn, we're better than them. If only we had a better coach." Instead, I think things like: If only we had their offensive line... or receivers... or pass rushers... or cornerbacks... or running game... or general health.

This makes sense to me. It's kind of what I expected: Dorsey to be hired by an offensive HC. If I was a defensive HC, I wouldn't trust Dorsey to run my offense. But someone like Stefanski will be good for Dorsey - running the offense through Dorsey while teaching and mentoring him. And Dorsey isn't entirely devoid of talent or knowledge. He'll add value to the Browns.

Just because McD is interviewing a 3-4 guy doesn't mean he has any intention of running a 3-4. I'm guessing he's hiring a DC to take a bit of the load off his shoulders so he can do more HC stuff. I don't think McD is looking for a guy to come in and implement an entirely different defense. I think he's looking for someone who can run meetings & practices and coach guys... in McD's 4-2-5 defense.

I like Campbell. Seems like a good guy and a good leader. Those 4th down decisions, though, were bad. Still, he turned around the franchise and led the team to their best season in 50+ years. Campbell only won something like 4 of his first 23 games and somehow didn't get fired. Sometimes owners - and fans - need to be patient.

I'm not excited by this but for those who are complaining about the hiring process, please educate me. I don't know who McD contacted, who expressed interest in the job, or who McD interviewed. So, I don't have an opinion on the hiring process. I was hoping we'd find someone much better than Brady but apparently Andy Reid and Kyle Shanahan have other jobs. I'd like to know what Brady said in the interview. Is he going to change the staff? Bring in a new QB coach? Revamp the playbook? Make changes to preseason preparation? Modify how analytics are utilized? How position meetings are run? I can't imagine Brady told McD that he'd just carry on with the status quo and McD was okay with that. I don't think the offense is as talented as some seem to think but I do believe that with Josh as our QB we ought to be more potent, even with the so-so cast of characters around Allen. I wasn't wowed by Brady's half-season tryout but maybe with a full preseason to prepare himself and the team, he'll do better next year. I'm hoping. I'm also hoping Beane has a really, really good offseason despite our cap limitations.

There are no slam dunks at the head coach or coordinator positions. There are only probabilities, possibilities, and levels of confidence. You do your due diligence and then hope for the best. Just to give one example: The Panthers thought it was a slam dunk when they hired George Seifert as their head coach. After all, he had won multiple Lombardi's both as a DC and HC. Yet he finished with a 16-32 record with the Panthers and won only one game in his final year. You just never know how things will work out. But the gamble is greater when you hire from outside the organization. When you hire from within, you know the person really well. You know both their strengths and weaknesses, their work habits, how they get along with the rest of the staff, how they prepare for games, and all that stuff. It's far easier to gauge the probability of success with an internal promotion than an external hire. Additionally, promoting from within makes your organization more attractive to position coaches and lesser staff who want to join your team so they, too, can learn and grow.

We can nitpick his successes and failures. But Beane's overall body of work is good. He took a franchise mired in mediocrity and turned it into the AFCE champs. Some worry that McD isn't a good enough head coach to take us further. I personally worry if Beane is a good enough GM. He's never given McD a SB-caliber roster. When we lose in the playoffs, it's either to a team better than us or healthier than us. Or both. That's partly Beane's fault. Beane found us a great QB and has built a good - not great - roster with solid depth. That's enough to make us competitive. It hasn't been enough to win us a Lombardi. I'm hoping Beane has learned from his mistakes and fixes them. But given our cap situation, I worry that we're going to flounder along at the good-but-not-quite-good-enough level.

I get some people agree with Dunne even if I don't. But why should Terry Pegula read Dunne's article? Dunne doesn't know 1% as much about the Buffalo Bills as Pegula does. Dunne would love to spend time with Pegula and have all the sources that Pegula does. Pegs didn't become a billionaire entirely by accident. He's a smart businessman who has processes in place to make sure he always has the very best data available. He talks to the personnel guys and coaches, gets insider information, and probably has confidantes outside the organization as well. If I were Pegs, I doubt I would read anything written by an outsider with no experience running an NFL team though I would love to talk to other NFL owners, GMs, and coaches to pick their brains. Dunne is a nobody with no expertise.