hondo in seattle

Thanks for the correction... Fingers moving faster than the brain. Regardless, I still don't expect Brady to be a puppet. But unless someone here intimately knows Brady's character and personality, we're all just guessing.

I don't think this is talked about enough. People wanted Dorsey fired. They want McD fired. But what about Beane? He's not blameless. When you spend a quarter of a billion dollars on a QB, you'd think getting him a bodyguard would be a priority. The Bills' woeful story this year has more than one author.

Typically firing an OC in the middle of the season doesn't result in a huge improvement. But as Dan Orlovsky adamantly observed, "The Bills offense is schematically broken." We've heard other ex-NFL players and coaches imply, or outright say, similar things. That's not an Allen thing. That's not a McD thing. That's a Dorsey thing. Maybe Brady can help fix it. As a fan, I can only hope.

I think this is true. But I do think both contributed. If McD thought that Dorsey was doing everything right and getting the most out of the flawed offensive roster, Dorsey probably would not have been fired. I'm guessing that McD sees it differently. Dorsey was doing something wrong behind the scenes. Maybe bad relationships with players. Maybe not coaching Josh hard enough. Maybe not taking input from Shula and Brady. Maybe not following McD's guidance... I do think the decline of the offense's performance was the main reason. But I think McD saw/heard other things that made him lose faith in Dorsey.

Just because they worked together in Carolina doesn't make Brady a puppet. I've worked for a lot of people and didn't become a puppet to any. I bet the same is true of you.

Maybe Shula is part of the reason Dorsey was fired. Maybe Dorsey wasn't taking input from Shula (or Brady). So maybe McD fired Dorsey for more than what we were all seeing on the field. Maybe Shula, Brady, and others mentioned their frustrations with Dorsey to McD. We don't know.

That's a fair argument. But I'd like to see fewer turnovers and mental mistakes. He has the potential to be as good as Mahomes. Maybe better. But he's currently playing at a lower level.

He was an English explorer who famously led an expedition to Antarctica in 1914. The weather turned cold earlier than expected and their ship was crushed by pack ice. They had no way to return home or call for help and lived for months on ice floes and, later, a frozen little island with no provisions. Thanks to Shackleton's leadership, the crew survived for roughly a year before Shackleton managed to get them rescued. The details of the story are remarkable. Not only did Shackleton keep his crew alive in near-impossible conditions, he also kept their spirits high and maintained a harmonious atmosphere despite the fact that any reasonable person in that situation would have thought death was their probable fate.

I very much agree with the bolded.

Or it means he doesn't hire the right coordinators. Which I suppose is just a different kind of dysfunction. Yeah, it's concerning that we can't get and keep the right coordinators.

This sounds like the theme of "Team of Rivals," and I don't agree. I've been blessed to be part of some very high-performing military and business teams that were characterized by great relationships. There was no complacency. Patton once said something to the effect that if ten people are thinking alike, then only nine are thinking. Disagreement is a necessary part of a leadership team. But the members of the team can still have great relationships. Look at Earnest Shackleton's leadership team. His men described Shackleton like this, "The greatest leader than ever came on God's green earth, bar none..." "I don't think there's any doubt that we all owe our lives to his leadership...." "For all the best points of leadership the palm must be given to Shackleton." There was extraordinarily little "friction/tension" on his leadership team. Shackleton, in fact, did everything he could to minimize the tension and maximize the harmony. His leadership team had great relationships and accomplished amazing things together.

I agree... with a qualifier. I'd say that Allen is a top-tier QB with the right coaching. I think Allen would set records under Andy Reid, for example. But I don't think every NFL HC or OC would know how to optimize Allen's strengths while minimizing his weaknesses.

It's a good question. Maybe what McD saw was Dorsey ignoring input from his assistants, or McD, or both. Maybe McD liked some of the ideas that Brady was floating that Dorsey was squashing. We just don't know.

Both Daboll and Frazier had their detractors. It seemed most fans felt Dorsey would keep the machine rolling while Frazier's departure was largely celebrated. Yet the O and D performed better when those two were the coordinators. Maybe they added more value than we give them credit for.

Agreed. Allen is a unicorn with a unique and impressive skill set. But he also has flaws. We need a QB-whisperer OC who can figure out how to maximize the talents while working around or minimizing the shortcomings. Dorsey hasn't been that guy.

As a fan, it can be hard to assign blame. How much of the offense's woes can we put on Beane? McD? Dorsey? The players? Looking at Dorsey, he didn't create those turnovers. You've got to blame the players. Then again, there might be shortcomings on how Dorsey prepares the team that make turnovers more likely. But if I was McD, I'd probably fire Dorsey, too. You gotta hold somebody accountable and Dorsey is the offensive orchestra conductor. His musicians haven't been playing beautiful music lately. I am concerned, though, that McD doesn't seem to have a great relationship with his coordinators. I'm also not sure why anyone should expect Brady to do better but hopefully he does.

How do you know he's not holding himself accountable? What do you want him to do? Publicly fire himself? Do you quit your job when you make a mistake at work to hold yourself accountable? Every evening, I hold up a mirror to myself and conduct what the army calls an "After Action Review." I ask myself four questions. What did I do right today? What could have I done better? What did I learn? And what will I do differently going forward? I don't discuss this with anyone. This is my personal process to hold myself accountable and grow. Maybe McD does something like this. None of us know how McD holds himself accountable.

I was a little worried not only about that but also about his comment earlier this year that he studies film but doesn't overdo it.

I've eaten horse meat three or four times. Once in the States and the other times when visiting family in France. In the States, the meat was tough and chew - terrible. I imagine the source was some old nag that would have otherwise been sent to the glue factory. The horse meat I had in France was more tender than most cuts of beefsteak. And similarly delicious. I like horses so I'll never eat horsemeat again but, I have to confess, I enjoyed it when it was served to me.

Greg Cosell says this... "One of the myths with the Bills offense is that they are very talented…” Outside of Diggs, we have okay receivers. We have okay runners behind an OL that can't consistently run block. It can't consistently pass protect either (regardless of what some analytical sites say). Dorsey doesn't have an armory full of weapons. But he does have a unicorn for a QB. And that's where I have some problems with Dorsey. It's not I think Dorsey is a bad OC. I don't. I think he's about average. But I do think a better OC would maximize Allen's unique talents while minimizing his shortcomings and mental mistakes. www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/analyst-debunks-1-notion-about-bills-offense/ar-AA1jO2Vx?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=7726bc1241c143c196b20fa2bf2e65ea&ei=15

The sandstorms weren't quite as dramatic as the ones in the movies that destroy everything in their path, but they were annoying. I got so tired of sand being in my mouth, ears, eyes, crotch, hair, between my toes... everywhere. When I returned to the States, I told myself I would never forget how glorious a good shower was. Of course, I did.

For those who might be interested, I’m going to tell you what I think of veterans... In 1990, I was in the middle of the Arabian Desert as the acting commander of an armored cavalry troop. The soldiers in the troop were White, Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian, and Arab. Most were men but a few were women. Some of the men were macho warrior types. Others might have struck you as frail and nerdy – if you didn’t know them better. Some leaned left. Some leaned right. Many were apolitical. But they had one thing in common: they didn’t complain. Well, let me amend that. They complained all the freaking time. They complained about the MREs, the flies, and the dust. And they especially complained about the heat of that summer. Soldiers showed me thermometers reading temperatures in the 140’s. One soldier described the winds of Arabia like this: imagine you’re a turkey basting in an oven and then someone blows sand on you with a hot hair dryer. In a previous war, Lawrence of Arabia said the incomprehensible heat of Arabia 'struck like a sword.' My soldiers complained about the little things like that. They didn’t complain about the big stuff. You have to understand that for most of the war, we didn't even have tents to live in. For months, we operated and slept outdoors in oppressive heat with sand & dust permeating every orifice of our bodies, drinking disgustingly warm water, eating 5-year-old vacuum-packed food, digging holes in the sand when we had to defecate, with no water for personal hygiene. Yet I never once heard a soldier complain that he or she was stuck in Saudi while his friends were drinking beer and watching football back in their air-conditioned apartments in America. I think most war movies are crap though there are some good ones. But even the best war movies can’t capture the uncertainty of war. We didn’t get a lot of news in the desert, but one article circulated among my soldiers. It was authored by a military expert who predicted American casualties to run around 25% in the upcoming war. My guys did some math. If the overall casualty rate (including the RAMFs) was expected to be 25%, what would it be for us, an armored cav unit doing recon out front? 50%? 75%? The thought of bleeding out in some nameless, featureless patch of alien desert was constantly with us. None of us knew if we’d ever see home – our wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, children – ever again. But I never once heard a soldier complain about the awful risk or say they’d rather be somewhere else. And that, I hope, gives you a little sense of my love for my fellow veterans. Happy Veteran’s Day one and all.

I get the whole good is the enemy of great argument but I'm not sure it applies. Since McD has been here, I have never once felt we had the best roster in the AFC. So why would we expect a Super Bowl appearance, let alone a win. The playoffs are a brutal gauntlet. Getting through it requires a strong roster, a strong coaching staff, good health, and a little bit of luck. We haven't had all that. When I look back on McD's tenure, each season he either achieves to the level of the roster or he over-achieves. Getting us to the playoffs in his first year was a heck of an accomplishment. The six wins the following season was also a great accomplishment considering we had the lowest cap spending on active players in the league and arguably the worst roster (that was the year Beane started cleaning house). Last year, given our injuries, we didn't have the roster of a 13-3 team but McD produced 13 wins anyway. This is the first season when I see McD is winning fewer games than he ought to with the roster he has. I tend to be in favor of the Steelers model: Find a good coach and stick with him. They've only had 3 head coaches in the past 50+ years. That continuity has all sorts of positive consequences. Position coaches and coordinators want to work for a stable organization. Players want to play for a stable organization. With stability, the staff learns from its mistakes and corrects them. Lessons learned are retained within the organization. Noll, Cowher, and Tomlin weren't great strategists. But, with the steadfast support of ownership, they earned six Lombardis. Over the same time, our reactive approach has netted zero.

Obviously, I was talking about their records with the Bills. But that is an interesting point. Rex has a buffoonish reputation yet he did that.

Yep. McD at 4-5 is one game under .500 in the playoffs. Andy Reid had a losing record during his first 20 years as a head coach, too. It doesn't mean he was a bad coach. Only the very best teams with the best rosters and coaching staffs get to the playoffs. Every playoff game is, more or less, a tossup. Even now, having had an elite roster over the past few years, Reid is only .579. There are a few standout coaches in history who have won over 60% of their playoff games but many good coaches - including ones with rings - hover around the .500 mark. Of course, I want Sean to do better. But I'll take his 4-5 record over the 0-0 record of his predecessors.