GunnerBill

Yea McGovern is mobile but he isn't Morse who was arguably the best pulling center in football IMO. As I said to @GoBills808 I do think he will be an upgrade in Morse in the power run game though.... the legit question is how do you knit more of that into the scheme to take advantage of that strength while maintaining an overall offensive coherence.

Sure. And there are points there that can be debated. I don't think anyone would call McDermott a "truly great" coach at this stage. But you don't have to be a truly great coach to win a Superbowl. Doug Pederson is a great strategist and a bad leader who lost a locker room within 18 months of bringing it a Lombardi, he won a Superbowl. Mike McCarthy is an average strategist who managed to hold a Green Bay locker room together through an injury ravaged season of adversity, he won a Superbowl too. McDermott has something still to prove, there is no question about that. But his ability to lead is why the Bills have answered the bell at the crunch point of seasons over his 7 years in charge.

He isn't even ahead of Anderson on the depth chart. SVPG is 3rd string center right now. He has been solid in the two games but these people are basing their assertion that he "must start" on nothing other than they liked the draft pick. So did I. I said at the time it was possibly my favourite pick the Bills made in the draft. That does not mean he was ready to start day 1 ahead of really experienced guys like McGovern and Edwards (who won a Superbowl as a starting guard lest we forget).

That is because they are well led. Whatever people think of McDermott as an in-game strategist and tactician his abilities as a leader and culture builder should be undisputed. If the Bills fired him which franchise without a Head Coach needing a re-set would be chomping at the bit to hire him.

That quote from DJ doesn't say he can play outside. Sorry. And then you have a quote you claim exists but can't find from Brugler. I know what Joe thinks about Shakir playing outside, because I've asked him about it. He is slightly more optimistic about him outside than me but there isn't a big difference. My view is sure you can line Shakir up outside and run some horizontal routes when you are in 2 receiver sets but you can't expect him to win outside for you where a corner has outside leverage because of his extremely short arms (like 1st percentile) for the position and isn't a great precision route runner either. He is a good slot player - and I liked him quite a bit pre-draft I had a late 3rd on him - because he has really good short area quickness, he is a sharp cutter and ball in hand in space there are few guys in the league with the elusiveness he has. Joe's view isn't radically different than that. He thinks he can be a spot player outside who you design some shot plays for and could get you out of a game. But he doesn't think you could rely on him as a majority outside guy. And most importantly - let's look at what the Bills think. In his, admittedly more limited, usage as a rookie he was exactly 50/50 inside and outside. In 2023 that switched to just 22% outside usage and even in games where one or other of our outside starters missed the highest single game % for Shakir outside was 32%. They have come to the same conclusion I have. You can line him up outside the numbers in 2 receiver sets, but you can't use him outside in any real downfield capacity (and actually the number of times he was targeted as an outside receiver was less than 10% of his total snaps in 2023). His success comes inside and that is for good reason. That is where his skillset is best suited.

I think Davis is a better player right now. Allen is a very traditional, old school, downhill runner. He is a one trick pony. Davis's game is more rounded. I think there was a clear top 5 in the draft at running back but Davis was best of the rest for me.

Okay. Bleacher Report and Draftbuzz? That is what you have. Yea I will take my own film study over both of those.

So it went from "40 time" to "speed" to "separator" to "compared to other bigger receivers who struggled to separate"? Yea. That is not proof of people being hung up on the 40 time. You are pissing in the wind.

He doesn't.

I have made the logical case. You have ignored it.

Yea, boyst mentions it as the first comment. He is one of the 6. The 40 time being the majority reason is a total strawman.

I HAVE read the draft pick thread. That is exactly the thread I read the first 6 pages of. In 6 pages, 8 mentions of speed as a concern (two of them clearly jokes). The separation concern came from him being a non-separator in college. To say people who said "separation" was code for "40 time" is completely untrue.

If you are even considering not kicking then you need to cut your kicker and get a different one.

I have been through the first 6 pages of his draft thread (it is 108 pages in total so you gotta set a limit somewhere). Not one person mentioned the 40 time. 6 people (excluding two jokes) made reference to speed. Most of the comments were about him as a separator which is not the same thing.

The 40 time joke is just what it is - a joke. The same as we still call Isaiah McKenzie "McCittrick" and respond to every injury thread with "have they removed the spleen." I don't know or care about social media. That is an idiots charter. But there was lots of very considered, detailed, sensible, discussion of Coleman all spring. Pre-dating the combine. It was not just Kirby and I.

I think in fairness Rodgers complaints were really the period post 2016 when Nelson moved on etc and was replaced with nothing more than late round fliers on Geronimo Allison, MVS and Eq St Brown among others. But yes, nobody can argue we have done a good job giving weapons to our star QB.

And Randall Cobb. They still had both in their peak when they drafted Adams.

Oh Staley is an idiot. But I don't think the third quarter thing is just natural variation with Herbert, it has been his weakest quarter for the past 3 seasons consistently and pretty clearly. But I didn't come at this numbers first I came at it eye test first and was like "man I have seen this movie before with him" in the middle of last season and when I dug into it the numbers bore it out. That's got to be a mentality, concentration, personality thing. I dunno if he has the makeup to be as great as his physical talent could allow.

I confirm I am not distressed. I didn't take enchanted as though you meant literally that he has me under a spell. Because, you know, common sense.

My biggest knock on him is in game lulls. Particularly third quarter. His passer rating is 13 points lower second half than first. It has been a recurring thing with him. He is pretty good right at the end of games in the clutch but otherwise his 2nd half performance is a drop off. I've seen him sleep walk through 3rd quarters.

That is basically how I see it and then I don't see us going 0fer against the Texans, Ravens, Chiefs, 49ers and Lions. 2-3 in those 5? Sure. 1-4? Wouldn't surprise me. But 0fer in those 5 games with Josh Allen? I'd be shocked.

Better than what?

He may. But the main difference will be they will run the ball a ton more.

They'd also do it just when they felt they had a team on the ropes. It was psychological warfare. Like say 10-0 up first quarter and their defense forced a 3 or 4 and out they'd come out, go up-tempo for a drive on offense when the opposition D hadn't had much rest and if they scored and it was 17-0 it would be a hammer blow to teams.

That is a pretty big understatement. Things are massively better than they used to be. At all levels of the organisation from ownership down. Does that mean people should only want to be positive or wave pom poms? No definitely not. Does it mean any of the main protagonists in the organisation now should be beyond scrutiny? No way. But things are a hell of a lot better than they were for the majority of my fandom.