GunnerBill

McDermott did not "cut his teeth" with Rivera. Their schemes have similarity but are not the same. Sure, Beane worked in Carolina with two GMs who had defensive head coaches too in Fox and Rivera, but at the same time you are asking us to ignore the clear pattern and ignore what Beane himself says in order to pin what you don't like on McDermott. I think that is a leap in logic.

Yea I think beating them in the playoffs is really ***** difficult. It is why excluding Tom Brady games they are 15-1. But I don't concede we never can. The margins between us are so tight. One can absolutely go our way. Can we displace them as the dominant force in the AFC? I'd lean towards no there. I don't think I have ever thrown a punch. Not to the best of my memory anyway. A couple of aggressive shoves that have made my point but that is it in my 40 years.

I have not conceded that.

I want their run game to be more effective too. I just don't think you make teams respect the run more by simply running it more if that run game goes nowhere.

It is also a FAR less certain recover for older players.

I don't think that is the fulcrum of the debate. I don't think anyone is arguing that McDermott is as important as Allen. It is blindingly obvious in the modern NFL that an elite QB matters more than anything else by several factors of magnitude. The argument is the extent to which McD is holding Allen back. I don't believe he is. You do. That is the fulcrum of the debate. I do not in any manner dispute that Allen matters more and does most of the heavy lifting. That would be the case whoever our coach was. It always is.

Yea he is a product of his apprenticeship under Hurney and Gettleman. That's normal. I hope he will adapt. His first pick the last two years being a pass catcher is at least encouraging.

I agree with your view of the resource allocation issue. I just think it is who Beane is. And unless you give a Head Coach basically overall personnel power and tell Beane he is a glorified Head Scout and personnel advisor to the Head Coach they are the results you will get with him. He has said him self countless times "I will always prioritise the defensive line and I will never apologise for doing so."

Yea if a guy starts making plays early on and demonstrates they are the focus of the offense then teams will adjust and you might get them doubling a guy. But out of the gate they are going to use that spare defender to create confusion for the offense or to play Josh directly, delayed blitzes, spy, simulated pressures that drop out and force him to hold the ball.

For sure McDermott drives the organisational goals. But Beane's drafting is what he grew up in the NFL with. Like it is ridiculously close to the exact drafting profile of Carolina (in terms of positional prioritisation). Maybe that is pure coincidence, but I think it is naive to believe that. I think unless you had someone really pressuring him to draft a different way this is who he is and this is how he would draft regardless of who the coach is. Would he work for a different Head Coach who was really pushing him to draft offense early way more often? Maybe. There are only 32 of these jobs. But I don't get the sense than Brandon Beane's priority is protecting his own ass. That has never been how he comes across to me.

I think the second half of last season was very must a needs must scenario. It is not consistent with what we have seen from this team basically since Allen's second year. I have been a long standing opponent of the Bills wanting to be a team to featues the run as more of a change up. I defended Daboll agains the "he needs to build a running game" crowd and I will continue to argue that the long term route for success for this team is Josh's right arm. The team has always behaved that way as well take out that 8 or 9 game run the backend of last year. If your fear is correct and they wish to lean heavily into that as their identity I will be calling for change unless they make the Superbowl. You have my absolute word on that. I don't change my opinions based on what the team does. I am absolutely consistent on my view of how the Bills should play and should build and what and where the responsibility for the mistakes lies. EDIT: on the New England point my disagreement with you was not about the fact that it went to ***** drafting wise. It definitely did. It is just that your timing is out and it significantly post dated Pioli leaving. That is the bit I don't buy. I don't claim to know what the reason is but it wasn't the loss of Scott Pioli.

He also was NOT Sauce's guy on that play. Sauce was trying to rescue someone else's screw up.

If they go down the run the ball route - yes. I'd agree. Why do I blame Beane for the resource allocation so far? Because I look at what they did where he learned his trade and I listen to what HE himself says. He makes no apologies for prioritising the defensive front. That is how HE believes in building football teams. If the Bills try and be a "balanced" offense and run it more I will be for a house clearing. You can bank on it. So far that is not what they have done beyond a limited spell at the end of last year where after Allen Cook was almost all they had. If they want to become a run heavy team this year I will be wanting them all out. I guarantee you that. Great. He'd be wrong. They drafted better immediately after Pioli than before him. It went horribly wrong about 10 years ago. Not sure why. Don't claim to be close enough to know. But that way post dated Pioli's departure.

Id be stunned if Miller leads the team on sacks. Honestly stunned. I still don't think it completely put of the question that he realises he can't go in camp and retires before the season. That is how little faith I have in his remaining ability to play.

But the core of that time was still drafted in that era. They had Brady playing at an elite level pretty much throughout. That period of drafting was really solid. Definitely top 10 in the league. It was post Pioli. Who knows what happened after, and the last 10 years their drafting was shambolic. And it showed on the field.

Their best spell of drafting was right after Pioli left. So I don't buy that. It was pretty horrible his last 10 years, but that 08-14 drafting period was the basis of the second NE dynasty - the likes of Mayo, Hightower, Vollmer, Solder, McCourty, Gronkowski, Collins, Chung, Jones, White, Edelman, Mason.... and UDFAs like Andrews and of course Malcolm Butler. That was the core of that second era of Superbowl wins. Their drafting after that was pretty shambolic and Brady could see that group ageing out and the lack of talent coming through on the roster and it was a factor, no doubt, in his decision to go to Tampa. On the McCourty vs Gronk question, sure he didn't know Gronk was going to be a top 3 all time tight end. Had he known that he would have taken him first.... but if you think you have a really good corner (and McCourty was drafted as a corner though played almost all his career at safety where he has had multiple all pro nods himself... not like he is any kind of bust) and a really good tight end positional value means you should always take the corner first. I do suspect there was a key departure from the New England front office at some point that removed a check / balance on Bill and he ended up following his own confirmation bias down the rabbit hole from the mid 2010s. That said I have heard others say he just always values smart, physical football players and as the game became more and more about explosion and speed he didn't adapt with the trend. Could be that too. But I don't buy it was Pioli. They drafted top 10 in the league at worst for the 6 years after his departure, despite always being at the end of the round. It's after that it fell apart.

It's easily Von for me. I hope I am wrong because I think he is done. My expectations for his season are so low. If the over/under on sacks from him was 4.5 I'd still take the under. I hope I'm wrong on Taylor Rapp and Keon Coleman to lesser extents too. But the potential differential benefit of being wrong on Von is greater.

He's had better coaching, for absolute sure. Better GMs? Not convinced. New England had a really good drafting period between about 2008 and 2014 but otherwise their draft either side of that was sketchy. Whereas the Packers had Ted Thompson for much of that period who was a top level GM. Gutekunst has done a nice job re-tooling the roster since too. I think Rodgers had comfortably better GMs.

I suspect the answer lies in the lack of true game changing talents and @NewEra is onto something with that. McDermott's D succeeds in the regular season by being fundamentally sound, well coached and cohesive. In the playoffs it feels like actually they need one or two guys to make that critical play. But it is completely fair to say the D has underperformed in our playoff exits.

So I put the WR oversight squarely on Brandon Beane. The way he drafts is the way Carolina drafted when he was a senior exec in that front office. Loved defensive front 7, hates early picks on receivers. I don't believe that while he has control over the draft that will change whether the Head Coach was Sean McDermott, Ben Johnson or Bill Walsh. If they come out determined to be a ground and pound team I will be the first one to say that they need to clear house. They never have since Josh has been here. They have always been near the top of the league in pass %. So while I understand that fear, especially with some of what happened at the end of last year I choose to believe that was needs must rather than a sign this regime wants to play that way because the rest of the evidence from 2019 on is to the contrary.

We were healthy in 20. For sure. We just weren't ready to play at KC's level. They beat us twice that season and the gap was evident. They were relatively healthy but without Tre in 2021 and Levi Wallace was the player who made two critical mistakes inside the final 2 minutes. But ultimately 2021 was the day we should have beaten them in the post season and coaching blew it. No question there.

I mean sure. That is possible. But if we take every Head Coach in football and throw them in the barrel and pick one the chance you get one better than Andy Reid is remote. Now I accept we are approaching the point where actually you might just have to try someone else. I understand that and agree with it. But I don't think that is anything like a considered plan to get better. I think its a last roll of the dice. To get me there I have to be in last roll territory.

I see that line of thinking but I think we have a darn good Head Coach and trying to find a better one than Reid is the proverbial needle in a haystack. So I think the preferable route is to let the two of them keep swinging and hope one of those KC games that breaks out way in the key play or two happens in January not October.

I think Mahomes is the best QB in football. Reid is the best coach in football. And when the best QB and best Coach get together history says its really hard to beat them.

My position on McDermott has zero emotion attached, I assure you.