HappyDays

Rapp wasn't listed with a game designation yesterday so he will play.

I expected a playoff season but I'm also pleasantly surprised at how well the team has performed. I do credit McDermott for that. Like I said earlier in the thread he has shown me enough this year that in my eyes he has earned another year with this 2nd window of core players no matter what happens in the playoffs. I'm not trying to be unreasonable about my expectations. Nor do I think you're being unreasonable about your continued support. One positive I will give McDermott over Shanahan is his ability to hold the team together in difficult times. Like last year it looked like we were about to be out of the playoffs entirely, but McDermott rallied the team and managed to steal the division with an impressive win streak. This year the 49ers under similar circumstances are seemingly running for the bus at this point. Shanahan looks despondent at press conferences and isn't leading his team. It is the classic culture/leader coach vs the classic X's and O's coach. So I recognize and appreciate McDermott's strengths. At this point though I'm just not patient enough to give him all of Allen's 20s and continue to be the coach beyond that if he hasn't even reached the Super Bowl.

Bills 34 Rams 17 I won't bet on us scoring less than 30 until it happens. Our offense has it rolling right now. In this one I expect James Cook to have a huge day. I worry a bit about our defense only in the sense that Stafford is supposedly the best QB in the league this year versus zone. But the Rams have bad pass protection and Stafford isn't mobile at this stage of his career so I expect us to disrupt him quite a bit. Ultimately the Rams just don't have the talent to keep up with us.

I don't discount that. But it's also true that if Garappolo and Purdy played at even a 75% playoff Josh Allen level the 49ers would have two Super Bowls right now. And so to me it seems that with the 49ers the QB gap has been significantly larger than the coaching gap, and with us it's been the opposite. The 49ers defense this past Super Bowl held the Chiefs to 3 points in the 1st half and then intercepted Mahomes at midfield to start the 2nd half. Can you imagine if we ever had a playoff result like that against them? We're winning by two scores at least. The problem was Purdy couldn't hit a single throw from a messy pocket. It isn't reasonable to look at that result and say "Shanahan can't beat Reid," while simultaneously looking at our result against the Chiefs in the divisional round and say "McDermott got unlucky." The Bills defensive stats in the playoffs are what they are. The goofy coaching decisions in some of our playoff losses are what they are. You can't just hand wave that all away. Eventually McDermott just has to get it done with this QB. I think it is more than reasonable to want a change if he can't get it done this season or next.

Good point about Love, I forgot he was there for the taking in that draft. So yeah they have missed several opportunities to get the position right. I could see Shanahan having the Andy Reid career. Knock on the door a bunch of times but eventually get fired for failing to break through, and then finally get the elite QB on his next team and build a dynasty. Keeping it on the topic of the thread - the main difference between Shanahan and McDermott is there is a pretty glaring reason Shanahan hasn't been able to break though. Maybe it's his own fault for being complacent at QB, but it isn't difficult to foresee him breaking through if he ever gets that missing piece. Whereas with McDermott he already has the elite QB, he has the owner that writes blank checks, so what other conditions does he need to break through? Seems to me like the primary missing condition is that he just has to coach better in the playoffs. On that front I am more optimistic now than I thought I would be coming into the season. If we win the Super Bowl I won't be here saying McDermott backed into it or got lucky, I'll say he legitimately earned it.

And also they haven't had any chances of finding an elite QB since 2018. Honestly their biggest sin was failing to take Mahomes their first year together in 2017, and then failing to either trade up slightly for Allen or draft Lamar in 2018. Those were the last reasonable chances they had to seriously upgrade the position. When they finally took their big swing in 2021 their options were Trey Lance, Mac Jones, and Justin Fields. That's just terrible timing with no possible good outcomes, but it's reasonable to criticize them for not addressing the position sooner than their 5th year together. If they're smart they'll recognize that the current team's window is done. They need to tear it down and take another big swing at QB. Shanahan's curse is that he constantly manages to get top of the league offensive production out of middling QBs, and as a result they talk themselves into staying the course which puts a hard cap on the team's ceiling. If he hasn't learned that by now he never will.

I don't understand this take at all, and it's not the first time I've seen it. You're basically saying that the three best QBs in the NFL right now wouldn't fit into Shanahan's offense. That doesn't make any sense. There's no offensive system where Brock Purdy can be reasonably successful but three elite QBs wouldn't have been able to develop.

Belichick HATES Woody Johnson. He wouldn't accept a billion dollars to even step foot in the building.

Nice prediction Dave. I'll give myself a pat on the back too: Say what you want about Brady, his system has drastically reduced the turnovers. We're the only team in the NFL this season that has zero fumbles by a skill position player (as per Joe Marino). Allen only has 5 INTs, a 1.4% INT rate which is the lowest of his career, and none of them were really awful decisions.

You know I wonder if that incident was not really psychologically traumatic for him. Because he didn't really experience it. One second he was playing football, the next second he was waking up in a hospital and his face was on the cover of magazines. Like when a player tears their ACL it's hard not to think about it every time they cut on that leg after their long recovery because the memory of the injury is vivid. With Hamlin there is no imprinted memory, nothing that would instinctively make him cringe when he goes to lay a big hit. I'm not taking anything away from his courage stepping back on the football field after going through that, but it's something I've thought about.

Late to the party here but I kind of don't like this. With Hyde's neck issues I would rather he just stay retired. I get it, it's hard to give the game up, but one bad hit could cause decades of issues. I really don't want to see that happen. But hey I hope he gets a much deserved Super Bowl ring this year, and that he gets it without having to take the field a single time.

I'm going to state an unpopular opinion - he shouldn't be credited with two TDs on that play. It's either a passing TD or a rushing TD. Personally I would give him a pass completion and then a rushing TD in the stat books. Even though I will always have fun saying "Josh Allen is the only QB in history to score 2 TDs on a single play."

McDermott and Beane actually have two things going for them: 1) An elite QB who raises his level of play in the playoffs 2) An owner willing to write blank checks They're the only pair in the NFL that has both of those incredible advantages. Not even the Chiefs - the Hunts are not as willing to let their GM front load a bunch of money and cheat the cap a bit. So you have to understand that for those of us who have been on the side of wanting a change, we recognize that McDermott and Beane have very unique advantages that don't apply to their competitors. And we wonder if a different regime could accomplish more given those advantages.

Yeah I am talking about playoffs. Allen has consistently raised his level of play in those games, while McDermott's defense has played substantially worse. And there have been critical coaching failures in some of those losses. 13 seconds. Burrow doing whatever he wanted against our defense with zero resistance. The Hamlin fake punt. Whatever that final offensive series was in the divisional round last year. Allen has never made the losing play in these games, the coaching staff has. It is my one lingering concern even though I feel as good about the team's chances now as I ever have. Like I said earlier the stretch of Baltimore, Houston, NYJ featured some of those poor coaching moments as well. So I can't sit here and act like I'm extremely confident the problem has been solved. I'm just hoping McDermott and his staff will get it done this time around. The AFC has never been more open.

And I agree with this totally. He's a HoF coach if he gets even one Super Bowl win. Without it he goes down as the coach that held back Allen from putting the exclamation point on his career. Marty Schottenheimer 2.0, remembered more as a running joke than for what he accomplished. Allen's legacy also rides on that Super Bowl win. He's either an all time football legend or just a great QB. So McDermott's and Allen's legacies are inextricably tied together as far as how history will remember them. What has frustrated me is that it feels like Allen has far and away held up his end of that relationship, and McDermott has not. And so eventually if McDermott isn't going to help Allen cement his legacy, I would like to give someone else a shot. For me Allen's 30th birthday is the breaking point which I think is more than fair. That will come in the 2026 offseason.

Only speaking for myself but if McDermott wins a Super Bowl he has a lifetime contract in my eyes. For me it isn't that I feel McDermott is a below average coach or holds the team back a ton. I recognize his strengths as a culture builder and a guy that can get the most out of his players. I just fear he cannot get us over the playoff hump because of his perennial mistakes in critical high leverage moments in close games. If he does get us over the hump, there will be nothing left for me to criticize. I don't expect a dynasty, I just expect at least one Super Bowl win before Allen retires. The longer Allen's career goes without one the antsier I get to give someone else a chance at the wheel. At least for this coming offseason I will probably lay off the fire McDermott talk unless we get bounced by a clearly inferior team in the wildcard or something unforgivable like that. He's shown me enough over our win streak this year to convince me that even if we don't reach the top, he's earned another year in the team's 2nd window with our new group of core players. In that scenario ideally we manage to re-sign Cooper, invest heavily in the DL especially in the middle, and then McDermott has zero excuses heading into 2025 in a Super Bowl or bust year. That's where my mind is at.

I have zero interest in hockey and only a casual interest in seeing the Sabres become good again, so I have to say this post was sickly satisfying. You really laid it out... When I first heard that Lindy Ruff was hired for a second go-around, my immediate reaction (as, again, someone that doesn't really follow the sport) was that it reeked of an owner who had utterly lost confidence in himself to make good decisions for his franchise. Trying to re-capture lightning in a bottle never works out. I will say though the NFL is not the NHL. No coach in the modern era signs on without being handed total control of the organization and Terry knows that. He would have a consulting firm run the hiring process and then his only job would be to write blank checks for the new regime, as he's done for McBeane. His mismanagement of the Sabres doesn't even enter the discussion for me. But I understand if you follow the Sabres closely and care about them the way that you do about the Bills, it would be hard to ignore the comparison.

I can't say my opinion on McDermott has changed just yet. It does come down to the playoffs for me. But I will say his coaching since halftime of the Titans game has been the best of his career. That stretch of Baltimore to NYJ confirmed some of my worst fears about him, but everything since then has made me think he's turned a corner. I'd be lying if I said the nagging concern about his playoff coaching isn't still there though. My opinion on Beane however has gone up a bit. He successfully completed the necessary tear down and youth movement, and did it in a way that has given us the best overall team of the Allen era. I know that last statement isn't necessarily a popular opinion because previous years' rosters on paper look better, but I mean best "team" in the truest sense of the word. It isn't just a collection of talent, it's an interlocking machine whose sum is better than its parts. Very impressed by his ability to complete the rebuild without the franchise missing a beat, and also manage to fix the one glaring issue on the roster before the season went off the rails.

Can't speak for Gunner but I did not like the signing and I'm here to say I was wrong. Rapp has been pretty much exactly what I want at the safety position - not a plus starter who costs too much money for a devalued position, just a solid starter who hits his landmarks and makes some plays from time to time with a reasonable salary. He's also singlehandedly taken at least 5 TDs off the board this year. Just by memory two in the Jets game, one in the Indy game, two in the San Fran game. For a cap hit of 3.7M and 4M in 2025 and 2026 respectively, I am more than happy with that value.

I think Beane will do his signature move of getting DQ to accept a pay cut. That's what Beane always does when a player clearly isn't living up to their contract but he doesn't want to take the entire dead cap hit with no return.

McDermott's philosophy pretty much requires a great 1T because for better or worse he refuses to emphasize stopping the run with scheme. Unfortunately the investments we've made there over the years just haven't worked out for the most part. Star never lived up to his contract and took the covid year off. When DQ was still in his prime the run defense notably got much better for a while, but now he has clearly lost a step and the run defense is poor again. It really is that simple. I'm sure they will use a relatively high draft pick on the position this year.

Something I've noticed is that when Allen throws the ball downfield to Kincaid the pass is often off target. Whereas his downfield throws to Knox are almost always are on target. To me that implies a possible issue with Kincaid being where he's supposed to be within the timing of the play. Because it doesn't make sense that Allen can hit those throws to one TE but not the other if it was just a QB issue. And like you said they are not using Kincaid downfield much to begin with so maybe there is something he isn't doing right. I don't know, it's hard to put my finger on the exact problem.

The only part of that article that disturbed me: