HappyDays

Like I said it's not about the individual reps. A drop here or a miscommunication there is normal. What worries me is that Tyrell Shavers and Andy Isabella and KJ Hamler are getting 1st team reps. I'm sorry but that represents a failure of the Bills team building process. These should all be practice squad fodder, not legitimate competitors for starting snaps.

So to be clear, your opinion is that missing two starting secondary players is an equal handicap to missing one starting secondary player (Tre White, which I guess we have to conveniently forget about for the purpose of this discussion) and not having Tyreek Hill or Travis Kelce on the field.

We've already signed all the waiver wire all stars, that's probably not gonna get it done. We might get deep into training camp and realize we don't have a starting caliber outside WR on the roster. That's what we need. A trade for an established talent is going to be our only saving grace. Hopefully Beane is ready to pull the trigger if we're at preseason game 1 and still don't have a clear cut WR depth chart.

I don't want to read too much into individual reps but it's hard not to be concerned. Right now who is the best outside WR on the roster? I honestly have no clue and it sounds like the team doesn't know either because a lot of WRs are getting reps with the starting offense.

One more update from Matt Parrino:

Another update from Matt Parrino:

Another update from Matt Parrino:

Another update from Matt Parrino:

One update from Matt Parrino and this isn't going to make the WR pessimists happy: My biggest takeaway is that a lot of WRs are getting reps with Josh Allen. So far we've heard Claypool, Shavers, Isabella, and Hamler all getting targets from Allen today. This room is quite a jumbled mess right now... Hopefully the cream rises to the top in training camp but early returns are not good.

The 70 yard bazooka over the top of the defense wasn't really a defensive breakdown. That is a spot on the field most defenses aren't thinking about... but Allen draws new lines on the field. I don't recall Mahomes dodging a free rusher on 4th down and somehow turning the corner to scramble for a 1st down just to keep the game alive. Like I said Mahomes played amazing. But let's consider the degree of difficulty here.

Nah. Allen turned Gabe Davis into a superstar that game while Mahomes was tossing a slant to Tyreek Hill that he ran for a 60 yard TD. Mahomes had two GOATs on the field with him and a GOAT on the sidelines. Allen had... himself. Mahomes played an amazing game but Allen played otherworldly.

I think what he has going for him is that he's the best RB we've had in the Josh Allen era. Singletary was fine but clearly had limitations. Moss was a bust for us. Cook showed up and immediately demonstrated the potential of an above average RB with speed playing on the field with Josh Allen. Make no mistake - him being the #3 RB in yards from scrimmage last year was as much a function of Josh Allen as it was of Cook himself. Could we have better, sure, but his skill set is probably the ideal skill set to take advantage of how defenses play Josh Allen so for that I am satisfied with his play. I actually don't worry about his drops because they were ALL drops in or near the endzone. That tells me it is a matter of overthinking, not skill. He has zero problems with his hands. He just needs to get over whatever mental block screwed him up on those opportunities, and I find that much easier to overcome than a true physical limitation.

This is my fear. Next offseason Pegula and the fans will justify it as "it was a planned rebuild year" and Josh Allen will be 31 years old before we decide to try again with different people in charge. Personally I think five years of elite QB play is more than enough time to make a judgment about a head coach, excuses be damned. But yes I suspect that's where the conversation will be next year, unfortunately.

Yeah it's not even a debate. Allen with the Bengals playoff defense would have been in two Super Bowls by now. That's without giving him their receivers. People on here just say whatever. When your conclusion is "McDermott is a Super Bowl caliber coach," you kind of have to make weird justifications elsewhere to support that. At this point I don't expect anybody to change their mind. Can everyone at least agree that if we're in the exact same boat next offseason, McDermott should 100% be fired? Can we not make pre-excuses or justifications and just concede that if we once again fail to even come close to a Super Bowl win that it's time for a change?

Andy Reid and Steve Spagnuolo turned in signature coaching performances in the AFCCG and Super Bowl this past year. If you don't think coaching has an impact on the outcome of the game we are miles apart in our thinking. But also in that case why are you so resistant to moving on from McDermott? If it's just a management job?

This is an argument that he is a good regular season coach. Not that he's a championship caliber coach. What, to you, is McDermott's signature playoff coaching performance? The only answer I ever get to this question is the Ravens game in hurricane winds. And you know what, even accounting for the hurricane winds, I will concede that McDermott has done a great job of containing Lamar Jackson over his career. You could argue he and Leslie Frazier wrote the book on how to do that. But also that isn't enough. Super Bowl championships require consecutive great coaching performances as much as they require consecutive great player performances. And there just isn't any evidence that McDermott is capable of turning in that sort of streak.

If Claypool has a great season you let him walk, for sure. Like the Chiefs did after JuJu Smith-Schuster's good season there, and then he predictably became his usual hobbled self at his next stop. Enjoy the free comp pick and let some other team make the obvious mistake.

Either way bringing up Kyle Shanahan kind of dodges the whole point of the conversation. Ditto for John Harbaugh and Mike Tomlin. Because none of those coaches have had a QB of Josh Allen's caliber in recent years. When Harbaugh and Tomlin had QBs performing at Allen's level in the playoffs they parlayed that into a Super Bowl win. It kind of tells on itself that nobody on the pro-McDermott side has any facts to bring to the table. It's all a bunch of whataboutisms and finger pointing. Because frankly that's all there is to defend him. Not one statistic, not one data point, works in his favor as far as being a championship caliber coach. Quite the opposite actually. When you're at the point in your argument where you've stopped defending the man in question and you've instead started criticizing his peers, you've already lost the argument. There's nothing anybody can point to that says McDermott is going to suddenly become a championship caliber coach. It is just blind faith. I just hope everybody is on the same page about what needs to happen if the team once again falters in the divisional round. If we're having the same exact debate next offseason with the same exact points that would really just be absurd, yes?

I thought Purdy was outright bad in the Super Bowl. And the NFCCG for that matter. Any hint of pressure in the pocket and he just can't get the ball out cleanly. If it's a tight window he can't fit it in. Absolutely a limited player that will be a career backup as soon as he's out of Shanahan's shadow. Personally I think he's closer to Nick Mullins than Kirk Cousins but I know that's an unpopular opinion.

He has not. @Mikie2times has posted the stats. San Fran's defense has performed better against Mahomes in the playoffs than we have. Shanahan's problem is he has been burdened with below average QB play for his entire tenure. It's a testament to his coaching that he's even gotten close to a Super Bowl win.

You realize this is an argument against McDermott, right?