HappyDays

Lol Hawes took on two defenders there. Beast

That is what this offense has to be. Pound Cook, short/horizontal passes.

There you go. Shut down the run and force the offense to go through Andy Dalton.

Yeah Hairston being activated and expected to play this early is the first sign I've seen in a while that McDermott is feeling some heat. The way he's talked about his "mental reps" made me think we were several weeks away. I wonder if Beane put some pressure on the situation too... His recent draft record has major question marks and he needs a win. They can't afford to be patient and this has forced McDermott to step outside his comfort zone.

Now that's interesting. What exactly does "expected to play" mean? I'll guess some rotated in snaps but White remaiming the primary starter. That is still a huge surprise considering McDermott has been constantly telling the media that Hairston is way behind on practice reps.

Now we wait to see if he gets rotated in at all. You'd think if they activated him this soon it isn't just to ride the bench all game.

So that's 1-6. They can maybe afford 1 more loss the entire rest of the season... Yeah I'd say they're done. Famous last words of course.

Not really character concerns, but there were questions about his physicality and effort. I'll admit I thought he was a bit overrated as a prospect for those reasons. I want my WR1 to have an edge that I just didn't see from him. So I was one that did not want us to trade up for him. After his rookie season I had already decided my pre-draft opinion was horribly embarrassingly wrong, really an all-time bad take by me, but it turns out those concerns were legitimate. Based on what he showed last year I'd still trade for him without hesitation though. Even if it costs next year's 1st. I would rather bet on BTJ to work through his issues than bet on whatever LB or safety we'll inevitably draft next year. Top tier talent is worth the risk and no one ever won a championship playing it safe.

If that's the main issue I'd take the risk. Allen is one of the best at leading his pass catchers away from big hits. We have to accept that the best WR1s are going to come with some temperamental issues. I get that Diggs was an extreme case who basically forced his way off the team, but we can't let that experience scare us away from adding top tier talent. All that being said I can't imagine he actually gets traded. It would be one of the more shocking trades in NFL history and I doubt a new regime wants to deal with that media firestorm.

The Brian Thomas nugget is wild, I can't imagine the Jags actually let him go despite his struggles this year. This is the second time Russini has reported Olave is not likely to be traded. If true that really dampens the market for us. We could still try to get Meyers or Ridley but I don't know if either of them move the needle enough.

I don't need a "top NFL defense" that "wrecks the NFL." I just want a defense that executes the basics, comes in prepared for the opponent, and has logical situational play calling. All of that falls on coaching.

None of those teams added a boatload of new talent from last year to this year. San Fran if anything is less talented especially with their injury situation. What those teams added was Jeff Ullbrich, Robert Saleh, and Lou Anarumo. Experienced defensive minds with a history of proven results including slowing down top offenses. We instead hired a rookie DC because McDermott only feels comfortable with coaches already in the building. That's why we're stuck in neutral (or maybe reverse). You're just not going to convince anybody that the absolute mess we've watched on defense the past two seasons is solely player driven. Are there roster deficiencies, yep, but that alone doesn't explain away the total breakdown of fundamentals and preparation on a week to week basis.

Atlanta, San Fran, and Indy all have significantly better performing defenses this year than last year. What do you think the common denominator is?

DTs aren't the problem IMO. The back 7 has been the problem. DQ to my eyes has been fine, and Walker has made a few elite plays against the run. McDermott wants his front players to plug their gap and force the RB to a spot where a LB or safety can clean up the tackle. The problem is Bernard regularly gets turned out of his gap, Williams when he has played is nowhere near his gap, Rapp misses 25% of his tackles, and Bishop has been slow to react and takes poor angles to the ball carrier. So on seemingly every play we're either stopping the RB in the backfield or we're giving up 8+ yards. DTs aren't going to shed every single block. We need more 3 yard gains, less house calls.

To be fair he also tried to lose the game for us on that 4th quarter drive where New Orleans got into the red zone with a chance to take the lead. Cooks got wide open in the endzone and Rattler just missed the throw. Always hard to tell for sure who in the secondary is at fault for a coverage bust but to me it looked like Bishop was late to get to his spot. I know he is super athletic and that INT was the one example you can point to where the athleticism made a difference. But in the modern NFL and especially in McDermott's defense safeties need to be more cerebral and technical than athletic. I've only seen slight development from Bishop in those areas.

No joke, McDermott saying "we'll see" is about as positive a comment as you could get from him regarding Hairston's return. I thought we were at least two weeks away from activating him off IR. We do have two open roster spots right now so maybe...

Meh. I think Bishop has skated by because Rapp has been so horrifically bad it's hard to look elsewhere. But he hasn't been very good this season either. Not a total liability like he was at times in his rookie season but still too many lapses in coverage, too many bad angles, and too many missed tackles. He might have won us the Saints game so I'll give him that.

There was a clip going around from one of the practices this week that appeared to show Jordan Hancock on the field with Cole Bishop and getting 1 on 1 coaching from McDermott after the rep... Probably shouldn't read too much into that but maybe they'll give the rookie a shot. I do expect Poyer to be activated to the roster, we have two open spots right now. No way Poyer can be worse than what Rapp has shown so I can live with it if he ends up starting.

I just thought he had the traits to develop the ability to do those things more consistently. I didn't expect him to be an immediate hit. And to be fair there was brief evidence of that development last year - in the two game stretch of Tennessee to Seattle he showed the run blocking, the fighting through contact, the ability to make difficult catches, the YAC. I was very excited about his development track at that point, but I haven't seen that player show up since then and I'm at a loss as to what happened. I don't think it's lack of effort... I know he has been penalized twice by the team, but I also know through my usual source he really attacked the offseason both before and during camp and the team was very happy with where he was at. Everything is earned under McDermott so it's no coincidence Coleman has led the WR room in snaps since the beginning of the season. That wouldn't have happened if they weren't satisfied with his progress in the offseason. But ever since that injury last year he has looked much softer on the field than I ever would have expected. Oh well. I can forgive Beane for isolated mistakes of player evaluation. What I can't forgive him for is the more fundamental mistake of team building strategy. Skyy Moore is always my go to example because he was an absolute bust, much worse than what even Coleman has been for us. He was KC's Boogie Basham. But because they continually threw resources at the position, they eventually got a big hit with Rashee Rice and all of a sudden their passing offense looks scary again. The isolated mistake of picking Skyy Moore meant nothing in the end. Beane on the other hand put all his eggs in one basket. We entered the season with Coleman as the only possible X on the roster which was a massive mistake that has been compounded by Coleman's lack of development. I know I'm preaching to the choir here but it's just crazy how Beane approaches the WR position compared to every other premium position on the roster. We draft a CB in the 1st round but we also draft a backup option in the 6th round and sign Tre White as a baseline starter. We draft three defensive linemen high but we also sign Bosa, Hoecht, and Ogunjobi to meaningful contracts. At WR we say here you go Keon, the job is yours. No competition, no backup option. Good luck. Why do they continue to leave themselves no margin for error at that one position? I just don't get it.

Hopefully the organization can see that the fanbase has quickly turned from applauding Beane's WGR outburst to openly rooting for us to trade for a WR. Every Bills podcaster, beat reporter, etc. is on the Chris Olave train now. Every Bills account on Twitter is talking about it. That stuff shouldn't matter but it does. If the organization senses that the fans are getting restless, hopefully that makes them feel compelled to make a move. It sucks that we had to watch an obviously doomed to fail strategy play out before getting to this point, but we're here now and I hope Beane can swallow his pride and do the right thing.

McDermott's mistake was after Leslie Frazier left he decided to make an internal hire instead of hiring an experienced defensive mind with a history of success. Frazier couldn't get it done in the playoffs but his defense was great in the regular season at least. Everything is just worse under Babich. It was bad when McDermott was his own DC too. He needed to step outside his comfort zone and bring in a new voice to really shake things up. He didn't and now we're stuck with a flat out bad defense. Every coordinator hire he's made since 2022 has been an internal hire and I think this is a big reason why we haven't gotten over the hump.