HappyDays

Your argument falls apart when you realize that we lost 3 games this year to teams that we are CLEARLY more talented than. CLEARLY - Jets, Pats, and Broncos. Jags I would say maybe equal talent? But I also think Josh is at least two full tiers higher than Lawrence as a QB so to me that gives us a slight edge over them. For argument's sake we'll call it a wash. Bengals are (were, before Burrow's injury) slightly more talented, and Eagles are moderately more talented. So putting the discussion about point differential aside, we have a team that is only 6-3 against teams they are clearly MORE talented than. We are then 0-3 against teams that have equal or greater talent than us. How again is this an argument in favor of McDermott? I think you've lost the plot a bit here by pulling in teams like the Ravens and 49ers who we haven't even played. Our record compared to our actual schedule is clearly well below par. And yeah that is obviously a coaching issue. I mean how many teams ahead of us in the AFC standings are clearly more talented than us? Maybe just the Ravens and not even by a landslide? The truth is we are lagging far behind most of the conference in coaching, not in talent.

We'd probably be 9-3 at worst to be honest. And just about guaranteed a playoff spot in a conference with no clear dominant team. Still in the running for the #1 seed. At the very least we would have beaten the Broncos and Patriots with another coach. I would wager at least 1 win out of the other 3 losses too. The team has flaws outside of McDermott, clearly. But he exacerbates them. That is undeniable. It's not like we're talking nebulous coaching prowess here, there are distinct and specific moments that we can point to where McDermott personally failed his team in each of our losses this year.

Darius Slay knows what's up:

I think .500 with an elite QB is as bad as it gets to be honest. That's not me being emotional, it should just be the normal standard. I mean it just doesn't happen in the modern era. Staley is the only coach you mentioned that has a QB even approaching Josh Allen. And FWIW I agree Staley is one of the few coaches that I would definitively say is worse than McDermott, for the same reason just on a worse scale. Bowles is up there for sure. Ditto for Rivera. McDaniels before he got fired. Other than that... I can't see any distinct advantages that McDermott gives us over any other head coach in the league.

What other active head coaches would have a Josh Allen led team at .500 this late in the season? I mean that has to be the absolute floor of what even a replacement level head coach would accomplish.

No it wasn't just two players "making a call." Choice routes are very specifically designed in advance to go one way based on the defensive call. On an all out blitz the WR is supposed to go inside. That's why Josh threw it there as soon as he saw the blitz. Romo explained this during the game... And then the broadcast showed Diggs explaining it to a frustrated Davis on the sideline... This was a case of a player that is known for in-game focus issues losing focus, and costing his team a game winning TD as a result.

Oh I am definitely not blaming or scapegoating Diggs for anything that has gone wrong this season. I just haven't seen anybody talking about what I believe to be a real drop off in his level of play this year. I don't think his mindset or work ethic has changed in the slightest. But he's going to be 30 years old in 3 days... I worry that he may have crested the hill earlier this year and is now descending.

It's crazy how often we have opposing players post-game talking about how easy it was to read our play calls at the end of games in high leverage situations.

Yeah it's something I've been thinking about since the London game, but the last two weeks in particular are what led me to create this thread. I just don't see anybody talking about it which is weird. From 2020 to 2022 I was confident saying he was a top 5 WR in football. This year it feels a little off.

I will probably get flamed for this thread, but here goes - can we have a real conversation about Diggs' drop off this year? He has not been his usual special self since the London game. He's dropped a bunch of passes recently and now has two INTs on the year that were ripped out of his hands. I miss the days when Diggs was putting CBs like Marshon Lattimore and Jalen Ramsey on skates. This year he is getting locked down pretty easily by true #1 CBs. I mean just to be clear Diggs is far from our biggest problem on offense, but when the ancillary weapons are so below average you really need your #1 guy to be at the top of the elite tier and Diggs just hasn't been that guy this year. I worry that he is reaching that age where WRs start to hit a wall, and once it starts it can get bad fast. Flame away.

Ideally we would fire McDermott tomorrow and give Brady the keys to end the season. That would give us a look at his head coaching prowess. But I highly doubt that's coming, and since he hasn't shown anywhere near the success that Johnson and Slowik have had in their relatively short stints as OC I think you just have to go with the more proven options.

It was not a "terrible" INT. He fits passes like that into tight windows all the time. Diggs even had his hands on it... It was more a great play by the CB to rip the ball away and hold onto it.

Yeah these are the no brainer options for sure. I like Brady, he's been better than Dorsey in his short audition, but he isn't an innovator like the guys you mentioned. I'll lose no sleep moving on from him in exchange for an offensive head coach. Recent teams that went from floundering to becoming Super Bowl caliber all followed the same formula - hire an up and coming offensive wunderkind and figure out the rest. Rams, 49ers, Dolphins, Eagles. That was their formula. Best part is we already have the QB so the rest is easy. Unfortunately I think Beane has to go too. Let the new head coach choose someone that will find him next level offensive players to put around the elite QB. I like Beane overall, he represents the franchise well. But too many strikeouts in free agency and he failed to build around Allen. Whether he's more responsible or McDermott is I think you just need to start fresh from top to bottom.

Here's something crazy - the worst loss under McDermott was the 13 seconds game. In today's game he threw away 2 TOs despite knowing that if Philly made the FG we would have about 20 seconds left to drive and get a FG of our own. The guy is so bad and un-self-aware he didn't learn from the biggest coaching failure of his life! He didn't use that information to gain an advantage!

The problem though is that it isn't just this game. If we had won 2-3 of our very winnable losses this year, a loss like tonight would hurt but we could get over it. But McDermott has a history of finding ways to lose close games. The conversation we're having now, we've had it a dozen times since 2019. When someone tells you who they are, believe them. McDermott has told us he is a choker. I believe him.

Just saw this: It's almost impressive how often McDermott turns sure wins into sure losses.

I don't believe that people like you actually watch football. I think you watch the Bills but that's it. I know I'm wasting my time here, but you know every 400+ yard QB performance in history still had a few mistakes, right? Right? For my own sanity I need to know that you know this.

I think we could have signed both. Harty, Ford, Hines, Poyer. Those are the albatross contracts. And I know we would have had to sell out a bit on our future to fit Hopkins in. But now here we are having a conversation about cleaning house anyways. So we took no risk and got no gain out it.

The national media is coming around too. McDermott is just a slightly better Brandon Staley.

Ben knows his stuff: I would like McDermott as a DC. As the head coach he just doesn't have it.

Allen is the offense. Yeah he is going to make mistakes but the plays he makes are the only reason we do anything on offense. What is Gabe's excuse? He disappears for long stretches of games, and then when his number is called in crunch time he makes a game ending mistake. And get outta here with questioning who's to blame. Romo said it all. We saw Diggs talking to Davis about it on the sidelines. We saw Davis slam his helmet down. Everybody knew he went the wrong way. Enough is enough. Clean house and get some people in the building that understand how to build the team around Josh. We are wasting the best years of his career! It makes me sick.

Yeah he is a dumb player, I don't know a more respectful way to say it. If we had signed DeAndre Hopkins in the offseason I think we would have a minimum of 3 more wins right now. Brandon Beane completely failed his franchise's biggest investment.

They never call those fumbles. It is definitely incomplete.

Yeah mediocre WRs produce when they have the best QB on the planet throwing to them.

The Eagles pass catchers have made zero mistakes. How many did ours make, 6?