Logic

I don't believe an interim head coach has ever won a Super Bowl. Granted, there's a first time for everything, but if the goal is "do everything possible to win big this year", I don't see how firing the head coach six weeks into the season moves you closer to that goal. For that matter, I don't see how it moves you closer to the goal for NEXT YEAR, either. Getting a head start on a coaching search is one thing, but this is just ridiculous. It just smells to me like desperation from a bad owner, and like a QB winning a power struggle against his head coach.

Sometimes I think this message board is a great argument against the benefits of having free will.

I shouldn't need to point out that the discussions around firing a head coach with a career record of 20-36 and 0 playoff appearances and firing a head coach with a career record of 76-43 and 6 playoff appearances are not the same. If you want McDermott fired, that's fine. I advocated for moving on from him last season myself. But to pretend like McDermott and Saleh are comparable or that it's an apples to apples situation is disingenuous and completely disregards very relevant context. Among active NFL head coaches, McDermott's .624 win percentage is fifth, ahead of guys like Mike Tomlin, John Harbaugh, Sean McVay, and Kyle Shanahan. Robert Saleh's .353 winning percentage, by comparison, is bottom five. So again, you want McDermott fired, that's fine, but it's nowhere near the same situation as the Jets and Saleh.

Dude. This is ***** UP!

Agree. If the Bills lose to the Will Levis or Mason Rudolph led Titans at home, it's time to start talking draft prospects.

Apparently not. He was tested for one during the game and cleared, and he is not currently in concussion protocol.

I see an awful lot of "Jets are gonna be fired up by the firing and crush the Bills" talk, but not nearly enough "Having to deal with a flight back from London, re-adjusting body clocks, and a fired head coach will be distracting" and "Bills will be fired up after two bad showings" talk.

A couple people already posted stats about the "win the first game post coach firing at a pretty good clip" thing, and it's not quite as much of a boost as you'd think, historically speaking. The rest I agree with.

Absolutely. And considering they now have an interim head coach, it seems all but certain that those 24 months of competitiveness are indeed going to come to an end without a championship. Next year it'll be a brand new head coach. Are they gonna let Rodgers help PICK the new coach? If not, is there any guarantee the new coach will want Rodgers? Or that he won't make changes to the defensive scheme and personnel to suit what he likes, the way new coaches often do? Bad owner, mediocre-to-bad GM, dictator headcase QB. I love it.

The defense will remain good under Ulbrich. The offense, last I checked, is still called by Nate Hackett. Unless Ulbrich is a wildly better manager of people and motivator and overall decision maker than Saleh, I don't see how this will move the needle much for Jersey/B. Has an interim head coach ever won a Lombardi? I didn't think so.

As a Bills fan, seeing the Jets sign Aaron Rodgers has been one of the funniest things of all time. Watching them bend the knee, then hire all his buddies, then fire the coach because Rodgers didn't like him....all while reports of dysfunction behind the scenes come from just about every Jets beat reporter... Hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. Serves them right.

I'd just like to point out that Beane has a history of making moves right before the trade deadline. Kelvin Benjamin. Nyheim Hines. Rasul Douglas. Three different years he brought in a guy via trade that he thought would help address what was ailing the team at the time. I tend to lean towards "he won't make a move" this year, simply because I think that within the halls of OBD the feeling is that this is the "get right" year with the cap, and while they may publicly talk big about going after a championship, I think privately they know that it's gonna be a down year. As such, I don't think they're gonna trade future capital to bring in a player for a year in which they don't realistically expect to compete for a title. BUT...to say that Beane usually sits on his hands and doesn't make any moves midseason simply does not reflect reality.

So was the last one.

He doesn't look "off" to me at all. After the first three weeks, most agreed that he looked the best he had since 2020, and that he was likely gonna be an MVP favorite all year. His time-to-throw was at a career low, and he was throwing accurately and decisively and going through his progressions with purpose and precision. He looked bad the past two weeks because the Ravens and Texans weren't scared of his receivers or the offensive playcalls, and they sent exotic blitzes and zero blitzes and played tight man coverage behind it. No one got open, and Josh spent most of both games running for his life and trying to create offense because his OC and WRs weren't giving him anything to work with. When Josh Allen has protection and WRs getting separation and an even decent offensive gameplan, he's elite. When every play is a jailbreak and no one's getting open and his OC is dialing up bad gameplans, he looks "off". Nothing is wrong with the guy. His surrounding talent and OC are the difference between "MVP season" and "something's wrong with Josh". It's early enough in the season that he can revert more to the former than the latter, but its gonna take his OC evolving and throwing counter-punches and his WRs getting schemed open or stepping their game up.

The "Bills can't win close games" things has been talked about ad nauseum. What you basically showed with your side-by-side statistics is that the Bills usually win games by comfortable margins, but when they lose, it's usually "just barely". They very rarely get blown out (the Ravens game was the first time since 2021, for instance). That's really all I take from that statistic.

I don't buy that the "guys in charge" -- be it Terry Pegula, Brandon Beane, or Sean McDermott -- don't care about winning a championship. Not for one second. I vehemently disagree with the way they choose to go about trying to win a championship at times, but not even one half of one percent of me believes that they don't care about winning a championship. That's about all I have to say on this topic.

The issues that seem most concerning to me right now: 1.) Failure to adapt. As you mentioned, defenses seem to have figured out how to stop Plan A. The fact that no reasonable Plan B has yet been presented is troubling. Opposing coaches take away what you want to do frequently in the NFL. Good coaches adapt and counter-punch. Brady still has yet to show he can do it. 2.) Unwillingness and/or inability to feature our best players on offense. Everyone said it was some kind of a GOOD thing that the Bills started spreading the ball around when they switched to Brady last year and stopped "forcing it" to Diggs. Well...why weren't they able to spread the ball around AND feature Diggs? Fast forward to this year and Brady hasn't shown that he has the slightest idea how to feature and maximize the talents of Dalton Kincaid, Dawson Knox, Keon Coleman, or $24 million dollar man Curtis Samuel. He doesn't have "gotta have it" plays for those players. He doesn't ever seem to go into a game saying "this is a Kincaid day" or "this is a Samuel day" and featuring those players. Does he even know how to do it? In retrospect, was his complete unwillingness/inability to get Diggs involved last year a sign of things to come? You can overcome a less-than-great receiving corps with a great coordinator. You can overcome a less-than-great coordinator with a great receiving corps. Right now, the Bills have a less-than-great receiving corps AND a less-than-great coordinator, and I fear they won't be able to overcome both. If things don't change, and change fast, they Bills don't have a prayer of competing with the big boys of the AFC come December and January -- if they even make it that far.

Brandon Beane - Criminally mismanaged the WR depth chart this offseason. Mack Hollins as WR1 on the depth chart in a real NFL game in 2024. Who could have foreseen this not going well? In an offseason where the NUMBER ONE PRIORITY should have been giving Allen MORE weapons, they gave him less. This Bills WR corps might be the worst of Josh Allen's NFL career. Unacceptable. Joe Brady - On a day when we needed a player to separate vs man, he refused to feature Curtis Samuel and Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox, or even James Cook in the passing game. He does not seem to have any idea how to effectively feature his best players on offense. Josh Allen - Despite the lackluster WR play and lackluster offensive gameplan, Josh did not have a good game, and some of it was on him. It's taboo to the point of being almost forbidden to critique Josh Allen these days, but I call it like I see it. Yes, everything around him was crap, but there were plays to be made at times yesterday that Josh didn't make. WRs - Woof. That about covers it. Heroic effort by the defense, all things considered. Wasted because the OC couldn't coach his way out of a paper bag and the WRs couldn't separate if their lives depended on it. Gross. Discouraging. Hard to see how much will change without a significant WR acquisition and some coaching evolution from Brady.

Well...The Bills managed to score a decent amount of points and lose only one game last year when he took over as OC. Then they came out this year looking dynamic in the first three games, scoring 30+ points in each one. So he HAS demonstrated success at the NFL. But as I mentioned in a recent thread, opposing defenses were gonna get "the book" on his offense sooner than later, and he'd need to show he has some counter-punches. So far, he has not done so. If I was to pinpoint one major concern with Brady, it's this: he seems to have either an unwillingness or an inability to feature his best players on offense. Whether it be Diggs last year, Kincaid and Samuel and Coleman this year, or even Dawson Knox. "Everybody eats" is fine, but there come times in NFL games when you need to think players, not plays, and need to have winning plays drawn up for your best players. How were Knox and Kincaid not featured yesterday? How has Samuel had by far his WORST year as a pro? I'm starting to fear that Brady doesn't know how to go away from his egalitarian offense and just say "you know what? Today needs to be a Kincaid day". I'm finding it very concerning that on a day when they need a guy who can separate vs man, Curtis Samuel is not a focal point of the gameplan. Concerning stuff, all of it.

Unless he's got an injury that's not on the weekly injury report or just suddenly turned to dust over the offseason, the only reasonable conclusion is that Joe Brady has been criminally misusing/underusing him.

Before the Ravens game, people were asking "how soon until Joe Brady gets a head coaching job?" Fast forward two weeks, and people are asking "how soon can we fire Joe Brady?" Life comes at you fast.

I don't think it's really up to Beane. Word is that he DID make the call. The Raiders would have to be willing to eat Adams' salary this year and...well...do you know much about Mark Davis?

...This is what it was like for the Patriots and their fans for 20 straight years. Sit back and laugh at the utter dysfunction of the three other AFC East teams. My, how the turntables...

Technically speaking, yes. I expect we'll see Smoot and Toohill kicking to the interior on passing downs, with a rotation of Rousseau, Epenesa, and Soloman at EDGE.

I seem to recall discussions this offseason about how our razor thin WR group would leave zero margin for error. So here we are, going into one of the biggest games of the season, with Mack Hollins, Curtis Samuel, and Keon Coleman at WR. I will always love Brandon Beane, and I'm still a big fan of his overall, but...he absolutely criminally mismanaged the WR position this offseason. It's maddening.