Shaw66

Allen's going to throw for over 4000. That's almost impossible to do without someone going over 1000. 900, 800, 700, 600, 500, 400 is 3900 yards. It's more likely that someone will go over 1000 than you'll get such an even distribution. Diggs in an off year did 1183. And the reason he's going to break out is because of how Brady will change the schemes from last season. They're going to create big openings for him, just like the Rams did, first with Kupp and then with Puka.

What's interesting is that although that is how we feel, and that is NOT how McDermott feels, and that is NOT how he expects any of his players to feel. They are keeping things very simple, which is to say that they don't think about how the season will go. All they think about is the Cardinals. The season is about to start, and as far as McDermott is concerned, now is the time when the Bills will begin to pile wins upon wins.

I seriously don't think there's a ceiling when you have Josh Allen and a bunch of quality athletes catching passes. Combine him with Ed Oliver, Von Miller, Greg Rousseau, which could be a truly formidable defensive front line, and it simply isn't difficult to imagine 12 or 13 wins.

At least one over 1000, and maybe two. Shakir, Samuel, Kincaid, Coleman each are candidates.

With Allen and McDermott, I feel like the team alwaya will be good. The question is, "how good?"

I haven't read much of anything in this thread, including this debate you're having with Bado. I just want to comment about whether he can get 1200 yards. I think he certainly can. And I think that analyzing in terms of targets is a little off-base. I think the actual number of targets a guy gets over the course of the season is subject to a lot of different things. It might be something teams might plan for, but they aren't goals. The number of targets a guy gets is dependent on game plan, on how the QB executes the plays, etc., etc. The truth is that some guys will outperform in number of targets, and some will underperform. So, that question is, what does an overperforming Shakir look like. And I think it's pretty easy to see. The Shakir highlights are kind of eye-opening. He's an extraordinary little-route runner, and he's an extraordinary open-field runner. Especially with a good supporting cast, which he has in Samuel and Kincaid, he really could have a breakout year.

I can see this team being 12-4 or 13-3, and I can also see it being 8-9. Any of those outcomes and everything in between seem plausible, depending on how the season goes, how players develop, and how the coaches perform.

The Rockpile Review – by Shaw66 Well, here it is, Labor Day and the 2024 NFL season is about to begin. What are we to expect from the Bills? I have no idea. At a technical level, I literally have no idea. The game evolves, season after season, and only some of the strategies that worked in 2023 will work in 2024. And some coaches will come up with new strategies, both offensively and defensively. Those are changes that I barely understand at their simplest levels. And it’s virtually impossible to predict what all those changes will be. At a personnel level, I have one idea – a lot depends on players who haven’t been big-time players previously, and that means uncertainty about how guys will perform. Safeties, linebackers, a corner or two, various defensive linemen all must show that they are playoff caliber. Offensive linemen, receivers. The Bills don’t have holes, but they have a lot of questions. At the coaching level, oh boy. Brady has to have the goods. Babich, too. And McDermott. McDermott has coaches and players he likes, and I’m sure he believes he can win with them. This is the season all three need to show they are playoff caliber. Can they? Sure. Will they? I have no idea. As a fan, I think the Bills are going back to the playoffs. Why? Well, principally because I believe in McDermott and I believe in Allen. I said it a couple of weeks ago: There are 20 teams, for sure, that would trade their HC and QB for McDermott and Allen. Maybe 25, but call it 20. That tells me that those two men alone make the Bills a top-12 team, and top-12 is playoffs. I know some will argue about McDermott, but I don’t buy it. He’s won as much or more as other coaches who have been around the league for a few years. He’s dedicated to getting the whole job done, and pretty much anything McDermott dedicates himself to, he achieves. Fire him in February, and he’ll have multiple head coach offers the next day. I’m looking for a good season, a playoff season. How will they get to the playoffs, and what will they achieve there? I have no idea. I'm ready. GO BILLS!!! The Rockpile Review is written to share the passion we have for the Buffalo Bills. That passion was born in the Rockpile; its parents were everyday people of western New York who translated their dedication to a full day’s hard work and simple pleasures into love for a pro football team.

You misunderstand why McDermott hires from within. It is NOT about comfort and control. It's about building and continuous improvement. McDermott expects everyone in the organization to work every day at getting better at his job. He expects everyone in the organization to be better this season than last season. And he expects everyone in the organization to be self-motivated to improve in that way. Someone, take Babich as an example, who has been with the organization multiple years has stayed with the organization because he is improving annually. If he weren't improving, he would be replaced. Since he's improving every year, it's rare to find someone outside the organization who is better than the guy who has been with the organization. And even if the new guy brings more raw talent, he still won't be very useful until he gets up the learning curve in McDermott's system. And the learning curve is always going up, so the longer a guy has been with the team, the further up the curve he is, and the more likely it is that he will be better at the job than a guy with much less experience in the system. It's not all that unusual. Lots of teams stick with their veterans, and rehire their veterans. The Chiefs just re-signed JuJu Smith-Schauster for exactly that reason - he isn't the greatest receiver, but he knows Mahomes and the system - in other words, he's further up the learning curve. Year after year, Belichick brought guys off the bench who played well within his system, guys who had been on the team for a few years, learning and growing. McDermott's system is all about the team and teamwork, and veteran experience in his system enhances teamwork. That's why he hires from within.

Whoa, thanks! I'm sure you're right. Oh, well. Maybe jr. will call his dad for help.

I have never looked at Babich's history. He has plenty of play-calling experience. Head Coach at North Dakota State for five season, Defensive Coordinator for the Bears and the Jags (three seasons each). He's been around. I'm sure he and McDermott have regular, high-level discussions about how they want the defense to work, including play-calling philosophies and strategies. We'll see how they do in a week.

I think this is a legitimate question. It's the same question as why would you hire someone with no head coaching experience over someone who has done it before. And the answer is the same: The coaches who have done it before and were successful at it already have jobs and aren't available, like Nick Fangio. The coaches who have done it before and are available are available because they weren't very successful last time. So, when you're an owner or a GM or a HC looking for someone to be HC or a coordinator, you have two categories of candidates: Coaches who for some reason didn't have a lot of success last time but who have shown promise and may be worth betting on the second time around, and coaches who haven't done the job yet but have shown a lot of promise. McVay, Shanahan, Tomlin, McDermott all were guys hired as head coaches from that second category, and they all were great hires. Belichick, Carroll, maybe Reid, all were guys picked from the first category. Some guys who've never done it before fail the first time, like Marrone. Some guys who HAVE done it before also fail, like Rex Ryan. There is no single place to look for great coaches. And there are a lot of variables that combine to make them succeed or fail. So, in this case, you can hire a DC who has called defensive plays before but didn't succeed very well at his DC job, or you can hire a DC who has shown a lot of promise but never called plays before. McDermott is very much a promote-from-within guy, which is why we got Dorsey and Brady and Babich, and which means you're going to have coordinators without play calling experience. The Jets have Nathaniel Hackett as their OC. The Browns have Ken Dorsey. They both come to their jobs with play calling experience. I don't want either one of them as my OC.

I agree. And it's not just that he trusts people. It's his job to hire people, train them, and trust them. His job is to hire and delegate, so that all that's left for him to do is true head coach stuff. Now, there's a good discussion to be had, and it's been had here often, about whether the best head coach to have is one who is an offensive or defensive genius and who you WANT to call the plays. Belichick (who didn't always call the plays, but he always was hovering), Shanahan, McVay, guys like that. I used to think McDermott was in that class, but I'm not so sure. McDermott is learning how to do the job of being a head coach, and I have a lot of confidence in him. I'm sure what his objective is is to hire good coordinators for all three phases and then to be the manager of those three. Babich and Brady are his hand-picked guys, and it's fair to expect them to excel. It's McDermott's job to get them to excel, and he's chosen them for those jobs. And McDermott has been a head coach long enough that he should know how to do that. I think he's reached the time when he needs to deliver. We'll see how he does.

I remember seeing a comment from Brunell about how incredible it was to be in that room. He said he learned stuff every day.

Best interests, to be sure, although I'm sure that part of his decision was driven by the fact that if Babich is calling plays, McDermott knows he's can off the bench and assume that role later. He would view that, properly, as being in the best interests of the team. I don't think he thought for a minute about preserving the opportunity to have Babich as a scapegoat. I don't think for a minute that when Terry talks to him about why the team is underperforming, McD blames it on anyone else. When it's underperforming, McDermott spends his time thinking about what he can do to make it perform better, not looking for someone to blame.

Well, if I wanted to be cynical, I'd say it's a good move by McDermott simply in terms of getting as far away from this defense as he can. There are a lot of questions about talent - primarily at linebacker and safety, and if this defense underperforms, there will be plenty of criticism for whoever is coaching the defense, including calling the plays. By leaving Babich with the play calling, McDermott has a little wiggle room at the end of the season if he's looking for someone to blame. And it also leaves McDermott the option of elevating himself to the play calling duties later in the season, which we've seen him do before. Whoops! I just did it. And not in response to you. I don't think McDermott is necessarily looking for a scapegoat, but criticizing the team's lack of defensive performance, if that happens, certainly is easier for McD if he isn't calling the plays.

For sure, this is true. Like everything else, it's a bell curve. A lot of the Hall of Fame players are way out on the right hand side of the curve, just special, special athletes. By the time you get back to the 2000th best player, he's not materially better than the 2001st player, but there still is a real difference between the 2000th and 2500th best. So, it stands to reason that from time to time, one team or another actually has better talent on their practice squad than most other teams. However, I don't think it's likely that any team stays on top, in terms of total practice squad talent, for too long. All the other teams are constantly scouting the talent around the league, and they're seeing film of these guys in preseason. So, for example, even if the Panthers had more talent than most other teams at the 50th to 70th spots on their total roster, we can see that that talent got spread around the league pretty quickly. The league is a true meritocracy. If a player is good enough to be a regular player in the league, it doesn't take very long for him to find his way onto the field somewhere.

Hah! I read the report. There is one - and only one - piece of news in it: some unnamed agent said the Jets are in disarray and it's because of Rodgers. There's no confirmation. There's no detail as to the nature of the "disarray" and how Rodgers is responsible for it. All of the rest of the article is about how Rodgers missed some early OTAs and how - supposedly - he made some demands about players he wanted acquired. It's time for football to get started so we can stop sucking up this junk news.

Yes! This is the point that I keep reminding myself about. There are over 1500 guys on NFL rosters today. Twenty or thirty of them are going to the Hall of Fame. The bottom 500 or 750 are very good football players, but there isn't much difference between the talent they have and the talent of the 500 or 750 best players who just got cut. There simply isn't a lot of difference in terms of natural talent. The way the PS is working now works to everyone's advantage. In particular, it gives an opportunity to a lot of young players to essentially be on a roster, get the practice experience and as they get called up for a game or two here and there, game experience. It helps the teams, because it allows those teams to develop those guys so they actually can help when they do get called up. It always amazes me that are lot of these guys, who were among the best starters on their college teams, don't make an NFL roster and spend two, three, or four years bouncing around on practice squads, learning more each season, building their bodies, and then eventually find their way onto rosters and playing rolls. Those guys are intensely committed to making it. Yes, there's a big monetary incentive - get on a roster for a year or two, and there are some big paychecks (not enough to fund retirement, but enough to set you up for nicely for the rest of your life), but I think they do it primarily because they love the game, they love playing, they love the challenge, and they love success. Amazing dedication.

Right. It has been a necessary change as the season expands from 16 to 17 to 18 games. Teams just need more players and more flexibility in order to manage injuries. It allows for much more continuity of play during the season, because teams now are able to have quality players who have been working within the system, ready to take over when guys go down. At the same time it allows players who aren't on the 53-man roster the ability to move to other teams if those teams are willing to elevate them. Essentially, the system makes it easier to manage the teams and still supports the goal of parity. Teams can't hoard players, because the players on the practice squad are always free to move.

That's an interesting quote. Beane essentially admitting what many people have been saying here for months: The Bills are short on proven players, and how far they go will depend on whether some guys can step up.

But Hamlin has three years learning what McD wants him to do. I think it will be Hamlin. I hope it is Edwards.

I wrote this the other day: The Bills can legitimately claim to be better than 20 teams in the league simply by saying, "We have McDermott and Allen, and you don't." That alone makes the Bills better than 20 teams. So, if they're better than 20 teams, that means they're in the top 12, which means they're in the playoffs. That means they're good. How good depends on a lot of unknowable things that will happen between now and January. The Bills are contenders.

Thanks. Maybe that's the right way to think of Trubisky, and that's why he isn't the right guy to be a backup. A good backup, in my mind, is someone who can run all the same stuff as the starter, but just not as well. He's not good enough for any team to want him as a starter, but he's good enough to execute the game plan if called on. I thought Trubisky was better than what you describe.

Dawg - Just the other day I posted that I think the Trubisky panic is overblown. Then I saw your report, and it made me think twice. Putting aside his injury, whatever that is, I've been wondering what it is that could have happened to him. I mean, the guy has a lot of starts in the NFL and has played passably, overall. He's shown he's not a guy who you're going to want as your starter, but he should be a guy who's a reliable backup. Now, apparently, he looks horrible. Do you think it's possible that Brady's offense requires more recognition and quick decision making than he can handle? It's new to Allen, too, but Allen (1) is more talented, and (2) had a half season under Brady to learn some of what Brady wants. I still think Trubisky is a good guy to have, and I think he just needs some time to learn his job in this offense. Unfortunately, the time that he was allotted to learn it - training camp and preseason, now seems to have ended for him. He can look at film and participate in the QB room, but it sounds like he needs some time actually doing it. Or has the guy simply changed fundamentally and no longer has it?