JGMcD2

Something like... “Why the heck did we have Gabriel Davis in over Dane Jackson on that last play? What was McDermott thinking... Davis hasn’t practiced one snap on defense all year and you put him out there to cover Hopkins!!!”

The clock was stopped. They had a chance to gather already... the offense calls a play and the defense has to react. The offense is the driver in the situation, defense is the passenger. McDermott got a look at what they were doing and called a timeout to make sure everyone knew their role. Sure, maybe it gave Kingsbury a minute to make an adjustment himself but the offense can adjust based on the audibles installed on that play... the defense is purely reacting. I like to use the example of a game in poor conditions. Offensive players have an advantage with bad turf, wet turf, etc. because they know exactly what they’re doing on that play... the defender is doing their best to react to it. The call was correct, the execution was correct, the result was a great player made a great play. It happens. What would people say if McDermott didn’t call a timeout and that exact same result occurred? That the defense was unorganized and players didn’t know their assignments?

Hopefully they keep playing loose and don’t get too tense after this fluke loss.

I highlighted it in the thread prior, but McDermott seems to follow a pretty common interview tactic. If someone asks a question that he doesn’t want to answer, he just sort of recycles the question as his answer. The last question about “did Morse doing something off the field that caused him to not play, or was it a football decision?” He very simply says “It was a football decision.” He’s too respectful to do much more than that IMO.

This makes sense. 1 state institutes a mask mandate during sporting events so that they can continue to be played with spectators and that means at this rate the season will be paused? 🤨

Did you come from the future? He’s under contract for 2021... ask me after next season. In all seriousness I would probably try to extend him through 2022 and decrease the cap hit in 2021.

Dave, just out of curiosity, because your points are really well thought out. I agree with some of Jim’s points for sure, but some of your perspective as well. What’s your football background? Because I can tell you have to have some form of a background in the game. EDIT: Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure Jim said Singletary wasn’t the target as well, but his poor route causes him to be in the area and impact the throw to I believe John Brown? He also said it was an inaccurate throw to Davis, because Josh was late in his progression on that throw. Which tightened the margin for error. Yes, he may have forced that throw to Knox (I actually agree with you on the thought process, you nailed what Josh does) but Jim also made a point that the coverage was designed to be confusing and hidden. He made the point that there’s really no way Josh could know that Peterson was a robber in that situation. So yes, he forced it, but maybe Josh’s process wasn’t entirely bad.

I need to do a much better job of finding my voice on here. Definitely a broad brush, was supposed to be fairly sarcastic but my tendency to speak hyperbole tends to hurt me when typing as opposed to speaking. Love the rest of your points!

This board as a whole reads at roughly a 3rd grade level. Listening comprehension is roughly at a 1st grade level. I enjoy Kubiak... really neutral POV IMO. I personally like Cover1 because it’s free to watch and I learn better with visual aides and listening than I do reading. I think Cover1 is a really good source but tend to sugar coat some things here and there... Kubiak, like I said is neutral. It’s amazing the sources there are publicly available. You’d be surprised at how many pro teams keep tabs on these guys internally and learn from their breakdowns. We do it all the time... amazing free source for teams to learn from... even if they’re not as polished as the breakdown by the team themselves.

For everyone that’s not going to read the entire thread... this is a brief synopsis of the McDermott presser. The order the questions were asked, when they were asked and how McDermott responded. The OP and the folks on Twitter have been mixing and matching statements from McDermott out of order in order to create a story. There really is not a whole lot here.

Yup. Just the nature of things... just have to keep pushing through. A lot of people claim the Bills are pretty lucky this year being 7-3. It would be lucky if they had a weak schedule IMO. Bills/Dolphins will be the most battled tested teams come playoff time. Bills slightly more so than MIA, but close.

Would’ve been nice. We get the AFC and NFC South next year. Things change year to year but a lot of good teams in there. Saints, Bucs, Colts, Titans. Falcons have talent. Panthers are building. Texans and Jaguars are scrappy.

I am sorry your father didn’t teach you proper English? Boom. Roasted. 60% of games in the NFL are decided by a score or less. Get over it. Let’s also neglect to mention it was against two of the top 5 offenses in the NFL.

No. He did not. The combination of Dawkins-Boettger-Feliciano-Winters-Williams that started the game played 100% of the snaps. No other lineman actually made their way on to the field as an eligible receiver or anything like that.

Yes, very good point! This kind of goes into your post hitting the media hard last week. IMO they do a very poor job of asking the right questions and connecting the dots between something like Feliciano’s comments against NE and how it may impact Morse... maybe if Joe B goes “Sean, Feliciano said after NE it was easier for him to play center right now because his pec isn’t 100%. Did his injury factor into the decision to keep him there for now? Do you have any intention of moving him back to G when he’s more comfortable?” And then boom Sean opens up a little more on the topic because it’s interconnected. Sean, like Belichick, will give you some very good answers... if you ask some very good question. It’s a reward thing... when you watch Sean he reacts to certain things more positively than others. For example the “football decision” comment that is in the title of this thread... a reporter asked specifically, with no context of what he meant by “football decision” asked McDermott (paraphrasing) “Did Morse do something or fail to do something off-field that caused him to not start, or was it a football decision?” It was basically a yes or no question... either Sean says it was an off-field reason or it was a football decision. To Sean, football decision could mean absolutely anything in his mind. It could mean that Morse sucks, Feliciano is still playing hurt and is healthy but his hurt and healthy is less significant than Morse, it could mean he’s a football czar and makes football decisions! Sean just reused the term given to him... it’s a very common tactic in sports interviews... the reporter gave him an out when it came to specific details. McDermott just had to say “it was a football decision” and boom he gave an answer that doesn’t allow for follow up. The reporters want to blame the coach, which fine, he’s vague. But maybe the reporters should come prepared with well-phrased questions and not stumble over their thoughts as they try to come up with a question on the spot. The wording matters, the flow of the interview matters, the context matters. They seem to get lazy with it and in return get lazy answers that lead to ambiguous answers from McDermott... maybe that’s what they want so they can put their own spin on it?

I shouldn’t have been so definite with my Morse statement, that’s fair. I guess what is was trying to highlight was a lot of what McDermott said was fairly normal and most of it was taken out of context. I mean he seriously spent 15-30 seconds in total responding to all 3 questions. Yeah it comes down to which OL has the comparative advantage over the other... which comes down to who is better at each spot. I would think that even if Feliciano has a slight edge on Morse at C, Feliciano would have a substantial edge on Winters/Boetteger/Ford at either of the G spots. Which then you’d have to determine whether the slight decline at C is worth the significant upgrade at the G spots by inserting Feliciano there. You nailed it spot on at the end there. I don’t think Morse is outside of our top 5 o-lineman, but it seems to me they were figuring out which G combination works best... coupled with Morse being healthy but the line having some success last week it just seems like a 1 week thing. I’m not saying I’ll be right at the end of the day, but it seems to me a lot was made out of such little that McDermott provided. The OP was misleading and made things seem so much worse than the way it unfolded in the press conference.

Yes, sarcasm. Lol

More or less, yes. The OP was based on someone watching the press conference but things were taken out of context. I don’t love the tweet because it’s also not an accurate representation. I believe it’s page 2 or 3 In this thread that I summarize all Morse related discussion from the press conference with McDermott today...

Spain isn’t in that category... I’m pretty sure Murphy isn’t either. Spain’s initial deal was a cheap 1 year deal and then the extension was less than $20M if I recall correctly. Star and Addison both received bigger deals.

Your OP is literally taking his responses out of context... Sentence #1 was from his final answer to question #3 at the 13:30 mark. Sentence #2 was not what he said at all... he said he wasn’t benched and that they evaluate their lineup week to week. This came from question #2 at the 8:30 mark. Sentence #3 was from his first answer that came at the 1:20 mark. I didn’t cherry pick anything... I laid out THE ENTIRE interview... with questions IN THE ORDER THEY WERE ASKED with McDermott responses. Do you not see how the way you put those together makes things look a certain way.. AKA cherry picked. The flow to the interview is important, the time spent answering each question is important, the order of which questions were asked are important. You keyed in hard in the “football decision” portion but failed to identify that McDermott said that IN HIS FINAL response to a question in which the reporter asked if it was a “football decision.” Football decision was used in the question, McDermott just used the question to answer his question. That’s something that I know for an absolute fact is taught by PR firms who work with athletes to answer questions... its a tactic McDermott uses often. EDIT: The reporters made it news because it seems somewhat controversial and it’s their job. I dated a media personality for over two years... we lived together... I watched her put together stories... I gave her input on stories. She was legitimately taught and expected to portray things in a certain way to generate interest. Take things that really are insignificant and blow them up to get people talking. We would laugh about it all the time because she would pick out insignificant portions of an interview and portray them as a significant part of the interview in order to get people talking. I would call her on it constantly and she would laugh and say “I don’t know what else to do, the rest of the story isn’t very interesting, this can get people talking. It’s what I was taught to do in school, what I’ve been told to do at the station. It’s not dishonest, it’s just focusing on something unconventional to get people talking... that’s my job.” Thank you, thank you and thank you!

My take is indeed valid. I’m literally doing EXACTLY what you’re doing (other than taking his responses out of context) and giving my interpretation of McDermotts 15 seconds worth of answers to 3 questions. You’re taking B from that answer he gave? That’s literally putting words in McDermott’s mouth. Mitch is a good player We had momentum with the group we had when he went out We wanted to see if we actually had something there or if it was a fluke We evaluate our lineup week to week Mitch wasn’t benched EDIT: And now this is me going off of my experience working with professional athletes and trainers... players may be cleared to play, which means they are healthy... but coaches can and do often err on the side of caution.. although they won’t necessarily outwardly tell the media that. McDermott has a track record of being vague...

You disagree, meaning you have a dissenting opinion. Well now that tells me McDermotts responses are open to interpretation and not as cut and dry as you were portraying them to be. We both watched the press conference, listened to his answers and came away with two different reads on the situation. The whole football decision thing was him literally regurgitating the term used by the reporter who asked him the question at the 13:30 mark. I mean seriously what does McDermott say here the is completely abnormal from things he has ever said related to lineup decisions? A) Mitch is a good player B) We wanted to take one more week to look at this combination C) He was not benched D) We determine the lineup week to week E) This relates to comment B about looking at the combination from last week... it wasn’t disciplinary it was a football decision

I was typing this before your last response LOL. I highly, HIGHLY encourage you to actually watch the press conference with McDermott. There were 3 questions posed when it came to Morse and McDermott spent about 15 seconds total answering those questions. They were asked at the beginning, middle and end of the interview. I’m paraphrasing but here’s how it went First question was that he was active but didn’t play, was he not healthy? This is around the 1:20 mark. McDermott responses by saying he was healthy, but it was a coach’s decision to not have him play this week, Mitch is a great player but they felt that they had momentum with the group from last week and wanted to see how they played together this week. Said they played well when Mitch went down and wanted to take a look at it one more week. Second question was someone clarifying the Morse question from earlier... they specifically asked if Morse was benched... this is around the 8:30 mark McDermott said he was NOT BENCHED. Quick follow up asked if Morse was still the starter. McDermott said the lineup is determined week to week... literally something McDermott says about every position group because he likes the idea of competition and maybe even the illusion of it. Final question around the 13:30 mark. Reporter asks if it was a disciplinary decision for something he did/did not do off-field or strictly a football decision. McDermott replied in 6 words and used the verbiage from the reporter.. “It was strictly a football decision.” I think this is being read into... I mean really he spent like 30 seconds answering these 3 questions and they’re such vague answers and really aren’t answers outside of McDermott answers and we’re creating a controversy here. EDIT: Look at all 3 comments.... he said the following A) Mitch is a good player B) We wanted to take one more week to look at this combination C) He was not benched D) We determine the lineup week to week E) This relates to comment B about looking at the combination from last week... it wasn’t disciplinary it was a football decision

Don’t be rude. I literally didn’t oppose that portion of it at all... I said he was healthy enough to be active and play in a pinch but not healthy enough to start. There’s a difference. McDermott is purposefully vague and every complains about it, now he’s vague and they’re trying to decipher what he’s saying as negative. EDIT: If you read more than just 1 tweet and cherry picked quote to create controversy you’ll see McDermott said more than this. He said it was a coach’s decision to rest Morse 1 more week and evaluate the combination they used the previous week heading into the bye.

My guess would be he cleared protocol and they didn’t intend on having him active to rest up going into the bye week. When they had all the COVID list adds it changed who they made active. I believe I saw that they had to shake up active roster decisions because of the positive test. He was healthy enough to play in a pinch but they felt better about giving him some time off? Morse will start the final 6 games of the season.