Chaos

If we are just playing make believe, the playoff version of Derrick Henry, transforms the team. Like Jerome Bettis or John Riggins from the past, his window to play at that level is likely short, but it would be a huge change for the Bills.

Don't bring facts into the narrative, you will just confuse everyone.

So we agree, you don't know.

Lawsuits are civil, not criminal actions. Was the player charged with a crime?

the word core seems to refer to their importance among our free agents. These are the only regulars who are free agents, so they comprise the core group of free agents. I am not a d line guru. Its seems to me the only one of these four players who contributed at their position at an above average level in the league, is Jordan Philipps. Free agency is asset management, so you can't simply pay any price. But it is not clear to me that phillips contributions are easily replaced.

Can we also hire a guy to handle clock management during games.

I expect he retires a Patriot. But if he leaves, I think the likely landing spot is Las Vegas. Gruden is not thrilled with Carr, and could Brady an upgrade and a perfect bridge to a newly drafted QB. If this happens, Carr could very well end up in New England as the best free agent available.

He won't be having Aaron Rodgers. He will have the same salary cap difficulties. I am not optimistic. I wonder if Jason Garrett looks at Mike Vrabel and thinks "*****, I had the leauges best oline and E. Elliot, and did not think to run that offense"

Apologies for the weird thread title. Coaching skill sets and philosophies have a thousand variables. I am curious what people think about a variable I will call "approach to personnel". On one end of the spectrum we have: Coaches with a commitment to a system, and the focus is going to be on optimizing the system, and changing personnel in order to optimize the system On the other end of the spectrum we have Building and modifying systems to be optimal for the players on hand, and tweaking the systems to take best advantage of their particular talents. In real life everyone is somewhere in between the two ends of the system. But I think most coaches are nearer one end than the other. In recent history I think Bill Belichick has been the closest to "2" on the spectrum consistently. Drafting late in the draft every year actually has probably forced his hand a bit on that. Last and this season John Harbaugh showed major adjustment chops going from a Joe Flacco offense, to the anti-Joe Flacco offense with pretty good success The "legion of doom" Seahawks have morphed into the Russell Wilson Seahawks over time, driven by salary cap necessity. But the transition has been pretty smooth. This year at week 6, Mike Vrable dropped one lemon of a QB and replaced him with a different lemon, but seemed to make some pretty good lemonade with the rest of the team. The Mike McCarthy packers seemed like a team who after succeed was not able to innovate and adjust to compete again. A shift to a different coach and a different style has yielded pretty immediate results. For next season, the Rams let the DC who helped them get to the Super Bowl go, because they feel as though he and the existing personnel are not aligned to go to the next level. They seem to view Wade Philipps as a type "1" coach. The question I am asking following this ramble is: How important is it that a coaching staff be able to constantly adjust to available personnel, versus how important is to seek out the optimal personnel for a "system".

There are definitely different approaches to managing coaching staffs in the NFL. Jerry Jones was the poster child for continuity, hanging on to Jason Garrett for nine years, with only three playoff performances to show for it. Wade Phillips is less than a year removed from having a defense capable of contributing to an NFC championship. and is ash canned because he is viewed as not being the guy to be able to move the defense forward again.

And hold fourth quarter leads.

What is even more amazing is how often the bottom actually falls out.

In week 6, how many posters in this thread thought the Titans would be in this years championship game? Some pretty random things happen in the NFL.

People that offered that kind of money typically don't need help with motivation.

Since neither you or I will be offered $14 to broadcast a game, lets not pretend what our reaction to being offered $14 million would be.

I think item 3 is pretty dependent on item 1 in your list. You make very good points overall. Every fan of every team, other than maybe 1 or 2 in full blown rebuilds, think there team will be marginally better the next. The right way to think about it is how do we get better than the Chiefs and Ravens next year, and maybe the Titans now.

Does this mean we get to take the Titan's place in the championship game?

no. it was the use of technology to do the stealing.

If it makes you happy I will pretend we dominated good teams like the Eagles and Ravens. And will also pretend our elite defense did not blow any fourth quarter leads.

Eagles, Ravens? Which winning teams did our defense dominate

Nothing is perfect. The Bills defense is very good against inferior talent. They are only average against good talent.

His name is Tyler, and people are confused about which Tyler he is.

I have been watching the NFL for 5 decades. During that time there have only been a handful of offenses that succeed without relying of "tricking the defense". The playoff version of the Titans has sort of come out of nowhere to be operating at that level. Everyone in the stadium knows the play is a hand off to D. Henry. Yet time after time Henry is going though a huge hole allowing him to gain 2-3 yards before meaningful contact allowing him to provide incredible force in the physical mass x acceleration sense to explode for additional yards. This brings to mind John Riggins behind the vaunted hogs, or Jerome Bettis as the "bus" on the Steelers. These circumstances are rare, and in the case of Riggins and Bettis were not sustained for very many years. As jealous as I am with what the titans are doing now, I think you have to go back to Jim Brown to find a circumstance where this kind of rushing dominance was sustained for more than a couple of years. More recently, Bills fans have to to spend more than a decade watching Brady throw slant passes to Welker and then Edeleman. Personally I have not been suprised by this particular play call in more than 10 years. I assume DCs were never surprised either, but they really never stopped it. I am sure there are more examples of "unstoppable" offenses, but they are pretty rare. Setting aside the likely elusive goal of unstoppable, it of course does not matter where production specifically comes from. I love Josh Allen. He is not Aaron Rodgers. Its not clear that moving Davante Adams to the Bills would also move his production. Likewise with Derrick Henry. (Although I think Henry's production is more portable). I think the Bills production improves only with a significant uptick in offensive line play, improved catching competence across the board. In a non-Bills example, Metcalf played great for the Seahawks last night, but Malik Turner dropped a pretty catch-able ball that possibly would have led to a Seahawks win. The bills need 2 or three better pass catchers to meaninfully improve. These can be TE's or WR's. There are a number of NFL receivers who make a difficult catches with some degree of frequency. The Bills have zero of these players. Having two would open up a lot. Having even one would be nice.

Jason Garrett proves your point.

If you want to make the case "we are close", you ought to have the cojones to quantify what "close" is.