Beck Water

OK, I see your POV, but I think because of Ty Dunne's business model, he is not very plugged in to a lot of that. A former player or coaching assistant talks to a personable independent reporter about his time with the Bills and his interactions with Sean McDermott, maybe in the off-season when guys have more time and it doesn't have to be scheduled - why would he even mention that to his agent, to be discussed with the FO? I don't think Dunne would write about a lot of the topics you mention because I don't think he has access to the current employees and family members he'd need access to, to write those articles.

Nah, not worth searching for what I wrote. I was using a clever analogy to Hamas planning the attack on Israel.........KIDDING!!!!!!! I don't at all think Ty Dunne is making stuff up. I'm sure all the people he interviewed really said what he quotes. Nor do I think he has an "axe to grind" or decided to do a "hatchet job" on McDermott. I think he started with a handful of former players and assistants who may have had a bit of an "axe" (Isaiah McKenzie, his coaching idol Chad Hall, Harrison Phillips, etc), and likely went where that took him as far as others to talk to. He doesn't have free access to the Bills facility that would give him contact with current Bills players and coaches. That's not his fault, but it does color what information he got. I referenced a movie I didn't remember the name of at the time. I got it now. Alan Alda, "Sweet Liberty". In the movie, a group of historical re-enactors agree to put on a battle scene for a movie director, who wants them to change it completely from historical fact to support his movie plot. The re-enactors rebel, and do the battle scene historically correctly. Alda apologizes to the director who says something like "we filmed it from 30 different angles, I can make it look like anything I want". I DO think Dunne is trying to grow his business, and that putting out a controversial piece about a HC whose team has struggled this season and is now 6-6 and flirting with no longer "playoff worthy" is a subscriber-generating move. I think he slanted the article to focus on painting a bad picture of McDermott, because "reading the room" in Bills-land, this is a great time to sell such a piece. I think if you probably intensively and in depth interviewed current and former players and assistants about the majority of the current or former HC in the league, you could probably come up with an article that put them in either a very bad light, or a very good light - depending on who you talked to, what you chose to include of what they said, and what you chose to opine wrote around them. Heck, I'm nobody and not well connected and even I could write a little piece about former St Louis Rams coach Mike Martz that would make him look like a incompetent twatwaddle who's a bag of peas short of a casserole. Successful football HC are a breed apart. They are dialed in and focused in a way 99.98% of the human population just isn't. They work incredibly long hours. They have to schedule time with their kids and spouses during the season. I most truly dislike bringing up a story that casts someone in a very poor light, but is FOUR YEARS OLD and was realized to be a bad move and apologized for at the time. I mean, in all but a few states the statute of limitations for most crimes is less than four years. I used to listen to the Isaiah McKenzie show led by Ty Dunne because parts of it were very funny, until it started making me very uncomfortable with how Dunne handled it. He wasn't exactly putting words in McKenzie's mouth, but he definitely asked questions and said things himself that drew a certain slant of stories and interpreting events out of McKenzie, that I don't think was in McKenzie's self interest for player development. My take is that the whole thing is very unfortunate in that it's likely to cloud decision making about McDermott instead of lasering on what should be focused on - game management, decision making, whether some of the core principles of his defense are really sustainable under the modern salary cap.

Concur

Like I said up-thread, I think Pegula is sensitive to public embarrassment. So if the fallout from this is lasting public embarrassment, Right or Wrong, I think McDermott is gone. On this, my personal feeling is that something which happened 4 years ago and was dealt with at the time, should remain at rest. I think it’s BS to dredge this up now.

Trubisky just looks like his dog died and his wife told him to sleep on the couch

I can’t say you’re wrong On the other hand, surely the game decisions are illustrative to some here…yowza.

I’m not following how a Pitt L tonight would “basically eliminate” them?

Why yes. Yes, they are!

I keep thinking Trubisky is done, done, done then he makes a throw like that.

Sounds like it’s you. Sorry you’re having a rough patch, but things WILL get better! I’m unusually and uncharacteristically detached about the Bills right now (for me) but the rest of my world is pretty vivid despite some struggles with elder care

Mmmm hnnnnn. How far away were you standing when you beheld this, my Brother? And while you’re here, can we get a pin

I agree with you. I also think this is true: https://twitter.com/McClapsAndSlaps/status/1732955792213454944 I think a good number of people were not sold on Dorsey at all Joe Buscaglia, pre-season, tagged retaining Ken Dorsey as OC being the “riskiest decision of the Bills off season”

I would take Jaylen Warren and George Pickens on the Bills in a heartbeat. Pat Freiremuth. Deontae Johnson is solid.

Why do you think Bills corporate had to know about an article an Independent self-employed journalist who is not credentialed by the Bills and is not working inside the Bills facilities has written?

That’s not too far from where I am. One philosophy is the Rooney family, “hire good people and give them time to figure it out”. There are plenty of examples of teams which have pulled the plug on a coach who was “good but not good enough” and spent seasons regretting it - Denver with Kubiak/Phillips; Philly with Reid etc. Sometimes teams move on for a “hot young name” who sometimes turns out to be “not all that”. On the other hand, especially this season the questionable game management decisions and just general mistakes (12 men on field, etc) have mounted up. If you ask me “do’s I think the Buffalo Bills can win a Super Bowl with Sean McDermott?” Before the end of last season I would have said “yes”, before this article I would have said “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure”. I do think that Pegula does not like to be publicly embarrassed and this will not go over well with him.

I don’t think he made stuff up. See post upthread about editing a battle scene filmed from a zillion angles. You can accurately report what is told to you by sources, but the context of who the sources are and whether some of the stories were corroborated (and what stories were used vs omitted) matters.

The Steelers really should upgrade their OL and OC, and see what they have in Pickett. Trubisky seems to be done, stick a fork in him. OK, he threw a nice block on Peppers there. But Hayward would have got more yards if he didn’t have to dig for that.

Yeah, that part.....SMH

You mean, hung him out to dry with the play call Wallace acknowledged he didn't execute correctly? You kind of can't have it both ways here, Freddie.

I actually think it got more attention now. The Bills kind of looked as though they got it together and might be turning it around - thumped the Jets solidly, played last year's NFC Champions very very tough into OT. So they're back in the news as a team "In the Hunt". I don't think the intention is to "hit a man when he's down", I think the intention is to generate views and subscribers and make money.

I mean, he was 30 after 2021, and his "mental disposition of a child" went on to play for a winning team that went to the Superbowl

I can't keep up. I thought our complaint was that McDermott WOULDN'T hang anyone out to dry but just said bland general things about execution.

I don't necessarily struggle with unnamed sources - journalists have to protect their sources at times. Organizations that hold a high standard and require two independent sources to corroborate info before publication, I'm fine with that. I struggle with Ty Dunne's unnamed sources, because his current business model requires him to obtain subscribers to his own work, which intrinsically requires that he generate controversy and bring in views. And I say that as someone who liked Ty Dunne's writing for TBN and BR. In that context, I kind of feel as though 25 unnamed sources are ....I can't think of the name of the film, one of the sub-plots is a historical re-enactment group that's contracted to stage a battle for a film producer, the producer wants them to be totally inaccurate and the re-enactors revolt against him and do the historically accurate battle. Afterwards the producer smiles at the leader and says "we have so many camera angles on that, we can make Any Thing We Want out of it."

Quinton Spain. He went to Cincinnati and played 100% of their postseason snaps in 2021 so, there's that. I would have to agree.

Thanks for the warning. We all know I'm a stats geek and I like analytics - to a point. But there's a place for eyeballs and there's always a need for context around stats.