JohnNord

Classic Belichick thinking he’s the smartest man in football. A blend of hubris and insecurity. Rather than realizing his preference of “smash mouth” football was outdated, he brought back old cronies to support him rather than hiring someone from outside the org with new ideas. Patricia and Joe as OC’s, was one of the final nails

He was better than he’s been in previous weeks. Still probably at best, he’s 50% of what he was last fall. But incremental progress is a win short term

Everyone wants to get in their little jab by calling Patricia a OC. That was an incredibly strange move by Belichick and that hubris is largely why it appears New England is going to fire him in 3 more games. Regardless as stated Patricia had a relatively strong background in NE as DC, although when he branched out on his own in Detroit the results weren’t pretty. What surprises me more is that Philly made the switch to begin with, only because Sean Desai was thought of to be a rising star and a potential HC candidate. His defense has certainly struggled but they never had good inside LB’s and were suspect in the secondary. But you have to think that this is the end of Desai in Philly. Unless Patricia sucks (which is possible) you can’t go back to Desai. And if you were Desai, would you want to go back after getting the rug pulled from under you? All signs point to him leaving Philly. It should also be noted that Philadelphia has only scored 13 and 19 points when facing Dallas and SF the past two weeks. While the defense hasn’t been good, the offense has also been far below its standard against contenders. Maybe Nick Sirianni should have fired himself?!?!?!? Wouldn’t surprised me to see a little boost. The DL is freaking stacked so they should get more out of that unit. Aside from that the LB’s are bad and just about everyone in the secondary other that Byard are suspect. Maybe Shaq Leonard makes a difference?

This is consistent in the NFL, especially now with the fair catch rule on kickoffs. You are likely better calling for a fair catch every time.

Today’s result was a bit extreme. I don’t think he wanted to rush James Cook 25 times. But I always laughed when people criticized him for wanting a better running game. This is why

LOL I think the Dunne effect is a bit overstated. I think the Bills were trending in the right direction since Joe Brady took over as OC. They actually scored points and moved the football which helped out the defense. I think like a lot of us, they read the article and thought it was a bunch of crap. Did it make them play harder? Maybe a bit. But overall, I think the wheels were in motion before the article

I was told by Tyler Dunne that Sean McDermott is the problem

If he was fired after Jacksonville the Bills likely win against NE, Denver maybe even Cincinnati who has a bad (though opportunistic) defense. The problem is McDermott never really had enough of a reason to fire him. You can’t just fire a coach when they have a bad game and need to give them time to turn things around. It wasn’t until that midyear stretch where they consistently struggled to score over 24 points that he had cause. I thought making the move after Denver was proactive by McDermott because you knew his critics would call Dorsey a scapegoat. But anyone who watched the Bills this season or last, knows there were some major issues in the Dorsey offense.

To everyone thinking about the interim coach effect - it’s true that there can be a short team boost but that’s mostly coaches who get fired mid-season. I believe the win percentage for interims midseason was like .600. But I feel the percentage drops considerably with late season firings. Can’t find the exact numbers but Bills just need to handle business and they should be good

Officially at 3:00….but we pretty much know the game day already. No Hyde or AJ. Taron Johnson and Dalton Kincaid who were LP will play. Everyone else will be active. No practice squad call up mean the inactives will likely be: ▪️Micah Hyde ▪️AJ Epenesa ▪️Germaine Ifhedi ▪️Alec Anderson ▪️Poona Ford

People are talking about the weather as if it’s going to an extreme weather day. There’s going to be rain and a little bit of wind. 50 degrees. PLEASE! Big deal! That’s typical for most December games in the NE. Weather will not impact on the game for either side, though Dallas seems to spending a ton of time thinking about it, so hopefully they outthink themselves

Even though he hasn’t been the same player, it’s not like he’s been a liability in defense this season. He’s been decent and has helped prevent deep passes. Where he’s dropped off at is INT’s. The only bad plays I can remember was when he tried to cover Ridley one-on-one on a C1 blitz. A situation he probably shouldn’t have been in.

Does he get back to early 2022 form? Probably not, but I think he has a chance to get close. It’s going to take some time but he’s slowly getting better. Unfortunately, there’s no way to predict ACL injuries

He also lives in Dallas. It wouldn’t be surprising to see him extra motivated Sunday. Let’s hope.

His comment about running the football wasn’t exactly rocket science. I honestly thought he was at his best when he was making the YOLO 4th down calls. That really kept defenses off balance and gave the offense a lot of confidence. But his other horrendous coaches didn’t help matters

The media swooned over this guy’s press conferences a few years ago. To be fair, I think he was onto something based on how often he went for it on 4th down. It was something that made him different and won some games his team should have lost. But that philosophy backfired a few games including the loss to the Raiders that cost them a playoff spot. From there his approach was much more conservative on 4th down the next 2 year. I think he was ordered to stop by ownership. The past two season, it seemed like he was in over his head

This is why I’m often hesitant about the weather argument. You’d assume a warmer weather team that plays indoors like LA would struggle in elements in Baltimore. But then ended up playing just fine. We also thought that all the weather talk (I wish it were colder) would psych out Miami last December. It appeared to have little impact on their performance on game day - though the temps were not actually that cold for Buffalo that night. So after all the “weather” talk on both sides, it’s possible this is a nothingburger

I also think that slinging the ball around in the rain in Philly will help their confidence. Dallas hasn’t been a great running team but they’ve been on fire since Dak has spread the ball around between Lamb, Cooks, and Ferguson. I think the passing game becomes tougher in the rain, especially without the experience that Buffalo has

You mean to tell me it’s not “Touchdown” Keenan McCardell?

Ugh…. so you want to play semantics? Seems to be popular here. Obviously - but like you said football is played is in all kinds of weather and the games where the weather isn’t so nice is what makes the game unique. I thought that was pretty apparent

It sucks for fans in attendance but I think the weather favors Buffalo. Then again, as a Bills fans for many decades I think of examples where the weather (usually snow) SHOULD have been a disadvantage for teams but just wasn’t.

Me too… but I feel we are largely in the minority among Bills fans. You can tell who read the series and who didn’t

Oh yeah they would reject it in the length alone! The thing is writing an editorial is a type of journalism, but it’s not the type of unbiased reporting you’d see three long articles with anonymous sources. That’s where I think the lines got blurred a bit. It seems that rather than positing the series as his opinion, Dunne presented it almost as an investigative report that went behind closed doors. When he went on Colin Cowherd, he didn’t say “Here’s why I think Sean is the problem.” It was “here’s why Sean McDermott is the problem” So right off the bat, fans started question his bias. Of course, it’s an editorial so he should be biased - his mind is already made up. But that…and some of the personal shots is why I don’t think Dunne got what he was looking for from this article

I added the link… As far as Dunne he’s definitely keeping a low profile on Twitter. He released two new GoLong podcasts - neither of he promoted on Twitter. It’s a far contrast from his own Substack site where he issued a scathing response to the controversy. Like the podcast mentioned, had the article simply been framed differently the response likely wouldn’t have been as negative

If you listen to the first 15 minutes of the Bruce Exclusive podcast, he does a brilliant job discussing the problem with the series. His point is that the articles were an “editorial with sources” but were not framed that way. Instead they were framed almost like an investigative piece. Bruce said that for years, Dunne has expressed the opinion that Sean McDermott is the problem in Buffalo. So he started writing the series with that opinion, and found evidence (through sources) to help lend credibility to his opinion. Dunne is “driving the car and steering where it goes.” This was my main takeaway and the biggest criticism I had when people said “well he did include positive things about McDermott too.” Bruce just did a much better job articulating what I meant to say! This was always a well-sources editorial and not a balanced news story. I feel if people took the series as his opinion, rather than proof of McDermott as a coach - the response would have been different and Dunne could stop hiding from the angry mob on Twitter and wouldn’t have to hide his thoughts behind a wall.