PBF81

Thanks! I would say however that more called running plays certainly fall within the purview of coaching, whether that directive come from the top or from the OC. There have been a number of games where our rushing is working great, but for some reason they stop running the ball. I have no idea why and that's not likely on "Allen's DNA," it's on coaching. I mean here are our numbers of carries not by Allen by game, starting at the season opener: 15, 20, 15, 14, 13, 21, 21, 13, 21, 30, 19, 29, 14, 19, 25, 16, 22 (P), 11 (P) In rank order by # of carries: 30, 29, 25, 22 (P), 21, 21, 21, 20, 19, 19, 16, 15, 15, 14, 14, 13, 13, 11 (P) Add to that Allen's 124. Agree on the season, it's a big season IMO, whatever the thoughts related to our performance(s) after the season, what happens will be self-defining.

The White play was one play that set the Texans up at our 28. Let's not turn it into a TD play. As to what happened in OT, it never should have gone to OT, just like the '21 KC game, proper coaching would have prevented it, in both instances. Such as I mentioned above with running more. McD seems to have a knack for keeping our opponents in games during the playoffs.

Out of deference to you I watched the end of the game now. What I see is Carlos Hyde (aka not Derrick Henry) having some huge runs, Watson one big designed run for 20 and a TD, followed by a rollout right for a 2 PC, White playing Hopkins tight with no YAC. That was their first scoring drive. Then I see Stills making a big 20-yard catch setting up a FG with decent coverage by Kevin Johnson who slipped at the end. On the next play I wouldn't say that Hopkins "smoked" White, he did beat him in coverage tho. That only put the ball at our 28 however. After that I see Darren Fells catch a huge 14-yard pass on 3rd-and-3 from our 15 over Milano that set up their TD. You know, Darren Fells, Undrafted, UC Irvine, 5 teams in 8 seasons, averaged 16 catches for fewer than 200 yards/season. Then a ridiculous defensive play with confusion all over the field leading to a wide-open Hyde on a screen pass for the TD. 19-16 with 19 points scored within 12 minutes. I also couldn't help but notice that after Houston's first TD, now up 16-8, we didn't run the ball once despite Singletary having averaged 4.5 YPC up to that point. Conventional wisdom, aka not requiring an "expert" world-class coaching mind or anything even close, suggests perhaps run the ball a bit to take the clock down and prevent the D from focusing too much on pass-rush, but we do the opposite with 5 straight passing plays resulting in a fumble on a 3rd-and-8 taking only 1:33 off the clock. That was at midfield. So spin it as you wish, there's plenty in there to complain about the coaching on. It was hardly one or two plays, the Texans put togther three scoring drives for 177 yards and 19 points, of which Hopkins was not responsible for 20 plays and 111 Yards of. Either way, if we're going to vindicate McD from any blame for that, then it's also fair to exempt him from any credit for Allen/Davis going off vs. KC and Allen going off altogether in the '21 playoffs. At least be consistent. No doubt, but the offense that season averaged 19.6 points and Allen & Co. hit that number, albeit against a 19th ranked scoring D which had allowed an average of 24.2 PPG that season. The bigger crime, as has been the pattern in the playoffs throughout McD's tenure, was our #2 ranked D which had allowed an average of 16.2 PPG and which had allowed more than 17 points only 6 times, three times to teams ranked 1st, 7th, and 12th offensively (Balt, NE, Philly), allowed 19 points within less than a quarter, and to a team ranked 14th in offense and possessive of only one premier offesive player, Hopkins. Watson was good but far from great, ranking 13th in Passing Yards and 11th in Passing TDs that season. The better teams step up, not down, in the playoffs.

That's another loaded argument when the QBs in the division have been Newton, Jones, Zach Wilson, Darnold, Fitzpatrick, and a rookie and otherwise issue-laden Tua that hasn't completed a full season yet. Kind of like Belichick/Brady having 20 years of crap QBs to "contend" with essentially handing them a pass in the division throughout that tenure. To wit, McD was 0-6 vs. Brady's Pats while barely being able to average 10 PPG in those 6 matchups. McD also hasn't exactly disproven that he can't beat better teams in the playoffs otherwise either. My point is that there are better arguments. Sounds good for now, but allow me to ask, for how many more seasons if further playoff futility and underachievement continues?

Well, OK, fair. I made an assumption there. But when you say that ... To me that's akin to saying It comes down to my belief that McDermott and Beane > Rick Smith and Bill O'Brien. A lot of Coach/GM tandems are better than Rivera and Gettleman. Or in our context, better than Donahoe/Williams or Whaley/Marrone & Ryan. None any great shakes. Just sayin', it says very little given that Rivera is an incredibly average coach at best. So far, McD hasn't even achieved the highest that Rivera has however, which was at least a Super Bowl appearance, which Rivera did in his 5th season, McD now in his 7th. Both have a similar playoff history otherwise; Rivera is 3-4 in the postseason. 1-1 in WC games, 1-2 in D-Round games, 1-0 in CCGs, and 0-1 in the SB. McD is 4-5 in the postseason. 3-2 in WC games, 1-2 in D-Round games, 0-1 in CCGs. N/A in teh SB. Neither has won a road playoff game. I'm not seeing much of a difference come playoff time. In fact, their teams' playoff performances are remarkably similar, not positively either. And to repeat myself, and ironically, we now have the same staff that Rivera had as his top assistants in Carolina leading us. FWIW

Well, to add to your Houston account, it's not entirely the players when a team surrenders 19 points and nearly 200 yards of offense in just over a quarter, and while leading 16-0. Obviously they had done something right up until that point, on both sides. My guess is that either Bill O'Brien made some adjustments and outcoached McD, or McD outcoached himself by making more "13 Seconds" or Cincy type adjustments. We can blame all that on Frasier, which for purposes of argument I for one am fine with for the moment, but having said that, it should all then entirely vaporize come this season's playoffs. To take a stand oppositely would be to hedge. In short, McD has no more excuses this season/postseason. Frasier's gone, Dorsey, his choice, is in his second season. ALL of his senior decision-making partners are his pals from Carolina, every one of the four others.

Not sure that you're representing the opposing (for you) argument fairly and accurately. I would say it like this, using your sentences edited, bolded added, [brackets] removed; What's interesting about that is that no one when asked/challenged, wants to go through game-by-game and look at why we lost. As a direct result, I would phrase your second sentence like this, referring to the McD apologists; What's interesting in contrast, is that we blame all of our past coaches, not the players, for their inability to be a game or two better than they were in achieving what McD achieved here in his first three seasons and for their teams' failures othewise. So add Allen to the mix, but it's still primarily the coach (McD) that gets the credit when past coaches never had anything even approaching Allen in their arsenals. It also questions the arguments of those making them when McD isn't even a significant reason for our playoff failures. As to your last sentence, I would reword it like this; Perspectives. But also to help clear up your understanding of those critical of McD. If you want to go through playoff game by playoff game and look at the reasons why we lost and regularly underperformed on one or both sides of the ball, I'm entirely game.

McD hasn't been great in any of our playoff games except arguably vs. the Pats in '21 and the Ravens, but only defensively, the year prior. For example, how does one explain us giving up 19 points and nearly 200 yards in just over a quarter to allow Houston to tie us and then beat us in OT? Or how we couldn't generate more than 3 points in our 2017 playoff loss to Marrone/Bortles, and in our worst offensive performance of the season? Does coaching bear on that? Some would say no, at least not significantly much less primarily, but I don't see how it doesn't. Thoughts?

Good post although I'll disagree that in our Houston playoff game that Watson's O was "stacked with talent," it was not. Apart from Watson and Hopkins it was not good. Hyde was a mediocre RB despite having posted his career best, yet a 13th on the season rushing ranking, and after Hopkins no one can name their other receivers without looking at their roster. But here's my issue insofar as it concerns McD in that particular game, and not that similar things can be said about no fewer than 7 of our 9 other playoff games, one that you reference above, but we were up 16-0 in that game. McD is a defensively oriented coach. IOW Defense is supposed to be his strength. Yet he was responsible for Houston scoring 19 points in just over a quarter to push the game to OT and win it. I have no idea how that isn't a coaching fail. Some good points therein. My basic argument is McD has actually been responsible for holding the team/players back come playoff time. More than not anyway. So in light of your comment, allow me to ask, how does one explain our #1 & #2 rankings on D in the regular season, but below-average defensive performances, sometimes way below-average, and measured against other playoff performances as well, by us? BTW, I'm genuinely asking that question. Do the players decide to relax then? DC issues?

I'm not all that down on Dorsey at the moment as you may think, but the offense needs to be far more rounded this season, more balanced between passing & rushing (RBs rushing that is, not Allen rushing). But I will say, if after this season those issues still persist, then IMO it's time to consider another OC. I was incredibly high on Dorsey before last season began. I was an enormous fan of his while he was at Miami. So it's hardly like I came in with a preconceived bias. I'm not as big a fan of Rivera as you seem to be. IMO he's not a good coach. He's achieved nothing significant. As a HC his passing Ds have been poor. His career W/L record is barely above .500. (.521) I don't want to bring Beane/Gettleman into the convo at this point. No need right now. That's after the season stuff. Interesting post! Another poster recently made the comment that Buffalo doesn't own a single sports championship trophy in any major league sport, with the implication that until it does, will always be considered a second-rate sports city. I guess that's a topic for debate.

The word irony strongly confess to mind. 😉 With a fraction of the brain. Homer Simpson comes to mind when thinking about Young's intellectual assets.

I'm sure you don't as I'm pretty sure you know what the results of that poll will be. Nearly everyone refers to Allen as a "generational talent." He's notably more athletic than Kelly ever was, rules aside, and had a much stronger arm. Kelly want even consistently in the top 5 of his day. You do realize that, don't you?

That window could very well be even smaller for Allen given the incredibly physical style of his play, he's not the ordinary QB. If he wants that window to be longer, he'll have to turn into a top notch pocket passer too using his skills only to buy some time to throw, not perpetually challenging the top rusher on the team for yardage. But what are your direct thoughts on the composition of our senior coaching staff right now? Other than Rivera we have the Carolina staff from 2011-2026. Does this sit well with you? Are you comfortable and inspired by that? For the life of me I can't see why anyone is.

I'm still shaking my head when I think about it. I wasn't big on either Daboll or Frasier, but going from them to Brady, Washington, and Holcomb, I mean what has any single ones of them done? Nada! They've all been demoted at some point except for Brady who was awful as an OC in Carolina and otherwise had incredibly limited experience. Then there's Dorsey who doesn't seem to understand how a running game can compliment a passing game. I still say he's living out his collegiate career again vicariously thru Allen. Those are the guys everyone's pinning their hopes on. It's remarkable. IMO McD's desire to keep such a right grip in the control of this team is going to backfire and ruin a good thing. A country mile I tell you! Someone's you just have to laugh at yourself. 😁😎 Thank you! 😉 😂 😎

Well, if it happens it'll be tragic, to start. The same people defending McD now will be up in arms saying that they should have ditched him sooner, and not that that will matter, just sayin'. Otherwise I was being somewhat sarcastic. Many NFL teams have never had a top-3 QB let alone coaches. I can think of a few teams that had two great QBs offhand, SF with Montana & Young, GB with Favre & Rodgers, but unless you count Seifert getting Montana's last two years before transitioning to Favre I'm not sure another coach has. It's definitely very unusual at best.

You don't always agree with me. Hmm, I thought you did. 😁 Yes, all of your X's haven't escaped my notice. LOL Agree with you on Dorsey to the extent that we as fans have little clue as to what was going on "in the both" or "on the sidelines." I would say that he didn't embarrass himself, but he did once with that childish tablet incident that McD had to call him out on and reel him in. Otherwise, when your QB provides both the passing and primary rushing element, IMO it's a reach that he leaned towards the optimal. Let me ask you tho, since there's a lot of criticism but no one addressing the fact, and it now is an absolute fact that the top five coaches on the staff and ones that will be making 99% (or so) LOL, decisions, are now literally the same ones that ran the Panthers while McD was there, a team that also underachieved with lackluster results. Does that really inspire you? I think you'll answer that honestly. No one else has responded to it. And go beyond the soft intangible stuff. Yes, I realize that he's comfortable with them, knows them, trusts them, has worked with them, blah blah, etc. But that's not enough as lots of people that have worked together haven't succeeded in that way, there's no need to even mention name, it's also common sense. If this were 2020 and he did that, I'd envision him getting run out of town.

Hmm. You're really reaching here. A. I believe that Kelly has said the same thing; B. I dare you to post a poll here asking which of the two is the better QB straight up. I thought you were being sarcastic until I got to your conclusion. LOL

Yes, cute. The manifestos in fact are the viva la Ron Rivera Coaching Tree "power to the Carolina way" types that insist there's nothing better than a McD coached team, entirely rooted in the emotional and the apple that fell from the Ron Rivera tree. Thanks for addressing the facts in my statement. LOL I'm happy for those of you that place so much faith in the former Çarolina coaching team sans Rivera. I wish I had as much blind faith. I realize that McD's right behind Ron in getting his first SB win. If the pattern holds, McD will be fired following the '25 season. The suspense continues to build. LOL If it plays out that way, you too will be questioning why they didn't jettison him sooner for someone capable of getting the job done. The room for all of you later this season likely won't be big enough and should be quite interesting. Let's hope you can mock the daylights out of me in 7 months, if so then I'll be a happy man. 🙂 Go Bills!!! Let the games begin!

Well, it is what it is. I understand it, obviously I don't agree, but different minds work differently, some are more emotional, some are more/less analytical, some are more/less skeptical, etc. We'll simply see how it plays out, we've beaten this thing to death 9-ways-to-Sunday and then some. For me, at the end of the day, the top five coaches on this team and the decision-makers are essentially the ones that ran Carolina under Rivera from 2011-2016, and look at those results. 6 seasons, 3 playoff appeareances, 2 Divisional Round losses, the first one as the #2 Seed, and one trip to the Super Bowl where McD's D was outplayed and where he allowed an offense led by a QB that had 9 TDs, 17 INTs, and a rating of 67.9 on the season, beat him. The team that made it to the Super Bowl that season had the league's best Win %, most Wins, and largest Point Differential, and was the favorite to win it all. But shhhh, don't tell anyone, they also had the easiest schedule in franchise history to date. McD, our OC, and all three Senior Assistants are who are going to be making the decisions for this team come this fall. The reason why all four are coaching here? Because three of the four, Shula, Holcomb, and Washington at the ages of 58, 52, and 53 have been completely unable to hold down roles as Coordinators elsewhere much less head coaching positions with any significant degree of success. So they all end up here. Is that inspiring? Yeah yeah, McD's hiring people he's familiar with. I'd prefer people that are competent and have proven something, not a one of them has, least of all Dorsey, who's competence will be required if we're to make any progress this season and improve. Then, Dorsey at the age of 42. These guys under McD are supposed to inspire us? ... We'll see how this works out, but I suspect not well at all. And is it coincidence that now that McD has "outsiders" Daboll and Frasier out of the mix, that he hasn't assigned a Defensive Coordinator? Smacks of a desire to control it all to me, but that'd be applying common sense and logic. There's no sense in arguing this anymore, we're all hoping for the same thing, some of us simply dread another five seasons of imaginary improvement and offseason moves that were fine going into the prior season but after it were problematic, and with McD further hiring people that have zero track record of any sustained success simply because of his relationships with them, which is worthless when it comes to winning. At some point it becomes the boy-who-cried-wolf scenario as well. We've reached that point IMO. At the end of the season if we finish 2nd or even possibly 3rd in the division, lose a Wild-Card or D-Round game, then we'll have at least four more seasons to look forward to. If not, great, people can hammer me all they want for me being wrong, it'll fall on deaf ears as I'm enjoying the celebration of a Super Bowl win. My money goes on further underachievement however. I don't see that cast of coaches doing a damn thing in the way of improvement. There is no Rivera Coaching Tree and they did absolutely nothing noteworthy in Carolina except underachieve then too.

He won't have that long, he'll have until Allen's spent. Them they'll decide that they need to go in another direction. LOL

With regard to Shula if say he would have won more. Marino was one of the top QBs on the league then, but the defenses back then that he had were not good. Some free-agency tweaks there and it's reasonable to think that need have been more helped than hindered there.

Gabe has been fine in the playoffs. Who cares about the regular season, that hasn't been a problem for us. Why is that so difficult for people to grasp. We can say "we've won the regular season" in essence. 17-0, 10-7, as long as a team makes the playoffs, it's what the team does therein that matters. Every player on the team will tell you that. As to the playoffs, once again, we had the AFC Championship in '21 won! ... and likely the Super Bowl as well. The reason why we lost it wasn't because of talent; it wasn't because of Davis, to the contrary in fact regarding Davis; it wasn't because of Allen, it was 100% because of McD, who, once again, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, something that is difficult envisioning any other of the 31 coaches in the league doing. The offense played lights out ball. The D not so much, more impugning of McD, our marvy D-minded coach. What, it's a real reach to think that a new coach wouldn't do things that are that galactically stupid? I'm not sure how else to put it. It was idiocy and/or incompetence at its finest. We have a perpetual place now in the annuls of NFL playoff dunderheadedness as direct result. But we're expected to believe that someone that did that and other dunderheaded things in the playoffs will one day pull his head out of his a$$ far enough to be able to breath and see straight for 4 entire playoff games against the best teams in the league when we can't even get our O and D to both bring their A-games to any given game with even the remotest of regularity? IDK, that's simply seems like misplaced faith and hope if you ask me. Again, this season will spell out much. We essentially have the Panthers' coaching staff from 2011-2016 guiding our team this season. So should we expect more than they delivered during those six seasons in Carolina, which is about what we've gotten here to date? Other than this faith in completely nebulous things, I'm not sure what there is concrete to offer the hope that everyone has. That's what many of us see. Of course we hope that we're wrong, but there's nothing indicative that that's the case. Go Bills!!!

Honestly, with Allen & Diggs alone, and with increased utilization of a running game that we are bottom-dwelling in, I fail to see how most coaches wouldn't make the playoffs regularly. As to the regular season record and seed, who cares. The entire isn't isn't the regular season, which by implication you cite as the seeming standard from which not to regress. Otherwise, no, I don't possibly see how we would do worse in the playoffs. IMO Saleh, McDaniel, Belichick, all, to start, would have won us a Championship in 2021. Think otherwise, but in response to your question, "do I think progress is linear," apart from not really understanding what you're asking, I think that there's been zero pattern of improvement regarding coaching on McD's watch, none, nada, even as Allen's gotten better every season, or perhaps particularly in light of that. If I understand you correctly, you're implying that there's not constant improvement from season to season. But there most certainly should be a trend upward in general if there truly is improvement, even if only in the 2-steps forward, 1-step backwards mode. This whole "made the playoffs" stuff is superficiality at its finest. Apart from the New England game, you cannot name one playoff game of the other 8 whereby both the O and D showed up and both brought their A-game. And in that game we were facing a rookie QB with receivers that would have qualified as our depth WRs, and coached by a coach that also has zero wherewithal as to how offenses are efficiently run, so why would that even have been significant in this way. That's problematic for any coach that's 6 seasons deep with an ever worsening record of playoff futility. I can see the argument if we hammered Skylar Thompson's Fins, in our own house, and then played a tight game down to the wire vs. Cincy by simply lost, but the opposite is true, Skylar Thompson nearly beat Josh Allen, IN Buffalo, and Cincy handed us our a$$e$. Our last playoff game prior to that, we had the AFC won and could have prematurely celebrated our Lombardi, but McD singlehandedly gave the game away. So upon what do we place out future playoff hopes on? It's anything but improvement. Fans continually crying about not having the talent is wearing pretty thin. I mean what, we need an All-Pro roster to win a Super Bowl? That'd be absurd. We have the best QB by a country mile in the history of this franchise, and we cannot advance past the Divisional Round more than once, while giving the season away on a silver platter immediately following that, and which Levy's team did 5 times in his first seven seasons. It's going to be an interesting season to be sure.

That's a question that I keep asking myself. The only answers provided are "stability" and "consistency." Well, I'm not sure we need to be more consistent, rather, we need to break the current mold and exceed its output come playoff time. As to "stability," WTH does that even mean other than a feel good term for what in essence ultimately seems to translate to doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. Once again, we had the 2021 Chiefs' playoff game won, and likely would have beaten the Rams in the Super Bowl for our first Championship and Lombardi trophy. The one single person that prevented it was the one that everyone's placing their faith in. He singlehandedly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. That's not even disputable, yet people simply ignore it as if it's entirely irrelevant.

Good point, but what, accompanied by fans so worried about "returning to the past" that they're perfectly willing to forego improvement to achieve the ultimate prize, for fear that what, they won't win the division instead? ... or "make the playoffs" so that we can be embarassed in the WC or D round? Ben Franklin once said ... “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.” We have a fanbase today that appears to be afraid of growth and progress. This team's efforts at "growth and progress" are limited to roster moves, which is unfortunate.