PBF81

That wouldn't be any fun, the hostilities haven't even started yet.

Come on, McD has hired people he has connections with over the best more than once. Daboll's offenses before here in 6 seasons averaged in the high 20s, I'd guess 28th or so. Best? Please. Dorsey was the best? Talk about tim foil hat stuff. I'd also seriously question his judgement there as well.

Allow me to answer that with a question. Are you, or those referenced, saying that it's close to optimal?

Have you looked at Daboll's record as an OC prior to coming here, as well as in his first two seasons here? He was awful. His highest rank in those 6 seasons in either scoring or yardage offense was 20th. He ranked 32nd or DFL at least twice and most of the time he was in the bottom handful. That's not someone that even remotely threatens your job. Dorsey? Does anything need to be said. Frasier wasn't as bad but he was hardly good. The last DC gig he had prior to coming here his D ranked 17th in yardage and 25th in scoring. He chose 'em. Why can be debated, but what can't really be debated is that none of them when they were hired were on anyone's radar for head coach roles. When he chose Beane as his GM (has that ever happened before in the NFL?) Beane also wasn't on anyone's radar to be GM. He owes everything to McD. What were the odds that McD would have chosen someone with no loyalty or sense of commitment to him? I don't think good. As to coaches, IMO any OC with a positive track record wouldn't do worse with Allen here. The people claiming that it could be worse offensively, I'm not sure why they think that. Maybe we should ask them the next time it comes up.

The pattern(s) is/are clear. The question is how long do you allow them to continue if there is no improvement? This "they'll eventually get it right" mantra is absurd. These aren't pop-warner kids here, these are highly paid coaches. Their apologists will talk about how they're "experts," but sorry, experts don't make "13 Seconds" types of mistake. To the contrary. It's like anything else, when there are enough initial followers, everyone else will become a follower too, regarding fan & media opinion in the matter. This also explains why once it gets to that point you'd think that the outgoing person just burned down the house of many poster given the comments that arise. That emotional pendulum swing ... LOL It's very amusing to see.

I don't think that you're a massive homer at all. FWIW I do think that you lean towards the more patient however. I lean towards the less patient. We've both stated our reasons as to why. ... and for right or wrong both.

Indeed. Many really take that viewpoint tho. Yeah, we were -57 in PD, good for 21st in the league. We've had much better teams in "the past 20 years" that haven't made the playoffs with a similar or equal record. That's an interesting question the answer to which always frustrates me. To begin with, I wouldn't have hired McD to begin with and was also vocal in expressing my disatisfaction, so the question kind of saddles me with someone else's baggage. Here's my philosophy on coaching changes, in short, namely to plan for them. By that I mean don't wait for the fans and media to force your hand, which is when you have to choose from "who's available." That's happened a number of times to us in the past. The choices are rarely optimal then. e.g., we now know, at least those that are being honest, that McD may not be capable of getting us there. I and others had that suspicion after the 2021 season playoffs just over a year ago. So what I would do is to assess why, in this case it's pretty universally accepted that we need an Offensive, not a Defensive, minded coach. So start looking for who's available and when they are. The better candidates always get the most interest. In the case of right now, I would consider ditching McD if we get humiliatingly outsted from the playoffs in the D-round again after losing to an inferior team or as a result of poor coaching. If we go to the AFC CG and play (and coach) our best but lose, that would be different. So I'd consider the available candidates right now, as well as keeping an eye on OCs that have at least two seasons of success going into this season. Then once I knew that I wanted to replace that coach, I'd have already spoken with the replacement and then fire the existing coach. i.e., make sure you align your strategy with availability, something that we've traditionally done the opposite of. I take a similar approach to the Draft(s). Here's the rub for us, Beane owes his tenure as a GM to McD. McD has carefully chosen assistants that won't threaten his tenure as a head coach as well. I question whether that's in the best interests of the team or merely in his own best interests. I'm not sure I see Beane firing McD since, strangely and perhaps the first time ever in the NFL, the head coach hired the GM, both having been from this ill-fated Carolina connection. In the same way, if Dorsey were to get fired after the season, I don't expect McD to hire an OC that could easily replace him, I'd expect another internal promotion or some other OJT type bases upon McD's MO. So IMO that catalyst will likely be Pegula. Hopefully he's not too preoccupied with his personal matters to take that interest. Both McD and Beane are signed thru the '25 season, three more seasons. I'm not sure how this plays out. IMO Beane's hardly vindicated here either. It's possible that both go, but who knows what's going thru Pegula's mind. I do think that at some point it dampens fans' emotions to continue to lose in the early rounds of the playoffs year after year with a QB like Allen on the roster. I have difficulty believing that this does not impact the players/team as well. Several players, including Allen, have outs for after the '24 season in their contracts. I don't see Allen ever leaving Buffalo, but who knows, if a Ring is on his mind and he doesn't think he can get one here, ... We'll see. Who knows, maybe we win it all this season and we can all die happy. Like many, all I want is one. But if things don't go well, I think the fans are going to start getting louder about that all too and join the national and then even regional media is calling for a change.

Agree. It would seem that they fully understand how much better the D played with Miller in there. Since Miller's status is dicey, since it's a big IF that he'll still be 100% at 34, it makes sense that Floyd was an insurance policy for Miller. Floyd at 31 may be able to provide what Miller did at 33.

Point taken, but that's being a bit dramatic. We won 7 of our 9 games against teams that finished with 4, 5, or 6 wins. The other two were against the Chiefs (Alex Smith and a 15th ranked D) and Atlanta (with chokemaster Ryan in one of his worst seasons ever). Hardly impressive no matter how it's spun. Then we needed Cincy's help to make the playoffs where we lost to a Blake Bortles led Jax after scoring a whopping 3 points, one of our worst games on the season.

For some context, and in fairness of analysis here, Lewis also didn't have Allen as his QB and less was expected. He had Dalton and Palmer. How would McD be doing with Dalton or Palmer instead of Allen? I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have won a playoff game either. Then of course Blazing Saddles, the iconic movie that would send people today into orbit.

LMAO, that is a fantastic movie! Speaking of iceholes, no doubt you've seen this one too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GVCgTFw2Qk ... and ...

Thanks For the Indy game that should have read 5 more 1st-Downs, not TDs. This season will reveal much. At some point we have to quit blaming the talent and circumstances and start pointing to coaching. If people claim that it's not the coaching, then fine, let's have that discussion about the talent, i.e. the GM. And if we win the SB or at least go to the AFC CG and don't embarrass ourselves in a loss, then great, fantastic. But if not, it'll be high time to start asking the tough questions. If we get outclassed in the coaching department, I don't see how anyone can claim that it's not the coaching. Either way, I doubt they'd be fired after this coming season even if we take 2nd in the division and lose the WC game. Both McD and Beane are signed thru '25, three more seasons. I agree that if this season finds us underachieving then, that they won't be fired. But the heat will be on, even from Bills fans. The national media is already talking.

After the Wild-Card Round he's 1-3. Here are our WC results: 2022: Win over 7th seed Skylar Thompson's Fins, barely 2021: Win over the 6th seed Patriots 2020: Win over the 7th seed Colts with 39-year old Rivers at QB 2019: Loss to the 4th seed Texans with the same record and that had the 14th ranked scoring O and 19th ranked scoring D. 2017: Loss to the 3rd seed Jaguars with Bortles at QB and without a notable WR or TE on their roster. Not one of those three wins was impressive. We also nearly lost to the Colts, at home, and allowed 75 more total yards, 5 more TDs, and nearly 9 more minutes in Time-of-Possession than the Colts led by an aged-out QB and also without a notable WR on the team. Hilton was washed up by then.

He's 3-2 in WC games, 1-2 in Divisional Round games, and 0-1 in the CCG. That's 1-3 after the WC rounds, with Allen at QB. The trend is also downward, the past two seasons we've beaten low-end playoff teams; Skylar Thompson's Fins and Mac Jones and NE. We're 0-2 in the D round the past two seasons and with a historically cataclysmic coaching failure as the sole cause for one of the two. Fine, mulligan for last season, but the bar needs to be higher for this season. Let's see how it plays out, but hypothetically, say we barely win the division, beat some team in the WC round that otherwise has no real chance to advance much anyway, like any of our WC-round opponents to date, then lose to again in the divisional round, regardless of opponent and assuming not in a game whereby we play our absolute best (including coaching) but simply lose to a team that was on fire or better, then it should be strongly considered that McD has reached his apex with this team. Past performance is great, but we criticize all of the components of the team screaming that they need to be upgraded, except for coaching. We'll see how the season shakes out, but the Damar thing is over, and if it isn't, it's time to consider other options there if it continues to be the distraction implied by Success above. The time for excuse making on behalf of McD is over with this season. He's got everything he needs, apparently, since the same people defend Beane to the hilt, so no more excuses. If Dorsey falls short, that's on McD too since he's the one that chose the OJT candidate to be his OC. And what, if Dorsey gets the can, what next, another OJT candidate that McD can control and won't be a threat to take his job? At some point conflicts-of-interest need to be considered, both at head coach and GM. The last thing this franchise needs is more high-risk decisions with increasing long-term risks. If we had any number of other coaches we'd have done better in the playoffs by now.

While quite possibly true, if we stall again early in the playoffs, it's high time to take a good hard look at coaching then. Many think that it's the coaching, not the talent, that's holding us back. Enough with the excuses at that point. A lot of fans are tired of living off of the outdated "he got us back to the playoffs" mantra.

That's a thousand word essay right there.

We've heard that about other players in the past too. Time for Ken to put it all together properly and for McD to make sure he does. Well, it's a fact that he's never had more than 140 touches in college or last year when he had 110. Well we're DFL in carries by RBs last season and in no small way, so some of that is on the coaching. We'll see what happens this season.

So this would be illegal then?

McD's history is that the Playoffs in general starting at the Divisional Round is a bad matchup for us. Just sayin' ... They're a completely different team with Lawrence however, kind of like we became an entirely different team with Allen. Many as do I anticipate Lawrence becoming a top-4 QB. (Mahomes, Allen, Burrow, Lawrence) Their Defense ranked 12th in scoring. Meyer ruined any development that they may have had in Lawrence's rookie season. It should be fun watching them play this season.

But they won 7 of their last 9 and Lawrence played incredibly well in the second half of the season. One of his two stinker games was vs. the Jets and they held us to an average of 18.5 points/game. If his entire season had matched his second half output he'd have put up 29 passing TDs. He'd have been much further along w/o Meyer. Etienne played exceptionally well also and was 14th in the league in Yards-from-Scrimmage, which was better than anyone we had. They had a ton of draft picks.

Well, and that bolded part opens up an entirely different conversation. One that's all but verboten here. LOL

Whether you're making too much of it really depends upon the perspective. If it's a human rights story so to speak, then sure, it is what it is. I always look at things from the performance perspective. Insofar as that goes, we've had well too many 1-year signees coming in here in key roles, most notably the OL, next up Front-7. IMO the culture thing is overrated. At some point competence and doing the job properly takes precedence. The two are not mutually exclusive which is my angle. To start, most players in the NFL aren't "bad culture" types, there are only a handful of those. And BTW, Diggs pending. We don't know how that's going to unfold, but we cannot say that we weren't warned. But that's another issue although culture related. 1-year signees know that they can be easily released as they typically don't have significant signing bonuses associated with them, they're typically more what I refer to as expense bonuses. At the end of the day culture is good, but getting good players in key positions, which for us should have been the OL since Allen's been here, takes priority over culture, especially since both can easily be done. Back to my original point, our 1-year signees, and there's a long string of them, typically have offered nothing but below-average play. In other words, JAGs. Very few have offered average and I can't think of one that's provided above average. Beane has relied on them as fixes for five years now. That's not good, from a performance angle, no matter the culture.

LOL Indeed

That's a lot, I just don't care that much. I think I'd rather see it for the first time when I go to a game.

Or maybe for $20 or something or would be reasonable too.