PBF81

This is just a general comment, but it's interesting, because when we traded for him, his attitude wasn't going to be a problem here, he was going to be the difference, etc. His play in the playoffs in our last five playoff games, with one exception, has not matched his status. He doesn't have a single TD in any of those five games. Anyway, I always find it interesting how the narratives change and why they do. Thanks for validating my statement. Appreciate it.

I'm not sure about that, I simply think that the people that agree are reluctant to post much for fear of the ad hominem and hostilities that await them when they do. Either way, the tone and sentiment is definitely different in WNY contrasted with nationwide. This season I believe will be a big one in terms of where the narrative on McD sits following this season. He's got everything he needs to prove his detractors wrong this season.

What is "the Process." It's never been defined or explained. Is "13 Seconds" a part of it. LOL Agree on the 10-15 range. Until he proves that he won't be outcoached by his peers in the playoffs ...

Food for thought, we're not the only team with injuries though, they're an expected part of the game. Case in point, regardling last season: Cincy entered the game with 3 backups in on their OL. We were still bested up front. How do we reconcile that?

LOL I don't know whether you're joking with belief, or joking in disbelief. I'm not big on the Harris signing. IMO we don't see anything better than average rushing out of him. Singletary was a more complete and 3-down RB, which Harris is not. Harris is a downhill runner with limited receiving skills. I think that we're going to miss Singletary, who, ironically, was among Beane's better draft picks, which I realize isn't saying much, but nonetheless. As I've pointed out, Had Singletary gotten the same number of carries as Dalvin Cook, he'd have outperformed Cook on the season based on averages. Many have clamored for Cook (Dalvin), but we send Singletary packing despite a better YPC and similar stats elsewhere. It makes little sense. I've surmised that we like Harris because he's eaten us alive. HIs best games are easily against us. 25% of his career TDs are against us. But are we a good measure of how good RBs are? We've had some of the worst RBs in the league post big numbers against us under McD's coaching. Other than playing against us, he's an incredibly average RB otherwise. There's no reason to believe that he'll run against our opponents as he did vs. us. Will that change now that he's here? Is our OL going to be better than what NE had? Sure, we have Allen, but we've had Allen, and everyone's still dissatisfied with our RB performances, and Singletary's not worse and had a higher YPC average. IMO it's not wise to hope that all of a sudden Harris is going to emerge into a better RB. But here's the thing, is strength is power [downhill] rushing. Lots of talk about using him in goal line situations. But honestly, let's say 2nd and 2, do we really see us abandoning a receiver, putting Harris in, and going UTM? I don't. I see us still trying to spread out the D, and with Allen, having the same option with fewer defenders in the way and per his read, and an open-field short scramble for the goal line if no one's open. So we'll see. But he's one of those players that IMO people are getting too overly excited about. I don't see him making any kind of significant impact on us winning games.

Interesting that you bring him up. Agree with you that it was more Brady than BB for their sustained success and Championships. Belichick is a shrewd in-game tactician to be sure, something that I and many don't see with McD. Both are defensively oriented, BB better, but their similarity is that neither has the same ingenuity or skillset when it comes to offense, McD even less so. In a league that's driven by offense these days, that's a huge impediment. That's what the core complaint about McD seems to be. Here's my issue with that, not that I disagree, but you don't go far enough there. Sure, Josh didn't play well vs. Cincy, but neither did the D, horrifically in fact, and that has nothing to do with Allen directly. We can argue about how Allen's play impacts it indirectly, but that's relatively moot here. Where I will disagree is that it was coaching that had our defensive players, repeatedly, set so far back on 3rd-and-relatively-short plays, as to all but hand them the 1st-down yardage in that Cincy game, shades of "13 Seconds" even. That's 100% coaching and cannot be put onto the players, and apparently a lesson not learned, which is a huge issue here. As to gameplans, he may have pieced one or two good ones together, but it was a commonly repeated issue right here last season, about how the gameplans sucked or were not obvious, etc. McD doesn't help himself in that way in pressers by explaining them. Again, we've beaten this to death. It will be interesting this fall, we can have an intelligent review following games to track what the issues were and the like, and see how the fall unfolds. We're on the same sheet insofar as McD creating a winning culture. Obviously you know that I'm not in the camp that believes that he's the one to finish the job and take us all the way. There's nothing wrong with that as long as someone realizes it and makes the appropriate [business] moves there. I view him as a sort of middle-reliever in baseball. I will say, one thing that has always bothered me about fans, is that when a coach is fired or let go, the fans generally get on the bandwagon that he sucked or the like. There is the possibility that a former coach had his strengths, they played out, but then the team entered a different phase for which he was not particularly suited to "taking it from there." Obviously IMO that's McD. But the point is that simply because a coach is "fired," does not mean that they didn't serve an important role up to that point. Often it does, but it doesn't always, which is the case here per my viewpoint. But this is what you sign up for when you hire a first-time head-coach, no? I don't recall when we hired him that many were saying he'll do what he's done. There was a whole lot of "let's wait and see" here. He's definitely had some luck in generating his narrative: Cincy beating the Ravens on that last play to put us in the playoffs in 2017 in a season where we all but entirely beat a list of nobodies and only one team that won a playoff game and that being only a wild-card game, and drafting Allen. But it's entirely possible and as I see it, more than likely based upon the established patterns/trends, that he's reached a plateau. Fans tend to send coaches off in shame, but there shouldn't be any shame here. At the same time, if the team wants to take the next step, then they have a tough decision to make. Having said that, as Clint Eastwood said in Magnum Force, a man's got to know his limitations. This season will reveal much, now with Frasier gone and Dorsey in his second season, and with zero excuses in the receiving dept. or at RB and OL now. It's been interesting, every season we as a collective say, we finally have a set of good receivers, but then when the season ends, all of a sudden our receivers suck. If we still finish DFL in rushing apart from Allen's rushing, if we still abandon the run in games where we're averaging well above average YPC, if the defense falls to mediocre in the rankings, etc., then I don't think that McD weathers that well. It'll be fun reviewing games with you in the fall.

BTW, 22 is too low, not agreeing with that. But until he figures out how to coach up in the big games ...

Agreed. No RB in the past five seasons for us has averaged more than 11 carries/game.

Well, after 7 seasons of coaching one would think that there'd be a pattern towards improvement, but he appears to be getting worse if anything. But even if he's stayed the course, that's hardly a sign that he's the one to get it done, right? I mean if he hasn't sorted himself out in that way after 8 seasons, how many should he need? He's the coach for this season, but with Frasier gone he's not going to be able to get away with firing the Safeties Coach again. We'll know more in 6-7 months. Who knows, maybe we'll win it all this season. I will say this however, we have the players on offense that with a few tweaks to the OL we could easily have the 2023 version of Air Coryell with someone that knows how to optimize that offensive talent. That'd be an incredibly well-balanced offense that could lead the league in every facet of offense. Strangely, McD's a defensive guy, but the problem in the playoffs has been defense, I can't imagine an offensive head-coach doing worse defensively in the playoffs.

That's fine, as you wish. But the question remains, it's true, therefore is it relevant? Other prior coaches that finished 7-9 or 8-8, or even the same 9-7 but failed to make the playoffs didn't have such luck. Since it's schedule, it is luck. Pumping it up as if it's some sort of coaching marvel is entirely disingenuous.

Yeah, it's too bad that we were talking about 2017, not last season.

He made the playoffs because of one ridiculously unlikely play in Cincy's last game. 7 of the 9 teams we beat that season finished with 4, 5, or 6 wins. We were embarrassed by the Bortles led Jags in the Wild-Card round and put up our 4th worst offensive performance of the season. So if it was a referendum on beating up on the league's weak and feeble, yeah, it was a good season. For us to win a Super Bowl he's going to have to coach as if he's among the top, because those are the coaches that will be standing in his way come January.

From the Ross Tucker coach ranking thread, ... per Tucker: I find absolutely nothing to argue with there. You do. That's the delta. It would appear that I don't have an irrational hatred against and bias towards McD. Clearly I'm not the only one. Argue with him.

I know that you didn't say that, but as I pointed out, you've also shown nothing indicative that among the primary reasons for those wins is McD either. If you think you did, highlight them and point it out. I didn't mean to make it sound that way, as if you agree that it's McD's fault. I'm simply pointing out that all you did was defray the negative, you didn't state positive reasons attributable to him for wins. Once again, and I cannot stress this enough, but it's not that IMO he's a bad coach, although he definitely has issues that are problematic, but again, it's that he's not doing much to help this team win in the playoffs. As I've said, he seems to have reached a ceiling. We'll see whether that changes this season. Relax a little bit, because if that plays out then he won't continue to have a majority of support from fans and far less from media. I understand your point. You've been relatively fair. But again, reread your statement on the playoff games. No one's going to find anything positive about his contributions for winning those games in them. And blaming the play of our D on their defensive players also does not accomplish that task given the monumental choke involved in the 2nd-half, it only accentuates it. Look, I realize that we're not going to align here. So let's just see where things sit come December. Until then it's only discussion, right. I'm not asking you where his coaching cost us, I'm asking where it was instrumental in wins. You've come up empty there, plain and simple. You're not getting this despite making a ridiculous claim that I ascribe everything to coaching. Really? I'm equally critical of Beane not putting the talent in place for us to be able to perform better in a bunch of areas, OL being primary among them. You should know that. My claims are that Allen covers a host of coaching failures and underachievements. But I don't think that any informed and knowledgeable football fan would try to pull off that a 19-point effort led by nearly 300 yards of offense in the second half, and featuring only a single premier player, is anything but a coaching failure. Otherwise, fine, blame it on Beane for the lack of talent. Are we really going to have that discussion? You can't argue out of both sides of your mouth so to speak.

Agreed. FWIW, three of those 36 were in the Vikes game this past season. 1 was in that @ Miami game which no one can fault any of our players for not playing well. 2 more both INTs in our loss to the Jets this past season. He had one in our win @KC. He had one in our win vs. Miami. One each in our wins @ Balitmore and @ Detroit, and two in our blowout win @ Chicago. He had another 3 in our playoff win vs. Miami. He's also the reason we won those games. That's 15 of 'em. We're 6-3 in those games because of him.

Agreed. There should be some kind of Big-Play to Turnover ratio, for which I'm pretty sure he'd rank near the top. Speculation on my part, but he makes so many big plays that it's easy to overlook a TO here or there, particularly when they're not key. Also, I'm curious how many of those TOs have been in wins vs. losses. There's more to look at there. Maybe I'll look it up. To add to your implication, it's the lack of offensive balance due to both our inability (against good Ds) and unwillingness (against bad ones) to run the ball.

Thanks for taking the time there! I won't add to that with a couple of exceptions, but again, please keep in mind that my point has been that coaching has not been the difference in our wins, but has cost us in our losses, in the playoffs and generally speaking. I don't see anything above that you wrote that significantly challenges that. I also disagree that one has to go thru play-by-play to figure that out either. Giving up nearly 500 yards in regulation, almost more than they allowed all season, with a #1 D, I don't care what the strategy, is a glaring coaching failure. We could go back and look at the game-day-thread for some clarity from people here, I'm pretty sure that would shed quite a bit of interesting light. I will add that that bend-don't-break D nearly cost us the game prior to the "13 Seconds," with the Mahomes putting up 327 in regulation with 3 TDs, and more importantly, and I'll contrast this in a second, with 115 yards from relatively low-end RBs on 6 ypc. There's nothing you can say to suggest that some bend-don't-break D was wise or good coaching there defensively while allowing that many yards, and against our big bad #1 D. Now, I'll contrast that with Reid and KC. KC had the 21st ranked rushing D, we had the 13th ranked rushing D. KC ranked 31st in YPC avg. rushing D, we ranked 10th there. They ran the ball (non-Mahomes) 19 times, we ran the ball (non-Allen) 13 times. Why so few? ... against a much worse rushing D? Why couldn't they figure out how to run the ball better for balance? ... against a team ranking at the bottom for YPC allowed? We know that the play-selection (coaching) had a lot to do with that. We were all banging our heads against the wall over that. Nine teams that they played rushed for more yardage than we did, nine, including Allen's contribution. Without Allen's contribution every single one of their opponents rushed for more yards. That lack of balance is entirely coaching, there's no way to escape that. The players do not call the plays and we've known that play-calling and the imbalance as a direct result, especially considering our DFL status or right around there w/o Allen running the ball has been an issue. Without Davis going off in that game we get killed just like we did in 2020. Not one other WR did anything notable except for Beasley who posted a solid support effort. Diggs did nothing. In short, Reid did a better job with scrub RBs against a much higher ranked rushing D than we did. There's no reason for that. It was not a well-coached game at all, so we definitely disagree on the extent that coaching was at fault there. McD should consider himself fortunate that that's the game that Davis decided to pull a zinger, and for all the heat that Davis takes. The irony there. The other, this past postseason. Skylar Thompson should be all we need to hear there. The things you mention are directly related to coaches having the team prepped. Either way, the point being there as well, McD did nothing to help the team win either. This hasn't been a referendum on the players, my point has been specifically related to McD and his positive contributions, or lack thereof, regardless of the non-coaching aspects of the team, such as pointed out in offensive balance for example. Good coaches find ways to win. McD only wins when either Allen posts a huge game, we play some crappy team, or the D has one of its less often than so solid defensive outings against a good offensive opponent, which happens what, two, three times a season maybe. BTW, I couldn't help but notice that you glossed over that 19 2nd-half points by Houston, and the 279 yards that their offense, not Watt or Mecilis, put up, or the 99 2nd-half rushing yards that they put up, with a sluggish stiff like Hyde and a nothing journeyman type like Duke Johnson contributing most of that against our illustrious #2 defense. It was inexcusable. Even subtracting Hopkins 90 yards, that's still nearly 200 yards in a single half. With Hopkins' contribution it's a joke. If you're reinclined I'd love to see your player ratings. Let me know. Otherwise, we've beaten the hell out of this. Again, as I see it, the big difference between our takes, apart from what we ascribe to coaching, is that I'm basing my viewpoint off of the fact that there is absolutely no pattern or trend whatsoever towards any improvement on McD's part in the way of coaching, particularly in the playoffs. You're more patient for other reasons. We'll see. I'm looking forward to reviewing this with you as the season plays on. Despite the lack of a trend/pattern towards improvement in that way, I'll be as happy as everyone else should we win it all this season. I have a feeling however that the mood is going to change significantly between now and the end of the season. On one hand I can see the best offense that we've ever had. On the other, I can still see us not running the ball much, Kincaid not making the difference as a rookie that's needed, our defense regressing significantly which I definitely see, particularly given the void at LB, and still some very questionable offensive play-calling w/o McD reeling in Dorsey and setting him straight, . Anyway, thanks!

OK, but in fairness my point wasn't how Hodgkins or Teller left, it was sloppy, but also irrelevant. IMO a good coach would have seen that talent and developed it, particularly amidst a morass of talent otherwise. The fact that Hodgkins was waived and not traded adds, not subtracts, to what my point was. I will thank you for pointing that out. As to Teller, the entire scenario would make much more sense if we hadn't had a revolving door of OL-men coming and going as if it were a brothel on a Saturday night at Mardi Gras. Ducasse, Miller, Bodine, Mills, Groy, Sirles, Boettger, Spain, Feliciano, Long, Nsecke, Winters, Williams, Bates, Saffold, Hart, Murray, Van Rotten, Quessenberry to name most of 'em. A bunch of those were brought in to start, and most did start some games, primarily because we didn't have anyone better. Either way, it's far from anything even beginning to approach impressive. We can't even find a few players that it's impressive for. And if Teller didn't fit the system, then why'd we draft him? The system(s) they played in are always known prior to drafting them. But shhhh, we're not allowed to talk about that or how it's related to Beane. LOL

Thanks for that. You can add the 2021 loss to KC and put it on McD. Again, 36 points in regulation as I pointed out, and a massive underperformance by our D cannot be ignored. In 2019, perhaps, but Houston had the 19th ranked D, we had the 2nd ranked D. With more given is more expected. The only standout player on that O, unless you count Watson who posted a good but far from great season, was Hopkins. Either way, allowing 19 second half points while leading 13-0 at the half, certainly indicates that coaching had a big role, on both sides, in a 22-19 OT outcome. So I disagree there that Houston was significantly better. That's the kind of game that if you coach well you win. It's not even as if Houston had a top-10 offense, they were ranked 14th. But I'll tell you what, go through game-by-game in the playoffs and say what your take on coaching was given our team and its rankings and the opponents likewise. I've done that and I'm not seeing anything, and for sure no pattern towards improvement, to the contrary in fact, that McD has improved in that way. That's the crux of our disagreement on this. If McD had been improving all along I'd be the first one calling for patience. It's not there however. I agree with your statement earlier, as I've said, that's all I'm suggesting, that if things don't improve this season, and you gave it another season or two, then we need to consider why it hasn't improved. I'm not even sure I'd say that Cincy was better than us last season, or even KC the year prior in '21 either. Our D was notably better and IMO their offense wasn't that much better than ours as our D was better than their D, if even their 4th ranked offense were better than our 3rd ranked offense that season. But in comparing in that way, we've barely beaten some teams in the playoffs that we were notably better than. At some point coaching has to take the fall. The team's lack of preparedness or readiness and poor play on the field, for whatever reasons, factors into that. We haven't even really discussed the losses that much. Anyway, if you want, let's go thru game by game for the 9 playoff games we've been in and try to figure out whether coaching, or lack thereof, played a role. Let me know.

If you read the contexts of the conversations that I've had with the people that I'm interacting with, you should easily be able to note that the context has always been "with Allen." It would be disingenuous for me to compare a HC that has a below-average QB with others that have a phenom. Which, if you've read what I've wrote, is why I compare McD to some of our other coaches that also finished in the 7-9 to 9-7 range, just without McD's luck of 2017, and also with average at best QBs. Likewise, it's also disingenuous for anyone else to do the same. Furthermore, if Allen hadn't been here, I'm pretty sure we'd be discussing another HC and GM already. BTW, on the coaching note, you've stated a number of times now that the reason for some of our key losses, most notably in the playoffs, has been because of a lack of performance of the team. But isn't that the primary responsibility of a coach, to have their team fully prepared and functioning on all cylinders as a team, a coordinated unit. To then relegate the lack thereof out of the realm of coaching responsibility doesn't seem to be viable. IOW, if the players aren't prepared or focused, shouldn't that befall the coach. As well, it's also difficult to explain when one routinely ignores the play of entire units, like our Rushing offense.

You do realize that we needed the unlikeliest of plays provided by another team to make the playoffs, right? Did you realize that 7 of our 9 wins that season were against teams that finished with 4, 5, or 6 wins? And I'd love to hear your defense of McD in that rough playoff game against the Jags, let by Blake Bortles, in a 10-3 loss. His "Tyrod freaking Taylor led team" posted 17 for 34, for 134 Yards, 0 TDs, 1 INT, and a rating of 44.2. It was one of his few worst games ever. Two of his three worst starts were also under McD. It was also Taylor's worst season in Buffalo. I'll put it another way, Ryan got more out of him against tougher schedules. With similar luck in week 17 Ryan's Bills could have made the playoffs too having had the scheduling fortunes that McD had. I mean if that's what your citing in McD's defense and a justification for your statement, I'm not quite sure what to say. What's the next argument? Oh, sorry, I forgot to address this, but it's also not the reason for our success, which is my point. Look, if I were content with winning an easy QB-less division and getting ousted every Wild-Card or Divisional Round, I'd think similarly. But I'm not, and there are no positive trends here, which is my primary contention.

Actually, you're evading here, not me. This ridiculous insinuation or implication that Reid with Alex Smith, one of the most marginal QBs in the game, ever, contrasted with Reid/Mahomes or McD/Allen, quite frankly, is absurd.

Alright, allow me to take your post in pieces here. I don't care at all if anyone disagrees, all I ask for is a basis for that disagreement. To wit, I've never said that the sole reason why we lost the Bengals game was coaching/McD. You're putting those words in my mouth. But on the other hand, yes, you disagree, but don't counter, what I said, with anything concrete other than to say that it "wasn't the sole reason," which has nothing to to do with my point, A, and B, is not a pro-coaching/McD argument in response. My point is that it was a poorly coached game, regardless of what the players did. He also didn't have the team properly prepared, and now we even know from an equipment (cleats) standpoint, when his counterpart was to add insult to injury for him. That's all. Don't overstate what I did say. Otherwise, as I've offered before, find a well-coached game of his in the playoffs? You may find one or two as exceptions, but generally speaking there aren't any games in which we could say, Wow, what a wonderfully coached game. We've gone back-n-forth on the "13 Seconds" thing, which was as I said, worse than a rookie error, but let's look at the rest of the game. We won because Allen & Davis went off, and for no other reason. No offensive player otherwise put in anything more than a low-end performance, including money-man Diggs who had 3 catches for 7 yards on 6 targets. The Defense, our #1 ranked Defense, got balled. The reason, aka excuse, is that it was the Chiefs' high-powered offense. But let's look at that. Our #1 Defense allowed the Chiefs to log their 4th most total yards in regulation all season, including two other playoff games vs. the 17th and 20th ranked defenses. We allowed their 8th most 1st-Downs in regulation all season as well. In OT they averaged 8.0 YPP, which is abysmal defensively, DFL type of abysmal, on 8 plays featuring 6 different players, three of which are low-end players, one currently not even on an NFL roster, and with the fourth being Edwards-Helaire, hardly Derrick Henry or Josh Jacobs. In your mind, and "13 Seconds" aside, was that, or conversely, was that a good coaching effort on the defensive side of the ball? And what does it say when we need Allen and Davis to go off like that to be in a game? You cite the failure of the players to execute, but let's be honest here, those plays between Allen & Davis, and at least one in particular, were not coaching, they were the individual play of those two that simply took it to another level. You excuse McD when the players fail, even though the reasons for the team not performing also had something to do with him otherwise, but are you consistent in saying that Allen/Davis made McD look better than he actually is in that game too? What's good for the goose ... right? Otherwise, as to coaching negligence, I would quickly point to the lack of use of our running game, particularly when it's clicking. The comments in the game-day threads corroborate that perfectly. But to add some perspective, take away Allen's rushing and we were by far and away DFL in the NFL for rushing carries and very near DFL for rushing yards. Why? Because as a tandem, Singletary and Cook averaged 5.0 YPC, which would be good for 3rd in the League behind rushing powerhouse Chicago (5.4) and Baltimore. (5.2) Did Singletary and Cook decide when they were running the ball? How many carries they'd get? Isn't that on coaching? And before you blame Dorsey, not McD, doesn't McD have some say, isn't he bright enough and a good enough coach, to challenge Dorsey when the run is working great as to why they stopped? What, how much "football intelligence" does someone need to be able to piece those two dots together. Would love to see it an offer my perspective. I'll read it if you link it. I've found that the Draft analyses here are defensive in nature however, but don't explain why so few or our draft picks become above-average players much less impact players. Apart from Allen Beane's drafts have produced next to nothing in that regard. It's one thing to produce "starters," but that is meaningless when those starters aren't getting it done. I mean think about it, how many draft "starters" do crappy 4-12 teams have? I'm sure plenty. And then trading away players like Hodgins and Teller ... that merely adds insult to injury. This is going to be an interesting season. We've generally had easy schedules the past three seasons. This year's is, at least at this point in time, not easy. Per our prior couple of posts, IMO if McD cannot advance at least to the CCG this season, and win the division, then on top of my thinking that it'll be time for a change, I think that there's going to be a whole lot of media and fan opinions supporting that notion as well. It's one thing to slide through a greased-up schedule, win a division filled with QB-less teams for the most part, win an occasional Wild-Card game, but it'll be completely another to prove coaching prowess given this season's schedule.

It was the coaches that put us in those ridiculous defensive alignments that caught national media attention. You're evading here, understandable given your take, but you're evading. As to people "being happy with making the playoffs," they've stated it themselves, no sense in telling me that. That's their angle, not mine. I certainly don't see a lot of people arguing as you just did when the topic is raised by myself. To the contrary in fact. Who cares though. On your last point(s), I think that's fair on the outside. I've never stated that I'd have fired McD already, my point however has been that he really needs to do something besides getting ousted in the Wild-Card or Divisional round this season. IMO 8 seasons is more than enough to prove, with a talent like Allen, that you're capable of doing more. Particularly when the coaching "glitches" he's demonstrated exist. That's OJT territory, worse than rookie mistakes. As to them being good at their jobs, I've also never argued that they suck, they are "good," but we need to define "good." They clearly haven't been good enough, and they've clearly made coaching errors and otherwise haven't coached to the same positive levels that their playoff counterparts have. My position is simply that he (McD) has reached a ceiling in coaching. I don't see any evidence that he's going to get any better. There definitely isn't any positive trend in that direction, if anything the opposite is true. As to Beane, a simple review of his Drafts will tell you that if he is "good," then that's also relative, but saying "he's good" but then trying to reveal the piece parts from his Drafts, besides Allen five years ago, is a different exercise altogether. I would suggest however that if McD doesn't end up cutting it, and if as you imply you'd like to see, house is cleaned, that the image and perceptions of them will drop significantly after that, .... as they always do.

That also wasn't my assertion. You're taking the entire thing out of context. If Reid had Allen playing the way he's played here, and all that Reid could do was lose Wild Card and Divisional Round games with Hunt playing at insane levels, Hill, and Kelce, then yes, absolutely, I'd have said let's move on. There obviously would have been some kind of disconnect there between the level of talent and coaching. Particularly given that the Chiefs were in a division full of slop otherwise during those seasons, similar to the Brady/Belichick Pats years. But taking that tack, you've moved the argument from comparing Allen to Alex Smith, which is as you realize, is absurd. I'm also guessing that Reid wouldn't be around now had he continued to lose in early rounds of the playoffs once Mahomes got there and had been playing to that level that he has. For sure he'd be taking heat from around the league at an absolutely minimum, particularly after his performance in Philly. It'd be naive to think otherwise. As to that comparison, comparing it to the Taylor or Fitzpatrick years would be a better comparison. So on that note, do you think that McD would be doing anywhere close to what Reid did with Alex Smith had he coached our team from 2009 - 2017?