PBF81

Yes they do. You seem to have interpreted and implied that when I said "other," I meant "all," but I simply meant that, other, as in some other teams. KC's done it. NE's done a superb job over the years for an extended period of time, even if not to the same extent recently. Cincy seems to be in the process of doing it. If you want to discuss this, then we need to look at the particulars, which you probably aren't interested in doing. But I'll sum it up, and I'm happy to put the data behind it if you really want to discuss it, it's simply and quick to look up. But our OL besides Dawkins and Morse, has largely been a commutative exercise driven by a series of largely 1-year signees on the OL with an occasional 2-year signee, typically on the cheap. McGovern has been an exception, not the rule. The problem with such an approach, which neither Cincy, KC, nor Philly have used by the way, is that you're never going to draw the type of talent that's going to provide the kind of OL that they and teams with better OLs do. Getting back to the "chemistry" angle, you're working against yourself if you build an OL that way in relation to chemistry. That's simply common sense. Since it's verboten to criticize Beane, no sense in discussing our approach to the OL via the Drafts.

Look, this isn't complicated. At the end of the day McD can either cut it during the playoffs or he can't. He's not going to be coaching for 100 years. Allen's also not going to be here forever. What we have is trends and patterns. That's what we can base predictions upon. As of now, there is no positive trend or pattern upwards in terms of McD's ability to coach. In fact, this past playoffs was really really bad, so if there is a trend or an established pattern otherwise, it's simply that, downward, and that he otherwise chokes in the bigger games and if anything. Most people fail to see how that's disputable. The question is, after 7 seasons of coaching, with nothing to indicate any trajectory towards the positive, how much longer are we willing to wait to find out. It's a question that obviously has no objective answer. Allen wants a Championship, as do I and many other fans. Some fans, as stated, are perfectly content with winning seasons and simply "making the playoffs," which generally speaking is not the party-line standard. So the bottom-line question is how much longer do we wait to find out? Allen's tenure? One more season? Five? 10? 20? It's not complicated.

So the Defensive strategy in the Cincy game was sound then. Roger. Noted OK, at least that clears up our differences. 🙂 As a Chiefs fan I would have wanted him gone if he had underachieved with Mahomes.

Just pointing out that it's difficult to do what you said when ..., we'll, you don't do it. Not bashing anyone, but it's a fact that the reason why we ar not where yousaidwe need to be, A, has nothing to do with me, and B, does have to do with a methodology that's been negligent in that way. Who do you assess with the reason why we're not where you said we need to be? Safeties coach too? So IYO, Cincy & KC don't have better OLs than we do. We'll, OK. Because that's what you're saying by disagreeing. I could not disagree more on that note.

My short answer to that is that other teams do it routinely, at least a bunch and our biggest competitors. Beane would enter the conversation here. Secondly, it's tough to hit for OL-men in the Draft when you rarely select them. Again, Beane enters the conversation in this regard, which is unpopular here.

In pure honesty I don't give a crap about being right. I would love to win a Super Bowl however. But the forums, at least to me, are for discussion. Too many people care about being right. I hope I'm 200% wrong honestly and we win the SB this season. I simply don't see it lining up that way for the reasons stated. The claims aren't baseless, and you haven't refuted them, all you've done is disagree, like in the Monty Python Argument skit. I mean will you honestly say that our playoff game vs. Minnesota, Houston, Jax, or Miami, our playoff wins, were well coached games? If you do then say so. All you've done is disagree. OTOH, the games we've lost, were categorically coaching debacles in two instances, with worse than rookie coaching gaffs, and a less than spectacularly coached game against the Chiefs otherwise. To ignore all that and sweep it under the rug is fine, but it's not baseless and you haven't replied with any kind of objectivity or reason to it. Again, simply say that those four playoff wins were well-coached games.

It's definitely not nice. Like many tourist areas, once you get off the beaten path you risk getting beaten. ... Not that bad like Baltimore, but it simply isn't nice.

If Torrence doesn't start ... Chemistry as a single unit with the same guys in the same spot however is an undervalued thing among fans. It's ridiculously critical and what made our '90s OL as good as it was. Or the HOGS for instance as just one of many examples.

Yeah, I didn't for a second believe that you put up being admirable as an alternative measuring stick as you put it. Just sayin'. I don't think that Pegula does anything for years as long as they're posting winning records, and regardless of what kind of performances we turn in the playoffs. Remember, it's a business first and foremost. Bills fans will fill the seats no matter what. I agree with what you wrote generally speaking.

Let's discuss the bolded sentences. He's an admirable human being and he and Beane have transformed the organization into an exemplary franchise, so you root for that. I suppose, but is that why we hired them, because they were "admirable human beings"? This is a business, no? We're often reminded of that, typically when it's convenient for many fans. When they hired McD, was the buzz that he was such an admirable person and that's just what we needed, win or lose the big games? I seem to recall most talking about how they hoped he would be the one to bring us a championship. Here's the thing, once we get into the "admirable human being" stuff, that's getting into "but she's got a great personality" territory. Andy Reid, Nick Sirianni, Zac Taylor, and Doug Pedersen all seem like very admirable human beings too. But they don't botch games like McD does. McD doesn't get paid millions to be an admirable human being. I've been consistent in taking the position that without Allen we could easily subtract 4 wins/season off of our win totals. No one has argued that other than using tangents. IMO it's more and that 4 is the floor. It's been an average of 4 with Belichick w/o Brady, and no one's going to argue that McD is as good as Belichick, not rationally anyway. Either way, subtracting 4 wins from our win totals the past three seasons would have yielded 9-7, 7-10, and 9-7 and no divisional titles and zero playoff appearances. It also would have led to an entirely different narrative on McBeane. Levy was among the best people that ever graced the NFL, unfortunately he simply didn't have what it took in the biggest of games. I will also disagree that Beane transformed the organization other than to draft Allen. I'm not sure that people realize that our streak of winless playoffs would have continued w/o Allen. We've barely beaten some very average teams in the playoffs with Allen, and most barely. Where I see daylight for hope is that finally they made a greater commitment to address at least the IOL and I believe the FA additions and Kincaid overall make the offense potentially much more dangerous. Let's keep in mind that it's taken Beane 6 offseasons to finally [seemingly] adequately address the offensive line, and seemingly so because his hand was forced, not due to good planning. It does appear to be much better, but again, we're relying on a rookie and I've seen conflicting reviews of McGovern. I myself haven't watched him play or haven't paid attention when I have, so I cannot comment on him in an educated manner yet. Here's the thing, we've had relatively easy schedules the past three seasons, which obviously aided our regular season record, this season it toughens up significantly, particularly on the slate of QBs and offenses that we face. I see our defense regressing big time, particularly with our LB situation. But since it's been the D that's been the problem in the playoffs, I'm not sure that we improve. It's not reasonable to expect Allen to lead the team to 30-some points (or more) to win games on a regular basis. If I had to guess now, I'd guess that we end up with a very average defense this season and one worse than any that have advanced deeply into the playoffs. Anyway, you say that another year ending in disappointment will result in a crisis. LOL I won't disagree, but how do you define "disappointment"? I would say that if we either don't win the division or cannot manage to advance past the divisional round, then it won't be good and the heat will start coming in large waves. I just realized that I've assumed we make the playoffs. I cannot imagine not making them with Allen, but if that were to happen then I would definitely say a crisis. And if for some reason Allen sustains a serious injury that keeps him out, if we cannot be at least .500 with Allen or even Barkley, then that pretty much lets us know how good McD would be w/o Allen. I seriously hope that part of Allen's new focus is pocket passing and that correspondingly our OL really is significantly better and that the starters can stay healthy.

Next up, RB and TE. Granted, Kincaid is a TBD, but then Knox, Cook, and whomever you think the next best RB is, presumably Harris. Knox - Kincaid - TBD Cook - Harris -

Well, and here's where Gunner and I disagree, but I run with verifiable things, yet he claims that they're all simply ad hominem against McD. I don't have anything against McD, and unlike so many other people, I had no idea what he'd bring as his results as a DC in Carolina were a completely mixed bag with overall below-average performance, and given that he had one of the best MLBs in the game at the time, and some other talent better than we have here on D, it also didn't make me giddy with glee. But IMO we've seen enough to be able to point out the specifics, which relative to the playoffs, are ... In '17 we barely made the playoffs on an unlikely play by Cincy on the last play of the game, achieving the same record that two other coaches during the drought had, and only one game better than three other seasons, and with help from another team in the most unlikely manner otherwise. Still, indisputably a playoff appearance, where we lost to the Blake Bortle led Jags on an otherwise pretty offensively bereft team resulting in a loss to a low-end playoff team with a record only one better than ours. I see nothing special in coaching there. '18 was a whiff at 6-10. In '19 we lost to a mediocre playoff team, again in the wild card round, unable to do much against the Texans' 19th ranked D, and with our 2nd ranked Defense allowing their 14th ranked offense to take us to OT and beat us. The following week the Texans were obliterated by the Chiefs. I see nothing special in coaching there. In '20, prior to our getting hammered by the Chiefs, our 2nd ranked D allowed the Colts and their 16th ranked offense led by Rivers to outplay our offense in just about every category in a game that we barely won in the wild-card round while being outplayed otherwise. I see nothing special in coaching there. The Ravens game was a solid coaching effort, but in being honest, the Ravens offense essentially was Jackson. In '21 we hammered NE led by Mac Jones and a team that otherwise had no offensive talent worthy of note and certainly nothing above-average, and in a game in which Allen simply went off as he does occasionally. We followed that up with "13 Seconds." Not only is there nothing special about coaching there, but coaching cost us that game, indisputably. This past season, '22, we barely beat a Skylar Thompson led Fins, whose 11th ranked offense (w/ Tagovailoa) put up 24 points on us, in the cold and snow. Then we were embarrassed by the Bengals with horrifically questionable defensive play-calling and a complete inability to do much of anything offensively. Excuses aside, there certainly wasn't anything special in coaching, particularly considering that McD simply didn't have the team prepared to play. In round-up, the teams we've beaten in the playoffs featured the following QBs: Jackson, Rivers whom we barely beat, Jones, and Thompson. We've lost to KC twice and Cincy once, two of those times due to egregious coaching errors, or whatever we choose to call them. That doesn't exactly scream out Super Bowl somewhere down the line. Yes, agree. It's not the losses that bother me. As with the Super Bowls, it wasn't losing to the Skins that bothered me, as they were clearly a better team pretty much all around, except at QB where the Hogs kept the entirely immobile Rypien clean. Kelly was clearly the better QB. But it was more the Giants and at least the second Dallas SB that bothered me, because we were the better team, we were simply outplayed and outcoached. I have little problem with losing as long as we play our best and either get beaten by some completely unexpected monumental performance, or more generally speaking by a better team with better talent and better coaching. We haven't done that. We couldn't compete with KC in '20, in '21 "13 Seconds" says all we need to know, and to dismiss that is remiss, and last season the only way things could have been worse for us is losing to Skylar Thompson, or us forfeiting the Cincy game in the playoffs too. I see absolutely nothing indicative that McD & Co. are poised to all of a sudden for no explicable or apparent reason to beat KC, Cincy, and now even possibly another team or two in the AFC playoffs. Anyone that claims that they do is reaching. Doesn't mean we won't, all I'm saying is that there's no evidence that there's a good likelihood of it occurring. BTW, that's not taking accountability for it. Ignoring it in pressers until the issue is forced by the media days afterwards, if not weeks afterwards. Either way, he failed where any average fan knew better, that's the takeaway here. As such, it's certainly fair to question other aspects of his coaching, again, particularly after this past season's playoffs. You'll see as the season progresses if we fail to win the division or struggle again in the playoffs failing to make the AFC CG. National media is already over this. We love it when they say positive things, but when they don't, then all of a sudden "they don't know what they're talking about." LOL

LOL, well that's a pretty monumental and egregious error, and again, not one that McD has done as he's preaching, and accepted accountibility for, in fact, it's quite the opposite, he's shamefully hidden from the fans and media on it. That's enough to rub people the wrong way. As newera said, it's akin to the "Homerun Throwback" but worse, because it wasn't circumstantial, it was entirely within the control of McD himself. To suggest that "oh well, that's just in the learning curve of a future great head coach," .... LOL, that's nonsense. Then factor in that in his 6th season he did what he did in this past season's playoffs, ... SMH. That's just as bad. Anyway, we're going to continue to disagree in this way. As I said, unless that changes, and I see no reason as to why it will as the writing on the wall is that McD will continue to be outcoached by the better coaches in the playoffs, more and more people and fans are going to start seeing things that way. Some simply see it sooner than others, that's all. You can have the last word, but we're making zero progress here. There's no reason to continue this. Let's continue with the player ratings.

You're hedging there, bigtime. The short answer is that it's pretty universal. So when we incessantly hear how the coaches (and GMs in other conversations) are highly paid experts, it certainly raises questions when entirely unpaid casual fans know better than those "experts," which then raises further, tougher questions. To dismiss that is to ingore reality, and that's what McD apologists are doing. "Just ignore the elephant sitting on the hood of the car," and the "man behind the curtain," and let's look only at the more superficial positive things. And look, McD has his strengths, like anyone, but on-field coaching, particularly when it comes to tactics and strategy or adjustments do not appear to be among them. Preparedness is now in question as well until further notice, all the "good reasons" aside, some of which also pertained to our opponents that didn't seem to have the same issues. And again, I'm fine with McD as a regular season coach, he's been great there, I'll freely admit that. But it'd be nice to hear his apologists admit that he's equally problematic in the playoffs except when he's played NE with Jones at QB or Miami with Skylar Thompson. I realize that some fans, acknowledged here, don't care about winning a SB unlike the rest of us, and for them, great, that's fine. But if as a fan one's goals are a championship, serious questions presently exist, and after six full seasons, there's less basis for believing that those things will change for the better than thinking that they won't. Either way, discussing and debating it isn't going to change one thing. But one of two things is going to occur this season, either that trend will be broken, or it won't be. If it is, great, but if not, then I certainly think that it's fair to start asking how many more seasons we roll with a head coach whose level of understanding, in several instances, isn't even on par with unpaid casual football fans. Defending that won't make much sense. I will only mention, again, that we've still never even gotten an explanation for either of those egregious coaching failures. As I've said before, for someone that preaches accountability, to refuse to accept any or ante-up in that way himself, in and of itself is also problematic. I also don't think that players like Diggs are gonna sit still for things if we merely have a wash/rinse/repeat type of season. He, and Allen, and others, want a Championship whether many fans here are content with that or not being irrelevant. And honestly, which fan accepts underachievement and thereby not winning a championship. That part seriously eludes me.

We were completely unprepared heading out of the tunnel for that game, it reminds me of how we emerged in the 2nd-half of the last Super Bowl we were in, before getting throttled 24-0 after coming back out with a 13-6 lead. And now it's out that we had the wrong cleats while Cincy, on a road field, was fully prepared in that way. And it seems that they could have made those changes on the sideline even. I will add to what you said, in terms of coaching, IMO McD & Co. is among the worst at adjusting in-game than any we've ever had, and that's a huge part of coaching.

Tomlin won a SB in his second season. He went to a second two seasons later. We've only made it past the divisional round once, and then we got smoked by the Chiefs. He started 55-25. I'd trade that in an instant for what we have. You didn't answer the question. I'll ask it again. Where on the "football knowledgeability scale" would you rank our "13 Seconds" debacle? A few options are, that everyone knows that you don't give Mahomes/Kelce/Hill 25 yards of open space to work when they only need that for a reasonable FG try; every good coach would have done the same or similar; only the most astute fans can even grasp that it was not a good decision given the tempo of the game; most football minded fans know that it was a bad decision; etc. Put another way, how "football smart" does one have to be in order to have known, before hand, that doing what McD did was not a good idea?

BTW, quick curiosity question. We often hear people here and elsewhere say that the highly paid coaches and GMs know a lot better than we do. While for some things that may be true, for others, many controversial things, it isn't despite opinions to the contrary. So my question to you is this; Where on the "football knowledgeability scale" would you rank our "13 Seconds" debacle? A few options are, that everyone knows that you don't give Mahomes/Kelce/Hill 25 yards of open space to work when they only need that for a reasonable FG try; every good coach would have done the same or similar; only the most astute fans can even grasp that it was not a good decision given the tempo of the game; most football minded fans know that it was a bad decision; etc. Put another way, how "football smart" does one have to be in order to have known, before hand, that doing what McD did was not a good idea? What say ye? Have a great weekend if we don't talk 'til Monday!!

A number of people here think that McD is a great coach. Apparently you've missed their posts. I don't go by hires and the like, many many people have been hired over the years that haven't been competent. Look at some of the coaches we've hired, look at Ryan and the fanfare that accompanied him. Players too. That's not something to go by. We got duped in that Bledsoe trade too. My point has never been that McD is a horrible coach per se, it's two things, first that he's not the coach that's going to bring this team to a Super Bowl, by a long shot. Time will tell, but IMO that starts to play out in the next couple of years. To me that's obvious, to others not. But also that he's not all that much better than some of the other coaches we've had. IMO Williams was a better coach than McD. I'd put McD in the Jauron category however. Defensive minded, doesn't really demonstrate any ingenuity or creativity on the offensive side of the ball whatsoever. But, and look, you've dismissed the "13 Seconds" thing, but that's a pretty egregious coaching error, say what you will about it in defense. It cannot be ignored, the fact that a coach would allow that to occur. Same for the defensive alignments in the playoffs last season. If that continues, playoff wins will be few. You say that "I just don't like McD," which isn't true, but then leapfrog and explain away monumental errors of judgment that quite frankly no good coach does so regularly in the most important games. We can argue to the nines here, but time will tell. It would hardly be the first time that we thought we had a winner but didn't. I don't think that too many coaches in the league would be having this team under .500 the past few years, and IMO five or six may have won a SB with a good dozen or so doing about the same with the talent here. Unfortunately, we can beat it to death right now, but we'll never know. BTW, I probably should have used last season's lineup. We'll stick with this tho. You'll see. I don't want the reason to affect your ratings. TEs, RBs, ... what, Knox, Kincaid, Cook, Harris? Top 2 each. Oh, and BTW, I probably should have said, or we agreed, that 4-6 is the average range, 1-2 terrible, 9-10 premier/impact. If you want to change any based on that, feel free. I think that those are fairly obvious tho.

We've had the #1 and #2 defense the past two seasons, and comparable talent offensively. We've lost because of coaching, not talent, you know that, so why are you implying differently. "13 Seconds" was coaching. If not for that, we'd have been in the SB. That's on no one but coaching. The way that our defense played in this past season's playoffs is entirely on coaching, not talent, otherwise I'm open to explanations as to why our guys were lined up way way off the ball on short yardage situations, and why our #2 ranked defense allowed more PPG than any team that played in two or more playoff games by a long shot, and otherwise comparably to teams ranked in the bottom half of the league defensively. That too is coaching, not talent.

OK, now top-3 WRs, what, Diggs, Davis, what .... Harty? You pick the three and rate those.

It's going to be very interesting when the consensus eventually becomes that he simply can't get it done and isn't that great a coach. Stalling at the wild-card or divisional level due to coaching issues when you have Allen isn't going to cut it until Allen can't play anymore or leaves.

Things will clear up the next season or two. Time will tell. Right now however, there's no way that these teams have been doing the most that they possibly can with the talent that they've had. The division tightens up now and our formerly freebie East isn't so freebie anymore, which will make a huge difference. I'll change my viewpoint if we don't regress significantly this fall.

And BTW, you seem to be missing the point entirely. You now admit that those teams would have been better with Allen, but you refuse to admit that McD would comparably be no better than what Allen would have propelled those teams to earlier. You cannot have both. As stated, 1-10 each individual player.

Well, OK, fair enough I suppose. I completely disagree. This season will reveal much more, namely how this defnese performs. I can't think of any coach, not even our worst ones, that would have put up a "13 Seconds" or had the D play the way it has in the playoffs for us, so far back as to may as well move the chains in favor of the opponents ourselves. That's hardly all as well. And yes, McD is Allen. Take Allen away and I'm simply not seeing how he competes offensively, at all. His running games have sucked, our passing games are 100% reliant upon huge plays by Allen a good chunk of the time. I don't see us having anything but a bottom 10 offense without Allen, and our defensive play would have been heavily impacted as a direct result.

Thanks Bear with me. Let's start with the OL, you name the five starters, I'll put out Dawkins, McGovern, Morse, Torrence, and Brown Swap the ones you want and rate 'em, the starting five that is.