PBF81

Agreed, but people should see beyond this as McD's endorsed this for 6 seasons now, despite it having been problematic in three post seasons now, at least. That's all I'm saying. As you said, they're masters of spin, but this spin only plays so far, even if believed. I simply don't think that McD's the right person for the job going forward. Certainly he knows this D inside and out, and if he cannot affect a change this coming season, then that should be it for him. He shouldn't "need three more seasons" to "install his D.

Quite possibly, but has it ever been made clear, other than in passing remarks during pressers, that LF was really the "brains" behind the D? I'm not sure it has, everything about how this team runs appears to be shrouded in at least some level of secrecy. Either way, 6 years in ...

McD's the one that has kept Frasier on for his full 6 seasons here. It's taken him 6 seasons to figure out what he wants? On top of that he promoted Frasier to Asst. Head Coach halfway through as well. He's passing the buck to a now departed Frasier, deflecting any and all heat away from himself. It makes one wonder if he and Frasier didn't have a discussion to force Frasier to "step away from football for a year" in a completely unprecedented move, with the intent of trying to start deflecting to keep his own job, and apparently, with the decision seemingly being his (Frasier's) to return after the year is up at his pleasure. Just sayin' ...

Ya know, entirely on point here. Although I think that it's worse than nothing, he might have been better to not have said anything here. Otherwise, he's had 6 seasons now to install his version of whatever it is he wants. In addition to passively throwing Frasier under the bus here, it's taken him what, 6 seasons to figure out what he wants? If so, was he really the best hire to begin with. I shudder to think of where we'd be right now on his watch without Allen. Peterman probably would have been starting two seasons, then they would have likely drafted another QB in 2019 with Murray, Jones, Haskins, and Lock being the "prizes" there. LIstening to that he says "... and sometimes when you're a new coordinator and your fastball's out there and they know it, and people adjust, so let's give credit to the opponent and some of the defenses we faced middle to end of the year. But that said, there's, to me a chance to improve and adjust to what we've done." Seriously? He says that if in-season adjustments are difficult to undertake. Is there any sense in even mentioning in-game adjustments. Let's simply give our defensive opponents credit for outplaying us. Nice job guys!! (speaking to our opponent defenses and defensive players and coaches.) And while he's figuring it out for next season, other coaches are changing up their ways too and are clearly much better at in-game/in-season adjustments where we rank poorly and have on McD's watch. Brings to mind the "He's a tough one!" scene from My Cousin Vinny.

A lot of people are, that's why I brought it up.

Right, so why are people arguing that it's not, or at least from the premise that it isn't?

And honestly, arguing whether other teams do it or not is besides the point. It's how we do it, not the fact that it happens, ... again, not once, but regularly now in the playoffs unless we play offensively bereft teams like NE with Jones. I mean honestly, and we still haven't gotten an explanation for "13 Seconds" or the sihtshow that was the Bengals game. I mean how is that defended? What, yeah, we thought that the best approach there was to hand them 40 yards and hope that their K, who would have been under extreme duress, kicked Wide Right. The lack of transparency, or the "cover-up" we can call it, is just as troubling as what actually happened, particularly since absolutely nothing seems to have changed, and McD's promises of "learning from it and improving" simply haven't happened.

First of all, you didn't say that in your original statement, so then it's not the same, and my original ascertion is correct, namely that this is unprecedented. I haven't even read that either, that his contract ended. From the best that I've seen we don't know this as a fact. Plenty of people have been asking. Where are you getting this info? Perhaps I missed it, can you provide a link where it formally states that he's no longer under contract, namely that his existing contract ended? That would be great info to have and yes, it would definitely change things ... slightly. There's still this, that if that's the case, then why is he under the impression that he can return here whenever he's finished with his little vacation, and continue to be the DC, which is what we've read. Schwartz, as you cite, went to a different team in a different role after his resigning. This entire travesty with Frasier appears to revolve around pressure being exerted on the team and more specifically McD.

Agreed, with only nominal amenities seemingly, and at a significant price increase. We'll see how it plays out. I agree with the sentiment (was it you?) that the new stadium is designed to change the types of fans that go to the games and weed out the drunkards, of which there seem to be no shortage. But in doing so they're going to price out a lot of other people too.

Part of the problem is that McD won't come clean on who's responsible in the coaching ranks and whose D it is to orchestrate. Which is fine, and ultimately it falls back on him. But when clear issues exist, as they do, and little if anything is done except fire the Safeties Coach, which was laughable, and without any further clarification by McD, presumably in his own personal interests, then it only leaves room for speculation, but based upon what's reasonable. Frasier was the DC for example, so if he's merely a fixture of sorts without any function. Either way, it's difficult to respect our playoff defense. How that manifests itself falls upon McD's leadership, or lack thereof in this instance.

And honestly, how difficult is it to "upgrade" a 50-year old stadium. I will say, larger concourses comparable with modern standards would be nice. Walking around shoulder to shoulder with more than enough drunks to make that experience somewhat less than pleasurable isn't fun or modern.

Schwartz resigned. Has Frasier resigned? If so then I missed that part of it. Resigning is resigning, "stepping away for a year" is not resigning.

Don't worry, everyone can go down to the heated concourses and watch the games on TV there. 😁

McD says almost nothing in most of his pressers. He's not forthcoming, even with this Frasier thing. Did Frasier's contract end and not renewed? I mean who in this league gets to decide to step away from a Coordinator position for what essentially amounts to a sabatical? I've never heard of this. "We'll have to watch the video and adjust." Sure Sean. We don't even adjust to our own reasons for success on the field in any given game. "Hey, the run's working great." ... "Yeah, let's abandon that and let Josh do everything again." Everything seems shrouded in mystery with this team. It's the least forthcoming with information for the paying fans side of the business (or media part of the business) that I ever recall at OBD. I mean we've had coaches that probably should have shut up during their pressers but didn't. We can't get anything at all from these guys. I don't see this lack of communication ending well.

Sometimes contracts are restructured because the player is no longer worth it, and when that happens they often refuse for one or more reasons. Keep in mind, they often backload contracts with ridiculous annual numbers that they never have any intention of paying, but it looks good to the player who seems to want to be "the highest paid" or whatever their thing is. I don't always understand it, but as we've seen, a 5, 6, or 8-year contract may actually practially only be a 3, 4, or 5 year contract. Didn't we offer Beasley a restructure and he refused in '21? Generally speaking, for younger up-and-coming players however, you seem to be correct.

To add some context, all of which except for one were against non-playoff teams with mediocre to average QBs. In the other game, Minnesota, it was against the third most sacked QB in the game. In the first game when the entire team was playing as if it were the Super Bowl, he had 4 QB Hits, 1 TFL, and 1.5 sacks. After that he averaged one sack every fifth game or so, about 1 TFL every other game, and fewer than 1 QB Hit every two games, and all of them against mediocre or bad QBs other than for Cousins in that one game. In the playoffs he did nada, in two games, despite playing nearly 50% of the snaps. We need players to step up against the best teams, not the weakest ones. To your point though about snaps taken, aka "part time role," if he really is better than that, then let's point the finger at coaching. Players are defended by not being coached properly and low snap counts. Coaches are defended because the players aren't stepping up. Beane is defended by the players not being used propertly. So at the end of the day it's no one's fault for any of the poor decisions and dysfunction, so nothing changes.

How are you arriving at all of these things teams are going to throw at us for players in the last year of their contracts, injured aged players, and otherwise simply suck. (Epenesa) I mean why not throw in a fruit basket for another 2nd or 3rd-round pick from some team as well. I'm tellin' ya! 😆 Logic? Regarding the OL? I think that's in McD's and Beane's contracts, they're not allowed to apply logic when planning ..., LOL @ "planning," for the OL. It's probably in there that they're not allowed to devote more than 10% of team resources towards the OL, as it's unnecessary. We have Allen. I don't even know why we have any RBs on the roster. We have Allen. AND, as a bonus, as soon as Allen works on his speed slightly, and can catch his own passes, WRs and TEs will become obsolete for us as well. Just think about it! Then we can draft all of the DTs, DEs, LBs, and DBs that we want to. McD's and Beane's idea of heaven.

I agree, I did not by any stretch mean to suggest that I prefer all of the drunkenness etc. I will say though that I'm one of those that will be priced out, and I know quite a few people that will be as well, and we simply go and have a great time tailgating with no drunkenness in sight. Some drinking, of course, but nothing that would catch anyone's attention. Also, on principle, I will never pay for a PSL in my life, I don't care what it is. IDK, perhaps that is a good thing then. It'll price me out tho, even if only on principle if business improves. I'm simply not paying $2k to bring my family of four to a game, nor am I going to pay $500 for myself to attend a game unless it's a huge one, and that'll be a lot more than that. I'm also not sitting in the corners of the upper decks to watch a game, I'd rather watch it from Bar Bill or elsewhere, and what will the secondary market be like. I only see the stuff that I see in youtube videos or in articles. We have our own TG parties and they're decent, no drunkards. But then trying to reconcile all of the drunk people wandering around inside and outside the stadium, I guess they partied somewhere. LOL Kenny's a good dude, but he seems to be ready to let that go. That seems to have gotten out of hand as well. It seems as if newer fans have to try to out-do the former fans in that way, instead of simply enjoying what's there. I think his gig end with the new stadium if not sooner. I guess the question that remains is how many of those "undesireable" attendees and those that they come with are there and how many tickets do they buy. Seemingly it all comes down to partying responsibly. We had some phenominal parties back during the playoff years in the '90s, big ones. But I don't ever recall anyone getting out-of-control drunk, and the parties were fun, even in the cold weather. It seems as if it's gotten worse. Perhaps it's age, and I also don't go nearly as often as I used to living out of town and all coupled with the distant onine streaming options. Again, perhaps it's a good thing, but at the end of the day, I'm not sure that Buffalo/WNY has the fan base for that. We're not a huge economically booming region, quite the opposite in fact. Based on the poll put up recently asking who's going to continue to be STHs, the response isn't even over a third. Some saying wait to see what the damage is, but the damage was put out there by the team, fans didn't like it. It may not be exact, but we can count on it being about that. As I've said numerous times, the prices were greater than secondary market prices in general this season. People are complaining about a 12% increase now, well they're about to double or so in the new stadium. Put another way, that's a 100%-ish increase, plus PSLs which people are planning on financing. Some people buy with the intent of reselling games that they don't go to, but good luck with that in the post-Allen era, which could conceiveably end before the new stadium even opens its doors. Allen apparently has a contract out option after '25. I don't see people getting even face value for tickets under that scenario. And what are we going to do for an encore post-Allen. LOL Not sure I see the demand for seasons under that entire scenario. Do you? Also keep in mind that if fans do not renew, then the team gets to charge PSLs again. So those PSLs are not one-time PSLs, they get to charge them every time someone dumps their seasons and another person buys them.

Game plan? LOL Was there a game plan? Seriously. "Alright men, we know they're gonna score, let's at least make it look reasonable. Just don't let 'em score a TD on every play, try and keep 'em under 10 yards-per-play. Let 'em catch the ball and give 'em a good cushion, let's be good sports in the interests of character, let's help 'em feel accomplished. We'll lure them into a sense of overconfidence and then Josh will outscore them. Now go get 'em!".

Someone else pointed out how we drafted Elam, a great man-to-man CB, but use him in a zone where he's not as good. That's not wise drafting either.

We don't know regarding McD on the D, we simply don't. Ha hasn't come clean on that. Anything beyond that is pure speculation. As to the Carolina connection, if the players we've gotten were dumpster diving and otherwise bad, how can the front office people be lauded? Other than Beane, who is an OJT GM with questionable competencies, who else have we pilfered and why are they "top notch?" As to Holcomb, that's fine, but for anyone claiming that he's "just the 'Sr. Defensive Assistant'," let's not blame him then should things go south defensively. McD then squarely shoulders the blame. So far he's avoided blame for everything related to coaching practically speaking.

Great point, I hadn't thought of that. Another indictment.

The pricing structure is out there, you can Google it if you want a fairly accurate idea. We'll see what happens, but I was surprised at the price hikes.

A lot of fans are going to be priced out. It'll be interesting to see what the new set of attendees looks like generally speaking. They've already told us what to expect for pricing. When the upper deck (non-corner) seats will be over $200 before PSLs and possibly even taxes, essentially the "cheap seats," people are going to be priced out. The forecast pricing in the new arrangement was greater than the aftermarket pricing this season, generally speaking. I kept an eye on that for reference purposes. Of all my concerns, that's my biggest, what it's going to do to our fan base as such. I see a lot of forthcoming consternation by fans over the new pricing structure, particularly given the public monies involved. Based on the renderings, the tailgating experience is also going to drastically change.

You missed the point entirely.