PBF81

If Edmunds walks then we only have one starting caliber LB on the team. That's why we started only two LBs all season after Miller went down, we don't have a third that's capable of starting. We've all applauded Beane's drafts after he conducts them, but now the realities of his drafts are looming. Allen and Diggs on offense, especially now with emotions playing a factor, and Milano on D aren't going to carry this team. Who knows if White ever beccomes the CB that he was. Poyer's likely gone, Hyde's 32. We have a below-average OL, Saffold who started 16 games, is a FA. We have an average DL after pouring numerous 1st and 2nd round draft picks into it over the past several years. We have one LB worthy of note, Milano. Miller turns 34 in a few days. I wouldn't bet on him being healthy all of next season. He was a risky signing to hopefully push us over the top. That didn't manifest itself, the risk did. We have a whole team of WRs that can't catch with consistency. Between Poyer's likey departure and White's future status after his injury, we have no idea what we have in our secondary. Hamlin's also gone. Beane created this mess. Let him clean it up. If he's not capable, and I don't see how, I guess we're screwed. Hopefully someone "higher up" will realize why we're here and make the necessary corrections. I'm not counting on it, our organization appears to regularly place loyalty over performance, but hey, stranger things have happened.

Things never should have gotten to this point with solid management. The current situation is entirely a result of his failures as a GM. Beane's gonna stew in his own juices. Tough situation, but no one but himself put him there.

I don't think that we'll win more than 11/12 games next season, and I wouldn't be surprised if we only won 9 or 10.

He answer to this question is as to do with whether or not he's improved. Has he? I don't think he has, not significantly anyway. He was an OJT head coach when he got here and his progression/improvement hasn't been significant. He's only been able to win two playoff games once, last season, but then he handed our opponent a win in the last few seconds of the game. He's not capable of winning three or four playoff games in a row.

Dorsey was a prolific legendary QB at The U. Sometimes I wonder whether he's trying to be the same QB vicariously through Allen. I realize that's odd, but then again that's how he seems to call games, exactly as if he's playing a video game.

Viewing it alternatively, our DL wasn't all that banged up, feature three former 1st rounders and two 2nd round DEs/DTs, and we played like a 3rd-string DL against a patchwork OL missing 3 starters. Seems to me that the Front-7 needs to be overhauled. We almost nearly lost to a mediocre Miami team, at home, led by a third string QB.

You raise some interesting points here. To start, I've always maintained that had our SB era teams had Parcells, Johnson, or Gibbs instead of Levy, we'd have won at least two of those SBs. Not the Redskins one, they were simply the better team that year, but not so in the other three. I distinctly recall after halftime of that fourth SB, the one where we led 13-6 at the half, I was at my friend's SB party in West Seneca, and after the half the Cowboys came running out of the tunnel, helmets on, fist-pumping and jacked to play. Then here come our players, Bruce Smith WALKING out of the tunnel, helmet in hand, looking down at the turf, sloooowly WALKING out onto the field with the rest of the players. I remember being damn near speechless, looked to my Bills game buddy, and said "This game's over!" And it was. We got our asses handed to us 24-0 in the 2nd half. I distinctly recall the on-field reporters saying what the lockerrooms were like. The one from the Cowboys locker room said that Jimmy Johnson was swearing up a storm and throwing chairs around. ... So what was Marv doing? Apparently, according to them, he was reading Hemmingway (or some famous author) quotes to the team. Seriously. I don't think we even need to discuss the rest of the game or why it unfolded as it did. I mean talking about sedating your team. McD's a great guy, fantastic guy. And we went thru an unprecedented circumstance, from which we should have recovered by gameday here. But at the end of the day, we're not talking about a bunch of guys that get together for a free meal at the end of a long hard work week, to play football to represent their city. We're talking about paid professionals, very highly paid professionals. That "family" mentality cannot overcome the professional/team mentality apart from a brief period within which to grieve, as we all had. We all thought that the Miami game was bad, and I'm sure many of us wrote it off as the "hangover game," which it should have been. It was for us fans. But it was McD's job to have this team overcome that for this past game. He failed, miserably, and it's clearly coaching that set the tone for eveyrone coming out flat. That Cinci game was the worst game of the season, easily. So these excuses as to how hard it's been on the team don't resonate well with a lot of fans. Many of the same fans have unexpressed hardships in their lives too. Suppose Hamlin has a serious set-back, as his family put out via the media over the weekend, and something worse happens? Is it going to impact their play next season too? Everyone has to deal with this in their own way, personally. I get that the team is a family of sorts, but I'd wager that if we asked Hamlin what he thought of the game as he watched it, he wouldn't be very happy about it. I get the same exact impression with McD as I got with Marv. If we had Reid, Taylor, and possibly even Sirianni, Shanahan, Pederson, or even a few others, that we'd be playing better overall football in general. You watch those teams, particularly Cinci and KC, there's a more methodical approach to them. We don't have one. It's entirely shoot-from-the-hip game-planning and tactics, if we can even call them tactics. Those are terminal issues for a coaching staff, for a team. They WILL rear their heads every season if not corrected, and we never see any corrections. As they say, doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results, is the definition of insanity. But that's what we do, the same thing over and over again. The drafted players in our F7 are Oliver (1st), Rousseau (1st), Epenesa (2nd), and Basham (2nd). We can add former 1st Lawson by us too if we want. By all rights we should have a killer DL, but we don't. It's average at best. Last offseason's correction was to assume that all we had to do was to build a team to beat KC. Well, we see how that turned out. What's next, spend this offseason watching to see what Cinci does and build the team to singularly beat them? Good teams, led by good coaches, have a methology that they apply, both in stocking the their teams with talent as well as their approach to game days. We don't seem to have either. Our approach in the draft, apparently, is just keep drafting DL-men until we hit on one. After four seasons, let's pour all of our resources into a 33-year old LB for $60M that's going to hamstring our future, because we obviously don't know what we're doing via the draft, while rolling the dice on a single season. Wise? I guess that answer depends upon one's views. Our approach, we routinely seem to simply try to score as quickly as we can, often ignoring the high-percentage passing approach that would still march us down the field patiently and keep the opposing D on the field. I know, because we've all seen our guys open in the flats or underneath or even in the backfield, often completely uncovered and ripe for a 8 or 10-yard gain easily in YAC, but we go deep, and often resulting in 3-and-outs,, ... or 4 or 5 play series. We can't rely on our running game because it's not reliable. If we don't score, no worries, punt, see what happens, que sera sera, and if they score, oh well, we'll just have to score now too. Everything's ad hoc. Granted, some of that is Allen being Allen, but who's in charge, Allen or McD. At the end of the day, this is what critics realize. They also realize that those types of approaches are unlikely to lead us to a championship. So in the same way that a team may give up on a good, but not great QB, or players at other positions that aren't cutting it but not necessarily bad players, so too coaching should be viewed the same way. But unlike with individual players, not being QBs, coaches get all the credit for winning or conversely losing. But as we know, without Allen, who carries the team on his shoulders both emotionally as well as on the field, and fair or unfair with my stance being the latter, this team is in the basement of the AFC East. Without Allen this team is worse than the average "last 20 years team" easily. What, Diggs and Milano are going to render it even a .500 team? I don't think so. The problem is that it takes someone to recognize that, A, and B, be willing to do something about it. Pegula's relatively hands-off, and who knows how preoccupied he is with his wife's situation, and Beane and McD have an odd relationship given that McD more or less hired Beane, which is bizarre enough. What's in the contract of each we don't know. It's difficult to imagine that McD doesn't have unusual authority for a coach, and is Beane really going to fire the guy that gave him the job to begin with since he owes him, dearly, for that opportunity. There are a lot of dynamics that relate to what you said. There are some complexities, but at the end of the day, McD doesn't seem to have the ability, or will perhaps, to make the necessary changes, and Beane and the scouts can't seem to put together even average drafts much less the kind of drafts that bring in players like Chase, Higgins, Hubbard, Logan Wilson, etc. Then we have to rely on free agency, at greater expense, to overcome that lack of solid drafting. Now we're in cap hell and essentially in rebuild mode. If Morse and his 6 concussions retires, we're in a real world of hurt. I'm a little surprised that Allen hasn't succumbed to a significant injury by now. He's built like a tank. As a result, it'll probably take missing the playoffs for who, Pegula, to insist that McD ain't cutting it. It's all business until it isn't business.

Look at it this way, how would or team have performed had Taylor or Reid been our coach, and McD theirs.

Not only that, McD has made no deliberate coaching staff changes at all despite the glaring issues come playoff time. Players and fans aren't satisfied simply winning the division and "making the playoffs," yet McD seems to be. His explanations are a broken record.

Not sure I'd say anger as much as I'd say an epiphany.

Allen is carrying McDermott's water. I don't think that it's a reach to suggest that without Allen, not only is it more of the same of those "last 20 years," but that we're in the basement of the AFC instead of on top in the penthouse. I view this as a 5-12 or 6-11 team without Allen. Seriously, how many games have we won strictly because of Allen? Maybe we're even worse than that. THAT should tell us how good McD is or not. The question is how happy as fans we are to simply win the East every season, before getting ousted in the D or CCG rounds. When's the last time that McD willfully and deliberately made a significant coaching change? ... Never. It should be quite clear that his tactical coaching prowess is questionable at best. Let's put it this way, name a coach that had a team in this past weekend's games, of 8 teams total, that was worse than McD? I'd take any one of 'em over him. I can probably find 20 DCs to easily choose over Frasier.

Morse didn't exactly do what should have been obvious either.

I'm trying to figure things out as well, but only 1.4 ppg difference before/after the bye. The problem as I see it, besides needing better drafting and a focus on the OL, is that the team seems to have no offense strategy. It's a longer answer, but it seems very ad hoc.

I'm trying to figure things out as well, but only 1.4 ppg difference before/after the bye.

As stated, good to have but not necessary. They have two of the best passing games in the league right now.

Yup, exactly, agree with it all and have. The NFL is today an offensive league, ... by design. 30 years ago during our SB years, defense and rushing were the keys. But today it's exactly the opposite, passing is the key, defense is secondary, and rushing is nice to have but not necessary for a team with a good passing game, particularly a good high-percentage short passing game. i.e., a short 5-yard pass accomplishes the same exact thing as a 5-yard run. You're exactly right about their ceiling, I've been saying the same thing. McD has treated the defense as his little pet project at the expense of the offense. Why? Probably because he knows D, as a former DB coach then DC. I wouldn't mind seeing what Reich could do for three or four seasons.

Well, I've been pointing it out during that time frame, not here, but to friends that are Bills fans. Unpopular takes at the time. I for one was on record stating that we should have taken Nakobe Dean instead of Cook, which to me was a no-brainer. But no, our FO knew better. SMH Dean would have filled an enormous hole and was a beast at Georgia.

Yeah, but what happens now? More of the same? I know they're rhetorical questions, but this team seems more concerned with maintaining relationships than it does about being competitive. Unless those making these decisions have their authority to do so removed, which typically means firings since they're not going to have their job duties revoked while remaining purely in a ceremonial role, nothing's going to change. Some posters here have stated the obvious, things unchanged, namely that Allen's time here will be wasted.

One could easily make an argument that this team has no idea how to properly evaluate talent. Our Free-Agent history isn't so great either, especially early on in their watch.

IMO it's a way to hide the deficiencies of their draft strategies and "Process" in that way. Fully agree tho, especially for the higher paid players, like Oliver, who's had just over 50% of the team's defensive snaps. I don't see how paying someone starting money to play half, or thereabouts, of the games, is a feasible or sustainable method of building a roster.

The most disappointing thing about it, and others have provided the list, but is the number of draft resources Beane has spent on, not protecting Allen, but on the DL and specifically the pass-rush, and on days 1 & 2 of the drafts he's run, on DEs and DTs that simply aren't living anywhere close to their 1st and 2nd round draft statuses. It's mindboggling the pass that he's gotten on this to date. And not as if the two OL-men he drafted in rounds 1 & 2, Ford or Brown, have been any good. They haven't been either. If it weren't for Allen, the last three or four years would have made the prior 20 look pretty good in contrast. Let's not forget that McD saw greatness in Peterman. Even if McD saw average, ... Peterman has a career 39.4 rating. He's lucky to even have a backup job in the NFL.

For the amount of money these guys get paid, from coaching to playing ... I've had to work 60-90 hours/week perpetually over most of the 10 years prior to the lockdowns, missing quite a bit in my life, simply to try to save my business. At the end of it all I had nothing. Sorry if this doesn't resonate with me. Some of our players have been "out of gas" all season.

For the amount of money these guys get paid, from coaching to playing ... I've had to work 60-90 hours/week perpetually over most of the 10 years prior to the lockdowns, missing quite a bit in my life, simply to try to save my business. At the end of it all I had nothing. Sorry if this doesn't resonate with me.

We've pretty much been neglecting the O in favor of the D on McD's watch. Compare the day 1 & 2 draft picks. Numerous D players, only 2 OL-men, none on day 1. Ford, who sucks and is gone, and Brown.

Well, as long as the standard is "the last 20 years," I guess until he retires. We'd be worse than "the last 20 years" without Allen. I feel sorry for Allen. At best it'd be more of "the last 20 years." Our standard needs to change to the SB era years. Let's raise the bar! BILL-ieve brothers! 😂