PBF81

Actually, no one's bitching about 13-win seasons, we're bitching about getting our asses handed to us in the playoffs and having our #1 (or #2 whatever) ranked defense play like it was the 30th-ranked defense, and a team overall that appears to have almost no direction from the sidelines once the most important games start. Frankly, it may not matter what Josh (and Dorsey) do, because when we regularly give up 30-some points per-game in the playoffs, it renders it ridiculously unlikely that we'd win 3 (possibly 4) straight playoff games to find our way to a championship. Then of course there are two sets of fans seemingly, those perfectly satisfied with 13-win seasons and entertaining football throughout the season, accompanied by an early departure from the playoffs; and those that have been there, done that, and will only be satisfied with a Super Bowl win and NFL Championship.

That is the quintessential question, although I would argue that Allen changed the culture. Cart/Horse thing. McD would be history by now w/o Allen. Remember, he "saw something in Peterman." Well, belief is one thing, reality often quite another. That's what it boils down to, who believes that he can and conversely, who believes that he cannot. Are they doing the best around Allen? If not, why not? Have they learned? Are they actually correcting their issues & errors, both McD and Beane alike. I'm not seeing it. Apparently you are. Hence the question.

... and BTW, just as with Levy, if we had had Johnson or Parcells as our coach instead of Levy, yes, I think we'd have at least 2 Championships under our belt now. Same for McD. If Reid were the coach of this team, or Zac Taylor, I think we'd have won one by now as well. Same for several other coaches of offensive miind. Using that argument to suggest that all that McD needs is 15 more years and he too can win a SB is ridiculous. Particularly since Reid didn't have Mahomes or Allen back then. If he had, yeah, I'm sure he'd have won one back then. He made the playoffs regularly, usually winning the division back then, with three QBs none of which was better than above-average. He was in one SB and lost by 3 points. Yeah, I think that had he had an Allen or Mahomes back then, that yes, he'd have won that one and likely another or two. Reid was still a good coach back then and didn't make the blundering tactical errors that McD makes. "The Process" has run its course.

Well, OK, I think you're only looking at part of the picture. How many games have we won that we otherwise would have lost had we had any number of the QBs we've had prior to Allen. How about Peterman? Do you think that we'd have even posted a winning record with him, McD's endorsement? Does that make any kind of impact regarding your respect for McD? Just sayin'. How about Tyrod Taylor? Fitzpatrick? Manuel? Orton? Bledsoe? etc. I don't think we'd even have won a division title with them under McD. Besides, we have Allen, Reid has Mahomes. Are you saying that we're forever incapable of beating Reid/Mahomes with McD/Allen then? Sure seems like it. And if so, then what are we waiting for. And we're not getting rid of Allen.

Hiring the right one is also key. But today, clearly having a defensive mind as a head coach, isn't the way to go. That should be obvious, especially for us. I've always been a fan of firing a non-performing coach when a good one becomes available. I wouldn't even have a problem with negotiating with one before firing the other, after all, it's a business, right. What I've objected to in the past, for us namely, is missing out on some good hires over the years, until public/media sentiment forced a firing, then not having any good options that offseason, then "hiring the best one available," who also isn't good and possibly no better than the one that you got rid of. Nothing wrong with replacing something with something that's better. And changes have to be made when things aren't working out. In our case, we're lucky to have Allen, and we're lucky too that he hasn't suffered a major injury given the hodgepodge manner in which we've constructed our OL. He's 27 next season tho, he'll be 32 in six seasons. That's not very long with him in his prime, and he's not going to be playing his style in his back-9. Wasting it on a coach that simply doesn't understand how to get them over that hump, which is our expectation as fans, has its risks. It's one thing to have a coach that seems to be capable of learning, but the things that we're seeing from McD indicate that he's topped out on the learning. Some learn at faster rates than others. His cheer-leading approach only nets a team so much. We'll see, none of us can do anything about this but gripe, but I have a suspicion that we're not even going to win the division next season. If that happens the heat will increase exponentially. The big question is who has power/control over whom, McD over Beane (untypical) or Beane over McD, who hired him. Could get very interesting. Perhaps Pegula ends up having enough and gets rid of both of 'em, although I don't see that happening.

If we got so much from McD. ... or Beane for that matter. Those guys quietly hide behind carefully crafted statements, preach "character," but then don't practice accountability, which is a huge component of character. They may think that everyone's too stupid to see that, but most people see it quite clearly. Well taken, but Josh isn't what's holding this team up, to the contrary. If you want to live by the big play potential of your own QB, then be prepared to die by it too. Where would McD be, and by inference Beane, if Allen were not our QB? We wouldn't even have won the division to date ant that "Last 20 Years" would be "The Last 25 Years ... and counting." We have a fan base starving for a Super Bowl win, a Championship. If we put up a poll as to who of us will be content to simply "making the playoffs" during McBeane's tenure, w/o ever sniffing a Championship, I'm guessing that the results stating that they'd be satisfied with that would be incredibly low, if not zero outright.

Yesterday? Ya think?

LMAO Yeah, except with one MAJOR exception! ALLEN!!! Reid had Pederson, McNabb, and Vick. What's next, you going to explain to us all that those QBs were just as good as Allen now too? Put Allen on those teams, do you think it would have changed the perceptions of him? And still, he regularly had his Eagles in the playoffs, usually winning his division, with incredible division competition in some of those years, unlike McD, in 9 of those 14 seasons. You can't have it both ways, that Allen's so great, but other teams that don't have an Allen, Mahomes, Burrow, etc., have no excuses. Yet, that's your position.

A couple thoughts, Beane wasn't here for that first of the first three drafts (2017). After that, I'd disagree with you on 2019, Day 1 was not good at all. But I understand that there's a huge degree of subjectivity in the Drafts, I think that how people evaluate those often comes down to experience. But let's be real, at the end of the day the single draft pick that stands out among all others, entirely indisputably, is Allen. I will say this, over the "Last 20 Years" we've had a litany of coaches and GMs. Fans argued in defense saying similar things about Whaley and Donahoe, and about Levy, Nix, and Brandon to a lesser extent. But they didn't last long, but put Allen on their teams, and the same conversations would arise. I even think that Gailey would have done better than McD with Allen. Perhaps Williams too, he had Van Pelt and Bledsoe, the latter one of the worst playoff QBs in NFL history. Same for coaching. I don't see our team having been any different during that "Last 20 Years" than it is now, other than having NE challenging for the division every season, if Williams, Gailey, possibly even Ryan or Jauron had had Allen. None of those coaches would navigate us through the playoffs to win it all, but with Allen they'd likely have made the playoffs, thereby relegating that "Last 20 Years" to nonexistence. I don't see much of a difference now, besides Allen. Here's the thing, some people see that McD's missing something, something critical. It's obvious in several ways. First, on gamedays he runs up and down the sideline clapping like one of those chime monkeys, what, apparently thinking that if in good participation-ribbon style everyone's a winner and "they'll do better next time" during games when we're clearly not cutting the Webers. This is particularly noticeable in the playoffs. He preaches character and accountability, the latter which is a trait of the first, but we can write the summaries for all of his future post-game pressers right now; ... 'We need to do better. This falls on me, I'm ultimately responsible. We'll look at the tape and see what we can change. [blah blah blah]" Here's the problem with that, nothing ever changes. Nothing. And if we're going to be honest here, his biggest failures are hardly of the "yeah, we should have gone for it on 4th ..." type things, they're incredibly egregious breakdowns in tactics and strategy that even well-seasoned fans know better than to do or not do. But again, nothing changes. Accountability? So we fire the Safeties Coach? The position coach that had one of his two starters out all season, the other injured most of it, with questionable backups, and whose unit still outperformed most of the other units on the team? THAT'S accountability? This doesn't go unnoticed, by fans, media, etc. In fact, it goes very very noticed. And just like Brady won Belichick 4-6 extra games every season, so too Allen clearly is the reason for most of our wins. But let's do a simple exercise, let's suppose that Allen is only responsible for a mere 4 wins/season. That's it, just 4, when we all know it's much higher. Here would be McD's record without Allen, and I'll only include the last three seasons because Allen was developing in his first tow, in fairness; 9-7, 7-9, 9-6 Suppose he had those records. Would the support for him be the same? For Beane? Obviously not. We wouldn't have even won the division, much less done anything in the playoffs, with that. Some people see that, others do not. That's the foibles of a fan community where anyone can opine and say their piece. OTOH, does it really matter, ... what you and I disagree on? Not really. OBD isn't reading these threads figuring out what to do. LOL So it's fun to bicker and argue about, but "let's not bicker and argue over who killed who." (Presumably you get the reference) LOL Stay at piece my friend!!

You're right, Beane's drafts have been nothing short of solid. As you were. I really don't want to argue this anymore, you obviously have an immovable position, whatever it is. 🙂

There's no comparison in the lines. Give it up.

LMAO, you comparing Philly's drafts to ours now? Hope about Philly's OL? DL? Front-7? Good one.

Just texting with a friend of mine, we wouldn't at all be surprised if we didn't even win the division. We're set to regress some.

Don't worry, "Trust the Process," be patient, and let the youngsters at HC & GM have another decade to learn.

Agree, but that's what happens when you how a coach and allow him too how good own GM, and one that hasn't earned the role. I've been saying the same, something stinks here, and I bet that it's in McD's contact.

LMAO ... Good one!

I didn't even bother watching. The Super Bowl is nothing but a pop-culture phenomena, much more than it is a sporting event, and the NFL has made it that way deliberately, I typically don't bother watching. If the Bills were in it, I would obviously watch it, but I'd have to hold my nose and would turn it off at halftime. Otherwise, to me it's no different than any other game that's on on the weekend. If the Bills ever moved, I'd be able to count on one hand the number of major-league sporting events I'd watch in a year, with fingers to spare.

That's funny, so has the coaching on this team, and the drafting if we want to go there too. Strangely, I'm sure that there's a connection.

The importance of a great OL is a new concept at OBD and for Beane and McD in particular. Be patient though, "Trust the Process," and give 'em another decade. They'll figure it out eventually. Maybe by then Allen will be the OC.

We're not doing the best that we can in the playoffs with the talent that we do have. That's a coaching issue.

They also needed 14 points courtesy of their D and STs to simply be in it. They were lucky to win. They were also severely outplayed by them offensively. As well, they also gave up 35 to the second highest scoring team in the league, not one TD less to a team with a JV OL or four points less to a team with a 7th-round rookie QB with almost no starts.

Get over it? Bills fans have been getting over it for decades. "Wide right!", "Music City miracle", "13-Seconds" on McD's watch. That's your standard? Otherwise, allow me to play devil's advocate with you a little bit here. We're talking about McD being defensive minded, and you're talking about his highly ranked D's in his defense. Given your position, how do you explain the following: In 2020, us allowing 38 points to KC, while Cleveland and their 21st-ranked D only allowed them 22, and the Bucs and their 8th-ranked D only 9 in the playoffs? And we allowed more yards and points than either? 2021, of "13 Seconds" infamy, our. #1 ranked D allowing 36 in regulation, while the Bengals' 17th ranked D allowed only 24, and Pitt's 20th ranked D allowing only 6 more with 42, AND with us allowing WAY more yards than either of them? Let's ignore that "13 Seconds" for now. And of course this past season, our 2nd-ranked D allowing 31 to a team led by a 3rd-string QB, and 27 to a team with a JV OL? Meanwhile, the Chiefs and their 16th-ranked D held the same Bengals to 20 and over 100 fewer yards. A lot of this is perspective. Many see an established pattern here despite whatever regular season ranking or D has. Why would that change, particularly as our defensive talent diminishes? Common sense suggests that it won't.

Trust the Process! 😂

Yup, I couldn't agree more, but Vegas is one thing, reality another.

And if he's not healthy ...