GuardianAngel

How dare you tease these rumor starved boys with such a tasty morsel. How could they have resisted!?

It is and it isn't, at least to me. For me there are three possible reasons as to why he said Smiley would retain his job and then fire him a week later. Reason 1.) It was coach speak. This staff has always been tight lipped about the internal going ons so there is no way that Mcdermott would say anything other than an affirming or incredibly vague answer. And he gave both a strangely vague answer and a pretty hard affirmative which to me falls in line with what he says/does. Very much par for the course with McD and how he goes about things. This seems the most likely to me. Reason 2.) McD was in on keeping Smiley but the rest of the staff/leadership wasn't. I don't know who exactly has the power over coaching hires, whether that's McD or Beane or both, but even if they didn't have control over the hires they might have enough of a voice to push McD's hand about it. This seems unlikely as I believe it would add unnecessary friction. Reason 3.) This is my personal headcannon. McD said "...I'm confident that Coach Smiley is going to learn from those situations and plays that came up this year."... What if in his post season autopsies he gets to Smiley and he clearly hasn't learned any lessons? McD just said he was confident in you to learn from your mistakes and here you are, continuing to make them? Begone!... Totally unlikely to have happened but it'd be funny.

If he's limited today he'll probably be ready for Sunday.

OP should get an award for how hard he baited some of you guys

Uh oh, McDermott showing human emotions? He's not just a souless football automaton? Clearly he is unfit as a leader, I can't believe a man in his position would ever do this sort of thing, totally unheard of, absolutely weak, Andy Reid would never. /s Honestly though I think him loosening up has had a very tangible affect on the team, and when you're leader is rocking with the vibes then it's a lot easier for everyone else too and we see that with Allen in spades. Though I'd argue Allen has had more of an affect on McDermott than the other way around in this case, it's still great to see both leaders actually looking like they're having fun.

That is an absolutely fair point. Though it's also fair to point out that a season ending injury can happen during any point of the season, we as fans just gnash are teeth harder when it comes on garbage games. But as it stands we live at a time where Coleman is uninjured, and people are just losing the plot over play that happened in a game where he likely was told "go for it but don't try to hard".

Pretty much what I was thinking. I felt like it was pretty obvious they were just hucking down field for him to go up and make grabs. What better time to practice than in a game that has no consequences?

I'm not exact on the specifics either however I personally don't think they'd want to move Brown to LT even if he possibly could. I think they like having an absolute mauler being on the right side because that's Allens favored side to roll towards. If Allen takes off and runs defenders have to get past Brown and tackle Allen which is an incredibly tall order, if Allen passes he has a mountain in front of him to buy time, and I think we even saw that in this last game on one of the touchdown throws. He just brings so much value as a RT I don't think you can move him. Not to mention the chemistry he is likely developing with Torrence. If they can operate in concert and Torrence continues to improve then the right side of the Bills line will be scary for years to come.

Yeah I didn't like the way Thad was framing it, he makes it sound like it's a scary question mark when we were probably resting Bernard this week anyways. Also you can't forget poor Baylon Spector, man just can't stay healthy. As to your point of undersized lb/dts, at this point I'd have to agree, though it's pointless getting into those weeds until post season at least to me. I do think that this specific instance of injury is mostly a nothing burger. Though now that I said that it won't be, so if that does come to pass I'll take the pie to the face.

This doesn't sound like there's much doubt for the playoffs, more just letting him rest off a smaller injury during a meaningless game.

Come on man, even if both our corners weren't playing well we still have Elam on the bench and several prospects on the team. Why would they ever go for a 33 year old CB that got released by a bottom tier team?

Oh thank you, I never wanted him on this team in the first place

I am incredibly excited about Davis. I've been super high on him since we drafted him and this was the exact opportunity he needed to show that he could be really good. I was really hoping he would have a big game tonight and he didn't disappoint.

Eh maybe it was the lighting of the stadium that made him look paler to me or something, it was just a thought I had mid game a couple of times when they zoomed in to his face. And yeah I should've been more clear on the abysmal performance of the receivers, I still think Allen looked off for one reason or another but the receivers didn't do themselves or Allen any favors.

Oh I absolutely agree, the receivers absolutely let him down... I mean come on the ball bonked Keon in the head. It was more a side observation, I should've been a bit more clear on that.