The All-hindsight draft would have been filthy good if Beane never traded up, picked S Emmanwori in the first, CB Trey Amos and whoever else you wanted in the 2nd, DT Deone Walker in the third, and WR Tory Horton in the 4th.
I think he’s generally hands off when it concerns the offense, but if you want to assign him blame for not picking up the headset and setting his OC straight, I couldn’t argue with it. He gives his coordinators more space than maybe he should.
I also think he’s more to blame for the struggles than most here are willing to admit, but if I had to put a percentage on it, I’d say the passing issues are 35% Joe Brady, 30% Josh Allen, 20% WRs, and 15% OL.
And that’s the problem with the offensive approach. A defense’s best friend is an offense that racks up points, forces the opposition to be one dimensional. The only game we’ve had like that this year is the Jets. All other games have been close enough to where the opponent hasn’t had to abandon their running game. We’ve neutered our offense and it is quite boring to watch.
I remember Beane had something to the effect of “yeah we decided to put Max on IR to give him that much more time…” it didn’t sound like an IR injury at the time he spoke, but maybe they needed the roster spot and genuinely didn’t want to rush him back. I think he’s been healed long ago, despite the knee brace.
Just heard Joe Buck say “the secondary is down every starter from opening day”?? Wow. His second point was “but you’d never know it.” Great defensive coaching.
We actually do get pressure, but there’s players running so wide open in the zone that the pressure doesn’t have a chance to affect the QB. The back seven is not complementing the pass rush. I can think of quite a few wins where a defender immediately got in the backfield and the QB found a receiver running wide open to negate the win. The best pass rushers in the league couldn’t help the current scheme. It’s maddening.
I know the Chiefs had some dreadful defensive rankings during their earlier SB runs, but they usually stepped up and got stops in the playoffs. We can only hope ours follows a similar path.
There’s no one in the secondary with a name big enough to rock the locker room. Not at this point in time. Since he’s a long tenured Bill and was once an All Pro (I think?) I’d have to say Taron Johnson, although trading him with the amount of responsibilities he has on his plate seems far fetched.