MRM33064

Tuel time was fantastic for around 30 seconds.

Clappy just loves his rules. Go to mass, say "yes, Sir" a lot, show up early for lifting, pay for the next guy's coffee at Timmy Ho's ... so on and so forth. If only our guys were all just a little bit nicer; we'd be just like the Saints. It's the CULTURE. Of course, doing stuff like trading up in the draft, not knowing when a tie is just as bad as a loss in a critical playoff run game and today's example: punting when you're down 3 scores with 6mins left in the game (assuming we're still trying to win these games), doesn't really help the cause.

The football equivalent of selling one's Pets.com stock at $0.01/shares after watching it go from $100/share to $15/share to $1/share. Eh, right on time.

My issue with the Mahommes talk is that even if he were here, he wouldn't be what he is. He'd be handing off to Chris Ivory. That's actually my biggest fear about McD; that is, that Josh Allen really is super talented but he'll get ruined here by being neutered by a "defense first" and "protect the ball" '70s style staff.

Not really. I'd like some indicia that he has a clue about the modern NFL. Do you think he's well-versed in analytics? (He knows them well, but just ignores them?) He makes horrific tactical decisions - not the least of which was not even understanding that a tie was just as bad as a loss in last year's Colts game. He talks about weather in Buffalo. "Blue Collar" Buffalo. The king of empty cliche. McD seems like a very nice man. A good DC, in a league that increasingly devalues defense. Perhaps he is simply a brilliant strategic who continues to hide his brilliance from the league for long-term gain.

I'd like to think these pressers are McD using his Jedi distraction skills to simply just appear as a completely out of touch relic who doesn't understand analytics, the pace of today's game, the direction of the league and rules committee (in promoting offense and passing) .... but .... I fear it's not a ruse.

Who hires a coach from the "Ron Rivera" coaching tree? Ironically, Rivera is the knucklehead who didn't understand the analytics and lost a game to the Bills because he kicked a FG late in the 4th quarter instead of going for a game-ending first down. Pegula was so upset about Rex's ego that McD looked like a warm fuzzy blanket. McD is exactly the WRONG guy to build a modern NFL team from scratch.

These pressers are gold. He comes off as the most vacuous "tough-guy" empty cliche-spouting hand-clapper possible. McD wants us to RUN AND STOP THE RUN. Broad shoulders! Football tough! Character guys! It's Buffalo you know ... "blue collar" (?!) ... and ... weathery (!?) or such. WTF

This, above. I will say this: yes, I think that it's true that Tyrod WAS probably more valuable to the Bills than to any other team in the league, but that's simply an embarrassing, pitiful consequence of: (1) the 1970s dinosaur relic coach that we have, who somehow architects a QB stat line of 31/49 for 189 and 3 INTs (!?!) and claims he needs to watch the film to figure out his a** from his elbow; and (2) our presumed franchise QB being currently unavailable. Tyrod is conservative, well-mannered, positive, polite, a good "culture guy"... and hopelessly mediocre. Perfect for McD, not for any other legit NFL coach.

"What $21.9million of 2018 salary cap space looks like in Buffalo.*" *It's true.

Over/under on how he "needs to look at the tape" before answering: 35 seconds.

I'd love to agree with this, but I really need to see the film first (!?!) There must be some hella good steganography embedded in that game film. Or maybe there's subliminal messaging: "EAT MORE POPCORN" ... "MORE PUNTS" ... "DRINK COKE" ... "SIGN MORE FULLBACKS" ...

During last year's (fluke) playoff "run", our head coach did not understand - DID NOT UNDERSTAND - that a tie against the Colts was just as bad as a loss. And when we think about the modern NFL, where offense is king (so much so that the rules committee continually designs rules to promote offense and scoring), and analytics are used by some as an edge, where other young coaches are continually experimenting with 4th down creativity, aggressive game-ending decision-making, and so forth - we have this tough guy, cliche-spouting relic from the '70s. McD is that super nice guy from Peoria who sits next to you at the blackjack table and sticks on 14 to the dealer's face card because "he's got a gut feeling", and refuses to believe that there is any real underlying strategy to any of it, while McVay is counting cards looking for maximum decision-making optimization choices. I'm sure McD looked like a fuzzy warm blanket to Pegula when compared to Rex: McD is polite, stable, very well-prepared, he has notebooks with little sayings in them (!), he likes "character guys", and so forth. Nothing at all about McD says "innovation" or "modern" or in any way leads anyone to reasonably believe that he is the right guy to groom Josh Allen for greatness. And let's face it, at this point, Josh Allen is our asset. It's all on that kid. The best we can ever hope for with McD is what we saw Monday night: a team that has a high effort, competitive defense that is able to slow down (not stop, but slow down) great offenses and maybe keep some of our losses close - although his teams have been blown out quite frequently to date. McD is Dick Jauron v2.0. We got a guy who is trying to make horses run faster (McD) while coaches like McVay, Pederson, Shanahan (and OMG I can't believe I'm saying it ... Mike Vrabel) are optimizing the engines on race cars.

When McD didn't realize that a tie with the Colts was just as bad as a loss in the playoff race, he exposed himself. And then to make matters worse, he doubled down on it, repeating the phrase "I'd rather have a tie than a loss" as though it had some sort of deep significance that we mere mortals didn't grasp. He seems like a great guy. Perfect to be a character-building, high-school type coach. But comparing him to McVay is like comparing a rotary dial telephone to a new iPhone.

"I don't feel tardy ..." (David Lee Roth circa 1984)