DrDawkinstein

Same as 2018 would have been if not for hitting on a young Josh Allen. 6-10 could have easily been 4-12 with Tyrod still at the helm and our level of talent.

Great point on the player personnel changes that are on the horizon. Once guys like Poyer, Hyde, and Tre White are gone, half of McDs support will be gone.

I believe coach contracts are 100% guaranteed. Getting fired is more a hit on their brand than on their life and paycheck.

I dont think he'd get much push back from Terry if it is something he felt strongly about, but you want to let the boss know. If Terry shows up to surprise news that his team just fired their OC and he had no idea, that isnt a great look for McD. Moves of that level are absolutely discussed by the execs. And Dabol took them to the playoffs last year and won coach of the year. And is having a 2nd year dip, just like McD did in 2018 with the 6-10 Bills.

And even beyond that, owners have to pay out the coach's contract after they are fired even while paying the new guy on top of that. Terry probably wants to know before we start flinging around his millions.

For sure with that success. I also think Flores/McDaniel and Zimmer/OConnell are great examples too. Defensive coaches that hit their ceiling, and the team (and QB) improves under a new Offensive "unknown". Only reason to not do it now is: Fear. Which is right up there with playing not to lose. Sounds very McD.

Could use Elway too with his move from Reeves to Shanahan. But the timeline is getting less relevant by the decade.

Yeah, it was Shanahan for Elway.

AND the Falcons should have let Quinn walk and promoted Shanny, much like the Bills should have done with McD/Dabol after 13seconds. But that is a huge and difficult move I dont expect owners to make.

I'm not saying that at all. I have made no guarantees that it will get better. I even said as much in that post you just quoted. No one is pretending it cant get worse. No one has asked you to pretend it will be all rose petals. You made both of those up. So maybe look at who is really being too emotional and scared... I said this earlier in the thread if people bothered to read instead of just react: I dont necessarily trust Pegula to make the decision, but I trust that he is more likely to rely on outside help and advice when it comes to NFL hires than he is on NHL hires. He thinks he's a "hockey guy", and makes a lot of those decisions himself. For the Bills, he hired an outside consulting firm who helped find McDermott. Who most of us didnt even have on our coaching radar at the time. No reason to think the firm and Beane couldnt find a decent replacement. Even with Terry in the mix. And before you get worked up, I'm not guaranteeing that

Right, and now they are thanks to the coaching change you are arguing against. (And Hurts was by the owner and GM, hence Pederson's firing)

I'm not against the idea of hiring an OC with the plan he replaces McD as HC. But if you are going to do that, then just cut bait and fire McD now. Otherwise, you are breeding paranoia and dishonesty in the organization. Very much like the Browns with Gregg Williams and Todd Haley gunning for Hue's job instead of doing their own job. Does it matter when we have no future under McD? The entire motivation of the move is knowing we've hit McD's ceiling. So better to try ANYTHING else, than nothing.

You dont even know what you said? Because here it is: Nothing about which coaches built a winning franchise, or developing QBs, or any of that extra stuff you are adding on. You asked which Franchise QBs had coaches fired, and what was their future. Tua, Cousins, and Hurts all say hi. And those are all recent, relevant examples. 2 of which were firing highly regarded Defensive coaches for hot shot OCs. Then dont ever do anything. Because every decision has a chance to go wrong. Better to just play not to lose on this one.

I, personally, absolutely keep Beane and have him assist in the hiring. They're buddies, but I bet if you asked Beane "I'm firing Sean. Do you want to keep your job or are you tied to your friend and want to be fired too?" He'd keep his job. It's a business.

Tua had his coach fired, now he's lighting it up with McDaniel nd will lkely win the Division over us this year. Philly fired SB winner Pederson, and Hurts has shined since. Cousins has greatly improved since Minn moved away from Zimmer. Furthermore, coaching/OC/Scheme changes have directly and immediately benefitted: Lamar Jackson this year Dak in Dallas Goff moving to a new team and system Changes arent always bad. (thanks to @Big Blitz for putting a list together last night)

I've been back and forth on this, I've seen the Giants' struggles so I know what you mean, and I think I'm ultimately going to land on "yes, I'd rather have Dabol than McD". I think it's mostly a talent issue in NJ right now. And we have far better talent across the board. Plus we have a Josh Allen.

We've been saying "This is our Tampa 2021 game!" since week 7 of last year. NOTHING wakes these guys up because McD cant light a fire under them. 11/6/22 - "Maybe this loss against the Jets will wake them up" 11/13/22 - "Maybe this loss against the Vikings will wake them up" 12/17/22 - "We won, but maybe the close game against Miami will wake them up" 1/2/23 - "Maybe the Hamlin incident will rally this team together and wake them up" 1/15/23 - "Maybe struggling against Miami's 3rd string QB will wake them up" and it keeps going into this year. The Jets, the Jags, the Pats....

In fairness, these are the only 2 I'd give a chance from that list. But I dont know squat. I admittedly wasnt aware of McDermott before the consultants found him, so who knows who else might be kicking around. That's why they get paid the big bucks. Folks always come back with that argument when talking about firing coaches. "oh yeah? who are you hiring that's so great?!?" Not our job to answer that question.

We let him go to NJ last year.

This. The whole franchised is screwed because we have a Defensive HC who has to hire strong OCs in order to succeed. And any half-decent OC will immediately get plucked for a HC job, and we're right back to where we started. In today's NFL, you find your OC, make them HC, and then fill in your DC with whoever.

I'm not defending the flag, it was BS, however... IIRC the only other time I've seen a grounding flag thrown on a WR miscue was on Brady, playing against the Bills. We were home. I believe it was a night game. I think Brady was backed up close to his own end zone. And let one fly like that. And after some discussion, the refs dropped the flag on him. I've been combing through game logs since 2014, but cant find it. Maybe we declined the penalty? Anyone else remember this? Or was it a fever dream?

Sure. Need to take some deep shots to keep the Defense honest. But bad timing and bad planning. And I'm also convinced, as we saw in the playoff game as well, the Bengals/Anarumo know EXACTLY the type of looks they need to show the Bills in order to bait Josh into throwing the low percentage deep ball. Miami did it to us in the playoff game, and we happened to connect on a few and they died by it. We didnt get so lucky in the Bengals game. Not the right time for those plays. We were only down by 7. Our Defense just held the Bengals to a punt to even the drives. Just methodically move the ball down the field. I was mostly being facetious about Josh thinking the game was over. But WTF. No other reason to throw back-to-back low percentage throws because the D is baiting you. And if that Davis throw wasnt picked and just dropped, I'd bet good money we would have gone deep again on 3rd down, likely resulting in a sack. The old Dorsey Classic from most of last year. The problem here is that previously, Dabol would be the one to calm Josh down and get those warts frozen. But now, Dorsey is there and telling Josh to grow more warts.

The very next play was the deep shot ball to Gabe that was picked. So cant say that Josh doesnt want to throw to Davis specifically. I just think it's very clear that at this point of the game (down 14-7 in the 2nd qtr), Josh made up his mind that the game was almost over and the team needed a HUGE gain and some hero ball. Couldnt possibly stand moving the ball down the field, and moving the chains, in boring 6-8 yard chunks. BLECH! We got Hero Ball, and then Hero Ball-turned-INT on this possession. And that was that. IMO, that is 60% on Josh, and 40% on Dorsey for giving him those plays and schemes that push him to throw the deep ball.

You didnt say it, and I know you were just joking (as am I), but that statement DOES imply no new coaching hire ever. Since it will always be Terry making the decision. What else could it mean? Regardless... If McDermott was genuinely awful, then I wouldnt trust Terry and the Consulting Service to pick a new coach. But he hasnt been awful. He's been very good. But now he isnt good enough as we've hit his ceiling. So I trust that the same group can build on that and find someone better. It's not the Consultants who picked Rex I trust Pegula more with Bills decisions than Sabres decisions because Terry doesnt trust himself with the NFL. Terry is a hockey guy. Always has been. He got into all of this because he needed something to do in retirement and thought running a hockey team for $150M would be a fun little lark. He got pushed into the NFL ownership, and was aware from the very first moment that they were in over their heads. So he's more keen to listen to others, or bring in outside firms to help. Where as with the NHL, he thinks he knows enough to decide everything himself. And if the Consulting Service and Whaley got us McD, I'd love to see the the Service and Beane would get us.

Glad you mentioned this. Lost in all this talk is the funny observation: Diggs was right all along. He showed up to camp, heard the BS out of McD and Dorsey, and knew exactly how it was going to go. Sorry, Stef.