BillsVet

Clearly, you have no idea what that term means and using it here is inappropriate.

I'm not sure where the narrative emerged about this being year 1 of the offensive rebuild. When a team tears down the roster as Buffalo did, the entire team is being rebuilt. In McD's case, he chose to take on the defense first and has continued that each year since becoming HC. Yes, they added several pieces on one side of the ball, but given the short contract terms, many of those guys aren't going to be around for more than this season. For that reason, it's not a rebuild but more of stop-gap measures until they can draft a suitable replacement. As to the coaching, McD and Daboll have been around and aren't new. Same with Frazier and several position coaches. If they've gotta be learning this late into their career it's an issue.

People have time to write a thread but not enough to use a resource like pro football reference to look at how to spell the dude''s name.

It's not a "no-win situation" in any way. The matter being discussed is whether the Bills have graduated to the level of being a solid playoff team and one should expect that after 3 off-seasons of adding players with consistency at the coaching level. This deep into a rebuild, you have to believe a veteran-laden team like Buffalo operating with those same coaches can rip up the bad teams and be competitive against the good ones. You don't expect them to barely get by against the bottom-feeders and lose close games to the better clubs as frequently as they have. I think many fans just want to see decisive victories against good teams and are tired of the nail-biters. Looking through McD's 20 wins as a HC, I see one game where Buffalo dominated from beginning to end and that's last year's Minnesota game. Sure, they're not getting blown out, but they haven't demonstrated a signature victory save for the one I just mentioned.

It comes down to seeing whether one sees these games as individual events or predictive of the future. Given how teams employ film study and look to exploit weaknesses, the individual event perspective remains myopic and incapable of looking down the road. No one can say whether this winning is sustainable. On one hand, the remaining schedule features teams winning less than 40% of their games. On the other, Buffalo has, during the past 20 years, had a hard time beating quality teams late in the season. I'm interested to see how they fare against Philadelphia next week to address that.

It comes down to perspective. To some, that means determining whether a blue-print is forming which identifies major weaknesses the Bills don't have the personnel or strategy to cover up. To others, this game is a speed bump in a long season. We're going to find out how teams approach playing the Bills. Film study, at about mid-season, is showing this defense may have some personnel issues. On offense, it'll revolve around getting Allen to make mistakes. That said, by year 3 of a rebuild, and knowing how quickly other teams have rebuild, this team should not be struggling against one of the worst teams in recent NFL history. The bar should be set a lot higher.

BADOL noted Allen struggled, but SCBills assessed the QB's play as merely "things he needs to work on." This is a minimization of the situation IMHO. A totally separate point is that I asked for something to back up the same poster's thought that McD is, to paraphrase, one of the best up and coming NFL HC's. By this record, McD doesn't rank exceptionally high and 4 near his year group outpace him.

Re: 2 - Who is saying this? Otherwise, you're employing the classic straw-man argument. Re: 1 - With NFL QB's set up to succeed through rules geared toward protecting QBs and WRs, how does throwing for 202 yards against a defense that, by seasons end, will rank dead last in a number of statistical categories represent "things he needs to work on?" Miami entered today's game allowing 270 yards passing per game, have dealt their best S, and were missing their top CB today.

When does McD step in and demand simplicity from his OC for a QB who clearly is struggling? At which point does McD recognize that he and the GM's attempts to rebuild an offense in one (!) off-season is at best providing middling results? McD's first comments this past off-season at the combine were presumably an answer to the most effective criticism of his tenure: the offense. McCoach proceeded to say they needed to score 21 points per, which through 6 games they've done three times against a weak schedule. The HC has no more clue on offense than did Chan Gailey on defense. They're coordinators masquerading as HC's and do not take a total view of team building, hence the other side of the ball not progressing much from 2 seasons ago.

What, Jeff George isn't available?

That's right...he was one tough dude to make it back after all that. I hope Alex Smith returns and not only proves his doubters wrong, but proves to himself he can overcome it. As Bleier did, albeit with a different set of injuries.

I don't think people appreciate how motivated some professional athletes are to succeed. Short of muscle or nerve damage, I wouldn't count him out. Different time and cause of injury, but Rocky Bleier returned after being shot in one leg and taking shrapnel in another leg in Vietnam.

McD made the call to take Jones and it did not work out. For a team hurting at WR and forced to call up someone in the CFL last year, it's a bad look. McBeane, to their credit, have acknowledged mistakes and tend to fail forward and move on. I give them credit because most HC's or GM's would double down on a mistake. Still, McD knows that developing player culture means not talking badly about departed players. If he did that, it closes the door to attracting quality UFA's in March. I'm glad they get that keeping things in-house and projecting a high level of professionalism is key. Not sure that this is as widely followed in the NFL as you'd expect.

It's thread titles like this which are becoming synonymous with click bait "news stories." There is no benefit to TBD'ers aside from the OP getting views. Just put the stat (or EDIT: subject) in the thread title or description.

Buffalo trades a 3rd and perhaps 5th for a WR with contract term in 2020. Or, perhaps a 4th for a receiver who is a rental in 2019. Not going to get hopes up on AJ Green, but there are others The NFL trade deadline continues emerging as a method to build teams. If Buffalo can make a deal in 2017, surely they can do something similar in 2019.

How much of this has to be the league's officials (including Riveron) protecting their own and refusing to overturn something that is subjective? Edit: Speaking of challenges, McD is 1-12 during his tenure as Bills HC. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/coaches/McDeSe0.htm Something's amiss.

It's typically not a good draft pick when you project a player on draft day and within 4 months he has to change positions. For an OT, movement inside to guard, particularly RG, is an inefficient use of draft resources. Normally you give a player time but his physical limitations are so obvious they can't keep playing him at RT.

Expectations have been amped up with the 4-1 start and defense playing the way it has. To Dave Mc's point-you expect them now to be 11-5 and win a playoff game given their start and (to date) overall AFC weakness. A playoff appearance in 2017 bought them some time in their roster deconstruction process. Now it's time to hasten the rebuild with a deal for a WR to improve this currently pedestrian offense.

There needs to be a lot less "Feeling" and a lot more thinking/believing.

I would imagine he was motivated by proving his old team wrong for letting him go. Agreed on him looking out of shape. I'd expect at some point they'll look to add a guard with better mobility because at times he whiffs or is slow to arrive on blocks.

Take my offensive coordinator...please.

The Patriots survive bad picks because in-demand UFAs will play for less money given their penchant for winning Super Bowls. Buffalo ain't in that category yet.

Yeah, Allen being the guy provides some draft credibility and at the minimum buys time to build around him. I contend offensive skill position decisions overall, pro and amateur, are otherwise unimpressive not including the 2019 draft class we haven't had time to properly evaluate. I'm really interested to see if they make a deal for an productive vet WR before the deadline. It'll mean giving up draft picks, which every team typically wants to retain, but at this point Allen needs another receiver if this team is going to score better than the 18 points per they've recorded.

That's the one contract that should make fans think twice about McBeane's personnel acumen. Re-working Star's deal doesn't even seem likely given that he's playing 40% of the snaps and continues to regress. Their offensive pro and amateur scouting decisions leave a lot to be desired. Not including the moves to get Allen, they've traded up 4 times to pick offensive players in 3 drafts. Those players don't scream above average NFL types: Z. Jones isn't going to be the guy McD thought, Dion Dawkins is probably an average LT who could use a move to RT, and Cody Ford is not looking like a NFL OT. The other choice was Dawson Knox, who has made some plays and an ability to block, but it's real early in his career. They're going to need to draft better when offensive UFAs on 1-2 year deals aren't retained. Morse is here, barring injury, for that contract, but Spain, Feliciano, Nsekhe, Brown, Beasley, and Kroft, and Gore aren't on anything the team couldn't get out of after 1-2 seasons.

Star continues to see a reduced snap count and there isn't a questions why. In 2016, with McD as DC, he was in on 66% of their snaps while playing all 16 games. This year he's at 42% through 4 games with 58 snaps. Something's amiss here and it's certainly not the DC or scheme. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/L/LotuSt00.htm Buffalo's invested quite a bit at DT considering the positional value these last 3 off-seasons. They need to be strong down the middle, but giving J. Phillips a long term contract at Snacks level (9M per) is a lot to put into one position considering they've already used a top 10 and 3rd round pick there besides Star.