Cash

It’s weird that the two military veterans were both comparing McD’s “accountability” to military structures, when we’re really talking about public statements in press conferences. Maybe I’m way off, but I don’t think the top brass does much in the way of explaining F-ups to the public when they happen. I was under the impression that that sort of accountability was mostly handled away from the public eye. We fans ARE the public eye. I forgot to add my two cents about McDermott in my last post, so I’ll do it here. Number one thing for me: I don’t see how firing McD this week gets us into the playoffs this year. If/when we’re mathematically eliminated? Go for it. But as long as there’s a chance of us making a run, we need to maximize that chance. (With the caveat that if he’s lost the team a la Josh McDaniels and the Raiders, he has to go right away. None of us can know that from out here, though.) I wasn’t a McDermott fan from the start, but he generally won me over. @Shaw66 made some great arguments around McD’s leadership and ability to establish a winning culture. And I saw for myself an ability to learn from his mistakes. That’s extremely important to me, because everyone will make mistakes whether you like it or not. As much as I HATED it when he benched Tyrod for Peterman, I ultimately gained some respect for McD in the aftermath. Why? Because he admitted he made a mistake and apologized to the team, and course-corrected afterwards. There are other examples, but this post is long enough already. With all that said, I think the blunder on Monday night hits the level of a fireable offense pretty much on its own. And to some extent, I think @GunnerBill is right that McD might have too much on his gameday plate. I wouldn’t mind it if he handed off defensive play calling to one of his assistants to let him be just a head coach during the game.

Great post @Shaw66 - you set a high bar and this one easily cleared it. Also some great counter-arguments in this thread as well with some valid points. My two cents: Firing Dorsey, in hindsight, was overdue. I would’ve been fine canning him after the Bengals game, or at least stripping him off play calling duties, but McD is more conservative than I am, so Dorsey got an extra week. I wish Dorsey the best, but he had to go. Will it help? We’ll find out soon enough. I think it’ll help at least somewhat, but I don’t think it’ll be a panacea. The defense and special teams are bad. The defense somehow manages to hold up for long stretches every week, but they don’t have the talent to get stops when we need them. We need an offense that can get 30 most weeks in spite of bad field position, and put us up 2 scores or more when the opposing team gets the ball for the last time.

I voted No, but that’s meant as a snapshot of right now. There’s still time for McD to change my mind. The 12 man penalty costing us that game is a fireable offense IMO. But with no clear replacement on staff, there’s no point in firing him now - that won’t get us into the playoffs. If we stay on roughly this trajectory, McD should be fired as soon as we’re mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. If we turn it around, I’m open to bringing him back, depending on the specifics of the turnaround.

McD for sure. Look at his immediate postgame comments from the last few game - especially last week. Contrast those with the ones from earlier in the year. He’s been unhappy with the offense for a while, getting unhappier every week, and it showed after the game last week. McD usually goes out of his way to never criticize anyone publicly. IMO McD hasn’t been shy about telling Dorsey this stuff in private, and Dorsey knew the Broncos game was his last chance. McD remains overly loyal, and probably gave Dorsey one chance too many. But I’m glad he pulled the trigger now instead of waiting for the bye. The offense has no excuse for being this disjointed every game.

This might be a fireable offense.

As others have said, there’s nothing that could single-handedly right the emotional ship tonight. But they could take some steps in the right direction. If they sustain success for a few games, that’s when I’d start to Billieve again. Here are some things that would be good to see tonight: -Offense scores over 30 points -Multiple drives where it looks easy (Bonus points for drives after the scripted plays and also outside of the 2 minute warning) -Zero INTs -Run game is effective, with or without Allen running -Zero drives that short circuit just outside of FG range Against a bad defense, at least some of these should be doable. If we see another offensive performance where everything is just such a freaking struggle, I have to think they’ll make a change.

Under. Most owners aren’t willing to give a HC job to someone who was just fired from his OC job.

I think some of them are fixable this season. Design of shotgun runs? Maybe not so much. But some of it is just down to play calling, and especially play calling right as we cross midfield. The under center run game is still working, and play action from under center is crushing it. Mixing in more plays from under center in that area of the field could make a big difference, and should be very doable. How much of the problem is McDermott wanting to be conservative? After last week, I’m thinking not a ton, or at least not directly. McDermott wants to be too conservative sometimes, that much is true. But he’s not stupid, and he’s clearly not happy with the way the offense is performing. He’ll never blame anyone else publicly, so it’s hard to know what he really thinks. My hope is that he’s ready to give someone else a try at play calling at this point. I’ve given up hope that Dorsey will improve as a play caller. I don’t see much benefit in firing him now, unless things have gotten so bad that it would be a morale boost. But I think a five game swoon is enough to give a crack to one of the other offensive staffers with play calling experience. Note: I don’t think there’s need to publicly advertise it if/when Dorsey is stripped of play calling duties. But I would make sure McDermott and Dorsey both have answers ready in case it’s asked in a press conference.

Should really be the D-Gun though. Keith McKeller = K-Gun Dalton Kincaid = D-Gun Even if you're a McKeller truther, it should still be A-Gun, not J-Gun. These are the keys to winning IMO.

I thought it was interesting - after the NE loss, Allen said something like, "Maybe I need to stop thinking and just play." Then came out against TB looking phenomenal, making quick decisions, getting the ball to the right guy right away, etc. That went away a bit in the second half as we basically turtled on offense. Allen didn't look exactly the same on our first drive last night, but he looked really good and so did the offense as a whole. Then it was basically nothing until mid/late fourth quarter. Us outsiders can never know for sure, but I think most of it comes down to the coaching staff. Daboll's offense had some of the same issues as Dorsey, but they didn't "stick" like this - we'd have a bad game or two, but nothing where the QB & HC are both mystified in their postgame pressers. Was Daboll better at giving Allen feedback in a way that got Allen to actually change what he's doing? Is McDermott constantly trying to turn us into the Parcells Giants once we get a lead, and Daboll was able to say no in a way that Dorsey can't? Is Dorsey a bad play caller? Is Dorsey not detail-oriented enough to notice and work on fixing every single problem with the offense? (I'm thinking of things like the route combination problems that Kurt Warner called out in one of his videos a few weeks ago.) I think it's probably some combination of the above. I don't want to absolve Allen of the blame here - there's a lot of improvements he can (and needs to) make. But it's the coaches' jobs to help players make those improvements. If the player is trying and not succeeding, to me it falls on the coaching staff.

Now that it’s official and Elam is indeed a healthy scratch, I’ve gotta think (hope?) that there’s a trade market for Elam and he’ll be shipped out in the next few days. Player for player trades maybe?

I mean, weren’t they both 52 or 53 yarders? That’s probably not much over 50% at best, considering the venue and weather. Getting tails twice in a row isn’t cause for concern. Obviously neither miss helped anyone’s stress level at the time, but neither one looked to me like a full-on shank. Both looked live like okay kicks when a really good kick was needed.

Thanks for the summary. I don’t have the time for breakdown videos, so it’s great to get the gist from someone who watched the whole thing.

Yeah, I mean Shaq is playing and Kingsley isn’t, so obviously he’s ahead today. But keep in mind that Shaq’s snap counts have been inflated by playing in garbage time the last 3 weeks. When Von is back and actually ready to play, someone at DE will have to play less, and I think that’s Shaq. Kingsley already doesn’t play, but they weren’t willing to cut him in preseason and I don’t think that’ll change now. As for Lawson? I think they only cut him if they really need the spot. I don’t think they’d cut him just to sign a CB who’ll be inactive on game day. (And if they sign another CB but keep Elam as a healthy scratch, I’ll be shocked.)

I tend to agree. I think they’re comfortable at CB for at least a few weeks. Elam has been a healthy scratch, so he’s basically taking Tre’s gameday roster spot. And if the Bills want more safety net, they have 3 call-ups each for the two CBs on the practice squad. So I think one of the options the Bills are thinking about is just swapping Tre for Miller. Unless they already IR’d Tre and signed someone else and I missed it - in that case, I think Shaq Lawson would be the most likely cut. I think the Bills would hope to get Shaq back on the practice squad, but would also be willing to part ways with him if necessary. Lawson is probably better than Kingsley Jonathan right now, or at least the coaches trust him more. But I don’t think Lawson got much interest this past offseason, and he might be willing to stick around in case of injury.

Great post, as always! I was very impressed by the Bills yesterday. Special props to Dorsey - the play calling was about as good as I’ve seen, and he and Allen seemed to be perfectly on the same page. There was a 3rd and 2 fairly early on where we had a wide open receiver in the flat who easily picked up the first. Those are the kind of easy money plays that guys like Andy Reid and Kyle Shanahan have made careers off of. IMO, they’ve generally been lacking in our offense, especially since Daboll left. That one yesterday was very encouraging and I hope to see more like it.

I'm very much still not sold on Dorsey*. Too small a sample size to draw a conclusion yet, but there's evidence that he might struggle with getting playmakers in space. McKenzie was fairly disappointing last year, as was Nyheim Hines on offense. Hines only got the ball on like 2 gimmick plays a game, and they almost never worked. This year it's Harty only getting the ball on gimmick plays that don't work. Whereas under Daboll, McKenzie mostly got the ball on gimmick plays, but they mostly worked. Either we need better gimmick plays, or we need to find a way to get the ball to these guys as part of the normal offense. I don't know how to do that, but that's okay because it's not my job. It *is* Ken Dorsey's job, and it's fair to hold him to it. *General note: I worry that what someone heard was, "Dorsey sucks," but what I said was, "I'm not sold on Dorsey." I don't think he sucks, or McDermott would've fired him after last year - plenty of promising candidates would want to run Josh Allen's offense. But there's plenty of room for Dorsey to be Just Okay or A Little Below Average without being a net positive for the team. Dorsey was not a net positive last year and I'm looking for improvement this year. If I don't see it, I'll be a Fire Dorsey guy this offseason. I expect that plenty of promising OC candidates would want to work with Josh Allen.

I was also at this game, and second/third the sentiments about the crowd. We were on the Bills’ side, and it seemed about 80% blue in the crowd. The opposite side probably about 40% blue, and I think about 50-60% Bills fans overall. There were a few Washington 3rd downs where it was genuinely loud in there, and almost no times where it was loud while the Bills were on offense. There was one Bills third down in the second half where they played a GET LOUD graphic on the scoreboard, and you could practically hear a pin drop. Very fun game to attend all in all.

I’ll be at the game with some of my DC friends I’m visiting. They’re mostly agnostic for this game but will be supporting the Bills. We might check out the tailgate scene if anyone can suggest a lot to hit up. Otherwise we’re planning on going into the Legends Plaza or whatever and just overpaying for food and drink.

He’s not very sharp. He THINKS he is (hence his stage name), but he isn’t.

Do we think this impacts the timeline of Kirksey getting called up to the active roster?

Whether that or otherwise, it’s pretty reasonable to expect those issues to improve as the season goes on. Bernard is a 2nd year player who made his 2nd career start today.

LOL

That pick could've become Ron Dayne!!!

12-5. I think 13-4 is more likely than 11-5.