Clashing in Cleveland: How Hue Jackson, Jimmy Haslam and Baker Mayfield collided (and how they almost hired Sean McDermott)

[Happy]

2 minutes ago, YoloinOhio said:

They are #1 in my book. Their locker room was a circus this year. 

 

Yeah, try telling that to Steelers fans; I have a couple who are relatives.  To them, everything is a-ok in Steeler-land.

[YoloinOhio]

Just now, Happy Gilmore said:

 

Yeah, try telling that to Steelers fans; I have a couple who are relatives.  To them, everything is a-ok in Steeler-land.

I know many of them too. They are obnoxious...

[BADOLBILZ]

"In a span of 10 days, Haslam had fully committed to two opposing football philosophies"

 

This sounds exactly like The Pegs in the couple weeks after they fired Rex.

 

They empowered Whaley like never before.........entrusted him with the coaching search.........then fell head over heals for a wrassler.......and SURPRISE!.......he wanted Whaley out and the right to hire his own GM.?

 

This two years after falling head over heels for Rex Ryan.

 

Here's what this tells us..........neophytes in the NFL like Haslam and The Pegs...........they have no base in football operations and therefore no philosophy of their own......they just adopt the philosophy of their new love("he's a man of faith"?)..........so they basically stand for nothing and can fall for anything.

 

We just have to hope for the best with The Pegs the same way the Browns have to with Haslam. 

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

...gotta love it...the "Haslam Big Top" is a cross between "Animal House" and "Rowan & Martin's Laugh In"........Dorsey is smart enough to tell Jiminy to "stay the hell outta my way and go pay your rebates"...

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

2 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

"In a span of 10 days, Haslam had fully committed to two opposing football philosophies"

 

This sounds exactly like The Pegs in the couple weeks after they fired Rex.

 

They empowered Whaley like never before.........entrusted him with the coaching search.........then fell head over heals for a wrassler.......and SURPRISE!.......he wanted Whaley out and the right to hire his own GM.?

 

This two years after falling head over heels for Rex Ryan.

 

Here's what this tells us..........neophytes in the NFL like Haslam and The Pegs...........they have no base in football operations and therefore no philosophy of their own......they just adopt the philosophy of their new love("he's a man of faith"?)..........so they basically stand for nothing and can fall for anything.

 

We just have to hope for the best with The Pegs the same way the Browns have to with Haslam. 

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

2 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

"In a span of 10 days, Haslam had fully committed to two opposing football philosophies"

 

This sounds exactly like The Pegs in the couple weeks after they fired Rex.

 

They empowered Whaley like never before.........entrusted him with the coaching search.........then fell head over heals for a wrassler.......and SURPRISE!.......he wanted Whaley out and the right to hire his own GM.?

 

This two years after falling head over heels for Rex Ryan.

 

Here's what this tells us..........neophytes in the NFL like Haslam and The Pegs...........they have no base in football operations and therefore no philosophy of their own......they just adopt the philosophy of their new love("he's a man of faith"?)..........so they basically stand for nothing and can fall for anything.

 

We just have to hope for the best with The Pegs the same way the Browns have to with Haslam. 

 

..um ok...Pegulas and Haslam in the SAME sentence?........one helluva axe to grind....SMH......

[Nihilarian]

I don't know if that's a ringing endorsement to have McD on the Browns radar...

[Happy]

9 minutes ago, OldTimeAFLGuy said:

 

..um ok...Pegulas and Haslam in the SAME sentence?........one helluva axe to grind....SMH......

 

I don't think he's making an apples to apples comparison of the Pegulas to Haslam.  I read it that both sets of owners made rookie owner mistakes and were indecisive.  The difference now is that the Pegulas seem to be more patient and are letting their decision play out; which we need to hope works out.  Haslam is not patient and has been making rookie owner mistakes for several years as well as interjecting himself into football ops decisions, which the Pegulas do not seem to do.  I'd take the Peguals over Haslam.

[BADOLBILZ]

7 minutes ago, OldTimeAFLGuy said:

 

..um ok...Pegulas and Haslam in the SAME sentence?........one helluva axe to grind....SMH......

 

I love the Pegula's but let's remember that a significant portion of the population thinks that they made their money raping the environment and TPegs divorced then married his employee/assistant.......the 20 years younger Kim.......whom he hired when he saw her in a bar in Olean.?

 

To me.........that's life...........but if you don't think that The Pegs aren't at all controversial then you are either ignorant or in denial.

 

As far as being sports owners.............they are both tankers.........Haslam with the Browns and The Pegs with the Sabres..........with no successes to show for it yet.

[BADOLBILZ]

57 minutes ago, BillsFan4 said:

In years past I would have easily agreed with the Bills being on this list (and I’d have argued that they should be much higher). But I don’t really see anything that is disfunctional about the Bills these days. Everyone in the building seems in lock step, and all the embarrassing leaks to the press have been plugged. 

 

I guess the Bills still have to prove themselves though. 2 years don’t make up for decades of disfunction.... lol. 

 

 

You gotta' earn your way off a list like that.

 

6-10 and one of the VERY worst offenses and special teams in the NFL ain't gonna' do it.

 

But hey......only 7th worst is probably the highest they've been since the 1990's.

[technobot]

I'm happy that at least the Pegulas don't "make the call" in the war room like Haslam has been accused of doing.

 

Unless they do, in which case... make it stop.

 

Terry does seem like the type to let the people he hired do their jobs. I agree that finding the right people is the hardest part whether it's Haslam or Pegula's problem.

[BillsFan4]

12 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

You gotta' earn your way off a list like that.

 

6-10 and one of the VERY worst offenses and special teams in the NFL ain't gonna' do it.

 

But hey......only 7th worst is probably the highest they've been since the 1990's.

I totally agree that they have to earn their way off that list, and 6-10 doesn’t really do that(especially to anyone outside of buffalo who probably.t don’t follow the Bills very closely).

 

But personally, I don’t think they arrived at a 6-10 record because of disfunction. 

I think it was more the result of a transition phase of the rebuild and cleaning up the cap for future seasons. 

 

I fully understand why why many are still in wait and see mode though. Although I’m a fan of this new regime and have more confidence in them than pretty much any regime since Polian, I am still somewhat in wait and see mode myself. I am hopeful though. 

[hemma]

McDermott probably feels like he dodged a bullet.

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

27 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

You gotta' earn your way off a list like that.

 

6-10 and one of the VERY worst offenses and special teams in the NFL ain't gonna' do it.

 

But hey......only 7th worst is probably the highest they've been since the 1990's.

[BADOLBILZ]

2 minutes ago, BillsFan4 said:

I totally agree that they have to earn their way off that list, and 6-10 doesn’t really do that(especially to anyone outside of buffalo who probably.t don’t follow the Bills very closely).

 

But personally, I don’t think they arrived at a 6-10 record because of disfunction. 

I think it was more the result of a transition phase of the rebuild and cleaning up the cap for future seasons. 

 

I fully understand why why many are still in wait and see mode though. Although I’m a fan of this new regime and have more confidence in them than pretty much any regime since Polian, I am still somewhat in wait and see mode myself. I am hopeful though. 

 

 

Umm.........I dunno.........from the outside looking in you have to remember that McD punted on Patrick Mahomes and then proceeded to start Nate Peterman in a playoff race and after he set a new NFL low for QB play.........he then kept him and started him in the opener the following season to similar results.     You gotta' be a homer to not understand why observers don't see the Bills handling of the most important positions in sports as particularly well handled.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 hour ago, OldTimeAFLGuy said:

 

..um ok...Pegulas and Haslam in the SAME sentence?........one helluva axe to grind....SMH......

 

Reluctantly I have to concede some similarities:

-both neophyte owners

-have hired and fired multiple coaches and GMs in a relatively short time; have the HC and GM reporting in parallel to them vs empowering the GM as the coach's boss

-I don't believe the Pegulas are reputed to have interfered in the draft process in the hideous Manziel/Haslam sense, but they did reportedly hold "owners meetings" with the players, no coaching staff involved - wasn't there one of them just before Roman got the axe? and they are apparently in the building talking to people regularly

-they appear to have taken over the coaching search from Whaley, possibly 2x (Rex and McDermott)

-they have flown on scouting visits (one to see Allen was notable) and are in the "war room" on draft day

 

Now everyone has to learn and will make mistakes by learning, and that goes for owners too. 

And I like the Pegulas and think Haslam is scuzzy and his peeps took the fall for him.

But the bottom line is, when one tries to look impartially, both are captains of so-far unsuccessful ships whose fans hope this time is different

[BADOLBILZ]

17 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Reluctantly I have to concede some similarities:

-both neophyte owners

-have hired and fired multiple coaches and GMs in a relatively short time; have the HC and GM reporting in parallel to them vs empowering the GM as the coach's boss

-I don't believe the Pegulas are reputed to have interfered in the draft process in the hideous Manziel/Haslam sense, but they did reportedly hold "owners meetings" with the players, no coaching staff involved - wasn't there one of them just before Roman got the axe? and they are apparently in the building talking to people regularly

-they appear to have taken over the coaching search from Whaley, possibly 2x (Rex and McDermott)

-they have flown on scouting visits (one to see Allen was notable) and are in the "war room" on draft day

 

Now everyone has to learn and will make mistakes by learning, and that goes for owners too. 

And I like the Pegulas and think Haslam is scuzzy and his peeps took the fall for him.

But the bottom line is, when one tries to look impartially, both are captains of so-far unsuccessful ships whose fans hope this time is different

 

 

 

 

Yeah those things.

 

And......

 

Would you rather have a Flying J a couple miles from your house or Pegula's JKLM fracking the earth a couple miles from your house?

 

 

 

[BillsFan4]

1 hour ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

Umm.........I dunno.........from the outside looking in you have to remember that McD punted on Patrick Mahomes and then proceeded to start Nate Peterman in a playoff race and after he set a new NFL low for QB play.........he then kept him and started him in the opener the following season to similar results.     You gotta' be a homer to not understand why observers don't see the Bills handling of the most important positions in sports as particularly well handled.

Yeah, the Peterman thing doesn’t look good from the outside, I’ll give you that. But there’s a difference between something not being well handled and something being disfunctional. 

 

I can actually justify Tyrod’s benching. He was coming off a 56 yard performance iirc, and Peterman had been reportedly killing it in practice. Turns out that would be the story with him - great in practice, bad when the lights came on.

 

But that wasn’t known at the time. He had never started a game, so it wasn’t after he set a new NFL low for QB play. It was after he had come in in relief of Tyrod in the New Orleans ass whooping, and he went 7 for 10 and threw the only TD of the day. He actually moved the offense pretty well for the first time that entire game, and was much better than Tyrod (in a very limited showing, obviously). 

 

I also don’t know if there’s any truth to the rumors that Dennison pushed hard for Nate to start. If so, you can’t really blame McDermott for empowering his OC. 

 

Obviously it turned out to be a mistake to start Peterman no matter who’s decision it was. But I wouldn’t say that it showed disfunction. 

 

 

Going into the season with Nate and Allen as your only QBs was also a definite mistake, and Beane has admitted as much. But I don’t really see that as disfunctional either. Just a rookie GM mistake. He was more worried about losing a guy like Foster than he was about the QB depth chart. 

 

 

 

 

 

As for Mahomes, the Bills were far from the only QB needy team to pass on Mahomes. The Browns, 49ers, Bears, Jets and Jaguars all passed on him, and you can even put the Bengals in there too. 

 

He was coming from an air-road offense and seemed to be considered a project by most pre-draft. Now, in hindsight, it looks like everyone was obviously wrong.

 

But hindsight is 20-20. I can’t kill the Bills for that decision because at the time I was happy the Bills traded down and acquired an extra 1st in 2018 - a draft class that I (and many others) considered to be much deeper at QB than 2017. 

 

 

I can also understand why a guy who worked for roughly 20 years training and preparing for his first opportunity as a head coach didn’t want to tie his future to a QB picked by a GM and scouting staff he clearly had little faith in. Especially when I’m sure he knew a new GM was being brought in post draft. Personally, at the time I thought it was a pretty savvy move to pick up an extra 1st in 2018, to take some of the pressure off the new GM to be able to take a swing at his QB in 2018 and still potentially have another 1st round pick to use. 

 

Should the Bills have fired Whaley at the same time as Rex? Maybe. 

 

If you want to argue that passing on a QB in 2017 (not Mahomes specifically, just a QB in general) was a result of disfunction, I can understand that. 

 

 

It was reported that Whaley would finally be allowed to pick his own coach. Then Pegula has dinner with McD and falls in love with him, and McDermott reportedly wasn’t sure he was comfortable betting his head coaching career on Whaley and it sounds like Pegula promised him that he wouldn’t have to if he didn’t end up being comfortable with Whaley.

 

I don’t think the plan was to fire Whaley until McDermott came along and you could view that as the owner being wishy-washy, or maybe overriding his football people. 

 

But I would pin that more on the Pegulas, and on the way Whaley ran things (which is what led to a lot of the disfunction and mcdermott’s desire to replace him), than I would on McDermott. 

 

 

And I was really only referring to the time since McDermott and Beane took over. I think they have done a great job cleaning up a lot of the mess at one bills drive and everything seems to be running smoother than it has in as long as I can remember. 

There was certainly a lot of disfunction at OBD in years past, and I think they’ve done (what looks to be) a pretty good job so far of getting to the root of a lot of those problems. 

 

[NoSaint]

3 hours ago, BillsFan4 said:

In years past I would have easily agreed with the Bills being on this list (and I’d have argued that they should be much higher). But I don’t really see anything that is disfunctional about the Bills these days. Everyone in the building seems in lock step, and all the embarrassing leaks to the press have been plugged. 

 

I guess the Bills still have to prove themselves though. 2 years don’t make up for decades of disfunction.... lol. 

 

Last offseason had zay running naked, Richie incognito, poyer, the McCoy drama and of course peterman named our week 1 starter while Mahomes started his march to the afccg. We opted to make moves to lead the league in dead money. We went backwards in the win loss column but write it off because our owners hired an unproven coach and left him with a lame duck GM until he could hand pick his own guy AFTER free agency and the draft. 

 

We better hope that our star qb that came with his draft night Twitter surprise works out or the legacy might not be as sterling as we hope.

[The Frankish Reich]

12 hours ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

 

Depodesta is lucky to have any job.  His first job as GM in MLB lasted just 2 years with the Dodgers, where he was mocked as "Google Boy". 

 

Het got to a Mets team that would be in the NLCS that year, then it was a steady slide to years of wins in the 70's before they peaked in the WS the year before he left.  The team then crashed and burned again.

 

Luckily for the Browns.  Mayfield was a pick that even that crew and owner could not screw up.

Couldn't disagree more. DePo has had his problems in selling his approach to traditionalists in various settings. But look at the Dodgers.The main criticism of him was for trading fan favorite catcher Paul LoDuca. He wound up (with another deal) getting pitcher Brad Penney, who was good for several years, and CF Steve Finley, who went on a tear and vaulted them into the playoffs in the year the trade was made. Why did he dump LoDuca? Later on, the Mitchell Report was released. DePo knew from sources that LoDuca was juicing, and that the juicing was responsible for his weird (not that weird at the time) increase in power in prior years. He also knew that LoDuca was done juicing, perhaps because testing was on the way. So he pulled the trigger. LoDuca had hit as many as 25 HRs in a season while juicing. Post-trade, he never even made it into double digits again. Likewise, his Mets deals were perfectly defensible, and his Browns decisions (he's often credited with figuring out how to game the cap with the Brock Osweiler deal) have resulted in the best accumulation of young talent in the whole NFL. If the Browns fire him, he'll find another job. Fast.