ROCKPILE REVIEW - Bengals and 2022 Wrap-Up

[Shaw66]

8 minutes ago, Inigo Montoya said:

@Shaw66

 

Great write up.

 

The biggest thing is to just keep making it into the playoffs and then it's anyone's ballgame.  You can't account for the odd bounces that occur during a playoff run.  It takes a talented team and a lot of luck to win a Super Bowl.

 

If the Bills can keep making it into the tournament they will eventually have luck break their way and they will win one.  It's Beane and McDermott's job to keep that roster competitive so they keep making it into the final eight.  If they can do that eventually lightning will strike.

 

 

LUCK!  I didn't mention luck.   It takes more than you say, but you are right that the key to winning the Super Bowl is getting into the tournament.  Yes, good to get a bye and homefield, good to have this, good to have that, but really it's about getting there and figuring out from there.  

8 minutes ago, Nephilim17 said:

I'll disagree here. Does "a lot more" have to happen than a vastly upgraded O-line and good pass rush? I don't think so. 

 

I don't agree that's enough.  In particular, I think much better work by the OC and DC was needed.  By late in the season, teams knew how to stop the Bills and how to move the ball on them, and the Bills never responded effectively.  

 

As I said, yes, you can pick one thing and you'll be right, that needs work.  But it's simply more complex than that.  Especially from season to season - fixing last season's problem doesn't do anything to help you with the things that worked last season but don't work next season.  Everything keeps changing. 

[EasternOHBillsFan]

7 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

What it takes to win a Super Bowl is a complex, almost unknowable combination of factors, many of which are completely or largely outside the control the General Manager and the coaches.  The extreme example was the COVID pandemic season, when the rules that governed practice, travel, and schedule all changed and kept changing throughout the season.  Teams had to figure out on the fly how to accomplish the training and preparation necessary to play the game at a high level under circumstances they’d never seen before.  Even short of that extreme, the variables are constantly changing, and each team is challenged to respond.  Coaches keep experimenting with approaches to offense, trying to find ways to move the ball consistently and score, and as they do, defensive coaches adjust their approach to defense.  What works changes from year to year, even from month to month.  Players come and go, with a quarter to a third of the players on the roster changing annually, and as the players change, the things the team can do effectively on the field change.  The process, from April through February, is like 75 people trying to complete a giant jigsaw puzzle while the picture being built is changing before their eyes. 

 

Under Sean McDermott, the Bills are enjoying great success.  There is no reason to complain about him or his abilities, not yet.  Ten, thirteen, eleven, and thirteen wins in the past four seasons, four and five in the playoffs.  Andy Reid won his first conference championship game in his sixth year and didn’t win another one until more than ten years later.  Zac Taylor has already lost a Super Bowl and a Conference Championship game.  Sean McVay is looking more lucky than good.  Kyle Shanahan doesn’t have a Lombardi.  

 

#1. If you haven't seen Glass Onion yet, go see it! Your puzzle analogy hit the nail on the head... the dominance of the Patriots masked the insane number of teams that have won the Super Bowl since 2000- Ravens, Bucs, Colts, Saints, Seahawks, Chiefs, Rams, Eagles, Steelers, Giants and Packers. That's ELEVEN different champions! Anyways, the puzzles in that movie is what it is like... whoever solves the puzzles wins!

 

#2. Coaching is definitely not easy at all, but to have the type of fatal defensive wounds in the playoffs we have had must come at a higher cost than just firing a safeties coach. The winning teams make adjustments and aren't afraid to make changes... and it seems like the Bills are not willing to do that.

[HomeTeam]

8 hours ago, Success said:

Great post & thoughts.

 

The question around "what it takes to win a Super Bowl" is one that is vexing - it's much more of a mystery to me now than it was when I first started watching football, and really, for decades after that.  You have to have a very good or great team, of course - but there are injuries, psychological factors, "getting hot at the right time," et al.  On the latter, I felt we did in '20 for sure, and also in '21 to an extent.  We were derailed in '20 by injuries to the receiving corps., and last year by bad coaching decisions with less than a quarter of a minute to go. 

 

This year, we had the unfortunate luck of playing the team that "got hot at the right time."  I'll always wonder how it all would have gone if Huntley didn't try that leap to the endzone from the 2.

 

And no doubt - this team was emotionally spent.  People will say that all teams deal w/ adversity, and winning a title is about overcoming that - but adversity can hit a critical mass at a certain point.

 

I hate to say this but it just makes you appreciate what the Patriots did winning all those Superbowls over the years. It's hard enough to win one. 

[Shaw66]

1 hour ago, EasternOHBillsFan said:

 

#1. If you haven't seen Glass Onion yet, go see it! Your puzzle analogy hit the nail on the head... the dominance of the Patriots masked the insane number of teams that have won the Super Bowl since 2000- Ravens, Bucs, Colts, Saints, Seahawks, Chiefs, Rams, Eagles, Steelers, Giants and Packers. That's ELEVEN different champions! Anyways, the puzzles in that movie is what it is like... whoever solves the puzzles wins!

 

#2. Coaching is definitely not easy at all, but to have the type of fatal defensive wounds in the playoffs we have had must come at a higher cost than just firing a safeties coach. The winning teams make adjustments and aren't afraid to make changes... and it seems like the Bills are not willing to do that.

Can't say I liked Glass Onion all that much, but the puzzle analogy to the movie is pretty good.  

 

Don't be so sure about your #2.  McDermott will watch film, and he won't like he sees.   Changes will come.   McDermott is NOT a my-way-or-the-highway guy.  

[Success]

5 minutes ago, HomeTeam said:

I hate to say this but it just makes you appreciate what the Patriots did winning all those Superbowls over the years. It's hard enough to win one. 

 

I've seen a few dozen chest-beating Pats fans say this online since the Bills lost - but it's the truth.  They did have a slightly easier conference , and a MUCH easier division.  But winning a SB is amazingly hard, and they did it 6x (and went to 9).  Crazy.

 

[HomeTeam]

5 hours ago, LABILLBACKER said:

Shaw, you're like a fine wine. You get better with age. Another excellent and accurate end of season commentary.  We start out 2-0 outscoring two playoff teams 72-17. Then Micah gets hurt. Then half the team gets heat exhaustion in 120° Miami.  And all of a sudden our swagger was gone. I'm not going to go into everything that happened after the heat game bur clearly this was not meant to be our year.  Maybe like you said we don't have the answers.  With Josh we'll always be competitive every season.  This team needs to take a deep breathe, reset and with some new players comes new hope. Hopefully the coaching can improve enough for better playoff performances. 

We need to stop taking Josh Allen for granted, we already ask too much from him.  It's not sustainable.  Do can't honestly expect Josh Allen to evade the pocket and truck over defenders well into his ladder years. He needs better protection and he needs to evolve his game to make faster reads and take less contact. 

 

I'm afraid he's going to turn out like Cam Newton. 

[GoBills808]

7 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

The difference in these situations is they didn't have Josh Allen at QB. That's why I'm growing impatient with this regime. We have an elite QB and haven't even sniffed a Super Bowl appearance yet. I mean last year Josh Allen arguably had the greatest postseason run of any QB in history and we didn't even make it out of the divisional round. Why? Because our defensive head coach's defense fell apart yet again, and a huge coaching mistake cost us in the final 13 seconds of the game. I can't look at that outcome and what happened this year and compare it to Kyle Shanahan leading a who's who of mediocre QBs to a Super Bowl and conference championship. The Chiefs have now made it to 3 Super Bowls and always the conference championship since Mahomes took over. Mahomes may be better than Allen but he isn't that much better. The difference is coaching on both sides of the ball and at the top.

 

So McDermott gets another year to prove he can finally adapt to playoff football. But I won't have any great expectations regardless of how the team looks in the regular season. We have seen them falter when it counts too many times and I have to start thinking that maybe that's just who this team is under McDermott. A team that wins a lot of games because of elite QB play but never gets over the hump.

 

As usual your posts are much appreciated.

This x10

 

McDermott and his staff are irrelevant to winning a Super Bowl at this point. It's been shown they cannot be relied upon in the postseason.

 

Get an offensive guy in there at HC and hire a DC who doesn't need 10 first round picks to make his scheme work. Getting blown out of an AFCCG as your biggest accomplishment with prime Josh Allen is borderline malpractice.

[Shaw66]

18 minutes ago, HomeTeam said:

 

I'm afraid he's going to turn out like Cam Newton. 

I'm not.  He's already better than Newton ever was.  

 

And he's already won more playoff games.  

[HappyDays]

4 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

Happy - the problem with your plan, although I like it, is that it likely would require dismantling the roster.   It would mean a rebuild - not a full rebuild, but as the style changes to suit the coordinators, the players necessarily must change.  So you have to weigh that against letting McDermott continue to build on his scheme.  

 

I don't think it would require a rebuild. We aren't in cap jail and Beane hasn't been loose with future picks. It would probably take what it took Siranni when he took over the Eagles, one year of fine tuning the roster but nothing crazy. Our defensive scheme isn't so complicated that we have accumulated specific types of players that only work in one scheme. It's just Tampa 2 with a lot of double A gap looks. Our core of Milano, Edmunds, Hyde, White, Elam, Rousseau, and Miller fit into pretty much any 4-3 or nickel heavy scheme.

 

On offense we need a rebuild no matter who our coach is in 2024. Our current core consists of Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs and to some extent Dawson Knox. Dawkins has fallen off a bit, Morse will probably not be here beyond next year, Davis and Brown haven't developed to the level we hoped. If McDermott can't get it done next year I would rather have the next guy in the room making decisions about the future of the offense.

 

I think the idea of a multi-year rebuild is only for teams that are looking for their franchise QB. We got the most difficult part out of the way. To McDermott and Beane I say thanks for all you did getting us Josh Allen and you made millions of dollars each for that success, but now as a franchise we need to take the next step and I'm losing faith they can get us there.

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by HappyDays

[First Round Bust]

10 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

Well, I'm not.  I just don't know enough to comment much.  I said the coaches didn't respond well to what teams were doing to them.  

 

Given McDermott's success as aHC so far, I'll leave it to him to figure out what to do.  Like I said, it isn't easy to do what they're trying to do.  31 teams fail at it every year, and no one other Belichick has won a lot of Super Bowls. 

and has not won a playoff game since Brady left...

[LABILLBACKER]

2 hours ago, HomeTeam said:

We need to stop taking Josh Allen for granted, we already ask too much from him.  It's not sustainable.  Do can't honestly expect Josh Allen to evade the pocket and truck over defenders well into his ladder years. He needs better protection and he needs to evolve his game to make faster reads and take less contact. 

 

I'm afraid he's going to turn out like Cam Newton. 

We've already managed to waste his 5 "rookie deal" years.  Now if our defensive HC can only realize the value of protecting and surrounding JA with better OFFENSIVE players, maybe he'll stand a chance.  At least this supporting cast will be on rookie deals. Let's not screw that up too.

[Nextmanup]

Shaw, you use a lot of words here to basically rationalize the Bengals loss as simply the outcome of one game.  A single one-on-one matchup that didn't quite happen to fall our way.  Compared to a large sample size, this is trivial and the big picture is that we are still a great team.  You effectively seem to think the Bengals game is useless in deterring future success of the Bills.

 

You aren't alone with this idea.  Most Bills fans right now fall into either your camp, or my camp...

My theory is that sure, you can look at the Bengals loss in this way.  Or you can look a bit deeper and realize that we weren't simply bested on a single day in a single outcome.  We were out-classed by a superior team with superior coaching/coordination.  Play the game another 9 times for 10 total, and I think the Bills win maybe 1 or 2 tops.  

 

Are the Bills going to be a 5 win team next year? Do we need to be totally reconstructed? No, of course not.  I am predicting a slight regression for next year, but we'll win a lot of games and make the playoffs again.  And when push comes to shove, and we have to beat the best teams with the best coaching in playoff football, most likely on the road, we'll lose again.

 

Once this happens enough, people are going to start to agree: "Hey, maybe it's the coach."

 

Remember, our roster is a product of our coach and his dated, defensive approach to the game.  It's not just about coaching, though when it comes to that, he's average in in-game circumstances.

 

If it makes you feel better to dismiss another lost season down to a single day that didn't go our way, what can I say?  Wait a while.  See how it plays out.  At some point, you'll be switching to the other camp.

 

As I have now mentioned for the third off-season in a row, you would think at some point, Pegula is going to have to ask himself if what we have is good enough.  This won't be the offseason for that question (again), but the day is hopefully coming.

 

 

 

 

 

[Pirate Angel]

12 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

 

As the Bills lost to the Bengals in the AFC Divisional Round, I wasn’t ready to step off the ledge.  I hoped they’d win, but I expected they wouldn’t.  I hoped a truly competitive playoff team would emerge in January, but I hadn’t seen much evidence of that kind of dominance in December.  It wasn’t their year.

 

I guess I’ve mellowed.  Worst case, I’m losing interest, but I don’t think that’s the case.  I had tickets and a hotel in Atlanta, and I had a hotel and a rental car in Arizona.  I was interested.

 

For now, however, I think less than I used to about what went wrong and what needs to be fixed than in past years.  I have developed a healthy respect for all of the things I don’t know about football, and I no longer can pretend that I see that one thing the Bills need to fix to get over the top.  If it were easy enough for a guy sitting in his family room to figure that out, someone in Orchard Park would have done it already. 

 

What it takes to win a Super Bowl is a complex, almost unknowable combination of factors, many of which are completely or largely outside the control the General Manager and the coaches.  The extreme example was the COVID pandemic season, when the rules that governed practice, travel, and schedule all changed and kept changing throughout the season.  Teams had to figure out on the fly how to accomplish the training and preparation necessary to play the game at a high level under circumstances they’d never seen before.  Even short of that extreme, the variables are constantly changing, and each team is challenged to respond.  Coaches keep experimenting with approaches to offense, trying to find ways to move the ball consistently and score, and as they do, defensive coaches adjust their approach to defense.  What works changes from year to year, even from month to month.  Players come and go, with a quarter to a third of the players on the roster changing annually, and as the players change, the things the team can do effectively on the field change.  The process, from April through February, is like 75 people trying to complete a giant jigsaw puzzle while the picture being built is changing before their eyes. 

 

In that kind of environment, just getting to the point where your team is one of the half dozen that have gotten good enough to compete in the playoffs is a major accomplishment.  The winner will be the team that can keep growing and building a team that can play at increasing levels of physicality. 

 

The winners also invariably talk about how the team is a family, how much they care for each other.  Some people think it’s a cliché, but it’s said so regularly that I’m sure it’s true.  The winners must come together, not just physically and technically, but emotionally, as well. 

 

It is amazingly difficult and unpredictable, and every year the winning players and coaches are justifiably proud of what they’ve accomplished.  And there’s no shame in falling short.

 

The Bills fell short.  I think the emotional roller coaster of the Bills’ 2022 season was too much to overcome.  That is, it simply couldn’t be expected that they could accomplish all of the technical things – the training, the study, the learning, the teamwork, the offense and defense growth and development, the insertion of inexperienced players, like Hamlin, Jaquon Johnson, and others into the lineup – all of that and more, while struggling with the extraordinary events of the 2022 season.  The Bills were central to or lived through three national news stories:  the Topps murders, the blizzard, and Damar Hamlin.  Those events were, at the least, big distractions, and more likely difficult and draining once-in-a-lifetime emotional challenges.  And they lived through Kim Pegula’s health issues and the death of Dawson Knox’s brother. 

 

On field, what went wrong?  Plenty, I’m sure.  Josh Allen didn’t have an MVP season.  Teams figured out how to slow down the Bills’ offense and how to attack their defense, and the coaches didn’t implement strategies and tactics to counter what opponents were doing.  Losing Micah Hyde for almost the entire season was a major blow; he more than anyone else is key to the Bills’ defensive scheme.  Losing Von Miller for the late-season and playoff run hurt the pass rush, as did the failure of Greg Rousseau, Ed Oliver, and others to develop as defensive threats on their own.  The offensive line was not nearly effective enough. 

 

If I had to point to one factor in the Bills’ playoff loss to the Bengals, I’d say “pass rush.”  The real difference in the game was that Joe Burrows regularly had time to throw, and Josh Allen didn’t.  One play stands out for me: I believe it was Allen’s incomplete pass deep to Diggs up the left side on third and four, the Bills’ first possession of the game.   Allen was flushed out of the pocket to the right, found Diggs, and threw.  Diggs was open, but Allen threw the flat deep ball that we saw a lot from him in his early years.  He had plenty of room to throw to open space toward the middle of the field, and Diggs could easily have adjusted to get there.  The right throw would have been completed for a big gain or possibly a touchdown.  Allen didn’t have time, and when QBs don’t have time they rush their throws. 

 

Under Sean McDermott, the Bills are enjoying great success.  There is no reason to complain about him or his abilities, not yet.  Ten, thirteen, eleven, and thirteen wins in the past four seasons, four and five in the playoffs.  Andy Reid won his first conference championship game in his sixth year and didn’t win another one until more than ten years later.  Zac Taylor has already lost a Super Bowl and a Conference Championship game.  Sean McVay is looking more lucky than good.  Kyle Shanahan doesn’t have a Lombardi.  

 

The sports news media, particularly one Associated Press article after the Bengals game, made a big deal about the Bills going “all in” to win the Super Bowl this season.  That’s simply wrong.  Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott have always been very clear that their objective is sustained, long-term success.  The Rams went went “all in” last season, trading for Von Miller in his free agent season, signing Odell Beckham, and it paid off for them.  Then they collapsed.  The Bills signed Miller to a six-year deal, with the likelihood that he’ll play at least three.  The Bills made no short-term plays to win it all this season. 

 

The Bills have become a dominant team in the NFL, a team that should be in the mix to win the Super Bowl for years to come.  It didn’t happen in the 2022 season, and that’s disappointing, but it’s easy to see that things simply didn’t fall together the right way this season.  Now, they’re in the process of building for next season.

With the amount of injuries we had throughout the season im surprised we won as much as we did, I know we are supposed to come here and demand firings but that is a credit to the coaching staff.  

[nosejob]

16 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

Uh, okay.  Who said he's a victim?  And to suggest that he keeps Frazier around to have a scapegoat is truly ridiculous.  McDermott wants to win, so he knowingly keeps a DC around who can't win?   That's truly ridiculous, meaning worthy of ridicule. 

It appears that way.

[Artful Dodger]

17 hours ago, Just in Atlanta said:

Nice write up. 

To me, if there is one thing to point to that made the biggest impact, it wasn't the pass rush, it was our DC's scheme. Our CBs were lined up 10 yards from their receivers on most plays. Against a QB well-known for his quick release. Holes everywhere. 

 

It was like we were trying to prevent the "big" play. But all the Bengals needed was one 10 yard pass after another. Over and over. 

 

Truly awful strategy. Add that to a masterful scheme from Lou Anarumo that took our rookie OC to school, and you have a recipe for a meltdown. 

 

Is this how you play when you don't trust your safeties? If a fully healthy Hyde and Poyer had played, the tactics might have been very different.  The coaches can be faulted for not recognizing that playing off the ball wasn't working and then changing tactics, though the Bengals did score half their points on the first two possessions. 

[Drew21PA]

19 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

 

As the Bills lost to the Bengals in the AFC Divisional Round, I wasn’t ready to step off the ledge.  I hoped they’d win, but I expected they wouldn’t.  I hoped a truly competitive playoff team would emerge in January, but I hadn’t seen much evidence of that kind of dominance in December.  It wasn’t their year.

 

I guess I’ve mellowed.  Worst case, I’m losing interest, but I don’t think that’s the case.  I had tickets and a hotel in Atlanta, and I had a hotel and a rental car in Arizona.  I was interested.

 

For now, however, I think less than I used to about what went wrong and what needs to be fixed than in past years.  I have developed a healthy respect for all of the things I don’t know about football, and I no longer can pretend that I see that one thing the Bills need to fix to get over the top.  If it were easy enough for a guy sitting in his family room to figure that out, someone in Orchard Park would have done it already. 

 

What it takes to win a Super Bowl is a complex, almost unknowable combination of factors, many of which are completely or largely outside the control the General Manager and the coaches.  The extreme example was the COVID pandemic season, when the rules that governed practice, travel, and schedule all changed and kept changing throughout the season.  Teams had to figure out on the fly how to accomplish the training and preparation necessary to play the game at a high level under circumstances they’d never seen before.  Even short of that extreme, the variables are constantly changing, and each team is challenged to respond.  Coaches keep experimenting with approaches to offense, trying to find ways to move the ball consistently and score, and as they do, defensive coaches adjust their approach to defense.  What works changes from year to year, even from month to month.  Players come and go, with a quarter to a third of the players on the roster changing annually, and as the players change, the things the team can do effectively on the field change.  The process, from April through February, is like 75 people trying to complete a giant jigsaw puzzle while the picture being built is changing before their eyes. 

 

In that kind of environment, just getting to the point where your team is one of the half dozen that have gotten good enough to compete in the playoffs is a major accomplishment.  The winner will be the team that can keep growing and building a team that can play at increasing levels of physicality. 

 

The winners also invariably talk about how the team is a family, how much they care for each other.  Some people think it’s a cliché, but it’s said so regularly that I’m sure it’s true.  The winners must come together, not just physically and technically, but emotionally, as well. 

 

It is amazingly difficult and unpredictable, and every year the winning players and coaches are justifiably proud of what they’ve accomplished.  And there’s no shame in falling short.

 

The Bills fell short.  I think the emotional roller coaster of the Bills’ 2022 season was too much to overcome.  That is, it simply couldn’t be expected that they could accomplish all of the technical things – the training, the study, the learning, the teamwork, the offense and defense growth and development, the insertion of inexperienced players, like Hamlin, Jaquon Johnson, and others into the lineup – all of that and more, while struggling with the extraordinary events of the 2022 season.  The Bills were central to or lived through three national news stories:  the Topps murders, the blizzard, and Damar Hamlin.  Those events were, at the least, big distractions, and more likely difficult and draining once-in-a-lifetime emotional challenges.  And they lived through Kim Pegula’s health issues and the death of Dawson Knox’s brother. 

 

On field, what went wrong?  Plenty, I’m sure.  Josh Allen didn’t have an MVP season.  Teams figured out how to slow down the Bills’ offense and how to attack their defense, and the coaches didn’t implement strategies and tactics to counter what opponents were doing.  Losing Micah Hyde for almost the entire season was a major blow; he more than anyone else is key to the Bills’ defensive scheme.  Losing Von Miller for the late-season and playoff run hurt the pass rush, as did the failure of Greg Rousseau, Ed Oliver, and others to develop as defensive threats on their own.  The offensive line was not nearly effective enough. 

 

If I had to point to one factor in the Bills’ playoff loss to the Bengals, I’d say “pass rush.”  The real difference in the game was that Joe Burrows regularly had time to throw, and Josh Allen didn’t.  One play stands out for me: I believe it was Allen’s incomplete pass deep to Diggs up the left side on third and four, the Bills’ first possession of the game.   Allen was flushed out of the pocket to the right, found Diggs, and threw.  Diggs was open, but Allen threw the flat deep ball that we saw a lot from him in his early years.  He had plenty of room to throw to open space toward the middle of the field, and Diggs could easily have adjusted to get there.  The right throw would have been completed for a big gain or possibly a touchdown.  Allen didn’t have time, and when QBs don’t have time they rush their throws. 

 

Under Sean McDermott, the Bills are enjoying great success.  There is no reason to complain about him or his abilities, not yet.  Ten, thirteen, eleven, and thirteen wins in the past four seasons, four and five in the playoffs.  Andy Reid won his first conference championship game in his sixth year and didn’t win another one until more than ten years later.  Zac Taylor has already lost a Super Bowl and a Conference Championship game.  Sean McVay is looking more lucky than good.  Kyle Shanahan doesn’t have a Lombardi.  

 

The sports news media, particularly one Associated Press article after the Bengals game, made a big deal about the Bills going “all in” to win the Super Bowl this season.  That’s simply wrong.  Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott have always been very clear that their objective is sustained, long-term success.  The Rams went went “all in” last season, trading for Von Miller in his free agent season, signing Odell Beckham, and it paid off for them.  Then they collapsed.  The Bills signed Miller to a six-year deal, with the likelihood that he’ll play at least three.  The Bills made no short-term plays to win it all this season. 

 

The Bills have become a dominant team in the NFL, a team that should be in the mix to win the Super Bowl for years to come.  It didn’t happen in the 2022 season, and that’s disappointing, but it’s easy to see that things simply didn’t fall together the right way this season.  Now, they’re in the process of building for next season.

Everyone wants to blame someone - me included.  I need more patience I guess.  I get it - championships are hard but you can’t deny that collectively we are thinking “great!  Just a Buffalo sports thing to do!!!  Miss the boat again!!!”

[SoCal Deek]

I’m far less optimistic than Shaw. This was the year for the Bills to at least make it to the Super Bowl, if not win it. They had everything going for them. They’d earned the right to play at home, including NOT going to Arrowhead. They had adversity at their backs, NOT in front of them. They’d be playing three significantly wounded AFC opponents to get there. They’d acquired the experience of the last few years playoff heartbreaks. All of that pointed to a run for a championship! But nope, their coaches were lost in the moment. They didn’t properly prepare the team to win in the circumstances. The players were exhausted? Hardly! The coaches (who’s job it is to keep that from happening) let the players down BIG TIME. 

[Shaw66]

8 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

I don't think it would require a rebuild. We aren't in cap jail and Beane hasn't been loose with future picks. It would probably take what it took Siranni when he took over the Eagles, one year of fine tuning the roster but nothing crazy. Our defensive scheme isn't so complicated that we have accumulated specific types of players that only work in one scheme. It's just Tampa 2 with a lot of double A gap looks. Our core of Milano, Edmunds, Hyde, White, Elam, Rousseau, and Miller fit into pretty much any 4-3 or nickel heavy scheme.

 

On offense we need a rebuild no matter who our coach is in 2024. Our current core consists of Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs and to some extent Dawson Knox. Dawkins has fallen off a bit, Morse will probably not be here beyond next year, Davis and Brown haven't developed to the level we hoped. If McDermott can't get it done next year I would rather have the next guy in the room making decisions about the future of the offense.

 

I think the idea of a multi-year rebuild is only for teams that are looking for their franchise QB. We got the most difficult part out of the way. To McDermott and Beane I say thanks for all you did getting us Josh Allen and you made millions of dollars each for that success, but now as a franchise we need to take the next step and I'm losing faith they can get us there.

 

Happy,

 

First, i really enjoy talking with you about these things.  We've done it before.   You have excellent things to say, this quoted text very much included. 

 

It was eye-opening to me and on the money to say the whole offensive lineup is going to be rebuilt.  So true.  Keep Allen and Diggs and one or two others, but by 2024 there will be a lot of new faces.   A bright offensive coordinator genius would say, "give me those two and a couple more, we'll add what I want, and let's go!"

 

On the defense, however, I think there's more of a rebuild coming than you said, or that I thought.  There are going to be new safeties.  I think there are fewer keepers on the line than you think, especially if the defensive philosophy is going to change.   Rousseau and his young friends are too passive, don't attack and win enough.   They play that way because of the scheme, but if McDermott is gone, there would be a modern scheme, and the line would change.  And I'm an Edmunds fan, but I don't think there'd be much reason to keep him if you aren't playing a lot of Tampa Two and its variants.  In fact, if you're going to pull the trigger on McDermott, now would be the time to do it, before they write a big check for Edmunds.   Sig, signing Edmunds and then bringing in a new coach would just create more of a cap problem.  

 

Still, I think your point is valid.  Replacing McDermott now could very well be a better way to go, given that there's going to be significant roster turnover, whoever is running the show.  

 

As I think about it, I think there's another reason to stick with the current regime, and that is because the league is changing so much from year to year.  There clearly was a resurgence of running as core strategy on offense around the league this season.  The passing attacks keep evolving.  I think a team will always be two steps behind if it builds roster to respond to what teams succeeded with last season.  The Bills' statistical dominance demonstrates the benefit of McDermott's all-purpose approach - the Bills try to be good at stopping whatever the other team does, and they do it very well.  Football Outsiders said the 2022 Bills were one of only five teams ever to be in the top five in DVOA on offense, defense, and special teams (although they would have made top five on special teams except for two kickoff returns for touchdowns in the last game).  What McDermott is doing clearly works, at least in the regular season.  The question is whether it's possible to win the Super Bowl like that, where you run into teams that are very, very good at some things.

 

I think the Bills have the wrong defensive coordinator.  I think they need a more creative guy who pushes McDermott to let the DC add more aggressive, attacking wrinkles to what's almost purely bend-don't-break.  I don't know about Dorsey - I didn't like Daboll early one, either, but he progressed well.  Watching the Giants in the playoffs, and how smoothly their offense operated, I wondered how much better the Bills offense would have been with Daboll on board in 2022.  

9 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

I’m far less optimistic than Shaw. This was the year for the Bills to at least make it to the Super Bowl, if not win it. They had everything going for them. They’d earned the right to play at home, including NOT going to Arrowhead. They had adversity at their backs, NOT in front of them. They’d be playing three significantly wounded AFC opponents to get there. They’d acquired the experience of the last few years playoff heartbreaks. All of that pointed to a run for a championship! But nope, their coaches were lost in the moment. They didn’t properly prepare the team to win in the circumstances. The players were exhausted? Hardly! The coaches (who’s job it is to keep that from happening) let the players down BIG TIME. 

What did the coaching have to with the Bills entire starting defensive line rotation healthy (except Miller), the Bengals playing THREE backup offensive linemen, and when the Bills rushed four, no one sniffed Burrows?   Some of those eight are supposed to be good enough to beat backup linemen and hit the quarterback.   They didn't need coaches to do that. 

[SoCal Deek]

5 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

 

What did the coaching have to with the Bills entire starting defensive line rotation healthy (except Miller), the Bengals playing THREE backup offensive linemen, and when the Bills rushed four, no one sniffed Burrows?   Some of those eight are supposed to be good enough to beat backup linemen and hit the quarterback.   They didn't need coaches to do that. 

Shaw, your response answered it quite nicely. Unless the Bills fielded an entire roster of total losers (which I do not believe) then it is indeed up to the coaches to prepare them. The Bengals coaches clearly did! Von Miller’s been missing for a month. This was NOT the 49ers losing their starting quarterback in the first quarter. 
 

The Bills were simply not ready to play…period. A huge opportunity totally wasted.

[Shaw66]

5 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

 

The Bills were simply not ready to play…period. A huge opportunity totally wasted.

And as I stated at the outset, I think it was more or less impossible to get them ready to play, under the circumstances of the previous 8 months, 2 months, and 3 weeks.  Coaches weren't ready to coach, players weren't ready to play.