Tyler Dunne story on McDermott - 3 parts, 25 interviews, one damning conclusion

[I'm Spartacus]

McDermott needs to stop being everybody's guidance counselor and teacher. Concentrate on improving your own in-game management skills and win those close games we seem to keep losing. If he wants to be a motivational speaker and teacher, he's in the wrong business. I just don't like the guys demeanor. He's NOT the smartest guy in the room.

[Billsfan1972]

36 minutes ago, Cray51 said:

Bills were 9-7 without Allen in Sean’s first year…. You call in miracle birth, I call it maximizing what he could from a terrible roster

 

You’re right, let’s bring Bill B in here, win super bowls, and then we can just ignore that he is a bigger control freak than Sean

 

or bring in Harbaugh, who just was suspended for cheating 

 

or bring in a guy from the Shanahan tree, who is known as one of the biggest asses in the league 

 

they are all saints.  

I want none of them.  The point is I'm not a football junky and knew absolutely nothing about McD when he was hired.  I watch the game and have enough knowledge to decide whether he's doing a good job or not.  The in game decisions are often horrible and 13 seconds & 12 men 100% inexcusable. 

 

He was however the Bills coach and I was going to cheer him on.  I quickly lost faith in him and he has done nothing to restore it.

[BADOLBILZ]

11 minutes ago, Man with No Name said:

Here is the thing about Nick S. He is smarter than McD. I believe he played a huge part in developing a game plan to almost beat us in the playoffs with a far inferior team. Josh had to play like superman with huge plays from unlikely heroes like Gabe Davis to come out with that win. I grew up near Nick, from a different town, and this description of him doesn't surprise me, though disappointing. I thought he would have changed from the person he was as a high school kid. I know I've changed a lot since then. Though maybe having so much success isn't great for bringing humility to a person. 

 

Neither is a genius but Sirianni is not smarter than McD.   Just listen to his introductory PC as an Eagle.   NOT a smart guy.

 

Sirianni has considerably more talent on his team and plays in a much easier conference.

 

The biggest difference is that he entered into the job with an experienced, SB-winning GM who was at the top of his game.   He is a puppet for Howie.   When Howie is done with him it will be swift and painless for him to replace Sirianni.   And if you think the stuff about McD sounds dumb wait for what they say after Sirianni gets canned.......you already see the meat headed behavior on the sideline that will only be magnified behind the scenes.

 

McD, by contrast, came in with Beane.........who was an outright terrible work-in-progress to start.    Beane is just now rounding into form as a personnel man but the horse is out of the barn here wrt the salary cap because of Beane's terrible start.   

[Wayne Arnold]

2 minutes ago, Process said:

I'm sure coaches talk crap about each other all the time. We just don't see three part hit pieces being written mid season going after a current HC in the middle of a playoff run. 

 

Can't emphasize enough how big a loser Ty Dunne is. 

 

He's a loser for doing his job? And doing it well enough to cause this much heat?

[mikemac2001]

2 minutes ago, Process said:

I'm sure coaches talk crap about each other all the time. We just don't see three part hit pieces being written mid season going after a current HC in the middle of a playoff run. 

 

Can't emphasize enough how big a loser Ty Dunne is. 

Ya and I am sure you can find old employees anywhere who will not use there name and talk crap about there old boss management 

 

it’s def a hit piece and it looks like he launched it with his own website and subscription so even dirtier 

[Wayne Arnold]

40 minutes ago, Cray51 said:

Bills were 9-7 without Allen in Sean’s first year…. You call in miracle birth, I call it maximizing what he could from a terrible roster

 

You’re right, let’s bring Bill B in here, win super bowls, and then we can just ignore that he is a bigger control freak than Sean

 

or bring in Harbaugh, who just was suspended for cheating 

 

or bring in a guy from the Shanahan tree, who is known as one of the biggest asses in the league 

 

they are all saints.  

 

Why are those the only options? There are more talented coaches in this sport than at any time in history. And we have one of the greatest players on the planet in his prime in the most important position in sports.

 

We have our pick of the litter. We've never in this position before. TAKE ADVANTAGE.

[Cray51]

2 minutes ago, Billsfan1972 said:

I want none of them.  The point is I'm not a football junky and knew absolutely nothing about McD when he was hired.  I watch the game and have enough knowledge to decide whether he's doing a good job or not.  The in game decisions are often horrible and 13 seconds & 12 men 100% inexcusable. 

 

He was however the Bills coach and I was going to cheer him on.  I quickly lost faith in him and he has done nothing to restore it.

I agree there is valid criticism for Sean in certain components of his coaching.  I think he has not handled quick twitch decision making well, which may be the thing we need to be able to grow as a team.

 

I just struggle to see where we find any potential replacement that doesn't carry large risk associated.  Unless you get someone like Bill B, who I think would bring some serious talent on the D side, but carries heavy baggage as well.

[Billsfan1972]

48 minutes ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

I’m not trying to defend 911 Sean but to pretend like Allen was this version of Allen right away is completely misleading. Allen was brought along slowly and had a very good defense to help him settle into the job. The Bills did a great job developing him the right way. And since 911 Sean was the head coach, he deserves credit for that.

And I will disagree and thought his development was way too slow and they should have done a better job the first two years in allowing him to succeed. 

 

Am I right?  No one knows, but that is my opinion. 

 

I made the statement on another thread that "why couldn't Allen have been thrown into the fire and given the "keys" like Stroud".  I was given all the excuses in the world, and maybe Allen wouldn't have been as successful, but I think he would have been farther ahead.

 

However if McD was coaching Stroud I am 100% convinced he's be no where near performing as he is now as McD would preach "complementary football" and not letting him pass as much.

 

No 300 yard passing games the first three years McD coached.  That is just an unbelievable stat, that no modern day coach has ever approached (95%+ of teams do it by accident at least once a year).  Do you not remember how many blow-outs there were McD's first two years and the complete inability to comeback if down 10 points?

Edited December 8, 2023 by Billsfan1972

[Royale with Cheese]

19 minutes ago, Einstein said:

 

 

This is alarming to me.

 

The Daboll thing I looked at as sometimes that happens.  Some people just don't get along for whatever reason.

 

But when it's this many, its a gigantic.  

 

The only positive way you can look at this situation is if McDermott looks in the mirror and sees himself as the root issue.  He knows everything that is being said about him.  He probably has an idea who Dunne interviewed.  This is how you are viewed amongst your peers....this is not the look you want.

[dpberr]

11 hours ago, Beck Water said:

 

Why do you think Bills corporate had to know about an article an Independent self-employed journalist who is not credentialed by the Bills and is not working inside the Bills facilities has written?

There's always information and gossip flowing between agents and front offices.  A lot of football (and in any industry IMO) is built on personal relationships between people.    

 

I'm not suggesting that Bills corporate could completely stop it in any way, but they almost certainly knew this article was being written and probably could have gotten some Bills corporate perspective included in the article.  

 

I don't think Ty Dunne would ever see one his articles published about the complete disappearance of the Bills CEO from public life, Leslie Frazier's odd departure, why Damar Hamelin is on payroll and allegedly "fine" but barely plays football, or the backroom politics/horse-trading of the stadium deal because those are things Bills Corporate do not want the public knowing about because there are details that are unflattering.  

 

So when this article came out putting Sean McDermott under the microscope in such detail, I'm curious about how it came to be.  

 

 

[Buffalo03]

I mean, we went through Gregg Williams, Mike Mularkey, Dick Jauron, Chan Gailey, Doug Marrone and Rex Ryan and this dude deliberately takes out an agenda on McDermott? The guy who has the best winning percentage and the most success as a head coach since Levy and literally tries to tear the dude down? To me this is uncalled for. Despite the stuff he said about 9/11, players from that team still wanted to come back, have come back and are happy to he back. So, the environment can't be that horrible. Imagine having this much agenda against a coach. For this reason alone, I hope the Bills win out, steam roll through the playoffs and win the freaking super bowl. I don't expect it but if it does happen, maybe McDermott can then write an article called "How I made Tyler Dunne cry"

Edited December 8, 2023 by Buffalo03

[Wayne Arnold]

2 minutes ago, Buffalo03 said:

I mean, we went through Gregg Williams, Mike Mularkey, Dick Jauron, Chan Gailey, Doug Marrone and Rex Ryan and this dude deliberately takes out an agenda on McDermott? The guy who has the best winning percentage and the most success as a head coach since Levy and literally tries to tear the dude down? To me this is uncalled for. Despite the stuff he said about 9/11, players from that team still wanted to come back, have come back and are happy to he back. So, the environment can't be that horrible. Imagine having this much agenda against a coach. For this reason alone, I hope the Bills win out, steam roll through the playoffs and win the freaking super bowl. I don't expect it but if it does happen, maybe McDermott can then write am article called "How I made Tyler Dunne cry"

 

None of those coaches had a player like Josh Allen as their quarterback.

 

Pieces like this are what happens when a head coach is not getting the job done and an article comes out saying there's no chance he gets fired after the season.

 

If falling short on the field isn't going to result in changes then we have to go a different route.

[Nextmanup]

I'm skimming through the recorded segments at WGR-550 for this morning's Jeremy and Joe show.  There is nothing there indicating that they addressed this!  Schopp and Bulldog spent quite a long time on this yesterday, and had a lengthy (25 mins?) segment with Tyler Duane himself.

 

I wonder if someone got to WGR from the Bills and said "enough of this, take it easy for a while" and the lackeys at GR actually complied.

 

It's incomprehensible to me that they wouldn't have spent a good bit of time talking about this today.]

 

When you need to kill 4 hours a day talking Bills and Sabres, and then an article like this drops into your lap, it's a gift from God.

 

 

[Beck Water]

12 hours ago, Scott7975 said:

mmmm you really gonna go make me go look for a post?  I don't really wanna.  You don't think he made stuff up so thats good enough for me.  I thought ya did.

 

Nah, not worth searching for what I wrote.  I was using a clever analogy to Hamas planning the attack on Israel.........KIDDING!!!!!!!

 

I don't at all think Ty Dunne is making stuff up.  I'm sure all the people he interviewed really said what he quotes.  Nor do I think he has an "axe to grind" or decided to do a "hatchet job" on McDermott.  I think he started with a handful of former players and assistants who may have had a bit of an "axe" (Isaiah McKenzie, his coaching idol Chad Hall, Harrison Phillips, etc), and likely went where that took him as far as others to talk to.  He doesn't have free access to the Bills facility that would give him contact with current Bills players and coaches.  That's not his fault, but it does color what information he got.

 

I referenced a movie I didn't remember the name of at the time.  I got it now.  Alan Alda, "Sweet Liberty".  In the movie, a group of historical re-enactors agree to put on a battle scene for a movie director, who wants them to change it completely from historical fact to support his movie plot.  The re-enactors rebel, and do the battle scene historically correctly.  Alda apologizes to the director who says something like "we filmed it from 30 different angles, I can make it look like anything I want".
 

I DO think Dunne is trying to grow his business, and that putting out a controversial piece about a HC whose team has struggled this season and is now 6-6 and flirting with no longer "playoff worthy" is a subscriber-generating move.  I think he slanted the article to focus on painting a bad picture of McDermott, because "reading the room" in Bills-land, this is a great time to sell such a piece. 

 

I think if you probably intensively and in depth interviewed current and former players and assistants about the majority of the current or former HC in the league, you could probably come up with an article that put them in either a very bad light, or a very good light - depending on who you talked to, what you chose to include of what they said, and what you chose to opine wrote around them. 

Heck, I'm nobody and not well connected and even I could write a little piece about former St Louis Rams coach Mike Martz that would make him look like a incompetent twatwaddle who's a bag of peas short of a casserole.  Successful football HC are a breed apart.  They are dialed in and focused in a way 99.98% of the human population just isn't.  They work incredibly long hours.  They have to schedule time with their kids and spouses during the season.

 

I most truly dislike bringing up a story that casts someone in a very poor light, but is FOUR YEARS OLD and was realized to be a bad move and apologized for at the time.  I mean, in all but a few states the statute of limitations for most crimes is less than four years.

 

I used to listen to the Isaiah McKenzie show led by Ty Dunne because parts of it were very funny, until it started making me very uncomfortable with how Dunne handled it.  He wasn't exactly putting words in McKenzie's mouth, but he definitely asked questions and said things himself that drew a certain slant of stories and interpreting events out of McKenzie, that I don't think was in McKenzie's self interest for player development.

 

My take is that the whole thing is very unfortunate in that it's likely to cloud decision making about McDermott instead of lasering on what should be focused on - game management, decision making, whether some of the core principles of his defense are really sustainable under the modern salary cap.

 

 

 

 

 

[Man with No Name]

14 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

Neither is a genius but Sirianni is not smarter than McD.   Just listen to his introductory PC as an Eagle.   NOT a smart guy.

 

Sirianni has considerably more talent on his team and plays in a much easier conference.

 

The biggest difference is that he entered into the job with an experienced, SB-winning GM who was at the top of his game.   He is a puppet for Howie.   When Howie is done with him it will be swift and painless for him to replace Sirianni.   And if you think the stuff about McD sounds dumb wait for what they say after Sirianni gets canned.......you already see the meat headed behavior on the sideline that will only be magnified behind the scenes.

 

McD, by contrast, came in with Beane.........who was an outright terrible work-in-progress to start.    Beane is just now rounding into form as a personnel man but the horse is out of the barn here wrt the salary cap because of Beane's terrible start.   

being good in your first major public speaking appearance is not the same thing effectively planning and calling a football game. 

[PromoTheRobot]

1 minute ago, Nextmanup said:

I'm skimming through the recorded segments at WGR-550 for this morning's Jeremy and Joe show.  There is nothing there indicating that they addressed this!  Schopp and Bulldog spent quite a long time on this yesterday, and had a lengthy (25 mins?) segment with Tyler Duane himself.

 

I wonder if someone got to WGR from the Bills and said "enough of this, take it easy for a while" and the lackeys at GR actually complied.

 

It's incomprehensible to me that they wouldn't have spent a good bit of time talking about this today.]

 

When you need to kill 4 hours a day talking Bills and Sabres, and then an article like this drops into your lap, it's a gift from God.

 

 

 

Well the Sabres do deserved a little airtime after beating the best team in the league with a depleted roster last night.

[CincyBillsFan]

55 minutes ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

I’m not trying to defend 911 Sean but to pretend like Allen was this version of Allen right away is completely misleading. Allen was brought along slowly and had a very good defense to help him settle into the job. The Bills did a great job developing him the right way. And since 911 Sean was the head coach, he deserves credit for that.

Allen was brought along slowly? You mean by not giving him very many first team reps in training camp and preseason in 2018 then naming him the starter in WEEK 2 after Petermann's epic, record setting fail in week 1?  That was slow to you?

 

 

Edited December 8, 2023 by CincyBillsFan

[Nextmanup]

17 minutes ago, Wayne Arnold said:

 

He's a loser for doing his job? And doing it well enough to cause this much heat?

You have to remember that many "Bills fans" are more accurately labeled "followers" and when you take a shot at their leader, they get upset.  

 

 Remember, there is a huge group think among fans; a sticking together by the sheep in the flock.  They are all looking for peer validation, and protection comes from fitting in.  

 

Peer validation bolsters a sense of self-worth and, at the same time, prevents introspection, which reveals personal insecurities. Individuals who are otherwise ineffective become empowered when they join groups, which also provide anonymity and diminished accountability.

 

  🤔

 

 

[May Day 10]

13 minutes ago, Cray51 said:

I just struggle to see where we find any potential replacement that doesn't carry large risk associated.  Unless you get someone like Bill B, who I think would bring some serious talent on the D side, but carries heavy baggage as well.

 

I really don't think there is that big of a risk.  This current team is on a course to be the best team of all time who didnt qualify for the playoffs.  They blew a few games this season, mainly due to coaching, as they have in the past.

 

We have a quarterback uniquely gifted to a degree the league has never seen.  

 

Pegula and Beane can interview and do background on 70 people if they want.  I think I trust Beane on his judgement.  

 

I get we can be snakebit by our past Buffalo Bills coaches... but those were un-serious searches by bad management, unwilling to spend money, and a franchise that was unattractive to coaches who had any alternative.  That is not the case now.  Coaches would line up for a chance to coach a Josh Allen team.

[boyst]

41 minutes ago, Yobogoya! said:

 

Press conference after it came out yesterday, he acknowledged it. 

 

Honestly as poor taste as it was, no less than four seasons of Bills players have come and gone out of the locker room since then. If it was any kind of a big deal to them, we'd have heard about it a long time ago. 

 

Plenty of reasons to criticize McD without this. I hate this culture of judging people by the stupidest thing they've ever said. 

sadly with some the bar isn't very high on the most intelligent things people have ever said.

 

but when you are in front of a microphone every day then you're bound to make mistakes and not come off as best as possible. hell, i was just on the news for an interview. took 35 minutes for the interview and it brought down to 4 minutes. i look about as special needs as they come... i have half of a mind to post it.