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

[wppete]

1 minute ago, Beck Water said:

 

Oh, Come On. " From his opening press conference you can see the arrogance", what a bunch of malarky.  Show your receipts, Bud; show the posts where you commented on McDermott's arrogance in his introductory presser.

 

Does McDermott have room to improve as far as game management, etc?  Yes.  But some people are just over the top with nonsense.

Go back and watch that press conference and tell me that’s not an arrogant man. No humility whatsoever. IMHO. 

[Cray51]

46 minutes ago, Wayne Arnold said:

 

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.

I agree with taking advantage if there is the opportunity to improve the coaching position.  I just struggle to identify all of the true options that are confirmed upgrades compared to Sean

27 minutes ago, May Day 10 said:

 

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.

I agree that Beane is likely a good evaluator of coaching talent, and could find a good replacement.  However, it just isn't 100% a guarantee.  However, I am a risk-averse individual so that bias comes out in these instances 

[DrDawkinstein]

Just now, wppete said:

Go back and watch that press conference and tell me that’s not an arrogant man. No humility whatsoever. IMHO. 

 

Which NFL head coach(es) would you describe as humble and not arrogant?

[JGMcD2]

1 minute ago, wppete said:

Go back and watch that press conference and tell me that’s not an arrogant man. No humility whatsoever. IMHO. 

I think they’re asking for you to go back and pull quotes to support your point of view. 
 

You made the statement, the burden of proof is on you. 

[RyanC883]

3 minutes ago, Einstein said:

 

Yet not a single other head coach - including those who have coached for FAR longer than McDermott - have an article like this about them.

 

I don’t know why some of you think a highly respected reporter like Dunne, who reports on the entire NFL, would have some vendetta against small-city Bills coach McDermott. Why wouldn’t he be just as likely to do this for Belichick? Or Payton? Or Caroll? It’s nonsensical.

 

.

 

 

Dunne's article even mentions that his news organization cannot access the Bills and/or is not given press passes to cover the Bills.  He clearly has an axe.  That said, does not mean he is wrong.  There are reporters like this in most cities, but you don't see articles like this about Tomlin, etc.  Also interesting: McD was nowhere on the Athletic survey of coach's players (on other teams, you couldn't pick your own coach) would like to play for.  

 

If McD stays, he needs a emotional intelligence and engagement coach.  His engagement style/self-awareness is lacking.  

 

2 minutes ago, Cray51 said:

I agree with taking advantage if there is the opportunity to improve the coaching position.  I just struggle to identify all of the true options that are confirmed upgrades compared to Sean

I agree that Beane is likely a good evaluator of coaching talent, and could find a good replacement.  However, it just isn't 100% a guarantee.  However, I am a risk-averse individual so that bias comes out in these instances 

 

I get the risk-aversion.  But I can't imagine any other coach in the NFL who would have this team at 6-6 right now.  I think finding that coach would be more difficult than finding another McD: one who gets you to the playoffs but can't win close games, etc.  Even then, it would be hard to find one who does not learn from past mistakes and routinely has late game collapses.  

[Einstein]

Just now, oldmanfan said:

Why? Because Dunn has a history with the Bills having been on the News staff, and because he has had some contentious times with the organization.

 

 

He was a Bills reporter for only 2 total years. That is 1 year between 2010 and 2011. And 1 year between 2015 and 2016.

 

McDermott was still in Carolina when Dunne reported here

 

The entirety of McDermotts tenure in Buffalo, Dunne has been a national NFL writer … but he hates McDermott for some contentious time he had with the organization BEFORE McDermott arrived?

 

Nonsensical.

[JÂy RÛßeÒ]

30 minutes ago, boyst 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.

So it was pretty accurate then...

 

[Beck Water]

30 minutes ago, Wayne Arnold said:

I'll say it again - articles like these are required when a head coach is not getting the job done and an article comes out with sources close to Pegula saying there's no chance he gets fired after the season.

 

If falling short on the field ("game management, decision making, whether some of the core principles of his defense are really sustainable under the modern salary cap") isn't going to result in changes then we have to go a different route.

 

Maybe Pegula is now getting the message. We're not going to allow Josh Allen to play his career here in Buffalo without lifting the Lombardi Trophy.

 

I don't want to put words in your mouth, so let me be sure I understand you.

 

You're saying that Ty Dunne researched, wrote, and published this article for the purpose of getting McDermott fired, or of persuading Pegula to fire him?

In other words, it's a hit piece with an agenda by Dunne, and I'm giving him way too much credit that he's a more or less honest journalist following his business model and trying to write deep-researched pieces that will draw in subscribers, and since he makes his home in WNY (as I understand it) the Bills players and coaches may be easier for him to connect with?

Edited December 8, 2023 by Beck Water

[oldmanfan]

Just now, Einstein said:

 

 

He was a Bills reporter for only 2 total years. That is 1 year between 2010 and 2011. And 1 year between 2015 and 2016.

 

McDermott was still in Carolina when Dunne reported here

 

The entirety of McDermotts tenure in Buffalo, Dunne has been a national NFL writer … but he hates McDermott for some contentious time he had with the organization BEFORE McDermott arrived?

 

Nonsensical.

I said nothing about hating McD or not.  Just that because of history in the local market it likely makes it easier to write a story.  And if stories are accurate and he has been denied press access, that could play into it.

[Beck Water]

5 minutes ago, wppete said:

Go back and watch that press conference and tell me that’s not an arrogant man. No humility whatsoever. IMHO. 

 

You're the one making the statement, so the "burden of proof" is on you.

 

It didn't strike me that way at all at the time.  I'm looking for 1) proof that this isn't revisionism on your part, that it actually did strike you that way at the time 2) specifics about what you interpreted that way.

 

Me going back and re-watching it will address neither.

[Scott7975]

36 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm guessing you didn't read the entire article either.  Pretty sure he did get some comments from current players and assistants.  Just because he doesn't have credentials for the Bills doesn't mean he can't talk to anyone.  It just means he won't have access to the PC's really.  Not everything paints him in a bad light either.  Sure, the article is written in a way to say McD is not a superbowl winning coach, but not everything is bad in it and not every player comment is bad either.  Also, while everyone is focused on this 9/11 thing in the article... it was a very small part of the article.

 

What I don't like about the article personally is it could have waited at least until the season was over.  This team is fighting for a playoff spot and still has ambitions of winning.  It doesn't need further distractions.  Of course, media people never care about how what they write affects peoples lives.  All they care about is their story.  That goes for most journalists, not just Dunne.

[Einstein]

Just now, oldmanfan said:

I said nothing about hating McD or not.  Just that because of history in the local market it likely makes it easier to write a story.  And if stories are accurate and he has been denied press access, that could play into it.

 

A very tiny history. In his decade plus of writing, he reported on the Bills for only 2 years. TWO.

 

He was a Packers reporter for 4 years. He isn’t writing hit pieces on LaFleur.

 

In the last 2 months he has interviewed players in Cinci, Denver, Washington, etc. He isn’t writing hit pieces on their coaches.

 

It just seems absurd to me. He hasn’t even lived in the STATE for the entirety of McD’s tenure.

 

 

[C.Biscuit97]

34 minutes ago, CincyBillsFan said:

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?

 

 

If you think rookie/ 2nd year Allen is the same player as Allen now, you lack any objectivity. 

[buffalostu2]

On 12/7/2023 at 8:31 AM, CincyBillsFan said:

Damn this is prophetic:

 

Those who’ve worked with the head coach on a day-to-day basis predicted all of this — months in advance — because they’ve seen how McDermott operates on a day-to-day basis. How tangibly nervous he gets in close games. How he has never truly appreciated his gift from the football gods: Josh Allen. How he’s quick to blame everyone but himself in defeat. That’s why one coach — in June — began by asking a simple question: “If they fail again this year? What does ownership do with Sean?”

 

Three seconds later, he answered his own hypothetical.

 

“Next year if they fail, you know who’ll be the first person he serves up? Ken Dorsey.”

 

The coach wasn’t quite sure how McDermott would manage to put Dorsey’s head on a stick. After all, it’s the head coach’s beloved defense that has melted in four straight postseason losses. The honeymoon period with fans ended a long time ago — pointing a finger at his breadwinning quarterback, again, surely wouldn’t work. Yet even back in June, this assistant knew his old boss would find a way to deflect blame.

 

“Watch,” he said, “if they sputter at all during this year, the narrative’s going to be the offense.”

Didn't Ken Dorsey fail this season?  I think that quote is ridiculous.   Also he starts with a quote, inserts his opinion, and ends with a quote like the entire narrative was from a reliable source.   His writing style is deceptive IMO.  I was hoping for a more fact based article where I could form my own opinion

[BFLO]

2 hours ago, mjt328 said:

 

And that's a problem.

News articles shouldn't have that kind of agenda.

 

If Tyler Dunne had 25 sources, he should have worked harder to get (at least some) of them to reveal their identities, instead of being anonymous.

He should have specified whether these sources were current or former coaches and players, which is important context.

He should have talked with people who actually like Sean McDermott, and gotten some positive quotes to contrast all the negative.

 

There is no balance to the article.  McDermott comes across like a control-freak, and that rubs a lot of people wrong.  But there are lots of NFL coaches who are also control freaks and succeed BECAUSE of that character trait.  Not to mention that his predecessor Rex Ryan was the complete opposite, and mostly failed because he didn't run a tight-enough ship.

 

The purpose of news journalism is to speak truth to power. To reveal what the rich and powerful do behind closed doors. To attempt to hold them accountable for their actions. 

 

Imagine if Bob Woodward had spent half his time interviewing Nixon's sycophants to get some positive quotes during the Watergate investigation instead of revealing the scandal. 

 

It's laughable. 

 

There's no balance to the article? So? There's no balance to the coverage of McDermott either. 99% of it is empty, vapid, fluff. It's a breath of fresh air to get an article that brings a little balance to the overall coverage. 

 

[wppete]

5 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

You're the one making the statement, so the "burden of proof" is on you.

 

It didn't strike me that way at all at the time.  I'm looking for 1) proof that this isn't revisionism on your part, that it actually did strike you that way at the time 2) specifics about what you interpreted that way.

 

Me going back and re-watching it will address neither.

then move on. 

10 minutes ago, JGMcD2 said:

I think they’re asking for you to go back and pull quotes to support your point of view. 
 

You made the statement, the burden of proof is on you. 

I’ll pass. He can go watch for himself and make his own decision. My decision is made. 

[Beck Water]

Just now, Scott7975 said:

I'm guessing you didn't read the entire article either. 

 

Correct, I do not subscribe to "Go Long" and will not do so just to access this article; Boyst's work around didn't work for me.

 

Just now, Scott7975 said:

Pretty sure he did get some comments from current players and assistants.  Just because he doesn't have credentials for the Bills doesn't mean he can't talk to anyone.  It just means he won't have access to the PC's really. 

 

He probably did, but facility access is more than just pressers; not being in the facility does limit the people he will meet/develop relationships with/talk to.

 

 

 

 

[DrDawkinstein]

10 minutes ago, Cray51 said:

I agree with taking advantage if there is the opportunity to improve the coaching position.  I just struggle to identify all of the true options that are confirmed upgrades compared to Sean

I agree that Beane is likely a good evaluator of coaching talent, and could find a good replacement.  However, it just isn't 100% a guarantee.  However, I am a risk-averse individual so that bias comes out in these instances 

 

It's not your or my or our job to find them. When we fired Rex, did you even know Sean McDermott existed? I didn't.

 

But the consulting firm helped Terry identify him as a candidate, and the professionals worked it out from there.

 

Look in our own division. The Miami Dolphins. They had a Defensive-minded, supposed "high character" guy who couldn't get the most from his talented roster and was neutering their franchise QB. They fire Flores and bring in McDaniel, an unheard of dork, and Tua sees immediate improvement and here they are in year 2 as the #1 seed in the AFC and about to take the Division from us. No major tear down and rebuild, just a quick change to a younger, modern, Offensive minded HC.

 

Heck with that said, if the O continues to put up 30+ every game, hand the keys to Brady and let's roll.

 

The new coach may or may not take us to the promise land, but we know based on MULTIPLE examples that McDermott simply can't/won't.

[Billsfan1972]

37 minutes ago, Buffalo03 said:

I understand they didn't have a Josh Allen. I also guarantee ALL of them wouldn't have done the things McDermott has done with this team. McDermott, while not making the best in game decisions at times, is much smarter than any of those guys prior. If you think Dick Jauron has the same success with Allen that McDermott has, you're delusional

And how exactly do you know?  Like me you have no idea, just an opinion.  I however can promise you 99%+ of coaches wouldn't have screwed up 13 seconds or had 12 men on the field vs. Denver.

 

Everything else is just an OPINION. 

 

Just like some of us think McD is not a good coach (something I have stood behind from halfway through season 1).

[Einstein]

1 minute ago, BFLO said:

The purpose of news journalism is to speak truth to power. To reveal what the rich and powerful do behind closed doors. To attempt to hold them accountable for their actions. 

 

Imagine if Bob Woodward had spent half his time interviewing Nixon's sycophants to get some positive quotes during the Watergate investigation instead of revealing the scandal. 

 

It's laughable. 

 

 

Well written.

 

The fact of that matter is that there are a certain number of people who will not believe anything unless McDermott walked up to the podium and announced “every word is true”.

 

Outside of that, they will make up every excuse to deny what is written. Sources shouldn’t have been anonymous (which is nuts), he should have written positive things too, he has a vendetta against McD despite not working for the Bills in nearly a decade, etc.