The Blame Game and Changing Narratives

[ngbills]

We consistently hear about execution being the reason for the Bills losses and primary theme to playoff exits. The close games are discussed as a supporting narrative to McD success. A lot of these games had time out blunders, penalties, dropped passes, poor play-calling, etc. At what point is responsibility taken for mistakes in most of the close losses and playoff failures?

 

That does not mean McD needs to be fired but at some point some new blood should be brought on the coaching staff. They blame lack of execution but then promote position coaches who coached those players that resulted in lack of execution. Coaches get credit for players that play well. But when that is not the case its all on the player. Cook fumbles and he is benched for a half. There is a consistent trend of blame that seems to occur all too often. Then whether it be from the Bills themselves or the folks that work for the Bills via WGR talking the story always changes. Is it too much to ask to bring in someone from the outside that has an eye for detail which is lacking on this staff. It just feels like settling for getting close which leads to complacency and the inability to get over the hump. 

 

Special Teams - Matt Smiley still has a job because the issue was not coaching buy execution. So the players fault not the coaches.

 

Dorsey Fired - Early on, not Dorsey's fault. No matter how much people complained the narrative was "you want to fire the guy that has one of the top offenses in the league? Are you crazy?" The plays are clearly there it is the players are not executing (penalties, dropped passes, turnovers, etc). Then he is fired and it was an issue with the job he was doing all along. Brady is clearly better. 

 

Babich Hired - The main justification I have seen is how well safeties and linebackers performed when he was the position coach. So the coach gets the credit in this case for good performance. But players not doing well in other cases is all execution and not the coaches fault. 

 

Josh and the "low positive" thing - Initially sold as a positive. Josh needs to settle down. That is why we are giving him easy throws early on etc. Now the narrative post Dorsey is we need to let Josh be Josh and that is what Brady does. Ok so which is it, let Josh go superman or we need to settle him down. 

[BuffaloBillyG]

23 minutes ago, ngbills said:

We consistently hear about execution being the reason for the Bills losses and primary theme to playoff exits. The close games are discussed as a supporting narrative to McD success. A lot of these games had time out blunders, penalties, dropped passes, poor play-calling, etc. At what point is responsibility taken for mistakes in most of the close losses and playoff failures?

 

That does not mean McD needs to be fired but at some point some new blood should be brought on the coaching staff. They blame lack of execution but then promote position coaches who coached those players that resulted in lack of execution. Coaches get credit for players that play well. But when that is not the case its all on the player. Cook fumbles and he is benched for a half. There is a consistent trend of blame that seems to occur all too often. Then whether it be from the Bills themselves or the folks that work for the Bills via WGR talking the story always changes. Is it too much to ask to bring in someone from the outside that has an eye for detail which is lacking on this staff. It just feels like settling for getting close which leads to complacency and the inability to get over the hump. 

 

Special Teams - Matt Smiley still has a job because the issue was not coaching buy execution. So the players fault not the coaches.

 

Dorsey Fired - Early on, not Dorsey's fault. No matter how much people complained the narrative was "you want to fire the guy that has one of the top offenses in the league? Are you crazy?" The plays are clearly there it is the players are not executing (penalties, dropped passes, turnovers, etc). Then he is fired and it was an issue with the job he was doing all along. Brady is clearly better. 

 

Babich Hired - The main justification I have seen is how well safeties and linebackers performed when he was the position coach. So the coach gets the credit in this case for good performance. But players not doing well in other cases is all execution and not the coaches fault. 

 

Josh and the "low positive" thing - Initially sold as a positive. Josh needs to settle down. That is why we are giving him easy throws early on etc. Now the narrative post Dorsey is we need to let Josh be Josh and that is what Brady does. Ok so which is it, let Josh go superman or we need to settle him down. 

One thing I will say that I took away from McDermott's end of season presser that did make some amount of sense to me in regards to STs. 

 

Special Teams mainly consists of a bulk of players that are active on gamedays without a defined role. When there is injury to a starter it forces players that haven't practiced STs much to step into the role that is vacated. 

 

One good example of this is Taylor Rapp. Rapp has roles on most of the STs. Once he either had to fill in for Hyde or was injured and missing time it forced Damar Hamlin into his role on STs. There was a CLEAR dropoff from Rapp to Hamlin on the punt team as the person protector for example. Go back and look at the times we had pressure in on Martin quick and you'll notice Hamlin was in on almost all of them. 

 

During the season there really isn't time to do much coaching of the basics. You kind of have to adjust on the fly and hope for the best. And for the ST coach who you have is dependent on who is healthy through out the week. And there are times when a guy isn't ruled out until late in the week. So basically, Smiley wouldn't be set with who exactly his personal are until late in the week. And no, not everyone can just line up and cover kicks. 

 

By no means am I saying he should be retained or that our STs weren't at times this year completely awful. Just some insight into what the position has to adjust to and that there's more to it than many think. 

 

Lack of execution on Special Teams was bad on every level. From coaching (12 men on the field) to the players blowing their coverage (the PR opening week vs the Jets). Our kicker and punter both had some issues this year...but both also won in season awards for performance. 

 

[Don Otreply]

56 minutes ago, ngbills said:

We consistently hear about execution being the reason for the Bills losses and primary theme to playoff exits. The close games are discussed as a supporting narrative to McD success. A lot of these games had time out blunders, penalties, dropped passes, poor play-calling, etc. At what point is responsibility taken for mistakes in most of the close losses and playoff failures?

 

That does not mean McD needs to be fired but at some point some new blood should be brought on the coaching staff. They blame lack of execution but then promote position coaches who coached those players that resulted in lack of execution. Coaches get credit for players that play well. But when that is not the case its all on the player. Cook fumbles and he is benched for a half. There is a consistent trend of blame that seems to occur all too often. Then whether it be from the Bills themselves or the folks that work for the Bills via WGR talking the story always changes. Is it too much to ask to bring in someone from the outside that has an eye for detail which is lacking on this staff. It just feels like settling for getting close which leads to complacency and the inability to get over the hump. 

 

Special Teams - Matt Smiley still has a job because the issue was not coaching buy execution. So the players fault not the coaches.

 

Dorsey Fired - Early on, not Dorsey's fault. No matter how much people complained the narrative was "you want to fire the guy that has one of the top offenses in the league? Are you crazy?" The plays are clearly there it is the players are not executing (penalties, dropped passes, turnovers, etc). Then he is fired and it was an issue with the job he was doing all along. Brady is clearly better. 

 

Babich Hired - The main justification I have seen is how well safeties and linebackers performed when he was the position coach. So the coach gets the credit in this case for good performance. But players not doing well in other cases is all execution and not the coaches fault. 

 

Josh and the "low positive" thing - Initially sold as a positive. Josh needs to settle down. That is why we are giving him easy throws early on etc. Now the narrative post Dorsey is we need to let Josh be Josh and that is what Brady does. Ok so which is it, let Josh go superman or we need to settle him down. 

It is Shades of grey my friend, the world in not black or white, sometimes it’s the coaches, sometimes it’s the players, always been that way, always will be, relax don’t sweat the stuff you can’t control, 🍸🚬😁👍

[ngbills]

56 minutes ago, BuffaloBillyG said:

One thing I will say that I took away from McDermott's end of season presser that did make some amount of sense to me in regards to STs. 

 

Special Teams mainly consists of a bulk of players that are active on gamedays without a defined role. When there is injury to a starter it forces players that haven't practiced STs much to step into the role that is vacated. 

 

One good example of this is Taylor Rapp. Rapp has roles on most of the STs. Once he either had to fill in for Hyde or was injured and missing time it forced Damar Hamlin into his role on STs. There was a CLEAR dropoff from Rapp to Hamlin on the punt team as the person protector for example. Go back and look at the times we had pressure in on Martin quick and you'll notice Hamlin was in on almost all of them. 

 

During the season there really isn't time to do much coaching of the basics. You kind of have to adjust on the fly and hope for the best. And for the ST coach who you have is dependent on who is healthy through out the week. And there are times when a guy isn't ruled out until late in the week. So basically, Smiley wouldn't be set with who exactly his personal are until late in the week. And no, not everyone can just line up and cover kicks. 

 

By no means am I saying he should be retained or that our STs weren't at times this year completely awful. Just some insight into what the position has to adjust to and that there's more to it than many think. 

 

Lack of execution on Special Teams was bad on every level. From coaching (12 men on the field) to the players blowing their coverage (the PR opening week vs the Jets). Our kicker and punter both had some issues this year...but both also won in season awards for performance. 

 

That is the thing. There is always some excuse to explain it away. Like the Bills are the only team dealing with something. Every team has injuries and has to adjust. Some of the Bills ST play this year was just inexcusable. No idea why that guy has a job...hopefully they are planning on a change just waiting for the dust to settle. 

40 minutes ago, Don Otreply said:

It is Shades of grey my friend, the world in not black or white, sometimes it’s the coaches, sometimes it’s the players, always been that way, always will be, relax don’t sweat the stuff you can’t control, 🍸🚬😁👍

I hear you. I guess I get annoyed by excuses and inconsistent messages. We are promoting Babich because look how great his players have performed. But we are not firing Smiley because he is a good coach but his players did not perform. Meanwhile many of the ST players were ones also coached by Babich. I dont need some massive blow up. But many teams around the league get better by adding talent to the coaching staff yet we already have the best staff top to bottom so dont need any help. 

[BuffaloBillyG]

Just now, ngbills said:

That is the thing. There is always some excuse to explain it away. Like the Bills are the only team dealing with something. Every team has injuries and has to adjust. Some of the Bills ST play this year was just inexcusable. No idea why that guy has a job...hopefully they are planning on a change just waiting for the dust to settle. 

Rationale and excuses are two different things. Often which word is used tells more about the user than the circumstances. Positive vs negative outlooks and such. 

 

As I said above, I am not saying he should be retained. I'm actually wishing they go out and snag Chris Tabor for the role. However I don't see that happening. It sounded like Smiley would be back at the presser. The Bills have done their coaching assessment and have replaced the OC and DC. Sense would say if a change were to be made that we would be into ST by now. And it doesn't appear we are.

[Jerome007]

Babich has done a tremendous job for position coaching, for the players on his watch. Back ups were always ready and performed, not confused and whatnot. Will he make a a good DC? That's a different story. McD wanted some help, promote a guy he likes and that doesn't threaten him. That's fine you know. 

Joe Brady earned his job with real world tests. 

 

It's true it doesn't equate for much coaching shakeups does it. But McD has "only" eleven playoff games with the Bills. People judge quick, and in a way they should, but that's not much. That 13 second is on him though. But the rest, it was close games except the Bengals. Reid was always seen as the good season coach but bad playoff one. Now that tag is gone for good. Can McD do the same? Let's hope so!

 

Do I think there are better coaches than McD. Yes. But who would replace him? With all the wins in a row come crunch time, he earned his stay. We'll see if it's for good or for bad. But so far Josh Allen Bills have only lost in the playoffs to the very top teams. Is it frustrating and all? Of course. But it's not something you scratch it all and start from zero again! It's like so many fans expect 17-0 seasons and a Superbowl everytime. Yes, we all want ONE. Just ONE please! (We'll get greedy after ha ha). But asking for major upheaval is almost weird.

Beane has to manage the cap well. He has a tough one ahead, and he will decide a lot of things. More than anyone else probably for next season.

[Don Otreply]

1 hour ago, ngbills said:

That is the thing. There is always some excuse to explain it away. Like the Bills are the only team dealing with something. Every team has injuries and has to adjust. Some of the Bills ST play this year was just inexcusable. No idea why that guy has a job...hopefully they are planning on a change just waiting for the dust to settle. 

I hear you. I guess I get annoyed by excuses and inconsistent messages. We are promoting Babich because look how great his players have performed. But we are not firing Smiley because he is a good coach but his players did not perform. Meanwhile many of the ST players were ones also coached by Babich. I dont need some massive blow up. But many teams around the league get better by adding talent to the coaching staff yet we already have the best staff top to bottom so dont need any help. 

Like i said its never so cut and dry, every organization, to include every household,  family businesses, corporations, and all NFL teams, ALL have less than perfect outcomes, the reason for this is that “humans” don’t do perfect, you, me and every other swinging d-c/k on this planet has flaws, that’s never gonna change, so get comfortable with it, all one can do is go with the least objectionable choice, just like when we vote for our civic leaders, no candidate is gonna fulfill all the things you want done, you just have to chose the one that will “F” things up the least…, 

[nedboy7]

I suggest coming to grips with the fact that McD will be the coach next season and possibly longer.  I was on board with firing Dorsey and I like the OC and DC we have for next season.  On we go.....

[eball]

OH, the HUMANITY!!!!

 

Go find another hobby if this one drives you crazy.

 

For f**k sake.