Bobby Babich to call Bills' Defense

[Mr. WEO]

11 hours ago, NewEra said:

Just so I don’t put words in your mouth, please tell us why you think he hired Babich and has him calling plays

 

I already did.

 

 

 

11 hours ago, billieve420 said:

Babich was being looked at for defensive coordinator positions elsewhere so he was on his way up in the league. Plus not too many defensive coordinators who don’t call plays so this was always the likely outcome unless he showed he wasn’t ready for responsibility.

 

who else did McD interview for that job?

 

 

[HOUSE]

Oh nooooo

3- 14

[frostbitmic]

I can see Babich being allowed to call the Defense until the final few minutes of games when McDermott  reclaims the play caller role and goes with his vaunted prevent Defense.

 

For some reason I don't see McD giving up total control in the play calling duties.

[DaBillsFanSince1973]

 

[Robert Paulson]

19 minutes ago, frostbitmic said:

I can see Babich being allowed to call the Defense until the final few minutes of games when McDermott  reclaims the play caller role and goes with his vaunted prevent Defense.

 

For some reason I don't see McD giving up total control in the play calling duties.

I hope not but this creeps into my head whenever this topic comes up.

 

13 seconds is like a shot of Malört straight to my brain.

[eball]

All kidding aside, I think this move speaks to McDermott’s continued growth as a head coach.  Thinking he is just setting Babich up to be a scapegoat is a loser mentality.  McD really does look to develop and promote good people.  I love the energy Babich brings and am excited to see this Bills defense next week.

 

[Chandler#81]

Babich on TB

 

[billieve420]

1 hour ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

I already did.

 

 

 

 

who else did McD interview for that job?

 

 

Two people off the top of my head outside the organization were Philadelphia Eagles DC Sean Desai and former Jacksonville Jaguars DC Mike Caldwell.

[SoCal Deek]

21 minutes ago, eball said:

All kidding aside, I think this move speaks to McDermott’s continued growth as a head coach.  Thinking he is just setting Babich up to be a scapegoat is a loser mentality.  McD really does look to develop and promote good people.  I love the energy Babich brings and am excited to see this Bills defense next week.

 

I’ve not been a huge McD fan but I tend to agree here, if he trusts his decision to delegate the play calling. It’s an easy thing to ‘try’ and do, but when the games get tight (and they always do) it’ll be a true mark of maturity if he trusts his decision to let Babich make the all important call. 

[Mr. WEO]

10 minutes ago, billieve420 said:

Two people off the top of my head outside the organization were Philadelphia Eagles DC Sean Desai and former Jacksonville Jaguars DC Mike Caldwell.

 

And why do you think he would hire his position coach over guys who have been NFL play callers?

[NewEra]

1 hour ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

I already did.

 

 

 

 

who else did McD interview for that job?

 

 

Thanks-  I just didn’t want to put words in your mouth.  Thanks for reaffirming 

 

[Mr. WEO]

4 minutes ago, NewEra said:

Thanks-  I just didn’t want to put words in your mouth.  Thanks for reaffirming 

 

 

no need to ask a question already answered.  what is gained?

[NewEra]

1 hour ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

And why do you think he would hire his position coach over guys who have been NFL play callers?

Because he thinks he’s a bright young mind that knows his system?  It’s not as if he wasn’t getting interest around the league after already being interviewed by Miami, NYG and the packers.  Why would they even interview him…..he’s never called plays. 

 

But that makes too much sense to be true…..read between the lines, he only hired him as a scapegoat. Got it

48 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

no need to ask a question already answered.  what is gained?

Reaffirmation that you are that guy.  

[H2o]

Am I the only one who Google'd to see if rejiggered was an actual word? 

 

[Mr. WEO]

1 hour ago, NewEra said:

Because he thinks he’s a bright young mind that knows his system?  It’s not as if he wasn’t getting interest around the league after already being interviewed by Miami, NYG and the packers.  Why would they even interview him…..he’s never called plays. 

 

But that makes too much sense to be true…..read between the lines, he only hired him as a scapegoat. Got it

Reaffirmation that you are that guy.  

 

 

Well,  obviously that's the wrong question.  Should be "why didn't they hire him?"

 

I'm "that guy"?  It's hardly a unique position.  From another thread on page one from today:

 

https://defector.com/why-your-team-sucks-2024-buffalo-bills

 

Look, this is Weird, right? The team’s previous defensive coordinator, Leslie Frazier, “took a year off” after a 13-3 season in 2022 and never came back. Brady is the fourth—fourth!—offensive coordinator of the McDermott tenure, and only one of his previous OCs, Brian Daboll, left for a head coaching job. Rick Dennison and Ken Dorsey were both dumpstered during/after playoff seasons, with Dorsey’s firing coming under especially dubious circumstances. How many head coaches get to hire this many coordinators? How many refuse to hire from outside the organization like this?!

Maybe most interestingly, former special teams coordinator Heath Farwell left for the same job with the Jacksonville Jaguars after the 13 Seconds game. I can’t prove that this is because, say, hypothetically, McDermott overrode Farwell’s call for a squib kick and had Tyler Bass kick it deep, which then gave the Chiefs just enough time to send the game to overtime, thus creating conflict between Farwell and McDermott that could never be mended. Nobody will ever go on the record about such a thing, so I guess we’ll never know what happened! Aww, shucks!

What I can say for sure is that a lot of Sean McDermott’s coordinators seem to leave or get fired at the exact moment people start calling for McDermott’s head. Honestly, good luck to Babich and Brady. If their boss forgets how many timeouts their opponent has—again (allegedly)—they might be called into his office on Monday morning. 

 

A little hyperbole there, but not much. You pretend like this hasn't come up here many times before.  

 

 

[Shaw66]

18 hours ago, BufBills83 said:

 

 

I agree with this, too.  I don't know why so many people on here think that McDermott makes decisions based on, at least partly, to save his job or look for a scapegoat if things go wrong.  To me, he doesn't seem like that type of person at all.  I don't think he's sitting around like "I'm gonna have Babich call the plays but I think he may not be great at it and I can take over and blame him for the failures."  I think he trusts everyone he puts in each position and if something doesn't work out, he makes decisions that are best for the team, not himself.

I agree.  And it's not just that he trusts people.  It's his job to hire people, train them, and trust them.   His job is to hire and delegate, so that all that's left for him to do is true head coach stuff.  

 

Now, there's a good discussion to be had, and it's been had here often, about whether the best head coach to have is one who is an offensive or defensive genius and who you WANT to call the plays.  Belichick (who didn't always call the plays, but he always was hovering), Shanahan, McVay, guys like that.  I used to think McDermott was in that class, but I'm not so sure.  

 

McDermott is learning how to do the job of being a head coach, and I have a lot of confidence in him.  I'm sure what his objective is is to hire good coordinators for all three phases and then to be the manager of those three.  Babich and Brady are his hand-picked guys, and it's fair to expect them to excel.  It's McDermott's job to get them to excel, and he's chosen them for those jobs.  And McDermott has been a head coach long enough that he should know how to do that. 

 

I think he's reached the time when he needs to deliver.  We'll see how he does.  

[hondo in seattle]

As a former army officer, I was trusted to call "plays" during game time because I was thoroughly trained to do so.

 

This makes me wonder what kind of training Babich received from McD on play-calling.  Did they watch film together with McD drilling him, "Okay, what are you expecting from their offense here?  So what do you call?  Why?"  

 

Did they do anything else?

 

 

[Shaw66]

3 hours ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

And why do you think he would hire his position coach over guys who have been NFL play callers?

I think this is a legitimate question.  It's the same question as why would you hire someone with no head coaching experience over someone who has done it before.   And the answer is the same:  The coaches who have done it before and were successful at it already have jobs and aren't available, like Nick Fangio.  The coaches who  have done it before and are available are available because they weren't very successful last time.   So, when you're an owner or a GM or a HC looking for someone to be HC or a coordinator, you have two categories of candidates:    Coaches who for some reason didn't have a lot of success last time but who have shown promise and may be worth betting on the second time around, and coaches who haven't done the job yet but have shown a lot of promise.   McVay, Shanahan, Tomlin, McDermott all were guys hired as head coaches from that second category, and they all were great hires.  Belichick, Carroll, maybe Reid, all were guys picked from the first category.   Some guys who've never done it before fail the first time, like Marrone.  Some guys who HAVE done it before also fail, like Rex Ryan.  

 

There is no single place to look for great coaches.  And there are a lot of variables that combine to make them succeed or fail.  

So, in this case, you can hire a DC who has called defensive plays before but didn't succeed very well at his DC job, or you can hire a DC who has shown a lot of promise but never called plays before.  

 

McDermott is very much a promote-from-within guy, which is why we got Dorsey and Brady and Babich, and which means you're going to have coordinators without play calling experience.  

 

The Jets have Nathaniel Hackett as their OC.  The Browns have Ken Dorsey.   They both come to their jobs with play calling experience.  I don't want either one of them as my OC.  

[Shaw66]

19 minutes ago, hondo in seattle said:

As a former army officer, I was trusted to call "plays" during game time because I was thoroughly trained to do so.

 

This makes me wonder what kind of training Babich received from McD on play-calling.  Did they watch film together with McD drilling him, "Okay, what are you expecting from their offense here?  So what do you call?  Why?"  

 

Did they do anything else?

 

 

I have never looked at Babich's history.  He has plenty of play-calling experience.  Head Coach at North Dakota State for five season, Defensive Coordinator for the Bears and the Jags (three seasons each).   He's been around.  

 

I'm sure he and McDermott have regular, high-level discussions about how they want the defense to work, including play-calling philosophies and strategies.   

 

We'll see how they do in a week.  

[Cash]

24 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

Belichick (who didn't always call the plays, but he always was hovering)

 

This is pretty much the ideal model for where McD should be on gamedays, IMO.  Not directly calling the plays, but working with Babich and jumping in as needed.