Thurman#1

Nonsense is right, and you're absolutely chock full of it. "having such high EPA per drive means the tools are there for success, but the coaching is not delivering," you say. Sorry, man, but that's complete poppycock. High EPA only means the team is in a good situation at that moment. If the team fails in a promising situation that doesn't show you have bad coaching. All it shows is that the team failed. It doesn't say a damn thing about who caused the failure. The fact that you're instantly blaming that on coaching doesn't say anything about reality. It does show one thing. It shows that you - you personally - have decided who you want to blame, and thus are taking any input as proof of your narrative. It shows you're running on confirmation bias. Spacing on routes is a coaching problem. Unless a player runs the wrong route. Then it's a player problem. We don't know which is the problem on any give play. There is never any proof of it. There have been spacing problems on some plays, but not on most. Who's to blame? Likely sometimes it's a coaching problem and sometimes a player problem. You can "make it simple," if you want, but awful logic, even if it's simple, doesn't show anything whatsoever. We have good players. We have good coaches. It's still not hitting on all cylinders. When that happens in extremely complicated situations, the guy who wants to put all the blame in one place is simply showing he doesn't understand how the world works. He's crippled by confirmation bias. Anyone with even cursory knowledge of the NFL can show you dozens of good teams with good rosters performing really well for a while and then really poorly for a while, in the same season with the same coaches, and stretching over a couple of seasons. My favorite example is the Giants team that beat the 16-0 Pats in the Super Bowl. They looked like an early playoff out. Couldn't beat good teams all year. Then they started playing well. They're a great example, but there are a huge number of teams looking like two different teams year to year or even in the same year. The idea that you have here that good rosters never play poorly and therefore if they do it's on the coaching ... it's absolutely laughable. Of course good rosters play poorly sometimes. And bad rosters play well sometimes. It's a part of the league. High EPA doesn't show squat about this issue. Absolutely zero. It shows the team was in promising situations. It doesn't show who is responsible for the problem. There's blame to go around. The coaches - as I've said in this thread - have made some bad moves, such as blitzing Burrow. The players have also done some really bad work. Josh's INT against the Bengals is one good example. The play is built for him to hit the honey hole behind the CB and in front of the safety. The play is there. The receiver has four yards on the CB, the safety's not in the picture yet, and Josh underthrows it by a lot and lets the CB get back into it and make the play. There's been a lot of visible bad execution. And some visible bad coaching as well. That's just how things look when teams aren't rolling right. Plenty of blame to go around.

64% of snaps.

Nah. That's just dumb. Burrow has similar or worse problems? Neither. Mahomes has similar or worse problems? Neither. It's dumb. Yes, they have problems. Nobody's perfect. But are they similar or worse than Josh's right now? The idea's plain dumb. There's a reason those other guys have the top MVP odds and Josh ... doesn't.

Heh. Yeah. Problems in his situation and problems in his play. He'll come back. I'm not worried in the long-term. But short-term, yup.

Complimentary indeed. Consistent "not get the comment you're replying to, and then throw up a straw man instead" post. You do not disappoint.

Not surprising so many here are putting words in his mouth. His own words aren't all that bad, so if you hate him you have to make something up. He isn't even saying it was him who made this decision, or at least not there he didn't.

This is the problem with the "it all points to coaching and coaching alone" argument. You don't have a single reason in this post why this is true. Not one data point that shows why the players aren't partially to blame. The whole argument is "the bad results and our barely 500 record points to coaching and coaching alone." Why so? What you're essentially saying is that we're not doing well, so it's obviously the coaching. Which is simply a stupid argument. Carries just as much logical force as the opposite argument, that we're not doing well so it's obviously the players. The coaches absolutely do bear some responsibility. Marino points out the questionable idea of not using more tempo and of attacking Burrow with blitzes. Those are coaching issues. Equally, he points out drive-stopping plays where Allen threw a bad ball on the INT and threw into tight coverage when there were guys wide open elsewhere. That's a player issue, and he pointed out more such. There's a lot of blame to go around. Everyone deserves some.

Josh and Dorsey both carry very significant amounts of the blame. I think we do know. He's a guy with strengths and weaknesses we're all pretty aware of. He'll never be a #1. He's a solid but not exceptional 2, and he blocks really well, which is often discounted. He doesn't appear to be sudden enough to do much damage short but does well in the deep and intermediate range.

He got a better job. He'd made no secret of wanting a head coaching job his whole life. In previous seasons he didn't get offered a head coaching job. And you know this is on McDermott because of all of your connections in the Bills locker room? Or does it just conveniently fit your narrative so you find it easy to believe?

When healthy early, this defense was as dominant as any. The injuries have killed us.

Yup, the injuries are huge in terms of how the defense is playing below capacity. But the offense has been healthy and they're performing worse. Just because the talent is there doesn't mean the players are playing well. It just doesn't. People want to say that because we're not playing well the blame goes to the coaching. That's not solid logic in any way.

What difference does it make whether or not Von knows their record or not? None whatsoever. Completely insignificant to him. All he has to know is that the next game is the only important one for them this week, that it was a wildly important game. Did he seem not to understand this? If anything it means he's correctly focused. The past shouldn't matter to the players. The next game is where all of their focus should go. The idea this matters is pure dumb. The problem with Von is not that he's not engaged. It's that right now he can't win his pass rush battles. He's not back yet. Will he every get back? No way to know, but that's the issue with Von, not whether he knew something irrelevant to his Bengals game prep. But if playing him now gets him closer to what he could be, we should all be for it. If our pass rush isn't better soon They are what their record says they are, you say? Yeah. Fair enough. Correct. They will have to get a lot better to make a difference this year. You're dead right on that count. Edmunds looked very very good as an LB. Then we put in the new guy, knowing he's a bit small and that injuries might be a concern, as they were not for Edmunds. Look what happened. He's played very well. Now he's injured. I guess I'm glad to see you're al heated up about stuff. But perhaps thinking before you type, maybe a bit of editing, would work better for you. A lot of nonsense in there alongside the relatively few times you make very good sense. You say the coaching staff has made Josh joyless and the other word salad you used. But then you point out he's been the same player all along. That would tend to show the opposite, that it's not the coaching staff, that it's Josh, that he's an up and down guy. Where's the evidence that it's the coaches that did all this? There is none, it's just what you want to believe. They do need to make some changes. The coaches have got to do better. So do the players. If this team continues playing at this level they shouldn't be considered Super Bowl contenders even if they make the playoffs. I agreed with what Joe Marino said this week, that we blitzed way too much against Burrow, a guy who loves the blitz. That's a coaching error. Marino also went through the film and found that the drive-stopping plays were on the players and a bad penalty call/non-call or two. The players without the slightest question deserve their share of the blame in this. Not that that leaves the coaches blameless. They're not. But this is NOT all on the coaches.

DVOA doesn't tell you that much over shorter periods of time. Four games is too short. This doesn't mean they are the worst, it means they haven't been playing very well. Which is hard to argue with.

Home games at home in cold weather were manna from heaven for those teams. We could take it and the cold weather teams really couldn't. Kelly had no trouble playing in cold weather. Those were advantages. Disagree. I don't think there's been much of an anti-Buffalo fan bias beyond the hate that successful teams (see the Pats) always get.

A late bye is helpful. Means you're fresher going into the playoffs. That's a plus, I think. I was happy when I saw that.

It does tell you all you need to know. It tells you that a flag is a possibility and that it's worth eliminating that possibility for an audience that can't see any part of the field beyond the small bit where the camera is focused, usually on one guy holding a ball.

Dreading is probably too strong. Worried about? Yeah. Why wouldn't anyone? I have since I became a fan decades ago. It's part of the game.

I think you're being oversensitive to the most depressive folks on here. We have a good chance. So do they. With Burrow healthy they're a damn good team. If it were in Buffalo we'd be favored by a point. It's just that in the last few games the Bills aren't playing their best ball, and the Bengals are playing theirs.

Yup. Translation: I don't like him.

Not real likely, IMO. It's more complicated than having a general idea of the scheme. I'd expect some snaps for two, maybe even three, but not a ton, myself. We'll see.

We really don't have to win now. Not that I'd be against winning now, of course. But it's not like if it doesn't happen now it won't happen. There are some older guys who don't have much longer to go, such as Latavius Murray, Poyer and Hyde, Sam Martin, AJ Klein, and Von Miller as well, and now Linval Joseph. Those guys won't be with us all that much longer, and when we lose them, Poyer and Hyde would seem to be the biggest losses, and they can be replaced with McD's scheme and ability to coach up a D-backfield. Von would be a huge loss if he ever recovers to earlier levels. I hope he does, but this d-line is playing well even without that. What you don't want to be is old and bad. We're not. Could be a nose issue. I saw crappy tackling and play, but no fear. They looked more anesthetized than fearful. Again, Cincy is a very good team, especially when Burrow is playing well. Not especially physically terrifying, though.

It's deniable. I'm denying it here. Were they beaten physically? Yeah, they were. Not buying the intimidated thing, though. The Bills at the time said they just didn't have the energy, the juice. That's what it looked like to me, a team that was emotionally exhausted. I didn't see a bit of intimidation there, myself. I think they played tougher more physical teams last year without being intimidated, the Titans, the Ravens, ... . Why would the Bengals be special? They're a good team but no more physically intimidating than most others in the league.

In the sense that anyone receiving a salary is one, and especially getting paid to guess likely sports outcomes, then yeah, I guess so. He doesn't pretend he's seen the guy in person. He hears what's publicly available about the guy and uses professional knowledge to produce an informed guess, a guess that's more informed than that of anyone else who doesn't have first-hand knowledge of the specifics of the case. Nothing wrong with what he does. The medical info is indeed protected. He's not unprotecting it in any way. Nor could he since he doesn't have access. I don't see it as any problem. Probably a million people guess at these outcomes, including some in this thread. He only guesses with much more direct experience in similar situations.

If we did that, we'd be getting a coach who would have won a championship with Allen if he were younger. And giving up a coach who stands a very good chance of winning one as he moves forward. We shouldn't consider it, nor will we. If I'm Kraft, I send Belichick to Washington. Not if he were younger, but now? Yeah.

Our #2 receiver has 50 yards less and 2 TDs more than DaVonte, Philly's #2 receiver. Gabe also has 140 more yards and four more TDs than Deebo, SF's #2. If those two teams have a really good WR2 as you say, then our 2 is producing right with them or out-producing them. Beane and McD have more to prove. So do the GM/coaches of both those teams, who with Roseman as the exception, have also not GM'd and head-coached their way to Super Bowl victories. And Roseman's SB win came in his 8th year as GM. Our guys still have a couple of years to catch up. No reason to think Beane and McD aren't great. Very very few teams have had as much consistent high-level results the past few years as we have. And it's nonsense that if you want to have a good DL you "have to develop at least some of your own reserve DLs." No, you don't. That is one of several ways to be successful. If you want to have a really good DL and be DL-centric, what you have to do is have a really good DL and be DL-centric. How you do it doesn't matter. There's no requirement that it has to be done the Badol way. It just has to get done. You cite the 9ers. Where are all the DLs they drafted lower and developed? Their top 8 are Chase Young, Arik Armstead, Javon Hargrove, Nick Bosa, Clelin Ferrell, Kevin Givens, Javon Kinlaw and Randy Gregory. The only one of those guys who they didn't draft in the top two rounds or acquire from other teams is Kevin Givens, a lower-level platoon guy. Is he any better than Harrison Phillips, who the Bills drafted late and developed?