BADOLBILZ

For the people wondering why more players aren't rushing to defend McD...... I know I had lot's of coaches who we thought said or did dumb things.......but when someone from the outside attacks the leader of your team, that's personal. We can joke amongst ourselves but that doesn't fly from outsiders. But the more the players might try to excuse it by discussing the matter publicly........the less it becomes an "us against detractors" motivational tool. So I think we will see if the team feels that way about McD. I do think Dunne intended to kick dirt on McD while he was down to help sell subscriptions........but I do think the timing was pretty good to inspire the team to come together if it's possible with this group.

Yeah like that's the only time he hasn't sounded like and behaved like an idiot. Do you follow the NFL? It's Howie Roseman's show. He's put dominant lines and great playmakers around a determined QB who they are willing to use like he's disposable..........that's why they are good. He doesn't have a Belichick or even a Mike McDaniels in his division.........his biggest nemesis in division is Mike McCarthy who wouldn't have a HC'ing job at all if Jerry Jones just didn't need a puppet of his own. They are not where they are because of Nick Sirianni.

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.

It's not over but it feels like right after the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.

That's true and the Indians are right near the top and their system helped the Yankees get Matt Blake and they've taken what the Indians do and added some to it. What the Yankees have done with their young pitching development is simply outstanding. Even yesterday after just trading 6 pitchers with minor league options.........MLB had their rule 5 draft and the top 2 picks in the draft were Yankee pitchers! They don't get elite pitching prospects to work with. They excel at taking non-prospects and turning them into guys with "great stuff". Their stuff+ ranked 2nd in all MILB. Will Warren was an 8th round nobody in 2021 and Yankees pitching coordinator Sam Briend and company went to work on him and he finished the season with the the nastiest stuff of anyone in AAA baseball last season. People laughed when they drafted Drew Thorpe and his 88 mph fastball and they turned him into the most successful pitcher in all of MiLB and a centerpiece of the Soto trade. And neither of those guys are their top pitching prospect it's 2022 6th rounder Chase Hampton. And wrt to the draft, the last 6 times they've had a pick in the actual top 30(real first round) they have selected position players. No pitchers. And additionally they have taken the approach of throwing their big international money at 1 star player........and it's always a position player.......Dominguez, Arias, Mayea..........so they aren't putting their capped pool of international money into pitchers either. But the arms keep coming. It's crazy how non-pitching-centric they have been with their key amateur personnel chips in recent years and even though the expensive veteran pitchers they've acquired have been unable to pitch(Montas/Rodon) they are still a tremendous pitching team. They just can't hit...........and that is largely their decision to go with Dillon Lawson as the head of their hitting program, IMO.

I don't have a link but it's verbatim(give or take "butt" or "azz") from a segment on the Pat McAfee show when he was lamenting the lack of fun the Bills seemed to be having. It was in the days after the Denver loss. It wasn't said pointedly like a Rex Ryan shot but it was a criticism nonetheless. And he's right. Teams take on the identity of their coach and his brand is focused anxiety.

Yep, gotta' remember it's all entertainment. They are definitely a less fun team to watch than they SHOULD be though.

2021 wasn't fun until the playoffs. They labored and underachieved that season and even though they won out after the Tampa game they didn't even play well against teams like Carolina and Atlanta at home in the process. We couldn't give away tickets to that Patriots wild card game but that game basically changed the entire outlook on the season for most fans. A top 5 all-time feel good Bills win, IMO. I am not inclined to pile on McDermott for everything like many here but I think his coaching style has lead to a mid-season malaise year after year and that consistent inconsistency combined with the playoff underachieving has gradually taken some of the joy out of it for fans. As Chuck Pagano said recently you couldn't pull a needle out of McDermott's azz with a tractor and chain during games and that anxiety transfers to the players and the fans as well, IMO. They are a tense watch.

Yeah I suspect Soto will get $600M and it will be from the Yanks.........and it will end badly as all very long term deals do.....but that only matters if you mind the team spending money. They could have a $500M payroll and still make more money than every team but the Dodgers in doing so, so it's not anything a Yankees fan should worry about. Yeah the Padres did very well in the trade considering they only had one year of control of Soto though. King and Thorpe could be very good starters. Brito is very underrated and has good potential as a starter too. He and Vasquez have great stuff coming out of the bullpen. That's a good haul for a rental. San Diego drove a hard bargain but there aren't many good bats in free agency so they had leverage. But at the same time the Yanks are second only to the Rays when it comes to developing arms........and they do it from nowhere.........and even after trading 6 in the past two days they have a bunch more mid-rotation and high leverage bullpen arms on the way. What is interesting to me is that none of these guys the Yankees traded had any value whatsoever the last time Soto was traded. Their pitching development has really been excellent. Matt Blake at the major league level has been worth his weight in gold too. Their hitting development has been the opposite. Despicably bad.

Something tells me he will fall short of Fred Warner's contract in free agency though.

I will Billieve a win-out is possible until @eball starts a thread about it.

On the plus side..........it's good for our #1 seed chances. 😕

Yeah I think there is some aspect of Josh and company not being good enough or well prepared enough at it along with Allen not wanting to settle for quick passes and the offense lacking YAC talent etc.. But it's not always that many options though. They can scheme up quick-game heavy, timing-based game plans........like the 2022 opener versus Rams and the Tampa game this season. I think what Cover 1 was pointing out is that it's not just a timing based offense that isn't being run well.......which some people just assume because so much of what NE did at their best was precision timed execution. Either way, they really are not at a level execution wise that you would like to see from a team in the same system with the same QB 6 years in and top 2 receivers 4th year in. They have just been way too inconsistent this season despite that advantage of familiarity.

You lost me at RB being a draft priority of any sort. But I am on board with them needing a DC if they retain McDermott. I think McD calling the defense and not being able to juggle that with game management duties has lead directly to some of the losses.

Browning might actually be quality. I remember watching him early in his college career at Washington and thinking he would probably end up being a high first round pick. Then his really feeble arm took that off of the table. But, as often happens nowadays🤔............he's developed a much stronger arm in the pro's.........and now all the other things that made him so impressive at Washington are translating. No reason he can't be a Brock Purdy type with the talent around him in Cincy.

It could be timing based though.........when Brady ran it at the same stage of career as Josh Allen is at now, the EP looked a lot like the WCO........you could overlay pass drops of Joe Montana in SF with Tom Brady in NE and they would look almost identical. The fact that it's not is more about the players than the system itself. And that's an advantage of the EP........it is more adaptable to different styles of QB and receivers.

2010 Chargers were ranked #1 in BOTH offense and defense and missed the playoffs............we have more recognized stats now than in 2010 but that's probably the statistical gold standard for high league rankings and missing the playoffs. The worst part is that is a largely forgotten/forgettable team who barely sniffed the SB after years of success. Which is how this Bills team is trending. But with the "points" thing.......the 2017 Bills team had the worst point differential of any AFC team to make the playoffs since the late 1980's.

If you ain't got no haters........you ain't poppin'!

Meh. That's life as a pro athlete. If you play poorly and have thin skin you need to keep a low profile or you will get clowned. It passes. Don't be a prisoner of the moment. He could totally flame out next season, get released and never play football again and then 10 years from now he will show up and be the "legend of the game" and everyone will be lined up to have him autograph jerseys and pictures of the TD pass in the Patriots playoff blowout etc..

It makes the SEC very top heavy. Alabama and Georgia beat any ACC team 9 out of 10 times. Michigan and Ohio State also dominate any ACC team this season. The best teams matter GREATLY when assessing a conference. I do think that broader SEC dominance is changing as the bottom teams in the SEC are losing some of their past ability to draw recruits.........but they still have that massive TV contract and the ACC is almost completely reliant on boosters and NIL because their contract is pathetic by comparison. Fortunately the ACC teams have that booster/NIL in abundance. The worst part of this season for the ACC was the finish........the games in general got worse as the season went on and the championship game was a complete joke. People are all over this "FSU defense" but if you watch the game Plummer was just awful for Louisville. He was inconsistent like that during the season but the title game was a new low. The moment was just much too big for him and he just wouldn't take the short throws and holding the ball made the FSU front look a lot better than it was.

What do you mean by "if nothing else"? The problem with the complaints about Spencer Brown is that people don't have specific players that he should be replaced with. There are literally MORE good QB's in the league now than good RT's........because there are less good RT's than good players at any other offensive position in the league..........but some people think you can just throw a high pick at the position and it's solved. Agree about Shakir. He's a tweener. That's filling a notable role this season because the Bills WR corps is so weak after Diggs..........but if they get a legit second outside option and Kincaid essentially becomes an every-snap slot receiver in 2024 then it's easy to envision Shakir NOT continuing to trend up.

Purdy is an outstanding QB until Deebo Samuel goes down. Then he loses 3 straight and looks like JAG. And yes, all QB's need weapons around them but he also has a WR1 in Aiyuk, the most dynamic RB in the league in McCaffrey and a stud TE in Kittle.........with Deebo its the most dynamic group of playmakers around any QB in the league. When he starts winning with a cast like Brady so often did then we can start making comparisons like that.

The ACC was trash this season and the championship game was a debacle.

What are you even talking about? The "kid" was a 4 star, elite 11 QB not some walk-on. He wasn't up to the task. It happens. The committee shouldn't risk the kind of performance they might get from he or Orvile Rodemaker and leave us watching a got-dam azz whipping in one of those semi-final games. They won a game at home versus Miami(barely) last month with an even lesser true freshman QB starting against them. FSU did not finish the season like a top 4 team and ultimately they stood no chance of winning in the playoff.

The majority of the worst calls now are so subjective that I don't see review making it any less controversial. It's gone down like this: 1) League drastically changed the interpretation of rules in 2010 to protect QB's and WR..........specifically Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger.......who were supposed to become the faces of the league but were getting concussed left and right. 2) The first year 7 QB's had top 25 all-time passing yardage seasons. Rising tide raised all ships but really didn't alter the power any because it only made the teams with the BETTER QB's that much more dangerous. 3) About 7-8 years later the league started getting a noticeable influx of physically gifted QB's and WR's whose families had steered them toward the game because it had gotten so much safer for those positions and the earnings potential was rapidly expanding. 4) So to keep it from become a speedboat race out there the league has gradually allowed more and more contact in the secondary to level the playing field for disadvantaged defense's..........to the point where it's anyone's guess if something is going to be called a defensive holding or a PI. There has never been more contact down the field before the ball arrives than there is now. It's frustrating not knowing what is going to be called or not called...........if you let it be(you can just accept it like the weather and hope your team plays well enough to avoid a call or two getting them beaten)............but I don't see those calls getting reversed often(if at all) because they really are so subjective and those are what are driving people crazy and impacting scores late in the game. Frankly I'd rather see the boat races, less drama and better teams win.........but I don't think that sells as well to the masses as the product they've created.