hondo in seattle

Unlike some others on this board, I think McD is a good head coach. I think he's good at defensive schemes, preparing the team during the offseason, preparing the team during game week, building teamwork, and motivating effort & hustle. But there's one critical task he has not been good at: choosing a capable OC. In my book, he's 1-of-4 . Daboll was imperfect but pretty good overall. Dennison, Dorsey, and Brady all underformed. Considering we have perhaps the greatest QB in Bills history, now is not a good time to play musical chairs with subpar OCs. I'm not sure what to expect tonight because Brady's a bit schizophrenic. But I have serious concerns about Brady's ability to generate offense against good defenses.

I'll probably be worm meat by then but I hope to look as good as Marv at that age.

Offense - Cook. His injury worries me, but he's been our most reliable offensive player. Defense - Douglas. He averaged a pick every other game last season but has none this year. Seems overdue.

The only players and ex-players I don't like are (1) crappy human beings - murderers, rapists, drug dealers, etc. and (2) crappy teammates - guys who didn't give their all for the team. As far as I know, Davis doesn't fit into either of these categories. Mostly I don't think about him, but when I do, I wish him the best.

I agree with the first part about Simms' expertise. I don't think the Bills need to be paying attention to him though. I can't imagine they're not seeing the same things. They're professionals and do this for a living. Knowing the problems isn't the same as knowing what to do about them, though.

Yep. With Downing's reputation being what it is, I wondered why Ulbrich is giving him the keys to the offense. Does he believe Downing will be better than Hackett? Is he making a change just to make a change? Or is he trying to minimize Rodger's influence by removing authority from Rodger's buddy?

Combining what Simms said with what Cover1 and others have pointed out in their video breakdowns... * Sometimes Josh makes bad decisions * Sometimes Josh makes bad throws * Our weapons frighten no one. * Because our receivers frighten no one, teams aren't afraid to blitz us and leave their DBs one-on-one. * Brady doesn't game plan or call plays very well. But other than these petty, easily-correctable problems, our offense is pretty darn good.

It's worse than that. Ulbrich said about Downing: he will have "the full say on the game plan and, ultimately, the plays that are called within the game." If Hackett isn't calling plays and isn't in charge of the game plan, he's really not the OC anymore. Ulrich is doing what Saleh supposedly wanted to do.

I didn't watch this video right away because I was afraid it would be depressing. Just watched it now. I was right. Bottom line: the players and coaches all sucked that game.

I thought the same. We needed a TD there. Mitch isn't a great QB but there's gotta be at least one pass play in the playbook that he can execute pretty well. Just one. That's the play I would have called against a defense that was clearly expecting a run.

Like Big Turk, I'd be up for anything. I wouldn't even mind seeing Tommy Prothro's "Formation Zero..."

Really 10 drops? It seemed to me like there were a lot of contested balls that were difficult receptions. Contested balls can be the result of: Bad throws Receivers not getting separation The OC not scheming properly and/or calling plays that gain separation Poor QB vision and decision making - not throwing to the open guy In any case, the passing offense was dysfunctional and for that I mostly blame Beane for not getting us better players and Brady for not getting the guys we do have to execute better.

When I saw this live, I blamed Hollins for not tracking and adjusting to the ball well. But when I watch the replay, I see he's sprinting as fast as he can to the very end to get under the ball. He did curve quite a bit toward the end to adjust to the "wrong" shoulder. He should have changed direction earlier and taken a straighter line to the point where the ball was going. But the fault isn't egregious. On the whole, I'd say this is 90% on Josh and 10% on Mack. A faster receiver could have gotten under the ball, but Josh was throwing to Mack and should have put it in a more catchable spot.

I voted "no" with reservations. I agree with others that it's not straight forward. I appreciate the work Beane's done turning this downtrodden team into perennial competitors. But the goal is to build a SB team and, so far, he's failed. We don't have a SB quality roster and haven't since the 1990s. Beane's given out two big FA contracts: Diggs and Miller. Neither player worked out the way we hoped. Both contracts were problematic and hurt our ability to acquire other, much needed players. With the cap being what it is, paying a player $30M to play for another team is just dumb. Maybe there was no good solution at that point but Beane took a chance on a player with a prima donna reputation and put us in that position. Beane's draft record is mixed. His FA acquisitions are also a mixed bag. During his tenure, we typically field a team with good depth players but too few playmakers on offense or defense. And I'm frustrated that Josh has had to run for his life much of his career thus far.

Why is Joe Brady not on this list?

Yeah. Whatever the intent was, I wish he had that back too. We didn't deserve to win that game but at the end we had a chance thanks to a couple of takeaways and blew it. I'd still be complaining about Brady if we had won but it's a lot more fun criticizing and whining with a W.

Probability says teams should be roughly .500 in close games. On the other hand, the Bills aren't just a random team. They're a good team. They should win close games more often than lose them. You gotta give McD credit for a 38-17 season record over that span. But the close game record is a legit cause for concern.

I blame everyone. Beane didn't give Brady and Josh good wideouts. And the pass pro since Beane's been here has been inconsistent. When you have a generational talent at QB, you need to hire a quality bodyguard that can keep him upright in a pretty pocket to optimize his production. McD isn't good at hiring OCs. Brady isn't good at scheming a passing game. Josh sometimes makes bad decisions with the ball. As Kurt Warner says, he needs to get the ball out on schedule to the intended receiver instead of looking for something better. He has his best (i.e. most error free) games when he does this.

I think the intent was to get a first down and then call 3 running plays to help run out the clock.

Yep, the run game looked good. Cook averaged 4 yards per carry. Ty averaged 5. Josh 13. To help open up a struggling passing game, we needed to show the threat of the run. So why the empty sets?

It was sometimes hard to pinpoint blame during the game. I texted a friend of mine, that the O was "out of sync." Sometimes passes were a little off. But maybe they were a little off because the route wasn't crisp and precise. One pass hit Coleman in the head when he wasn't expecting it. Other times, the OL missed assignments and Josh was hurried. The offense just didn't execute well as a whole - except for maybe J. Cook. Who's supposed to drill execution: Joe Brady.

It's a good point Biscuit but... * Josh has been less productive (ypg) this season than he was under Daboll or Dorsey. * Josh just recorded the worst completion percentage for a game of his career. * Kincaid and especially Knox are both unproductive this year. * Samuel's production should have gone up with a better QB. Instead it's gone done. * Mack Hollins averaged 41 ypg in his one previous season as a starter. This year he's averaging 11. What's the common denominator in these sad production stories? Joe Brady. Everybody Eats = Nobody Eats

I'm a big believer in the human capacity to learn and grow. I previously mentioned it in another thread when defending Brady's Carolina's past. But he's been around football since he was a child. He's been a college game passing game coordinator and NFL OC before. That's a lot of learning and growing. And he still has failures like these past two games? Maybe he just doesn't have what it takes. I'm like Anakin. I was on the side of the Jedi but I've gone over to the Dark Side now. I started the season cautiously optimistic about Brady's offense. I'm now solidly pessimistic and regret arguing against the board's pessimists. Brady might put together another good game or two but, sadly, I currently don't expect our offense to be very successful this year.

Brady took a decent wideout, linked him up with one of the best QBs in the NFL, and transformed him into a nonentity. That takes some kind of skill.

I was never fully on the Brady train, but I'm decidedly off now. The past two weeks have been embarrassing. I get our wideouts aren't good. But Josh Allen is the QB. Our passing offense should never look this bad. I think McD is a good defensive coach. I mostly think he's a good head coach. But I'm irritated that he's whiffed on 3 of 4 OC choices.