pocoboy

One word: McDermott. Honestly, every draft you're gonna have a defensive lineman or two drop down the board. And I think McDermott starts licking his chops when he thinks he can get his hands on a 1st round DL talent in the 2nd round. They really needed a Director of Football Ops to rein in McDermott's spending sprees. Pegula really put a lot of faith in McDermott's guiding voice. And early in the rebuild, solidifying defense while lacking an elite QB made tons of sense. But there needs to be a balancing voice at this point.

Says something about a fanbase that wants to name the s**t performances and forget the good ones.

It's been interesting to watch the team continue to try to use the cop-out excuse of "we were out of gas" to try and play on the continued narrative fostered in the media about the snowstorms, Hamlin, Tops, etc. But fans really aren't having it. If they want to use these excuses now, then I would venture to say that they were "out of gas" before the first Bengal game. They were getting destroyed just as handily up until the Hamlin event. The bye on, this team was completely different. It's as if they sunk their entire emotional existence into avenging 13 Seconds. Almost like once they got that out of the way, the level of focus & desire dropped. They got to 2nd half of GB, Josh was in the midst of MVP discussions, then pressing to pad the numbers he dropped a couple of "garbage time" interceptions. Everything unraveled from there - the Jet game started with a bang but ended with a whimper, and then the Viking game was a shitshow of epic proportions. So the coaching staff has some culpability, but I also think that Allen is gonna need to do some serious thinking about the way that midseason stretch went...if he went a little too hard at trying to live up to MVP hype, rather than doing the things every MVP QB does well - go through reads, take what the defense gives, and only press when the situation is right. Lastly, if Dorsey is gonna stay - he has to devise gameplans to close out games that aren't just "let's try to exploit single coverage with the kill shot." Allen seems like a guy whose feast or famine instances are mostly fed by momentum and confidence. The more you ask him to try to hit the deep ball, as long as he hits it, everything's great. But when it doesn't happen...

His age would be a likely reason if he avoided broken ribs. Compressions might need to be stronger if he builds his sternum through weight training, but his bone composition would be better as a young man.

I think if I were a Bengals fan, I would 100% believe the Bills used the Hamlin situation to avoid that game.

This seems to be one of those "hey, we lost, let's throw out every possible reason we lost because it's a forum and starting threads is a stat or something" posts. He has a long road ahead. He's a member of the team. If he wants to be there & the doctor says it's ok, he should be there. I can't believe that his presence had anything to do with whatever malaise afflicted the team.

If I'm Terry Pegula, I'd be considering that stat, and at the very least saying to myself, "If my goal was to win a title with a defensive-minded Head Coach, how in the h**l did our executive team (principally McDermott) think it was wise to deposit control of what seems to be the key facet of any successful team with a rookie???" I don't care if it's 3 coordinators in 3 years - this team's chances nosedived as the offense slowly withered on the vine. Pushing all in on Ken Dorsey maturing into a competent - let alone preeminent - offensive coordinator by the time Josh Allen's eventual decline emerges is a humongous gamble. In other words, if you're going to operate under a rather logical conclusion that offense matters, you HAVE to have an inscrutable executive running the offense, who can fend off McDermott's insecurities. So... 1) Can McDermott take a critical look at - and make - proper staff decisions on his own? 2) If he can't, will Pegula press the issue? 3) Would McDermott then be quicker to fall on his own sword than be forced into coaching changes? I don't think McDermott needs to be fired, and it's hard for Ken Dorsey, but this situation is damned wrong for him to be OC. Sorry.

I think the question OBD should begin asking: is it the talent brought in on the DL/LB that hasn't lived up to snuff? Or is it the McDermott/Frazier philosophy of heavy rotation that has stunted the development of talent into impact players? It sure looks like the Bengals have hired this generation's Dick LeBeau.

My assumption is that, in this concept, if the ball is thrown quickly, the defender is supposed to fly at the receiver and foremost make an immediate, clean tackle. Any chance of a pass breakup would be welcome too, but you have no help, you must take him down at the point of contact. But on that slippery field? Likely with the wrong choice in cleat? With a guy who is still in some level of recovery from ACL? In some ways I feel bad for Frazier. His team was a combination of unsettled and worn out. I'm not sure any defensive scheming ends up affecting the Bengals offense much on that particular day. Again, if I'm going to put the microscope on the situation - it has to be how the offense couldn't scheme their way to more than 10 points. Inexcusable. You can be the judge of what percentage can come down to a lack of quality offensive personnel vs. the lack of an experienced coordinator vs. the previously mentioned unease/fatigue. I'd venture to say it's about 5/70/25. Daboll had this team humming.

In other words, it might have been better to forfeit the rest of the season & avoid further injury, if all of this was going to grind them into this state. In many ways I sympathize, but in other ways I feel like they make a handsome wage. People spend a decent % of their check to attend those games, all the while dealing with some of the same stressors.

He's Andy Reid, Jr. There's nothing wrong with Andy Reid, in fact as you say he's gonna get your team pulling in the same direction and largely keep the room motivated. Reid's defining moment was drafting Mahomes, that takes him from likely HOF Coach to absolute HOF Coach, especially if they get a 2nd ring this year. I think there's a slim chance McDermott falls on the sword if pressed into making decisions about Frazier and/or Dorsey. I'm not sure that is a good path for the Buffalo Bills, though.

The writing was on the wall with this team. I feel like a common narrative the final 3/4 of this season could be summarized with "it's like they're playing with one arm tied behind their back, so they learn how to win the close games." In reality, it appears the arm was named Brian Daboll, and it was amputated after the previous season. Like any body, it attempts to compensate for the loss, but as time went on it led to significant limitations in what the team could do. I'm sure Ken Dorsey syncs well on a personal level to JA17, but feels only gets you so far. One thing is clear - the Allen that surgically picked apart the Rams in Week 1 was nowhere to be found in the latter half of the season. There are so many reasons that could be, but eventually those paths must lead to your Offensive Coordinator. He must be able to recognize the issues and correct them. And one has to think that's a Daboll specialty, as Allen's efficiency seemed to improve as the games closed in on January and February. Then the defense. Frazier seems to be out of ideas, but largely they play well. I'd like to think that they met expectations yesterday - granted they probably were spared a worse point allowance due to score effects. I would harp on the 13 seconds thing, and wonder if relieving Frazier is a year late. But honestly, I think faulting the defense in this game is easy because of one play, that 3rd and 5. In a game like this, you're thinking "shootout." Of course you want to expect more, but in reality I'm thinking 35-31 or 41-38 if the Bills are winning this game. Burrow is good, Chase is good, and yes they are backup OL's. But you have to figure they're gonna find a way unless you rattle Burrow. So in my mind, you have to seriously consider relieving Dorsey of his duties. That offense has grown more and more dysfunctional as Dorsey's game-planning and coaches has supplanted the last vestiges of Daboll's system. And you just can't waste any more of Allen's peak time. That means a) you need a coordinator/QB coach team that will challenge Allen to do the mental parts of his job better, and b) you need Beane to be adamant that they must spend resources protecting Allen and lining up more reliable weapons. Maybe Dorsey can still be a), but I'm skeptical. But gone need to be the days of burning early draft picks on inconsequential defensive linemen and cornerbacks that struggle to claim the starting job. Last - the loyalty McDermott places with guys like McKenzie, Jackson, Davis, and maybe even Singletary - I'm sure it's good for morale, but if you're gonna rely heavily upon your belief of what a player _can_ be, in spite of future talent that shows longer-term promise but needs reps (Shakir, Elam, Cook, just to name a few), they had better perform. And I think you can argue that each of those 4 above failed to live up to expectation in 2022.

So the 17 game schedule is making a lot more sense now. I could imagine them eventually wanting to push the 16 "extra" games to international sites every year, if they can figure out suitable markets. I think the fact the Chiefs and Bills are both slated for their extra home game to be abroad is a good thing. It would have been optimal to force Cincy into this instead of New England, as those are the three teams that seem best perched to be fighting for the 1 seed again in 2023. I think you have to hope it's Las Vegas. Denver, NYG, and Tampa all went abroad last season. Also feel like from a competitiveness standpoint, taking away a divisional home match-up is a bridge too far. Theoretically, I could see the league doing some kind of trial balloon of Jacksonville playing "home" at Wembley followed by an "away" game vs Buffalo at Spurs, but that would be a stretch. So to me, it's probably Vegas or the Cowboys.

If you've run out of meds, maybe he'll come back.

The truth shall set you free. Now that both your teams are golfing, maybe you can go stalk the Pats and Bucs a bit to see if they'll give you an autograph.

it's more nefarious than this. if you're going to truly profit your sports book sponsors, you need a mix. you can't have EVERY game close - too suspicious. you can't allow certain teams to be spreadproof - the house loses if it's too predictable. i don't think the nfl is that interested in ensuring results. but i do think they have a plan that serves the purposes of those who are footing the bill.

Delay of game = No commercial break. Timeout = Chance for commercial break. Ergo, the reason a regulation game took 4+ hours. Time outs in the final two minutes are typically 30 seconds. Broadcasters seem to have that down, short commercials or no break - could even be mandated by the league to try and preserve some game flow. But the early half timeouts were pushed immediately to full commercial breaks. Then add to that the change-of-possessions, challenges, injury time outs - it just got way out of hand, and I think the league only realized it after they hit 3 pm and it was just getting to halftime.

Nothing against Brown, but I feel like my level of discomfort & stress was heightened with his exuberance. Of course, it might have just been the fact that the Bills were trying the same dish that Chargers got on Saturday night. Syncing up DVR with the Bills app used to be horrible. For some reason, their application of the commercials to the radio broadcast was out-of-sync with the TV timeouts, so you would have to resync the video multiple times a game. Now with the NFL+ (if you subscribe), the broadcast stays extremely consistent in terms of temporal sync. So once you get the video set (unless your damned dog wants to walk on the remote), it's good for the entire game.

A large part of the 2020's style offense relies on the QB's read. I'm assuming each play-call has several alterations that can be made on the fly based on QB read. If those reads are not correct, that has a decent chance of rendering the play-call ineffective, as the QB could choose an option that is ill-suited for the defensive call. I believe that you need to have someone (OC, Passing Game Coordinator, QB Coach?) who would be unwinding the play at practice to help communicate to the QB and other skill players how best to optimize plays...whether by using eyes, feints, motion, etc. I am worried that the change from Daboll to Dorsey has led to 3) being compromised in some fashion. Thus when the pass play breaks down because a read is incorrect, the next step is to backyard-ball it.

Yeah I feel like the whole story gets leaked to unsettle either BUF or CIN. ESPN, the Worldwide Leader in all things Chiefs.

Man, can really tell a LOT from 7 plays.

What one would hope is that the "scheming guys open" bit is being back-pocketed to a point where it's absolutely crucial. And that time has come, most likely.

Yeah I'm not sure he has the route precision & ability to separate against NFL CB talent. He looked at his absolute best when the safety had to make a choice.

And I'm kinda sick of this "he's been hurt" narrative. It's been 3 months, if this was going to hamper a guy for that long, go to IR and get it right. Part of reaching the Franchise QB contract portion of the build is trusting your draft picks to pick up the slack. The final playoff game left everyone assuming Davis would be fine, but he's not. You _have_ to address WR2 this offseason. If Davis "heals" and returns to his reliable self, then maybe you have a third outside WR who can offer flexibility in terms of injury or rotational depth. If I'm McDermott, I'd be evaluating my WR Coach this offseason. It seems like they can bring in guys who have already been developed & they're fine, but I don't see a WR draft pick that has rounded into consistent form. Davis should be embarrassed at his catch-to-target %.

Personally, since the league has opened the door on the resolution, I'd propose a coin flip. Even odds, you don't have to worry about short weeks, other teams ending up with byes but not you, and it's reasonably equitable. Maybe the Bengals would feel aggrieved because they were ahead. I guess ultimately there will be time to decide the victor come playoff time.