HappyDays

We'll end up with about $40-$45M in cap space after cuts and restructures. They'll make a splash addition at WR and let the next coaching staff fill in gaps on defense. We'll be fine... They need an EDGE, safety, and probably two LBs. All of that will be easily fit into our $40M+ in cap space because of how Beane structures his contracts.

Look I wasn't even trying to say he's a loser... I don't mean to disrespect him, he is a good coach and a good man. I just mean he embodied a certain identity that the community has adopted and you're seeing that dynamic show up in the very strong reactions to his firing. I'll admit I'm surprised by it all. I knew he had his fans but I did not think there would be this groundswell of outrage and fans bemoaning Pegula for ruining a good thing. I guess Beane being retained is what pushed everybody over the edge. And I get it but jeez we gave McDermott 9 years... how about we give the next guy a chance working with Beane?

I think it's become clear over the years that you and I have different definitions of success, and that's fine. Under your definition he wasn't a loser. I respect your view. The billionaire owner takes a different view.

Couldn't agree more. I was on here last offseason saying the goal of the organization should be to build an offense that can score 40 PPG and let Allen carry you to a Lombardi. McDermott very clearly didn't want that and Beane's biggest failing is that he went along with it. I sincerely believe that is about to change though. Also as long as we get a decent defensive coordinator we no longer need to try and score 40 PPG. The current offense with some minor improvements is more than capable of making it to a Super Bowl. McDermott couldn't win in his way and he obstructed us from trying to win in the other way. In the modern NFL the standard formula is that head coaches direct the organizational priorities, so Beane isn't the one you have to worry about.

Too much of the fanbase has taken up the lovable loser identity. McDermott is the embodiment of that. Good guy, great in the community, will never win a championship. Thankfully Pegula doesn't agree with the fanbase, and on that I was definitely starting to have my doubts.

I don't disagree but I believe the priorities of the organization are going to change with our new head coach. Beane's shopping list is about to be a lot more flexible than usual. He should definitely be next on the chopping block though if he can't make it work with the next hire.

Players will want to play with Josh Allen. Don't even worry about it. And Beane has a great reputation with agents and other teams. You're letting local media dictate your emotions. Everything is fine and in fact the organization is better off than it was two days ago.

I could be wrong, this is something I'm speculating on not something I know. My reasoning is that yesterday's press release was hasty and kind of generic. The fans who believed it was somewhat of a chilly send off were correct. Just to be clear I don't care at all, the optics of what was inevitably going to be a messy separation do not concern me in the slightest. But there was clearly some bad blood there and it showed in how the announcement was made. So no I don't believe this video was planned or that it is anything more than a token gesture to appease certain fans and reporters before the press conference tomorrow. The ironic thing is that those same fans and reporters on Twitter right now are roasting the Bills for putting it out too late.

I think they were genuinely blindsided by the outpouring of support for McDermott especially from local media. He apparently did a great job the past few months setting his own narrative in motion. I doubt they ever intended on releasing a video like this but felt compelled to. No big deal. It's just corporate PR. Nothing about how the firing went down will ever be thought about again after we get through the next week or so.

It is 100% damage control. No question. So when they have the presser tomorrow they can head off any questions about why they didn't give McDermott a proper send off. To be honest it's almost more insulting to McDermott to hastily throw this together and put it out there the day after he was fired, but whatever they made their token gesture to appease people.

Good reminder that most of the Bills content creators and beat reporters who complained we didn't give him a proper send off didn't actually care about that, and were just looking for reasons to be mad that the team made a move they disagreed with. Anyways. All the stupid propaganda war drama will go away the minute they announce the new head coach and probably even sooner than that.

So that lines up with something I heard as well. I wasn't sure if I should believe it because there's so much crap flowing out of OBD right now but your double confirmation makes me wonder. Supposedly after the meeting where McDermott was fired, in front of all of the coaching assistants Brady called Beane a, uh, phrase that that rhymes with brother clucker.

I'm not totally against a defensive coach. If we're going that route I'd take Flores because his defensive coaching this year was even more impressive than Minter's IMO and he's been a head coach before so less ramp up time getting acclimated to the job. I think they will go for an offensive coach though. It just makes the most sense to pair that with Allen.

It will be because of both. They had the 2nd highest PPG. They just obliterated the 49ers defense scoring on 7 of their first 8 drives and then just ran out the clock. And again they're doing this with maybe the 20th best QB and only one top tier skill player. If you prefer other candidates to Kubiak that's fine but be honest about his accomplishments there.

There are no candidates this year with a resume that screams "special." The best time to make the move was last year. They didn't, so here we are picking from the best or the rest. I think Kubiak and Flores pretty clearly have the top resumes. Webb intrigues me as a huge swing at the fences but since we have Allen I'd rather play it a bit safer than that.

I actually have spent the past couple days watching videos on Seattle's offense and what he's done there has been very impressive. I was also impressed with what he did in New Orleans before Carr's career ending injury. Kubiak has done more with less. Darnold is still the same boneheaded player he's always been and Kubiak has managed to get the 2nd highest PPG out of him. Every OC that Allen has ever worked with has managed that kind of production... Like the statistical case for Joe Brady is the same case for Brian Daboll and Ken Dorsey. So my belief is that Kubiak could unlock an even higher offensive ceiling. I like his pedigree and the fact that he's been around the NFL for his entire life. I like that he had success developing a young WR into an elite talent and will therefore likely make it a point to get WR talent around Allen. I like how he uses his RBs and TEs in the passing game which is a perfect fit for his first year in Buffalo. And hey if you're superstitious, the last time a coach was fired for a Kubiak to take over for an elite QB it immediately led to a Super Bowl win. Much like his father, Klint will need to get the DC right. He has connections all over the league and is coming from an organization with an elite defensive staff so I have a lot of faith he will get that decision right. Everything just lines up.

You know I really wonder when I see posts like that... Are these analysts being intentionally obtuse? Or do they really not see the immediate obvious response? I see it all the time. People post McDermott's regular season record next to like Kyle Shanahan's and say in all seriousness "how can Shanahan be the better coach??" It's really bizarre.

It's worth pointing out that maybe McDermott wasn't getting the most out of his own players:

Yep the head coach is telling his boss he can't win a Super Bowl with this roster, a couple weeks before his team is supposed to be in the playoffs. That's loser stuff.

I'll be shocked if we don't make a splash trade for a WR. Beane laid the foundation for that when he went on his little woe is me tour after the trade deadline. I think that would happen even if McDermott had been retained. As long as they make that WR splash move, I don't mind if they go defense heavy in the draft. I hated that strategy while McDermott was here not because I think defense doesn't matter, but because I knew without a shadow of a doubt that all the defensive investments in the world wouldn't matter when McDermott's defense inevitably wilted in the playoffs. And hey what do you know, that's exactly what happened. Now that we will (hopefully) have better coaching and a defensive scheme more attuned to the modern NFL, I have no problem with them investing in the defense. Like last year I was maybe the only one on here that didn't want to trade for Myles Garrett. This offseason I'd be happy with it because I no longer think that a 40 PPG offense is the only path to a Super Bowl.

Oh well. I had come to believe that under McDermott there was no path to a Super Bowl. I have my concerns about Beane but there is a path with him in charge as long as Allen is here. I'm expecting the priorities of the organization to change drastically once we have our new coach.

I don't let Beane off the hook either when he makes excuses. That one press conference he had where he talked about how we haven't been bad enough to draft the likes of Ja'Marr Chase, that was a loser mindset too. Beane deserved to get fired, I haven't come off that opinion. But I'm growing tired of this media-driven narrative that poor little McDermott was treated unfairly by his backstabbing GM and his clueless owner. McDermott deserved exactly what he got yesterday. He has had ample opportunity over the years to get the team over the hump and he blew it every time. His path to the Super Bowl this year was Lawrence, Nix, Maye. That's an unbelievably easy path!! And he blew it. For all the roster deficiencies, the plays were there to be made on Saturday and his defense didn't make them. But now we have to hear about how none of it was his fault.

I'm not defending Beane. The roster deficiencies were obvious and he has to own that. How much he was responsible vs McDermott, we'll never know the full picture there. But McDermott got everything he wanted in the offseason. To come back a few months later and say it isn't good enough, that's a load of crap IMO.

The head coach can't sit down with the owner right before the playoffs and say "this team can't win a Super Bowl." That is a loser mindset. The Pats have some major roster deficiencies too. You think Vrabel sat down with Kraft a few weeks ago to bemoan how unfair it is? Everything that comes out about McDermott makes me like him less. He got full control of the roster, then he spends the whole season taking potshots at the roster construction in press conferences, and apparently behind the scenes he was laying the foundation to give himself an excuse for not winning a Super Bowl. It's gross.