HappyDays

And I agree with this totally. He's a HoF coach if he gets even one Super Bowl win. Without it he goes down as the coach that held back Allen from putting the exclamation point on his career. Marty Schottenheimer 2.0, remembered more as a running joke than for what he accomplished. Allen's legacy also rides on that Super Bowl win. He's either an all time football legend or just a great QB. So McDermott's and Allen's legacies are inextricably tied together as far as how history will remember them. What has frustrated me is that it feels like Allen has far and away held up his end of that relationship, and McDermott has not. And so eventually if McDermott isn't going to help Allen cement his legacy, I would like to give someone else a shot. For me Allen's 30th birthday is the breaking point which I think is more than fair. That will come in the 2026 offseason.

Only speaking for myself but if McDermott wins a Super Bowl he has a lifetime contract in my eyes. For me it isn't that I feel McDermott is a below average coach or holds the team back a ton. I recognize his strengths as a culture builder and a guy that can get the most out of his players. I just fear he cannot get us over the playoff hump because of his perennial mistakes in critical high leverage moments in close games. If he does get us over the hump, there will be nothing left for me to criticize. I don't expect a dynasty, I just expect at least one Super Bowl win before Allen retires. The longer Allen's career goes without one the antsier I get to give someone else a chance at the wheel. At least for this coming offseason I will probably lay off the fire McDermott talk unless we get bounced by a clearly inferior team in the wildcard or something unforgivable like that. He's shown me enough over our win streak this year to convince me that even if we don't reach the top, he's earned another year in the team's 2nd window with our new group of core players. In that scenario ideally we manage to re-sign Cooper, invest heavily in the DL especially in the middle, and then McDermott has zero excuses heading into 2025 in a Super Bowl or bust year. That's where my mind is at.

I have zero interest in hockey and only a casual interest in seeing the Sabres become good again, so I have to say this post was sickly satisfying. You really laid it out... When I first heard that Lindy Ruff was hired for a second go-around, my immediate reaction (as, again, someone that doesn't really follow the sport) was that it reeked of an owner who had utterly lost confidence in himself to make good decisions for his franchise. Trying to re-capture lightning in a bottle never works out. I will say though the NFL is not the NHL. No coach in the modern era signs on without being handed total control of the organization and Terry knows that. He would have a consulting firm run the hiring process and then his only job would be to write blank checks for the new regime, as he's done for McBeane. His mismanagement of the Sabres doesn't even enter the discussion for me. But I understand if you follow the Sabres closely and care about them the way that you do about the Bills, it would be hard to ignore the comparison.

I can't say my opinion on McDermott has changed just yet. It does come down to the playoffs for me. But I will say his coaching since halftime of the Titans game has been the best of his career. That stretch of Baltimore to NYJ confirmed some of my worst fears about him, but everything since then has made me think he's turned a corner. I'd be lying if I said the nagging concern about his playoff coaching isn't still there though. My opinion on Beane however has gone up a bit. He successfully completed the necessary tear down and youth movement, and did it in a way that has given us the best overall team of the Allen era. I know that last statement isn't necessarily a popular opinion because previous years' rosters on paper look better, but I mean best "team" in the truest sense of the word. It isn't just a collection of talent, it's an interlocking machine whose sum is better than its parts. Very impressed by his ability to complete the rebuild without the franchise missing a beat, and also manage to fix the one glaring issue on the roster before the season went off the rails.

Can't speak for Gunner but I did not like the signing and I'm here to say I was wrong. Rapp has been pretty much exactly what I want at the safety position - not a plus starter who costs too much money for a devalued position, just a solid starter who hits his landmarks and makes some plays from time to time with a reasonable salary. He's also singlehandedly taken at least 5 TDs off the board this year. Just by memory two in the Jets game, one in the Indy game, two in the San Fran game. For a cap hit of 3.7M and 4M in 2025 and 2026 respectively, I am more than happy with that value.

I think Beane will do his signature move of getting DQ to accept a pay cut. That's what Beane always does when a player clearly isn't living up to their contract but he doesn't want to take the entire dead cap hit with no return.

McDermott's philosophy pretty much requires a great 1T because for better or worse he refuses to emphasize stopping the run with scheme. Unfortunately the investments we've made there over the years just haven't worked out for the most part. Star never lived up to his contract and took the covid year off. When DQ was still in his prime the run defense notably got much better for a while, but now he has clearly lost a step and the run defense is poor again. It really is that simple. I'm sure they will use a relatively high draft pick on the position this year.

Something I've noticed is that when Allen throws the ball downfield to Kincaid the pass is often off target. Whereas his downfield throws to Knox are almost always are on target. To me that implies a possible issue with Kincaid being where he's supposed to be within the timing of the play. Because it doesn't make sense that Allen can hit those throws to one TE but not the other if it was just a QB issue. And like you said they are not using Kincaid downfield much to begin with so maybe there is something he isn't doing right. I don't know, it's hard to put my finger on the exact problem.

The only part of that article that disturbed me:

Well now I know the story is true. Whenever I'm about to maliciously push a child down the stairs, I make sure to proclaim out loud "I'm going to push this child down the stairs" in a way that only the victim's father can hear me.

I also read that Winston broke the Browns single game passing record in this one. Could have been one of the most fun QBs to ever play the game, too bad he can't be remotely trusted.

Best part of that pick six is imagining all the Dolphins fans screaming in rage as their playoff hopes fall apart

I really want Denver to win but I can't help but root for Winston. Reminds me of Allen in the sense that he's just a big kid in an NFL body having the absolute time of his life.

Mo' Pix?

Nix has been asking for that.

I can't go that far yet but I certainly feel better about their chances at this point in the season than I ever have in the McDermott/Allen era. Nobody can deny the team has a special feeling about it. By jettisoning several long time starters Beane may have made our roster worse, but he made our team better. A couple very solid drafts laid the foundation for the second window and it opened sooner than anybody anticipated.

Imagine if Winston had started all year. They'd be in the hunt at the very least.

Okay that was a sick throw

Jalen Virgil is on our roster, but I would still classify him as that caliber of player. In retrospect unrosterable isn't the right term. 50th man on the roster is a better descriptor. That's Sherfield. He's only played 18% of offensive snaps and he has 8 targets. Hollins is clearly a step above that. Earlier in the thread I said the offense performs better when Hollins is targeted 0-2 times per game. We've gotten more examples since then and it's still true. We've scored 32.25 PPG in games where he's gotten 0-2 targets. Only 20.75 PPG in games where he's gotten more than that. But for the role we have him in he's a perfect match, no question. He was critical to our rushing success against San Fran. He turned his 1 target into a great TD catch. Credit to Beane for building up the offensive supporting cast enough to put Hollins in a role where he can thrive.

My takeaway from this game is that the Bengals and Dolphins are going to have a hell of a time wresting the 7 seed from Denver. Both of them needed Denver to lose this game to have any kind of chance of sneaking in.

I really hope I'm wrong about the Chiefs and they somehow drop two games. I see the Bills finishing no worse than 14-3, and that record really does deserve the #1 seed and a bye.

This is pretty cool from the social media team: