HappyDays

It's not the scheme. It's the coaching details. Our contain rush fundamentals are poor. Our CB depth in man coverage is poor. Our zone spacing is poor. Our blitz packages are predictable and have poorly planned coverage schemes behind them. I mean come on man. KC had basically 4 uncontested drives in a row to start the game. Yeah the talent could be better. But we're not an expansion team. That kind of horrific defensive breakdown doesn't happen unless the coaching is poor. And something similar has happened every year. The talent keeps changing but the result is always the same. You have to be willfully blind not to see it. And that's why the argument always boils down to "well it could be worse" because there is no other argument you could make. It's a loser's argument. I'm not worried about the coaching getting worse, I'm worried about it never getting better because that means we're stuck in purgatory.

My top two options in order were Vrabel and Ben Johnson. But they're both taken now. Ask me again next year. I'd probably favor someone in the Vrabel mold if one is available because I'd rather not have a rookie head coach getting accustomed to the job. But if the season ends with our playoff opponent punting no more than twice and making it look easy against our defense, I really won't care who we hire. I'm just so sick of it at this point.

The Steelers with Allen would be competing for the division title every year. The Bills if they were in the AFCN would have been the wildcard a couple times by now. It's just not a comparable situation at all. I'm laying off McDermott this offseason but this has to be the year. We've given him and Beane all of Allen's 20s and they haven't even gotten us to one Super Bowl. For the life of me I can't understand how any Bills fan wouldn't want to give someone else a try. If there was improvement I'd say ok let him stick around no matter what, but every single year the playoff loss looks exactly the same with our defense giving up well above average production. If that happens again for the 6th time in a row why should we expect it to change?

Come on man, Cook has worked his ass off. A lot of players didn't show up in the AFCCG. He was one of a few that did and made an incredible individual play to steal a TD. He's earned the right to play hardball and make as much as he can. Teams don't show blind loyalty to their players and players shouldn't be expected to show blind loyalty to their teams. That's especially true for RBs who know they might have one good shot at a contract that sets them up for life.

Yeah I've come around to this idea. I respect what James Cook is doing, really I do, but a team paying a QB can't be dealing with a RB hold out. The position just isn't worth the headache. Get like a 3rd/4th for him if possible and go all in on adding downfield passing weapons to make up for it. Then draft his replacement in the middle rounds. This is exactly what KC would do.

Yeah I'm sure a lot of head coaches out there could replicate what he's done. In theory yes we could do worse, that's a valid consideration, but at this point it's Super Bowl or bust. We're already not getting to or winning the Super Bowl. So "worse" is kind of meaningless. We'll see what happens. At this point the most likely outcome is we win our division and then lose in the playoffs to a team that punts no more than twice and whose offense looks better than they have all season. McDermott has a chance to rewrite that story. But if that outcome happens again I hope everyone will be on the same page as Allen enters his 30s. The clock is ticking and "it could be worse!" isn't exactly a convincing argument.

I'll agree the regular season results could turn out worse, but the playoff result really could not. I keep repeating myself on this - we have never made KC punt more than twice in our playoff matchup. This last game they spent the 1st half moving the ball at will on 4 consecutive drives, and the only reason they didn't score a TD on one of those was Mahomes randomly dropping the ball. It is impossible to do any worse than that. The way that Mahomes looks against just about every other playoff defense is starkly different from how he looks against us year after year.

Exactly. Everyone is so focused on personnel. Of course Philly's defensive personnel is better than ours. But that doesn't fully explain the gap between 0 points given up in the 1st half vs 21 points given up in the 1st half (really should have been 24 or 28 if Mahomes doesn't randomly drop the ball). I don't believe any team's talent gap is THAT stark. The coaching was a big problem too. And not just the scheme - Philly ran as vanilla a scheme as you'll ever see. It's more about the details being passed on to the players and how they're being coached to execute their responsibilities, how they're being used to accentutate their strengths. That's where we've really fallen short.

Thanks. It's good to know someone like you that does this for a living is seeing the same things I'm seeing. Everyone in the Bills media sphere and fanbase is banging the table for Myles Garrett. But Rousseau is supposed to be the best contain EDGE in the game and he was no help at all in that department in the AFCCG. IMO before we can worry about personnel we need our coaches to do their job and make sure the current players are executing their responsibilities.

So to me that's coaching. I don't believe Von was ignoring what he was coached on and was just recklessly freelancing, and if he was then it's still on coaching for letting him go back on the field. In the regular season matchup we made it a point to contain rush Mahomes and as a result had a great defensive performance, but for whatever reason we abandoned it in the 1st half of the AFCCG. In the 2nd half we again made it a point to contain rush and we immediately forced two punts. Simple coaching tweaks lead to big swings in the result.

Him and Andy Reid both had their worst games of the season at the worst possible time. Bad concepts, bad play calling, compounded by an antsy QB making simple mistakes. So that's my point, we don't need to be the Eagles. We're a couple players and some coaching tweaks away from being able to execute their defensive game plan. The goal isn't to hold KC to 6 points, it's to hold them to like 24. The common fan opinion coming out of this game is that we need to spend all our resources on trying to build a dominant DL. I don't think that's right. We need to just make Mahomes a little uncomfortable by forcing him to hold the ball and stay in the pocket, and we need to have a downfield passing offense that can quickly build a lead.

Kurt Warner broke down all of the Chiefs passing plays from the 1st half and I found his analysis pretty eye opening: His analysis has nothing to do with Philly's defensive scheme or the supposed dominance of their DL (which if you watch the video was not quite as stark as it appeared at least in the 1st half). His take is that Philly's defense should have been easy to scheme against, but Reid/Nagy's concepts were poorly designed, so that combined with Mahomes just being off created a disastrous performance. When you watch it, it's uncanny how Philly's defense is almost exactly the same on every play. They didn't do anything crazy, just played with discipline and fundamentals. My take watching it back is that there are a couple of instant wins by the DL, but mostly what's making Mahomes antsy and uncomfortable is their contain rush. In the 1st half there is really only one instance - the INT Mahomes threw from his own endzone - where an immediate pass rush win had a major effect on the outcome of the play. But because Mahomes can't escape the pocket and FEELS pressure as a result, he starts making bad decisions and bad throws. And because his WRs aren't immediately open, it gives the pass rush time to get home. One play in particular sticks out to me near the end (at 44:44 in the video). Mahomes has time to stay in the pocket and launch a bomb to Worthy down the left sideline who gets a full step on his man 1v1. But he feels pressure before it actually gets there and runs out of the pocket to the right which kills the play. So I don't come away from this tape thinking we need to radically upgrade our entire defensive roster or go all in on finding an elite pass rusher to overcome the Chiefs. You beat them by not letting their WRs win in 2 seconds or less and by keeping Mahomes in the pocket. It really is that simple. You can't expect to totally shut them down like Philly did unless Reid and Mahomes happen to have a bad day, but you certainly won't give up 30+ points if you play them like that. And on the other side of the ball you have to build an insurmountable lead while KC's offense is figuring things out. Philly did that by getting a big WR matched up against McDuffie and throwing the ball downfield. I think we're one legit secondary player and one legit defensive lineman away from being able to execute the same game plan that Philly did. Not to the same degree of success, but enough to keep them well below the season-high production they're usually getting against us.

This is really the problem. Other playoff caliber teams make Mahomes at least uncomfortable. Houston, Baltimore, San Fran, Cincy, all of these defenses have performed decently against him. No one is asking to shut him down as bad as Philly did. Just make him uncomfortable like every other playoff team has been able to do. For us on the contrary every time he plays us it looks like he's warming up against the scout team. It's been like that every single playoff matchup since 2020. We've never forced more than two punts which is insane when you really think about it.

It's a fair question and I don't know. I want Beane to be willing to take a chance like that because we're struggling to find elite talent so taking a player that drops for non-talent reasons is one way of solving the problem. It helps that he tore his ACL in September so he wouldn't miss his whole rookie season. I've floated the idea of someone like Jonathan Jones as a cheap vet that can compete with a rookie, and we just hired his CB coach so now I think that's a real possibility. I'll trust your judgment on the chances of Revel being there at #30. All the big boards I look at have him ranked usually between 32 and 40. But who knows. CBs with elite physical traits are coveted by every team.

All the more reason to make CB a priority this offseason. McDermott's scheme needs a shutdown CB to function at its highest level. I've warmed up to drafting one in the 1st round. Shavon Revel seems like a great fit that has a realistic chance of still being there at #30.

You know I saw Spotrac projected him to get 2 years $16M and I'm a bit perplexed by that valuation. He got just 1 year $7M last year presumably because teams wanted to make sure he could stay healthy... and he answered that question by getting injured on the first play of preseason and missing almost the entire year. So now his value has gone up? I know the WR market is bad this year but that still doesn't add up for me. I'd think another 1 year prove it deal is all he would get right now.

We have 3 WRs on the roster and zero that can definitely start outside. We aren't in a position to say "no thanks" to any possible legit option.

That's right. The Bills are proof of this. The same exact DL that everyone criticized after the AFCCG was one of our keys to victory over them in the regular season. Personally I think that AFCCG performance came down to poor contain discipline which is a problem of coaching and poor secondary play which is a problem of talent. Building a DL that can do what Philly did yesterday, or the Bucs four years ago, is a pipe dream. Those teams did it with multiple top 16 draft picks and big FA spending none of which is going to be possible with Allen as our QB. We would need to already have a couple studs on the roster and Beane would still have to hit another few picks in the near future. You might as well wish for the Eagles group of offensive skill players if you're coming up with pie in the sky paths to a championship. I think we're two legit WRs, one legit DL, and one legit CB or S away from being able to defeat the Chiefs in the playoffs. And it's realistic that Beane could find all of that in this coming offseason if he spends his picks and cap space appropriately.

100%. I'm still in disbelief that they didn't given the strength of the class, and presumably knowing from futures scouting that the 2025 WR class would be weak. Right now I still would take Troy Franklin over either Bishop or Carter. Even though he didn't do much as a rookie I would still rather have a developmental vertical WR on the roster than the absolute nothing that we have in that role now. And this year you aren't likely to find a WR of his caliber in the 3rd round. I'm a fan of Matthew Golden in the 1st this year. A bit safer of a pick with maybe a more limited ceiling than I usually like in the 1st round, but I'm kind of with you now that we just need someone who can run routes and separate to give the WR room a reasonable floor.

So my take on this is you should never throw out the rules. Every year you should be drafting BPA with a high ceiling in round 1. I never want us to constrain ourselves to a specific immediate outcome because of an immediate need. But I say all of this as somewhat of a hypocrite because I was leading the "WR or bust" charge last year. So I get where you're coming from. It's just sad that because Beane has mismanaged the position so poorly, we got to a spot last year where it was a totally defensible opinion that we should draft a high floor player at a specific position. That should never be the goal. Coleman had the unenviable position of having to come in and be the savior for the room from day one. That was never realistic and Beane is to blame for the fans' expectations.

Well Alpha the offense as put together by Beane has had two consecutive chances with the ball in their hands to get past the Chiefs and fell short both times. And now we have just 3 WRs on the roster with zero that can definitely be trusted outside. The half measures and the bandaids aren't getting it done. Last year was a great year to need WRs and he didn't capitalize. This year is a crappy year to need WRs and we're backed into a corner, again. Absolutely that all falls on Beane.

Honestly I think even if we had BTJ it would still be a need right now. I was banging the drum to draft a WR high even when we had Diggs and Davis in their prime. Credit to Philly's DL but Brown and Smith being their top 2 WRs helped them build an insurmountable lead before KC could even catch their breath. That's what I want. Coleman for me was just the start of the WR infusion even if he immediately hit his ceiling. The fact that he very well could be a bust just increases the pressure.

They kept using draft picks and got a big hit in Rice and a possible hit in Worthy. That's what we need to do. Last offseason I figured we were at least two WRs away - one separator, one physical WR. So this year I hope we go for the separator. And then follow the Pittsburgh (and now KC) model of drafting one every single year on day one or two.

Sure but one draft decision shouldn't make or break the entire room. KC drafting Mecole Hardman followed by Skyy Moore didn't make any difference because they just kept investing resources into the position until they got a couple hits.

As I've said Kirby, the mistake cannot be boiled down to a single decision made 9 months ago. The mistake was to never make it a point to prioritize the WR room after 2020. It was a series of repeated mistakes that got us where we are today. From 2021-2024, Beane drafted exactly 1 WR on day one or two. That's unconscionable with Allen as the QB. It led us to a point where they were backed into a corner and absolutely had to draft a WR last year regardless of what their BPA board looked like. I can give Beane some grace for individual evaluation failures because every GM has those on his resume, but I can't forgive him for overarching philosophical mistakes that span multiple years. Here we are again backed into a corner with only 3 WRs on the roster heading into 2025 and once again he will need to draft one relatively high no matter what.