Logic

I agree with that. I think the general thrust of the Tweet I quoted is that the Bills leaned very heavily into re-shaping their personnel and scheme to be able to beat the two-high stuff, and that it may have come at the expense of being as effective as we once were against man coverage. Going from WRs like Diggs, Brown, and Sanders to big-bodied guys like Coleman and Hollins and Shavers says to me that -- right or wrong -- they prioritized blocking in the run game and beating zone coverage over separating against man coverage. The way the original Tweet was stated may have been an exaggeration. Surely they didn't literally say "we're gonna build our team JUST to beat two-high shell", but I do think they put conscious thought and effort into ensuring their offense was built to be able to do so, and that that evolution may have come at the expense of some of the dynamism against man coverage they once possessed.

I think the age old myth that Sean McDermott loves low-scoring, TOP, grind-it-out games needs to die. He likes to have a run game, which as the Chiefs and other good offenses have shown, does feel like a pretty important thing to be able to lean on at times. That's about it. If you think he doesn't want the offense to score 40 points a week, and that he'd rather win 17-16 games...I just don't know what evidence you have to support that claim whatsoever. For all the things one can criticize Sean McDermott about -- and there is a decent sized list -- being a conservative, old school, "grind it out" coach just isn't one of them. That old trope needs to die.

Agreed. They're not threatening on the perimeter or on the deep ball. I'd be loading up the box, spamming the middle of the field, and keying on the run game. Prove you can beat me outside. Prove you can beat me deep. As for Buffalo countering that: MVS, for whatever anyone may think of him, didn't suddenly become slow or unable to get open deep. Keon Coleman was brought in to be a jump ball specialist downfield and to be open even when he's covered (which he's done a bit of already). Curtis Samuel is not slow, either. The Bills potentially HAVE the horses to make defenses pay for this type of strategy, but they have not yet done so. Personally, I'd like to see a mix of 12 personnel with Coleman and MVS as the outside receivers (which I think presents the run threat and opens up play-action possibilities short and intermediate to our talented TEs and deep to the WRs) and 11 personnel with Coleman, Samuel, Shakir, and Kincaid and Cook as the tailback. Pair these with plenty of motion and play-action. This, to me, is the way to make our offense dangerous again.

It certainly feels like the combination of coming back from London, having to re-adjust their body clocks, and having to deal with the confusion/distraction of their head coach being fired and adjust to whatever the new chain of command is -- not to mention the potential upset of the defensive players who probably actually LIKED Saleh -- could be a hard thing for Jets players to overcome as they prepare for a big primetime divisional showdown. I see your "post-firing emotional bump" talk and raise you a "this is a whole lot of distractions to have to overcome while preparing for a big game". In terms of intangible impact on the game, I'd call this one a push at the very worst.

While I'm here and we're on the topic of receivers separating against man coverage... As someone who was against drafting Keon Coleman, I would be remiss not to post the following. Not too shabby, rook. #FeedKeon

If I'm not mistaken, the Ravens also reverted to the old "play tight man coverage and blitz the hell out of 'em" strategy we used to see a ton prior to Diggs' arrival. So that would be two games in a row. Granted, most teams likely don't have the DL or the corners necessary to do this as successfully and as often as the Ravens and Texans did it.

I mean... The Bills offense DOES appear to primarily be built to beat the two-deep shell the Bills (and other high powered offenses) have been seeing a ton for the better part of two seasons. The Bills offense NO LONGER appears to be as ideally suited (at least based on the past two games' results) to beat man coverage, at least based on the lack of separation we've seen by these receivers against it the past two games I understand what you're saying, but...I think the Tweet in the OP is pretty on target.

Not to oversimplify things, but.... This. This is pretty much it.

Agreed. Mayo will be one-and-done as a head coach. They need to start completely fresh next year.

Hadn't seen this posted yet, but forgive me if it was and I just missed it. Joe Douglas was apparently not in the room when Saleh was fired. Yikes.

I don't believe an interim head coach has ever won a Super Bowl. Granted, there's a first time for everything, but if the goal is "do everything possible to win big this year", I don't see how firing the head coach six weeks into the season moves you closer to that goal. For that matter, I don't see how it moves you closer to the goal for NEXT YEAR, either. Getting a head start on a coaching search is one thing, but this is just ridiculous. It just smells to me like desperation from a bad owner, and like a QB winning a power struggle against his head coach.

Sometimes I think this message board is a great argument against the benefits of having free will.

I shouldn't need to point out that the discussions around firing a head coach with a career record of 20-36 and 0 playoff appearances and firing a head coach with a career record of 76-43 and 6 playoff appearances are not the same. If you want McDermott fired, that's fine. I advocated for moving on from him last season myself. But to pretend like McDermott and Saleh are comparable or that it's an apples to apples situation is disingenuous and completely disregards very relevant context. Among active NFL head coaches, McDermott's .624 win percentage is fifth, ahead of guys like Mike Tomlin, John Harbaugh, Sean McVay, and Kyle Shanahan. Robert Saleh's .353 winning percentage, by comparison, is bottom five. So again, you want McDermott fired, that's fine, but it's nowhere near the same situation as the Jets and Saleh.

Dude. This is ***** UP!

Agree. If the Bills lose to the Will Levis or Mason Rudolph led Titans at home, it's time to start talking draft prospects.

Apparently not. He was tested for one during the game and cleared, and he is not currently in concussion protocol.

I see an awful lot of "Jets are gonna be fired up by the firing and crush the Bills" talk, but not nearly enough "Having to deal with a flight back from London, re-adjusting body clocks, and a fired head coach will be distracting" and "Bills will be fired up after two bad showings" talk.

A couple people already posted stats about the "win the first game post coach firing at a pretty good clip" thing, and it's not quite as much of a boost as you'd think, historically speaking. The rest I agree with.

Absolutely. And considering they now have an interim head coach, it seems all but certain that those 24 months of competitiveness are indeed going to come to an end without a championship. Next year it'll be a brand new head coach. Are they gonna let Rodgers help PICK the new coach? If not, is there any guarantee the new coach will want Rodgers? Or that he won't make changes to the defensive scheme and personnel to suit what he likes, the way new coaches often do? Bad owner, mediocre-to-bad GM, dictator headcase QB. I love it.

The defense will remain good under Ulbrich. The offense, last I checked, is still called by Nate Hackett. Unless Ulbrich is a wildly better manager of people and motivator and overall decision maker than Saleh, I don't see how this will move the needle much for Jersey/B. Has an interim head coach ever won a Lombardi? I didn't think so.

As a Bills fan, seeing the Jets sign Aaron Rodgers has been one of the funniest things of all time. Watching them bend the knee, then hire all his buddies, then fire the coach because Rodgers didn't like him....all while reports of dysfunction behind the scenes come from just about every Jets beat reporter... Hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. Serves them right.

I'd just like to point out that Beane has a history of making moves right before the trade deadline. Kelvin Benjamin. Nyheim Hines. Rasul Douglas. Three different years he brought in a guy via trade that he thought would help address what was ailing the team at the time. I tend to lean towards "he won't make a move" this year, simply because I think that within the halls of OBD the feeling is that this is the "get right" year with the cap, and while they may publicly talk big about going after a championship, I think privately they know that it's gonna be a down year. As such, I don't think they're gonna trade future capital to bring in a player for a year in which they don't realistically expect to compete for a title. BUT...to say that Beane usually sits on his hands and doesn't make any moves midseason simply does not reflect reality.

So was the last one.

He doesn't look "off" to me at all. After the first three weeks, most agreed that he looked the best he had since 2020, and that he was likely gonna be an MVP favorite all year. His time-to-throw was at a career low, and he was throwing accurately and decisively and going through his progressions with purpose and precision. He looked bad the past two weeks because the Ravens and Texans weren't scared of his receivers or the offensive playcalls, and they sent exotic blitzes and zero blitzes and played tight man coverage behind it. No one got open, and Josh spent most of both games running for his life and trying to create offense because his OC and WRs weren't giving him anything to work with. When Josh Allen has protection and WRs getting separation and an even decent offensive gameplan, he's elite. When every play is a jailbreak and no one's getting open and his OC is dialing up bad gameplans, he looks "off". Nothing is wrong with the guy. His surrounding talent and OC are the difference between "MVP season" and "something's wrong with Josh". It's early enough in the season that he can revert more to the former than the latter, but its gonna take his OC evolving and throwing counter-punches and his WRs getting schemed open or stepping their game up.

The "Bills can't win close games" things has been talked about ad nauseum. What you basically showed with your side-by-side statistics is that the Bills usually win games by comfortable margins, but when they lose, it's usually "just barely". They very rarely get blown out (the Ravens game was the first time since 2021, for instance). That's really all I take from that statistic.