Shaw66

If you look at the thread about Bernard when he was drafted, there was a lot of discussion about this. I don't really know, of course, but there are a lot of things that make me think we're going to see more 4-3 this season. These aren't all my thoughts, but they were said in that thread. First and foremost, Bernard isn't likely to be a safety. Possible, I suppose, but not likely. He's a linebacker. He isn't big enough to replace Edmunds and play in the middle, and he isn't likely to take Milano's job. Milano has a new contract. All of that means that the only place he's likely to play is as the third linebacker. The Bills wouldn't have burned a third-round pick on a guy just to play special teams. Second, McDermott's base defense in Carolina was 4-3. Third, Bernard on the field instead of Johnson gives the coaches greater flexibility in calling the defense. I can imagine the Bills lining up in a 4-3 look, (something they couldn't do with Johnson on the field, because Johnson isn't a linebacker), but having assignments shift pre-snap. Because of his speed and pass coverage abilities, Bernard, could assume the role of the run stopping safety, and one of the safeties could move up to take the slot receiver. So, in that case, the Bills get the benefit of playing nickel without having shown nickel. Fourth, Bernard on the field instead of Johnson gives the Bills more varied blitzing possibilities. Plus, it seems from the reports that Bernard is one of those guys who, frankly, is a lot smarter than the average football team, a guy who has a football IQ that far exceeds most of the players on the Bills or any other team. He has an ability to understand what's going on in real time that makes him likely to be a unique asset on the field. The Bills drafted him to play somewhere, linebacker seems to be the only position that he's physically suited for on a regular basis, and he's not going to displace the other two linebackers. Johnson looks to me like the guy who is going to have step aside. And, as I said, I think Johnson may find another role. He certainly can work as the third cornerback, and he may be a safety in training.

I'd be interested to see an article that pulls together quotes from McDermott about his team-building philosophy. I think he's said a lot about it at one time or another, but I haven't seen someplace where it's put together in a coherent whole. And McDermott hasn't written his book yet. In the meantime, I happen to be reading Phil Jackson's memoir, Eleven Rings, and when he talks about what it takes to build championship teams, I hear a lot of McDermott. I'm finding that what Jackson says helps me understand what McDermott is doing. I think that it's easier to see principles and concepts at work in basketball than in football, because with only five players on the court, the strategies are simpler. I think it's true with respect to coaching philosophies, as well. Jackson says that at the core of his philosophy is the notion that what wins is teamwork taken to the extreme. Players without coaching just keep trying to score, to work to get the ball in their hands, to do what they want to do. Coaches tend to tell players what to do and what not to do, and after a while, the players are fighting, emotionally, with the coaches. He says, for example, that Doug Collins, who preceded Jackson as coach of the Bulls, had about 50 plays, and he called a play every time the Bulls were coming up the floor. Jackson figured out that he had to let the players play, and let them decide more. His job was to let the players control the game, but control it from a truly cooperative perspective. For teams to succeed, he says, coaches should control as little as possible. So, for example, he loved the triangle offense, because it didn't have plays. Instead, it was a framework for the players to follow on the court, a system that managed the spacing on the floor but left the players free to see the defense and make decisions on their own about where the ball should go to attack the defense. And Jackson understood that allowing the players to control the flow of the offense would work best if the players knew each other, cared about each other, and understood what the other players were trying to do on the floor. So, Jackson had his team meditate as a group, sit quietly with just the coaches and the players. He encouraged relationships between the players. He created social activities for the team to share in . He wanted his players to know about the personal and family lives of the other players, because the more they knew and cared about each other, the more they would cooperate and support each other on the floor. He wanted players to know where teammates wanted the ball, what role each player wanted to play on the team. Jackson's success with the Bulls began when he got Jordan's attention and told him the team would win more if he scored less and he helped his teammates have more success. As Jordan moved into that role, he began to see that Jackson was right. If you remember those teams, it was amazing how much ordinary players contributed to the success of the team - Paxson and Kerr, Cartright and Wennington, guys who had great success with the Bulls just being very good at what they do. (Think about all of the Bills players who aren't great but who are great contributors to the team.) Jordan could still be the star, but the team began winning more. Jordan's burning desire to win, all the time, at everything, got Jordan to change how he played so he could win more. Jackson says he delegated as much as he could. He gave responsibility to various coaches, and he asked the coaches to give as much responsibility as possible to the players. He said he spent a lot of time during games just watching - he and the coaches spent their coaching time teaching players to make good decisions on the floor, and when the game started, he had relatively little to do. Sure, he had in-game decisions to make, but it seems he spent a lot of in-game time just reminding players to do the things they'd learn to do to support their teammates. Jackson wanted guys who were fierce competitors and who were open to new ideas, so long as the new ideas were about winning more. He said Dennis Rodman really was a unique guy, as we all know, but he was a fierce competitor. When the Bulls got Rodman, Jackson talked to him told him he would let Rodman be who he was, but Rodman would have to mold his play to support what his teammates were doing, and they would support him. He said Rodman fit in quickly, and because he got to know his teammates on a personal level, his teammates were able to put up with Rodman's peculiarities. Rodman joined the team the same time Steve Kerr did, just at the time Jordan was coming back from his two-year baseball experiment. Jordan, of course, was a fierce competitor. Pippin was. Rodman was. And Kerr was. In training camp, Kerr wouldn't back down from Jordan, and Jordan got so pissed off that he punched Kerr in the face. After they kissed and made up, Jordan came to realize that Kerr was just another competitor like himself, they became closer, and the team got better. Jordan understood that by supporting Kerr's style of play, the team would win more, so that's what he did. What Jackson was able to achieve with his teams was a cooperative chemistry among the players, an environment where the players supported each other and helped each other become better. The coaches created an environment for that to happen, but the players created the chemistry. Jackson says, in different words but meaning the same thing, that he built an environment where the players became the best versions of themselves. And the team became better than the sum of its parts, because the synergy of thinking and playing as a unit made the team better than just the individual talent of the players. He wanted his players and coaches to feel like a tribe, willing to die for each other. No one else was inside the tribe; in fact, one the biggest problems Jackson had with Rodman was when Rodman brought his girlfriend - Madonna - into the clubhouse after a game. That was a huge no-no. There were very clear times when the team, and the team alone, needed to be together. The key for Jackson was having a star who understood the importance of these concepts and who was willing to give up the ball to let other players contribute. First Jordan (and Pippin), then Kobe and Shaq. McDermott has Allen, a fierce competitor in his own right, but a guy who has his ego in check. Allen came to the Bills already having bought into the notions that by having real personal relationships with his teammates, his teammates can do more. There are multiple passages in Jackson's book that sound just like things McDermott has said or could have said. I can imagine Jackson and McDermott talking. I understand better now how McDermott is creating an environment for the players to get closer and closer, to get more connected with each other, to understand what each other wants to happen on the field, how they become more and more committed to each other. That's exactly what Jackson tried to build. What McDermott is building is powerful.

Johnson has been excellent. I think he loses playing time in the slot this year to Terrel Bernard, as the Bills move to more 4-3 alignments. I also think that as that move happens, Johnson will begin to be more of a factor as a corner or safety. He's too solid to keep off the field.

This is a perfect example of what's so crazy in our current situation. Liberals say the exact same thing about conservatives. Read this: When one side continuously calls the other side traitors, communists, and Russian sympathizers. You better believe they would love nothing more than to eliminate half of the American citizens who disagrees with their political ideologies. All I did was change "fascists, racists" to "communists," and it expresses the opposite opinion, exactly. Both opinions are wrong and hopelessly overstate the reality. These opinions inflame and divide us. We would fight together, and we should work together. And, by the way, it's the conservatives who have the guns, so the threat of being eliminated is much more real to the liberals.

Well, that's really well said. Thanks. I think it's true, too. I think a lot of people would stand up for the country. And contrary to what someone has suggested, I suspect that those on the left would respond as well as those on the right. The real point of my question is if we'd all stand together to defend our country, if we'd all cooperate to protect our country, why is it that in these times we're fighting so viciously on the political front? We're tearing ourselves apart. The unwritten promise that was made among Americans at the beginning of our country was that we would cooperate to keep those things that we hold dear. Not cooperate only when threatened with conquest; cooperate to preserve our ideals for all of us.

Thanks for the responses. Good to hear people saying they'd step up. I was hoping people would talk about what we all have in common, what would make whites and Blacks, liberals and conservatives, stand together.

Gunner - Great summary, thanks. However, I'll admit it leaves me a little disappointed. It's useful to see it, but not all that enlightening, because mostly what you've done is listed all the locks that virtually everyone will agree on. You're right, we haven't seen the camp battles yet, but what I'd really be interested in your current take on the probable 53. That is, tell us your favorites. You had a reason for making Matakevich blue. You seem to agree that you expect Araiza to beat out Haack, so make him blue. I know, you aren't making predictions, but I'd like to see 53 guys in black or blue. Or do nothing. Thanks either way.

Here’s a question for you: Assume the following: The Chinese have secret built 10,000 ships. Carrying two million soldiers and necessary war materiel, the ships are crossing the Pacific Ocean toward the United States. The Chinese have hacked U.S. systems so that our military is unable to take out the ships on the ocean. The Chinese will invade the west coast of the United States in a week. The question is this: Do you enlist? Will you do whatever is necessary to defend the United States? I’m here to talk to the people whose answer is “yes.” If your answer is “no,” you’re free to have your opinion, but I’m not here to argue with you. If you’re answer is “yes,” you will be fighting beside men and women, Black and white, Hispanic or not, Christians, Jews, Muslims, and atheists, Republicans and Democrats, even Chinese-Americans. They would fall on a grenade for you, and you for them. What are the things that we have in common that would bring us together to defend our country? I’ve been thinking about that question. The simple answer is patriotism. We love our country and we will defend it. But there must be more than that. Russians are patriots, too. They love their country and would defend it, but we think we have something more that’s worth defending. What is that all of us value that would make us fight to the death to protect it? My first answer is liberty. We cherish our freedom, and we cherish our country’s promise of freedom for all. Even those Americans who have at least some reason to believe that they aren’t as free as others cherish the promise and the prospect of freedom. My second answer is democracy. We will fight for our country because in the United States, unlike in China, the general public can choose the people who will run the government. My third answer is world peace. Whether the United States is the best, or the only, or the last, chance for world peace, we’re the country the world is counting on. We’re the country that, when the war is over, leaves foreign soil to be governed by those who live there. We’re the country that created and still makes a good effort at living the ideal – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What else is it that you and all those different Americans would fight for, side-by-side?

Got it. You're saying they're just one of many sources for true raw stats, including advanced stats, stats you can find elsewhere, and it's just that PFF has become the go-to place for that data. Thanks. I use Pro Football Reference. That gives me more that I want.

Thanks. I don't pay any attention to them, so I don't know. What do you mean, they've been great for "raw stats"? I mean, raw stats like tackles we can get anywhere. Do they have a blocks made stat? But even if they do, there's a measure of judgment that goes into deciding whether the block was made, and part of that judgment is understanding the play and the assignment and the defense. Who does PFF have making those judgments? I just don't think there's much of anything that an outfit like that can do that doesn't involve judgments that they are poorly equipped to make. Football Outsiders is at least a little better, in that they take the objective outcome of plays - yards gained or lost, in particular circumstances, like third and less than four to go, against common opponents, and rank the teams or players by their relative success. Those are derivative stats, but they're based on objective data. PFF's rankings are based, so far as I understand it, on subjective judgments by people watching film, people who aren't football coaches.

One thing that is fundamentally wrong is that PFF gives every player is on a real grade on every play - an A or a B or a number, however they do it. In fact, on a lot of plays a lineman has only two grades - pass or fail. Even though you may get a better grade than I because you pancake a guy and I just block him, from the team's point of view, it makes no difference, either way, our man was taken out of the play. You may get a better grade because you block a guy completely to the end of the play while another defensive player gets to the quarterback, while I slipped off my guy and let him pressure the QB as I moved over to double the guy who made the tackle on your play. PFF just can't know what coaches have asked the players to do.

Wood may have said something about it, too, but I'm sure the occasion I recall it was Williams. Frankly, probably every offensive and defensive lineman has had the same reaction.

Kyle Williams literally laughed at the idea that anyone outside the team could grade his performance with the kind of detail PFF claims it does. It's just stupid. It's a different variation on the notion that Mel Kiper understands who are the best players coming out of college. There are true experts on these subjects, and they don't work for the networks or PFF.

I've never liked PFF, but I'd be amazed if this were true. Maybe someone at PFF took a bribe on one or more occasions, but I doubt that PFF makes a practice of inflating scores in exchange for payments. Collinsworth is too smart risk his franchise, which seems to be pretty well established, to collect a few hundred thousand extra dollars. And even if there have been bribes, it doesn't make sense that the bribes are too widespread, because other people at PFF would start to notice that the data doesn't add up or is giving inconsistent results. But, as your local news always says, tune in at 11 for further details.

Yes, I think Club Seats takes you out of play. I have Club Seats, drive a long way to the games, and I'm getting up in years. The time is coming when I won't go at all. All of that adds up to not renewing when the move to the new stadium happens, because the the PSL doesn't make sense. Don't want to pay the PSL in year 1 and give up the seats in year 3. But I can't see how this consortium would work in my case. The TBD consortium doesn't want to pay my PSL for the privilege of getting my seats (even if the PSL and seats were transferable in some way). If anyone has a great idea, I'm open to listening, but I don't think Club Seats will work very well in this arrangement.

I thought this point came through loud and clear. I think McDermott's connection there makes McDermott more confident about Bernard than any other player they took. Not that he's BETTER than anyone else, just that McDermott knows exactly what he's getting and exactly how he will be able to use him. What he grows into may still be an open question, but I think McDermott understands already that by the end of the summer Bernard will know how to play his position well enough that they'll be able to put him on the field. In one of his interviews, someone asked him about learning the defense. He said, first, I learn my position, and learn what I'm supposed. Then I learn all the other positions, and that's when I understand the whole defense and why I'm supposed to do what I'm supposed to do. And, by implication, he was saying that once he gets to that point, then he and the other guys around are working together. Particularly the safeties and corners on his side of the field. He's been billed as a seriously cerebral guy, and you could hear it in the interviews. The guy's likely to be a defensive coordinator within five years after he retires from playing. And with that kind of brain, that kind of dedication, and the speed he has, it's easy to see why McDermott would like him. McDermott would like to have 11 of him.

Thanks. You follow and think about this stuff much more than I, and it's interesting to hear your take. It caused me to think about how important experience is in this process. Beane spent ten years in personnel with Carolina, and had two years as Asst GM, which is where he probably got his first real taste of picking talent. Now, he's run five years of drafts in Buffalo. He's 46 now, think about how much more he will know ten year from now. He will have had ten more years of experiencing player interviews at the combine and in Orchard Park, ten more years of watching those players come into the league and make it or now, ten years of making personnel decisions and seeing them play out. He'll know a lot more. And you can see how, particularly at this point in his career but even ten years from now, how important it is to have someone you trust to talk to, someone who has the same objective as you but may have a different point of view, someone who isn't afraid to disagree with you and explain why. Your comment about how valuable Schoen was to Beane helped me see that. Again, it makes me understand better why Bazirgan was brought on board. Bazirgan has the experience that might make him the kind of confidante that a GM needs.

Yes, it looked that way to me, too. I think the process makes that kind of evaluation part of Beane's job. He's evaluating the kind of support he's getting, not just objectively but subjectively too - is there chemistry?, and in post-draft reviews he's giving his team constructive criticism about the quality of the support they gave, what they need to do to improve. And it's part of the process constantly to be asking if they have the right guys at the table, just like whether they have the right guys in the locker room. And it's perhaps telling that Beane hired Matt Bazirgan a week after the draft.

I get the sense that there are at least two different kinds of discussions going on between teams at the time. One is the discussion like the one the Bills had with the Broncos when the Bills wanted to go up to get Josh. That was a discussion that put a deal in place - "you get this, I get that, and we both agree we'll do it if the guy you (Denver) want is off the board." It was a negotiated deal, pre-packaged and ready to go if the conditions are right. I think the other discussions, which occur late in the first round and later, are more of the nature of "are you willing to make a move?" and maybe "what would you be looking for?" They're just preliminary discussions to test the appetite of both teams. Then they talk when the time comes, and they seem to follow their draft value charts pretty closely. They add up the values and make an offer. I think the other team does the same. If they're using the same chart, they get the same answer and say yes. If they have different charts, they get different answers and either think "no way" or "that's a steal." The point is that trades in the second round and beyond are pretty mechanical - add up the values and say yes or no. And it makes sense - look at the move to get Shakir. You're packaging a couple of sixths plus your fifth to get a better fifth. Beane doesn't have to study that overnight to know he's going to do it. He's just playing the current hand of poker and deciding whether to throw a couple of extra chips on the table. I won't say he isn't taking it seriously, but he understands that he's not talking about so much value that he's going to analyze it for very long.

No way McBeane draft him. No way. I say that because they wouldn't have identified in his past sufficient evidence that he had the work ethic, the burning competitiveness and the team values that McBeane demand. I think McBeane rarely take guys who need to learn these behaviors.

I don't disagree. My point is he couldn't do what you say he needed to do. He couldn't do it. It's no different than a 320 pound, muscular DT who just isn't quick enough to get sacks. We watched him and recognize that despite all his skills, he can't do it. What I said is there's no shame in not being able to do. He can to Buffalo with who he was, a guy with size and talent but not the mental discipline to achieve consistently at a high level. That's what he came with, and he was unable to learn a different way. No shame. He just couldn't do it.

You know, I don't disagree with you, in terms of his talent and what a was it's been. But there's no shame in it, no shame at all. What these guys do, the training, the working, the dieting, it requires significant personal discipline. It's a bit like being in the military. It's not for everyone, living a life with that kind of discipline. McDermott lives that way, and he and Beane are filling the team with that kind of person, but McDermott has respect for the fact that some people simply aren't wired that way.

Although I find this post interesting and a good discussion of the pass defense, the bolded portion is completely wrong. McDermott lives by disguise; getting Elam will increase the amount of disguise they can use, because offenses won't be able to force them into zone coverages, as happened last year when the Bills simply couldn't match up in man coverage. McDermott's defense is predicated on disguise and confusion, and that won't change.

Absolutely correct. It's all about team and everyone doing their job. My point was that a stat like punts inside the 20 isn't a purely individual stat.

Whoops. You're right They got a second and a seventh from St. Louis to move from 8 to 16.