Shaw66

These are good questions. It's clear that Josh trust Diggs, and Josh trust Beasley. Josh needs a tight end he can trust to complete the picture. He doesn't so much need a tight end who's a deep threat or who makes outstanding plays (although both are nice). He has Diggs and Brown for that. He needs a security blanket, which clearly is what Kelce is for Mahomes. Whether he and Knox can make Knox into that kind of guy, we'll see. That would be awesome, because Knox's special talents make him someone you'd like to have on the field.

Read that article and feel good. Makes you feel good about Diggs, about Allen, about John Brown, about Buffalo.

Once I heard a guy speak who was a career/worker. He worked on the staff of a Congressman, and he'd worked on multiple political campaigns. He said there was one thing politicians had in common. When they woke up on the day after a landslide victory, there was no joy and basking in the glory of just having received 75% of the vote. What they always ask the campaign chairman is "why didn't the other 25% vote for me?" That's you. DId you have a kid in your class at school who got 99 on most of the tests? Sure, that kid wanted to know what he did wrong on that 1%, but did the rest of the class think? They thought he was the smartest kid in the class. I have no doubt whatsoever that McBeane look at Teller and ask themselves whether they should have kept him. They know why they chose not to. When they reexamine that decision, they might even continue to think it was the right choice at the time. Being a successful GM is all about batting average. No one bats 1.000. Anyone who thinks Beane is batting .900 should be celebrating Beane, not complaining about it. In fact, Beane isn't batting .900. I think he's doing great, but Teller is only one of many decisions we can second guess.

It sounds to me like you see the same guy I see, except that you're willing to make more excuses for him than I. As you say, Moss is playing more mistake-free football as a rookie than Knox in his second season. Singletary did last year, too. But you make me stop and think about it. McDermott isn't slow to sit people who aren't performing, and Kroft seemed to me to be pretty steady, so the fact that Knox is playing and Kroft isn't even suiting up says that McDermott sees and believes in the potential that you (and I) see. The guy has made some special plays, and he also gets into position to make more. For whatever reason, he hasn't been nearly as consistent as McDermott expects of his players. Still, he's on the field. We'll see if he develops greater consistency. Also, I wonder if he's playing because Brown isn't. I wonder if once Brown gets back, we'll see more Kroft and less Knox.

I've had that feeling almost from the day McDermott arrived. For about the first 15 years I lived in Connecticut, UConn men's basketball was more or less pathetic - rarely over .500, just a boring mid-major. I'd go to games once in a while and think that I was just watching decent college athletes, working hard but going nowhere. Then I went to one of Jim Calhoun's first games in Hartford. It was immediately clear that this was a completely different level of basketball. Same players, but different team. They fought on defense, they could break the press, they stayed in games until the end. They still were only a .500 club, but everything was different. Year after year they got better, and then they were on top. I had that feeling almost from McDermott's first press conference. That first season, that playoff season, you could see. Same players, but it was different. It was all different. And they've just kept getting better. Solid foundation, solid foundation, solid character. It's really impressive what McDermott has done.

I agree with this. I've stayed out of this thread, although I tend to agree with the OP. If you think about it, maybe more so than any single player on the team, disappoints you on a regular basis. He makes some really solid plays, but he fails to make plays much more often than he should. What you describe is exactly on the money - he's a really good athlete in some ways, but he doesn't have quality athletic skills finding and catching the ball. It was clear last year, and I thought that it may have been just rookie inexperience. We're past that now, and he still is badly inconsistent. It's always unfair to make comparisons with the best, but the best exhibit the kind of skills that you want. Kelce and Gronk find the ball - they know it's combining and they find it, and when it gets to them, they catch it. In Knox's case, I think it's mostly about finding it. I think he looks for the ball late. I think he's running so fast, and working so hard, that the added task of turning and finding the ball is physically too much for him. I think a lot of this is he doesn't really understand the playbook. A guy like Kelce, without looking, knows when the ball is going to come to him, knows when it will arrive, and therefore knows when to turn and look for it. When Knox fails to catch the ball, it seems like he's surprised that the ball is there. He shouldn't be surprised. His lack of awareness also evident in his fumble. He just seems like a kid who's really excited to be where he is and isn't really focused - in the way that most guys on the team are focused - on doing his job. Kroft, who has less physical talent, has the focus.

Thanks for keeping his name out there for people to see. Billy Shaw doesn't need my help, but that's why I'm Shaw66. People should remember.

This completely misperceives the process. The whole point of the process is that the Bills can bring in good athletes with the right attitude and they will be effective. The process isn't about getting star players, although you do need some. It's about getting your other 40 starters playing at really high efficiency in a team concept. The whole point of what McBeane are trying to do is get a QB worth paying big bucks, pay him the big bucks, and get all the guys around him to play as a team. That's exactly what we're seeing now, and it won't change when Allen gets his contract. And, by the way, the process is why I think Allen is going to give a hometown discount when the new contract comes around. Allen understands the process, and he understands that his success depends on having the right kind of guys around him. If he gives back $5 million a year on his next deal, Allen knows that the team will be better. Allen is a big believer in the process.

Thurman, you're right about what you say, but he isn't overthinking this. You're right that McDermott didn't invent the notion of process. What is unique about McDermott is that this is HIS process. He has learned that process is essential to success in an organization like a football team. He studied process, both within the teams he worked for and outside of those teams, outside of football, and even outside sports altogether, and he built HIS process. A couple of years ago he went to Penn State to watch wrestling practice, because he wanted to see their practice process. As the OP says, a portion of his process is old school - grit, persistence, and courage. A part of his process, at the core of his culture, is love, brotherhood, and respect. But there's another part that you touched on but didn't lay out completely: continuous improvement and elimination of mistakes. Those aspects of culture are relatively new to the NFL, except that I think they are at the core of what Belichick does. My understanding, however, is that the more recent coaches who are into continuous improvement and elimination of mistakes study the manufacturing management techniques found in Sygma Six and Kaizen. Those techniques rely on having every member of the organization committed to those two principles, and probably some others. The process is something like teach, practice, evaluate, correct, practice, evaluate, correct, practice until the behavior is learned, then move on to the next behavior. Everyone is committed to getting better 24/7/365 and to eliminating mistakes. One reason the love and brotherhood is so important is that the process is intended to be supportive of everyone - that is, everyone who is committed to the process deserves the love and support of his teammates. That keeps the team together, and it also helps build the confidence and performance of everyone. The OP uses Zach Moss as an example. Levi Wallace is another. That kind of process results in increased attention to detail. Everything is examined, corrected, and improved. Everything has a purpose. I remember when McDermott arrived, he got rid of the pool table in the locker room. Someone asked why. He said something like, "because pool doesn't have anything to do with what we're trying to accomplish. We don't want any distractions." So, then he was asked why he kept the ping pong table. "Eye-hand coordination, footwork." It's that kind of attention to detail that McDermott models and he teaches to his coaches and players. In McDermott land, the process applies to everyone. It applies to the guys doing film review - they're getting better at film review every week, and their establishing the process of film review along the way. The process applies to the locker room people - the towels are always there when needed, and there's always a better way to do it. The point is that it's a very specific process, and not one he got out of a book somewhere. It's a process he's designed, and process that he is continually refining and improving. That's why I speak up when people complain about things like McDermott's challenges. I don't know if he's good or bad at challenges, but I know he'll better in a couple years than he is now. Why? Because every challenge situation gets evaluated after the game, and things are learned about how to challenge better. The process that they goo through in decidind to challenge gets adjusted based on what they learn in their evaluation. It's a continuous improvement process. What's so powerful about the process is whatever happens, the team is ready. One of the Bills was interviewed in the field house last week, there were tables set up all across the floor. You could tell that they were there for a team meeting. The tables are all socially distanced, so the whole team is in there, each guy has a table, but they're all safe. You cound see it, but undoubtedly there was a microphone and speakers so the coaches could be heard, The player commented that it was just amazing how effieciently the staff configures and reconfigures that space each day, for meetings, for practice, for meals, for everything. He said he didn't understand how they could do it. It's the process. It's everywhere. The process is why the Bills have had relatively little trouble with COVID. The Bills were one of only four teams ready to practice on the first day that the NFL permitted practices this season. The Bills have dealt with adjustments to the schedule without any significant glitches. McDermott's process is a system that applies to everything the Bills do. It eliminates mistakes, it makes players better. , and it makes the team better.

Who remembers Paul Costa? Man, we had high hopes for him. Good guy.

Yeah, any other teams, no way I'm paying over face value to see the game. Probably not doing that. Any other teams, I'd go if someone gave me a ticket. In the months running up to XXV, I kept telling my wife that if the Bills go to the Super Bowl, I'm going. She kept saying "yeah, yeah, yeah. I've heard 15 years of this stuff." When there were about three weeks left in the season, and the Bills were really rolling, she said. "If you go to the Super Bowl, can I go, too?" Now, it's 30 years later, and she's had 30 more years of the Bills, and she's "yeah, yeah, yeah." But I know if I go, she's going. For XXV, I think I paid $1200 for two tix and took my wife. She'll kill me, but next time I might pay up to $10,000 for two. I'll use all that money I made writing the Rockpile Review! 🤣🤣🤣

I've been to one, XXV. I know it's different now, but I think the "full experience" is overrated. Unless you're a big corporate guest, you're not going to any glamour events with celebrities. You're just walking the streets, eating at restaurants, etc. And because so few tickets are allocated to the teams, the city isn't overrun with fans of the two teams. Maybe half of the people in town for the game have very little rooting interest. So the streets aren't overflowing with partisan fans. A Bills crowd might be a little different in that regard. Imagine Texas and Michigan State at the Orange Bowl - what's Miami like? Some people walking around in orange or green, especially in the nightspot neighborhoods, but it isn't like Bourbon Street. So when I think about going to another one, I think about it as just an extended weekend in a city, where I'm eating out in restaurants, seeing a few sites, and going to a football game. And the game, too, is a little disappointing because so many people have no rooting interest. They're there to watch, sure, but also to be able to say they were there and to say how cool the half-time show was. If the Bills get there this season, I don't think I'm going. But starting next season, I am, and I'll pay an arm and a leg, just because I want to be there. I won't go for the "full experience." I'll go for the game.

I actually, I think Murray is the most athletic QB has ever seen. He's as fast and elusive as Jackson, and he's a real thrower. I have the same concerns about Murray that I have about Jackson, but I think Murray is more likely to learn traditional NFL QB skills than Jackson, which would mean that his team would be so limited. As someone pointed out, however, even though Murray is a great runner, he isn't really a running quarterback. That isn't his game.

Actually, do you think it would make any sense if you were the Ravens GM to get a backup by signing an undrafted free agent QB out of some school that runs a wide open college offense? Some quick guy who can throw those option passes, maybe too small for other NFL teams to be interested in him. At least that way you'd have someone who actually could run the offense and pose some kind of threat to the defense if you lose Jackson for a few games.

Fair enough. I know Barkley's no McCown. But the point isn't that Barkley isn't a good enough backup. That's just a matter of making the right personnel decision. The discussion is about Jackson, and the point is that it's more or less impossible to have a backup for him. And although RGIII is a possibility in theory, if you watched him at all last week, it was clear that he can't do it, either. Yes, he's as bad as Jackson is in the pocket, but he is in no way the running threat that Jackson is. I think even with RGIII, the defense can more or less ignore the running threat, which once again means the playbook has gotten limited.

He can throw the deep out more or less like other journeymen backups who've never made it as starters, which is not very good. But you can still run the play, and if the receiver happens to get nice separation, Barkley can complete the pass. I mean, in no way am I here to defend Barkley's skills, but the difference is clear to me. Baltimore's entire offense is driven by having a premier running threat at QB; without the running threat, playing defense gets be pretty easy - ignore the threat that the QB may run. Buffalo has a full NFL playbook, and the defense must continue to defend the whole playbook, because if they don't, even a Barkley can hurt them. Well, you're right about Baltimore's DNA. Their approach has been to put together a killer defense and have enough offense to win. So I'll give them that. That's not McBeane's approach; they want to be the Patriots, not the Ravens.

I agree, Baltimore is in a tough position, but it's of their own doing. It's like they've left Baltimore on a road trip, intending to drive to Buffalo, but put themselves on the road to Atlanta. Now that they realize that they're on the wrong road, what do they do? Keep going to Atlanta? Staying with Jackson is saying "well, he can't take us where we want to go, but he's taking us to a pretty good place, so let's keep going." They may like Atlanta; it's a nice city. But if that isn't where they want to go, who cares if it's a nice city?

I agree about that. In fact, I think this is probably Barkley's last year - Fromm will be the backup unless they bring in a better veteran than Barkley. But if Allen goes down, even Barkley can come in and run the entire playbook (except for the occasional Allen designed run). He may not execute as well as Allen, but the OC can call all the plays in the playbook and know that his team at least will be able to run the plays with some hope that they will work. That isn't true for Jackson. When Jackson goes down, a lot of the playbook goes down with him. The defense no longer has to worry about the option running game and no longer has to worry about RPOs, because Jackson's replacement simply is not a threat on those plays. Jackson's replacement might be able to run a more normal NFL offense, but the team doesn't practice a normal offense, so whatever skills the backup has in that regard will be wasted.

I think this is generally correct. I think winning a championship is really difficult, because to do that they'd have to beat four good defenses in a row, and I think their style of play is too one-dimensional to be able to do that. Their prospects would be better if he learned to be a good (not necessarily great) pocket passer, but I doubt that's going to happen. There's not much evidence that he's improving in that regard. For example, some of his deep balls light were downright ugly. If I'm the coach and GM, however, I'd be moving on from Lamar sooner rather than later. First, the object is to win the Super Bowl, and if we're correct in what we're saying, he's not a high probability guy to win a Super Bowl. Second, as we saw last night, it's essentially impossible to have a backup QB, because the offense is designed around a guy who is truly irreplaceable. Getting RGIII was a good idea, but even he is nothing like the threat that Jackson is. Barkley can run the Bills offense if Allen goes down; nobody can run the Ravens' offense.

Now we're off the subject, but Romo really is annoying a lot of the time. He's just a cheerleader, and as the game gets tighter, he gets more tongue tied. Sometimes when he's supposed to be talking, he actually asks Nantz to take over for him. But, when Romo is telling us what the quarterback sees, in real time, it's incredible. The QB is at the line of scrimmage and he's looking at the defense and he KNOWS where the play should go, what the QB should be looking at, and he's telling us. It's quite good when he does that.

Why do people think the Browns have a good defense? Because that's what the announcers say on TV. I've been focusing more on what they say during the games, and I feel stupid that I didn't recognize it before. Everyone's great. Mayfield's great. Garrett is great. Chubb is great. Hunt is great. Landry is great. Their tight end is great. Their defense is great. It's not just the Browns; it's everyone. Jalen Hurts became a great leader, overnight. Why do they do this? Because the announcers spend all their time promoting the product they're selling - football. If they tell us all these teams and players are bad, we believe it and won't watch. A few weeks ago I stopped listening and just watched the Bears and Vikings. They were more or less horrible. But if you listened to the announcers, Dalvin Cook was great and Cousins was great and Trubisky was on the cusp of greatness and on and on. I was watching last night, and I don't know exactly how it is teams stop Jackson, but I know that the Bills will do a lot better stopping him than the Browns did. I don't know how to stop Mayfield, but I know the Bills will do a lot better stopping him than the Ravens did. I mean, there's a reason teams want their QB throwing from the pocket. Mayfield apparently can't, so every third play he rolls out. I know it's easier to stop a guy rolling out than stopping a guy who can do it from the pocket. But don't worry. They're all great.

I'm an old man. I'm not sitting at the keyboard after an 8 pm game. It's already past my bedtime.

Well, maybe not quite the end.

As you'll see, we've been having a little discussion about that drive. You probably read the OP and then just commented, so you hadn't seen it. The principal reason I didn't mention that drive, as good as it was, was that I thought the game turned late in the third quarter. The game wasn't over then, but the play sort of reverted to ordinary play, not the intense, grind-it-out game we saw earlier. For one thing, for reasons that I didn't understand, the Bills stopped blitzing. It may have been that when Pittsburgh fell behind, they went to more spread formations, which forced the Bills out of the tight defensive formations they were blitzing from. Whatever the reason, the instense smash-mouth play changed, and that intensity was what I was writing about. But that's just an excuse. It's, true, the Bills played, as they always do, right to the final whistle, heads up, intense, and focused. That drive was great.

Bado - You've said a lot in this post and others that is true. Still, I think you're missing the bigger picture. On pass D, for whatLever reasons, earlier this season he simply wasn't in the play as well as he had been in the past. He was getting beat. As you say, even earlier, when he was with his man, he wasn't very good at actually defending the pass - it generally was a completion and a tackle. Similarly, he seems to get close to a lot more INTs than he actually makes. But I think you misperceive all of that, because the fact is that he's around the play in the pass defense a lot more than the average MLB. He drops better and he gets wide better than the average MLB. Just being around the play, he tends to be disruptive. If nothing else, he's going to tend to cause the QB to look elsewhere. After all, the league leaders in passes defensed only get 20, and the really good corners, like Tre, only get half of that, because teams won't throw at him. So I think you're criticiaing Edmunds for not making plays that we shouldn't expect him to make. Still, I agree that he needs to learn to play the ball in the air better. As for the run game, he isn't and never will be a thumper. He's improved a lot lately in staying clear of the wash and in getting into the correct gap. If he's doing that and even slowing the runner, he's doing his job - not as well as you'd like, but doing it. Put it all together, and Edmunds has to do more if he's going to have a Hall of Fame career. But if he's going to be a solid performer in the middle of a good defense, he's already not far off. Man, I wish people would read this and learn from it. I've been saying this for years. Thanks.