Shaw66

I agree with this. McDermott studies everything, I clouding the strategies that will maximize winning in different circumstances. That study is what informs his decision making. When he has a lead in the third quarter and gets conservative it's because his study indicates being conservative is the right move. His team hasn't executed. I also agree that it's too conservative for my taste, but McD knows a lot more about it than I do.

One other point I want to make about this, and it explains why I think too much is being made of Allen's mechanics. How many of Allen's incomplete pass last season were caused by bad mechanics? I am certain no one here knows the answer to that question. Many of his incompletions were throwaways, some were drops, some were passes that were well defended. How many were caused by bad reads, by pressures, by deflections? Some were bad throws, but every bad throw is not evidence of bad mechanics. Bad throws are primarily evidence that the thrower isn't perfect. Pitchers don't throw strikes on every pitch. Allen had 190 incompletions last season. As I suggested in my first post, I'd be surprised if more than 30 of them (2 per game) were the result of bad mechanics. So even if his mechanics could be corrected so that he was perfect, he'd have two more completions per game, which would raise him only to about 12th or 15th in passer rating in the league. A nice improvement, but only borderline franchise QB territory. I would be really hard pressed to believe that he has 5 incompletions per game caused by bad mechanics - he just isn't making that many bad throws, game after game. More importantly, what was the league average for incompletions caused by bad mechanics? How far above or below the league average was Allen? If he was 15 worse than the league average, getting to average is going to be only a marginal improvement - maybe a completion a game. How many bad-mechanics related incompletions did Rodgers have? Brady? Brees? They aren't perfect, so some of their throws exhibit bad mechanics, too. Frankly, I think mechanics is a topic that's fun to talk about and a topic where detailed discussion, like the one from CoverOne, are available, so fans focus on it. I don't believe that mechanics has very much to do with Allen's mediocre (at best) quarterbacking over the past two seasons.

AaaaThanks Logic. Maybe I can help refine the point a bit. Looking at the Dolphins throw, it's almost mystifying that he misses so badly. Mystifying because we've seen him make throws like that many times. That's not a hard throw. The fact that he makes that throw most of the time and misses it badly here is evidence of inconsistency. His mechanics were bad on that throw, but that doesn't mean that he is a mechanically bad throw. It just means his mechanics were bad on that throw. The problem on the Dolphins throw is that for one reason or another he didn't get himself ready. Now, he knows how to get himself ready, because we've seen him do it often. In other words, on that throw, his mechanics weren't good, because he did something else wrong. Decided too late, didn't move his feet like he usually does, something. That's not a flaw in his throwing motion, which is what I think about as mechanics. His throwing motion is fine; his consistency isn't. That problem is trying to get him do every time what he already does most of the time. That is not a problem that involves changing the angle at which he normally throws, or getting proper weight shift, or whatever. It's semantics, to some extent. Certainly developing the right habits is working on mechanics; it just isn't correcting flaws. As I said, go watch Aaron Rodgers highlights from college, and you'll wonder how he ever made in the pros. He couldn't make half the throws he needed to make in the pros; Allen was obviously a natural. A bad thrower needs to work on mechanics. Allen is a good thrower. He needs to work on whatever makes him inconsistent. That may or may not be mechanics.

Yeah, we disagree. I think Allen will always be working on his mechanics, just like more or less every QB in the league is working on his mechanics. I just don't think that mechanics are going to make him a great quarterback. I think the mental processing skills are what will make him great. That's an interesting quote about Rodgers. But I'd point out to you that although he says Rodgers' mechanics were bad, most of the quote is about Rodgers needing to learn leadership and team management. As for mechanics, take a look at video of Rodgers throwing in college, and look again at Allen. Allen was a much better college thrower than Rodgers. Rodgers looked like he's a demonstration video for how his peewee coach told him to throw. Very mechanical. Allen is a natural thrower. I agree mechanics are important, and they always need work. I just think 80% of Allen's improvement will come from improving mental processing, and 20% will come from mechanics. Fixing his mechanics is not going to make Allen a Hall of Fame quarterback. Fixing his mental processing and tinkering with his mechanics will.

LOL funny! That's great. That post was such a total head scratcher, I didn't know how to respond. Glad you found a way.

Wow. Another nice story.

Shaughnessy is Jerry Sullivan, but better at it. He keeps his job by writing what sells newspapers. Intellectual honesty is not part of the equation.

If by "between the ears" you mean attitude, I agree completely. Josh has the right attitude. If by "between the ears" you mean brains, I agree completely. Josh has the brains. But a junior high schooler with attitude and brains still isn't an astrophysicist. The brains and attitude have to be applied to fill his head with calculus and the theory of relativity and lot of other stuff before he becomes what attitude and brains can help him become. Josh is working on becoming an astrophysicist, and that growth is what is going to make him great, not getting his left elbow under control.

Yes there is a reason, and that reason is between their ears.

Gotta be Hughes. As a measure of pure talent, Shady for Alonso was a steal. Shady's a near-Hall-of-Famer and Alonso is just another backer. So in talent differential, Shady's deal wins. But in terms of value to the team, the Hughes deal gave up very little and fixed the DE spot for a lot of years. Heck, Jerry could have three more solid years in him. He isn't going to the Hall of Fame, but he is a fixture on the line and one of the keys to McDermott's defense. Gotta go with Jerry, even though I love Shady.

I hate to be the party pooper here, but I think this article is a lot of wind that doesn't add up to much at all. Bottom line, I think Josh Allen's future is all about his ability to read and understand defenses and make decisions. If his mechanics never improve at all, he's still going to be one of the best throwers in the league, and if his understanding and decision making improve, as they should, he will have a great career. First of all, this guy does not have a coherent theory of what Allen has to do to "correct" his mechanics. The article is all over the place. At one point it quotes one expert who says mechanics start with the feet and work through the thighs, hips and body to the arm. At another point he quotes an expert who says it's all about the head down. Well, which is it? At various points in the article it says his stance is too wide, his feet aren't lined up correctly, his footwork isn't right, his left arm isn't tucked. It goes on and on. Have you ever watched the guy throw? He's a great thrower. Great. Right now he throws better than most QBs in the league. The article makes it sound like every aspect of his throwing motion needs to be rebuilt. It's nonsense. Now, I understand that at this level, coaches work with QBs on little aspects of their mechanics. I get it. I have no doubt they work with Allen on one thing or another, but Josh Allen is not some kind of rebuilding project. Now's when someone chimes in and says, "well, if he fixed his footwork, he'd be more accurate, and if he's more accurate he'd get more yards after catch" or my personal favorite "he'd throw more receivers open." Please. Just give him time to develop into a better decision maker. Look at the stats. He had an 85 passer rating. If he completed two passes a game more for 6.7 yards per pass (that was his average last season, he'd have a 93 passer rating and he'd be 12th in league, with Matt Ryan, Carson Wentz and Aaron Rodgers and on the heels of DeShaun Watson. He can complete two more passes a game just by understanding that checking down is the right throw. He might complete two more passes a game just by having Stephon Diggs on the field. When he's really learned to read defenses and made decisions, he's going to complete five more passes a game, his passer rating will be 104 and he's solidly in the top 10 in the league. Sure, Palmer and others are working with him on mechanics, just as someone pointed out they still work with Rodgers. And they work with Brady. They always work on mechanics, with every quarterback. But that work doesn't make big changes in a QB. That work results in a better throw once in a while. Allen came into the league a better thrower than Rodgers or Brady. The mechanical improvements Allen will make pale in comparison to what football maturity is going to do for his game.

Well, you can choose not to discuss it further, but I must point out that Doug Marrone is a current NFL head coach who took his team to the AFC championship game. Rex Ryan is a former NFL head coach who took the Jets to two AFC championship games. Chan Gailey is a current NFL offensive coordinator. So they are pretty good, current examples of NFL coaches whose coaching philosophy is not detail-driven like McDermott's and Beliechick's. You haven't named any head coaches who operate like McDermott and Belichick. Frank Ryan is, I believe, a detail-driven guy. Jon Gruden, so far as I can tell, is not. I don't think Tomlin is, I don't know about Payton. So I'll stand behind my claim that McDermott is different from most coaches in the league with regard to details and his coaching style, since I've given multiple examples that support my claim and you've given none that support yours.

You're right that no coach is not going to support his players. You're wrong about not having decided yet. It's three months, at least, before the first game (who knows whether they'll even play the national anthem during preseason games). The NFL certainly hasn't yet said its last word on the subject, so at a very minimum he hasn't decided because he hasn't heard what the NFL will say on the subject. The entire country is in a very fluid situation. The status of the Black Lives Matter movement may change between now and then, a players' movement might develop, the stock market might truly crash, there could be renewed, even larger, protests and battles with self-appoint patriots. Any number of things might happen. McDermott can't say today with any degree of certainty what he will do in terms of kneeling any more that he can say with any degree of accuracy who his starting right tackle will be. In both cases, it would be foolish to declare himself today.

Rex wasn't. Gailey wasn't. Marrone wasn't. I'd guess most aren't. Players who played for Belichick say he is differen about details. McDermott is like Bill.

Sorry I missed the point. I'll be amazed if he survives the final cut.

From a lot of NFL coaches. McDermott is about details like Belichick is.

You're right. He isn't unique because he is a Type A. I think, but dont really know, that he is dedicated to constant improvement, both for himself and for his team, all the time. That's what makes him different.

All I know about him is what I hear from him and from others around him. There was a lot of talk about what he is like on the Sunday night game against the Steelers, because the two head coaches were teammates in college. There also have been articles about him describing his work ethic, his personality, etc. Everything I've seen makes it sound like he's the ultimate nice guy combined with the ultimate Type A workaholic. When the Clintons were in their last year in the White House, I read an article about the Clintons and the Gores. It said they'd have dinner together occasionally at the White House, and after dinner they'd often spend several hours together. Hilary and Al talked political science theory all night; Bill and Tipper drank and laughed a lot. If they could have gotten McDermott to stay after dinner, he would have been with Hilary and Al.

I'm right there with you. All the coaches are operating in uncharted territory right now. They're trying to figure out how to do their jobs. Some will figure it out better than others. The early games in any season are very important, in that the teams are playing without being fully formed - they haven't become yet what they will become. But the wins and losses count equally in the standings with the later games. So, figuring out how to prepare your team this season can give a coach a big advantage in the early season. There will be some coaches whose teams are behind starting camp and will be behind coming out of camp. McDermott could have gotten it all wrong over the past three months. Who knows? But I have a lot of confidence that he figured out how to get the job done and that he has his team ready for camp.

I tend to agree with you about Harbaugh. I like him. I wasn't making a point about Harbaugh so much as I was about McDermott. He seems to ALWAYS be like this - he doesn't waste a minute on things he can't control.

You can voice the opinion any time you want, I suppose, and in a thread about McDermott's press conference is perfectly appropriate. But what you say should make sense, and now you've said something for the second time that doesn't make any sense. You're expressing two criticisms of McDermott that are irrational and pointless. You criticize his ability to pick coordinators and assistants, but you admit that he is still learning about being a head coach. So if he's still learning, we shouldn't be surprised that he hired some guys who didn't work out. We also shouldn't be surprised that some guys didn't work out because when you're hiring assistants, you can only hire from among guys who are available. The available talent changes from year to to year, so maybe McDermott knew some guys he hired weren't perfect, but they were the best he could hire. So that criticism just doesn't make sense. Maybe it will be a valid criticism in five years, when McDermott has more of a track record, and maybe it's your current opinion, but to offer his track record to date as proof that he's bad at evaluating coaches doesn't make sense, as you admit. Similarly, whether McDermott is right or wrong about Davis's future has very little bearing on whether he is or will be a good head coach. You have an opinion McDermott's coaching ability, and yet you think there's something wrong with McDermott because he has an opinion about Davis's. So, I'll defend your right to your opinion, and I'll look to your posts for reasons that support that opinion. You just have failed miserably in this thread to post anything in this thread that supports your opinion.

I think this points up what makes McDermott so unusual. He refuses to approach any challenge from the point of view that it's impossible. Seems silly, I know, but that's who he is and who he wants his players to be. Whatever rules the league hands down, whatever the schedule is going look like, whatever day he had to play on, none of it deters McDermott. His response is always the same: "Okay, let's get to work." Put another way, McDermott sees absolutely no value in complaining. Every minute spend complaining is time lost. While Harbaugh is complaining, McDermott is working.

I heard it a little differently. I'd guess that if there was a game tomorrow, he wouldn't kneel. But he said or implied there is a lot of time and a lot of discussions to be had between now and the actual first game. We will have to wait and see.

What's your point? That McDermott isn't permitted to have an opinion? That we're all here to discuss future NFL coaches, so we should only be hearing from experts on the subject? What's the point? McDermott likes that characteristic that he sees in Webb. He likes it. That's all. And, by the way, if a guy is learning how to be a head coach, which you admit, shouldn't we expect turnover with his coordinators and assistants as he learns? You seem to have only one point to make here, which is that for some reason you don't like or don't have confidence in McDermott. Perfectly fine opinion to have, but an innocent comment about Davis Webb's future is totally irrelevant to anything going here, or even a negative opinion of McDermott.

Someone asked about leadership, and who is stepping up (other than Josh) to replace Eric Wood then Kyle then Alexander. After the usual stuff about what great leaders they were, McDermott was willing to name names. Jon Felicano, Reid Ferguson, Mario Addison, Jordan Poyer. Really interesting. He said leadership is about having the personal makeup to be a leader and then working at being a leader. He admitted that you wouldn't normally expect your long snapper to be a team leader, but he suggest Ferguson without reservation. He sounded almost a bit surprised to be getting it from Poyer. He implied that you don't normally expect to get it from a guy new to the team when he named Addison.