Shaw66

I've become a big McCoy fan, and I'm really glad to see this. He says what has seemed apparent to me, which is that the Bills value him a lot more than many people around here. There are a couple of important points here. First, Shady must have a good deal left in the tank, because (1) teams have contacted the Bills trying to get him and (2) the Bills wouldn't deal him. Second, last season's numbers weren't about McCoy having lost a step or anything like that. This quote says it all, between the lines: " "I mean, there were some games I wasn't right, but overall, it just didn't work. I'll just leave it at that." That is certainly the way it looked. He had no place to run for pretty much the entire season, and he isn't a guy who's going to make holes were there are none. He needs some space to work with. One reason I like Shady so much, and a big reason he's still in Buffalo, is that he is 100% team guy. He doesn't talk much about himself or his production. He didn't complain at all last season about how little help he was getting. Even here, all he would say is "it didn't work" and "let's leave it at that." Half of the offensive linemen he might like to complain about aren't even on the team any more, but he still won't throw them under the bus. It means he understands it's a team game, and he understands how good teammates behave. I take "it didn't work" to mean that he knows that McD and Daboll agree that McCoy's lack of production last season wasn't about McCoy. And I love that McCoy understands that his team has to be preparing for life without him. I really like how the Bills are positioned at running back for 2019. I'm particularly excited about Singletary, because his running style is so much like Shady's. If the Bills can get the oline right right for Shady, Singletary will do some real damage spelling Shady. And Gore and Yeldon can do the heavier pounding.

That time was my second thought. I haven't read through the thread, but someone must have mentioned Keith Lincoln. My recollection is that the stadium erupted on the hit. Then people saw that he wasn't getting up, and the sound changed from cheering to a lot of excited chatter. If I recall it correctly, people were excited but respectful.

Well, that's what the coaches have said about him, but saying it and getting him to do it are two different things. No one could teach CJ Spiller how to run in the NFL, even though he had all the talent anyone could ask for. If Edmunds can play with intelligence and instinct, he can be great. He can be dominant. And he can make this a great defense. But it's quite possible that he never will rise to that level.

They evaluate everything. They decided they didn't get enough buy in immediately from rookies last year, so they designed some things to do it better this year. Then they'll evaluate how this year goes and they'll do it a little differently. Every detail, every day. It's amazing. And you have to be a special person to commit to this, day after day, for years, so your team can be special. If McDermott fails, it won't be from lack of determination.

Nice post. It makes a lot of sense that the defense could be much better. I think Edmunds is a huge question mark. I have a good deal of confidence in Allen making the big second-season jump in performance; not so much in Edmunds. As you note, if the offense gets better, that will help a lot. Field position, time on the field, score all should be working more in the Bills' favor this year.

I'm out. Sorry I got into this. I won't again.

You're wrong about the notion that a guy can't be a successful coach if he isn't successful in his first three or four years. First, both Belichick and Carroll did exactly that. Then you say, well they're rare. So that means you admit your original statement was incorrect. Beyond that, in let's say the last 30 years, there have been only 12 or 15 successful head coaches. So that alone means Belichick and Carroll aren't rare. And very few guys who have 3 or 4 mediocre years get another chance, so you can't know how many of them would have succeeded if given the chance. Some coaches win right away, some take longer. It isnt a difficult concept for most of us. Even of it were true that no one had ever done, which it isn't, that doesn't make it impossible. The four minute mile was impossible.

Basically, yes

I already did. Pete Carroll. Fired after a horrible year with the Jets, fired after leading three years of decline with the Patriots. And oh yes. There was Bill Belichick. So there's two examples. Are you ready to admit you're wrong about this? Of course not. So why should anyone keep listening to you?

Better send a memo to McDermott on this. He went to Penn State this winter to observe the WRESTLING coaching. I coaching doesn't matter in the NBA, it REALLY doesn't matter in wrestling, where teamwork is totally irrelevant. And I'd suggest you ask Curry, Thomson, Iguodala and Green whether they think coaching matters. They couldn't get beyond the first round of the playoffs with Mark Jackson in 2014 and they blew away the league in 2015 with Steve Kerr.

Agreed. Completely. Especially the last part, because negotiations go best if the guy doing the negotiating actually understands the consequences of giving up this or restructuring that.

I'm not sure what's bothering you. I agree that this is exactly what Overdorf does. It's complicated stuff. But it is deciding which players will be on the team or how much they will be paid. I don't think we see things differently.

No question. You don't have Curry and Thompson drilling 3s, you don't win that game. But if ever there was time and a place for players to just pack it up and go on vacation, that was it. They've won plenty of titles, Durant and Looney and Iguadala and Thompson are injured and limited, they're down 3-1, playing against a good team that is defending them mercilessly, on the road before a vocal crowd with a whole country behind them - just give up, congratulate the winners and be proud of all you've accomplished. That's not who they are. They are Don Beebe chasing down Leon Lett, they were the Bills down 35-3 to the Oilers after having gone to three straight Super Bowls. It was what every fan wants his team to be - full of a heart (and a few Hall of Fame players!). LOL! I don't know why everyone is so fixated on the clapping. McDermott isn't as bad as Pete Carroll, and I'm sure the folks in Seattle are perfectly with the Lombardi he brought them.

Cute. I didn't mention Kerr, but he's a lot like McDermott, without the clapping. He's the one who created the winning attitude those guys have. And whether Kerr uses the phrase, he's about the process. They have a way to win, and it's built on commitment to the style of play Kerr's taught them. They buy in and they do their jobs.

I don't think we disagree. I think "policing" is a good way to think of Overdorf's role. There's a reason Overdorf is still there and the others aren't, and that's that Overdorf is good at his job. The others weren't good at theirs.

I think there's no way the Warriors win the series, but last night Curry and Thompson and Iguadala and Green and Durant and Looney and Cousins marked themselves forever as champions. They were in the theirs graves and Leonard was dropping the last shovels full of dirt on them, and they rose up and said "not yet." We're going to see Bills teams do that, because McDermott is training them to do it.

McDermott probably doesn't stay up late enough or spend enough time on recreation to have watched the Warriors beat the Raptors last night, but I'm sure this morning he'd like to package some highlights from the game to use as a teaching point with his team. The Warriors displayed last night the character that McDermott wants his football team to have. It was remarkable. TWO guys - Durant and Looney - played with serious injuries that under any other circumstances would have kept them off the floor. But this was an elimination game, and they were not going to let their team be eliminated without contributing whatever they could So they played until they completely broke down. All that mattered to them was that their team win, and they were going to do everything they possibly could to contribute to the win. Think of the message that sends to their teammates. The team fought and competed all the way into the fourth quarter. The commentators said at half-time that the Warriors may have been leading, but they were in serious trouble. It looked that way all the way through the third quarter. Then in the fourth quarter the Raptors finally took control of the game and brought all of Canada to their feet in anticipation of the championship. And still the Warriors wouldn't quit. Thompson and Curry and Green and Iguadala just wouldn't quit, and Cousins showed he has it in him too. Yes, those guys have talent, but Iguadala just cannot score any more, and Green can't carry them, and Cousins is kind of clumsy, and without more offense around them Curry and Thompson draw too much defensive attention. None of that mattered. Three minutes to go, game on the line, they refused to lose. It was an inspiring display of determination and of commitment to the team and team goals. It's what McDermott says he wants, and it's what we can see him building. It's why guys like Alexander and Beasley and McCoy and Gore and Hughes and Lotulelei and Murphy are on the team, and it's what he expects from Hyde and Poyer and Edmunds and Oliver and Morse and Ford and Allen. Time will tell whether McDermott can do it.

Thanks. We don't know, of course, but I'm not sure you're correct. What you say is what the fans SAID was going on during that period, but I don't recall the team ever saying anything like that. Thurm's view is, I believe, the correct one. It wan't Overdorf who decided whether the Bills would be cash to cap - it was the owner or the Brandon or the GM. Overdorf wasn't making that policy, because so far as I know he's never been responsible for the financial successful of the franchise. And even in the cash to cap days, Overdorf wasn't deciding how much money to spend on which players and what the deals would look like. He may have been proposing possible deal structures, but there never was even a hint that Overdorf was telling Nix or Whaley that, within whatever restraints may have been imposed, he couldn't spend money on this player or that. If Nix wanted to spend all of his available cash on one player, Overdorf didn't have the authority to tell him he couldn't.

I think you're incorrect about this. Thurm was clear in what he said, and he is almost certainly correct. No GM would give Overdorf or anyone else control over spending on players. The GM decides how far into or away from cap hell he wants his team to be, and guys like Overdorf help the GM understand his options. Overdorf tells the GM the consequences of paying or not paying a guy this or that. The GM decides whether he's going to pay it.

As I recall, one major rap on Foster was that his hands were flat out bad, and his preseason and early season performances seemed to verify that. When he returned, it was almost like he was a different player. So the question for this season is which of the 2018 Fosters are we going to get?

Good stuff. I think .500 as the bench mark, together noticeable sustainable improvement in week areas, particularly Oline and QB. .500 is good enough if there appears to be real progress on the field. 9-7 or better is real progress, almost regardless of whether we think there's been good progress in this area or that. If they can win 9, that's a successful season. And I said a few months ago, and I still believe it's true, that the Bills have a better chance to exceed expectations and get to 10-6 or better, than they are likely to go 6- 10 or worse. I expect several more solid performers, the Milano-types, to emerge this season, enough of them together with Allen that simply won't allow the team to lose a lot. I think those unheralded people will emerge because of their commitment to hard work and the leadership they're going to see from some combination of McCoy, Gore, Beasley, Alexander, Hughes, Star. I think that mix of leadership and eager young talent will be unwilling to settle for losses.

Got it. I don't recall the season in perspective well enough to argue with this, but what you say sounds correct in terms of being an accurate description of the events. What those events mean is a different thing. This was a team with a makeshift offensive line, weak receivers and a rookie qb. It would have been miraculous for that team to have had consistently good weekly performance. I believe them when they say they are building for long-term sustained excellence. What that means is that there isn't going to be excellence in the short term, just building toward excellence. What that means is sometimes players will look good, sometimes bad. Sometimes coaches will look good, sometimes not. Sometimes GMS too. It doesn't matter what anyone else has done. It matters what these people do, and they are building in accordance with their plan. So long as the plan seems to be headed in the right direction, I'm okay. Moreover, so long as it seems to the Pegulas to be headed in the right direction, the coach and GM will be employed. Having said that, it will be a serious disappointment if the Bills aren't a seriously competitive team in 2020. In 2019, they have to be competitive with all but the very best. Anything short of that means what they're doing needs to reviewed and perhaps acted on.

Not as much fun as the regular season.

Somebody has to call you out on the BS you spew, and when they do, you get upset. YOU envisioned the Bills struggling against Flores. All I did was envision Daboll succeeding. Why is your vision valid and beyond attack? Speculation is NOT what we're doing here. NOT. This is not a thread about what anyone thinks might happen in 2019. This is a discussion about whether McBeane have done a good, bad or indifferent job so far. It's a discussion, which is advanced by presentation of fact and argument. YOU tried to score points in support of your view of the Bills' leadership by suggesting your "vision" of Flores. I pointed out that one's "vision" does not advance the discussion, because I can have my own vision. Then, when by example I show that your argument is pointless, you tell me the thread is about speculation, and if I don't like speculation I should leave the discussion. Your behavior demonstrates that you're here to argue and to win, not to have a meaningful discussion. Put you on ignore? I've thought about it, but generally I just don't read what you write. You're quite knowledgeable about the Bills and you say some interesting things sometimes. And if I put you on ignore, it makes it more difficult for me to reply once in a while to demonstrate that your idle negative speculation is a useless substitute for logic.

This is the kind of statement that kills your credibility. You can envision it, sure, but that doesn't mean it's likely. I can envision Sean McDermott running off to Tijuana with Kim Pegula. Doesn't mean your vision or mine is worth talking about. If you can envision some Belichick protégé emerging, why don't you image Daboll emerging?