Shaw66

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?

Tier I didn't quote your entire post, but this addresses all of it. I think all of the optimists around here, including me, should read it and think about it. I don't agree with it, but you express a valid way to look at where the Bills are right now. Where I really disagree is on the big picture. The big picture is that McBeane are putting together a cohesive group with a team focus and a commitment to winning that is different from the precious regime, for sure. It's true that the team today isn't significantly more talented on an individual basis than three years ago, but the mix of talent is much better. Oliver can't possibly have a worse attitude than Dareus, the Bills have a much more talented MLB and QB than they had three years ago, they still have a star cornerback. The difference is that the guys they have now are all on the same page, rather than having. Guys like Richie, who was fine until he wasn't and Watkins, who never really worked at his job. There's a head coach with focus and a plan instead of a guy who's system was to fly by the seat of his pants. Th current Bills present an image of things coming together according to a plan. Three years ago there was none of that. At the end of 2016, the Buffalo News and much of the national media was treating the Whaley-Ryan Bills as a dumpster fire. No one is saying that now. Coaching and management is more important that anything else in the NFL, and the Bills are way ahead of three years ago in that department.

I didn't see this before, but this is what I think reasonable progress is. Anything short of this and you at least have to ask what's going on. I've said all along I think playoffs is possible, but a lot of things have to go right, particularly the oline coming together and Allen making good progress over last season. I won't be happy with 9-7 and no playoffs, but I won't be disappointed. I believe McBeane are doing what they said they'd do: build a foundation for long term success. They need one more round of free agency and one more draft. When they have those additional players they will have talent they should win with. If the Bill's are around .500 this year, 2020 is the hotseat year for McBeane.

Pete Carroll failed miserably in New York and then took a successful Patriots teams led by Bill Parcells and made it continually worse for three consecutive years before being run out of the NFL altogether. He was universally viewed as a failure of a head coach. Which was we were talking about.

Why stop at the offensive line? On first down on the second series, Shady will play left guard and Zay Jones will be the quarterback. Morse will split wide to the right, and Ed Oliver will be the running back. The defense will be so confused that they won't notice Zay handing off to Star, who will exploit a huge hole opened by Poyer at right guard, break a tackle and outrun the entire defensive backfield for a 92-yard touchdown.

I agree with the philosophy you express here. McBeane have been very clear that their intention is to build a long term winner and therefore they are not doing everything possible to win now. And I can see how they're doing it. However, of the Bills are worse than 6-10 this season, something is wrong. McD has lost the locker room. McD is a failure as an offensive head coach. Something is really screwed up. If the offense doesn't improve considerably over last season, something is wrong. If the defense falls apart, something is wrong. 5-11 the Pegulas will be forced to think long and hard before letting McD have another season.