Shaw66

That's interesting. First, it's a minor point, but even if it's true that every great coach has been to a Super Bowl if he had a great QB, it doesn't mean it can't happen. For example, for the last several years, McDermott and Allen couldn't get past Mahomes and Reid, and that is a comment more on Reid and Mahomes. And Shula had Marino for 10 or 12 years and only got there once, and Jimmy Johnson had Marino for four and never got there. But that isn't the point. The real point is that McDermott is light years ahead of Levy. After Levy lost one of his Super Bowls, maybe the first, he was asked whether he wished he had done more to motivate his players. He said it's the players' job to motivate themselves. Right there, I knew that Levy's reputation exceeded his coaching ability. McDermott understands that EVERYTHING is his job, and if his players aren't properly motivated, it's on him. As poor as some of the coaching has been in McDermott's playoff losses, it wasn't any worse than Levy in XXV. The Giants showed him the game plan to beat them in the regular season, and Levy never adjusted. And he let his players go out and get drunk the night before the game. And the talent Levy had was much better. Kelly threw to Reed and Lofton. And Thurman was better than anyone McDermott has had at running back. Put Bruce Smith on the Dline opposite Rousseau and the Bills would have one or two Super Bowls already. There were first-ballot Hall of Famers on that team. It's much harder to win now. It was possible to acquire enough talent to be just flat out better than most teams, and the Bills happened to do it. In this era, it's very very difficult to out talent anyone. Eagles did it this year. I think McDermott is much better than Levy. Much better. And thanks. You're saying some good and interesting things, and even if we may come out in different places, the things you're saying make a lot of sense.

Well, it depends. Probably yes, but it depends on whether he actually seems to be growing. I don't know, for example, whether his philosophy about the D line will evolve, but if he's playing the same 8 man rotation and getting the same results, that will be a signal to me that he isn't growing. The league is changing around him, and if he isn't changing with it, then his growth mindset won't be getting the job done. If Allen storms out training camp in 2027 and demands a trade, then maybe I have a different view. On the other hand, if Allen storms out and Trubisky takes them to the Championship game, then, certainly, keep the coach. It all depends on what the team is doing. I've come down to thinking that there is only one metric that matters - winning the Lombardi. All the other objective metrics - stats, AFC East titles, etc. really don't matter. But I also think that that metric, winning it all, is NOT the measure of the success of the coach. Some great coaches have never won a Super Bowl, and some bad coaches have. The measure of a good coach is more complicated and more subjective than winning a Lombardi. I think McDermott is a better coach today than he was three years ago, and he was better three years ago than six years ago. Four years from now, if I think he still growing and the quality of his teams is still growing, I'm still going with him. I like this, at least the first para. You're saying something similar, and the point is the same - if things don't progress, then it's time to move on. However, I don't agree with culture second. Culture's first, and McD won't ever change that, and it unquestionably has built great success. What has to change is football decision making. They need to be smarter about the people they acquire, especially in the first and second rounds. That's where they need to go after play makers - given where they draft, they won't get one every time, but they need to hit on one or two, so they have a true monster DT or a true shutdown corner or a real stud at some other position. To do that, I think their philosophy about players has to evolve.

Well, people have been dancing around this idea for a while now, and it's looking a little clearer to me now. Creating a championship NFL football team is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. The process of building a team is complicated, the play on the field is complicated, everything is complicated. And it's made that much more difficult because you face opponents who are very talented and who are trying to do the same thing. Here's one example: Should you build to win in a window and then rebuild, or should you build to be consistently good and take a Super Bowl when everything falls just right. Most of us here look at that question one way or the other; we don't agree, and I'm not sure there's a right answer. Belichick and McDermott and Tomlin build for consistent success, while other teams build for the short term, usually with a cheap quarterback and some good luck acquiring star talent. But that is by definition short-lived, because you can't consistently have a talent edge over the whole league. Still, by building that way, when it falls right, you can race to a championship. The Eagles have sort of done that. Their QB is getting more expensive now, and they won't be able to hold on to all their talent. But that's just one kind of question about how to build; there are hundreds or thousands of decisions that have to be me made about how to build. Every team has the same objective - to win Super Bowls. It's not like the Bills aren't trying. The discussion here largely revolves around the basic question of whether the players are good enough and whether the coaching is good enough. But as someone just said, the Bills have drafted a lot of good players who just don't seem to stand up and make plays. Oliver and Kincaid (at least on one play) are guys we look at say, "If they'd make the plays we know they can, the Bills would be fine." I'm in that camp. Then the question becomes, "Are they the wrong guys, or are they coached wrong?" And we can debate that. Personally, I think it's a bit of both - they're coached to be consistent, and being consistent means they have to go where they're told, even if the opportunity to make a play is in the other direction. But they also LIKE playing that way, and they've been drafted BECAUSE they like playing that way. We all can talk about what we think the Bills need to do to get over the hump. Here's where I come out: McDermott and Beane understand more about what the Bills are doing right and wrong than any of us. They're smart football people. If they're drafting the wrong people, they'll figure that out. If they're using the wrong defensive philosophy, they'll figure that out. For example, I've said before that I think McDermott's eight- or ten-player rotation on the D line is a problem, because it means that you have take the money you can spend on D line and spread it around to 8 or 10 players, so that you have a light of guys who are at least decent. If you spread it unevenly, around maybe 6 guys, you can have more talent with that six. Then you play them more, and you hope do don't have a lot of injuries, which would leave with having to play some less talented, cheap talent that's been sitting on the end of the bench. The Eagles played the Chiefs like that, with a couple of guys getting a lot more snaps than McDermott gives to any defensive lineman. Chiefs play Chris Jones that way, too. Now, McDermott isn't stupid. He sees that and he understands it. He believes in the growth mindset and continuous improvement, which means he believes that change is necessary to get better. So, I expect McDermott's philosophy about his D line, and about other things, will continue to evolve, and I expect that what he tells Bean that he wants in a player will evolve, too. How do I know that? Well, McDermott's view of the wide receiver room clearly has evolved, and the passing game became more effective. His view of the running game evolved, and the run game got better. The growth mindset is characterized by a simple question: What is your response when something doesn't go right? Some people respond with, "I got it wrong." People with the growth mindset respond with, "I didn't get it right yet." McDermott is not going to keep doing the same thing, over and over. He has shown himself to be an excellent coach who hasn't gotten it right yet. If he weren't an excellent coach, there would be all kinds of things that we could agree are wrong about the Bills. The truth we pretty much all agree that the Bills are doing almost everything right, and if they'd only do a little more right, they'd be winning Super Bowls. Why is it that the Bills are doing almost everything right? Because Sean McDermott is the head coach, and Rex Ryan, and Doug Marrone, and Gailey, and Jauron, and blah, blah, blah aren't the head coach. The Bills have a guy who is doing it and he will get better.

Is It Time To Move On From Allen? I mean, really. The guy's been in Buffalo for six or seven years now, hasn't won a Super Bowl. He underthrew Kincaid on fourth down. He blew the quarterback sneak. He had Shakir wide open in the end zone a year ago. He's shown he can't beat the Chiefs in the playoffs. How many chances does get? There's a thread with a title that says Allen has five years left. Well, if he can't win the big one, and if he only has five years left, what better time to trade him than after he's won his first MVP? I mean, if McDermott and Allen BOTH have come this close to getting to the Super Bowl, and Allen has five years left playing and McDermott has 20 years left coaching, isn't McDermott the better bet to ride with? Okay, I'm joking. But really, McDermott has demonstrated that he is one of the top five coaches in the league. He got to the playoffs with a no-name quarterback and a rag-tag roster, he had one rebuilding year, and he immediately returned to the playoffs. This past season, clearly a transition year in personnel, he got to the AFC Championship game. He'll have a better roster in 2025. Let's trade Allen for a boatload of picks - maybe get Garrett and the Browns' number 1 pick for the next four years. The Browns will be terrible, and those picks will be worth a lot.

Excellent. Thanks.

I didn't listen to the podcast, but I think these are pretty fair criticisms. Drafting late in the first round, it's tough to get a real difference maker, but Beane has had very little success. Rousseau is the best of the lot, and even he has underperformed. Kincaid hasn't really shone. And I think the critique of the Coleman pick is right, too. First round is when you're looking to find someone special. I think even Oliver is that kind of guy - very talented guy, but a guy who's talents just make him very good at a lot of things, instead of really special at something. Part of the problem is, I think, that McDermott wants these all-purpose kind of guys. He likes them because they come with the attitude he wants - "put me in coach; I'll do whatever you want." I find I keep thinking about Jerry Hughes, and thinking that that's the kind of guy the Bills should be getting in the first round: a guy with some special skills who has to be reined in a bit to play within the system. That kind of guy will play the position you want, but will make a big play for you once in a while, too. The best big-play guy they have on the defense is Milano, and his big play ability is almost an accident. He didn't come out of college with people saying he was going to make the kind of splash he did. Comments about Garrett are interesting. Yes, go after him, but that's the easy way out. The plan that McBeane have been pursuing is to build through the draft, and just keep getting better that way. Build through the draft, fill holes with free agents. Beane tried to fill the edge hole with Miller, and it's a bit of a cop out to fill it now with Garrett. Still, Garrett would transform the defense by allowing the Bills to take advantage of Rousseau's versatility and not need him to be the primary edge rusher.

Yeah. I do it every so often, and SDS sends me a $25 gift card. 😄

Every once in a while I stop and appreciate how great this forum is. Late in the regular season, things slowed down here. There wasn't a lot to be said from week to week - just watch the games, react, then wait for next week. But now, things have really lit up around here. Here's a copy of all the topics on the first page this morning. People are posting in all of these topics fairly actively. There are all kinds of Bills-related subjects that people are interested in talking about here. I'm grateful to have a place to come where people who really know the Bills are talking the team and its future. Myles Garrett requests a trade 123460 Goin Breakdown James Cook on IG Live - Travis Kelce uncertain of future. Mulling retirement JP51 OL Alec Anderson signs exclusive rights tender Bills scored more points than any other team this season.. \ build through the trenches 12345 Tre White's back-to-back injuries were the begining of the end for the once dominant Bills D 1234 Matthew Smiley out as Special Teams coach 12348 S Jevon Holland FA Speculation Bills expected to hire CB coach Pellegrino from Patriots 1234 The Super Bowl No One Wanted 123 Did y'all catch Josh's fiance in the boob commercial yesterday? 12345 Is it time to move on from McDermott? 123433 This is now on Beane, no question he needs to step up. 12346 Was Hurts really the SB MVP? 123 Joe Buscaglia's early mock draft Mock draft season 1234 Bills hiring new special teams coordinator Chris Tabor 123 Slick Rick about to be Bills most valuable non player person. 123 Important NFL dates 2025 12 Josh Allen Super Bowl commercial only in the Wyoming area.... Unsourced rumor mill: Some Chiefs believe Allen has long wanted to play with (Hollywood) Brown 1234 Is Nick Siriani, the second best coach in the NFL currently. 1234 Terrance Gray interviewing for Jags GM position Bills hire Jason Rebrovich as assistant defensive line coach 1234 Anyone else feel the Bills would have given the Eagles a much better game? 12347 The Eagles beat the Chiefs by doing the opposite of the Bills 12348 Superbowl Game Thread - Chiefs vs Eagles 1234103 It's the defensive line, stupid! 12347 Xavier Worthy: So far, not much more than a gadget guy 123428

Great stuff. Thanks.

Logic - thanks for this. I had the same reaction watching last night. I've read the first 30 or so posts, and many people are going off on other things - like the rest of the Eagles talent, Mahomes having a bad night, etc., but I think your point really is the key point in terms of where the Bills are deficient. I think there are two points about the D line. One is that McDermott applies his jackknife approach everywhere, but it doesn't work so well at D line. By jackknife approach, I mean that McDermott wants players who can do everything that might be needed at a position, and he will give up excellence at one skill to be sure the guy is good at all skills. He wants strength and quickness and footspeed - ultimate versatility, but to get quickness and footspeed that is adequate in his mind, he gives up size and strength. That means his defensive linemen at a disadvantage from the the get go, because they have trouble just overpowering offensive linemen and holding their position. The other is that he's committed to his D line rotation. He wants 8 or 10 d linemen who have that versatility. It's a good idea in one sense, because it's easier to find d linemen who are good at everything than to find big strong guys who are fast and quick enough. They're easier to find because of their are more of them. And that comes down to a question of resources - how much money do you have to spend on positions? Those smaller, all-purpose guys can be found late in the first round for the best (like Oliver and Rousseau (well, he's not smaller)), and in later rounds for the guys who will do a good job you (like Epenesa and Carter). You can get 8 good, versatile guys for the same cost as you can maybe 4 really good guys and 4 backups who aren't quite good enough to make McDermott's eight many rotation. What I concluded last night is that McDermott's approach to the D line is a nice idea, but it is a serious flaw in the playoffs, when you're up against the teams with the best o lines and the best offenses. When you hit those teams, you have trouble stopping the run and you have trouble getting to the passer, and you're left with one strategy - hope that Allen and the offense can outscore the other guys. Hasn't that been the story against the Chiefs, year after year - can we outscore them? Last night, the Eagles D line put on a clinic about how to rush a mobile quarterback. They allowed the offensive line to form the class pocket, they maintained lane discipline, and then they shrank the pocket, from the front and from the sides. It was difficult for Mahomes to escape, and that escapability is one of his greatest strengths. The Eagles were able to do it with size and strength. In their philosophy, they are willing to give up some versatility in order to have a high percentage of one-on-wins. One good example was the disastrous INT Mahomes threw deep in his own end. Why did it happen? Because his left tackle got pushed into Mahomes and disrupted the throw in the EXACT same way Chris Jones pushed Dawkins into Allen and forced Allen to underthrow Shakir in the end zone in the playoffs last year. That's a play made by a defensive lineman who features power, not versatility. You can't have that kind of controlled power rush with the kind of personnel you need in order to play the rotation that McDermott favors. Why not? Because you can't get really good power d linemen, who are expensive either in dollars or draft capital, and still afford eight to ten really versatile guys, each of whom you want to take 40% of the defensive snaps. The only way you can have both is to underspend significantly at some other position. The Eagles will have this problem as Hurts's second contract begins to take over. His cap hit in 2024 was only $13 million, and it's only $22 million for the coming season. But the cap is just a fact of life. It was very clear last night that if you want to win the playoffs, there are two things you need: the right quarterback and a quality defensive line. McBeane have some serious work to do in that second category.

I agree. Been saying it for about three years now. He made some big strides this season, and I'm hoping for another jump in 2025.

True. It's really remarkable that two of the very best quarterbacks ever to play the game had relatively limited athletic ability compared to most of the best quarterbacks. And that's what makes Mahomes stand out as well. He simply thinks about the game at a very high level and makes decisions that consistently win football games. He has that in common with Montana and Brady, and he's at least the physical equal of Montana and is superior physically to Brady.

WOW!!! I love creative ways to think about things. Certainly puts Allen vs. Warner in perspective. I've been in the Allen camp for a long time, since his rookie season. A couple of years ago I concluded that he was going to move into the ranks of the all-time greats, and I think that is continuing to happen. Anyway, on my version of the question - a GM picking a QB for one season, Josh Allen is clearly ahead of Warner. Clearly.

Well, I think that if he retired right now, you have him too high. I think part of being a great quarterback is being very good for a long time - the duration of the success is important. That guy the Colts got to replace Manning had the potential to be great, but if he didn't do it for 15 years, he just hasn't proved that he was great. I couldn't remember his name - now I do - Luck, and the simple fact that I couldn't remember his name tells you all you need to know. Last year, some people were talking about that kid in Houston as a true great, and we saw what he looked like in his second season. All of the gushing over Jayden Daniels is way premature. So, if we're really talking about all time greats, I don't think Allen has played enough to be 12. HOWEVER, if instead of talking about greatness, I'm with you if the question is this: You're a GM, picking a team for one season. You can have any QB you want, and you get the QB at the top his game as shown in his career. How many guys would you pick ahead of Allen? I don't think Young or Marino would be on my list ahead of Allen. Allen at his best is a better thrower than Young and a much better runner than Marino. Allen's a helluva player.

I was a big defender, too. His teams played with discipline and character. I liked that. However, I don't think he was built to be a winning head coach. He was too conservative, even for that era. He just didn't like to take chances. I can't imagine him ever getting out of that beloved 4-3. He was McDermott with less imagination, and that's saying something. Loved the guy. Committed, hard working, high quality man. RIP

Well deserved is right. I don't know who the true MVP was this season. I can make the argument for Lamar, Josh, and Saquon. I don't know if Josh should have won it last year, but I can certainly make the argument. What matters over the long run is that the right players get the MVP once or twice or three times. The Bradys, Mahomes, Allens, Jacksons. I mean, those guys are super players, exceptional, and they deserve to be recognized. Allen finally got one, and he deserves one or two more along the way.

I want Reid to retire!

I've always thought the better example is that the Bills are to the Chiefs as the Colts were to the Patriots. Year after year Manning tried to find a way to beat the Patriots in the AFC championship game, and he had only limited success. I like that comparison because in both cases we're talking about all-time great quarterbacks: Brady and Manning, Mahomes, and Allen.

Hey, Plant Been meaning to respond to this. I generally agree - I look at the lineup and how well it performed, and I don't see much need to change. However, I'm sure there'll be more change than your post suggests. I think the receiver room will change, for sure. I think it's even possible there will be change on the oline. Johnson is probably gone, and there'll be a replacement there. In general, I think every GM knows that standing pat is the way to a slow death, so I think we'll see at least a surprise or two on offense. I do agree, though, that where this team has room for improvement is on the defensive side. The Bills haven't gotten quality defensive help out of the draft, quality that helps in the guy's rookie season since Benford. Bishop disappointed, but maybe he'll be more solid this season. I'd love it if by October there were a couple of new young faces on the field on defense.

I agree with this. McDermott is not going anywhere. I just have more confidence than most people in his his ability to improve and develop additional skills and talents. I believe for example, but nothing we're saying here is new to McDermott. He understands better than we do, how game plans are developed and what the practices are that the best coaches follow. I have no doubt that he is determined to improve himself in those areas and to continue to look for coaches with the talent and creativity to make the team competitive at the highest levels. Which is not to say that I'm not disappointed that we haven't seen more progress. However, I do believe the Chiefs are a special organization, and they present a unique challenge. I also believe that 2024 was one of McDermott's best coaching jobs. The team had mixed the personnel, at best, and still performed at a very high level. The bills will be better in 2025. The Bills have run just as aggressive blitzes from time to time, but I agree that in that situation, McDermott is much more likely to revert to he's more conservative approaches. As I always say, however, I expect a McDermott will continue to improve and continue to surprise us. His onfield decision making, for example, is much more aggressive and creative now than even a few years ago. I think we will continue to see changes.

Well, sure. We can rehash 13 seconds, and the conclusion is always the same - there were some serious coaching failures, both in preparation and with game-time decision making. But the fact is that over the last five seasons, the Chiefs have been the best team in the league and the Bills have been the second best. If the question is whether to replace the head coach, I think it's a no brainer. No current coach in the league has been able to play the Chiefs as competitively as the Bills, and replacing McDermott probably means (1) an immediate step back in competitiveness and (2) getting a coach who is less likely to win like the Bills have over the past five seasons. If Reid wins the Super Bowl on Sunday and shortly thereafter announces his retirement, which team will be the preseason favorite to win next year's Super Bowl? The Bills, that's who. If that's where we are in a month, I do not want a new coach.

This is excellent. Thanks for posting it. I don't know enough about Babich to know what his upside is, but I think you describe it pretty well. The players could have more talent, but I think they can get more out of the defenders they're putting on the field. As for figuring it out at halftime, I agree, but I think that's how the defense is designed. They come out playing their standard defense and let the offense try to attack it. Then they see how the offense is attacking, and they adjust. It's a conservative approach, and we've seen it put the offense behind almost immediately, but the approach has worked pretty well for McDermott. He may tweak it a bit, but McDermott's fundamental approach is stay close in the first half and win the second half. I don't agree about Brady. I think Brady has shown a lot of creativity, with some blind spots. I think we'll see further improvement in the offense next season. I believe that these guys grow in their jobs, and McDermott will challenge them to get better in particular ways. We know, for example, that McDermott told Brady last year that the Bills had to run the ball successfully, and we saw how Brady responded - with a really effective running game. We'll see more development in 2025, I'm sure. But whether either coordinator will get better at attacking the opponents' weaknesses, whether they'll get better at identifying tendencies and responding, whether they'll get better at anticipating how the opponent is likely to break tendencies, all of that - I don't know. But it does seem to me that those are the areas where the Bills are consistently underprepared against the best opponents.

I wanted to give another example for @Logic and others. I know Logic was talking about defense and I gave an offensive example. Here's one for defense: Maybe it's been discussed here, but a friend told me that Mahomes went 12 for 15 against man-to-man in the AFCC game. That would mean he was 6 for 11 against zone. Just prorating, if the Bills had played man on 10 pass plays, Mahomes would have completed 8, and he would have been 9 for 16 against the zone. That's one fewer completion. Would that have made a difference? I don't know, but it's one fewer play that the Chiefs would have had success on. He averaged 13 yards per completion, so 13 yards could easily have made a difference in the right drive. For me, that gives rise to a lot of questions: Did the Bills know that Mahomes was that much better against man than zone, either in general or against the Bills specifically? Did they plan to be that heavy in man and if they did, why did they think they could have success in man when obviously they couldn't? Did the coaches realize during the game that he was killing them in man? If so, how did they adjust? I don't know how one does this, but it seems to me that if the Bills thought they could have success in man, they should have a plan for what to do if they didn't. Wouldn't it be good, for example, to have planned to show man pre-snap and then switch to zone post-snap? Maybe I'm dreaming, but my understanding is that good coaches do exactly that kind of scheming. It's all just nitpicking, because the Bills obviously planned for the game and had success doing things, both offensively and defensively. However, it sure seems like the Chiefs always have a little more success in their scheming before and during the games, and the game comes down to just a few plays here and there. It's true that players haven't made plays, like Kincaid, but in the McDermott era, it sure seems like the Bills are less well prepared than their opponents in the playoffs. Maybe it's only the Chiefs, because most of the playoff losses are to the Chiefs, and that may mean that the Bills just happen to be the best of all the teams that lose to the Chiefs. There's no shame in that, because the Chiefs have shown a remarkable facility for winning. Even if that's true, it doesn't mean that the Bills shouldn't be working to find ways to close the gap. They've been close, maybe closer than any other team in the league, to beating the Chiefs, and I'm sure they're working at closing the gap. I don't think the answer is new coaches, in part because there aren't any coaches who have shown that they're closer to beating the Chiefs.

Okay. Your bolded is a good point, and I don't have an answer for you. I've become a firm believer in my own ignorance, so I can't answer this question. I don't know anything about the fine points of football. I think I see things that are inadequate about how the Bills are prepared, but I don't know if I'm right and I don't know how to fix them. The example I've talked about in threads a bit is the fourth down throw to Kincaid. As I understand it, the Chiefs showed a blitz to the right side, and on film that was consistently a bluff, and they would send the blitz from the left. As a result, as I understand, the Bills set their blocking assignments to the left, anticipating the bluff. Instead, the Chiefs broke their tendency and brought the blitz from the right, and they had the Bills blockers outnumbered. Okay. Seems to me that the Bills needed to be prepared for the Chiefs to break tendency. Maybe they still set their blocking assignments to the left, but the players needed to be prepared to execute a successful play if the Chiefs broke tendency. They weren't. That's a major coaching failure. Seems to me that when the ball is snapped, Josh needed to verify where the blitz was coming from. When he see it's right, he knows he's in trouble and he should have been prepared to roll left immediately. He had Shakir out there. In addition, the blockers on the left side of the line, once they saw that the rush wasn't coming from the left, should have pulled left to block, either downfield, or guys who were trailing the play. All the receivers, except Shakir, were going right, and Josh would have had options. Now, that's just my creation. I don't know if it would work or not, but the point is that Josh needed to be prepared for the blitz coming from the right, and he wasn't. No one on the team was. That's bad coaching. I think the Bills should have been prepared to run something other that a QB sneak, once the Chiefs showed they could stop it. It was foolish to keep running a play that no longer had a 90% probability, especially a play that was predictable by the formation. That's bad coaching. I don't know what the solution was, but the Bills should have been prepared with something else. I don't know how you fix that. You need some high level, creative football thinking to identify those problems in advance and then to prepare for them. I think the lack of that kind of preparation is what we saw in 13 seconds and what we saw last week. Reid's teams are prepared in exactly those ways. They seem to always have a play. Belichick's teams were prepared in that way. Good coaches have their teams one step ahead of the opponent, so all the players have to do is execute. When you're not one step, you're hoping Josh will make a miracle throw, which he did, and your receiver will make a tough catch, which he didn't. Coaches have to make the game easy for the players. I don't know how you do that. McDermott should start by hiring some football savants, some guys who have the reputation of being creative football thinkers. That's what I would suggest, but as I said, I don't know what I'm talking about.

But it IS "coach better and play better." All three recent playoff losses came down to exactly that. The Chiefs make the plays they need, and they have strategies that win. True, their offense has declined, but they make the plays that win games. They don't beat the Bills by being fundamentally better on offense or defense. The games are close, and the Chiefs are better in the final two minutes with the game on the line. The regular season games are similar, and the Bills won those. So, I don't buy the notion that there are fundamental problems with the defense. If the Bills had made ONE play in each of the last three playoff games against the Chiefs, nobody would be looking at this graph. That doesn't mean the Bills don't need a better defense. They do. But they don't need a better defense to win more playoff games. Dawkins needs not to back into Allen, Kincaid needs to catch the ball, and the coaches need to strategize like pros, not like high school coaches.