Shaw66

This totally and absolutely ignores the role of the coach. Totally. The man oversaw and contributed to the development of the offense and defense. He participated in the development of the game plan. He made countless decisions during the game. He created the culture in which Josh Allen went from being a QB that several teams didn't want to being recognized as one of the truly great football players of his era. You seem to think that the guy just sits around picking his nose until it's time to decide whether to punt or go for it. It's completely absurd to say he did next to nothing. He built the team, for heaven's sake. Do you actually think that if the Pegulas had hired Beane first, and Beane had hired some other coach and then went on to acquire exactly the same players, that that other coach would have built a team with a top five offense and a top five defense? What do you think coaches do, all day, every day, year after year? What you said is absurd.

Not so much if you come in to win now. It isn't a rebuild or anything close. It's take the existing team and make the offense better, bit keep the defense. Not that any of it is a big deal.

This also is not a stat, just like Marino is not a stat. These things you're raising are just random facts that prove nothing.

This is where you lose me. Being the best QB not to win a Super Bowl is not even a stat, and it doesn't mean anything. Why is it that anyone should jump to the conclusion that the failure to win a Super Bowl is on McDermott? At the end of the loss to the Bengals, Diggs wasn't in McDermott's face. He was in Allen's. So, as I've said before, why is Allen's failure to win a Super Bowl on McDermott? Saying McDermott is on the hot seat ignores every other explanation for not winning a Super Bowl in the last three seasons and simply lays it all at the feet of McDermott. It's a premise I don't accept.

Well, as I've said, statistically there's a reason to assume the next coach would do worse. It's called reversion to the mean. Purely statistically, the probability is that the coach will be closer to the mean for coaches (which is .500 or so). But I agree, there's no reason to assume that would be true. Just realized that by leaving the DC position vacant, McDermott buys himself a little more job security. As much as an owner might like to replace him with an offensive minded coach, if there's no DC in place, it's more problematic. It means that both sides of the ball would have new leadership, and probably a new philosophy. That's a lot to dump on a new coach's plate, especially because the new coach would be expected to win immediately.

I think your point here is dead on the money, except I don't know how many fans make that assumption. First, I think McDermott has the culture part down, but he clearly doesn't have the how to win the playoffs part down. There was progress from his first playoffs to his second and then to his third, until the end of the game. What happened last season is anyone's guess, as has been discussed here at length. He clearly needs to keep getting better at the playoff part. If McDermott were replaced, I don't think the new guy would have to be a McDermott clone on the culture side. He has to be good on the culture side, but his rules don't have to be McDermott's rules. Players are in it to win, not to burnish the reputations of their coaches. They just want coaches who make sense and who win.

This is, I think, your take, and I think you misunderstand or mischaracterize what McDermott is about. McDermott's philosophy is that football is the ultimate team game. In order to win, you have to have the best team, as opposed to the best collection of individual players. In order to have the best team (and this is something the players on just about all the winning NFL and NBA teams say), the players have to care deeply about each other and play for each other. So, yes, McDermott cares about relationships, not OVER winning, but because relationships are ESSENTIAL to winning in a team sport.

I think Frazier pretty much ran McDermott's playbook. McDermott wouldn't have it any other way. I think what was different was the play-calling, and the aggressiveness. I've said this before, maybe even in response to you, but I think Frazier's history in Buffalo goes something like this: 1. McDermott was a first-time head coach and needed a defensive coordinator. Frazier looked like a perfect fit, because he ran a defensive scheme similar to what McDermott want AND because he had head-coaching experience. In Frazier, McDermott got someone he could comfortable with running the defense and got an in-house mentor to help him learn the ins and outs of the head coaching job. It was a classic choice by someone who knew he had a lot to learn and knew he needed help. 2. For the second and third years of McDermott's tenure, he valued continuity over almost everything else. He was building a foundation, and he didn't want the foundation shaking. Frazier was running a defense that McD was satisfied with. 3. The assumption always was that Frazier would get a head-coach gig somewhere along the line. 4. In years 4, 5, and 6, now the Bills are getting good, and McDermott has taken the bit as head coach. He's confident and in control, and I suspect he started setting goals for Frazier that, it turns out, Frazier didn't achieve. Goals related to making the defense more aggressive, more big play oriented. 5. Frazier now becomes a bit of a liability because he's Black. McDermott doesn't want to fire a high-profile Black coach. After 13 seconds, they really don't want to fire him and make him look like the scapegoat. And, unfortunately for the Bills, because they aren't having more success in the playoffs, Frazier isn't getting the looks at head coach jobs that the Bills had anticipated. 6. Then, 2022 happens and McDermott can't wait any longer and decides to make a move. It all makes sense to me that it played out something like that. The fundamental point is, however, that Frazier was running a defense like the kind of defense that McDermott wants to run - that is, the formations, rotations, general philosophies were the same. The problem was that Frazier didn't implement the defense the way McDermott wanted. Included in that may be the McDermott didn't think that Frazier and his coaches weren't getting enough out of film study and weren't installing wrinkles from week to week that would make the Bills' defense tougher to attack. You'll say, well, why didn't McDermott fix it? That's not the way McDermott works. He delegates. He is reluctant to take over the jobs of people who work for him. In Frazier's case, I'm pretty sure that McDermott kept setting goals for Frazier to improve at certain things, and it just didn't happen. So, in January, McDermott pulled the trigger.

Fair enough. But the point isn't whether McVay is a success or not. The point is that if you look at all the coordinators who've become head coaches in the last seven or eight years, and look at all of their records, only a very few have records better than McDermott's, and most of them already have been fired. That track record suggests that it is very difficult to pick the successful head coaches from any existing pool of coordinators. That means that the chances are you will get a worse coach, not a better coach. Now, there is an argument that teams need an offensive head coach, not a defensive head coach, and if you look at the OCs who have become HCs, their records probably actually are better than the average. Still, even the OCs fail at a high rate. I'm quite sure that if you polled owners and executives, they'd tell you that replacing McDermott, or thinking that he should be replaced if he doesn't deliver a Lombardi in a year or two, is a silly idea. Plenty of doubt. It isn't easy. A lot of things have to come together.

EVERY guy who hasn't been a head coach is a crap shoot. It's a different job from being a coordinator. Every single one is a crap shoot. McDermott was a crapshoot. The most successful coordinator turned head coach, Sean McVay, has a mixed record. And Shanahan. Yes, every successful head coach was once a successful coordinator, but most successful coordinators who become head coaches get fired. So, yeah, at this point I wouldn't consider, for a second, replacing McDermott with anyone who hasn't been a successful head coach already. Frank Reich? No, already tried the job once and failed. Maybe he'll be better the second time (Belichick, Reid), but failure the second time around is more likely than success. Why would I want someone who failed at his first shot worse than you think McDermott might be failing in his first shot? On your list, I don't like Payton, but that's just a personal opinion. If Payton or Pederson were available, and if I were unhappy with McDermott, I would certainly consider them. They're worth the risk. But think about this: If you're Pederson (and forgetting the rules that might prohibit such conversations), how do you react when Pegula calls you and says, "I'm thinking about making a change," how do you react? If I'm Pederson, I think, "the only reason he's calling is that he wants a Super Bowl NOW, and McDermott hasn't done it. What does that say about my job security?" Pederson knows how hard it is to win a Super Bowl, he's got a job and got a QB, and he probably has job security. So why would he want to move? When you put it altogether, at least in my mind, the chances are mighty low that you will get a better coach, and the chances are pretty high that you'll get one worse. It's different, of course, if your head coach is failing. But only some Bills fans and a few talking heads think McDermott is failing, and that's only because he hasn't won a Super Bowl yet, which is a really unfair standard. Now, maybe you are absolutely, absolutely sure about a guy, and then yes, you take your shot. But most of the time, owners who were absolutely sure found out that they were mistaken.

Because they had a better candidate, in house. The Bills had someone they believed would be better. It wasn't a crap shoot.

No, we're not. The point of my example was to show what a bad, low probability move it is to fire a high performing person in hopes, somehow, of getting a higher performing person. You wouldn't cut Allen, you wouldn't cut Herbert, in both cases because your chances of getting someone worse are much better than your chances of getting someone better. In the case of a head coach, it's the same. McDermott is a high-performing head coach, at least based on his record and player comments, and it's no more rational to fire him in hopes of getting a better coach than it is rational to cut your star quarterback. It's a low probability play. The Eagles took that bet and lost, badly, by hiring Chip Kelly. Yes, they got a Super Bowl the next time around, but the fact that they fired a first round Hall of Fame coach and replaced him with a total failure is telling. Firing a good coach is a bad bet, just like firing a good quarterback.

Sorry, I posted my earlier post without having seen your longer post in response to Hondo. You said the opposite of all the things I said. We disagree, and the points of disagreement are obvious and not need to be restated. However, I'll say this: You are equating mediocre results in the playoffs with mediocrity in coaching. Yes, you are what your record is, that's true, but it's also true that past results don't predict future performance. Based on regular season results, no rational person would conclude that McDermott's teams have been mediocre. The Bills' results have been great, and that should lead you conclude that McDermott is great. The simple fact is that no rational owner would fire, or even think about firing, a head coach whose teams have had the success that McDermott's Bills have had. What is the probability that the next head coach will be (1) more successful or (2) less successful? Picking names out of a hat, I'd say 10%. Terry and Kim Pegula, by using their brains, might be able to improve those chances to maybe 25%, but maybe not. Ralph Wilson certainly couldn't. It's just foolish to talk about replacing McDermott. I agree completely, except that the chances of reaping bigger dividends are much less than the chances of making a big mistake. I mean, should the Chargers cut Justin Herbert because they think they can find a better quarterback? I mean, the guy hasn't won a Super Bowl, and how long are the Chargers going to wait. Better to try someone else, right? Okay, okay. Give him another year, but if he doesn't produce, it's time to move on.

It's all just opinion and speculation, but I think your take on this is wrong. I think 20 years from now, McDermott will be counted among the all-time great coaches. He's still learning and growing. Belichick was 41-55 in his first six seasons as a head coach, and he was 2-1 in the playoffs. McDermott is 62-35 and 4-5 in the playoffs. We can argue all we want about why that happened, but the real point is that head coaching careers are really long, and head coaches improve. With a start like McDermott has had, it would be foolish to move on from him any time in the next five seasons (absent something like a scandal or major impropriety).

That's true, he said too little. But "terrible message"? No. It was too sentences in June. Forgotten in August, if not July or tomorrow.

Well, I certainly get the comparison, but I don't think it made sense, for several reasons. First, like McDermott, Schotty was a defensive coach, but part of his problem as a head coach was that he was unimaginative, particularly on offenses. He had only occasional seasons with good offensive teams. McDermott's Bills got good on offense pretty quickly. Second, the real complaint about Schotty was that teams couldn't win in the playoffs, and I know that's the charge against McDermott, but Schotty was in a class by himself. He was 5 and 13 in 20 seasons; McDermott is 4 and 5 in six years. McDermott has a lot more success getting to the playoffs, and a lot more success in the playoffs.

You know, Thurm, it's even more complicated than that. I don't have a dog in this fight, but just for hahas, I took a look at time of possession in some of those later years, and Carolina was top five. So if they're that lopsided in time of possession, its probably because they have a good offense (and, in fact, a good running offense, which Carolina had). So, those Carolina defenses also had the advantage of defending fewer plays than most other defenses. So, yards, also, may not be the best indicator. But I agree with your more subjective argument, which is simply that McDermott was recognized around the league as a top defensive coordinator and head coach candidate. People in the league know who is getting the job done, and who isn't.

He's not as smart as Einstein. Oh, you meant THAT Einstein.

Nah, I think you're way overstating this. McDermott simply is not comfortable talking to the press about internal matters. He doesn't want to make a mistake in that arena. He knows there is no benefit to cultivating the press, and he knows there's real downside to making a mistake. So, on Tuesday, when they talked to Diggs and decided that he was still too hot to have around, they suggested he go home and come back after practice. But in the press conference, McDermott didn't think he needed to give that detail - he thought it was enough to say Diggs wasn't there without trying to explain it. Super cautious. Overnight, he saw that it was getting spun as Diggs skipped practice, and McDermott realized he needed to say more to take the heat off Diggs. So, on Wednesday he explained that Diggs had been excused and hadn't just blown it off. Just super cautious. And Frazier was handled brilliantly. DC for one of the best teams in the league gets relieved of his duties, a Black DC at that, and there was hardly a ripple in the news. Perfect for Frazier, because the press wasn't all over him about how it felt to be fired, and perfect for the Bills because the press wasn't all over them, either. By the time it became apparent that Frazier had been canned, it was old news and no one wrote about it. Now, whether there are people who don't like McDermott's style, I can't really say. I haven't seen anything before suggesting Daboll wanted out, but maybe that's true. Not everyone loves the guy they're working for. Everything you hear from the players sounds like they love it. Phillips and Lawson came back, and Oliver likes it enough that he didn't seem to look too hard for a new place to land. Maybe it doesn't work for Diggs, but I'm not too worried. I think he'll be seriously into ballin when the time comes. I could be wrong. Florio and all the others need something to talk about. Diggs gave them something, and they wouldn't be doing their jobs if they just let it lie there. Chris Jones was in the news, too, for not showing up. Press has to find something to say about the Chiefs. It's a good thing if the only controversial thing they can find to talk about is that the star didn't show up for a practice in June.

Well, my answer to your question, if I answer it, is "no, McDermott is not Doug Collins." But it's a really good question, and only time will tell. The answer certainly could be "yes." Let's start with the underlying premise: That Josh Allen could be a transcendent talent like Michael Jordan. I don't want to get into any arguments about that comparison, because Jordan really was otherworldly and the argument could be endless; however, the premise is not off the wall. The NFL never has seen a talent like Allen. Vick was the only truly outstanding QB who was a better runner, and there are only a handful of guys who could throw like Allen (actually, maybe no one). The point is that if Allen can get all of his immense talent under control, including all of the critical game management skills, he COULD be the equivalent of Michael Jordan. I mean, if someone told you Allen could have two three-peat Lombardis, we could argue about whether it's likely, and talk about how hard it is to win and repeat in the NFL, but isn't the only response to such an outrageous prediction, "If anyone could do it, it would be Allen." So, let's accept the premise. There's little question that Phil Jackson had the key to unlocking Jordan's true greatness, and Collins didn't. (Similarly, Steve Kerr had the Steph Curry key and Mark Jackson didn't.) Doug Collins wasn't a bad coach, but he didn't have the key. Does Sean McDermott have the Allen key? Well, you can analyze and argue that one all day long, too, but if you're asking the question as part of a consideration of whether and how long the Bills should stick with McDermott, it's a point less discussion. Think of the possible outcomes: At the end of his career, Allen has become Jordan or he hasn't. If he has, then his coach had the key. The only way to find out if a coach has the key is to play it out and see if Allen becomes Jordan. The Broncos changed coaches and Elway won Super Bowls. Was that because one coach had the key and one didn't? There's no way to know what Elway would have done without the coaching change. Moreover if, as is likely, at the end of his career Allen has NOT become Jordan, then what do you conclude? That none of the coaches Allen had had the key? Or maybe, more likely, Allen isn't the once-in-a-lifetime transcendent player that Jordan was, and you were changing coaches trying to unlock a door that never could be opened. In that case, maybe you fired the coach (like the Eagles firing Andy Reid) who was going to win Super Bowls for you. There just isn't any way to know. I don't think Allen is Jordan, but I think the right coach can win multiple Super Bowls with Allen. I think McDermott is the right head coach for Allen, so long as McDermott has the right offensive coordinator. So, as I've been saying all along, I think Dorsey is the big question mark. And, by the way, I think McDermott is the right head coach because I think we will now begin to see McDermott's real genius, his defensive genius, begin to emerge. I think we are about to begin to see sustained, defensive excellence out of the Bills, just like the Patriots saw from Belichick.

Pretty thin evidence. Until the no show today. That's real evidence.

It's just the kind of thing we like to worry about, when there's pretty much no evidence. What we know is that Diggs is prickly. More so than he ought to be, as far as I'm concerned, but that's how he is. His commitment to winning is A-1, and I think his willingness to respond to McDermott's leadership will win the day. But there's no way to know how any of this will go until it plays out. Maybe Diggs starts to get more out of line, maybe not. All we can do is wait and see.

I think you're wrong about this. With very few exceptions, everyone here is living with the dream. Everyone is in it for the Super Bowl. The difference between people here relates to how they react to the disappointment of not making it. Some people have something that is akin to anger. They want to blame someone, and they want to insist that change happens so that they, the fans, can have what they want. Other people react differently. They're response is more akin to "that's too bad, let's try again next year." Interestingly, those two points of view are fundamental to two different motivational philosophies, both of which have had success. The anger approach is the leadership approach that George Patton followed, and plenty of coaches do - put the fear of God into them, demand that the players not fail, etc. Parcells was in that camp, Lombardi was in that camp, plenty of successful coaches have been there. McDermott believes in the growth mindset. He believes that the best way to achieve a goal is to work at it, to remain personally committed to it, and to surround yourself with other people with the same attitude. It's much more of a "that's too bad, let's try again" approach. Pete Carroll is one of those. These coaches are demanding, but they are demanding about the behavior of the players, not about the outcome. Players are not bad people because they didn't win; however, if they didn't try, every day, that's a different story. Now, we can argue the pros and cons of those two approaches, for fans and for team building, but whichever side you're on, the objective is the same - win the Lombardi. No one is satisfied with less. It's just that people respond differently to failing to reach the goal. When the Bills win the Lombardi, everyone will celebrate together, and it will be impossible to tell one kind of fan from another.

Interesting point about emotional insecurity. I'm not sure winning 13 seconds would have changed a whole lot, but maybe. I hear you about being sick of it. It's frustrating to have teams that just didn't do it. I don't mind losing, but wide right, Music City, 13 seconds, and a few others are games that turned on one play, and it's a burden to keep living with those games and never actually make the play to win the game. I feel that too. I wanted to comment particularly on your last paragraph. I don't think that the explanation of what happened in 2023 is excuses - a lot happened, and the Bills simply couldn't win when the big games started. Couldn't. But I've found myself having the same thought you have, and I said it someplace earlier - for me the thought is "okay, you've had pretty much everything happen to you that could happen to you, year after year you take good shots at improving the roster, we all like the way the team is headed, blah, blah, blah. Now, just go out win the games you have to win. Whatever happens, win the games." I've also found myself trying to imagine the mindset of the coaches and players. I don't know what the mindset is - they're not telling us, but I'm guessing there's a team full of players who, like you, are saying, "**** it, let's do it. Let's just do it." It's long way from here to the playoffs, but I have the feeling that this time in the playoffs is going to be different. I think this time this team is going into the playoffs thinking "no one is beating us. We are going into every game with one intention. To dominate." I mean, think about how these guys feel about not having won a Super Bowl: Hyde, Poyer, White, Milano, Allen, Diggs, Dawkins, Morse, Knox. Add in Miller, because he really wanted it last year. I think there are a lot of guys on the team who are ****ed off and are determined that nothing will stop them. I enjoyed the NBA playoffs. Talent wise, Miami had no business in the finals, but there aren't many teams that play with the heart and determination that they do. Every game, it seemed, win or lose, they challenged to win it in the end. And Denver showed the attitude that I, and I think you, are talking about. Denver just decided that they were the best. They just were determined to push themselves to be sure that their superiority won the games. Last night, Miller kept telling them, "Take it. Take it. The game and the championship is yours. You just have to take it." To win the Super Bowl, you have to fight like Miami. And when you're a really good team, a potentially dominant team, you have to fight with the attitude that you're taking what you deserve. Patriots under Belichick with Brady played that way.

Thats a good point.