Shaw66

I agree about Harris, and I was more excited when they got Murray. If the oline solidifies, there's a good chance that one of those two guys will punish teams in a way that will take the pressure off Allen. And I also expect more from Cook, because it seemed to me the Bills were awfully comfortable letting Motor walk. And as to the bolded part, I agree. I think we're looking at a highly motivated team, just based on how last season ended, and I think a lot of the disrespect we're hearing right now is not being missed by the players.

That's true. But the data they use, and the analysis they use, generates surprisingly good results. Their process compares teams and players in positions in a very clever and detailed way, so by the second half of the season, they have surprisingly good takes on which teams are playing well and which aren't. At this time of year, their analysis is largely looking backward and making some projections about which players will be good. That's when they become just another website expressing their opinion. So, what his analysis really means is that the Bills were one of the very best teams in the league last season, and based on their assumptions about players (White, Poyer, White, Miller, etc.) they should be very good again this season. It's a pretty logical conclusion, but it's not worth much more than the colculsions any one of us reaches about what 2023 will be like.

Come on. I'll admit, I opened this thread because I wanted to see who it was who was calling himself the Rockpile Report. I did. There's a selfish part of me that doesn't want anyone using my tradename. But there's also the lawyer part of me that knows that I'm probably going to lose that legal battle. And there's the lawyer part of me that also doesn't want to be standing in front of judge who's looking at me and saying, "Really? Really? You think you're somehow entitled to exclusive use of the word 'Rockpile'?" I mean, thanks to people who have come to my defense, but there are better things to talk about than the fact that some guy wants to call his podcast the Rockpile Report. Like, does this kerfuffle last week about Diggs really worth talking about. I click on the podcast to hear his point of view, and I kept clicking forward in the podcast. Every time I stopped and played it, all he was talking about was how he takes lunch breaks and stupid callers on WGR and what he's drinking. I gave up. At least when you read the Rockpile Review, it's actually about the Bills. I'll be on vacation for a few weeks, but I certainly don't expect to miss much Bills news. I wouldn't want to miss McDermott getting fired.

When players are consistently wide open in the NFL, it's almost always attributable to game planning. Kelce and Hill were wide open in the last 13 seconds because of good planning on the Chiefs part and bad planning by the Bills. Planning and play calling. An ordinary NFL receiver, which is what Davis is, doesn't get open like that because of talent. He was open because the Bills had plays they knew would work against particular defenses the Chiefs ran.

YOU said I said that. I didn't say that. I said that McDermott contributed to the game plan, whatever it was. Obviously, the Bills had figured out something that was getting Davis wide open, and the sum total of ten months of leadership and input from McDermott was in some way part of what led to that plan. The Bills scored 36 points, gained 438 yards, had no turnovers and were penalized 15 yards. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever to say the rest of the team stunk.

The value of a head coach cannot be measured by one play, one player, one series, or one game. The head coach is the captain of the ship, the chief executive officer of a company, the general of an army. The head coach's job is to build a human machine to do a job. That machine has 100 or more human parts, each with a distinct job to do. The head coach starts working in Januray or February to design and build that machine. A big part of the job is delegating parts of the design and construction to other people, because the head coach doesn't have time to do it all, or the expertise. It's a difficult, complicated job, and very few people have even the basic abilities to do it. It requires a combination of brains, energy, determination, leadership, communication, and several other things. Then, in September, he has to start running the machine, pulling all the levers, pushing all the buttons, to get the coaches to get the players to do all the things they need to do to win games. The team is playing against other teams that have done the same thing, and by definition at the end of the season, 31 of 32 head coaches have failed to win the Super Bowl. So, the task is complicated to a very great extent by the fact that there are 31 other head coaches trying to do the same thing. It's also complicated by the fact that the parts of the machine aren't hunks of metal or plastic, they are human beings, and they fail for unexpected reasons. It's further complicated by the fact that every week, the machine has to operate differently, has to adjust to the weather, to events, and to the machine you're playing, and that machine is adjusting, too. The head coach doesn't know what he's going to get from week to week, and neither does the opponent. Sean McDermott spent an entire year building a machine that lost to KC in the final 13 seconds. But it was a machine that could generate touchdowns, seemingly at will, by letting Josh Allen throw the ball to Gabriel Davis. It also was a machine that made some mistakes (mistakes being something to afflict every football team, because these are human beings, not manufactured parts). The machines Sean McDermott has built for the past few seasons have been some of the most successful winning machines in the league. They haven't been perfect, but by the standards of the league, they have been very successful. In makes no sense to think, as you seem to think, that McDermott's job performance can be evaluated based on what worked or didn't work in one game. As I said before, you're blaming McDermott for everything that has gone wrong and giving him credit for nothing that's gone right. Sean McDermott has the fourth best won-loss percentage of all active NFL coaches. He is 8th among active coaches in playoff game appearances, and six of the seven coaches ahead of him on that list have been head coaches for two to three times as long as McDermott. He has posted those numbers because he is very good at building football machines. To suggest, based on what the Bills did in one game, that he should be on the "hot seat" or anything like that ignores the reality of the job McDermott has and how he has performed in that job.

Oh, I misunderstood. I see now. McDermott gets blamed for everything that goes wrong and no credit for anything that goes right. Guy should have been fired midway through his first season.

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.