Shaw66

You didn't ask me to name one that was worse. You asked me to name one. Six wins without Allen? How many wins do the Bengals get without Burrow? Chiefs without Mahomes? It just isn't meaningful to say the Bills are a bad team because they couldn't win without Allen, because (1) no one knows how good or bad they would be without Allen, and (2) no one knows how good or bad other teams without their star QBs.

Wait. You asked me name one. I named two. You can't just dismiss them as not so bad. Those things happen. You think Belichick wasn't just as bonkers about that backward lateral as McDermott was about 13 seconds? As for Belichick without Brady, yes, he hasn't been so good. Earlier you said without Allen, McDermott would win 8-9 games. But that's true for ALL coaches. If I've got a Brady, Rodgers, Allen, Burrow, I've got a good shot at the playoffs. If I don't, I'm 8-9. It's hard to indict McDermott for winning with Allen.

Why do you think that? I think it all depends on what he shows in the summer. If he looks like he did last season, I would think he's a lock. He sounds like a guy who stays in shape and who wants this opportunity. Based strictly on what each has shown so far during their pro careers, I think Murray's the best back on the team. He's had a whole career of being a part-time starter with better seasons than Cook. Now, I'm not saying he's the best back on the team, but he has proven ability to be a serious ball carrier for this team. If he's out of gas, he's out of gas, but what I expect is that he's going to be inactive early in the season and Harris will get touches. Then, as we get into November, I think Murray will start getting playing time.

Thanks for the discussion. I'm Belichick's offense thre moving on with day's events. But ... Just last season Belichick's offense threw a backward lateral that was fumbled and returned for the winning touchdown. That was pretty bad. I saw Brady one time throw a pass as he was falling over backward; just before he hit the ground the ball went 30 feet in the air and fell into a defender's hands. It happens, although I will grant you that Belichick is really good at getting his team prepared for things other teams aren't.

You did exactly what you hoped, and I thank you for it. I mentioned the Pegulas and you sort of said they were irrelevant. And I understand what you mean. All I meant to say is that what you and I have been talking about is whether, if we were the owners, we would move on from McBeane today, next season without a Lombardi, or longer. That's the owner's job - to evaluate the people who are running the show and to decide when to bring down the curtain and bring in a director and casting producer. Thanks, truly. I enjoyed and was interested in what you had to say.

Yeah, that's possible. I think I'm fairly objective. I think the receiving corps was good enough, in terms of talent, and is better now. I have never been happy with their running backs, and I think their offensive line has struggled consistently. I'd guess, however, that a careful understanding of the rosters of other teams would show that every team has under-resourced some parts of their team. When people complain that the Bills devote more resources to the defense, maybe that's the choice they've made precisely because they HAVE Allen, and some part of the team needs to be under-resourced. Yes, you can challenge the actual talents of the players the Bills get, but I'd guess that around the lineup the Bills are as talented, maybe even more talented than most teams. I think we tend to get blinded by the stardom of the few. The Chiefs have Kelce and had Hill, but other than those two, there has been a parade of players through their receiving room. They aren't all stars. I suspect it's true about offensive linemen, too. Again, sure, every year we hear about how this team or that team's offensive line is killing it, but that never lasts very long. When we see that line, we think Beane's done something wrong, but the reality is that there are 25 other teams saying, "Hey, why can't we have a line like that." How does he get more out of running backs and receivers? Well, I don't know, exactly, but we know that Tom Brady got great performance out of average players by simply insisting that they do what they're supposed to do. He was all over his teammates in ways that some guys didn't like but others responded to. You didn't want to be the guy who let Brady down. I'll say what I said before - I don't who's out there that I would be confident will do better than McBeane, even assuming you could get him. Reid? Yeah, if I knew I had him for five years, I'd take him. There just aren't many coaches who have won Super Bowls and been a consistent playoff threat. Payton had a decent run. It's very hard to do, and McBeane have had more success than almost anyone.

I'm not going to respond to all of this, but it's in some ways spectacularly good. Thanks for taking the time to put it down. It all makes sense, and I won't argue with it, not all. You're asking excellent questions that go to the heart of how a football team needs to be run. Why should I have confidence in McBeane? Well, maybe you're right - maybe my confidence is misplaced, and maybe now or soon I should get off the bandwagon. Fundamentally, I've drunk McDermott's Kool-Aid about growth mindset, etc. I believe that he's so committed to the concepts surround continuous improvement that he will solve whatever problem stands in his way. What he's done so far is build a team that over the past four or five years has been, arguably, the best regular-season team in the league. He now has to figure out how to take that kind of team and make it succeed in the playoffs, too. He and Beane said it when they came - they were going to build this team slowly, and step by step. You have to win in the regular season before you can win in the playoffs. Most coaches and GMs never learn to win consistently in the regular season. So, they've taken a big step already, and they're working on rest. If the 2023 Bills are third in the betting to win the Super Bowl, well, how much more could one want at this point in the season? They were first last season, but we saw that that didn't necessarily mean it was a lock. The fact is that the most one can expect is to be a team that the consensus can see as a team that might win it - that is, all one can expect is that you have one of the, say, top five teams. Well, if Beane and McDermott have a methodology, and if that methodology has gotten the Bills to the top five for three years running, I just don't see what I'd be looking for in a new head coach or new GM. Yes, you can say they're in the top five because of Allen, and there's some, maybe a lot of truth in that. But McBeane share the credit, because they alone among several HC-GM pairs in the league, knew that Allen would be Allen, and created an environment around him where he could become what he has. Who are the current perennial Super Bowl favorites. The Bills, the Chiefs, the Bengals. Why? Because they have a super QB and they have high quality coaching and front office work. I just have trouble looking at it concluding McBeane are a problem. They'r succeeding but haven't won yet.

That's interesting. And I'd add to that leadership. No necessarily rah-rah-type leadership, but the kind of leadership that brings out the best in his teammates. The leadership that causes everyone to execute in the biggest moments. It says "We're going to win this. WE." It seems odd to hear myself saying it, but Allen has to become more than he is. The guys who's asked to do everything has to do more. He has to be part of the team, not THE team, and he has to lead the others to be better. I've often said that Allen reminds me of Elway - big arm, fierce competitor, great natural athlete. Elway had the same problem. He had to get beyond being THE team, like he had to turn down his pure athletic superiority before he could win. It took him ten years. Maybe what Allen needs is to dial it all back a bit, at least until the final drive. I heard a story about Sandy Koufax stuck in the minors because he had a killer fastball and an unhittable curveball but somewhat out of control. Some coach finally said to him, "Stop throwing it so hard all the time. Just dial it back and throw it." When Koufax learned to do that, he became an immortal.

Great comment. I think you're correct. Charles Barkley said something the other night that I thought was interesting. He was talking about being the star on a basketball team, but the same thing applies in football and particularly to Allen. He said if you're a real star, like Embiid, you're better than just about all the players, and everybody knows that. That causes your teammates to have a tendency to change how they play, to rely on you often. The star and the coach have to get everyone to play THEIR game and to stop feeling like they're just the supporting cast to the star. The star essentially has to be saying to his teammates, "look, you have to do the things we need to win so that I don't have to do it for the whole game. My job is to win the game in the fourth quarter, if we haven't already won it." None of the successful QBs is carrying their offense like Allen. Not Burrow, not Rodgers, I'd say not even Mahomes. Mahomes is great, and he's making star-quality plays (like Allen) throughout the game, but it never feels like the Chiefs really NEED him to do it. And that's not just on the coach. It's on Allen, too. There are great NBA players, incredible dominant talents, like Lebron, who just somehow demand the attention, rather than just being the guy who plays with the team until the fourth quarter and then takes over. Lebron's been very difficult that way, and Curry has been able to lead but not dominate. Mahomes is Curry, and Allen needs to become more like Curry and less like Lebron.

You know, I agree with parts of a lot of what you say, and a bit I disagree with pretty strongly. Please don't take this personally - I'm not criticizing what you say as bad; I'm just saying there's an interesting discussion to be had about what you're saying. I disagree with this take you have that part of the problem is that McDermott doesn't say much of anything in his press conferences. That's true; he doesn't. And I'd say "get over it." Some coaches say more than others. McDermott obviously doesn't think it's very important to say much to the press, so he doesn't. Belichick didn't, either. As fans, we might not like it, but it has nothing to do with whether he's running the team the right way. I think you're right that Allen feels the need to do it all in part because the guys around him aren't doing enough. And there's some truth in that, and it would be understandable if Allen actually felt that way. The Bills have been tooling and retooling the offense from year to year, looking for the right players. There has been a parade of receivers - every season the receiving corps looks different, because they're trying to improve it. Same with the running backs. Same with the offensive linemen, actually. (Defensive backfield is the exception.) At some point, they should be a team where the same guys are back for two or three years and just get better. I'm sure all teams have this problem to some extent, but the point is to get the right guys and hold on to them. To be honest, I don't know if that's a good way to run the team or not. Time will tell, and some fans will have more patience with it than others. On the other hand, when you say Allen would be different (and would be winning Super Bowls) if he were on the Chiefs, the Bengals, or Eagles. I'll grant you Reid. Fine. He's got it going, from a coaching and team perspective in a way that is sustainable, and Reid would do it with Allen as well or maybe even better than Mahomes. But I'm not willing to crown the Bengals or Eagles yet. Before last season the Rams would have been high on your list, too. I'm not sure McVay is the genius everyone thought he was. The fact is that it's simply very hard to have a team that goes for ten years during which they win one or two Super Bowls and makes the playoffs every year. That's what Reid is trying to do, and that's what McVay is trying to do. What about boy-wonder Shanahan? Somehow, he isn't able to replicate that kind of success. He's still trying. Point is, McDermott and Beane are still trying, too. They're among 32 GMs and HCs trying, it's just very hard to do it. What's McBeane's system? It's versatility. It's finding the right guys so the Bills can play well as many different styles as they can. And because trends in the league keep changing from year to year, the players you need to play the way you want keep changing. Maybe they're a rabbit chasing its tail. In any case, I don't see much reason to criticize them for not having won yet or not getting more out of Allen or whatever. Not that there can't be discussions about whether other ways may be better, but the reality is that the Pegulas are believers in what McBeane are doing and they give McBeane more or less free rein to build as they want. So, that's the team Bills fans have. I have some confidence in them; I think they are building to success and they will get there. Others aren't so optimistic.

I didn't bother to stop and figure out why I reacted negatively to what Allen said, and you hit it on the head. But I don't think it means he wasn't focused earlier. I think it just means that he isn't a truly mature and precise speaker. He understands that there's been a lot of talk about how the season ended and the fact that Bills seemed to have lost their focus by the time they hit the playoffs (I don't think they "seemed" to; I think they did), and he wanted to respond to what seems like a criticism out there. I think he's a little thin-skinned. He hasn't grown up enough yet to do what Brady and Rodgers did/do in their 30s, which is to say, "Look, we're fine. There always are rough patches along the way, and we stay focused on the goal and get back to it." In other words, R-E-L-A-X. I don't think Allen has the maturity yet to say those kinds of things to the press, so instead we get I've "never been more focused on Football."

Who knows? Camp fodder? Yeah, maybe, but what camp fodder really means is let's bring in some guys who are still trying to develop their games so that they can catch on with a team. So, the Bills are the next team to help him develop, and if they succeed, they may end up with a marginal rotational player. Someone to fill a gap while we wait for Miller to return? Well, he could end up filling that gap, but it's more likely that will be filled by guys who were on the team last week. I do find it interesting that the Bills seem to have a range of these guys who aren't true edge players, and aren't true DTs, either. Shaq is an edge, but he can flip inside. They play Basham that way, too. It's that position versatility that McDermott likes. Cline seems like another one. The problem with guys like that (similar to the problem of offensive linemen who are multiple) is that they are versatile because they aren't really good at either of the two positions they play, so they aren't the guy you want starting. You want Miller, not Shaq. You want Torrence, not Bates. I get why McDermott likes these guys, because as the season wears on, you need help because of injuries, and McDermott would rather have guys who have been playing in his systems than guys who are added off the street. That's great, but sometimes you just need talent. In Cline's case, I know it doesn't matter all that much, because he isn't likely to make the 53, but he's another example of a player philosophy that McBeane believe in that continues to give me some doubts.

I agree with you. All these years I've wanted Edmunds to be a bigger hitter, tougher against the run. Now I think the Bills didn't like him because he wasn't quick enough, he didn't close well enough with solid tackles, either in the flats or on the blitzes. They loved how big he was, but they wanted him to be quicker, like a safety, not like a traditional linebacker.

You probably are correct. I heard it differently. On Rome it was like you just said.

I've often said you either have a top 10 QB or you're trying to figure out how to get one. If you have a QB in the second 10, you're trying to figure out how to get him into the top 10, or at least how to use him to win games while you're finding his replacement. Bottom ten is "well, SOMEONE has to play QB, and he's the guy we have." QB is such a difficult position, the league is never deep at it.

This is a good point. They didn't have much to spend on a TE, and I was pretty sure Howard was a bust, but the idea was that if they could resurrect Howard and make something like the receiving tight end people thought he would become, then the Bills would have the two TE set that they wanted. This time they went after a certifiable talent, higher ceiling than Howard.

I agree. It sounded like a subtle change in the message. I think all that happened was that after the draft, Beane was choosing his words carefully, because he knew the press was going to jump on the Edmunds-replacement angle. So, he was trying to shut down that talk, but the words he chose were more conservative than he actually meant. People should listen to him on Rome. Maybe I'm imagining it, but after the draft I understood Beane to say Williams will be an OLB and the Bills eventually will give him a chance to play the middle. On Rome, it sounded like they want Williams to be the mlb, but they're going to work up to it at a pace that works for Williams. It made me feel better, too, although not perfect. No one knows if Williams actually can do it, but it's comforting at least to hear what sound like "we think Williams can do, and we'll take our time figuring it out."

Beane doesn't do GM speak. Listen to Rome at the end of the interview. He's practically gushing with the fact that Beane was giving him straight answers to everything. Beane didn't say much of anything about Bernard or any of the others mlb candidates; he was just talking about Williams. Why are they teaching Williams OLB first? Two reasons: (1) He's the best backup for Milano. He has the most comparable skill set already. McDermott position versatility. (2) He has to understand the olb position, because olb and mlb play off each other a lot. As mlb, Williams needs to know what Milano is doing. By starting his education with olb, the Bills are teaching him something that makes him useful, as a backup, right away AND something that is fundamental to his mlb education. And a third reason: the jump from college to the pros is big, and it's all a lot of rookies to handle. So, teams generally start the rookies out slowly, and let the rookies progress at their own speed. If he's ready to play mlb by early August, the coaches will know that give him the opportunity. For now, however, they're planning to go slowly and see how it goes. Nothing wrong with that.

Thanks for this. It's sort of what I was describing, but I don't know the Xs and Os. There's essentially a rotation of Klein, Bernard and Williams, depending on down, distance, and opposing personnel. And Rapp will factor into the equation, too, when they go dime and even in some cases when they want a DB with better run-stopping ability. And I'm still not sure what the long-term futures are for Taron Johnson and Benford. There's a lot potential interchangabllity that can come into play.

I listened to Beane on Jim Rome. There's a thread about it, with the link. I think Beane said something about Williams that is a little different from what I've understood up to now. It seemed to me that Beane said to Rome that they drafted Williams to play mlb. The olb talk is just that they don't want to overload him with too much too soon. So, they plan to teach him olb first and then move him as he develops and learns the whole defense, so that he can be a true mike. Beane said something like he isn't ruling out Williams winning the mlb job earlier; it's just that they don't want to overload him. There are limits to the time coaches can spend with players. I wouldn't be surprised if the team talked to Milano and Klein and Bernard and asked them to run a little informal linebackers camp to start Williams up the learning curve.

Ah. Nice.

I hear you, but when you're trying to assemble a puzzle, you try pieces in different places. There just isn't an obvious piece at mlb, and when a team has a hole without an obvious piece to fit in it, the coaches get creative. I'm not ready to believe that any solution is completely off the table.

Congratulations. I'm not surprised, because you seem to think pretty carefully about this stuff. I think guys like Kiper and McShay, although they have access to a lot of information, don't get quality inside takes on things. They really are in the content business, not the football business. You try to be on the other side of that line, and it shows. The next step is for you to get access to a few insiders who will trust you enough to share a little info. It's like the questions of whether the teams valued the receivers as high as the fans. Who knows? unless you can talk to a scout or two. Nice job. We appreciated reading your stuff through the draft.

Well, this is an interesting discussion. As I think about, I keep coming back to the same conclusion, which is that McDermott believes he can do something unconventional. I think we'll see a hybrid approach. First, I wouldn't make too much of what Beane said about Williams playing strictly on the outside for this season. I think he said Williams can play the middle, but they want to go slowly with him, not give him too much. They stuck Edmunds in the middle from day one (for a lot of different reasons), and I don't think they'll be afraid to put Williams there early if he shows in camp that he can handle it. I would think that learning his role in the pass defense is what will hold him back - the Bills' mlb's run stop duties seem to be fairly traditional, so I assume that part of the job will be easier for Williams to step into. Milano seems like a natural to go to the middle, but as others have said, he may get chewed up there, and anything that threatens to take Milano out of the lineup would be a bad thing. But just like McDermott plays with interchangeable safeties, he may want to play with interchangeable linebackers, too. Frankly, sometimes last season I wondered which of the two was which. The fact that they brought Klein back, and given that he looked reasonably effective on the field last season, suggests to me that he's going to be worked into the defense in some ways. I think when the Bills want a run-heavy defense, we may see KIein in the middle, and when they want to be really run heavy, they might go 4-3 with Klein and Williams. I think there may other times when they want a pass-heavy defense and might go 4-1 with Rapp coming into be the sixth defensive back. And as I've said before, I'm not writing off Bernard. By the end of last season, he was a total after-thought. It was unusual for a third-round pick to see as little of the field as he did. Still, they drafted him for a reason, and Beane isn't one to miss badly on picks, so I won't be surprised to see if has a role. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if, going into OTAs, McDermott has Bernard penciled into the middle. And there's Spector. I keep coming back to whether they might be intending to do more situational substituting in the linebacker corps, so that snaps end up being shared among two or three guys from among Williams, Bernard, Klein, Spector, Rapp. As I've said before, McDermott has a plan in mind; he just isn't sharing it with us.

Yes. Someone printed the link below. They sent an email to season ticket holders about their parking rights, which aren't changing. They included a link to the rules. RV lot closed until the new stadium opens.