Shaw66

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.

Allen isn't where he is on that graph because the defense was bad. He is there because most of his playoff losses were against the Chiefs, which is the only team that can score points like the Bills can.

What that geaph says is the Bills have been the second beat team in the playoffs and would have several more wins if Mahomes weren't around.

I think this is generally correct, but I don't put it all on Josh. I am very much a believer that we can see Josh's comfort level in his eyes. I can see the anxiety in certain games and certain plays. I don't necessarily believe that it's a big-game thing, although it may be. I was really excited mid-season, when Josh would come out of the huddle and survey the defense with a look that suggested that he understood everything he was seeing and he understood where the play should go. I think in both the beginning and the end of the Chiefs game, that look was gone. It was as though he didn't have confidence in what he was seeing or confidence that the play call would work. Certainly at the end of the game, he didn't seem like he knew what he should be doing. I contrast it with Mahomes. His face never shows that lack of confidence. He sees the defense, knows he good or changes the play or calls timeout. Either way, he's in charge and he knows what he's doing. I think in those moments, like the end of the Chiefs game, it's the coaching that's letting him down. I think Allen was finding himself either in plays that didn't fit the defense, or he was looking at a defense he didn't expect or that was unfamiliar. He just wasn't sure. And I don't buy the point of the OP. I think this is more cherrypicked data. In the first place, Allen is playing an era of pretty high scoring offenses, so when you lose in the playoffs, it's probably because you gave up a lot of points to a high scoring team. There's no shame in that. Second, as someone pointed out, by changing the number of games, you find a lot of big name QBs with similar data points. Without going back and studying those games in detail, I know it's fair to say that four or all five of those games were one-score games, and could just as easily have been wins rather than losses if someone had made a play. Certainly the last two Chiefs games could easily have been wins if Allen hits Shakir and if Kincaid catches the ball. If the Bills had won those five games instead of losing, the fans of the other teams would be nitpicking the data in the same way, and they would be complaining that their defense failed them. It's pretty simple. Bills need better coaching and they need players to make plays.

I don't think so. If the Bills had known that the rush was coming from the right side, Allen never would have rolled to the right. He certainly would have drifted left and he would have had other options. At the very least, they would have had a run by Allen around the left end with a blocker ahead of him. They only needed five yards. What you describe wouldn't have been the plan. The plan would have been to avoid the rush, and that meant escaping to the left.