Shaw66

That's a fair comment, and points out what's really a difference in perspective. First, I never thought Rivers could hold a candle to a talent like Allen. The Philip Rivers Chargers were his team, and I've always felt that they didn't win more was due in large part to Rivers. Same isn't true for Allen. If he doesn't win Lombardi's, it's certainly going to be on someone else, and that someone for now is McDermott. The difference in perspective is your perception/fear is that the past will predict the future. That is, that things won't change. And while I agree that that CAN happen, I don't think that's what will happen, because that's not who McDermott is. McDermott isn't may way or the highway in the usual sense. He's willing to change his schemes and philosophies; his "way" is learning and continuous improvement. He will play his 4-2-5 only so long as it gets him the results he wants. That D does get results - it's one of the best in the league. It just needs to be tweaked here and there, with personnel or strategy and tactics. It won't be wholesale change, because part of the system is continuity - run the same system with the same core players and you can rotate a lot of good football players through the other positions. But there'll be change, and it will make them better. They'll change how they play the playoffs, too. I throw out the Bengals game, because I think the team had come apart weeks before that, under the pressure of various things. I think losing Miller was a big emotional blow. But even if that's a fair assessment, the Bills are going to evaluate their playoff performance and learn from it. In particular, they're going to learn what they already knew but couldn't muster in the final game, and that's the need to increase the level of hitting - persistent hitting, so even when you're behind on the scoreboard, you know you're beating them physically. That knowledge helps a lot in the second half. I just don't foresee McDermott doing the same things, over and over, and losing repeatedly. Throughout his high school and college careers, he was always about being physically tough and about finding new and better ways to win. He's not stopping now.

I didn't say that. I said he's winning like a HOF coach, and that's statistically correct.

Yeah, but it's McDermott's way. He is careful about the kind of guys he hires, just like he's careful about the kind of players he wants. When he hires them, he has extreme confidence that they can do what he needs, and when they don't do it, he has extreme confidence that they will learn, because he hires learners. Once he's hired them, he's going to stick with them. I'm sure that's how he feels about Frazier, and I'm sure that's how he feels about Dorsey. He trusts their ability to learn and adapt. If he didn't trust it, he would replace them. Now, people may not agree with his decisions, and that's on McDermott. But as I've said for a few days in these threads, it's pretty hard to complain about the results McDermott has had in six seasons as a head coach. (People still complain, but really, be serious. He's piling up wins like a HOF coach.)

This is right on the money. As I've thought about the season, I've stopped worrying so much about the defense and begun thinking more about the offense. As I said the other day, the problem with the loss to the Bengals was not the defense - the Bengals are going to put up 25-30 against almost anyone, and 40 if your defense isn't good. The problem is that the offense has to score with them. I agree about the creativity. That was my complaint about the early Daboll also. Receivers get open with scheme, not with moves. Scheme comes from film study, understanding the tendencies of the defense and taking advantage of it. The Chiefs got two walk-in touchdowns against the Eagles by doing exactly that - they knew how the Eagles would play against certain sets in certain situations, and they designed a play that would take advantage of it. It's also true about those plays where Kelce cuts back to the weak side, against the flow - they catch the defense reacting to flow and let the defense create the open space for Kelce to move to. That's creative coaching. There weren't enough easy completions for Allen in 2022. Guys weren't getting open by taking advantage of weak spots in the defense. That's all about film study of the opponent, play design, and implementation. That's what we didn't see from Dorsey this season. Yes, the Bills need to protect Allen better. But the genius of Allen is the same as the genius of Mahomes, which is that protected or not, they have the ability to find, and the arm talent to get the ball to, open receivers. What Dorsey has to do is scheme better to give Allen open receivers.

I think the problem Frazier had was the complexity of the defense they run. It is very much a team defense. It's built in a way that each player is asked only to do things that he can execute well, and other players' assignments are determined by what the guys around them are expected to do. So, when you're playing without the pre-injury White, you're not just replacing White, you're giving the guys around White some slightly different assignments. When Edmunds misses time, you're asking the whole backfield to cover differently. When Hyde goes down, you're reshaping a lot of stuff. And when Miller goes down, ditto. What I saw was a group of guys being asked to change their own games because of key injuries, all season long. You can get away with Damar Hamlin growing into the job replacing Hyde, but you can't adjust quickly to Jaquan Johnson or Dean Marlowe stepping in, because with those guys on the field, Poyer's responsibilities will change, and White's, and Edmunds, Milano and Taron Johnson, too. It's in the nature of the defense. Now, that's true to some extent for every team, but I think it's particularly true of the Bills. Tre White isn't a true shut-down corner, but he's a great player because he's been able to think along with Poyer and Hyde to play really nuanced coverages. Elam and Benford couldn't possibly fill that role for the first half of the season (altho Benford was pretty good at it), and there was nothing Frazier could do about it. Just play the rookies and try to get them up the learning curve. And the way to cover for their weaknesses is to adjust the responsibilities of Hyde and Poyer, but Poyer was in and out and Hyde was gone. So, Frazier was trying to get Hamlin to play his own position AND help cover for the rookie corners. I think Frazier was looking at a more complex problem than we'd like to think.

Man, I love the fan reaction! Here is a guy who has spent a dozen years in pro football locker rooms, who is a recognized team leader, who is a close friend of several of the Bills players, and yet, when he gives his opinion, fans here throw it out like it means nothing. Players know when the coaching works and when it doesn't. They know when the season didn't work because, well, it just didn't work this year. They know. And that's what we're hearing from Smith. He's telling us these players - with these coaches - are ready to move forward. He's clearly saying that 2022 was an unusual year, everyone on the team knows it, and they'll be a powerhouse team again in 2023. For me, I think it's quite interesting to hear his perspective.

I don't buy the "how many years" thing. The franchise is not being run on some kind of theory that there's a window closing, and we have to do it now, or some opportunity will be lost. This franchise is being run for the long term, seeking to get better year over year. Their problems with the "how many years" argument. First, as I said earlier, if the Bills panic and replace Dorsey, who do they replace him with? If there's a McVay or Shanahan out there as an OC, he's getting a HC gig. If there's a guy who's about to become a McVay or Shanahan, how do you know for sure? Maybe he'll pan out in one year in Buffalo, maybe he won't. Then there's the issue of the guy coming in and changing the system. If you found a Shanahan, he would completely revamp the running game and the passing game. That means you have to change personnel. It's not a one-year deal. It's multiple years, so you're talking about major impacts to the franchise. Plus, do you want to change the system Allen's running? How about Bieniemy? Apparently he is in the market for an OC spot? Well, does anyone actually know how good he is? Does he need Reid to do what Bieniemy does? Point is, it is far from clear that if you change coordinators today, the 2023 season will be better with the new guy than with an improving Dorsey. And same question for 2024. And if you don't win in those years, are you changing coordinators again, because if you don't win then you've failed at replacing Dorsey with someone better, so your logic would say replace him. There is a lot of logic to the continuity approach to running a franchise.

As long as it takes. Denver waited eight or ten years before they changed coaches.

Yeah, well, life isn't perfect. You do have the occasional boy-genius, like McVay or Shanahan, but most of these guys take time to mature. Boy-wonder Kellen Moore just made a lateral move, after all the projections of him being the next HC genius. Why? Well, because, it takes time to grow into the job. Should McBeane go out and hire some mature, successful OC? Well, for starters, they don't want to change the system on Allen, so there's that. And they don't want to hire a guy and have him leave for a HC gig in a year or two. So, even if McBeane have concerns about whether Dorsey can do it, and when, he may still be among the best choices.

Maybe you're young, but this statement, in my humble opinion, is amazingly naive. Do you think that if Dorsey is an Offensive coordinator for the next 20 years, he won't be any better than he was this season? That he'll never improve? That's just wrong. I've practiced law for 40 years, and I was so much better in year 5 than year 1, it was amazing. Year 10 I was way ahead of year 5, and by year 20, well, that's when I hit my stride. Ask Andy Reid, and he'll tell you the same thing about his coaching career. Ask Belichick. I saw an interview after he won his most recent NBA championship. He was asked what he would say to the 27-year-old Lebron (after his first championship) if he could sit in a room with him. Lebron said he'd tell the kid Lebron, "you don't have a clue." Your letter carrier may not get better his job, but professional football coaches get better, for sure.

I don't know if the hot seat is anywhere on the horizon. It would be interesting to know what the annual post-season dialog is like among Steeler fans. That's the ultimate continuity-based franchise. Tomlin has never been below .500, but he hasn't won a Super Bowl since 2008 and hasn't been to the Super Bowl since 2010. Have the owners settled for just winning more than they lose, getting to the Super Bowl every decade or so? Or do they recognize that a lot of things have to fall right for even the right coach to win it all? If it were easy to be the Chiefs, everyone would be the Chiefs. What's wrong with the Bengals? Why can't they win the big one? They're clearly regressing - didn't beat the Chiefs this time around. Maybe it's time to think about a new coach there. Well-run teams take a long time to get rid of winning coaches.

With you all the way until the last sentence. McDermott will keep doing the same thing, which is following his process. His process is designed to have a continuously improving team. Doesn't mean there won't be ups and downs, but it does mean that over time it will get better. McDermott expects that by continuing to follow the process he WILL get different results.

Well, I've largely stayed out of this thread because a lot it is as you say. But it started out making a different point, or at least I thought so. The point was that a lot of fans seemed to be taking extremely negative positions about a team that is awfully close to being a great team in the league. It's one thing to have intelligent discussions about what needs to be done to get better; it's another to talk about blowing things up, getting rid of coaches or the GM, etc. If we could poll 32 owners and ask them if they didn't have the HC, GM, and/or QB they have, which one in the league would they like, McDermott, Beane, and Allen would be in everyone's top 10 and probably in most cases, in the top 5. So, complaining about how this team is being run in terms that suggest it's some kind of massive failure just doesn't make sense to me.

Fair enough. I certainly am not going to argue the point that resources have been allocated to the defense at the expense of the offense. But the resources dedicated to the defense were dedicated there precisely because the Bills want to hold the Chiefs and Bengals to 25-30, rather than letting them get 40. You need a really good defense to keep offenses like that somewhat under control. Yes, you don't want to surrender long scoring drives to open the game, but as McD always says, you're going to have periods in the game when things don't go well. It happens. It happened to the Eagles in the second half of the game last night. It just happens. But the Bengals kept trying to score against the Bills - they weren't coasting, and they went 3, 7, 3 in the final three quarters. That's about as much as you can expect from the defense against a team like that. (And the Bills were playing without Hyde, without Miller, and without the real Tre White.) I can't help but think that, despite your valid argument that the offense was under-resourced, one thing would have made a difference in that game and in the playoffs generally: Daboll instead of Dorsey. I was not a Daboll fan, and with Dorsey I expected Daboll plus some creativity. Instead, the Bills got considerably less out Dorsey than Daboll. In 2022, defenses adjusted and took away the things the Bills liked to do in 2021, and the Bills didn't respond. Good, creative offensive coaching finds ways to make some things easy for the offense. It looked easy for Allen to find Davis for four TDs in the playoffs last season against the Chiefs. That's coaching, not some magical ability on the part of the receiver to leave the defense in the dust. As I said, those two gimme touchdowns the Chiefs got to win the game last night were the direct result of Eric Bieniemy and his staff looking at film, identifying defensive tendencies, and designing a play that would use those tendencies against the Eagles. Kelce running those routes that break against the flow of the defense is the same thing. Kelce doesn't fake guys out of their shorts - he takes advantage of the defense predictably reading and reacting to keys. We saw very little of that out of Dorsey's offense. Now, here's why I'm not in despair: I have confidence in McDermott. If I can see that stuff, he can, and McDermott is all about improving what needs to improve. McDermott knows Dorsey very well, and he has opinions about whether Dorsey has the ability to grow in the job, to be creative in ways that he needs to be. If McDermott believes that Dorsey has what it takes, he will identify those needs in his work with Dorsey, and he and Dorsey will work a plan for Dorsey to get better. If his review and analysis of Dorsey tells him that Dorsey just isn't likely to be be able to do it, he will move on from Dorsey. That's how McDermott operates. That's why we saw Al Holcomb hired, and it's why they changed safety coaches - McDermott identified areas where aspects of the coaching needed to change to get the performance he wants out of the players he has. And he may have hired Holcomb because he knows that Frazier will retire soon, or something. McDermott's approach is to help people grow, and when he thinks they can't grown any more, he replaces them. I'm guessing that he know Dorsey well enough that he expects the offense, even with the same personnel as he had this season, to be better. He expects Dorsey to get better at preparing his offense on a weekly basis, to study how to attack this week's opponent and how to prepare the team to do that. It's not an unusual expectation. Daboll got better at his OC job. Josh McDaniel grew into his success as OC at the Patriots. Finally, let's recognize that what we're talking about is the last 2% of improvement. It's not like this was a lousy offense. A lot of people did a lot of things right for the offense to as good as it was. The Bills were second in yards, second in scoring, second in DVOA. That's an outstanding offense. Trying to figure out how to tweak it to be just that much better may require only a little improvement here or there, but it's the problem of the last mile. It isn't necessarily easy to get there. As I said, I have confidence in McDermott. There isn't anything we see that he doesn't.

I really think this is the wrong perspective. I think we have to recognize that when you play the Chiefs or the Bengals, you're going to give up 25-30 points. Those are really good offenses, with excellent coaching, excellent quarterbacks, and solid execution. Bengals have two really good wideouts and Chiefs have Kelce. They score against just about everybody, and the nature of the game today is that it's really, really difficult to build a defense that is going to hold those teams under 20. It just is. The only realistic way to beat those teams is to outscore them. The offense has to put up 25-30 of its own. And if the offense can do that against just about everybody (same as the Chiefs and Bengals do to just about everybody), then you can expect your team to be competitive with those teams in the playoffs. The defense could have been better, but the offense failed. That's why Diggs got so upset. He isn't unhappy about the defense. He's unhappy about the offense.

I wasn't here much after the Bengals game, and I never saw this thread. I have read nothing but the quoted post. But, I have to say, this is right on the money. Absolutely. I can't say I agree with every individual recommendation, but there's nothing there that I'd argue with very much. The offense underperformed in 2022. Which is a bit harsh, because the offense was one of the best in the league in a lot of ways, but it still underperformed. As we see and hear all the time, Allen is the best on the planet, at least physically, and he has the brains to be the best mentally, too. We learned today that he is by far the favorite in 2023 MVP betting. Not Mahomes. Allen. If you have that weapon, then your offense has to be great. In 2022, the offense was very good with an underperforming offensive line and with at best, mediocre coaching. Dorsey has to be much better, and the offensive line needs some better players. In particular, it needs some guys who can dominate physically. There are none on the line now. When the Bills have an offense that consistently builds first-half leads of 10 to 14 points and goes on from there, the current defense will be more than good enough. I would say that yes, no one should expect the 2000 Ravens, but we should expect an offense that dominates at least as well as the 2023 Chiefs, if not the 99 Rams. And in defense of the current whipping boy, Gabriel Davis, I'd say that he is just fine as the #2 to Diggs's #1, so long as the offensive line gives Allen the time he needs and Dorsey gives Allen the creative offense that he needs. Mahomes won the Super Bowl by throwing balls to wide open receivers who are NOT known for getting separation. His last two touchdown passes were 100% scheme and 0% talent. Even Gabriel Davis would have caught those balls.

You know, I haven't found it too bad around here. I realize now, however, that I have maybe a half dozen posters on my ignore list, and over time that tends to turn down some of the more angry or antagonistic rhetoric. Using the ignore list has some long-term effects on how you join this. And, if you haven't tried it, understand that you can see that these people have posted, and you can click right there to see the post. It works well. I try not to ignore many people, because I find that they have good insights into the game. We all do.

Like I said, McDermott is a top-5 winning coach. Career winning percentage of active coaches, he's top 5. Over the past six years, the length of his head coaching career, he's top 5. LaFleur has been a head coach for four seasons. McDermott has a better winning percentage over that period. Sirianni has been a head coach for two seasons. McDermott has a better winning percentage over that period. Belichick had only a slightly better winning percentage in his first six seasons in New England. Look at Belichick's first six seasons as a head coach, including Cleveland, and McDermott is way ahead of him. I said winning, and he's top five. Definitely. You'll say, yeah, but Super Bowls, but like I've been saying, if you tell me that my coach is going to be top 5 for the next 20 seasons, I am not replacing the guy. If you're replacing him, I'm betting you sold all your Apple stock in 1993, too.

I doubt there are five coaches who have won as much, and winning isn what its about.

Rock - Man, that's right on. I think people are having the trouble you say. This is a 48-year-old coach who already has won more than most. He's going to do this for another 20 years, and he's going to have Josh Allen for the next 10. If he retires at age 70 never having won a Super Bowl, he will be - BY FAR - the single winningest coach in the NFL never to have won one. This is a guy who projects to be one of the all-time great coaches in the league, and that's how he was seen when he was in the head coach market. Now, people will argue with what I've just predicted and sure, there are arguments to be made. But in light of what he's accomplished with this team through six seasons, the notion that the guy's style of play is out of sync with the league and he should be replaced is just silly. It's as silly as saying that Allen's been here for five years and hasn't won, so it's time to move on from him.

I hear what people are saying about McDermott, Frazier, need for an offensive guy, etc., but I think that's taking too short a view. We all tend to have a tendency to want the flavor of the month. Right now there's a sense that offenses are taking over, and that's what people want, a sense that McDermott's style of D doesn't fit, all of that. But that stuff comes and goes. Innovation in the NFL is driven by defense. The coaches who best can figure out how to stop offenses are the coaches with long-term success. The defenses always catch up. The teams that win Super Bowls play good defense throughout the late season and playoffs. Defense is the long-theme in the NFL. McDermott has one of the top defenses in the league. It's tenacious, and it succeeds by limiting the yards and points it gives up. If you have that every season, then you're always in the mix. If you're an offensive coach, then you're success is almost by definition to a period in time. You succeed on offense by figuring out how to beat the best defenses. You need be creative, come up with something new, and if you do that - great, that's to your credit, but now the defense is changing and you have to be creative again, and again. It's very difficult to stay on top. It's part of Reid's success, that once he got the right QB, he was smart enough to ride through changes in offensive strategy. I don't have a problem, at all, being in the playoffs year after year, waiting for the offense to come together, or the injuries to fall right, or whatever. Steelers had a defensive dynasty, always try build the right offense at the right time. I'll take that.

I hear that. It's not even the same ending, except the same in that there was no Super Bowl. Some fans are just tired. I felt it this year, too. Some of that is, literally, my age. And I've come to enjoy watching the games without getting terribly upset at the outcome. For me now, it's more these are my guys out there trying to figure out how to get it done, working as hard as they can to get it done. I watch and I'm proud. I'll watch next season, for sure, and I expect I'll see one of the better teams in the league, and I'll go into December knowing my team has a shot. From Thanksgiving, I'll watch to see if McDermott can build a winner. It will be interesting to watch, and if it all works out, one year or another it will be magical.

Well, I agree to a point, but it's understandable. What happens every year at this time is people are looking back on the season and talking about what didn't work. Only time that won't happen is if the Bills win the Super Bowl. So, what didn't work? The defense and the offense let the team down in the playoffs. Why? Well, that's what people are talking about. Not very productively, in my opinion, because I think the problems are much more nuanced than people here seem to think, but that's just my opinion. I am amazed, however, that people think McDermott is the problem. He's probably a top-five head coach, and people are complaining about him be too soft, or too oriented to the defense, or something. I don't get that at all.

Defensive coach and HOF QB worked pretty well in New England.

That's what I understand. But when you pay a hospital bill, you're paying ALL the expenses of the hospital, including the cost of sending the director of human resources to LA for a conference, including hotels and meals. You're not just paying for the nurse to sing Kum Bai Yah.