Richard Noggin

Wow. You're a special sort, eh? Dunning-Kruger. Look it up. And have a nice day. Go Bills.

Tone down the self-satisfaction here. You don't KNOW anything you're stating in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lines of this post. You just don't. I'd like to agree with you, but I'm not 100% certain Allen is superior to Watson yet. Deshaun Watson is effing awesome.

All right, take it easy. You'll be okay no matter what happens with the QB in Houston.

He never played the position or coached the position (except many years earlier at two smaller college programs) prior to that stint.

This has been addressed in other threads today, but I understand why this thought persists. We've got two more years of "control" with Allen, so why throw money at him now? Well, the answer is that doing so after year 3 would mean that year 4 and the year 5 option would remain unchanged before the newly signed extension truly kicks in, at least on an annual salary basis. The team would advertise some absolutely massive figures for term and annual salary and most importantly GUARANTEED MONEY, but in reality much of the cap impact is spread out over the total life of the contract and doesn't do a whole lot annually until the player's 6th year. The player gets an obscene check up front and the guarantee of a couple more big lumps along the way, no matter what. Eventually his game checks get pretty effing stupid, too. The team hopefully gets two more years of cap savings relative to on-field performance, followed by well established and reliable excellence from the most important position in sports that will overcome cap limitations elsewhere on the roster.

I mean, yeah those guys you mention would be nice additions...because they're the TOP guys available at their positions in FA and the draft. Sure it's possible the Bills target one of your FA suggestions, but doing so would necessarily shut the door on the other position being addressed with that same caliber of player (and would probably also mean a few other prominent roster members are traded or more likely waived). What happens with LB, OG, and OT in this scenario? The upgrade at RB in the 1st round of the draft is fine by me, but if we're forced to open up other roster holes due to FA signings and/or cap casualities, then that pick does not address one of those holes or the o-line (which you don't mention). I don't hate the idea of sacrificing depth for more dangerous starters at some key positions, but it doesn't strike me as the McBeane plan.

Jesus, was he the QB coach for the Peterman/Anderson/Allen season, too? Them's was a mighty awful time for throwing the bowl in Buffalo.

Plagiarism is NO JOKE guys. Come on. Gotta at least replace "bite" and "kneecaps" with a more personally relevant verb/tenacious act of self-defense and noun/vulnerable body part. Like an old school coaching philosophy cliché Mad Libs. "The Texans are going to clutch a lot of groins."

True. The productivity of his recent units, both the last 3 years of WRs in Baltimore and the 2017 QB in Buffalo, is not encouraging. However, as stated by a minority of posters, hiring a head coach doesn't have to be about previous productivity from a specific unit or position group. The hot coordinator or guy-with-a-sexy-scheme route is one way. But it can also be about leadership ability and management Softer, interpersonal skills. I think with Culley we can easily forgive "his" WR production in Baltimore the last three years with Jackson, and "his" QB production during Tyrod's last season (there WAS that one game in Seattle, though).

You might want to cite this articulate and helpful article; I'd especially like to know whose perspective this is I'm reading and mostly agreeing with. The author has a slightly less bullish outlook on the cap than the author of that Green Bay piece linked above somewhere, but his projection is nonetheless rosier than the coming roster purges of a salary cap bottoming out at a depth of $175 million. For the majority of us, typing or reading about fears of "austerity" due to abysmal $175 million budgets is...well, ridiculous. Especially over the last 13 years of financial squeezing in so many sectors...but um, sorry. Back to our regularly scheduled football talk. More fun than discussing our own lives amiright.

There is room for more creative alignments under McDermott. Due to his uncommonly diverse skillset, Lorenzo Alexander, for example, lined up all over the front-7. Even Edmunds himself lined up on the edge in what I think was essentially a 5-1-5, against the 49ers and Patriots* (him and Hughes on the edges with Klein off the ball in the middle). I think the Bills D should tap into that kind of matchup-driven creativity more often. Give a guy like Edmunds more of a narrowly-defined role on each play. Let someone else read-and-react.

PASSING game coordinator, turns out. Green Bay HC's brother. I'm actually glad it's not the RUN game coordinator, to be honest. Do they have a run game coordinator? I know that's a Shanahan family business, that productive zone blocking scheme. (Google tells me they DO/DID have a separate run game coordinator, who's now been promoted to OC, Mike McDaniel; been basically everywhere Shanahan has been.)

You really think he could be successful with his hand in the dirt? Wouldn't that illuminate his other apparent weakness? Aside from a lack of instincts, posters here also observe his inability to get off blocks against linemen. Obviously any EDGE guy spends a lot of snaps going up against OTs, but the further off the ball they lineup the more likely they are to matchup against TEs, RBs, even WRs. Or at least have a running start/some space when dealing with o-linemen. We're not exactly disagreeing, but 4-3 DE is the only position (within reason) I DIDN'T suggest. I know 4-3 DEs and 3-4 OLBs are somewhat interchangeable. But Edmunds to me seems uniquely suited to being a versatile 3-4 LB all over the formation. Or, at least, use him more creatively in the current defense. Let Klein play the Mike full-time, and use Edmunds all over the place: DE, OLB, S, SCB...wherever the matchups make sense. Let him use his length and speed to disrupt. Give him very specific jobs. Possibly related: man I miss Lorenzo Alexander.

Just because Culley was a fraud of a QB coach in Buffalo, and has since been responsible for a wildly unproductive WR position group (the position he played back when, innit?), his current role as Assistant HC suggests that he probably possesses some of those broader leadership and management qualities so essential to that style (CEO/non-coordinator type) of NFL head coach you're pointing to above.

Sounds like many of you/us are identifying Edmunds as a guy playing out of position so far in the NFL. Who thinks he'd be a much better fit either at SLB or WLB in a 4-3, or even more so at basically ANY spot at LB in the 3-4? I've seen 3-4 ILB mentioned once or twice the past few days. Personally, I keep imagining him as a 3-4 OLB, or a standup EDGE guy in whatever alignment. He HAS played that spot a couple times this past season, in fact (against San Fran and New England, I believe). As a standup EDGE his size and athleticism would be more important than his processing and "instincts." Plus he could probably still put on 10-15 LBs and be a scary specimen. These aren't exactly new ideas here on the boards, at all, but I am seeing posts in this thread that seem to be saying this without wanting to actually say it.

Well this got sorted out, then. Nice work, everyone.

Heeeyyy

Of those cuts (which I mostly agree with) I could see Jefferson sticking (let him play hard for another deal elsewhere). Financially all those guys make sense to jettison, minus Morse (savings roughly equal to dead cap PLUS the hole at a vital position). The others seem like no-brainers.

Cam Lewis, anyone? Also flashed in his VERY limited opportunities.

That play call was so terribly representative of Daboll's flaws as a play caller. Now of course, Brian Daboll designs and installs an effective, modern NFL offense. But in the heat of a game against aggressive and multiple opponents, Daboll's sequencing and the marrying of the run and the pass seems to get really disjointed at times. Like he can attack a specifically targeted weakness, repeatedly, when his otherworldly QB is dealing, but he struggles to call a balanced game that helps to keep the defense OFF balance when things tighten up. They didn't have answers tonight to the multiple questions posed by an aggressive Spagnuolo attack.

The link you've provided in no way supports any ranking of the candidates. So of course I'm curious who's telling us McCown is #1 and Frazier is #2?

I REALLY would like to see McKenzie featured this week. The Bills offense is more dynamic (or at least more creative/multiple) when he's in the game plan.

You know, I love this particular discussion. I believe that fans dislike Frazier because they want more blitzing, more aggression. Frazier seems like a somewhat passive play-caller. Runs a reactive scheme. But we're probably under-selling Frazier's gifts as a teacher, as a mentor, and as a steady, respectable presence (crazy career pedigree and a really solid dude), and most of all, as the leader of a defense that excels against the pass. In 2021, would you rather have a defense that is built from the back-end forward, or from the front-end back? What's more important: to be strong against the pass or to be strong against the run? That's reductive, but it's also an important philosophical question. I think I want great pass defense first and foremost. Especially if we're going to have a high-scoring offense to help make opposing teams one-dimensional.

Worked my second job (server at nice restaurant), now that we're back in business. Was busy enough that I didn't think much about the game for 6-8 hours there. But alas, here I am. Thinking about the game and little else.

Attack like, physically? Off the field? Definitely Mahomes. /thread