Kelly the Dog

He is a good example of what I would call a very good but not great coach, and his conservatism when he got into a big game or the playoffs was his downfall. This is a guy who was fired after a 14-2 season IIRC for being too conservative overall and playing it safe.

I agree with a lot of this, and earlier I also said it depends on your definition of conservative. Apparently there are a lot more definitions than I imagined. But 1) no conservative coach is always conservative and no aggressive or non-conservative coach is always aggressive, 2) going on fourth and one is not usually even a conservative v. aggressive by nature choice, it is going by the numbers and game specific. McDermott is clearly a conservative coach by nature on offense, defense, timeouts, stepping on the gas and trying to put teams away (which he never does), punting, etc. That's not even in question IMO.

Not at all. I am saying that if you have a dominant mauling offense that piles up points and defenses cannot stop you that is not conservative just because you don't throw it all over the field, especially combined with an attacking defense.

He lived in Green Bay, Wisconsin! The closest Thai and Ethiopian food was in Thailand and Ethiopia!

That's easy. One has been a poison every place he has been.

Good post although I would vehemently disagree about Wooden. He's rightfully known as one of the very best coaches in any sport of all-time, was 664-162, won seven championships in a row, 10 in 12 years, 88 games in a row with all different kinds of players. He didn't lose many games he should have won at all, and it certainly was not because of poor coaching.

I understand and concede the point. I remember that team as rolling up points and killing people. But I was young. It depends on your definition of conservative though. When you are running the ball down a team's throat and they cannot stop you, and you roll up points and win games and championships with an attacking defense led by Ray Nitchske I just don't call that being "conservative." Just running is not being conservative when it is working and you are dominating. If it WASNT working and you were running all the time then yes, that would be overly conservative. That is where I stand. Saban and Marv were better overall than Knox, who was consistently a very good and not great coach, IMO. I did love the 1980-81 Knox coached Bills though as a team.

That was one of six.

Very little. Peterman was a farce. Vet was cheap. They chose wrong OL. WR. Kept bad OL coach.

You and I have gone through this ad nauseum. It's one of few things we disagree on fundamentally and I think you're one of the very best posters on here. So we'll agree to disagree. One thing I did want to note though, is that I think of Culley as one of 4-6 major mistakes that McD and somewhat Beane made with Josh and the QB position last year including Peterman, no veteran, no WR, terrible OL and OL coaching, and no one who had really developed a QB before; the Culley part was probably the least important, not at the top of importance as far as mistakes went. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Go Bills!

He's a good coach. Just not a QB coach. Josh didn't discuss him like he does Dorsey.

No to mention no veteran help, made worse when we cut the lone pseudo veteran, a WR coach as a QB coach, and a woefully unprepared WR corp. It was criminal malpractice.

A checkdown route is just as the name implies. When you delay or more often block for the passer, and then release as his last resort, usually close to the QB or starting toward the flat. It is the last progression (although you do not need to go through all of them to get to the checkdown, depending on the rush(. You just dump it off under pressure. The Bills throw all different kinds of passes to Singletary, including him spread out and running regular patterns, swing passes, flat passes, screen passes, even a bubble screen once in awhile. But Josh rarely steps back, sees nothing open, and then just dumps the ball off to Singletary. It happens, just not very often at all. QBs especially do this on 3rd and longs. Josh rarely if ever does that. He almost always tries for the first down. Other QBs pad stats tremendously with checkdown passes. He doesn't. And didn't in college either.

On closer look, most of his drops are concentration drops, where he starts to look upfield before he catches it. That can be taught and fixed. He does not have poor hands, he has great hands.

Most of the passes to Singletary are not checkdowns. They don't even run many checkdown routes.

Virtually every coach goes to overtime excluding isolated instances. The most aggressive and the most conservative both do.

Levy of the full time no huddle attack offense. That's another great one. Hilarious.

Because he knows he will win in OT. They are the best team in history at going down the field and scoring when they need to.

But the offense did make their two-three plays.

Well there were five main reasons.

The guy who goes for the throat and kill shot every chance he gets? The guy with exotic defenses that constantly pressures offenses every week? The guy that keeps throwing deep into the fourth quarter up 28 points? The guy that will throw 20 straight passes to open a game? That conservative guy?

And the next guy would have McDermott ordering him to run more and play close to the vest.

One of the major reasons you take the restraints off Josh now is because the defense is so good for the most part. He makes mistakes and they can bail him out. To me if you let Josh be Josh we score 7-10 more a game and give up 3-7 more a game. That could be a couple wins. There is no way of knowing that for sure of course. But he's clearly being held back.

The Pats had two drives in the first half of 7+ and 8+ minutes. That is where the TOP was, at least as much as the offensive woes.

Bellichick is conservative? That's hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.