JGMcD2

I agree! I think Sean does a great job balancing the history of Buffalo and legacy of those teams while also focusing on the future and the culture today. He respects the past while also building for the future. Frank would have drawn some necessary (and unnecessary) comparisons primarily from the media about those Super Bowl teams + Thurman, Kelly, Reed, Bruce, etc. I think he would’ve brought a similar approach and mindset but the pressure would have been substantially greater.

Yes, that is correct! It would’ve gotten far too complex and convoluted had I tried to dive into every player, position coach relationship, at least for the time I wanted to spend on it haha. I thought coordinators was the easiest + I can’t recall an instance where anyone other than a coordinator was named a head coach. Then Frank Reich showed an incredible amount of integrity and retained all of them on his staff despite having no direct ties. I wasn’t old enough to watch Frank play but I’m extremely impressed with him as a person, coach and motivator in today’s NFL.

A friend of mine is a big Browns fan... we’ve been going back and forth basically since we hired McDermott about what team was doing things the right way... the Browns or the Bills. Well that’s pretty obvious now... but our football conversations have become much deeper. He REALLY wants McDaniels and I believe McDaniels isn’t a great candidate. I’m a big believer in career paths and trends... so I did some research to prove him wrong. I thought it would be interesting to share with a wider audience since I spent a little bit of time in it lol! The content is the “coaching tree” of both Belicheck and Reid (only reflects coordinators under them that went on to be HC). I picked these two because there are 8 coordinators under Belicheck and Reid that are currently NFL head coaches. If you include Reid and Belicheck their “trees” (as defined in this case) make up 32% of all NFL head coaches. BILL BELICHECK These are the 6 coordinators under Bill Belicheck to become head coaches (excluding Joe Judge who has yet to coach and NFL game) Romero Crennel, Josh McDaniels, Eric Mangini, Bill O’Brien, Matt Patricia, Brian Flores. Their combined record is 138-196-1. That is good for a .412 winning%. The only coach with a winning record is Bill O’Brien. Those coaches combined to coach 22 total seasons as a head coach. Over those 22 total seasons those coaches average roughly 6 wins and 9 losses. Those coaches made the playoffs 5 times in 22 seasons which is 23% of the time. Mangini (1) and O’Brien (4) are the only coaches to make playoff appearances. No coach has a winning record in the playoffs. ANDY REID These are the 5 coordinators under Andy Reid to become head coaches. Brad Childress, John Harbaugh, Doug Pederson, Sean McDermott, Matt Nagy. Their combined record is 240-170. That is good for a .585 winning%. No coach has a losing record in their career as a head coach. Those coaches have combined for 26 seasons as head coaches. Over those 26 seasons they average 9 wins and 6.6 losses. Only Brad Childress has more than 1 losing season in his career as a head coach. Those coaches made the playoffs 16 times in 26 seasons that’s good for 62%. Each coach has made the playoffs at least 1 time. Harbaugh (8), Pederson (3), Childress (2), McDermott (2), Nagy (1). They’re a combined 15-13 in the playoffs with 2 Super Bowl Champions (Harbaugh and Pederson). Matt Nagy won AP Coach of the Year in 2018.

Since you’ve read about them I’m sure you know most of this but... Gaine and Morgan fill a similar role. Morgan has less experience and was actually Gaine’s replacement when he left to take over the GM mantle in Houston. Their background is in Player Personnel if I’m not mistaken. Schoen started out in Carolina as a ticket intern roughly 20 years ago and eventually interned in the scouting department. He worked his way up to a scout with the organization before moving over to Miami and eventually here. His background is more that of a traditional scout. I think it depends on what you’re looking for as an organization. Gaine has experience running the whole show, Morgan is the “hot prospect” so to speak and Schoen’s strength would be drafting. I feel we could stand to lose 1 of Gaine or Morgan and wouldn’t necessarily miss a beat because their role/skill set is somewhat redundant... if Schoen goes that’s a bigger loss IMO. We’d probably promote Lake Dawson (another future GM) to a more advanced role to fill Schoen’s spot and Gaine to Assistant GM. There is SO much talent in this front office it’s unbelievable. I like to compare it to the Boston Red Sox front office that had Theo Epstein, Ben Cherington, Mike Hazen and Jed Hoyer working together. It’s an amazing collection of talent.

I think this a little over the top. The whole situation in general BUT I have to applaud the Bills fan for having the courage to actually want to confront the guy face to face. It’s easy to say stuff to people through a keyboard. He was willing to back it up and double down in person. Doing so he probably went too far BUT again he stood by his convictions.

I thought so too! A former walk-on and what not. Always told he wasn’t good enough you’d think he wouldn’t be like that. Apparently he just thought he could coast by based on last year and the addition of Odell. He legitimately bought into all of the media hype. Thats what this player said as well... Kitchens bought in and didn’t keep things under control there. They loved him and the hype but the second things went wrong the players threw him under the bus.

I can attest to this. A good friend of mine is related to a Browns player. He said that Baker did not put much time into video, studying the playbook, etc. They player had been with other organizations prior and said that he did not work on those aspects like other QBs he had been around in the past. Maybe Baker changes that... but I’ve never heard anyone say Josh doesn’t work hard. Things like this are slowly but surely confirming to me that we made the the right decision with our QB.

I absolutely love WHAT his message is... it’s really not all that different than what McDermott’a foundation is here. That being said, the delivery sounds rehearsed and disingenuous. I work with professional athletes and TBH they laugh at this stuff. It don’t see it going over well at all... he’s going to need to adjust the delivery or he’s going to need to be very specific about the type of players that he builds his organization around.

I was playing Madden yesterday on the kick off return I called a fair catch. The player waived his hand over his head and once I caught it the play ended. Another time I thought about taking the ball out but instead took a knee after catching it, the ref blew the whistle and it was a touchback. One time, I didn’t even want to catch the ball so I let the ball hit the ground and it was an automatic touchback. I’m still looking for the button where I can flip the ball to the referee without doing any of that. The only one I can find is the lateral button... I wonder what would happen if I pressed that ?

I meant in terms of the position on the coaching staff.

We have an assistant defensive line coach, Aaron Whitecotton, on staff currently. After promoting Chad Hall from within last year to WR coach, I bet we do the same here.

Does he have ties to VA Tech... I’m assuming there is a pay raise associated with it because it was a lateral move... don’t know if a college job is better than a pro job at the same position.

Let’s apply common sense. The Ravens lined up against us at the end of the first half in victory formation. It appeared as if they were going to take a knee. They faked taking a knee and ran a play. Does that mean that Lamar is down because he made the motion as if he was going to take a knee? http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-game-highlights/0ap3000001085056/Ravens-unveil-sneaky-fake-kneel-down-trick-play-to-end-first-half

Yes, it is! ERFA typically only applies to UDFA. Considering it’s really rare to find players that were drafted or signed to short term deals with less than 2 years of service time. What will most likely happen is we will tender Wallace, Foster and Croom a contract and they will sign almost immediately. There is no reason for them to wait because they cannot play anywhere else... they could sit out but that would make them ERFA the following year as well because no service time would be accrued. The beauty of this as well is that they’ll all be RFA next year... so we can’t match their best offer if we decide to... or gain compensation if we tender them at the requisite level to receive compensation.

Thanks for taking the time putting this post together. I wanted to clarify some stuff on ERFA for you because it seemed like you weren’t really clear on the concept. It happens when a player reaches the end of their contract with less than 3 accrued seasons. The player may only resign with their original team at the league minimum tender (or more if the team chooses to offer more). They’re not allowed to negotiate with other teams, they can only sign with us as long as we tender them a contract. Wallace, Foster and Croom will all be back under contact and most likely will be making the league minimum.

Go away. You sound like you want the reckless approach the Rams put forward... it’s worked out so well for them. A Super Bowl loss, cap problems and no draft picks.

We now have 53 players on our off-season roster, not counting our 3 ERFA (Foster, Croom, Wallace) and 2 RFA (McKeznie, Marlowe). That gets us to 58, plus whoever we resign from our own UFA. It’s amazing to me that we’re going to have roughly 60-65 players on our 90 man roster before free agency and the draft that have all basically been in the organization this season around a playoff team. Not all of them are major contributors but to have roughly 65 players that were already part of a playoff team returning + 9 draft picks + $90M to spend. That type of continuity is fantastic and coupled with the flexibility to improve considerably is amazing to me. That is some amazing roster construction... this is going to be an extremely difficult roster to crack. We’re going to have numerous players traded and cut at the end of training camp that will go on to contribute to other teams in 2020.

Some of the best coaches weren’t great players. That’s typically how it goes... they have to study and understand certain intricacies to get by in their career and it allows them to be better coaches than players.

Thank you. You are so spot on with this response. Anyone who is dismissing the way the rule is written is ridiculous. You can’t just omit words when you find it convenient to fit your narrative, which is pretty much what the NFL did, AND fans are buying it!!! Instead of people actually agreeing the league screwed up and demanding change we just buy into their crap time and time again. The league continues to insult fans intelligence. It’s honestly despicable. There is microscope on everything today... this billion dollar industry called the NFL does a HORRIBLE job when it comes to attention to detail with their literature. Fans keep buying jerseys, hats and t-shirts so it doesn’t matter though. If this were brought to a court of law, the word and would count. Instead we’re in Candy Land where everyone just gets to pick and choose what they want. The word AND is there for a reason... because the second part of that sentence confirms the guy is giving himself up. It’s not that complicated.

I think so too. I was wary about that as well... figured that we would avoid him completely. Apparently that wasn’t the case this past off-season - we went after him. Every team was pretty quiet when it came to Kareem and then all of a sudden the Browns swooped in and media made it seem like that was the only team interested. That wasn’t the case... he had a deal in place with Philadelphia. They have a “hunch” we will be interested again this off-season.

I mentioned it before but we’re going to be in the Kareem Hunt market. John Dorsey was his biggest advocate in Cleveland, with him gone Kareem doesn’t expect them to match an offer he gets. We were interested in signing him last off-season. He actually wants to come to Buffalo. It will either be us or Philadelphia... he a had deal in place with them and was looking at houses there before the Browns jumped in.

In what ways are Singletary and Henry similar? Henry is 6’3” 238 and ran a 4.5 40 Motor is 5’7” 203 and ran a 4.66 40 Henry will run right through you and can also run right past you with breakaway speed. Motor is patient and uses his small size and unique cutting ability to churn out consistent 4-5 yard gains and the occasional 10-12 yard run. He isn’t a home run threat nor is he a bruiser.

I was talking about this yesterday... I would honestly be okay with giving Henry a deal akin to Gurley or Zeke. I know it sounds crazy but he’s a size/speed freak that can take over a game. Imagine the contrast of trying to tackle Henry and then Singletary comes out and trying to tackle him and vice versa. Yeldon is still under contract and becomes our passing catching back and suddenly we have a very diverse group of RB.

Thanks for taking the time putting this post together. I wanted to clarify some stuff on ERFA for you because it seemed like you weren’t really clear on the concept. It happens when a player reaches the end of their contract with less than 3 accrued seasons. The player may only resign with their original team at the league minimum tender (or more if the team chooses to offer more). They’re not allowed to negotiate with other teams, they can only sign with us as long as we tender them a contract. Wallace, Foster and Croom will all be back under contact and most likely will be making the league minimum.

This is a fantastic take. I’ve noticed most fans generally are extremely harsh on their QB. I know Steelers fans that hate Roethlisberger, Eagles fans that hate Wentz, Falcons fans that hate Matt Ryan, Cowboys fans that hate Dak, Rams fans that hate Goff, 49ers fans that Garroppolo. Those are all quarterbacks that people pound the table for here, or at least have at one point. They all tend to make similar comments that many on here make about Josh. They always tend to be hypercritical of every decision because they watch every play... meanwhile we look at stat lines, see Red Zone it watch a game here and there and think *insert QB name here* can remedy all of our problems. Everyone is constantly infatuated by what they don’t have and fail to appreciate what they do. It’s human nature... that’s why we’re fans and not making personnel decisions.