Nextmanup

This raises an interesting question that I was pondering the other day. What if Allen had lived up to expectations, meaning, he was a total bust? Would the McBeane administration still be here? If not, when would they have gone? I don't think they'd still be here.

I'm kind of the reverse of you. The older I get (early 50s now), the less I care about any of it. I was in my sports viewing prime (undergrad years) when we lost 4 Super Bowls in a row. I have to say, that genuinely had a negative impact on me. Now, I just don't care enough to really be bothered by any of this. I was pretty good with our loss to the Bengals about an hour after it happened. At this point, I just want to see a Bills SB win, and a Sabres Cup win before I die. Actually, I'd take one or the other at this point. I am also a lifelong Red Sox fan, so I've made it to the top of the mountain there, after years of suffering. All it takes is 1 championship to forever change you as a fan.

It's like this pretty much in all sports. The best organizations get the crappy draft slots and yet stay on top for years. There is no doubt McDermott HIGHLY values the draftee being from a certain cut of cloth. I wonder if that factors into his analysis too much; pure talent and performance should ALWAYS be heavily weighted first and foremost. I wonder if we discount that too much, and factor in too much "character" or whatever you want to call that which McDermott is looking for in players.

In Beane's defense, it was kind of a "all chips to the center of the table" move designed to push us over the top for a SB win THIS YEAR. The Rams gambled the same way the year before, and it worked! It didn't work for us, and that deal will not work for us going forward. I guess that is to be expected considering we are Bills fans. 😁

The guy literally shouts out little sound bytes of info; he might be the worst verbal communicator I've ever seen. So of course he makes millions mostly saying nothing on TV for years. This is reason 847 of 5,000 why I watch ZERO pre-game, half-time, or post-game talking head garbage, or any related "shows" that might be out there. ALL OF IT is basically designed to be a carrier for tv ad revenue, nothing more. We'll see more of this on Sunday when the "Super Bowl coverage" starts at 11am or something obscene!

I agree Frazier should NOT come back, but that he WILL come back. But think about it: if he were to be replaced, but McDermott remained the HC, how much change in terms of defensive scheming would you expect to see? What this team does defensively is first and foremost what McDermott wants to do; Frazier then implements those wishes. Replacing Frazier without replacing McDermott as well would not be likely to solve our problems. I believe there was an entire thread on that point a while ago.

I personally would NEVER have thrown a ton of money at a "pass rusher" in the twilight of his career. It's stupid GM-ing 101. It doesn't translate enough to added wins. Having said that, I like Beane a lot and think he is smarter than most in his profession. I'd be happy to see McDermott go tomorrow, but I want to keep Beane around for a long time. He is not without his mistakes, however.

Why wouldn't those factors be prevalent every year though? There's something going on that is unique to this year, obviously. Maybe people think it will be a bad matchup, or they don't like the location of the game, or...

I'm in all favor of them trading down as much as possible in exchange for more picks/more bodies joining the organization.

Every time he comes up in a story here, I write the same thing, and I'll do it again now. He'll be dead sooner than later.

There was a low 3 point something earthquake in WNY many years ago, I think in the '80s some time. I was in my house in the T of T and I have always described it exactly as you did. Back then, people thought there was a gas main explosion and fire trucks were dispatched to find the fires, etc...until people realized it was an earthquake. It sounded and felt like a giant oak tree got cut down and slammed into the outside of the house.

One thing Bills fans like to overlook as well: over the years, NE almost always had a really good defense... The names changed all the time, but the unit remains solid. That's true even now.

I would say it was just the other way around this year on Thursday Night Football: Al had to do all the talking about that weirdo Herbstreit would often not say A DAMNED THING For a while....it was weird. If you had Al alone and he was being honest with you, he'd tell you he doesn't like this pairing and that it makes his job a lot harder. I would honestly expect Herbstreit to be gone for next, it was that bad.

This is about what I am guessing too. Philly wins, and it won't be particularly close.

He's way too inconsistent to be a No. 2 on any team in the NFL. Move on from him!

What's with that pink eye going on there?

Has anyone here clarified if Frazier is on the last year of his deal? I.E., he needs to be re-signed to a new contract to be retained? Was that correct information? Why haven't the Bills announced a re-signing? Seems like it would be a lot easier to part ways with him, from a PR perspective, if they can simply not re-sign him, and he announces his retirement. He's already demonstrated he's happy to send people packing in the interest of his own self preservation. He's a one dimensional, driven, highly motivated guy. If Pegula was putting pressure on him to get rid of the coordinators, he would. The problem is Terry Pegula is the dumbest sports fan you've even known of....so don't look for him to be making productive inputs to the team. I'm not sure Pegula will be aware enough to fire McDermott when that time comes. We may be saddled to McD for the next 20 years.

Those are the same people who were telling us things were going well when Russ Brandon was the frigging GM of the team! They will ALWAYS tell you things are going well. And then when we get our butts kicked in a divisional round playoff game--they disappear! I'm still laughing at some of the users who have not shown their faces here since the Bengals game! Maybe they were traumatized? Think of some of the biggest posters here, who post about 100 times a day....where are they now?

I graduated from St. Joe's in 1989. A friend and classmate of mine--Vaughan Parker--graduated in my class. Went to UCLA and became a starting OG for the Chargers for a number of years. He played both ways at St. Joe's. They tried to use him every way they could, b/c he was 6'4" and 275 pounds when he was 16 and fast and athletic. In high school it's easy to get huge mismatches on the field that would never exist at higher levels, though I have to laugh at some of the mismatches you can get on a football field even in top flight college games. I will always remember the Notre Dame vs. Alabama national championship game. Alabama was bigger/stronger/faster at every position...and that was supposed to be the No. 1 and No. 2 teams playing.

Last night I watched "Vatican Girl" on Netflix. 4 part documentary about a missing 15 year old girl who lived in the Vatican with her family. Really interesting and highly recommended! It's worth watching just for all the shots of Rome throughout.

I have seriously thought about getting rid of linebackers entirely, at least on a lot of plays. The concept of a "linebacker" is outdated in today's game. You need 2 kinds of guys out there: huge bodies on the line and who can get after the QB. The rest should be speedy guys with size/strength to tackle (all NFL players have that anyway)...and who can zip around covering receivers. What's with this in-between guy called a LB who isn't really big enough to pass rush or stuff the line, but not really fast enough to drop into pass coverage? On some plays, OK, put a few out there but most of the time I think I wouldn't use any!

You must not pay a lot of attention to McDermott as a human being if you think he's going to radically change how he does things from one year to the next. He's the most conservative man you'll ever meet, and I'd wager good money he thinks evolution is a hoax. He ain't changing crap! Don't think 3-4 is the answer, regardless, but it could have been an interesting conversation to a degree, if there was any chance of any change happening.

You've wisely chosen a username, my friend.

Moments after the Bengals game ended, I said changes are needed, but will not happen. And now that's official. We are headed for a minor regression next year--we'll be good, we'll win a lot of games, we'll kick the crap out of some 4 win team early in the year...but we'll bow out of the playoffs at the same spot or earlier next season...and our record will be a few losses greater next season. And another year of Josh's career will be gone. And the heat will grow. We'll probably see the coordinator changes NEXT season....and then more kool aid drinkers will start to think "Maybe it really is McDermott!" It's tough going into an entire season thinking "there's not much to see here." The upward trajectory this franchise has had for several years now is gone. Some of us knew that was crap from the beginning. 🤷‍♂️

Bills fans are not an accurate group of people to ask about coaching changes. Why? Because we have been a lousy franchise for most of our existence, and most of our coaching regimes have been TERRIBLE. This makes Bills fans think that getting a hold of a good coach is nearly impossible, and that we really lucked out when McDermott and Beane came along. Further, these fans reason, it'll probably never happen again! How many coaches have we seen of McDermott's caliber in the history of the team? This is not the right way to think. Meanwhile, outside the Bills fandom bubble, other franchises remain consistently at the top and make coaching changes as needed. The Eagles are about to win their SECOND SB in a handful of years, with a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT REGIME that won back in 2018! Different QB too! Different everything! Look at the Bengals! Lots of successes--to a degree--for FIFTEEN YEARS with Marvin Lewis..but never got the job done. They finally cave in, bring in a new administration, move on from Dalton, and look at what the team has become NOW.... Sometimes you have to take a step back to take 2 or 3 forward. How in the world would you arrive at that conclusion? As a game manager, he's middling at best. Are you suggesting his ability to run a great prayer group? Or give a nice speech before practices? It was recently suggested that Denver's hire of Sean Payton is worth 1 win in the regular season, simply by having him as their head coach. I'd suggest McDermott is worth 1 loss, simply by having him run the team on the sidelines during games for an entire season.