FireChans

Yeah a lot has been overstated on Claypool’s talent. He looks the part with very good size, strength and speed. That’s what got him drafted. But he was never viewed as an elite “receiving” talent. He was quite raw in college. At this level, looking the part isn’t enough to be consistently productive. Combine that with his mental issues, and now this latest injury, he is probably done in the NFL. Guys don’t get unlimited chances, which is why it’s important not to waste the few you do get being a knucklehead. Because if you do eventually get your head on straight and get an unlucky injury, you may never get another chance.

What OSU player is going to be the namesake??? congrats dude

I would say an elite pass rusher is the one thing McD and co have been missing in these last 9 seasons. We have the elite QB We had the elite WR (for a while anyway) We have the very good/borderline elite LT And we had the elite CB1, maybe twice if Benford keeps this up. The one thing we have never had is the elite edge guy.

Well, I've laid out my thoughts as concisely as possible a few times and I have far too many posts in this thread. Have a nice holiday!

I suppose that’s true. But even still, after 2018, I don’t think was ever a chance that we have more or equal SB appearances to KC. Maybe something like KC has 2 rings and we have 1? I just kinda look at the SB matchups outside of KC. I don’t know if we are beating that 2020 Bucs team or that 2023 Niners team. Maybe we beat the 2022 Eagles. I don’t think we are beating the 2024 Eagles. I guess the point is, even if we ended KCs season 40% of the time, are we convinced we win the AFCCGs or SBs they won? Or that they lost?

I think there’s lots of coaches, including them, who could have won 5 straight division titles from 2020 to 2024. That’s when we won 5 straight division titles. I don’t think they could have turned around the drought-era Bills like McDermott did. I think McD and co deserve a lot of credit for turning the entire organization around, and that includes drafting and developing Allen. I have never wavered on that. It’s why I agree he would get a job in 2 seconds if he was available for a sad sack organization. He has proven he can turn things around and that makes him a good coach, but not a great one imo. However, NOW, that Allen is great, I think you could replace McD with a lot of other coaches and basically get the same result. My opinion of McD is that he’s a floor raiser, not a ceiling raiser. And now Allen is holding up the floor by being maybe the best QB in football. We don’t need that anymore. I have been very consistent on this in this entire thread. Weird gotcha isn’t fun man, let go of the bone. There’s no scoreboard. You aren’t gonna twist my arm and make me say uncle.

I don’t know if I’d go that far. Mahomes had such a great roster and coaching advantage from the jump. Even if you play the “what if” game about getting a new HC in 2022 or in 2023 or even back in 2017, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a coach who could hold his own vs Reid in the postseason consistently. And the further you go back, the less chance Allen is who he is today for the Buffalo Bills. I don’t think there’s any reality that like Daboll (not saying you’d want him, but whatever HC candidate you like) is our HC from 22 on and we are beating the Chiefs consistently in the playoffs. Or even .500. Shanny or McVay weren’t available but I think even if they were, the scoreboard would be heavily tilted to KC imo. Just really crappy luck. Curse of Bambino esque.

I didn’t say that. This is weird gotcha. I’m out. Very odd thing to lie about.

Beane must’ve felt comfortable knowing this was a possibility and drafting Hairston in the first round anyway

It’s not mismanagement. It’s careful management. If they take a big swing at QB and they are wrong, everyone is gone. The longer they pretend they are biding their time at QB, the longer they remain employed. The drought era Bills LOVED this tactic. You trade up multiple firsts for a QB, and you miss, you are fired. You take a late first QB here and a day 2 QB there, sign a mid tier guy or a reclamation project, and you convince ownership you just haven’t found the right guy yet, and ownership is happy with playoffs almost every year and a full stadium for a divisional game in December, and you have a job for a really long time in the NFL. Not only that, but they committed to the Rodgers experience this season. So there’s really no reason to not go for it now. Really they’ve wasted 5 year committing to the heir of Big Ben already. What’s another year?

Are you under the impression I have wanted McDermott fired for a decade? I thought he did well in 2023. I engaged in maybe pursuing BB as the only active coach that I would take over McD after the 2023 season on that cycle, but that was it. I said it wasn't McD's fault he had AJ Klein out there to cover Kelce. However, in 2024, his defense was still mediocre and our season still ended at the hands of KC after an MVP year by our QB, for the fourth time, and that was the final straw. I was willing to change my view given new information, and I did. That doesn't make me inflexible or a hater. I'm hopeful that he will be fired if he goes 0-5 vs KC because to me its criminal to run it back for a 6th straight time, but ultimately, he probably won't lose his job until its far too late. I've made my peace with that.

Fingers crossed!

I think McDermott's actually a good coach. I don't think he's a disaster. I think he'd be a great hire for a team like Carolina if he did ever get fired. I just don't think he's a difference-maker. And at this point, I am just saving receipts in case the unthinkable happens and we win a Super Bowl immediately with a new HC in 2026. I have spent enough time in this thread that I should be able to find it immediately.

I told you I wasn't going to make you see the light. You have accepted McDermott in your heart and there's nothing anyone can say to change it.

What do you mean? These are my takes. QBs matter way more than coaches. We have maybe the best QB in football, thus we are are a very good team. If we fired McD and replaced him with an average coach, I think its very likely nothing gets worse from where we are now, a team that is very good, in large part because we have a great QB. Sometimes, coaching changes can elevate a very good team into a Super Bowl team. These are all very congruent takes if you stop to think for a second. I don't know if you are aware, but divisions titles are based on overall wins....of the teams in the division. Ergo, you can win 8 games and win the division as long as the rest of the division wins no more than 7. Seeing as the Jets have a .290 winning percentage since 2020, the Pats have a .390 winning percentage and the Dolphins have a .559, no I'm really not shocked that averaging double digit wins with an elite QB (like I said, bare minimum coaching expectation) when the second best team in your division can barely manage .500 over that span is enough to win the division. FWIW, I wasn't super impressed when Brady and BB lorded over their division for 20 years or when Mahomes and co. do it now. In a league where there's barely 12-15 QBs worth a damn, and even 8-10 of those are a tier below those top 3 or 4 guys, when you have those top 3 or 4 guys, you are expected to win your division. Half the teams in your division will statistically not even have a franchise QB, and if you have an elite QB, the odds of another one being in your division is very small.

They lost their franchise QBs and didn't find another one and revealed they were nothing special. Because the stars aligned for the Broncos defense to be an all-time elite unit. They had multiple future HoFers and a very talented group that was underperforming relatively and a coaching change was imo key to unlocking that. We hired McDermott who got fired for failing in Philly. He was also a first time HC, maybe he was over his skis. Your current position makes no sense. If you can't hire a first time HC or a former HC who is now unemployed, there's nobody you can ever hire. Good plan. I want our next franchise QB to have never played in the NFL before, but also not be a rookie. Can you co-sign my application to be the next great NFL GM?

Yeah, sorry. There's at least 10 coaches in the NFL right now that I think are able to clown Mac Jones and old broken Cam Newton and Zach Wilson and Mike White and Skylar Thompson and Bailey Zappe with Josh Allen at QB for 5 straight seasons. It's really just not that impressive. My old take is that if you have to debate if a player is good all the time, they probably aren't. We used to debate Tyrod and Fitzy all day every day. The moral of the story was that they weren't good. We don't debate Josh Allen, because there is no reason to. We debate McD every day. I'm leaning toward he's in the Tyrod Taylor tier of HCs.

I think that's the wrong take. You don't have to be a top 5 team if you have an elite, all-time side of the ball. The 2000 Ravens weren't a top 5 team, but they were a top 1 defense. Ditto with the Broncos. There's a fluke aspect of it sure. No one builds a team and says, "we don't care if the offense is mediocre if the defense is Hall of Fame level elite." It just kinda happens. But make no mistake. It happened for the 2015 Broncos because they changed coaches. That unit was not breaking records with Del Rio.

The 2015 Broncos lost their elite QB midseason. When you have an elite, franchise QB, the floor is set regardless of the coach. At a minimum, the expectation is double digit wins and playoffs. It doesn't matter if you have Mike McCarthy or Sean McDermott or John Haurbaugh etc etc. If the Bills fired McDermott tomorrow and hired Joe Blow from University of Arkansas, my expectations would not change for the 2025 season. If Josh was lost for the season, my expectations WOULD change. I wanted the Bills to hire BB 2 years ago and Ben Johnson last year. Next year, there will be another couple good HC candidates. Maybe Shanny gets canned if the 9ers extremely disappoint or LaFleur if the Packers fall apart. Maybe Joe Brady is looking like he gets poached, I wouldn't mind giving him a shot if he impresses this year. Any of those guys may be my answer next year. McD will probably not get fired. Those guys will probably get hired elsewhere. And you will ask "who do you want that doesn't have a job already." Rinse repeat.

See here's the rub. You think beating the Zach Wilson's and the Mac Jones' and the Ryan Fitzpatrick's to win the AFCE is some Herculean task with an elite, MVP caliber QB. It ain't. Mike McCarthy was Green Bay's HC from 2009 to 2017 and had double digit wins every season except for the seasons Rodgers got hurt. For what it's worth, I think McDermott could've done that too. Because it's not that hard.

I cannot disagree more. Their defense got a MASSIVE upgrade going from Del Rio to Phillips. Their defensive DVOA was like the best by a SB winner in a decade (slightly better than the 13 Seahawks even) despite being middle of the road the year previous. They were first in yards and points per drive, after being 13th in points per drive the year previous. The offense took a significant step back because Peyton lost his arm seemingly overnight but that wasn't schematic. In 2014, they allowed 24 points to a flawed Indy team that eventually got stomped in the AFCCG, 4 points less than their season average. In 2015, the Broncos defense was holding teams to 10-20 points below their season averages, despite their offense being completely anemic. They didn't have over 200 yards passing or 100 yards rushing more than ONCE in the entire postseason. If they kept Fox and Del Rio, they win 8ish games and then everyone is fired and Peyton retires very sad.

Yes. They would. We have seen what Adam and Nat Hackett were able to do with elite QBs. Oversee elite offenses and MVP seasons. That wins you lots of division titles, especially with the other crappy QBs in the conference.

Huh? I'm kinda confused. What do you mean none of that matters/now it matters?

Oh I think BB would probably have multiple Superbowls with Mahomes. Probably multiple division titles too. the "still be employed" part was just the floor of my thoughts. He definitely would not have been fired. In that universe, McDermott is probably already gone in Buffalo and Josh is probably closer to Justin Herbert in terms of career accomplishments with a clearly superior HC coaching circles around them in the division. Adam Gase got a head coaching job because when he was OC of Peyton Manning, their offense was sick and Denver was winning 12 or 13 games a season. Nate Hackett got a head coaching job because when he was OC of Aaron Rodgers, their offense was sick and Green Bay was winning 13 games a season (Rodgers won 2 MVP with 'ol Hackett at OC). Those examples prove my point. Lesser coaches with inflated accomplishments.....because they had elite QBs. Well this may be an unfair question because its so long after the fact, but did you think John Fox "deserved" to be fired in Denver after 2014?

That's what happened. Brady left in 2020 and BB was fired after the 2023 season. I don't know if there's any reason to deny reality? If BB had traded for Mahomes in 2020, I think he'd still be employed in NE. (McD's 2 AFC finalist banners would be in SERIOUS jeopardy though). The whole point where I was going is that McD isn't the reason we are competing for Superbowls currently. Josh Allen is. Just like BB didn't have NE competing for Super Bowls, Brady did. So based on that belief, I don't think if we fired McD, we would stop competing for Superbowls. Because it's not about McD. It's about Josh Allen. Just like it wasn't about BB. It was about Brady. The reason I say that is because the common counter-point to firing McD is that "what if the next coach is worse." My argument is that we have Josh Allen. My argument is that it doesn't matter. Do you think our odds of winning a Superbowl are worse?