Chaos

Saying this doesn't make it true. The steady downward result arc since the 13 seconds choke, in the AFC championship game provides strong evidence that if he has not plateued, the arc is downward, not upward.

Not every coach quits on his team due injuries to stars though. There are some interesting unexpected results sometimes

It’s not obvious. What is obvious is only the 30-60 seconds per game the production crews choose to show of Allen on the sidelines

Yes. it would be stupid. But yes

He has always had a fairly obnoxious passive aggressive style. He makes these veiled comments, so that people he is shifting blame to can’t respond.

If any of the players on the team are too tightly wound due to coaching, I think one of the places Mr. McDermott needs to look is in a mirror.

In the NFL, DBs would be trained to simply run down and tackle any reciever that got open by them past 15 yards. That would be a mess. The spot foul is am important and reasonable penalty in intentional PI situations.

NFL needs to consider two levels of PI, incidental, and intentional, with incidental being treated like defensive holding.

are we going to have another cancelled game this year?

so NFL isn't mad about the whole dog thing any more?

half the stories are about teams pulling out wins. the other half are teams choking away games.

Are you sure this is true.

It seems as though McDermott wants to run an offense that someone with Kirk Cousin's skill set works with. He has no imagination on how to use Allen's considerable skills. Its a complete mismatch between Allen and McDermott.

to be fair I am pretty certain he is not a tator.

So do you bring back McDermott in perpetuity?

This seems right. But it begs the question. Why do you or any fan need to "suspect" this. Are the Bills faced with some competetive disadvantage if McDermott was to come out and say 1) "Joe has the reigns, and he has the vision to bring the season back on track" or 2) "I have a vision for the offense, and I think Joe is the best guy to execute this vision" ?

I should add, I expect the arc of happiness/concern with McDermott I described above is actually pretty close to the most common fan experience. There are two categorites of extreme views that I think capture the perspective of a number of posters. (Even though both are extreme and polar opposites and different from my perspecive they are both reasonable sports fans perspectives. Lifetime achievement award for ending the playoff drought. The football season regular season plus playoff is 21 games. For this category of fan, as long as Coach McDermott is bringing a good show for 19 of those 21 weeks, they are happy and would rather not "risk" a return to the drought. Ricky Bobby "If your not first, your last, fans". These fans do not want to consider any measure of success other than winning the Super Bowl. Once they are convinced Coach McDermott will not win a Super Bowl with the Bills they want him gone. Most of this group of fans has reached this point. There is also a third group of fans. I lean into this group quite a bit. Are we "wasting" Josh Allens career. If Allen never wins a super bowl, he will join Dan Marino and Jim Kelly as 3 members of the Mount Rushmore of "greatest QBs to never win a super bowl". To add perspective, the next group of names to fill out the fourth spot is Fran Tarkenton, Dan Fouts and Warren Moon. All of whom are a substantial notch below the first three. From a sports perspective Allen never getting that win would be very sad. Your mismatch comment indicates you are in this category. As insane as it sounds, if the Bills don't advance to the Super Bowl this year, I think the Bills should either change the Head Coach or trade Allen to a team that can better use him. He would generate quite a haul. Except for McCafferty's age, the ideal trade for a retained Coach McDermott would be for Brock Purdy, Christian Mcafferty, one of the niners Linebackers and a couple of the extra second and third round draft picks the niners have stock piled. I think Shanahan would love the chance to coach a QB like Allen.

When he was first hired, I had no opinion one way or another because I did not know much about him. After the playoff drought the bar for success for a Bills head coach was probably lower than the bar for success for any NFL head coach. My recollection of the drought is not that we were constantly among at the bottom of the NFL, but constantly about 10th from the bottom and drafting 10, or thereabouts. It was a low mediocre team. The first season of making the playoffs at 9-8 was refreshing, but the early bow out, meant we had move to high mediocre team. The next season, Josh Allen blew me away in the preseason games. It was impossible for to imagine not starting him right away. But I accepted the "let him learn logic". But at the point another rookie Nate Peterman was brought in to start before Allen, I had my first twinge of "does this guy know what he is doing" doubts. But he corrected that error and the team made great progress from that point. (Side note, I did not like the "keep everything in front of you soft defense for a long time, but came to accept that it worked well and stopped being concerned about that generally) I found his clapping after bad plays as a bit bizzare but was more amused by what I considered a weird personality quirk, than thinking it was a question of competence. From the moment Allen was made the starter until the Houston playoff game everything was great with McDermott. Others may disagree, as is there preogitive, but I felt the loss to Houston was primarily coaching errors. It was the first evidence that McDermott is not a great closer in key games. We moved forward with some great preseason play and playoff play, until the 13 second game. This game is so haunting, it is discussed quite a bit still on national media, let alone in local discussion circles. There were two upsetting parts to this to me. One, it seemed to be a complete coaching error. And yet, after the game McDermott did not accept responsibility and blamed others for execution problems. (as an aside, its odd to me for coaches to thinking they are doing a good job coaching, if players do not know the play or assignments). At this point "inability to close" became a meaningfull concern of mine. At that point, I felt as though the onus was on McDermott to prove he could. So far he has not. Most NFL coaches don't get to year 6 without advancing to the super bowl at least once. It is rare enough that some of the names of those that did are etched in NFL lore, Marvin Lewis, Marty Shottenmeimer, and a couple of others. The only precedent I know for any NFL coach to get to year 6 with a top tier QB on the roster and no super bowl appearances is Dan Reeves with John Elway. Dan Marino made it to the Super Bowl with Shula, his second season. On a separate path, until the 2023 draft, I did not agree the roster was being properly constructed to win in today's NFL. I don't know how much McDermott had to do with that. But it seems from public appearance, he did not have a lot of say in the extensive focus on building the defense. The reason to keep McDermott for season 6, is the excellent regular season results he has generated. Those are not in dispute. I began the season hopeful that McDermott could prove he was a closer in this years playoffs. He still has the chance. If we go on a tear and make the playoffs and advance until at least the AFC championship game, its an easy decision to bring him back next year. If the team actually fails to make the playoffs, It is not clear to me what the case for bring him back for year 7 would be. The narrative would have to be "even great coaches have down years, plus "injuries", he deserves a shot at a bounce back year. If the team makes the playoffs but goes out in the divisional round again, I don't think there is a compelling case either to retain him or to fire him. Kind of coaching purgatory.

McDermott is either 1) involved in changing the offense to a less effective offense or 2) he is not involved. This is a tautology. it is one or the other. If he is involved, changing to Joe Brady or anyone else may not resolve the problem. If he is not involved, it is failure on his his part to not be aware of situation prior to the season starting. He is not in his rookie season Either way the fragile hopes of the season now rest entirely either on Joe Brady or the Sean McDermott/ Joe Brady brain trust. It seems it would be very simple for McDermott to tell us which it is. Based on past track record, if the offense succeeds , at the end of the season he will take credit. If the offense fails from here on out, he will blame Brady.

Does anyone know where Fitz went to college?

I would describe my observation of this same tendency to be "McDermott tends to choke and make mistakes in crucial moments during tight games"

The Bills have been Billsy for a long time.

Asinine post.

Anything is possible. But it actually hard for me to imagine the Bills making this move after a win.

Simple question. Do you think If the 12 men debacle (clearly not Dorsey's fault) had not happened, last night, would Dorsey have been fired today, the day after a win?