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He completely, and I do mean completely, sucked two years ago. Was loathed/hated by Falcons fan base. Then last year under new DC Ulbrich, he played well.

Correct. They traded Peters, let Charvarius Ward walk, traded La'jarius Sneed, now McDuffie. Hitting on Nohl Williams in last year's draft made McDuffie expendable. McDuffie is great in the slot, but has struggled outside, most notably in Chiefs-Cowboys game on Thanksgiving.

this is college football, but yeah.

Yup. See, Reid, Andy. Recent OC history: Matt Nagy Eric Bieniemy Matt Nagy Eric Bieniemy KC's offense could badly use an infusion of new ideas, as the whole league has studied Andy's offense endlessly, to the point where defenses are calling out plays, beating KC receivers to their routes, not respecting their RPO and play-action game, etc. Some of it is personnel (RBs stink), some of it is WRs who are terrible at separating. But a lot of it is basic staleness. Despite having some struggles vs Buffalo's offense in the regular season, the Chiefs always seemed to find a way to solve the McDermott puzzle come playoff time. Having something completely different should give the Bills a certain edge on that side of the ball vs KC.

i'm always highly skeptical of coordinator success at historically very good programs, because people see his highly rated wisconsin defenses and assume that means he was incredible, when in reality wisconsin almost always has very good defenses. but if you look at wisconsin before and after his arrival, it paints a picture that he was highly likely impactful. yearly defensive ratings per ESPN power index: BEFORE 2012 - 23rd 2013 - 13th 2014 - 31st 2015 - 13th *** DURING 2016 - 6th (leonhard arrives as position coach) 2017 - 4th (leonhard's first season as DC 2018 - 47th 2019 - 7th 2020 - 1st 2021 - 2nd 2022 - 27th (leonhard's final season as DC) *** AFTER 2023 - 35th 2024 - 40th 2025 - 26th BEFORE: 20th avg DURING: 13th avg (includes a bad year) AFTER: 33rd So he elevated the unit's play upon arrival, and it fell off after he left (despite having a defensive minded HC who was a hot head coaching candidate in luke fickell.)

the WORST thing you can do in sports is promote an interim coach to the permanent role. what often happens after a coach is fired is the interim coach will elevate the team's play for a short period of time. it's like a midseason (or late season) reset opportunity. so a bad and unmotivated team suddenly becomes a bad but motivated team - and that's usually enough to see improvement. then everyone points to the interim coach as the guy who made them play better, and with a full offseason and the official title, he can make it happen in the future too! except, he can't. and more often than not, he doesn't. joe brady isn't that. joe brady has had the offensive unit perform at a high level across multiple seasons, and was a legit head coaching candidate at other places.

Devil's advocate: The Seahawks offense was 10th in DVOA, 13th in ESPN's Power Index, 6th in yards per play, 3rd in points. Let's blend it all together and call the Seahawks the 7th best offense in the NFL. How do you think they would have fared with a league average play caller?

Josh took 40 sacks this year on 460 pass attempts (one per 11.5 pass attempts). This is with a terrific offensive line and a great running game. By comparison, he took 26 sacks on 646 pass attempts in 2021 (one per 24.8 pass attempts.) This was with a lesser OL and lesser running game. Can you imagine what these sack numbers would have looked like if Josh was constantly waiting out WRs to get open on slower-developing routes downfield?

I was looking at league-wide offensive trends and one thing jumped out immediately: passing is down. Not just a little, but materially: From 2018 to 2021, the NFL averaged about 235 passing yards per game, peaking at 240 in 2020. From 2022 to 2025, that number has fallen to 215, with this season at 209, the lowest since 2006. Pass attempts are down league-wide. Yards per attempt are down. Defenses are playing more two-high coverage, using extra defensive backs, daring teams to run, and forcing offenses to stay patient. The Bills have adjusted. Here’s Buffalo’s pass rate by year: 2020: 61.7 percent (11th) 2021: 59.2 percent (15th) 2022: 59.4 percent (11th) 2023: 53.5 percent (27th) 2024: 50.7 percent (29th) 2025: 50.2 percent (30th) The Bills have been a top-five run-heavy team the last three seasons. Josh threw 646 passes in Daboll’s final year. This season, he threw 460. Even adjusting for the Week 18 sitout, that still works out to roughly nine fewer pass attempts per game. I get why fans are frustrated with quick throws, bubbles, and checkdowns. But that isn’t unique to Buffalo. It’s happening across the league as defenses sit back and invite the run. Even Mahomes and the Chiefs have had to deal with this. The difference is that Buffalo can actually punish teams on the ground. Kansas City, by contrast, has stayed pass-heavy despite having a run game defenses don’t respect: 2020: 62.6 percent 2021: 62.4 percent 2022: 61.5 percent 2023: 60.3 percent 2024: 58.6 percent 2025: 59.5 percent Their offensive production has slipped over that span. The Bills have not been flashy in the pass game under Brady, but they have been efficient, safer with the ball, and better at using the run game to create easier throws, even with limited receiver talent. And the scoring output hasn’t fallen off. Over the last three seasons, the Bills have ranked 4th, 2nd, and 6th in points scored. The three seasons before that, they ranked 4th, 3rd, and 2nd. If the push to bring Daboll back is really about wanting the 2020 version of the offense, that’s understandable. It’s just worth asking whether that version of the NFL still exists, and whether the Bills have actually done a better job than most adjusting to what the league has become.

Former Rams COO Kevin Demoff wrote this about Spags two years ago: It is well past time to see Spags get another head coaching opportunity. The team & organization he inherited in STL was a mess, nobody could have had success. Yet he changed the culture/staff & players believed. An amazing human deserving of the real shot we couldn’t give him. To help expand why: 1) Hired in January 2009 and team was put up for sale in spring 2009 2) Inherited team that went 3-13 in 2007 and 2-14 in 2008 3) Inherited salary cap mess in final salary cap year of CBA with restrictive rules and aging roster 4) We outperformed expectations in 2010 only to have a lockout in 2011 and have no offseason to build upon that success 5) Hired a terrific OC in Josh McDaniels in 2011 who didnt meet players or install offense until training camp. That hampered Sam Bradford tremendously. 6) New ownership was approved in August 2010 in final weeks of preseason and then had lockout preventing improvements in 2011 7) Injuries plagued team in 2011 and 23 players from that team never played another down in NFL Maybe, just maybe he deserves a real shot

if daboll is the hire, the setup is awkward. daboll is a good coach whose 20–40 record with the giants obviously needs context. the QB situation was unstable, injuries piled up, and the roster was never close to complete. win-loss record alone is a poor evaluation tool. unfortunately, that is exactly the metric he will be judged by in buffalo. daboll would inherit a job where the owner just fired a coach who won 12 games every year because he could not reach the super bowl. that reframes the job instantly. anything short of immediate postseason success will revive the “losing record” narrative, even if the reasons are obvious. a QB injury, bad variance, or a single down year would not buy patience. even if things go well, daboll is likely to carry a losing career record through at least the 2028 season, and that context will shape every conversation about his performance when things go poorly. the idea behind firing mcdermott was likely to get the 800-pound "playoff chokes" gorilla off the franchise's back and relieve pressure by pushing the reset button. the reality may be the opposite. daboll would be entering a pressure cooker with zero patience, a higher bar than mcdermott faced, and fewer structural advantages. mcdermott benefited from a forgiving division in the post-tom brady era, with below-average patriots teams, inconsistent dolphins teams, and nonfunctional jets teams. that environment is changing. the pats look like a legit challenger, the afc is loaded with elite quarterbacks and coaches, and the margin for error is shrinking fast. keep in mind, daboll has already been part of previous playoff failures. while the offense delivered in the 2021 divisional game, it played terribly in the 2020 afc title game vs the chiefs - the bills scored on a three-yard TD "drive" midway through the 1Q of that game then didn't find the end zone again until garbage time, a span of 47 minutes of game clock, trailing 38-15. this would be a fresh start, yes, but not an entirely clean slate.

arent they just going to promote joe brady? if they thought brady would be hired by another team, the thought of keeping mcdermott paired with a downgrade at OC probably seemed unappealing.

The "rest the starters" crowd is crazy. It is a no brainer to play for the win in W18 vs Jets. Yes, the Texans are likely to beat Indy. But it's closer to 75-80% than 100%. The Chargers are in a similar position as the Bills and the current point spread (Chargers +7.5 at Denver) implies that the Chargers are set to rest starters. I think this is equally stupid of the Chargers to rest. The Broncos, Pats and Jags are all equal-ish to the Bills, Texans and Chargers. Both the Chargers and Texans are capable of winning two straight vs Denver/NE or Jax/NE or Jax/Denver. The Bills are too. It could easily be a 5-seed vs 6-seed or 6-seed vs 7-seed AFC championship. The 6-seed Bills could theoretically host an AFC title game vs the 7-seed Chargers or 7-seed Texans. The 5-seed Bills (even if just a 20-25% chance) could host either the 6-seed Texans or 7-seed Chargers. To be clear, it's dumber of the Chargers to rest than the Bills. A win, and the Chargers are a 6-seed at worst. There is a VERY REAL chance that if they win two games, their opponent would be the 7-seed Bills. If I were betting on who will be the AFC rep in the Super Bowl, I'd rather have the Texans/Chargers/Bills vs the Broncos/Pats/Jags/Ravens.

Chiefs president Mark Donovan on the new stadium: "The design principles will be very specific. Even in the earliest discussions we had—and we got this from our fans in the surveys we did—it must be loud. We believe there are design ways that can make it even louder." Curious if this will rule out the possibility of a slightly-smaller Arrowhead replica with a lid.

It's possible a team will make the playoffs at 10-7, but it won't be the Chiefs. As I see it, it's a three-way race for two spots between the Jaguars, Chargers and Chiefs. The Jaguars are already 6-4 with games left at Cardinals, vs Jets, vs Titans, at Titans. They should find a way to get to 10 wins. Their other three games are: at Colts, vs Colts, at Broncos. The Chiefs lose the tiebreaker to the Jags. The Chargers are 7-4 with games left vs Raiders, vs Eagles, at Chiefs, at Cowboys, vs Texans, at Broncos (possible Denver rest spot). The Chargers will improve to 8-4 with a win over the Raiders. They then must find a way to scrape out two more wins. If the Chargers get to 10 wins, with one of those wins coming vs KC or Denver, they automatically would finish ahead of KC if both finished 10-7. There is actually a very realistic scenario where the Chiefs could miss the playoffs even at 11-6. It would require the Jags beating the Cards, Jets, Titans x2, plus ONE of the following: at Colts, vs Colts, at Broncos. *AND* The Chargers beating the Raiders, Chiefs, Cowboys and EITHER the Texans or Broncos. Again, this is highly doable. So if the Chiefs want to make the playoffs, I think 11-6 is an absolute must. But more specifically, it needs to be 11-6 with a win against the Chargers.