PBF81
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Posts posted by PBF81
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You forgot Brady vs. McD.
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5 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:
As for why the Sabres have underachieved for so long, it's mostly bad luck.
Got a chuckle out of that.
It has been 13 years w/o playoffs, so ...
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2 minutes ago, NewEra said:
Good point. If that’s the case, it could create a mismatch with one of our other receivers or RB.
that said- I saw teams bracket Kincaid from time to time last season and I’m sure it’s going to happen this year as well. I don’t know how easy it’ll be for opposing DCs to routinely have the proper defensive alignments with us play 12 personnel and pounding the run game. Kincaid will be moved all around the formation (imo).
Obv. Thanks tho!
If you want to argue we can replicate this ...
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If we cannot win at least 10 games in this pathetic division in which we own Miami and there's two other siht teams, then something needs to change.
Having said that, it will be very interesting to see what Coleman's impact is on our offense, Brady's impact after an offseason, and to see what will be different for Davis v. Singletary/Moss.
Expect a drop in both offensive and defensive rankings to maybe 10th or so in both.
The biggest curiosity is how we utilize Allen given that we have a slew of short-yardage specialists in the receiving department with no established deep-ball specialist. This doesn't cater to Allen's strengths.
The big games will be Jax, SF, and KC at home and Houston, Baltimore, and Detroit on the road.
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1 hour ago, Alphadawg7 said:
Good question…one, I don’t think we need anyone to draw double coverage because every guy on the field can win their matchup now between Coleman, Shakir, Samuel, Kincaid, Knox, Cook, and Davis. We can put pressure anywhere we want really.
But, I do think Coleman is going to start drawing double coverage if he comes in and finds early success because with his size there really isn’t any other way to cover him.
There is a lot of people down on our offensive group as a whole right now, but I’m honestly very excited about it and think we will be better than last year, especially with Brady getting to finally install his full offense.
Well, again, we'll see, but there are several false narratives surrounding Brady that will come to light this fall to at least some extent.
Otherwise, I decided to watch an every target video of Coleman this a.m. It's only a 22 minute video but took me a couple of hours to go through. Even by my low standards I'm not impressed, in fact, if anything it lessened, not heightened my expectations there. I see the hype even less after viewing it. And while drops are measured differently, I counted at least 15 dropped passes or at least passes that he should have caught but did not. We can go thru them if you like, game by game. Watch the passes against BC, what, three, four drops? Louisvile a few too.
The other thing that I noticed with him, that much like Watkins, he had a lot of bubble screens and gadget plays, which typically aren't effective in the NFL. So that's also worrisome. Otherwise, most of his catches were on shorter throws where he was wide-opened or screened, per above, and a bunch of very short crossing routes. I saw precious few catches that he made in coverage. His LSU game seems to stand out, but after that, it's difficult to find much that's impressive in his other 41 catches in his 536 yards in 11 other games otherwise. In fact, I see absolutely nothing that tells me that if he were to line up to go deep that any DC in the league would worry about putting more than one DB on him.
I can see his appeal on "highlight" videos, which would be short for this past season, like that one play where he hurdled the defender, but again, on a pass where he was open on deep coverage on 3rd-and-14, against Southern Miss, a Sunbelt team with one of the worst Ds in the NCAAs btw. But those are few. Then the second TD catch in the Clemson game. On the first he was WIDE open. That second catch against Syracuse was spectacular. The TD against Syracuse was against CB Isaiah Johnson, a senior, who went undrafted and according to NFL.com's draft profile would be on the bottom of a roster or a practice squad. So beating him wasn't particularly impressive. He won't see that coverage in the NFL with even a hint of regularity. One great route vs. Duke for about 30 yards. And another nice catch for a bunch vs. Duke. His TD catch vs. Wake Forest was nice, not spectacular, but nice, but WF had a horrid D too. His second TD against Wake was on Caelen Carson, drafted late in the 5th round.
So while watching that, I can see how while viewing just the above catches, one could come away thinking that he's some kind of steal and an Andre Johnson lite, but while watching the other 90% of his play, it makes me wonder why anyone sees anything in him at all worthy of a day 1 or even day 2 pick at all. He reminds me of Knox in terms of receiving skills and highlights. Just enough huge plays here or there to make you think there's more in there when there isn't.
About the biggest kick in the nads to Allen that we could give him would be using Coleman as he was used at FSU. Getting Watkins vibes here in fact, except that Watkins did in fact have speed.
Either way, the schtick is that he's got great hands and makes all these contested catches. Is that what you see while watching the video? I'd be interested in your take. Again, since there's not much else to do 'til the schedule release, I'd be happy to go thru game by game and itemize each target.
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45 minutes ago, GASabresIUFan said:
Why does it matter? We are going to present defenses with a new set of challenges. Instead of just having to worry about Diggs, they are going to have to worry about 5 different players in Cook, Kincaid, Coleman, Shakir and Samuel. This will be one of those years where Josh can sit back and take what the defense gives and no longer have to feed Diggs. Each week we may see a different hot hand getting the targets depending on the holes in the defense.
When Brady was in Carolina they had 4 players with over 1000 yards from scrimmage; 3 WRs and 1 RB. Their RBs had 100 targets in the passing game. Their top 3 WRs had 136, 118 and 97 targets and all that with trading McCaffery 3 games into the season and no TE worth a crap.
The Bills last year only had 2 players with 1000+ yards from scrimmage.; Cook with 1567 and Diggs with 1188. The only other player over 700 yards was Davis. This season I expect all 5 guys I listed to exceed 700 scrimmage yards.
You've gotta love comps like that.
And oddly Diggs' season extrapolated YFS under Brady was 765. Under Dorsey it was over twice that at 1,475. Thoughts?
The only reason why Cook was over it under Brady is because McD thinks that with Allen at QB the way to win games is to run the ball and have a defense that is great, except when it comes to playoff time when his D takes a premature vacation that is, while minimizing Allen's passing game. In the playoffs he simply throws everything to the four winds and stands aside while Allen takes over. Great coaching there. Why do you think that they drafted Davis, at pick #128, coincidentally the same pick that the other Davis, Gabe was picked at, when we had other more prominent needs. This team has no idea what it's doing until they do it on the offensive side. Our offense is an overlooked inconvenience by McD.
Also, to start, Carolina also had DJ Moore. We have no received that is Moore's equal here.
Secondly, in 2020 he also had the 24th ranked scoring offense and 21st ranked yardage offense, which regressed to the 29th and 30th in 2021. So maybe all those YFS don't translate to scoring. Maybe we can expect a similar regression by 5 and 9 rankings here too.
You're also taking some extreme liberties, Samuel was barely over 1k YFS, but he needed 200 rushing yards to get that, which you fail to mention. If we start using Samuel to run the ball for the 41 carries that he had, then something's wrong.
It's difficult to imagine our offense improving over last season's, and the scoring and yardage metrics were better under Dorsey than they were under Brady, not by much, but they were. And the way that our offense faded down the stretch over the last three regular season games, when every game was like a playoff game and every win was needed for even a wild-card, along with our sluggish 19.5 PPG over the last three regular season games, and against teams ranked 24th, 15th, and 22nd in scoring D. And it's not like we really stepped it up in the playoffs. Our offensive performances in the playoffs were incredibly average by our season standard.
If you want to run comps, look at how our players last season did in that regard under Brady. There wasn't a receiver that even sniffed 1,000 YFS extrapolated for 17 games on his watch. Shakir was the closest at just over 900, but keep in mind that he had Diggs & Davis drawing coverage. Cook did, easily, but that was largely due to that huge Dallas game. Cook faded severely, when wins were needed the most, in the last 3 regular season games and the playoffs where he averaged a mere 3.4 yards-per-touch and a horrid 3.5 yards-per-carry over the last five games including our two playoff games. Cook didn't have a TD either rushing or receiving in any of those last five games. Was that because he's not used to getting so many carries? He started frittering out when he hit about 190.
Without that outlier Dallas game our per-game metrics were notably worse than under Dorsey. After that our offense all but collapsed.
Do you expect that we're going to have two WRs over 1,000 YFS?
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1 hour ago, NewEra said:
No, but Kincaid will
We will see.
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6 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:
I don't think there is going to be one guy on this offense that defenses key in on every week like they did on Stef. Certainly not early in the year anyway. In a sense that might give us a little bit of an advantage early on in the season if Josh genuinely can spread the ball around. I expect at some point teams will revert to a "don't let Samuel win deep and force Kincaid to break off his routes short rather than threaten the seam." But it will take some time for defenses to workout how this offense is going to run and if we can hit the ground ready to roll in week 1 that might even be in our favour.
True, but it could also take a while for ourselves to figure it out with the advantage tilting not to our opponents in the early going.
Unlike you and others I'm far from convinced that Brady's what we need.
We will see.
The schedule can't come out soon enough. LOL
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Let's hope that all of this charisma translates to the field more than it did at FSU.
Oliver's very similar in that regard, a character, and he hasn't lived up to his draft status.
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18 hours ago, BontitaBills said:
That 25% Pegs is looking for is going up every day.
That's interesting that you say that.
Given that the team, as some have expressed in the Kim thread, has lost it's bloom for Terry, what would he do if offered that $10B.
The cost to leave Buffalo for elsewhere is $850M, which seems like chump change in that regard. A completely new majority owner might not view it the same.
Point being, that $850M is hardly the poison pill that many seem to believe it is.
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Well, we do really need another slot WR. 🤔🙄
Maybe we can come up with a new formation featuring three Slot WRs, no splits, and two RBs. Seems to fit with McD's complimentary football MO.
Funny, everyone just slammed Xavier Worthy who's similarly sized but faster.
This place ... LOL
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On 4/4/2024 at 11:45 PM, Alphadawg7 said:
As you can see by the responses here...most still see him as more of a role player as I was saying. Nothing wrong with that, but this is what I mean when I say I believe everyone is about to see the arrival of Shakir as more than just a role player many think he is.
It'll be interesting, out entire offense is going to be interesting.
The skill position lineup seems to be a lot closer to what it was in 2019 than what it was before Diggs arrived.
Shakir didn't draw double coverage last year. Will any of our WRs command double coverage.
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1 hour ago, teef said:
Romo just figured he’d write everything off. What a jackass.
Including whatever little integrity he had left.
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The years in the league, he's averaged 200 yards and a TD per season. But for some unbeknownst reason, ala Sherfield, he's going to do something significant here?
Another x-th time's the charm player.
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6 hours ago, amprov56 said:
Hopefully you will soon be a fellow Tennessean, but your killing me!!! Why do many of you want to disrupt a perennial playoff team, to me it's merely a temper tantrum by kids who did not get to the candy store. So if we "fire everybody" and go into another playoff draught will you and the rest of the gang publicly admit during non - playoff years you were wrong? I dont think so, but you all will do what you do best, "fire everybody" and McBeane will be long gone. Do some research on the Bills firing HC's, normally did not work out very well with one exception!
Hopefully!
Be that as it may, just be prepared for more "making of the playoffs," which most coaches could do with Allen in our crap division, and divisional round losses. All fine and good for anyone that's happy with that.
Also, why don't we see how this season goes first.
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2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:
PB -
This is really good stuff. I don't agree with it all, but even where we disagree, it's getting to the heart of the matter.
Yeah, of course not. This stuff is more complex than social media discussions in a forum, few people agree exactly.
I'll comment on a few of your points.
2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:First, overall, I think it has to come down to coaching. Player personnel to some extent, but coaching primarily. In some ways, that's the point of my essay - Beane's job is to present the HC with a better mix of players than the HS coach can expect to get out of the random selection of kids in his school. We can argue about this player or that player, this trade or that signing, but in the end, Beane's delivering a pretty good collection of players, and the coach's job is to figure out how to win. We've pretty much all felt over the past few years that the roster was good enough to win it all, and they didn't. Roster could have been better, but it was good enough.
Agree with that in one sense, it's always been a premise of mine that a team loaded with players that play in the 6-8 range (1-to-10 scale) is more apt to perform optimally than a team that has say three or four 9 or 10s but a lot of 2-5's as well due to cap issues. The 9s and 10s always cost a lot unless you draft 'em and get 5 years out of 'em. Beane has generally done a good job overall, but his drafts leave much to be desired in that way. And as to value, Beane has never, outside of Allen, gotten great value from out day 1 & 2 picks. If anything it's been on the lesser value side. Starters, sure, but premiere/elite, not.
2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:After listening to Beane for several years, I don't think it's possible to "plan" personnel the way you say. There's too much that the GM can't control. Beane's probably been thinking since October that he needed a new #1 receiver, but he wasn't thinking that a year ago. He might have had a crystal ball, sure, but he really didn't have any way to know for sure that Diggs would go sideways in 2023 and then kind of separate himself from the team. If he had some sort of plan for the receiver room before then, it went out the window. So, starting in October, he's thinking about what he's going to do about a receiver. But by then, his cap situation was determined, his draft situation was more or less determined. He wasn't going to be able to get a stud rookie. There wasn't a stud veteran who was available. What does he do? He talks to the coaches about what sort of receiving help they could use, given where Shakir and Kincaid are in their development, what kind of offense they want to run, etc. Beane comes up with some ideas, and then he does the best he can. It's hard to stick to a plan in that kind of situation.
That's where the crux of our differences seem to lie. I would rephrase that to say that he's a victim of his own past decison-making. To put that into context, I'll cite how every season one or two, sometimes more, threads go up with who would you have drafted given a certain situation, in this case for this offseason, the depature of both Diggs and Davis. My response to that is always that I would not have allowed that situation to come about.
To put that into a practical frame of reference, several examples. First, since when has Beane ever drafted a WR in round 1 or 2, prior to this season? or heck, even round 3. The obvious answer is never. Davis was the highest in late round 4. If you're never going to draft a top WR, it's incredibly unlikely that one will manifest itself from day 3 picks. Some of us believe that McD is dictating to Beane what not to do, we simply do not know the extent to which that occurs.
So Beane goes big-bucks and assumes risks, that once again have played out here surprise surprise, when he too could have had say Jefferson instead with the pick he traded to get the now departed Diggs. He also could have had Aiyuk, Higgins, or Pittman too, for cheap, rather than for big-bucks. That would have allowed him to do more elsewhere.
The point is, that in his "grand scheme" plan, there's never been an emphasis on WR, and until last season much at TE either. Which is incredibly odd given that we have what will go down in history as one of the all-time great passers at QB.
Same for OL to an extent. His philosophy until Torrence last year, has been picking up 1 & 2 year signees to fill in until ..., until what, the next 1 or 2 year signee that's junk? There's been zero obvious plan at OL.
2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:So, he comes up with what he can, in this case Coleman, and he already got Samuel. Pretty good choices, guys with some interesting skills, interesting personality, and in many respects they're good building blocks to work with. They're both different from Shakir and Kincaid, and they probably make sense in terms of what Brady and McDermott said they'd like to do with the passing game.
Here's the thing about that, everyone's crying about a deep-threat, so we ditch two of 'em, and replace them with yet another short-medium specialist.
Certainly there's very little high-end production in Coleman's collegiate dossier. It's incredibly doubtful that he's going to emerge as some downfield threat as such in his rookie season. OK, so then we'll have to wait until next year, McD's 9th. We're pushing a decade of this playoff futility.
2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:I think that demonstrates that Beane might have an overall philosophy that he's following, but it's not really a plan.
Maybe, but the great GMs have a plan as such. He does not seem to have one. Frankly, IMO he's being influenced too much by McD to be able to put his plan in place, and knowing that he owes McD for the opportunity.
2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:Your primary point however, seems to be the truly critical point: the coaches seem to be quite good at taking what Beane gives them year to year and building a team that is successful in the regular season, but those teams never have been very successful at playoff football.
Correct, because the players he's chosen, apart from Allen, simply dont' step up come playoff time. Whether that's coaching (AHEM, it seems to be) or not, the core reasons are not being corrected.
2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:My view for the past few years has been that McDermott's philosophy, and therefore Beane's player selection, works well in the regular season and not so well in the playoffs. McDermott's philosophy is that his his team will be good at everything, able to play any kind of game, adapt from week to week. Pass one week, run the next. Blitz one week, defend the next. The philosophy demands that the Bills have jack-knife players: o-linemen who can pass block one week, run block the next. It means you have a guy like Spencer Brown at right tackle. In the receiver room, it means you want to have five or six guys, all of whom can do a lot of things pretty well - run routes, catch contested balls, run after catch, block, etc. And McDermott is good at running that kind of team, as we've seen. It makes a team resilient, to use the popular word.
Yes, exactly. More on that below however.
2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:But the playoffs are different. In the playoffs, there may be one or two teams that are multi- like your team is, and then it's just mano-a-mano. But there are also are teams that are very good at some things and just okay at other things. The Bills haven't been good enough to stop what the other team does really well and haven't been outstanding enough to take advantage of what the other team does not so well. It's like the Bills are stuck in some sort of high-end mediocrity across all aspects of their game. It's been that way on offense some times, but it's particularly been that way on defense.
Again, yes, pretty much exactly, but the reason is clear. It's in the playoffs where you find the best coaches and the best teams. Being "good enough" is relative. The coaches in the secondary (post wild-card) rounds are the best, and can see what we've done and do and successfully scheme us to their advantage. How else does anyone explain the fact that we take a #1 or #2 regular-season defense into the playoffs where it plays like a mediocre, at best, defense.
In short, we've routinely been outcoached in the playoffs.
The narrative is that Reid/Mahomes are simply too good. What a defeatest attitude. Other teams have beaten them in the Super Bowl and D and C rounds. Only we can't. Let's find someone that can.
2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:What's to be done about it? Although I've been saying for years it's primarily about coaching (and I believe it is), on the personnel side I think (as many other do) that pursuit of these jack-knife players means that the Bills roster doesn't have true game changers (other than Allen). There's no Chris Jones. We hoped Diggs would be one, but he never quite got there. The safeties weren't outstanding, but they were outstanding within the system. It's hard to be that guy from Milano's position. They hoped Miller would be that guy, and the Bills have had bad luck with him. Maybe he comes back. Rousseau and Oliver are good examples - both probably top 10 at their positions, and excellent at what they do, but they're top 10, not top 3.
Again, they're nowhere near even top-10 come playoff time, whereas our counterparts, that's not true.
2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:Maybe Beane and McDermott don't think they need a standout playmaker, but I do. On the personnel side, that's what I think.
The coaching side is, in my mind, more of a problem. I think it's really hard to get the jack-of-all-trades philosophy to win in the playoffs. In particular in recent years, it's been necessary not just to be really good, but to raise your game to the level of offensive and defensive excellence that Chiefs have had. What Reid has done in KC puts him, I think, way up on the list of all-time great coaches. His teams always seem to have an answer. It's scheme and creativity on the coaching side, and it's outstanding playmaking on the personnel side.
But it's mostly coaching. I think, and it appears that several posters here agree, that regardless of what one might think about the players Beane has assembled, they are good enough to win the Super Bowl. The potential is there to have a top-three offense. The defense may be a little weak. I think a lot depends on Bishop and Edwards, and on Miller. I'm assuming Milano and Bernard will be back, and I actually expect that we'll see some great stuff from Dorian Williams.
Agree with some of that. But again, it's paramount to distinguish between the drastically different levels of play for Bills Regular Season Football, and Bills Playoff Football where Allen does everything, more so than during the season as the other top players all routinely disappear with rare exceptions. That's without question a coaching thing. Will it change? Why would it?
2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:I'm more optimistic than most, because I have more confidence in McDermott than most people. McDermott is not about doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get better results. His system is to examine, constantly, what works and what doesn't and to make changes. I like to think that he knows what I've just said, and he's working at changing those things that haven't worked. He is, for example, challenging Brady to build an offense that is feared around the league, and they have a vision of what that will look like. He has a vision for what his defense will look like. (On defense, I think he now has what he had in Carolina - a linebacker corps that can drive a great defense.)
But my optimism doesn't win football games. McDermott 's approach may make sense, but sooner or later has to win in the playoffs. He could use another player or two, but fundamentally it's up to him to raise his game.
Many including myself are not nearly that optimistic and have seen enough. I could not disagree more on Brady building an offense that is feared aroiund the league at McD's behest. To the contrary. McD's stuck on this '80s/'90s Run/D/Ball-Control gig, hence his "complimentary football approach. He's trying to turn Kelly into Aikman. That will not work nor does it play to Allen's strengths.
If McD really wanted to do what you're saying, he'd have invested in some serious offensive braintrust on his staff. He's taken the opposite approach, put in people that he can control to get the offense to match his extremely conservative philosophy. As to Beane, if that weren't the case, our drafts would be littered with WRs and OL-men in rounds 1 & 2.
McD knows defense. He knows nothing about offense. How can anyone possibly expect a coach with a mind like that know what's best for the offense, and given that we have Allen, for the team. Last season scoring under Brady was down and horrifically low-end to finish off the season. (Last 3 games)
Either way, he's entering his 8th season with only one D-round playoff win. Not one coach considered to be great has such a dubious distinction, namely only one D-round or better playoff round win in 7 seasons.
Furthermore, it's ridiculous to consider that many coaches considered anything but great, that coached teams to 7, 8, 9, or 10 wins regularly, with Allen wouldn't be doing at least what we're doing in the regular season. Allen is easily worth at least 4 wins/season, easily.
We'll see what happens. But this configuration of WRs is not within Allen's primary skillset. We'll see if "deep threats" develop or not. We'll also see how tight the choker chain around Brady's neck is.
A lot of people have a disheartening premonition about this season, myself included.
Thanks for the civil, hearty, and quite engaging back-n-forth despite the notion that we agree on much.
Go Bills!
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On 4/29/2024 at 6:30 PM, Shaw66 said:
People can argue endlessly about the talent on this roster and that roster, but at the end of the day success in the NFL is going to come down to how well coached your team is. Does your coach get your team into the strategically and tactically correct offenses and defenses year-in, year out and game-in, game-out. Does your coach get your team physically and mentally prepared to execute those offenses and defenses?
You hit the nail on the head there Shaw. Very nice, well thought out, very well reasoned post BTW!!
Regarding the above however, the primary issue with this team is that we're two different teams, one in the regular season and another in the postseason.
For example, our Ds have consistently finished 1st, 2nd, and 4th in the league during the regular season, but over the past four years it plays more like the 20th (or worse) defense in the playoffs. Many attribute that to precisely what you said, particularly when it comes to coaching errors, miscues, whatever anyone wishes to call them, that hand games to our opponents in one form or another, including lax defensive scheming.
On 4/29/2024 at 6:30 PM, Shaw66 said:In terms of the quality of talent that will take the field in September compared to what the Bills had three months ago, I think I’ll take exactly where the Bills are today. Think about the departures: White, may still be a player, but at the very best he’s about to wind down, Morse, never the greatest physically, and his days were ending, Davis, the guy everyone loves to hate, Hyde slowing down and needs to go for his own health, Poyer, some years left, perhaps, but not his best. Diggs, may still be good, but not so good that he's worth the headache.
Start looking at them player by player, or at least paired: Would you rather have Diggs and Davis or Coleman and Samuel? Would you rather have Morse or Van Pran-Granger? Bishop or (pick one) Hyde or Poyer? White or Carter? Collectively, I'd rather have the youngsters than kept or extended all of those guys.
You mention the talent in September, but the discussion needs to revolve around the talent in January and February.
On 4/29/2024 at 6:30 PM, Shaw66 said:Would the Bills be in an even better position if Beane had managed the draft in another way? I don’t think so. The extra talent one of the top three receivers in the draft would have brought to the team couldn’t offset the loss of the rest of the players the Bills drafted. Said another way: six guys are gone, and I like my chances better if I get six new guys instead of two (the new receiver and Curtis Samuel).
Here's the issue with our drafting, there's no visible plan in sight, much as game-planning, it seems to be a lot of shoot-from-the-hip stuff.
To start, Drafts are not annual events taken independently, at least not for the best, best coached, and best managed teams. There should be a year-over-year plan in place to build and create a Super Bowl Championship caliber team. Is there any hint of any such plan in place here? Many would argue that there is not. If there is, it's hardly identifiable other than creating the best D.
In fact, last season it was all about getting a WR that could separate. Diggs was ejected at tremendous cost because they claim he couldn't do that anymore. Watching the last game of the season vs. Miami seems to contradict that, where Allen badly overthrew him for a missed TD opportinity, and threw short to Knox for another missed TD opp, both plays he had beaten Ramsey and Apple, but that's irrelevant. This year we went with a WR that doesn't do that. There's zero visible plan for the offense in a year-over-year manner.
A short-medium game doesn't play to Allen's primary skills. Brady mastered the short-medium game. Mahomes, Burrow, & Purdy run it exceptionally well. Allen has not mastered it.
Our focus, clearly, has been on having the top-ranked D, which would be fine and dandy if it played that way in the playoffs, but it doesn't, it plays like one of the worst Ds in the playoffs generally speaking and with a pair of exceptions over the past four or five postseasons. McD seems to model things after the '85 Bears D which ranked #1 also, but in the playoffs it allowed 10 points in three games. We've averaged nearly three times that many in the playoffs.
On 4/29/2024 at 6:30 PM, Shaw66 said:I like that they’ve improved the team, but I also have to ask why a group of unproven guys actually is better than the gang that just left? How did the Bills get in the position they were in, with a group of guys who no longer were quite good enough to win, and with no backups in sight?
However they got to that position, I think if you asked McDermott if he likes the talent he has today, he’d say, “Absolutely!” Can you win a Super Bowl with this talent? “Absolutely!” And that’s not just power-of-positive-thinking Sean speaking. I mean, he and we thought he could win it with the talent he had last year, and if this is actually a better group, then why shouldn’t he think he should win this year?
Translate this back to high school football. It’s as though McDermott is coaching high school and has a five-star recruit at QB, several locks at D-1 scholarships (Milano, Oliver, Cook, Coleman, Torrence) and several guys who very well also might go D-1. Considering D-2 and D-3, he has maybe 20 kids who are going to play in college. Maybe one other high school in the state has a 5-star QB. Some other schools might have two five-star players, but unless they have a five-star at QB, they can’t be as good together as the five-star QB he has. Some other schools may end up with a few more D-1 guys than he has, but the reality is that doesn’t make all that much difference.
Here's the thing, you mention those players, but which of them step up during the playoffs? Coleman is all but mystery meat right now. Torrence played very well as a rookie, but he's the only OL-man that Beane's hit on for us in 6 drafts.
Oliver's shows up for three playoff games and two of 'em our D wasn't particularly impressive against backup QBs. 10 plahyoff games, 2 sacks, 5 TFLs, 8 QB Hits, with 2, 3, and 5 in two games, one against Skylar Thompson, the other in that horrific defensive performance allowing 36 regulation points to KC. 0 sacks, 2 TFLs, and 3 QB Hits in the other 8 playoff games.
Same for Milano. 8 playoff games, 3 sacks, 5 TFLs, 7 QB Hits, with 3, 4, and 4 of those in two games, one against Skylar Thompson, the others in that miserable loss to Cincy. 0 sacks, 1 TFL, and 3 QB Hits in the other 6 games.
Cook, LOL, he hasn't had a great playoff game yet and Allen has to carry the running game in the playoffs. Despite Cook's 5.0 career rushing avg. hee's averaged 3.6 in the playoffs. 1 playoff TD in 4 playoff games. 53 carries for 192 rushing yards, 8 catches for 26 receiving yards, 1 total TD (rushing), and averages of 48 rushing yards and 6 receiving yards with TDs much less big-plays being rare.
Doesn't that fall on the coaching given your post?
On 4/29/2024 at 6:30 PM, Shaw66 said:Ask McDermott the high school coach if he likes were he is right now, and I’m sure he’ll say, “Absolutely.” Ask him, the pro coach, and he'll say, "Absolutely."
I like what Beane has done since the end of the last season, and I’m looking forward to the 2024. The Bills will be in the middle of the contest for the Lombardi.
Great! Eight (8) seasons in it's well past time to get it done. At what point does one cut bait. (rhetorical)
On 4/29/2024 at 6:30 PM, Shaw66 said:GO BILLS!!!
GO BILLS!!!
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In Brady's first two games as OC his offense averaged 33 points.
In his last five games it averaged a perfectly average 21.8.
The pressure's on.
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7 hours ago, Southern_Bills said:
... I don't see a coach being walked out when he's winning 11+ games a year.
The counterargument is that with Allen we'll always win 11 games. Siht, we had coaches win 7, 8, or 9 games with crap at QB. Having Allen would have propelled them to at least three or four more wins per season.
7 hours ago, Southern_Bills said:Philly kept Reid forever with the same issue. The Colts kept Dungy for a long time even though he was a big part of Manning losing to Brady in the playoffs.
Dungy win a Super Bowl in his 5th season.
Reid had McNabb, not Allen, and still went to the CCG in years 3-5 and to the Super Bowl in year 6, again, with McNabb.
McD's going on year 8 and we have nothing but wins over crap teams and mediocre QBs in the playoffs, and terrible coaching miscues against the good teams.
7 hours ago, Southern_Bills said:If history repeats there is no way McD gets canned unless he has a 6-7 win season.
We shall see, but it's hard to put this as a make or break year when the only team that does better than them consistently is the Chiefs.
McD's not going anywhere unless it impacts the Pegula's bottom line. He doesn't care about winning to a significant enough extent.
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On 4/29/2024 at 10:26 AM, Nephilim17 said:
I am not certain but would hope that the McBeane leash is getting shorter. How long does a regime with a QB like Josh have to accomplish some real playoff success? I would hope that's not a 10-12 year trial period.
I hope the Bills succeed this year, with Coleman and all the staff, but if they don't, and especially if other WRs we passed by have great success, I would hope Josh flexes his leverage and demands some kind of change. I think with an in the shadows owner who doesn't seem to know football deeply that the only person who can really make substantive change happen is a relatively young superstar QB.This year should be telling. But maybe we underperform in the playoffs (or God forbid, don't make them) and nothing changes. At a certain point, we need to go to a Super Bowl with Josh or move on from McBeane. When will either happen? The calendar pages are turning more quickly now...
It's going to have to come down to a battle between Pegula and the media before he'll ever get rid of McD.
McD would be doing himself and the team a major-league favor if he simply hired someone with come creativity and a plan on offense, rather than shooting from the hip every offseason/season. ... even to the extent of contradicting himself via this Draft.
He simply refuses to give up control of an offense that he knows little about in terms of getting the most out of it. Brady merely schemes things according to McD's ill-fated methodologies.
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On 4/29/2024 at 10:16 AM, H2o said:
In the end, I think this year will be the make or break for both Beane and McDermott. To continue to do things the same way and expect different results is madness. ... At some point you have to pull the plug if it's not getting you any closer to what should be the goal of every franchise in professional sports, a championship. We shall see.
Here's the thing, performance and Pegula's contentment are two different things. Seems pretty clear that Pegula cares first and foremost about his wealth/money than he does about winning anything. About the only thing that could send them packing is blatant futility, which we may very well see this season.
There's a lot of discontentment, but last season, of our 11 wins, 5 were very narrow with four of them being against teams that we were notably better than from a talent perspective. Of our 6 losses, 4 were against terrible teams that we should have beaten. Contrary to the Dorsey v. Brady narrative, several of those losses were due to poor D from a 4th-ranked defense. We easily could have finished with a losing record last season. And our last three games, all wins, were very narrow with STs/D TDs being required to win two of the three with our spectacular Brady-led offense not even averaging 20 ppg in those last three games, and all against poor defenses.
So it remains to be seen how well we do this season, but once again our offense is being led by an OC that is light on experience, who was hired due to familiarity with the head coach, and that otherwise hasn't proven much in terms of creating any kind of offense that puts us where we should be in the rankings with Allen at the helm.
And what does it say when apparently our QB is making key draft decisions. Allen really wanted Coleman it's been reported now, but that's pretty much all that Allen got. We now have a cadre of short-medium largely slot type WRs, we'll see how it works out. But that's hardly Allen's strengths.
Who knows what it would take for Pegula to get rid of McD pending certain outcomes, but the fact that our single biggest strength by a country mile is Allen, and yet we continually do not build around that strength, but more importantly, don't even craft our offense to optimize what we have talent-wise on the offensive side, is problematic.
McD's made it clear that he prefers the '80s/'90s approach to the game via great D and running the ball, ball-control style. Does this make sense however given that we have one of the greatest passers and best arms of all-time at QB. (rhetorical) It doesn't to a lot of people and more and more are realizing just that. From that era, think Air-Coryell here, that's what we should be thinking. But McD's perpetually off on his '85 Bears bender because defense is all he knows and understands.
It would seem that should we not win the division, which would be ridiculous, or worse, not make the playoffs even as a wild-card, which is even more ridiculous given Allen, it will come down to a pressure war between Pegula and the media, both regional and national. Many here have stated correctly that McBeane aren't going anywhere in Pegula's eyes. He cares about his money first, and as long as the tix to the new stadium are selling at historically ridiculous prices, he won't care.
Remember the Pegula family values chart. There was nothing on it about the fans or their happiness or contentment much less anything about a Lombardi for this team, it was largely about Pegula family wealth. in short, he doesn't care about you, myself, or any other fans. He cares about his wealth.
That's the sad part about it, we have Allen, but there's not one offensively minded creative person on the team to grab Allen by the reigns and direct this offense. The fact that Allen's making our day-1/2 draft picks on offense says quite a bit in that regard.
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1 hour ago, Blainorama5 said:
Whatever Josh wants ... Josh gets! 👍
Nice to know someone's in charge on the offensive side.
LOLHe also loved Davis whom most people here hated. Curious how this one works out.
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1 hour ago, WotAGuy said:
I was replying to your statement that you won’t be reduced to a single stat.
Wins and losses are all that matters.
If Josh’s metrics were down with Brady, the fact he was winning games is all that matters.
Again, the context.
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55 minutes ago, WotAGuy said:
How about 5-5 with Dorsey and 6-1 with Brady?How about it?
Read the context of the entire conversation among all involved and get back to me.
21 minutes ago, BananaB said:You’re talking about the KC playoff game. Allen was our best player on the field. His passing stats might not be great but there were 3 key drops that took about 150+ yards off the field. Dude can’t catch it himself. There are other players on the field ya know. Can’t blame the defense for being tired either because Allen controlled the clock most of the game, it was our D that sucked ass. I also think Cook dropped what would have been an easy TD pass, then Allen ran it in. Go figure
We're not talking about a single game here.
And yes, the D did suck ass. No argument there. That's been a perennial pet peeve on McD's watch.
There are lots of reasons, what you say actually feeds into the argument that was made. And BTW, Allen overthrows it quite often as well. Let's not overlook that either. In fact, in the last game of the season, Diggs had both Apple and Ramsey beaten on two deep throws. Allen horribly overthrew him, it would easily have been a TD. On another play Diggs had beaten one or the other (forget which on which play), but Allen threw it OTM to Knox for a decent gain. But had he thrown it to Diggs it would have been a TD.
Again, that was our last game in which Diggs was supposed to be at his worst and slowest, and he had two very good CBs beaten on at least three plays in that game. Yet, the narrative stands that he can't get away from even average DBs anymore.
Calling it now: You're all about to witness the arrival of Shakir
in The Stadium Wall
Posted
And yet ...
😏