Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

We must have really been terrible last year. Well we were the 2nd worst offense in the league. Oh wait I'm reading that upside down!

Interesting as I've seen the Bills are picked 3rd, 4th 5th, maybe even lower in some polls. But somehow in the next breath, they have the most expectations on them?? Seems somewhat counter intuitive??

And how do you do that? If teams knew they'd have started doing that a long time ago. For the most part the plan is to cycle through people and hope you get lucky. Results likely need to be adjusted whether teams have franchise QB or not. I'd imagine too that the reason the time to reach a SB is so short is many coaches don't even last 4 years with a team nor less worry about making playoffs or SB. Just keep cycling so a few get lucky and make it. Sean McVay made it, then went 5-9 the following year. Pederson won a SB, and got fired was it 2 or 3 years later?

I can't answer the question as there's no way to know if the Eagles would have won a SB with Allen. Would they have been a better team, highly likely yes, but still no guarantees they'd have won it all. McNabb was better than average. While not at the level of Farve, Manning and Brady, he was likely in the next tier at that time. Personally I never really was that impressed with Warner, it took him how long to get into the NFL? One list I just found had McNabb listed 45th overall and Warner 42nd. My overall take on this subject is will the Bills win a SB with McD, who knows as in spite of what anyone feels about him as a coach, it also takes some luck and timing to be perfect to win it all. Maybe McD will never improve on some of the issues that seemed to have plagued him and they won't ever win it. Likely by 2025 if he doesn't win he stands a good chance of getting fired. McD is also tied for 6th on longest tenured coaches in the league. There's a number of teams that have fired/hired coaches that were as good maybe even better than the Bills were, but didn't win it either. Green bay had Arron Rodgers, Dallas has Dak. If it's so easy to find a great HC to win a SB, why haven't all the teams figured that out? The odds are much better at the team getting worse than better if you let go of McD just based on hoe many teams change HC due to not winning. Yes these teams didn't have a Josh Allen, but it's not all QB either. Just because the Bills have Allen doesn't mean another coach would win the SB either.

Reid had McNabb who was a very good QB, but Reid still couldn't win with him. One page I found had him ranked 26th all time. Comparing Kelly to Allen is kind of pointless as a different era. While Allen would have been bigger than any QB back then he also may not have survived as well back then due to the pounding he'd have taken and defenses didn't need to worry as much about getting flagged.

Added Reid to your list as took him 21 years to win the SB.

Agree this really means very little. So no need for anyone to go nuts. Likely they were safe for another 2 years anyway barring disaster. Most GM's to get a 2nd chance on HC so even if McD were to be let go, likely Beane would have hung on. This just means if if Pegula wants to fire them in next couple of years, he'll just need to dig another well. Is he still digging wells or did he get out of that business?

Conversely they always say wear a hat to stay warm.

Is it still possible that a player could give his signing bonus back, etc? I know I've read a number of times, admittedly not as much in past few year where a player suddenly retires/quits and the team considers going after him to return the money he was given. As best as I know it's rarely if ever successful. But could see it were to get to situation where Diggs says, "I want out, end of discussion" the Bills could say great give us back the money then we can try and make it happen. Are the team captains voted on by the players or picked by the coaches or a combination of both? If picked by the players, would the players be so bold as to not choose him this year? Seem to recall couple years back Diggs was elected by the players to be a captain??

To me the bigger surprise is how do they put Baltimore at #2, ahead of Bengals?? What have they really done to improve, other than re-sgin Jackson?

Fixed it for you. First paragraph makes sense, but then the 2nd one becomes a whole slant on his ego which none of us really have any idea of the truth.

Granted while not as likely you could still have the same concerns on defense, having to potentially replace the play caller every year. Many of the rumors, posts claim both Beane and Mcd report to Pegula directly and only he can fire either of them. Don't know if this really is the truth or not, may find out one of these years. But don't necessarily think firing McD means Beane is gone too. In most cases the GM gets at least a 2nd try at a HC hire before the team figures out he may actually be the problem and he gets let go. I think it Beanes case the roster he's put together is pretty solid so he'd get a pass.

Exactly the list of failures is much longer than the list of successes in new HC hires That may be great if we were playing tennis and only person participating. But there's 52 other who he also needs to be the perfect or at least close to it fit. You want to hire him as a QB coach great. I realize QB is the most important position far and away but hiring a HC for that reason is likely not a smart overall choice. And I'll see you're McVay and Taylor and raise you Matt Rhule and Kliff Kingsbury just to name a couple off the top of my head. And one thing I'm 100% certain of I'd have more chips to bet against you on the list of failures over successes. That's a stretch to say they have more playoff success as Sirianni and Taylor both have had limited experience, only 2 seasons. McVay has had more time and went from SB champs to 5-12 in one year. That's pretty impressive! You're right in that no one was asking the Bills to hire McD when they did, he was an unknown and has worked out very well in the overall success of the team. Just hasn't won a SB and who knows if he ever will. It took Andy Reid 21 years to win one and probably plenty of mistakes along the way before he did win. Lasted 14 years with Eagles with one SB appearance. You're right to that no one knows that replacement for McD couldn't be better. But the odds are not in the Bills favor as for every success there are probably about 3 failures. So good chance the team could be worse off. At best a new coach will bring in new schemes and have a decent amount of roster churn, salary cap hits, etc. and a maybe a down year or two.

Agree with you everywhere except D line. I think they are better as more solid proven depth with Floyd and Ford. Miller missed a good chunk of last season too. Plus Groot, AJ and Basham all have another year under their belt and should be some improvement. Even if AJ and Basham are gone after this year and labeled a bust, would think there'd be some improvement even if small.

Just read this guys grandfather played on the Bills in 89. Maybe they still have one of his old jerseys so they won't need to sew the new guys name name on the back

He was also here in more of Allens earlier years. Beasley's last year was when Allen really broke out IMO. But Beasley may have been too busy defending his off the field issues to notice.

Not sure I'd put Reid or Tomlin i nthe top tier. It took Reid about 15 years before he won. In any of those years did he not have top talent? Tomlin won when he had top talent, lately he hasn't done all that great. Made the playoffs, but that's about it. Agree on Harbaugh and Belichick

I also think it may have been a bit of McD's comments on Tuesday of being "concerned" made it sound worse than it was and he left out too many details. Diggs also realized after Tuesday that he was being ripped pretty good for his actions. So Wednesday McD cooled things down and Diggs showed up like everything is cool. Maybe in reality it worked perfectly for both of them

For the same reason I always just say Ike B as can't spell that one either. At least Groot has an established nickname or he'd also be on the list. Got to give Beane credit for all the Williams he's signed making things easier.

And who do you want to replace him with, an offensive minded coach like Cowhard states. Matt Rhule and Kliff Kingsbury are both available. How'd they work out? I see Sean Payton was mentioned above, Sean Peyton who had a worse overall record than McD and had a top QB. As soon as you change HC you'll also need to change a number of players to fit his style and will be taking a "short step" back and who knows if ever even get back to where they are now. Much better chance you'll end up in worse situation than we are just based off many more HC failures than successes.

Just recently was reading a newspaper account from the playoff loss in the year of the Bickering Bills. I recall during the regular season Thomas calling out Kelly in that needed better play from the QB position. Didn't recall in the loss Thomas again calling out Kelly, stating on the Harmon drop , it was because Kelly didn't make the throw in time and on the interception to end it,again was Kelly's fault due to hesitation. May all be true, but didn't recall him ripping other than that one time. Amazing they became such good friends.

I think the key is as QCity stated, no identity and that is something you can't measure with stats. So their red zone offense improved in the 2nd half statistically. That doesn't seem to pass the eye ball test IMO. I agree too with Ethan on the exact timing of when things seemed to go south. I don't blame him for the Hines use though as can recall reading between Allen's injury and not practicing and then the snow storm upending the schedule and practice days, can recall reading in early December, Hines and Allen had only been able to practice two days together. Do recall no one seemed to be too happy with Daboll's first year either or even 2nd or 3rd. I do think he can improve and learn from it, we'll find out this coming year, likely if he doesn't it will be his last. I know there was a thread just yesterday about how safe is McD beyond this coming year. While I do think McD is safe for next year Dorsey without an improvement is not. It does also make me nervous having an ex QB as the OC as QB's given the choice want to just keep throwing. Is Dorsey trying too hard to be the mad scientist and come up with too many new ways to use Allen. Does he see himself in Allen except Allen has the arm and body that he never had as a player and he wants to utilize that too much?

I've always felt in the 4 SB the Bills went to if you had reversed the head coaches in any of them, the Bills would have won the game. But also felt there is no way any of these other coaches ever would have got the Bills to 4 SB's in a row. I see many people listing Andy Reid. Took him 21 seasons to win it, but many here are critical of McD

I assume he is under contract? Unlike Barkley who has yet to sign his tag. In that case, it no longer is a mandatory mini camp for Barkley

What did Levi Wallace say? Must have missed that?