dave mcbride

Thank you! I saw the White Stripes on a tiny stage many moons ago and they blew me away. (One of my wife's best friends produced their first two records too.)

Meh ... you gotta include the playoff games here.

Yes, the three score lead vs. two score lead is definitely a huge factor. It's not like they were trying to go from 17-14 to 20-14.

I'm very sorry to hear this. My thoughts are with you.

The other issue I always raise with regard to the situation is the opponent. The 49ers are not the Commanders. They finished first in defense last season and 3rd this season.

Well, situationally it seemed pretty wrong to me. Here’s why: first, going up by 3 scores is huge in a game, and if you’re presented with the opportunity to do it, you don’t gamble it away. The Lions’ kicker is decent enough, and you have to assume he’ll likely make that kick in not-terrible weather. Second, you have to consider the opponent: an elite defense that ranked first last year and third this year. In other words, they weren’t playing the Commanders. Success on a fourth down try is less likely against a great defense than an average one, which goes without saying. It seems obvious to me that the you have to kick in those situations. Maybe he misses, but it’s the sounder strategy in terms of probability. I also thought the Chiefs were unwise to go for it against Baltimore on 4th and 1 from the 13 because failure meant giving up a chance to go ahead by two scores. The ravens D was #1 overall.

Thuney had a 99.1 percent win rate this season, so I can’t really fault Ed. Thuney was off-the-charts good this season. The bigger question posed by a very close friend who is a diehard Pats fan (going back to the Grogan/Sam Bam Cunningham days) is why Belichick let him go. Yet another terrible personnel decision by BB.

Sending positive thoughts right now.

The NFL coaching system is lot more like the medieval guild system than the modern workplace. In the 15th century, a master craftsman would train his son for the profession, ensure he got into the guild, hand down the business to him at the appropriate moment, and the system would perpetuate itself through generations. The wild card in all of this is whether the son deserves it irrespective of whether he had outsized advantages in training/mentorship along the way. Kyle Shanahan is a great coach, and he is where he is because of who his father is. But perhaps he was exposed to learning that no one else gets given who his father was. But of course there's Hackett, Steve Belichick, the Reid kids, Gregg Williams's son, the Shulas, etc. etc. I'm sure I'm forgetting some. It can be infuriating, but once when understands that it has always operated like a medieval craftsmen's guild, it becomes less mystifying. The Rooney Rule cuts against that, which is a good thing.

None. It’s all on Bass.

If you want someone like that, I think Josh McDaniel is someone they should be talking to. Yes, his head coaching gigs didn’t work out, but he ran incredibly well-designed offenses in NE that adapted weekly to whoever the opponent was. And he got a Pro Bowl season out of Mac Jones. Is he likable? Maybe not, but neither is Bienemy. I also thought Washington’s offense this year was ragged and too high-risk. The sack numbers were ridiculous, and while a lot of that is on Howell, a good part of it is on the structure of the offense too.

Sounds like he’s a pretty good gambler.

If Harbaugh’s success is only short lived but they win a SB, then it’s all worth it. Quality, not quantity.

In another reality I’d put Burrow up there with Allen and Lamar, but since the best ability is availability, I can’t. He has basically effectively missed two seasons in five years: a full season (2020) and another season where he started out hampered by injury and then went down halfway through and was out for the stretch run (2023).

Surprised about the fact that there’s very little love here for Goff. I think he’s evolved into a damn good quarterback who seems to almost alway make the right throw. Plus he’s accurate. But don’t listen to me; listen to Fred Warner: https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/fred-warner-jared-goff-the-reason-lions-are-where-they-are-now

My immediate thought was that Fangio proved that his previous failures to slow down the Bills were not flukes but features of his system. Allen et al have moved the ball at will against his defenses, and there is only one real barrier to Miami in the AFC east right now: Buffalo.

I also think that a majority of teams are of the don’t-ever-draft-a-guard-in-the-first-round-because-it’s-bad-value school, which also drove his final slotting.

https://buffalonews.com/sports/professional/nfl/bills/mom-defends-gabe-davis-after-viral-video-of-argument-with-fans/article_b00f6622-ba3f-11ee-986d-7fc92471e0e8.html Apparently—at least according to his mom—he was defending Bass from a-hole fans (and yes, there are a lot of a-hole Bills fans): ‘Davis' mother, Alana, posted on X that Gabe was “taking up for Bass.” Davis can be seen comforting Bass, along with quarterback Josh Allen, in the tunnel area after the game.’

It's the hot take-ness of it all. It's clear that he's not trying to be fair-minded but to build a brand as a "truth teller to power" so he can make a good living and get to the Nick Wright level of cruelty/bellicosity that is the only thing which the legacy-media-is-dead era rewards financially. To quite SpongeBob, good luck with that. He's operating in a brutal media structure, but he's weak enough to succumb to the worst impulses it fosters because he seems to assume that he can build a career by offering the negative dopamine that depressed fan bases (Bills fans included!) wondering if their team will ever win the big one need to get through the day. The BN and the Athletic actually feature measured, balanced writers willing to weigh the good and the bad, but that isn't the way one goes about the sports analysis business in the Wild West that is the post-legacy media landscape. He's a symptom of a structural change and is probably blind to it.

They were literally decimated by injuries going into this game, and if you want to ignore that by making false equivalences with past performances without actually analyzing the real situation facing the Bills on Sunday, be my guest. It’s effing stupid analysis by analogy, but fans (and Dunne) are gonna be fans. Not all situations are the same.

This piece is friggin’ stupid. And I have my issues with McDermott. Dunne is doing the Substack-adjacent version of what Nick Wright does — accentuating all the negatives to rile up a fanbase in order to build his brand. The Bills lost to a better (because healthier) team in KC that also has a better kicker and would have lost to a very healthy Ravens team next week. It’s almost as if the Bills weren’t decimated by injury on defense on Sunday.

Wow, this is quite the screed. Definitely a crusade at this point.

Yep. I am not opposed to trading up a bit this year because this ain't 2014 and the Bills have a window to keep in mind.

No we can't. They didn't have a good play on third down (coverage; there was no plausible first down on that play) and their kicker missed an easy kick that most kickers handle no problem.

If a TD is there, you HAVE to take it. Full stop. You have no idea if there will be another chance or if a receiver is going to fumble or have a drop that leads to a tipped pass/INT or whatever. As for KC, they couldn't be stopped for most of the game -- except for the two previous possessions. Maybe a tipped ball from Mahomes results in an INT. Their receivers were bad all season. Maybe they fumble. Whatever you do, though, don't turn down the TD opportunity when it's there because it might be the last one you see.