dave mcbride

It seems to me that the BN reporters are stuck on the al qaeda story, which frankly is a nothing story to me. It’s what they’re asking the players about, which is why we’re seeing the player responses and quotes about it. They can only answer what they’re asked about. But honestly, who really cares about that long-ago pep talk outside of the Peter Kings of the world? My view is that there are a lot of incentives among sports reporters to focus on a thread that makes a story “bigger than sports.” That’s because at the end of the day the sport itself is fundamentally meaningless — it really is just a game. However, sports reporters at credentialed media outlets ARE reporters and their whole identity is bound up with that professional credential. If they can craft a story into something that reaches beyond sports and reflects on social and political issues, they get plaudits. They can also tell themselves that they’re doing something important — real reporting, as it were. Peter King, a soppy-eyed sentimentalist who incidentally wrote nothing about the brewing CTE scandal early on (presumably because he didn’t want to lose access; it took a non-sports NY Times writer to break the story because no NFL beat journalists were willing to take it on), is a classic version of this sort of sportswriter.

King’s melodramatic comments about how New Yorkers will be so deeply offended and hurt by the comments because of where 9/11 happened is SUCH corny BS. I lived in NYC then and still live there now, and I can’t imagine anyone feeling stung or angered by McD’s AQ motivational speech. King has a real weakness for hackneyed, middlebrow cultural analysis and sermonizing about it. Stick to football.

None of this is wrong, but I am not talking about the entire games. There was no bigger critic of Dorsey in the Jets game than me either. I am really talking only about what I specified at the beginning of this thread: the defense falls apart late once an opponent has figured out the schemed game plan, which most teams do after three quarters. To reiterate, there is so much parity in the league that you need to be able to score late and defend late. The defense has been very poor in the fourth quarter too many times this season, particularly when teams start playing with four downs instead of three. Also: yeah, Carr looks like crap this year. Calls to mind Bill Walsh's comment about Steve DeBerg: he's just good enough to get you fired. Winston sucks too.

If you went to get litigious about it, yes, the Jets made a stop in the fourth: on the very first play when it was already third down. Jeez. And yes they held them to 3 points -- after converting a fourth down and not even really trying to get a first on the subsequent third down (they ran it up the middle on third and 12 and didn't attempt a pass on those three downs). They were content with bleeding clock.

I agree.

He was on pace last season for 13 sacks. He had 8 in 10.5 games.

Wait a second here. Mohammed Atta graduated from Cairo University for undergrad and went to the Hamburg University of Technology's graduate program in urban planning!

I can only conclude that that this famous motivational speech scene had a deep impact on McDermott:

Well, it. was an incredible shot … (classic scene, btw)

Bravo. Bravo! 👏👏 You’ve won the internet today.

and

I don't disagree! I'm just saying that on the factual level, he's not wrong. But as Florio says, it's very Michael Scott-esque.

The odd thing is that he's not wrong! It's genuinely amazing what they pulled off (through teamwork and careful, deliberate planning, TBH), although it was of course diabolical. What the Japanese pulled off between December 1941 and April 1942 was amazing too given the geographical scope and geopolitical complexity, but again the goals were bad. I guess the lesson is to never bring up well-conceived plans that succeed beyond all ambition if they're crafted by the bad guys.

From the recent BN story about Frazier, LF seems to still have a tight relationship with McDermott, and it seemed genuine from the piece.

He didn't actually generate a single click. His site has no advertising and what's going on here isn't "clicks."

The comments from sources are not entirely negative. From part II: 'His intent — players repeat — is pure. The coach who ended the Bills’ 17-year playoff drought realizes how badly locals are dying for their first Super Bowl. The quest consumes him. “He never, ever, ever does a damn thing with any other intention than to empower and grow the Buffalo Bills franchise,” this ex-Bill said. “That’s a fact. Now, whether or not the *****’s going to work or whether or not the players are going to receive it well? That’s a different conversation. But it doesn’t come from an evil - ‘Sean McDermott wants all the praise and all the credit.’ He genuinely wants every person in that organization to thrive and win a lot of games to the point of exhaustion. “All he wants to do is help that team win. Now, that’s the truth.”'

LOL. Like Florio or hate him, but PFT is without question one of the most read NFL-oriented news outlets. It is HUGELY popular.

Interestingly, I just checked the twitter/X feeds of all the Bills reporters who have access: Buscaglia, Sal C, Mark Gaughan, Tim Graham, Matt Bove, etc. etc. None have even mentioned this explosive piece except one -- John Wawrow, who said nothing of substance. National writers who don't depend on access, on the other hand, seem happy to talk about it. .

Randy Mueller agrees with you and doesn't hide behind anonymity: https://theathletic.com/5098045/2023/11/29/nfl-coaches-on-hot-seat/. "Bills coach Sean McDermott is now front and center needing to have a plan for 6-6 Buffalo to not waste another year within the championship window of their perennial league MVP candidate Josh Allen. McDermott is known for his attention to detail and his need to micromanage at every level. But right now his only management job should be his defense, which has underperformed this season. That’s where he needs to be a difference-maker on Sundays. To be fair, some of the Bills’ issues are injury-related, but some have been a function of McDermott’s ill-timed blitzes and less-than-ideal execution. By replacing his defensive coordinator last off-season and installing himself, he has to be directly accountable for the unit’s results. His somewhat defensive responses to questions about his decisions are seen by some as an effort to pass the buck. I would love to see more transparent self-accountability. Sometimes a little humility can go a long way. Forget about Allen and his propensity to make a crucial mistake. Forget about the dismissal of offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey; at this point it doesn’t matter. Forget about the lack of reinforcements that they may have been able to add to the defense before the trade deadline and didn’t. The point to focus on is that this defense has to play better over the last third of the season or questions will start to be asked about the guy who is leading the charge. Organizational skills be damned, McDermott needs to make a difference on Sundays. The pass rush has generated sacks (41), but the sub package pressures to affect the opposing QB have been a letdown at critical times. The Bills rank 14th in opponent passer rating and 17th in getting off the field on third downs, per TruMedia. Neither is good enough to advance in the postseason. The offense is trending in the right direction with the changes instituted by McDermott. Now he must do the same with the side of the ball where his expertise lies."

Nit-picking? There is SO much parity in the NFL and so many close games across the league. How a team performs late game relative to its opponent can easily be the difference between 11-6 and 7-10. It is inarguable that the Bills' defense is terrible late. Inarguable. Their defense is last or near last in EPA and DVOA in the fourth quarter this season.

It wasn’t the play before. The play before was the clear forward-progress stopped in bounds play that the refs ruled out of bounds. GB was screwed twice on that possession by horrible calls.

Anyone who doesn’t believe the fix is in after those truly ticky tack penalties called on Seattle is very naive.

I'm talking about 8 games in total, not just one. In this one particular game, along with the offensive and ST failures, the defense failed to get a stop either in the fourth, which is part of a much broader season-long trend.