SectionC3

I’m with you. I get the idea of letting the ball sit there and get wet. But two timeouts and the ball at the 25 with roughly 20 seconds left can definitely get you into FG range. Might even work with less than 20 seconds. Like, say, 13 seconds.

Gilliam fills probably three roster spots. Core ST, FB, and TE3. As far as ST blunders go, the KO in 13 seconds wasn't even a personnel issue. It was coaching/communication. And, I agree on punting this year. Not good.

The way to address part of that issue is to not kick off very much and to ask Bass to kick it out of the end zone when we do have to kick off. Sherfield hasn’t really had (or, I suppose, earned) a chance on the offensive side if the ball. The Hardy signing looks incomprehensible.

I think Isabela probably is up to cover kicks. Ingram obviously is up for Jackson. I wondered if Hamlin would just step in for Rapp, and Isabella might see some offensive snaps. But maybe Isabella simply is up given the possibility that Lewis has to play more defensive snaps with Hyde and Johnson hurting.

It's basically just ammonia. And it wakes you more alert. I use it, too.

Yeah. Like he sees it too and wants the funk to end.

Those losses the pats and the broncos are really going to hurt when we miss a WC on a tiebreaker,

If you’re running off Josh Allen to keep Sean McDermott then you are effin deluded,

That was my impression during the presser. Way too polarized. McD tends to find a way out of sticky spots, but this time it's going to be tougher because he's a DC and a HC and this mess is probably the biggest one he's faced during his tenure here.

Or to immediately tackle every eligible receiver on first down.

The issue I have with this is that the discipline and structure for which McD is known is totally lacking this year. And, that facility does not strike me as a particularly happy place, not only this year but for maybe the second half of last year, too. If we’re rolling into the playoffs every year at 11-5 with structure and discipline and happy warriors I can live with the idea that it might take us 10 or even 15 years to have the chips fall such that we win the whole thing. What I can’t live with is a coach with no answers and the malaise at OBD. Part of me wonders if everyone simply became too comfortable with each other and lost the drive that a young Josh Allen had, that is, the burning desire to prove everyone wrong. In the life cycle of a franchise QB there’s typically a couple of “generations” of teams—he gets a shot at it with a few different groups. This group, and I think the point is obvious, is done. So now it’s time to retool around Josh and the o-line (probably save for Morse) and a few other players (Diggs, should he stay, Kincaid, Cook, Oliver, Bernard, Milano, Rousseau, and Benford) and see what happens when we get some young, hungry, fresh blood in the mix.

Agreed. I know of one former high-level employee who had a shtick here. I suspect others read it, too, in part because it’s human nature to want to know what people think and say about you. Along those lines, I felt very badly for Dorsey’s kids yesterday. It had to be a tough day. I’m sorry that they had to go through that, and probably to find out at school from their peers. It stinks, and I hope they’re doing as well as can be today.

No. I feel kind of badly for the guy, actually. He seems to identify as the “Bills sideline reporter.” There’s a lot more to someone than their job, irrespective of whether they’re lugging trash or quarterbacking the Bills. I hope I never identify by how I earn a paycheck and support my family.

Good point. Defense plays “butts” off. Said it a couple of times. He was blaming the offense for that one. Can’t change the players now, but can throw the coordinator overboard. So that’s what he did.

I wouldn’t doubt it. I’ve been depressed. It sucks. He had the look, sadly. I hope he’s ok.

This is where I’m at. We all know it isn’t working. We all think the atmosphere in and around the team is no good. So why not rip the band aid off in this lost year and see where we’re at. Losing, as dramatically and as ridiculously as we did, might actually be a good thing in the long run. I’ll add this. After Hail Murray, my take was that the team was defiant and angry. After last night, they seemed broken and defeated. The rest of this year might be painful, but maybe it leads us to making some of the bigger changes we need. And, I hope that it tells us that we need someone (like Daboll) who is going to coach Allen hard, unlike what I think we’ve seen from Dorsey. No more buddies club here. Time to get real and win some games.

He looked right at him. Harty was between Josh and my position in the stadium in my line of sight. It was a garbage throw. One of the worst he’s made in a long time. The angle was such that I saw the whole thing develop. It was a shockingly poor throw.

Daboll is coming back here to be HC, not OC. Someone earlier mentioned a McD power play in canning Dorsey. Josh has a little more leverage than McD, and if this season goes up in flames and Daboll gets canned we’ll see who has the juice at OBD.

It’s self-serving, no doubt. Makes very little sense after a Monday game in which the offense left the field with a lead and the D and ST blew it. This is all about McD scapegoating Dorsey. I don’t see it as Machiavellian though. I see it as desperate because this season is barely even clinging to the brink and he probably would have had a mutiny on his hands if he didn’t do something.

This is second hand from someone on the plane home, and I posted it here earlier. Apparently it was a wild ride home, with a huge range of emotions from crying to screaming to yelling at coaches to guys punching seats out. Offense blaming defense, people screaming at each other. Just bonkers. That account was in the back of my mind last year, and I wondered how McD could recover from that given that nobody ever really accepted responsibility for that mess. I’ll add another layer about accountability. Imagine that, after the 13 second fiasco, you plod through last year and one of your superstars is having off-field drama that culminates in someone scorned dropping a certain bomb to the family the night before a playoff game and a late night three ring circus at home afterwards. Imagine, too, if that wasn’t dealt with to the satisfaction of another superstar who had his fill of the nonsense and the lack of accountability for said nonsense and it becomes easy to see how the whole “process” thing in the eyes of many is a bit of a sham. I know people here think Daboll is a lousy head coach, and maybe they’re right. But that guy gets the vibe around here, the players respect him, and I have long sensed that they feel like the wrong one left after 13 seconds. He’s about what we need right now in making this a fun place to go to work again. Because I get the sense that nobody enjoys spending time in the office right now.

It’s both a reasonable move and desperate. If this backfires I question whether McD can recover.

No. It’s not. We’re cooked unless we go on a heater. And that ain’t happening with this malaise-ridden group. The big fear that I have is that the locker room processes this, realizes that Dorsey probably was in over his head (Diggs certainly thinks so), and then wonders why the OC gets canned after leaving the field with a lead in a game blown by a stupid, simple, nonsensical, self-inflicted, easily avoidable error traceable to coaching. And then the question becomes why is that guy getting scapegoated and McD isn’t held responsible for anything. This is a risky, risky move, and if we have another gaffe-filled game like last night, I wonder if McD loses the room (to the extent he hasn’t already).

One thing I agree with McD about is the complimentary point. He sees it more as, for example, the offense needs to take four minutes, score a touchdown at the end of the game last night, and choke out the Broncos. I see it has the whole operation doesn’t compliment itself so well when Josh isn’t pulling miracles out of his rear (the miss on fourth and 1, if hit, might change the game). We lost that cheat code, and the whole thing is a struggle. Compound that with a distracted HC, and the little things (attention to detail all over the place, from 12 men to inconsistent discipline, to Phillips almost giving away the Bucs game with the stupid facemask) going awry and everything is like running through mud.

Because he was in the locker room and he affords a hint as to what the players might be thinking.

I don’t even hate the blitz call. Wind shifted, the kicker could hit from 55, and I objectively feel like Taron turned his head on the PI and that the call was marginal. It just didn’t work out our way. Or maybe it did, but we screwed it up by failing counting class. Whatever. The result is the same. Another game frittered away.