colin

That's a good objection. I say it's better because he had success as an assistant (superbowls and a win w brett favre) and in his first 8 years w greenbay he won a chip (year five i think). green bay was roughly where we are now after that, always scary, always in contention, usually losing to the eventual champs. the only difference is he had a couple more first game playoff exits than we have (we were pretty close to losing to indy and miami, two much inferior teams, in round 1). i think he's done a good job in dallas. dak has been hurt, and this past season he had a retread get them to a winning record. do you have confidence mcd would have a winning record if allen went down for the season? i'm not saying mccarthy is an all timer coach, not even close. I'm saying he's a lot like mcd, except he's had success on his side of the ball, while mcd has not had success on his side of the ball in the playoffs. in particular, mcd has gone stale (reid and dungy went stale on their prior teams, who both went on to win chips, and those two guys won chips after the fact, showing that coaches with more success than mcd got fired and their teams moved forward after and won it all. philly even fired the guy who brought them a chip with a back up qb no less and are in their 2nd sb in 3 years with the replacement, sort of doubling down the removal of a stale coach theory). we lose the same way every year, and to the same team in 4 out of 5 years. in addition, mccarthy had dom capers and the pettine as dcs. while no spaggs, they were both established dcs with track records. this shows he is willing to bring in someone with some seniority to run the other side of the ball. mcd had that loser we started with, daboll who had zero track record, and then two rookie ocs. he thinks he is so smart and is too special to be challenged so he won't bring in someone with a real track record to c his o. when you are looking for results you have never achieved, you must do things you have never done. mcd does the same things and gets the same results and i think with allen and some of the guys on this team in this terrible division, you have a high enough floor to risk missing out on a slightly better loss at the end of each season.

Von has sucked since his knee injury. Bad luck, but it will go down as the second worst move by the front office. The first worst move was reworking his deal which moved it from a 3 y 51mm dollar deal (guaranteed more or less) to closer to the full 6y 120mm. He took a little cut in the end w the incentive stuff, which is nice, but he's been a bad player for our d

why are you defending these play calls? the degree of difficulty they impose on the offense is insane, vs the best blitzing dc and a great d on the road. and it's a play and a formation we've run many times on 4th down. don't you expect a good coach to change it up, or do something different to break tendencies?

the didn't run cook (four carries in the first half, no touches on the final drive) who was clearly the best player on the field. on d, they put a spy on mahomes zero times. he ran for a bunch of first downs and two tubs. our d is an underpowered open book for opponents, and on O, they just have to hold out until we run the same play out of the same formation that we have before (tush push and the empty w the orbit on the last play). if we had kept going to cook, and went to him early, we wear down their d and score more in the first half and watch kc fail to get enough points or miss an onside to close out the game. it was right there, AND THEY LET THEM OFF THE HOOK, THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY ARE! marv lewis was in a much tougher division and had a much worse qb, he'd do no worse with this team IMO

just like how everyone used to read peanuts comics to see charlie brown the lovable loser get the football yanked away, they tune in to see the exquisite pain the bills can inflict upon their fans.

True, but we gotta go for it. We have way too many ok guys and non athletes. We need to get physical match up problems and one or two proven high quality players. If we can trade for Metcalf and Crosby, or whatever, guys like that change what we can do on high leverage downs and can put us over the top in the playoffs.

obviously i want to clean house (wanted it since 13 seconds). in reality, i think the ST corch gets canned, i could see some assistants getting shuffled, position coaches replaced, outside chance a consultant comes in for special situations or some kind of thing, but aside from smiley i don't see much change in the front office. player wise, cook is a clear must extend. i could see allen getting a rework or extension to create cap and keep him around longer. von is a cut, likely june cut. hamlin tests FA, but i don't think they want him to be the starter next season. milano will be kept, he was really good in the playoffs and will cost to much to cut. i could see some contracts reworked or extended. the garrett trade mentioned above would be a dream, but isn't that DE in cinci a free agent? him and higgins might be my top targets for monster FA contracts. we need pass rush, and we need an offensive weapon. i want as many chips put into the best outside wr and the best pass rusher i can get. for the rest of the roster, i think you just draft guys with athletic skills to get faster and stronger. we had morrow and spencer out there with bishop and cam lewis vs baltimore. some group of rookies and street free agents can get us there.

We only have slot guys. Shakir, Coleman, Samuel, and Kincaid are just slot wrs. Hollins is our only outside guy, and he plays tight end on a bunch of snaps. A real outside talent would have put this team over the top, and I say that as a certified mccorch hater. I don't know who's available, Higgins, Metcalf, etc, but we need talent there. If we have any relationship left w the nyg, I'd consider a trade w them for bucoup picks for Malik. Run with cook, block w our line, and have Allen pace bombs to a real number 1. It doesn't have to be 120 catches 2k yards, but we need a threat

Advanced stats tell the deeper story. Our d is even worse than many think in the playoffs overall, and woat vs kc. Given that MCD is just gonna run it back all over again, I say sign one stud upfront who can steal some plays and make Oliver Groot and then better, some kind of CB so we can actually play man effectively from time to time, and put all the other chips into the O. Higgins or Metcalf on our team on Sunday might have broken a couple big ones and also improved our short yardage stuff by stressing the d. Maxx Crosby terrorizing mahomes wouldn't get Hamlin or Groot to their jobs better containing basic QB runs to the edge, so the bigger gains are likey to be from improving the O. We have to min max the roster changes

I watch a consolation bowl every year. Usually it's the bills having a respectable loss to KC I nthe playoffs

Biggest gain would be a bonafide baller at outside wr. We need a pass rush power on the DL, de or dt sill do, most likely de since they tend to be the best rushers. We need CB, Douglas will be gone and a real stud beside benford could be a huge impact. If I'm allocating resources, I go big on WR, CB, and DE and fill the rest of the gaps w youth and talent and who we got already. We can't do more of this expanded middle class thing where we spend money on Curtis Samuel and a high picks on Coleman and Kincaid and what we spend on DL rotation depth to have them sit so much. We need to add a couple real stars.

Our d makes life easy for opposing QBs. Part of it is talent, but they've dumped a lot of resources in this d over the past 5 seasons and every exit is the same. We allow teams to have literally their best offensive game of their season against us. Mahomes had his best EPA of the year on Sunday, and the highest success rate on drop backs of his career. That's a good measure of how easy it is to move the ball, and that was the easiest game he's ever played. Our coaching is really bad in these games. These guys are chokers and can't come up with anything that works, and while they tend to improve with their adjustments, the performance after the adjustment is still AZZ. Elam is much worse than benford, but the d was actually as bad or worse w benford in because it was early and KC was running scripted plays and ripping our man coverage. Mahomes is great but like anyone he can be tricked and beaten, our coaches just panic and choke and can't do it when it counts

The bills make basic fundamental errors and get confused playing KC. Not having cook get more touches isn't solving a riddle, it's not falling back into the same mistakes that we've made four times vs kc. The reason we want to change MCD And co is because it's gone stale, and at its best it wasn't good enough Philly fired reid and won a chip, Tampa fired Dungy and won a chip. Those are two guys who won chips themselves who their teams fired and then got themselves a Lombardi. Sometimes you just have to switch it up

Mikey, I'm a little sad you are leaving the MCD haters club. You have been on a well argued tear and we value your contributions here at the fire MCD side of the aisle. So, in the spirit of positive energy in this thread: We are close. A great point above is that we made the Chiefs. We lost to them narrowly for them advance. Three one score losses means while we are losers to them, they aren't pulling away from us or anything. Talent. I think it's been made pretty clear that the blue print for winning in the NFL is a star model. You get the most game impacting talent, particularly at high value positions, as you can. It's way better to have a few super stars and fill in the gaps than have what we have sort of fallen into. The good news it's not that big of a shift to get us there. Allen is imo the goat. He does more with less and succeeds more consistently at a higher degree of difficulty than any player I've ever seen. Dawkins and Brown are both top 5 tackles at their positions. Trench warfare is big and we have great players there. Cook is a top 5 back, and might just be number 3 behind Barclay and Henry. He's young and has very few miles and hasn't been banged up. During the playoffs I'd say Oliver was our best player on D. He turned it on and got huge pressures and disrupted plays better than I've ever seen him. Groot and AJ had a couple good games but were not good vs kc, Jones did his job but nothing super. Milano was our second best player on d IMO. He might have another season or two of tread left on the tires if he can stay healthy (sadly, he never has). If we can add one more actual weapon on O, say a Higgins or something on the outside who can stress the d vertically, we'll have an o that talent wise can match up with anyone at anytime. On d, I think we've seen the same story too many times. Statistically the worst playoff d over and over, but an impact player might be just enough to get them to not be trucked constantly, give our o another possession or short field and we might have the 9 point lead we need to beat KC. This wouldn't be a Colin post without a negative! Coaching. Presuming we don't blow out MCD, we almost have to improve on the special teams coach. Even if we make the above doable upgrades (I say fill in the rest of the holes w draft picks and people we already have) we need our coaching to have the ability to get our players ready and have some extra play calls designed to counter the counters. Clearly I'd like to blow out the entire front office and bring in Bill the cheater, but I don't think that happens so I guess I'll just have to hope that our front office can find a stroke of luck or just smarten up. Just like how the pats won all those chips w late kicks and grind out wins, the path to beat KC requires us to avoid killing ourselves with stupidity.

marv levy is the best coach the bills have ever had by most accounts. he's the only coach to get his team to 4 consecutive super bowls. he is in the hall of fame, and he was loved by the fans and the players alike. marv levy should have been fired after the first super bowl loss. the arguments made to keep him were the same as the arguments made now to keep mcd. it could be so much worse, we might fall apart, oh no, we can't change anything because we should be paralyzed by fear! jim johnson, multiple champion in the NCAA and NFL, was giving a presentation that i saw on tv. he was talking about their scouting of the bills for their super bowl games. he said buffalo was a reckless sloppy team. a very talented team, but they didn't take care of the football, they ran too many of the same plays, they could be baited into passing the ball when they should be running it. their defense can be attacked, and they don't have adjustments to change that up. marv levy was a better coach than mcd is. hanging on to marv kept the bills winning the afc with that insane roster with multiple hall of famers. a team who's back up qb engineered the greatest comeback in nfl history (they were deep as well as talented). but not changing out marv freaking levy cost the bills an actual shot at a championship. mcd has hit his ceiling over and over again. he can get, with huge investment, a number 1 defense, division championships (in a very very weak afc east) and a home playoff win, some times 2 home playoff wins. he's never had a road playoff win, his defense has always produced historically bad outcomes vs good qbs in his losses, and while high scoring, his offenses always make mental errors in key moments. his special teams are awful. gave up a fake punt to denver, allowed a huge runback vs kc, insane fake punt attempt w a terrible athlete vs kc at home. we can win this trash division and a home playoff game vs a low seeded team with any real coach, that's about the floor. but we cannot win a chip with these terrible coaches. they need to change.

I disagree strongly. we have a window NOW to win it all. we don't lose to the chiefs because they are a magic group of magic men who use magic to magically win. we lose to them because our coaches are morons. our run game is our advantage, it is where we are BY FAR the most efficient, where we match up the best vs kc, how we score most of our points, and the thing that KC has struggled the most with stopping. it also keeps kc off the field, letting us wear their d down, and puts pressure on them to score quickly calling bigger shot plays which is not what the want to do. denver and baltimore had the top Ds in terms of EPA vs the run, we ran all over both of them. we ended the season with the 2nd highest epa running next to the commanders. our oline struggles with blitz pick up, our qb has shown problems identifying pressure and adjusting protections, we have physically over matched low quality weapons who generate literally the worst separation in the nfl. our fastest player is james cook, our other best runner is josh allen. we have giant athletic tackles who can both pull or block power. what does 35 year old first full year as an OC brady do? he gets cute, he goes empty and predictable, he tries half a dozen tush pushes exactly the same way over and over again, and runs the exact plays kc has seen before in high leverage situations. he took the ball out of cooks hands as often as he could. 4 carries the first half, no touches on the final drive of the season. the reality is clear, we have allen, we have some very talented players (dawkins, cook, brown, all are top 5 at their positions), we have some decent role players. half the coaches in the NFL could get this team to the divisional round, we had the division won in november. our coaches are chokers and losers. all they had to do was use what was working. instead, it's some weak screen to kinkaid who can't fight through contact and gets a bad spot and then a repeat of prior failed tush push plays. being in 4 down territory and not using your head and shoulders best offensive weapon, particularly when you struggle vs pressure and are facing the number one pressure team, is criminal negligence for a coach.

Did you bet on the Saints going over their expected wins for next season?

C'mon, they punted in the second half, that's terrific! Let's spend another 50mm of cap and 5 pics so Hamlin and his sob story can inspire us!! Literally the easiest game of mahomes career (highest success rate per drop back) last night. Like, what do these people think a bad d looks like?

No way dude, this poll is solid. There should have been an option that read: "move early into the new stadium and don't tell the entire front office and just hire a whole new one and see how long it takes to notice.". I think MCD would show up to an empty building for a week before he bothered to make adjustments. Even for the people who like him, how is it sane for a coach who has the best QB and is supposed to be too good to fire for fear of regression trotting out these dog water assistants? Smiley blows, we didn't have enough guys for a pint block vs Houston! We had the 12 men loss to Denver, like what kind of HC has people like that? And Dorsey and Brady and babbich, no one had anything to say about these goofs because they've never done jack.

Good post dude. Personally, I'd have been more negative and rip the coaches more, and post frequently and get in constant arguments, but that would prolly defeat the purpose of a long time coming heartfelt poast. I like your idea of gunning for talent like the rams

Reich knows the game and has had some success with good and smart offenses. I'm sick of having coordinators with so little experience learning on the job while we have Allen.

Ya, he's not Brady. Here comes a rush push, let's go empty every 4th down, time for the bench cook! Solid take man, are you a pro coach?

He has now gone to two super bowls w a running back at QB. He's doing something right

Bean drafts guys that he thinks MCD wants. MCD is the boss in this organization. MCD greatly values traits that do not contribute to being a good football player, and he does not recognize players who are good when he has them at times (extending that jets rt, and Spain and trading teller, that's going from all pro to a guy who can't make a roster, and burning cap in the process). You can't win with slow weak guys, even if Allen bails your team out most games

Lol, between that and the Carolina connect, this explains why we have who we have I saw some comments on cowherd where he said that MCD is McCarthy, but w a d focus (lol, I'm saying we should replace MCD w MCC). B+ but not good enough. They also said they didn't like siriani that much, but has two super high paid assistants, implying the bills have cheeks coordinators. I'm just so sick of signing players from prior teams (Benjamin and the old Tolbert dive in second down) and coaches he knows won't threaten him. Even his hero osama knew he had to get some high level psychopaths around to really be a villain!