I think it's legitimate for McDermott to be on the hot seat, though I'd be shocked if he were fired this year.
He's a defensive head coach (not the successful trend these days) who (with his GM) put nearly all of their resources into the defense, and though they get to excellent levels of seasonal statistics, they don't look good consistently and against good teams and QBs. Even with all the injuries the D-line by itself had two first round picks playing Sunday, with Tremaine behind them, and White and Elam at CB. They stunk.
Meanwhile Allen lines up with literally ZERO 1st rounders around him on offense. Cook and Dawkins are 2nd rounders - everyone else is lower. Want to count the former 5th rounder Stephon Diggs a first round pick they spent - (in lieu of Jefferson - ouch) that's fair Diggs makes ONE - that's it.
Part of what that means is I'm less inclined to judge Dorsey even though he left a lot to be desired. He's working with a lot less.
Frazier needs to go. As far as I'm concerned he cemented his dimissal with his comment last week that the first Bengals game wasn't enough of a sample size to make adjustments to. Oh really?? They were moving up and down the field against the Bills defense for half a quarter before Hamlin went down - it was pretty obvious there were issues on how the Bills were playing D against Burrow and his collection of 1st and 2nd round WRs.
The problem with firing Frazier and not McDermott, of course, is that Frazier is running McDermott's defense. McDermott's already confirmed to have taken over play-calling duties at least once. If they jettisoned Frazier, does anyone think the way the defense is designed would change?
But with all the investent, the defense for years has repeatedly shown to be vulnerable to being run over by strong running games AND vulnerable to good QBs picking apart the soft zones. If McDermott's scheme is so good, why does it need so much talent to play perfectly to be any good? Shouldn't he be able to coach up lesser players?? Why the heck do we need two 1st rounders playing CB when we hardly ever line up in man?
SO I could totally see Frazier being fired, but he'd be a scapegoat.
McDermott is the Marty Schottenheimer of our times. Not a bad coach by any means, but clearly also not a great coach likely to get to a super bowl.
They looked exactly the same against Cincy before Hamlin was hurt.
He was replaced with a new OC who was the old QB coach and really didn't change that much from the prior scheme, but in fairness to both of them - the team has not invested much at all in the offense.