BillsVet

I'm in favor of McD calling offensive plays. He hasn't liked any of his OC's and taking the offense would finally give him the control he craves. Needed a huge comeback against Baltimore to start. OK. 1-0. Then 3 wins against middling competition. 3-4 since then with bad losses to the Falcons and Dolfelons. This is a team trending down entering the finale third of the season.

In a way, this game somewhat reminds me of the Week 4 2024 game at Baltimore. Whereas Baltimore brought it on blitzes IIRC, last night it was from the entire Houston front-4. Texans and Baltimore's coverage was tight although Buffalo's WRs couldn't separate in either game and Josh got knocked around each time. The following week at Houston was bad with Josh going something like 9 of 30 passing, which prompted the trade for Amari Cooper.

You're Joe Brady and had to sit there from the 2024 AFC CG loss to opening day. And in all that time, the GM and HC hand you 1 (EDIT: new) offensive player who'll receiving at least moderate snaps in Josh Palmer. Nothing else. And that's because HC and GM were offensively lazy and assumed similar production with Josh Allen and improvements from unproven players. Still, this is a discussion of to which degree who is at fault. Brady, sure but this problem goes all the way upstream. Football philosophy -> Scheme -> Personnel -> Coaching -> Game Planning -> Play Calls -> Plays The issues in multiple games are rooted in decisions made this off-season which were wrong and avoided a true deep-dive. They chose to run it back...again.

For several reasons I don't think comparisons to the Sabres are equal...but Terry wanted O'Reilly and Eichel moved after they expressed discontent. I can see Terry being "disrespected" and going that route. Or, he can see they're moving into a new 2B+ stadium and realizing now or will soon be a matter of choosing either Josh or McBeane. He's the wizard...a.k.a. the Big Baller. Get it right.

You do know he drafted Josh Allen, right?

I watch for the culture. And the clapping. Definitely the clapping.

The last 2 off-seasons illustrate that both McD and Beane have a different concept of offense than essentially the entire NFL. It is what it is. They have a really good OL. They have an elite QB. They even have a really good RB1. They've completely failed developing the WR position, resist anyone's highlighting that it's an issue, and blame gets shifted elsewhere like onto the QB or the OC when losses mount. 1 season should be enough in the NFL to admit something doesn't work and that should have been 2024. But they ran it back on offense with "Everybody eats" and neither McD nor Beane seem willing to recognize it. In fact, McD has gone right back to blaming everyone besides himself just like previous seasons with other OC's and Josh. That's not a guy who's taking a holistic look at offense and open to changing.

The question is why does this happen every year on defense? And, are they, specifically the HC, doing a deep enough dive to understand why almost every season they have so many defensive injuries? Is the scheme, which features smaller players functionally appropriate for the league? Is it a strength and conditioning issue? They need to stop going into the off-season with...let's just get different and more defensive players to address the injury issue. Probably time to explore playing defense differently in personnel if they can't hold up for 17 games and the playoffs.

People forget that since 2023, their starting OLinemen have missed a grand total of 2 games (both Spencer Brown). This is incredibly fortunate. Same goes for Josh. Cook has missed 5. 7 starting positions across 2 and a half seasons missing 7 games. It's not all cloudy on the injury front.

Thanks HD. And McD's takeaway after this game is to point at the OC and players who, admittedly bear some responsibility. Yet, the HC refuses to admit his off-season plan with the GM was to ignore the offense save for replacing Cooper with Palmer has failed. Not much different than 2024's plan for that side of the ball. Using Josh this way is offensive malpractice. He's also not blameless, but the problems are further upstream. We're beyond the point where the underlying root cause of this organization is the guy who has the most pull.

I am not a gambler and stats alone cannot explain everything wrong with a team. Nor am I a huge Sharp fan, but this article is as relevant today as it was 2 years ago: https://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/analysis/sean-mcdermott-buffalo-bills-ken-dorsey/

They've largely run it back each off-season since 2021 and haven't made a major move since signing Von in UFA. Agree...the audacity and urgency is gone and it's reflected on the field. There's a lot of comps of McD to coaches like Schottenheimer and others who refused to change. I don't totally disagree, but the difference is McD off the field is really the chief strategy officer and when you have an admin GM, that's a bad combo. The HC is constantly focusing on the coming season whereas the GM is longer term/bigger picture. You don't have the HC being the CSO or else decisions will be focused on fixing last year's problems. It's how you get an entire off-season, not coincidentally, of adding several defensive players. Yeah...they missed a chance to inject some life into that roster and failed. This, I believe, results from McBeane's assumption they'd rally like they did in previous seasons. They mis-read the room.

Army 2002-06 incl. Iraq 04-05.

Biased dialogue is saying that fans on this message board know better than Brady how to scheme Coleman, a player he's worked with closely for 18 months. Biased dialogue is saying Josh Allen (he of the current NFL MVP status) must target Coleman more. You do you dude.

I've been here long enough to recall whenever coaches were criticized that the fall-back defense was that fans don't know more than them. Now, the supposed under-utilization of Coleman is on the OC and QB's for not targeting him enough? Because it's a coaching (the OC primarily) issue and the reigning MVP's fault? Not Coleman, his physical limitations, or being put in a difficult spot expected to produce without the requisite skill set and facing zero competition?

Was thinking of this style of offense, but not for implementing it obviously. Bear Bryant's Alabama teams were not championship level in the latter 1960s. Secretly during one off-season, he decided to install the wishbone offense and his teams won another 3 championships in the 70s. I'm not a college football history but, but that story stood out to me how a famed college coach changed when something wasn't working. The example is long ago and other factors are involved in doing this, but great leaders adapt when the environment changes. And then there are types like McDermott who keep steering the ship where he wants it to go believing their plan cannot fail.

McDermott doesn't strike me as a guy who "settles" on anything with a coordinator. He's the guy who tells the coordinator what he expects. Besides, personnel decisions were made to support this offensive scheme. The resistance to finding a top receiver, the UFA/draft decisions along with the emphasis on running the ball more signal this is what McD wanted all along. He finally got it and it's turned to garbage. Since January 2017 the lead voice in this organization is Sean McDermott and nothing is outside his oversight or control, especially their playing philosophy.

Keon's not good at least right now...but they did him no favors expecting him to come in and produce as the X. They made it worse not having a backup plan and/or putting competing players on the roster in case Coleman didn't work out in season 2. The 2024 and 2025 off-seasons keep looking worse by the week. And from the looks of it, people at OBD are starting to point fingers at each other.

Not much different than Baltimore last season. Stop the run, and Buffalo can't beat you downfield with those WRs. Forced the trade for Cooper and then the offense started working again. Amazing how adding a WR alleviated issues. What's your dirt doing in Boss Kane's ditch...Sean?

That McD walks away from that game talking about the passing game is ironic. He (and Beane) are the ones that pushed all their chips into defense this off-season and gave the OC nothing aside from Josh Palmer to replace Amari Cooper. And then he, as is normal, subtly blames the OC. He's had issues with every single of the 4 OC's he's hired and still doesn't see he's the problem. If McD is right about the passing game, then the OC and the QB are at fault and he isn't. That is, his hand-picked OC and a top-2 QB in the NFL bear responsibility. The man has never grasped offense, never understood how, with the GM, to scheme an offense, nor the players to fit that scheme...with a franchise QB. McD is the root cause of the dysfunction...and he needs to go after this season.

The secret is...I think the WR group actually got better this year.

More defensive investment for this franchise is a lot like giving a coke user another 8 ball.

What are you talking about HD? Josh Palmer is coming back and there's Gabe "4 TD in a playoff game" Davis on the PS. LOL.

Dude's got 28 or 29" arms. Not the ideal play call, but they had nothing.

Good thing Beane planted that story this morning. LOL.