Brian Daboll hired as new OC

[familykwi]

Of course my first thought was, "who?"  Then I looked him up.  I'm tiring of following stats, but I liked Sal's summation of his career.  I'm not going to use those to base my positives and negatives.

 

My negatives:

* Has no history of QB development.  Hasn't had a stud to groom, but has not schemed non-elite talent to play over their ability.

* Although he's worked for Belichick, he's not been a coordinator in NE.  He shared the job in Alabama, so what were his specific contributions?

* Not sure how many other teams were targeting him.

 

My positives (I'm trying to finish on a positive note): 

* Has been a part of multiple winning cultures.  He's seen how it's done well and can bring that to a team that needs people who've been there and done that.

* His ability to notably change his offense in the championship game tells me he's not married to one system, or game plan and will live and die with it.

* Has been a part of teams that make effective game adjustments.  The Bills desperately need that.

 

I was luke warm on McDermott, so I'm willing to wait and see on Daboll also.  I'm optimistic about those things I feel need to be changed (winning attitude & ability to adjust).

[Canadian Bills Fan]

He made it to the National Championship with Jaylen Hurts as his QB

 

 

The man should be given the key to the city

[Kelly the Dog]

43 minutes ago, TheTruthHurts said:

I wonder if more moves are coming to the offensive staff. Hopefully. 

Likely but not positively. I'm sure that Daboll has watched a lot of film on the Bills already. But unsure of how far he has been able to deep dive. He and McD and Beane have to have the difficult discussion on the quality of the assistant coaches. It will be McDermott's final call but Daboll probably has a lot of guys he has become fond of over the years at various positions. McD cannot be happy with the OL and WR coaches at the very least. Who knows about the RB, TE, etc.

 

I would be surprised if the WR, RB and QB coach are kept. My guess is 50-50 OL Castillo stays. McD probably still likes him, for no good reason. He wasn't a Dennison guy.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Kelly the Dog

[DrDawkinstein]

12 minutes ago, Kelly the Dog said:

Likely but not positively. I'm sure that Daboll has watched a lot of film on the Bills already. But unsure of how far he has been able to deep dive. He and McD and Beane have to have the difficult discussion on the quality of the assistant coaches. It will be McDermott's final call but Daboll probably has a lot of guys he has become fond of over the years at various positions. McD cannot be happy with the OL and WR coaches at the very least. Who knows about the RB, TE, etc.

 

I would be surprised if the WR, RB and QB coach are kept. My guess is 50-50 OL Castillo stays. McD probably still likes him, for no good reason. He wasn't a Dennison guy.

 

Culley was a good hire, but the Bills screwed it up by putting him at QB coach. Although, I think they took him out of position just to get him on the staff. I'd like to see him kept as long as he moves back to WRs and we bring in a real QB coach that is in sync with Daboll.

 

WRT OL/Casillo... ugh, if we retain him it will be grounds to start questioning McD's thinking. I can see it happening, and I hate the idea.

[stevewin]

10 minutes ago, Kelly the Dog said:

Likely but not positively. I'm sure that Daboll has watched a lot of film on the Bills already. But unsure of how far he has been able to deep dive. He and McD and Beane have to have the difficult discussion on the quality of the assistant coaches. It will be McDermott's final call but Daboll probably has a lot of guys he has become fond of over the years at various positions. McD cannot be happy with the OL and WR coaches at the very least. Who knows about the RB, TE, etc.

 

I would be surprised if the WR, RB and QB coach are kept. My guess is 50-50 OL Castillo stays. McD probably still likes him, for no good reason. He wasn't a Dennison guy.

When you say 'wasn't a Dennison guy' are you saying Dennison didn''t actually hire him?  I'm pretty sure Dennison and Castillo were good buds regardless (and it's possible Dennison might have hired Castillo if he was the one making the decision) -  I remember one of the BB videos about Dennison he made a reference that when he was offered the job Castillo called him and told him he was going too, and that got him all excited and helped make up his mind.

[Woodman19]

I'm sure if we draft and develop a franchise QB this year we will have the best QB coach, offensive coordinator, head coach and GM of all time to Bills fans

[reddogblitz]

4 hours ago, John from Hemet said:

Thats fine....but take a look at the particular coaches that keep hiring him.

 

If he was that bad.....BB wouldnt touch him.

 

Bill Walsh said Trent was a good QB. 

 

I don't know if he's a good hire or not. A year from today we'll have a lot better idea. 

 

I'm pretty much in trust the process mode on this one.

4 hours ago, jmc12290 said:

How do you suggest you stick with Roman/Lynn's playbook when both coaches were gone?  As much credit goes to Lynn for the 2016 offense, even he said that he would instill his own new system in the offseason, because he didn't have time to change out of Roman's.

 

If you want to blame somebody for not using the Roman system, blame the people who fired Roman. Rex and the Pegulas.

 

Serious question: when an oc leaves, does he have to leave the play book? In any job I've ever had anything I develop is property of the company. I wonder if football works that way too.

 

At the very least, the bills still have the game film and a lot of the players that ran it. Couldn't be that hard to figure out.

 

[Zac]

Does anyone think Chud as QB coach is a possibility?

[BringBackOrton]

7 minutes ago, reddogblitz said:

 

Bill Walsh said Trent was a good QB. 

 

I don't know if he's a good hire or not. A year from today we'll have a lot better idea. 

 

I'm pretty much in trust the process mode on this one.

 

Serious question: when an oc leaves, does he have to leave the play book? In any job I've ever had anything I develop is property of the company. I wonder if football works that way too.

 

At the very least, the bills still have the game film and a lot of the players that ran it. Couldn't be that hard to figure out.

 

The Bills had the game film and players. And an OC who spent the last 15 years of his life running a completely different system. What coach would gamble on trying to run a different, random system than the one he was literally hired to run?

 

Coaches who completely change what they do are as rare as franchise QB's in the NFL. The vast majority are guy with years and years of running the same one.

[FLFan]

27 minutes ago, stevewin said:

When you say 'wasn't a Dennison guy' are you saying Dennison didn''t actually hire him?  I'm pretty sure Dennison and Castillo were good buds regardless (and it's possible Dennison might have hired Castillo if he was the one making the decision) -  I remember one of the BB videos about Dennison he made a reference that when he was offered the job Castillo called him and told him he was going too, and that got him all excited and helped make up his mind.

I think the real question here is who determined that the outside zone blocking scheme was the right approach?  This seems to me to be more of an offensive system decision (Dennison) vs an OL coach decision.  To be a little contrary here, both Ducasse and Mills showed improvement over the course of the year. (And I am not suggesting we can't do better, just that perhaps their coaching was effective) can Castillo coach a primarily power run scheme?  I have no idea but I suspect so.

Edited January 16, 2018 by MDFan

[Kelly the Dog]

27 minutes ago, stevewin said:

When you say 'wasn't a Dennison guy' are you saying Dennison didn''t actually hire him?  I'm pretty sure Dennison and Castillo were good buds regardless (and it's possible Dennison might have hired Castillo if he was the one making the decision) -  I remember one of the BB videos about Dennison he made a reference that when he was offered the job Castillo called him and told him he was going too, and that got him all excited and helped make up his mind.

McD knew Castillo from Philly. He was hired before Dennison and would have been the OL had McD hired McCoy or Musgrave or anyone else. That's what I meant. Dennison would have known and probably liked Castillo from Baltimore, too, in 2014 when they were both there, but he was a McD hire straight away.

[BADOLBILZ]

24 minutes ago, reddogblitz said:

Serious question: when an oc leaves, does he have to leave the play book?

 

 

Over the course of the season probably 100+ people in the organization were issued copies of the offensive playbook plus all the digital copy which is property of the team.  But if somehow they all got thrown out or deleted at locker clean out the Pats probably still had a few copies.

 

In short........they could have very easily just kept the offense.   Coaches decision.

 

Roman had some innovative run game design but I'd guess 95%+ of the plays in the book would be found in any combination of other NFL playbooks.     

[BillsFan4]

50 minutes ago, stevewin said:

When you say 'wasn't a Dennison guy' are you saying Dennison didn''t actually hire him?  I'm pretty sure Dennison and Castillo were good buds regardless (and it's possible Dennison might have hired Castillo if he was the one making the decision) -  I remember one of the BB videos about Dennison he made a reference that when he was offered the job Castillo called him and told him he was going too, and that got him all excited and helped make up his mind.

Castillo was the very first person McDermott hired after he got the Bills job. He was hired almost 2 weeks before Dennison. 

 

I'm not sure if Dennison and Castillo are friends but I believe you are thinking of when Mike Waufle was being recruited by the Bills. He's good friends with Castillo and was the one who said in that video about how he was excited Castillo is coming too. 

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

4 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

Roman had some innovative run game design but I'd guess 95%+ of the plays in the book would be found in any combination of other NFL playbooks

Roman was blamed for having too difficult of a playbook with too many plays to call from.  This lead to a lot of delay of game penalties.  

When he was told to trim it down the offense got stale and predictable 

Edited January 16, 2018 by ShadyBillsFan

[papazoid]

ever notice great OC's & HC's have great QB's 

[Woodman19]

6 minutes ago, papazoid said:

ever notice great OC's & HC's have great QB's 

So what your saying is, we should have let him go be the OC in New England next year and then complain that we didn't bring in an innovative young offensive coach who lead a top 5 offense until the end of time?

[BADOLBILZ]

1 minute ago, ShadyBillsFan said:

Roman was blamed for having too difficult of a playbook with too many plays to call from.  This lead to a lot of delay of game penalties.  

 

The complaint was that his playbook was too complex........that was more of a play execution issue than a gameday time management issue.........and a problem addressed by A Lynn editing it down.

 

The issue with late play calls was just Roman being indecisive.     Good designer but a poor play caller.

 

If Anthony Lynn.........who had never even been a Curtis Modkins pseudo OC even let alone called plays before.........could take over 2 weeks into a season and make himself one of the most effective OC's in the league with Roman's playbook then another "good" football coach with 8 months to prepare and tons of supporting film etc. would have been capable. 

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

44 minutes ago, jmc12290 said:

The Bills had the game film and players. And an OC who spent the last 15 years of his life running a completely different system. What coach would gamble on trying to run a different, random system than the one he was literally hired to run?

 

Coaches who completely change what they do are as rare as franchise QB's in the NFL. The vast majority are guy with years and years of running the same one.

 

Which might be a reason to hire a guy who isn't as entrenched in his ways, and who recently showed success working with two different QB (we hope)

2 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

The complaint was that his playbook was too complex........that was more of a play execution issue than a gameday time management issue.........and a problem addressed by A Lynn editing it down.

 

The issue with late play calls was just Roman being indecisive.     Good designer but a poor play caller.

 

If Anthony Lynn.........who had never even been a Curtis Modkins pseudo OC even let alone called plays before.........could take over 2 weeks into a season and make himself one of the most effective OC's in the league with Roman's playbook then another "good" football coach with 8 months to prepare and tons of supporting film etc. would have been capable.

 

I thought part of the complaint was that his game plan was too complex and that he was unwilling to be collaborative or take input from either his position coaches or from above.  IOW, he selected too many plays out of his playbook for the team to learn and practice effectively during the week, and he wasn't willing to take input on which to leave out.  Edit: that's just what I've heard, no idea if it's true.

 

Lynn said the best advice he got when he took over was "draw up your game plan then throw half the plays out"

Edited January 16, 2018 by Hapless Bills Fan

[familykwi]

55 minutes ago, reddogblitz said:

Serious question: when an oc leaves, does he have to leave the play book? In any job I've ever had anything I develop is property of the company. I wonder if football works that way too.

I think the idea of intellectual property rights as it relates to the utilization of plays in sports would be fascinating.  Everyone knows coaches steal from each other, but if they could not by law...

 

That's a simulation I'd love to see played out.

[BADOLBILZ]

5 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Which might be a reason to hire a guy who isn't as entrenched in his ways, and who recently showed success working with two different QB (we hope)

 

I thought part of the complaint was that his game plan was too complex and that he was unwilling to be collaborative or take input from either his position coaches or from above.  IOW, he selected too many plays out of his playbook for the team to learn and practice effectively during the week, and he wasn't willing to take input on which to leave out.  Edit: that's just what I've heard, no idea if it's true.

 

Lynn said the best advice he got when he took over was "draw up your game plan then throw half the plays out"

 

Regarding hiring Dennison.......jmc just doesn't want to admit that it was a bad decision by McD and that he wasn't without options.    Just keep the offense that worked.   Wasn't broke, tried to fix it.

 

And regarding A Lynn and Roman's playbook......yep, cutting the plays down was credited for improved execution.   Parcells was the one who told him to chuck half the plays out.

 

The 2016 passing game was so full of ultra simple go routes and comebacks it was regularly mocked for it's simplicity......and yet the offense lead the NFL in big plays, were 7th in scoring and on the verge of setting a post merger record for fewest turnovers in a season after 15 weeks.

 

What's more, staying in the same system would have allowed the players to grow and expand on what the plays they could run.

 

Starting over on offense was a big mistake by McD IMO.