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Coaches vs players. Which is more responsible for poor play?


oldmanfan

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We have been critical of both coaches and players after the debacle Sunday.  Rightfully so.  But which has more responsibility?

 

I think players myself.  When you boil it down football is imposing your will on the guy in front of you.  And we have linemen get blown up, WRs that get pushed off the ball, etc.  Coaches can't really change that, other than getting rid of guys (Miller?  Ducasse?  Groy?)

 

i hope this Sunday some guys show some pride and step up their game.

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24 minutes ago, SouthNYfan said:

Coach/GM for stacking the roster with players who "buy into the process" and completely forgoing talent to do so 

 

This. Other than Benjamin who was phoning it in?  Some problems create others. We have crappy WRs and a crappy OL so no decent bridge QB wanted to come here. No decent QB equated to no serviceable FA WRs wanting to come here. How can lining up Nathan Peterman behind that OL with Kelvin Benjamin as the #1 WR be acceptable?  Then think about the fact that they paid AJ McCarron $4M for his preseason work, but didn’t bother to keep him around this season for an extra $2M despite NP’s 5 INTs in a half in his only start and that their high rookie 1st round draft pick is very raw. AJ might be a tier lower than what we’d hope in a bridge QB, but why not keep him around until you see what NP does in live action?  It’s mind boggling. 

Edited by BarleyNY
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it's certainly a combination of both, but i think i was mostly let down by coaching.  this team looked completely unprepared on sunday.  i get that personnel is part of that reason, but this team was lost.  as i mentioned in another thread, the ravens game reminded me of the opener against the jets 6 years ago, (i'm pretty sure gailey was the coach).  fitz was in his second season and we were all prepared for a strong year.  they completely laid an egg.  it just had the same feel.

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5 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

 

This. Other than Benjamin who was phoning it in?  Some problems create others. We have crappy WRs and a crappy OL so no decent bridge QB wanted to come here. No decent QB equated to no serviceable FA WRs wanting to come here. How can lining up Nathan Peterman behind that OL with Kelvin Benjamin as the #1 WR be acceptable?  Then think about the fact that they paid AJ McCarron $4M for his preseason work, but didn’t bother to keep him around this season for an extra $2M despite NP’s 5 INTs in a half in his only start and that their high rookie 1st round draft pick is very raw. AJ might be a tier lower than what we’d hope in a bridge QB, but why not keep him around until you see what NP does in live action?  It’s mind boggling. 

Good points and to me a front office couldn't put together a much worse group.  So you have to ask, are the GM/HQ incompetent, stupid, or doing it by design?  My conclusion from taking it all in during the off-season and the week 1 pasting by the Ravens is that from ownership on down they decided to go with Tank 2.0 this season.  Break it all down and then build it back up from the top of the first round, maybe trade back and get a haul of picks, and put what might be $100M in cap space to work.  Truth is the Bills were never going to win the Super Bowl this year, something we are knew, so if you're going to lose, then lose big rather than stumble around year after year forever at 6 to 9 wins.  If you accept my view it will save you a lot of pain and frustration through what is looking like a real bad season for us.

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After Week One it’s the coaches for not assembling an NFL quality roster. The Bills didn’t get pummeled by lack of scheme. They got beat by lack of talent. As the season wears on we’ll see if this less than talented group continues to fight. If not, some of the blame will shift to the players for giving up. Tick, tick, tick.

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Coaches/GM

 

They draft, sign, and have these guys compete in training camps. They design the schemes and call the plays. They can release players and limit playing time as they see fit. When you see a performance and an effort like the Bills put out this past Sunday you can be sure that the process is flawed. 

 

McD has been accused of favoring culture over talent, which is a debate in itself. Clearly the talent is lacking but that can be explained away as they are in year two of a retool/rebuild. How can you explain the “culture” that we saw Sunday? The team, as a whole, laid down and took that beating like a bunch of chumps. It was gross.

 

The only type of reaction we saw in that game came from Dawkins when another man grabbed his throat, not impressed. Judon tossed Allen on the sideline and committed what is now a roughing the passer penalty while falling ontop of him. On the very next play he got flagged for helmet to helmet as he speared Allen on the ground. No reaction. If I’m coaching a team that is down 47-3 and someone takes liberties on the QBs head someone from my team better react, getting kicked out of that game wouldn’t have  changed the outcome. 

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Reminds me of what that coach on Last Chance U said quite simply, "it's not the x's or o's, it's the Jimmy's and the Joe's".  I'll give the coaching staff the benefit of the doubt after last year.  The Bills are at a decided disadvantage every week with the amount of dead money this year.  Now they have to develop the talent to extend because FAgency isn't the answer to building a quality roster. 

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I think it's 60-40 coaches.  

 

I'm sure every player wishes to impose their will on the man opposite them but the preseason games and the All-22 playbacks suggest the offensive linemen have no idea where they are suppossed to be, especially if the defense throws a wrinkle into the play like the Ravens did often on Sunday.  The defensive front four are thinking and therefore, hesitating = slow, no rush.  

 

The Bills don't play "man" anything.  They zone block on offense, play zone on defense and that means knowing areas of responsibility versus just beating your opponent in 1:1 competition.  I'm sure Ducasse and Mills are very strong men but they aren't understanding the scheme and I put that on the coaching.  Ducasse's scouting report raved about his strength, knocked him for his understanding of blocking technique and scheme.  

 

While I think McDermott has shown to be at least an average coach, I think his unit coaches are bad teachers and his loyalty to keeping them around, results notwithstanding, will be his demise - not a poor record.  Unit coaches must be good teachers.  

 

If I were Beane, that'd be priority #1 - let's get rid of Castillo, find another zone blocking coach and find at least 1-2 serviceable linemen who have worked with it.  

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32 minutes ago, CountDorkula said:

Talent, so players.

 

If you don't have talent you don't win, it's that simple.

 

You can bang the drum on this "Culture" stuff all you want, but if your "culture" is lead on the field by Nate Peterman at QB every week your culture is probably going to go 3-13. 

 

Hard to blame players though when we are rolling out guys as starters who are barely ps level on most teams.

I mean I guess it's their fault for not having talent, but I feel kind of bad blaming a guy like Peterman when he has no business being in there in the first place.

 

It's like if I give my 12 year old the keys to my car and tell him to go to the store for me, then he gets in a huge car accident.

I mean technically he was behind the wheel, but I'm the one who gave him the keys.

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Umm....I'll go with coaching, when McD spouts crap like this.

 

"Specifically, McDermott said he didn’t question the effort of the offensive line or wideout Kelvin Benjamin, who made one catch on seven targets.

 

Maybe he hasn't had time to "watch the tape" on Benjamin yet?

Edited by stosh64
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19 minutes ago, All_Pro_Bills said:

Good points and to me a front office couldn't put together a much worse group.  So you have to ask, are the GM/HQ incompetent, stupid, or doing it by design?  My conclusion from taking it all in during the off-season and the week 1 pasting by the Ravens is that from ownership on down they decided to go with Tank 2.0 this season.  Break it all down and then build it back up from the top of the first round, maybe trade back and get a haul of picks, and put what might be $100M in cap space to work.  Truth is the Bills were never going to win the Super Bowl this year, something we are knew, so if you're going to lose, then lose big rather than stumble around year after year forever at 6 to 9 wins.  If you accept my view it will save you a lot of pain and frustration through what is looking like a real bad season for us.

 

 I don’t think it was meant to be this bad. I think it went off the rails when they unexpectedly lost Wood and Cogs.  That hurt and it started a snowball because they didn’t alter their plan. They traded Tyrod and Glenn anyway. They wanted their two most important pieces of their team - franchise QB and stud LB (their Luke Kuechley) - and they stayed the course. As I mentioned the dearth at OL and WR cost them a decent bridge QB which cost them a good FA WR (a deal could have been worked out concurrently with a decent FA QB). They should’ve modified their plan and kept Tyrod and Glenn. I can’t imagine what they were thinking by releasing McCarron and going with Peterman and Allen. That’s just incompetence. 

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