What they thought in 2017 of McD hire

[GunnerBill]

Just now, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

There were a number of factors that lead the turnaround but if you are just splitting it up between the two......

 

90% QB

10% Culture

 

But 10% is a lot.............it's just that it's a QB driven league.

 

The tendency of some might be to disagree with that.........but we saw what culture without belief in the QB position lead to in 2017 where McDermott's defense came apart at the seems for the worst 3 game stretch in team history.     We also saw how terrible they were in 2018 when Allen was going thru his growing pains.   A Teddy Bridge kinda' solution wasn't going to keep that team culture work intact.   Culture sans winning is not a thing. 

 

You can't sustain a culture long term if you keep losing, for sure. But turning around a culture in a place that hadn't won for this long is really, really hard. And is more than 10% in my view. I agree an elite Quarterback trumps all. But in places that haven't won for as long as the Bills it isn't as easy as slot in Quarterback and press go. 

[BADOLBILZ]

6 hours ago, Watkins101 said:

Except the new bills regime was not all on board for that draft. Beanie was not the Bills GM, so it does make sense that they needed more time for the QBs. 

 

 

Well the question there is why wait until May to hire a different GM when you know who you wanted all along.     

 

That just rang of Billsy incompetence.

 

There were some bad look moments.

 

People want to dismiss that but it's ok to admit that the plan has had to be re-written on the fly.

 

That's actually been the most consistent strength of this regime..........pivoting from bad decisions..........the growth mindset, they call it.

5 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

You can't sustain a culture long term if you keep losing, for sure. But turning around a culture in a place that hadn't won for this long is really, really hard. And is more than 10% in my view. I agree an elite Quarterback trumps all. But in places that haven't won for as long as the Bills it isn't as easy as slot in Quarterback and press go. 

 

 

If Allen hadn't turned it around in the second half of 2018.........I'm not sure Pegs sees them thru a 2019.     It's easy to forget just how bad they looked that year.    They were getting destroyed and playing some of the worst offense in the history of the NFL.   If Allen busts.......the regime almost certainly fails.    I know you don't follow the Pegula's other team,  and I appreciate them keeping the teams in town, but trust me,  they have no idea what they are doing in pro sports management yet.......let alone 3 years ago.   I think they bottomed out with Ralph Krueger, finally. 😂   

[JohnNord]

11 hours ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

With a new HC and GM, there was nothing for Brandon to do with running the team.  Plus, only a few months after McD got there,  Russ "resigned" as the Pegulas had him under investigation for inappropriate behavior.  Pegula gave him a break by letting him resign.

 

Whaley was a dead man walking after both he and Rex didn't deliver a playoff appearance for Pegula.  As he warned them, Pegula canned Rex before the season ended and Whaley went after the draft.  That was Pegula and everyone knew it was coming.

 

As for football staff, every new HC and GM combo is going to bring in new people.  

Yeah so this is not true at all.  Russ was around through McDermott’s first year and into 2018 through May.  I believe he was in the draft room when the Bills took Allen.  That’s over one season.  The Bills had a GM and HC for years before McDermott and Russ still found a way to involve himself in football decisions.  McDermott made sure this didn’t happen.

 

As far as Whaley being a dead man walking, that wasn’t the case in January 2017.  He allowed Doug to run the job search and he was involved in some football decisions at first.  Terry liked Doug personally, I think he was hoping things would work out with Whaley and McDermott, but it became clear that he needed to go

36 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

Well the question there is why wait until May to hire a different GM when you know who you wanted all along.     

 

That just rang of Billsy incompetence.

 

There were some bad look moments.

 

People want to dismiss that but it's ok to admit that the plan has had to be re-written on the fly.

 

That's actually been the most consistent strength of this regime..........pivoting from bad decisions..........the growth mindset, they call it.

 

 

If Allen hadn't turned it around in the second half of 2018.........I'm not sure Pegs sees them thru a 2019.     It's easy to forget just how bad they looked that year.    They were getting destroyed and playing some of the worst offense in the history of the NFL.   If Allen busts.......the regime almost certainly fails.    I know you don't follow the Pegula's other team,  and I appreciate them keeping the teams in town, but trust me,  they have no idea what they are doing in pro sports management yet.......let alone 3 years ago.   I think they bottomed out with Ralph Krueger, finally. 😂   

Not firing the GM was not “Billsy incompetence.”  It was standard across the league for decades, though not all team subscribe to this procedure any more.  If you are going to fire your GM, you usually wait until after the end of their “season” which is the draft.  The reason being is, if you fire them before, you risk them leaking all the scouting info to other teams.  Also scouting beings nearly a year before the actual draft (sometimes longer).  A few months really isn’t a lot of time for a new GM to put together a new staff and scout players 

 

The reason being is, 

[Straight Hucklebuck]

Yeah you look back at it now, and he gets rid of Sammy Watkins, Marcell Dareus, they start phasing out LeSean McCoy and how smart does that look now?

 

I never thought we’d get there with a modern pass offense. McDermott came in giving interviews on the radio about snowy weather and running the ball with physicality. 

[Mr. WEO]

7 hours ago, JohnNord said:

Yeah so this is not true at all.  Russ was around through McDermott’s first year and into 2018 through May.  I believe he was in the draft room when the Bills took Allen.  That’s over one season.  The Bills had a GM and HC for years before McDermott and Russ still found a way to involve himself in football decisions.  McDermott made sure this didn’t happen.

 

As far as Whaley being a dead man walking, that wasn’t the case in January 2017.  He allowed Doug to run the job search and he was involved in some football decisions at first.  Terry liked Doug personally, I think he was hoping things would work out with Whaley and McDermott, but it became clear that he needed to go

Not firing the GM was not “Billsy incompetence.”  It was standard across the league for decades, though not all team subscribe to this procedure any more.  If you are going to fire your GM, you usually wait until after the end of their “season” which is the draft.  The reason being is, if you fire them before, you risk them leaking all the scouting info to other teams.  Also scouting beings nearly a year before the actual draft (sometimes longer).  A few months really isn’t a lot of time for a new GM to put together a new staff and scout players 

 

The reason being is, 

 

 

You're right about the Russ timeline.  Pegula had made him President of the Bills and Sabres.  Beane was hired as soon as the draft was done--so there's no chance that Pegula was hoping things would work out.  Whaley burned Pegula with the Rex hire and it was a predictable disaster. Plus he publicly embarrassed the franchise in press conferences throwing others under the bus for his own failures.  Pegula couldn't wait until that draft was over, so he could deliver on his threat to Whaley the season before.  McD gets all the credit for the hiring of Beane, as I have said before.

[JMF2006]

22 hours ago, JohnNord said:

The smartest thing McDermott did was get rid of the dysfunction at One Bills Drive when he first took over.  
 

Unlike Rex and Doug Marrone before him, I think he was smart enough to know that the issues at OBD went beyond what happened on the field.

 

Not sure how an unproven rookie HC got that much power, probably the naivety of the Pegulas, but they definitely lucked out.  Very Good coach…now he needs to prove he’s a great coach!  

 

Playoffs 3 out of 4 years after an age of majority drought.

 

2 playoff wins in one year when this franchise hadn't won one game in 25 years

 

13-3 record for only the second time in franchise history.

 

He already is one of the Bills greatest coaches

 

I think he was the one that hired Beane so there is that too.

BTW I was all in him

[78thealltimegreat]

23 hours ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

Watching the Jets game and all the off-season gushing over Robert Saleh made me wonder what will they think of him in 3 to 4 years.  He was the sexy hire, but will he actually be any good? 

 

So got me thinking about the very un-sexy hire by the Bills in 2017.  I found a few articles ranking the hires and for the most part McD was ranked near the bottom of the 6 hires.  Some of the articles ranked the Marrone hire above the Bills.  Found  only one article that liked the McD hire.  Here's a comment from Fox Sports:

 

The Bills didn’t retain Anthony Lynn as their full-time head coach after making him the interim head coach for Week 17, which was a bit of a surprising move. Instead, they opted to hire former Panthers defensive coordinator Sean McDermott.

It’s not that it was a bad hire, but with all the issues the Bills have in the front office, and the lack of success they’ve had for the past two decades, McDermott likely won't bring the quick turnaround they need. At the very least, he should be able to turn around the defense, which was inexplicably bad under Rex Ryan.

What’s unclear, though, is how much of the Panthers’ defensive success was McDermott’s doing and how much was the fact that Ron Rivera was the head coach. We’ll find out relatively soon, but the bigger questions for McDermott loom on offense.

Will the Bills’ dominant ground game continue without Lynn? Will he be able to continue Tyrod Taylor’s development as a quarterback, if Taylor returns next season? These are two of the biggest questions McDermott will have to answer.

 

This article ranked McD 5th and Lynn 3rd. Another article  from NFL.com ranked Lynn the #1 hire and McD last.  Two of the hires that season were Shanahan (29-35) and McVay (43-21) compared to McD (38-26) Goff also had one season under his belt when McVay was hired so that likely helped his record some the 1st year.  Overall nothing to complain about much when looking at McD's record compared to them.   Lynn and V Joseph are both gone.  The other "great hire" think it was in 2016 with Pederson and the Eagles, another one who's now on the un-employed list.

 

At the time was hard to argue with most of the articles as many here too were not all that happy with the McD hire.  But interesting how many of the hot names, while great coordinators, never worked out as head coach.  Will Saleh join that list.  This year CBS ranks U Meyer as the 2nd best hire!

Oh I could argue with it I followed Sean’s career and there’s a pretty good chance he was coming home to Philly if Pederson went belly up which he did good thing the Bills did scoop up one of the best young defensive minds in the league or right now he’s be wearing Eagles green 

[DCofNC]

22 hours ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

 

Yes Cleveland could have taken him, would the Jets' have then taken Mayfield, maybe.  Denver was ready to trade with us till Bradley Chubb fell into their lap, so highly unlikely they'd have taken Allen as they weren't looking for a QB.  Could the Bills instead have ended up with Darnold, maybe either him or Mayfield.  Either choice wouldn't have been terrible.

 

McD stated he didn't want to take a QB in 2017 as he hadn't had enough time to study them.  If he had known Maholmes were to end up the way he did, maybe he'd have changed his mind, but at the time he had alot of questions, maybe almost as many as Allen had going into the draft.

 

 

 

Most of the time backing into the draft means you lose your last game, but still get in.   That wasn't the case here.  The Bills game ended about 20 minutes prior to the end of the Bengals game.  So if the ending times were reversed, would that mean they didn't back in?  Every year, the last week of the season, things change, teams get in and others get out.  I guess last year Cleveland and think it was Indy both backed in as if Miami had beaten the Bills they'd be in and one of those two out.  Don't recall anyone talking about Cleveland backing in.

 

In fact the only way any team ever makes the playoffs is by another team losing either this week or last week, or maybe 2 weeks prior.  But if according to you a team losing means that you backed in, then every team in the league backs in every year.

 

Regardless winning 9 games with that talent in 2017 was still impressive whether they made the playoff or not.

I’m sorry, but if you aren’t winning the division, you are not winning your way into the playoffs, you are coming in through the back door, BUT let’s assume we don’t take that view point.  If you can’t win more games than the other teams competing for a wildcard and have to rely on a tie breaker, you are in fact backing in, regardless of who you are.  You are in on a technicality, not because you went out and won your way in. 
 

Today, the Bills are one of the best teams in the league and should earn their way to the playoffs with very little problem.   The Chiefs are going to have to battle back and hope to steal a wild card (as it stands now), if they get in on a tie breaker, I will call that just what it is, backing in, because you weren’t good enough to get the job done. 

[JohnNord]

6 hours ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

 

You're right about the Russ timeline.  Pegula had made him President of the Bills and Sabres.  Beane was hired as soon as the draft was done--so there's no chance that Pegula was hoping things would work out.  Whaley burned Pegula with the Rex hire and it was a predictable disaster. Plus he publicly embarrassed the franchise in press conferences throwing others under the bus for his own failures.  Pegula couldn't wait until that draft was over, so he could deliver on his threat to Whaley the season before.  McD gets all the credit for the hiring of Beane, as I have said before.

Everything that I’ve read said this was not the case.  Terry had a fondness for Doug and never held the Rex hire against him.  If anything, the hire was Terry’s and Russ Brandon who famously told him not to let Rex leave the building.  Even with the embarrassing presser, I feel that Terry wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.   I can guarantee you that the press conference was what made McDermott want a new PR person though.  
 

The question that we’ll probably never know is whether there was a plan to fire Whaley after the draft back in January when McDermott was hired or if it was a decision Terry arrived at later once McDermott took over and slowly started gaining influence.  

 

Whaley (along with Jim Monos) will contend that he felt blind sighted by the firing in May and at the time, had no idea it was coming.   Though it’s possible he’s either covering to make himself better or he simply was too naive to see it coming 

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

2 minutes ago, JohnNord said:

Everything that I’ve read said this was not the case.  Terry had a fondness for Doug and never held the Rex hire against him.  If anything, the hire was Terry’s and Russ Brandon who famously told him not to let Rex leave the building.  Even with the embarrassing presser, I feel that Terry wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.   I can guarantee you that the press conference was what made McDermott want a new PR person though.  
 

The question that we’ll probably never know is whether there was a plan to fire Whaley after the draft back in January when McDermott was hired or if it was a decision Terry arrived at later once McDermott took over and slowly started gaining influence.  

 

Whaley (along with Jim Monos) will contend that he felt blind sighted by the firing in May and at the time, had no idea it was coming.   Though it’s possible he’s either covering to make himself better or he simply was too naive to see it coming 

 

I think it's hard to hire front office types in January as they have too much intel on teams drafting thoughts.  It's for that reason that front office contracts typically expire in May.  Would Carolina given permission to sign Beane in January, maybe not.  Think they also signed someone from Miami, again, maybe wouldn't have been able to in Jan.

 

The other side of it too, if Whaley is let go in January,you're now kind of going into the draft blind and even worse,  he could have signed with another team and given away all the Bills thoughts on upcoming draft.

[Mr. WEO]

1 hour ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

 

I think it's hard to hire front office types in January as they have too much intel on teams drafting thoughts.  It's for that reason that front office contracts typically expire in May.  Would Carolina given permission to sign Beane in January, maybe not.  Think they also signed someone from Miami, again, maybe wouldn't have been able to in Jan.

 

The other side of it too, if Whaley is let go in January,you're now kind of going into the draft blind and even worse,  he could have signed with another team and given away all the Bills thoughts on upcoming draft.

Pegula kept Whaley until after the draft—likely at the recommendation of  McD.  But as I said, as soon Rex was gone and then the season ended, Slow Whaley was dead Doug walking.  Pegula wanted him out.