Criticism of McD and coaching has reached insanity level…

[US Egg]

There’s not a singular level of insanity. 
 

There are many and all are attainable.

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

This seems to really have picked up in the last few weeks and my guess is it’s because people see Detroit and Cleveland as bottom feeders that aren’t good at anything.  
 

they are both just about top 5 teams in total offense though (Detroit was 6 before we played them and is now 7,Cleveland is 4). 
 

considering the injuries and the uncharacteristically impressive tight window throws Goff/brissett were making I really don’t think the defense has been that bad.  
 

they have made some absolutely massive plays this year at key moments 

 

 

 

Edited November 26, 2022 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[Scott7975]

9 minutes ago, Sammy Watkins' Rib said:

Baltimore lost there QB on top of losing a ton of other placers before and after. That’s not similar. That’s far worse. Bills would very likely be circling the drain in as well if they loss Allen.

 

We are 8-3 with those types of injuries plus the QBs arm over the last few. All 3 of those losses were by a fg.  The Ravens last season played a lot of close games too.  Even with healthy Lamar.  The Ravens this year... what is their "excuse?"  They are more dumpster fire this year than they were last.  Blowing the Miami game in itself was probably the biggest catastrophe of any game this year.  Then they have lost to *gasp* the Bills, the Browns, the Giants, barely beat the Bengals, struggled against the Panthers.

 

They have had way more dumpster games than the Bills have.  No team is just regularly blowing everyone out.  They are all having bad games and sloppy play.  With or without injuries.  The expectations are unreal.  

Edited November 26, 2022 by Scott7975

[blacklabel]

I've said it before but some folks put absolutely ridonkulous expectations on the players and team as a whole. Then combine that with their willful ignorance of how the other team is also made of professionals and will make plays during the game despite what the Bills do. A play from, I think, Cleveland, comes to mind where they completed a pass for a touchdown with either Dane or Taron in perfect position and playing excellent coverage and it just comes down to a matter of inches and the other player making a good play on the ball. 

 

People go blue in the face debating play calls and coaching decisions. Even if they got their way and the team suddenly had all the players and coaches this person thinks they needed, they'd just find new reasons to get all antsy in their pantsy.

 

I enjoy discussing and debating the team but these last few weeks on both here and the Bills sub over on Reddit have been kind of a bummer. I checked in on the board yesterday and had you not seen the score from Thursday you would've thought this team had lost and lost bad. 

 

It's been a tough season. They came firing outta the gate and met the crazy expectations for those first few weeks. But stuff happens. The Injury Bug has evolved into the Injury Devil and he is cursing this team and it sucks lol. 

 

I think something that gets lost on some people is the fact that going down a starter on either side of the ball can alter the game plan. If they have to shuffle the OL then Dorsey is up in the booth looking at what they can still run based on the personnel they now have out there. Same on defense. And guys who are backups are backups for a reason. I don't know how anyone can see a player like Von Miller go out then look at Mike Love and say "next man up, don't miss a beat!" Obviously the execution and results aren't going to be as good. 

 

That's not to say there isn't room for improvement. Criticism is fine, it just gets old when it's done to such a degree that, like I said, based on the topics on the board you would've thought they lost on Thursday. 

 

8-3 is great for all they've been through. This last stretch of ten days or whatever has been pretty rough on them so hopefully they can get things back to normal here and we start seeing more players return down the stretch. 

 

I love this team, love the coaches, love the front office. Trust the process and go Bills. 

[BullBuchanan]

3 hours ago, eball said:

I know, I know, it’s a message board and not everyone has to agree about everything.  Debate and discussion are good.  It just seems to me that the coaching of this team is being questioned at an insane level.  The Bills are 8-3 and within 11 points of being undefeated.  Every starter on defense has missed time; they have not played ONE game with their presumed starting secondary intact.  Allen has a bum elbow.  They got a total of TWO full practices in over the past two weeks and yet won two games in five days.

 

They beat the Rams on the road (before we knew the Rams would stink).  They crushed the Titans.  They won at Baltimore in a gritty way.  They won at KC.

 

What the hell do people think McD should have been doing that he has not?  I still hear “well, he’s not a good gameday coach.”  Really?  He is ranked as one of the best 4th down decision makers in the league.  His time management has been stellar, saving timeouts for use at the ends of halves where the Bills have been excellent.

 

Should he be calling plays?  Is it Dorsey everyone is really upset about?  Well, Dorse is also learning on the job, and maybe I’m naive but I think it has been hard to gameplan the past two weeks with only two practices.  And yet, the offense is still putting up yards and points at very high levels.  The last couple of weeks the running game has showed up as well.

 

Summing up — I don’t get it.  At all.  And as far as I know, not one of you is in the locker room or on the practice field with this team.  My conclusion is that there are a lot of keyboard warriors with way too much time on their hands who expect 14-point wins weekly.  I would love to hear, specifically, what decisions some believe McD has made or not made that are responsible for the “predicament” we find ourselves in (tied for 1st).

 

I’m going to continue to enjoy this ride, knowing my team is one of the best in the league and still has every opportunity to bring home the ultimate prize.  I’m thrilled McD is our HC and Beane is our GM.

 

Go Bills!  17 and 3, BABY!!!!

 

These two items are things that look glike reasonable arguments on paper, but they aren't at the heart of the issue. The problem with McDermott isn't that his team isn't executing because of injury on defense or lack of experience in the case of Dorsey. It's simply that his team is not ready. We're being outcoached on a regular basis.

People bring up the defensive injury thing all the time, but it really doesn't have much merit against the criticisms. We aren't having defensive problems because we're simply outclassed. We're top 10 in both passing yards per attempt and rushing yards per attempt. Our defense is actually playing very well, except situationally. We routinely put opponents in 3rd and long only to get destroyed on low percentage plays that are not particularly creative. That's a pattern and I don't think it has much to do with talent. It's a lack of preparedness and poor judgement on behalf of McDermott and his staff.

We have similar problems on offense.

• Our Red Zone offense jumps off the page as an immediate flag.
• Usage of Dawson Knox is another. He's been coming up massive in big spots late in games this season and is invisible in our offensive gameplan the other 55 minutes of the game.
• We deployed a balanced offense against Minnesota in the first half to great effect and then jumped right back into pass-only madden mode in the 2nd half with a depleted WR corps and QB1 with a bum elbow.
• Nyheim Hines has been electric whenever he touches the ball on special teams, yet the team has made no effort to get him involved on offense.

 

And then we're still making massive strategic mistakes.
Against the dolphins, when it was a billion degrees out we put together a gameplan that had us running 90 offensive plays to our opponents 39 yet still somehow being unable to outscore them. 90 plays in that heat and humidity. For reference, our season average (where we're ranked 7th highest) has us at just under 66 plays per game. We punched ourselves out and it took a toll in the weeks that followed as even more players were unavailable as they recovered from that.

When this team is firing on all-cylinders, they can beat anyone. And when i say that, I mean any team - ever. The problem is that too often our staff makes decisions that put our players behind the 8 ball. Often they succeed in spite of it, but when they don't, and especially when they start to snowball, it starts to look very ugly. When we look back at 13 seconds - that wasn't us getting unlucky - it was an eventuality of this team not being prepared to win when all the chips were down - and that falls squarely on the coaching staff.

I'd be lying if I said I felt like McDermott has learned anything since that day.

Edited November 26, 2022 by BullBuchanan

[NewEra]

2 hours ago, Billsfan1972 said:

I was not commenting on the coaching, just how these type of threads are posted to elicit positive response.  I think coaching has been so so.....  I am unhappy with the defensive play calling and some decisions.  Let's leave it at that.

 

But the Bills are 8-3.  NE will be a big test.  No excuse to lose vs. them.

If we don’t have Dawkins, Miller, Morse, groot and edmunds there are plenty of excuses.  I don’t see a way we win without that group.  The OL would make sure of that and the defense wouldn’t have enough firepower to get the turnovers we’d need.

 

Without Dawkins and Morse, all 5 of our OL would suck. 

[zow2]

People still think the Bills offense that ended in the playoffs vs KC is the offense we should have every week. It’s silly.  People forget that last years Bills were 7-6 and that was an easy schedule compared to this season.  There was very limited push back from Mia, NE, Jets…and now those teams are actually good.

[Boatdrinks]

21 minutes ago, Sammy Watkins' Rib said:

Baltimore lost there QB on top of losing a ton of other placers before and after. That’s not similar. That’s far worse. Bills would very likely be circling the drain in as well if they lost Allen.

Exactly. Without Allen this team is struggling to stay around .500

[The Red King]

Another specific?  McD putting Davis, a reciever with an alarming number of drops, on our "hands team".  Almost cost us the game.  Were it not for the heroics of a teammate punching the ball OOB at the last moment, Detroit would not only have recovered, they would have scored a TD as he had nothing but daylight ahead of him.

 

I'm not going doom and gloom, but this coaching staff should be raising concerns right now.

[Bob in STL]

2 hours ago, Billsfan1972 said:

So many people love these LAMP posts.  Anything negative is shouted down and we'll see 50 agrees/likes on this one.

 

Yes expectations are high.

 

Can we all agree that the losses were all bad in a # of ways.  The close win vs. Baltimore was a really bad start, weather affected and then slowly the Bills asserted themselves and a bad 4th down pick.  The KC win, they were the better team.

 

Now let's agree that injuries have had an affect on the Bills no doubt, but they too have not played well on either side and allowed b/c grade QBs to look way too good.

 

ready for the vomit, eyeroll and disagree emojis.🤣

 

Have you really watched football since 1972?  

 

 

 

[Boatdrinks]

2 minutes ago, NewEra said:

If we don’t have Dawkins, Miller, Morse, groot and edmunds there are plenty of excuses.  I don’t see a way we win without that group.  The OL would make sure of that and the defense wouldn’t have enough firepower to get the turnovers we’d need.

 

Without Dawkins and Morse, all 5 of our OL would suck. 

It would take a masterful coaching job and some really creative and heavy use of Josh. Definitely am outside the box type game plan. 

[Epstein's Mother]

2 minutes ago, The Red King said:

 

I'm not going doom and gloom, but this coaching staff should be raising concerns right now.

 

Yeah, they're totally doing winning the wrong way.

[The Red King]

1 minute ago, Epstein's Mother said:

 

Yeah, they're totally doing winning the wrong way.

 

You are completely, 100% fine with the decision to put Davis on the hands team when it almost cost us the game?

[Beast]

6 minutes ago, The Red King said:

Another specific?  McD putting Davis, a reciever with an alarming number of drops, on our "hands team".  Almost cost us the game.  Were it not for the heroics of a teammate punching the ball OOB at the last moment, Detroit would not only have recovered, they would have scored a TD as he had nothing but daylight ahead of him.

 

I'm not going doom and gloom, but this coaching staff should be raising concerns right now.

The kicking team can not advance an onside kick.

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

16 minutes ago, Scott7975 said:

 

We are 8-3 with those types of injuries plus the QBs arm over the last few. All 3 of those losses were by a fg.  The Ravens last season played a lot of close games too.  Even with healthy Lamar.  The Ravens this year... what is their "excuse?"  They are more dumpster fire this year than they were last.  Blowing the Miami game in itself was probably the biggest catastrophe of any game this year.  Then they have lost to *gasp* the Bills, the Browns, the Giants, barely beat the Bengals, struggled against the Panthers.

 

They have had way more dumpster games than the Bills have.  No team is just regularly blowing everyone out.  They are all having bad games and sloppy play.  With or without injuries.  The expectations are unreal.  

I was speaking specifically to the 2021 Ravens, Scott. The post I quoted brought up the 2021 ravens.
 

And Allen’s arm was fine when he threw 4 interceptions including two red zone INTs just prior to his elbow injury. And his arm has looked lively as ever post injury so I have a hard time putting his recent struggles all on the elbow injury. 
 

Even with Allen and the offensive woes we currently have we should thank our lucky stars he is still taking the field every Sunday. If he wears not our season would quickly go down the drain like the Ravens 2021 season without Lamar.

[B-Man]

 

 

Has their time as coaches here been super successful ?. . . . . . . . . . . . . oh yes.

 

 

Have they made several errors the last three weeks ?  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . yes.

 

 

As fans we are "allowed" to point them out.

 

 

 

The general "you people are crazy"  defense doesn't work on adults.

 

 

.

[The Red King]

Just now, Beast said:

The kicking team can not advance an onside kick.

 

I thought they could if it hit a member of the recieving team first.  Regardless, putting Davis on the hands team was a clear mistake.

 

I'm not saying the coaching staff is terrible and should be fired.  Just saying there are some points of real concern at this point.

[HomeskillitMoorman]

2 minutes ago, The Red King said:

Another specific?  McD putting Davis, a reciever with an alarming number of drops, on our "hands team".  Almost cost us the game.  Were it not for the heroics of a teammate punching the ball OOB at the last moment, Detroit would not only have recovered, they would have scored a TD as he had nothing but daylight ahead of him.

 

I'm not going doom and gloom, but this coaching staff should be raising concerns right now.

 

You can't advance it on an onside recovery unless the receiving team has full control and then fumbles...but yes that still could have been a disaster.

 

I think there's two extremes and they weaponize going to the extreme against the other side. 

 

In this one, raising concerns about the coaching staff means you think they're horrible and you should be able to come up with a name of a coach who would be better and prove why. 

 

I personally don't think they're necessarily horrible...but I don't think it's an above average staff either. I think #17 makes up for a good chunk of deficiencies. McD's game management is not good, and I think he's going to have issues against offensive minds like McDaniel that are creative. His game management is also still not good, and in my opinion he cost us a Superbowl last year, and made awful decisions in the game the year before vs KC too. I don't think we would have won that game anyway but that doesn't change what we saw from him. 

 

I do have concerns about us getting over the hump with him here, as I would with most mediocre staffs. That doesn't mean I blame him for every single thing that goes wrong, but I'm going to be pretty nervous again if we're in the playoffs in a close game if he can make the right moves under pressure. So far he's been terrible in those situations. 

[Beast]

2 minutes ago, The Red King said:

 

I thought they could if it hit a member of the recieving team first.  Regardless, putting Davis on the hands team was a clear mistake.

 

I'm not saying the coaching staff is terrible and should be fired.  Just saying there are some points of real concern at this point.

No. All they can do is recover the ball. No advancement unless a player from the receiving team attempts a return and it is jarred loose. The kicking team can then return the fumble. But until control is established by the receiving team, all the kicking team is allowed to do is recover the ball.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Beast

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

6 minutes ago, Beast said:

The kicking team can not advance an onside kick.

Edit.
 

Never mind. Not enough coffee yet this morning.