McDermott still in over his head

[hondo in seattle]

23 minutes ago, vtnatefootball11 said:

It's games like this, against a well coached team, where McDermott's ineptitude is magnified. He just doesn't have a feel in critical game management situations. Not challenging that deep pass on the first drive was atrocious. It spotted the Pats 7 points early and we almost didn't recover.  The entire stadium knew it wasn't caught, the Pats were sprinting up the field to hike the ball, it's early in the first losing a timeout means nothing, why not challenge? Just terrible. He's always overthinking critical game management calls and for guys like Vrabel, Reid, McVay, others, it just comes natural. McDermott is not a bad coach, and I've been impressed with the way he's responded to criticism and challenged himself to grow and change in these last couple years, but he just doesn't have an elite football mind. It's painfully obvious when we go up against good coaches.  Even if Josh carries us to a superbowl this year, won't change how I feel about McDermott. 

 

McDermott explained why there was no challenge: the Bills never got a replay before the Patriots snapped the next play.

 

But let’s zoom out for a moment.  When I was a kid visiting the Louvre, I overheard someone say every brushstroke on a painting was perfect.  I got close, studied it, and told my mom I disagreed.  She told me to step back, take in the whole canvas, and then give my opinion.

 

So let’s stand back here. Vrabel has the stronger roster and one of the best offensive coordinators in the league.  The Patriots were at home, playing their most meaningful game since Brady left.  And yet McDermott and the Bills walked out with the win. 

 

You can nitpick individual brushstrokes if you want, but taken as a whole, that game was a masterpiece — and a credit to McDermott’s coaching.

 

 

Edited 2 hours ago by hondo in seattle

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

I may be in the minority here, but I don’t think they overturn that Boutte catch on replay. Too close.

[SF Bills Fan]

12 minutes ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

The challenge criticism is fair but vrabel/mcdaniels were absolutely humiliated in the second half it is borderline lunacy to me vrabel is being talked up still the same as before the game like nothing happened lol 

 

I agree here. The Bills made major adjustments and Vrabl and staff had no clue how to stop us. They had one large play that would have been a loss if not for the running back making a great adjustment. They had almost zero offense and few answers on D.

[newcam2012]

4 minutes ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

I may be in the minority here, but I don’t think they overturn that Boutte catch on replay. Too close.

It's not a given that's for sure. No doubt it deserved a challenge though. 

[Casey D]

Why do we have to have posts like this after perhaps the best comeback since 1993?  Not many coaches could keep a team together like that to win a game, but he still sucks?  Another Seinfeld moment-- "people, they're the worst."

[loyal2dagame]

Say what you will about McDermott, but during his tenure he has provided blueprints to beat juggernauts every year. 

He just showed the league,  and more importantly the AFC how to confuse Maye by rolling through defensive secondary looks. Maye couldn't really do damage in the second half. 

[Kelly to Allen]

9 minutes ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

I may be in the minority here, but I don’t think they overturn that Boutte catch on replay. Too close.

 

When McDermott saw the pats rushing up to run the next play, that in and of itself means you should challenge it. Especially being in the 1st half where you can steal a possession because it was 3rd dwn 

 

I also hated how conservative he was at the end of the 1st half with the timeouts 

 

He sucks thinking on his feet... But everyone already knows this and I'm tired of talking about it 

 

Allen and the offense are going to have to be excellent in the playoffs. 

 

It is what it is 

Edited 2 hours ago by Kelly to Allen

[ControllerOfPlanetX]

More concerned with having a week of practice and not ready for the first half of the game….getting A first down was a struggle.

 

[Kelly to Allen]

2 minutes ago, ControllerOfPlanetX said:

More concerned with having a week of practice and not ready for the first half of the game….getting A first down was a struggle.

 

 

That makes me nervous too

 

You absolutely cannot open up in the AFC championship game as a hypothetical down 21-0

 

Complete disaster 

 

Especially on the road 

Edited 2 hours ago by Kelly to Allen

[BuffaloBillyG]

25 minutes ago, vtnatefootball11 said:

It's games like this, against a well coached team, where McDermott's ineptitude is magnified. He just doesn't have a feel in critical game management situations. Not challenging that deep pass on the first drive was atrocious. It spotted the Pats 7 points early and we almost didn't recover.  The entire stadium knew it wasn't caught, the Pats were sprinting up the field to hike the ball, it's early in the first losing a timeout means nothing, why not challenge? Just terrible. He's always overthinking critical game management calls and for guys like Vrabel, Reid, McVay, others, it just comes natural. McDermott is not a bad coach, and I've been impressed with the way he's responded to criticism and challenged himself to grow and change in these last couple years, but he just doesn't have an elite football mind. It's painfully obvious when we go up against good coaches.  Even if Josh carries us to a superbowl this year, won't change how I feel about McDermott. 

What is absolutely hysterical to me is that of the 3 coaches you mentioned.... McDermott has beaten all 3. 2 of which this year alone. 

 

The last line says it all. Doesn't matter what happens, anything good is due to Josh. Anything bad is on Coach. That's your line in the sand and it's extremely biased. And no, I don't care about the few obligatory polite lines you put in about McDermott. Finishing those up the the "but" at the end shows how phony that is 

[Ralonzo]

21 minutes ago, vtnatefootball11 said:

Didn't need to see the replay, anyone watching knew that very likely it wasn't caught , and the patriots knew it too and were sprinting to the ball. Also, there was very little risk to challenging with losing a timeout early in the first, and a huge reward that was likely to be gained, it's an automatic challenge for anyone with football savvy. And that's my point, he doesn't have it. 

 

They say watching hockey, you don't really pay attention to the puck, you pay attention to the actions of the players and that will tell you where the puck is.

 

This should be a similar thing. When the other team is acting like they know the reception wasn't made, running up to the line and trying to get a play off, especially with it being:

 

1) a huge gain

2) on a 3rd down which would be a stop

3) early in the first quarter

 

That should be a no-brainer to throw the challenge without needing it confirmed by your people in the skybox.

[NoSaint]

28 minutes ago, Billsfed1 said:

He said something about how they didn’t have the ability to see the replay in the stadium, they have to get that figured out moving forward.

but also that flag should come out 100% even if visiting team issues 

 

they are going to rush to the line. You don’t get 40 seconds to analyze a reply. You just have to trust that it’s a big win or small loss 

[Rew]

21 minutes ago, Chaos said:

They have the challenge flag for a reason.  If his strategy is to rely on the replay assist, that is an even bigger indictment of him being a fool. 

so when he has someone on staff telling him their perceived odds of a successful challenge and that individual gets it wrong it's McD's fault.  When he decides that he wants a quick view himself when nobody had time to look at film he is a fool?  Do you expect him to just guess if a replay is likely to succeed?  Flip a coin?  What method would you suggest using if looking at it is so dumb?

 

Challenges are not about right/wrong.  Replay assist is supposed to take care of clearly overturned calls.  Coach's challenges are always on the debatable 50/50 calls due to having the burden of proof on overturning it.  Replay review on some of these calls sometimes takes several minutes of looking at every camera angle at various play speeds and freeze frames.  NFL teams in the booth get access to the replay assist views, and typically have less than 40 seconds to make a judgement call on the likelihood of a challenge being successful.  If they are lucky they may have time to take a glance at 3 or 4 angles and make a snap judgement on what they see.  When the other team is running to the line you may have as little as 15 seconds to collect data and provide feedback to the coach.  In this case, it sounds like the replay team didn't have time to see a conclusive angle in that short window and McD couldn't see the in stadium view either leading to a couple of seconds to take a guess.

 

If you're going to gamble on a low probability or un-informed challenge, a meaningless play on the first drive of the game is not the place to do it.  Without sufficient information to determine if the challenge was likely to succeed I'm glad that he is not wasting challenges or timeouts on plays unlikely to be game altering in the first couple of minutes.

 

If he did challenge, I'm not positive it gets overturned.  His hand was under the ball when he came down.  While the ball definitely moved, I didn't see a conclusive angle that showed it touching the ground without him having control.  I don't think it was a catch, but the ruling on the field very well may have stood.

Edited 2 hours ago by Rew

[GunnerBill]

32 minutes ago, vtnatefootball11 said:

It's games like this, against a well coached team, where McDermott's ineptitude is magnified. He just doesn't have a feel in critical game management situations. Not challenging that deep pass on the first drive was atrocious. It spotted the Pats 7 points early and we almost didn't recover.  The entire stadium knew it wasn't caught, the Pats were sprinting up the field to hike the ball, it's early in the first losing a timeout means nothing, why not challenge? Just terrible. He's always overthinking critical game management calls and for guys like Vrabel, Reid, McVay, others, it just comes natural. McDermott is not a bad coach, and I've been impressed with the way he's responded to criticism and challenged himself to grow and change in these last couple years, but he just doesn't have an elite football mind. It's painfully obvious when we go up against good coaches.  Even if Josh carries us to a superbowl this year, won't change how I feel about McDermott. 

 

I don't disagree that he should have just thrown the flag even if he didn't have confirmation - not much to lose. But I also don't think it was that big of a deal. 

[SoonerBillsFan]

Here is my stance on McDermott. 

 

1. Give him a better GM that csn actually scout talent and not waste/ miss on 1st and 2nd round draft picks.  Let Josh have a couple real WR to take pressure off the Defense and find the talent McDermott needs to really see what his defense can do.

 

2. He needs to plan against teams better.  We cant live on 2nd half adjustments alone. I still dont know why he has trouble with this.

 

Beane has to go so McDermott can have a chance to see what can really be done with this team. And YES,we all know McDermott brought Beane here, but I think coach now realizes its Beane who is way in over his head. 

Edited 2 hours ago by SoonerBillsFan

[dorquemada]

24 minutes ago, Sweats said:

 

 

 

 

Doesn't matter.........he's probably still on dial-up

 

lol fine I'll throw in a 5G hotspot too but going to put the childsafe filter on it

[GunnerBill]

2 minutes ago, NoSaint said:

but also that flag should come out 100% even if visiting team issues 

 

they are going to rush to the line. You don’t get 40 seconds to analyze a reply. You just have to trust that it’s a big win or small loss 

 

Yea in that situation your loss is a first half time out (minimal) your win is a stop on the first drive (potentially significant). Once you see they are sprinting to the line you play the "they are not sure" percentages and throw it. Second half that happens in a close ball game I don't want you guessing. The time out matters more. But when it was? Yea you gotta throw the flag. 

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

31 minutes ago, dorquemada said:

 

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard and I am on the internet

 

Does this mean that they have always depended on stadium replay to decide to challenge a call or not?  that would explain a great deal.  I have a couple old ipads to offer up to the cause and I'll even let them use my youtube tv login since apparently they havent figured this all out yet

As much as we can criticize him anyway because it’s the first half just throw the flag, I’m actually pretty curious on his postgame statement.  Up until this year you were kinda boned as an away team and forced to rely on broadcast angles which were significantly delayed.  If you gave mcd your YouTube tv login it really wouldn’t help him much on a play the pats are rushing to the line in that scenario. 

 

this year both teams are SUPPOSED to get all those replay angles from the Hawkeye camera instantly but I wonder if that’s only certain games or didn’t happen in this case or what.  Knowing NEs sordid history with one known cheater on the staff still I bet those expanded replay angles never showed up 😂. The whole expanded replay camera stuff was not well explained at all 

 

the way mcd worded it he may have been taking a shot at the leagues new replay system not working but I could be wrong 

Edited 2 hours ago by Generic_Bills_Fan

[BananaB]

10 minutes ago, Kelly to Allen said:

 

When McDermott saw the pats rushing up to run the next play, that in and of itself means you should challenge it. Especially being in the 1st half where you can steal a possession because they was 3rd dwn 

 

I also hated how conservative he was at the end of the 1st half with the timeouts 

 

He sucks thinking on his feet... But everyone already knows this and I'm tired of talking about it 

 

Allen and the offense are going to have to be excellent in the playoffs. 

 

It is what it is 

His conservative play before half saved them 4 points. I know it’s weird, no faith in D to get off the field and try to go in half 21-14, instead he settled for the 24-7 pats lead. Just funny, not many coaches would do that. Honestly they gotta get better game plan to start games or make the necessary changes on the fly instead of at half time. 

Edited 2 hours ago by BananaB

[vtnatefootball11]

6 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I don't disagree that he should have just thrown the flag even if he didn't have confirmation - not much to lose. But I also don't think it was that big of a deal. 

 

That's a fair point, and I see the other comments as well, we came back and won McDermott deserves credit for that too, I get it.  Just for me, that non-challenge was the epitome of McDermott. It's hard for me to unsee it, he lacks football savvy. It's like a guy who works so hard and memorizes all the content for a class rather than just someone who intellectually gets it. Josh has covered up McDermott one too many times for me. Obviously hope we win it all and would gladly keep[ McDermott around for the ride if so, but I just can't help but think McDermott will always cost us in the playoffs in a critical situation. 

Edited 2 hours ago by vtnatefootball11