The mediocre to poor play of the Bills D line and linebackers over McDermott tenure

[BuffaloBill]

There can be no doubt that McDermott was a brilliant mind when it came to the back end of the defense. However, his defenses have been consistently unreliable at generating pass rush and stropping the run. No doubt there is an argument to be made that the right players were not available. However, the supposed inside line is that McDermott had heavy say, possibly even veto authority, over who the Bills  took in the draft on that side of the ball.

 

Sean is a good man and should be forever thanked for turning the Bills culture around. He was brilliant at defending the pass but his concepts never resulted in a complete defense in Buffalo. The D was clearly his.

[Casey D]

Totally agree.  Bills D could never get a stop when needed unless they got a turnover.  Jax this year, Ravens last year, 13 seconds.  Hoping for a turnover is not a sound defensive plan.  That in turn puts inordinate pressure on Allen to score, which makes him press, etc., etc.  Bills often could not play the complementary football McD wanted because the D could not hold up its end of the bargain.  Until this year it was thought that it was because of Mahomes, but when Bo Nix does it to you twice at the end of the game, it exposes the consistent problem-- McD's defenses are never good enough.  Maybe it is too complicated a system-- perhaps that is why we bring back retreads who are not that good, e.g., Dane Jackson, because they "know the system."  Over the past six years there is more or less a straight line-- Bengals loss perhaps the exception-- that the Bills defense failed when needed in the playoffs.  I feel bad about that because I love McDermott, but his fatal flaw is his defense which, as you say, is his.  He did get fired before from DC positions.  Just sad.

[HereComesTheReignAgain]

I just wrote this in another thread.  Why was there such an insistence on rotating players on the D line?  Pick the best players and let them play the vast majority of the snaps.  

[Green Lightning]

13 minutes ago, BuffaloBill said:

There can be no doubt that McDermott was a brilliant mind when it came to the back end of the defense. However, his defenses have been consistently unreliable at generating pass rush and stropping the run. No doubt there is an argument to be made that the right players were not available. However, the supposed inside line is that McDermott had heavy say, possibly even veto authority, over who the Bills  took in the draft on that side of the ball.

 

Sean is a good man and should be forever thanked for turning the Bills culture around. He was brilliant at defending the pass but his concepts never resulted in a complete defense in Buffalo. The D was clearly his.

Maybe if the GM knew how to draft D-men it would be a different story.  Beane whiffed on so many D picks. The ones he gets are undersized and on IR half their careers. Beane runs the scouting department, not McD. Bashem, Elam, busts. Epenesa, Groot just okay. Beane has yet to draft any elite D in his tenure. He tries to overcome his drafting whiffs with overpaid cast off from other teams. I get it, you can't have a team of elite players, but just one on D over six years is not asking much.

[Chugga]

I think it’s more confusing when we bring in solid talent on the line and they are just complete and utter duds here.  Poona Ford is playing like an all pro and Tim Settle is looking like a fantastic option at DT.  Both were ascending when we brought them in but neither could sniff the field when they got here.  Only to leave and go off at their next spot.  Just weird that we are historically so weak at DT but have had really solid DTs make their way through the roster.

[FireChans]

2 minutes ago, Chugga said:

Poona Ford is playing like an all pro and Tim Settle is looking like a fantastic option at DT.

That’s a bit of an exaggeration I think 

[Steptide]

6 minutes ago, HereComesTheReignAgain said:

I just wrote this in another thread.  Why was there such an insistence on rotating players on the D line?  Pick the best players and let them play the vast majority of the snaps.  

I feel like they did the same thing with the o line the first 2 or 3 years also. 

[The Jokeman]

Just now, Green Lightning said:

Maybe if the GM knew how to draft D-men it would be a different story.  Beane whiffed on so many D picks. The ones he gets are undersized and on IR half their careers. Beane runs the scouting department, not McD. Bashem, Elam, busts. Epenesa, Groot just okay. Beane has yet to draft any elite D in his tenure. He tries to overcome his drafting whiffs with overpaid cast off from other teams. I get it, you can't have a team of elite players, but just one on D over six years is not asking much.

I think part of the reason we've failed on Dlineman is we've focused mostly on size vs speed at DE and at DT we have yet to find a true 1 tech/NT type that we need. Is this on McDermott or Beane? Looking back maybe it was Sean telling Brandon what type he wanted. Yet it wasn't good enough. I also think we settled on Taron Johnson as our nickelback when we truly need a big nickel to let this defense work as it did in Carolina. Toss in injuries and this team just didn't have enough several times in the post season. Yes, the defense should take some blame but so should ST (see Bass missing the tying FG three seasons ago and not squib kicking the ball) and the offense has had chances to win and not done so either. It's a team thing so hard to pinpoint who to blame. I was a McDermott fan but can understand why we've moved on. Now we have to see if can improve under a new HC, if so then sure easy to say we made the right decision but as the adage says, only time will tell. 

[Casey D]

6 minutes ago, Chugga said:

I think it’s more confusing when we bring in solid talent on the line and they are just complete and utter duds here.  Poona Ford is playing like an all pro and Tim Settle is looking like a fantastic option at DT.  Both were ascending when we brought them in but neither could sniff the field when they got here.  Only to leave and go off at their next spot.  Just weird that we are historically so weak at DT but have had really solid DTs make their way through the roster.

But does that not show the system is flawed if good players fail here but were good before and after?  And are not the light players the Bills have is because it fits the system McDermott wanted to run?  It seems unlikely the Bills were drafting players on D that were foisted on McDermott.  I don't know the answers to all this, just pondering.

Edited January 20 by Casey D

[skibum]

He seemed to think that an aggressive pass rush was just too risky. Drop a bunch of guys into coverage instead, and force the receivers to make a play. It's the same result over and over -  If you give quarterbacks the time they need to see the field, and give wideouts the time they need to get open, then you get torched. 

[Green Lightning]

1 minute ago, The Jokeman said:

I think part of the reason we've failed on Dlineman is we've focused mostly on size vs speed at DE and at DT we have yet to find a true 1 tech/NT type that we need. Is this on McDermott or Beane? Looking back maybe it was Sean telling Brandon what type he wanted. Yet it wasn't good enough. I also think we settled on Taron Johnson as our nickelback when we truly need a big nickel to let this defense work as it did in Carolina. Toss in injuries and this team just didn't have enough several times in the post season. Yes, the defense should take some blame but so should ST (see Bass missing the tying FG three seasons ago and not squib kicking the ball) and the offense has had chances to win and not done so either. It's a team thing so hard to pinpoint who to blame. I was a McDermott fan but can understand why we've moved on. Now we have to see if can improve under a new HC, if so then sure easy to say we made the right decision but as the adage says, only time will tell. 

I don't disagree, something had to change. I just wish both Sean and Brandon were gone. 

[BuffaloBill]

5 minutes ago, Green Lightning said:

Maybe if the GM knew how to draft D-men it would be a different story.  Beane whiffed on so many D picks. The ones he gets are undersized and on IR half their careers. Beane runs the scouting department, not McD. Bashem, Elam, busts. Epenesa, Groot just okay. Beane has yet to draft any elite D in his tenure. He tries to overcome his drafting whiffs with overpaid cast off from other teams. I get it, you can't have a team of elite players, but just one on D over six years is not asking much.

you did not read what I said. McDermott supposedly had majorly if not complete say over the selection of players on defense. 
 

if this is true, it says a lot as to why Beane is still in Buffalo. 
 

frankly I am shocked by all of this. But at the end of the day the Bills have not gotten beyond their own failings in the playoffs. Something has to change. 

[Southern McButterpants]

It's the stupid soft zone and the reluctance to move on from it. Great against Andy Dalton and the Panthers. Not so much against Mahomes/Reid or other playoff caliber QB's/Coordinators.

 

That said, Beane is under an extreme microscope here.  He really needs to find the right coach, who in turn needs to bring in the right coordinators

[Royale with Cheese]

19 minutes ago, HereComesTheReignAgain said:

I just wrote this in another thread.  Why was there such an insistence on rotating players on the D line?  Pick the best players and let them play the vast majority of the snaps.  

 

The Bills actually don't rotate the most.  I think we're 3rd.  The Eagles constantly rotate.

[harryS]

Bottom line, we couldn't count on the defensive head coach to have his defense play well in the playoffs.

 

He also couldn't get the team to overachieve into a 1-seed and bye week.  Just not consistent enough in the regular season.

[Green Lightning]

14 minutes ago, BuffaloBill said:

you did not read what I said. McDermott supposedly had majorly if not complete say over the selection of players on defense. 
 

if this is true, it says a lot as to why Beane is still in Buffalo. 
 

frankly I am shocked by all of this. But at the end of the day the Bills have not gotten beyond their own failings in the playoffs. Something has to change. 

I don't disagree with change. But both coach and GM needed to go. To think Beane had no part in all of this is specious. 

[Ayjent]

The results were eerily the same with the D no matter the personnel, and it didn't seem to matter much whether they had scrubs or solid starters.  I think that is the problem with McD and why he was let go ultimately.  They never made the play to get them over the hump.  Never made the stop when it mattered in the biggest games of the year (losses in the playoffs).  Once the Offense just didn't show up (against Bengals), but its not like the D held any water so that the O could have a chance.  Never was anything close to dominant in the post season.  They invested heavily in Defensive personnel and the results were not much different.  I'm not taking culpability away from Beane, because that is part of the issue for sure, but why did the D always look the same even when the faces changed? When the DCs changed?  It is pretty clear.  Now I think he did a really good job overall, but it wasn't going to be any different result on D.  The league went from wide open to rough and tumble over the past few years, and the emergence of a strong field of Defensive teams were in the playoffs this year and the Bills were probably the weakest (aside from Pittsburgh) of that bunch in reality (although I'd make the argument that Denver is a lot like those high rated Bills Ds from years past - statistically good, but flawed and vulnerable).  McD wasn't really changing all that much.  It was philosophical the same even though there was a supposed evolution to be more aggressive, it invited the run to bend not break as the field got shorter for the Offense, except it always broke in the clutch at some point in the playoffs.

 

Look I think the pieces put together by Beane haven't been good enough, which I think we have to assume he has at least some part of being responsible for.  They have strengths in places, but have been severely undermanned in other places and none more so than WR since trading away Diggs.  There has been an inconsistency in their approach.  Instead of putting together the best Offense the NFL has seen in decades, they've tried to manage investing heavily in Defense to no avail while giving Josh enough and having a solid run game.  With McD, you'd have gotten pretty similar results if you put the 85 bears roster out there, so that is where I have issues with the approach by the GM who if he didn't agree with McD couldn't convince him otherwise, especially year after year with similar results.  I think injuries are a poor excuse, unless you have all world players on that side going down.  I'm sorry, but there haven't been any guys like that on this team during his tenure.

[Einstein]

45 minutes ago, BuffaloBill said:

There can be no doubt that McDermott was a brilliant mind when it came to the back end of the defense. However, his defenses have been consistently unreliable at generating pass rush and stropping the run. No doubt there is an argument to be made that the right players were not available.

 

You’re right, but I don’t think this is due to his coaching.

 

What elite (or even great) pass rushers has he had to work with? What scheme could he have implanted to make the pass rush work?

 

I have also attributed our pass rush issues to skill. I’m willing to listen to another theory if plausible.

 

Quote

However, the supposed inside line is that McDermott had heavy say, possibly even veto authority, over who the Bills  took in the draft on that side of the ball.

 

I heard the opposite.

 

The story as told by Ross Tucker is that McDermott, Beane and Pegula got into a disagreement 5 weeks ago because McDermott was tired of coaching a roster that is lacking in talent.

 

 

[Royale with Cheese]

I won't say Linebackers because Milano was elite when healthy.

Edmunds while not the playmaker we wanted....has the most INT's in the NFL at the linebacker position since he's been in Chicago.

Shaq Thompson is a solid starting LB still.

 

But the DL absolutely has been disappointing.  

[Ayjent]

The team is built for yesterday's NFL on D, and it was complex with really no material benefit to the team's aspirations.  Guys had trouble getting on the field as first year players unless they completely got it or out of necessity due to injury.  And I think that is accountability, but it is also damning as guys were too busy thinking on D rather than reacting and using their talent that they were drafted for.  The threshold was high, but the results of gaining trust and playing didn't translate into a unit that was dominating.  It lead to a unit that was technically sound and philosophically flawed.