Buffalo Bills Week 7 -- Buffalo (4-2) vs Titans (1-4) Sunday 10/20, 1:00 pm, CBS

[Dubi Doo]

Glad they won. The division looks even more bleak for anyone challenging Buffalo. Just get in the playoffs, and pray Allen goes on a heater.

 

[Husko]

Enjoyed ourselves at the game. Was shocked how uninvested Jets fans seemed. Stadium was empty until kickoff and then they started filling in, got to maybe 75%? And they kept leaving, going to the bathroom, getting food, etc. Nothing unusual, but it just struck me how often I was letting people in my row pass me and getting annoyed at folks in the aisles obstructing the view of the game. Just very little interest all around. All the jets fans started leaving as soon as the pick at the end, didn't even wait to see if the Jets got the ball back.

What in the world is up with Hollins usage? I really don't get why Shakir ever comes off the field.

 

[misterchainsaw]

9-7 missed the playoffs five times that year alone. They won a tiebreaker through arcane voodoo while being nearly -60 in points differential because we finally got a lucky break after two decades of punches in the face

And another team made it at 9-7. There's almost always a participant at 9-7 or worse.

But the point is saying that a coach who did, in fact, break the longest playoff drought in the NFL at the time, and has put up a regular season record of 77-41 in his career, will be known as "just someone who coached Josh Allen" is f***ing stupid.

McDermott will coach in the NFL next year, even if it's not for Buffalo, unless it's his choice not to. His story is far from told.

 

[zenthusiast]

And another team made it at 9-7. There's almost always a participant at 9-7 or worse.

But the point is saying that a coach who did, in fact, break the longest playoff drought in the NFL at the time, and has put up a regular season record of 77-41 in his career, will be known as "just someone who coached Josh Allen" is f***ing stupid.

McDermott will coach in the NFL next year, even if it's not for Buffalo, unless it's his choice not to. His story is far from told.

What McDermott did for the Buffalo Bills is something that two other coaches did during the drought: he took them to 9-7. He didn’t control tiebreakers or have some magic spell to propel a below-average team into the playoffs. Maybe they might have had a better record that year, and wouldn’t have needed the ludicrous tiebreak luck, if he hadn’t thought Peterman was an NFL quarterback, much less a better starting option than Taylor, which anyone with a brain could see wasn’t the case (note: revisit our Bills thread from that time for a very fun read as to who thought what at the time). Alas, he couldn’t see it and threw away that Chargers game, so they did indeed finish that season needing a miracle to get in.

Luckily, he was gifted one of the best quarterbacks of the last several decades and has since planted himself firmly on his coattails when he isn’t planting his feet in the ground and yanking on them.

Will he be coaching next year? Sure, probably here. The owner is content. He’ll get a next job, too, assuming he doesn’t retire. It takes a while for that shine to wear off even for the most middling of coaches (we hired Rex for God’s sake). Without a future hall of famer at QB he’ll be a sub-.500 coach and retire before his legacy is ruined entirely, and if he’s mentioned favorably it will only be in reference to how the Bills teams with Allen were good but couldn’t get it done under him.

 

[misterchainsaw]

"Gifted" as if Josh Allen was this can't miss prospect. The guy was under. 500 in college.

It doesn't occur to you that maybe the coaching staff did something right on the way?

The rest of your shit is garbage, unfounded speculation. McDermott haters are quite something to behold, indeed

 

[zenthusiast]

"Gifted" as if Josh Allen was this can't miss prospect. The guy was under. 500 in college.

It doesn't occur to you that maybe the coaching staff did something right on the way?

Gifted as in he was drafted, not formed from the ether through Sean’s will.

And sure, no player is an island and coaches deserve credit. But if you want to credit coaches for Allen’s development, it’s not the defensive guru who copped to pulling the plug on Tyrod for Nate Peterman. It’s a slew of people (both Bills employees and private coaches) that helped refine the raw product. Of course, several of those coaches have seen their own star rise because of Allen’s exceptional ability only to fall back into the mud when given greater authority. When Daboll bombs out for good, we’re not going to see him head coaching again for a while. Dorsey’s going to kick around as someone’s qb consultant and may get a playcalling gig again. Joe Brady might have the same progression in time. McDermott will ride that train before his career is done.

E: you also don’t strictly need to edit in a personal meltdown after the fact but it’s your right I suppose. But I do think it does reveal something: you see a love/hate dichotomy here. Maybe you love the coach, idk. I love the Bills. I don’t hate McDermott. We share some experiences and a few acquaintances, and I’d love to see him and his staff take the next step. I just don’t see that as a reasonable expectation given what we have to go on. If it isn’t, the team should move on.

 

[ValJamesDuex]

Enjoyed ourselves at the game. Was shocked how uninvested Jets fans seemed. Stadium was empty until kickoff and then they started filling in, got to maybe 75%? And they kept leaving, going to the bathroom, getting food, etc. Nothing unusual, but it just struck me how often I was letting people in my row pass me and getting annoyed at folks in the aisles obstructing the view of the game. Just very little interest all around. All the jets fans started leaving as soon as the pick at the end, didn't even wait to see if the Jets got the ball back.

The Mets and Yankees were both playing as well, I'm sure that had something to do with it.

People in other cities outside of Buffalo go to a game as a overall stadium experience not just for the game. Outside of Buffalo tailgating is not as big unless it's KC or a few others. I'm sure you are going to get a bigger dose of this with the new stadium here.

Also perhaps it was a different crowd being a Holiday and night game ?

What in the world is up with Hollins usage? I really don't get why Shakir ever comes off the field.

Shakir was on limited snaps (important 3rd downs) due to his ankle.

I would highly suggest listening to wgr550 on game days and during the game (via Audacy app) which had this and much more background and local coverage. Brown/Wood/SalC have been on top of things pretty good this season.

Hollins does seem limited (a cheaper version of Gabe I guess ?) but was also banged up last week and was playing vs DJ Reed (until he went out). He did have a good td catch and and should of had another on a similiar play and drew penalties all night. l'm really hoping Beane finds a deal to help the wr room.

ps It was also noted Samuel was hanging his shoulder in the game at times despite having his best day so far.

 

[ValJamesDuex]

Capaccio: Arrow Up/Arrow Down: Bills at Jets​

https://www.audacy.com/wgr550/sports/bills/capaccio-arrow-up-arrow-down-bills-at-jets2024

My game Balls:
Ray Davis
Taylor Rapp

Bag of dog poop on Fire:
Refs

 

[Jim Bob]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1846060469821309436

 

[Mike McDermott]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1846152470889677013

 

[stealth1]

"Gifted" as if Josh Allen was this can't miss prospect. The guy was under. 500 in college.

It doesn't occur to you that maybe the coaching staff did something right on the way?

The rest of your shit is garbage, unfounded speculation. McDermott haters are quite something to behold, indeed

McDermott isn't a bad coach and he's done great things. I don't think he ever gets to a Super Bowl. He's a great regular season coach. I understand why many fans love him. The team is competitive every season and always a playoff team. Much better than the drought years of being in the hunt.

The problem is how him and the front office is too fixated on the defense. You have one of the best QBs in the league. It's time they build around him and let the defense be middle of the pack.

This season they will win the division but I don't see them going far in the playoffs. This offense isn't good enough and lacks playmakers.

 

[Push Dr Tracksuit]

This narrative that the only reason McD is good is because he has a QB

ya, welcome to the NFL, where Andy Reid has Mahommes, Bill had Brady, you dont win in the NFL without horses throughout the lineup

you either have that QB or you're looking for that QB

the idea that you can dismiss what he's done on the defensive side of the ball, that you can dismiss the overall record, or worse credit it to other people, is absolutely insane

its also blind to the league as a whole where there are these 'next one' QBs littering the landscape who have achieved none of their potential, and a tier of QBs that you guess which QB is showing up from season to season or game to game, trying to deny that your head coach is part of why your top tier QB does it 15 of 17 games a season

I dont know, you gotta work to try to put McD under the bus for this team, its a real damn reach to talk about timeouts and last second hail marys for a team that wins as much as this one does

 

[Jim Bob]

I think McD is a lot like Mike Tomlin.

He isn't perfect, but he sets the floor at 10 wins every year.

If they move on from McD, they are not guaranteed to upgrade.

Just look at the head coaching hires over the past 5 years. Every year it seems like 25% of the hires actually work out.

MSN

Seven new NFL head coaches were hired in 2021. Five of them have now been fired.

With Robert Saleh out as head coach of the Jets, only Lions coach Dan Campbell and Eagles coach Nick Sirianni are still on the job from the coaching class of 2021.

Jaguars coach Urban Meyer was the first one fired. Meyer, one of the greatest college coaches ever, was not able to adapt to dealing with professional athletes and was fired after starting his first season 2-11.

Next out the door was David Culley, who lasted just one year with the Texans and finished with a 4-13 record.

Chargers coach Brandon Staley was fired during his third season with a 24-24 regular season record, and an 0-1 in the playoffs.

Falcons coach Arthur Smith lasted three seasons and was fired with a 21-30 record.

Saleh was fired on Tuesday, five games into his fourth season, after going 20-36.

That leaves Sirianni, who is 36-19 in the regular season and 2-3 in the playoffs with the Eagles, and Campbell, who is 27-27-1 in the regular season and 2-1 in the playoffs with the Lions.

There's not much job security for NFL coaches. The 2021 class is a reminder that if you want to last four years on the job, you'd better win a playoff game.

I think plenty of Eagles fans are over WNY native Nick Sirianni, too...

 

[Reddawg]

With the benefit of my morning sobriety (close enough), I’ve thought about our start to the season and this is where I landed. If we were all offered a 4-2 record and two games up on the division after Week 6 in the preseason, with the 2nd easiest strength of schedule the rest of the way, we all would have jumped on that and said thank you.

We’re relatively healthy, we’re moving the ball well, we’re defending the ball well, the main thing we’re not doing well is kicking the ball and who knows if a change will be made there or not…I hope so. We can’t go into another postseason with serious insecurity at such a critical position. So many playoff games come down to critical kicks, and we don’t have a critical kicks kicker right now. We don’t even have a routine run of the mill kicks kicker right now. I don’t know what happened to shake Tyler up as much as he is, but it’s very concerning and it’s not getting better.

Main thing is to keep everyone healthy and keep doing a good job of spreading out the offense and making ourselves extremely difficult to match up and play against. The Ray Davis emergence is going to be a huge key for the rest of the season, if we can just run it down everyone’s throats the rest of the way and let Josh pick his spots at his leisure, well…that’s how championship teams get it done.

 

[tsujimoto74]

This narrative that the only reason McD is good is because he has a QB

ya, welcome to the NFL, where Andy Reid has Mahommes, Bill had Brady, you dont win in the NFL without horses throughout the lineup

you either have that QB or you're looking for that QB

the idea that you can dismiss what he's done on the defensive side of the ball, that you can dismiss the overall record, or worse credit it to other people, is absolutely insane

its also blind to the league as a whole where there are these 'next one' QBs littering the landscape who have achieved none of their potential, and a tier of QBs that you guess which QB is showing up from season to season or game to game, trying to deny that your head coach is part of why your top tier QB does it 15 of 17 games a season

I dont know, you gotta work to try to put McD under the bus for this team, its a real damn reach to talk about timeouts and last second hail marys for a team that wins as much as this one does

I agree with your overall point, but you’re sticking your head in the sand if you don’t see McDermott’s clock and TO management issues. It’s been a persistent problem that’s directly cost us several games, including in the playoffs. We’ve won a lot with him, but we’d have won even more if he were capable of improving in that regard.

 

[Jim Bob]

With the benefit of my morning sobriety (close enough), I’ve thought about our start to the season and this is where I landed. If we were all offered a 4-2 record and two games up on the division after Week 6 in the preseason, with the 2nd easiest strength of schedule the rest of the way, we all would have jumped on that and said thank you.

We’re relatively healthy, we’re moving the ball well, we’re defending the ball well, the main thing we’re not doing well is kicking the ball and who knows if a change will be made there or not…I hope so. We can’t go into another postseason with serious insecurity at such a critical position. So many playoff games come down to critical kicks, and we don’t have a critical kicks kicker right now. We don’t even have a routine run of the mill kicks kicker right now. I don’t know what happened to shake Tyler up as much as he is, but it’s very concerning and it’s not getting better.

Main thing is to keep everyone healthy and keep doing a good job of spreading out the offense and making ourselves extremely difficult to match up and play against. The Ray Davis emergence is going to be a huge key for the rest of the season, if we can just run it down everyone’s throats the rest of the way and let Josh pick his spots at his leisure, well…that’s how championship teams get it done.

There are two hurdles right now:

1) The cap
2) The only kicker that might be a lock to be an upgrade who is available now has some DV legal stuff hanging over his head.

They can't take on dead cap to replace a kicker they can't really trust with a different kicker that they can't really trust.

 

[Djp]

What McDermott did for the Buffalo Bills is something that two other coaches did during the drought: he took them to 9-7. He didn’t control tiebreakers or have some magic spell to propel a below-average team into the playoffs. Maybe they might have had a better record that year, and wouldn’t have needed the ludicrous tiebreak luck, if he hadn’t thought Peterman was an NFL quarterback, much less a better starting option than Taylor, which anyone with a brain could see wasn’t the case (note: revisit our Bills thread from that time for a very fun read as to who thought what at the time). Alas, he couldn’t see it and threw away that Chargers game, so they did indeed finish that season needing a miracle to get in.

Luckily, he was gifted one of the best quarterbacks of the last several decades and has since planted himself firmly on his coattails when he isn’t planting his feet in the ground and yanking on them.

Will he be coaching next year? Sure, probably here. The owner is content. He’ll get a next job, too, assuming he doesn’t retire. It takes a while for that shine to wear off even for the most middling of coaches (we hired Rex for God’s sake). Without a future hall of famer at QB he’ll be a sub-.500 coach and retire before his legacy is ruined entirely, and if he’s mentioned favorably it will only be in reference to how the Bills teams with Allen were good but couldn’t get it done under him.

Gifted means he inherited the QB we then hired. He came on the yr before josh was drafted

With one of thrvprior 9- playoff drought teams...Bill's played s resting Sterlers team inba wind and WC game they failed at.

 

[Djp]

I agree with your overall point, but you’re sticking your head in the sand if you don’t see McDermott’s clock and TO management issues. It’s been a persistent problem that’s directly cost us several games, including in the playoffs. We’ve won a lot with him, but we’d have won even more if he were capable of improving in that regard.

I agree on I dont understand this prevent philosophy it goes against everything.

I understand playing as softer defense if you have a multi score lead and want to force them to dink plays burning clock

 

[zenthusiast]

This narrative that the only reason McD is good is because he has a QB

ya, welcome to the NFL, where Andy Reid has Mahommes, Bill had Brady, you dont win in the NFL without horses throughout the lineup

you either have that QB or you're looking for that QB

the idea that you can dismiss what he's done on the defensive side of the ball, that you can dismiss the overall record, or worse credit it to other people, is absolutely insane

its also blind to the league as a whole where there are these 'next one' QBs littering the landscape who have achieved none of their potential, and a tier of QBs that you guess which QB is showing up from season to season or game to game, trying to deny that your head coach is part of why your top tier QB does it 15 of 17 games a season

I dont know, you gotta work to try to put McD under the bus for this team, its a real damn reach to talk about timeouts and last second hail marys for a team that wins as much as this one does

I don’t mean to put you specifically on the spot or anything, but do you think Mike Martz was a good head coach?

It is *absolutely* a quarterbacks league and that’s precisely why ascribing results to the coach, especially a defensive coach, isn’t accurate. McDermott isn’t “under the bus,” he’s just a passenger like many in this league making hay out of a great quarterback.

I think McD is a lot like Mike Tomlin.

He isn't perfect, but he sets the floor at 10 wins every year.

If they move on from McD, they are not guaranteed to upgrade.

Just look at the head coaching hires over the past 5 years. Every year it seems like 25% of the hires actually work out.

MSN

I think plenty of Eagles fans are over WNY native Nick Sirianni, too...

Tomlin is an interesting comparable for their shared history. I think he’s established in recent years with poor quarterbacking that he’s a level above, but that’s also a franchise that’s only won 3 playoff games since 2010. I certainly wouldn’t be lining up to hire him at his next gig, with due respect to his accomplishment.

 

[zenthusiast]

It’s simply a thought exercise until the team actually decides to stop enforcing a ceiling on itself but if and when the qb and coach go their separate ways, there should be little to no doubt as to who floats and who sinks. And if the coach sinks without the quarterback, what’s the value of the coach beyond as a product of the quarterback?

 

[Jim Bob]

It’s simply a thought exercise until the team actually decides to stop enforcing a ceiling on itself but if and when the qb and coach go their separate ways, there should be little to no doubt as to who floats and who sinks. And if the coach sinks without the quarterback, what’s the value of the coach beyond as a product of the quarterback?

The spine of any NFL is the owner-GM-head coach-QB.

Allen will make a lot of coaches look good.

But, McD also ended the drought in year 1 with Tyrod Taylor at QB.

One interesting thought experiment I have right now is would Bills fans trade McD for Mike McDaniel?

McDaniel checks a lot of the boxes that Bills fans talk about (offensive coach who comes from the Shanahan coaching tree).

If you wouldn't make that swap, it goes to show how challenging it can be to get a head coaching hire right.

 

[kirby11]

Some things I'd like to see next week, besides another win, of course:
-More touches for Davis if Cook is back/healthy
-Maybe swap in one of Edwards/Bishop for Hamlin? It seems like he's constantly taking bad angles on plays from depth, and also playing so deep that it's leaving the intermediate areas of the field too open for 15-20 yard passes.
-Add a kicker to the practice squad, and consider going for two pt. conversions and/or making 4th and 5 or less between midfield and the opponent's 25 automatic go calls outside of end of half/end of game situations. Idk how much worse things get if you "ruin" Bass' confidence by enacting these changes--he's already submarining 1 out of every 4 XPs and is 2/5 on kicks over 40 yards so far. Given a choice between going for 4th and 5 or trusting Bass to hit from, say, 45, I'll take my chances with Allen and the offense more often than not.

 

[Jim Bob]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1846190631418269903

 

[KeyserSoze81]

Which completely disregards and disrespects the work he did to break this city's playoff drought before Josh even came around.

McDermott is an SSRI. He makes the lows better and more tolerable, and he mellows out the highs too. I am thankful that he brought us out of a depressive malaise and ushered in an era of stability, but we are left feeling numb and joyless.

 

[Jim Bob]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1846191906654454112