13 Seconds...

[KD in CA]

2 hours ago, Alaska Darin said:

No football team is ever going to be that level of open.  People need to try living in reality.  The idea that you're owed an explanation because you're a fan is ridiculous.

 

I was more referring to the Bills being smart enough avoid the month-long "Bills fire Black coach after he leads them to #1 defense!!!" screeching from ESPN, but yes, also agree that it's ridiculous to think Beane or McDermott is ever going to throw themselves, their assistants or players under the bus for &#%$ing up that series.

[IDBillzFan]

15 hours ago, Core Four said:

The fans deserve to know the truth...

 

Oh, please. It's a sport. The only thing fans deserve is to not see them screw something up that badly again.

 

I've been a boss for pretty much most of my professional career. The only person who needed to know what went wrong in my department was my boss. You can tell customers there was an internal error and it is being addressed, and if your customers see repetition in the errors, they'll find another vendor from which to buy their product. And I'll be out of a job.

 

But what you want is a name, and probably a little blood treasure to somehow heal your agony. And if it truly was some idiot employee who has been making the same mistake all season, you'd have a name. 

 

But if was an isolated case, there is no effin' way a good boss throws someone under the bus. Not for you. Not for Timmah Graham. Not for anyone other than Pegula and Beane. Because the boss who throws someone under the bus in a situation like that starts to bleed out good hires.

 

The NFL is littered with former coaches who were quick to blame someone else for an in-game error.

 

This is the best team and best coaching staff we've had in a gzillion years, and the only end to your game is to dump McDermott, which would be the single dumbest phucking thing this team could do next to trading Josh Allen to the Patriots for a fifth-round pick and a special teams assistant to be named later.

 

 

Edited March 2, 2022 by IDBillzFan

[Crap Throwing Clavin]

6 minutes ago, IDBillzFan said:

 

Oh, please. It's a sport. The only thing fans deserve is to not see them screw something up that badly again.

 

I've been a boss for pretty much most of my professional career. The only person who needed to know what went wrong in my department was my boss. You can tell customers there was an internal error and it is being addressed, and if your customers see repetition in the errors, they'll find another vendor from which to buy their product. And I'll be out of a job.

 

But what you want is a name, and probably a little blood treasure to somehow heal your agony. And if it truly was some idiot employee who has been making the same mistake all season, you'd have a name. 

 

Not even that.  He wants McDermott to wear a hair shirt.  And that's simply pointless.  

 

"Show some contrition, man!"  Why?  It's in the past.  Fix it and move on.

[Ann]

I’d like to know what happened only to end the speculation on what happened. Do the Bills “owe” the fans an explanation? Maybe.

[IDBillzFan]

Just now, Ann said:

I’d like to know what happened only to end the speculation on what happened. Do the Bills “owe” the fans an explanation? Maybe.

 

It's simple. Someone who was supposed to tell Tyler Bass to squib kick the ball didn't tell him.

 

It's literally no more complex than that. All you have to do is find out who is responsible for that call, and you have your name. If that person says "Well, no one told me," then you go up a rung. And you keep going up a rung until...guess what? You get to McDermott, who is taking responsibility.

 

In fact, if people want to question something, question why Bass didn't head out there, stop, turn around and ask someone "Shouldn't we squib it here?" The entire effin' world knew what to do there. Why didn't Bass ask that simple question? He is the epitome of "You had one job."

[Uncle Joe]

The wheels on the bus go round and round. The wheels on the bus go round and round.

Thump, thump who was that?

I was pissed at the time. At this juncture it's like picking at a scab.

 

[Ann]

15 minutes ago, IDBillzFan said:

 

It's simple. Someone who was supposed to tell Tyler Bass to squib kick the ball didn't tell him.

 

It's literally no more complex than that. All you have to do is find out who is responsible for that call, and you have your name. If that person says "Well, no one told me," then you go up a rung. And you keep going up a rung until...guess what? You get to McDermott, who is taking responsibility.

 

In fact, if people want to question something, question why Bass didn't head out there, stop, turn around and ask someone "Shouldn't we squib it here?" The entire effin' world knew what to do there. Why didn't Bass ask that simple question? He is the epitome of "You had one job."

I said Bass should have asked if no one told him in the aftermath thread. I also asked if that is something kickers do (ask)? No answer.

[Crap Throwing Clavin]

43 minutes ago, IDBillzFan said:

 

It's simple. Someone who was supposed to tell Tyler Bass to squib kick the ball didn't tell him.

 

It's literally no more complex than that. All you have to do is find out who is responsible for that call, and you have your name. If that person says "Well, no one told me," then you go up a rung. And you keep going up a rung until...guess what? You get to McDermott, who is taking responsibility.

 

In fact, if people want to question something, question why Bass didn't head out there, stop, turn around and ask someone "Shouldn't we squib it here?" The entire effin' world knew what to do there. Why didn't Bass ask that simple question? He is the epitome of "You had one job."

 

You expect Bass to be that savvy?  He can't even wear eye black properly.

[Spartacus]

2 hours ago, Crap Throwing Monkey said:

 

Pretty sure McDermott is at least as smart about that as I am.  And it shouldn't be hard for people to understand.

well, maybe not for the message board" experts" that know better

 

[Alaska Darin]

27 minutes ago, Crap Throwing Monkey said:

 

You expect Bass to be that savvy?  He can't even wear eye black properly.

Which is just one fact beyond...he's basically a golfer who kicks a football for money 20 days a year. 

 

Newsflash:  Most football players are actually stupid.  You'd find more game management knowledge at a Madden tournament than on your average NFL player roster.

[Crap Throwing Clavin]

5 minutes ago, Alaska Darin said:

Which is just one fact beyond...he's basically a golfer who kicks a football for money 20 days a year. 

 

Newsflash:  Most football players are actually stupid.  You'd find more game management knowledge at a Madden tournament than on your average NFL player roster.

 

The physical acts involved in playing football are quite different from the mental activities of game planning.  But nowadays, each requires complete focus, meaning you can excel in one or the other, but rarely both.

 

Except for Matt Haack, who's physical acts involved in playing football resembled my physical acts involved with watching football through several games.

[Arm of Harm]

4 hours ago, Alaska Darin said:

No football team is ever going to be that level of open.  People need to try living in reality.  The idea that you're owed an explanation because you're a fan is ridiculous.

I couldn’t give a rat’s . . . hindquarters about whether he gives us an explanation. What I do care about is this: Bills fans have spent many years waiting for Kelly’s successor. We now have that. Every year of Allen’s career is precious, because QBs who can play at his level are very rare.
 

Frazier has already wasted two years of Allen’s Super Bowl opportunities. I don’t want McDermott to allow that to happen again. Last off-season McDermott did nothing to solve our defensive coaching problems. This year he appears, at least externally, to also be doing absolutely nothing to fix the problem. We won’t know that for sure until our next playoff game against KC. But if in that playoff game we see soft zone and contain, and if the defense generates its usual one to two stops, it might be time to rethink whether McDermott is the right head coach for this football team. 

 

 

[Alaska Darin]

1 minute ago, Arm of Harm said:

I couldn’t give a rat’s . . . hindquarters about whether he gives us an explanation. What I do care about is this: Bills fans have spent many years waiting for Kelly’s successor. We now have that. Every year of Allen’s career is precious, because QBs who can play at his level are very rare.
 

Frazier has already wasted two years of Allen’s Super Bowl opportunities. I don’t want McDermott to allow that to happen again. Last off-season McDermott did nothing to solve our defensive coaching problems. This year he appears, at least externally, to also be doing absolutely nothing to fix the problem. We won’t know that for sure until our next playoff game against KC. But if in that playoff game we see soft zone and contain, and if the defense generates its usual one to two stops, it might be time to rethink whether McDermott is the right head coach for this football team.

No argument with any of that. 

 

One of the issues with turning around organizations is always "learning how to win".  When McDermott was hired...I was leery because he's from the Reid coaching tree and Reid was well known for coming up small in big games and making unforgivable gaffes in big moments.  "13 seconds" sent me right back to the day he was hired because it should NEVER have happened but McDermott has definitely evolved in other aspects of coaching AND he's been pretty forthright about his own self-evaluation each offseason.

 

As far as I'm concerned...the KC playoff game is his last mulligan when it comes to "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" in the post season.

[Core Four]

3 hours ago, Alaska Darin said:

We've talked about this before but McDermott is clearly evolving (the fact that we constantly go for 4th down, especially against better teams is the easiest example).

 

He's not talking about it because he 100% wants to move past it and if he even acknowledges it, the vultures will never stop picking at the corpse.  Everyone needs to get over it.  If the Defense looks the same next season, it'll rear back up quickly enough.

 

3 hours ago, Crap Throwing Monkey said:

 

Plus, acknowledging it within the organization vs. acknowledging it outside the organization are two completely different things.  If I have someone on my team who's a complete &#%$-up, how I discuss it within the project team, and how I discuss it with the government, are very different.

 

Pretty sure McDermott is at least as smart about that as I am.  And it shouldn't be hard for people to understand.

 

These statements/arguments certainly have merit.  I do agree that McD is evolving as a coach, which is good to see, but what happened in that game was amateurish.  I expect more from this staff.  A mistake made if you're doing the right thing is one thing and very forgivable, but a major eff-up doing something completely ill-advised is another.  What happened in the Divisional game is the later.

 

I'm sure McD and Frazier have had discussions about it, as I'm sure they had discussions about the AFCCG they lost last year.  The problem I have is that this defense really hasn't changed in the five years Frazier and McD have been here, they rarely bother changing anything in-game.  I'm not optimistic that anything will be different in their philosophical approach next season...but maybe I'll be proven wrong.

[Alaska Darin]

1 minute ago, Core Four said:

I'm not optimistic that anything will be different in their philosophical approach next season...but maybe I'll be proven wrong.

I'm not either.  I've been pretty vocal about my hatred of this scheme and having to score 5+ TDs every game in the post season to even have a chance to win isn't exactly a recipe Championship teams are known for.

[Core Four]

3 hours ago, IDBillzFan said:

Oh, please. It's a sport. The only thing fans deserve is to not see them screw something up that badly again.

 

It is a sport and not national defense so McD could elaborate a little more than he is.  As far as screwing up something so badly again, that already happened...the AFCCG and the Divisional round.  Same opponent two years in a row, both with the same weak defensive scheme which didn't slow down KC resulting in two consecutive losses.

 

3 hours ago, IDBillzFan said:

But what you want is a name, and probably a little blood treasure to somehow heal your agony. And if it truly was some idiot employee who has been making the same mistake all season, you'd have a name. 

 

 

I think most fans would appreciate if he would elaborate a little more on what went wrong.  At least admit the defensive alignment was wrong.  Don't give me this 'execute' and 'it starts with me' crap.  McD can do that without throwing anyone under the bus.  That would indicate that he hasn't learned the lesson such an embarrassing loss should teach.  Next season should provide more insight.

 

3 hours ago, IDBillzFan said:

But if was an isolated case, there is no effin' way a good boss throws someone under the bus. Not for you. Not for Timmah Graham. Not for anyone other than Pegula and Beane. Because the boss who throws someone under the bus in a situation like that starts to bleed out good hires.

 

This certainly isn't an isolated case.  The Bills defense have been embarrassed multiple times during McD's and Frazier's  tenure as HC and DC.  I'm not asking him to throw anyone under the bus, just at least give some acknowledgement that he knows he effed-up and it won't be the same next year, yet he hasn't done this.  I think for that to happen, McD/Frazier will need to shift their philosophy toward sacking the QB and using the LBs more as support up front rather than being additional DBs.  If I was Terry Pegula and am committing nearly $260M on a franchise QB who did all he could do to win the game, I'd be pissed at the defensive performance...especially with the second most expensive defense in the league in 2021.  I would want accountability.

 

3 hours ago, IDBillzFan said:

 

The NFL is littered with former coaches who were quick to blame someone else for an in-game error.

 

Agree.  I will give McD credit where credit is due.

 

3 hours ago, IDBillzFan said:

This is the best team and best coaching staff we've had in a gzillion years, and the only end to your game is to dump McDermott, which would be the single dumbest phucking thing this team could do next to trading Josh Allen to the Patriots for a fifth-round pick and a special teams assistant to be named later.

 

My end game is to dump McD?  Interesting.  To the best of my knowledge I have never said "fire him now."  I will say this, if next year is a three-peat of this year, McD does deserve to be fired.  You can't keep pissing away the efforts of guys like Josh, Diggs, and Davis as well as the offense having to score 35+ points to have a shot at winning because your DC's philosophy and approach is on par with Dick Jauron...that is unacceptable.  I do want McD to be better next year, though I am concerned that he is a) very stubborn b) loyal to a fault, especially with Frazier, and c) learns very slowly, probably because his football IQ is probably not above average.

 

I will give McD/Beane all the credit in the world for drafting Josh, Gabe, Oliver, Groot, and Tre White, as well as bringing in Diggs, Hyde, and Poyer.  I will fault them for bringing in JAGs such as Murphy, Star, Addison, Butler, and Norman.  I think right now we do have a good amount of talent and could get to the SB; coaching philosophy and poor in-game decisions prevented that.  

 

I'll end with this question: Does anyone think the Bills would have been much above .500 the past two seasons and McD/Beane would be comfortably employed without Josh Allen?

[Arm of Harm]

11 hours ago, IDBillzFan said:

This is the best team and best coaching staff we've had in a gzillion years, and the only end to your game is to dump McDermott, which would be the single dumbest phucking thing this team could do next to trading Josh Allen to the Patriots for a fifth-round pick and a special teams assistant to be named later.

I realize you weren’t addressing me with the above words, but I will nevertheless discuss the subject of potentially firing McDermott. 
 

Below is a (not necessarily complete) list of things a head coach is responsible for:

 

1) Overall leadership

2) Offensive coaching

3) Defensive coaching

4) Input into player selections

 

Below are the grades I’d give McDermott:

1) Overall leadership: B+ or A-

2) Offensive coaching: B+
3a) Defensive coaching against mediocre offenses: A-

3b) Defensive coaching against good running offenses: D+
3c) Defensive coaching against good passing offenses: H 

4) Input into player selection: C-

 

The C- for player selection is based on my belief that McDermott is more involved with player selection on the defensive side of the ball. A lot of our defensive players have not justified the investment made in them. 
 

The lowest grade on that report card is obviously the H for defensive coaching against good passing offenses. Unfortunately the Bills don’t see good passing offenses very often in the regular season. The defense’s softness against good passing attacks doesn’t get exposed until the Bills face a team such as Kansas City. A ten year old kid who’s good at Madden would do a better job of calling defensive plays against the Chiefs than the disaster we’ve seen the last two postseasons. No, that is not hyperbole. 
 

Suppose the Bills were to fire McDermott and bring in a defensively oriented head coach. All our known coaching problems are on the defensive side of the ball, and those problems are absolutely serious enough that someone needs to get a pink slip. The obvious choice for that is Frazier, but if McDermott’s personal loyalty to Frazier exceeds his loyalty to the Bills organization, then unfortunately it will be McDermott who needs to go.
 

So you bring in someone with an impeccable track record as a DC as your new head coach. It would be ridiculously easy for this new head coach to upgrade our defensive coaching against teams with good passing offenses. He’d probably do at least as good a job as McDermott at providing input into defensive player selections. My concern is that he might fall short of McDermott in terms of overall organizational leadership. That’s not an insurmountable problem: just make sure that organizational leadership is a strong point of emphasis in the candidate selection process. 

[IDBillzFan]

To @Core Four and @Arm of Harm and anyone this should pertain to:

 

I understand and, in many cases, agree with the issues at hand. The boss is the boss, and when deficiencies arise, it's up to the boss to fix them or be fired. Frazier is a major deficiency, and McDermott has proven himself to be dedicated to a fault. You only need to bring up Nathan Peterman to make this point. So I get what you are saying. But no one is firing another black coach, so at least they are bringing in other people to help Frazier.

 

However, I am an unabashed homer with a quick release valve. We can talk deficiencies, but I tend to move on quickly from that over which I have no control. So in the end, for me, once again, it comes down to three simple questions:

 

(1) Can YOU fix the problem? The answer here is a resounding no. The best you can do is quit following the team, and that will not fix anything but your mood. It's just a fact.

 

(2) Can you live with it? This is where we have a choice. I've been cheering for this team since Marangi went in for Ferguson in '76. I'm going nowhere, but if the answer is, again, no, then the third question speaks for itself.

 

My issue, and admittedly my frustration, is in reading the same shit over and over and over and over and over about the same freaking thing over which literally none of you have control. Sometimes it's it's like having drinks with Graham, Wawrow and Sullivan at one table.

 

That said, you are all much smarter about this stuff than I am, so I will do my best to just let the comments pass without my feedback moving forward. Just understand what you read from me, as a fan, is the equivalent of how I react when my wife -- yet again -- reminds about the night I forgot to flush and put the seat down in the middle of the night.  I get it. It's over. I wish the dead-horse beating would just stop and the focus was on today. 

 

That's all.

 

Go Bills.

 

[Arm of Harm]

3 hours ago, IDBillzFan said:

To @Core Four and @Arm of Harm and anyone this should pertain to:

 

I understand and, in many cases, agree with the issues at hand. The boss is the boss, and when deficiencies arise, it's up to the boss to fix them or be fired. Frazier is a major deficiency, and McDermott has proven himself to be dedicated to a fault. You only need to bring up Nathan Peterman to make this point. So I get what you are saying. But no one is firing another black coach, so at least they are bringing in other people to help Frazier.

 

However, I am an unabashed homer with a quick release valve. We can talk deficiencies, but I tend to move on quickly from that over which I have no control. So in the end, for me, once again, it comes down to three simple questions:

 

(1) Can YOU fix the problem? The answer here is a resounding no. The best you can do is quit following the team, and that will not fix anything but your mood. It's just a fact.

 

(2) Can you live with it? This is where we have a choice. I've been cheering for this team since Marangi went in for Ferguson in '76. I'm going nowhere, but if the answer is, again, no, then the third question speaks for itself.

 

My issue, and admittedly my frustration, is in reading the same shit over and over and over and over and over about the same freaking thing over which literally none of you have control. Sometimes it's it's like having drinks with Graham, Wawrow and Sullivan at one table.

 

That said, you are all much smarter about this stuff than I am, so I will do my best to just let the comments pass without my feedback moving forward. Just understand what you read from me, as a fan, is the equivalent of how I react when my wife -- yet again -- reminds about the night I forgot to flush and put the seat down in the middle of the night.  I get it. It's over. I wish the dead-horse beating would just stop and the focus was on today. 

 

That's all.

 

Go Bills.

 

Im not sure I fully understand your perspective. Maybe you can help clarify a few things. 
 

1) None of us can fix any of the Bills’ problems, or cause the team to take advantage of any of its opportunities, or affect the team’s actions in any way. That will remain true regardless of whether we’re talking about the upcoming draft, or next year’s draft, or free agency, or coaching, or anything else which affects the team. The only thing we as fans can control is whether we watch the games. All other subjects should be off-limits, at least if we’re disallowing discussion of things we can’t control. But if we did that, we wouldn’t have much of a discussion board!

 

2) As for the question if we can live with it: if we’re going to keep watching the games, we’re pretty much stuck living with whatever mistakes the Bills players or coaches might make. The only alternative to living with it that I see is to stop watching and stop paying attention. 
 

3) Frazier’s coaching got ripped to shreds in his first playoff game against the Chiefs. I realize just about everyone gets out-coached from time to time. It happens and you move on. But then next postseason Frazier used the same failed game plan and philosophy, with the same result. No indication that he’d learned a single thing. Nothing to indicate McDermott had done anything at all to correct the total coaching failure on the defensive side of the ball. If you could show me evidence that things were being fixed this time around, I’d accept your premise that these catastrophic coaching failures were a thing of the past. Thus far I’ve seen no such evidence. The next time the Bills encounter the Chiefs in the postseason, I’m fully expecting Frazier to trot out a game plan based on soft zone and contain. This is by far my most serious current concern with the team. 
 

You mentioned that it’s politically impossible to fire a black coordinator in this current environment. I see two different ways of solving that problem.

 

1) McDermott could take over play calling for Frazier when we face the Chiefs or any other team with a good passing attack. 
 

2) The Bills could fire Frazier and hire Flores. Flores’ defensive game plan against the Chiefs can’t possibly be worse than Frazier’s, and might well be better. That said, I’m not a huge fan of this option, because it’s rewarding bad behavior. 

[Robs House]

I have competing thoughts on this subject.

 

The 13 second meltdown is one of the all time greatest blunders in sports history.  It is so egregious that it's impossible to give anybody involved in the decision making a pass. It is quite possibly a firable offense, even for the HC.

 

On the other hand, I remember the rotten years. I remember other fan bases wanting to get rid of successful coaches like Andy Reed, who consistently won but couldn't quite get over the hump, and thinking we should be so lucky. 

 

 I suppose it's best to just move on and forget about it, but it's an indelible black mark on an otherwise great run.  It will be interesting to see if this pattern continues to emerge. Obviously you're going to  have less success when you're facing stiffer competition, but it's one thing to come up short from time to time, it's another to roll over every time you face a team that challenges you.

 

The cumulative evidence changes perceptions. After the loss to Tennessee I was not the least bit discouraged about the Bills. We were coming off a 4 game win streak capped off by a win against the Chiefs. It was a tough game but the team (offense anyway) played well, and I figure we win that one 7 out of 10 times. It was noteworthy that our defense couldn't buy a stop, but it's one game. 

 

Fast forward to the game against Tampa, and the Bills are now 0 for their last 4 against teams that were remotely competent, (plus an L to the lowly, Urban Meyer led Jags).

 

You can't expect them to win them all, but it's a bizarre situation when a team with that ability to dominate gets consistently trounced. It looked like they figured it out in the last month of the season, and the devastation of the Pats in the WC round was glorious, but then we go to KC and it's de ja vu all over again. 

 

 It will be interesting to see whether this pattern continues or if the Bills can right the ship. When this team is playing the way they're capable of playing they can beat anyone in the league decisively.  But somewhere in this team's DNA is a choke gene, and it's not at the quarterback position.