Bills General Manager Brandon Beane says trading for wide receiver Amari Cooper this week may not be the last move his team makes in its quest to bring a Vince Lombardi Trophy to Buffalo this season.
Bills General Manager Brandon Beane says trading for wide receiver Amari Cooper this week may not be the last move his team makes in its quest to bring a Vince Lombardi Trophy to Buffalo this season.
How much do they have to win for your standards? Would losing in the AFC Championship be good enough?
They got to get there and be competitive. Otherwise I think coach will have to go at the very least. McDermott and his staff haven’t brought fresh ideas and schemes to the league. Every year we see KC do something different every year. Cinci when they were going to superbowl brought different looks to offense and defense like how to defend Mahomes which Beane copied. Unless you can be creative to give your team an edge run of the mill offense and defense will not take you over the top.
I’m not really sure why Buffalo hasn’t been able to break the glass ceiling and become a top team. They’ve been good for quite awhile, and the fans seem to be getting tired of it. The coach always feels like a scapegoat. It’s easier to replace the coach than to replace the players. But you have to accept that there is like a 50/50 chance the team gets worse with a new coach. McDermott might be the thing holding them together.
When good teams get impatient like this, it’s often a disaster. I’m reminded of college sports where a fanbase gets frustrated because the coach is such a great recruiter but is perceived at being bad at coaching. Tons of good but ultimately disappointing seasons isn’t good enough for the fans. So they fire the coach, the team no longer recruits like it did, and becomes irrelevant.
I wouldn’t call myself a “fan” of Bills. I follow them because of the quarterback (I also follow Dolphins - Tua, now starting on Bears - Caleb, used to like KC, watching Harbaugh experiment, keeping an eye on Commanders and Daniels) and hears about them due to proximity to Canada, and sees a lot of their games because we’re in Bills’ broadcast region due to that proximity. So I know about the team without trying. They haven’t broken through to even the AFCC because of coaching. The defenses on 13 second drives, the lack of creativity in offense, etc etc. The difference in teams that makes the break-through is either superior over-all talent combined with competent coaching, or super talent in a few spots along with great creative coaching. Of the latter are Andy Reid, Belichek, McVay. Of the former - Doug Peterson, Gary Kubiak, Arians. The “great coaching” list have won 7 of the last 10 superbowls. Loaded teams won the other 3.
Yeah finding great coach is needle in haystack process for sure. But what we’ve seen from Bills in the last couple of years, and in the last couple of games where end game management was ATROCIOUS - the 13 seconds to defend, or the mismanaged clocks against Texans, or the lack of adjustments in 2nd half vs Ravens just to name a few are all pretty damning as far as coaching ability is concerned.
In basketball they call it end game management where you manage the flow of the game with adjustments, tactics, time outs and substitutions to achieve your desired outcome- is the most important thing because every team is talented, and can win on any night. Superior coaching ensures your team comes out on top when things are in balance. We have NOT seen that with McDermott. McDermott has been Bills’ HC for 8 seasons. We’ve seen all of his strengths, and weaknesses. His weaknesses have been forefront of late, as I have outlined. Right now Bills’ strategy seems to be, “lets wait for other great teams to have serious injuries to key players so that we can make the superbowl” because their talent and coaching haven’t carried them through.
The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again thinking it’ll result in a different outcome. McDermott coaching is just that.
That’s a quote from Albert Einstein about insanity, but it’s not the literal definition of insanity.
What ends up happening AFTER you fire the coach? If things aren’t immediately fixed with the new coach, fingers get pointed and you start blaming specific players. Because they won’t blame the new coach. Teams blow up over this all the time. You fire the HC and you usually start replacing key players too.
I guess I have a hard time saying it’s the coach, they were a bad team before he arrived, they’re good now. I would rather keep having success, even if it’s probably not going to lead to a Superbowl, than try a mini-rebuild and retool. I think their chances are better by keeping things consistent and stable.
That’s the risk you take to win championships. You don’t settle for mediocrity of 1st round or 2nd round exits when you have one of the top 3 to 5 quarterbacks in the league. An extremely rare thing for any team, and a great chance to win it all. With Josh Allen at QB you can attract top coaching talent, not some bottom of the barrel guy. Maybe hire that hot OC from Detroit.