Well I couldn’t wait the 24 hours that you are supposed to wait when emotions are high. 16 hours is enough given yesterday’s putrid showing by the Buffalo Bills. In my last two rants I questioned whether McDermott/Frazier/Dorsey were the right coaches to lead this team. After watching this team underperform almost the entire year and after watching yesterday’s debacle, it’s clear to me that they are not. We also should be looking seriously at GM Brandon Beane. Let me explain:
Beane was hired by McDermott. Never in the annals of sports (at least what I could find), has a coach hired the GM. Yes, the Pegulas OK’d the hire. Yes the Pegulas interviewed Beane. But everyone knows it was McDermott, who had been hired to coach while Doug Whaley was the GM, was the guy who brought in his guy from Carolina.
The fact that McDermott hired his own boss speaks volumes for where and who this team has drafted since. Since 2016 the Bills have spent 6 First round picks on Defense as well as their first two picks in 2021 and their first, albeit in the second round, pick in 2020. Since McDermott came aboard they have drafted an offensive lineman in the first two rounds twice (Ford in 2019 and Dawkins in 2017). Although they traded a #1 for Diggs, otherwise they’ve not drafted a WR in the first three rounds. They drafted RB in 2nd (2022), 3rd (2021) and 3rd (2020). They drafted one Offensive lineman in 2022 (6th rd), two in 2021 (5th and 7th rds) and none in 2020 draft.
Seven of the eight head coaches remaining in the playoffs before this weekend had offensive backgrounds. McDermott is the only D guy..
So we have a defensive minded coach who hires his own GM who drafts predominantly defensive players with his top picks. That same two-headed monster then goes out and hires legendary defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier to coach the defense. How well has that gone? Let’s look at what should have been tell-tale signs that Frazier is in way over his head.
1. 13 seconds. We all remember and we all will never forget 13 seconds. It will go down in Buffalo lore like wide right and the Music City Miracle. 13 seconds left. Ball at their own 25 and the Bills defense gives up two long plays which allow KC to kick game tying FG and eventually win in OT. Frazier’s defense was covering the sidelines inspite of the fact that KC had all three time outs left. They allowed Kelce, even after McDermott called time out, to run free down the middle and catch a pass and run to the bills 37 yard line. The simple solution would have been to hold/tackle the five KC receivers, let Mahomes run around for awhile and take the five yard penalty while allowing enough time to run off clock to limit the Chief’s options. No, not the genius Frazier. Let’s play deep cover two to stop hail Mary and let’s guard the sidelines to stop quick sideline passes. He should have been fired immediately after that game.
2. So we expect Frazier and McDermott to learn from this correct? Good coaches never make the same mistake twice, correct? Wrong. This dynamic due allowed the same thing to happen this past season against the exact same team. Just before half time in the Bills win at KC earlier this year the Bills score. They squib kick and KC gets the ball with 12 seconds left at their own 28. 1st down-short pass and run for 19 yards. Second down from own 47-short pass to Kelce to Bills 44. One second left and KC kicks a FG to tie game 10-10 at half. How does this same thing happen two straight times? What did McDermott and Frazier not learn from the prior year’s 13 second meltdown? Just terrible coaching.
3. So let’s talk about yesterday. Frazier has six 1st round draft picks starting on his defense (Lawson, White, Edmunds, Oliver, Rousseau and Elam). He is up against an injury depleted Cincinnati offensive line that is missing three starters. He is at home where crowd noise should be of great help to his defense. He has an All-Por LB in Milano and a terrific safety in Poyer. Wow. This looks like the type of situation that a great or even good Defensive coordinator can use to shut down his opponant’s offense. What transpired yesterday was as brutal a defensive showing as the Bills have had in years. Mixon runs for 101 yards on 20 carries behind backups. We sack Burrows once and hit him twice in the entire game. We play soft defense all game long allowing Burrows to throw quick slants to his wide receivers who then run after catch for additional yardage. One play epitomized the whole defensive “Game plan”. I’m sure most of you have seen the photo on twitter but for those of you that haven’t I’ll explain. Cinci ball on Bills 14 with 2:47 left in 2nd quarter. It’s 3rd down and four yards to go. Bills stack seven (yes seven) defenders at the line of scrimmage to blitz Burrows. Problem is that the only Bills Defensive back that you can see in the photo is playing 8 yards off Jamar Chase at his own 6 yard line. On the opposite side of the field you can’t even see a Bills player in the photo because they are so far off the two receivers. What transpired is just so predictable: Burrows takes the snap, immediately hits Chase four yards from the line and Chase runs an additional four yards to the Bills 6 yard line for the 1st down. But for a video reversal on a Chase TD catch/bobble which turned 7 points into a 3 point FG, this would have cost the Bills 4 points. Just how stupid does Frazier and McDermott have to be to play soft coverage on3rd and four from your own 14 yard line? Just an example of how far this staff is in over its head.
Now let’s look at the offense and Ken Dorsey. All year I’ve been harping on the Bills inability to convert on 3rd and short. All year I’ve been saying that Dorsey’s play calling is too cute. Remember the Miami loss earlier in the year? Second and goal from the three and he calls three passing plays and we get stopped. Remember the first Cinci game? Cinci scores and we are down 7-0. Josh drives us down to the Cinci 10 yard line. First and goal. They run Cook for seven yards down to the three. Second and goal from the three they pass incomplete. Same on third down. FG instead of TD. It’s almost like Dorsey wants to prove to everyone just how much smarter he is than Brian Dabol. A perfect microcosm of his play calling occurred yesterday 1:17 left in the 3rd quarter with Bills down 24-10. Ball at their own 12 yard line. Need first downs. Need to score but just as importantly we have to get out of our own end to prevent Bengals from having great field position and prevent this turning into a three score game. First down: Bomb incomplete to Diggs. Second down: short pass and run to McKenzie for eight. It’s now 3rd and two. Biggest play of the game. Need a first down. What does Dorsey draw up? A bomb down the left sideline to a wide receiver who has more drops/reception than any player in the league. The same guy who dropped a TD pass in Bills loss to Miami. The same guy who dropped a 60 yard bomb at the end of the loss to the Jets. The same guy who ranked #1 in passes dropped (tied with Jamar Chase who caught 34 more passes than Davis. What transpired could not have been more predictable. Perfect pass and dropped ball. Bills punt from own 20. Bengals drive and kick FG and Bills nightmare game is all but over.
Dorsey has no clue how to run this offense. Last week Miami pressured Allen into 7 sacks, one of which resulted in a TD. With all that pressure wouldn’t you think that a short pass to a running back on the outside would be wide open? Allen threw to a RB ONCE the entire fricking game. Yesterday was no better. Until garbage time when Allen threw four straight passes to Singletary he’d thrown only two passes to a RB. We traded for Hines who was supposed to be this great receiving threat out of the backfield. We drafted Cook as a great receiving threat out of the backfield. We decided not to use them. Just brutal.
Lastly we need to discuss McDermott. He controls the draft. He hires the staff. He seems to be a great guy who the team loves. He picks character guys and avoids divas. That said, his in game clock management and use of Time outs and replay has been abhorrent. Last week he uses his last timeout before half time with 7 seconds left to give the NFL replay people more time to review a clear non-catch by Diggs. This causes Bills to have to kick FG instead of one more shot at the end zone before half due to not having anymore time outs. Twice he used time outs while on defense because he didn’t think the Bills D was ready (both times the Bills D stopped Miami but plays were called back due to Time outs. How many times this year did we question his use of time outs, his conservatism on 4th down.
We also need to look at McDermott’s impact on the roster. We have, arguably, one oof the top three QBs in the league. While KC fortified it’s offensive line this year to protect Mahomes and while Cinci changed its game plan to allow Burrows to make quick short passes due to his line’s injuries and inexperience, The Bills did squat. They picked up Roger Saffold, a cast off who was brutal this year. Drafted no one in 2022 and haven’t spent a 1st or 2nd round pick on a lineman in three years. They’ve done nothing to give him the tools to succeed other than the Diggs trade. Three small running backs in three consecutive drafts? Why? Trade for Hines but don’t use him-Why? McDermott controls this team. He is a defensive minded coach. Out of the eight teams left going into this weekend he was the only one with a defensive background. The NFL game has changed drastically in the past ten years. It’s no longer “run and stop the run”. Rules have been implemented which increase passing and scoring. We have a franchise QB. Darryl Dawkins and Spencer Brown are turnstiles on the ends of the O-Line. Dawkins yesterday allowed a huge sack on a third down and was called for holding on another play eliminating a large gain. He makes $10,000,000/year. He is brutal. No one on the offensive line, other than Mitch Morse should be starting on a Super Bowl quality team.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
This is the difficult part. We have a ton of guys going into Free agency with a salary cap situation due to Allen’s huge contract starting next year. Poyer/Edmonds/Oliver and others will want big money to stay. T. White isn’t the same shut down CB as he was pre ACL injury. Will he rebound to his pre ACL status? If not then he is way overpaid. We will be drafting late so impact guys will be difficult to find. We have coordinators that have failed to deliver as well as a coach and GM that have drafted poorly (other than Allen). Edmunds played great this year but was brutal the past two weeks. Oliver was a no show yesterday. Poyer seems lost without Hyde. Elam has potential but our defense is so far from being dominant that the loss of guys like him may cause it to collapse. Offensively we need 3-4 linemen and at least 1-2 receivers. How you go about getting those guys given the salary cap issues as well as the draft position will be very difficult if not impossible. I’m afraid to say it but the Bills Super Bowl chances may have faded with this year’s loss. We have a franchise QB who is good enough to get us wins and playoff appearances. I worry he’ll turn out to be Phil Rivers in the Manning/Brady shadows or the Dan Fouts of the 80’s. Our window of opportunity may be gone. So sad. Blame the staff.
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