Yes it sounds rash. Yes it goes against the norms. Run and stop the run…play tough D…It’s all BS. Can you name a single defensive player from last night’s game (other than Gardner-Johnson who had two nice takles AFTER Chief’s player had gained yards) who had an impact on the game? Yes there was a defensive TD on a turnover but that turnover wasn’t caused by the Chief’s defense. It was caused by Hurts just dropping the ball. There was one “sack” when Hurts ran out of bounds for a half-yard loss. Other than that it was all offense. There were four punts in the entire game. Both offenses just marched up and down the field. There were no conservative punts or FGs. Eagles went for it on fourth down three times and were successful on all three. Just like the NFC championship game, the Eagles offense was just way too much for “the 49ers best defense in football.'‘
What this means to me is that it’s just plain stupidity, in today’s NFL, with a QB like Allen, Mahomes, Hurts, Burrows and more, to do anything other than spend your cash and draft picks on offense. The Bills have been miserable failures in this regard. Other than Allen and Diggs, the Bills top picks have been defensive guys. They’ve done little to nothing to bolster the offensive line and wide receiver positions. Look what the Chiefs did in the off season: they trade maybe the best wide receiver in football in Tyreek Hill and used the assets received to rebuild their offensive line. They went out and got Smith-Schuster and Toney. They drafted a running back (Pacheco) in the 7th round. Are any of the Bills running backs that they’ve drafted earlier (two in the 3rd round and one in the second along with Hines) better? I’d take Pacheco over any of them. How about WR? Toney was unhappy in NY. We could have just as easily picked him up in a trade. We didn’t and KC did. Speed kills in this league and Toney has it. Can you imagine what our offense would have looked like had we traded Diggs like KC did with Hill?
Obviously you need to play defense. The problem with the Bills brain-trust and Coach is that they actually believe that defense wins Super Bowls. It wins against bad or mediocre QBs. It means squat against guys like Mahomes, Burrows and Hurts. To have six first round picks in your starting defense along with All-Pro Milano and former All-pro Poyer and still get torched by Cinci (not to mention Miami’s third string QB the week before and Tua earlier in the year twice) kind of says it all. In order to beat these teams with a great QB you need to outscore them. You need to go for it on fourth down and let your Offensive Coordinator know that it’s ALWAYS four-down territory once you’ve passed mid-field. You need to draft guys to protect your QB and provide him with targets who catch the ball and make yards after catch. You need to use your running backs as receivers out of the backfield to limit blitzes. You need to have a game plan that says we are going to take what you give us and move the ball and score. The Bills mindset is still in the last century.
If I were Pegula I’d have a long chat with Beane and McDermott. I’d tell them that what they’ve done has been good enough to get the Bills to the play-offs. I’d tell them, however, that they need to adjust their thinking as to what you need to do to win in the playoffs. I’d tell them they have a year to figure things out. I’d tell them to forget about signing Edmunds or Poyer and to cut or trade Oliver. I’d tell them to use their draft picks on offensive linemen and to take the money saved by not signing/cutting the three aforesaid defensive players and grab a speed WR in Free Agency. I’d tell them to get a defensive coordinator who knows how to stop a team from getting a FG from their own 25 or 28 yard line with 13 or 12 seconds left in a half. I’d tell them that get a defensive coordinator who is super aggressive since conservatism really doesn’t work in this league. They need to take chances on D to get a few lucky turnovers on a bad throw here and there. Defenses in this league don’t stop great offenses, PERIOD.
We’ll see what happens here. I doubt much of what I’ve said will resonate positively with McDermott. He’s already made the Safeties coach and receiver’s coach scapegoats for this years loss just like he did last year with the special teams coach. He’s the only coach in this year’s final eight with a defense based coaching philosophy. He’s the only one who was a defensive coach before becoming HC. He’s becoming a dinosaur in this league.