The Draw Play

In case you don’t get the Admiral thing, upon firing McDermott the Bills released the usual press statement saying thank you, blah blah blah, and apparently forgot to run the statement past a proofreader because instead of saying “Admirable”, they said Admiral. Well..I guess I’ll give them credit for writing it themselves instead of letting ChatGPT do it for them.

I think this was a mistake by the Bills. Feels like an emotional scapegoating after another tough playoff loss. I don’t see how this move ends well for them. It reminds me of when the Giants cut Tom Coughlin loose. That was the beginning of a severe decline because it started with the wrong person getting blamed, even if that person wasn’t blameless.

This year has been an absolute bloodbath of something I’ve begun calling “Coach Malaise”. When a team has a good coach, but for whatever reason the team has not gotten over the hump and advanced to the super bowl or better. Maybe a long series of playoff failures or “almosts” that leave fans dissatisfied. The fanbase starts to let their eyes wander to other successful teams. They start nitpicking the coach harder and harder until you run into fans of these perennial playoff contenders who will tell you to your face that their coach sucks, actually. I’ve seen Ravens fans bitching about how John Harbaugh is the problem for years. Same with Tomlin. I’m seeing it now with Matt LaFleur. I predict we are only a few years away from Dan Campbell starting to get hit by the malaise, provided the Lions don’t make it past the divisional soon.

It’s a perspective problem. When the floor of your team is raised for an extended time, you forget how deep the foundation can be if you remove it, because you keep looking up at the ceiling instead. These fanbases have achieved a level of comfort they do not know they have. Trust me, it can get worse. It can get much worse. Winning in the NFL is fucking hard. So much has to go right for any playoff success, a lot of factors that aren’t even in a team’s control. I have always believed that all you need out of a coach is a guy who can consistently get you to the dance and make good decisions overall. You don’t need a perfect coach. No coach is. You just need a guy who can lead you to the battles you have to fight.

To me, McDermott easily reached that level. Every year the Bills stumble somehow and we look at them like “oh, they are falling apart”…but they wouldn’t. They’d get back on track. They’d end up comfortably in the playoffs and win a game or two before losing a close game. To me, that’s the sign of a well-coached team. Despite the roster problems, the Bills managed to make it anyway and they even had a really good pass defense. Whatever flaws McDermott has, and he has a few for sure…he was getting them deep into the playoffs on a regular basis. Bills fans seemed to give Josh Allen all the credit for this. He’s the engine, but you need a good conductor. McDermott wasn’t pulling a Tomlin or LaFleur, squeaking in and getting exploded. The Bills were winning playoff games! Just not enough of them.

But even if Bills fans were beginning to feel the malaise over McDermott, most of them still clearly see this as a mistake, because of the part I haven’t mentioned yet: Brandon Beane. The Bills roster has been slowly crumbling year after year and most Bills fans who know ball pointed the finger at Beane. Granted, when you draft in the late 20’s every year the chance you find a real impact guy diminishes but that’s not a great excuse. Beane has not built the roster to support the team. They needed better WRs to help Allen, they got *checks notes* Brandin Cooks I guess. The defense needs help, let’s go overpay *checks notes* the corpse of Joey Bosa I guess. Instead of firing Brandon Beane along with McDermott…they promoted him!

Beane is now the President of Football Operations. That’s LinkedIn speak for “guy the owner put in charge of everything because he can’t be bothered”. Beane is now the top boss and the new coach will be his direct underling, with no reporting to Terry Pegula. Giving more power to the guy who many people believe should have been fired first or at least in tandem with McDermott is a very questionable move, and it marks Beane as the NFL’s newest Scheming Vizier. In contrast, the Giants pretty much demoted Joe Schoen. While Schoen also deserved to get let go but wasn’t, he’s clearly been diminished in power and influence to make way for Harbaugh. Now Schoen is basically on the hot seat and needs to perform and work closely in tandem with Harbaugh or his ass is toast. Short leash. Appropriate.

What are the Bills going to do now? I assume they probably want to go with another defensive coach, since the offense just needs “guy who can tell Josh Allen to be Moose”. Shula from the Rams? Flores? The Bills job is pretty attractive with Allen there, I’m curious where this goes. I do not have high hopes that they are headed in the right direction.