I was stewing about the loss last night in bed and had a realization. In a nutshell, the Bills cut corners when it came to coordinators, and it’s showing. They should have hired an actual OC to replace Daboll, and they should have hired another DC to replace Frazier. I think McDermott is probably stretched too thin being both head coach and DC.

The team has other problems. McDermott’s defense constantly making mistakes late in games and also long third downs, it’s a trend at this point. Allen seems to have regressed some, his biggest problem is consistency. He can have have a perfect game one week, then multiple head scratching rookie-like turnovers the very next.

I think the biggest problem though is that they tried to keep both the OC and DC positions in-house instead of hiring good ones outside of it. Possibly just to save some money. So now you have to wonder if management have any idea what they’re doing, and that’s yet another problem on top of all the others.

I’m not a huge Knox fan, but moving the offense to more 2 tight end, then not having 2 tight ends is a bit of a problem. It had to be a significant amount of what was worked on during the offseason.

It’s certainly layered but it really is a top down issue IMO.

The defense is holding its own given the circumstances but it has exposed the flaws of coaching and personnel. Our A-team was full of ball hawks; and because of that the issues we had last year are now what is the standard this year. Vets slowing down, poor technique (mainly tackling), with bad coverage calls.

The offense lost its identity. Again, last year the coaching short comings were mitigated by Josh hero balling; it’s been established we can and should run more. We need to run more than the same predictable 10 plays. It’s painful how predictable our offense is, and that’s coming from someone not football educated.This season they’ve crushed Josh to not be Josh and his decision making and confidence is clearly in the shits. He’s not the same Josh, not just playing wise, but you can see in his body language, emotions, and statements. So now we have the same offensive plan as last year sans Josh being able to do Josh things. Yes he needed to improve but it’s hard to improve when you’re trying to completely change who you are.

Special teams is pretty simple. If your A-team can’t tackle, your reserves probably can’t tackle either.

There are certainly positives from a personnel standpoint that weren’t expected or have even exceeded expectations; our o-line, Kincaid, depth play. But it’s also clear Knox was overpaid, Ed was overpaid, and Gabe shouldn’t be paid. I don’t know how much to blame coaches for players just not being able to do what they’re supposed to do; like tackle, catch, or hold on to the ball. There’s obviously hope to develop players into the NFL but at some point maybe the front office needs to stop gambling so much on coaching abilities and realize the tape on a player may just be what the player is.

I could write a book on the issues I have with this staff, but one thing jumping out right now is the overvaluing of special teams contribution when they sign depth players.

I don’t give a fuck about how good our reserve linebackers, receivers, and DBs are at covering kickoffs; I care about how good they are at their actual positions.

Looks like the coaching staff picks “favorites” based on if they are a culture fit and not actual skill and how they are playing (e.g., Grape Davis). Your players aren’t going to “trust the process” when the coaching staff picks their culture favorites over players who are out performing them (Shakir > Davis).

Throw in the number of games where your coaching staff has lost the game for you (Hail Murray, 13 seconds, 12 men of the field) and you have a roster of players who have lost belief that their coaching staff can take them to the promised land.

We have a militant head coach ripping the “child at heart” out of Josh, it was this that made him who he was.

Josh’s celebrity status went to his head.