Buffalo Bills Fall Flat in Houston - Should Fans Be Worried? | UR - Under Review

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
I was hoping to meet every single one of you
under better circumstances, but these aren't good circumstances. Last night
was a train wreck, to put it lightly, and tonight
we're going to talk about that and the future of
this team. I know things are bleak right now, but
I appreciate you tuning into this week's episode of Under Review.
Without further Ado man, let's do it previous play, We'll

(00:32):
go under Review. Citizens of Earth, lend me your ears.

(01:01):
Thank you once again for tuning into this week's episode
of Under Review. My name is Joe DeRosa and you
can find me on Twitter slash x at show Underscore.
De Rosa. Yeah, I was not happy after watching last night.
I'm sure a lot of you are unhappy. So before
we begin tonight's episode, I want to preface this by saying,

(01:22):
if you're tuning in live right now, if you're tune
in later, this chat, this comment section, this is your
vessel to just let loose. Tell me how you're feeling,
tell me what you're thinking, because at this point no
take is too much, nothing will be made fun of.
I don't think it'll be really an open discussion for
everyone to just vent their frustrations with this team. You're
welcome to do it. I hope I can see some

(01:43):
good comments in there. After my guest departs tonight, I
will be sure to read plenty and we will have
a lovely conversation. And when I say my guest, I
mean my favorite blue ethereal floating orb who is also
sad mister Bruce Nolan, Bruce, welcome back to the show.
Last time we talked, it was I want to say,
like half positive. Now it's not going to be that positive,

(02:04):
but maybe it could be at the same time. But
first and foremost, how are you doing tonight, my friend?

Speaker 2 (02:08):
I'm fantastic. I gotta be honest, getting my weekend off
to this kind of start where you have to just
openly lament a Buffalo bill's loss on Thursday night. I
haven't done a Friday night show since I did Food
for Thought with Nate Geary years ago, and I had
forgotten how much getting your weekend off to a lamenting

(02:31):
start sucks so bad. And then I realized that was
kind of a positive show just in general. Like it
was just it was kind of a lighthearted, goofy sort
of show. I don't think i've ever done. This is
the first Friday night spot I have ever done where
it's been sad, like really legitimately sad.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
It, Bruce. It's it's a tough Friday night. You know,
this is supposed to be a celebratory time, suppose to
be a like a show that we do after they win,
and we were kind of expecting it, but that's not
the case tonight. Man. It was a really ugly game.
It's a hard way to start the weekend for a
lot of people. And I'm very frustrated, and I have

(03:14):
a lot of questions. I have a lot of I
guess I've acquired several actses that need grinding. And it's
just again, we've talked a lot about the pain points
of this team on this show over the past few weeks,
and we've discussed the things we want to see and
we discuss the things that we think could be better.
And after last episode, they played Tampa Bay, Bruce, and

(03:36):
they put on a much better performance. Offensively, their special
teams unit looks a lot better. Defense does not look better,
but they still win the game, and they win it
fairly decisively, pulling away in the end. So you go
into this Houston game knowing what defense you're up against,
and you think, well, I was given some hope that
they could write the ship after last year's horrible performance

(03:56):
have played better, and they just simply didn't. In all
factors of this offense, with the exception of the running game,
it was a failure, to say the least. And I
want to hear your thoughts on it, Bruce.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Okay, So the most important thing for me is that
as you start to acquire additional data on this team,
you start to see philosophies trend either together or apart
from each other. And I think that's the important thing.
When you first have a regime and it comes into

(04:31):
place and they're making decisions for the first time, you
always have a tendency to wonder whether or not this
is indicative of something larger or if it is just
part of their philosophy, right, it's part of their philosophy now,
or is it part of their philosophy like just moving
forward in general. And so for me, as I look

(04:52):
at this, I think to myself back to the conversations
we had very early in the being tenure, and I think,
goodness gracious, is this something that McBean will never do
or is it just something they haven't done. And that's
what I mean when you're thinking about the philosophy of
the regime versus just kind of a one off decision. Oh,
they'll never sign von Miller, right, they don't sign edge

(05:14):
rushers of that type. And then over and over and
over again, as you get more and more sample size,
what you'll see is, oh, well, it's not that they'll
never do it, it's that they just haven't done it.
And Joe's interconnection just died. So I'm just gonna start monologuing.
So we'll just see how it goes and see if
he's able to get back in, and if not, the

(05:35):
big deal. So I think that what we're starting to
see at this stage of the McBean regime, which will
never get tiring of saying, we'll never get tired of
saying McBean regime, is that you're seeing some of the
philosophical decisions that the regime has had that are either
counterproductive or counterintuitive. I'll give your example. So you have

(06:00):
a defense that historically has not been good at stopping
the run. But that's okay, right, because you have an
offense that can score fast and alter the game script.
But then you change your offense where they're not an
offense that can score fast and have you chasing game script.

(06:22):
So now your offensive philosophy doesn't match up with your
defensive philosophy. You want to play ball control offense and
run the ball well on offense, which shortens the game
when you're highly likely to have the quarterback advantage. Shortening
the game is something that you're highly likely to want
to do when you don't have the quarterback advantage. Other
teams are the ones who do that. When you have

(06:42):
Davis Mills, that's when you want to run the ball
shorten the game because you increase variance when you lower
the amount of drives in a game. So the more
drives you have in a game, the more opportunity that
your team has to separate themselves if they're the better team,
specifically if you have the better quarterback. So if you're

(07:02):
the Buffalo Bills, you want more drives, not less drives.
But your offensive philosophy has run counter to that because
you got turnovers when you tried to do that, and
you overestimated how important turnovers were. As a general rule,
if the other team wants you to do it, then
you shouldn't do it. So if the other team wants

(07:23):
to shorten the game, keep Josh Allen off the field,
have fewer drives, then that's the opposite of the thing
that you should do. Well, Bruce, it worked last year. Yeah,
it worked last year because you had Josh Allen who
had historic, absolutely historic negative play susceptibility, I mean avoidance

(07:45):
of negative plays at a crazy level. It's the reason
why he's an MVP is because he didn't take sex,
he didn't throw interceptions. But the idea that that was
sustainable long term you could do that whenever you wanted
was probably not a good idea to think that, oh, well,
clearly we're okay, Like, clearly we're off to the right foot. Right,

(08:07):
we're on the right track. Let's just keep doing what
we're doing and everything will be fine. There's a philosophical
misalignment that exposes itself the longer that the Meban regime
runs along. And the philosophical misalignment is not just between
your offense and your defense, but between your overall philosophy
and the talent that you have at quarterback. You built

(08:29):
your defense like you have a quick strike, explosive, pressure
based offense. Let's get on their toes quickly. Let's put
them under the gun. Let's impact game script, and let's
force them to throw to catch up. But then you
built your offense like you have the quarterback disadvantage in
most games. That's the problem. There's a misalignment between the

(08:53):
way that you structure your defense from a philosophical standpoint
and the way you structured your offense from a philosophical standpoint.
This is who we are is great, this is who
we are. Has to regard how who you are gels
with other units on the team, and this is who
we are has to gel with the talent that you have.

(09:16):
It's a philosophical and organizational arrogance, right, this is who
we are.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
This is cool.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
That's awesome, that's great. This is who we are. I love,
this is who we are. Great, We're gonna do us. Man,
It's more about us. You see these these coaches of
the teams and they say things like, well, this is
about us.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
It's not about them.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
It's about us playing the game. We know how to play. Cool.
Have you stopped to think if the game that you
want to play lines up with the other games you
want to play. Have you stopped to think if the
way you want to play offense lines up with the
way you want to play the defense. Have you stopped
to think if the way you want to play offense
lines up with I don't know your quarterback. No, no, no, no,

(09:58):
It's just this is what I believe should happen in
a vacuum. It's segmented philosophical decision making that ultimately at
a very high, like enterprise level when you look at
the Buffalo Bills.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
That's my problem right now.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Is that you have this segmented decision making and the
person who that falls on is the head coach. The
head coach is the one who's supposed to be able
to see the big picture and go, okay, now, I understand,
mister and missus offensive coordinator. I understand what you want
to do, but that doesn't seem to jive of what
we want to do on defense. Why I understand what
you want to do, mister and missus defensive coordinator, but

(10:34):
that doesn't jive with what we would do on offense.
There has to be a cohesive team philosophy that fits
all together, and it doesn't anymore. And I think we've
seen that exposed over the course of the last couple
of games, specifically against the Houston Texans and against the
Miami Dolphins. So that's my overall take. It's my overall
philoscophical take, and I think I riffed for a good

(10:56):
what seven minutes now to buy you time to get here, Joe?
Is that what happened?

Speaker 1 (11:02):
Bruce? I'm going to ask you, can you hear me?
Can the chat hear me? Because that was the first
time while I have been live that I have ever
had that happen to me, So I just need to
confirm if can you all hear me in the chat?
Can you hear me? Bruce? I can hear because this
is an unprecedented event, and I want to thank Bruce
for holding this on while I was gone because I

(11:23):
have never seen my router die midstream. From my apologies,
and if that happens again and I go vanish, we'll
figure it out. So I apologize Bruce because I did
miss what was probably the angriest I would have ever
heard you, and I'm really mad about it. So I'm
back to just listen to it later. Yeah, yeah, I'm
gonna just when the stream ends, I will find you
a segment and then what I'll do is I'll message

(11:44):
you my response that I would have said to you
while we were alive. Thank you very much to this
guy who says, yes, we could hear your nagging voice.
That guy is the same profile picture as Roy. I
wonder if that's Roy. So in an impromptu response to
everything you said, because I made out some of it.
I think where I'm at with this, Bruce is I'm
getting really frustrated at the disjointed nature of the construction

(12:08):
of this roster. And it's not just the game against
Houston where I have this problem. It's really this entire season.
And why I'm having such a problem with that is
because none of these phases of really anything of this
team compliment each other. Right. They preach complimentary football. They preach,

(12:29):
you know, for lack of a better term, unity, cohesiveness. Right,
So we talk about offense and what is the offensive
philosophy with this team. It's to grind out games. It's
to run the football, it's to pass off their run,
it's to control. That's great, Okay, how do you set
that up? Well, there's two ways for your other phases.
On special teams, you are going to want to have

(12:50):
better starting field position, you are going to want to
have them in advantageous starts like thirty five plus where
they can run the football methodically and they could be
in a better if fuck they don't have to press
from their own territory as often or at the very
least with as much distance. And then for the defense,
if you have an offense that wants to control the game,

(13:11):
then you yourself have to be able to be on
the field as little as possible. You have to be
able to get out of drives quickly. You have to
be able to prevent teams from doing what the Bills
offense wants to do to other defenses. You have to
prevent those teams from doing that to you. They don't
do that. Their special teams doesn't help them out, and
it doesn't put them in any sort of positive field position.

(13:33):
With the exception of again the Tampa Bay game, where
there was an actual series of positive returns and the
Ray Davis return touchdown in this game, which I'm going
to be honest with you, after rewatching, it felt like
it happened by accident. This is my problem with the
Buffalo Bills after this game and really this whole season,
it's disjointed, it's not complimentary in the slightest and it's

(13:55):
really frustrating when you have a coach that NonStop preaches
complimentary football, but you're seeing an entire roster failing to
do what they should be doing to help each other
out and become a complete team. And what I think
we're at is a crossroads of what this team can
turn into, for better or for worse for the rest
of the season. After this game, it's another humbling experience.

(14:16):
But anytime you play a team with a known defense
like this that just kicks your ass, it's really jarring.
And I'll explain because they played the Miami Dolphins a
few weeks ago, and they played a team that didn't
really have high expectations and they get essentially blown out.

(14:36):
But at the same time, you could kind of throw
it up to while they were on the road, and
it was a divisional game, and divisional games are weird.
And even though I was immensely frustrated, I coped with
that this game was best defense in the league. You
knew what you were up against. And while that should
bring some comfort to people, it makes me more angry,
and it should make this team more angry, because what
did you think was going to happen? And what was
your CounterPunch to trying to solve the riddle that is

(14:59):
the Texans passing d defense. Well, you tried running the ball. Okay,
the run worked, but your passing game was disjointed and messy.
And a big part of why that happened was, again,
your protection was failing. Your five offensive linemen individually were
getting worked and it was incredibly frustrating. And rather than
trying to make those tweaks to help your quarterback out,
who is not blameless in this situation or in this game,

(15:20):
you instead rode and failed to adjust, and you wound
up just putting him in hell and rushing him and
pressing him the entire game. That is not good coaching,
That is not good preparation. That is a failure. And
when you are talking about Sean McDermott as a head
coach of this team all these years later, with this
much experience, when you were talking about Joe Brady as

(15:41):
an offensive play caller, with all his experience, it's a failure.
It's a failure on all fronts, and it's unacceptable to
witness a game like this and see them in another
down year when they have just had every saleable opportunity
to prevent that from happening and course correcting. And I
understand more than anybody how much injury is impact this.
I understand very much what it does to a team

(16:04):
when you lose your star wart guys. I get it,
and I am not ignoring that. But it's still unacceptable
football because at some point you have to realize that
those injuries are also going to expose the flaw in
your philosophy on each side of the ball, where even
if I can agree with the concept in a vacuum,
it has to work to become a complete team and

(16:26):
it's not working right now. You cannot get gashed on
the ground, Bruce, I'm gonna curse. I'm sorry, And it's
not a diss to the player by one of the
fucking worst offenses in the NFL, like statistically, you cannot
allow that to happen. You cannot allow yourselves to get
pummeled by Sean Tucker, who I really like you. And

(16:47):
you see an injury report for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
saying that Bucky Irving is going to play in this game,
your assumption is that they're going to have a better
job containing the rushing attack because their best running backs
not in the game. Their third string running back was
averaging almost eight yards to carry. You can't allow this.
It's unbelievable to me, and I'm losing trust and I'm
losing faith, and Bruce, I apologize because I know I

(17:07):
only have you for so much time, but really I
got you for a half hour of crashout. Assuming my
router doesn't die again, I am losing hope and faith,
and I am at a point right now where this
regime has lost me as a believer, and I am
going to say they have to prove it, and if
they don't this season, then I think it is time
for really self evaluation from all the way higher up

(17:31):
as in the ownership, to make a change. That's where
I'm at right now, Bruce. I want to turn it
back to you and just allow you to continue anything
that you feel like wasn't said, or anything you want
to address.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
On my side, I actually have more patience for the
defensive coaching than I do the offensive coaching.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
Now I want to tell you why. Now.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
I don't like either of the things that's happening offense
or defense, but I want to tell you why. Specifically,
I think that I blame offensive coaching more than defensive coaching,
because from an offensive coaching standpoint, you went into this
game against the Houston Texas knowing the type of defense
they had, knowing that the pass rush they had, and

(18:12):
instead of leaning away from arguably the thing that you
should have scouted going into the game as the being
the most problematic, which is Joe Brady's insistence on five
man protections and long developing mesh plays. Right, Like, those
two things in combination, five man protections and longer developing

(18:34):
pass routes, those things work if everything holds up, and
if ever there was a week where it wouldn't hold up,
it was going to be this week. And so what
you saw from Joe Brady is you saw him lean
more into five man protections on non play action plays

(18:54):
than he usually does. And so to me, this is
just not understanding why it's not working, and that's a
massive problem. In my opinion. Having it not work is
not something I overly blame a coach for. There is
an element of rock paper scissors to football that I
have historically talked about where we're just not comfortable. Sometimes

(19:16):
you call the play and they just happen to have
called the right coverage and you're just in trouble, right,
And that just sucks. If they keep throwing rock and
you keep throwing scissors. Now it's a U issue, right
Like now it's a U problem because they just throw
the same thing every play and you go, oh, you

(19:36):
know this is gonna be the time.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Though, that it's gonna work. No, no, it's not.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
You also knew you had to compromise right tackle and
that blew up multiple different plays. You had to compromise
right tackle, and it didn't stop you from just doing
it again. Five men protection run a mesh.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Drove me crazy, by the way, And I'm like, okay.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
Cool, Like I need you to unders stand something. If
you took a shot every time the Buffalo Bill's right
ran mesh, you would have died like that. You just
would have straight up died. And I mean that's not cool, right,
And in high leverage moments, your idea of what to
do in high leverage moments, I want to I want

(20:19):
to flip back to you. Okay, I know this is
a really painful, like super dowper painful memory, but we're
gonna do it. Anyway.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
Oh No.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Last year, when the Buffalo Bills lost to the Kansas
City Chiefs in the playoffs, the last play of the
game was Steve Smagnolu going, Okay, we've given him a
couple of this pressure looks so far. I have this
counter move for that pressure.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
Look.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
I'm gonna show him the same thing they think they've
seen again, but this time it's different. I'm not gonna
go back to the thing that worked. I'm gonna show
them the thing that they're afraid of and then do
something different in those big, high leverage moments. And openly
said Josh Allen's like they folded it. They fooled us

(21:05):
on that play because we thought, Okay, here it is again.
This is a pressure we've seen before, and it wasn't.
It was different in those high leverage moments. You have
to have something. I mean, you had something in your
bag for fourth and twenty seven, but you didn't have
anything in your bag for fourth and one. Is that
what we're saying? How is that the case? How is

(21:28):
it fourth and six right that you decide? Okay, you
know what, I have an idea, guys. I know we
just ran hook and ladder, but hear me out, what
if we ran Mechigan? But in those high leverage, pivotal moments,
you have to have something in your bag for these things,

(21:51):
and great coordinators do and Joe Brady doesn't. And so
that's the reason why I have less patience for the
offense than the defense, because the defense, right number one,
improved in the second half, and they frequently do improve
in the second half because they make adjustments. And secondly,
their issue is far more personnel than it is scheme. Yeah,

(22:12):
And that's the other reason why I have more patients
for defensive coaching, because the fact the matter is, number one,
they're completely banged up on the defensive line. Number two,
they're completely banged up basically everywhere else. And number three,
this is the I blame branded being more for the defense,
and I blame coaching more for the offense.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
Yeah. I so I do agree with that. I think
where I'm frustrated and I'm I think you said a
beautiful way on the offense. So I don't need to
share anymore. Besides, I just want to read the stat
that Eric shared earlier, and if you're in the discord,
you saw it. But I'm going to read his tweet
verbatim just so you can all kind of take it in,
and also because I want to be accurate here. So

(22:51):
he says, on passes with no play action, the Bills
send five guys into a route eighty three point one
percent of the time normally, so five pass bockers and
that's tops in the NFL. Against the Texans, that number
went up to ninety point three percent. Now that is
immensely frustrating because that's just the lack of self awareness.
And I don't want to say that like our offensive
line isn't good in pass bro because they are. It's

(23:14):
because when you are watching the product on the field
and you are seeing Will Anderson and Denil Hunter and
even the interior defensive line have its way with your
offensive line, there needs to be something a CounterPunch, Like
you said, Bruce, something in your bag that could be
an alternative to help him. And when you're talking about
the priority, the priority of this franchise, what do you

(23:35):
think it is when it comes to the offense, when
it comes to preservation, when it comes to health, it's
protecting Josh Allen. It's keeping him safe, it's keeping him
from taking hits. We all lost our mind and thought
the season and maybe even next season could have potentially
been over for a split second when he got hit
from behind by Will Anderson and was on the ground

(23:55):
in pain. We thought we were about to be in
a reality where Mitch Drubisky was going to start the
rest of the season and the team could very realistically
go six and eleven, seven and ten and bottom out,
missed the playoffs with no competitive nature at all for
the rest of the year. And we're thankful that we
didn't get that. But the fact that that moment, which
happened early on in the game isn't enough to just

(24:17):
get you into a rhythm of well, maybe we could
maybe go six offensive linemen, maybe we could ship the
edge rusher more frequently. That is unbelievable to me. It
doesn't make any sense. And I think that when you
talk about the offensive coaching being more worrisome, I completely agree,
and I'm all the way out on it right now.
It has to earn my trust back one hundred percent.
But I think I've seen enough. I truly believe I've

(24:39):
seen enough, and I don't think Joe Brady is an
incapable guy. I do think a part of it and
when you go Bruce. There's plenty of comments about it,
but I do have a branded bean rant. But I'm
I'm frustrated, disappointed, and I just do not have faith
in that group. And when you're playing a defense like this,
all bets should have been off. There is nothing left
to keep in the quote unquote chamber metaphorical chamber, which

(25:01):
I subscribe to, but I think is more of a
concept now this late in the season. There's no reason
to keep things in your bag against a defense like this.
You have to pull out every stop, every trick, play
everything you could. And like you said, a hooking ladder
on fourth and twenty eight is going into that bag.
But why did it take you getting into that situation
to even like ponder that. It doesn't make sense to me.

(25:24):
None of last night offensively makes sense to me. None
of really anything in the passing game made sense to me.
And I'm just so disappointed. But the Spencer Brown thing
that gets me even more angry. Why is he still
in the game, and not even just still in the
game against like a B League defensive lineman. Why is
he still in the game in all when he's having

(25:45):
a I think it was a shoulder injury of like
a visible shoulder injury using one arm. It doesn't make
any sense. It's negligible, it's malpractice. It's really really really
poor planning, preparation and game in game awareness. I can't
so for me, I'm all the way out. I've defended
Joe Brady a ton on this show. I know people
are probably still defending him, and I get it and

(26:06):
I understand it. I've been in those shoes plenty of times.
I can't defend it anymore. And unless there is a
drastic turnaround, I'm gonna be in the camp that I
think it's time to find a different solution for your
offense because this isn't good enough. And again, a part
of it has to do with the GM. I guess
my final point on that the defensive side of the ball.
I do understand your point completely, Bruce, and I think

(26:27):
injuries have had their way with it. But I still
just feel like fundamentally and this is me, this is
me more so like my philosophy changing personally, I just
want those two gappers. I want that build of defensive lineman. Now.
I want to get people that are just able to
keep the ground game afloat, preventing any sort of like

(26:50):
threat of to go like going. God, I'm losing my mind.
I'm getting so mad that I'm actually stuttering more than
I ever do, going too fartfield, getting gash from behind.
I can't do it anymore. I need to see a
fundamental shift in how they're approaching run defense. I know
that this is Sean McDermott, and Sean McDermott don't I
don't want to say it doesn't care but can tolerate
running versus passing. But it's really really bad right now,

(27:13):
and you're seeing what it does. Yes, they absolutely lock
things down in the second half, they still gave up
twenty points in the first with that defense behind them.
I don't think I can justify it. And despite the
fact that they turn things around, it's just not tolerable
to me, and I don't have much faith in that philosophy.
The only hope I have is that the emphasis on

(27:34):
athleticism going forward can help them in the back end.
And maybe if they draft a few more athletic freak guys.
And I'm not just talking Tracy guys, but actual speed
and build and playing with the speed relative to their
size in this upcoming draft future drafts, then maybe I
can forgive it. But to be honest with you, I'm
getting closer to a point where I think a full
scale teardown of their philosophy is better for them going

(27:56):
forward because I just don't think I think teams approach
them the same way now, and even if they were healthy,
I don't think this entire issue would go away. I
don't think it would be gone at all. I think teams,
even with Michael Hoyt and Ed Oliver in the mix,
would still be able to run on them at will.
We were asking last season with Matt Milano's injury, what
it will look like Matt Milano's here, and it's still bad.

(28:17):
You know. I just can't sit here and say that
the type of build they have up front and the
philosophy they have for defending the run is tolerable anymore,
because too often in a season are we questioning it,
And too often when we get to pivotal games in
the playoffs, does it become a burden. So I personally
like I can wait on them, and I think they
are going to go defense heavy again, but I've lost

(28:37):
faith in the philosophy and Bruce, I'll turn it back
to you. We're hitting seven o'clock. I know you've got
to run, but I want to just ask you any
final thoughts, anything else you want to say. And Pat
and I've had this up for a while. Thank you
so much for this. I appreciate it. I just wanted
to say that at the end of the rant, what
do you got.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
When it comes to the defensive side of the ball?
I have problems with the philosophy, and when it comes
to the offensive side of the ball, I have problems
with the philosophy, and I have problems with the game
day coaching. Now, philosophy is set at a head coach
and general manager level. So lest you think that my
discussion about the defense right there means that I don't
have a problem with the coaching, right the direction is

(29:15):
set by the general manager and the head coach. Like
that's the direction. So if you think about it on
two columns, on one column you have offensive problems. On
the other column you have defensive problems. The defensive column
says direction and who's it fall for direction? General manager,
head coach, And then on the offensive side you have

(29:37):
direction and game day coaching. Who's a fault for those things,
the head coach, the general manager, and the offensive coordinator.
So no one is safe from the wrath. I think
that they brought on themselves at this point because it's
all either direction or coaching or both. And even if
it's direction, that's still partly the head coach's job, because

(29:59):
it's not like the general manager is out there going well,
I think this is the way the team should be built,
and you're just gonna deal with it, head coach. That's
not how it works. You are collaboratively setting the direction
of the team and the philosophies of offensive defense. I
want these types of players. This is what I value.
My my wife sends me to the grocery store. She
sends me to the list and go just hey, you know,
go there and uh, you know, pick.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Out what you like.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
That's not how this works ultimately, even if you're not
the one ultimately picking the players, you're still setting the
table for the person who wanted you to set the table. Yeah,
and so I don't think that there's a way you
can distinguish. I really don't, and I won't be pleased
if it ends up being a partial wiping. Like if
you end up firing Brandon Bean and keeping Sean mcgerrimott,

(30:44):
or you fire Sean mcermat and keep Brandy be.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
I'll be ticked off because.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
The part of the problem is offensive and defensive direction,
which is set jointly between the.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
Two of them.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
And so they came in together, they had their contracts
linked together. If they leave, they should leave together. Now
we would like to again, I say this every time.
I don't think they're gonna do it. I still don't
think they're gonna do it. Even after everything we've talked about,
I still don't think we're gonna do it. So part
of what we're gonna have to talk about over the
next couple of weeks and probably in the offseason, is

(31:16):
how you process the disappointment of not getting that that
you want, Because right now we're in a spot where,
for the first time in a couple of years, the
Buffalo Bills would not be considered Super Bowl contenders. And
what I mean by that is if they were to
win a Super Bowl this year, everybody would go Wow,

(31:36):
didn't see that coming. Holy crap. We thought they were dead.
And at no point over the last five years has
that been true where they were like Wow, I never
saw it coming. For a while there, we were wonder
if the Bills were evenna make the playoffs. They weren't
even the best team in their own division. At no
point has that been true in the last five years
except for right now. And I still don't think they're

(32:00):
going to do it. I don't so for me, it
is an acknowledgment of the issue. It's dividing up the blame.
It's accepting the global nature of the enterprise level blame,
but then also making peace with the idea that I
still don't think they're gonna do it.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah, I don't think they're going to pull the trigger
on firing either of them right now. I think it
would take at minimum two seasons for them to really say, Okay,
this has to change. I think about the Rex Ryan era.
But the Rex Ryan era was so bad for two
seasons that they knew they had to move on. But
what scares me is I'm worried that kind of like
how I've been saying that I have supported McDermott and

(32:39):
Bean and I've loved the winning nature that they brought
to the franchise, but they haven't gotten the ultimate goal.
I'm concerned that Pegula has that fear and wouldn't make
the move even after like three seasons of them bottoming
out or barely making the playoffs, and that they've kind
of gotten the grace that guys like John Harbough and
Mike Tomlin have gotten around the league without the ring,
which scares me because you're locked into the cycle of

(33:01):
Like I'm a big Yankee fan, Bruce, it reminds me
a lot of the Air and Boone Yankees. You get
so close, but you don't actually reach the ultimate goal.
But we'll continue this show at least me and the chat. Bruce.
I appreciate the hell out of you for covering for
me as my router died. I hope it doesn't happen again.
Thank you for your time, Thank you for your rent.
I'm really excited to listen to it later. It would
have been awesome if I could have heard it in
real time, but you know that didn't happen, So let

(33:24):
me know what you do. Yeah, I'm very very excited.
I'll give you an honest feedback, but I'm sure it'll
be nothing but positive things. Bruce. Tell the people what
you got going on where they can find you.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Before you depart, ladies and gentlemen, you're not gonna hear
from me until next Thursday, on Thanksgiving Day, and it
will not be a sad, mad episode because it'll be
Food for Thought. So we're gonna we're gonna cheer you up.
Nate's gonna come on the show, We're gonna do Food
for Thought. We're gonna talk about Thanksgiving. It's gonna be great,

(33:52):
and we're gonna have a good time. And I hope
and I wish you all a lovely holiday with your
family and friends, those who are close to you. I
want to let you know that I appreciate you, and
I am glad and thankful for you as a listenership.
I'm glad that you decided to jump on Joe's show
on a Friday night and co miserate and I will
see all that, Bruce.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
I hope you have a wonderful holiday, looking forward to
the episode. Thank you again. Man. I hope you and
your family enjoy the day. You need a lot of food,
because I know I will be. I'll be comtos by
the end of the day. But You're welcome back anytime,
and everybody check them out. I appreciate you Bruce, thank
you again. Catch later. All right, everyone, it's just me
now for the next like half hour. So I got

(34:34):
a bunch of comments here that I have saved because
I wanted to make sure that I could get to
a lot of the ones that I was going through.
But of course when the router died, I had to
play catch up. So if you are tuning in, just
now leave a comment. Let me know how you're feeling.
Tell me. This is your time more than it is mine.
I want to know what the fans are thinking. Even
though I'm pretty sure I know what all of you

(34:56):
are thinking, it seems like our chat is equally pissed off.
I just got an absolute mammoth of a comment. In fact,
it's so long that I'm going to bring it up,
So let's do this. It's covering my face, that's how
long this hell? Yeah, doctor Neil. I really hope because
I have not gone through the whole thing, and I

(35:16):
really hope nothing that is in this. So I apologize
in advance if I didn't screen this. No true Bills
fan can actually go on the air and defend this regime.
It is organizational malpractice. Brandon Bean Sean McDermott, Joe Brady,
and Bobby Babbage all need to go. Sean McDermott should
have been fired after thirteen seconds, fired after using yes
a reference. Fired after this last year's Texans game, this
year's Texans game. Brandon Bean has been incompetent. Invests all

(35:40):
this money on the defense and we have nothing to
show for it. Organizational malpractice. Bring me, please bring me
up to chat cause and he never continued. That is
an unbelievable I've never gotten a comment this size. I'm
actually gonna go back and screenshot this later. Doctor Neil,
thank you for this one. I understand your frustration and

(36:04):
where I'm at right now. You know, I just made
my rent earlier with Bruce, and I do think there
is something to be said for the collapses that we
have seen and the lack of an assurance from this
team in the years that have passed, that you could
feel confident that they have learned from those mistakes. I

(36:28):
on this show. You all know, if you have tuned
in weekly, know that I'm a bit of an optimist.
I've defended the coaching staff. I will find the middle
ground and everything, just because I always believe that these
conversations have so many answers it's impossible to deduce one thing.
But where I am at currently, not even just again
after this most recent loss, but even the Tampa Bay game,
even the Miami game, even the Kansas City game, and

(36:51):
this season, last season, the year before, I have just
accumulated enough distrust that the direction of this organization is
going to lead to a Super Bowl with the current regime,
and I think from the front office standpoint, it is
tangible evidence of decision making leaning too heavily into their

(37:12):
own identities on offensive defenses coming to bite them back
in the butt. Where now the roster build is a
mix of talent, young talent, and veterans that are either
in the past injury prone or are currently on the
roster injury prone, or even youthful players injury prone or
ineffective because you tried to box in a certain archetype
to what you wanted to do and it didn't work out.

(37:33):
And on the offensive side of the ball, I'm talking
about someone like Kean Coleman, who were clearly seeing at
least so far in his development, has been a disappointment,
which is very unfortunate. And on the defensive side, of
the ball guys like I'm sorry to say, Dwayne Carter
even right now, the lack of return on guys like TJ.
Sanders and Landon Jackson, who yes, I know Landon Jackson
has been hurt and there's a ramp up period. I
think that from the front office standpoint, the investment into

(37:55):
their philosophy has not been good enough. They have missed
on first round picks. Guys like Kaye Elam have been
a miss and they've and despite the late round or
Day two or Day three guys that they have found,
it feels like they very much have just not accrued
enough blue chip talent to make them as competitive when
you talk about tight games where talent really does shine
a lot more in the playoffs, and year after year

(38:17):
we've had more and more losses to the same team,
but other teams mixed in, like Cincinnati, and it makes
you lose faith. So I completely understand, and I still
did understand, even with my optimism fans that lost faith
in the coaching staff. But I'm with you now, I
don't trust it. I don't trust Sean McDermott to lead
this team to a super Bowl right now. And I
think his defensive philosophy is the biggest reason for that,

(38:40):
even in the regular season. I kind of equate this
to like a home run hitting lineup in the MLBA.
And it's funny because I was talking to Anthony today
and he brought up the home run hitters point. I
promise if he somehow sees this, this is not ripping
him off. This is kind of a comparison that I've
had a thought of for a while. But with Sean
McDermott and the kind of all or nothing nature of
their defense, to have a creator, the generating of the

(39:01):
turnover and trying to create chaos, it reminds me a
lot of like a lineup in baseball that is just slugging. Hey,
what lineup does that? My team's lineup, the New York Yankees.
They're very much homer or bust. And that philosophy is
going to work when you run into rotations of weaker
pitchers from worst teams or in the case of football,
bad defenses. It's not going to work when you play
the cream of the crop, the best defenses, the best

(39:23):
situational coaches in football, because your tendencies, the things that
you stick to become all the more apparent and that's
all they're working around. And to me, what I have learned,
and it's kind of changed the entire way I'm thinking
about this sport and how I evaluate it going forward.
You have to be proactive, not reactive, and I feel
like our coaching staff is far too reactive. And yes,

(39:45):
it's very difficult to know what league trends are going
to be before they happen. It's very difficult to build
a roster with this perfect mindset that what you're gonna
do is gonna work. I understand it. It's not an
easy thing, but it has been done. And there are
other franchises in the NFL right now, like Los Angeles.
I could even talk about Seattle Kansas City, who, in
my opinion, when it comes to certain coaches, like decisions

(40:06):
made by their coaching staffs, whether it's on offense or defenses,
have had that proactive nature benefit them to a point
where they've achieved success. Seattle still early on in it,
but like Sean McVay or Steve Spagnola or Andy Reid,
to me, these are coaches that always play ahead of you.
And I understand that not every coach functions that way,
but I feel like this current coaching staff has been
too reactive when it comes to middle of the game

(40:28):
adjustments to a point where games are already out of
reach and they're playing from behind, and the way their
philosophy works on offense, they're not going to be able
to catch up. So it's a long winded answer, but
I appreciate that comment, and I'm with you, guys. I
genuinely think that this coaching staff has just kind of
lost its way and I don't really have faith in
them right now. And that comment again, I just have
to I have to pull it up one more time.

(40:48):
Where is it? Oh wait, he has a part two? Oh,
that was just part one. Here's part two for you,
my friend. I'm better than Oh no, hey, Bruce was
a pretty good guest. I want to say better than
any guests that Bruce was awesome, But I'll just read
the comment. Oh, this was just part one. Here's part
two for you, my friend. I'm better than any guests
that you could possibly bring up, because I don't sugarcoat
it and I will tell it like it is. Look

(41:09):
at the history of Brandon Bean's picks. Boogie Basham. Yet
that was a bad one. Cody Ford also bad Elom
skuy whiffs on pick after pick after pick. I think
the biggest issue is the early picks have not turned
into stalwart players. With the exception of a couple of guys,
most of their early picks have faltered or have not
been that effective, and that's looming really large for them

(41:31):
right now, especially as they get closer to being over
the cap and not having as much money to work with.
If you are a team that is spending a lot
of money and you are a team that is tied
to a lot of players with little cap flexibility, those
first round picks have double the impact. And they're in
a weird situation where they're always picking at the end
of the first so true first round boot chip talent

(41:52):
isn't in abundance for them. So your best course of
action is either to trade back and go into the
rounds where you've proven dog a grease too, proven that
you've been strong, or trade up and go get that
blue chip talent. And again, I've had a very patient approach,
and I still think the intent was there for Brandon
being to try to better the roster, but it's clear
that the situations they're finding themselves in every draft, haven't

(42:13):
lent themselves well to the bills, and they haven't had
the cream of the crop and talent to be able
to really transform this roster that doesn't have a lot
of money to spend in these off seasons, that doesn't
have the ability to spend freely compared to teams with
massive caproom that are in rebuilds. And yes, maybe Max
Harriston pans out. Daltonkkaate I think is a good player,
but let's be honest, Dalton Kinkaid is a hyper limited player.

(42:34):
He's a very good receiver. But he's a very good
receiver because the matchups favor him because he's being used
as the wide guy in thirteen personnel or as a
non blocking tight end and eleven p in passing situations.
He's a true passing guy. He's tendency giveaway. He's really
good when he can get into a situation that benefits him,
but it's very limited. So I'm just I'm sitting here

(42:55):
like at this point, I need to see some difference
in philosophy and their draft cycles to either commit to
just moving back in a crewing capital and just throwing
as many darts as you can, or go try and
get a blue chip guy if it's possible, because I
think they've had the opportunity to do it the past
few years and it didn't work out well for them.
So doctor Neil, very good stuff. Thank you for the paragraph.
And I don't say that ironically. That was very entertaining

(43:18):
and I did get a kick out of how long
that was. Let me get to some other comments from earlier.
I apologize for keeping you waiting, as Brandon says, talk
to your shit, Joe Brandon, thank you for watching. I
appreciate your Twitter because it's very entertaining. Mid game crashouts
are very common on Twitter, but I think you're the
king of them, and I mean that in a very
complimentary way. I hope you take that as a compliment,

(43:39):
and if you don't, I apologize. Let's keep going here,
so I'm going to look at more again. Patten, thank
you so much. I just want to say it again.
I didn't. I really really appreciate this, guys. I appreciate
all of you watching again, It's just be riffing for
the time being. I know a lot of you are angry, though,
and I could feel it in the chat room. So
thank you so much. Let's do this. Technic just says
NFL is a heridy league and at the end of

(44:02):
the day, only one real way to get better, it's
by being bad. I think I miss about that. Sorry,
I'm not well rested at all, but I I'm torn
on this because, like, especially when you think about Brandon
Bean's comments about I never want to suck bad enough
to get Jamar Chase, It's like, yeah, I get it.
I know what you mean. You never want to be

(44:23):
a bad team because bad football, bad product is just
it's a miserable experience. I mean, I come from a
family of Giants fans, and I've watched what they've had
to deal with every single year for the past basically decade.
It's really really ugly stuff. It's miserable, and I don't
enjoy watching that product. And to be honest with you,
like there have been plenty of seasons where just the
writing was on the wall and you mail it in

(44:44):
and you get apathetic about the team, and like that sucks.
And I know for a lot of the people in
the shadow are Bills fans, you're also Sabers fans who
are dealing with essentially another drought. It's not even essentially
it is another drought. You have a drought era hockey team.
I'm not saying that to insult, but you understand, like
that pathetic approach to a team is a terrible way
to live when you're a sports fan. So I get

(45:04):
not wanting to be awful. I do, but there has
to be a better way and a more sure fire
way to get yourself in better positions in the draft
to find potential blue chip players, because again, while I
don't want to outwardly suck, it does frustrate me that
a lot of their first round picks just haven't panned
out the way you had hoped. And it's really contributions

(45:25):
from day late, Day two or day three guys that
are benefiting them right now. And that's not to say
that's not a good thing, but imagine what like all
world talent you could accrue, whether that's a receiver, whether
Keion Coleman actually proved to be that guy for you,
or whether it was kyor Elin proved to be an
all pro corner. Imagine just the flexibility you get when
you could build around those people knowing you have them.
And if that's Max Harriston this year, then great but

(45:46):
I need to see them put themselves in better positions
to get better players. I've supported their approaches in the past,
but given this season and what we're seeing and the
bad return on investment so far from a few players
they've extended that are homegrown, something's got to be shaken up.
And I appreciate this comment. It is a parody league.
You could see it this year in the AFC now.
I like this comment. Took Joe Brady two quarters to

(46:07):
let Shakiir run arount other than a finish swing. I'm frustrated.
I mean, Shakir statistically had a good game yesterday, but
that doesn't mean anything. I'm frustrated with his usage. Two.
Guy's a good slot receiver and I feel like he's
boxed and it's not the worst thing to get the
ball in his hands quickly to give him yact opportunities.

(46:28):
He's a very strong player when it comes to yack opportunities.
Look at the New Orleans game, look at yesterday. He's
had moments where he's broken off for explosive games where
he can make people miss. He's incredible with the ball
in his hands, but that shouldn't be the only way
you have to live with him. I think the biggest
problem though, is like for so much variance you want
on this offense, Like a lot of their receivers excel
in the slot role, so when guys like Curtis Samuel

(46:48):
are here or even Dalton Kincaid, like, it's better to
have a lot of these guys play out of the slot.
Shakiir should be the primary slot guy. I want to
see more targets for in the chat. Oh no, we're back. Wow.

(47:15):
I don't know what the hell is going on with
the router tonight, folks. I apologize. Oh my goodness, gracious,
all right, let's keep going here. I could see myself.
If you can't hear me, then I'm talking into the void.
Let's see, are we over meshed and two predictable? So
I'm gonna go with this one here. I think that

(47:39):
they are too predictable, and I think yesterday proved it.
And I mean the overmeshed part really frustrated me. I'm
sitting here like, okay, third and one, we're gonna try
and exploit the middle of the field a bit. They're
gonna go with their staple. The third to one call
was a mesh call and Josh, I think hit the

(47:59):
right read with Shakier. I think it was Shakier. Will
Anderson just makes a great play, So I wasn't too
upset with it, because even though it is a predictable call,
it would have worked if Shakier could get the ball
in that situation. But running it again on fourth, well
it was actually fourth and sixth, forgive me, because Deon
Dawkins had the penalty, which already frustrated me enough, But
running it again I just can't get down with that.

(48:21):
At some point, you have to switch it up. There
has to be a different concept offer. You have to
show variants of some kind. I mean, especially when you're
talking about the percentage of true five man protections they
were dealing with. How gass this offensive line was just
the literal like predictability that you had all night. I
can't I can't stomach going back to the same thing again.

(48:44):
I know he has a spam it until it doesn't
work mentality, but it didn't work the play prior, so
why are we going back to it? Like it really
frustrates me. The pre snap like formations that I am
seeing just again in that type of situation. I want
something different. Like you have to pull everything out of

(49:04):
your bag. Man. Like I've seen them at points where
they have two tight ends in the backfield and I
really enjoy it because it's a different look. It offers
you something. It offers you protection but also deception at
the same time. And yes, you don't have Dalton kinkd
so your best receiving tight end isn't there. But why
not go back to what you just did on that
fourth down because at least it was a few plays
ago and it succeeded, So there's a threat there and
maybe you have more variance with your receivers. And that's

(49:25):
same for me, Like there's more than they could have
done than just Mesh in that point. And I feel
like it's like when you're playing Madden and you're getting
decimated and you just have that one play that you
go to over and over again. It felt like you
were watching that in that moment. And that's where I
get really frustrated with Joe Brady because I've seen this
coach really pull things out of a sleeve. Last season.
Even alone, Mesh did work for them a lot and

(49:46):
they did rely on it, but again, like the things
like lack of play action, And yes, they tried ramping
it up a little bit more yesterday and it wasn't
working because they couldn't get proper edge protection, but they
also didn't have the bodies to protect. I'm just getting
so annoyed because it's every week we kind of have
the same complaint, and in that pivotal moment, you saw
it again and it's why I lost faith. So too

(50:07):
predictable is definitely a way I would put it. I
think the bills, if you brought in a different mind
to make immediate tweaks, I would actually think that the
person on the roster could fare better. I mean some
targets to James Cook yesterday, but like you could throw
to these running backs more again, like why was Jackson
Hall's only targeted twice? That frustrates me. And I'm not

(50:29):
saying he's this all world receiver, but he definitely had
looks that could have favored him when he was blocking
in line and could have leaked out for a big
game like he did the one time you threw to
him or one of the two times you threw to him.
I just feel like it doesn't have to be Well,
we don't have the bodies in the wide receiver course,
so we can't do anything. It can be well, I'm
gonna get as creative as possible, and damned if I do,
damned if I don't kind of thing. But at least

(50:50):
I tried, so I think too predictable is the way
to put it right now. And I think something I
wanted to rant about more because I talked about this
briefly earlier, is the starting field position is not helping him.
While I am frustrated with Brady and while I am
out on the coach, they are not going to be
able to do anything creatively if they are consistently backed
up inside their own twenty. It just can't. You can't

(51:12):
live in that world. That needs to be better. I
think the coverage units have been very good. Yes, the
extra point yesterday was bad, but it's all Matt Prater's
forty one years old filling in. He was gonna have
missus and even then he still kicked a couple of
decently long field goals. I can forgive that a little more,
even though it was ending up being the difference of
the game. The return unit is bad. It's so, so,

(51:32):
so bad, and I just cannot stomach it because when
you see them start in that side of the field,
it's like telegraph that this offense is going to press
and struggle. Josh Allen is going to press and struggle,
And here you are looking at another game where he
had to press and struggle because the field position was
terrible for a majority of the game. I think that
is also a big part of it and should be
mentioned just a bit more because I feel like we're

(51:54):
there are people tweeting about it, but like it's a glaring, glaring,
glaring issue, like it honestly compromises the entire structure of
this offensive philosophy that has to get better. Like there,
it's to me, it's not a coincidence that when they
played Tampa Bay, their best offensive performance in weeks stemmed
from when they were starting an almost plus field position
or at least very close to midfield almost every time.

(52:15):
Like that's that's not a coincidence. In that same game,
when they started back in the end zone, Josh bro's
an ugly interception. So that's got to get better. One
hundred percent. The Texans defense from show Will four four
nine four. The Texans defense is everything Sean wanted Buffalo's
to be. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, dude, like
living in a four man rush world where blitzes are

(52:37):
luxuries and you can send five or six man pressures
but you don't necessarily have to playing single high and
having eight man boxes but again not having to send
all these guys as rushers. So your fore man is
generating pressure, but your stack box is preventing the rushing
lanes for Josh Allen to escape on. So he's pressing
more because he knows he can't run away. That Texans

(52:57):
defense deserves a ton of credit, and I won't turn
a blind how good it is. It's an amazing defense.
It's the best in the league by a substantial margin,
and it should be considered that even if you didn't
look at the stats when you just watch last night's
game and they were missing their starting safety in it
very rarely mattered except for maybe one explosive Ty Johnson
passed down the field. Kylen Bulock is a stud. Lassiter

(53:19):
is a stud. Stingley is a stud, Anderson Hunter are studs.
And then you look at former Bill tim Settle playing
a better brand of football in Houston, playing at a
heavier weight, and you're kind of like man how could
we not get that same return on investment. Why I'm
really frustrated because it is kind of the realize dream
of Sean mcdermot's defense, except they hold their point of

(53:41):
attack really well. They anchor extremely well. I know they
gave up a couple of long runs yesterday, but even then,
like that unit, when they can just sit down and hunt,
they're the best in the league to do it, and
I feel like the Bills don't. When they're healthy, I
think they can at the very least be a formidable
pass rush. I still stand on that was the strength
of their team. I think Joey Bosa is playing hurt
and mess with them a little bit, but they still

(54:02):
aren't at the caliber that Houston's ad. This is the
real life dream man. Houston built a hell of a
defense and it's going to be that way for a
long time because they're retaining that talent. So it's not
going to get any easier when you play them unless
somehow than none of those guys are on the field.
Let's go for this. So this is the problem with
Bean is that he is incapable of drafting a competent
D line despite committing resources to it. Same with cornerback,

(54:25):
wide receiver, etc. So I'm really glad you included that
caveat because I feel like where I've defended Bean is
the intent but not the execution. But now I'm tired
of defending the intent because yes, the d line had
to get better. You did want to win with four.
You did want your pass rush to make a difference
in the playoffs, just as the same as like predictability

(54:46):
and some of the other things we spoke about on
the show have reared the rugbly heads in the playoffs.
I think a lack of a true pass rush has
killed them too. I also think that their defense winds
up in a ton of situations where they can't again
hunt because their run defense gets gashed so much by
really talented rushing attacks that they're not put in proper
position to rush the passer freely like Houston did yesterday

(55:06):
when they had consistent third and longs or at least
third and medium range. This to me is it's really
frustrating because they know what the problem is. We know
they know what the problem is, but they're not getting
the return on what they've invested in, and that's a
massive issue. I think this draft class Sanders, who you know,

(55:27):
I need to see more from, but I'm not out
on him yet. But Dion Walker does have his issues.
But I think for a rookie defensive lineman has been
playing really well, they haven't gotten enough. I mean, Joey
Boson is a really nice pass rusher, but also now
that he's playing with essentially one hand, he's not as
effective and the depth of the team is flawed. I mean,
I like aj Epaneze. I think he's a good rusher

(55:47):
and having a good year, but he's not a premier
pass rusher even with the good PRP metrics. The same
goes for Greg Russell. They have very functional d lineman
and very functional edgesetters and that's great. They need more
hunt and I think honestly losing Michael Hoyt was a
massive blow for them, but it was an even more
massive blow because, like I thought, their pass rush could
sustain and it's not sustaining. And it's very, very tough

(56:09):
to watch because when they can't hit home when they
have all the time, or I mean, when they have
their situation something that favors them, that's defeating as hell,
especially when you know how much of an emphasis they
have placed on defensive line and how many resources they've
allocated to it in free agency and the draft. So
I think this comment is fair. Intent is there. Execution

(56:30):
has failed in the past, with the exception of like
von Miller for eight games, and right now with the injuries,
which again I know that's out of Bean's control, but
that does get attached to him. It's not good so
far with the try to revamp D line, and I
hope it can stay healthy next year and we can
have a different conversation because if at full health, I
do believe in the D line. But also a lot

(56:51):
of these contracts are rending, a lot of players are leaving.
They're gonna have to address it again. So have fun
with that one, guys, I know I won't be Okay,
We're gonna move on to the next comment here, question
not a comment. Has McDermott lost the team? I don't
think so. I don't think McDermott has lost the team.
I know we saw the sideline angle of Josh Allen

(57:12):
saying what are we doing to me? Like I'm sure
he's frustrated. I'm sure the whole team's frustrated. But I
don't think McDermott's lost them. I think at the same
vein of us being frustrated that they haven't won the
Super Bowl. Being on a roster where you're getting to
the playoffs and getting to the dance enough. Yes, there's
probably skepticism from some of the longer tenured players. I
would just imagine that's a natural response to not reaching

(57:32):
your ultimate goal. But the guy does win in the
regular season. The guy has gotten you there. So I
can't imagine the team's gonna quit after beating Tampa Bay
and then losing a Thursday night game. As frustrated as
I am, and everything I stand on I said, or
everything I said I stand on, I don't think the
team has lost faith in him. But we'll see, because
if they bought him out over the next few weeks,
we could be having an entirely different conversation. So let's

(57:54):
move on to the next one. Thank you for your comments, guys.
These are great. Yes, Brandon, I agree with you completely.
Keeping spent In was one of the biggest forms of
malpractice I've seen this team commit. Yes, And why it's
more annoying is because you already know how difficult it
is to defend Will Anderson as it is when your
tackle is healthy. I mean at the start of the game,
Spencer Brown was already struggling with him. He had a

(58:15):
couple wins, but he had some ugly losses too. So
now when you see him barely able to put any
force with another arm onto one of the best edge
rushers in the league, that should be an immediate red flag.
That should sound a siren immediately, and the players should
be pulled from the game. I think Spencer Brown has
developed really nicely. I think he is one of the
better right tackles in the league. Now. I was very
skeptical and ended up being a really nice development story.

(58:38):
But you can't keep a guy in like that, no
matter what his pedigree is, no matter what his history is.
If he's visibly hurt and not able to perform the
same way, you're doing yourself a disservice. It's kind of
like our conversation about Trel Bernard not being one hundred
percent healthy, not looking like the same player, and that
being a detriment to the defense. When you have a
tackle trying to protect your quarterback, trying to protect his

(58:58):
right arm, goal mine of your franchise, and he is
not able to stay on toe tote with a good addresser,
you got to pull them immediately. There was just no
urgency in that decision, and it really bit them. And
it's really really frustrating to see that. I just I
can't tolerate that. It's so bad. It's really really bad.
And I think you have every right to call it
now practice, and I think you have every right to

(59:20):
be pissed off, because I'm pissed off. Charles says, I
like this comment a lot. How do you reconcile and
find a middle ground between a fish and Allen that
avoids mistakes and destroy a quarterback that puts on the cape.
So I said earlier to all of you that I
would have more of a branded being rant. Here it
is I and I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm not going
to retract on anything I said to you guys in

(59:42):
the off season, because I stand on everything I said.
I'm willing to be wrong. It's okay, that's part of discourse.
Things change rapidly. And I was in support of the
offensive roster construction. I was in support of the receivers
being something of like a compliment to the running game.
I did have questions, would it actually pan out wood
Key on Coleman develop, would Josh Palmer be an immediate dude?

(01:00:03):
And right now, neither of those things happen. And because
you're seeing the worst case scenario of both, I'm gonna
call it a failure on the GM because at some point,
if you aren't getting that return from these guys either,
and now your offense is getting solved because you don't
have the bandwidth to really have a CounterPunch to teams

(01:00:24):
stopping the run or getting you out of game. Script
that falls on you. And it wasn't good enough roster
construction in hindsight. And right now, again, they played this
game without Kincaid, who they were going to rely on.
They played this game without Curtis Samuel, who's been a disappointment.
It still is, in my eyes reflective on the GM
that you could even end up in this position where

(01:00:46):
you still had two starters on the field with Josh Allen,
you still had your running back and offensive line on
the field, and could get almost nothing going in your
passing game. And I think why I'm bringing all this
up and why I'm really frustrated, is because the philosophy
that they have on offense in a vacuum. I don't
dislike it. I think as Josh Allen gets older, as

(01:01:06):
he continues to reach new heights in his career and
just reach new milestones, the best thing you can do
to sustain his career is to protect him. And that
comes from one keeping him clean in the pocket, which
last night was not a good example of, and two
preventing him from going off script too much where you
can break glass in case of emergency where he needs
to put the cape on. And last season, when you

(01:01:29):
had what I would debate was the best balance you
have ever seen of that from Josh Allen, you've got
on MVP this year. I don't think they have the
receiving core bandwidth. Plus, I think Joe Brady's philosophy is
an offensive coordinator as far as like game feel and
what he's calling in certain situations. I think the league
is caught up to both. I don't think they have

(01:01:51):
enough juice to get out of that, to really work
themselves out of the hole they've said, and unless, of course,
special teams approve so much that they're bailing them out
with just insanely good feeld position or they only need
like twenty yards to score three points, and then so
much so and so forth, where you can get deeper
in the bag and get more explosive. I don't think
that this receiving core can bail him out this year.

(01:02:11):
And I think what you're getting right now is a
pressing Josh because he's not trusting it, both schematically and
with the talent in this roster. And I think the
only way you're ever going to get that middle ground
again is if you get a true talented again. Eric
and Ant use this term all the time, bucket getting
guy that when things are failing, it isn't just Josh

(01:02:31):
who has to make a play by himself, but rather
a receiver who, even if let's say is getting manned
up and there's pressure, he has the outlet because you
can depend on this guy. They had it, they moved
on from it Hindsight's twenty twenty. If I knew Digs
would look like he did now, I probably would have
said keep him. In fact, I think I did say
keep him. The bills are ready to move on, but
they haven't found that offset yet, so you don't have

(01:02:53):
that middle ground right now, and there's visible frustration and
inconsistency and struggle from this quarterback and this offense as
a result. So to find that middle ground, you have
to improve the wide receiver room. I think it's that simple,
and I think it's going to be a priority for
them in this offseason. I don't want to process disappointment
I've done in my whole life. I feel you, man,

(01:03:14):
I appreciate you being here and processing disappointment with all
of us because it's definitely, uh, it's it's definitely a
tough day. So let's see what else you guys have
before I sign off for the evening. And all your
comments are great. There's a lot here, so I apologize
if I don't get to everybody, it's not an if
it's a win, I'm definitely not getting to everybody. But
you guys have definitely brought the heat tonight, and I

(01:03:35):
appreciate you venting for me. So let's see doctor Neil's
going off in this chat. That's awesome. Charles is playing
with Will Anderson Hunter helps a bit. Yeah, they have
they have two top ten pass rushers on the same
defensive line like that can't that can't be understated. It's
an unbelievably talented group, and he gave him problems last year,
and he gave him problems again this year. It's been
giving the whole league problems. And I get it. It's

(01:03:57):
it's a really really good defense, and for all we know,
they could go into Pittsburgh and have a much better
offensive performance. I'm not going to change my mind about
what I said. I'm still really skeptical because again, it
doesn't get easier when you play better, well coached teams
in the playoffs, Like you have to expect to have
a sign of a pulse, a sign of competence when
you're playing good teams. If the Bills went in there

(01:04:17):
put up twenty four points, but you know it's a
slog fest. But they had some really good looking drives.
They were moving the ball, just couldn't finish a few drives.
I could forgive it more. You can't get sacked eight times.
You can't not adjust your protections and expect me to
buy into what you're doing. If you're going to play
these types of pass rushers and these types of coverage
units in the playoffs, you just can't get me to

(01:04:38):
do that. So that is also a good comment. Let's
see what we got oh, yeah, I appreciate the router
ir comment. That was awesome. That got me. Yeah. I
don't know what was going on, and you can probably
see it in like the corner over I'm bad at
this over there. It's down there. For whatever reason, it

(01:04:59):
shorts out on its own. No idea why I got
nothing for you? As he says, the stream died with
the bill super Bowl hopes. All right, let's try to
find a couple more, Brandon says, being as financially pigeonholed
this team into being short on the cat for players
who have shown clear and rapid decline. So this is
tricky because when these extensions were given out, they were

(01:05:23):
well for. We'll start with the four that they gave
out this offseason. I supported each one, and the reason
I did was because these are young players. They were
essentially working for their first big contract in the NFL.
They've given you every assailable reason to think that they
were going to be fine and repeat their production from
the past two seasons on. And for whatever reason this
season Bernard again, I think it's probably because he's playing

(01:05:44):
hurt Benford, who I think has played better as of
late Rousseau, Like, really, you haven't gotten like that next
level that you wanted for them, So it is a
bit frustrating that he gave out the contracts and he
isn't getting that return. I'm not out on these guys yet, though,
I think I think right now, I'm willing to be
patient because it's like four or five year deals and
for all we know, a heal up next year and

(01:06:06):
it does get a lot better. I can't quit him
after one season when they've given me a few seasons
of work to prove that they were worth the money.
But if it doesn't get better, then it's an even
bigger blendish on Brandon Bean's resume. But some of the
some of the other things, the Dawson Knox contract extension. Again,
the year they gave it to him, he was playing
like a top fifteen tight end, but it was a
bit rich, and it's aged very poorly. And whether you

(01:06:26):
want to say usage, whether you want to say injury,
there's a lot of reasons that's an albatross of a contract.
So I fully agree that that aged poorly, and I
think that contract either needs to be reworked or they
need to cut ties, because it's really hammering them right now.
I think that something like in the past, the Von
Miller deal that aged poorly, but that was a completely
freak thing. But it was a risk when you gave

(01:06:47):
a thirty plus year old edge rusher that much money,
So you know I supported it. It didn't work out.
You can call it a blemish. The Curtis Samuel contract
right now. Again, I wanted Curtis Samuel. He was my
free agent wish list because when Brady was in Carolina,
he got a lot of use out of Curtis Samuel
all over the field, and when he got to got
to the Bills, I was thinking the same thing. It's

(01:07:09):
great that we have a myriad of guys that are
good separators over across the middle of the field because
then you have constant options for you on third down.
And that was wishful thinking. But the biggest problem is
Curtis Samuel cannot stay on the field, and the health
risks were there when you signed him, and the money
was a bit much for that kind of history and
the concern you'd have over his usage and his durability

(01:07:30):
when he came to the team. I like the player,
but the contract has aged terribly, Like let's just call
it what it is, and that is a blemish on
Brandan Bean. And I think all this to say, it's
not the un or it's not the willingness to give
out money to players that he feels helps a roster
that I have a problem with. I'm glad he spends money.
We've seen bills teams of the past refusing to spend.
I see plenty of franchises in the sports I follow

(01:07:51):
now that refused to spend, and it's immensely frustrating for
the sport beyond just the team. But allocating your money
properly is the sign of a good gm and unfortunate
every gm wis everyone misses, but I think Bean is
missing more and more as the years go on. And
it's not just from natural accumulation, but just swings for
these types of players that can benefit your roster because

(01:08:12):
you have a specific vision, but it ultimately doesn't pan
out and you pay too much money for someone that
you've got no return on. And I think some of
the ones I mentioned are examples of that. And I
think that pigeonholing that you're referring to it does exist,
and the cat constraints that they now have to operate
with are really a result of his own misses. So
that's very frustrating and very bleak when you talk about
the future and the retool that you might need to

(01:08:33):
have from this team, this regime, that might not happen
successfully or at least the way you'd like it to
or in the speed you'd like, you know, the years,
the briefness you'd like to see from it, because they
don't really have money to work with. So yeah, Jim Graham,
I got to tap into the Facebook a little bit more.
We're tired of the same narrative each week. Everyone's saying
we got to do better, and too many fans don't

(01:08:54):
hold Josh accountable. Yes, Josh was not good yesterday, and
I said on the show last time before the Tampa
Bay game, and even the Tampa Bay game, he had
some moments, but he did play ultimately a fine game
with the exception of Kansas City. Since the New England game,
he hasn't been good. Like I stand on that, he
has not been good. He's had moments, there have been

(01:09:16):
like flashes of the Josh Allen we all know, but
it's been woefully inconsistent and really really bad at points,
and I think like to me, it's been a trickle
down effect. I don't just blame Josh. I do blame
everything to lead up to why I'm blaming Josh, like,
because I do think Josh has to work with what
he's got, and there are moments that he's bypassing reads
that are open. There are moments where he could have

(01:09:38):
a first down if he wants to take it. There
is profit there for him that could extend to play,
could extend I'm sorry, could extend to drive plays that
are there that he misses on. I think the way
he got to that point, though, again is a lack
of chemistry and distrust in what he's throwing to who
he's throwing to, And I think that falls on both
coaching and roster construction. I think he probably expected, just

(01:09:59):
like a lot of us, just like I did, who
drank the kool aid in the offseason, that this roster
could sustain the production that they had last year, and
that because their run game would work so much, they
continue their efficiency and they'd be really good and they'd
be able to just control games and throw the ball
that they want. And the we kind of caught up
and said, no, we're gonna pin you back in your
own turf. Your turnover ratio is going to skew again,

(01:10:21):
and you're not going to have nearly as many as
you did last year. Defensive injuries have something to do
with that too, but ultimately, the game script isn't favoring
them nearly as much, and it's leading to a regression
for everybody, and I think Josh his play individually has
suffered as a result. I still think Josh Allen is
a top five elite quarterback in the NFL. I don't
put everything of last night on him. I definitely think
the pressure and the lack of adjustment led to a

(01:10:44):
lot of just again sacks, dead plays, moments where he's
just trying to make something happen. And I can't blame
the guy for trying to make a play happen, but
what he's playing, as discombobulated as he is right now,
is really just again emblematic of everything going on with
their offensive construction. And I will hold Josh accountable for that.
But I also don't think it's just him not saying

(01:11:04):
You're saying that, but he's not alone in the blame,
so to say. But I do like that comment, all right,
let's pull one more here, well, actually a couple more,
because blemishes are what happens when you pop visit, those
are failures. That is a Zic conversation, Charles. I expected
the turnover regression from last year in a bad way,

(01:11:26):
but Josh just taken so many more sacks versus last season.
Throw the ball away, Yeah, throw the damn ball away.
Live to fight another play. I again, he's playing a
defense that is really really good and really really disciplined,
and that backyard football stuff isn't going to cut it.
I guess it worked on the third down scramble. I
think it was, like I gotta be reminded on the

(01:11:46):
down and distance. I want to say it was like
third and eighteen. He did make it work on that,
and then the hook and ladder worked for them, but
like that's not how you survive, and earlier on in
a game, you can't take those losses because also it's
important to remember this what he's running around like a
maniac trying to make a play happen, and he takes
that ten yard loss, that just means that it's I

(01:12:07):
guess you're getting more room for your punting team, but
you're still pinning them back a little bit further, and
one bad punt gives that offense a chance to have
a better field to work with, Like we have to
fight another play, cut your losses, and just again, like
play a controlled game is really what I'm asking for.
Those moments really make me frustrated, because again, when I
say that Josh wears how he's going to play on

(01:12:28):
his sleeve, he really does. And those plays prove it.
He is pressing terribly right now, and you can't take
sacks like that, and you can't toss really like, you
can't throw yourself into the fire if you're trying to
sustain and trying to conserve your body. So man, that
felt very cathartic. Folks, that felt like therapy. I hope

(01:12:48):
it felt like therapy for all of you. I appreciate
all of you bearing with me tonight. As the router
died and Bruce had to take the lead, but Bruce
left and I'm here, and the router died briefly again
but only for like five to ten seconds, and then
I came back. So you know, I guess my router
really is on the ir and it is pretty symbolic
of the way things have gone for the Bills lately,
even with the Tampa Bay game, and I got to say,

(01:13:10):
this is the final note. I'm really frustrated. I know
you're really frustrated. They are seven and four, They're not dead.
There is a lot of season left. I know the
division might be out of reach at this point, but
there is still an opportunity to course correct. Am I
hopeful that it's going to happen at this point now?
For as optimistic as I can be, I sit here
before you to say I simply don't think that the

(01:13:32):
guys in this coaching staff, on the offense and really
on the defense, I just don't think they're the ones
that are going to get it done this season or
for the foreseeable future. And I hope I'm wrong. I truly, truly,
truly hope I'm wrong, and that we could see some
success with this team soon. And maybe it's something as
simple as one good offseason and all of a sudden

(01:13:54):
they're back on track and they do win it all.
I'm not going to say it's impossible, but I don't
have the faith that I used to have. And it
really sucks to say that here on a Friday night
when the weekend is upon us. We're in the holiday
season and we should be happy. Our football team did
not want to make us happy. Yesterday is what it is.
But I appreciate you and every single one of you
for joining me tonight. Thank you again to everyone who contributed, Patten,

(01:14:17):
thank you so much for the super chat. Thank you
so much to my guest Bruce Nolan and awesome guests.
As always, when the show is over, I will go
back and listen to his first thirty minutes. I am
very very excited to hear what he had to say.
Doctor Neil, thank you for your comment. Again. I will
take a picture of that fantastic paragraph you left before.
I have never had a comment that long on the show.
I will throw up the banner Joe Revois, and before

(01:14:40):
I go, I will ask all of you to do
a few things. If you are feeling so kind, drop
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(01:15:02):
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(01:15:44):
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(01:16:07):
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a good time to follow our network. I appreciate you
guys for letting me ramble on this microphone for a

(01:16:28):
pretty good amount of time. We went almost an hour
and a half tonight. But I'm going to go try
and find some good things to do on this Friday
night and hope the next time we meet it's a
little bit more positive. And hope that they can get
a win against the Steelers in a week and a half,
a mini buy to reset the bodies of every player
who got the shit kicked out of them yesterday against Houston.

(01:16:49):
I hope that they can turn it around in Pittsburgh
and hopefully turn it around for the rest of the season.
Once again, everybody, thank you. I appreciate you. I'll see
you all soon, and even though things are bleak right now,
that doesn't mean they have to be forever. So I
will leave you with the go bills. Have a good
night everyone, and have a great weekend.

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