Mr. Scot

Relevant to the discussion...

More on the Bills...

More detail on the final play from Joe Person... The Panthers had a play called that included an in-breaking route by DJ Chark Jr. and other downfield routes. But thinking the Titans were in Cover 0 — man coverage with no deep defender — Young checked to a screen to Chark, who was pulled down by safety Amani Hooker for no gain. Reich defended his rookie quarterback afterward, saying it was the right check and adding that Chark might have drifted back too far behind the line of scrimmage. “When you hit that play right versus 0, it’s a touchdown. DJ probably came a little further back than he needed to. He’s not normally the guy in there for that,” Reich said. “We had a couple (receivers) go down. The play that we had called was going to put DJ on another in-cut, not that he was primary. So we wanted him in that spot. We just need to execute that better.” But Chark said the Titans were not in Cover 0 and the Panthers would have done better to stick with the original call. “It was against Cover 0, but they didn’t go Cover 0. My job is to get 4 yards behind the line of scrimmage. I have to check and see how far I was, but felt like I got 4 yards behind the line of scrimmage,” Chark said. “I’ve gotta watch film and see what it is.” Asked whether he should have left the initial play call, Young also said he needed to watch the tape. “We had an option to have that on. You play that cat-and-mouse game, and it didn’t go our way,” he said. “That’s on me. As a unit, we’ve just gotta execute on big plays.” Link

Depends. Are you talking about the Josh Allen who had Ken Dorsey as a quarterback coach and Brian Daboll as an OC or the subsequent version?

More ominosity (no, that's not a real word) from Gantt... Between this and his earlier tweet posted here, I'd say it doesn't exactly sound like Gantt is Frank Reich's biggest fan. Is there more to be taken from this, or...

This from an old huddler...

Overreactions happen, though. On a related note, I think a lot of people are starting to feel like Josh Allen might have been a little overrated.

Video of Chark...

I'd agree, though I do have some legitimate beefs with some of his decisions. This, for example... I didn't know Blackshear was the leaves leading kick returner, but that info just makes this decision look worse than I felt it already was.

Ben Albright mentioned hearing that Sean McDermott's seat is "warm".

There is one conceivable possibility... If there's an older tackle currently available, a guy who might not have been able to play a full season but could still have enough to play six game, you could potentially bring that guy aboard and ask him to finish up the year on the left while moving Ekwonu inside the guard. Preferably, this would be a guy who operated in a West Coast / zone blocking scheme before. Before anybody asks, no I haven't looked at the free agent list. I'm just spitballing.

Jerry Richardson's biggest issue was that he put too much faith in the wrong people, a frequent end result of which was people being put into positions they weren't really qualified for (Marty Hurney being a prime example). David Tepper's biggest problem seems to be too much faith in himself.

I'm gonna need the account number 🫥 (maybe a debit card number, expiration date and three-digit code)

That's where I've had a question about Fitterer. I know per his own statements that he was pretty heavily convinced on Bryce Young. Reich was long rumored to be interested in Stroud or even Richardson. There are definite coaching mistakes that I believe Reich has made, but if he was overruled on his choice of quarterback, that's an issue.

Forget who mentioned it, but the point Kyle Bailey made about Tepper potentially wanting to avoid a repeat of last year's interim situation could be important here.

I've seen that suggestion made before.

I feel like that would make more sense in our current scheme.

I've long had the impression that Tepper became enamored with Young when they went to dinner and Young impressed him by breaking down a play from his college days. Tepper raved about that moment like it was something he'd never seen before, and he probably hadn't.

Since we've seen some criticism of the "All-Star Staff", I decided to take a look at the individual position coaches to try and evaluate how they're doing. To be clear, this is going to be a very surface level analysis. I'm not going to deep dive too much, and I'll be open to debate on these analyses in general. Starting with... Quarterbacks Coach Josh McCown The chief question for pretty much all of these positions is going to be have the players improved, and that makes this one hard to evaluate. Bryce Young has definitely shown signs of improvement over the course of the season, but it's also true that some things aren't getting better. The question is how much of that do you attribute to coaching as opposed to where some see physical limitations, others see the fact that he's not getting protection add some see both. This is probably the toughest call of any of them. My take: I think McCown could very easily be doing a good job because a lot of the problems that are occurring are things that are above his pay grade, but there is a debate to be had. Runningbacks Coach Duce Staley This one's a little less ambiguous. The most obvious effect of Staley's coaching is improvement on the part of Chuba Hubbard, especially in the area of receiving. A lot of us had written Hubbard off at the start of the year but now he's arguably the best all around back we have. On the flip side you have Miles Sanders, but I don't think his issues can be laid at Staley's feet If for no other reason than that I doubt Sanders has been fully healthy at any point this season. Wide Receivers Coach Shawn Jefferson Here's another one that's a little tough but for a different reason. The quality of player that's been handed to Jefferson for the most part isn't great. That said, is effect can be seen in the improvement of guys like Jonathan Mingo, Ihmir Smith-Marsette and arguably even Adam's Theilen who's having a great year not just for someone his age, but for a receiver in general. Terrace Marshall hasn't shown much of course, but I think that says more about Marshall than it does about Jefferson. Tight Ends Coach John Lilly Yet another where it's tricky. Hayden Hurst hasn't shown up much, but is that coaching or has Hurst just fallen off. Tommy Tremble, on the other hand, came in to this year feeling like an afterthought but now is starting to look like a legitimate tight end. Ian Thomas of course is what he always was, so...it's a toss up Offensive Line Coach James Campen And here we go with probably the second most difficult evaluation. The line hasn't performed well this year, but as has been much discussed, they're not in a system that suits them, especially Ekwonu. Then you have to throw in the injuries as well. Again, I think the real problems are over Campen's head but I won't be surprised if he winds up a sacrificial lamb. Defensive Line Coach Todd Wash Moving over to the other side of the ball, we could start to see more positive looking results. You could make a pretty good argument that Derrick Brown has never looked better than he has this season. Likewise, other players on the line that nobody thought that much of have shown up at times when we needed them. Linebackers Coach Peter Hansen The player who most likely would have been Hansen's star pupil got taken out in week one, but the guy who arguably has been his star pupil Is one of the few Panthers who's been recognized as a player of the week. Like Derrick Brown, Frankie Luvu is playing some of his best football. That makes Hansen look pretty good as well. Outside Linebackers Coach Tem Lukabu On the outside though Is an area where some might see underachievement. Brian Burns has had flashes, but hasn't looked like the star player he was expected to be this season. If this was going to be the season where he made his "next step", that hasn't happened. The question becomes how much of that is coaching and how much is the fact that there's really been no major threat opposite him. Hard to say. Safeties Coach Bert Watts Again, a mixed bag. Xavier Woods and Vonn Bell have had good moments, throw some might say Bell has done less than they thought he would come in. You also have Jeremy Chinn who hasn't looked quite the same since his rookie year (it could be argued that he's out of position as a safety). Cornerbacks Coach Jonathan Cooley And finally, another area where it's difficult to be certain because few positions on the team have been hit as hard by injury is this one. Of the players that have been in, we're not seeing a lot of turnovers generated. Is that on coaching or just on the fact that what would be our best players aren't seeing the field? Bottom Line Some good, some not so good, not a whole lot that I could see as glaringly bad. But all in all, hard to evaluate in several areas because of issues that are larger than what position coaches can affect. As mentioned though, this is more of a general eye test evaluation than it is a deep dive so I'll be interested to hear how others see these spots.

I get the impression that's what happened after Matt Rhule failed.

There are some who do. And Tepper will if he truly wants to be successful. If what matters most is his ego, then we'll continue to be bad.

There's also the soccer team, Tepper Sports and his other enterprises.