Uncertainty at One Bills Drive

The Buffalo Bills fired their head coach and fellow Tribesman Sean McDermott on Monday.  I don't love this move for several reasons.

First, McDermott is a good head coach.  But much like the practice of law, being an NFL head coach is all about "what have you done for me lately."  Here's how McDermott compares to the best coaches over the last four years and their career Super Bowl records with the best in yellow:

McDermott is no Andy Reid or Nick Sirianni, but he compares favorably with everyone else over the last four years.  He made the playoffs with Tyrod Taylor and Nathan Peterman as his starting QBs for god's sake!  It isn't clear that anyone could do much better.  

Second, as with anything in life, a change can make things better or worse.  It was pretty ugly before McDermott arrived at One Bills Drive going back 30 years:

That's 17 consecutive years without making the playoffs.  From an AFC East perspective they finished in last place 8 times, in the bottom two 16 times, and went 24 years without winning the division.  That was not fun.  You know what was more fun?  Ninety-eight wins, eight playoff appearances and five division titles over nine years.  Will they do as well with Brian Daboll or Mike McCarthy or Klint Kubiak or Joe Brady?  For every Marv Levy or Sean McDermott there's a Mike Mularkey or a Chan Gailey.

Third, a bunch of things outside of McDermott's control cost them this game.  

zdaughter really got into football this season and plays a lot of Madden (which involves drubbing me mercilessly and talking smack about it).  At the end of the first half with 22 seconds left she said "They should run four verticals" and I said "No, they will take a knee."  They did not take a knee, which is on McDermott, but what happened after the snap is not on McDermott.

Allen should've thrown this away, or slid, or really done anything other than carry the ball like a loaf of bread.  McDermott didn't cause that fumble, or fail to recover it, or kick the FG for Denver.

I know that zdaughter is a real Bills fan because she woke up on Sunday still pissed off about the Brandon Cooks play.

Even this guy in a Celtics shirt says the Bills got ripped off and he brings the receipts with the same fact pattern but a different outcome in the Rams/Bears game.

Real Bills fans know that it isn't fair to besmirch someone based on another person's failures.

Fourth, there's no clear choice to replace McDermott.  

The last time I did one of these posts I talked about coaches with rings, or CWR.  No coach ever won a Super Bowl with two different teams despite the fact that there have been LIX (that's 59 for you math majors) opportunities to do so.  As a result I don't want a CWR so that rules out John Harbaugh (who isn't available), Mike Tomlin (who wants to take the year off and would require sending draft picks to the Steelers), and Mike McCarthy (who doesn't get me excited and probably wants to go home to Pittsburgh anyway).

The Pegulas' goal appears to be getting to the Super Bowl ASAP.  Only seven coaches reached the Super Bowl in their first year with a team:

• Don McCafferty with the 1970 Colts.  They won.  McCafferty was the Colts' offensive backfield coach in 1969.
• Red Miller with the 1977 Broncos.  They lost.  Miller was the Patriots' OL coach in 1976 (that's a crazy career upgrade by the way).
• George Seifert with the 1989 49ers.  They won (for the second year in a row) with a stacked roster including six Pro Bowlers, three first team All Pros, and the league MVP (and at least five future Hall of Famers).  Seifert was the Niners' DC in 1988.
• Bill Callahan with the 2002 Raiders.  This team was stacked with Rich Gannon (league MVP), Jerry Rice and Tim Brown, two first team All Pros on the offensive line, Rod Woodson, Charles Woodson, Bill Romanowski, and Sam Adams (the DT not the brewer).  Callahan was the Raiders' OC in 2001 and they lost to ...
• John Gruden with the 2002 Bucs.  He was the Raiders' HC in 2001.  This defense was one of the best ever with Warren Sapp, Simeon Rice, Ronde Barber, John Lynch, Derrick Brooks, and Booger McFarland.  Sapp, Barber, Lynch and Brooks are HOFers.
• Jim Caldwell with the 2009 Colts.  They lost.  Like Seifert, he was on the team's staff the prior year (assistant HC/QB coach) and he took over a stacked roster that won it all a few years previously including seven Pro Bowlers, three first team All Pros, and the league MVP (and at least two future Hall of Famers).
• Gary Kubiak with the 2015 Broncos.  They won thanks to arguably the league's best defense featuring five Pro Bowlers and one first team All Pro.  Peyton Manning's withered husk started 9 games going 7-2, completing 59.8% of his passes for 9 TD and 17 INT.  Brock Ostweiler chipped in 5 wins, 10 TD and 6 INT along the way.  Kubiak was Baltimore's OC in 2014 and he had a history with Denver as their backup QB in the 1980s.

So what's the best comp for this Bills team?  

The roster is not stacked--they do have three Pro Bowlers (Allen, James Cook, Dion Dawkins) but they have no speed at receiver, the defensive line has no one fearsome (despite spending lots of draft capital there), the defensive backs are shaky (despite spending lots of draft capital there) and always injured, two of their starting OL are free agents, and they will be more than $7.6m over the cap (due in not insignificant part to Allen's $56m cap hit, up from $36m this year).

The coaching staff has talent.  Bobby Babich put together the top pass defense (despite all the injuries) but the run defense was like a sieve.  Joe Brady would maintain Tribal continuity and he assembled a top five offense three years in a row.  But neither are as seasoned as Seifert or Callahan.

The closest match I can see is the 2002 Bucs--they were very good on one side of the ball--so I'm looking for a good head coach (or coordinator with head coaching experience) who didn't break through yet.   Looking closer at history, Gruden and Kubiak were offensive coaches who won Super Bowls as head coaches with dominant defenses so maybe the Bills need to hire someone who came up as a DC like Leslie Frazier (former Bills DC), Vic Fangio, or Steve Spagnuolo, but they're old as hell, so Vance Joseph, Robert Saleh, or Brian Flores.  For shits and giggles I'll give Anthony Campanile a shoutout because Fair Lawn and Don Bosco.

Ultimately though, they will probably hire Brian Daboll because Josh Allen loves him and that's as good a reason as any.  I don't love that hire (I watched him coach a lot of bad Giants losses) but I'll hope for the best.