Good morning, readers
A few thoughts and a few links inside.
Greetings.
Quiet 48 hours, eh? Figured I’d check in to say hello.
On Thursday, we posted a three-part series — “The McDermott Problem” — that has generated interest and, reflecting a bit here, I first want to thank you.
In a world where a large number of people would rather slop around in the social-media pigsty, you are making Go Long part of your life. You are carving out valuable time in your life to read more than 20,000 words about a football team. I never take that for granted. The goal of this site — since Day 1 — has been to dive deeper, to find NFL stories beyond the podium. Because if anybody deserves to know how this league truly works, it’s those who make the NFL a multi-billion-dollar business. That’s always at the forefront of my mind running this business.
The Buffalo Bills are a contender with an all-galaxy quarterback whose Super Bowl window has been closing since “13 seconds.” I wanted to figure why. So, over the course of this season, I’ve chatted with players and coaches and personnel. Many spoke on the record. As you saw, a handful of named players did have positive things to say about their head coach. Many other sources requested anonymity to freely discuss life as they saw it at One Bills Drive. On a project like this, that’s how much truth is gleaned.
A quick note on “timing.” We discussed Thursday night on the Happy Hour, too, but in a nutshell: The series was posted this week because the series was completed this week. It was not finished after the Cincinnati loss or the Denver loss. And, as written, the loss at Philadelphia appeared to encapsulate this era of football under Sean McDermott. At 6-6, the Bills are now at a crucial crossroads.
I loved getting to meet so many new readers on our Happy Hour. If you all have more questions, more thoughts or simply want to hang out, let me know in the comments and we’ll fire up another Zoom next week.
Below are all three stories in one spot. There’s a lot to unpack from the workplace environment, to how exactly a “tight” coach creates a tight team, to what really happened that night at Arrowhead, to everything Josh Allen and why maximizing the quarterback should be Priority No. 1. Hopefully this helps explain what you’ve been seeing on Sundays.
Everyone have a great weekend.
Ty, I listened to the recording of your hangout after the McDermott article. I find that much of the fan debate about the coach tends to be limited to single issues (e.g. late game management, robotic communication, over-thinking, favouring the defense, etc.) and then jumps to a verdict on keep or fire the coach based on that single issue (e.g. 9/11 example). I suggest that you keep elevating the discussion to the bigger picture which is a summary of the 4-5 overarching reasons that are preventing McDermott from leading the Bills to a championship.
I had somehow not known about Go Long despite living in Buffalo all my life (probably because I haven’t been on Twitter/X since 2017), so I was excited not to just read an explanation of sorts of *why* I was heartbroken as soon as the Eagles game went into OT but also to realize that you’re doing the sort of writing I’m really interested in, Bills and beyond! So thanks, and I look forward to maybe attending one of the happy hours in the future.