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00:00different uh mike it's nice to talk to you again and i i feel like we got to make an
00:05effort to
00:05make sure we do this during the season because i'm having flashbacks to being in here while
00:10mike is on vacation and nate is here and talking to you like five years in a row i feel
00:15like i just
00:15i don't know i don't know anyway it's nice to talk to you again man how are you i'm doing
00:19great it is
00:20sort of like the sign of summer here it's like the fourth of july ends and you guys call me
00:25up
00:25and it's time to talk bill's training camp again we're a little early for that but still uh we are
00:31here how are things man how is uh how's too deep zone going um i assume you still contributed to
00:37to the the almanac the ftn joint now uh how's everything going you keeping busy oh i'm keeping
00:43very busy and yes i contributed eight chapters not the bills chapter but nfc east and nfc west
00:49chapters to the football outsiders almanac now the fpn almanac and that is on sale now you can go
00:55to ftn uh ftnfantasy.com and download it it's tons and tons of work on my part work on aaron
01:02shots's part and stats information jokes scouting everything you could ask for to get ready for the
01:08nfl season well in an ever-changing world we know we can always count on that that almanac which is
01:13produced by humans like yourself and aaron and lots of others so uh cheers cheers on that so my my
01:20guy
01:21nate here an hour or so ago said something that i thought was was pretty interesting and then we had
01:27a clip of booger mcfarland from espn basically saying the same thing that he thinks and nate thinks
01:34i should let nate tell you right that anyway he's sitting right here but he's busy watching soccer
01:40um gosh the the bills have more pressure the most pressure of any team in the league on them this
01:47year how does that land on you i think that's the case and it might be something we said last
01:52july
01:53is that nothing except good health matters in training camp nothing matters in september nothing
01:59matters in october the season begins in january you know there there is no hey this team went 11 and
02:06six wasn't that wasn't that a win no that's not a win the super bowl is the win and that's
02:11been
02:11persistent it's been every year if anything the pressure is increased it's now increasing on joe
02:16brady instead of sean mcdermott it's increasing i suppose on josh allen although i think he's immune
02:21to some of this but everybody else on that roster it's win or go home and all the work that
02:26they're
02:26doing now no matter how good it looks the grades don't come in until they're on top of the afc
02:32east
02:32or they're on top of the uh your first round by in the playoffs and they're getting themselves in
02:37position for that super bowl schedule difficult uh new faces young coaches a first time nfl play
02:44caller on the defensive side of the ball the first time head coach in joe brady they're certainly
02:50mike i mean they they're they at least brandon bean has shown like okay this isn't good enough
02:56we're going to to kind of flip it on its head here what was your ultimate like what did you
03:01sort of
03:01think of the move to fire sean mcdermott i i i thought it was time i you know i made
03:07a joke earlier we
03:07were talking um just about like kind of all of the the factors of them losing last year when you
03:14don't have a patrick mahomes and you don't have a joe burrow or a lamar jackson and it kind of
03:18sort
03:18of felt like that was their biggest blown opportunity and maybe the biggest reason why mcdermott's gone
03:23but your thoughts of the the move to finally make the move on mcdermott and and what sort of your
03:29thoughts are on the new head coach joe brady did anyone say brandon bean isn't good enough let's turn
03:35you on your head uh lots of uh yeah a couple yeah one or two of us one or two
03:41that was my
03:42question is like who's watching the watchman here uh where you know sean mcdermott and only sean
03:47mcdermott wasn't good enough but being and brady they can be promoted that's what you know gets the
03:53antenna up when you're somebody who watches the whole league where you look at the bills relative
03:58failures i'm going to say relative failures because of what you said obviously this is a playoff team they
04:02were not good enough last year they were not they you know they let the patriots catch up on them
04:06they
04:06did not take the opportunity when they had when the the uh chiefs and the ravens fell short but i
04:12think
04:13that that failure landed on the heads of mcdermott and bean and brady and everyone so the fact that
04:19turned into more of a palace coup that was kind of eye-opening you know and a lot of good
04:24things are
04:24being said about jim leonard i'm i'm you know impressed generally from jim leonard the work he did in the
04:29broncos etc i if it was either time for continuity or time for change i don't think they really did
04:36the continuity right or did the change right i think this was an opportunity for some of the
04:40people in the front office there and the coaching staff to kind of uh put blame assess blame to
04:46somebody else and then feather the run next and mike i mean i'm not going to speak for terry pagula
04:51and the the bill's ownership team that ultimately made the decision but i think if you want to look at
04:56this from a playing board right which is i think they need they wanted and felt they needed to make
05:02a shift defensively from the the culture and the scheme that was you know largely like just the bend
05:08but don't break and that worked in the regular season but not in the postseason what we heard a lot
05:13of in terms of why brandon bean was here still here and not sean mcdermott was that they had been
05:18sinking a lot of assets in the defense and that there was more you know of this well he doesn't
05:24think
05:24he has a good enough roster but you know sean mc or that uh terry pagula and brandon bean they
05:28think
05:29they do we've been giving you lots you're nice you know we're giving you the brush buddy make us art
05:33um and i'm wondering please don't take me back to the news conference sorry uh
05:39i tried to move on i digress uh i could can you get there like with all of that said
05:44like can you get
05:45to the place where okay all this makes sense and maybe this was the right move yeah we've sunk a
05:51lot
05:51of assets into the defense but you know keon coleman and dalton kincaid and the 10 different
05:56receivers we would bring in you know during the season to make these plays that's a little bit of
06:01a uh self-serving agit prop on the people who survived the people yeah the people who live the
06:06right the history wrote that history i get the idea that mcdormand mcdormand's defense was getting
06:10stale there was this issue where he was sort of defensive play caller and you know coordinator and
06:16head coach and things like that that probably wasn't the best move so if you say well it's time
06:21to get rid of mcdormand that makes sense yeah we all have questions about how that offense was run
06:26too we have questions about brady's system the development of the players there uh you know so
06:32why was only the mcdormand problem addressed and we can talk about how how drafts have been handled some
06:37of the decisions they made in terms of you know what they did at wide receiver etc why was only
06:42one
06:42person held accountable it's impossible to turn around from that and not look at it with a little
06:47bit of a side eye and suspicion based on who survived who profited and who was let go so how
06:53realistic is it to you that they can meet this pressure if they are indeed the team in the nfl
06:59with
06:59the most pressure on them and i don't know improve on winning 12 games a year which is basically what
07:06you know mostly what they've done not every year but you know plenty plenty of times they have never had
07:11the one seed that would be an improvement can they do all that in a season with all this change
07:17because some of the change we hope is well we hope all of it's going to be positive of course
07:21mike but
07:22dj more specifically is a piece they have not had on offense since they divested themselves of
07:28stefan diggs two off seasons ago right and that's somebody that they've tried to replace from within
07:32through the draft they haven't been able to do it but you're absolutely they can meet this pressure i'm
07:36looking at the ftn almanac projections right now they have the second highest projection in the afc
07:42i'll leave you guys to guess if you want to who's first in the afc but uh you know they
07:47are just
07:49substantially ahead in terms of projections of the patriots who are further down on that list and of
07:53course the dolphins and the jets are kind of like a dispensary of victories for both of those teams
07:58the way the projections work so once you get there then you're putting yourself in the group so
08:03they're ahead of the chiefs projection wise they're ahead of the ravens projection wise again
08:08there's only one team ahead of them would you like to guess who's ahead of them in the projections
08:11i'm gonna guess that it's jacksonville incorrect i would you're close uh from the conference division
08:19standpoint uh houston then it must be right it is the houston texans whose defense is considered to be
08:25so dominant they get a little bounce back from their offense and suddenly they're slaughtering everything
08:30in their wake and their schedule is much easier than the bills so yeah this is another chance
08:34josh allen gives them another chance james cook gives them another chance offensive line the veterans
08:38on defense etc they're there they can meet that pressure in 2026 how much does the uneven season
08:45dj moore had last year while the bears were mostly breaking through uh you know recognizing that
08:52caleb williams was far from a perfect player last year but certainly big strides were made uh all around
08:57there with ben johnson but dj moore was the guy that kind of fell through the cracks is that how
09:03alarming
09:04is that and are you confident that he bounces back to what really what he had been you know prior
09:11to
09:11that in his career which is a pretty regular thousand yard receiver regular thousand yard receiver we're
09:16on three successive years of his yardage totals dropping okay and that's a little bit of a that's a little
09:22bit
09:23of a flag another thing a little bit of a flag is is his best seasons often lined up with
09:28sort of chaos
09:29on offense whether it was the panthers or with the bears we kind of got the impression where this was
09:34the guy who was the safety valve the binky for your uh justin fields is for your guys like that
09:40he could
09:41be that for josh allen potentially but i'm aware there the other red flag is yeah the bears seem to
09:46be
09:46ascending and part of their ascendance was you know we don't need dj moore anymore we got luther burden
09:51we got these tight ends we have roma dunze this is a team that should be like hey we're all
09:56in and
09:56so like hey we're gonna make this guy available i don't think he's the stefan digger seeking i think
10:01he's going to help but this is going to be another year of bills receiver by committee and that's okay
10:07but we keep seeing bills receiver by committee with with joe brady in charge of we keep seeing this
10:11and we keep seeing it not being uh the thing that launches josh out into the stratosphere so to speak
10:18so
10:18that's one more worry i think he helps i think he's a good addition i think there needs to be
10:23more at wide receiver so mike um talking about a little bit like the joe brady system it's funny
10:28because bulldog and i were sort of laughing about the fact that we haven't heard the term uh you know
10:34everybody eats which was like a fun cute little thing in year one and then last year it was like
10:39you
10:40know it was like the the the stepbrother scene we're like you know now the suits sort of seem bleeped
10:44up
10:45you know like and now it's like we i think we don't got sort of sick of the everybody eats
10:48thing
10:49and and you know i i it's not lost on me that they still have you know on their roster
10:54the the
10:55league's leading rusher last year and some movement on the offensive line but aaron cromer leaving
11:00um who was kind of the architect of that run game i wonder kind of what your thoughts are about
11:07when you have the offensive coordinator pass game coordinator calling plays and then the other guy
11:14kind of architecting but calling the run plays how much in your kind of experience i mean i know
11:20you've watched more football than i will have forgotten in my life but like like how much of
11:25that do you think changes how different does their run game look without a guy um that i think was
11:31so
11:31you know integral to like what they were doing in their offensive uh their running attack it can make
11:37a big difference you know in a lot of teams the offensive coordinator is pretty much de facto
11:42passing game coordinator uh these guys make their money designing pass plays and then if there's
11:46not a run game coordinator the offensive line coach is often the person doing that and sometimes that
11:52they do bring some secret sauce to that particular equation i think of jeff southland here in philly
11:57uh he retired from the eagles and suddenly the running game was not the same it's a matter of
12:02installation it's a matter of sort of like the the nuts and bolts of the design of things i wouldn't
12:07put
12:07that up as a red flag but but you're kind of getting back to it with brady it's like okay
12:12well
12:12what worked for the bills last year well the running game because cook and the offensive line were very
12:16good alan contributes to the running game the backup running backs were good okay well who left
12:21that's the running game coordinator that's that's not ideal uh they can promote from within they can
12:26i don't even know who their running game coordinator is right now to be frank but that isn't a sign
12:30that
12:30the the bills were optimizing things based on who was succeeding and who was failure failing it's more
12:36of a you know who gets fed so to speak who gets promoted during the course of this little power
12:40struggle that happened in january you know as nate was asking the question that you just answered i
12:45realize why i always think to look you up when nate is in here filling in for mike because he
12:51speaks
12:51your language in a way that i just don't like you guys mike tenere our guest here on uh on
12:58the
12:58western hotline you can find his work at a sub stack two deep zone also a contributor to the ftn
13:04football almanac with our buddy aaron shots um how how about the run game as the focus for this team
13:12do you see like i've given the bills credit mike over the years here for sort of maybe being ahead
13:18of the wave ahead of the curve on we're gonna have to lean into the run game because defenses are
13:25just
13:25taking away the explosive passing game and you know the bills i think capitalized on that and had
13:31you know a fantastic couple of seasons really running the ball i wonder with the change with
13:36no longer a defensive-minded head coach and brady's relationship with allen and being the play caller
13:43and the head coach and not really having you know a head coach to answer to anymore whether or not
13:48they and this point that nate makes about cromer leaving and that that you you know substantiate
13:55do they lean more into a passing game piloted by josh allen and is that a good idea well again
14:03if
14:03you're facing the jets or dolphins uh or some of the weaker opponents you should just jam the ball
14:07down the throats i know there were a couple of times last year i don't remember the specific games
14:11i'm watching bill's games and i'm like will you please stop toying with your food in the first quarter
14:17and the second quarter get two tight ends and just run the ball against this team and then when they
14:22come up let josh and allen make a play get the 14 nothing and just end this game quickly and
14:27there
14:27was sort of this weird need to get everybody involved early in the game and next thing you know
14:31you know it's close against i think the buccaneers was one of them it might have been the the saints
14:36was one of them was early if i remember so you want your running game to be there when you
14:41are the
14:41superior team which is going to happen a couple of times for the bills and you want it there to
14:46clean up
14:46your victories after that you want balance so is brady going to embrace that now that he doesn't
14:52have mcdermott over his shoulder saying i'm a defense coach do it this way i don't know you got
14:57josh allen it's not you can air it out and it should be okay it just was frustrating at times
15:02and not as a bill fan just as a viewer saying this should not be close right now because you
15:07should do
15:07what the rams do which is get go heavy and just be like we can dominate you we can win
15:12this game at
15:12they can't take the lead and go so let's see if they do that this year let me put a
15:17bow on the
15:17joe brady conversation with this sort of question to you p carmichael ends up coming over as the team
15:23offensive coordinator he's not going to call plays but i'm i'm starting to lean into the idea mike that
15:29like you know brady has some experience in the in the sean payton system and now p carmichael's here
15:36and maybe that's just to shadow everything that you want a veteran guy when you're first time head
15:42coach and especially somebody you trust if if i were to tell you right now today that the bills
15:47would look more to the sean payton principles of offense that both in the running game using the
15:54running backs more in the pass game um and a lot of the you know like what we know from
16:00drew breeze to
16:00be right and and and those marcus marquise colston and the and the the big years that those offenses had
16:06if i were to tell you today that that is who joe brady pictured this offense leaning into would you
16:13say that that is the right move for the personnel or or are you kind of thinking that like that's
16:19maybe a little too nostalgic and it isn't something that you think would work properly or work well in
16:24this uh with this group of players you know it's a little bit of both carmichael was there he was
16:29payton's right hand man forever i think it was yeah two years ago he was still payton's right hand
16:34man um and and with this personnel those old saints teams were kind of like yeah we don't really have
16:40a wide receiver one we have a couple of possession guys a couple vertical guys we rotate our receivers
16:46it can see the logic behind that alan isn't breeze but he's bigger and stronger and can run and breeze
16:51couldn't do those things so he can do a lot of the same things that's part of it i guess
16:55my question
16:56is well where has that been for the rest of brady's uh nfl careers coordinator uh you know
17:02and now he's a sean payton guy it's like wait i thought he was you know a panthers guy i
17:07thought
17:07he was an lsu guy so it's a little chameleon like yeah carmichael brings that in but but maybe it's
17:13not
17:13so much nostalgic as connect we're connecting the dots now and we're going back to hey these guys were
17:17doing this like eight years ago maybe that's it i need to see it on the field to believe it
17:21you mentioned in passing looking at the ftn chapter the almanac chapter on the bills and projections
17:28where where are you at on dalton kincaid because this is a somewhat confounding player he seems
17:36extremely productive when used but his usage is doesn't really line up with what his product you
17:44know with the quality that he is maybe that's a pitch count health wise i sense that it has been
17:51the last couple of years so tough one to handicap because you don't know what the condition of his
17:56knees are going to be i guess um but where are you at on kincaid well he was really good
18:01in the
18:01playoffs when we last saw him i know he was playing very well there and yeah i'm actually looking up
18:07his
18:07game lives like wow boom or bust i know injuries were part of it and i know he blew up
18:11in a couple
18:12of games and then he just disappeared and i can't think i can't imagine injuries have all to do with
18:17that and i know knox was involved you have jackson house this is a team that wants to go two
18:21wide
18:21receivers wants to go three wide excuse me three tight ends two tight ends i'd get all of these
18:26guys involved so i mean i don't know i haven't been following kincaid's like health status recently
18:31it's another one of those questions about the offense i would say that's another one of these
18:35questions you know only one guy had more than 30 39 40 catches last year only i think shakir had
18:41more
18:42than that you say everybody's feeding not everybody's feeding a lot of people are going
18:47hungry right now and cook is feeding and i guess shakir was feeding and that was it and that's
18:51another question that's got to be answered kincaid is supposed to be the de facto like possession guy
18:56in this offense we haven't seen it in the last two years i think we need to see it something
19:00that
19:00has struck me over the last couple of days and nate and i've talked a little bit about this today
19:05already mike is how much the landscape has shifted in the afc for for years we would talk at this
19:12time
19:12of the year with you uh and it'd be the bills the ravens and the chiefs and like the bangles
19:18might
19:18take a turn miami had a hot minute when they scored 70 on denver and they were ahead of the
19:22bills for
19:23most of that one season but the bills nipped them at the wire whatever but it feels like the hierarchy
19:29that it's not so much that the bills ravens and chiefs have been toppled but i feel like maybe
19:35they've come back a little bit and the rest of the pack has risen up that's kind of it i
19:40the
19:41analogy i use is everybody went into pit row last year you know the chiefs had to go into pit
19:46row
19:46because they had a flat tire and the ravens had to go into pit row and the bills kind of
19:49went into pit
19:50row a little bit because they have the coaching change and now they're coming out as they're coming
19:55out it's like oh it appears that the the texans and the and the patriots and the broncos are now
20:00ahead
20:00of us and the question becomes well is that just temporary are we about to slip past them
20:05or are they going to have to enter pit row or how's that going to go so yeah it's a
20:08much harder
20:09uh conference to prognosticate i look at this big texans number here for a projection and i say
20:16i know their defense is good but do i really see you know 12 wins 13 wins first round by
20:21i don't see it
20:22you start looking at teams like the steelers you're like are they good or the jaguars what are they
20:27right now the broncos we don't know bo nicks is healthy okay we don't know about and bo nicks is
20:32that
20:32good there's that too yeah right well there's that but like if he comes back and it's like well
20:37he's doing the defense and peyton's running the show and making him look better we don't know if
20:41he's even going to be able to be capable of that so it's very tricky and i guess in those
20:45circumstances
20:45it's very comforting to have josh allen because you know josh allen is josh allen even lamar jackson
20:51he's always hurt uh you know mahomes is coming back from injury you have a big healthy in his prime
20:58josh allen and that is going to cover up for a lot of potential hills so you mentioned the texans
21:03as
21:04as kind of the the leader in the clubhouse right now in terms of you know pre-season rankings we
21:09were discussing whether the ravens should also be considered and lumped into this conversation of
21:13teams with the most pressure because i mean they've kind of been in the same conversation the
21:17bills doing the regular season can't get it done in the playoffs i was of the mind that i don't
21:22really
21:22lump them in and it's largely because of how people view lamar jackson versus josh allen right
21:28wrong and different and for whatever people's motivations are whatever where do you stand on
21:32this ravens team as they head into i think a really important season for them with a new head coach
21:36and
21:36by the way some drama this offseason with the whole max crosby thing and how teams are viewing their
21:42front office so on so forth but yeah ravens talk to me i think the overall pressure is high now
21:47of
21:47course they change coaches too and jesse mentor is not going to be held that accountable in year one for
21:52these things eric da costa might uh because of the max crosby trade and things like that so the general
21:57manager might be under pressure lamar jackson is always in this weird nether region where uh you
22:03know he has to get his contract renegotiated and the ravens seem to be trying to do it and he
22:07doesn't
22:07seem to care one way or the other so there's a there's a weird element to that so i would
22:12say the
22:12pressure between those two teams is pretty similar right now but it's hard to say who who individually
22:19is under pressure okay the head coaches are safe the quarterbacks are going to make money no matter what
22:24it becomes more of a matter of of you know rank and file guys on the team will the team
22:28get blown
22:29up one thing about the ravens i think their roster got a little more blown up than the rave than
22:34the
22:34bills roster did this year and i don't know how that equates the pressure on the one hand the new
22:38guys might have a chance to be like well you guys are new you're derrick henry or somebody like that
22:43you might be looking at saying this is your last year it's the end of the line if you can't
22:46get it
22:47done in 2026 where are we finding all your best stuff i know you're over around the blue sky
22:51uh good for you for taking the plunge i i admire you i i can't i can't seem to quit
22:56the habit so i'm
22:57i'm still stuck in the mud um is that where we got to look you up here too deep zone
23:02how do we find
23:02you yeah you can find me on blue sky at mike tenere and then the too deep zone is now
23:07on ghost i i'm not
23:10going to give you the url because it's long and strange look up too deep zone t-o-o deep
23:15zone like a
23:16like uh you know like a cure album not like the defense it's too deep and then look up ghost
23:22because that's where you'll find it had to move from substack for similar reasons that's why i
23:25moved from x to blue sky but it's the too deep zone ghost newsletter check it out i'll be really
23:30revving into high gear in a week or two with uh pre training camp previews uh by the middle of
23:35july
23:36thanks a lot for the time mike we always enjoy it good luck with all that and uh we'll hope
23:40to
23:41reconnect real soon absolutely take care and enjoy what's left of your summer we will
23:46come on it just started i know we can't talk yeah get him back what left of my summer we
23:53live
23:53in buffalo dude it was like snowing in may i mean what do you rest of our i know it's
23:59weird to say
24:00but yeah he's not shh mike tenere all right there you go love love the visit drops a cure reference
24:06i was gonna say man that guy knows his audience it's all it's all it's all good yeah uh all
24:11right
24:11we'll hit up a timeout and uh you know sink our teeth further into the bills conversation we've
24:17been having uh most of the day so far and houston i want to i want to talk about that
24:22we we've talked
24:23to aaron shots about it we just talked to mike tenere about it let's talk to nate geary about
24:27it uh he's in for mike i'm the bulldog and this is wgr
24:31you
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