Halfway to Dueling Firings with Bills and Sabres
Sean McDermott and Don Granato stood on different steps. Neither will take the next one. The duo’s canned half is still holding his bindle while trying to hitch a ride out of Erie County. The one who’s capable of making the playoffs looks successful by comparison, which reflects how creating low expectations can fool those who never look outward.
Employee turnover means owners admitting they don’t know what they’re doing. One fired coach will have to be sufficient. Worrying about perception is a sure sign conditions are swell. Pleasant results are the easiest way to shape a narrative, so forget it.
The family finally had to admit that hockey operation was looking like a mob front. Laundering works much better with a successful retail operation. Terry Pegula doesn’t know a thing about running a mob. He prefers quasi-legal thieving with the governor’s blessing.
Pitting an entrant in slow decline against one that already declined isn’t that fun. Teams playing different sports in the same city shouldn’t compete with each other, especially like this. The Sabres made it to rock bottom first for sadists who track standings. It’s been awhile. The Pegulas’ hockey division hit it a few years ago and tried to chip through the ice. It took extending their own regrettable record to realize that maybe hiring a qualified coach would help.
The fake savings from keeping around Granato still haven’t arrived. The playoffs are the same. The problem was thinking a dented coach from Ollie’s Bargain Outlet was ever an NHL head coach in the first place. Paying less for a bargain coach meant his entire salary went to waste. The Sabres couldn’t afford to pay less anymore.
The Sabres are done wasting seasons. Meanwhile, the Bills face a different level of decline. Granato should’ve been joined by McDermott. A relief of duties with shakier justification would nonetheless address worries that he’s already topped out. A defensive coach coaching defensively isn’t merely predictable. Ownership copies McDermott’s style by being too tentative to fire him.
McDermott can coast for awhile if he wants. He gets the benefit of a couple seasons because of demonstrated progress. But management needs to determine if employees have had enough chances to show they’ve advanced in the same job. Fretting if they’ve plateaued isn’t just for incessant social media chatter.
The sense they’re not helping that one player who’s their best hope at salvation should motivate fear of damnation. Josh Allen is best when he’s coaching himself. More urgency should be in order, what with a generational player who’ll be impossible to replace about to start his seventh season. Of course, the same owner let Granato coach 274 games before admitting he proved the Peter principle a few promotions ago, so don’t expect suitable desperation just because the chance of a lifetime is ticking.
Concerns should haunt everyone’s dreams when they’re not being kept awake by them. Every non-Chiefs franchise presently wonders if they’re doing enough to get ahead. Timing stock sales involves the simple but not easy task of calculating if they’ve reached their zenith. Not wanting to lose the asset while it’s still rising but getting ahead of the decline is what everyone’s always trying to do.
Both coaches adding to win totals while beginning with virtually nothing is the upside of downfall. Advancement may seem easy when there’s nowhere to go but up. Each team could’ve remained in the gutter, which is not the endorsement Pegula thinks.
Teams improving upon their own lousy standard shouldn’t impress fans. Following Ralph Krueger or Rex Ryan is respectively brutally challenging. The replacement of uniquely unqualified individuals create an easy trick. It almost works unless people start to notice who still isn’t playing up to potential.
Optimism decreases for anyone capable of stepping back. The Sabres suckered enough fans into thinking Granato was the answer. The excessively loyal forgot to check if not being as bad as the worst guaranteed a wild card.
McDermott is on the Bills Coach Mount Rushmore. But that’s by default. Being the fourth good coach they’ve ever had is about the franchise over time more than its current state. Nudging aside Wade Phillips is another relatively modest accomplishment. A franchise historically known for Shakespearean woe leads to feeling grateful for even the slightest gains.
But players got hurt. Petition the league for an exemption. Excuses for injuries are a sign of an underwhelming campaign. Other teams never face employees missing games because they’re in too much agony to compete, which is really unfair. Noting patterns is the best approach to minimizing overreaction to a surfeit of missed games during any particularly tough season. Over time, McDermott is still overcautious.
The presidency’s winner doesn’t get to wear Thin Lizzy t-shirts to work. There’s always something about which to gripe. Sifting through the suggestion box to figure which are legitimate is part of the job. McDermott has changed the Bills culture, but may have done all he can. Meanwhile, Granato deserved to not be hired in the first place, which made his termination nothing more than confirmation.
These are nerve-wracking times for both franchises. It’s for different reasons if you worried life was becoming too consistent. A coaching job so poor that even Pegula couldn’t stand it any longer meant he finally did something about one of them. Dual firings wouldn’t be out of the question. The Bills inhabit the purgatorial category of being just good enough.
