Hardo Sean McDermott Has the Bills Practicing Indoors for a Playoff Game That Will Be in the Single Digits
So Josh Allen has legitimate concerns about the weather in Buffalo on Saturday night. Very legit, given that the atmospheric conditions will be such that Western New York will be a good place to hide a Rebel base from the Empire. That the offense he runs was fifth in the league in pass attempts this year and 13th in rushing attempt. The opponent he'll be facing won in that same environment last month with just three pass attempts. And according to one local news source, over the course of his career, Allen's passing yard averages drop off drastically in the low temperatures:
- 75+ degrees: 363 yards per game
- 51-74 degrees: 321 YPG
- 50 degrees or less: 144 YPG
One simple solution is, of course to get used to the cold. To acclimate ... to prepare ... to ... what's the word I'm looking for? To practice ... in the same conditions you'll be playing in. Like this week's opponent did in December when they beat the Bills. Skip ahead to the part where Bill Belichick reminds his team, "This is why we practice in this shit!"
It might sound crazy, but just crazy enough to work. But card-carrying member of the Hardo Coach Association Sean McDermott has a better idea:
What a joke. It's not like McDermott is coaching some warm weather team and has no place to recreate the elements they'll be dealing with Saturday. Not everyone is Rocky Balboa with a brother-in-law with keys to a meat locker. I'm sure there are limits to the HVAC system in the Bills practice bubble. All he needs to simulate game conditions is to step outside. But he's treating players on a franchise that has traditionally prided itself on being as hardy and rugged as the table-crashing maniacs they represent like they're hothouse orchids that need to be kept in ideal growing conditions or they'll wither and die.
Meanwhile, we can confirm that the Patriots are outside today, just as you'd expect. In fact, they're probably getting hosed down and blasted with the giant fans you see on the sidelines in Miami in early September. Belichick is, after all, the guy who kept his team in Colorado for a week after at game at Denver, practicing at Air Force Academy to keep them used to the high altitude for the next game at Mexico City. Meanwhile that week's opponent, the Raiders, practiced in the Bay Area. The game was over before it began as the Raiders had to suck oxygen like it was bedtime at the Sleep Apnea ward.
Training indoors for a game like this one just makes no sense. You're supposed to make practices harder than game conditions, not easier. Staying inside is like "The Desert Fox" Erwin Rommel running his Panzer Corps through maneuvers in a rainforest. Like the 10th Mountain Division drilling at a beach. Elon Musk's astronauts preparing for weightlessness covered in weights.
But McDermott just has to do McDermott things. Instead of what's logical, practical and the superior coach he's facing has built a Dynasty doing. Patriots by a million. (Remember to gamble responsibly.)