1- 'Not much' that Daboll hasn't learned from Belichick
Bill Belichick's coaching tree is a who's who of successful executives at nearly every level of football.
Two current NFL head coaches (Bill O'Brien and Matt Patricia) previously worked on Belichick's staff. Over the course of his illustrious NFL career, Belichick has seen eight of his assistant coaches hired as head coaches elsewhere. Even Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban, a six-time National Champion, is a member of Belichick's coaching tree.
Current Buffalo offensive coordinator Brian Daboll is part of the coaching lineages of both Belichick and Saban.
Daboll, who served as the offensive coordinator of Saban's Crimson Tide before joining the Bills, worked on Belichick's staff in a multitude of roles from 2000-2006 and again from 2013-2016. The current Buffalo coordinator won five Super Bowls throughout his time with the Patriots.
Daboll learned a great deal from the three-time AP NFL Coach of the Year.
"I was with him for 11 years, so there's not much that I haven't taken from him or learned from him," Daboll said. "He's a phenomenal football coach, and his track record speaks for itself."
Belichick greatly appreciates the work that Daboll did for New England and still roots for him to succeed.
"Brian's a good coach," Belichick said. "Brian really works as hard at is as anybody, really studies the opponent. He knows us anyway, but he would thoroughly know our scheme as well as our personnel. I'm sure they'll be very well prepared, I have a lot of respect for Brian. He's done a great job for me on two different stints here with the Patriots. Personally, I always wish him the best."
2 - McDermott, Bills' roster prepared for trade deadline
Nearing the midway point of the 2018 NFL season, the trade window is set to come to a close. The league's trade deadline is Tuesday, Oct. 31 at 4:00 p.m.
The days leading up to the trade deadline can often be hectic. Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott, however, isn't placing too much focus on the looming deadline, instead leaving that up to general manager Brandon Beane.
"The bulk of the work is done by Brandon and his staff, just because I can't be in two places at once," McDermott said. "To your point, Brandon communicates on those things, and if there's something out there he'll let me know and we can talk about it and then move forward from there."
The lead up to this year's trade deadline has been quite eventful, as Carlos Hyde, Amari Cooper, and Eli Apple have already found new homes. While it's not guaranteed that Buffalo makes a move before the deadline, McDermott knows that his players are aware of any and all possibilities.
"No, they understand," McDermott said. "I shouldn't say understand, they're aware of that. We've got some young players that may not totally understand how that works, but they're aware of that I'm sure. It's part of locker room talk, or locker room awareness. They watch their own social media like you guys are, and they see different players from different teams moving, and so they're aware of that."
Beane is no stranger to making deadline-day moves. Last year, the first-year general manager acquired Kelvin Benjamin from the Carolina Panthers just minutes before the deadline hit.
3 - Leslie Frazier still believes in 'playoff caliber' defensive standard
Buffalo's defense struggled as a whole in the team's Week 8 loss to the Colts. The unit gave up 376 net yards, 220 of which came on the ground. Andrew Luck completed nearly 74 percent of his passes and found the end zone through the air four times. Marlon Mack rushed for a season-high 126 yards in the contest.
Though disappointed with the outing, Bills' defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier is not going to temper his expectations for the unit.
"We are trying to set a standard on defense, and we didn't play up to that standard [Sunday]," Frazier said. "It was not playoff caliber, and we have to play better. We've got to play a lot better on defense. We know that and we have to get it done the next time we play.
Frazier has already identified where he feels the defense went wrong on Sunday and is working toward a solution.
"[We] really struggled to defend the run," Frazier said. "After taking a look at that tape, we feel like we have an idea of what we need to do to solve that. They weren't really runs that we haven't seen, we just didn't defend them as well as we're capable of.
"It'll really be back to the basics when we come back and start preparing for our next opponent, but I think that the things that we saw [Sunday] are correctable and we do believe we have the people on our club to get it corrected and we'll have to work as hard as we can to make sure we prepare correctly and do a better job of defending the run in our next ball game."
