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The Buffalo Bills hired Brian Daboll as offensive coordinator Sunday.

Coach Sean McDermott announced Daboll’s hiring two days after firing Rick Dennison.

The 42-year-old Daboll was the offensive coordinator for national champion Alabama. It was the sixth time he was part of the coaching staff for a national championship team.

Prior to last season Michael Frolik Jersey , Daboll was the tight end’s coach for the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots. He has 17 seasons of coaching experience in the NFL, including stints as the offensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns (2009-10), Miami Dolphins (2011) and Kansas City Chiefs (2012).

Daboll has previous ties to McDermott, as he was a restricted-earnings coach at William & Mary when McDermott was a senior safety in 1997. Daboll also has western New York roots, having graduated from St. Francis High School in Athol Springs, a few miles away from the Bills’ facility.

”We are excited to hire Brian as our offensive coordinator and welcome him back to western New York,” McDermott said in a statement posted to the team’s website. ”I know how much this area means to him. He is a good coach and a good teacher and has been part of winning programs in the NFL and in college.”

Daboll will be the Bills’ fifth offensive coordinator in six seasons.

The Bills finished 29th in offense this past season and their running attack fell to sixth after leading the league the past two seasons. Dennison’s play-calling was questioned after Buffalo scored just three points against Jacksonville in the franchise’s first playoff game in 18 years.

Daboll coordinated an Alabama offense that ranked 15th in the nation in scoring at 37.1 points per game and 13th in rushing. The Crimson Tide overcame a 10-point deficit to win the national championship game in overtime after freshman quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was inserted into the game at halftime.

As a Patriots assistant from 2000-06 and 2013-16, Daboll won five Super Bowl rings.

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Since divisional play began in 1969 Jamaal Williams Jersey , only three times has a division had two teams with at least 100 wins.

That could happen again this year in the AL East – and maybe the AL West as well.

The Yankees, Red Sox, Astros and Mariners are all on pace to win over 100 games, and they’ve created tight races atop those two divisions. With two wild cards in each league, those four teams have some breathing room in the race for the postseason, but there should be plenty of incentive to win the division title and avoid the one-game, winner-take-all scenario that the wild cards have to deal with.

The Yankees and Red Sox just played a three-game series in New York. The games weren’t all that suspenseful – they ended 8-1, 11-0 and 11-1 Jimmy Howard Jersey , with the Yankees winning two of three.

The first time two teams from one division won at least 100 games was in 1980, when the Yankees (103-59) outlasted the Orioles (100-62) atop the AL East. A seven-game winning streak in mid-September helped New York hold on.

In 1993, the last year before the wild card, the Braves (104-58) and Giants (103-59) dueled all the way to the final day before San Francisco was done in by a 12-1 loss to the rival Dodgers. Atlanta was 10 games out on the morning of July 23 but went 49-16 the rest of the way.

The only time in the six-division era that a 100-win team failed to finish first was when Oakland went 102-60 in 2001 and still ended up 14 games behind a 116-win Seattle team.

None of the teams involved in those three previous examples made it to the World Series, so consider that a word of caution to this year’s American League behemoths.

Some other developments around the majors:

SHORTER WAITS

If the Mariners make the postseason this year, it will be their first appearance since that remarkable 2001 season. Baseball’s next-longest drought belongs to the Marlins, who haven’t made it since winning the World Series as a wild card in 2003.

The addition of extra wild cards has made it easier for teams to avoid long stretches without a postseason berth. The Padres haven’t made it since 2006 and the White Sox haven’t been in since 2008. Aside from those two teams, the Marlins and the Mariners Jonathan Ericsson Jersey , every major league franchise has made the postseason at least once since 2011.

HIGHLIGHT

The outfield wall in Toronto is high enough that it doesn’t lend itself to home run-robbing catches. Blue Jays center fielder Kevin Pillar figured out a solution, however, planting a foot on the wall and using it to vault himself up while making a catch on a drive by Detroit’s Nicholas Castellanos. Even Castellanos applauded that catch Sunday.

LINES OF THE WEEK

Two from the Red Sox-Yankees series: Chris Sale allowed one hit in seven innings, striking out 11 in Boston’s 11-0 win Saturday night. The following evening, it was New York delivering an 11-1 blowout. Aaron Hicks hit three home runs for the Yankees in that game.

Sale has a 1.73 career ERA against the Yankees, best among pitchers with at least 10 starts against them since 1920. But Sunday’s six-homer barrage brought New York’s season total to 137, a franchise record for before the All-Star break.

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