The Frankish Reich

Mostly because he was following the huge personality that was John Madden. with the Raiders. He was a damn good coach, but George Seifert following Bill Walsh is in a similar position.

That's right. Remember the Moneyball line from Billy Beane? "My [crap] doesn't work in the playoffs." With a couple notable exceptions (the Kurt Warner Greatest Show on Turf Rams and last year's Chiefs) the track meet style of offense seems to be subject to the Beane rule. Even the Peyton Manning record breaking offenses flopped; it was only the defense-dominant Broncos of 2015 that were able to win when Manning was just a shell of himself.

Weird how it took so long for KC to be exposed as a one dimensional track meet offense, basically the Rams of 2018.

Well they got blown out twice by Tampa. Of course Tampa didn't have a chance to blow us out. TB was an example of the thing that never works actually working this time - take a decent core and supplement it with over-the-hill great players. Not just Brady (who apparently has found the fountain of youth again) but also Gronk, Antonio Brown, Suh, Fournette, etc. for one big run.

See ... we'll have to look for low quality youtube fan vids now to get the full story. CBS, I got no use for you.

thanks for reminding me ... that's actually a good one. Makes me feel a little better. I said "a little" ...

🤣 But technically speaking, I think you gotta be fully naked to count as a streaker. So he lost some style points. Could CBS please show him? It's the only thing remotely interesting about this game since the first quarter.

My wife, who doesn't really care at all about football, nailed it - Brady on the bench looking serious if not pissed off. Why doesn't he look like he's having fun? Because he isn't. There's that insane drive to win, to be the no-doubt-about-it GOAT. It's probably why he doesn't get a ton of commercials like lesser gods (Peyton Manning). We want our sports heroes to act like they absolutely love what they're doing and take great joy in it. That's not Tom Brady.

The refs do get a share of the blame. Called it really tight on the KC DBs but not on the TB DBs. But really ... this one wasn't close enough that it made a difference. Best teams in the NFL, c. 2020-21: 1. Tampa Bay ..... [huge gap] ..... 2. KC ..... [big gap] ..... 3. Bills. Some seasons are like that. It all becomes obvious by the end of the Super Bowl.

List of things I can be happy about with this Tampa Bay win: 1. Bruce Arians gets a Super Bowl trophy at age 68. Seems like a nice guy who waited his turn. For a long time. 2. ... umm, I got nuthin'

I feel like you could've worked it in as an excuse for that horrid offensive line play.

What is this thing where Tom Brady stands right up next to the Center's butt, takes the ball, and hands it to someone behind him? There is no throwing of the football at all. They are calling it a "running game." Maybe we should investigate implementing this innovation in Buffalo next year.

Not to bring up a difficult issue, but ... that's why OJ's 2003 yards sticks in my memory like Babe Ruth's 60 HRs did. I think Barry Bonds hit 73* one year, but I'm not positive. I have no idea what the record is now for rushing yards in a season** *performance aided **16 games

Exactly. No way any QB was going to drop back to throw 10,598 times (Brady's career regular season attempts, not counting sacks) and play till he's 43. Comparison: Joe Montana threw 5,391 passes. Marino 8,358. This is why QBs are playing at a high level into their late 30s, and in Brady's case, into their mid-40s. And he won't be the last of them to have a 20+ year career as a starting QB.

Just on the objective stats at age 43: - QB Rating: 9th in the NFL - ANY/A (adjusted net yards per attempt): 8th - Total passing yards: 3rd - Sack rate: 3rd I hate that this is happening (Brady on the cusp of winning another SB ring) ... but it is. We may be entering a new age of increased longevity for QBs with Brady/Rodgers/Rivers all having excellent seasons in their late 30s/early 40s (Brees/Ben on the other hand showing steep declines), so maybe someone catches him some day. But I'm not holding my breath.

I read the Time article this thing is attacking, and it says nothing of the sort: https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/ Instead, it tells us that some Democratic strategist wisely saw that Trump was planning to contest the election long before it was held, and that they'd started working on a counter strategy. The obviously played their hand better. The Trump team's contest went from arcane legal arguments ("state election officials altered voting rules without the express consent of their legislatures") to public hissy fits ("I won by a lot") to fever dream nonsense that was indistinguishable from having our very own Deranged Rhino as his litigation and PR strategist. I've been thinking about this. Biden clearly isn't a charismatic leader; he's no Obama, and not even a Trump. Harris is actually remarkably unpopular. COVID notwithstanding, there was a clear path to victory for Trump if only he'd played his cards right: - recognize COVID as the threat that it was. Adopt a take-charge attitude. "Hunker down, Operation Warp Speed is on the way, I am leading the charge to put this disease behind us." - take credit for the stimulus payments, extension of unemployment benefits, etc. - encourage mask wearing, social distancing, etc., and practice what you preach - focus on how America, under your guidance, is leading the charge to put this pandemic behind us, rather than on blaming China and acting like a victim of China. There was a brief moment -- a couple of weeks -- when Trump's approval ratings ticked up right after he began his COVID Task Force Press conferences, just like Cuomo's did. But then those descended into more crap about how he's not being treated fairly and is a victim of the China Virus, ultimately turning into self-parody with the injecting disinfectant nonsense. And of course, with his own stupidity and arrogance causing him to be hospitalized with the very disease he claimed was nothing to be overly concerned about. He had a chance. He was too dumb, too bull-headed, too narcissistic to ever change tack.

Look, i'm as much of a Brady hater as anyone. But ... This is a little like "Clyde Drexler was a better player than Michael Jordan; if you'd put him on the Bulls and Jordan on the Trailblazers, we'd be calling Clyde the GOAT."

Here, here. Just a few years ago on this very board you could find me arguing - denial is a strong emotional state! - that Tyrod Taylor is a slightly above average QB, and that we could indeed win championships with him just like the Ravens with Flacco did. Yes, I was literally arguing that having the 15th best QB in the NFL (give or take, mostly take, 5 positions or so) was good enough to build around. With that in mind, I will, indeed, enjoy the ride now!

Great read, thanks for sharing. I remember those rumors about Kordell. We'll probably never know to what extent those things cut short a pretty remarkable start to an NFL career. It's just so mixed up with the "not a pro-style QB" conversation. A few weeks ago there was a thread titled something like "Is Josh Allen the most physically gifted QB ever?" Being someone of a certain age and with a long memory, I responded: he's right up there, but watch some video of Roman Gabriel, Bobby Douglass, Bert Jones, Cam Newton, etc. before using words like "most" and "ever." I forgot about Kordell Stewart. His running ability is obvious - there's a clip of him going 80 yards from a heavy set formation embedded in this article. But he could throw it 70 yards too. An amazing athlete, and from everything I've heard, a really good guy too. He was just a little ahead of his time with his particular QB skill set, and maybe the times were a little bit behind him as far as the rumor mill and the kinds of things that could get you blackballed from the NFL just a couple decades ago. Interesting sidelight: he talks about long-forgotten 90s things that were status symbols, like a 6-CD changer. I knew I had arrived when I got that Sony 100-CD changer around the same time ...

Truly elite players are different. It could be that Gase was the right guy for Manning's comeback ... https://sny.tv/articles/why-jets-coach-adam-gase-and-peyton-manning-wanted-to-kill-each-other#:~:text=Jets head coach Adam Gase,other's throats to get there.&text=Manning revived his career under,a 37-year-old. ... but that he wasn't the right guy for Sam Darnold, and certainly isn't the right guy to lead a team full of guaranteed 100% "contains no future Hall of Famers" Jets.

I realize I hadn't responded to the charge of being an "elitist." So I will now. I used to enjoy quoting that old (yes, elitist) Republican William F. Buckley: "I'd rather entrust to the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone book than to the faculty of Harvard University." It hit on a great truth about the problems created by the social engineering of our so called elite class. But you know what? Those first 400 people in the phone book (back when such things existed) would now probably include more than a handful of QAnon adherents and Bernie Bros. And I kind of want us, as voters, to exercise some kind of basic qualifications check before we send them to Congress. It's a low bar: (1) have some demonstrated commitment to understanding our system of government; (2) not espouse nutty conspiracy theories. If demanding those two things makes me an elitist, well, then, bring on the elitism. It isn't about things like academic qualifications. I have a good friend who dropped out of college and has worked in the construction trade for many years. He lives in a very liberal part of the country, and he has very liberal views on almost all issues. I disagree with him on politics most of the time, but enjoy arguing with him because he's remarkably well informed. If he were to run for Congress in his liberal district, I'd be 100% behind him - he represents their views, and represents them honestly and intelligently, and he's always ready to engage in a lively but respectful dialog to defend them. Which brings me to Lauren Boebert: she's a joke. Her idea of "policy" goes no further than the new "own the libs" jargon and actions. Other than her demonstrated gun fetishism (and I'm not a gun control guy; I just think a lot of this open carry nonsense is silly play acting), she's shown virtually no interest or commitment to understanding policy and the needs of her far flung Colorado district. She doesn't belong in Congress. Period. And by the way, a lot of her raised in poverty as Democrats with their incentive to improve their station in life by the nasty welfare state stuff is crap. Her mother was a registered Republican from the time she moved to Colorado from (you guessed it) Florida when Boebert was about 13. Don't believe every campaign ad you see. And of course it's even worse with this Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is just demonstrably nuts, as well as being rude and preposterously self-confident in her own stupidity. So this elitist is embarrassed that these people are in our Congress.

2018 was weird all right, but it also had that just plain boring, pitiful lull when Derek Anderson was getting his butt kicked while everyone else was hurt. 2017? Now that was weird. A wild, fun ride. Still my favorite Bills season ever. Broke the playoff drought despite Nathan Peterman taking over. The snow game with the Joe Webb play. The Andy Dalton miracle with Kyle Williams watching. I loved everything about that season, even in retrospect the crazy, infuriatingly bad stuff.

Good comment. There's definitely something to this, but I'd have to say we're still in the "too soon to tell" phase. - Tyrod: 6th round draft pick, never viewed as a starting QB prospect, turned into a perfectly acceptable starter (meaning somewhere around the 20th best in the NFL) by working under Roman's offense. No evidence yet that he would have similar success in a different offensive scheme, and I doubt we'll find out - for a run oriented QB, he's now past his prime - Kaep: obviously thrived under Roman and struggled after. There's some mitigating factors there since the Niners as a whole entered a down phase, and of course we never got to see whether he could succeed with a different team - Lamar: as you note, two ways of looking at it. Roman is using his skill set perfectly, and he probably wouldn't be so good in another scheme? Or Roman is, at this point, actually holding back his development as a passer? My guess is that both are correct. I think he'll be a success under other schemes (Daboll and Allen style, or maybe Kingsbury and Kyler style), and I think we'll find out soon enough.

This is the interesting question. And my perspective on it has changed. I used to share your opinion. Winning a Super Bowl is everything! It's why you play the game. I'd gladly trade a half dozen years of being a cellar dweller for one Super Bowl win, or maybe even one Super Bowl appearance. But I've changed my mind. Noncompetitive teams are just boring teams to follow. I got used to essentially abandoning the Bills in November. Just based on where I live the Broncos became my "Bills are out of it again, let's follow a possible playoff team" mode. That was especially true when the Broncos always were competitive in the 2000s under Shanahan even though they never made a Super Bowl. Brian Griese, Jake Plummer, Jay Cutler, whatever - they would hang around, sometimes make the playoffs, sometimes get eliminated in Week 17, but never go 5-11. It's entertaining to watch a season unfold when your team is in it, or at least has some hope of being in it. So I realized that from an entertainment perspective I'm getting more value out of watching good teams play competitive football year after year. I hope that's where the Bills will be for an extended run. Imagine we have the chance to trade our 2021 - 2023 first round picks for Travis Kelce, and that most experts think that gives us a much improved chance to win the Super Bowl in the next two years, but a strong likelihood of having to tear it down and start from scratch in 2023. I don't like that scenario. That's consigning Bills fans to several years of drudgery in exchange for an additional week or two of football in the next two years. So I guess I'm saying the answer is complicated. It's not clearly yes.

Agreed. In other news: "Area Homeseller Says He Plans to Take Highest Bid; Won't Sell to "Nice Family" That Wrote Him Heart-Felt Letter About How Much They Love The Home." "Recent Graduate Inclined to Reject $25,000 Salary in Hometown in Favor of $250,000 Offer in New City." I understand that writers gotta write, but you gotta do better than this.