HappyDays

This is a game Rousseau's skill set was made for. The ultimate edge setter, the ultimate contain rusher. The Ravens are weak up front so I don't expect Lamar to have easy escape lanes anywhere. I don't know, I get nervous about every game but nothing about the Ravens particularly scares me. Basically just don't let Derrick Henry take over the game and don't make dumb mistakes on offense and we win by multiple scores.

There are no new concepts. These are old concepts, called and executed to perfection. If defenses want to stop it, it will have to be through an elite front four performance against our stout pass protection. That or just hope for an off game from us. Because when these boys are executing like they have since their 2nd drive of the season, no one is game planning their way out of it.

I have to eat crow on Tyler Bass. I called him out for the missed XP. Having now seen the All-22 of the play, it wasn't on him. The kick was high enough. Tylan Grable got walked back on his block and his man got leverage to jump up and get a handle on the ball. With that in mind Bass has only truly missed one kick so far this season and I think on that one he slipped or never got his footing right. He has been sufficient this season. Still don't trust him in a critical moment but he isn't actively hurting the team right now.

I agree, you shouldn't build theories around single play high variance events.

Probably a few times, yeah. Really think about what you're saying here. Your argument boils down to nothing matters other than the QB. You recognize that makes exactly zero sense, right?

The important thing when we inevitably lose is that we don't let it snowball into a midseason slump. That's what's happened every other year under McDermott. It's not the loss that kills us, it's how much it drags the team down for an extended period that ultimately keeps us out of the #1 seed. We can get there. The conference is not nearly as strong as people expected. Right now it is just us and the Chiefs competing for the #1 seed. Neither one of us will go 17-0 so it's all about who responds to that first loss and probably the winner of our head to head matchup.

He's shown a knack for breaking up passes at the catch point without commiting DPI. Huge underrated skill that becomes very important in critical moments.

Really the only weakness on the line is run blocking up the middle. But you will sacrifice that in favor of excellent pass blocking all day in the modern NFL. Compare to the Chiefs who have excellent run blocking up the middle but are having issues in pass protection on the edges and their offense clearly has looked clunkier than ours through three games. Our pass protection is easily the 2nd biggest reason we are dominating every defense we play so far.

No I think Brady is the GOAT. Better than Peyton Manning for sure. But I also think that the difference between Brady and Manning does not solely explain 7 SB wins vs 2 SB wins. Making that point for me is the fact that Manning got one of his in the worst season of his career. When you combine an elite QB with an elite coaching staff and an elite playoff defense you get a dynasty. That's what the Pats had and that's what the Chiefs have now.

Fine but who cares but random people think? A lot of random NFL fans thought Brock Purdy belonged in the MVP conversation last year. This is the last thought on my mind in the discussion.

LB is a plug and play position... Same with safety. As long as you don't have truly awful players in those spots you're fine. Football is still played primarily on the edges and on the boundary and the Bills have really good EDGEs and really good boundary CBs. The fans that thought losing Milano and Taron Johnson were impossible obstacles to overcome were wrong. They're both luxury players, not the engine that makes it all work. So no Spector and Williams to my eyes have not been outstanding, nor has Cam Lewis, but they have been good enough to let the more important pieces on defense function.

You can get there with basic logic. Let's say a team's success is 40% offensive roster, 35% defensive roster, 10% special teams, 15% coaching. In that scenario if you want to say a QB is worth 60% of the offense's success then you are saying a QB is 24% of his team's success. Feel free to quibble with these numbers but I doubt you'll argue with the overarching point and logic I'm using. Like I said this doesn't mean QBs aren't extremely important. A single player having a 25% impact on their entire team is ridiculous value actually. And that's why QB stats correlate with wins. But if you're talking about two individual teams the QB alone is not going to be the difference. Especially not in effectively a three game sample size which is what separates Allen and Mahomes in the playoffs. Easier way to say it is that QBs are responsible for a plurality of their team's success but not the majority. That's why my hypothetical trade example kind of ends the discussion if you're being honest with yourself. Mahomes vs Allen does not explain the Chiefs success vs the Bills success in recent years.

It makes it obvious. But it is very hard to get some people to understand that QBs are responsible for maybe 25% of their team's success. Now for the most part the other 75% that makes up a team's success isn't all that different from team to team, so that 25% is absolutely a BIG piece of what defines a team because of the higher variance. But when QBs are fairly equal between one team and another, the other 75% is what makes the ultimate difference.

You are transported back to 2020 and given the choice of the following trades: 1) Mahomes for Allen or 2) Chris Jones for Ed Oliver, Travis Kelce for Dawson Knox, and the Chiefs coaching staff for the Bills coaching staff Which do you select?

I wonder what the record is for consecutive targets with a catch for a WR. I haven't seen anyone talking about this but it is insanely impressive and deserves some attention.

Benched for an entire quarter and still had a better performance than Gabe Davis

I still don't love the WR room but I love the way Brady is deploying them, I love the way Josh is reading the defense and distributing the ball, I love the way Shakir runs with the ball in his hands, and I love the pass protection. When every single player and coach on offense is performing up to their ceiling, whatever deficiencies exist don't matter.

Allen Brown Dawkins Shakir Brady

In these uncertain times, it's good to know that there are still some constants in life like Mac Jones playing like garbage

Two weeks in a row that we're able to let our rookies get confidence building plays after the game is well in hand

That's actually a great rush from Solomon

If Casey Toohill brings your QB down you should have the right to surrender the game