HappyDays

I don't think we can afford to do both. The team has not made a splash move at WR since 2020. It's time. In three great WR drafts - 2019, 2020, 2024 - we drafted a total of 1 WR before day three. As a result we continue to chase the position. They need to just get it solved. Right now we have zero WRs on the roster that are definite starters outside. It's the worst the room has looked since, well, 9 months ago when we were having these same conversations almost verbatim. Higgins is the move. You live with the injury concerns because beggers can't be choosers. It's nothing like when we handed Von a franchise altering contract. Higgins just turned 26 and has proven #1 ability. Add him and some other WR with our first 3 picks, then you hope Coleman develops. Either way that strategy gives the room a very solid floor. I would make a splash trade for Metcalf if available but I agree I don't think he will be. There's been no buzz around it at all and this isn't a draft where Seattle is going to want to sell out for a QB trade up.

Then perhaps we should do the opposite of what we did in 2020. Everyone wants us to trade for Maxx Crosby. Wouldn't the wiser move be to stay put and draft from the strength of the class? Maybe if we had done that in 2020 we'd have Justin Jefferson right now. If WR is the weakness of this draft then that's where we should make our splash FA or trade move.

Ok I watched this video and immediately changed my mind. Trade for him.

My belief is that if the rosters were flipped we'd be angry at Beane for completely screwing up the OT position, for signing an injury prone WR, for failing to add a difference making edge rusher and blowing a 1st round pick there on a player that doesn't see the field. I'm not happy with Beane lately because whether influenced by McDermott or not he hasn't followed the necessary strategy to take this team to its ultimate goal, but I don't look at the two rosters and see some massive gap. There's a reason KC is favored in the Super Bowl and it's not because a single person out there thinks they have the better roster.

What do you think McDermott's record would be with Alex Smith as his QB over the last 5 years? Reid was 50-26 with Alex Smith so a 65.8% win percentage. McDermott with Allen over the last 5 years (since he became elite) is 61-22 so a 73.5% win percentage. Is it fair to say we lose an average of 3 more games per season with Alex Smith instead of Allen? If anything that feels generous. But running with that that would put our record at 46-37 over the past 5 years which is a 55.4% win percentage. That's our ceiling with a QB that Andy Reid was taking to the playoffs every year. An all time great QB absolutely makes Reid a better coach. The weird thing is that an all time great QB hasn't led to the same outcome for McDermott.

Mostly yes. Defenders are always going to punch at the ball. He made a big mistake trying to run horizontally instead of running vertically away from the defenders or just going down, and then he just got careless with the ball. Either way it's undebateable that our defensive scheme and play calling and overall play was not remotely good enough in either game. We forced two punts over two games. The Chiefs once again had historically elite efficiency against us. It's the same story we see in every single playoff run. I'm honestly at a loss that anybody could think it is going to change at this point. I know we can get past KC but it's not going to happen through the defense. 40 points per game. That should be the goal.

Hot take - they were very bad against Baltimore too but Lamar and Andrews made crushing unforced errors. And we probably would have given up 4 straight TDs to start the Chiefs game if Mahomes didn't randomly drop the ball. Let's stop with this fantasy that the defense is ever going to perform at a championship level. We're either going to run up the score or it's never going to happen for us.

Why not? We basically scored 30 points against them with Mack Hollins as our best WR. Why can't we get closer to 40 with a big infusion of pass catching talent?

I don't dispute that coaching was a problem on our final drive, but talent is the great equalizer. That quick TD drive at the end of the 1st half was capped by a 34 yard downfield completion. The end of half drive against Baltimore featured an 18 yard DPI on 3rd down. The problem is the respective targets on those plays were Hollins and Coleman and neither of them have proven to be consistently reliable downfield targets, so we need more there. A lot more. Because on the drives when we didn't have those downfield completions it was really really tough sledding. It took multiple 4th down conversions, multiple fumble recoveries, a ridiculous individual effort from James Cook at the goalline, etc. to sustain those other drives. And when you live in that low margin for error world, you leave yourself at the mercy of the officials and of an inexperienced pass catcher having to make the critical play of the game. If you want to remove the random luck factors you have to impose your will with consistent explosive offense.

Yeah and it's worth noting that in our regular season matchup we defeated two of his blitzes by throwing downfield to Cooper 1v1. Both of those completions turned into TD drives. But by the time we got to the playoffs Cooper had inexplicably become a non-factor. We need that 1v1 boundary mismatch to have a chance. Ideally two of them. That has to be the focus of the offseason IMO. I know everyone else is hoping we trade for Maxx Crosby. Not me. I'm hoping we trade for DK Metcalf or some similar move. We can't get past KC with ball control. We need to completely overwhelm them and run up the score.

I was talking about Kincaid. Beane said he needs to get stronger this offseason to have a bigger impact. And yeah that's fine, it's a physical position, I just think his mental game is where he's really lacking.

I found it interesting they called out his physicality. To my eyes that wasn't the problem this year. Maybe as a blocker but not as a pass catcher. The problem was mostly mental and technical IMO. He doesn't do a good job of finding windows in zone or detailed route running to separate in man. He doesn't read leverage well with the ball in his hands. So sure go pump some iron this offseason but mostly I think he needs to watch some Travis Kelce film, compare it with his own, and learn how to make himself available to his QB. Make sight adjustments, subtly move to match Allen's movements and eyes, etc. The game needs to slow down for him.

I'm somewhere between minor disappointment and nonchalance about it. The whole operation in all three phases was not good enough when it mattered. Fire Smiley or don't. Whatever. I have basically no thoughts positive or negative about anything that was said today. Either these guys are going to make the necessary changes to get us over the hump, or they will continue to waste Allen's career. I don't expect them to prostrate themselves in front of the media or explain their entire offseason plan. Just get it done.

Good news is there are zero excuses next year. A lot of bad cap space is coming off the books, Allen will likely be extended to lower his cap hit, all the coaches are back, the core of the roster will all be back, and we have a lot of draft picks. This was a rebuild/reload year. Okay, fine. Next year has to be the one then.

Hmm that's disappointing. Oh well.

Yeah I am extremely disappointed with how he ended the season. After the stretch of Tennessee and Seattle I was ready to take a victory lap over my support of him because it looked like he had really started to figure things out. But he ended the season playing worse than he did in game one. Hopefully we can chalk it up to the injury but it's concerning to see a player regress that much and never turn their trend line back around.

Yes a few things jump out from this game. A few plays KC is in bunch set and all our guys are lined up at the exact same depth which creates easy rub opportunities. That's coaching not talent. On Worthy's TD Hamlin gets manned up 1v1 against him. Ok so yes that's a talent discrepancy but the obvious mismatch happens because of coaching. Our final offensive series was not about talent at all, it was Spags beating Brady on 4 consecutive plays. Mahomes had the highest success rate per dropback of his entire career and this is not close to the best offensive cast he's had around him. Mahomes was able to scramble and get out of the pocket almost at will, while KC successfully contained Allen - Mahomes scrambled 6 times, Allen scrambled 1 time. All of this points to a much larger coaching gap than talent gap. We just got through our 8th season with McDermott and what has improved since his 1st? More 4th down aggressiveness I guess? You'd think he'd have some of the finer coaching details down at this point but there's no improvement year over year.

Joe Marino confirming Allen broke his throwing hand on the 2 point conversion at the end of the 1st half: Just insane the amount of injuries he had to play through this year.

I don't want to take anything away from his performance, but on his TD he was manned up 1v1 against Damar Hamlin. I mean that just can't happen. Massive coaching failure.

I hate that this is accurate. My fear last draft was that we'd take a safety in the first two rounds. It happened and it looks as bad in hindsight as I thought it would. My fear this draft is we'll take a DT who profiles best as a run stopper in the 1st round. It does unfortunately seem to line up with this regime's priorities. I just can't accept using your most valuable asset on a run stopper. That does nothing to get us over the hump. If we go for a legit pass rusher ok I can live with that.

Thanks as always for putting in the work Gunner. I'm going to be disappointed if we take two DL to start the draft, especially starting with a DT that doesn't seem to have any high end traits, but I'm kind of expecting it. Seems like that's where the value is projected to be and we know Beane will invest more there than anywhere else on the roster. I'd feel a lot better if that 1st pick was Mike Green but there's been some buzz about him this week in Senior Bowl practices and I expect him to ultimately end up in the top 20, maybe even top 15. Every team needs explosive pass rushers. Isaiah Bond strikes me as too Curtis Samuel like and I don't think that Beane will want to give up on that contract this early. No surprise to anyone on here - I would go WR with that 1st pick. I haven't done anything more than read some draft profiles of players expected in that range, but Matthew Golden who you have going right after our pick seems like a great fit. Speed, separation, route running. He gives us everything we're missing outside right now. You read the negatives on him and it's "run blocking" and "focus drops." I can more than live with that if he is consistently making himself an available target for Allen.

Remove the Garrett part of it and I'm in. Whatever we'd spend on him, use it on more offense. I've gone fully in that direction at this point. On defense I'd re-sign Benford, let Rousseau play out his 5th year option before deciding if he's worth an extension, and fill in holes with mid and late round draft picks. Score 40 PPG and it won't matter.

You say this but we've never gotten average playoff defense. So for the current regime it's not easy, it's impossible. I believe that with Josh Allen an A+ offense is possible. We came close in 2020 but they weren't ready to go all the way yet. I think the new mature Allen with a similar supporting cast and a much better run game could be A+. In any case I'm now fully convinced that's the only path to glory so that's what I'd shoot for regardless of how feasible it is.

So this is the usual counterargument, that the offense was fine we just need the defense to be better. I was making that same argument myself after the 13 seconds game so I get it. But I was wrong then. Basically where you're coming from is we have an A- offense and a D+ defense, so we need to raise the defense to a B- and then we'll win. I'm saying forget the defense. Make the offense an A+ offense and make the defense irrelevant. Because no matter how much we've invested in the defense over the years, we still end up with the same result. I sincerely believe that we could spend every single cap dollar and draft pick on defense this year, and still in next year's playoff matchup against KC they will punt no more than twice and the game will come down to our offense having to score with no time remaining. That's how our last three playoff losses against them have gone. So I've accepted that's always going to be the game script under this coaching staff. The solution is not to try and change the game script, but to try and change the outcome within that game script. So adding to the offense is the only possible solution. 40 points per game. That has to be the strategy.