HappyDays

I know this is an unpopular opinion but Shanahan wasn't to blame for the Super Bowl loss. Purdy was. An offense can't function consistently with a QB that has zero ability to make plays with any sort of mess in the pocket. It's a minor miracle that their offense worked as well as it did this season. Deebo Samuel also clearly wasn't close to healthy, so you take away the #1 WR combined with a limited QB going against a stellar defense, no one should be surprised by the result. His team also held the Chiefs to 3 points in the 1st half, and just 1 TD in regulation which only came off of a muffed punt. As far as coaching goes it doesn't get much better than that. I get the complaint about his unwillingness to run but the Chiefs were focusing on shutting the run down all night because they had no fear that Purdy's arm would take advantage of those favorable looks. It's silly to compare Shanahan's record against the Chiefs in the playoffs versus McDermott's. One of them has a QB capable of matching Mahomes' play in the playoffs, the other has a backup QB. At least Shanahan's team didn't get steamrolled the entire game. I mean this has got to be the only place on the internet where anybody places McDermott and Shanahan in the same conversation. So of course I would be enthralled if we somehow ended up with Kyle Shanahan. Hopefully the 49ers are dumb enough to make him the sacrificial lamb next year and then inevitably fall into purgatory when their QB problem doesn't magically solve itself. We could have our pick of the litter if McDermott fails again - Ben Johnson, Kyle Shanahan, Mike Vrabel. Who wants their chance with a top 2 QB and a good core of young talent?

Too late for that as far as 2024 is concerned. Hopefully 2025 they will have set themselves up to spend money on the offense. It will require a willingness from Beane to be especially frugal this offseason though. Cut White, re-sign none of our UFAs, maybe even cut Miller if the plan is to roll over his cap space.

I agree. But it is hard to argue with his results. Some would say Andy Reid is not top 5 in terms of game management but his offensive scheme/play calling and ability to get the most out of his players more than makes up for it. Give Shanahan a real QB and he'll become the next version of Andy Reid IMO.

Do you really think Purdy will earn top 5 money? Surely GMs can see plainly that he is too limited to ever be more than a bridge or backup QBs. His limitations were on display last night. I don't believe they'll be fooled by his stats.

I am sure he thought Klein gave him the best chance to not lose. He was wrong. It was a cowardly personnel decision that sunk the defense. I've never had an issue with McDermott's 4th down decision making. Overall I think it is one of his strengths as a coach. He's aggressive when it makes sense and conservative when it makes sense. But that doesn't absolve him of the various personnel mistakes he made in his defensive game plan. I mean how many more times does his defense have to be abused by good offenses in the playoffs before we accept that he just isn't a good enough defensive coach? He regularly allows offenses to have one of their best offensive performances of the year in the playoffs. It's a trend, not a one-year blip.

He's taken two limited backup QBs to a Super Bowl and would have won last night's if not for inexplicable player mistakes on special teams. He is easily the 2nd best head coach in the NFL.

Our defensive gameplan was abysmal until it was too late. And this isn't hindsight. I said before the game put Neal on Kelce, and give Williams the nod over Klein unless he looks like a disaster out there. This finally happened on the one drive we forced a punt. I have no idea what McDermott was thinking before that. Eventually our defense simply has to show up against a good opponent in the playoffs. No team is winning shootouts all the way to a Super Bowl victory.

Of course. Klein clearly could not play the position but McDermott went with the known option. He was afraid the rookie would be too inexperienced. By coaching not to lose, he lost. That's what happens. Perhaps Williams would have been a disaster, although late in the game when he was finally on the field he made a couple plays that forced the Chiefs to punt for the first time. But putting Klein on the field gave us a 0% chance to make defensive stops. Williams gave us a chance.

Not even close to be honest. Chris Jones L'Jarius Sneed Travis Kelce Creed Humphrey Joe Thuney All of these players are considered to be among the very best at their positions. We have nobody in that discussion outside of Allen. Milano when he's healthy would be one. That still leaves us lagging behind quite a bit though. Andy Reid and Steve Spagnuolo are also arguably the very best at their respective coaching positions. The Bills don't have a coach in that conversation either. We are way off from them. Allen is the only reason we have a chance.

Putting AJ Klein on the field over Dorian Williams. Unfortunately that decision sunk our chances of winning the game. McDermott chose the safe comfortable option and we proceeded to get whipped up and down the field because of it. Because Allen has outplayed Mahomes in every head to head matchup since 2021. The QB is important enough to overcome every other disadvantage. If Mahomes had outplayed Allen one of those times it would have been a blowout loss.

Right so now you've gone and changed your answer to make your argument better. Because originally I gave you the option of ranking your choices and you put one option above Allen for Mahomes. Now I'm giving you the option of making all available switches and you're saying you'd take Allen for Mahomes over that option. Which if you evaluate that logic for half a second, you'll recognize the problem.

I just don't agree that Mahomes throwing to our group of weapons against the KC defense would be able to score 3 consecutive TD drives. That's what Allen had to do to keep us in the game. Mahomes couldn't do that against the 49ers defense with his full (and better) offensive supporting cast available. His play from yesterday's first 3 quarters would have had us blown out by KC. If you don't agree with that we'll just agree to disagree I guess.

This is the crux of my frustration, and I'm guessing the same is true of many other Bills fans. Allen is the only QB in the league that regularly matches Mahomes' intensity in the playoffs. They both have an uncanny ability to turn it on in sudden death games. The only reason that Mahomes has been rewarded more than Allen for raising his play in the playoffs is that he has had the luxury of other players and coaches also raising their play in the playoffs. Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce, Chris Jones, L'Jarius Sneed. He's always had at least 2 players on his team that have went above and beyond in the playoffs. Ditto for his coaches. When has Allen had that luxury? Never. The first time he does I believe we will win a Super Bowl. But the current coaching staff and front office have not shown that they are capable of giving him that luxury so I remain pessimistic.

I was leading up to a point. I'm not going to debate your choices. So now imagine you had the option of switching all of those players except for Allen for Mahomes, or just switching Allen for Mahomes. Clearly you would take switching all of those players, yes? Which means you've already accepted that Allen vs Mahomes was not the driving force of that result, that the surrounding context was. So you already agree with me.

You don't see evidence that Mahomes would lead his team to a game-tying FG sending the game into OT? Perhaps while in fact missing a read that would have been a game winning TD in regulation? As evidence I submit the exact scenario that happened about two hours ago.

Here's another one for you. Let me know if you disagree with any of these statements. In that divisional round, the following groups performed better for the listed team: RB - Wash WR - Chiefs TE - Chiefs OL - Chiefs (slight lean, if you want to call it a wash I won't argue) DL - Chiefs LB - Chiefs Secondary - Chiefs Special teams - Chiefs Coaching - Chiefs Are we on the same page here? I'll assume we are with maybe one or two groups switching to a wash. So help me out here - Assume you're correct that the Chiefs QB also outplayed the Bills QB. How is it that a team where just about every possible factor was better than their opponent, and their opponent had no such advantages, only won by 3 points? That seems impossible. Unless of course their opponent did have an advantage somewhere, perhaps at the most important position on the team? Lol of course that isn't a homer opinion. That is a plain fact.

I don't believe Mahomes would have scored enough times to have us in that position to begin with. Allen playing at his very best is better than Mahomes. For like 3.5 quarters Allen was at his very best in that game, and that's the only reason we even had a chance at the end. The kind of adversity Mahomes faced tonight in the 1st 3 quarters, that's what Allen was up against in the divisional round. Unlike Mahomes he kept finding a way to will his offense down the field and put points on the board. So no if anything I think switching Allen for Mahomes in that game leads to a worse outcome for us.

Here's a question and I'm genuinely curious to hear your answer. In our playoff game against the Chiefs from this year, pretend you have the option of making one of these trades: Allen for Mahomes Kincaid for Kelce Oliver for Jones Klein for Bolton In order from most impactful to least impactful how would you rank them? Here's mine: 1) Kincaid for Kelce 2) Oliver for Jones 3) Klein for Bolton 4) Allen for Mahomes Personally I believe if you switched either of the first 2 we would have won. I'm inclined to say the same about #3 but not quite as sure. #4 I 100% believe makes no difference if everything else remains the same.

Any time he doesn't have a perfectly clean pocket the ball either falls short of its destination or sails way over the receiver's head. Only one time in this game where I can remember him making a sort of off platform throw that was completed. You just can't win in the modern NFL without that ability and with a below average arm. And the 49ers OL is below average from the LG down so the Chiefs got Purdy off his spot more than a dozen times. Every time they did, they won the play. Tough to run an offense under those conditions, although I agree Shanahan should have leaned on McCaffrey more.

Reid is the best offensive mind in the NFL. Maybe with 20 more years of experience Shanahan could eclipse him. I have some level of grace for Shanahan in this game. Purdy is a very limited QB. He can't drive throws for the life of him and he can't make plays in messy pockets. His skillset just makes it so difficult to put the defense in conflict even with all of those skill players. Early in the game KC was shutting down the run and Purdy never gave them a reason to back off. There are spots where I can be critical of Shanahan's plan, but mostly I just see this as another case of him being let down by an underwhelming QB. He just can't get the position figured out. It's his curse.

Agreed, he was fantastic at the end. Didn't make any spectacular plays, but made every play that was there to be had and that was enough. And I don't want to undersell that simply making the necessary plays at the end is a real skill that most players can't execute consistently. Still I would give the bulk of this win to the Chiefs defense and special teams over the offense. An underrated series was after Mahomes threw a bad INT at midfield the Chiefs defense forced a 3 and out and a punt. Stuff like that is really what separates them from the rest of the league. Of course if the 49ers simply kick the XP or don't screw up a punt return none of that matters...

If you don't agree that Allen had a better game against the Eagles and Chiefs in the playoffs than Mahomes did tonight, I don't believe you. And 100% for sure if Allen played like Mahomes did in the first 3 quarters tonight, we would have been blown out by the 49ers. And that's not unique to Allen. Most teams can't get away with scoring 3 points or less in a half against two different playoff opponents and win both of them.

...we would have lost. End of conversation. I know this because he played a better game in at least 2 games this year that the Bills still lost. Hopefully one day we'll have the coaching staff and the players around him to get a single Lombardi. I'm past the point of rooting for multiples. Just give me one in the Allen era please.

He has been surrounded by elite players that make clutch plays, and elite coaches, on both sides of the ball. He also did not play especially well in this game. And that's fine. QBs are allowed to play below their highest standard and still win games against great opponents. At least some QBs are. Seriously if anyone's takeaway from this game is "Mahomes just finds a way to get it done" I have about zero respect for your football opinion. Please use your eyes. Disclaimer: None of this is meant to take away from the greatness that is Mahomes. He is one of the best QBs I've ever watched.

He played about as well as his athletic profile could allow for, but still not good enough ultimately. He doesn't have a playmaking bone in his body.