HappyDays

Excluding kneeldowns we gave up 8.5 yards per play... 3 yards per play more than what the Chiefs offense averaged all season... That is quite possibly the worst playoff defensive performance of McDermott's career. It is getting worse, not better. The only reason the Chiefs didn't put up 40+ is that we controlled the ball and TOP on offense, and we got saved once by the dumbest rule in sports. And this is likely to be the weakest Chiefs offense we ever see in the Mahomes/Reid era. So what is the reason to be optimistic that McDermott will suddenly figure it out against this team when it counts?

I would still take that over Klein moving through quicksand all night. You have to admit Klein was by far our weakest point of defense... Maybe Williams misses some reads in the game but at least he can move side to side. Klein can hit his spot 100% of the time and it won't matter as Kelce easily runs right by him. And yes I mentioned Siran Neal covering Kelce before the game too. This is what troubles me - I am just an amateur fan and I knew what our game plan should have been. McDermott didn't figure it out until the 4th quarter when it was too late. We have seen this before. McDermott loses his nerve in the playoffs and goes soft with his defensive game plan, and it costs us. Fans have tried to blame Leslie Frazier. It was McDermott all along. He isn't learning.

I just don't understand why we waited. It was obvious before the game. Put your two best athletes Dodson and Williams on the field or else Mahomes is going to play around with Klein all game. Put Siran Neal on Kelce like we have done successfully in the past. When we did these things late in the game we found success. But what exactly was the defensive gameplan at the start? And why does this same crap keep happening year after year in the playoffs?

But he didn't. Williams had two great plays. He stayed laterally with Mahomes to force him out of bounds at the LOS on the Chiefs last drive. That sideline to sideline speed made a difference there. He also had made a great play in coverage that the officials incorrectly called DPI on. Maybe over the course of the game he would have been picked on too. But it's a huge playoff game against our nemesis. And McDermott, as usual, chose the safe comfortable option instead of shooting for the stars. Still waiting for that growth mindset to affect the guy preaching it.

This only worked because McDermott chose to start Klein. Like I said before the game it should have been Dodson and Williams. When Williams was on the field we made a couple stops. We needed someone that could run laterally. Huge error by McDermott. I know you aren't going to agree with that but surely you can see that Klein was picked on all night.

Whose decision was it to start Klein over Williams? Klein was picked on from the very start. When he was replaced by Williams late in the game the defense suddenly got a couple stops. So even the thing you're using as an excuse was ultimately the fault of McDermott. No more excuses. It is four years of underwhelming to awful defensive performances in the playoffs.

Uh yeah I would trade Terrel Bernard, Christian Benford, and a banged up Rasul Douglas for Tyreek Hill without hesitation. McDermott's defense melting down in the playoffs is an annual tradition now. There's no reason to pretend it's a one-off caused by injuries. The sample size is large enough now to say that this is who McDermott is.

I just checked. The 32nd ranked defense in yards per play this year was at 6.0... So our performance tonight was 2.5 yards per play worse than the worst defense in the league... I'm actually in awe at how bad the defense was tonight. I knew it was awful watching it live, but seeing the numbers it's almost impossibly bad.

Get this - in our 2021 divisional loss to the Chiefs they had 7.6 yards per play. So our defensive performance tonight was arguably worse than when they had Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce in their prime. Yeah we're never winning anything meaningful under McDermott.

Chiefs offense averaged 5.5 yards per play in the regular season. So we spotted them an extra 3 yards for every play they ran... That is actually insane. Another classic McDermott defensive meltdown in the playoffs.

Starting Klein was McDermott's choice. He has to take complete ownership of that mistake. Klein was awful and was mercilessly picked on by Mahomes throughout much of the game. Then on the last drive Dorian Williams was subbed in... and we miraculously stopped two series in a row (out of necessity because the refs called a phantom penalty on the first one). That drive included a couple of really good plays from none other than Dorian Williams. McDermott chose the "safe" option in Klein and was soundly punished for it. He then refused to admit his mistake and make a change until it was way too late. That is 100% on him. Great coaches find a way to overcome injuries by having the right players prepared. Chiefs were down to their 3rd string safety, backup WLB, and backup NT. This isn't just hindsight on my part by the way, I was saying before the game Williams should get the start and only be pulled for Klein if he was repeatedly abused by misdirection. Obviously the expectation wasn't to shut down the Chiefs, but with a defensive head coach we should expect a lot more than an abysmal 8.5 yards per play given up and only forcing a single punt, against an offense that has struggled for most of the season.

The anger comes in waves. But I accepted we wouldn't make the playoffs after we put 12 men on the field so everything since then has felt like an added bonus. Even tonight I was into it until the dumb fake punt, and then everything after that again was just an added bonus. It's already solidified in my mind that we will never win a Super Bowl under McDermott, even if we pulled it out tonight I can't see us then beating two elite opponents in a row under this coaching staff. So in that sense it doesn't hurt as much. It feels inevitable.

The Chiefs intentionally spent the past two offseasons taking their medicine so that they could prepare their cap situation for the future. This coming offseason they have a ton of cap space ($51 million, with the usual caveat that they will need to re-sign some of their own players) and I suspect they will go all out to get a WR given what they went through at that position this year. Also I posted this in another thread: So the game script for the Bills really could not have been any better, at least on offense. It was in fact a historically great game script. And still we could not find a way to beat Mahomes and Reid. So I struggle to find any reason to believe this regime is suddenly going to find a way to beat the Chiefs in what are likely to be much worse circumstances. And that's before accounting for things like Burrow returning from injury, the Texans continuing to build around Stroud, etc. This was probably the best shot at an AFC title that we'll have for a long time and we blew it.

Your opinion on how fast we should score a TD does not mean Allen's decision to throw the ball to an open WR in the endzone was hero ball. He literally just read cover 2 and threw to his downfield cover 2 beater for a go ahead score in crunch time. There is nothing more that needs to be said about that read. It is completely meaningless that Diggs was wide open on a shallow crosser as far as analyzing Allen's decision making on that play. Sorry if I sound snippy, it has become commonplace on here for people to totally misinterpret what QBs are doing on any given down and it's gotten very tiring.

The defense gave him an open WR in the end zone. The read was perfect. The whole "hero ball" conversation has gotten way out of control and it's based entirely in emotion. Now we have reached a point where any pass more than 10 yards downfield counts as "not taking what the defense gives him."

Congratulations Sean McDermott on breaking yet another NFL record in a loss. Something similar happened in the Eagles game if I recall correctly. Our head coach finds new and exciting ways to lose games.

Rousseau unfortunately did not have the breakout season that I expected him to have this year. He is possibly the best run stopping DE in the league and has been since his rookie season, but his pass rushing has not developed. 6.0 sacks in 18 games played is not what you hope for from a 1st rounder in his 3rd season. I saw a stat that tonight was the first game since 2021 that Oliver had 0 pressures. The Chiefs have the best IOL in the league so this was somewhat expected. We needed our edge rushers to make an impact and it just didn't happen.

Let's be honest. If Bass hits that FG, the Chiefs are kicking a walk off FG of their own a few minutes later. If Allen hits that TD to Shakir, Chiefs are scoring a walk off TD. Every Bills fan knows deep down how the game was going to end one way or the other.

Yeah he thought he was creating a storybook moment with Hamlin getting the 1st down. Unfortunately in the real world that doesn't work. Should have just kept the ball in Josh's hands and trusted him to make a play. But our head coach regularly has these brain freeze moments in critical situations.

It really is insane. He was affordable (if we handled our FA right), he wanted to be here, we openly flirted with him, he was an obvious fit for Allen's skill set, and he filled a need. What in the hell happened that led Beane to pass on the most obvious signing of the millennium? I sincerely believe it was a season-altering mistake and I just can't begin to understand why.

It isn't even a difficult catch. I mean this is unbelievably bad.

And to think, there were posters on here that thought DeAndre Hopkins would have been a waste of money and who thought that Davis would finish the year as a top WR2. You know the ones.

I think scheming works against zone. Against man which the Chiefs play a ton of, you simply need your guys to win their 1v1s. Our guys weren't doing that tonight. You can only call so many versions of crossing routes and rub routes.

Just can't have this from your #1 WR. And I'd like to say it is a new problem, but Diggs has disappeared in all of our playoff losses. Diggs has been a #1 until this year but he is not a true alpha physical #1 like Hill, Jefferson, Brown, etc. We need to strive for better.

It is, but that wasn't Brady's fault at all. He can't force our WRs to separate deep, that isn't something you just scheme open. The guys have to have to the natural ability to do that in the first place and then they need to execute. And we had 3 brilliant deep passes to open WRs that all went through their hands.